No Child's Left Behind, Groove on That...

Groove on this, playas. The names have been changed to protect the guilty and the astro-freakified funky... Cleveland, 1 a.m. on a Tuesday night, Shelly and I had just been hauled into the slammer for being drunken and disorderly. Smells aside, bums and streetwalkers made for awful company. The place reeked of piss and overflowed with bad attitudes. The only decent soul was a wisecracking Poli-Sci flunky who was telling me that he flirted with communism but never slept with it. This young political activist had been arrested for running on the Indians' field and carrying a sign that read: "Lick Bush." Witty he was; clever, we weren't.

The Fuzz had rolled up on us about an hour ago. We were playing midnight basketball with some local black kids. The music was booming while we sipped on Colt .45. For a minute, I felt like Billy D. Williams. Any illusion of coolness was shattered when the Robocop look-alike ordered us down on the ground as his partner, the Gestapo lord, shined his flashlight in our faces. After they dragged us behind the squad car, they pulled out their nightsticks and threatened to beat our wimpy assess. Just then a flash of light surrounded us. Funky music filled the air; everyone felt groovy. Someone said it was the ghost of Ghetto-Fabulous. I wasn't sure what that meant, and pondered the situation on the ride downtown.

A fat, balding detective motioned us over to his desk. His suit was too small for his tree trunk chest and the coffee stains on his polyester shirt were beyond permanent. Meaty fingers pawed at a pen that had the appearance of being chewed on heavily. Life hadn't treated this guy well and he was going to take it out on us.

"Listen up, smart guys, you got all kinds of problems tonight," he barked and I could smell that he had recently eaten a cheese steak sandwich. "Not only did get caught drinking in a park, a known fugitive is listed as living at your address. His name is Wan Lee, but he also goes by Hung Lo. Apparently, some kind of adult movie actor."

"Hung Lo," I thought, "he has to be shitting us." Knowing we were already fucked, I bit my tongue and tried not to laugh. "No, no one by that name lives with us, officer."

"Lookie here, buster, this court document lists your address..." he said sternly, shoving the piece of paper in my face. He had a chin made of steel, proud and protruding like it was tempting you to take a swing. I looked up at the fluorescent lights and felt dizzy. They reminded me of high school -- there I was always in trouble, because I had hung with the wrong crowd.

Insouciant, Shelly belched. His eyes lit up and the wheels started turning. It portended something very bad. "Hey, officer... " Shelly muttered while putting his feet upon the cop's desk. What was he going to say now, I wondered? Sweat covered me. Even my balls dripped wet. I was getting very nervous, because I knew Shelly liked to engage in brinkmanship. Although he was harmless, he didn't draw the line very intelligently at times.

"We ain't got no Hung Lo living with us. Do we look Korean? Oi vey! Hey, I gotta' a question for you, Kojack: If my balls were on your big ole chin, where would my cock be?"

The universe stopped and my life flashed before my eyes... The next time I came to was hearing the gavel slamming as the judge ordered us to forty hours of community service. We were supposed to teach inner-city kids the benefit of reading.

Dufus one and Dufus two, we sat inside the library and waited for kids who supposedly wanted help with reading. After hours of twiddling our thumbs, no one came in for help, so I headed out for a sandwich. I returned to find Shelly sitting with a bunch of teens at a table. I overheard: "Now, did you hear the one about the Rabbi... How about the one about the two Jews..." Guffaws and more jokes that upped the ante.

I joined the table and pulled out a deck of cards. We all got down to playing blackjack. A couple of hands later, these kids really opened up to us. They were teeming questions. My policy with these kids was: "Ask anything!" And, well, they did. I felt like Socrates, dispensing nuggets of wisdom to the youth of Athens. Analogies, comparisons, and allegories! I instructed them that mopeds and fat chicks are both fun to ride until one gets caught by his friends. I taught them about the 2nd Amendment: This is my rifle, this is my gun. This one is for fighting, this one is for fun!

Hot damn, we were a hit! Two charlatans rolled into town and cleaned up without anyone being the wiser. We closed up shop and headed outside to catch a bus home. I was just about to joke with Shelly about his wisecracks to the police when it started to thunder. I mean really thunder! Fire exploded in the sky. A deafening rumble filled the air. The earth shook and we lost our footing. Shelly yelped repeatedly that this was the end; that he'd been a bad Jew and had to finally pay. Maybe he was right? We were fuck ups and the time to pay the piper had arrived at last. As the phenomenon unfolded, it seemed more interstellar than apocalyptic.

