On his way home from Cuba Mongrel meets and falls in love with a stewardess names Beby. Oh, and he’s reunited with his long-lost mother. While they catch up on time forgotten for a reason, Beby becomes sick and is taken to the hospital. While she is being treated Mongrel himself becomes incapacitated, and when he comes around, meets Bossa Nova, Dunttstowns dreaded mafia of one. Nova has a good side the size of a pea, and trying to stay on it is a doomed enterprise.
Excerpts:
“Well,” Mongrel looked at the women, who were obviously befuddled, “for some reason I always thought of dad as a breeder or something. I used to have dreams about him training goats to scuba dive and…” the women’s faces were a mess of confusion, “…and making fish watch goat porn…” He looked at the women, who were now giving him looks that meant they were thinking about sticking him in a mental hospital. He muttered on, “…Splicing DNA…laboratories…never mind. They were more nightmares than dreams anyway.”
Hershule patted her son on the back and returned to her sad a quiet mood. “It’s okay. I have nightmares about kittens playing in meadows.”
Beby dismally raised her hand to admit her own. “Bicycle farmers.” She looked to the floor, embarrassed. “I get ‘em every Friday night. They grow the parts separately and yank ‘em out of the ground before they’re fully developed. It’s barbaric. I’m seeing a shrink about it.”
***
“This is Hershule Angus Stevens. She is a landfill collector, likes to lick dead flies off the wall, and eats off the floor whenever it’s available. Her hobbies include drinking Snapple like an alcoholic, carpet trivia, and bowling overhand, while in her spare time she enjoys tying the tails of monkeys to street lamps. She’s looking for someone with volunteered insomnia that she can use as human toilet paper.”
***
“Why do you want Santa Claus dead? What’d he ever do to you?”
Big man Nova got solemn for a moment. “Well, it was just a couple years ago, see, I sat on his lap and told him all I wanted for Christmas was a rocket in my pocket, if you know what I mean.” He nudged Mongrel ferociously in the gut. “But come Christmas morning all Santa left me was Ants In The Pants. Ants In The fucking Pants! The son of a bitch! I vowed right then and there that I wouldn’t die until I got revenge.”
Mongrel exhaled loudly. “Wow. So you’re gonna live forever then?”
“Well, so far so good.”
The Chris Effect 