MARCH OF THE MONSTERS: WAKE UP NAKED MONKEY YOU'RE GOING TO DIE!

The ketamine-laced tranquilizer dart was wearing off. Jimbo raised his head, but all he could see were the glowing rainbow sprites swirling above him, moth-fluttering around the smoky oaky torches bolted to the cavern's ceiling. Pretty lights, oo, he'd love to float among them like a supernaut. If only he wasn't tied down to this rusty old sacrifice throne.

"Kill tone! Jelly smash!" yelled the Feeb.

The shout cut Jimbo's brain-haze like a razorblade on a punch-swollen eyelid. Thank God for ol' Feeb; he missed the Brainy Train all right, but what wits he was dealt never went dull, no matter how much booze or weed was in his system.

The Alleygat Autocrats had surely spat gigantic rainbows in all their minds, but Feeb, he knew how to keep everyone on course. A coarse, hoarse course, of course. Fuck him and the horse he coursed in on .... Jimbo's head fell sleepy-dead to his spattered chest.

"Explorers, come out and plaaaay!" screeched the Feeb.

"Wakey bakey," Jimbo snorted, his eyes popping open. He focused in on Bobby, who lay in a darkening pool of stickiness. The monster's minions had bobbed his legs clean off below the knee. A gummy machete lay mere feet away, just out of reach.

Fucking minions, Jimbo thought, his head clearing a bit more. What kind of nihilistic fuckclowns firebombed their own city and worshipped a big jiggly sonic death slug that wanted to apocalyze the whole planet? Big Slime could've promised to poop pure gold for all Jimbo knew, but who could cash it in if the world was cashed out? Stupid mooks.

Jimbo saw Bobby's chest rise and fall. His leg vessels had probably rolled up inside the stumps, saving him from a quick bleeding death so he could look forward to slowly melting in the belly of the beast.

Ain't life a peach? Always cut down, and not across, kids, Jimbo thought.

"Hey Bobby," Jimbo called, his throat dry and rough as the hemp ropes binding his wrists behind the wrought-iron throne. "Wake up, Bobby."

They'd crippled Bobby because he was the strong one, the one they couldn't rely on drugs and itchy ropes holding. Now Jimbo had to be Hercules. But first he had to bust free of this damned chair.

He craned his neck at the Feeb, who'd been strung up on meathooks through the flesh of his back in a suicide suspension. He'd survive, if they got him down and to a doctor before infection set in.

They were in a freaking charnel house; the greasy remains of countless bodies lay in festering puddles around them. Thank whatever God still cared about this pisspool of a city that their noses closed up shop soon after they found an entrance to the tunnels beneath the cathedral.

Hunt the Wumpus. Raise a rumpus, he wants to jump us ... crap, stay focused! he thought.

"Bobby! BOBBY!"

Bobby stirred and faintly laughed.

Jimbo knew Bobby was off bouncing in Happyfunball Land like he'd been. Still was. He had to give them both something to focus on.

"Bobby, did you know that Catholic priests can bless beer?" he asked. "They can even bless seismograph machines."

"You're shitting me," mumbled Bobby.

"No, I am being completely true with you. A Catholic priest could most especially bless that machete beside you, even though it's done you wrong, like that gal in that country song. You got no legs, Bobby, so don't try to walk, but get that blade and crawl over here with it. Bobby!"

"I got no legs?" Bobby started to drunkenly hum a Monty Python tune.

"Think of the nice blessed seismograph! 'St. Emidius, pray for us, and in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, protect us and also this seismograph from the terror of earthquakes,' the nice priest says. Save us from the terror of singing puddings, Bobby Boy. You've got to."

"I can be abundingly Van Helsingly heroic now, Jimbo," Bobby replied, reaching for the machete. He gripped it, and started to king-snake forward, then went slack, his eyes glazed. "Pretty pretty blood, is it all mine?"

The Feeb wailed and fought his fleshhook chains.

"Ring ring ring the devil's calling! Come out, come out wherever you are!"

