ALABANZA BOB!!!

[jack_babalon]

My friends there I was... lower'n the belly of an earth worm squirmin' in dry mud!

I was Slack Starved! Fropless! Hoodbullwinkled! Scared Stupid and Stupid Scared! Pink-Eyed - seeing nought but the salivating jaws of poverty gleaming from around every corner! Driven to the very brink of sanity!

I tell you I didn't have a pot to talk shit in or a window of opportunity to throw it out of!

Then, just when I thought Lady Misfortune had finished dancing with me exclusive, she rophied up my whiskey when I wasn't looking and carried me over her shoulder off to her car.

Next thing I know I was alone in the Arena of Life. The Conspiracy had me stripped down to my Yeti hair and a pair of boxers with the seat of the pants torn out. They had placed me in a wrestling ring and took up front row seats to the coming show. The audience appeared around us then. Faces of shriveled hatred hanging like bitter fruit off the vines of aisles. They sneered, barked clipped death threats that slurred incoherently into the growl of some collective beast too terrible to comprehend in its whole. Friends I wanted to run, I wanted to rabbit bolt out of that hitherto unknown circle of Hell... but these very dreadful circumstances had immured my senses in consternation.

Before I could shake off the soul funk, a mighty cheer rose out of the leering miasma of the audience. My opponents approached the ring with the fanfare of a victorious army returning on parade. Though I had never seen either gentleman before I recognized them instantly by reputation alone.

On the right was Jehovah-1, whose long white beard spilled over an oil drum of a belly and instantly bought to mind the image of a senile old biker. He wore ill-fitting silver tights with a gold glitter "JHVH-1" embroidered across the ass. He paused in his approach occasionally to cup a palm to an ear and nod approvingly at the cheers before continuing.

On the left was the Smiling One - the demon Nhee Ghee, 'cosmic embodiment of Murphy's Law' and all around God of Bad Luck. He sipped gingerly a smoking cocktail and fired lurid winks across the broadside of the crowd. With the exception of the skin of sanguine red and a dreadlocked goatee he could easily pass for his partner's double.

They slipped through the turnbuckles and stepped into the 'square circle'. They sized me up. They called me out. They prepared to serve wrath gladly with a thunderous cracking of knuckles and a belch of brimstone. I was outmanned and outnumbered. I was fate-fucked and could do no more than ready myself for the bible level beat down that would ensue.

The Ref appeared out of thin air between us. Dressed in a horizontally black and white striped frock he cracked open a weathered Gideon Bible and read the rules of the match to us both. Finished, he crossed himself solemnly and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

The Bell tolled with a piercing clank and the match began to a swelling roar...

... when suddenly a voice boomed from out of nowhere within the emptiness of my thoughts: "STOP!"

Suave, melodic, a lackadaisical growl backed by a casual confidence that upon its hearing rendered unto me an implacable calm. Only the mass gasp that sucked all but a sigh of air out of the arena told me that my mind hadn't been seized by some desperate chimera.

All eyes swung synchronized on a hitherto unnoticed entrance...

... where a wizened janitor leaned his frail weight against a broom handle. A stoic facade begrudgingly acknowledged the stares that centered in on him and with a curt bob of his snow stubbled chin he directed our attention to an adjacent entrance to his right.

All eyes swung synchronized once again... and were met this time by the presence of an elaborately masked luchadore, stout in frame while radiating a grin the envy of every used-car salesman, con artist and preacher. The stranger wore an immaculately wrinkle free gray suit and a sensible hat that matched. In his corner were a posse consisting of a cigar smoking Buddha, a mohawked goddess biting loudly into a golden apple and a bong-huffing friar whose robed shoulders where adorned with all manner of small woodland creatures had nestled themselves comfortably.

"Now folks, I've never been one to stand in the way of a good brawl" the Luchadore addressed us between thoughtful puffs on a pipe befitting of the rank and majesty of an atomic age father-tyrant, "But it seems to me, well... that two-against-one is just plain unsportsman like."

The figure then smiled knowingly at me and winked: "So I hope you don't mind me asking, son... but is this a private fight or can anyone join in?"

Almost too flabbergasted to reply proper, it was all I could do to bob my head with assent.

"Why that's just swell!" He smiled, pocketed the pipe in his jacket and loosening the black tie from his neck strided over towards us. No one said anything, except my opponents who now consulted each other in whispered conference casting nervous eyes at my new found ally from huddled shoulders. When the luchadore stepped into the ring, it looked like he almost tripped over the turnbuckle but through some convenience of luck managed to land in an elaborate crouch that made it appear as if he meant to perform just that very maneuver.

He strolled over to me, asked me my name, laughed at its utterance as if he had heard the best news a man could hear and with a slap on my back said: "Don't you a worry a thing son... I'll take the first round... soften them up some if you will."

"But sir..." I protested, for as nervous as the enemy tag team was they did look much bigger and much meaner than individually than the sum of my ally and I together.

"Please... call me 'Bob'!" another wink and a flash of that can't-miss-grin.

The bell rang once again... and I waited in the corner while my new found friend strolled off with either incredible bravery or mind numbing stupidity or, perhaps, some obscure alchemy twixt the two. For the first time in years it seemed I exhaled a sigh of perfect slack!

Everything was going to be just fine... Bob had my back!



Big thanks to vomikronnoxis for hooking me up with the sweet image above

Comments

[catwalk.livejournal.com]

dude! he eats hamburgers... AND HELLFIRE!!!

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

And not as a meal... but as a mere appetizer.

[ammutbite.livejournal.com]

the subgenius must have slack!

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

That's a great image!

I will have my slack godammit!