I have recently been playing a PC game called Max Payne 2, which is basically a first-person shooter that tries to tell us a dramatic background story by regularly interrupting the game for some narration.
Now, this Max Payne is a hardboiled detective out for revenge because some thugs killed his family. He says things like: ‘The contract killers were out to get me. It felt as if death would be a welcome deliverance from the searing pain in my soul. An eternity in hell would be a picnic, etc.’ Inspiring stuff, right?
Wait for it, wait for it…
How about we all add a paragraph for the story I will start here, where we try to cram in as many (preferably silly) analogies, clichés and jokes as we possibly can? Then I can amuse myself by reading it aloud behind my PC in a raspy, hardboiled detective voice. (I am trying to get out of doing some actual work, you see.)
I will get us started. Do not be shy now! (Hey, I hope Uncle Rue the Story Guy, is still around! We had a lot of fun in this thread:
“The streets of Crime City were empty as a Mormon brothel on a Sunday morning. It was raining cats and dogs, and probably rats, too. I had been wandering through the city for what seemed like an eternity. Longer even, than George W. Bush trying to divide 4 by 2 by in his head.
Everyone was out to get me. I was as popular as a horny dog in a miss lovely-legs competition. People whom I considered friends turned out to be as loyal as the Iraqi Republican Guard after a massive lay-off.
Finally, I wondered into a quiet bar where the owner had obviously not been watching the news in the last few days. I could tell because he wasn’t pointing a gun at me.
“So, what’s your poison then,” he asked. Oh great, apparently it was freakin’ quiz night!
“I don’t know, probably arsenic.” I just wanted a root beer, not a conversation.
“I mean what are you drinking?”
“I ain’t drinking anything, that’s why I came in here!”
I could tell this guy wouldn’t be winning any prizes in a ‘hideously magnified brains’-competition.
“What are you, a comedian?” he said.
“I’m just a soul whose intentions are good.”
“Come again?”
“Oh Lord,” I thought. “Please don’t let me be misunderstood.”
Sorry, I could’t find the thread where Uncle Rue, Story Guy made up a bunch of silly stories. Still, that’s just another reason to write some new stuff!
…Just then, I looked up and noticed the attractive young lady at the front door. She tapped her expensively shod foot on the imported tile entryway. A petulant look crossed her face as she scanned the room with hooded eyes. Looking for a blind date, I mused. Not exactly the type to get stood up, she reeked of money and a nose job. I toyed with the idea of gesturing to her, but then I remembered that unfortunate incident with the stranger and the restraining order. So I settled in for a long night of booze and danger…
I cut her off a piece of the danger tart, avoiding the first danger but leaving the other two. After all, strawberries without danger is like sex with a watermelon: sure it’s nice for a while, but pretty soon you get the feeling that you’re missing something. Then your wang gets covered with little sticky black seeds and cleanup’s a chore. And you still don’t want to eat the melon afterwards.
“Would you like cream on that?” I asked her.
She turned her baby blues on me. “Whipped?”
“No.” I replied. “She wanted me to stop looking at porn on the internet, so we broke up.” Figures. The first woman I get to talk to in a week and already she’s asking about my personal life.
“Okay,” she said. She seemed distracted, obviously overcome by my sheer force of masculinity to contribute to the conversation. Perhaps some witty nonsequitors with sexual innuendo would help steer her thoughts back into our synch, like two Segways being ridden by an obese man with one foot on each.
As she nibbled on her tart, I replaced the lid on the dessert tray. At this moment the bartender returned from the Men’s room.
“So, stealing from the dessert tray- is that your game. Well, I tells ya: I’m not a man who takes kindly to having his berries pinched. Now you’re gonna pay for that tart or you’ll find it comes with an extra side of danger in the form of my fist.”
As I reached for my wallet the dame suddenly put her hand in her purse and pulled out a revolver.
POW!
The bartender went down.
“That tart was fucking dry,” was the dame’s justification. “C’mon. Let’s get out of here. I’ve got some friends that would like to meet you.”
“Wait a minute. I’m just supposed to walk off with some strange dame who plugs a bartender over a dry tart? Who the hell are you anyway?”
