I: Much Ado About Jersey
There was a long table standing in the room, first door on the left. On the table were many different colored elephants. Some were made of stone, some of leather, some of sculpted cow manure. Each figure was marked with a tag stating the amount the owner wanted for it. The buyers were lined up outside the door and allowed in the room one at a time to make their bids. The shifty and eccentric Johnny Go and his beautiful and psychotic sidekick Dixie Doublestacks were standing in this line, Dixie drinking ravenously from a flask of whiskey, Johnny thoughtfully picking his teeth with a silver-plated toothpick. The two were fully convinced that this was the line to get into an upscale bar.
Meanwhile...
Sweaty Mulligan was sitting on a railroad track in middle America, chewing a long blade of grass, and trading war and drug stories with a 19th century bum. A small boy approached him.
"Say Mr. Mulligan," said the boy.
"What is it Timmy?"
"Mr. Albright says there's a telegram for you down at the general store."
"A telegram you say," said Sweaty thoughtfully, "thanks Timmy. You're all right." Sweaty tossed the boy a shiny penny as he ambled toward the center of town.
And while this was happening...
The rest of the esteemed Shazbot Industries employees were nowhere to be seen. Still.
***
The two had just realized that this wasn't the line for the bar. Annoyed that no one had told them sooner, Dixie shouted some crude sexual comments involving the people in the line and the elephants, Johnny nabbed a few purses and wallets, and the two, laughing, ran to the car. They had been on a rather distracted search for the past several months since the Becoller had been abducted, and were about to give up and head back to headquarters. They had figured that if they gathered the team and took off to an arctic ice cap, the various organized crime rings to which they owed many millions of dollars would either forget about them or die looking for them. They could then build a spacecraft, take off for the far reaches of the galaxy, and own a new part of town.
Yes, that was the plan. Even though the figures showed that consumer response had been at an all time high and that this was a crucial point where their company, Shazbot Industries, could actually start to make money, they decided to split. They had decided to split, that is, until they returned to headquarters.
Shazbot Industries headquarters in Hoboken, NJ...
The scene was much like it had been when they left many months ago. There was trash, sticky drug residue on the walls, and a giant gaping hole in the side of the building. This time, however, there was the presence of many forms of wildlife, and the absence of several employees who, summoned by telegram, were expected to have returned by now. The months of mail lay piled on the floor, almost as high as the mail slot, and was now home to a large female mallard duck and her babies. While Johnny searched the shambled remainders of the building for liquor, money and other things to sell, Dixie fended off the ducks and began sorting the mail.
Most of the mail consisted of credit card bills, threatening letters, pornography, various chemicals addressed to Sweaty, envelopes containing once living crickets, and the occasional mail bomb. All junk. One letter, however, stood out. It was a long official looking envelope addressed to the Head of the Shazbot Industries Corporation. Dixie opened it. The contents were quite startling. The letter read:
Johnny Go,
I fear I have urgent news to report on behalf of A.C. McCavity. It is with great regret that I tell you he is dead. I can't quite explain what exactly happened but I have been informed that it had something to do with a deadly combination of hepatitis and dayquil. I believe it may have been hepatitis A to be exact. As the executive to his estate I am writing to let you know that Shazbot Industries is the sole beneficiary to his estate. He leaves you all but one envelope containing his toenail clippings from the last forty years. They are believed to hold magical powers and some strain of the Ebola virus so I would wear gloves when handling them. That is all I can say for now and will hopefully have more news if he shows any improvement from his current state. God bless my son and let the others know, but please let them down gently.
Forever and ever undone,
Shrinkage McGuiness
Dixie and Johnny were deeply distraught by this bit of conflicting information. What had A.C. left for them, the toenails or everything but? Was he really dead, or could he be revived? Executive of his estate? And who the hell is Shrinkage McGuiness? They looked at the return address on the envelope. Frenchtown, NJ.
There was only one way to find the answers to these questions. Besides, if A.C. really had died, it would be necessary for them to avenge his death before any trips to the polar ice caps were to be taken.
"Well," said Johnny, "better send another telegram to Sweaty." He paused dramatically, "Tell him to meet us in Frenchtown."
***
And so, after some searching, driving, throwing fireworks out of the car, and pulling over to shake tree branches at passing cars, the shifty and eccentric Johnny Go and his beautiful and psychotic sidekick Dixie Doublestacks found themselves in the small riverside town of Frenchtown, New Jersey. They had absolutely no idea what to do next. They parked the car and walked to the bridge that leads to Pennsylvania. Here they stood, staring into the warm New Jersey evening. Dixie stood on the bridge, deep in thought and drinking slowly from a 40 oz. bottle of malt liquor wrapped in a brown bag. Johnny puffed thoughtfully on a pipe.
It was a beautiful night. The sun was just beginning to set. Before them lay a street with crooked, bright colored houses, some stores and some restaurants. All around were the sounds of birds, crickets, and car alarms. Two forgotten hippies coasted by on an old tandem bike. After a long pause, Johnny spoke:
"Fucked up," said Johnny.
"Seriously, look at this place," Dixie replied.
"No, I am," Johnny said.
"You are what?"
"Fucked up."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah, so you wanna do this?" Johnny asked, staring for a long time at his lighter.
"Sure, is there any place to go?" Johnny reached into his duffle bag, which was resting at his feet, and took out a paper bag 40, identical to Dixie's.
"Well, if I were a rat bastard son of a bitch like A.C., I'd be at the bar, so maybe we should... ask people... something." He stopped talking and started drinking very fast.
Meanwhile…
Sweaty Mulligan waded waist deep through a pond of vomitous pig-water. He carried a cardboard box on his head. It contained all of his worldly goods. Mainly a vital piece for his new car, the telegram he had received, and $15,000 worth of crack-cocaine. All around him bombs exploded. As he crossed the river to what he hoped would be safety, he prayed to a god he didn’t think would listen (since he had stopped giving him price cuts on the VAT drug) that he would get to Frenchtown in time to rescue A.C. from the fate he was sure was certain.
***
"... so I said 'if you're not the real Elvis, then you'd better tell that guy to wash his dog!'" Wild, drunken laughter exploded from a table in the corner of a quiet little pizza shop on the main street in Frenchtown. Dixie and Johnny were sitting with two enormous pizzas and several chicken Parmesans. They were still drinking. Around them several people, sitting quietly eating their dinner, gave them death stares that they didn't notice.
