Banana Hammock (17 page)

“I think it’s pronounced ma-keek,” Phin said.

“That’s not what Al told me.”

“Al?”

“Al at
Al’s Exotic Pets
, in Deer Park. He sold him to me this morning.”

“He’s adorable,” Jack said. “Why’d you name him Slappy?”

On cue, the monkey slapped himself on the side of the head. He did this over and over, increasing in speed and force. The sound wasn’t unlike applause.

I frowned. “There wasn’t much of a selection down at Al’s. It was either him or another primate I would have named Gassy. He also had some sort of gibbon, missing an arm and both legs.”

“Stumpy?” Phin said.

“More like Sitty. I’ve seen turtles that moved faster. I wonder if he was dead.”

“I think you chose perfectly,” Jack said.

Slappy screeched again, baring sharp yellow teeth.

“You sure he’s tame?”

“Most of the time. But don’t put your fingers near the cage.”

Jack knelt down on the carpet to get a closer look. “Hello, Slappy. I’m Jack.”

Something wet hit me in the cheek. Something wet and brown and horribly stinky.

“Your monkey threw poop at me.”

“He does that. There are baby wipes next to his cage.”

Jack reached for one, and Slappy managed to pitch another slider, which hit Jack in the nose.

“I think he’s aiming for my mouth,” Jack said, mopping her face with baby wipes.

“Are you wearing make-up? He was rescued from a research lab. They tested cosmetics on him. Don’t let him see your lipstick—he gets a little agitated.”

“I’m not wearing—” I dodged left, a monkey turd zinging by my face. He was definitely aiming for my mouth.

“I like him,” Phin said. “He’s spunky.”

Slappy aimed and Phin ducked, dung splattering on the wall.

“Remind me again why you bought this thing,” Jack said.

“I wanted to train him to get me beer and watch sports. But all he does is throw feces, hit himself in the face, and scream. He’s kind of a downer.”

Slappy screamed in agreement. Then pressed his pelvis against the side of the cage and urinated on the floor. The smell was pee times a hundred, and made me cover my nose.

“He does that too,” I said. “A lot. Al said he knows how to use the toilet.”

The stream arced through the air, landing on my sofa. I picked up a coffee mug that said
Don’t Worry Be Happy
and tried to catch the stream. Jack stepped away.

“I think maybe Al lied to you.”

Slappy screeched, then began banging his little monkey head into the side of his cage.

“You should buy him a helmet,” Phin said.

“He came with one. I took it off, because I thought it was cruel. Now I’m afraid to get close enough to put it back on.”

Jack crouched down again, warily. “I think you just need to learn some manners, and then you’ll be fine,” she said, her voice soft. “You’re probably just scared. I would be too, living with Harry. But I bet with a few days of training, you’ll be a perfect gentlemen.

Slappy stopped banging his head and made an adorable cooing sound. Then he grabbed his little monkey ding-dong and began to beat off with frightening intensity, keeping his eyes on Jack the whole time.

“What does he eat?” Phin asked.

“It’s called monkey chow. It’s not that bad. Sort of tastes like meat-flavored charcoal briquettes.”

“You tried it?”

“Yeah. Want some?”

“I’m gonna pass on that one.”

“Slappy hates them. See?”

I bent over and handed Slappy a tan square object the size of a mini candy bar. Slappy took it, screeched, and bounced the food off of my forehead.

“There’s something I don’t understand,” Phin said. “You keep jumping into other J.A. Konrath books, but what’s the point?”

“I like to think of it as a Harry McGlade Greatest Hits collection,” I replied.

“But Konrath fans have already read these scenes. Like this monkey scene from
Cherry Bomb
”

“Sure, but in that book, it was Jack’s point of view. Now we’re in my point of view.”

“It looks pretty similar,” Phin said, taking out his Nook and paging through
Cherry Bomb

“Trust me. It’s vastly different.”

“I dunno. Seems like a lazy way to write a book. All of Konrath’s fans are expecting new content, and he’s just giving them rehashed old stuff.”

