I laughed and returned the eye roll. “My sentiments exactly.”
We piled into the van. Edith and Mrs. C in the back row, Rich and me in the middle, Boo and Mariah in the front row, and an assload of luggage that didn’t fit in the compartment under our feet. Kim drove and Hugh was the radio. We were off. I wasn’t sure if the lead ball in the pit of my stomach was about Mitch or the fact that I was about to hunt down a mythical creature with a bunch of insane people headed up by two smarmy little shiny guys.
Leaning back in my seat I closed my eyes. Maybe if I fell asleep I could pretend this wasn’t happening. Why did I feel like I was forgetting some . . .
“Shitballs,” I shouted, causing Kim to slam on the brakes. Everyone flew forward, including poor Hugh, who almost went through the windshield. “Aunt Moon-Unit! Was I supposed to pick her up? We have to go back. We forgot Moon-Unit!”
Kim turned around and gave me the stare. I shrank down like a beaten dog. “Sorry,” I whispered, “but we forgot Aunt Moon-Unit.”
“Kristy, you cannot yell like that when I’m driving. We did not forget Moon-Unit. She has opted to be our liaison from her computer. She’s on her police scanner as we speak. She will let us know the traffic and weather reports.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. She was so excited about this trip,” I said, getting worried. “Are you sure something isn’t wrong?”
Kim and Hugh exchanged a look. Kim heaved a big sigh. “All right, this is top secret info, but Moon-Unit would be okay with the team knowing.”
Oh my God, was she ill? Rena hadn’t said anything about Moon-Unit being sick. Did she have cancer . . . had she been institutionalized? I felt dizzy and panicked. I was on the verge of tears. I adored Aunt Moon-Unit and all her crazy. If something bad was happening, maybe I should stay in Minneapolis . . .
“The chi in Moon-Unit’s house has gotten worse. If she leaves, she fears the chi will take over and the aliens won’t land at their expected time. She’s hosting a small gathering of E.T.’s and has to eradicate the chi before next Thursday,” Kim told everyone while Hugh grunted out the theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
“Has she tried spreading saltpeter around the house?” Edith inquired.
“I don’t believe she has,” Kim said. “What does the saltpeter do?”
“Chi can be horny little bastards and multiply like rabbits. Saltpeter will make those chi dongers useless. The less chi fornicating . . . the less chi,” Edith explained.
“Sounds reasonable.” Hugh nodded. “I’ll text her the info immediately.”
Was everyone in the van a fucktard except me? I glanced over at Rich. He seemed a little shell-shocked and confused by the information. Boo was buying it hook, line, and sinker. Mariah looked like she was trying not to laugh. I refused to turn around and look at the old bags. It was their idea, after all.
I realized my mouth was hanging open. Were they for real? “Um, guys, chi is not an animate object. It can’t have intercourse and it can’t procreate. Chi does not have, um . . . private parts. Therefore, saltpeter won’t help all that much.”
“Do you know this for a fact, Dingleboobers?” Edith demanded from behind me. She wedged her head in between me and Rich, making me scream in fear. Holy Jesus, she smelled like my grandfather. She was wearing Old Spice aftershave.
“Yes, it’s a fact,” I said, gingerly pushing her head back to her section of the vehicle.
“Have you ever seen chi?” she questioned.
“No, and neither have you,” I said, wondering if this would degenerate into a fistfight.
“Have.”
“Not,” I shot back.
“I most certainly have and they have wangs and cooters,” she shouted. “They also have badoinkies bigger than yours,” Edith informed all in the van, with the authority of an asylum inmate who’d forgotten her meds.
“Oh my God.” I expelled a huge breath and realized entering a debate about chi wangs and cooters was a losing proposition. “I’m going to take a nap so I don’t have to listen to you tell us that auras give blow jobs.”
“How did you know that?” she asked, impressed with me for the first time ever.
“I quit,” I muttered, closing my eyes and ending the conversation. I mentally beat the hell out of myself for willingly entering into a situation that was going to add years of therapy to my life. I contemplated getting out of the van and walking back to my car, but I stayed . . . At least the talk of randy chi had made me forget about Mitch for a few minutes. I suppose if I didn’t give in to my secret fantasy to kill the lesbians, they’d provide some much-needed distraction. Small doses, I reminded myself as I drifted off to sleep. Just take them in small doses. Teeny, tiny, small doses . . .
