Giving the Psychic Finger

Treeder clears his throat, still recovering from the napkin incident. He quickly knocks back two more shots and motions to the barkeep to set him up again. With his proverbial whistle now wet, Treeder turns to Ericka “What did it say?”
“What did what say?” she said using her usual parsimoniously coy tone of voice.
“The napkin, Ericka, what did it say?”
“Oh right, now I get it. What did Turin write on the napkin? Well as I recall, it said to take the digit to the ranch and give it the usual monkey business.”
“What! That would be a fine plan if I had the digit. The problem is that I’m fairly certain that Rebus ate it.
“No, no, he just bit it off, but he didn’t swallow it.” How rude is that? she thought.

Treeder was more than slightly drunk by this point and was quickly getting annoyed with what he perceived as Ericka’s double talk.
“Clone it, Jack! Clone it! Clone it! Turin’s absolutely right, It’s the only way out of your sordid little mess with Bob.” Ericka motions to the bartender.
“Another round?” he asks.
“No, we ah … lost a finger or rather ah… we lost a friend’s finger. Yeah that’s it.. We lost a friends finger and I believe that it may be in your lost and found box.”
The Barkeep begins scratching his head, “Now that's a new one. How odd. I think I would have remembered something like that. It’s really not the usual type of thing we find around here. You know the usual lost stuff … like an umbrella, a fist full of lighters, even an occasional shoe. Oh don’t ask about that one. It’s a long story.”

“Can we please just check the box?”
“Oh sure, no problem! I'll get Numlock to fetch it.”
The barkeep looks down to the far end of the bar and yells
“Hey, Numlock, get over here and bring out the L&F box.”
Some grunting and scurrying can be heard behind and below the bar. Within a few short moments two thick and hairy hands with strangely stubby fingers hoist a dirty red box with the bold white letters “L&F” on every side up and onto the bar directly in front of Ms. Marzel.

After prying the lid off, Ericka and Jack bump heads both trying to peer into the contents of the box first. And there it was, the psychic finger of Robert Skyfox, wedged between a shiny set of car keys held together by a pyramid with an eye keychain.
Ericka grabs the finger, wraps it in a cocktail napkin and opens her purse.
“Close our tab, Jack.” While Jack takes care of the tab she closes the box, and winks at the barkeep. “Thanks a million and also thank you, Numlock.”
“Gugg” is heard from behind and below the bar.
The Barkeep winks back and says. “Pleasure as always Ms. Marzel, never a dull moment here @11”
Jack signs the receipt and he and Ms. Marzel head for the parking lot.

While walking Jack asks, “Hey Ericka, What’s with that Numlock character?”
“Oh, you don’t know?” she says. “He's from a place where even time travelers don’t go”
“Where’s that?” He asks
“Darling, Numlock is from the prehistoric future.”
This conversation ends abruptly as Treeder looks up and much to his astonishment he watches Ericka insert a key into the stylish black illuminati.

THE END SIGNS

CALLING ALL CARS

“Ruling the world is a cakewalk behind the wheel of your brand new Illuminati”

Treeder’s artificial heart was synchronizing perfectly. There was nothing like a crisis to make him right as rain.
“Come on Jack we've got to get out of here… and grip a six of the bull on your way.”
“Got it baby. How far to the portal?”
“It’s in the City Park parking lot… not far. Hurry”
“What’s the rush doll face?”

Jack and Ericka make like ferrets down the stairs of Ericka’s apartment and across the street into City Park.
“Don’t stare, but the three guys on the bench feeding those ducks are shadowing us.” Ericka said in a winded voice. Jack glanced back at the three men on the bench. He sensed that he had seen them before. They look so familiar he thought.
“You’re kidding me Ericka. What the hell are Einstein, Kurt Vonnegut and Mark Twain shadowing us for, and more importantly why am I running with this six pack of malt liquor?”
The three old men all put down their newspapers simultaneously and stand up from the park bench.
“Please Jack! We can play twenty questions when we get to the bar.”
“Exactly, when did @11 become BYOB?”
“What about twenty questions didn’t you understand? I see the portal Jack, hurry!”
Jack could hear footsteps coming up behind him and fast. “For old dead guys, they sure can make with the hoof hoof” Ericka quickly unlocks the door to a 1967 white VW bug.
“Nice car, Ericka.”
“I don’t think Vonnegut’s dead.” Ericka replies.
“Really? I’m almost sure he is.”
“No really, he’s alive. I’m fairly certain that he’s still with us. Get in, quick!” She swings open the door and Treeder jumps in.
“Go, Go, Go!”
The three old men begin pounding on the windows, hood, and doors. Ericka shoves her keys in the ignition, gives a twist and time flickers like a broken strobe light.