"You know though, I didn't think this death avenging shit would be so hard," Dixie said, slurring every word. "Seriously, we've been at this for hours now, and all we've gotten is hungry and drunk."
[Let the record show that it is only 12 minutes later]
"Yeah, I'm just about tired of looking for someone to blame for A.C. being dead," said Johnny. "A.C. was great and all, but why do we have to avenge for him?"
"Lazy fuck, he should be doing his own avenging."
"Yeah, where the fuck is he anyway? He's the one who should be out there getting all tired and drunk. Not me. I'm no avenger."
Dixie, through a mouthful of pineapple pizza, shouted, "Do your own avenging, you miserable shit box!" Several people left the restaurant.
"I'm a lover, not an avenger!"
***
Johnny had passed out on the table in the pizza shop. His breathing was labored and he was drooling. Dixie was eating the rest of a chicken parm and singing “Just What I Needed” to herself, but louder than she thought. The ketchup bottle walked over to Johnny and kicked him in the head.
***
Sweaty Mulligan went to see the Great Blue Elder of the Lower Midwest. He needed to know how much time he had, and how he could save his dear friend A.C. The GBE had helped him many times in the past. It had been the GBE who had advised him to begin dealing drugs as a means of supplemental income. When Sweaty questioned the great one this time, however, he said only this:
Prevent it from being empty.
Not knowing exactly what to make of this and assuming that the years of heavy morphine abuse had finally caught up with him, Sweaty thanked the GBE. He kissed his pet monkey on the head, and left to continue his journey.
***
Dixie didn't notice that the ketchup bottle had moved. She was staring into the remains of the chicken parm and humming softly, her eyes were half closed. The one remaining customer walked by, and, assuming she was passed out or dead, took the remains of the 40 from her. An hour later he was throwing up in his girlfriend's kitchen sink.
The kick in the head hadn't been enough to wake Johnny, so the ketchup bottle tried again. Nothing.
***
While all this was happening, the infamous Malaysian assassin was arriving, tired and rich, to Shazbot Industries headquarters in Hoboken, NJ. What she saw was the same scene of mass destruction the others saw earlier, but this time with the addition of some gutter punks who had been squatting there. They were dirty, they had dogs with them, and a few of them were licking the walls to get what was left of the VAT drug. Disgustedly, the assassin asked who was letting them live there.
"It was like this when we got here," said a girl with a tattoo of a cactus on her forehead.
"Yeah, no one was around 'cept some ducks, but we cleared them out." A boy got up from the torn up couch and demanded, "Who the hell are you, anyway?"
"This was where my associate worked. He sent a telegram and I just got here. You don't know where the people that worked here went, do you?" The young assassin sat down on a pile of mail that was near the door. The girl with the forehead tattoo stood up.
"I don't have a clue, sorry. You can stay and hang with us though. Maybe your man'll come back."
The assassin looked confused. "He's not my man, he's just a business partner."
"Right," said the other girl, "that's all they ever are." The boy from the couch returned to the room and offered the assassin a beer. She took it, not intending to drink it, and settled into the mail pile to arrange her thoughts and figure out what to do next.
***
The ketchup bottle had just about had it with trying to wake up the two drunken avengers. It was almost closing time; the owners were in the back smoking pot before beginning to clean the fryers. It was safe.
The ketchup bottle climbed up on top of the napkin dispenser and took a flying leap on top of Johnny's head.
"GET UP YOU FUCK!!" he screamed. The pounce on his face combined with the shriek finally woke Johnny Go from his stupor. He looked up.
"Dix, the bottle hurt me. Kill it." He was about to pass out again, but the bottle rushed towards him screaming.
"You goddamn idiot! Can't you see, you worthless drunk? It's me!"
"Who's me?" said Johnny, carefully edging closer to the bottle. "Are you the beer talking?"
"No asshole, it's me, A.C. Remember, you got a letter saying I died, you're supposed to be avenging my death."
"A.C.? Nah, no way. He's dead."
"Right, but through some fluke in the reincarnation system, I ended up being born again into this bottle. It’s not the greatest position to be in, but there's a lot of girls who have a hell of a grip to them."
"No shit," said Johnny, finally sobering up. "You think you could point out which ones for me? I mean it’s no use to you, but it might as well work for someone-"
"No, Johnny, man, I didn't bring you here to help you get girls."
"Yeah but - "
"No, there're some serious problems, and you need to help. The entire fate of New Jersey is at stake here." Johnny gasped.
***
Contrary to what you're all thinking, Johnny was not gasping at the fate of New Jersey. He was gasping because at that moment the two forgotten hippies on the old tandem bike rode by the window of the pizza shop. Johnny was amazed. He rushed from the restaurant shouting. The hippies were already halfway down the street and didn't look back. Sadly, Johnny returned to the store. He sat down at the table again as ketchup bottle A.C. began to speak.
"So you remember that time we got in that bar fight in East Quardeh-Veb?" Johnny looked up.
"Yeah, with those, what were they?"
"Superhuman Somewhat Evil Llama Twins."
"Yeah, that was it. What the hell were those weird llama things doing at that bar, anyway?" said Johnny. "You kicked the one, and then when he fell I smashed his head with a whiskey bottle."
"Right, and then Dixie rammed the bottle up his ass." They looked over at Dixie, who was sleeping with her head on the arm of the chair.
"I wish I had a running list of the things Dixie’s sodomized," he was about to begin listing them, but ketchup bottle A.C. interrupted him.
"Yeah, well, anyway, they never forgot that humiliating incident, and in East Quardeh-Veb, humiliating a llama is punishable by death. Death to yourself and those around you."
"Eh, for real?" said Johnny, leaning back and putting his feet on the table. "It's a good thing we're out of there then, huh?"
"That's the thing," the ketchup bottle said. "The custom calls for complete annihilation of the perpetrator, no matter what, when or how. They don't rest until the job's done."
"Well, someone wants to kill us, what else is new. That's the whole reason we're here. After we avenge you, we're hiding out on a polar ice cap till all the people who want to kill us either die or forget."
Ketchup bottle A.C. moved closer to Johnny. "You don't understand. They're good. Better than the Trout Mob. They'll find you no matter where, and they don't care who they have to kill to get to you," he paused. "They got me." Johnny sat up.
"They did this to you?"
