BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Continued from: Of Redheads And High Heels…

As we established in our previous episode, it all started with a blood-curdling shriek. Also as noted, it was an “I’m going to kill you with my bare hands” sort of shriek, which just so happens to be one of those that the redhead can do at the drop of a hat. Moreover, it causes male hearts anywhere within a 5 mile radius to fibrillate momentarily, followed by the family jewels making a hasty retreat indoors, so to speak.

And, as we know, such a scream from The Evil One usually precedes me being screwed – and not in the good way. I mean screwed like the guy in the cartoon… Although, she has yet to use an actual ginormous screw to effect said screwing. I expect once she sees this blog, however, she will find someplace to order one. Damn… I hate when I give her ideas…

Oh well, moving right along.

As it turns out, this time neither my name, nor any of the monikers the undisputed Queen of Evil uses for me (lackey, doormat, hey you, what’syername, et. al), had been uttered. Nope… This was just a plain old scare the pee right outta ya’ shriek straight from the bowels of Hades. This seemed to indicate that maybe, just maybe, it was NOT me who was the target of her wrath this time. Unusual, yes, but hey, it happens once in a blue moon…

Oh, and before I forget, we also established Rule #2 ½ – Don’t mess with EKay’s shoes… I think that warrants a quick reminder because it has enormous bearing on the story…

And, therefore, back to that bone-chilling screech…

So, there we were (and still are) with a plethora of E K shoes hither and yon. In the closet(s), on shoe racks, under the bed, on the stairs, in boxes… You name it. And, back then, not only did we have shoes, we also had a couple of roommates.

We’ll call them Benjamin and Quigley, mostly because those were their names.

And, before you ask, no, Ben and Quigs were NOT a couple of guys E K kept chained up in the basement for recreational torture whenever I couldn’t take any more and simply passed out from the intense agony.  Those guys were named Bob and Bob, and she picked them up from… Well,  that’s a different story so we won’t get into that…

Nope, Ben and Quigs were our English Setter and Australian Cattle Dog, respectively (both of whom have since gone to the great kennel in the sky, but still live on in the pages of the RGI novels.)

I think maybe you can now see where this is going.

And so, I was in the kitchen preparing dinner when the front door opened, the click-clack of Evil’s shoes tapped against our hardwood floor, followed immediately by the horrific scream.  Not knowing what the problem could be, but realizing that if I didn’t respond – even though my name had not been called – there would be hell to pay, I shot out of the kitchen and into the dining room. And, that’s when I saw it… The horribly masticated, chewed up, slobbered upon, ripped to shreds, size 7 shoe.

Ben and the Quigster were already in motion. Unfortunately, they were more like a couple of the Keystone Cops as opposed to a well-practiced football team, or anything else for that matter. The English Setter leaped up, only to have the Aussie run under his legs and trip him. He regained his footing, but once again they bounced off one another as they sought escape, yelping all the way – and at this point all that had happened was the shriek.

E K, being practiced in the art of unconventional available weaponry, as we are well aware from all of her high level NSA training (See: Kay… E Kay…) immediately fell back on instinct. Kicking one foot up behind her, she instantly had a lethal weapon in hand and at the ready.

Both canines  stopped dead in their tracks and stared at the psychotic redhead. In a remarkable and wholly unbelievable moment of spontaneous anthropomorphization, their eyes widened, and my hand to God / Goddess / Whatever deity works for you, I swear that both of them yelled, “OH SH*T!”

Once again, they bounced off one another as they scrambled across the floor in an attempt to escape. E K jumped in front of the Aussie, who immediately began backpedaling. Then, like some kind of gymnast on crack, my wife ran up the wall, across the ceiling, and landed feet first on the sofa, right in front of the English Setter who was attempting to take a shortcut by way of the furniture.

Both of the dogs scampered toward the stairs, but it was no good. The redhead, like some kind of Matrix-Samurai-Ninja who was wielding the sacred stiletto heel, flew from the couch, right over the top of the coffee table, and landed immediately behind them. The pair shot up the stairs, yelping like they’d been beaten by someone with a 2X4, even though she hadn’t even touched them. E K was, of course, mere fractions of an inch behind them, screaming something barely intelligible at the top of her lungs. To this day I am convinced that it was some ancient hell spawn cursing, all of which ended in “MY SHOOOOOZZZ!”

I stood in the dining room, dumbfounded as I listened to the trio circle the  upper half-story at least six times before shooting back down the stairs at blinding speed. I stared on in horror as they came barreling straight for me, both Ben and Quigley still in an athropomorphized state as they yelled, “DOOD! HELP! SHE’S GONNA KILL US!”

At the last minute, just as my heart was lodging itself in my throat, they took a quick right and shot down the hallway. I tried to warn them, but they weren’t thinking clearly and my heart was blocking my vocal chords. You see, the bedroom door was closed, and the hallway dead ended in the bathroom.

The simultaneous scampering of dog paws came to a sudden halt, and a split second later the clickety-clack of a single high heel running at 42,000 RPM’s fell silent. I heard another stream of hell spawn cursing, once again ending with MY SHOOOOOOZZZZZZ!

And then, all was quiet.

That’s when I started to get concerned. I slowly crept around the corner and made my way down the hall to the bathroom. There stood the redhead in her business attire, hair puffed out from her head like a cat with an arched back, one shoe on, and the other held high over her head in the death strike position.

The dogs, having reached the end of the line, were rolled over on their backs, paws in the air, tongues hanging out, and fear in their eyes. I looked at them, and they looked at me. Then they looked up at the redhead with the killer shoe. They looked back at me. I looked at them, then I looked at the redhead with the killer shoe. They looked back to the redhead…

And, then Quigley proceeded to pee all over himself.

