Dirk Destroyer Part 30 Chapter 14 Part 1

I’m not saying every word in this novella is essential (I don’t have enough fire insurance on my pants to do that,) but if you’re just joining the story here with part 30, a couple of sentences isn’t going to catch you up.

Well, let’s try.

Elmer – really old guy that is still young – in love with Ono, a young woman who is (less surprisingly,) young.

School of Amazing stuff – A place Elmer and his smart ass brother go to learn useful stuff like repelling dirt from clothing and going back in time.

That’s it – you’re on your own.

Chapter 14

In Search of Sustenance

Or

Wow! Who’s That Guy?

For some reason, though I could access the dial of second chances from any given remote location, I could not just concentrate and turn the knob of smoked sausage. Maybe it was because the sausages would only appear in the school cafeteria, and not out in my world, where a careless hand might flood all of Two in delicious smoked meat and meat byproducts pressed into natural intestine integuments.

If I was going to obtain the sausages I sought, I would need to go back to the school.

I had a sense of misgiving along with that sensation of going underwater as I re-entered the school of amazing stuff. Dirk had warned me the danger of turning any knob or dial that I didn’t understand and in my recklessness I had tried to turn many in my search for a second chance.

I didn’t have that urgency or willingness to be reckless now. Sure, Mage-e-not was hungry, and I wanted to do him a favor, but he could get by on algae bars if he had to. His preference for food that was palatable wasn’t as important to me as my second chance with Ono.

Did the karmic principal of the school of amazing stuff grade your intentions along with your actions? Did I risk something worse than a failing grade on my cosmic report card?

But Dirk’s warning had been about fiddling with levers, knobs, and dials that I didn’t know. I knew the dial I was going to turn, and I knew what it did. It created delicious little smoked sausages that I could pack up and take with me. Nothing bad could happen.

Could it?

I looked in my hands to confirm that Mage-e-not’s shirt came with me. It was a pathetic garment, and none too clean after so many hours of dirt slinging. I used my abilities to remove the dirt from the shirt. It left a little pile of dirt on the floor. I considered picking up the dirt and putting it in my pocket, but how could a little dirt cause any harm?

Some of the notices had changed on the school bulletin board, most remained the same – not surprising as I’d just been there the day before. I made my way to the cafeteria.

The stack of lunch trays was higher, and the pots were hanging from their hooks instead of soaking in the sink. I wondered if some cosmic cafeteria worker had been reprimanded.

The dial looked just as it had before – unlabeled, over a spout, with an unmovable bucket underneath. I tied Mage-e-not’s sleeves in knots and stretched out his shirt under the spout. Then I realized that I didn’t have any hands left to turn the dial.

Was there a lever, knob, or dial that would give me a third arm? If there was, would I want one? It might be handy… I wished hadn’t thought that thought. Puns – even unintentional and only in inner monolog are never in good taste. And then there are the cosmic implications of thinking in bad taste in a supernatural food preparation facility.

I gave up on the idea of obtaining a third arm. It would make shirts hard to find anyway. I just leaned over and nudged the dial over with my nose.

Sploootch. Red viscous fluid oozed from the spout and gathered into the warp and woof for Mage-e-not’s shirt. It was too solid for blood. What was it? It smelled tomato-like.

“Yuck!” I said to the pots and pans around me, as the full-bodied goo filled Mage-e-not’s shirt and slid onto the floor. “What is this stuff?”

“Tomato paste!” said a voice behind me. It was a powerful voice, so real and vibrant that it made me feel like I was made out cob-webs. “Turn off that dial, you dim-witted embryo.”

I turned, allowing more paste to ooze to the floor and beheld a man shining like the sun. His eyes were too bright to look at, but his overalls were the apotheosis, the perfect hope and aspiration of which any set of overalls might dream.

I can’t even begin to describe his boots.

That wasn’t so confusing, was it? (why is my Hagar expando-waist band smoking under my belt?)

So if you care to know more about this glorious man in overalls and indescribable boots, you’ll have to tune in(or surf, or click, or mousify) next Friday, for the conclusion of chapter 14.


And now this:

Feline Part One

Feline

by Stanley McFarland

Not Equine

Or Canine

Feline

benign

malign

punchline

carbine

supine

lupine

hairline

gold mine

grape-vine

hot-line

head-line

waistline

hemline

hard-line

streamline

refine(d)

design

divine

Feline

Dirk Destroyer Part 29 Chapter 13

After a rude interruption, we return to Dirk Destroyer’s Less Destructive Brother. I should note for those who read last Friday’s post that I hold no animosity or blame for Judy Oregano who labored hard to make this a better story. As a matter of fact, I’m grateful to her.

