BOB JOHNSON RIDES AGAIN! 328

328. THE LONG DARK HAPPY HOUR OF THE SOUL

328. THE LONG DARK HAPPY HOUR OF THE SOUL

About the same time Tex Mex and Zorro were each crawling into the wrong bed together, Tex Mex’s recently de-estranged daughter, Elegant Marie Fishbinder, was enjoying her umpteenth low budget cocktail at Giuseppe’s with her new friend, the recently returned from an endless Hollywood meeting, Bunny Fairchild. Over the previous hours, Elegant had grown so confused by her role in the currently de-escalating three-paragraphs-at-a-time saga of Bob Johnson that she has had to reread the last few dozen chapters (nobody should ever be forced to do that–especially not their author!) in order to recall who she was, what she was doing, and why she was doing it. “So it turns out I’m CEO and Chief Operating Officer and entire staff of something called The Tex Mex and Zorro Planet of Adventure out at Avila Beach Ranch, where our customers over the last few weeks add up to zero, not counting employees such as One-Eyed Jack (the county’s gruffest billygoat), his wife and his kids (sorry.) Which leaves me plenty of time (or, more accurately, all of it) polishing this seat at the bar. What about you, Bunny? I know you’re a high powered agent and all at ICBMBM or whatever, but I thought you exhausted the financial possibilities of the previous Bob Johnson book, and were currently looking around for a new ‘hot property’ such as, say, the story of a young adopted daughter of a country western (not at all) superstar who launches herself into space, launches herself home again, and eventually finds herself sitting in the bar with, you know. You. Now tell me the truth, Bunny. Is that one hairy-assed paragraph or not?”

And of course like any decent literary rights agent, Bunny has managed to soar right through this previous paragraph without losing a single moment’s pause issuing a pretty hairy-assed paragraph of her own: “Okay, so we had an auction for the first Bob Johnson book and nobody came, but that doesn’t mean that nobody will come to the second one for this book, and I have this pitch that will sure get their attention! Basically, Bob Johnson Rides Again! starts off really boring, gets more and more boring as it goes along, drags its ass miserably into the middle part and even further, and livens up just in time for the author to return from some ridiculous holiday when it starts getting boring all over again. And now it’s dragging it’s hairy ass through the final chapters with the promise of some slam-bang exciting finish to continue fooling those idiots who ever thought there’d be anything ’slam bang’ about this book to begin with, not to mention some sloppy shotgun of epiphanies about everybody being in love love love while Bob and Thomasina flee into the desert in Bob’s magically resurrected ragtop automobile as Bob gets his inseams seen to which, considering the fact that I’ve met Bob, I’d just as soon not think about right now. Skol!”

It’s enough to make you give up on the thought of tidy, well structured paragraphs! Especially when we lean back just a few inches to overhear the conversation being conducted at a nearby cocktail table between Dr Harvey (no relation) Weinstein and Nurse Ratched, the cruelly efficient woman who took his job as Head Caregiver at Never Die Young, Inc. in Los Osos, the only working senior care center with its own functioning (for the most part) crematorium. And Dr Weinstein is in fine form (or not): “So basically, Nurse Ratched, you do everything a Head Caregiver needs to do except, of course, for the unwanted and often just as unwelcome spuriously applied sexual advances part, which is where I can help. When you see an attractive, busty nurse in the corridor, offer to brush the lint from her chest–she won’t like it one bit! Or approach other attractive, busty young moms in the produce department of your local Grocery Outlet and say things like, “Are these pears ripe?” while energetically squeezing those busts, or “My nuts are aching!” while showing her a bag of fresh California-grown walnuts. The world is a huge invitation to unwanted (and often just as unwelcome) sexual advances, Nurse Ratched! You just need to reach out, grab them by the balls and shout–Hey! Oh no! Who’s that coming through the front door! I’ll say it again: Oh no! It’s none other than my vindictive homicidal lover of the moment, Honey Brazil! And boy does she look pissed!”