"Not the ketchup bottle bit, but the long torturous death by flea-bite injected viruses, yeah. And they'll get you too. The thing is that you're too elusive. You blend in too well. The only thing they know is you're in Jersey. They got wind of the letter I sent, they know where headquarters are, and they plan to sink the entire state. As we speak, workers for John-John and Harold, the Somewhat Evil Llama Twins are laying explosives in the bottom of the Delaware River. Once they're sure that you are safely in their clutches, they hit the switch and blow New Jersey to all hell, sinking it into the ocean and taking everyone and everything with it."
"Fuckin' A."
"Fuckin' A. Currently, the only person that can defend you from them is me. I got this tomato substitute power thing that acts as a block and keeps their equipment from detecting you. But when I'm empty...” he trailed off.
"Well, no big deal, when you're empty we'll just fill you back up," said Johnny matter-of-factly.
"No can do, read my back." He turned so Johnny could read his back label.
ABSOLUTELY NO REFILLS
"When I'm empty, I'm dead. My powers are useless. That's why we have to stop them before I'm used up."
***
Sweaty Mulligan walked quickly across a bridge. No one was around. It was dark. Up ahead he saw a figure throwing a body over the side. Sweaty crossed the bridge. The last thing he wanted was more conflict to delay his journey. He continued walking as the lights of Philadelphia shined before him. He was almost there.
***
"Balls to this," said Johnny. He stood up and shoved Dixie. "Get up, we have to save the state or some shit, llamas are trying to kill us and if anyone uses up A.C. he'll die." Dixie looked confused, but she got up and followed Johnny to the register. Johnny laid some cash on the counter, took a toothpick and walked away. On his way past the table, he grabbed his bag, his other half full 40 bottle and ketchup bottle A.C. He got as far as the door when the owner, an old Italian man of about sixty who spoke virtually no English, came running to the door with a gun, screaming. Dixie and Johnny had no idea what he was yelling about, but when he held the gun to Johnny's head and grabbed the ketchup bottle, they understood. Johnny attempted to reason with him, but reasoning is never easy with an irate man who only speaks Italian. The man walked inside and slammed the restaurant door, locking it behind him.
***
The Malaysian Assassin walked about the ruins of Sweaty Mulligan’s office. After some hunting she uncovered a phone book. It was under a pile of leaves that had drifted in and was open to a page with listings for lumberyards. “Monty's Hellbeach Thrifty Lumber Yard and Supplies'' was circled. The assassin looked at the address. Hellbeach, Nebraska. She gathered her small zebra print purse, her sunglasses, and her large briefcase containing an arsenal of weapons that even the army didn't have the luxury of using, and slipped quietly out the hole in the wall. None of the gutter punks noticed.
***
"What the hell was that?" Dixie asked, confused. Johnny was pounding on the door, screaming for the man to give him the bottle back. The old man fired a warning shot through the front window of the restaurant.
"Ok, I guess he's serious." Johnny turned to face Dixie and said, "who'd have thought he'd freak out that much about a ketchup bottle."
"What the hell were you trying to take it for anyway?" Dixie asked.
"Because if it gets empty A.C. will die."
"Idiot, A.C.'s already dead. That's why we're here, remember?"
"No, Dixie, he IS the ketchup bottle. It's like reincarnation or some shit." Dixie looked at him suspiciously.
"Are you wearing your LSD hat again?" Johnny took Dixie by the arm and led her down a darkened alley where they couldn't be heard. He explained the incidents of the evening to her, and the two began to plan a course of action against the somewhat evil llama twins.
***
Sweaty Mulligan was sitting in the last seat on the last train to run on Philadelphia’s Market-Frankford line for the night. He was tired, and was about to fall asleep when a man approached him.
"What you want man?"
"Huh?" Sweaty was not in the mood for making deals, especially in a market where he was clearly well above any regular street dealer.
"What you want man, you name it I got it. Good prices." Sweaty looked at the man. He didn't look like your average street dealer. He looked different.
"I'm not looking for anything tonight, man," he said.
"You don't want to pass this shit up man," the dealer continued. "I got some fine shit, stuff you can't get no where else. I look at you and I see a man that needs power. What you need, to blow up a building? I can get you that. How 'bout somethin' a little smaller, a car? I can do that for ya too." Sweaty looked at the man and nodded. Five minutes later they were headed to an old warehouse to pick up what Sweaty had needed for a long time.
***
The Malaysian Assassin had never seen a town that was so appropriately named, and yet at the same time, so inappropriately named. Hellbeach, Nebraska. This was definitely hell. No doubt about it. Being in Nebraska, however, there were no beaches to be had for many, many miles. She quickly located "Monty's Hellbeach Thrifty Lumber Yard and Supplies" and went in to have a look around.
***
Dixie and Johnny found a porch of a respectable looking house a block back from Main Street in Frenchtown. They gathered their blankets in the corner and settled in for the night, their newly formed plans lingering in their minds as they drifted off to sleep.
***
Sweaty waited for his opportunity. The car pulled into the sleepy all night gas station. The owner got out and ran in to use the bathroom. He left the engine running and the doors unlocked. Sweaty made his move and in a matter of minutes he was roaring up I-95 towards New Jersey, and hopefully his still living friends.
***
The Malaysian Assassin learned from her brief discussion with the unintelligible man at the lumberyard that Sweaty Mulligan had been there several days earlier. He had bought $12,000 worth of lumber and had it shipped to New Jersey. He then petted a stray dog on the corner for two hours, met an old bum, and ran off to get drunk at the railroad tracks. According to a boy who talked like one of the little rascals, several urgent telegrams came a day later, and Sweaty disappeared into the night.
The Malaysian Assassin bought a coke from the general store down the street and set out for the railroad tracks to find the 19th century bum.
***
Dixie and Johnny awoke the next morning to a woman poking them with a broom handle and shouting.
"Morning ma'am," said Johnny, sleepily. The woman jumped back.
"I hope you don't mind us over sleeping, my business partner and I had a difficult couple of days and this rest was well needed."
"Who the fuck are you? Get the hell off my porch!"
"Thank you ever so much for your hospitality miss," Dixie said, standing up. The two left the porch, taking their blankets with them. The nervous, bewildered woman stared as they walked down the street.
Meanwhile…
Sweaty Mulligan continued on his trek to Frenchtown. He was averaging 108 miles per hour, even on secondary roads. It wouldn't be long now.
***
Dixie and Johnny walked triumphantly out of the antique store that was located directly across the street from the pizza shop where their re-born-into-a-ketchup-bottle friend was being held captive. In one hand Johnny had a set of keys to a recently rented apartment. His other hand searched frantically for the flask of bourbon he kept in his inside jacket pocket. They walked to the front window of the pizza shop and attempted to see inside, but found that the cardboard covering the bullet holes from the previous day’s incident was not exactly see through.
