Chapter 8 Vinny the VinnCycle and Farb

Vinny and Tommy blazed their way down the expressway, darting in between other vehicles. Vehicles that were already going way faster than anything Tommy had ever seen driving on the highway. It was like the autobahn to the third power, yet he felt no fear. It was as if nothing could stop them, every turn, orchestrated perfectly by the slightest movement of Vinny's powerful hands. Roadsigns streaked by so quickly that Blue couldn't believe he was able to read them. They seemed to be in English and everything was similar enough to his own reality to present a plethora of burger joints and pizza parlors punctuated by what Blue reasoned had to be churches.

The churches were massive buildings. Every one of them had a large eye framed in two squares rotated at a 45% angle to one another. Each citadel had the eye logo with a different phrase such as Farb Sees, Farb Lives, Farb Reigns, Farb Hears or Farb Knows, flashing into Blue's subconscious between doses of neon pepperoni and LED double cheeseburgers. By the time the journey came to an end, Blue had only one question on his mind. Who in God's name is Farb? He was so delirious from the ride, the jumpjuice or both that he forgot himself, blew his cover and blurted out, "Who is Farb anyway?" as he stumbled to the ground in his disoriented state. He quickly regained his senses as the ominous form of Vinny loomed over him and in a single effort lifted him handily from the ground as if he were tissue paper. Vinny's giant frame masked a gentleness that Blue instantly detected as Vinny lowered Tommy gracefully to a position where he could regain his footing saying,"Little bro, you must've really been shaken up by that trashy little Max. You've never cared about Farb, the Council or anything spiritual, period. Next thing I know, you're going to tell me you saw the light or something. I'm not leaving your side tonight. Now, let's get you inside where you can rest.

Chapter 8 Vinny and the VinnCycle

The ride home on Vinny's bike would certainly qualify as one of the most amazing motorcycle experiences of Blue's life if it weren't for one thing - Blue wasn't at all sure that this actually qualified as his life. After all, he wasn't really Blue and he wasn't the real Tommy either. Regardless, the ride was a trip! The bike was a monster. It made any Harley that Blue had ever seen look like a child's toy motorcycle. It wasn't only the biggest damn bike he had ever seen, it was also remarkably well appointed and comfortable, even for two big guys like Vinny and Tommy. In fact, the thing seemed to know him. Vinny was still shaking his head in disbelief at Tommy's choice of dinner mates as he approached the bike and said one word,"T-bone." It was all Blue could do to keep his composure as the bike altered its appearance instantly before his eyes, sprouting a second seat automatically, in accordance with the single command from Vinny. The seat wasn't just another pad that popped out of some hidden compartment behind Vinny's seat. It was a full-sized seat, nearly identical to Vinny's, that seemed to grow from the back of Vinny's seat, unfolding like a stop-motion or time-lapsed photographic sequence of the opening of an exotic, blossoming flower, adding a good three feet to the total length of the bike. Vinny climbed on and Blue quickly followed, careful not to hesitate, figuring that he must be T-bone and that this was not his first time as passenger on the "VinnCycle". The bike confirmed his supposition as it wrapped itself around his form, presenting him with custom fitted armrests. seemingly sculpted to the exact contour of his forearms. Just as he felt the urge to shift his weight, the bike repositioned the seat, bringing his body into a position of absolute comfort, creating a feeling of weightlessness.

"Let's ride!" Vinny howled.

Suddenly a voice like an amplified evangelist with a tracheotomy echoed, "Let's ride," and the bike shot forth with a burst of speed unlike anything Blue had ever felt. Oddly, he didn't really "feel" a thing. He simply recognized that they were moving forward with tremendous speed. In fact, he was so comfortable that he felt as though he could fall to sleep right then and there.

"JumpJuice time!" he heard Vinny whisper as he felt a short burst of effervescence sparkle across his face. Instantly he sensed everything around him as if it was passing through some sort of amplifier. It was as if even his sense of feeling was getting louder. It was as if his senses weren't actually functioning, no, it was as if they were functioning but so quickly that he was unable to detect their origin before an even greater sensation would take over. No, it was like his brain was functioning so quickly that his senses didn't have time to feel or hear or smell. No, it wasn't that either, it was simply that he could do nothing but laugh and drool. Then Blue heard a voice that seemed to come from inside his own head.

"That's my T-bone! Settle in little bro, it's jump time for the VinnCycle."

In the time it took for Blue to realize that Vinny was actually Tommy's brother his own body seemed as though it had melted away completely. The VinnCycle had transformed again. Blue couldn't feel himself being repositioned at all, but he was hyper-aware that his body was stretched out like Superman when he's flying at top speed. Almost directly below him and slightly ahead, he could see Vinny. It was as though he was riding piggy-back on Vinny but they weren't actually touching each other. Vinny seemed to be steering them with his hands alone. The technology in this cycle was beyond anything that Blue could have imagined possible, even in a so-called parallel universe.

Chapter 8 Vinny

A good head taller and fifty pounds heavier than Tommy, the biker wrapped his arms around him and began to sob.  "I thought I lost you, I heard you were dead, they told me that bitch Maxi-Pad blew a hole in your stomach,"  he continued as he gently released his grip cautiously backing up as he let go to look at Tommy's stomach.  As he did so,  he saw Max and Victor.  "YOU!!!"  He hollered and instantly lunged at Max.  Blue quickly caught hold of his arms barely keeping him off of Max who cried, "Tommy's okay, I swear, Vinny, he's fine".  She reached for her gun and felt Victor's hand already on it - she turned to him as he said "Max and I were just apologizing to Tommy, Vinny." 

"Oh, my Bastin' Farbunkle, you have got to be shittin' me, Tommy," Vinny turned on Tommy, gripping his shirt into a ball nearly lifting him off  the ground with one hand. 

"Sorry Vinny,"  Tommy said quietly, " let me explain."

"Tommy," Vinny said as he loosened his grip, "there is no way in farst that you are goin' t' be able to explain why you are sittin' at a table in Farb Damn Mickey's Diner with these two assholes!"

"Gimme a lift home, Vinny, and I'll try to do my best".