Chapter 15
“He slid through space and time like a pirate on a ship of bloody eels. His huge feet and oversize member often froze solid when he traversed more than a hundred years through the warped black suck-holes of time. Ginormous appendages were a hindrance to him and made his life miserable.
“ He felt most at home in the Pacific Northwest and the rural South, although he did enjoy cooler climates. Being such a hairy bastard made living near the equator a clusterfuck, so he didn’t. Many a time he had tried to remove his hair-coat and hair-pants, but to no avail. With every wax, shave, and depilatory product he used, the hair came back thicker and coarser. His entire body resembled a six-foot-ten-inch walking and talking pubic region.”
What an effed-up dream. I snuggled deeper into my squishy and slightly lumpy pillow and tried to go back to sleep. I couldn’t for the life of me remember what I had to do today . . .
“I think the ‘cooler climates’ part is referring directly to Minnesota,” Hugh said and started into a New Age concert.
“My Hubie has a good point,” Kim said. “So many sightings in Minnesota!”
WTF? That wasn’t a dream and my lumpy pillow was not a lumpy pillow . . . it was Rich’s man-boobs. I jerked to an upright position and nailed my head on the passenger window. “Ouch,” I moaned, rubbing my head.
“Are you okay?” Mariah asked, holding her own head in sympathy.
“I’m fine. I thought I was dreaming, but . . .” I faded out. My grandma always said, If you don’t have something nice to say, then shut your cake-hole. “What were you um, reading?” I asked Boo, realizing hers was the voice from my nightmare.
She held up the tattered, coverless bible reverently. “What did you think of it, Kristy?”
Motherhumper, why didn’t I just stay asleep? The silence in the van was deafening. I could taste the metallic flavor of blood in my mouth. I had bitten down so hard on the inside of my cheek to keep from informing everyone in the van they were unbalanced, I’d mutilated myself. Surely they didn’t believe that stuff . . .
“I thought it was . . . interesting but slightly repugnant,” I said as calmly as if I were discussing the weather.
“I think it’s tragic that he’s ashamed of his body hair,” Kim said.
“I believe the size of his man-tool, God bless him, is the reason why people search for him,” Mrs. C said.
Not to be outdone by her sister, Edith chimed in too. “I would guess his testicles are the size of cantaloupes.”
I stared down at my balled-up hands in my lap. I had several choices here . . . Go with it and pretend they’re making sense . . . tell them they’re all mental . . . or keep my mouth shut. Shut. I would keep my mouth shut.
“While I find the time-travel part to be kind of bullshit, I’m totally into the shapeshifting thing. Read that part,” Mariah told Boo as she opened up a can of Red Bull.
She so didn’t need any stimulants.
“Okay,” Boo said, flipping through the Bigfoot bible. “I just need to find the section.”
“Wait a minute.” I burst out laughing, unable to hold back any longer. “Do you guys really, really believe that?”
Hugh stopped his concert mid-mouth-guitar solo and gaped at me. “It�
��s all true.”
“Come on.” I rolled my eyes. “A time-traveling guy with hair-pants and a huge thingie? Please, I’ve seen Bigfoot specials and I’ve never heard of Sasquatch being described that way.”
“That’s because people don’t know yet,” Boo insisted, refusing to back off her ludicrous claims.
“Just because you haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it’s not real,” Edith snapped, defending Boo. “There are plenty of things you can see with your own eyes that are fake, bless your heart, like your overinflated funbags for example.”
“Oh my God.” I let my head fall back on the seat. “My funbags are real and you’re certifiable.” I knew I sounded like a sarcastic buzzkill, but this was too much. Maybe the reason I was here was to keep these people from going off the deep end. I think I was probably too late . . .
“Kristy, you have lovely funbags. Edith and Mrs. C are just jealous,” Kim laughed, and the old ladies huffed with indignation. “I have a question for you, dear.”
I held my breath and waited for a boob question or a Sasquatch interrogation or possibly a lecture on how sad my lack of faith was . . .
“Do you take the Bible stories literally?” she asked.
