Chapter Seventy Four

I realized that the easiest way to tell you're in heaven is the fact there are no bathrooms. As I walked down the corridor looking for "Service" I kept glancing left and right, squinting towards the end of the hallway looking for a door with "Men" written on the front or the shadow of a man in a nicely tailored suit glued at eye level, but there were none to be found.

Thinking about it now I'm not sure that I would enjoy heaven as much as most people. I really like the privacy of a bathroom. What truly intellectual moments, thinking, reading, crying, have taken place while staring at a plain, white reel of various-ply paper on a roll.

After I got to Louisville and after eating at the Moby Dick's and some time after all of Hell had broken loose, I wandered into the Men's room of a Shell station on Muhammad Ali avenue. It wasn't large or accommodating but it had the necessary elements of a restroom and that's exactly what I'd been dreaming about for quite some time.

I thought about that movie script that Cy had shown me called "Urine Trouble." When they figured out how to make cars run on pee in the story, gas stations changed the way they did business. No one person could pee enough to get their car from New York to Chicago so the big oil companies figured out new ways to collect and dispense pee for a profit. They downsized their food marts, except for the bottled water dispensers, and increased the size of their restrooms. Some had as many as a hundred urinals with giant video screens above playing a constant loop of Niagra Falls with a softly rushing soundtrack being broadcast through the giant hall of porcelain. People were given free drinks at the pumps and subliminal sounds of babbling brooks was constantly played from hidden speakers in the rocks and bushes surrounding the station.

A side note, when I was younger there was an unpopular soda called "Squirt". In the movie it becomes the offical drink of the United States. I thought that was hilarious.

The bathroom at the Shell station on Muhammed Ali Avenue was not like the ones in "Urine Trouble". As a matter of fact it had only one private stall and one urinal. If you were in the stall, like I was, and the outside door opened, there was a chance of it hitting the toes of your shoes if they were too close to the front.

So there I was, sitting on the questionably sanitized toilet, staring at the paper roll and trying to figure out what I was going to do for the rest of my time in existence when the outside door did open and I could see a pair of sandaled feet shuffle across the stained tile. The water began to run at the sink and I could hear an odd whooshing sound.

My curiosity got the best of me and I peeped through the crack of the door, trying to get an idea of what was going on. A man with long white hair and beard, wearing a full length white robe was standing at the sink. He had pulled out several paper towels and was wiping his robe with them. The towels were dry and he wiped with such mad vigor that I wondered if I should pull my feet up above view and let him finish and leave without letting him know anyone was there.
Much to my chagrin, he turned and looked directly at me through the crack. He smiled and said "Marty? You almost finished in there?" Sadly, I was.

He looked at me as if there was no door between us, he glanced down at the towel he was wiping his chest with and then back at me, realizing how strange it all must have seemed. "Just doing my dry cleaning!" He said with a laugh. Dry cleaning...pretty funny guy.

"Come on out and talk to me Marty. I'll try and help you work through this thing. I have a history of helping people deal with personal crisis." I'll tell you right now that this man was the icon of the moraled story. It was Aesop.

My body was signaling me that I had finished what just could of been the most painful and perhaps the most rewarding poop I could ever remember. I saw stars at one point.

I realized who I was talking to immediately and I rushed to collect myself. I wiped, gave a quick glance, and flushed.

As I crashed out of the stall I had a big smile on my face and my hand extended to the great fablist. He waved me by like a Matador and pushed me toward the rushing water in the sink. "One of my unpublished fables was about a restaurant worker with diarhea and the curious little brain worm."

"I can only guess how it ends." I washed my hands thoroughly.

We stayed in that Men's room for hours. It was nice enough to walk and talk outside but both of us were frightened of losing the mood so we stayed where we were. Our eyes were locked and our voices echoed mightly off of the tiled walls.

He was calmest man I had ever met. His words were soothing and inciteful and he made me feel at peace.

Until he started singing.

Chapter Seventy Three

I've never used an "Exit" sign to find a way out of a room. Never. I remember seeing them in darkened theaters and airplanes but never once followed their plea.

There was one in the office of Foote, Carp, and Thor where I had worked as an accountant but the only time I noticed it was once, during the Christmas season, somebody had hung a piece of mistletoe from it with duct tape.

That was the only time I ever kissed Lynette.

The far end of the room could only be seen by squinting and a door that looked like the entrance to a restaurant kitchen, with pleated and padded leather on the front and two circular porthole windows gently swinging in the distance. Above it was a red, blinking, "Exit" sign. The letters were so small that I couldn't actually read the word, but I recognized the general shape. I walked briskly towards the it.