Chapter 7 Who Am Us? Answered - Sort of

Leer had handled Max perfectly, by giving her what she always wanted from Victor, a chance to be heard about anything, without fear that he might retaliate if she said anything he didn't want to hear. It was like the starting gun at the Preakness had just been fired. The sheer power of what burst forth from Max's mouth, a hundred thoroughbreds could not compete. Before it ended, a dozen plates and twice as many pitchers of coffee found their way to that booth at the far end of Mickey's diner only to be scraped clean or drained dry by the vociferous Max and Tommy and Victor who were uncharacteristically though thoroughly attentive to her every word. Before the night gave way to the dawn, Blue and Leer had the answers to every single question they had asked, however surreptitiously, and knew everything they needed to know to survive for at least a short time in this new world.

"Well, I guess it's time to go home," Tommy yawned as he patted his healed but bloated belly.

Nearly everything they needed to know.

Blue looked at Leer as both of them inwardly faced the realization that they had no idea where home was.

Just then Max said,"Well we're not taking you home with us Tommy," then she gave a menacing glance at Victor as she continued,"I realize that you guys are planning to stop fighting, and believe it or not, I think you're right, after all who wants to die, especially twice, but I'm not going to bring you to my house Levito.

"Well how 'bout droppin' me off at my place then," Tommy chimed in without mising a beat. Max looked deeply into Tommy's eyes, Blue's eyes looked back at her. Max suddenly felt remarkably self-concious as if Tommy was looking inside of her mind - reading her thoughts - thoughts of him, not only being in her house, but in her bed, so she said, "ummm".

The trio looked at one another in silence until the silence became timeless.

"Tommy! What the Bast!?" a big, bald, muscular biker shouted from the entrance to Mickey's diner. He stomped his way across the diner. Blue got to his feet, not sure if he should run or prepare to fight. Before he could run, the biker was on him.

Chapter 7 Who Am Us? and Who's Hungry Three Too

"So Max, enlighten me, how are we going to make Tommy Boy here work with us?"  Max stares dumbfoundedly at Victor then Tommy then Victor trying to work out the work with us concept for herself much less for Tommy.  "Let's put it this way, what if you were me and you wanted to stop the fighting, get over it, move on - what would you do?"  Leer asked. 

Max gave Victor a look that told him that he had never asked her for her opinion about anything, so why, now, when she would obviously not share his views on the situation, would he bother to ask for her opinion and said, "Victor, you have never asked for my opinion on anything so why on earth would you ask me now, when I obviously do not share your views on this whole situation."  Victor calmly replied, "Because Max, I just had my head kicked in and I'm not thinking clearly."  Max's expression turned from troubled to downright sour, "Bast yourself, Victor", Max sneared then crossed her arms and frowned into a sullen silence.  Tommy and Victor were speachless, mostly because Leer and Blue didn't know what "Bast yourself" meant, but it wasn't too hard to imagine.  It was now clear to Leer that Victor was a real pain in the neck in general and that it was going to be difficult if not impossible to be himself and Victor at the same time.  One thing he knew for certain, there was a reason he and Blue appeared where they did, when they did and he was going to figure it out.  "Listen Max," he said as soothingly as he thought Victor's character would allow, "I know I've been difficult to deal with in the past," Max lifted her eyes towards him, "but I promise I'm going to handle things a little differently now."  I smile warmed its way across Max's face as Victor's face flattened itself into what was left of his blue plate special as he squeaked out a "what the ffffff" doubling over to grab his balls where Max's steel-tipped heal was firmly lodged.  "Thought I'd better get that in before you changed your mind," she quipped as she withdrew her boot returning her foot to its rightful place below the table, harmlessly crossed over the ankle of her other leg.  Leer reluctantly choked a half-hearted "I guess I had it coming."

Chapter 7 Who Am Us? and Who's Hungry Three

Mickey's Diner in Rat Town is about as true to the definition of a greasy spoon railway car diner as any diner could be in this or any universe, parallel or otherwise. So it came as no surorize to Leer that the first words out of Max's mouth were, "Victor, I keep telling you that stuff is going to kill you!" when he ordered the blue plate special - double chesseburger with bacon, fried onions and mushrooms, devoid of vegetation and splattered with two heaping tablespoons of mayo, served with a fat garlic dill pickle and a combo basket of fries, onion rings and fried cheese curds on the side. This was a real shocker to Blue, who had always known John to be a vegetarian. His confusion nearly caused him to blurt out something that would have exposed them as someone other than who they claimed to be but he held his tongue. Instead, he set out to find clues upon his plate as to why his order was referred to as chicken fried steak. As he did so, Max confessed that she always got "wicked hungry" after she plugged somebody because it tended to rattle her nerves a bit but that this time she was going to have to be excused, forgiven or just plain tolerated for proceeding to devour two full sized racks of ribs because the guy she just plugged had only seconds earlier asked her to pas the salt.

In the silence that followed Victor quietly urges Max to refrain from mentioning death by cheeseburger ever again reminding her that he had just risen from the dead.  Saying something to the effect of "Hey Max, just lay off about the cheeseburger, I've already been beaten to death and I think I can safely say that I'd rather die of a heartattack." 

"Pounded" Tommy listlessly added - Max and Victor looked at him with surprise.

"Flattened" he added, oblivious to the stares now coming from Max and Victor.

"Look," Victor interjected "it's bad enough you beat me to death, you gotta insult me?"

"What?"  Tommy snaps out of his trance "huh, no, not you, the meat, it's flat, pulverized, I mean I can't even recognize it, sirloin, round steak, flank steak, eh, whatever, it's actually pretty tasty!"  Blue eats with conviction while Leer attempts surreptitiously get a handle on Rat Town by playing on Max's obvious need for attention.

Chapter 7 Who Am Us? and Who's Hungry Too

"Max", Leer grins as he puts his arm around her, "Tommy here gets the impression that you don't like him. I don't know if it's the hole you shot in his guts that's mixing him all up or if he's just a little dazed from hunger. So, why don't you buy us all a little dinner. You see, while I was dying a short time ago, a thought came to me, an epiphany, a new direction."

