The Search for Ball Zero

by Tony Dormanesh

  “Nigga, you know dem Elohssa boys be trippin. I heard about that warstore shit. You know the G-dawg’s gotcho back. I’m takin care of dat Elohssa shiait!! YOLO! Hey, you memb when you bitches didn’t wanna elec me and I got dat terminally ILL hashtag campaign online with all that crazy shit and I won anyways?! Yeaaah I remember dat.”

  He trails off, then leans off camera for a few seconds and comes back into frame with his cheeks puffed out and eyes nearly closed. He almost coughs and some smoke comes out of his mouth and nose, then he can’t hold it and starts coughing violently and laughing at the same time. Smoke coming out of every hole in his head in between coughs. For a long time this happens and after a good twenty seconds he stands up straight, eyes watering, he wipes slobber off of his face and tries to look serious. He’s instantly completely wasted.

  “Wat?”, as he looks past the camera, at the cameraman or someone.

  He looks over his shoulder as a rumbling can be heard coming towards the Oval Office from outside the doors.

  “Ah shit, demos!” He grabs the off screen bong hastily, which splashes bong

  water all over the desk, he then spins around a couple times and heads for a couch, where he picks up a pillow and jabs the bong behind it and then pushes the pillow back over the bong in a feeble attempt to hide it. The pillow pushes itself back out and starts to fall over the edge and G6 has a good little battle with the pillow trying to make it balance in a spot which is physically impossible. Finally the door shatters open and G6 spins to face it, which knocks the bong over again and it spills all over the couch. At the door is a group of Men in Black looking guys who rush towards him and grab him. He puts his hands up like a teenager being frisked for drugs by his parents.

  “Wat? You don got shit on me rats?!” He turns and winks at the camera, “I got me rights you stanky pigs! I pay your bills you whores!” When one of the MIB’s tried to search his socks, G6 acts like he’s getting a blow job. “Ohh yea!” He looks at the camera and laughs.

  One of the Men in Black guys finally finds the spilled bong on the couch. “I found something!” He says, talking into a small mic hooked up to an earpiece.

  They all gather around and look up at G6.

  As Presidential as he can sound, “I did not hit that bong.” He’s laughing and nodding to the camera with a thumbs up as he says this.

  The Men in Black look around and confer with each other, “Watch the tape.” One says. They watch the tape of G6’s speech and pause it in a spot where he’s about to cough and smoke coming out of his nose and mouth. He looks completely stoned in the freeze frame.

  “What’s that!?” One says pointing at the display.

  “Hey man, sometimes smoke just comes out of me.” G6 replied without missing

  a beat.

  The Men in Black confer again with mumbles and then look over to G6 with displeasure. “You may have gotten away this time, but we’ll get you next time G6.

  We’ll get you next time!”

  “Yea, bitches! This my Oval Office.” He starts dancing, pulling out his guns and pointing em. “Fuck yea, and don’t be comin back, fuckin rat fucks.” Then he rushes over to the camera and his voice changes from gangsta to high pitched kid who just tricked his parents. “Ohh, you see that shit! I’m too slick, I’m too slippery. No one can catch yo man up in here. No demos, no Elohssa. Don’t worry bout shit my niggas, we be coo. You know, dos corps just be tryin to make ends, you know dat. We all been der.”

  He looks off camera, a totally stoned old man. Someone is trying to tell him something.

  “Ohh shit! Ohh shit, k son! K! Calm your shit! Hey, we outta time, I can’t spend no more on you muthafuckas. Hey, my album be dropping on the 12th, it’s called I

  Got My Balls On Da Button and if you don’t buy all the da songs I will fuckin kill you.”

  He holds out a copy of the album art, which shows him sitting at his desk in the Oval Office, his balls are hanging out of his pants and are resting on a big red button. “Listen to this shit!” He hits play on a ghetto blaster that is sitting on his desk. An average beat can be heard for a couple seconds then G6 comes in.

  “Yo, yo, yo… They call me G6,

  Prez with da bling. When bitches see me, their panties go fling. I’m so fuckin rich,

  I got the biggest boat.

  I got to be the prez of the Earf without 1 vote.”

  The camera fades out.

  Back inside the Elohssa warstore cockpit, the captain is sitting in the same

  position. A tiny smile creeps in the corner of his mouth.