A huge spaceship had descended from the night sky. It landed right there in the library parking lot. A ramp lowered and down strutted a man in a white tuxedo with a red bow tie. He looked like Billy D. Williams. Fuck me, but this was some Area 54 shit!

"Stand up, my brothers, fear not for I am Lando Calrissian. Be one with the pomp and circumstance, for you have been most ceremoniously summoned by the grooviest master this side of the universe for a one-time only, exclusive audience with the honorably funky Ghetto-Fabulous. 'So put a glide in your stride and dip in your hip and come on over to the Mothership. Word!'"

A one-word summation: smooth... He could have had us eating from his palm. In a trance, we strutted over. I never strutted before, but somehow I was injecting hip into my gait. Shell moved like he was Shaft.

The inside of this most pimpest cockpit were only the finest accouterments an inter-galactic playa's money could buy. Wall-to-wall leopard print carpet, disco balls, strobe lights, furry white couches and the most bitchin' sound system ever! Fat bass reverberated off the walls. So fat, you could feel it shaking the room.

High upon a throne replete with diamond fixtures sat Ghetto-Fabulous. Bearing an uncanny resemblance to George Clinton, he wore a sparkly red fedora and a pair of star-shaped sunglasses. One crocodile shoe was red and the other white. He silvery cape flowed over his body. He had a sweet little Japanese honey girl on his lap. He whispered in her left ear: "Sexiness to the left of you." In the other ear he whispered: "Sexiness to the right. Baby, if there were two of me, you'd get the pimp-sandwich tonight." He raised his knee and patted her ass away.

Suddenly a stage rolled out in front of us. A 24-piece locker-room funk band busted out the jams. Bootsy Collins thumpin' the bass, Herbie Hancock on the keys... Shit, man, Eddie Van Halen was sitting in with them and just killed with high octave, high octane guitar leads. My ass couldn't keep still. I found the two, I found the four. All the beats and the spaces between, man my ass owned the groove. Hot girly girls in bikinis were strutting their lovely stuff everywhere. No ugly ones, just fine faces. Shelly was in heaven. The man danced like he was possessed. He even did the splits, taking his sucker all the way to the floor.

"Everybody stop on the one... ," Ghetto-Fabulous said as he snapped his fingers. The room fell silent. "Friends, Romans, countrymen... Welcome my most esteemed guests. To my guests, fear not, least ye be played instead. For I have summoned you from your earthly commode to my inter-space pimpified abode. The groovy children of Cleveland require your reading instruction, instead of providing, facilitating and liberating young minds, you have been playing it off with time-wasting corruption."

Shit, someone really is watching over us all! And had we screwed up big time.

"Reform from your unschooled ways, least ye labor at McDonalds the remainder of yer days," Ghetto-Fabulous commanded this to be so and raised a diamond encrusted scepter. "You must tutor them well, or I shall return to whoop ass on you; that's all this pimp will tell."

Lando Calrissian added with the most wondrous diplomatic coolness: "No child's left behind should be placed in the hands of two half-assed minds."

Word!

The cosmic, poetic double meanings jumped across the room like asteroids. At that moment, we knew weren't exactly on mission from God, but it was pretty damned close. The next day we had those kids hooked phonics. We'd seen fire in the sky. We had boarded the Mothership, an unidentified funky object... For the die was now cast: We came, we saw, we kicked ass. Word up, we made sure everyone would pass. Now who says I wasn't the good son?

Classified Ads, Hot Wife & No Cash For Burgers and Fries

It was a dull Saturday afternoon in Cleveland, especially since our TV had been stolen by the crackheads who lived next door. Man, they didn't have the decency to shut their curtains to conceal the newly plundered booty. Without an idiot box, I was forced to find an alternative source of entertainment. I thumbed through the classifieds, going past the garage sales, cars, heavy equipment and whatnot, I came to the "Adult" section. I grew silent, which Shelly noticed.

"Hey, what are you looking at now?" Shell inquired.

"Checking out these escort ads," I replied dryly.

"Oh yeah? Anything good? I need to get laid, you know."

"Don’t we all, but you ain’t got the cash for these broads – It’s like $250 bucks for an hour of full service."

"Damn that’s expensive… I could do $125 – tops" he said like an agent negotiating a contract.

"Man, that would be your whole unemployment check and some food stamps," I said, trying to impose some sort of financial reality. His gonads were in the driver's seat and he wasn't listening to my advice.