"Beer is life, Bobby! Bring the machete," Jimbo implored. "It's Miller time for sure! We gotta hump or we're skunked!"

A low, weirdly modulated rumble rolled from a nearby tunnel. It was the sound of a thousand pounds of ancient clotted slime dragging itself across the floor of the catacombs.

It was the sound of pure impending death, a sound older than evolution, a cosmic alarm clock blaring WAKE UP NAKED MONKEY YOU'RE GOING TO DIE! Every rat brain would fear it like the roar of an exploding star.

Jimbo saw Bobby's pupils expand as the adrenaline hit his blood, and suddenly Bobby was up on rawtorn hands and knees scrabbling to the back of Jimbo's chair, sawing at the knots. Jimbo felt the ropes give and he pulled his hands free, swinging his arms in a pitcher's windmill.

A Catholic priest could bless anything. A perfect, crystalline memory surfaced in the foggy sea of his mind, lit by synaptic fire: the shutout game he'd pitched against St. Francis DeSales in high school. Their coach Father Santoro blessed his baseballs before the game: May God guide your arm like he guided David's sling against Goliath, and with the Lord's help we're gonna beat the snot out of those rich little nancyboys at St. Francis. Amen.

He felt in his pocket for their salvation: the aluminum jar of caustic salt was still there. The last priest alive in the city had blessed it. The minions didn't think to strip them of anything but obvious weapons. Stupid mooks.

The ancient acidic God Slime crawled into the flickering torchlight like an enormous, unholy pudding glistening with a million emerald eyes. It was humming, vibrating, getting louder. They only had a few susurrous heartbeats until it reached the deadly tone to batter bones muscles to pulp, liquefying their flesh so the acidic abomination could sponge them into its hundred stomachs.

Jimbo pulled out the blessed jar and gripped it split-fingered for a fastball. He whispered, "Sing a song of sixpence, slimeball, 'cause I got a pocket full of lye!"

He wished to himself, prayed to God and pitched as hard as he could. The shiny jar hit the mark and sank fast into the hungry, stanky flank.

The God Slime's ravenous jelly ate through the aluminum, and suddenly its innards started blistering, bubbling, foaming. The caustic salts bloomed whitely inside the green, translucent flesh. The monster thrashed, melting faster than a sugar witch in a rainstorm, hissing a song that was pure delight to the heroes and ghosts listening, rejoicing in the vanquished catacombs.

I've looked at so many houses now that, when I enter one, it feels like I've walked into the physics of a dream. The floors and walls float and loom and I wonder why I'm staring at the stained concrete floor instead of taking in the room as a whole. Checking the quality and layout of things like bathrooms and washers and dryers has become noting their presence, a scavenger hunt of going from room to room mentally checking things off. What is rotten. What is worth salvaging. Does all this add up to "needs gutted" or "stop looking and do the books again to see if there's enough for closing costs."

I'm still looking even though I have an offer in - sort of - on a place. It's a short sale, which is a term I didn't know before I (prematurely) started all this. The owner's facing foreclosure and to spare him that nasty scar and the bank the expense of taking it to auction, they're taking offers for less than he owes them. It's a good price for a house that size, in that location. But I don't know what's under the floors, or behind the walls. Could be termites, cloth wiring, rusted pipes. It looks square, but when you find you've flipped upside down while you're actually seeing it, it's hard to be sure. It's a fireplace and three bathrooms and a washer and dryer and a big, squat HVAC unit. It's a big house on a small lot with rooms that disappear and reappear depending on your vantage and what day of the week it is. It scares me, and I think maybe I should just buy a condo too small for all the shit I'm going to go crazy if I can't spread out, because at least that means that my lack of knowledge can only hurt me inside its walls.

It's a dumb thing to be scared of. I know things about construction and maintenance. I helped build a barn, and a treehouse with real windows and a porch and built-in bunkbeds and a trapdoor onto the roof. I've learned plenty about how walls are made and raised and how windows and doors are hung. I know how often to clean a chimney and an air filter and what to do if the pipes might freeze. I own a number of surge protectors and a cordless drill. It's not like I'd be helpless as a homeowner.