In the end, E K never touched the canines. She did, however, make me clean up the dog pee and then proceeded to beat me with the shoe. Something about her shoes being named Husbandstomper, and once the stiletto was unsheathed, it had to draw the blood of a man before it could be put back into its box.

Personally, I think maybe she was reading too many of Michael Moorcock’s Elric Novels*…

More to come…

Murv

* The character in the novels, Elric, carried a cursed sword named Stormbringer. Whenever unsheathed, it could not be re-sheathed until it had drawn blood.

Continued from: You Want My What?

Let’s see, now where were we?

Oh yeah… When last we left off, I had been drained of the majority of my blood by Hildegard Renfield at the behest of Vampirella, the evil Red Cross shill who had been sent to prowl through a Science Fiction convention looking for an unsuspecting author who had been working so hard that he wouldn’t be able to resist her offer of OJ and cookies. Oh, and I’d also been told to stay out of bright lights, make sure to not get myself wet, and whatever I do,  definitely don’t feed myself after midnight, correct? No, wait… those are Mogwai…

Oh, oh, wait, I know… I was told not to drink any booze!

Right?

Good, then we are all on the same page.

So, there I was, booted out the back of the Blood Mobile by Vampirella’s evil henchwoman, with only an Amazing Spiderman band-aid, some stale cookie crumbs, and an eyedropper full of OJ for my trouble. And, on top of that, I was a pint low. I still say it was really more than a pint, because I caught Hildegard chanting, “Two for the boss, one for me… One for the boss, one for me… One for the boss, two for me…”

However, if that wasn’t bad enough, Chunkee – remember Chunkee? – was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. Unfortunately, it wasn’t because he was armed with wooden stakes as he prepared to storm the rolling exsanguination station in order to rescue me. Nope, it was because Hildegard had spent so much time bleeding me (apparently she didn’t have an adequate vacuuming system <– gratuitous Firefly reference) that we had no time to spare. He already had the ChunkMobile warmed up and sitting nearby so that we could race downtown to Union Station and have a confab with the show hosts before going on air.

So, that’s what we did. The Chunkster drove like a madman, taking out old ladies with the door, honking his horn, and generally driving on the sidewalk when necessary. And, with a bit of time to spare, we arrived. We apologized profusely for the obvious rush and disorientation we were displaying, and explained the situation. It was no problem. Terry and John were all good and understood perfectly. In fact, they even said, “Hey, we have this sponsor who dropped off a bunch of energy drinks for us. Want one?”

I shrugged. “Sure.”

So, one of them ran out and then came back with an armload of these little silver cans with red, blue and yellow logos printed on them.

Now, while this particular “energy drink” had been around in the United States for about 5 years, it hadn’t really been on my radar. To be honest, I’d never even heard of it. But, what the hell. I was game.

I looked at the can and said, “No alcohol, right? This is just an energy drink?”

I mean, after all, Hildegard told me I couldn’t have alcoholic beverages, right? She never said anything about energy drinks.

“Yep, just energy drink,” they told me. “No booze at all.”

“Okay,” I said, then popped open the can and downed it.

A few minutes later they led us into an empty studio they were using as a “green room” so that I could wait until it was my turn to be on the air. Upon depositing us there, they left an armload of the silver cans too, saying, “Here. Have some more.”

So, I did.

Now, I need to point something out to you folks. If you have read my blogs you know I’ve spent plenty of time behind a microphone. Just a couple of blogs back I talked about my days at my High School student run station. I did the college station thing too. In later years I  even did guest spots on local stations to answer technical questions for callers. So, I had plenty of experience behind a microphone AND in front of crowds. Hell, this wasn’t even my first rodeo as an author being interviewed. I’d done that plenty of times as well. This was no big deal. It was old hat. I could do it in my sleep…

But, for some odd reason, I simply couldn’t sit still. I was pacing, fidgeting, and doing everything but bouncing off the walls. Actually, that’s not entirely true. There is a good possibility that I did, in fact, bounce off the walls once or twice… At any rate, Chunkee sat watching me in wide-eyed amazement for several minutes before finally asking me what was wrong.

“I dunno,” I told him.

“Are you nervous or something?” he asked.

“I don’t think so,” I replied. “I can’t imagine why I would be. It’s just a radio talk show. I’ve done more of these than I can count.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said. “So what gives?”

“I really don’t know,” I said, giving my head a shake as I paced from wall to wall 14 more times in the span of 5 seconds. “Gimme another one of those drinks.”

And, he did. And, I drank it.

Before long, Terry and John retrieved me and brought me into the studio where the magic was happening. It was reminiscent of some of my old, late-evening talk shows back in high school – the lights were off, everything was laid back and just plain cool. We did our sound checks, came in from a break, they introduced me, and BAZZINGA! It’s off to the races we went.

I was scheduled to be on for 20 minutes that evening, and I came on at the bottom of the first hour of a 3 hour show. When it was time to say farewell, they didn’t. Instead they went to a commercial break, turned to me and said, “Holy crap, you’re the liveliest guest we’ve had in months. Want to stay on for the rest of the show?”

I thought about it for a second, then looked at them and said, “Got any more of those little silver cans?”

“Oh hell yeah,” they said. “The sponsor dropped off a friggin’ truckload. Want some more?”

“Line ’em up,” I said. “We got some dead air to fill.”

And so, the moral of this story is – Don’t listen to Hildegard Renfield. She doesn’t tell you the whole story when it comes to this exsanguination thing. Oh, and yeah, Red Bull is kinda like crack if you drink it right after giving blood…

More to come…

Murv