Stan Lee is weak but his words are strong. his dying eyes bemoaning their thick-rimmed glasses slide back and forth and elide that he is just about to take in a huge windfall inheritance, a wealth of wisdom from above that he contributed to with small doantions each month of his life and is now the beneficiary of. he is about to become the golden balloon he blew.
Stan Lee: *patting Dirg's cheeks with his hairy hands softly* son, listen to me, there is no encore, this is all there is. and the world needs an awakening, an exodus, it needs to breathe again, new air, cold as the moon, or it will be doomed to failure forever. it's real this time, not next week's comic-book story wirebound in an anthology.
Dirg realizes what this is. he has to hurry, time is running out, and there will not be a scond chance to get at this. he is crying but doesn't notice as he shuts everything out: the atmosphere, the nailbitten anger in the crowd, directed at him and everything the world has to offer, the sky slows down and Dirg can see the flap of birds' wings.
Dirg: oh Stan! oh Stan! you are my father!
Stan: no i'm not, son, i'm your mentor, there's a difference. tho there shouldn't be.
Dirg: oh Stan don't go! the world needs your light! we are plunged in darkness and the war will never end! it will rend before it ends! i don't wanna be a soldier anymore, the world is not fair! and there is no magic. you had the magic, Stan, the mag fic, and it's gone. that's why i got those bottles of magic potion from that girl. she was just a girl after all, flawed as women are. there is no magic really in this world, you have to believe against all logic and reason that man can fly! that's the only way to get off the ground, to get ahead in this world, to make something of oneself, to leave a legacy, to get your cartoon published. the science of a magic potion is humans' certain ceramic scientific glue under one's feet.
Stan: no you are wrong, son. but it is about belief. but see, i fell not because i didn't believe in myself, or believe i could really walk on walls like my comic creation, i could be the Spider-Man only dreamt of, it was because YOU didn't believe in ME!
Dirg: how can you say that? you're everything to me!
Stan: which is the same as nothing. what film were you perusing on your little laptop there for your research on how to scale walls like a spider?
Dirg:
The Fly. of course. it's all right there laid out in the manly movie how to become a Man, a Superman. Jeff Goldblum takes us on our steps, literally, climbing walls without adhesive. how to do it in real life and real time. see you need to technique your dream not just blow it like bubblegum, which once chewed can be used under the glove for sticky as well.
Stan: Dirg, you stopped believing in me when you took up your extreme views, and they are extreme make no mistake. they're radical but not cool. they aren't edgy or so against the norm so as to be populist and popular and normal.
Dirg: but Stan, Sir, what about all the conservative voices which are silenced in media? this was our one chance to fight back the crystal cerulean tide with our harpoons. don't you see? next election there will be a wave and everything WILL go back to normal. the normal Leftist way of the world which treats us as invisible sheep. for the slaughter. what about penurious Patreon patrons? free speech, true free speech, is impossible, like The Wall or Brexit. they're just symbols, concepts to be tossed around like a football from a son to an absentee father. what about Judd Winick's comics? the alt-right deserves to be heard like any other faction, isn't that only fair in war? we need to empower both sides, the left and the right, against the establishment.
Stan: both sides or bothsidesism? for every Patreon pat on the back there is an Eliza Dushku. see? the weather never changes, it will always be wet if we let it. society is insidous and will take generations to cleanse, till the Living Planet sees with Eyes not ego and Drinks a bottle of clean plastic and fresh water. not pours one out with that bottle like a pimp cup. these are problems which will never be solved. and which dry up our inkwells whenever we think up a new story, writing it with nervous squiggles and squabbles, appealing to our better angels, about a conflicted ordinary citizen who becomes a hero and invests in us. the logical conclusion of tolerance. how inequality is wrapped inexorably up in identity like a flag around one's boycott boots. art is not so much an answer as an atrium. but through it all you must help others. and you must believe in magic. there is no hatred in magic. there is no point in winning, winning just means you die after your enemy.
Dirg: i fight. i fight for all those on twitter who tell a perfectly reasonable dirty crass funny joke and then have to backtrack and delete or edit cos it offends one person on this planet. that ain't comedy, that's slave comedy. that stifles creativity. creativity helps us understand what it means to be human, right? what does it mean to be totally free?
