Your Next-Door Neighbor Is a Dragon (24 page)

The hand came with a polyethylene cover that disguised it as a real hand, right down to painted freckles and tiny hairs. Unfortunately, I melted the hand’s realistic cover on the electric burner of my friend’s stove long before my trip to Texas. I was waiting for a replacement, but they had to be custom made to fit each hand and match your skin tone.

Without the polyethylene cover…well, it was more Terminator than Bionic Man. It looked like the hand of a robotic skeleton inside my glove. It looked, for lack of a better word, evil.

Travis Fish couldn’t pull my glove completely off with the glass of Scotch in my hand, but he yanked it down to my knuckles. He stood frozen, dumbfounded, by the prosthetic device.

“Canyon,” he whispered.

“Deacon Fish,” I pleaded. “It’s okay. I ruined my hand in a car door several months ago and—”

“Canyon!” Travis Fish shouted.

His brother stood up, scattering the Connect Four board and pieces on the table. His matronly opponent gasped with surprise.

“What is it!?” Canyon rushed to his brother’s side.

I tried to jerk my hand away, but Travis had a death lock on it. His face was red now, his eyes hot with anger.

“It is The Beast!” he raged. “He brought this evil into our house. He is a, a, a robot hellion!”

No use pointing out that they brought me into their house. I attempted to shove Travis away and I got to my feet. In that process, I somehow contracted my forearm muscle too much, triggering a sympathetic response in my prosthetic hand. My grip tightened on the tumbler full of Scotch and it shattered in an explosion of glass and “the good stuff.”

Slivers of glass stabbed Travis Fish’s hand and he yowled in pain.

“Aaaahh!” He held up his blood-flecked fingers for his brother to see. “He’s bit me bad!”

Tears wet his cheeks. He swooned.

Canyon caught his brother as he fainted and the larger Fish boy lifted the smaller up like a bride in his arms. I saw my opportunity and attempted to escape, but was headed off by the Sect Service dorks wearing sunglasses.

“Hold ’em!” Canyon bellowed as he settled his brother gently onto the couch. “Hold that devil.”

“Come on.” I shoved at the skinnier of the two. “Get the hell off me!”

They weren’t big, but their fingers were like metal restraints snapping around my upper arms. I knew I could force my way past them with my desperate strength given a minute or two of struggle. I didn’t have nearly that long.

I grunted and shoved the skinnier of the two men backward. His flat face registered exaggerated surprise, like a cartoon painted on the blade of a shovel. My push flung him back into the door, slamming it open and almost toppling him over in the process.

“Gaaaoohh!” he shouted.

His momentum dragged me with him and we spilled out into the entryway of the building. I had a flash of hope, but it was fleeting. He regained his footing and shoved back while his slightly larger friend pulled me into the recreation room from behind. I kicked behind me, but I failed to connect with anything more solid than a pant leg.

I twisted and jerked around, nearly managing to pry open the hands of the larger of the two men. I was so contorted in one direction that when he abruptly released me I nearly fell to the ground.

Then Canyon arrived to give me his full attention. The big Fish brother easily overpowered me and twisted my left arm painfully behind my back. He grabbed my right arm just behind the wrist and held it away from my body like a dangerous weapon. The metal prosthetic sparkled and reflected the lights.

“I weel banish you back ta hell, devil,” Canyon roared. “In the name of Jesus!”

“I’m not a robot you hickory smoked moron!” I cried in protest.

Then Canyon turned me around, his face a sloppy stack of furrows, and I saw he was holding a machete. It was carbonized black with a silver edge and Canyon was holding it at face-chopping level, cocked back in one of his meaty paws.

“What the fuck, man?” It was a rhetorical question.

Canyon answered anyway, swinging the machete directly at my face. As razor-sharp death hurtled toward my head I could only think of one thing,
Who is going to call the car rental company and let them know that m
—

B
eing dead isn’t so bad.

You just stop doing everything.

I guess it might depend on how and why you stop doing everything. Dying from cancer might be pretty bad because it takes so long. One of those heroic movie deaths where you have enough time to gasp out some last words might be painful. I can say from experience, getting machete chopped in the skull is all right.