Turning to Dixie, who had taken a jumbo-tron sharpie out of her purse and was busy drawing something that looked like a cross between John Lennon and a penis on the cardboard covering the window, Johnny said, “I guess we’d better go bring the car around and park it out back of the new headquarters.”
“Yeah, that was nice of that old bat to let us have a parking space.”
“Well, that’s what three months of rent up front and phony FBI credentials will get you, Dixie. See, there was a reason I took that Quantico broad on the Bat Valley Millionaire Cruise.”
“I never doubted you,” Dixie said as they walked away from the shop, “I just thought you should have worn the Hawaiian shirt to that gig. Woulda been more convincing.”
Johnny looked down at the chicken Parmesan stain on the front of his suit and laughed. The two continued walking the road out of town and ambled across the bridge into Pennsylvania. Reaching for Johnny’s flask, Dixie suddenly paused.
“Hey, if we had a car here all this time, why the fuck did we sleep on that lady’s porch?”
Meanwhile...
The Malaysian Assassin stepped out of a green Volkswagen Bus in the parking lot of a little ice cream shop. She thanked the drivers, a couple of wannabe high school hippies, declined yet again to show them what was in her briefcase, and hurried around toward the back of the shop. Just before turning the corner to the back parking lot, however, she changed her mind, marched back to the ice cream counter, and ordered a small vanilla soft serve with rainbow jimmies.
***
Sweaty Mulligan was sleeping a fitful sleep in the front seat of his stolen Mercury Cougar. The drool on his shirt vaguely resembled the silhouette of an angry Scotsman.
There was a soft knock on the window that jolted Sweaty out of his restless sleep. He instinctively reached into the pocket of his army jacket and pulled out a grenade. He held the grenade out in front of him, one hand on the pin, and looked around frantically, waiting for his brain and his vision to sync up. For a moment, Sweaty locked eyes with a small brown dog in front of his car. They stared at one another through narrowed, evil eyes. Sweaty took a tighter grip on his grenade and was about to pull the pin when the dog abruptly began to lick its butt. When he finally looked away from the dog, Sweaty became aware of a form in the window of the drivers side of the car and jerked around to face it.
It took a moment before he recognized the face of the Malaysian Assassin staring in at him, licking an ice cream cone and smiling.
Still holding the grenade in one hand, Sweaty slowly rolled down the window.
“Sweaty Mulligan.”
“Chichay Milano.”
The pair gazed silently at each other for a moment before Chichay spoke: “Want some?”
“Sure,” Sweaty replied, reaching his free hand out the car window, “You want to sit down or something?” She nodded and walked around to the passenger side of the car. Sweaty attempted to unlock the door for her, but found it impossible, as he had not yet put down the grenade. He put it in the glove box and unlocked the door so Chichay could sit beside him. They finished the ice cream in silence.
***
Dixie and Johnny crouched low through the windows of their new, more modest second floor headquarters, located directly above an antique store, and (more importantly) directly across the street from the pizza shop where reincarnated AC McCavity awaited his rescue.
Johnny looked through a high tech sight hastily secured to a paintball gun with rubber bands. Dixie sat by the next window with a bucket full of dead rats, poised and ready to pelt anyone attempting to use up their friend. Below, the cardboard had been removed from the window, and the new window, along with various tools lay abandoned on the sidewalk. The few outdoor tables for the restaurant likewise had been deserted. Broken balloons littered the area and everything was coated in a layer of duck semen.
A woman walked by with a baby stroller, pausing to look at the scene and sniff the air curiously. Johnny loaded another balloon into his gun.
“Johnny, try not to hit the baby at least,” Dixie cautioned.
“I won’t hit him unless he reaches for the ketchup. Same thing goes for the chick.”
“But you’ve shot every single person so far, even the ones who didn’t stop at the shop.”
“They looked hungry.”
“The joggers?”
“Target practice. Besides, you’re the one who pelted dead rats at the guy in the wheelchair.” Dixie sighed and picked up a rat from the bucket.
“Fuckin’ wheelchair.”
“Uh-huh, see, and you- oh no you don’t, cock lick,” Johnny exclaimed as he fired a shot at a man as he reached for the door of the pizza shop. “Bam. Another one bites the dust.” Below, a stunned man held a gooey hand up to his nose and sniffed, immediately vomiting on the shoes of a well-to-do lady walking by. Johnny pulled his head back inside.
“Man, that stinks. I hope Sweaty hurries the hell up with this assassination shit. I don’t know how much longer I can keep inhaling duck semen.”
***
“So tell me again why you needed the sniper rifle,” Chichay asked, as she licked the last of the jimmies off her fingers. “I get that you’ve gotta assassinate someone, but your telegram mentioned the fire at the 1982 Tibetan Olympics, and I’m not entirely sure how those two are related.”
Sweaty rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. He looked at Chichay for a moment before beginning.
“Back in 1982, the Tibetan Monks hosted a version of the Olympics. Not too many people could secure visas into Tibet, and they only had four events, so it wasn’t exactly a stellar production, it was mostly for the monks to achieve another step toward Nirvana. Dixie and Johnny, who I don’t believe you know, I work with them, they went because they thought it would be good for a laugh.
“Just like everything they do, their mere presence managed to cause a disaster, although this time they insist that it was completely accidental. I don’t know the details, but a huge fire broke out and destroyed their stadium, a temple, and a little barn.”
Sweaty paused and looked out the window at the setting sun. He picked his nose absently before continuing.
“Well, I’m not sure if you know this, but there’s a race that exists in a parallel universe to ours, and in that universe, there is a vengeful version of the Tibetan monks known as Super-Human Somewhat Evil Llamas. They wear the monk robes and everything. The difference is that they gain enlightenment by righting any wrongs that have even been done to them or their ancestors.”
“No shit, the Dalai Llama? With two L’s?” mused Chichay.
“Uh-huh. Seriously, if you piss one off, it’s on your ass for eternity. Until it kills you and evens out the score. So they were visiting for the Tibetan Olympics and that whole fire really pissed them off. I guess they were staying in that barn. How they found out it was Dixie and Johnny, I’ll never know, but they spent the next 10 years dogging them throughout the galaxy in order to enact revenge on them. For whatever reason Dixie and Johnny are pretty elusive, despite the destruction, chaos and weird clothes.”