Maxed scowled at Victor then ranted," A new direction? An epiphany? Dinner with Tommy? Have you lost your mind? What do you think my dad is going to say about this?" Max barely caught her breath,"and DYING? Victor , you weren't dying, you were dead. Your skin was already turning cold. I felt it with my own hands! Now, you come back from the dead AND you suddenly want to play nicey nice with Tommy Levito? You expect me to accept that? AND you want me to buy you guys dinner? I ought to plug both of you right now! Max reaches down for her gun but Leer's hand is already between her legs, where she keeps her weapon. He has the piece, barrel to her crotch. She tenses up and reaches out for his throat with her blade, as she does, she notices that Victor's other hand is holding his own gun to her temple. Her eyes roll silently skyward in resignation. She drops her arms and her mouth turns to a pout.

"Max, c'mon now, I know it's hard to accept that I'm standing here, alive, in front of you, without a scar on me after the final beating of my life, but isn't it easier to accept than an early grave for yourself? Besides, I wouldn't want to waste such a lovely girl over a little misunderstanding."

Max reluctantly softens and with quiet sarcasm replies, "Misunderstanding? Is that what you call simultaneous resurrections - a misunderstanding?"

"It's OK, relax," says Victor as he lowers his gun and gently places her gun back into the holster between her legs. "C'mon, let's eat."

Chapter 7 Who Am Us? and Who's Hungry?

"It won't work," Leer replies dryly, "Quanjis can't guide themselves, only others."

"Fine, I'll guide you to my bed. I've got a king-size mattress, clean sheets and enough beer in the fridge for both of us. Now can I put my hand up?" Blue pleads.

"Same old Blue," Leer smiles,"nice try, but I've been searching for a Quanji for over twenty years now. If you're mine, then you already know where I'm going, intuitively. If not, you're either not my Quanji or you're not a very good one. No offense.

Blue moved in on top of Leer's toes and bent in low so his nose pressed down on Leer's nose as he whispered gruffly,"Well it doesn't take a Quanji to know that you don't want to spend the rest of your life as a balding Italian with horrible taste in clothing, too much jewelry and a homicidal girlfriend."

"Actually, this is a pretty nice watch," Leer replies as he thrusts his wrist up between their two noses forcing Blue back enough that he can step out from under his feet. "Besides, it says it's dinner time and judging by the hole in your stomach, you gotta be pretty hungry!"

"Very funny, but you know, you are right. Perhaps it is you who is the Quanji, you who can see the destination," Blue laughs as he looks in his pocket for money."Holy shit!" he exclaims as he pulls out a billfold stacked with bills bearing the number 100 and the face of a man he had never seen before. Inscribed upon a scroll graphic within the design of the bill are the words "Together We Stand, One People, One Homeland" He held the bill up for Leer to see saying, "Maybe you're not Italian."

"This could get very interesting," Leer muses as he turns toward the crowd which is considerably smaller now, roughly three hundred feet away. "Max", he yells,"Come over here, and tell the rest of the guys we'll meet up later." I have an idea, he whispers to Blue. "We need to get some understanding about who we are and what's going on around here, so we might as well use my homicidal girlfriend."

Chapter 7 Who Am Us?And Why are We Fighting?

"Okay Leer, where are we?" Blue whispers even though the two men are clear across the way from anyone who might give a damn and even further away from those who don't, considering half of rat town showed up minutes after the tenderising process had begun on Victor's face.
"Hang on Blue," Leer interrupts, punctuating the disruption with the barrel of small pistol he found in his pocket,"I suggest you quickly pull out that piece that's hanging off your hip and put it to my head." If anyone had been watching closely enough they would have seen that Victor clearly had the drop on Tommy but Blue recovered quickly enough to make a good show of it to the casual observer, which is all who were left watching. Anyone who really cared was too busy trying to find the right person to talk to, the right thing to talk about and the right attitude to bring to the conversation. Everyone was startled at the resurrection, bewildered by the laughter and perplexed at the vision of Tommy and Victor walking off like old friends. What they were seeing now was more like it. Tommy and Victor, guns to each other's heads, talking about God knows what. Correction, Farb knows what.

"And what the hell are we doing here? Blue continued.

"I have no idea, Blue," Leer confided,"Actually, no one does. I mean, seriously, when you start making these jumps you can't control it, schedule it, make a reservation or even entertain the thought of guiding your journey in any appreciable way, UNLESS you are a Quanji, which I am not, Leer pauses...but I think you might be."

"What's a Quanji,"Blue asks as he pushes the barrel of his gun harder into Leer's temple.

"Look Blue, I appreciate your enthusiastic performance but the gun is real. If you shoot me here, I'll be just as dead as anywhere else, so let's put them down. I think we've got them snowed." Both men tuck their guns away and the crowd relaxes once again. No one wants to make the wrong move so people decide to start leaving."A Quanji is what the Dolmari call the navigators or drivers. The Dolmari are your spirit guides, and yes, you have them whether you believe in them or not. Of course they can't do much for you if you choose not to believe, but given the circumstances, you'd better start believing, and fast," Leer urges as Blue tries to figure out just how much of this he is willing to swallow.

"Why don't we just hop onto another Goozlesnorp, all I had to do was just hold up my hand like thi..."Blue says as he raises his hand. Leer quickly pulls it down then follows through with a headlock instructing Blue against such behavior,"You don't want to do that, Blue, the places that you end up in can get pretty bizarre when you continue to wing it without a specific destination, Quanji or not!"

"So what the hell are we supposed to do now, John? Leer? Victor? SHIT! I don't even know what to call you!" Blue stands up to Tommy's full height, his frustration boiling over inside his muscular build. Victor's headlock snaps open like a little pistachio shell, dropping Leer to the ground. "Don't call me anything if you can help it," Leer suggests as he lifts himself back up to standing. "Call me whatever your thugs call me but play it cool as long as possible. We have no idea what sort of shit these guys were into. Bad enough to get them killed at least. Besides, I can't get over how much Max reminds me of Catherine. If we get through this I can tell you all about Catherine, Mona, even old Edgar Van but for now, we've got enough to handle right here. Anyway, you'll catch onto this parallel universe thing before you know it, especially if you are a Quanji."

"How are we supposed to figure that out if you won't let me put my hand up? Blue quips "I've got a destination in mind right now - My Time, My Planet, My Bed!"

Chapter 7 Who Am Us?