To the right of the door was the kind of clock they used to have in the classrooms at William Henry Harrison Elementary, where I had filled a miniature desk with my tiny, prepubescent body. It was large, black and white, and protected by a thick, wire shield. The minute and second hand arrived together at the top of the hour and a loud, obnoxious alarm broke the deathly silence in the room.

Human beings by the hundreds, spilled in, flowing into the cubicles and around me like gravy pouring onto a blob of gray, mashed potatoes. Still having 360 degree vision, my mind was overwhelmed with the sheer numbers of faces and physiques as they enveloped me like an ocean wave.

I could see no difference between what I was seeing and what you would normally find in your average, big city office building. There were men in shiny suits and women with their hair pushed back and wrapped around their heads like cake frosting. I saw men that looked disheveled and under-slept. A few women had put too much makeup on their faces, applied so unevenly that it appeared to have been performed while riding on bumpy, public transport.

Alan Bob Johnson looked just as I had remembered him, trying to push his sloppy way between a slickly dressed, ladies man and one of the frosting women. His white, stained shirt was too small for the beef on his stocky frame and his collar was flapping upward, revealing the thin black string of a tie underneath. He was sweating.

I had worked with Al-Bob at the accounting firm. His presence here gave me the thought that this must be hell because I don't remember him ever being happy for even one day at Foote, Carp and Thor. Let me tell you right now that this is not hell. I was completely wrong to assume so. As it turns out, some people really love to complain and be unhappy. To some people, Hell IS Heaven.

"Alan! It's me Marty!" I pushed my way through the crowd at met him at his desk.

"Marty!" Al-Bob gave me a hug and I instantly felt a little dirty.

"What are you doing here?

"Dead Marty." He spoke in the high pitched voice of a man with a tiny penis. "Freak accident a couple of months ago. I opened the door of my pickup to spit out some chaw and I'll be damned if Chester the Molester didn't come speeding by in that damned little Mitsubishi of his and decaptivate my whole Goddamn head."

"Sounds bad"

"Didn't feel a fuckin thing Marty. One second I'm spittin and the next second I'm talkin to my late Grandfather Moe." He opened the drawer of his desk and pulled out a tin can and spit a drippy wad pretty close to making it entirely in the container.

"I see it didn't put you off the chew!" I tried to hide my smirk.

"Skoal Marty, Skoal!" He spit again, this time hitting the can dead center.

"How'd you end up here Al-Bob?"

"Geez I hate this place. They were so behind with replacing the body parts of the dead that as soon as they put my head back on, they asked me to stay and take charge of quality control. I'm constantly fielding complaints and fixing fuck-ups." His phone rang and he held his pudgy little index finger to signal me that he needed to take the call. "Yea yea, I'm listening. Open your hole and give me the poop."

"You what? Listen, this is by no means a funny thing to do. I realize that you have a natural dislike for suicide bombers, but you can't be messin with their parts. Take his feet off of his arms and his hands off his legs and start over. I don't care! Just do it! Nobody's forgettin how you put that one camel jockey's dick on the end of his tongue. That was just plain gross...especially when he ran into that dead model, whats her name, and got a boner." He held his porky hand over his mouthpiece when he giggled. "Now do it!"

"Problem?"

"Naw, happens every day. I just sound like I'm pissed to expedite things." He looked at the ceiling and paused for a moment. "Anna Nicole Smith! That was that bitch's name! I don't care if those juggs were real or fake, I'd squeeze em!"

"Can you have fake boobs here?"

"Oh yea! If for no other reason it helps remind the men that they're in heaven." He held his paws up and made a squeezing motion. Everybody wins here Marty...everybody."

This was the first time since being in the room that I heard it was heaven. I didn't push the subject any further with Al-Bob, I didn't want to ask him why he was still a fat, sweaty, pig. It just wouldn't be nice.

"So, you gonna get yourself out of here and back to Louisville?" He reached into his desk and pulled out an old Egg McMuffin. I wondered how he was going to eat it with his mouth full of tobacco.

My brain filtered out the thought the same way you try to forget seeing a dead bird on the sidewalk.

"You better get a move-on! It's a long way from Tennessee to Louisville and you're supposed to be there tonight!"

"How did I get back to Tennessee?"

"Beats me." The phone rang and the finger went up again. "Hello, open your hole and...oh hello. Yea, he's right here. I'll tell him. Yes, sir!" He put the receiver down."Asshole!"