“I know all about that.”
“Huh?”
“I was sent to assassinate them once, you know, but I could never keep on their trail,” Chichay said sheepishly.
“Fuckin’ A. What happened?”
“The asshole I was under contract with kept getting madder and madder, and threatening me more and more, so eventually I ended up accepting a contract to kill him instead.” Chichay smiled.
“Awesome,” Sweaty said.
There was an awkward silence while Sweaty Mulligan and Chichay Milano stared at one another, unable to look away.
***
Four repulsive fellows in Tibetan maroon and gold monks robes and wearing snorkels were laying lines of explosives along the bed of the Delaware River. They looked really fucking pissed off.
Back at headquarters…
Johnny stood up and stretched, propping his gun against the wall.
“I’m starving. Isn’t there any food in this place?”
They looked around the apartment, but apart from the metal folding chairs they’d been sitting in, there wasn’t a single piece of furniture in the entire house. The refrigerator door wasn’t even closed.
“This place blows,” Dixie said. “Who rents out an apartment out without stocking it with food?”
“Yeah, and not to mention, it was A.C.’s turn to go food shopping anyway. He totally fucked up this month.”
Johnny took another 40 ounce out of his bag and cracked it open. He and Dixie passed it back and forth for a minute.
“So what’s there to eat?” Johnny said, suspiciously. Dixie looked out the window into the growing dusk.
“There’s a pizza shop,” she offered.
“Oh yeah,” Johnny said. Suddenly Dixie shot to her feet.
“Holy shit, Hippies!” They both bolted out the door without closing it, and ran out into the street as the two forgotten hippies on the old tandem bike glided off into the distance.
***
Fifteen minutes later the shifty and eccentric Johnny Go and his beautiful and psychotic sidekick Dixie Doublestacks were sitting in the back booth of a local tavern, shrieking with delight at a brochure for “The San Francisco of New Jersey” historical themed adventure park, a massive plate of nachos between them, and two half empty pitchers of beer. Johnny was periodically spiking their beers with bourbon from his small, leather-cased flask.
“Look at their shoes!” Dixie cried, before slumping over in the booth in a fit of laughter, laced with little snorts.
“I know. Don’t they just scream, ‘I eat hand lotion!’” Johnny took a handful of nachos and shoveled them into his mouth.
“Hey, remember that time we tricked those Russians into eating hand lotion by telling them it was yogurt?” Dixie said, sitting up and going for more nachos herself.
“Yeah, that was fucking amazing,” Johnny said, howling with laughter again. Several local winos looked less than happy with their presence.
“Dude, speaking of Russians, I hear there’s a place in the ice caps where we could win back all the money we owe, plus enough to buy pet elephants, and all we have to do is bring a sack of potatoes and a disposable douche and they’ll let us in.”
“Seriously?” Dixie was suddenly quite sober and serious. Ok, just serious. “Well what the hell are we doing in this shit-berg? I want some damn money.”
Seconds later in the car, roaring out of town, an angry barman shaking his fist in the distance, Dixie finally thought to inquire, “What do we have to do to win back the money we need, anyway?”
“We just gotta beat 7 Arctic Sweater Monkeys at a game of ‘Go Fuck Your Uncle,’” Johnny said casually, while pulling stolen nachos out of his pockets.
“What the hell is that?”
“Uh,” Johnny answered with his mouth full, “it’s kinda like a cross between Russian Roulette and Go Fish.”
“Nice.”
Meanwhile...
“Ok, so you needed a sniper rifle because you have to defend Dixie and Johnny? Because of the Llama Twins and the fire?” Chichay asked, a little disappointed.
“It’s actually a little more complicated than that,” Sweaty said and trailed off. His mouth was open slightly and he stared absently through the bug-spattered windshield. Concerned, Chichay Milano touched his arm. Sweaty snapped back to reality with a start.
“Yeah, like ten years later we were all in a bar in East Quardeh-Veb. That’s where they’re from, you know, but we didn’t know that at the time. We actually didn’t even know they’d been at the Tibetan Olympics. We were really there because I had to make a deal with a Charlton psychic. Anyway, there we were, just having a rowdy good time, like always. The night was full of acid rain and lactaid. Johnny and A.C. McCavity had been bowling with watermelons and beer bottles and Dixie had given four performances of her sexually explicit ‘Dance of the Seven Bar Stools’ when they showed up.”
“The Llama Twins?”
“Yeah, John-John and Harold, the Somewhat Evil Llama Twins. They burst through the door of the bar with poison porcupine flamethrowers and insisted on seeing the slick guy and the chick with the rack. Naturally everyone hit the deck, except Johnny, who just stands up on the bar and wails on these two with some bottles he pulled off the back shelf. Then, as they pass out, Dixie grabs what’s left of those bottles and rams them up their asses and we all flee the scene. See, we still didn’t know why they were there. But that pissed them off even more, and last week, as an act of revenge, they killed our colleague A.C. McCavity.”
“Oh my god. So you’re going to assassinate them because you feel responsible for bringing them to that bar?”
“Nah, no fuckin’ way. Dixie and Johnny are perfectly capable of getting themselves into all kinds of situations where they’re almost killed. And it was only a matter of time before one of us was killed as a result of their actions. The issue is now the Twins have closed in on us again, but in a much broader sense of the word. Apparently under a fake name they lured Dixie and Johnny to New Jersey to avenge A.C.’s death. Rather than trying to seek them out in the depths of Jersey, they’re going to just blow up the whole state.” Chichay let out a small gasp.
“Are you sure that’s right?” She looked slightly horrified, but probably not because she ever lived in New Jersey or had an affinity for any of its residents. “How do you know?”
“Chichay, there’s something you need to know about me…”
In the Polar Ice Caps…
Johnny, whose arm now boasted a fresh tattoo of a clock shaped like an existential dilemma, aimed a gun at a deck of cards. The body of a monkey wearing a pink wool sweater was on the table in front of him. Several other monkeys were wearing bandanas in the background, and Dixie was sitting in a steaming cauldron, basting herself with vodka and singing a song about the Southland.
Meanwhile...
Chichay leaned back against the door of the car. She raised her eyebrows to encourage Sweaty to begin.
“Ok. I have a disease.”
Chichay now looked really confused, and a little annoyed. She rested her hand on her briefcase of doom.