Meanwhile @11 the absence of time begins to flicker and pulse like a broken strobe light.
A white 1967 VW bug fades into the parking lot @11.
“We made it” Ericka says regaining her feminine composure and charm.
“Listen doll face, now we play twenty questions.”
“Huh, did you say something Jack?” Ericka’s attention was focused on the brand new stylish black Illuminati parked two slots down the lot.
“Wow, I have never seen one up close. It’s gorgeous.” Drool was collecting at the corners Ms. Marzels engorged red lips.
“I can smell that new world odor from here. It’s lovely. Can you smell it, Jack?”
“Enough with the car already I’ve got questions. I want answers and I want them now.
What’s with two famous dead guys and one famous nearly dead guy chasing us through City Park?
What’s with the malt liquor and BYOB @11?
What’s with you conspiring with Turin?
What’s up with SkyFox?
Damn your right I can smell it. That new world odor is nice!”

Treeder and Marzel walk into the bar @11.
The effect of blasting (A transtemporal hangover which feels similar to the moment just following a hard sneeze) was finally catching up with Treeder. He puts his face down onto the cold metal bar.
“You OK Jack”
“Yeah, just a bit tingly, I’ll be alright” he says not lifting his head off the bar
Turin walks over from the Jukebox and lays a crinkled ball of cocktail napkin in front of Ericka and quickly walks out of the bar.
“Thanx” she says too late for Turin to hear as the saloon doors swing shut behind him.
“Well Jack, this is it. This is the moment that we have been waiting for.” As she unfolds the napkin and reads its ink soaked wisdom,
the bartender asks “can I get you folks anything before the entertainment starts?”
Just as Treeder begins to speak, Ericka shoves the cocktail napkin into his open mouth.
“Yes, two please” she says in her most cutesy pie voice.
Quickly turning towards Treeder with an abrupt change in tone she says, “Swallow it, Jack! All of it. Now!”
Jack leaned up from the bar with his mouth full of napkin, nearly choking with half his face red and flat from being pressed to bar. “uhh um awat vlid jus ney”
“Swallow, then talk baby”
The Bartender sidles back with the drinks and Jack begins gulping it down, trying to get the napkin soggy enough to swallow.
Slightly coughing, “Jesus! Please never, never, do that again.”
“Allergic to napkins, Jack? You could just consider it a sort of mini crisis?”

Doing just that, Jack felt a bit better.
“Now what were you trying to say, Jack?”

Continued in "GIVING THE PSYCHIC FINGER"

I drive an Illuminati (part III)

I had stepped outside the bar @11 in an attempt to escape the rants of Turin when I heard an odd commotion coming from abound back. “Curious?”
I went to get a peek from around the corner, where I watched a bizarrely tall & skinny man toss a extremely small round man inside the dumpster. The warping nature of the eleventh dimension exaggerated the scene making it appear even odder then it actually was. The tall man standing on his tip toes and leaning his head and slender trunk deep into the dumpster appeared awkwardly flat and elongated. Impossible to accurately describe, it looked somewhat like a two dimensional drunk man on stilts getting caught in a severe cross wind and rippling like a flag in the breeze. The sounds from inside the dumpster were equally as distorted. The clanging sounds were similar to a pinball be slung about the inside of a mason jar.

“I don’t see them in here, sir” clang, thud, clang, clang, thwong….

“Are you sure? I thought I heard them. Keep looking.” clang, clang

“Where was the last place you remember having them because I bet that’s where they are?” thud, clang, clang.

“Please Shut up and keep looking.” clang, thwong, clang, clang

“It really stinks in here and I got some kind of oily goo on my face.” thud, clang, clang,
The tall man turns sideways and disappears into the dark void.

I was about to check on the little round guy inside the dumpster when Robert Skyfox taps my shoulder and says “when tall trees bend dead leaves fall.”

Startled, I whip around. “What? Oh hey Bob, here for the show?” Bob and I walk back inside @ 11.