"Marty they need to see you in the garage. It seems they left out one of your parts the last time you were here."

"What part?"

"Have you checked yourself over lately? I don't know, probably something you don't ever use like an appendix or something. Just go through those doors, past the line of people waiting to get in the door marked "Service" and ask for a guy named Don." He pointed towards the big swinging doors as he spoke. "Hurry, times a wastin!"

As I nodded goodbye and walked towards the exit I could plainly see Al-Bob by using my 360 degree vision. He mouthed a word as I departed.

"Asshole." He said.

Chapter Seventy Two

Let me make one thing perfectly clear. I never did believe God was really talking with me on the computer. Well, maybe a little bit, but not completely. I have since spoken face to face with the creator of the universe and he assured me that he has never touched a computer. As a matter of fact he hates them. He says they are the work of the Devil. They are the tools of Red Skelton.

The person I was talking to was actually Thomas O'Brien from Novi Michigan, an unemployed graphic designer.

Sometime during the course of his life, Thomas accidentally discovered a way to speak to the dead using a modified Dell home computer. It had something to do when his Bichon Frise pet dog peed on his CPU as he was modifying his home network. He had thought about telling the world of his discovery and expanding the knowledge base of all of mankind, but changed his mind when he realized he could start screwing with the minds of dead people. He was just like most computer hackers that like to invent viruses and steal peoples personal information. Thomas O'Brien was a prick.

By the way...the name of the town "Novi" comes from the fact that it's exit number 6 on the Grand River toll road. No. VI. At least that's what most people believe. Actually, according to God, the toll road had not even been built when the town was named. Some say that it was the number 6 stop for the railroad, but the 5 stops before it didn't exist until several years after the town came into being.

According to God the town was originally named 666. It was the portal to eternal damnation. It was the veranda to evil. It was just outside of Detroit.

Thomas O'Brien is no longer alive. He died not many days after our computer conversation. A woman he had made acquaintance with in an internet chat room arranged to meet him at the Wilderness Lodge in the Wisconsin Dells. After a lovely day of wandering the amusement parks and bathing in the giant indoor swimming pool, she murdered him, cut him into steaks and cooked him on the grills provided by the hotel.

His mother still cares for his dog.

Chapter Seventy One

C. Martin: I have so many questions

God#1: Here we go. Who am I ..the "Shell Answer Man"?

The Shell Answer Man was a running character in the commercials for the Shell gas station during the 1960's. It was a typical retort for people in my age bracket to use when someone asked you a bunch of ridiculous questions. God was making a joke for my demographic.

C. Martin: Why else would you be talking to me ?

God#1: Take it easy Judy. What do you want to know?

C. Martin: You're Judy

God#1: Yea Yea, go ahead and shoot.

C. Martin: What's the meaning of life?

God#1: What's you're favorite song?

I thought for a moment.

C. Martin: I have a bunch of favorite songs. What category, what artist?

God#1: Exactly. You can't name just one song. A guy like you probably has thousands of favorite songs. Same goes for the meaning of life. There are thousands of meanings.

C. Martin: OK, I get the point. Try this..why are we here?

God#1: Why is WHO here and WHERE are they at any particular moment ?

C. Martin: I've seen this movie! You're not God. If you were God you would give me specific answers instead of vague generalities like a newspaper horoscope. God would know the true singular meaning of life.

God#1: I'm really not trying to be vague. Sometimes I have trouble expressing myself. Let me just tell you that the meaning of life is always the question that people on Earth keep asking, when it's not really something that can be answered. It's not even the right question to ask me.

C. Martin: Then what should I ask?

God#1: Ask me what heaven is like.

C. Martin: I've seen heaven. It's like a beach on the Caribbean.

God#1: That wasn't heaven. That's just another place for people to gather until it's time for them to move on to heaven. It's no different that the place you thought was Hell. It's no different than the restaurant where you saw your guitar heroes. It's just like the place where your redneck girlfriend was. Everybody dies with expectations and we try to accommodate that until all the body parts catch up with the brains and people have a chance to discover their own way.

C.Martin: Why do dead people need bodies at all?

God#1: OK, here is one big misconception you people always have. The body is really important, the body is the one thing that separates you from all other beings. Everybody down there keeps talking about the "Soul" and how important it is and how it's the one thing that can't be defined.

C.Martin: The soul's not important????