"It would be worth it…" he said with his eyes trailing off into the corner of the room. "Hell, I could go back to work cleaning toilets to get banged on a regular basis. Tell me what it says in there. Don't leave me to my pathetic imagination, come on!"

As reading aloud the ads came to life -- hot blonde this, sexy brunette that, and all sorts of weird sexual variations – fat ones, pregnant ones, ones that will let you whip them, others that will whip you. All too fucking expensive for two unemployed guys, but add college-educated to the algorithm and there’s bound to be a scheme cooking. Still, I figured, I didn’t need to pay for it, because I was in good shape for a lay-a-bout in his late thirties. Shell on the other hand was losing most of his hair and had a pot belly.

"Whoa, shit… I think I got one for you Shell!" I announced loudly, sitting up in the old chair – the armrest was held together by electric tape.

"What, what…" he eagerly returned like a kid waiting for a Christmas present.

"’Hot wife: 24, 5’2, 105 lbs, green eyes, long blonde hair, C-cup breasts, will do you for $100 but hubby watches.’"

Shell stood up and danced. "We’re gonna get laid!!! We’re gonna get laid by the hot wife… I got 90 bucks. Can I P-L-E-A-S-E borrow a ten spot? Oh and a ride down there, too? I'll pay you back next week when my unemployment check comes in... I know, I know... I'm a lousy, broke Jew. Don't play the Catholic martyr bit... Help old Shelly boy get laid."

Fine, I thought, he's helped me when I needed some brews and was short. But part of the deal was that I get to tag along and see this chick. I picked up the phone to arrange the seedy rendezvous. A gruff, hillbilly male voice answered.

"Hell-low…Hell-low…"

"Y-e-a-h…" I said, drawing out the word like a southerner. "Do you have an ad in the paper?"

"Y-e-a-h, we do," he said proudly. "Just like it reads. No bullshit. You can fuck her, but I stay in the room so there ain’t no funny business."

"Uh huh," I said as Shell leaned his head near the receiver to listen in on the conversation. "Well, my buddy wants to meet her, and I might come along -- so there’s no funny business either."

"H’ail, do what you want… We’re out here in Copley," he explained, sounding like even more of a hick.

Riding for about nearly 50 minutes to this motel outside Cleveland didn’t faze me in the least. Being silly, I keep repeating: "We’re out here in Copley…".

Overly anxious, Shelly could give a shit about anything other than fucking. A vision quest, he was "on a mission from God" like the old Blues Brothers movie. Cool air whipped through the window of my old blue Chevy Nova – a car with no less than 100,000 miles on the road – and Bob Seger’s "Old Time Rock’n’Roll was dripping out of the speakers." What a great spirit Shell had about life. I joined him with some out-of-tune harmonies on the refrains.

We pulled into the parking lot. Shell needed no encouragement and nearly lunged out of the car; I stepped quickly to keep pace. We knocked on the motel room door, room 3 to be exact. Talk about an entrance, this 6-foot-5 Hercules dude with a bald head and cigarette dangling from his lips answered the door. He loomed over both of us. Squinting his eyes, the guy checked us out and then waved us inside. I didn’t see a hot wife and asked what gives? No reply... We all sat down, and he asked us which one of us was going to fuck her. Shell raised his hand like a kid at school. Clay, as he called himself, asked for the money, which Shell was all too quick to fork over.

"No… no… no…" I said lifting my hands in protest. I was always suspicious and I needed to see the wife before any money would be shown. "Let the man see the goods first," I said firming up my voice to let him know we weren’t dicking around.

"Baby Rhonda, come out here and show these guys how good you look."

Help me Rhonda yeah… She strutted out of the bathroom, ass naked save for a little white towel. Man, she looked good, precisely as the ad said.

"You want her now," Clay asked the lusty Shell.

"Fuck yeah!" he said, shoving the money at Clay and dropping his drawers.

Like a wilder beast, Shell pounced on the petite love bunny. He forgot to take off his tee shirt and black socks. I sat there cracking up as he yanked the towel off of her and tackled her on the bed.

"You’re an ornery one," she said playfully.

Shell lifted her legs straight up in the air, and he proceeded to fiercely pump away. He was too damned horny to worry about foreplay. Clay sat by my side. He eyed the situation like a referee at a boxing match, watching to make sure every blow was above the belt.

Guffawing, I could barely look at the spectacle and almost pissed my pants when Shell asked Rhonda: "Who’s your daddy?" Shell turned Rhonda on her stomach and smacked her ass. He yelped like an Apache warrior. Shell was a man possessed. He rammed her doggie style. The orchestra: Loud creaks from wont out bed springs…The performers: the hooker and Shelly…

Man, it just picked up from there...