It comes down to money. I try to tell myself to be brave about this and it will pay off, but the commitment doesn't sit well with me. I don't buy shit on credit. I got talked into buying a car and regretted it every day since. But if I do this now I will have something, an investment. I'll also have a big fucking $250,000 anchor, and honestly, I'm resourceful enough that tearing my life down to nothing and starting over has always worked out better for me in the end. I've got no hard evidence that I need an investment. Hell, as a smoker, there's a good likelihood I'll retire and keel over and die of lung cancer the very next day. And what good is an investment going to do me then?

I felt a lot more sure about all of this before my mom came to visit me. She used to scare me. Now it's hard for her to keep up, I have to force myself to slow down and still I can hear that she's a little winded. She's much calmer than she used to be, much less mercurial. That should make me happy, but it scares the hell out of me. She's getting old. My mom who worked three jobs and spent her spare time cleaning the house and who would stop the car on the side of the freeway every ten miles - fuck the weather - to pour more water in the radiator cause we couldn't afford to get the fucking thing fixed. When we're sitting at dinner, tipsy on wine and margaritas, I can't see that she's gotten shorter than me. She's talking about having dinner with my grandparents and uncles while high on acid and laughing. But as soon as we get up, she's small and docile again and it strikes me that my role has changed. The time is not far off when I'm going to have to take care of all these people, and I don't feel ready.

Some selfish part has always looked forward to being alone in my life. I'm coming to terms with the fact that it doesn't really go down like that. Maybe you outlive your parents, you grieve for them and then there's no one left who you have to please or be careful of. Except your siblings, your spouse, your pets, your friends. All these people you don't want to disappoint by just falling off the edge of the earth and letting yourself go to hell. You're already in too deep, you can't get out without hurting someone, probably a lot of people. So you buy a house, you put down roots, you have dinner parties and you go to dinner parties and maintain a sick hope that something terrible happens to make them all shut you out so you can go hang yourself in the square-edged garage with the stained concrete floors.

There is something about the way she smells that forces me to smile, even when she's pissing me off. And every time she tosses her hair and squints her eyes at me (before stomping down the stairs and slamming the front door) I remember the reason I fell in love with her.

(She makes me ridiculously happy.)

Some people forget about this, the longer their relationships wear on. Its the reason people split up, families are torn apart, husbands and wives divorce.
Not us.
I'd never let her go.
Because the times when we aren't fighting are beautiful. (And I know that its just the hormones anyways.)

Inside her slowly growing belly is something that, when magnified, must somehow resemble the Geico spokeslizard.
Sitting with her in the dim room, and seeing that faint flicker on the screen during the ultrasound told me that we had created a beating heart. And more would grow of it. Every day, more and more new cells are forming. I sometimes picture our baby forming the way the Hawaiian islands came to be. Layers and layers and layers of slowly oozing magma. Only, you know. Cells instead of magma, obviously, lest a lava-baby spring from the loins of my cranky, bloated, amazing wife.

So on these days, when we can't even watch Ren and Stimpy together without arguing, I smile, and remember the way she was when I first met her. Loud, laughing, and witty, to balance out the hormonal, crying, angry woman that lives here now.

I play the perfect husband; bring her ice cream, rub her feet, hold her hair when she feels sick.
But all the time, waiting for my wife to return, and bring with her our son, or daughter, or spokeslizard.

We pick out names, and I catch little breaths of her perfume, even though she's been at her mother's house for the last 3 days. She used to not mind when I snored.

I paint the nursery to look like a key lime pie (white up top, creamy green, with a chair rail) because I know that's her favorite, but the thought of it makes her sick, lately. (I blame the lizard).

And while I've got a good 6 or so months left before she comes home for good (no more mood swings, no more crying), I steady myself; reminding us both that things are constantly getting better.

_{^{(I love you, Cici.)}}