Not bad.

Without much reference I’d go with a seven out of ten.

“What the shit is up, bro?” The voice was soothing, materializing out of the nothing.

The darkness of eternal slumber gave way to a soft white light. Above me, gigantic and leonine, was an elderly man with a flowing white beard and long white hair. Though I somehow knew he was ancient—as old as time—there was no trace of weariness or weakness. He seemed almost youthful. Maybe it was the sunglasses.

“Helllllooo,” he boomed from on high. “Wake up, dude.”

The soft light slowly resolved into a large and brightly lit room. I could hear music playing, laughter, all around me were people. Dancing. No…

“Are those people having sex?” I asked.

“No, they are fuckin’,” the voice boomed. “So are those other people. And those two chicks there. What’s up, babies?”

“Are the—”

“Ooooh!” He interrupted and slid his shades down to the tip of his nose. “Some sex demons in here. Big titty sex demons. Mmm, mmm, mmm, look at those girls go.”

“Demons?” I pushed myself up. “Am I in hell?”

“Hell?”

I heard a roar like a trillion thunderclaps all at once. I realized the white-haired giant was astride a burning motorcycle. With a rumble of thunder he descended from the cottony clouds to the soft, cushiony ground next to me. He smelled like pussy and weed smoke. He was wearing a denim vest that showed off his big biceps. One bicep was tattooed with a gorgeous naked woman, on the other a tattoo of gothic script read
FUCK YEAH
in all capital letters.

“Is this Heaven?” I asked.

The man laughed.

“Better.” He took off his shades and hooked them in his front pocket. “This is Super Heaven.”

A cheer of delight went up from the orgying masses all around us. Even the big titty sex demons cheered.

“So that means you’re…Super God?”

It was almost too much to hope.

“I wish, bro. I’m Super Saint Peter.” He pointed to his crotch. “Peter, like a dick. Like that kind of peter. It’s easy to remember.”

“I won’t forget it,” I assured him.

He was already busy with a spiral bound notepad. He flipped it open and clicked a pen.

“So, bro, you got macheted in the frigging head. Pretty sweet way to go. Did it hurt?”

“No much,” I shrugged.

“Really? Well, I’ve got you down for natural causes.”

“What do you mean?” I had plainly died from a machete to the face.

“Could be anything just about.” Super Saint Peter shrugged. “Cancer, stroke, fatness, titty sex, dinosaur bite, lung wiggles, rockets.”

“Rockets?”

“Oh, shit, guess that is an accident,” he snorted. “Whatever. Replace it with over-wailing on your guitar. I am high as fuck right now. If you want to just go back there or whatever, that’s cool.”

“I can go back?”

“Naw, you got to go back,” he said. “I can’t have any early arrivals. So, one wish.”

“A wish?”

“Yeah, are you a retard or something? You keep asking all these retard questions. You get a wish since we effed up. Our way of saying sorry.”

“I can wish for anything?”

“Not more wishes, you chode. Don’t try to game the system.”

“I want my rental car back.”

Super Saint Peter stared at me, his face slack.

“I want my rental car back,” I repeated.

“Anything except more wishes,” he said, apparently deciding to pretend that I had not just made my wish. “You want your real hand back? Maybe you want to have two dicks or, oh, I know, you can fly. You want to fly?”

“Sure,” I said, “but that’s not my wish. I want my rental car back, unburned.”

“A billion dollars?”

“I had a lot of important notes in my car,” I said, starting to grow annoyed. “I had a bunch of CDs too. And my iPod. And I had just bought one of those window shades.”

“Bro.” Super Saint Peter rested one of his giant hands on my shoulder. “Listen, bro, I can give you any wish you want. You can have anything. You can
be
anything. The only limit is your imagination.”

I looked him in his eyes which were constantly exploding with fire in a super awesome way behind the sunglasses.

“Dude, I’m starting to get pissed off. Fix my car.”

“I’m just saying—”

“No,” I shouted, startling a pair of nurses 69ing nearby. “I will fuck you up, dude. I will fuck you up if you don’t send me back with my car.”