Oh my god…

Creak…

Fuck me, harder, harder…

Creak, creak, creak…

Oh god yes, I’m cumming…

Creak, creak…

The ride home seemed a to last forever and both of use were getting really hungry. Shell kept saying what a great fuck she was, and that I should have splurged for one, too. While Shell was in hard-on, sweet pussy reminisce, all I could think about was that damned bed’s peculiar sound and that I would have to spring for his burger and fries.

The Installation Art of War

Start calling me Patton, folks, because I just finished reading Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. I was ready for action! Damn, I was glowing like I had five stars, two pearl-handled revolvers and was leading the 3rd Army across the Siegfried Line into Nazi Germany. Hungry for more knowledge, I decided to open up the local news section in the paper. (It was the only other thing I had in the crapper to read). The words “Art Contest -- Win Money” stared me in face. They tempted me like a hot stripper whose gyrating hips could drain me of my last dollar or like Satan trying to trick Christ into jumping off a cliff. Since I had already spent my last dollar, the cliff was my only option. So my thoughts took a leap of faith… I was ready for a battle with the muses.

Classic painters like Van Gogh had talent, but Andy Warhol and the likes ushered in a tsunami of caca from which the world is yet to recover. This meant that untalented bums like Shell and I could enter an “art contest” and possibly score a few bucks, a little fame in the local press and get a few chicks, too. Now if my roommate Shell and I had talent for anything, well, it was for being shysters. We could pull wool over the eyes of the best of them. No shame! Nope we had nothing constricting us like a conscious or a hope for heaven. Come to think of it, the only reason we weren’t on top of the world was because we procrastinated so damned much.

Flush I finished my business on the toilet and rushed out to share my new idea with Shell. He had his feet propped up on the kitchen table and was eating around the mold on the Wonder Bread loaf.

“Gotta’ a way we can score cash and girls…”

The sports section dipped below his chin and his eyebrow raised, “yes, pray tell.”

“There’s an art show downtown. I mean a contest. Anyone can enter. It’s modern art which means it can be anything. We can do that shit, most definitely. Look at all these New York bozos making millions by splattering paint on a canvass or hanging a bunch of oranges from a ceiling and putting up a sign that says ‘orange.’” Now, I knew damned well we had no chance in hell of winning, but I was bored. And boredom is the mother pranksters.

“Alright, you have a point. But what you don’t have is the faux sophistication nor the homo-style sensibility to ever convince a crowd of wannabe art lovers that we are artistes. Shell had to say the French word, artistes. It was his way of cutting me down at the knees. “So, what’s your big idea… You know this bread isn’t all bad, you got to chew around the mold… still edible.”

I wanted to take the art world by storm and my roommate was devouring a penicillin experiment, great. “Well, I got an idea from Rumsfeld. Remember our basketball game with him? We could do a piece on the war…”

“What are you talking about, a piece on the war? Whatever we do it’s going to be a piece of shit,” he said, letting out a belch and then scratched his nuts. Shelly liked to argue for argument's sake. I knew he'd want to be in on the action. I rolled out my plan like a Latin American death-squad commandant who had CIA support for a coup de'etat. We lit up our cigars and bathed in the tobacco drenched air. A few hours and a couple drinks later, we were in business and on our way to the show.

We installed our gift to the art world right in the middle of the room. Yep, notice that I didn't say "put up" or "hang." NO... We installed this mother. The sexy mannequin was standing atop several sandbags. She was dressed camoflage mini-shorts and a matching tank top with one breast hanging out. She had on a red, white and blue thong that was hiked up so everyone could see it. Hundreds of little green army men were glued to her legs. They were charging from out of her snatch, which had a neon sign around it that glowed: POWER! At her feet lay strips of bacon. Above it all hung a banner that read: "Pussy Command: sign up to be fucked by the USA!"

As the art-loving singles and dinks of Cleveland gathered round our monument to the Greek Goddess, we heard gasps... awkward silence... nervous laughter... and outright disgust... I loved it all. Shell and I were dressed up like two pigs, wearing berets. We danced around the exhibit -- okay, the monstrosity -- and made squealing noises. We were handing out photos of women in camouflage lingerie with captions like: "Get fucked, join the Army!"

"Like, oh my gawd..." A twenty-something blonde in a little red dress said. "What is this? It's like rude to women..."