Stan: it means to die. because when you die, you live, you live as life is meant. how do you sense if a joke is crass? a well of goodness deep inside us all. son, my lovely son Dirg, *Stan jumpropes Dirg's shoulders and plays Baker's-Man with Dirg's clenched gluey arms* you must love, son, YOU MUST DO IT ALL FOR LOVE!!!
Stan expires and blows his Last Breath into Dirg's left ear. Dirg quickly hugs Stan tight forever and, wishing Stan's red sweater would blend into Dirg's bleeding blood, Dirg hurriedly slings the deceased body onto his tearing shoulder and Spider-walks back in to the Mansion and lays Stan peacefully on Stan's bedroom-chamber bed and spits the drone camera attached to the roof off the roof and locks the windows...
Dirg: *in a lullabied whisper* for the Browncoats. for the Browns.
Mueller is riding on his Synergy lifecycle stationary bike to keep fit and exercised and rested.
Mueller: if i didn't exist i'd have to be invented in some way. i'm quieter than God. i don't quit, i go quiet. the American people are counting on me not to mess up, don't screw up after we've come so far.
President Bump: Bob this is agonizing, is this thing EVER gonna end?
Mueller: you tell me. before i left for this work vacation i took some down time to recharge. i closed off a floor of the Attorney Building Courthouse and set up a long waterslide i rolled out on the marble floor. like
Big. my compatriots---who are the true patriots---and i took turns sliding and spinning in place, all with our suits still on---someone stole my Santa suit---no funny business, just a way to take a breather from business. you can't see us but we're working real hard. we're 17 angry John Cenas.
Bump: yeah well i have a stone fountain in my bedroom. i've overridden your sealed-indictments stratagem with my utter bald luck! the stone statue of limitations will expire if i win again, which i will by one vote, my son Eric will finally be mature enough to vote. i want to make history as President, i want to be the first President who was impeached and actually removed from office by the Senate convicting him. i will not resign, this game is too fun, i want you to literally legally drag me out.
Mueller: thank you for inviting us into your home. well your apartment. high up on the rise here of Bump Moscow Tower. otherwise known as BMT TNT. makes one poo his pants. cos they used TNT for the first time in this country to build it. Putin has banned the general politik public from TNT and only uses the red sticks to brush his teeth.
Bump: yeah thanks. it's gorgeous. the bathtub has goosefeathers scrubbed into it. yeahs those is really for Vlad Putin, this is his floor, his penthouse-suite level, specially signed over to him, for him to put his feet up. and poop on. i'm hiding out here cos there really is no reason for me to go back home. besides, Russia is my home. at least businessly. i got Loop here tending my every whim. aren't you glad i didn't deport you, Loop?
Lupe: my name is Lupe. i'm not that magic prostitute you wanted who could do the mythical Loop in bed.
Bump: if you open this closet door a million lemons fall out of it like a sitcom. onto Loop's head. it's like Publisher's Clearing House in reverse.
Lupe: you did deport me. that's why i'm here. truthfully, frankly, i like Putin as a better boss than you. he lets me play Pokémon Go inbetween my backbreaking shifts.
Bump: yeah, i love the level in Pokemon Go when the strange purple-and-blue big-yet-little monster flying over your shoulder poofs in midair and becomes a Russian agent sent to help you navigate breakfast. always follow what this person directs you to do indirectly to the letter and you won't get in trouble, you won't get a letter which in common parlance is known as papers. you'll know him by the color of his red. on the overview map. a guide like a bouncing wallball ball or Midna when she gets angry.
Lupe: when i work for Mister Putin he said he was giving me a coat. i thought it was a toxic-materials yellow rainwash coat for handling deadly airborne drugs, complete with gasmask hoodie. he said it had my name on it. turns out it was a coat from Burlington! a nice leather brown one! with a stitch on both lapels and an elk fur trim! it was a Christmas coat and his Christmas present from Senor Putin to me, with my name on the gift tag sewn into the inside lapel!