"Looks like you're going to have to find a little snack elsewhere, M'bucko,"McGoogle says as he pats Krunk about thigh high,"One time he ate three different women for me. They just wouldn't cooperate. The fourth one finally agreed that I WAS the guy she was planning to meet at the airport for a little "layover". Turns out, she decided to stick around long enough to pop out a few mini McGoogles before Krunk finally did eat her. Never dawned on me 'til then that Krunk might have a problem detecting sarcasm. Still, I been thinkin' it might not be a bad idea to start me another family", McGoogle salivates in Max's direction. Blue is just disgusted by McGoogle so he steps in between Krunk, McGoogle and Max with a peremptory "How's it goin'? Krunk, McGoogle, came to see the show?" Krunk towered over them, his eyes fixed on Max, his face puppy-like and smiling in a relieved, I don't have to eat you smile.

"So you're not really dead, 'eh Tommy boy?", quipped McGoogle,"and by the look of things, you seem to be steppin' up to protect and serve the very witch who blasted a hole in you less than an hour ago!"

Tommy laughed then spoke with a firm tone in his voice,"Look, I'm not exactly sure what just happened, but I am pretty damn sure that there is not a thing that you can do to me that is any worse, no offense Krunk. Now Victor and I have some serious talking to do - ain't that right Victor?"

Leer moves his eyes upwards from surveying the body he is in as it transformed from badly beaten to perfectly healthy and replies, "apperently, we do".

"Max, I didn't kill your great great somethin' or another, but you DID kill me. It just didn't work. So, that makes us even," Tommy smiles as he turns to Victor and puts his arm around him like the two of them were old friends, walking off to share a secret, which they were, it's just that nobody else knew it.

So much for freedom, Max thought to herself. Now she was really in love. She blasted a Farb-Damn hole in him and he smiles and calls it even. What the Fuck got into Tommy and how was she going to get her hands on some. Better yet, wrap her legs around some. She wanted him inside of her - her thoughts - her feelings - her every minute, but there was no way in varst that she was going to let him know it.

"Krunk very happy he no have to squash and eat lady Max!" Krunk nervously approached with something very tiny, barely held between his huge fingers. It was a little black ponytail holder. Max casually removed it from Krunk's massive hand and tied up her hair. "Thanks big boy, she winked, then spun her way toward the cops who had bleachered themselves on their squad cars with oversized submarine sandwiches and energy drinks.

Max zeroed in on Colin Dugan, a skinny young cop who reminded her of a ferret. He had spent a little too much time getting into her business of late and she couldn't pass up the opportunity to amuse herself. "So Colin, you gotta be shittin' your pants right now. The two of them actually talking?! She struts in close and whispers in his ear, "Probably about YOU!"

Chapter 7 Max is her name and she has a secret

"Maxie!, darlin', angel of my dreams," drooled old Petey McGoogle as he sauntered up behind the woman with the gun.

"Max! McGoogle, Max!" she replied as she shoved her gun directly up under his balls.

"All right. all right, Max, I beg your pardon, Max, for Farb's sake, no reason to go off half cocked," the old letch grins mischievously."It's nice to see you hangin with the boys, always knew you'd take up with one of 'em, kinda thought it would be Tommy, not Victor. Funny how life plays tricks on ya' ain't it sugar?" McGoogle keeps rambling despite the razor sharp glare Max is burning back, directly into his, droopy, drunken looking eyes. " 'Course you couldn't have a piece of Tommy even if you wanted him now could ya, 'siderin' the old family history and all, too many of your relatives relatives got a thing against Tommy's great great somethin' or another, ain't that right?"

Max continued glaring at McGoogle but he had hit upon a truth that only she knew. She had always wanted Tommy. Sure she was Victor's girl, but the dirty old coot was right, she would have been all over Tommy if there hadn't been the bad blood between the families. This was rat town and things seemed to hang in rat town like a bad odor. Plus, it turns out that anything that ever happened in rat town, McGoogle either knows about it, heard about it, knew it was coming, was there, or caused it. So McGoogle spent most of his time talking about whatever he knew was going to cause the biggest headache for everyone around him because that's how he got his kicks.

"So, as I was sayin' seems Tommy's great great somethin' or another, well he offed, sweet little Maxie's,  "Cah-Humm", pardon me, Max's great great somethin' or another over Tommy's great great somethin' else, if you savvy the sadness, so he's kinda like your brother, ain't he hot rocket?"

This time Max gets in real close with her whole body, so close it excites the old man until he feels the steel of her blade pressed tight up against his jugular.

McGoogle laughs his lowest laugh which is still an octave too high for manly and looks up over her shoulder saying,"Ah, to die with you would be orgasmic, you pretty little witch!"

Without turning her head, Max knew what he was getting at,"You must mean Bitch, because I get the distinct impression that you brought yours. Her eyes still glued to McGoogle, she relaxes her grip upon the knife and eases it away from McGoogle's throat, saying, "Hello Krunk, how's the weather up there big fella?" Krunk is perhaps the single most lovable bad guy imaginable. He is about twelve feet tall and looks like a toddler's toy. His massive hands can pound just about anything to rubble and he eats nearly anything. In fact, he will eat anything and will do whatever McGoogle tells him to do. Max knew this about Krunk and slowly stepped away from McGoogle.

Chapter 7 Rivals

Tommy and Victor stood within a couple of feet of one another. No one had budged in the last several minutes after the laughter subsided. A feeling of wonder hung in the air but it felt like wonder that had been poured upon and was hungry and confused. Leer and Blue had begun to understand that they were some pretty important men, or rather Victor and Tommy were, and the sense that everyone was watching to see what their next move was going to be was palpable. Actually, Blue and Leer didn't even know their own names at this point to say nothing of the fact that they had no understanding of how the men, whose bodies they now stood in, died. Leer had jumped a couple of times before but never by goozlesnorp and never into someone else's body, and Blue was still half expecting Glurp to show up.

Instead, a woman walked toward them from the front line of the crowd which was still fanned out, motionless around them, satisfied to spectate as she walked with determination toward the risen pair. As soon as she drew near enough to be seen clearly, both men instantly recognized her. Blue turned to look at Leer who returned the gaze with an expression which told Blue that she was, in fact, the spitting image of Mona Damino, or Catherine Kent. Now was clearly not going to be the right time to clear up that little mystery.

