Gone Troppo
Published November, 2002.
OBL Forum Thread: https://www.greatsociety.org/forums/index.php?topic=1241.0
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I was trying to get in a good game of Europa Universalis, which takes about 3 years, in the hopes of killing what extra brain cells were left after that thing with the vodka and the other stuff. You know, the stuff that my RA always smoked. Chiefly, my goal was to avoid writing. I have this big novel project, you know, but working on it smacks of…well, work. That’s something I cannot tolerate.
Unfortunately, it’s a little difficult to avoid people when they come to my bedroom window at 10pm and start pounding on the glass. This is what Texas Billionaire Oscar bin Laden did on Halloween night, right when I was about to beat the crap out of France.
You may recall that Oscar BL had been promoted to some sort of officer status in the nebulous Homeland Defense Organization. Thus he was here in Washington with his spooky henchmen. Now, I had known that having Oscar in the same city as me was going to be unbearable, to say the least. But one thing has to be said for him – he was great with the women. Mainly with impoverished, under-aged au pairs. And they were always locked in his basement and beaten when they asked for food but… Well, you don’t debate big cultural issues when women in diaphanous robes surround you. Right? I mean, is it slavery to be a prisoner in a basement or to try and keep the perfect figure at all times in the hopes of winning a small penis that leaves you in the morning? I don’t know and I don’t care, you can see right through them robes.
So I let Oscar in through the out door and, right off the bat, I could tell he was a little out of his mind. He looked around in disgust, called me a geek, then started talking about some retarded Halloween party. Fellow author Rotting Corpse had invited me to the all-marijuana, all-tequila Halloween party in Dupont Circle where, according to RC, “Pussy would abound!” This, of course, had Oscar lathered up. Though I don’t think he fully registered what “pussy” was, he only knew it had something to do with women.
The short of it was that he was going to the party dressed as an “infiltrator” and I was expected to attend and hand out Dirtyfreaks.com business cards, which is something I’ve been doing lately so people can come to the page and then yell at me about how offensive I am. Werdna was going to be at the party as well, which was unusual. Werdna was a very private individual, and the prospect of seeing him drunk with Rotting Corpse was enough to get me moving towards my wallet and keys.
RC was going as a werewolf, which would make it “easier” to “seduce” girls dressed as hookers from Moulin Rouge…which would be every girl. But there was a big surprise, and Oscar was all too glad to tell me about it without taking too many breaths.
His beard jiggled as he laughed. “Greg Kinnear and Richard Gere will also be there.”
“You’re kidding.” I was pulling on my coat as Oscar picked up my copy of Complicity and balanced it on his head.
“Nope.” He smiled. “America’s favorite second banana and the most maligned man in Peoria. It’s going to be quite a show.”
Well, that clinched it. We Metroed down to Dupont Circle and walked aggressively through hordes of Halloweeny gay people until we reached Party Place #7. A drunk and high Rotting Corpse was perched on a crumbling brick wall in full Teen Wolf garb, howling at a girl who was naked and rubbing magic shell on her breasts. A costume-less Werdna stood nearby. He nodded towards me but seemed a little standoffish when he noticed Oscar.
We were in a back alley, surrounded by urban decay and fine art. A truck sat on blocks nearby, and the studio space that doubled as an office for a noted Washington artist was where the party had originated. The majority of the party had spilled outside, with pounding jazz echoing from the studio.
“Hey Werd, what’s up.” I said as I approached Werdna and the still-howling Rotting Corpse.
“Nacho,” Werdna tilted his head slightly, keeping a serious face. He held a cup of blue liquid that smelled like paint thinner.
“Cool party?” I asked.
“Maybe,” Werdna muttered. “Rotting Corpse is out of control. But he was probably out of control at church the smorning.” He looked up at RC, who had stopped howling when his name was mentioned.
Then Werdna, surprisingly, began to sing. “Greedy feeling, wheeling dealing. Losing what you won. See the dream come undone.”
“What’s that from?” I asked.
“Nothing.” He whispered, sipping his drink, “It’s been a fucked up year, Nacho.” He looked at Oscar BL. “You know everyone hates you, right?”
Oscar shrugged. “I’m just a Texan doing what he can.”
“Living day by day.” Werdna muttered.
“Hour by hour.” Oscar replied.
They were up to something. It was no secret that Werdna had been drifting into a serious mode lately, but this was getting a little heavy. I decided to lighten the mood.