Bump: sit back and relax here, put up your feet, the gang's all here, soon. watch some tv and let's discuss. hey! i got a win! with no help, Sessions never gave me concessions. just a concussion. i fixed criminal-justice reform cos i might be in a cell sooner than later and want the place to be as Snoopy Met-Life sports gym on the beach as possible. i want to benchpress 300 pounds of weight with my feet. where women AND men go naked and crazy for volleyball. throwback to fiery jets. *Bump hugs the air with his curved arm and sings "Home For The Holidays"* oh shucks. it's just not as fun without my man V. Putin singing backup for me acapella duet. the Veester. the Veepster. well let's watch some tv anyway, hey! we got a new local weather girl! we got Jaclyn Dunn! not Smith! snatched her over from the ultraliberal insanity of San Fran! look at her pendulous eyes!
Maria LaRosa: she's actually a traffic girl, a much rarer breed of Pokémon. i'm a cool mom. there's gonna be an adventure here for me...soon...i am so bored and i don't do housework...
Mueller: sir, sit, i have but one question for you: WHERE IS PUTIN? that was the whole REAL reason for this entire investigation, i am here to arrest Vladimir! put the blood cuffs on him! HE is the kingpin, not you.
Bump: come on, everyone, let's all link up our devices and computers into one big happy world, this is my job as President, to come. together. let's talk like chatty catties about the world's and the universe of Steven's problems. goodbye starlight, gotta keep the room lights on. recap and summit, let's do this. everyone on and in the chat?
Eye Luggage: hello, i'm lurking, not talking back just listening from the great beyond, from the cramped sideroom of the church i'm about to enter. i have my powder-pink tuxedo on and am wearing cold feet. today is my marriage day. my nerves aren't steel but i'm tryna remain calm. this is a big stomp. i'm stalling cos i'm not sure about this but just hearing all your voices gives me the hives and homeelectronicfires warmth i need to be courageous and move. forward. upward. joining us at the Red Table for me as an absentee host are Tavis Smiley? Kevin Hart? oh hell no.
Tavis and Kevin: we're smart men, we really are, hasn't it been enough time? if we had just deleted our twitters none of this would have happened. twitter literally destroys careers and lives, leaves a carnage of counts-cadavers and growthless germs in its wake. it sets up a system that is impossible to solve because it's impossible to adhere to! a machine that doesn't take a talking humanity into account, only assigns your account. you can only be controversial partially. there are degrees to a pat on the butt, ask any baseball player. the system is impossible! whereby being in cyberspace you need to create your own tunnel. to plant your own seeds. space seeds. seeds only grown on Mars. we need a diversity of voices, black voices, or democracy dies. even down no-good drug-dealin' voices. the only thing twitter is good for is posting to showcase court documents.
Letitia James: hello, Mr Mueller *shakes hands* i'm new to the Red Table. which means i'm not damaged yet. i'm full of energy.
Bump: *resigned* no, not you, Bob over you anyday, you represent Vice. you represent two of my bitterest humiliations in one person!
LeBron James: *solid-gold tooth flashes* hey, ma. you know i got blocked---not on twitter, on the basketball court---cos i ran out of gas, which allowed me the time to study. i filled up my huge SUV smokestack tanks and it was cheap as hell on the dollar! like Randy Moss cheap. so i invested in gas to keep the prices low. win-win. we lost the game but still. hey ma, hey Theresa, how you enjoying the holidays? everything goes better with Sprite Cranberry.
Theresa May: can you get that in a pub? can I get that in a pub? i have a hunch......it's in my back...
JK Rowling: Brexit, like The Wall, is magic, it doesn't exist. YOU are just a thought as well, Mr. Bump, a concept which can never be put into practical practice. this is what we must realize. hopefully all those New Age predictions---the real magic in this world---happen soon and come true. waiting for the Global Consciousness to emerge and overflow like the L.A. River.
Theresa May: JK---if that is indeed your real name---JK, i feel you're approachable but it's hard to approach you in the first place. you're like Voldemort, you have the same nose.
Bump: thank god i'm not real, i don't want to really go to jail, i'll have to build the jail with that clear Wall material so i can stay looking at all that human nature Codrus created. adobe clay from Aztecs, right? The Wall is closing in on me. The Wall is like the Glass Ceiling For Men, right? you can see through it like the glass ceiling to your preferred destination.
