Sorry I Ruined Your Orgy

by Bradley Sands

  An entrée from another table catches your eye. It is an octopus smothered in mayonnaise. A glob of drool skids down your chin. You drop your fork, startled by the affection you feel for this unpalatable meal.

  You stare down at the lasagna with regret. You contemplate signaling for the waiter. Instead, you choose to avoid confrontation.

  A baby wails. You look over at the bane of the restaurant and film industries. It is lying inside a cradle. The cradle has been placed on top of a table between a young couple. You wonder if the restaurant is out of high chairs. Are they going to eat the baby?

  You scan through the restaurant’s menu. “Baby” is listed under entrees. $26.99.

  The lasagna makes a noise. It sounds like it’s passing gas. You shout, “I’ll have the baby if you don’t....” then squeeze your throat violently. No one reacts to your outburst.

  A toad gasps for air. It is dying from lung cancer. You turn to give it your sympathy.

  The false toad has deceived you. It is not a toad, but a shish kebab of human hearts. The hearts are working in tandem to gasp like a lung cancer patient. A man points the skewer towards his mouth. You envy him.

  The aroma of the lasagna nauseates you. The supernatural plate is now powerless. Its warranty has expired.

  You hurl the meal across the room. Pasta and all your favorite foods rain down upon the customers.

  They react to your outburst with outbursts of their own.

  You make a scary face and charge.

  And after you’re finished, not one iota of flesh is left on a bone.

  Gathered in Nerdy Congress

  for Mitt Roj

  The United States Congress is meeting for an emergency session. The emergency session involves Nintendo’s decision to bribe the congressmen with Wii consoles in hopes of avoiding blame after their consoles declare war on humanity. The congressmen have brought their Wii consoles along with them. They cannot stop playing. They are not concerned with the consoles’ future war on humanity. They are not aware of its inevitability. Instead, they are concerned with their inability to stop playing Wii consoles. They are ashamed of what they have become. They decide to petition Nintendo to create a country they can govern without turning off their Wii consoles. Nintendo agrees to their terms. They create a game called America 2. It is not available in stores. It is not available to the general public. You must be a United States congressman to purchase it. The congressmen like America 2 a lot. It becomes their favorite game. War begins, but it is not the congressmen’s war. War begins, but it does not take place between the congressmen’s borders.

  The Laundry Room

  The couple are trying to sell their house. The real estate ad lists four bedrooms. But there are only three bedrooms. The couple are trying to pass off the laundry room as a fourth bedroom. But it is not a bedroom. It is a laundry room. It is dark and dank and there is a crawlspace behind the dryer. But it is carpeted, the couple thinks, so why couldn’t it be a bedroom? You can just take out the washing machine and the dryer and pretend there isn’t a crawlspace and put in a bed and you’d be set.

  A realtor shows the room to a potential buyer. The man says, “This is not a bedroom. This is a laundry room.” The realtor says, “Look closer. This is a bedroom.” The potential buyer looks behind the dryer. He gets down on his hands and knees. He crawls into the crawlspace. He looks for the bedroom. He crawls. He crawls for the next thirty years. His body hits a wall at the end of the crawlspace and he suffers a brain aneurysm. The couple never sell their house. They probably shouldn’t have listed the extra bedroom.

  Crawling Over Fifty Good Pussies to Get One Fat Boy’s Asshole

  A robotic voice oozes out of the speakers: “Welcome to the Hall of Game Show Hosts, Zanyland’s least popular but most distinguished attraction.”

  Insomniacs watch in awe as audio-animatrons flood the stage to recite catch phrases. Snores of relief drown out culturally significant phrases like, “Come on down! You’re the next contestant on the Price is Right!” and “Spin That Wheel!” Finally cured, the former insomniacs are too incapacitated to complain about the historical inaccuracies of the phrases. Too comatose to yammer about how the phrases were originally spoken by the game show’s announcer or a techno pop MC.