"Well, I am going to have to have this thing checked out, the woman said as she played with her firearm, surveying it then eyeing up Tommy's gut. She looked a little too much like Siouxsie Sioux for either Blue or Leer to handle without a slight bit of laughter, only she thought they were laughing at her joke about the piece. She was cocky, forceful and outrageously sexy, if not intimidating, particularly to Blue as she stepped in close and in a single motion nuzzled the barrel of her firearm up under his chin while pulling Victor in close, grabbing his shirt and clenching it into her fist. "Did you guys forget you hate each other?" She eased her grip on Victor as if checking herself. It didn't take long for Leer to sense the situation. He knew that he, Victor, was one of the two men in charge, leaving Blue, or Tommy, to be the other and for the moment at least, hot little Siouxsie was on his side. Leer took a chance on his read and putting one hand on her shoulder stepped in to gently but firmly push her gun hand down, away from Blue's chin. "Hey now, easy does it, nobody should have to die more than once a day, even him." Leer safely suggested. He was as much saving Blue as he was trying to leave the conversation open, for information seeking purposes. It worked. " I just can't believe you don't want me to plug Tommy again for you, Victor, and we even have the stiff shuttle handy to cart his ass away", the woman added with a distainful look at Blue.

She was still trying to sort out her feelings about what had just happened by doing the thing that came easiest to her, swinging her gun around and threatening somebody. Everyone in the crowd had just watched as Tommy Levito and Victor Alonzo fought hand to hand for three hours-Actually Tommy mercilously beat Victor to a pulp because Tommy was that much better a fighter yet Victor refused to go down. Max, the hot Siouxsie look-alike couldn't bear it any longer, so she blasted a hole in Tommy's stomach, the size of a grapefruit. Tommy hit the pavement just as Victor keeled over. Both men were dead. Everyone was stunned. At that moment, everything changed. Nothing is certain. The cops didn't know what to do because half of them got regular dough from one of the stiffs on the ground, if not both. The crowd volleyed stares across to one another trying to guage their next move. The cronie volleyball tournamment ended before it began however as neither side could figure out who would serve. The captains were gone. The bosses were dead. Both stiffs were in the ambulances before anyone knew what hit them As the crowd began to realize that Tommy and Victor were dead the faintest breath of hope seemed to sigh its way through the crowd of cops and cronies. For a moment, Max thought about running. She could just go. She could live in a small town, no more Victor, no more guns-Freedom.
But now, here she was again, ready to blast another hole, ready to do whatever Victor wanted.

Chapter 7 Perp U Pop Quiz: Technically Can it be called Resurrection if you wake up in someone else's corpse?

"Hey Bmphf,  grrmp, gmmn, mmnnn, ahh,HEY, Bobby!" Mike Masterson finally bellowed past the triple-decker submarine he was forcibly sinking with both hands somewhere off the coast of gluttony, his large but lagging maw unable to keep pace with his insatiable zeal for cold cuts slathered in ultra-sauce, thousand island dressing supercharged with high-fructose corn syrup and some unspellable chemical that, while legal, left nicotine back in kindergarten at addiction school. "Bobby, we're on the news!" Officer Masterson loved to sit in his squad car with the radio tuned to the local news, hoping to "catch himself" on the sight of the latest breaking story. Lieutenant Bobby Hurst rarely got in on the act but he jumped into the passenger seat of the squad car because today's crime scene was different.

Masterson could barely reach the knob past his lunch bag, pinned between his belly and the steering wheel. He turned up the volume, "...and now, apparently, both men are dead. The initial report attributes the deaths to gangland violence. Police and fire vehicles surround the ambulances, now hearses at the sight of this grizzly double homicide. The paramedics worked as though their very lives depended upon saving the two slain gang bosses, and that may not be very far from the truth. Tommy Levito and Victor Alonzo controlled nearly every illegal operation in the city and owned, controlled or persuaded more than half of the city's legal enterprises. Medical crews pronounced the rivals dead only moments ago and have just closed the doors on the lives of both men for whom the only certain future is a five minute trip to the city morgue."

"By Farb", both officers reverently added as they bowed their heads, "Course I doubt he'll have much use for them," Masterson chuckled as both men eyed the ambulances as if even their futures were inextricably linked the the lifeless cargo inside. Masterson turns off the radio, one hand on the knob, the other on his sub.

Suddenly the rear doors on both ambulances burst open from inside. Tommy Levito and Victor Alonso jump down from the back of the vehicles and survey the the crowd of police and fireman, gangsters, pimps, hookers, junkies, skateboarders and librarians all assembled for the spectacle, nearly every single one of them breathless and all of them stunned.

Leer was entirely drenched in blood from the nose down and Blue had a hole in his gut the size of a grapefruit. The two men looked at one another and smiled. Tommy's hole closed itself instantly and only Victor's clothes revealed any sign of injury. Both men turned toward the crowd which remained silently in a state of shock. Blue began to snicker, then Leer quietly laughed to himself. The laughter of Tommy and Victor grew until both men were nearly in tears. Within a minute the entire population on the scene was laughing along, whether out of nervousness, relief or sheer infectious joy.

Chapter 7 Some Parallel Universes May Be Perpendicular

White. We have already established the whiteness of Leer's hair. But let's take a moment to examine the whiteness of Leer's face. and Blue's for that matter. First, we must take a step backward. Or, rather, sidewards, which is exactly what Leer did at precisely the right moment because that is exactly what Blue did, making it absolutely essential that Leer did the same. Leer performed the action with a grace that can only be described as thoroughly graceful. If he had done it any other way he would have ended up dead.

"You look positively dead!", Blue laughed,"white as a ghost".

"So do you," replied Leer as both men disembarked the star cruiser, gracefully, nonchalantly sidestepping their way off the ship and onto the "deck" which was still the remnant of Blue's house, as the the cruiser continued its journey at the speed of light without so much as slowing down even just a little to let them off."Happens every time", continued Leer unfazed by the abrupt exit. "The color will come back in no time. Seen enough?"

"No", Blue quietly responded,"just enough for now." As he said this he reached up his hand. Blue was quickly ripped off the platform by a goozlesnorp, a surprisingly majestic birdfishlady, whose body was part woman, part fish, and, yes, part bird. As she pulled him from the platform, Blue reached down with his other hand and snatched Leer by the back of his shirt, at once lifting him from the platform and swinging him up onto the back of the goozlesnorp which flew synchronously to the will of Blue who was catapulted by the combined motion of Leer and the flight path of the goozlesnorp directly onto her back. The birdfishlady, Leer and Blue relaxed into one being, gliding upon the air high amongst the clouds.

