I forgot all these chaps actually had a name and a number, so I’ll start including that. Here is installment number 2
Universally Deranged
Chapter 2 – Club Sandwich
Sam yawned. He was glad that Lubbock had a Denny’s. Mel hadn’t said much of anything since they left his house. He thought she was probally mad at him for making her clean the litterbox while he threw some clothes into a duffle bag and grabbed his laptop computer. She really didn’t like computers. But she was gonna have to deal with it, it was her key to getting out safe. The waitress came up to the table and asked to take their order. Sam forgot momentary what he wanted due to the waitress’ slur from the wad of chewing gum she had in her mouth. Yuck.
“Ok, i’ll have one of these club sandwich thingies, please, and a Dr Pepper.” Sam often said that a restaurant could be judged on how good their club sandwich was. Mel still didn’t look all that happy, but she was concentrating on the menu.
“And for you miss?” The waitress prompted around the big wad of gum.
“Uh, I don’t know… what do you have that’s not greasy?” Mel looked slighty disgusted. Sam grinned at her. Mel glared at Sam. He laughed and looked out the window and at Mel’s Mercedes.
“No ma’am, we’re still servin’ breakfast. I can getcha a salad ifin’ ya think that’ll be alright,” The waitress was getting annoyed as well. Mel hoped she didn’t start spitting around that wad.
“Well, ok, a salad then. Ranch dressing, and a tea,” Mel gave in and handed the waitress the menu.
“It’ll be up in a minute, and i’ll be right back with yalluns drinks, ok?” The waitress turned around and walked off. She didn’t look half as bad from the back, Sam mused to himself.
“Sam! Quit looking at that waitress and listen, ok? Just what do you plan on doing? The cops will know my car, we’ll stick out like a sore thumb with the New Mexico plates on the back!” Mel calmed down for a second looked out the window. A gang of bikers had pulled up and were eyeing the Mercedes. Sam suddenly found his napkin interesting and stared at it quietly.
“Ok, here’s the plan. I have a friend who lives here, and he always has two or three cars. I figure we can trade him, and you can come back for your car later. If he doesnt sell it to someone else. Or wreck it. Thats why he has two or three cars, the guy can’t drive right, but that’s the least of our concerns. Calm down, alright? Do I have to tell you that every ten minutes? You didn’t say a word all the way here. At least I didn’t kill anyone. Yet.” Sam noticed the waitress had returned with the drinks and a fresh wad of gum. He remembered to forget to tip her.
“Sam, why are those bikers looking at my car outside?” Mel interrupted.
“I dunno, maybe they can’t get a good look from inside. After we eat, we’ll goto Mike’s and see what he has.”
“Sam! I’m not kidding, look, they are looking at my car!!” Mel was once again not calm. Sam looked out the window. The bikers finished looking at the sign in front of Mel’s car and were getting back on their bikes to find a cheaper place to eat. Sam just wished he was still asleep… or eating doughnuts. Mmmm… Doughnuts…
“Chill out alright? People see what they want to see. All you have to do is let them see what they want in a way that you want them to see it, follow me? If you are upset and stressing, they will see right through you. Just follow my lead, ok? Geez,” Sam looked over across the restaurant, and grinned at a chick that just happened to glance his way. The girl glared at him and turn the other way. Sam turned back to the window. If only he had stayed in bed.
Mel laughed. “Still no luck with the girls, eh? Well, at least you havent killed any. It all happened so fast, though. You knew Keith right? I thought that he was gonna be the last guy I would ever want. I mean, we were doing so well. After that fiasco at school with everyone, I was just ready to find someone and settle down. It all looked so good too, I mean… I had the job. I had the car. I had the 42 piece designer china plate collection. And I had Keith. He was so nice to me, Sam. You know how we met?” Mel looked pointedly at Sam.
“I don’t know, you both were watching the bad monkeys at the zoo? What happened anyway?” Sam looked levely back at Mel. Mel was beginning to reconsider getting him involved in helping her. Too late now, she mumbled to herself.
“No, you moron. I met him at the grocery store. He took the last bell pepper just as I was about to reach for it. He was so sweet, he offered to split it with me. Stop laughing, I know it sounds corny. But it was a magic moment. He asked for my number, and before I knew it, we were together all the time. I loved those moments. He’d pick me up from work and we’d goto the park and run around the grass in our barefeet and laugh and laugh and then flop down on our backs and make small talk about the clouds. He just kinda filled a niche that I didn’t know I needed filling. It was great. Until last month, then things started to go wrong. Terribly wrong…” Mel turned to the window and took a deep breath. This wasn’t easy for her. Sam wished the food would come soon.
“Well, ok. Everyone has problems with love,” Sam glared at the empty spot across the restaurant where that girl had been sitting, “Even me. But ya just gotta deal with it, ya know?”