God#1: Oh Hell no! Think of your computer as a human being. The box it's in is the body. The processor is the brain. The little miniature battery that keeps the time and date correct is the soul. Every fingerprint is different. Everyone has DNA that is distinctive. The veins in your eyeballs are as individually singular as a snowflake. The soul, on the other hand, is exactly the same in every person who has ever lived. I keep a giant bin full of them. If some body's soul falls out, and trust me, it happens all the time, we can drop another one in.

C.Martin: Has mine ever fallen out?

God#1: About 12 times.

C.Martin: Is that a lot?

God#1: You hold the record. It's the body parts we have trouble replacing. You lose a finger and your screwed! Suddenly you have to dial a phone with your foot. That's why we keep all the lost parts up here for people when they die, you REALLY need them all here!

C.Martin: Is that why Angels follow me around and protect me from harm?

God#1: Uhhhh. Angels?

C.Martin: Yes. I have thousands of Angels protecting me. They caught me when I fell off the bridge and took me down safely. I saw them flying above me in the woods. Black-eyed Angels.

God#1: Marty, there are no such things as Angels.

C.Martin: God! I SAW them!

God#1: ooh boy.

C.Martin: What????

God#1: Those are chickens Marty. The ghosts of the chickens you've eaten over your lifetime. They have an emotional investment in you.

C.Martin: Ghosts? There are ghosts? There are chicken ghosts?

God#1: Sometimes creatures, after getting their body parts back like to come back to Earth and roam around. I don't really understand it but it happens.

C.Martin: Where do they go after that?

God#1: You've seen it, you just didn't know that you saw it.

C. Martin: Here we go again.

God#1: Perplexing...isn't it?

C. Martin: Is Jesus your son?

God#1: Yes

C.Martin: Really?

God#1: Yes. Actually I've had two sons. Jesus is the famous one. I had another son in the early fifties who became a stand up comedian.

C. Martin: Red Skelton?

God#1: Oh God no! His name was Sonny Nippy. He worked the Borscht Belt circuit for a few years but never got on the Ed Sullivan show. He just didn't get the breaks, but he sure made me laugh.

C.Martin: I don't believe this.

God#1 Have faith my son.

C.Martin: Do you answer prayers?

God#1: I try to but people rarely pray. It's like Spam. Sometimes I get only a handful of prayers in a day and then sometimes I just get millions.

C.Martin: During major disasters and holidays?

God#1: No, usually when the lottery jackpot gets really big.

C.Martin: Is the Bible true?

God#1: Remember when President Reagan's daughter wrote that book about a family living in the White House and the press asked him if it was true?

C.Martin: Not really.

God#1: He ducked under the roaring blades of the Presidential helicopter and said "Interesting..."and then he put his beautiful 2 front teeth on his lips for emphasis and said "FFFFICTION!"

C.Martin: So it's not true?

God#1: Never said that.

C.Martin: Here we go again. Do you ever smite people?

God#1: Sure! I love smiting. I once smote a guy just for snoring.

C.Martin: Do you cause disasters?

God#1: Do you mean do I cause earthquakes and floods?

C.Martin: yes

God#1: Not directly. You ever try to cut your own hair?

C.Martin: What?

God#1: You cut a little here and a little there and then you notice it's all lopsided... so you cut a little more here and the next thing you know you look like you walked into a moving fan?

C.Martin: Not really. Have you?

God#1: Not personally, but I saw it happen on an episode of "Sister,Sister" once. It was a disaster!

C.Martin: Is any of what you've been telling me the truth?

God#1:It doesn't really matter to you right now. What you need to know is that you are going to have to make it back to Earth and figure out how to survive

C.Martin: That's easy. I'm rich and famous.

God#1: You're broke, alone, and hated. Look in your pockets. What you have in there is what you have. Your agent Cy was kidnapped and killed, but before he died he signed over everything you own. You don't even have that crappy little condo anymore.

C. Martin: Who killed Cy? Why am I hated? Where will I go?

God#1: There you go! Now THOSE are the questions you should be asking!

C.Martin: What's the answer?

God#1: How should I know? I'm just a 14 year old girl from Ames, Iowa.... BRB

"BRB" is computer-speak for Be Right Back. People say that in chat rooms when they have to go take a pee or get a sandwich or decide they're finished talking to you but they don't want to say "goodbye."

I waited for about twenty minutes before I got up and left. The screen saver of the burning bush had come back on and flickered on the walls of the cubicle.

Chapter Seventy

Eddie, the restaurant server with the super-numeral teeth was kneeling on the chest of my brain surgeon, Dr. Granger, pressing the barrel of an antique colt .45 revolver into his widely flared left nostril.

My ex-wife Carol was blithering hysterically.