Her GQ-esque boyfriend chimed in, "Ah, yeah, I think it is rude and mean to women..." He didn't know exactly what was wrong with it, but knew that contradicting his lady meant no sex later.

Beefcake Johnson grabbed Shelly by throat and threatened to kill him: "You mother fucking al-Qaeda supporter. Stop bashing our troops and the US of A." Beefcake corralled everyone into singing "God Bless America." No one wanted to be accused of anti-patriotism. Even the liberal candidate for Ohio's attorney general's seat and the hippie chick with a Grateful Dead tee-shirt joined in the hymn. We were S.O.L.

Apparently while this commotion was occurring, Shell told the event organizer to "eat the shit from his balls..." Any chance of staying in the contest was lost. I packed up what I could of our stuff and tried to hitch a ride home. I kept thinking that I should have studied Sun Tzu more closely.

The master of battle wrote: “Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.”

Meanwhile, Shell had called Stara, a hot law school student, and got his thing on with her. She was all anti-establishment this and that. The whole thing turned her on immensely. I was too tired to desire anything. I put the idea factory on idle. I decided to watch George C. Scott's Patton for the umpteenth time. I must have still been searching for a way to be a real patriot. Then it came to me: Liberate Paris. Oh yes, I'd love to liberate Ms. Hilton... yummy.

... And boredom is the mother pranksters.

Coming Soon: The Devil You Know and the Devil You Don't

Gnome and Unknown Stockholm Syndrome

Shelly and I plopped down in the front room at the boarding house. We were exhausted and just back from our first day on the job. Covered in sweat and grime, we were now experts at picking up trash along the freeway for minimum wage. We started our new careers hung over from a night of drinking Wild Turkey. What a way to live! We were two college-grad losers both pushing forty. What a way to die... I predicted one of us would be smashed by a semi-truck on the interstate.

Shell, with his beaked nose and thinning hair, was fidgety and fat. I wasn't exactly the model of fitness either, but I could still hold my own in pick-up basketball game.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" I pressed him and walked over to the fridge for a cold beer.

"Two things... One: I got to take a big shit... Two: I swear to Christ there’s something living in the walls."

I laughed, saying shouldn’t taking a shit be number 2. He shot me a cold look.

Shell stormed into the can and I could hear him grunt. "This is a man’s true catharsis. The best novels were written in the crapper. You should start writing more in here," he hollered through the door. "I think Crime and Punishment was written that way."

I was always open to new avenues to inspire my writing. I was about to reply when I heard a noise on the other side of the wall. "What the fuck is that?"

Shell ran out of the bathroom, his pants dangling from his knees. "You see, you just heard it too. Something’s in there."

"First, pull up your drawers, dude. And second, it’s probably a rat or some rodent. We live in Cleveland, you know," I said sardonically.

"Sorry, I'm forgetful. Einstein was forgetful, too. He forgot to wear socks. I forget to pull up my drawers. Anyhow, a rat has four feet, this thing has two feet, I swear, I’ve been listening to the walls for the last week and a half."

I pictured Shell with his ear to the wall and bottle of beer in his hand. What a ridiculous way to spend one's time! But what the hell, I thought, and I put my ear to wall.

Nothing.

"You have to wait, it is not going to happen until we’re quiet."

I was sucked in. Five hours later, and a lot drunker, I was about to call the whole thing off. Then the pitter patter of little feet, I heard it inside the walls.

"What the fuck?" I mouthed to Shell.

"Believe me now," he whispered back.

Whatever it was, we had to catch it. Build the perfect mousetrap, so to speak, we did. Shell had this idea of sticking a hose in one vent and blasting water inside. We’d remove another vent and whatever it was would be forced out.

Little feet and a big blast of water… A 3-foot-tall gnome rolled out of the vent and onto the kitchen floor. The little guy was sopping wet. He had one of those red caps on and green tights. We both stood up in shock.

"That fucker has been living in the walls… Jesus," Shell said, having a nervous fit.

My eyes were wide like a fish’s. The gnome tried to run and slipped past Shell. I dived and tackled him in the hall. I screamed for Shell to get something so we could hold the gnome. He brought out a blanket.

"What are we going to do with that?" I asked as the gnome kicked and clawed for freedom.

"Roll him up like a burrito."

An hour later, I was taking a real big swig of whiskey and Shell was drinking hard too. We were in the living room staring at this gnome wrapped up in a blanket Shell's great aunt Mable had sewn.

"No one will believe us," Shell said. "Who is going to believe we captured a real gnome. They don’t even exist!"