“Well, um . . .” Holy hell, I worried we were veering dangerously close to the God-Bigfoot debate again. “I think that the Bible is a book of stories to teach us to be good.”
“Do you think the stories are true?” she pressed.
I started to sweat. Which answer would end the conversation? “Um, sure?”
“So you believe Noah’s ark happened, but you can’t believe in the possibility of Bigfoot.”
Assclowns, I was stunned to silence . . . a rare and unsettling occurrence. Anything I said could and would be held against me. Damn, for being crazy, these people were smart.
“I think that little pervert Noah was into bestiality,” Edith said, very pleased with herself. “He took all those animals onto that boat and then he . . .”
“Oh, for shit’s sake,” Mariah bellowed. “You are the most fucked-up old lady lesbo I’ve ever known . . . and I know fucked-up.”
“Girls, girls,” Kim admonished. “This conversation is not about fornicating with animals or lesbians. It’s about helping Kristy.”
Everyone in the van was looking at me, including Kim, which was alarming because we were still moving. “Kim, would you mind watching the road?” I asked politely. Even though death might be the preferable option to spending two weeks with my team, it just didn’t feel like a good day to die.
“So talk to me about Noah’s ark,” Kim pressed.
I was silent. Any answer I gave would backfire.
“I think the animals represent people of different cultures. I don’t think they were animals at all,” Rich said, trying to save me from answering. Damn, he was sweet. “If you put all those animals together, they would have eaten Noah and his family first and then each other. Although I don’t believe it happened at all.”
“That’s an interesting theory, Rich,” Kim said with enthusiasm, “but it wasn’t your turn. It was Kristy’s.”
“I actually really like Rich’s theory,” I said, giving his hand a squeeze, “but if you want to know my take, I think it’s a story to teach us that if we believe, we will be taken care of.”
“Believe without seeing?” Hugh, the human boom box, asked me with the shit-eating grin of victory.
“Yes,” I groaned. “You guys win. I suppose Bigfoot could exist. I think equating him with God would put most churchgoing Christians into a coma, but I’ll give you that he could exist.”
“Amen,” Boo shouted.
“But, that crap you were reading was utter bull,” I told her.
“Kristy, it’s like the Bible,” Boo giggled. “It’s got lots of fiction wrapped around the truth. The ridiculousness of it is to confuse nonbelievers.”
“And you know this how?”
“I just do,” she said simply and with such great conviction, I almost believed her for a second.
“If we’re done with Sunday school, I’ve got a few goddamn questions,” Mrs. C snapped.
“Go ahead, dear. Oh, son of a bucket,” Kim gasped. “We’ve lost Stu and Stan.”
And we had. The black sedan was nowhere in sight. Kim started to hyperventilate and Hugh stopped singing. My stomach felt queasy. I realized I had no idea, other than Duluth, where we were going . . . not the hotel, not the phone number . . . nothing. My stomach gave a sickening lurch and I wondered if anyone knew.
“You must have an itinerary,” Rich said calmly.
“Kind of,” Kim muttered almost inaudibly.
“What did you say?” Edith yelled from the back.
“Do you have their numbers?” I asked, ignoring Edith and beginning to take on some of Kim’s panic. She didn’t answer.
“Hotel name?” Boo asked in her sweet, high-pitched voice.
“I think he said Paul Bunyan Lodge and Getaway Resort,” Kim whispered, close to tears.
“This is a clusterfuck,” Mrs. C bellowed. “I’m stuck in a van an hour from home with a bunch of freaks who have no clue where we’re going?”
“Well, if that’s not the pot calling the kettle black,” a man shouted back.
I whipped my head around, looking for an extra man . . . Wait, it was Mariah. Would I ever get used to her voice?
“Maybe we should turn around,” I suggested. Unfortunately my comment spurred full-on outbursts from everyone. For the next six minutes, suggestions, accusations, and swearwords flew.
“Calm down,” Rich said with the force of someone in charge. The van went silent. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d willingly look to a ginormous man with boobs, bad teeth, unidentifiable accent, and a crotch on his head for sane leadership . . . but I was. “There is a Paul Bunyan Lodge and Getaway Resort on the northwest side of Duluth.”
“And how do you know that?” Edith demanded.