"You wanna tell your white bitch to shut the fuck up?" Eddie pushed the gun even further into Granger's nose.

"Where are you from? I think I recognize that accent." Granger's voice sounding like he had a cold. "You're a Yella Hammer, aren't cha?"

"Shut UP porch monkey! I should kill you right now!" Eddie's face, already full of broken blood vessels turned even redder. "I hate you racist Niggers."

"Yellow Hammer." Granger was defiant.

Eddie pulled back the black hammer of the pistol and the revolving chamber, full of bullets, rotated one click. His index finger squeezed the trigger, moving it a millimeter towards blowing Granger's brains out.

"You don't know shit! Just cos I'm from Alabama don't make me a Yellow Hammer. That kind of name calling is just totally uncalled for you stupid Jungle Bunny." Eddie's hand was quivering.

"Honey, stop making him angry." Carol screeched from across the room.

"Yea BOY! Maybe you shouldn't make the Yellow Hammer angrier than he already is!"

"I could fix that face of yours you know. I have a Dentist friend that could work on that God-awful mouth. By the time I'm finished with you, people would never guess that your sister is your mother." Granger was fearless.

Eddie tried to speak but instead of words, spit came flying from his mouth and dribbled down his chin. He pulled the gun out of Granger's nose and put it back in, he pulled it out and put it back in, he pulled it out and shoved it in hard again. He was trying to scare the Doctor as much as he could but Granger wasn't playing the game.

"You wanna die Nigger!"

"You're either going to shoot me or you gonna let me live. I have the feeling that if you were going to kill me you would've pulled the trigger by now. You want something from me and it's my guess that you want it enough to let me live. Am I right?" Granger's voice never wavered.

"Honey. what's a Yellow Hammer?" Carol was a little calmer thanks to her lover's confidence. Her sense of well-being was short lived when Eddie pulled the gun out of Granger's nose and pointed it at her.

"I don't need you bitch. I could kill you right now and not blink a fucking eye." As he pointed the gun at Carol he tried to stare directly into her eyes in order to make his point. Sadly his eyes didn't always work in concert and she wasn't sure exactly where he was looking. She quickly glanced over her shoulder to see if someone was standing behind her.

Eddie was very angry and starting to hiccup wildly. That was a good way to spot a Yellow Hammer. Some distinct, hereditary flaw not only left their skin jaundiced, but it made them unable to encounter stress without the little, involuntary spasms called hiccups. That's how they got their nickname.

In the region of Eddie's upbringing, the land of the suspected parent, there was a bird that was prevalent in the forests and garbage dumps. It was the yellow headed woodpecker. It banged it's head wildly against trees and pipes and anything it believed held the nectar of the burrowing insect. The noise it made echoed through the hills both day and night. Sometimes it would drive it's beak into the tin covered roofs of the hill people. The occupants would get so upset that they would begin to hiccup. The ensuing concert of banging and burping mutants became known as the Yellow Hammer Concerto.

The nickname of the bird became the nickname of the mutants. The Yellow Hammer.

The jerking reaction of the hiccuping caused Eddie's colt pistol to fire. The bullet went through the door of Dr. Granger's suite. They all paused and stared at the door as they heard the sound of a body dropping to the floor in the hall outside.

The silence in the room lasted for a short time, all eyes flashing to one another.

Eddie was angry and frightened. "See what you made me AYYYEEECK do!"

Chapter Sixty Nine

One hour earlier I was still in the dark. I was afraid to the point of insanity and everything hurt. Everything! Something was pulling at my man parts and I couldn't make it stop.

"God! Why hast thou forsaken me?" I know that sounds overly dramatic, but put yourself in my position. I had run out of people to blame. I had stolen this line from the refrain of a song that Jesus performed when I was in Redneck Heaven. It really got the crowd going.

As I screamed, my arms and hands flailed in the darkness and banged against the walls. I straightened them out and pushed against my prison of blackness. Something brushed the palm of my hand, something embedded in the wall that had a shape and contour. Both of my hands surrounded it and studied it like a blind man reading braille. A slotted screw caught my fingernail. A hard, piercing, nipple-like structure grabbed my attention and I fondled it madly. It started to move upward and then with an earth shattering, mentally devastating, visually crushing buzz, everything went white.

I believed that I had found the great white light that draws all dying souls to heaven. I was at the eye of the Godly beacon that sends warmth and assurance to the frightened and broken dead.

Then, as my eyes began to adjust, I noticed the ceiling tiles.