“Dude, you are such an asshole,” Super Saint Peter said.

“Exactly,” I said to the barren Texas roadside.

I was alive.

More importantly, so was my car. I looked at the backseat and saw the sunshade neatly folded and sitting next to my backpack full of notebooks and recording gear.

With a smile on my face, I put the vehicle in drive and pulled back onto the road.

Two Weeks Later

“I’m not surprised,” said Roger Malthus.

His voice was distant, distorted, the words echoing out from the cheap speaker phone. It sounded as though he were calling to me down the length of a stone tunnel.

“It’s not possible, Roger,” I replied. “I was dead. The Fishes killed my fucking face with a machete. How could I be here, talking to you?”

I was actually in my house and Roger was back in St. Louis, but that didn’t detract from the improbability of the moment. I was alive.

“I’m alive!” I added.

“Are you?” Roger asked. “How can you be sure? Maybe you’re dead and this is all something your brain is imagining to comfort you in your dying moments. It’s like that movie.”

“Jacob’s Ladder,”
I said.

“No, I think it was
Donnie Darko.
It had the fat guy from
My Name Is Earl.
But that’s just one possibility. You already know what I think it is.”

I had my suspicions as to what Roger believed.

“Say it so I can tell you that you’re wrong,” I insisted.

“You’re an Otherkin,” Roger said.

“You’re wrong.”

“You say that, but a lot of us don’t want to believe in our Otherkin side when it first reveals itself. You could be a dragon, or…”

“Or what?”

“Ghostkin,” he said. “It’s an offshoot of spiritkin. Very rare.”

“So you’re saying I’m a ghost?”

“Kin. It’s like ‘ish’ in this case. Ghost-ish.”

“But I’m alive,” I asserted again. “And what about all that stuff in Super Heaven? Am I an angel?”

“Dude, you’re whatever you want to be.” I could hear the creak as Roger leaned back in his chair. “You want to be a ghost, be a ghost. You want to be alive, then be alive.”

“What if I want to be an elf?”

Roger laughed.

“Your hands are way too hairy for that.”

I looked at my right hand, flexing it carefully and examining the fingers. He was right, the dark hairs crept from my wrist up onto the back and side of my hand. Wait…my hand…was…

“What about
Robocop?
” I asked.

“Sweet movie,” Roger said.

“No, I had a mechanical hand, when I was there. I…can I be Robocop? Is there a Robocopkin?”

Roger laughed loudly for several seconds before replying.

“No,” he finally answered. “That would be ridiculous.”

A
great many people have made this book possible and in a fair world their names would sit beside mine on the cover of this book. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a fair world at all; we live in a Boschian hellscape populated by fish-headed children and rat men living inside hollow pumpkins. In this world all of the wonderful people who have contributed so much are relegated to a few short words at the back of the book.

My thanks to them are no less heartfelt.

First and foremost, I have to thank Michelle, who for the final few weeks of this project came to know me as a living grievance. She indulged my complaints or told me to shut my stupid face and get back to work depending on the situation. She is an invaluable ally in all of my work and the love of my life.

Rich “Lowtax” Kyanka deserves to be thanked in more than a few sentences here. He has been a friend, mentor, and employer for most of a decade. Without him this book would be about wacky cat pictures, or Mr. T eating balls, or it might not exist at all.

Josh Hass and Dave “Shmorky” Kelly were both great to work with on this project. Josh is my art dude. He is always willing and enthusiastic whenever I need his help on a project big or small. When I ask him to do a cover he exceeds my expectations. Shmorky has been a buddy of mine for years and I’m not exaggerating when I say that someday there will be a documentary crew making a movie about his weird genius.

David Thorpe is the smartest guy I know. I asked him to write the foreword to this book because someday people will be buying anything involving him. It’s like getting Kurt Vonnegut or J. D. Salinger to write your foreword before the world has really heard of him. Dave is the sort of writer that would make me hatefully jealous if he wasn’t such a genuine and nice guy.