  “Ohh G6.” He says out loud, but to himself.

  He quickly dropped his legs to the floor and spun his chair to the desk and

  looked at it like a spoiled brat of a kid. He noticed a picture on the desk, it was the supervisor he just had killed for counting down and his family. His wife was beautiful. The captain made a silent grunt with his upper body.

  “Is that his wife?” He asked no one in particular.

  “Yes sir.”

  In his best evil character voice he murmured, “Bring her to my quarters.”

  The captain stood up and walked out of the cockpit, his shoes clicking as he left.

  26

  PERFECTLY CLONED TAINT

  Tony woke up to everyone getting ready. Under Perry’s covers there was

  wiggling, both Perry’s fell out from under the covers and off the bed, both naked they fell on each other and had to grab each other in to stand. They looked at each other, you could tell which was the clone Perry because of the shit eating grin on his face. The real Perry was disgusted.

  The real Perry slapped his clone and jumped back, ”Don't touch it!”

  “Hey man,” Tony started. “Those guys loved the pinball game I showed them on my phone. They wanna go play real pinball.” “Yea, good luck.” Perry snorted.

  “We’re going.” Tony said surprisingly.

  “Where?”

  “To Treetop. I’m gonna show em.” Tony continued.

  Perry stopped whatever he was doing,”What? How?”

  “They said they have a car. A Jeep they said. And gas.”

  Perry said in a high voice,”Whaat?”

  “Yea man, they wanted to go. What was I supposed to say?” Tony replied.

  Perry knew how to reply,”I know what you could’ve said?! How about Humans kill monkeys? Cops? What are you gonna do just roll up and park with a Jeep full of fucking talking gorillas?” Perry said mockingly. He began dancing like an idiot, then talked like an idiot,”Hi guys. I’m here with my talking monkey friends and we’re just gonna play a few games of pinball. Dur!”

  “What did we estimate, 50 miles or so.” Tony ignored Perry’s dancing,”An hour drive? We’ll be back before dinner.”

  “If you don’t get murdered by drones, warstores or cannibals?” Perry added.

  Tony agreed,”Yea.”

  “I told King and Axl we’d go hunting with them, to get ready for the big show tomorrow.” Perry said.

  “Well, you go with them, I’ll take Einstein and the others to Treetop.” Tony

  said.

  “You better be back for the show.” L warned him.

  “You don’t want to come with either?” Tony asked L.

  “I was gonna hang out with Janis today.” L replied.

  “Who’s Janis?” Tony hadn’t met her.

  “You’ll have to meet her later, she’s really cool.” L told him.

  “Ok, so we’re all just gonna split up?” Perry asked the room.

  “I guess, but we’ll all be back tonight, right?” Tony asked back.

  “Yea” said the chorus. They looked at each other, not sure they should split up.

  “We haven’t split up yet.” L noted,”On this side of the fence.”

  “Yea.” Perry said, looking around. “They’re coming with me.” He finished,

  nodding at his clones.

  “Cool.” Tony added,”That Bob Marley guy is a reall
y fucking good gamer. We

  talked a bunch about tactics and stuff last night. He really wants to play pinball. He’s really into The Art of War and I told him about The Search for Ball Zero and he got super excited.”

  “Don’t fuck him.” Perry laughed. L laughed also.

  Tony said mockingly,”Yea, like I’m gonna fuck a monkey.” He looked over at

  L and smiled,”I already have a monkey.”

  L looked down at Fozzie,”I can’t believe he talks about you like that?! Poor Fozzie.” She leaned down and pet The Foz.

  Someone knocked on the door, then opened it. It was Axl, in a camouflage bandana, must’ve been his hunting bandana. “Let go.” Perry jumped up, and ran to the door, but he was the only one.

  Perry turned around,”Cmon.” He said it like talking to a dog. “C'mon Perry.” Clone Perry started walking towards them. “Cmon.” He said, this time looking to his girlfriend. She got up, of course bending over so everyone could see her pregnant ass and gooch. L just shook her head.

  Perry looked at L,”Look at that perfectly cloned taint! She’s classy.” They

  all went their separate ways.

