Two Thumbs Up II Part 2: The Part Following the Penultimate One

by William Ham
Illustration by Space Jockey

We now return to our column already in progress.

“…so that’s why I’ve wasted two columns’ worth of space on an incredibly slight conceit involving the unreality of movie plots,” I said, propping myself up on the dead body in the back seat of a cab headed to points unknown at the behest of a gun-wielding mobster with a murderous temper but a heart of gold underneath.

“That’s real sweet in a deeply pathetic sort of way,” the dead man’s ex-partner, known only as Mr. Puce, muttered, “but I wanna know where this cab – nay, this whole lame-o, waste-of-valuable-ad-space story – is going.”

“Shut your fickin’ mouth back there,” the mobster, who, as previously stated, was unable to spew forth the proper obscenities expected of such a stereotypically hot-headed character due to contractual obligations, “and youse can knock off the heavy-handed falkin’ attempts at offhand synopsizing back there as well. We’re almost there. Driver, get off at this next on-ramp, or alternately, get on this next off-ramp.”

A grand, brightly-lit complex called to us like a beacon of plot advancement from just beyond Exit 17. I had never seen anything so gorgeous, so otherworldly, so much like an expensive computer-generated special effect in my life. “Holy mother of cow,” I exclaimed. “What is this place?”

“This, my reluctant friends with whom I’m forging an unlikely bond, is the Planet Product Placement hotel and casino, the largest and most luxurious place of its kind with that particular name and location. The brochure says this is the best freckin’ place to go if you wanna contrive an exciting climax.”

“You’d better be right, pal,” Mr. Puce hissed. “Last time someone told me that, I wound up in an experimental theater piece that had no ending. If I wind up in another Mobius-strip-like structure, trading incomplete sentences with a blind guy in an eight-foot-tall garbage can, I’m gonna show you the meaning of existential torment.”

“Calm the frack down. Whatta I look like, Pira-freakin’-dello?” He raised his fist. “This is gonna be Five Characters in Search of Your Nose if you don’t get outta the car right flubbin’ now.”

“What about Mr. Burnt Sienna?”

“Don’t worry about it, this place has valet morticians. Fecal matter. We’re wasting valuable time here.” He ran his hands over the cab’s instrument panel. “Where the fugue’s the jump cut switch on this th-”

“Good evening, gentlemen, and welcome to the Planet Product Placement hotel and casino, interior – night. I trust you had an enjoyable dissolve. I’m a recognizable character actor whose name nobody can quite recall. If you need anything – food, drinks, a late-’70s `jiggle’ sitcom actress for sheer camp value – just let me know.”

“That won’t be fnarkin’ necessary, pal. My friends and I, we need some –special assistance, if you catch my cold.”

“Well, it seems you could use a little work with your insinuating phrase-making…”

He thrust his hand into his coat pocket, which bulged menacingly. “I think you know what I’m talkin’ about.”

“Is… is that what I think it is?”

“You got it, kcuf-head. It’s a voucher good for one free session with the hotel’s denouement advisor. I want some motivation and I want it now.”

“All right, all right, come with me. The others will have to wait here. While you’re waiting, feel free to avail yourselves of the casino’s complementary additional dialogue.” They left.

“Um… okay, uh, let’s see… I have a theory that… ah… Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Time After Time’ is actually about forced sodomy,” I offered. I nodded to Mr. Puce. “Your turn.”

“Right… I’d do the Professor before I’d do either Ginger or Mary Ann, mostly because I value intelligence over looks. Next?”

“Have I mentioned that I’m getting too old for this sh…”

“Okay, I’m back,” the mobster announced, handing out four 5×8-sized 3×5 cards. “These are your assignments. Cabbie, you’re to go to the craps table and win over 76 million dollars in a single roll of the dice, just enough to pay off your debts. From there, you’re to collect your winnings in a satchel, which you set down for a second and accidentally confuse with an identical-looking bag which contains a hundred pounds of pharmaceutical-grade haggis being smuggled over the border by a gruff but comical Scottish acetaminophen addict. Hilarity and extreme violence ensue.”

“Check.”

