“That’d be a super Mr. T job,” I say.
Mr. Tis the word that replaced cool and dudical. It’s based on the guy from the television show called the A-Team and the movie Rocky III (getting the role by winning a bouncer contest, which included a midget toss). Back in the eighties, Mr. T was the epitome of cool and dudical.
Christian continues, “Even though they make them out of dog meat.”
My head is shaking no. “I bet it’s only cat meat.”
“It’s gotta be dog. Cats wouldn’t taste this good.”
“What have you got against cats?”
“They suck. I fucking hate them.”
“Doesn’t mean they taste bad…”
“I don’t care. They fucking suck.”
Leaf says, “I bet the carne asada is the dog and the carnitas is the cat.”
“No, carnitas is pork.”
“No way. I tried making a burrito with pork at home and it tastes nothing like the carnitas meat here.”
“Was it good at all?”
“It blew.”
The baboon squawks.
Christian asks, “Well, if carnitas is cat and carne asada is dog, what do you think chorizo is?”
“Guts and intestines and all that good stuff.”
“Really?”
“Sure. The man who invented it was a damn genius.”
“Well, you’d have to be a genius to make intestines and tongues taste good.”
“And rectums too.”
The baboon slaps.
I let God’s Eyes wander:
They go to a small bookstore at the bottom of the Tower Shops where the only popular author in the world is signing books. Yes, people still read books. But only out of habit. And they’ll only read the one extremely popular writer. Nobody cares to look for new ones, because they think: “He must be good if ten billion copies were printed and the cover says bestseller.”
Even if the book is terrible, they’ll buy it. Because people must read something for every last hour of every day, right before going to sleep. It doesn’t have to be good reading. It doesn’t have to be educational or enlightening. It doesn’t have to be imaginative or even entertaining. It just has to be common to the rest of the world — a book by an author everyone has heard of, so novel conversations can be more convenient.
Everyone who reads artistic novels — and there are very-very few — calls this BIG author the mega-sellout. This is what I call him too, but I don’t read novels. My eyes roll so much that I can only read comic books.
Eventually, reading altogether will be forgotten as a habit and then become nonexistent to the human world.
Writing is not an art, it is a business. It doesn’t matter what the author writes, as long as it is written quickly and is something everyone can relate to. Actually, the mega-sellout can be long-long dead already and some twice-as-terrible author can be writing books under his name, and the world will still buy the imposter’s books, even if it is completely obvious that he’s a fake.
And nobody cares. Not even me.
There is a line that goes from down the street, through the store, to the mega-sellout’s table. He’s signing a book for a nerdy wearing magnifying glasses. The nerdy doesn’t actually need glasses, but since he’s a nerdy it is his obligation to wear thick-thick glasses, even if they are fake. The author hands the book back to him.
“Thanks,” says Nerdy. “You’re the best author in the whole world.”
“Of course,” says Mega-Sellout.
Nan is the next in line. She wears dark long-limbed clothes and she’s bald with the words blonde hair tattooed on her head where the hair should have been. She drops a red book onto the table.
“This isn’t my book,” says Mega-Sellout.
“So?” Nan replies. The author bearing a suffer-dazed face. “This is a book signing, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but for my book. Not…” he glances at the cover, “Mark Amerika’s.”
“But I didn’t like your book. This one’s way better. Sign it.”
“Why should I? It’s not mine.”
“You always sign your own books. Why can’t you sign someone else’s for a change?”
“Go away you weird person.”
“R. Kelly signed my Ratt CD.”
“GET OUT!”
Nan leaves the store.
She’s a friend of mine. Well, sort of. She is the girlfriend of one of my friend/roommates besides Mort and Christian. She never talks to me, probably because I never talk to her, but I still consider her a friend. Christian doesn’t really get along with her either, but they consider each other friends too. Girls find Christian disgusting and creepy, probably because he is.
We meet her outside the tower shops, Christian still drinking gold flakes. The proper greetings are exchanged and we get down to business. I call it business, but what I’m really meaning to is: finding a way to fight boredom. It’s hard to find anything interesting to do in a world that has gone boring, but every day we try to do something exciting, always keeping busy, so that we don’t end up like the world outside of Rippington. It is necessary.
“So what’s going on tonight?” Nan asks, scratching at a hole in the armpit of her shirt.
“We got the show,” Christian says, “but there’s not much else to do.”
“There’s always something to do. You just got to figure out what that something is.”
“We could go drink…” Christian says. “I’m already buzzing, but I can get you something.”
“I don’t have that much money.” Nan squeezes her face inward like she always does. I think it’s her poor attempt at being cute. Nan is rather attractive, even though she’s a skinhead girl, but she’s too much of a tough guy to be cute.
“Are you kidding?” Christian chuckles. “You’re the richest bitch I know.”
She punches him. A common thing for Nan to do and Christian never punches her back.
I decide to speak. “We could go see Satan.”
Nan sneers at me as if I did something wrong.
I continue, word-staggering, “He moved into the empty room… behind the warehouse… by John’s.”
“I thought Mortician was just joking about that, guy.” Christian drinks some gold.
“No, it’s really Satan, the devil.”
“What is he doing here? Trying to lay the world to waste?”
“He’s opening a chain of fast food restaurants called Satan Burger, home of the deep-fried hamburger.”
“Sounds good,” Christian says.
“Sounds disgusting,” Nan says.
I say, “The first one opened up in the village. I want to go.”
Christian complains, “We can’t do that now. We just ate. Not to mention the village is too far to walk to. Maybe after the show.”
Then the three of us realize the boredom sinking in.
I stare down at the jambling carpet-sidewalk, warding off a shrug.
This is what I can see with my other eyes:
Mort is with the third of my roommates, who is Gin — a rattle-lofty fellow with hippie dreadlocks and shoes that don’t match, and he wears a shirt that says Nan’s Boyfriend. Mort is trying to set up the stage, getting little help from Gin as he never gets help from anyone. Gin just stands there, watching Mort set up the drums, drinking from his mega-drink.
“Arr, help me ye glimey bastard!” Mort says.
“I’m on break,” Gin responds.