Theresa May: that is a charitable view of your situation, it's about white drugs.
before Dirg logs in, he takes a very long walk on a very short pier, the hidden willow footbridges which dot the secret woodsy underside of the belly of Obec Woods where the two worlds meet, school and home. in the bungalow treehouse not known by man but two men. abandoned and full of adoration. along the way navigating the light spots and drone flightpaths he sneaks into the backentrance to LUSH.
Madame Pons: you heard about Eliza Dushku?
Dirg: do you Dushku? yes, just now. good luck with that degree, right? of fury. and scorn.
Pons: and ridicule. and reputation. no more reps. why do i keep getting all these brochures and pamphlets at my doorstep?
Dirg: it's your office's doorstep. they're all from Christian groups. you know what makes a real Christian?
Dirg points a gun at Pons's belly.
Dirg: a gun. to keep the peace. like Jesus preached.
Dirg punctures the sweater strings to Pons's belly with the tip of the gun and lays it flush against leaving no space between her and his belly. he hugs her passionately this way, with the gun squeezed in between their chests. the trigger goes off. blanks.
Dirg: *sweating and exasperated* don't worry, i'd never hurt you, i love you and appreciate you. thank you.
Pons: *sweating profusely from her tits, sweat coming off those mountains like a valley* fuck me. college life. fucking college life. i've got new congregations to officiate.
Dirg slides down the slide of the Treehouse knothole that's formed and caved over time under the pressure of life. or from erosion. or evolution.
Dirg: daddy's home.
Laertus: just in time for the ceremony.
Dirg: what's with this election season? or rather Election Day. or dan rather Election Day. it was whack as a wheel! it became Election Month!
Laertus: you've done permanent damage, but actually you've woke us up. we'll never be led the primrose path again, thinking everything is easy, we won't be lackadaisical and just assume you're not coming for us at every corner. we were sleepwalking through politics and you hit our shoulder. so many more women have been activated this time around and will have their word and save the world before they heal it. a sleeping giantess, like a spiritual sleeper cell that's been called up out of decommission. to officer. we know what's underground now, under the soil. my favorite color isn't red anymore, or blue, it's purple. the grass grows accordingly.
Dirg: what's with those BMW commercials, do they think we don't have eyes? sneakily tryna fit that gay couple in there in the tormado love montage. we see your split-second signaling. and it's not your turn signals.
Laertus: you do. and that Lighthouse commercial for that adult medicine we're gonna have to take soon, that guy looks like Tony Bourdain. makes me miss him all over. and that one hilarious commercial with Ray Liotta about smoking-quitting that represents him, or casts him rather, as just some ordinary jo-blo with a job. like Ray Liotta is just some barber on the street who needs to lay off the cigs. like Hollywood is just a cornerstore job like doggrooming.
Dirg: just an actor, like being a cop or a teacher, everyone needs to learn where the lines are. move the lights and get ready to shoot. and speaking of teaching, what can The Grinch teach us this holiday season? about spirit. Christmas season, he said in a low-voiced mutter.
Laertus: JUST DO IT, the classy man said in an emphatic high-moaned manner. about important life-changing matters. that require a cheetah. stop thinking, thinking gets messy. with all that fluid oozing out of your brain. your mind is a prison, your actual thoughts can paralyze you like a rope or stage hook.
the boys bow down to each other and supplicate on the tree carpets with their wings inserted.
Dirg: finally a religion we can all embrace. a famous faith. St. Benedict. has a nice ring to it.
Laertus: Cumberbatch the Catholic. coming for his batch . it's just New Age enough but diluted with some Medieval alchemy. the art of the spell. cummerbund graduation, i need one of those. i need to get spiritually healthy before my vows. clean. feeling the nerves but tryna remain calm. i don't want to retch all over my suit. i feel good wearing a uniform in college!
Dirg: do a power wash for your insides by downing a cucumber vodka at Bruce Wayne's to celebrate. before.
Pete Davidson joins them on the phone, a phone held up to Pete's ear. with Cecily Strong on the other line.
