CEREAL IN THE CELLAR
Chapter One
Truly, when I was very young, way back before my breasts
reached my knees, I believed life would last forever and be
perfect and wonderful. Boy, was I ever a troubled kid. Our daddy
was a PR man for a brothel in Gladstone Pennsylvania. He was a
wonderful man with a warm, giving smile and a flash car he called
the "PimpMobile".
When the twins were four, and Christopher was fourteen and
I was twelve there came a special Friday. Now, normally Friday
was special anyway:- Friday was when daddy would come home with
the receipts from the brothel, and he and momma would figure out
which receipts to 'lose' and how much money they could take
before daddy brought the rest to the people who owned the brothel.
I found out later that this is called 'skimming'. But this Friday
was even more special. It was daddy's birthday. All his friends
had come for the party which momma had organised for him. We
children were cleaned and primped and dressed in our best. Momma
said everything had to be just perfect for the perfect man and
smiled at us. Oh, how we looked forward to Daddy's return!
Five o'clock came and went, and still daddy had not
returned. At seven o'clock the twins became irritable and cranky,
as this was way past their bedtime. Some of daddy's friends
became irritable too- "What the hell's keeping him"
moaned Reverend Lovejoy who was beginning to come down and didn't
like one bit. "Hush, now, and wait" said momma. "Have
another line of coke."
Just then the doorbell rang and momma opened the door and
let in two State Troopers. "Aw heck, Jake" cried momma,
pointing her finger at the sergeant, "don't tell me you
busted him on his birthday!"
The sergeant squirmed before answering. "I'm terribly
sorry, but there's been an accident on Greenfield Highway."
"Oh... " breathed momma, reaching to draw both
Christopher and me against her sides.
"Your husband was involved. He swerved to avoid a head-on
collision, which should have saved his life, but then he crashed
through a plate-glass window some men were holding in the middle
of the highway, which caused him to lose control, and your
husband's car turned over several times, and he even survived
that! But then he collided with an oncoming truck which spun him
back to the other side of the highway, where, still alive, he was
hit by a truck carrying Ping Pong balls and his car immediately
caught fire. He managed to escape the fire and the consequent
explosion only to be savagely attacked by a bear, but fighting
bravely, he killed the bear armed only with his pocket knife and
bag of marshmallows! Then a semi carrying bank safes overturned
on the adjacent flyover dropping a twenty-ton safe meant for the
First National Bank of Jersey directly onto your husband! However,
the safe door swung open, and out walked your husband, completely
unscathed! Isn't that just incredible?"
"It sure as hell must have been his lucky day!"
interjected the other Trooper with a grin.
"Oh Lord," breathed momma, "you mean he's
all right?"
"Mmm, I'm afraid not. You see, he caught his finger in
the door of the patrol car sent to pick him up and he bled to
death on the way to the hospital."
The Trooper squirmed some more, looking guilty. Then he
brightened: "But at least he was OK until then!"
"Here's some stuff of his that was thrown out of the
car at the first impact!" chirped the other Trooper putting
bondage paraphenalia onto the kitchen table. The whips and chains
were daddy's all right, no doubt about it. So it was true. Really
true. Daddy was dead. Damn.
The Troopers left, and so did the guests with most of the
presents meant for daddy, and a good portion of the silverware,
and a brand new radio we'd only had two weeks.
When everyone had left, momma turned to us and said there
was only one thing we could do at a time like this.
"Pray for daddy?" I ventured.
"No, you moron!" shouted Christopher, "Check
the insurance papers!"
Soon we were all gathered around the kitchen table looking
at the insurance papers. Momma looked at them with disbelief on
her face. Christopher started to cry as he read them. When I
looked for myself I could see what the problem was: Daddy was
insured for fire, bear attacks, plate-glass windows, Ping Pong
balls and even death by balloon, but the son of a bitch hadn't
bothered his hole insuring himself against bleeding to death in a
patrol car! As the awful truth sank in we grew closer together in
our grief and pain. As she held us tightly, her tears mingling
with ours, momma gave voice to our pain and anguish: "Children,
we're poor!" she wailed.
The End
Such sublime anguish!!! How truly have human emotions been captured here!
I've had enough, let me out of here!
I want to return to the blurb page, 'cos wow, that was really cool!