  27

  ARCADE MONKEYS

  Tony followed directions he was given to the Garage. He hadn’t been there

  before and he had to go over one of those transitions, high in the trees. He didn’t like crossing those. The Sun was just about to go down. The directions he was given was follow this hallway to the end, and after the last hollowed out tree, walk for half a mile directly to the East and the garage is built under a tiny hill.

  Tony got to the end of the tribe’s hollowed out trees. He clicked the hidden

  latches above and below the door like he was taught, exited out into the forest and walked. He felt like he had gone a half a mile and didn’t see any garage. There was a small hill about another half mile away, he figured he’d try that and if it wasn’t it, he’d have to go back and get real directions. That hill was it, he made it and the garage door was open. He noticed on the top of the garage door it looked like fake rocks. He imagined if you closed the door that would camouflage the garage. “Nice” He thought. Sitting there in the middle of the garage was a black Jeep, seemed to be an old model, maybe the 90s. The Jeep had crude graffiti and tags all over it, it was dented and scared with bullet holes like it had seen some action. All around the edges of the Jeep were strange looking hand holds. Around the Jeep were roughly 20 beings, a mix of primates and monkeys. Way more than he thought.

  “Can we take this many?” Tony asked the crowd.

  “Yea human, no problem.”, a chimp said, emerging from the crowd. He

  must’ve been the driver. He had very short jean shorts frayed along the bottom with a huge set of keys attached to a belt loop, and the other distinguishing feature was a big growth on his cheek. It kinda reminded him of Lemmy from Motorhead. “I’m Lemmy.” He said. Tony should’ve guessed. Lemmy was loading a bunch of those Elohssa computer Stacks into a compartment below the back seat. He secured them with a strap and smiled. “Gonna be bumpy ride.”

  “Hey Lemmy.” Tony said, then continued,”I just gotta say, if the human police

  see a Jeep with all of us in it, they will try to capture us.” He doubted the entire trip now.

  The monkeys and primates looked at each other, most shrugged and didn’t seem to care. One orangutan and one chimp stepped out of the crowd. “No go.” “Police in my land like to shoot and kill.” Tony went on.

  “Cmon. Why you scare us?” Lemmy replied.

  “I crush.” The one gorilla in the group said. With short tight movements of his

  body, a chain with a round ball at the end swung around his body in a figure eight motion. It looked effortless. He then reached out one of his hands and the ball’s heavyweight slapped to a stop in his hand.

  They didn’t understand, Tony thought, but he also was pretty sure he wasn’t going to convince them otherwise. He shook his head.

  Lemmy took the shaking of Tony’s head as an A-OK, even though that's not what he meant. Lemmy leaned into Tony and confirmed and asked at the same time, “So just go South?” Then yelled out to everyone in the garage, “Let’s go!” Then he ran over to the garage office to grab something, his super short jeans shorts made this look funny to Tony. All the primates and monkeys in the garage swarmed towards the Jeep disappearing like clowns into a clown car. Some hopped on top, some hung off the side, others disappeared into the crowd. Tony had no idea how they all fit, but now he knew what all those hand holds were for. They had at least 20 living beings in and on the Jeep right then. Lemmy hopped in the driver’s seat and turned the key, the engine feebly tried to turn over. A bunch of monkey’s in the Jeep shook their heads like “Not again.” One chimp jumped over the windshield and hopped on the trunk with a loud BAM, BAM. Lemmy turned the key and the Jeep let out a growl of black smoke and started humming. Lemmy gave the engine a couple revs, smiled and then looked over at Tony as the Jeep jerked into gear

  While still in the garage a few monkeys jumped up in frustration, seeming to say to Lemmy, “Go faster!” He looked back for a long moment, then floored it. Heading straight for the open garage door, all of Tony’s driving instinct alarms went off. It was too fast, they were going to flip if he tried to turn at this speed.

  The Jeep zipped out of the garage, they had to turn in about 100 feet. Tony grabbed onto the “Oh shit” handle with both hands, preparing to crash. Lemmy touched the brake, downshifted and hit the gas. Dirt flew in a rooster tail behind the Jeep as it slid sideways. In any vehicle Tony had ever been in, this would be a crash. But the Jeep unnaturally gripped the dirt and drifted around the corner. Tony looked behind him and all of the monkeys were leaning into the turn. To Tony’s right, Primates hung off the Jeep, using all their weight to help the Jeep turn.