Josh “Livestock” Boruff, Reid “Frolixo” Paskiewicz, Johnny “Doc-Evil” Titanium, Joseph “Maxnmona” Fink, Dennis “CTS” Farrell, and Bob “BobServo” Mackey are just some of the writers I have had the privilege to work with at Something Awful. If I were starting a magazine to make people laugh I would hire them all, but magazines are some twentieth-century bullshit.

Richard Ember was my patient and helpful editor at Kensington, despite anything I might have implied earlier in the book. Jeremie Ruby-Strauss advised me throughout the darker days of this project, and he has been someone I know I can trust when it comes to books.

I talked to a lot of people while writing this book, and my sources were invaluable to the creative process. Believe it or not, there are real people behind the words in this book. Some of them might not resemble the characters so much, some of them might prefer it that way, but they all deserve my thanks. You made this happen.

There are also the hundreds of people who helped out in small ways. These people might be overlooked in boring regular books, or at best thanked on the Internet. Instead, I want to take the time and paper to thank each of them individually. May their legends never die.

David Coburn, thank you for always being there when I needed a huge pair of tits to cry on. Kaydie, you brought me my dramatic spittoon for whenever I said the name of the cowboy I hate. Alex “MajorPain” Chiodo, we never saw eye-to-eye, but that was because you were always digging those fucking holes. What the hell were you looking for?

Nathan McKenzie, your name will live on in this book of magical mystery, but you will be dead by sundown. Karen, I will never look at sporks the same way again, because you stabbed yours into my eye. Myles, though you are Irish, you have been trained with whips and hot tar to act almost like a human man. Someday we will teach you about pants.

Erik Gilson, thanks for hiding the bodies, you made our scavenger hunts the best ever. Baron von Bytecode, your gigaflops used terawatts, so we had to mega shut you off for a while. Ali Malesick (a.k.a. MonsterBunna) has been putting right what once went wrong. I hope your next leap is the leap home, Ali!

Skellen gyred and gimbled in the wabe and would not shut the hell up about it, either. The Reverend Fellow gay-married us all and we gay-loved it! Yayyy! Reverend Ian Sanderson gay-divorced us all and we gay-hated it! Booo! Thank goodness Philosopher Rhimes was around to lead us out of Plato’s Gay Cave.

There was only one set of footprints on the beach, because Matt Maxwell was carrying me. Kerk offered to help, but then he just stood there and watched. Adam “Nam Taf” Jones brought snacks, and his old buddy Corey S. brought a surfboard. What a jerk!

Scott Cray wore a hair shirt for charity. Chris “Wykkyd-tron” Adams has a fucking ridiculous nickname. Daniel Dellinger is treating the symptoms but not the disease. John Price doesn’t want me to thank Congressman Phil Roe (Tennessee, 1st). Suck on it, John Price. Brandon Soliday is sorry about your holiday. Kate “TunaSplen” Sgouros is stuck in the Sargasso and she loves it.

My good buddy Danielle Hadaway owns three turtles and kisses them at night! That’s okay—Jamal Ginsberg owns four turtles and makes them watch while he lifts weights. MrTim223 doesn’t own any turtles…because he’s only a figment of your imagination!

Right now Marietard is trying to operate her computer with her teeth. Reverend James prayed for my failure, but it was he who failed! I watched while Mathew Gallant threw an old lady into a puddle. BBBoris was going to be thanked, but I want to fucking vomit, thinking of that bloated pustule on the drooling anus of humanity.

Steve LaPorte [TMFC] killed you with the knife, noobler! Dr. K. Hopper will write you a prescription for anything as long as you give him a taste. Steven Long hosed blood off the sidewalk. Clayton R. Schuler is planning to blame Twinkies when he pleads not guilty.

I have to thank Sano, who raided Molten Core solo and brought me the Eye of Sulfuras, even though I just wanted a coffee. Chris “BooDougl87” Myers was going to be thanked, but he’s a reverse racist, so I am omitting his name. Mark’s cat Onyx is heavyweight and still undisputed. Stefano “pigthe” Belli is welterweight and faces challengers for the title every day.

Brian Jet James is not autistic, but he is John Travolta’s son. Valrin Valishen is putting boners back on the menu, BYOB. Missy Willard was there whenever I needed her, as long as I only needed her to shout “No!” and storm out of a room. I caught Chris Forbes and John Earl stealing from the honor system snack bar, but it’s not like I’m going to tell anyone. Oops!