My feelings about Walter Bego may differ.

Anyway, back to Elmer and the Fellowship of the Bring.

Chapter 13

Grand Prize Give-Away!

Tease skipped off somewhere – probably to the showers, and the rest of us clambered out of the cave, because we couldn’t figure out a way to get out without clambering. I’m not usually in favor of clambering when climbing, or slipping, or jumping will do, but there are times in people’s lives – especially people who live eight thousand years, when only clambering will get the job done.

So we clambered until we were out of the cave. Then we stopped clambering, and I hoped there’d be no need to clamber again in the near future.

“I don’t much like clambering,” said Mage-e-not.

I had to agree.

“Little help,” sang Lustavious in a voice less full and buoyant than normal. Though the Light Bringer had managed to clamber admirably, he had done it one-armed as his non-clambering arm was still pointing up with a two-inch flame burning at the end its index finger.

Ono and I helped ease his arm down while Mage-e-not extinguished the flaming finger.

“Wow,” said Mage-e-not, “your whole hand is hot.”

“That’s why I stopped hiring out for parties,” said Lustavious who then crumpled down to the ground, as crumpling seemed to be the proper act for someone so exhausted…

Never mind about the appropriateness of his crumpling or of his earlier one-armed clambering - he ended up on the ground, and was asleep in moments.

“He’s snoring,” said Ono, “I’ll peep for splish, splash, splosh.”

Forty-nine point seven percent of me demanded that I volunteer to go with her, but the remaining fifty point six percent (some voter irregularities occur in every election,) decided that I would be pushing my luck. Jonma Claim and Jonma Carry walked off discussing something called senate procedures.

I looked around for All Bore. He was still in the cave looking out balefully. “I will continue my crusade to save the planet,” he said.

“You’re going to do it in there?” I asked.

“Too many honey bees out in the sunlight,” he replied.

I almost said that I was sad to see him go, but the same fifty point six percent of me which had shown such disappointing discretion in the matter of Ono and her shower, showed less disappointing discretion in keeping me from saying anything that might keep All Bore hanging around.

After an awkward silence, he turned around and stepped deeper into the earth.

“So,” said Mage-e-not, who was now my only conscious companion, “any more of those little sausages?”

“No,” I said. “But if we can find a stream I can make you an algae bar.”

Mage-e-not made a face that would have looked better if it had been invisible. “Any other ideas?”

“Ideas?”

“Ono said you got the sausages supernaturally. Maybe you could go back to the supernaturalmarket and get more?”

“That’s possible,” I said, “but I’ll need my bag.”

“I don’t like being shirtless,” said Mage-e-not.

“It’s no thrill for any of us,” I said, “but do you prefer being hungry? Then again, the algae bar offer still stands.”

Mage-e-not muttered something as he removed his shirt. Perhaps as a reflex, his head disappeared. It was a shame the rest of his body was still visible.

I smiled as I considered two possibilities. Maybe the cigars I sacrificed were still lying where I left them. Maybe I could find matches. I blessed my ancient, but still intact male insecurities as I dissolved myself into the school of amazing stuff.

So that’s the end of Chapter 13. For those of you wondering why this chapter was entitled, Grand Prize Give-Away, you can blame Walter Bego for the lack of any explanation.

Elmer isn't the only one of two minds,

Stanley McFarland Poems - Hey, It Is Poetry Month, Stop Complaining!

Stanley McFarland here. Headley’s working on another novel, and he must be getting pretty desperate because he asked me for post material. I told him I have a couple poems. He just grunted and waved his arm in the universal gesture of, ‘yeah, go ahead, I’m beyond caring.’

Headley is so good for my self esteem. Anyway, here are the poems:

"Young" Teacher's Lament

by Stanley McFarland

When I started teaching, it was a lark

I was only playing grown-up

Barely older than my students

When kids I taught got married, I could deal

They were in High School when I got them

I could pass for twenty-something

When my students had kids, that wasn't too bad

They were babies having babies

I was still on the right side of forty

When I started teaching my student’s kids, I remained calm

Fifty is the new thirty

I still had most of my teeth

Now the kids I taught are becoming grandparents and I'm wondering

No... I'm not wondering...

I'm old.

Sparkly Dreams

by Stanley McFarland

Little boy, squirming at church.

His mother talks to the people behind.

How old are you?

You're five?

He's five too!

And his mother is pointing at him.

Now the little boy turns to look

To see the other boy that's five.

But it isn't a boy

It's a girl

A girl with blonde hair like a Disney princess.