Neither Blue nor Leer could tell you precisely how long it took to lose all sense of time, motion, thought, physical existence or feeling. What they could tell you is that time seemed endless. Well, endless aside from one fact. It was over within the blink of an eye.

When asked about this very moment at a moment some considerable time later, or perhaps before, during the third TOIS (Tribunal of Intergalactic Shit), both men testified in exactly the same manner "I closed my eyes, no, actually, I blinked, yes, I blinked, and when I opened my eyes..."

Chapter 6 Across the Universe Leer's Hair

Chapter 6 Across the Universe Where ARE We GoingToo

Blue arched backward, his feet and lower legs entwined with the skin of the serpent as he stretched fully backward, then snapped forward instantly like the spark from a match bursting into flame. His head flared forward as his arms, now glowing, swung forward bringing with them pure energy that rolledd from his joints, through his limbs and out the tips of his fingers, seering liquid laser light. Blue and Leer spun upward, a relentless, twirling rocket of light, slicing through miles of underwater shafts, presumably leading upward while becoming increasingly redundant. Another attack from three sides, then four, then five. "Why not thirty?" Blue thought, he could just as easily slice through a hundred gummy attacks. "This has to end", Blue thought to himself again but felt that Leer agreed, unspoken, still strongly entwined, swimming forcefully onward. Blue thought for all of one moment. Differently. Blue thought radically differently from the thinking it took to remain doing what he was doing. He thought radically differently from the way he ever would have thought before and stepped off. Without thinking as radically differently as Blue was thinking, it would be impossible to understand what stepping off meant at that exact point in time. Fortunately, Leer knew exactly what it meant to think radically differently and was not the least bit surprized that Blue had decided to do so now. He was no more surprized at Blue's decision than he was by the fact that he, himself was wildly popular in Australia. Leer wasn't particularly surprized to be wildly popular anywhere due to the fact that he could speak nearly every language known to man, and a few unknown to man, had the uncanny ability to define precisely the last hue you had envisioned or might envision if asked and his hair was pure white. Absolutely white. Sometimes these things don't come across too well in comic books, but his hair was brilliant white. So white that you would have to add white to the white paper to make it white enough if you were trying to draw a picture of Leer for a friend.

Chapter 6 Across the Universe Where ARE We Going?

With the blackness looming above them, Blue relaxes his grip on the serpent and they float serenely in the center of the great opening within the maze. Blue's whole being bristled with energy as he suddenly re-engaged his grip on the whiskers. The serpent, which was really more like a dragon the more Blue thought about it, responded instantly, bolting immediately upward, directly perpendicular to the only thing that looked anything like ground below them, which didn't really look anything like ground at all. Actually it looked an awful lot like the inside of a waffle iron except that the bumpy bits looked more like thorns. Thorns made of spikes made from pyramids, hundreds of feet tall, as if you just grabbed the tip of the pyramid and kept pulling up on it and the whole thing stretched to the height you made it stretch to, which in this case was a few hundred feet. So the waffle iron was really more like a bed of nails. Blue looked below him and watched as they rocketed upward away from the bottom and even though they were rocketing, the bottom never really seemed to be getting any further away. Just then, three gelatinous tubes with teeth, jawbones, fangs, monstrous, mammoth mandibles burst forth from the three surrounding tunnels striking the spot where Blue and the dragon,Leer had been serenly floating only seconds earlier. they were now, however, hurtling forward, upward into the infinite blackness. Well, blackness that appeared to be infinite until three more rabid gummy worms darted at them from all sides.

Some people put stock in religion, others in education and innovation,"Science Gentlemen, Science will answer everything!" but sometines it's a simple matter of instinct, if not just dumn luck. Blue did not ordinarily consider himself to be lucky so it was instinct that inspired his next move. Blue moved with the grace and confidence of a master. He let go.

Time seemed to stop.

Chapter 6 Across the Universe Page 4 Sketch

Chapter 6 Across the Universe Where We're Going We don't have the Senses, We ARE the Senses

"This is a little hard to grasp at first but all you have to do is go along with everything that happens to you." Leer laughs as he becomes a serpentine creature, part dragon, part sea serpent who dives in and out of the water pulling Blue at breakneck speed toward a volcanic island looming in a pitch-black sea. Blue is on Leer's back, riding his serpent companion like a horse.

"I can tell I'm really in for it now, Leer." Blue shouts to a silent Leer. The transformation is complete for him. He has become the serpent. Blue barely squeezes a breath in before the serpentine Leer dives deep, deeper than any ordinary man would dare to dive. Fortunately, Blue is no ordinary man. In fact, he isn't actually a man at all. The ancient folk called them Avastrana,"of the water" for lack of a better translation-Blue had become the translation, part sea creature, part ninja warrior. He moved with the serpent as if it were an extension of himself, guiding it with the long fibrous whiskers which turned out from the corners of the serpent's mouth which was huge, open and feeding on the thousands of smaller fish which had grouped in the deepest part of this undersea ravine where the pair glided through the icy waters as if they had been doing so all of their lives. Blue heeded Leer's advice and trusted his instinct to let the sea creature, who had moments earlier been his friend, feed. In his bones, or whatever they had become, he felt an overwhelming certainty that the bond he shared with the serpent was critical to his own survival, as he felt this, the whiskers wrapped gently around his forearms, becoming a second skin. Now rider and serpent were one. Together, the companions raced through the open sea, covering an incalculable amount of distance in a seemingly insignificant length of time. Just as suddenly, they were swimming through a tunnelled maze, so narrow, Blue could feel the walls brush against his back, his head tucked in so close to the serpent that Blue could hear its breath more clearly than he could hear the water rushing past his ears. They reached an opening in the maze. In front of them lay three more tunnel entrances. They were surrounded by sheer rock walls, above them only blackness.

Chapter 6 Across the Universe or Universes

A constant feeling of falling accompanied by the urge to vomit and an insatiable hunger. Such intense hunger that Blue wishes he could vomit just so he could eat something. Blackness, seemingly endless blackness filled with nothing but hunger. For days upon days, a lightless drop through empty space with an empty stomach, in silence.

