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!!