“Hey!” I said. “Don’t knock Konrath. Without him, none of us would be here.”

“Actually,” Jack said, “This would qualify as metafiction.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Use your Nook dictionary.”

I whipped out my Nook and read the definition. “Yeah, I guess this is metafiction. We’re really breaking the fourth wall here by acknowledging we’re in a story and directly addressing the reader.”

“More like directly ripping off the reader,” Phin said. “How much of this $2.99 epic is actually new material?”

“A lot, probably,” I said. “But you have to read through it sixty or seventy times just to find it all.”

“Fuck that,” Phin said. “I’m just going to read the whole thing, page by page.”

“It won’t make sense that way.”

“Who cares? This is nothing but an endless parade of jokes anyway. It’s not like structure is important here.”

“Exactly!” Slappy said. “I’ve been thinking the exact same thing!”

We all stared at him.

“You can talk?” I asked.

“No,” Slappy answered.

None of us had a reply to that.

“So what next?” Jack said, crossing her arms.

“I’m going back to the Amish story,” I said. “I want to see how it ends.”

“Or if it ends,” Phin said.

To return to the Amish adventure,
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.

To start over,
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.

I opted for the sex.

“I will make love like an Olympian!” I declared. “In record time!”

I wondered about the chicks they had in heaven. Was Marilyn Monroe here? Or Lynn Redgrave? I loved Lynn Redgrave in the movie
The Happy Hooker
. But I didn’t want to nail the old one, who died of cancer. I wanted the young Lynn, when she was still pretty and had both of her boobs.

“The human has chosen sex!” the angel bellowed. “Bring forth his mate!”

The gate opened. Imagine my surprise, when instead of Marilyn or Lynn, a fat old man waddled out.

“Is that Mickey Rooney?” I asked.

The fat guy was wearing a thong, which clung to his junk like an Italian family reunion.

“You want to sex him up?” The angel nudged me with his shoulder.

“I think my penis just got smaller,” I said. “What’s the opposite of a hard-on? Because that’s what’s happening with me, biologically.”

“You will not need an erection, puny human. You’ll be catching, not batting.”

The fat guy stood next to me, clapping his hands in front of him. “Let’s do this!”

My eyes were irrepressibly drawn to his thong. I believe the current term for it was
banana hammock
. For an old, fat guy, his banana was formidable.

“Look,” I said. “I’m really not into guys. I mean, I experimented a bit when I was younger, for ten or twelve years. But that was just curiosity. We’re all guilty of that. These days, I dig the ladies.”

“Me too,” said the fat old guy. “Which is why I want you to moan in falsetto. Also, I’m using this black marker to draw breasts on your back.”

He held up a black marker. I held up my sword.

“I don’t think so, pal,” I told him. “I think I’m getting out of here instead.”

If Harry should fight,
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.

If Harry should just let it happen,
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.

If Harry should play Combville,
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Naturally, I picked the bananas.

Well, I didn’t
actually
pick them. They were already picked. But few hundred pounds of them were brought out, in a big cloth sack that looked like a hammock, strung up between two stegosauruseses. Stegosuari. Dinosaurs with spiny tails.

“Eat it, Bitch Tits!” goaded the angel. “Eat it all!”

Seeing so many bananas in one place reminded me of my former pet monkey, Slappy. He loved bananas. He also loved malt liquor and pissing on my floor. Currently, he was loose in the suburbs, sexually preying on small dogs.

I missed him.

As the banana hammock was set down in front of me, I formulated a plan. If I quickly ate five hundred bananas, I could throw the peels all around me, and then escape while my captors humorously slipped and fell during their attempts to chase me.

Or I could use my sword to slash my way out of there.

But which was the better plan?

To eat five hundred bananas,
click here
.

To fight,
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.

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.

Clearly, the only way to get out of heaven was the same way you got into heaven—by slaughtering as many of your enemies as possible.

One, two! One, two! And through and through: The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

And then, with verve, I pinched a nerve, in my galumphing back.

Immobilized by pain, I dropped the sword after only killing a few big-headed green angels. Then I curled up into a ball like a hero and triumphantly whimpered for mercy.