“I’m someone you don’t want to cross. All you need to know is that at this moment I am in charge. Now, get off your ass and don’t give me any more of your lip- I’ve killed men for less, you’ve just seen it.”
Now I didn’t have any other plans for the afternoon and she did have me curious. Besides, I knew that trying to get out of going with her would be like Condoleeza Rice trying to get out of testifying before the 9/11 commission.
“And another thing,” she barked at me, “cut it out with the forced metaphors, it’s getting ridiculous!”
I was shocked that she could be aware of my inner monologue and I was immediately embarrassed at my prior “watermelon” observation- I swear I only tried it that once. Without causing any more trouble, I was on my feet and she lead me out the door, her gun pressed into my back.
We’re doing VERY well folks, keep it up! I’ll add another piece, whilst I’m glowing with pride like a Kindergarten teacher who has just seen her class build a nuclear missile from Playdo…
Same old story… Boy is on the run from civilisation in general, boy meets classy dame in not-so-classy establishment, boy offers dame pastry, dame kills bartender, dame kidnaps boy. It happens a thousand times a day in a thousand cities, but why did it have to happen to me?
I was pretty sure she wasn’t happy to see me, that it was just a gun in her pocket. Or rather, a gun poking in my back. I was willing to bet she knew exactly who I was. Not even my own mother would want to claim that I looked as if I had more than a buck in my wallet. She must have heard about it. Was there a reward out for me? Or was she involved in some other way, a black pawn of fate moved across the chessboard of life by an unseen hand?
She directed me to a white Plymouth Sundance Sedan, a car that looked as if Satan had designed it for Mother Theresa, just after he had finished doing his taxes. I kinda suspected I would not be riding in the passenger seat when she ordered me to pop the trunk and take off my hat. The could touch of a metal pipe was like a kiss from Hilary Clinton. It all turned black before my eyes and I became very well acquainted with the spare tyre.
I woke up with a taste in my mouth that was like an old snorkel that’s been used by everyone in your family for twenty years, and a thumping in my head like two gorillas playing halfcourt one-on-one with a bowling ball instead of a basketball.
The trunk was opened and the sunlight stabbed my eyes like two hot knitting needles. I was tired and I needed a shave.
I couldn’t decide which hurt more: The bump on my head or the tremendous lack of booze in my system. I closed my eyes to try and stop my head from spinning like a couple of school-kids jacked up on fun balls who were fresh off of a sit-n-spin contest. Just then, I got hit with a cold glass of water. Hangover helper. That brought me around something quick. The cold glass of water was a wake-up call by the tall glass of water from the gin joint. This dame had a way about her. The wrong way. All the signs said I was in for trouble. I’m sure that in some situations an attractive woman, a shallow grave, and a tommy gun pointed at you could be hot. But as I stumbled out of the trunk and had a look-see, I realized that I might have reached the end of the road. “They really should pave this place” . . .
“OK if I call you Mandi?”, I asked coyly, trying to buy some time with witty repartee. “I’ve always fancied the song stylings of Barry Manilow.”
The Manolo Blahnik spike heel caught me right under the chin. I wanted to cry like a little girl, but I sucked it up and smiled wanly. “OK then, Mindi it is.”
My mind wandered. Was Starsky and Hutch really a homoerotic homage? How much DOES a half-gallon of milk cost, and why should our president be expected to have that information? Where can you rent a goalie?
As I drifted in and out of consciousness, one thing became apparent - blood really does taste like rust. And if this dame was willing to shoot a barkeep over a dry tart, then we had greater issues to attend to. (mind wandering again, as I made a mental note never to end a sentence with “to” again).
What was that ringing in my ear? Were we in the drive-thru at Starbuck’s again?
Just how many frigging half-caff Mocha Malt Frappacinos can one bitch suck up in one lousy night?
Fuck me. She shot the drive-thru window clerk. Guess it wasn’t half-caff or malty enough…
“If you’re not gonna drink that, can I have it?” I asked, nodding towards the alleged haff-caff alleged malt mocha frapp as we sped down the highway after the latest Starbucks incident. She knocked it into my lap.