"Hey", whispers Leer into Blue's ear,"how's your head?"

"My head?",asks Blue.

"Yeah, well it looks different," adds Leer.

"What do you mean different?", Blue asks, suddenly realizing that he is no longer hungry.

"You don't have a nose" Leer responds.

"What?" Blue puzzles.

"You don't have a nose" Leer responds again.

"What do you mean I don't have a nose? I can smell you for cryin' out loud!", Blue nervously snaps.

Leer holds up a small mirror to Blue.

"Man!", Blue exclaims, "I look pretty good as anime!"

Chapter 6 Across the Universe Page 4

Chapter 6 Across the Universe Page 3

Chapter 6 Across the Universe Page 2

Chapter 6 Across the Universe Page 1

Chapter 6 Across the Universe-an Unexpected Visitor

"It's a funny thing when you try to explain the unexplainable," Leer said as he climbed out of the frame right as Blue put the finishing touches on his sunglasses. "Nice touch, by the way, Blue," Leer smirks as he pulls the glasses off."That whole blind superhero thing works well in the comics but you know as well as I do that I see as well as you do, maybe better!"

"Holy shit!!!", vomits Blue."John?!! John Tanner?!! Fuck man! I thought you were dead...or corporate!"Blue stands in disbelief for a moment,"DUDE! It is SO FUCKIN" COOL to see you. What the hell, man? You just walked out of this fuckin' comic that I...me - I - just finishing DRAWING!!!" Blue stutters-shouts-explicates in disbelief. Then he drops to the floor and pleads,"If I draw an iPad in your hand will it really be there, and perhaps more importantly, will all of the available apps be preloaded? No seriously, this calls for a celebration, how about a six-pack, chilled to perfection. Damn, I have absolutely nothing to offer you, I mean you just crawled out of paper you must be parchment, parched I meant." Blue laughs to himself.

"Actually, Leer confides,"we aren't staying."

"We? Who's We? - You and me?" Blue asks cautiously.

"Yeah", Leer laughs and in a single motion puts his sunglasses back on and grabs Blue by the shoulder pulling him back from an infinite drop as a star cruiser obliterates Blue's house and everything in it except for the small patch of floor which Blue and Leer still occupy. It was as if the entire house exploded on impact leaving only enough of the structure to keep Blue and Leer from falling. In fact, it was so sudden that Blue didn't even feel it. What he did feel was the cruiser, inches away from his face, radiating an intense energy. Blue reached up to the cruiser and gently placed his fingers upon the hull of the ship. The surface seemed to silently hum, buzzing rapidly like the vibrator Blue found under the bathroom sink just days after his sister Lisa returned from her "Girl Scout" camping trip. Frank never seemed to put together the fact that Lisa continued to go on "Girl Scout" camping trips all the way through college and never once received a merit badge. What she did do was use every penny that Frank ever earned in any way she pleased right up until the day that Blue moved out. She probably continued to do so but Blue never bothered to find out. In fact, the only thing larger than Blue's disregard for the father and sister he left behind was this cruiser. It was so large that at least a hundred thousand mobile homes could perform parking ramp ballet maneuvers for a week, inside of it, and never recognize a single turn. Blue knew very little about mobile homes and even less about parking ramp ballet. What Blue did know about mobile homes is that many of them are actually quite luxurious. This he learned from a photographer friend who currently resides in a trekkie commune somehere in the Badlands of South Dakota.

"Watch your step" Leer smiles as a sliding door suddenly materializes and slides open in front of Blue.

Blue steps forward, banging directly into the side of the ship.

The door laughs. "Okay, sorrrry," says the door,"c'mon in", suddenly the door appears and slides open again. Just as suddenly, and completely pissed off, Blue marches directly into the side of the ship. The door laughs again. Blue is furious. He looks in the direction of the laughter and says, "Fine, I don't have to go anywhere. I am probably just dreaming anyway, so I will just stay right here, in my broken home and wait until you go away and I wake up!" The door giggles. Leer clears his throat, loudly. "Sorry Mr.Leer," the door opens, continuing,"Safe passage to all who enter through this door, guaranteed by All That Is."

"See Blue, It's like the man says, sure hope Moses knows his roses." Leer shouts," Thank you kindly angel Gabriel!" Then the two men step into what can only be described as a black hole of doom where everything gets sucked into the void.

Chapter 6 Across the Universe, I Hate the Beatles!

Blue spends the next five minutes laughing to himself about how fucked up he is. He has come to the realization that he has absolutely no clue why he was even born. His spends most of his time, these days, trying to convince his friends and himself that art is a calling as much as the priesthood or social work is a calling and that there is importance to even the most indefinable of motivations behind an aesthetic. What makes him laugh is that the very next action he is to take is to draw a superhero janitor who is really out to clean up the streets. Some calling.

The longer Blue thinks about the various parts which comprise his life's oeuvre, the more sense it all seems to make and the less chance he has of explaining it to anyone else. A wise friend of his once told him that it wasn't his job to do that. "You can only be responsible for yourself. Create the work that you feel is right for you to create at the time that you are creating it and it will be right for the path that you are on. You cannot control how others view your path any more than you can control the path of others." Blue's friend William always said things that seemed so patently obvious that it made Blue ill but were so brilliantly and appropriately timed that it made Blue's skin tingle.

Blue continued drawing, starting the next page with the punctured skin of a patient, wounded by the beetle plague.

Leer:


"I hate the Beatles", Tonya is a late-night nurse, she is tearing off strips of sheet fabric to fashion a bandage, the hospital ran out, too many beetles, too many bites, not enough bandages,"can't buy me love?!  Bullshit!," she flirts with the patient who she clearly thinks is cute, wealthy or both, "You can buy me love anytime! New dress, new shoes, a handbag, diamonds, pearls, a shiny new car, and travel, first-class, any place in the world my precious little heart desires." She pouts, "them stupid Beatles! No wonder I never get what I want!"

"Don't blame the Beatles," Leer says as he enters the room and walks toward Tonya. Leer stops in his tracks, sensing another presence."Oh shit. It's you!" Leer turns, smacking his forehead in amazement and points straight ahead.

"Blue!" Leer shouts,"Keep drawing! No Matter what, keep drawing", Leer asks, demands, expects,"Oh and, sorry about the house, it really won't matter in the end."