She's even sparkly

Like she's wearing pixie dust

Little boy, squirming at church

What's she doing now? he wonders

But he can't turn around

She can look at him

If she wants

She can see him squirming

Or the stupid place on the back of his head

Where his Mom pats down after she licks her hand

But he can't look at her.

Though he wants to

He wants to look at her eyes, like the new bike at Walmart

He asked Mom for

When you're older, she said

Little boy squirming at church

The adults are standing and Dad picks him up

The girl is sparkling in the sunlight

She's in her dad's arms

But her dad is so tall

She kisses her very tall dad

She looks up and around, everywhere

And everyone she looks at smiles

But she doesn't look at the boy

She’s too high

And the boy learns that the sparkliest things

Are unreachable dreams

A lesson he never unlearns

How 7-11 Profits from Self Awareness

by Stanley McFarland

Yo, Dude, Wanna go down to the 7-11 and get a slurpie?

No thanks, I’m too busy losing hope.

Huh?

You know, working through a meaningless existence and plugging away at irrational tasks to prolong my parasitical gnawing at the great cheese ball of life.

Oh.

I’m shooting for the protagonist role in an existential novel.

That would be nice.

Unfortunately, existential literature has been out of vogue for forty of fifty years.

Bummer.

Yeah.

So… slurpie, then?

Sure, I’ll drive.

Here's one of my favorite TV characters.  Rest in peace, Andy Kaufman.

Dirk Destroyer - Editing for your protection

Hello – Walter Bego here, Senior Editor of Go Figure Reads – the company that so judiciously rejected Dirk Destroyer for publication.

As odd as it may sound, there was a time when the manuscript you’ve been reading was worse than it is now. Its improvement is largely due to Judy Oregano. She made several corrections, suggestions, and even cut out whole chapters (or non-chapters.) Three of those non-chapters are below. I include them here for the benefit of our more masochistic readership.

Dirk Destroyer’s Less Destructive Brother – the lost (thank goodness) non-chapters.

Chapter Non-Thirteen

Whine, Whine, and Something Else

Headley here again. I’m getting some criticism, and I thought I should address it. It seems that some people are upset about the irregularity of my chapters. Some chapters are numbered by word, like this one, and others are numbered by… well, numbers, I guess.

Numerals, you say?

Well did I ask you?

The reason for this is quite clear if you’re paying any kind of attention to what’s going on. The chapters uh, numeralized are the chapters that keep the story flowing. The other chapters are titled by word because that’s the way I want them.

It’s very frustrating to receive such criticism while I’m still writing my rough draft. Here’s an email I got.

Dear Headley Hauser:

You are an ass. You should burn in hell. Your chapters are driving me crazy. Chapter 12 was puny, and chapter 11 went on FOREVER! I wanted to find the school nurse’s station and fast-forward you to oblivion. Why are you doing this? Are you from the devil? I hope you and the devil have a wonderful time in eternity together.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Let me just say this. You’ve got quite a mouth on you for a mom. Do you kiss your kids after saying stuff like that? I don’t know where in the US Calcutta is, but I worry about the kids in your town if all the moms are like you.

I’d really like to say a great deal more here, because my publisher – Go Figure Reads (gofigurereads.com) is always on me about how short my stories are. Well if all the readers are like Mother Terri out there in Calcutta, I guess that means I’m just doing them a favor.

Chapter Non-Fourteen

HA!

There! Chapter 13 is short too. I even named the chapter Grand Prize Give-Away even thought there were no Prizes in the chapter, Grand or otherwise. I did it just to piss off that Theresa mutha’. Take that you Calcutta crack-pot!

Chapter Non-Sixteen

I Get Interrupted. You Get Interrupted

Headley again. I’m only interrupting because I keep getting interrupted. Another e-mail. You won’t believe what…

Well, I just let you read it.

Dear Headley Hauser:

It is my unpleasant duty to correct some misapprehensions on your part in your… literary efforts entitled, “Dirk Destroyer’s Less Destructive Brother.” Although the errors and incidents of poor taste are too numerous to catalog in a simple email, I must specifically address your mistakes regarding Mother Theresa of Calcutta.

First of all, Calcutta is not in the United States, but is the primary city of the Indian state of West Bengal. Secondly, Mother Theresa is so titled not because she had physical children, but because of her station at the head of an order of nuns who showed great mercy to the starving multitudes of Calcutta. The third matter is that I can state without reservation that Mother Theresa did not write the email in question for two incontrovertible reasons.