“Mr. Puce, you’re responsible for quelling the takeover of the hotel by a band of terrorists who threaten to subvert the world’s power supply and replace all the wiring in the World Trade Center with No. 6 spaghetti unless the government meets their demand to reinstate the new Coke and make them the official threat to world safety of the 1998 Olympics. Insinuate your way into the air-conditioning duct, fashion a makeshift bungee-jumping rig with rubber bands and toupée glue, and execute a perfect swan-dive into their secret elevator-shaft lair, where you get a clear bead on the leader of the terrorist faction but hesitate when you realize he’s the fraternal Siamese-twin brother you presumed died at birth. I wanna see soul-searching, a couple of hugs, and a mid-air toe-kick to the adam’s-apple or two.”

“Done.”

“And you, Mr. Narrator… I think some wry, passive commentary is in order.”

Gee, and I was hoping to get something challenging. Considering all that we’ve been through over the last three months of this column, I must admit that everything was wrapping up rather neatly. It isn’t every day that you get explicit instructions as to what to do with your life – in fact, since my membership in the Life-Altering Decision of the Month Club lapsed, I’m lucky if I get them twice a year anymore. It makes me think of the day I tried skipping rope in the nude and got my…

“Hey, what’s that spooky rumbling? I know my narration was kinda sub-par just now, but I didn’t think the gods would get all dyspeptic over it.”

“Oh, frenk, I forgot my directive. I’m supposed to get a knowing, haunted look on my face as I explain the following:

“Ahem. `When I was a young boy, no older than six or seven, my family was driving through this area, on our way to the bi-annual Tripe Throwing Exhibition in Abortedpig, Maine, when we… dramatic pause, choke… came across a family of Indians lying all over the highway bleeding. I wasn’t even sure whether they were American or East Indians, they were so mangled up, although at least one of them was wearing a headband and a convenience-store smock. As they lay there, their souls, kind of swaying in the breeze, leapt into mine. For years afterwards, I had the uncontrollable urge to write bad poetry and expose myself whenever I was in Miami. Finally, I’d had enough. I had a race change operation to become Italian – my hair was made permanently greasy, my feet altered to better accomodate pointy shoes, and I had the woman-slapping gene surgically implanted in my DNA. To cast that unseemly influence from my soul forever, I went to the council of this reservation and contracted for this casino to be built on this sacred native burial ground. Now, it seems they have returned. The souls of those buried here have come back to wreak their vengeance, spirits known to my people as…Wisegeists.’

“How’d I do? Was that sufficiently creepy? I can do a good fhuchin’ John Houseman impersonation if it needs that extra…”

Abruptly, the entire floor of the casino was filled with malevolent spectres, attacking the crowd, pulling the weak-willed into their hellish vortex, and winning almost 600 dollars on the slots without even inserting a quarter. The site began to give way, sucking the entire mess into the earth with a fiendish fury that words on paper couldn’t begin to do justice to, though words on the surface of a piece of laminated plastic might come close. “That’s it!” I cried. “Time to break character and do something atypically heroic!” I grabbed Mr. Puce and the cabbie with each hand and dragged them to safety mere seconds before the entire infrastructure of the hotel/casino collapsed into the ground for good.

“Well,” Mr. Puce said, “so much for their listing in Zagat’s. God, I’m so shaken I can’t even come up with a better one-liner.”

“I can’t even tell you how grateful I am for saving me,” the cabbie told me. “In fact, although the meter’s still running, I’ll only expect a ten-percent tip.”

“Thanks, man,” I said, genuinely moved. “I guess this is one evening we’ll not soon forget, unless we start drinking now. I only have one question – what’s in that all-important document that got us into this mess in the first place?”

“Oh, that,” Mr. Puce said. “It was just the form to renew Mr. Burnt Sienna’s fishing license. He always did tend to the overdramatic. But enough of that, let’s head home, huh?”

“Sorry,” the cabbie said, smiling. “I’m off-duty.”

So there you have it, proof positive that my life is far more interesting and real than any movie. I mean, if this were a movie, they would’ve made the cab driver Puerto Rican or something.