Recessed fluorescent lighting, the kind that my ex-wife Cynthia felt should be banned from the face of the Earth because the way it made her skin look and because it was created by grinding up the souls of the dead. Right now it was better than the Sun to me.

It's funny how things seem when you're in the dark compared to what they really are when the light switch has been flicked on. I was in a room full of file cabinets. What I thought was a crazy tomb of insanity was actually a maze of double-wide storage chests and I was wedged into a corner created by the Steelcase file cabinet company.

I looked down and saw a human hand on my crotch. I recognized the class ring. It was Louis' hand.

"Louis you fag!" I grabbed the arm, below the wrist and it let go. I found the partially open file cabinet with the name "Tooth, Louis" typed on white cardboard inserted into the identification slot. I stuffed the roaming arm inside and shut the drawer.

Curiosity caused me to open a few more of the cabinets. They were filled with body parts. This was the place were all the lost limbs were waiting. I was thinking about my father and the countless organs and pieces that had been taken from him before he passed away. His file cabinet must have been enormous.

I maneuvered my way through the gray, unorganized maze until I found myself in a large, even grayer room of office cubicles. It looked like the worlds most boring insurance headquarters. It was very much like the accountants office of Foote, Carp, and Thor that I'd worked for so many years.

There were hundreds of work stations, each one with a computer and family photos on the desk. There were staplers and boxes of paper clips neatly arranged on top. The only thing missing was the people.

My heartbeat was all I could hear.

Among all of the desks that I passed, one had a screen saver of a small, bushy plant engulfed in flames. As I got nearer to it, I could hear the computer making the crackling sound of a fireplace. Something about it drew me to sit in front of it.

The screen cleared and an instant message screen from Yahoo came up.

God#1: Marty!!!!!

The visual message was followed by an audible. "Ding Dong!"

I answered.

C.Martin: Who is this?

God#1: Marty, it's me, God! :)

C.Martin: Really?

God#1: Of course. Can't you read my screen name?

C. Martin: That really doesn't mean very much, you know.

God#1: But it says right there.. God. Who else would have an ID like that?

C.Martin: This is IM chat. About a million other people.

God#1: That's why it says #1 , so you would know it's the real God.

C.Martin: Anybody can do that. How is a rational person to believe this is really God? For all I know you could be a 14 year old girl named Judy from Ames, Iowa with a terrible sense of self.

God#1: Then your God would be a 14 year old girl named Judy.

C. Martin: If you are truly the Lord Almighty then give me a sign.

God#1: Like a magic trick? I think you know better than that Marty!

C. Martin: Why don't you just appear to me?

God#1: I am appearing to you....via the Internet. Isn't it wonderful?

C. Martin: Why don't you appear to me in your physical form here in the room?

God#1: I'd like to but the room's not big enough for me. We couldn't both fit in there.

C.Martin You're not that large, I met you when I visited heaven. You looked pretty average to me then.

God#1: That wasn't me Marty. That was a guy that I let pretend is me sometimes when people need a little encouragement or a good scolding. He is actually a television executive from CBS in Chicago, Illinois.

C.Martin:That wasn't God?

God#1: Oh good lord Marty! Did you see his shoes?

Chapter Sixty Eight

I was staring at my receipt for the "Healthy, Breaded, Cod sandwich" that I was eating while sitting in the window at Moby Dick's on Shelbyville road in Louisville, Kentucky. One Cod dinner, Fried Okra side,and one large Diet...$ 7.99. When I reached into my pocket to pay for the meal I realized I had no money. All I could find was the hand of a dead monkey. The lady at the register smiled and said "That will do just fine!" and gave me my receipt.

I was staring at the words at the bottom of the receipt. It had only been an hour since I was trapped in total darkness with something clamped to my crotch. It had only been a half hour since I talked directly to God. It was just 2 hours away from all hell breaking loose. It was 4 hours from when I would meet the planet's greatest Fabulist, Aesop, in person, and discover the true meaning of my life.

I was sitting in the window below the neon sign in the window at Moby Dick's. As Jim Morrison once crooned, "The cars crawl past all stuffed with eyes, the street lights share their hollow glow, your brain seems bruised with numb surprise, still one place to go."

The sign above my head was buzzing and flashing red. It said "Now Frying". If you were on the street looking in at me, if you could see the look in my eyes, you would imagine that the sign was referring to my brains.

I was staring at the words at the bottom of the receipt. They were printed in red italics, just below the bold letters that spoke "Thank you...Come again!"