My body reacted instantly to protect me in any situation such as this. My balls retreated into my insides like a pair of chipmunks fleeing an eagle, and suddenly I had a voice to match. I curled up into a ball and shrieked, briefly recalling the moment I had been in the boys’ choir decades ago and had been pegged in the crotch with a thrown hymnal during my big solo. It was then that I realized that the mocha had been iced, and I had reacted on pure reaction.
Mindi (with an ‘i’) looked at me strangely. Since I had been acting strangely, I figured I deserved it. The coffee worked its way down my leg and into my bloodstream via the newly-opened expressway in my foot, which seemed to be doing brisk business in both directions. I felt a buzz. It could have been the blood loss, or the caffiene, or the surge of adrenaline from my cat-like yet misguided reflexes. Maybe it was the flies going after the the alleged mocha coating my lap.
Instead, it turned out to be a cell phone. I was sitting on it. I considered not telling Mindi (with two 'i’s, now that I think about it), but figured that she might think it odd that I’d had something vibrating under my ass and failed to mention it.
My foot was the least of my problems, anyone could see that.
“Where’s anyone when you need them?” I muttered.
Just then a siren errupted into the night and she said, “Back in the trunk asshole, before my finger twitches again.” I didn’t have to be told twice.
In the darkness of the trunk I heard the cop’s car door slam.
“So, Mindi,” a voice I thought I recognized bleated out, “of all the places to run into you, who’d have thought you’d be here, at the end of the road ?”
I couldn’t tell, but I thought she purred as she said, “Malloy, you big lug, what took you so long?”
“Looks like there’s a leak there Mindi, some kind of dark liquid oozing from your trunk of the Plymouth there.” Malloy sounded like he had nails in his mouth.
I’ve been accused of squeeling before, but never leaking. I figured the leak had to me my own blood - red blooded kinda guy that I am. I wondered if I could move my foot around and drip “Help!” in front of Malloy. The first thing I did was kick the spare. The scream I let out got Malloy’s attention anyway.
“Sounds like your fanbelt could use a little work.” he said.
Next thing I knew, I heard a thud like a sack of mail being dropped from a 3rd story window. The trunk opened, and 300 pounds of Irish policeman landed on me like a tuna on the deck of a fishing boat. Suddenly it was hard to breathe.
I don’t know how she did it but the trunk slammed again and Malloy and I and the spare tire were knotted together like a kama sutra pretzel in a washing machine.
Mindi meanwhile, got back in behind the wheel and sped along the bumpiest gravel roads she could find, listening to a country radio station at high volume, and bottoming out in every pothole available. The Sundance must have belonged to a grimy high school kid, since it was equipped with high performance loudspeakers, but lousy suspension. How do I know the kid was grimy? His gym bag was what I had for a pillow, and it was ripe. How do I know they were gravel roads? The dust rose up through the rust holes in the trunk like a gravel pit sauna.
I would like to have quizzed Malloy as to what the hell was going on, but I couldn’t hear anything else but the bass line of Achy Breaky Heart.
I wasn’t sure if Malloy was dead or alive anyway. To tell you the truth, I didn’t really WANT to know. It’s hard to hear a heartbeat through 300 pounds of donut inflicted lard.
The bumping was beginning to smooth out. I guessed we might be approaching civilization again. It didn’t make me any happier,
I already knew Mindi wasn’t exactly a civilized dame.
The steady vibration from the car, the long hours I had been putting in at work, the lack of quality oxygen in the trunk, and the general improbable series of events I had recently experienced all combined to have an unexpected effect on me: I fell asleep.
When I woke up, I was alone in the trunk. I smelled dust. I heard a series of scraping sounds from somewhere on the outside of the car. Suddenly, the trunk sprang open. I was blinded by sunlight streaming in. I squeezed my eyes tight, clapped my hands to my face and cried out in pain.
When I was finally able to open my eyes enough to see, a man in a dirty white linen suit was staring down at me.
I croaked, through sandpaper throat and lips as dry as powdered cement, ‘where am I?’