“No, I’m waiting for Ms. Marzel to bring me a gift and she’s late as usual.”

We both laugh and sidle up to the bar.

I drive an Illuninati (part II)

The new Illuminati x-t-r-a 23 comes in both a stylish black and also in another shade of black and shouts to the whole world “I am globalism, baby”

Ericka’s phone chirps from under her bed. She rolls off, and feels around for it blindly. Many rings later, “Hello?”
"Hey Ericka, it’s Jack" slightly giggling.
“Where are you Jack?”
“I’m standing outside your window watching you, I mean waiting for you.”
“Really?”
“Let’s see, you have a freaked out look on your face and a red skirt that matches it. Now give me the what’s what?”
She waves at him though the window.“Treeder" she says in a relieved but breathy voice “you’re a bastard.”
“So you were saying something about Skyfox. Is he going to kill me, again?” Jack asks with a near giddy tone.
“Yes, every 23 seconds” she said. “But not now, or the next time…. Because I have a plan”
“All right let’s hear it.”
She opens the door and Treeder walks in and makes a bee line to the refrigerator. Swinging it wide open he says, “What’s with all the malt liquor, baby”

Meanwhile @ 11 Turin, the epicurean, is waxing poetic at the bar much to the writers annoyance. “poeta est agricula.”
“He’s also out of work” replies the writer.
“Yes your correct young man, He’s both happy and liberated”
“Turin, you mean he’s hungry, and liberated from his dinner.”
“More drinks please, kind barkeep and keep um coming. The poet is happy, and as a farmer he is hungry, thus he is sustained by the fruits of his creativity and his love of life”
“Try paying for the drinks you ordered with your creativity, fruitpie the epicurean.”
Turin leans away and begins scribbling something onto the cocktail napkin.
“Who’s playing the next show barkeep” the writer asks.
“(CoqNoir)” he says mixing a something black into something stylishly black.
“Impossible!” says the writer.
“Were you expecting someone different?”
“No, not really.”

Slugging back another beer, Jack asks “So what’s the plan to keep me breathing, Ericka?”
“Turin has been working the details @ 11 and when we meet him I’ll tell you"
“What’s with all the cloak and dagger” Jack asks, watching Ericka fold an elaborate cloak around a rather plain dagger. “Just the standard girl scout stuff, Jack. Finish your beer. We are late enough as it is.” They both start laughing.

Has anyone seen my keys?

Where was the last place you had them?

I drive an Illuminati (part 1)

“Driving the new Illuminati is like owning your own planet and you will love that new world odor”

Jack’s phone chirps, “Ericka, hey… What’s new?”

Ericka, attempting to use her stern librarian voice, “Where are you Jack? No one has heard a peep from you in weeks.”

“I’m ah, ah, fishing.” “When?” she asks. “209 million on the backside” Ericka knew exactly what Treeder was waiting for. “You are in Canada, right, how long until impact?” “23 seconds” he said. “Ok, well that’s not why I called. Listen Jack, Bob’s really pissed about the finger thing on the T.T.E.”

“It’s not my fault, Rebus just got loose.” Jack had not had a crisis of this magnitude in years and he planned on really milking it. “Can I call you back, Ericka? Here it comes.” Fire burnt across the sky. Day becomes night. And Bam! The earth shook as the meteor blasted its way into the ice covered mountain.

“Can you hear me now?” “Can you hear me now?” Ericka repeated as she walks around the room looking for the perfect spot for temporal reception. Throwing the phone on the floor, “piece of crap”, she falls backwards onto the bed and waits for Treeder to call back.

Simultaneously @ 11 a shadowy hand with fat little fingers sticks a trans-dimensional Postit on the bulletin board next to the jukebox which read:

Found: one light brown finger and one set of keys on an “eye inside a pyramid” keychain.

Ericka’s phone chirps “Jack?”

“No, this is Bob. So, you’ve located Treeder the breeder. Bring him to 11 and don’t be late Ms. Marzel. He and I have some business.”

Don’t be late was the most over used joke amongst the time traveling set, but no one could remember who said it first, or if it had ever been funny, except perhaps for Ms. Marzel, She was known around 11 as the stingy chrono-chronicler and she wouldn’t tell even if she did know unless she could use it to her advantage. And as entropy would have it, Ericka was always late everywhere she went.

“I’m still not exactly sure where he is, Bob. I’ll bring him I promise.”