“I know that,” Rich said slowly and clearly, “because while you were shouting things that should get your mouth washed out with soap, I looked it up on my phone. I also e-mailed them to see if we had a reservation, and we do.”
“Thank you, Jesus,” Kim said, back to her old self. “Rich, you are the man!”
“Rich for president,” Hugh shouted and then broke into “Hail to the Chief.”
I giggled, so happy for Rich. The wonderfully odd man, who was striking out into the world to try to find friends, was on his way. After a high five with Mariah and a hug from Boo, he handed Hugh his phone and instructed him to put the address into the navigation system. I quickly called Rena to give her my information, but her voice mail was full. No big surprise there; she was totally technically challenged except for number crunching. I ended up leaving a message on Jack’s cell with instructions to give my whereabouts to both Rena and Louise down at the shelter. I threatened him with a slow and painful death involving the Kardashians and the Housewives if he forgot.
“This sure is some rinky-dink operation,” Edith huffed. It was the first time I ever thought she was right . . . about anything.
“I’m a little surprised that Stu and Stan are both the producers and the entire crew,” Rich agreed.
“It is only the pilot.” Kim defended the smarmy little men. “My guess is they’re going to shoot it like Blair Witch Project. Very rough, very real.”
“Gritty,” Hugh grunted.
“Or shitty,” Mrs. C added.
I bit back a laugh. I couldn’t have agreed with her more, but I was not defecting to their side. I’d rather chew glass and swallow it. The nasty old gals pulled out their knitting needles and went to work. Kim drove and bounced happily to Hugh’s bizarre and off-key rendition of “King Tut.” Mariah and Boo, the sisters who couldn’t have been more different, played travel Yahtzee, and Rich had a mean game of Angry Birds going on his phone. I called Aunt Moon-Unit to update her and check in. I found out the roads were clear and the weather was good. She felt she was close to dest
roying the bad chi and was positive her long-dead cheating husband, affectionately known as “that bastard Uncle Fucker,” was somehow responsible for the evil life force invading her home.
I made her promise not to do anything dangerous and she swore the trolls and imps would keep her safe. She then suggested doing an Internet check on Frick and Frack. She knew the company they worked for was legit, but she wanted to find out what else they had produced and if it sucked. Why none of this was done before we left, I didn’t know. She had to go because the chi was thickening. I wished her luck and sanity and hung up.
The rhythmic clicking of the knitting needles paired with the Yahtzee dice bouncing around in the plastic cup, made me sleepy again. Even Hugh’s “Walk Like an Egyptian” and Kim’s alarming backup singing calmed my jangled nerves and broken heart.
I curled myself into a little ball on the seat and leaned toward the window. As my eyes were getting heavy, Rich gently poked me.
“You can lean on me,” he whispered. “I’m pretty fat and squishy, kind of like a pillow with a heartbeat.”
“You’re like a giant teddy bear,” I murmured as I moved to take him up on his sweet offer. Never thought I would willingly cuddle up to man-boobs, but I never thought I would go on a search for Sasquatch either. At least Rich was safe; he could never hurt me like Mitch did. But then again, I wasn’t in love with Rich. Damn it to hell, I decided to close my eyes and try to sleep off my depression. I didn’t really expect it to work, but what other choice did I have?
Chapter 16
Paul Bunyan Lodge and Getaway Resort was everything I expected it to be . . . and less. At one time it was probably a lovely place . . . like in 1983, but now, not so much.
A long sprawling one-story building flanked by beautiful dense forest sat on an unpaved pothole-ridden parking lot. The door of each connected cabin (and I use that word loosely) was painted a dull mustard yellow. The rest of the building was painted (again loosely) to resemble logs. It did look clean and well maintained. Either the owners had horrid taste or no funds to update the resort.
The best and most awe-inspiring part was Fiberglass Paul Bunyan himself. He stood about twelve feet high in the middle of the parking lot, surrounded by purple morning glories that had crept up his large legs and covered most of his bright red pants. His axe was chipped and broken, but more alarming than the axe and flower legs was that half of his head was missing. The left side. He held a large sign in his axe-free hand: WELCOME! SEARCHING FOR SASQUATCH and VACANCIES. Yet again, I questioned the wisdom of coming on this trip, but fifty thousand bucks for the shelter was fifty thousand bucks.
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