“I am Callooh Callay, leader of the Reptiloids!” said someone named Callooh Callay. “You have fought valiantly, Bitch Tits! As a reward, you shall be returned to earth.”

This green angel had a bigger head than most. He also had a crown on his head.

Could this be God? Was the true name of God really Callooh Callay? If so, couldn’t He have picked a better name for himself? Like Steve? Or Rick?

“I hurt my back in my frenzy to kill in your name, oh mighty one. Can you heal me?”

“Don’t be such a mimsy,” he burbled. “Quit your jabber and walk out of my coliseum, my beamish boy.”

So, like Alice through the rabbit hole, I walked out of heaven and back to the cornfield. Once safely back on terra firma, I made a vow to never drop acid again. Especially in Indiana.

And let that be a lesson to all of you. On the surface, drugs may be a lot of fun and transport you to magical places like heaven. But under the surface, they’re illegal because the government wants control over your body. Who do you think you are, believing you should be able to make your own decisions on what you consume?

Once I was feeling suitably beamish again, I decided to go forward with the Amish adventure. But what should I do next? How could I get to the bottom of this perplexing mystery, the very nature of which I’d forgotten?

Should Harry call a town meeting? If so,
click here
.

Should Harry hop into another ebook? One with vampires? If so,
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If you enjoyed the Jabberwocky reference, and would like to read more poems,
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“Okay, we’ll get busy,” I said, unzipping my pants. “But no rusty trombones, or donkey punches, or Cleveland steamers.”

“How about a
brass clown
?” the fat guy asked.

I considered it. “Yeah, I’m fine with that. Do you have a name, by the way?”

“Does it matter?”

“No, not really.”

The unnamed fat guy pulled off his banana hammock, and the crowd cheered. That’s when I realized this was all a dream. It had to be. Nothing else made sense.

“It’s not a dream,” the green angel said, reading my mind.

“How do I know?” I asked, wide-eyed and innocent.

“You’ll know in about eight seconds, when he starts violating you. He’s going to tear you open like a Christmas present.”

That was an image I didn’t need in my head. Like imagining the
Golden Girls
naked.

“Look, you’re an angel, right?”

“No. I’m a Reptiloid from—”

“Yeah, yeah, blah blah blah. But if you are really an angel, would I be able to do this?”

Swinging my sword, I neatly cut off the angel’s bald, round head. If I were really in heaven, that would probably be a sin, and God would crucify me or something. But the only thing that happened was the crowd screaming and running out of the stands, trampling over each other in their hurry to exit. I hadn’t seen so many people running out of a theatre since the premier of
Gigli
.

“See?” I said to the old naked fat guy. “It’s only a dream. Watch.”

I turned the sword on myself, stuck it into my belly, and promptly died.

To start over at the beginning,
click here
.

To return to the previous section,
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At 7:35 that evening, they gave me a lot of bananas.

Then I began.

I liked bananas, but not a bunch.

By 8:15 I couldn’t eat any more.

By 9:28 I was finally dead.

The end.

To restart the adventure,
click here
.

To return to the previous section,
click here
.

“I’ve called this town meeting to get to the bottom of the mystery of who is screwing Lulu’s husband,” I said. “After carefully following the many clever clues seeded throughout this ebook, I’m ready to make a startling accusation.”

The Amish people gathered around me in the cornfield murmured to each other. Then the unholy Stephen King monster that lived in the corn came out and ate everyone.

The end.

Start the adventure over,
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.

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.

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The problem with having so many naked women trying to hump me senseless was…

Actually, there was no problem with it at all.

While I can’t admit to being in the peak of physical condition (I get winded tying my shoes, which I can’t see unless I suck in my gut), I’ve got a spring-loaded pelvis and can crack walnuts with my butt cheeks. In fact, I’ve done the walnut thing on a bet before. Watching the guy eat them afterwards was priceless.

That said, I was in good form when the Olympic Copulation began. I’m not quite porn star material, but what I lack in size I make up for in speed.