The first reason is that Mother Theresa was a saintly woman – so much so, that many here in the Vatican and around the world believe that she will achieve sainthood in the not-too-distant future. As such, she would never use the language, nor express the sentiments found in your chapter thirteen.

The second reason I feel certain that Mother Theresa did not write that email is that she died a number of years ago.

Sincerely yours:

His Holiness, Benedict XVI, Pope of the Universal Catholic Church (retired.)

P.S. You are a moron.

HHBXVIPotUCC (retired)

Look – I don’t know if the Mother Terri thing was a put-on or not, but I can see right through this Pope email.

First of all (see – I’m writing just like pope-guy here!) there is NoWay the church would ever vote for a pope named Benedict. I mean Benedict means bad guy, like Benedict… Well, that bad guy who did bad stuff, and in spite of what some of my Baptist friends may say, the Catholic Church would not intentionally elect a bad guy pope named Benedict. I don’t know anyone with a good word to say about the name Benedict – a name fit for only bad guys and runny eggs.

And what kind of last name is Xvi? How do you even pronounce that?

The next thing you’re going to tell me is that we’ve elected a guy named Hitler, Castro or Hussein to be President. Give me a break!

Clearly, the literary world owes a debt of thanks to Judy Oregano for cutting such puerile poopedy-poop from Dirk Destroyer. She’s here with us via the magic of modern technology.

Judy, was reading the rough version of Dirk Destroyer hard on you?

Oh, sweetie, It was easy as pie, with a glass of white wine. I prefer pecan pie and Chardonnay. But nothing fancy. It's wasted on me. But to be honest, there were some difficulties to be endured.  The most difficult being the hot flashes. Wine seems to trigger those in women of a certain age. But I don't give up when things get tough because that's the kind of person I am. I'm no quitter, no matter what Daddy said. I'd like to see him finish nursing school. Once I saw him nurse a squirrel that had fallen out of a tree and couldn't walk – he nursed it right straight to heaven with his shotgun. I reckon that was merciful, but it's not the kind of nursing they encourage nowadays. Oh, it's not the gore that was so awful, it's the suffering. I can't hardly go for a walk in the morning, what with having to pick up all the earthworms that got stranded on the sidewalk during the night. I know, birds' gotta eat, too. But I hate to see the little things struggling and drying up all pitiful like. Which reminds me, the story was fine, just fine. Only needed a few tweaks. As far as I can remember.

Did you do any special training to deal with bad writing?

Naw, just picked up a pie and some wine and ran the air conditioner on high.

Do you have any advice for youngsters starting out that think they might like to edit bad fiction?

Try nursing school first. Get an idea how much suffering you can handle.

Thank you, Judy. Next week we continue with the narrative of Dirk Destroyer that wasn’t quite bad enough to cut.

Headley keeps adding stupid comedy routines.  I keep telling him that what the people want is classic violence.

Things to Do When You’re Really Bored

Now that the weather is finally getting warmer and you’re doing far less shivering and stamping your feet to avoid frostbite,

you may find yourself looking for ways to fill the time. As a public service, here are some ideas.

1) Go through the grocery shelves and pick up a dry roasted food you’ve never tried before. Dry roasted chic peas weren’t too bad. Dry roasted seaweed? I’ll let you try that one yourself.

2) Try to deliberately drop your keys. Considering how often keys drop out of my hands you’d think this would be easier than it is. Is this evidence of key sentience?

3) Stand on a busy street corner and refuse to drink anything before you find someone who actually wants to have a star named after them from that stupid company that advertises on the radio.

3a) Wait, that’s not a thing to do when you’re really bored; that’s something to do when you want to die of thirst.

4) Read aloud an instruction manual from an appliance made in China, and note all the unintentional humor.

4a) Fair is fair. Take a class in Chinese and watch the Chinese speakers hide their amusement at your pronunciation.

5) Listen to an hour of Sean Hannity on the radio and count the number of times he miss-uses the word, literally. My number was 3 which should be pro-rated to 9 as I had to shut it off after 20 minutes. It’s figuratively mind-blowing that they let that guy broadcast.

6) Take a friend to a courtroom during a trial and sit near the jury box. Periodically hold up a sign that says, acquit, and have your friend periodically hold up a sign that says, convict. See who gets thrown out of the courtroom first.

7) Take a walk in the park and watch the squirrels. When you see a squirrel on the ground, cross his path so that you are between him and the tree he just left. I’ve only done this with upstate New York squirrels, so I don’t know if this happens everywhere, but the rodents of Albany freak.

8) Sew an orange vest and put it on a stuffed animal. Then carry it around and tell people it’s your service animal.