“So, what the fuck is up with daylight savings time?”
Oscar blinked. “The what?”
“Daylight Savings Time is the source of America’s evil.” Werdna replied.
“Oh right,” Oscar nodded.
“Fall back, spring forward!” I said.
“What, is that a pagan thing?” Oscar asked.
“No,” Werdna replied, “It’s a retarded farmer’s thing. Like the length of the day is determined by the ravings of our very own degenerate, rapist Thomas Jefferson.”
“What’s he –” Oscar began.
“He started it.” I explained. “Or was it Franklin?”
“Some wig-wearing Freemason, that’s for sure.”
Oscar clicked his teeth, then wandered over towards the two kegs.
“So what’s with the Oscar thing, Nacho?” Werdna asked.
Rotting Corpse leapt down from the wall and began to moan and press against me.
“He’s got the hook-up.” I replied.
That’s all RC needed. He headed off after Oscar while Werdna polished off the foul-looking blue fluid. “I’m sticking to the shadows. Go keep an eye on OBL and try not to get killed. Oh, and fuck you.”
“Thanks, Werd.”
“Oh, no problem.”
The trouble with Oscar is that half a beer sends him over the edge. You’d think he’d have some sort of tolerance after all those years in Texas, but he’s what Paulie calls a “Two-Can Screamer.” Less that that, really. More a quarter-can screamer. By the time I caught up with him, he was already a mess.
“So I said,” Oscar slurred at a group of women dressed as whores from Moulin Rouge, “Hey old man! You’d better show some respect! How do you know that I don’t have the power to turn you young again like Scatman Crothers in the Twilight Zone?”
I pulled Oscar away and grabbed a passing bottle of rum, which I stuffed into his hands. “Drink this till you pass out and don’t mention tall –” I murmured in his ear.
“So Nacho,” he interrupted, struggling with the cap on the bottle, “You know the one good thing about leaving Texas?”
“Besides the actual act of leaving Texas?”
“Ha, ha – Nacho, you fuck! No, the one good thing is getting away from the old woman who lives across the street from my hideout. She has this little dog. That animal never shuts up. Never. At any time of day or night, that thing is barking. It’s like being surrounded by she-demons covered in pig’s blood and you know how much I hate that.
“The thing is, that old lady spends all day lying out in her front yard with a bucket. She picks at the grass, man. And Barky the Dog is tied to a tree just losing its mind. Where’s the apostrophe go there?”
“What?”
“The ‘losing its mind’ comment?”
“I…don’t know?”
“Well, anyway, you’d think the beast would get tired or lose its voice or something. Seriously, no mortal creature can make that much noise.
“So I was reading today about Cardinal Julian –”
“I’m sorry?”
“Cardinal Julian. He was the papal legate to the king of Hungary in the 1440s.”
“Give me that rum. You’re done, Oscar.”
“So Julian was the voice of the pope and he convinced Hungary to fuck with the Turks. There was a bunch of bad stuff that went down and the Turks cleaned house. Here’s the thing, Julian flees the battlefield, right? He’s never heard from again. He simply vanishes.
“So where’d he go? Did he run off and become a turnip farmer or something? Can you imagine, Nacho? What a sad life that must have been.
“So this segues into my latest idear. Something of an Islamic Quantum Leap. A brilliant scientist and an anti-royalist from Saudi Arabia create a machine which can send them throughout the history of Islam. From Muhammad up to the 22nd Century Robo-Warriors.”
“What?”
“Oh…uh, nothing. So the scientist takes over bodies and has to correct the timeline so that Islam succeeds where Christianity has failed. His sidekick, the anti-royalist, is actually an oafish American. He always gets in some sort of wacky trouble. His name, in my treatment, is Muri-al-ayabi. That means Stupid fucking infidel with big, hairy feet goat lover brother-fucker.
“What do you think?”
I was silent for a long moment, then I filled my mouth with rum and tried to find some sort of pleasure in the pain of swallowing. After a few minutes had passed, Oscar asked me again.
“Well, what do you think?”
I nodded and glanced towards Werdna, who was smiling at me knowingly from the distant shadows. He couldn’t have heard a thing, but he knew my fate nonetheless. “I think I’m damned for all time.” I whispered.
Oscar looked over my shoulder, “You know what?”
“What do I know?”
“Allah loves beaver!” He spun and grabbed the arms of two giggling brunettes, who promptly dragged him into the interior of the studio.