Chapter Two: And Now For Something Completely Awful

“So is this heaven or hell,” said Billy, trying to maintain conversation.

“You tell me,” relied Sartre, smiling his most devilish smile.

“You don’t know?”

“No, I’m just not telling.”

Billy stopped, stared, and tried his best to muster yet another sharp, snarky retort, but he was too worn out from his previous failures. He would later learn that Sartre, the inventor of snarky retorts, was completely impervious to them, but for now he determined to keep at it; save up for one so dry and stinging that only the most tipsy witicist would dare utter it in the most smoke filled corner of a cocktail party.

Sartre, for his own part, just kept walking, save to light a cigarette. “Three hundred feet!” he called back, and waited for the delicate pitter-patter of Billy’s prostitute shoes to catch up with him. This is going to work out marvelously, he thought to himself, I couldn’t stand another one like Chauncey. Pity what happened to him…

“What?” said Billy with pronounced perplection. “Who’s Chauncey? And why are you so worried about him?”

“Jesus Christ riding on a bicycle in a canoe calling Mao Tse Tung on his cellular Jesus-phone! How did you know I was thinking about that!?”

“Oh come on, you were monologing pretty hard back there, how did you expect me to not hear it?”

But I was monologing inwardly. How could he hear me?

“‘How he hear me?’ Are you becoming retarded? I still want to go home you know. You’re not paying me and the other prostitutes will worry about me if I’m not back in an hour.” Billy knew that he could always count on the sacred Order of the Prostitutes if he was in trouble, and now he needed them more than ever. With any luck, they would just be starting to put the pieces together…

The cigar almost fell out of Sartre’s mouth. “That’s amazing!” he sputtered, “you can hear anything in italics! This may prove useful, but at the same time, I hope it does not get in my way…”

“…okay…” replied Billy. What does one say to that anyway? Nothing. Which is just what Billy said.

Sartre took no notice; he was too busy inhaling on his crack pipe. “We’re almost home now, I hope you like it.” Billy was sure he wouldn’t. In fact, he was pretty sure he’d like being sodomized by a sycamore tree (which had actually happened once) more than confronting Sartre’s home, but there was nothing he could do about it. Sartre turned the corner and started up the steps, finishing the knot on his arm and inserting the syringe as he went. He opened the door and stumbled across the threshold, Billy following somberly and behind him.

“This… this is my home!” smiled Sartre, “you like it you little fucking moogle you? Aw yer cute. Yeah yar. yeah… Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.” He gave his hat to his pet hypnotoad that had come bounding in upon his arrival, slumped down onto his favorite foyer chair, and began to postulate new ways to compensate for his lack of manliness and squish imaginary mice with his fingers as he always did in his spare time.

Billy took his first look around the place. It was decorated in the typical bourgeois pre-Raphaelite-paintings-with-grecian-urns-and-canned-artist’s-shit style that Billy had always outwardly despised, but inwardly coveted. Yes… perhaps there was a future here, but he had to do something about the old man first… Billy began to climb the staircase as Sartre lolled in his chair and gazed out the window. “Ha…! Lemonade. I fucking LOVE lemonade!”

As Billy walked down the hall, he heard the creaks of a thousand years’ wear and tear as the house settled deeper and deeper into it’s foundation, which was odd because Sartre had been dead less that 30. Billy took another step and a door opened to his left. From within emerged a man creeping on the balls of his feet, a large sack with an unmistakable ‘$’ sign printed on it over his shoulder and a gold-plated, jewel-encrusted bong clutched in his hand. Billy stood studying this man, obviously attempting to make off with Sartre’s precious monies and drug paraphernalia, wondering what he should do. True, he didn’t particularly care about Sartre or his bejeweled belongings, but he had always taken pleasure in making others’ weaknesses painfully apparent. This was a golden opportunity.

Jack Melson hadn’t noticed him yet, which was all for the better. He was already on edge from all the sneaking he’d had to do to get this far in Sartre’s mansion (have you ever successfully snuck past a hypnotoad? No? I didn’t think so.) and was looking forward to pawning the gaudy and massively massive treasures he’d found within. He just needed to get outside the house and then back through the portal before it closed in half an hour. Needless to say, he nearly jumped out of his skin and shat himself when he heard the unmistakably sharp tone of a pubescent prostitute behind him as he stalked carefully away.

“Oi! What’s all this then?”

Jack turned, and his fears were confirmed: Sartre, who had obviously transmogrified himself into a thirteen year old street walker in order to discreetly pick up men, had found him. The end was most certainly near, and he did the only thing he could: he quickly, and delicately, punched the child in the face.

“WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!” Billy raged, grasping at his face, his beautiful, beautiful face!

Jack frowned. This wasn’t what he’d expected at all. Blood began to trickle down Billy’s nose as he rolled around on the floor cursing and thrashing with all his tiny prostitute might. …hmm, thought Jack as he removed the ring from his middle finger, he must not be dead. Dead people don’t bleed. “You’re fucking goddamn right I’m not dead! Fucking pissed off is what I am! I even got a fucking goddamn moogle head wire! Jesus! Are you blind!? You fucking—” Jack didn’t need to hear anymore.

“Well, if you’re not dead, then you must be visiting. And if you’re visiting, you can’t follow me. Cool trick by the way, I’ll be sure to watch my italics in the future. I’ll see you when I see you kid, and I hope you make it back.” With that, he turned and darted for the window, smashing through it in a brilliant snow storm of light and shattered glass.

Sartre, who thought what was going on up stairs sounded like fun, chose this moment to swagger up to where Billy was curled up on the floor, apparently resuming his onslaught of curses and profanity on a world that wouldn’t simply let him collect his fifty dollars and go buy a new pre-worn shirt at Hot Topic with it in peace.

“Hellooooooooooooooooo,” said Sartre who smiled as he bent down to speak to Billy. “What’s going on up here?”

“What’s going on? What’s going on!? Some jackass just punched me in the face and jumped out your window!” Sartre considered this for a moment and then raised his hand to follow suit. He was just about to join the party when Billy, who was ignoring Sartre completely, said, “and I think he stole your bong, too.”

Sartre stopped. His mind filled with rage and he seized Billy by his shoulders. “And you let him? What are you waiting for? That ornamental bong has been in my family for years! Go after him!”

“I can’t!” Billy shouted back, “I’m your 300 feet pet moogle remember!?”

“Oh to hell with that,” said Sartre. He snapping his fingers and Billy felt the ball on the end of his wire go limp. What had just happened? It was still there, but he couldn’t feel it anymore.

“You have 24 hours. Now go my little friend! Fly away and return your master’s trinket! Fly! KUPOOOOOOOOOOO!” And with that, Sartre threw Billy out of the window and into the lemonade storm outside. Billy picked himself up, took a quick look around, and took off running as fast as he could.

~ by trickee on May 15, 2008.