Up until now I had never realized how much I hated the printed words "Thank you!" Fast food restaurants put them on their receipts and the doors of their trash bins. It was frequently embossed on the door handles as you pushed your way out into the street. Sometimes it was printed on urinal cakes in the Men's room. It's like saying "You pigs are all the same to us, we will thank you even if we didn't notice you were alive. We have printed it out for you to read so we won't have to waste the breath it takes to speak it. We don't care if you made a mess, or caused a disturbance, or left without paying, we still thank you! In the case of the urinal cake..We don't even care if you piss on us...Thank you!"

If I had flown into a rage and hacked the lady at the cash register to tiny bits, packed her inside a Hefty bag and shoved her bone and sinew and dripping intestines through the little swinging door of the trash bin, it would have responded with a "Thank you!" and off and away I would go with a smile on my face.

The words printed below, in red italics, made up for the insulting nature of the "Thank you..Come again!" I have never been so affected by the printed word in my life, as far as I can remember.

Perhaps it was because my brain was indeed frying. I was trapped in a world filled with people and lights and cars and 360 degree vision. It was all coming at me so fast and foreboding. My heart was pounding and my skin was wet with perspiration. I must have been quite the sight. My face bruised and scraped. My eyes black and blue. Dried blood below my nose.

This could only happen once in a person's existence. Maybe it could only happen to me. Have you ever found yourself sitting in the window at Moby Dick's in Louisville, bruised and battered, seeing in all directions at once, a "Now Frying" sign lit up above your head, eating a Codfish sandwich that you paid for with the hand of a recently deceased primate after having just spoken to the creator of the universe?

This is why I was staring at the words at the bottom of the receipt. This is why Babe sent me here. This is why God arranged to have me delivered to Shelbyville road. This is why I went ahead and walked right by the Kentucky Fried Chicken store and hopped and skipped into the Blue and White festooned Moby Dick's.

There at the bottom of the receipt. In red italicized letters it said:

You are the most important person in the World!!

Chapter Sixty Seven

Oprah ran through the door like he knew where he was. He jumped on the bed and laid his head on the pillow and shut his eyes. Russell flopped down next to him and kicked off his shoes and grabbed the television remote.

Bob wandered into the bathroom to find Katrina, the housekeeper, standing on her knees atop the vanity with her ear attached to the bottom of a glass pressed against the wall.

Bob's eyes became very large behind his coke bottle lenses. He spun his head to inform Russell that someone was in the bathroom. He parted his lips but no words came out. He looked back at Katrina and smiled largely. He let out a little snort.

Across the hall a little man with two sets of teeth in his mouth was knocking on the door. It was the waiter from the restaurant where Dr. Granger and my ex wife Carol had eaten earlier in the day. Granger had left his credit card at the restaurant.

Ed was doing his civic duty by finding the owner of the card and returning it to him in his free time. He also bought a tank of gas for his customized Astro Van and 16 boxes of 12 gauge shotgun shells with it on the drive over.

Granger was upset at first. "Hey, aren't you a waiter from the restaurant this afternoon? How did you make your way to my room?"

"Got yur credit card here Boonie boy." He flipped the card up between his bony, yellow fingers like it was a switchblade knife.

"Boonie Boy? What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Nuthin...that's just a dee-rogatory term for Nigger where I come from."

Granger grabbed Eddie by the collar, yanked him off of his feet, pulled him into the room and shut the door. As Katrina exited Russell and Bob's room she heard the noises coming from across the hall. She flattened her skirt down and buttoned her blouse. She considered grabbing a glass from her cleaning cart and listening in to what was going on, but after what had happened between her and Bob, she felt that perhaps she should just keep moving.

In the next suite down, Coach Butcher was lying on the floor, naked, his hands, legs, and mouth wrapped in silver duct tape. 3 men, who looked as if they could somehow be related to Eddie, were taking turns shocking him in the hip with a cattle prod. They were prepping him for the next step, a Taser gun.

Chapter Sixty Six

Louis Tooth lay prone on the bed, staring up at the ceiling in the luxurious suite at the Brown Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky. Something had startled him from a deep slumber and he was floating somewhere between sleep and consciousness.

Lisa was in the bathroom, holding Louis' prosthetic arm under the water rushing from the golden swan necked faucet over the sink. She was rubbing hotel soap on the fingers and scrubbing it as hard as she could.

Earlier they checked into their room together and Louis used the bathroom and dropped his arm off on the Louis XIV chair in the corner of the expansive lounge. He plopped into bed and passed out cold, much to the dismay of Lisa who emerged from the closet just moments later, dressed in a skimpy ensemble, ready for action. Not a cough nor a gentle nudge could wake the snoring Louis. She went back into the bath.