Holly Brockwell may brock well; she is useless when it comes to installing cabinets. David Shirley was no help either, he just sat there eating chips and commenting on her ass. Samuel Birbeck volunteered to help but didn’t even show up. SodiumChloride made me retain water throughout this ordeal.

When I asked Daniel Southern for help, he just hung up the phone. Andrew Coja wanted to talk about the rapping song he was working on and wouldn’t commit to helping. RewardMan will have to await his reward in the Elysian Fields because he will not be receiving a stinking dime from me!

Robert Catt lives inside a green pipe and hates Italians. Mike Douglas ate all of the ice cream, and when I got mad at him, he just said, “Greed is good!” Tyler Stickney and Jessica Colantuono make a cute couple. A cute couple of deadbeat rats! Mathew Weilbacher is my speechwriter.

Dennis Hale ran with a toothpick in his mouth—now look at him! Sakana should’ve had that looked at by a doctor. Ryan “FutureBoy” Sosa came in peace; now he rests in pieces. David S. Gunter just googled “gunt” and he is really pissed. Gareth Evans doesn’t know what gunt means, but he has one. MrMoose loves gunts and has an encyclopedic knowledge of them.

I never would have written this book without Kyle Brodzky, my chief Brodzkier. Dr. Gabriel Jennings consulted on the subject of boners and the popping of them. Darryl Gervis has a laugh exactly like Beavis, and he never wears a shirt. I’m not even sure who Josh Bailey is, he just showed up one day and wouldn’t leave.

John “Reggie” Balsam’s mortal enemy is the infamous Reggie “John” Maslab. James Melvin Bull hates this book and that suits me just fine. Richard Harvey had a date with destiny, but he was stood up. LaMae L is now following you on twitter. Frank Talbot is smoking a Lucky Strike and just waiting for a dame to walk through that door into his office.

Sylvester Prunewinkle has never seen a woman naked. Not a human woman, anyway. WhamoCramo is my favorite board game from Parker Brothers. Thanks, Will. Just Will, you’re so much better than that rascal Dick Ricardo. Brian D. Sek doesn’t want to sit down; he prefers to stand. Sparky doesn’t deserve to be thanked—but does anyone really deserve anything, or are we just assigning arbitrary values based on our own prejudices?

I tried to heat up some food while I was working on the book, but I accidentally plugged in my Hootplate. The noise was so bad, I decided to have a sammich. Thanks, Sammich.

Choco was supposed to be thanked in this sentence. Sorry, Choco. Sexy Kid Toyoma was not supposed to be thanked in this sentence. Mission accomplished. Juha Koo and Michael Du will someday meet in Tha Rhyme Zone. Ben and Linnea Gurn’s plane went down over the Andes, and all we found were a few gnawed bones.

Brandon Alan Abell wrestles under the name Avant Guard. His Titantron entrance music is John Cage’s
4’ 33”
, and his trademark technique is painting an American flag on the mat in period blood. Lauren Reed is his manager and she was in a Situationist evening gown match with SummerGlaucoma. Summer won when she turned into butterflies.

James Snowdon’s guts spilled out in slippery loops, white blood! That was Snowdon’s secret: he was an android! Tom-Erik Oveson roared his Northman’s rage and split the goblin in twain with his mighty axe, Rognoor. Holly Bronson thinks you humans are a disease and she is the cure.

Richard Parkin was parallel parking in Peking’s park when he developed Parkinson’s. At least he didn’t run into Wenjii, the woman Benji. Michael “serakyu” Lee did run into Wenjii, and to make a long story short, he wants his VHS copy of
Pretty in Pink
and his guitar back.

Allan Thomas wanted to be famous—now he’s famous and dead! Evan Taylor just wanted tanks. Now he’s thanked and dead! W. C. Landis 1467 is still sitting in his seat waiting for the twist ending. Tim Hollan prefers his French creamy, his Ranch tangy, and his women fat and sassy. Jeff Wallen is allergic to cats and totally not allergic to the
365 Adorable Kittens
calendar.