Blue continues drawing Leer, unsure if he is hallucinating, has fallen asleep at the drawing board or simply died. He tries to remember how much water he had to drink that day. The studio can get pretty hot. Still, he couldn't get over the fact that a character in his book was just talking to him, so he decides to listen to Leer and continues drawing.

Chapter 6 Across the Universe

Blue was ecstatic that he had recovered the missing sixteenth page for a couple of reasons. Primarily, he was pleased to have discovered a black and white rendering that was at least similar to the the original colored panels from the initial drawings and perhaps more importantly, he no longer felt like he was about to die. In fact, he felt exhilarated. Blue was pretty certain that Mona was the key to the "Leer" story as John had been writing it which meant that she couldn't be dead. He was so puzzled over the Mona Damino - Catherine Kent relationship that he had been immobilized when it came to drawing for the book. Now, he was certain that Mona was, in fact, Catherine returned. This did two things for Blue. It gave him a place to go back to and a means to move the story forward. Blue felt rejuvenated. He felt strangely healed and supported by the appearance of that sixteenth page, by Mona.

He couldn't seem to get the Beatles out of his head. For days he walked around humming "Help", "A Hard Day's Night" and "Across the Universe" over and over again with occassional meanderings into "Come Together"  and countless other great Beatles tunes. Frankly, Blue was stunned that he actually knew so many Beatles tunes by heart. He had nearly forgotten all of the hours he spent as a child running over to the Codwalluper's house to listen to the Beatles, Stones, Beach Boys and the Kinks while dreaming of getting completely naked with Ginny Maplethorpe, Nathan Codwalluper's best friend. Nathan was George's brother. George was Blue's friend. Blue was pretty sure that Nathan was gay even though Blue didn't really understand "gay" very well back then and had no idea what a fag hag was, or how completely Ginny fit the MO.

The point is that Blue really knew an awful lot of Beatles tunes and spent a few days humming them and being an unabashed punster decided that the aural hallucination of the song "Help" during his near-death experience was an indication that he should include beetles in his book. He had been assembling the second half of the book into its proper order ever since the vomiting episode. What Blue affectionately and insularly referred to as his barfmitzvah. It would indeed prove to be a turning point in both the story and his own life. The second half of the book was comprized predominantly of sketches. Some were so loose that he could barely remember what they were meant to depict, and even if he recognized the images, he was often clueless as to their meaning. For now, he had beetles. Blue began drawing where page thirty left off. He hadn't filled in the missing text for half of the book but he was pretty sure that he could double back and fill in the details. The only thing he had to do now was figure out a transition. "When in doubt, turn to the news," Blue jokes to himself as he draws another frame into an already overcrowded page, his usual uncontrollable impulse to decorate the page so the story it tells keeps telling long after the ride into the next scene. This time the story is the bug bites, a sudden plague of bug bites popping up all over the city, causing itching like the poison oak which drove him insane in the days before the "madness".

The "madness" is any time between the current time and some time in the past upon which Blue is willing to look at with esteem. Actually, Blue refers to the madness mostly as that period during which he has been guided or influenced by unseen forces telling, revealing, guiding or indicating to him in some way the proper path for him to follow, like the Mona incident, however, not all of the instances turn out so positively.

Blue begins to talk himself through another difficult moment. "So there's Van, Mona, Arnold, MUTE and the butler, I don't know if I'll ever get what was going on there, some chic who seems a bit uptight, the ominous butler, a horny teenager who might be dead, or was it the ever vigilant "Maintenance Man" who perished in the explosion?" Blue snickers as he tries to make his drawing happen twice as fast as it normally takes. "People want results, masked men better fly!, thanks for that wisdom, Frank, and by the way, How's that  lottery retirement plan working out for ya?" Blue sneared to himself." "And forget about writing, never make people read!" "I guess he'd be pretty unhappy with me right now, eh Mr. Leer?! Jackass was probably right though, after all, I'm the one crazy enough to be talking to a 20 year old recycled comic book character!" Blue smiles as he deftly adds another line from his 3B Prismacolor pencil to his awesome new page for "Leer"

Chapter 5 What to Keep Leer What is Written

Blue has been staring for days at the stack of pages for which John left him no text. He prefers to think about it that way, even though, somewhere in the back of Blue's mind, he realizes that he probably lost the text himself. He paces back and forth across his studio repeatedly and then it occurs to him, there is an old box tucked away in the old safe. The safe is a beautiful old metal safe with thick walls of steel and a variety of little compartments for storing little treasures. Nothing is really safe in the safe. There is no door. The landlords left the safe in the studio because it was just to heavy to move, plain and simple. As Blue thinks again to himself about the various ways they could have managed to bring the safe up to the fourth floor studio, he searches all of her compartments for any missing pages any scrap that might fill in the gaps in the story of Leer.

No luck. He did find his autographed picture of Ann Margaret. Blue had been a scenic painter on a movie she was in that was shot in his town many years back. He always thought that she was pretty hot while he was growing up but by the time he actually got to meet her, she was old. The funny thing about this particular moment is that Blue, standing in his studio, eyesight failing, knees creaking slightly, stood staring at the photograph of the actress and thought, "She actually is pretty damn hot!". He carefully placed her photo back into the drawer and continued looking for the missing pages.

Suddenly a wave of nausea overcame Blue. He began to sweat profusely even thought the air in the studio was pleasant and cool. He became dizzy and suddenly went cold. He looked down at his hands which had turned blue. Blue doubled over in pain, his stomach on fire. He began to vomit. As he did, he distinctly heard the Beatles singing "Help". Blue caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror. He had turned blue all over. Blue stumbled backwards and fell into a work table. As he tried to hold himself up, he capsized a large cardboard box, spilling the contents upon himself. Books and papers poured out from the box, hitting Blue in the face. He was losing consciousness. At the precise moment that Blue's head hit the floor, Leer, page sixteen fell upon him.

Blue recognized Mona in the opening panels. He instantly felt better. It was as if none of the nausea or even the complexion change had occurred, Blue was fine.

"Weird!" he said to himself as he carefully placed the drawing at the top of the stack.

Chapter 5 What to Keep Leer page 30

Chapter 5 What to Keep Leer page 29

Chapter5 What to Keep Leer Page 28

Chapter5 What to Keep Leer Page 27