Lisa had never looked that closely at Louis' faux limb before and having noticed it in the chair, she picked it up and studied it carefully.

Gazing in the mirror she was at first shaken by how real the arm looked in her hands and how the hand appeared to be reaching for her left breast. She opened her top and placed the palm of the device on her bosom letting her nipple pop out from between the fingers.

She had once tried a masturbation technique called "The Stranger" that she read about in Penthouse Magazine. It begins by sitting on your own hand until it falls asleep and then using this numb appendage to touch yourself, giving the feeling of being groped by someone else. It had never worked for Lisa, largely because of the tingling pain involved and because the blood would rush back into her nerve endings, long before the job was complete.

Fondling her breast with the prosthesis was interesting and the image in the mirror exhilarating. The hand worked its way down her chest to her belly button and the index finger gently circled around the diamond stud. Slowly the cool digits made their way even further down.

Her reflection went from intriguing to bizarre as the empty, socket end with its straps and harness came into view, so she turned her back on the mirror.

Soon she was briskly riding the artificial limb like a hobby horse. Her face contorted and her lungs gasping for breath. She raised herself up on to the marble vanity with one foot on the lid of the toilet seat and the other stretched out to brace itself on the rim of the bathtub so she could get a better angle.

The room grew dim and her mind left the Earth to those places that only a woman can locate during an intimate encounter. Part of her thoughts stayed inside the room, causing her to bite her lip, squelching any sounds of ecstasy.

It wasn't her climax or even the fall off of the vanity onto the hard tile floor that caused the blood curdling screams that woke Louis from his extremely deep slumber. It wasn't the bulk of Louis' prosthetic hand being unexpectedly shoved deep inside her vagina that made her howl like a Basset hound to a full moon, prompting the house keeper next door to take the cellophane from the drinking glass sitting on the vanity in the adjoining bathroom and hold it against the wall while pressing her own ear to the bottom just to better hear what was happening. It had mostly to do with the large prosthetic thumb penetrating another orifice that was innocently hanging around in the general vicinity of the crime.

After Lisa had pulled the Stranger's hand out of her ass she sat, slightly confused on the cold tile. She stared at the disembodied arm that lay before her with an odd glare. It was a combination of shame and anger mixed with love. It was almost as if she were wondering what the mystery limb was thinking after having its way with her. If there was a cigarette handy, she would've smoked it.

"Lisa?" Louis called from the next room. He was still not completely awake. "Lisa, are you here?"

Lisa quickly sprang to her feet, winced a bit, grabbed the arm and started scrubbing. She concentrated on the thumb.

It was a frequent occurrence that when Louis would make an acquaintance while wearing the prosthetic arm, the stranger would unwittingly grab the dead hand and shake it only to lose the comforting smile on his or her face and begin apologizing, almost always repeating the mantra "I didn't know, I didn't realize, I'm so sorry."

Lisa was concerned that if she didn't completely sterilize the hand under the scalding tap that any hapless, fake-hand shaker might come away with some offensive smells along with the feelings of embarrassment they would indubitably be left with.

"LISA!" Louis was becoming more awake. "Where are you?"

Lisa held the hand up to her nose. "Coming Louis." She gave the "That should be good enough" shrug and tossed the arm back on to the chair as she left the water closet.

"What's the matter honey?" She said as she tried to regain her composure.

"I had the strangest dream." Louis elevated his pillow and sat up in the beautiful, hand carved, mahogany, 4 poster bed. "I was trapped in the dark and I reached out..."

"Yes honey..." Lisa slid her damp hand behind Louis' shoulder.

"I reached out and I touched Marty..."

"That's kind of beautiful Louis."

"No." Louis swallowed hard. "I touched Marty."

"You touched Marty..yes." Lisa was becoming worried.

"I touched Marty's...dick!"

"Yewwwww. What a horrible dream." Lisa recoiled in horror.

"It was so real!" Louis stared out towards the window at the Louisville skyline. Night had fallen and the city lights filled the room. The landing beacon from a jet aircraft moved slowly across the otherwise frozen portrait of the River City.

A steamboat, the Belle of Louisville was churning the Ohio river water up in its giant, red, paddle wheel, making a 90 degree turn in order to mate with its landing pier. The steam whistles blew loudly, the sound bouncing off of the buildings and echoing down the vacant city streets. She was announcing her arrival.

"I'm home!" Was what the Belle was saying.