  “Holy crap.” Tony thought, scared shitless. Then once he felt like they weren’t

  going to crash his thought turned to,”Cool!”

  They were heading down the mountain, a giant drop off was coming up. Tony’s

  brief thought of “Cool!” quickly turned back to “Holy crap!” as they caught air. Massive air. Tony looked behind to see a sea of Monkey and Primate’s smiling. They were having the time of their lives. A few looked like they were in free fall, holding onto the Jeep like they were doing a Superman trick. One chimp did it with his tail, extra style points for him.

  It felt like they were in the air for 10 seconds, but it was probably only a few. Lemmy shifted into some gear and the engine revved, tilting the Jeep to land at the correct angle. They hit the ground and the shocks of the Jeep gave all the way to the ground with a thud,a scrape and a the sound of a bunch of monkeys slamming into a Jeep.

  Tony’s head bashed the dashboard so hard blood started flowing down his forehead. Lemmy looked at him and laughed. Tony didn’t laugh, it hurt. He felt the warm wetness and reached for it, the ride was so bumpy he slapped himself in the face. But he did see the red and confirmed he was bleeding. Nothing else he could do at this time. They caught big air again, Tony braced his head this time.

  Once they hit the bottom of the mountain they began cruising. Tony noticed the speedometer was between 40-50. They might get there in an hour. The Sun was almost down now, if they got there in an hour Treetop would still be open. It’d probably be best if they wait till it was closed and then snuck in. They’d have to play it by ear. He thought this could get messy quick.

  For over an hour they drove. Every few minutes Lemmy would look for a bump

  or ramp to catch air off. If nothing was around he’d swerve some heavy corners just to get some action, his passengers knowing exactly how to lean. On a few of the really sharp turns, Tony saw some primates hanging so low their feet were skimming the ground.

  Over the hill to their left, Tony noticed something moving. It was people

  cresting the hill and running over. “Cannibals.” He thought. He saw spears protruding from their arms. T
ony pointed and nudged Lemmy. Lemmy had driving goggles on, he looked in that direction. He saw them and turned. “Towards them!” Tony thought in his head.

  Lemme looked over to a gorilla behind him and smiled. Primate and monkeys

  both let out hoots and hollers. Lemmy floored it, the Jeep lurched forward accelerating. There were 10 or 12 cannibals. As they approached, the hooting and hollering approached on drawn out scream. Lemmy adjusted his angle at the last minute, plowing over the first cannibals, his adjustment allowed him to hit a few more behind the first.

  Bodies split in half over the trunk of the Jeep as it crushed a few more cannibals. Spears clanged ineffectively against the front of the Jeep. A chest and head slid up towards Lemmy, he laughed and turned so the head would spill off the side. As the head fell, a gorilla grabbed it, held it up to his own face and made a mocking scream, then tossed it on the ground as the other primates laughed.

  The front of the Jeep was covered in blood. Tony thought,”Ahh, driving around a bloody Jeep, that should make us even more inconspicuous.” He looked behind and saw 3 cannibals, still running after the Jeep like stupid AI in a game.

  They’d been driving for more than an hour. The Sun down now, but the sky looked strange to Tony. It wasn’t a normal night sky. The fence should be around here Tony thought. Just as he was about to say something about that to Lemmy, they all saw the fence. They all watched for a minute or two as the fence approached. Tony pointed with his thumb to the right, and Lemmy turned.

  They drove few a few minutes until Tony saw the area with the hole they had

  crawled through to start this adventure. He remembered it was still a 2 or 3 hour hike to Valley Forest. He was thinking they couldn’t bring the Jeep through the hole, so they would have to walk.

  The Jeep slowed and rolled up to the hole in neutral. A few monkeys jumped

  off the Jeep. It was a giant hole now. It had tracks going in and out of it, tire tracks, human tracks, animal tracks. The Jeep could easily fit through, a tank could drive under the fence here. Lemmy motioned to the monkeys and they jumped back on, he didn’t even come to a full stop. He went down in the hole slowly, but then hit the gas on the way out and the Jeep did a wheelie. Primates and Monkeys in the back leaned further back and held the wheely up a for a while. “Crazy ass monkeys” Tony thought squeezing the Oh Shit handles.