Cecily Strong: i'm a strong woman. i had some of my best acting work last episode, but it was all drowned out by your news. have we ever worked together on a skit? do we even say hi to each other when we pass by in the halls? you know how hard it is to act while singing Barbra? even Dennis Perkins thinks so. and he sucks gherkins. like he actually sucks on a pickle, i've seen him perform for me in my dressing room. i don't mind Dennis's Hard-Left-or you-don't-get-the-kinja-keypass but for fuck sake Dennis, stop linking to your own work, that is so solipsistic goth-poet!
Pete: i wasn't gonna let the trolls win, that's the only reason i was strong. the only reason i'm a remainer. that's my motivating factor for everything i do in life: twitter. it's cool, we both don't like to ice-skate anyway, that Ice Ending is getting predictable. every year. i was already in my gingerbread footie pajamas in your dressing room so i went to sleep. i'm learning to be strong from you, Cec, to take a stand and keep to it. Christmas suicide is so cliché. hanging by the Christmas tree branch?
Pons: ladies and gentlemen, only three of us here, i now present for the first time to society: Mr. and Mrs. Eye Luggage!
beside Eye Luggage is the long gazing profile of her Harley Hammer. Eye married her hammer. she married her inanimate cosplay tool. that she uses for anime and animation conventions. flouting convention.
Eye: love is the ultimate weapon. this is not a form of marrying myself. and i'm not marrying my vibrator or anything. we love each other, we have feelings for one another, and we've made a lifelong commitment. sorry, fellas, i'm a taken woman.
Pons: next up, as a wild witness, i see you two. and i honor you two. slow-clap from me cos we're the only ones in the room. wait while we roll on in the computer-lab desktop, takes awhile it's clunky. this is Mr. Laertus and his partner-for-life, what's the name again?
Laertus has married a creature he met while online in a virtual world. a cross between a purple Yoshi and the inside of an indie Pokémon egg. but with no tail. the tail is the tongue of the sentient being.
Dirg: please tell me this is just really-good CGI.
Laertus: he's real, not a computer fabrication, as real as me. certainly you. realer than me. he's my husband.
Pons looks at the giant platter of KFC chicken as it stays staid by the soaps. she throws up thinking of those who weren't lucky enough like her to be able to fly the coop.
Dirg: oh, well, that's the big news, you don't want to hear from me now.
Laertus: *touching his new screen and his friend's lap* please, Dirg.
Gladyce: it's time, dear. eat the egg.
Doryce eats the hardboiled egg with the scrape on top that looks like the Death Star.
Gladyce: and this.
Doryce: an India Pale Ale penis-shaped hunk of salami i get to suck on?!! genius. drunk love.
Gladyce: we're going now, to the Shen Yun show in San Jose. dancing till Christmas Day every night under the stars. aboard a grand glistening dragonboat of curled curved orange wood and red paddles. the dragon masthead spews yellow smoke from its nostrils. or is that the dragon's mustache? many muscular barechested Chinese men in fluttering see-through white balloon pants balleting upside-down. and holding ribbon.
Doryce: glorious. the male ballerina, what a concept! so ethnic. ethnic men do it for me, they're so different from what i'm used to. they are our future...
Dirg: *peeing his pants* i hate Christmas. every Christmas Eve night my dad would molest me while i waited for Santa by our burning fireplace. he went down the chimney in a Santa suit, cursed to Grandma who was dead, and then he violated me.
Laertus: *seriously* where was your mother?
Dirg: putting up the lights outside our home. the rest of the year she was gone from our lives, at the tupperware parties of her friends. she never cooked a home-cooked meal for us. never told her, cos it's the most ridiculous thing ever dreamt up. except it was real. it really happened, i saw my father sliding down those bricks. my father was a cool dad the rest of the year, something about Christmas triggered him off into madness. which is just another word for anger. and so the cycle continued with me. i guess he deluded himself into thinking i wouldn't recognize him with the beard.
Laertus hugs Dirg hard for five minutes.
Dirg: come on! why aren't you laughing?
Laertus: great. i guess this means i have to miss the next cycle, aye? gotta miss the next coupla semesters? thank goodness i'm a homebody and my spouse works, hope my husband doesn't get too jealous. to take care for you. to make sure you're okay. a wellness check which spans the wellness of a soul.
