BUBBA GREY - BIG OLD GOD (With Ch. 29-B and 30-A excerpt of ROCKSTARS OF THE GOONS) - Video

ROCKSTARS OF THE GOONS

CHAPTER 29-B:

Banjo had a gas grill on his terrace. He had lounge chairs, expanded metal tables, potted plants, and a hot tub. The steaks smoked on the grill, and condensation slithered down a pitcher of gin-and-tonic with ice cubes and sliced limes. "How do you want your steak?" asked the man.
"Like a blood-soaked sponge," I said.
The roof of Banjo's building was bordered with a waste-high brick railing. I surveyed the view from the storefront side. We were three stories up, and downtown Maple towered to my left. All around, green hills were speckled with houses, the sky hazy.
"We should get some women up here." Banjo joined me and put his drink on the brick rail. He always said that. But only once, to my recollection, did he pull it off. That particular time, he talked a couple dancers from Belly's Bar to come up for a steak and hot tub. He told them Freddy Goon was going to be here.
"What would Jackie think of us playing host to a couple doxies?" I said. Banjo and Jackie lounged in the hot tub most weekends.
"Hey, we're not married," he blurted out. "I do what I want." Sometimes, I'd bring Heidi for the hot tub, and when Banjo threw small parties, Virginia King came too. But not lately. Across the street, a block down, I could see people coming in and out of a small pub called Ripley's, believe it or not. I debated going down there and bringing back a couple girls for the old guy.
Suddenly, horns honked at the stoplight on Downtown Avenue. A blind man with a white cane was trying to cross the street. His seeing-eye dog hopped on the hood of a convertible and snatched the fuzzy dice from its rear-view mirror. The lady jumped out of her car to collar the dog off the hood. But the blind man clocked her on the head with his cane, and she zonked out cold on the pavement.
A passing motorist stopped to help. The growling dog pulled the comatose lady's wig off her head and shook it at him like a dead possum. The driver freaked out, bolted for his car, accidentally jammed it in reverse, and backed into traffic on the cross street. A bread truck hit the guy's car. The car spun around twice and nailed a fruit stand. Watermelons and peaches catapulted into the street. Tires screeched, fenders buckled, and a fifteen-car pileup jammed traffic for the next two hours. Banjo and I witnessed the whole thing.
"You see a lot of weird shit living downtown," he said.
Fortunately, all the pileup was on Barnabas Street, and my car, right below, was unmolested on Downtown Avenue. Soon, however, Banjo's sidewalk was infested with gawkers, and many had leashed animals. Hence, I worried about my own fuzzy dice in the Corvette. The cops and the media came and took statements from the eyewitnesses. They'll probably blame a bigfoot, I thought.
"When you gonna paint that shabby Vette?" asked Banjo. He tried to spit on it. The spit arced, accelerated, and splattered on a policeman's drawn forty-five. The forty-five was drawn because the cops had surrounded the knocked-out lady, pointing their guns at her head, ordering her to get up. She remained inert, however.
What they needed to do, was call an ambulance and resuscitate the victim. But that particular paramedic program had been cut from the city budget, and the cheaper alternative was to rouse injured victims at gunpoint.
The six cops then cautiously raised their weapons to the air and let the animal shelter rescue squad pass through. The team of veterinarians calmed the seeing eye dog with a can of dog food and a bowl of cool water. That particular humane society program had not been cut from the city budget.
Meanwhile, the old blind dude kept wandering around, whacking people on the head with his cane.

CHAPTER 30-A:

"This steak is delicious," I told Banjo as we watched the spectacle on Downtown Avenue. We dined with our plates on the brick railing at the front edge of the terrace. My steak knife almost slipped from my grip and speared toward the sidewalk. If it had, though, it would've landed safely in a little boy's cotton candy, mother and son watching the action.
The sidewalk was spattered with Angus blood dripping off my plate. A toy poodle on a leash licked the cement. A mime leaning against an imaginary wall held the tether on the poodle. But the poodle didn't mime.
We sat back down at the table, poured another drink, and finished our supper. "Nothing exciting ever happens in this town," the grump with the patchy beard complained.
"Mm," I said with a mouthful of fat, "the Battle of the Bands is exciting."
"Yeah," he agreed, "that'll be good." Banjo pushed back his plate, picked his teeth, and lit a smoke. "I talked to your mother a couple days ago."
"Zee called you?"
"She wants me to keep an eye on you. She says you only call when you need money."
"That's bull crap!" I shot back. But then I thought, I should probably get a hold of her before my electricity gets shut off.