Cara Skelsey sounds like she might be Irish, but I’m including her anyway. Jimmsta is definitely Irish. I won’t be thanking Jimmsta. SuperSlacker was born under a blue sun, but beneath the light of our yellow sun he can do the nothing of a hundred men. Boaz will one day discover SuperSlacker’s weakness and force him to work around the clock, mending shoes. Pakelika Wellington III commands you to run out the guns and prepare for broadside.

I can’t believe Charles Skeavington just ate that Band-Aid he found on the floor. Jess and Doug Mundy are so disgusted, they stopped licking each other’s sores. Mike Hill dropped his spoonful of cholera vomit right back into warm bucket. Sara Utley is still gnawing on her rat carcass teeming with maggots, but she is doing so with much less enthusiasm.

Eletricsugar is my favorite soda additive. William Bailey is a dickhead and Irish, and there is no fucking way in hell I am thanking him in this book. I hope Mike Squitieri isn’t angry right now, but who can tell with that guy? Good news, Katie Leyland is going to murder everyone named in this book. Everyone, that is, except Josh Milburn. Her alter ego.

Tom Berube? Don’t mind if I do! Bapes? Yes, please! Michael Piazza? With mushrooms and onions! No, wait, Michael I’m sorry. A pizza joke right there is disgusting. How about: Michael Piazza? I barely knew him!

Jon “Jingleheimer” Britton is ironically making a Redguard character in
Morrowind.
Nutella and Burtshine are great on toast with a little Marshmallow Fluff. Bill Rickabaugh agrees, and he started the damn company! Jurend Nogiec can’t believe how many people are being thanked, but that’s why we call him El Disbelievo. Sam “Underwater Welder” Nalven isn’t really an underwater welder. He’s an underwater cowboy!

Ian Gobert is my least favorite flavor of Gobert. Hey, take it up with Michael Piazza! Robert Yoon doesn’t give a fuck about you Ian Gobert. He hates you! J. J. Collier is our poet emeritus of not giving a fuck. Mike-o gives a little bit of a fuck, but not about you, Gobert. Christ, Wesley Mead, he’s got problems all his own. Why are you bothering him with yours, Ian Gobert?

DJ Action, meet MC Inaction. Mike Hartman is throwing his hands in the air like he feels a great deal of concern. Chris Leis is waving his hands to indicate that he is choking. Chris Ludden knows the Heimlich, but he’s a nihilist. Miss America would like to thank fat people for eating. TeJay Guilliams wants five more minutes, mom! Jake Lindsoe wants five minutes with your mom.

Carlos M. Teixeira is opening a little Teixeira right down the street from the Super Mariocado. Brett Layer is not all that complicated and is nothing like an onion. I asked Sean “HAYDEZ” Connolly for Jennifer’s phone number, and I ended up on a date with Billy Connolly. Joey Stidd sold the pictures of our illicit tryst to Perez Hilton.

Thomas B. Forbis is checking Corbis for Forbes. Internet Jocelyn just touched Regular Jocelyn, and the resulting explosion destroyed the planet. Xavier Jauregui has the hardest name to spell outside of Poland and the ant people. Smokey seeks bandit for friendship and maybe more. Satchel is what we named the dog, Henry.

Dr. Chewbacca Hastings can complete the tracheotomy in under twelve parsecs. Lose that And0, and get with this, Andhero. If you are what you eat, then Anne Armstrong and her cat are probably popcorn. Dave “The Studyman” Muntean had better brush up on his werewolf lore, if he knows what’s good for him.

Kronprins Haakon Magnus has just been dethroned by Yugadabe Fikin Kiddinme and Withat Naame. Jason Kolwoski knows what I’m talking about. Yeah. He knows. Krystle Sonnenberg helped me immensely by sliding down a fire pole and then reversing the film while I played a slide whistle. Jairus Montanye and Evelyn Kelly provided me with some wonderful carpet swatches. John Mietz got a poop stuck in his butt and dragged his ass all over them, completely ruining them. By “them,” I mean Jairus and Evelyn.