  The Alex Trebek animatron straightens his holographic tie and says, “And now, here is the host of Jeopardy, Alex—”

  Alex Tron’s culturally significant but historically inaccurate phrase is interrupted by the sound of a machine gun. The sound of a machine gun is interrupted by an explosion.

  The animatrons short circuit. They stop telling bad jokes and stand stiffly, their lips frozen into fake smiles. The lack of boredom wakes the sleepers. They demand their money back. There is no one around to give them their money back. They grind their teeth in frustration.

  The short circuit has altered Alex Tron’s programming. His suit morphs into an Oakland Raider’s hoody and a pair of Phat Farm brand jeans that are falling down around his ankles. Then his penny loafers morph into Adidas high tops and his hair piece morphs into a doo rag. “I’m sorry,” he says, “but the correct question is ‘What is busting a cap in your ass?’”

  Alex Tron points his finger at Chuck Woolery and pretends to bust a cap in his ass. The Chuck Woolery animatron does not try to dodge the imaginary bullet. He does not do anything. He remains stiff like all of the other game show hosts besides Alex Tron, who is doing a funny walk down off the stage as if he’s moving his body to an imaginary, repetitive beat.

  Alex Tron has a hell of an imagination for someone who wasn’t programmed to possess one.

  “My nigga,” he says repeatedly as he tries to high five each of the insomniacs. But the insomniacs are too quick for him and he ends up high fiving the dust mites floating in the air.

  “Why ya’all be trippin?” he asks.

  The insomniacs ignore him and stare at the stage, waiting for the show and their dreams to resume.

  Depressed, he walks out the exit and escapes from the Hall of Game Show Hosts forever.

  Alex Tron’s eyes spark as his tears fall upon the streets of Zanyland. The pavement is so clean you can eat a meal off it.

  A large black man with a machine gun is eating a meal off it. It is not the kind of meal usually eaten in the year 3032. The large black man is eating another man’s tongue. He seems to be enjoying it. This can be inferred by the smacking sounds he is making with his lips.

  Alex Tron sees a flash of the large black man’s black skin through his tears. This makes him very happy. He stops crying. He had never seen a black man before. They are not allowed in the park. The Zany board of directors are afraid they will turn the park into a garbage can with their watermelon seeds and fried chicken bones. Alex Tron thinks to himself, I wish I belonged to this alien species instead of the Alex Trebek species.

  He admires the large black man’s clothes. The man is wearing the garb of the late nineteenth century. Alex Tron is envious of his Stetson hat. Alex Tron is jealous of his antique fanny pack. “My nigga,” he says, trying to give him a high five. The large black man stabs Alex Tron’s hand with a meat cleaver. This pleases Alex Tron. Ordinarily, someone who has a meat cleaver stuck through their hand would not be pleased by this turn of events. But the Wacky imagineers have made Alex Tron indestructible and resistant to pain, so this pleases him. He says, “My nigga,” and raises his other hand for another high five.

  The large black man shrugs his shoulders, yanks back his meat cleaver, and goes back to his meal.

  Alex Tron asks the large black man for his name.

  He responds, “I’m that bad motherfucker called Stagger Lee.”

  Alex Tron flashes a gang sign. It looks more like an angry variation of The Itsy Bitsy Spider. He begins to rap: “My name is A-Dawg, I got a cat with a thirteen inch gat. Best not fuck with this or you’ll be fucking with some motherfucking gangsta shit. I’ll pull down my pants, make my pussy do a dance, and shoot a blast up your motherfucking ass.”
He shoots an imaginary AK-47 into the air. “Can I get an amen?”

  Alex Tron does not get an amen. Stagger Lee does not give him an amen. Stagger Lee stomped away while Alex Tron was flashing his excessively long gang sign. Stagger Lee is terrorizing Zanyland’s Snack Shack. Stagger Lee is slicing off a cashier’s ear.

  Alex Tron goes inside the Snack Shack.