“It started when I was a kid. I kept getting lost, losing my parents, and I never had any friends. I did a little research, took a lot of expired prenatal vitamins, and sought the advice of the Great Blue Elder of the Lower Midwest. What I found out was if I don’t keep my focus and concentrate, I’m not able to maintain my forward momentum in the space-time continuum. Sometimes I’ll just be sitting around and my past will sneak up on me.”
“You mean you can time travel?”
“Not exactly. I mean, over the years I’ve been able to control my movements enough that if I need to see the outcome of something, or I need to right a wrong of the past, I can get there, but it isn’t an exact science, and a lot of times I end up stuck in another time period for a while. It’s really a huge sacrifice, and I’m never sure when and if I’ll be able to get back. Plus, getting back? It’s a little messy.”
Chichay presented a skeptically raised eyebrow.
“You don’t believe me?” Sweaty asked, insulted. “Didn’t you think there was something a little odd about that bum you met in Nebraska? Didn’t you wonder why he kept saying things like ‘everything’s jake’ and ‘twenty-three skidoo?’”
“You mean that bum really was from the 19th century? I thought it was just a nickname.”
***
“When I was in Nebraska, I had just gotten back to this year. I’d been in the future, and I’d seen what happened to New Jersey, and to Dixie and Johnny and everyone. I thought I’d gotten back in time to save them all, but when I found out what date it was, I realized I was too late to save A.C. McCavity. I sat down to try to figure out what I was going to do, but when I did, I stopped concentrating and the next thing I knew that bum had caught up with me. That’s when I contacted you.”
Chichay looked confused, but said nothing. Sweaty continued.
“So what I’ve gotta do is go back in time, get to Tibet and assassinate the Llama Twins before they can carry out their plan here and kill us all.”
“But if you go back in time and kill them, won’t that make some other llama pissed?”
“Yeah, but we’ll worry about that later.”
“Well, why don’t you just go back and stop Dixie and Johnny from starting that fire? That way you don’t piss off any alien llamas.” Chichay’s logic was flawless.
“What am I gonna do, shoot Dixie and Johnny?” Sweaty looked confused.
“No, just stop then somehow. I don’t know, don’t let them even go to Tibet.” Sweaty gave this some thought.
“Ok,” he said, “But can I borrow the sniper rifle anyway? Just in case something goes wrong, you know...”
“I know, it looks cool.”
***
The shifty and eccentric Johnny Go and his beautiful and psychotic sidekick Dixie Doublestacks barged into their Frenchtown headquarters looking completely disheveled. Dixie’s hair was sticking straight up from the back of her head, more so than usual, and grass had begun to sprout from her scalp. Johnny was covered in a thick layer of mud and perma-frost. In his hand he clutched a wool hat filled with rumpled bills totaling $62. Dixie had an enormous bucket of fried chicken and a box o’ wine. The duo startled a squirrel that had taken up residence in their absence.
“This place is kind of a dump,” Dixie said. She sounded tired and her voice was very hoarse.
“Yeah, we totally shoulda got some furniture before we left.” Johnny looked around the room. He took his jacket off, which was muddy and had giant teeth-like holes in it, and spread it on the floor.
“Well, we can stand around and bitch, or we can eat some fucking chicken,” he said, gesturing for Dixie to bring the provisions. They sat down for only a second before an overpowering smell hit them. Looking over, Dixie saw the remains of her bucket of dead rats.
“Oh, sick. Doesn’t anyone clean here?” She stood up, tossed the bucket out of the open window, and returned to the floor picnic. Screams and vomiting sounds could be heard from the street below.
“But seriously, where are all those assholes who work for us? We haven’t seen them in months or something.”
[Let the record show it’s been less than one week.]
Johnny Go devoured a chicken wing and tossed the bone out the window. He picked up the box o’ wine and drank straight out of the spout. Then he continued: “Ok, well first we got this new headquarters. Why’d we do that again?” He looked at Dixie, who was chewing slowly.
“Cause the old one got blown up,” she said after swallowing. She, too, went for the box o’ wine. “And I think some trashy broads took Rex,” she said, reaching for more chicken.
“Rex, I love that name.”
“Yeah, you should change your name to Rex,” Dixie said, with her mouth full. “But, ok, so why did old headquarters get blown up?”
“I’unno. Was anything stolen?”
“How would I know?”
“Oh, wait, wasn’t the Becoller stolen?” Johnny looked marginally concerned.
“Yeah! That’s what it was.” Dixie looked relieved. “But then how come we’re here and not looking for it? Something worse musta happened.” Johnny Go stared thoughtfully at a drumstick.
“Yeah, why don’t I care that my single most important and valuable possession, the thing that would solve all my problems and make me wealthy beyond my wildest dreams, has been taken by some chump who likes alligators?” More box o’ wine.
“Because Sweaty always takes care of that shit. With that nasty time travel thing that he does and all those drugs,” Dixie said, matter-of-factly. “So where’s he, then?”
“Um, I bet he’s probably buying something to fix the building with. Cause it was his drugs that blew it up. Can you pass the chicken?” Dixie handed him the chicken, but didn’t look convinced as to the whereabouts of Sweaty Mulligan.
“No, I don’t think that’s what he’s doing. I think we asked him to kill someone. Remember that time we saw him in Tibet? I think it’s got something to do with that. Man, I love chicken.”
“We saw Sweaty in Tibet? The time the place burned down ‘cause we were teaching those kids how to light their farts on fire? Man, you can’t teach kids anything. But I don’t remember him being there.”
“Yeah, me neither,” Dixie said, looking a little confused. She shook her head and reached for the box o’ wine.
“I think you’re right about killing someone though,” Johnny said. “Weren’t we supposed to avenge someone’s death?”
“Oh yeah. Whose?”
“I’unno.” They sat in silence for a few minutes, chewing loudly and drinking wine in huge gulps.
***
Sweaty Mulligan and Chichay Milano pulled into the parking lot of a New Jersey Transit station in Trenton. They parked the car and got out. Sweaty went to the trunk and took out two duffel bags. There wasn’t much time.
Grabbing Chichay by the arm, they dashed through the hordes of wannabe New Yorkers to the station. Inside, they made a beeline for the storage lockers. Sweaty fumbled with some change and was finally able to open one of the lockers.
“Ok,” he said, looking at Chichay, “I’ll cover you, put that rifle in this bag, which I’m gonna strap to my back.” Chichay looked hesitant, but did as he’d asked. From the other bag, he took two oven timers, a bottle of expired pre-natal vitamins, a roll of duct tape, and something wrapped in an old concert t-shirt. He put one of the timers in the bag. He then began to swallow most of the pills in the bottle.