"What do you mean they don’t exist? We’ve got one right here…" I shot back.

The gnome was silent. He stopped trying to escape and was seemingly resigned to his fate. He had a white beard and grayish eyes. The words that came from him were incomprehensible to us.

"I can’t understand him," I said. "But I'm going to make sure he isn't going anywhere." I tied his ankle to the couch.

"He’s talking gnome, duh. I think gnomes talk in Danish… We could call the library and see if they have a book about talking in Danish," Shell insisted.

"How do you figure he talks in Danish? I never read that in any fairy tale."

"All the fairy tales come from over there, my uncle Maury knows all kinds of stuff…" Shell proclaimed.

"Just like he knew which horse would be the winner and we blew a grand at the track," I said in disgust, dredging up a bad memory.

"Let bygones be bygones. I’m going outside to the pay phone to call the library."

I guarded the gnome, listening to his gibberish – his Danish - whichever. Shell returned with a big grin on his face. "Hey, the library has these tapes that teach Danish people to talk English. We can play them all night and he’ll learn to talk to us."

OK, it seemed plausible, if in fact the gnome spoke Danish. Otherwise, another colossal waste of time. We left the tapes playing all day. When we came back from the job, he’d escaped from the blanket but his ankle was still tied to the couch. He had the TV on and was watching one of those raunchy talk shows.

"Let me go, you sons-of-bitches," he yelled. "Your mother was a whore and your father was a hamster."

"Shit, he learned perfect English," Shell said, happy that his theory had been proven correct.

I was overwhelmed and grabbed a cold one.

"You can’t keep me like this… it’s illegal," the gnome groaned and cast supercilious eyes upon me.

Shell and I discussed all possibilities of keeping this gnome. We could make him clean the house and do other chores.

"I can hear you assholes talking. I’m only 3-feet-tall. I will suck at cleaning. I can’t reach any major appliances, and my legs are too short to be good on a ladder. Plus slavery is illegal. I know it is. You can’t kidnap me. I’m going to call the cops."

Everybody thinks they have rights, I thought to myself. And this little shit had an annoying way of letting us know about them. Neither Shell nor I wanted an international incident. I could already see this gnome demanding representation from the Danish consulate.

We crafted a compromise. The gnome would have to paint the walls and when he was done, we'd set him free. This took about a week, but the gnome didn't want to go once he was finished. He was pleading to stay, getting on his hands and knees. I hated seeing that kind of begging.

"It's Stockholm syndrome," Shelly said in between stuffing a sub sandwich down his throat.

"Now he's Swedish?" I asked.

"No, it's when a captive develops an attachment for his captors."

Well, neither of us knew what to do. And they say once you touch something from the wild, it can't go back. So we let the gnome stay under the condition he gets a job. The keen little bastard was a Dunkin Donuts assistant manager in no time. I didn't mind a fresh dozen donuts and warm coffee every morning. We all sat around the TV watching the morning news. We talked about heading up to Windsor to gamble and to meet chicks.

That's how we got through life. All talk... Fantasies... Little people with big plans. Things couldn't stay this chummy forever. I knew that the Stockholm syndrome would get old. Sooner or later the gnome would start making demands, wanting a pint-sized toilet and a miniature bed, that type of deal. Shell would see it and get prissy, too. Now that would be hell! Suspicions, accusations and tensions... But for now we had peace.

I took Shell's advice and slipped into the writing studio. Cracking open a cold one, I wondered: Did Doestoevsky have a gnome and a broke buddy around all day to inspire him? My mind wandered. Would I be punished for my crimes? If so, I'd like to be executed by firing squad. No blindfold or cigarette. I'd spit on the ground and say, "Viva Denmark."

Just before I could die as a hero, my daydream was interrupted. Shell and the gnome dragged me into the living room. They told me to peak through the curtains. Shit, there was Don Rumsfeld standing in the front yard with a clipboard. He was reading meters for the gas company. How the mighty have fallen! I knew we owed on our bill, but I didn't know how much. That was a known unknown.

Well, an hour later all four of us were on the basketball court. Me and Rumy versus Shell and the gnome. In between my three-point jumpers, Rumy was telling us how his new crusade was to rid the world of bad pop music.

"Boys, I'm tough on Cher," he said, looking really fucking serious.

Shell and I excused ourselves to a bar. We agreed never to fuck with gnomes or a former Secretary of Defense. That mix is bad Instant Karma. Who has time for that shit when Monday's work along the freeway comes too quickly?

Coming Soon: The Installation Art of War