  “Give me my ear back,” the Snack Shack cashier says, “or I’ll be seeing you in small claims court.”

  These are the last words the Snack Shack cashier says before Stagger Lee lifts up the cash register and introduces it to his head.

  This is the verbal exchange that transpires:

  Cash Register: May I burst your brains all over the counter?

  Head: Why of course, my good fellow.

  Now that the introductions are out of the way, Stagger Lee waves his machine gun as if he were conducting an orchestra. Bullets spray across the room.

  The Snack Shack’s customers disapprove of his performance. They boo. They hiss. They fling severed organs at his vintage coat. They stop breathing in protest of his cacophonic symphony.

  Alex Tron celebrates Stagger Lee’s atrocities with a “the roof, the roof, the roof is on fire!”

  Stagger Lee looks up at the roof. It is not on fire.

  Stagger Lee is perplexed.

  Alex Tron picks bullet shells out of his mustache. “We don’t need no water, let the mother fucker burn!”

  Stagger Lee tries to clear up his confusion with another hail of bullets.

  Alex Tron mistakes the bullets for chronic pellets. He swallows them. He uses oxygen to chase them down. He anxiously awaits the effect they will have on his central nervous system. He does not have a central nervous system. The imagineers did not think it was worth giving him an artificial central nervous system. The bullets have no effect on him. He thinks Stagger Lee must have given him some weak-ass shit. He does not complain because he wants Stagger Lee to like him.

  The corpses in the Snack Shack make rude, gassy noises.

  Alex Tron turns to admonish them: “Yo, dawgs. That’s fuckin’ nasty. Take a Gas-X or some shi-”

  He realizes the customers are dead. This makes him upset. Alex Tron’s emotional instability is beginning to fry his circuitry. His systems would be ok with one dead customer. It wouldn’t even require maintenance if there were a few dead customers. But the Snack Shack is a very popular place. Alex Tron is starting to question Stagger Lee’s behavior. He does this while his circuitry forces him to do jumping jacks. I am not sure if I want to convert to Stagger Lee’s species if it means I will have to kill everyone in sight, he thinks. This offends my moral matrix a little.

  Stagger Lee lights a cigarette and inhales the fumes. He looks cool, collected—too relaxed for someone who has just massacred a roomful of snackers. The paradox overloads Alex Tron’slogic circuits, freezing his moral matrix.

  Alex Tron stops crying. He stops hopscotching. He decides to breakdance upon the bodies of the dead. He makes it so.

  An angry voice pipes in through the Snack Shack’s speakers. The Snack Shack’s speakers have never been home to an angry voice before. Previous to Stagger Lee’s massacre, it had only played syrupy-sweet jingles about how corndogs are a cure for erectile dysfunction. The angry voice says, “This is Zanyland security. We are angry and contractually obligated to mention that corndogs are a cure for erectile dysfunction. We have the Snack Shack surrounded, Negroid. Put your weapons down and come out with your pants around your ankles.”

  Stagger Lee goes around to each table, collecting dead babies. He puts the babies on the table. He hollows out their skulls. He puts explosives where their brains used to be. He sets them to explode at the same time. One by one, he tosses the babies through the front of the Snack Shack. He puts down his machine gun. He puts down his meat cleaver.

  He comes out with his pants around his ankles.

  Many security guards are holding dead babies, caressing dead babies, telling dead babies that everything will be ok.

  Stagger Lee counts to ten and the dead babies become his agents of destruction. The security men go to pieces. The pieces splatter all over Stagger Lee’s vintage coat. He grins. He does not seem to care about the condition of his vintage coat. Perhaps he enjoys bathing in the fluids of his enemies.

  Alex Tron sighs. It is such a cool coat. Its gory condition jump-starts his moral matrix, causing him to say, “Nigga, you be trippin’ wit all dis exploding dead baby shit. That’s some serious fucked up shit you’re doin’ to your coat. Can you give me directions to another bad motherfucker who don’t do all this serious fucked up shit? Peace.”