“Are you sure that’s safe?” Chichay asked, looking on.
“They give it to expectant mothers, don’t they?” Sweaty Mulligan put the rest of the vitamins in the bag and zipped it shut. He began taping the bag to his back. The end of the rifle bulged out of the top. He then handed Chichay the other bag and the oven timer.
“Take these for me. Set that timer to one hour and seventeen minutes. You’ll need a blender and something dead for when it goes off.” Chichay looked bewildered, but he was already climbing into the locker, twisting his own oven timer as he went. Just before closing the locker door, Sweaty Mulligan handed Chichay Milano the item in the t-shirt.
“Meet me in Frenchtown,” he said, gravely, “there isn’t much time.
***
Dixie and Johnny were slumped against the wall, half asleep and carrying on a conversation about free condiments.
“…squeeze relish is the biggest rip off,” Johnny Go was saying. He had a small pile of chicken bones on his stomach.
“No one should ever squeeze relish. It’s spreadable. Like mayo.”
“You know they made that come out of a squeeze tube too?”
“Those monkey-licking bastards.”
“Hey, why do you think they always put ketchup on the table at restaurants, but never mustard?” Johnny had pulled the inner bag out of the box o’ wine and was cradling it like a baby. Dixie’s eyes were closed.
“I’unno. More people like ketchup than mustard,” she offered.
“More people like ketchup,” Johnny trailed off and closed his eyes. Suddenly Johnny and Dixie sat bolt upright at the exact same instant.
“KETCHUP!” They screamed in unison.
Jackson County, Mississippi…
A small boy in high-top sneakers jabbed Sweaty Mulligan furiously with a sharp stick. Quickly, and before opening his eyes, Sweaty grabbed the stick from the boy. The boy let out a gasp and began to back away as Sweaty sat up and looked at him.
“I won’t hurt you, kid, just tell me today’s date.” The boy was speechless.
“Kid, I’m being a real good sport about the puncture wounds you just gave me. Now tell me the damn date!”
“May 30,” the kid stammered, backing away even more.
“May 30, great. What year?” The boy looked confused.
“I can catch you if you run, you little bastard.”
“1982. Where you been, man?”
“You don’t want to know. Now get the hell out of here.” The kid took off at a run and Sweaty Mulligan stood up and, checking that his bag was still taped to his back, set off at a run at well, through the field.
A few hours later he boarded a plane to the Far East. The flight attendant had perfect teeth.
***
Chichay Milano cruised down a small highway at exactly the speed limit. She was headed to Frenchtown to carry out Sweaty’s vague instructions to the best of her ability. She had already stopped at a Sears Hardware to buy a blender. On her way out of the store, she passed a man wearing a dynamite vest walking in. Good, she thought.
Stopped at a traffic light a few miles later, she remembered the item that Sweaty had given her before he crawled into the bus station locker. She picked up the item swaddled in a T-shirt and placed it in her lap as the light changed and she continued on her way.
Chichay left it there until she pulled into a gas station parking lot off of the main street in Frenchtown, NJ.
High on the Tibetan Plateau…
Sweaty Mulligan peered through a high-powered sight, looking over a small ridge while attempting to see into a primitive sports arena. Not being able to see through the thousands of flapping prayer flags, Sweaty slung the gun across his back and slowly made his way toward the front of the arena, taking cover behind various items along the way.
Just as he arrived at the entrance to the arena, a noise reached his ears that filled him with both fear and rage. It was the sound of screaming, the trampling of hundreds of feet, and the crackling sound that reminds you of illegal bonfires.
Knowing that the majority of the damage was already done, Sweaty Mulligan rushed to the burning barn just as five enormous llamas wearing maroon and gold robes fell to their knees, wailing. As he readied his rifle, Sweaty caught sight of two very drunk individuals a short distance away, holding lighters in the air, asking for an encore. On the ground between them was a half empty jar of pickled eggs. A gas tank exploded within the barn, and the two drunks cheered, then fell to the ground.
Unfortunately, one of the super human llamas looked up and caught that cheer. Filled with a rage unknown to any on this planet or its surrounding planetary buddies, he stood up and advanced toward Dixie and Johnny, who were laughing so hard their Tibetan Home-Brew was streaming from their noses.
The angry llama got halfway to the duo when he caught a bullet from Sweaty Mulligan’s gun, right in the back of his head. Dixie and Johnny looked up, startled by the noise.
“Get away from here, they’re going to kill you in New Jersey in a couple of years!” Sweaty screamed to them over the noise from the calamity around them. Just to be sure, he fired a warning shot into the heel of Dixie’s platform Mary Jane’s. Without a moment’s hesitation, the two gleefully departed the scene of mass chaos and wounded athletes and children that had been entirely their doing, laughing all the while over their friend Sweaty Mulligan, who never made any sense.
Sweaty turned his attention back to the rest of the llamas. They looked really fucking pissed off.
Meanwhile, back in present day New Jersey...
Dixie and Johnny rushed into the pizza shop. They stopped off at the first table and Johnny grabbed the ketchup bottle from the hands of a young boy.
“A.C.!!!” Johnny screamed at the bottle, holding it inches from his face. Not getting a response, he tossed the bottle on the ground and moved on to the next one. Dixie was doing the same thing a few tables away.
“A.C.!!!” Johnny screamed again. This time he squeezed the bottle with all his strength, causing ketchup to shoot from the top. Patrons of the restaurant moved toward the door.
After checking all the bottles in the shop, Dixie and Johnny made a move for the storage closet behind the counter. There wasn’t a drop of ketchup in there. Furious, Johnny turned to the cook, a longhaired high school dropout who had just emerged from the bathroom without washing his hands.
[Despite that, we really do recommend the food there]
“Where’s the rest of the ketchup, man! I need that fucking ketchup!.” Johnny was shaking slightly. Dixie was pulling things from the giant freezer and shouting for her friend.
“Dude. We totally just ran out. I put the last bottle out on the table this morning. New order should be in next week though.” The cook was too stoned to care that two lunatics were behind his counter. Johnny Go tugged on the cook’s hair and grabbed Dixie by the arm, rushing her out of the restaurant.
“We’ve gotta check the dumpster,” he shouted as he nabbed a piece of pizza from the table of a group of teenage girls seated by the door. The two ran to the dumpster in the back of the shop and dove in, head first. The foulest type of garbage began flying from the dumpster. Suddenly Dixie let out a shriek.
