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Chapter 4
The Hummer Limo — Sun is high over the distant horizon, scorching my retinas. I stare back. I like to live dangerously. I wouldn’t be here otherwise.
When I got in the limo, the driver had not yet taken his seat. He was talking to Annette about me. It was like watching a TMZ exclusive unfold in the Krone lobby. The discussion was so animated that the people sitting outside came in to listen. Every few minutes, in unison, the crowd would fall silent and turn to look at me, like I had just bought tickets to All About Steve.
The jokes on them. I’m in a hummer limo, they’re still using Mr. Ed to get around.
I could hear a lot of words repeated, creepy sounding words, but then, every thing sounds creepy in Romania. I quietly got Klingon for the Galactic Traveler from my American Eagle man bag and looked up the words. Each of them sounded like something growled at a death metal concert. I heard the words, “Satan”, “hell”, and “stregoica”. Stergoica doesn’t mean “awesome drum solo, Lars!”. It means “werewolf” or “vampire”. “Werewolf” I know about from the Teen Wolf documentaries, but what the hell is a vampire?
The crowd swelled to a healthy teabagger size. All of them made the sign of the cross, planned a human sacrifice to appease Glen Beck, and pointed two fingers towards me. At least it wasn’t the middle one. Annoyed, I rolled down my window. I got one of the less crazed members of the mob to come over and tell me what was going on. Last time I checked, this wasn’t the United States, so why should Eastern Europeans get so worked up about our president’s birth certificate?
With some difficulty, the woman lacking mouth foam answered my queries. She explained the mob was issuing a guard against the evil eye.
“Wouldn’t a red string do?” I asked, remembering my Mom and her silly superstition about the evil eye.
I was growing more uncomfortable than a forty-five year-old man at a Britney Spears concert. The firm makes all of our clients sign a waiver before we represent them. The waiver has the client stipulate they’re not re-animated corpses, standard policy after the Loman Incident. As far as I know, Dracula sent the waiver back without a check in the boxes of Werewolf, Zombie, or Fruity Yummy Mummy, the deadliest of the three.
Come to think of it, Dracula’s waiver came to us via fax. If he has a fax machine, he can’t be a monster. How many monsters have their own fax machine? The waiver was good enough for Amliea, and I wasn’t worried when she sent me But … everyone seemed so kind-hearted, so sorrowful, and so sympathetic that I couldn’t help but be touched and feel an increasing urge to crap myself in terror.
I shall never forget the last glimpse of the Krone and its crowd of clowns and professional wrestlers, crossing themselves as they stood in the lobby. I started to recall the last email I got from Loman as I reached into my bag …
John,
I am in the company of Captain Robert Walton on Kaffeklubben Island. We have come across a curious individual by the name of Victor Frankenstein. Since joining us, Victor has been prattling on about needing to vanquish his monster. I know what you are thinking. Let me assure you there is a monster, calling itself “Adam”, and that Frankenstein is not speaking about anything located in his pants. I have verified the monster’s existence through reports by the ship’s crew and intend to offer “Adam” our services.
This is the first time our firm has ventured to offer our services to a monster. Therefore, I cannot be certain that “Adam” will react positively to our offer. While I believe any time will do for dying, there are some things I would like to share should the worse come. Most importantly, an item about my Father and his unfortunate demise. You know I have been a beneficiary of his suicide, having sold my father’s story to that Marilyn Monroe-marrying playwright. I don’t regret doing so. The royalty check paid for my attendance at Harvard Law. But I have never quite divulged why I would attend Harvard over entering the door-to-door encyclopedia world my father occupied.
He believed in the American Dream more than anyone. In his heart, he thought that no matter who, what, or where, you can improve your lot in life if you were liked well enough. I’ve noticed with dismay that many critics think my Father was wrong. He was quite right about the way America works. It’s not about how hard you work or how talented you might be. It has been, and always will be, about whom you know and whether or not they like you enough to pull their strings.
I never graduated from Harvard Law. Instead, I simply slept with several of the professors my second year. I received positive recommendations for both my performance and when Groucho, Harpo and Zeppo called. If you could make sure this information is not shared with my mother, I promise not to haunt you. She still has what she thinks is my diploma on her living room wall.
-Happy
P.S. If I do not return, I have a gift for you. It is located in my third desk draw. Make sure to get it before they empty my office.
Although he allegedly never took the stuff, Amleia told me Loman always had his “happy pills”. Apparently he got the pills from his Father, which would explain Loman’s name and his father’s declining mental state
I didn’t think I’d ever need them. But if I’m joining Dangerfield, Pryor, and Carlin, I’d like to bring some glorious technicolor to this drab, Mordor-like hellhole.
I popped the first tablet as the driver waddled to the hummer limo. He looked like a Romanian Silent Bob. The driver settled down into the car with tremendous effort, inching his blue whale-like frame through the driver side door. I couldn’t help but notice during the struggle that the seat next to him was neatly packed with a thick stack of Levis.
Are they for his consistently split jeans? Or are they meant to replace the crapped pants of his passengers?
-John
FYI: TJ Max needs to be organized better, it looks like Good Will.