  Stagger Lee ignores him. He goes over to a security guard and asks for directions. Half of the guard’s face has been blown off. He tries to speak. His lips flop to the ground like a glob of phlegm. He stares down at his lips in regret. He looks towards Alex Tron. He uses sign language: “Do you know sign language? I had to learn it because I have a deaf child. She will be terrified of me when I go home tonight.”

  Alex Tron wiggles his fingers to tell the security officer that the imagineers programmed him to use sign language for the hearing impaired.

  The security guard signs that Stagger Lee arrived in a time machine. He signs that maybe Alex Tron can borrow the machine to travel to wherever Stagger Lee came from and make the acquaintance of another bad mother humper, but one who doesn’t do all this seriously impolite poop. He signs that the time machine looks like a Rubik’s Cube, only more futuristic.

  Nearby, Stagger Lee rips the head off Gerry Giraffe, exposing the torso of the staff member that lies beneath.

  An eight-year-old boy manipulates his face into a frozen scream, snaps open a cell phone, and tells his lawyer to prepare a lawsuit against Zanyland for the years of psychological trauma that will result from the knowledge that Gerry Giraffe is vulnerable to decapitation.

  Stagger Lee tears out the long intestine of anyone who is unfortunate enough to be standing nearby. He swings his arms around and launches his victims into the Floridian sky.

  Showgirls parachute down from a Zanyplane. They do not bat a heavily mascaraed eyelash at the mutilated bodies skyrocketing past them.

  The angry voice is back again. It says, “Use these women with our compliments. Just don’t hurt anyone else.”

  Stagger Lee looks at the parachuting showgirls and snarls, “I’ll climb over fifty good pussies to get one fat boy’s asshole.”

  Alex Tron locates Stagger Lee’s time machine in a pile of gallbladders. It really does look like a Rubik’s Cube. It also has bright lights that flash in different colors. This makes Alex Tron think of the future. He tries to solve the puzzle.

  He cannot solve the puzzle. He wishes the imagineers had programmed him with puzzle-solving capabilities. He considers telling Stagger Lee where their office is located.

  The surviving security officers form a single file line, remove their pants, bend down, and point their buttocks towards Stagger Lee.

  Stagger Lee stomps over to the back of the line. The officer at the end looks frightened. Stagger Lee leers at his asshole and says, “Fuck this shit. Turn around and suck my dick or you gonna be dead.”

  The officer agrees with a slurp and “mmm mmm mmm” sounds.

  Stagger Lee’s eyes glaze over in pleasure.

  Alex Tron’s moral matrix is very disturbed by the mouth rape. He cannot stop tap dancing. He tap dances over to the sexual assault. He goes through the officer’s pants while tap dancing. He locates the officer’s zanygun while tap dancing. He presses it to Stagger Lee’s forehead while tap dancing.

  Stagger Lee does not notice.

  Alex Tron tap dances as he pulls the trigger and yells, “Buck buck buck buck!”

  A missile escapes out of the gun barrel. It penetrates Stagger Lee’s skull.

  A flash of fire is seen through his ears, nose, and throat.

  His glazed eyes cook in their sockets. A hole explodes through his hat. A miniature
mushroom cloud rises out of it.

  Blixa Bargeld lets out the illest scream that Alex Tron has ever heard.

  Alex Tron stops tap dancing.

  Invincible

  The boy goes to the store and buys oak tag and colored pencils. He sets up a table and chair outside his house, puts a jug of his mother’s lemonade down on the table, writes “lemommade 25 sents,” on the piece of oak tag, tapes it to the table so its bottom faces the sidewalk and flops around in the summer breeze.

  It is early in the morning. Business is slow. Hours pass. Business picks up. The street is congested with thirsty automobile owners. The boy has almost enough money to buy a kit for making refrigerator magnets. The boy really wants to make his own refrigerator magnets.