“It’s him!” she screamed, and fell to the ground clutching the bottle. Johnny Go climbed out behind her and the two sat, weeping, in the middle of the side street.
***
Chichay Milano walked down to the river with Sweaty Mulligan’s duffle bag, her new blender, and some explosives that she had picked up at an antique store, per his instructions. There had been quite a commotion going on at a pizza shop across the street, so she moved quickly and quietly away.
On her way to the river, she spotted a dead deer on the side of the road that had been hit by a car. Perfect, she thought. After rigging the explosives along the bank, Chichay retreated to wait beside the dead deer for her oven timer to go off. Only then did she take out the item in the t-shirt again.
She slowly unwrapped the faded black shirt. It was an Iron Maiden shirt. She laughed and began to whistle a jazzy version of “Run to the Hills” softly as she lifted the final fold of the shirt to reveal, looking up at her, the shrunken head of her father.
Chichay Milano smiled and thought to herself, “So this is that thing they call love.”
***
The two forgotten hippies on the old tandem bike approached Dixie and Johnny in the wise way that is only known by hippies who’ve been forgotten.
“It’s ok, man,” the man-hippie said, in a soothing, stoned voice. “It’s the way it had to be.”
“No,” Dixie sniffed, “It’s our fault. We were supposed to help save him. But we went off to get rich and now we’ve got nothing.” The girl-hippie looked at her and smiled.
“But don’t you see, you had something. And because at one time you had it, you’ll always have it. It’s like, a part of you.”
“Yeah, brother. It might be empty, but it helped you to get full.”
Johnny Go looked at both of the hippies and laughed. “Are you fucking hippies saying that A.C. McCavity is Jesus?” He turned to Dixie, who had put the empty bottle down and was wiping her nose with her fur cuff.
“Johnny, I think they’re right. He sacrificed himself so we could stop the llamas.” Dixie stood up and kissed the man-hippie smack on the ear.
“I don’t know what you fuckin’ hippies are smoking, but you’re goddamn geniuses.” With that she stood up and walked away. Johnny stood up a moment later and shook hands with both of the hippies at once.
“Thanks hippies. I’m sure A.C.-slash-Jesus is smiling down from his palace on the moon.” As Johnny Go walked away, the two forgotten hippies on the old tandem bike looked at one another and shrugged.
“Who the hell is A.C. McCavity?” one asked.
“Yeah,” said the other, “I just thought they were homeless people looking for food.”
***
The oven timer dinged.
Chichay Milano stood up, grabbed her blender, and took a deep breath. With all the strength she could muster without vomiting, she rammed the blender into the ass of the dead deer. Then, before she could look or think about her act, she took a running start and kick that deer as hard as she could. Then she sat down to wait.
Having never done this before, or heard of anything like it, Chichay had no idea what was going to happen next. But in the next moment it didn’t matter. Across the river, three evil llamas in snorkels were climbing up the bank. She watched as they exposed a huge, old-fashioned detonating device from under a pile of sticks and leaves. Chichay gripped her own, sleek, modern, long-range remote control detonation device in her hand.
The belly of the deer began to twitch and move. Chichay stood up and began to back away slowly. The shape inside grew and moved toward the neck of the dead animal. Across the river, the llamas were switching on their device.
The form grew within the deer until it was almost bursting from the neck. Chichay was on the verge of covering her mouth in horror, a highly unusual reaction from such a well-trained, professional assassin. Can you blame her? In the distance, the llamas seemed to be arguing over who would get to actually set off the explosion. A punch was thrown.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, a scruffy, human form began to force its way out of the mouth of the dead deer. Bones cracked, grunting ensued, and mucus was everywhere. Chichay stared in disbelief. A moment later, Sweaty Mulligan himself emerged from the deer’s mouth, covered in the most foul-smelling slime you could imagine, and breathing hard from his struggle. He looked Chichay Milano in the eye.
“Told ya getting back was messy.” They rushed toward each other, bound for an embraced, deer guts and all, when Chichay stopped in her tracks.
“Shit, the fucking llamas,” she said, turning toward the opposite riverbank and pushing the switch on her detonator. A ring of explosives that had been buried surrounding the llamas’ primitive detonator came to life, creating something akin to a bloody pumpkin pie with almonds out of the Super Human llamas.
As the explosion blasted, and bits of llama guts rained down on them, Sweaty Mulligan and Chichay Milano enjoyed their first kiss.
The shrunken head of Chichay’s father winked from the ground nearby.
A few days later…
In the modest Frenchtown headquarters of Shazbot Industries, Johnny Go was jumping thoughtfully, up and down, on a small trampoline. Dixie Doublestacks was tossing chocolate doughnuts into the air, one by one, and attempting to catch them on a plastic model of Luke Skywalker. In the corner of the room, Sweaty Mulligan sat at his computer, his head wrapped in soundproof foam, attempting to create a musical track that mimicked silence. Chichay Milano burst into the room.
“Hey, turns out we’re heroes,” she said. Sweaty Mulligan didn’t hear her. Or see her.
“What the hell for,” Johnny asked, jumping off of his mini-tramp and taking his chilled vodka bottle from the living room liquor fridge.
“Because we saved New Jersey from being totally annihilated. And the explosion that I rigged killed the very last of the Urban Mini Moose, which was long considered the ugliest invasive species in the world.”
“Wait, so New Jersey thinks we’re heroes?” Dixie stopped mid-doughnut toss. Because she doesn’t believe in gravity, the doughnut never fell.
“Yeah, and the governor wants to present us with some kind of award to saving the state.” Chichay looked at her business partners.
“I feel so dirty,” Johnny said as he slumped on the floor. “Like, licked-all-over-by-a-hobo dirty.”
“Yeah, screw this,” Dixie said, “Tell Governor Grimace and his state they can eat my pickle paste.”
“Dixie, that’s a fucking brilliant idea!” Johnny put down his bottle.
“What is?” Chichay had yet to master the telepathic connection that Dixie and Johnny seemed to have.
“We need to move to Florida,” they answered in unison.
With that, Dixie snatched her doughnut out of the air, grabbed a burlap sack from the corner of the room that contained 627 separate Monopoly pieces, and marched toward the door. Johnny unplugged the stocked living room liquor fridge and wheeled it toward the door.
“We’ll head down there now and set up a new headquarters. You guys prolly want some time alone anyway, so you pack up this place, buy some fruit salad, and meet us in Miami.”
With that, he slammed the door.