“Easy for you to say. You don’t know what it is like to be me. I’ve had some great relationships… but none of them last. They all get tired of me and leave. All of them. Just when I begin to trust, they just say, ‘well, hey, look here, I best be going..’ and walk right out of my life. Something snapped that day when Keith came home and said he had some second thoughts about us. Something primal and uncontrollable happened… I just took the water hose I had in my hand and shoved it right into his mouth and held it there. You should have seen the look on his face. Served him right for ‘second thoughts’. After a little while, he just kinda fell over. I realized what I had done, and sat down and cried. But I had no regrets. No sir. I waited until that night, and took him out to the trunk of my car, drove over to the Rio Grande bridge, and threw him off. He had enough water in him he sunk right on down the 2 or 3 feet deep the river was. I figured I had a few days before decomposition generated gases and made him float. Thats when I came to you”
“Wow, don’t I feel special. Ya knock off yer boyfriend and drive to my place? Sheeesh, girl… well, there’s no turning back now, I guess,” Sam was delighted to find the waitress back with his food.
“But you are the only one that can help me out of this fix. No one would suspect that I would have come to you for help,” she said quietly.
Sam sighed. This had all the hallmarks of the wrong kind of adventure.
The club sandwich was excellent.
This is not another chapter, so calm down already. However, in the moments after posting the first chapter, I received several messages, and they were mostly positive, so I’m going to press forward with that whole idea and see where it goes.
Anyway, down to the meat of this post..
So, i’m home for the Christmas. Back down in Hobbs, where it all started. Something like that. And I just had a funny flashback. Sit back and enjoy this little story…
This is the first chapter. Yes, I have changed some of the original names, as I was tired of dealing with them. Share and enjoy.
Blah blah blah this is all fiction and stuff.
Universally Deranged
—
“Look, just calm down ok? We just gotta stop and think, we can get out of this,” Sam quietly said.
“CALM DOWN!? CALM DOWN! Geez Sam, thats what you said when we were arrested in Russia! That didn’t work out so well, now did it? And now you want me to calm down, when we are sure to meet our fate at the hands of these mongrels? I may be dumb, but i’m not stupid! No, panicing is the best idea i have right now,” Mel replied forcefully.
The dingos were still cirlcing, waiting for the fire to give out so they could move in. Nevermind the fact that dingos usually feed on dead critters, apparently someone forgot to tell these guys that.
“Listen Mel… We’re gonna make it outta here, trust me!”
“Well, maybe we will, BUT IT ISNT LOOKING GOOD NOW!!” Mel huddled into her blanket and stared at Sam, throughly bewildered at his quiet calm in the face of certain danger.
Sam was hoping his idea would work out.
—
I really need to put together a logo for this book. I had an idea for one once, but it turned out to be a crappy freehand of ‘Hank the Cowdog’, which was of course a series of books revolving around the life of a certain mutt which I enjoyed as a youth. Besides, there is an utter lack of dogs in the book, at least so far, so it would not have worked.
Regardless, I promised that I would actually do something new with my attempt at a book, and here it comes, right here, -in the blog- as it were. You don’t even have to get up. Well, go get up now, get a beer, it’ll help you to get through the tasteless humor.
A bit of a backstory: So there I was, kicked out of school, back at home, life lacking any kind of direction. I was working as a diesel mechanic assistant, spending an unholy amount of time in the garage (when not at work, that is, I guess I was in something like a garage when I was at work, now that I think about it), which also had far too many computers in it. As such, this idea of a story kind of fermented in my brain, and I had to sit down and get it out else it took over the whole thing and drove me insane. I put out 10 chapters, quite the feat I felt, over the course of about a year or so. Then it just sat there. Rusting.
I’ve recently started reading some other things lately, such as John Dies at the End, which is just dark and dry enough to make me giggle. I’ve been pushing it onto most of my friends as of late, quoting little bits of it, but I don’t know if I have been successful in pushing off some of my dementia on others just yet.
How does this connect? I don’t know. Just reading this, I remembered my story, and seeing as I have this blog thing, it felt like maybe it would be a reachable goal to polish and release some new material on my book and see where it goes. Who knows. Not like anyone reads this thing as it is, right?
Anyway. Watch for the story here. It’s coming. I’m cleaning up the first chapter now and trying to get a coherent plot going, but the plot keeps breaking down in tears and I have to bribe it with hard liquor and drugs to get to come back and talk to me.
Hi all. Been a while since I posted last. As per normal, December has been busy for me. Regardless, I have some good news. First off, I do plan on reworking and re-releasing my attempt at a book here in the near future. Details will follow. Secondly, New Year’s party at my place this year. Show up around about 6pm. Lastly, Muffy and Spike wish you a happy holiday season. This photo was not staged, actually, I just happened to catch them in a rare moment of sitting right next to each other. It didn’t last long, though. Click it to view the whole image (the thumbnail cuts off a bit of each cat, hah). Enjoy!