Ignition

A Brief Note from the Author:

I would like to emphasize two things before I begin.
First: This is a comedy. If any of you get the feeling I am writing
a
political treatise, feel free to smack me upside the head and say
"Snap
out of it!". This is comedy in its purest essence, the way it ought
to
be. Dark, no-holds-barred, and of course, funny. It may be a
little
earthy or off-color, and I may have a few people pre-read my stories
to
tell me if I've gone too far (I sincerely thank you Morgan for doing
just
that), but I hope you all are mature enough to get over it; or you
all
are immature enough to laugh at it, whichever the case may be.

Second: Leave your preconceptions of me at the door. All of you who
see
me around school probably think I'm a smart-ass, overly smart SOB
who
can't keep his trap shut if one of Hankinson's hitmen had a gun to
my
head (those of you in 7th period know EXACTLY what I'm talking
about).
Don't think about that before reading this. If you enjoy Kurt
Vonnegut,
Joesph Heller, George Orwell and/or Stanley Kubrick, you'll like
these
stories a lot.

Most of these notes will be much shorter in the stories to come, so
bear
with me here-oh enough of my bitching. Here's my story...

"Ignition"

"I told you never to talk to me here," the large lisping man
whispered.
"Those damn kids are on to me thanks to YOU."

"Sorry, boss, but this is the life we've chosen," was the balding
man's
curt retort. The large lisping man groaned in agreement.

"Can you wait fifteen minutes?" he asked.

"Alright."

"I can't get out until at least two-thirty. Remember that, will
you?"

"I'll try, boss. By the way, the Little Mexican sent you a present."
The
balding man gave the large lisping man a Whitman's Chocolate Sampler
box
with no chocolates in it. What exactly WAS in the box neither man
could
really guess. The Little Mexican could be a nasty little
cockroach
sometimes.

The large lisping man took the box and went back into the
classroom,
filled with thirty-three of Peyton High School's finest freshman
students.

"Okay, guys, let's get to problem 25-"

"Mr. Holloway, we've already done that one!" the class whined. The
mental
chorus of "Why the hell am I here" rumbled in the brains of every
human
in the room. Even Holloway did not want to be in this after
school
Geometry Honors class longer than he had to. There was a gift basket
of
poppy blooms The Little Mexican (known to Holloway as El Latino
Queero)
at his house that he needed to sign for.

He knew the kids were on to him, every one of them. Even Chelsea with
her
mononucleosis, out of class more often than in, was on to him. Anna
was
being especially suspicious. He gave her an A for the entire
semester
just to keep her quiet.

No dice. She was still suspicious. Only one more course of action
remained in his repertory to shut her up. Anna had to get whacked.
***

Holloway's so stupid, Anna chuckled to herself from behind her
binoculars. He actually thought more A's would keep her quiet. It was
now
9:45 PM. Her parents were out and would be out until at least
past
midnight. She could stay at the boat docks for a while.***

Meanwhile, at 69 Peyton Place, zip code 42096, Lloyd Holloway was
entertaining his fellow math teacher wife Ann in his Polygonic 3-D
Room
o'Love. The room's interior angles each measured 69 degrees. Their
bed
was a circle with a 138 inch diameter (now divide that by two to get
the
radius). Suggestive derivatives and sine ratios danced across the
walls,
and made inappropriate reflections when hit by the disco lights.
The
Little Mexican's nephew Alejandro Noriega's racy hit single "Los
Dedos"
played on the stereo system.

For an old fat man, Lloyd could still make his rounds if he felt like
it.
But his passions, and this room, were reserved for Ann, and Ann
alone.

"Are you ready, dear?" Lloyd called. ***

Meanwhile, at my house, Frank Sinatra played "Nice Work if You Can
Get
It" on my stereo, however not to assist me in any real romantic
advances.
Chad wouldn't make a bad woman, but he sure wouldn't be my type. But
Sam
and Morgan were shacking up at my place, so Old Blue Eyes still was
able
to help make me look presentable and half-way urbane.

But as I mentioned before, nothing romantic even crossed my mind
that
night, and anything that did was under the influence of drugs.
The
hangout had quite a serious air to it, in fact. We were all waiting
for
Anna's news on the boat dock situation.

We had Laura stake out the Holloway house in Peyton Place to check up
on
anything "goin' down" on that side of town. Our little spy troupe
was
doing anything but homework on this Friday night. Even the
prostitution
ring was being checked on, thanks to Percy and Jason's eager
volunteering
and full wallets.

My house had become a de facto command center for our endeavours into
the
land of espionage. We called ourselves The Vigilantes. I shook up
some
sodas and handed them out to my colleagues, Sam, Morgan, Chad and
Alex
(with a couple grammes of caffeine pills for Alex).

"To justice, and to the Vigilantes," we toasted. ***

Laura's black outfit concealed her from view of the security
cameras
outside the house. She moved toward the disco lights coming from
outside
the house.

The last thing she remembered was a rustling of leaves and an
orange
flash to her left.

A guard had spotted her and got off two shots with his silenced Glock
9mm
handgun, putting two fatal wounds in her torso. She died without making
a
sound. ***

Anna couldn't believe her eyes. Boxes upon boxes of cocaine being
loaded
into the cargo hold of a barge. She wrote down the name of the barge
in
her head and started towards her car.

Suddenly a hitman jumped out at her. Before she could scream, the
hitman
(whose name was Little Sonny) had wrapped the piano wire around
her
throat and threw her onto a box full of bootlegged Colombian coffee
grown
in Argentina. ***

Being alone in your own house for a month without parents or
siblings
gets boring fast, even with my family, especially when you're puling
an
all-nighter trying to find out where a spy is.

At about 12:15 I poured my fourth Sprite of the night; I had a layer
of
syrup in my teeth so thick it could stop bullets. Just for the heck of
it
I threw in an Excedrin; as small as I am and as low as my blood
pressure
is, caffeine is my physiological equivalent of LSD or ecstasy.

All of my compatriots were asleep in various parts of the house. I
leaned
up against a wall and blinked my eyes a little bit-

Oh, crap. Colors started leaping out at me like I was looking through
a
kaleidoscope. I heard "Grand Illusion" by the Styx blaring in my head.
A
meatball sub slid across my psychedelic/peripheral vision.

Next thing I knew I was on my parents bed, my pulse rate at about
three
beats per second. I was buck naked. Scattered throughout the bed were
my
colleagues, wearing their fine (and in two cases not-so-fine)
birthday
suits. The room stunk of olive oil and whipped cream-

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!" I came to, screaming my bloody head off in
my
bathroom, ready to give myself the Swirly of No Return. But I came to
my
senses for five seconds and found the Ritalin we used on our pet
cat,
Lily. I promptly loaded up the syringe and dumped the medicine into
my
mouth. My pulse rate dropped ninety beats in twenty seconds, causing
me
to collapse on the bathroom floor.

In my peaceful coma I remembered the medicine was also a very
effective
bowel loosener.

To be continued...