8a) Take the vest off the stuffed animal and put it on yourself. Then go to Home Depot. Do the same thing with a black and white stripped shirt at Foot Locker.

9) Stand outside a government building with a sign that says, “Yeah!” If someone asks you what you’re protesting, say, “You’ve got a point.” Then take out a magic marker and change your sign to “Heck Yeah!”

10) Stare a cat in the eye until he or she looks away. It makes you feel like you’ve established dominance, but the cat still won’t come when you call it.

It may also poop on your pillow.

11) Dance all by yourself in front of a dog. Dance until he turns his head in that universal canine gesture that means, “Humans are inscrutably odd.”

12) Take a plain t-shirt and two pieces of paper. Write, “something funny” on one sheet and tape it to the front of your shirt. Write, “something meaningful” on the other paper and tape it to the back of the shirt. Then go out on the street and try to give the shirt away to a stranger.

Or, if you want to be like me, you could just veg out on the couch and eat Pop Tarts.

Beloved George Carlin was many things, bur rarely boring.

Dirk Destroyer Part 27 Chapter 12

Elmer Destroyer and the lovely Ono are trapped in a cave with several people they don’t like much including the loquacious All Bore. A lot of other stuff has happened, but you’ll have to look at the preceding posts to find out what.

Chapter 12

Escape From a Boring Death

Ono saved some sausages for Mage-e-not and Lip Ton Tease, which was nice of her, because I could tell she was still hungry, and that she really liked sausage, which made me feel strangely happy.

I don’t know why she didn’t offer any to the others, but I was glad that dirty old All Bore didn’t get any. He probably wouldn’t stop talking to eat anyway. He was saying something about an erector college, whatever that was. It was something he didn’t like, which made me all for it.

“Gee,” said Mage-e-not, “I wish Jonma Carry didn’t have to stop digging.”

“I didn’t have to stop,” said Jonma Carry.

“Why no scrape, pluck, plop, Jon?” asked Ono.

“All Bore told me to stop.”

“Well,” said All Bore, “it’s almost evening now, and it will get dark in the cave quicker than it will outside. As we have all night, I’ll describe to you how that is just another piece of clear evidence of global swarming. That will keep us all entertained till morning.”

“What do you say, Lustavious?” I asked.

“Huh?”

“Do we need sunlight?”

“Oh,” said Lustavious, shaking himself out of a stupor. “My goodness,” he sang. “We do not need sunlight indeed!” He held up his finger and a light sprung forth. “This little light of mine…” he sang. He never sounded better. He even let Ono and me light cigars to spread the light further.

“Slash, rustle, whoosh, Jon,” said Ono.

“You sure?”

“Dig!” said everyone but All Bore.

And greatly did the dirt whoosh, and also plop – much of it on All Bore, which made the rest of us laugh heartily except for Jonma Claim who appeared to be himself and not Uriculous at the moment. He muttered something about the dignity of the office, but it didn’t sound interesting enough to follow.

All Bore droned something about the future of the planet when he wasn’t spitting out mouthfuls of the very same planet he was droning about.

But Swampy still protected Ono, and Mage-e-not finally wised up and hid behind her. Lip Ton Tease, though unshowered, was still able to dance through the storm smirch-free, which left all the mud for Lustavious, Jonma Claim, All Bore, and at one juncture, Akwar, who thankfully disappeared without saying anything. Dirt hit me, but I managed to stay clean by using one of the few tricks I knew from the school of amazing stuff.

You might think smoking cigars with Ono and seeing massive dirt clods hitting people I didn’t like would never get old, but as sports go, it wasn’t jousting. I found myself sneaking off to the nurse’s office in the school of amazing stuff, and shifting time into fast forward. After more than an hour of this – eleven hours in real time, a strange black sign covered my vision with a warning from something called the FBI informing me that the program was for home use only and that any reproduction or rebroadcast would leave me liable for a large amount of currency. I had no idea what that meant, though I suspected – as money was involved – that All Bore might have something to do with it.

I switched back to real time just as Jonma Carry broke through to the surface. Lip Ton Tease went out to scout the area. We all stood there looking at each other and I considered going back to the nurse’s office to fast-forward through this part, when Tease returned.

“There are sheep,” he said. “But they are acting normally.”

“That’s a relief,” said Lustavious.

“And,” said Tease as dramatically as his monkish composure could manage, “there are showers.”

I’d like to say that next week installment will be above ground and above board, but Walter Bego asked for next week’s post to talk about editing Dirk Destroyer.

I really don’t like that guy.

Sure, he died almost 20 years ago - but should a little thing like that disqualify a candidate?