Without A Head (part 5)

The Noose

With a gun that rotated pointing at my face and then my forehead as they took me down a short flight of stairs that stopped at a landing, then they forced me to slide down the banister.  Even as a kid I was never a banister boy, so I couldn’t stop myself and flew off onto a bookcase filled with heads.  One fell but I was able to stop it from hitting the ground by catching an ear with my teeth. Before I could spit it out (my tongue got hung up on an ear ring) the Horse tore it away from me. Before adding my head to the collection, I was hoping they would wait for a new book case from Ikea.  Somehow, I didn’t feel that was in their plans.

“What do you want from me?” I yelled, figuring I knew the answer.

“You’re head, but we going to experiment with a less bloody method.” Peanuts said in FDR’s voice.

“Why me?” I asked, hoping to stall them.

“Because when we got rid of the body, your window was open. Everyone else on the street had air conditioning,” the former horse answered.

“Cheap bastard,” FDR answered.

“Why kill the shrink?” I stalled some more.

“Because he was no longer holding therapy groups for people in animal outfits. He was just like all the other animal cross-dresser haters.  He never appreciated my Manatee suit. Okay, so the wheel chair killed the illusion, but a shrink should understand those things,” FDR’s Snoopy’s eyes grew moist.

“So you cut off his head!” I shouted from the top of my bottom lip or was it the bottom of my top lip.

“We prefer to think of it as cutting off his body.” With that they all laughed.

“What about Agnes?” I asked hoping I just didn’t move up the schedule.

“What about her?  She’s not headless, yet.”  Lioness Boy asked.

“She’ll be back soon and she’ll bring the cops. You’ll all go to jail.” That was an idiotic way to try and slow things down.

“Oh, she may be back, hopefully not wearing that stupid bunny outfit, but she won’t bring the cops. She hates authority figures in uniform, especially vampires.” FDR said this like he was absolutely positive I was going to believe him. “You see, she brought you to us.”

“Why would she do that?” I phrased without a trace of wit.

“Not purposely, but no one ever believed she was carrying around a real head, except you.  She’s also been diagnosed a schizophrenic with missing head delusions.” FDR waved his hands like a conductor and they all started singing, “Schizophrenic with missing head delusions.” And then went into a zydeco version of “Ava Maria.”

The Snoopy part of FDR tossed a noose over a pipe.  And his pals The Horseman and the Lion Queen picked me up and stood me on top of a rocking chair, but they had a difficult time putting the rope around my head.  Finally, they figured it was easier if I wasn’t standing on my head.  They flipped me over and after some debate settled on standing me on an elephant fetus hassock (definitely not something found at Ikea).

Then they started shaving me, which I thought was stupid timing since the noose kept getting in the way.  While they lathered me up, and found some new blades, FDR/Snoopy tied my hands behind my back.

“This time we’re going to hang you till your dead. I love dead, especially clean shaven dead. And they we’ll cut off your head.”

“I bet you love head, too.  Giving it would be my guess,” I spit out, proud of retort, but not so happy with my circumstances.

Snoopy rolled closer to me and pulled down on the rope, jerking my head up. FDR spoke. “This way when your heart stops beating the blood won’t pump out so it won’t be too messy.  It’s the maid’s day off.”

“Like that matters.” The Lioness said. “You should fire her and get someone who’ll do blood on windows,” she cackled.

“Why don’t you just put a bib on me?”  I hoped they’d see my cooperation as a reason to let me go and pay for my cab home.

“Good idea, it’s an expensive garment. I could wear it when we could go out to celebrate your beheading, after we dispose of your body. And although I wouldn’t get caught dead in your pants, you will. ” FDR laughed.

Snoopy announced in his best Roosevelt,  “There’s nothing to fear, but fear itself!”  Some how, that didn’t alleviate my anxiety, although it was a riveting impression.   He immediately started into a fire side chat, but Mr. Horse nudged him, and pointed to a pocket watch strung above the ears and around a face so it was stuck in the middle of decapitated head like a third ticking eye.  FDR, stopped talking, and nodded, realizing they had an appointment; hopefully it wasn’t finding a window to throw my leftovers through.

The Lioness tilted the elephant fetus on its edge, so I had to keep it balanced to stay alive.   “We’ll say goodbye now, in case you’re dead when we return.”  Lion lady-lad said.

FDR interrupted her. “Think positive.”

“You mean when he’s dead?”

They started up the stairs and I began to see my life flash before one of my eyes, the other one had a speck of dust and was blinking into the over head light, making half my final vision feel like it had been recorded in a disco. As clumsy as I am (I could trip over a shadow), I have very good balance.  I figured that how long I could stay like this depended solely on how long I could actually stay like this.

The Rescue

I was about to start seeing my life pass before me a second time, this time backwards and with subtitles, when I heard a door bell, which rang to the theme of “The Commish”.  A few seconds the door upstairs shattered, and there were gun shots, screams, and shouts for a time out!   The refrigerator was opened, drinks poured, music played and there was dancing.  Three minutes later silence, then glasses gathered and water ran in the sink.  A piercing yell of, “Dry them yourself.  This is your house!”  The water stopped running. A few minutes after that there was more gun fire, screams, calls for extra dish washing liquid and then for another time out and replies, “you have none left!”  More gunfire, screams, and bodies landing on the floor.

I could feel one of my feet fall asleep;it was only a matter of minutes, maybe seconds, or maybe I was dead already, and my hell would be living out my life just long enough to pay my bills.

Just as my foot was about to slip off the tilted elephant fetus there was another shot and a dead body rolled and bounced down the stairs crashing into the giant fetus, knocking it away, and before I could choke to death. I got lucky.  The dead man was FDR and his wheel chair landed under my feet.

Agnes slid down the banister, followed by the gift bag mobster (who broke the banister under his weight).  She untied my hands and then started to lift the noose off my head and said, “I think you looked better with it on.” She made me keep it there until she could take a picture with her cell phone.

The Mobster, noticed all the heads on the shelf and scattered around the cement floor like a bad break on a pool table, and said “A collection like this should be cared for and put on the shelves and rearranged according to size, age, race, eye color, ear size, earth sign, nasal capacity and then cross referenced by the dates stamped on their chins.”

As he started picking them up and rearranging them, I turned to Agnes who was trying to find her dead shrink’s noggin, but had stopped to comb a few heads and said, “How did you guys get together?”

“I drove by your house on the way to my health club.”

“Health club?”

“Yeah, I figured you were dead and a good work out gets the endorphins going and makes my antidepressants work better. Besides this was the last day I could use my visitor’s pass,” she said as she smoothed out a guys eyebrows.

“You were just going to leave me here to die?” I swatted back at her.

“I was too upset to think about that.  I was in pain. I had just lost my shrink’s head and his body, even though I hated his tattoo of Freud in a hula skirt nursing on Adler’s mother’s surgically enhanced breasts.  A good work out, a steam, fresh wheat grass and a couple of games of canasta calms me down and helps me think,” she spoke while sticking a blue tongue back in a mouth.
I looked at the giant mobster.

He said, “I was waiting for you on your porch with a bag of Kopi Luwak coffee beans, the most expensive coffee in the world that just happened to fall off a truck.  These are even more expensive than the beans that are digested by the ordinary Asian Palm Civet,” Looking at Agnes. “To you laymen, Toddy Cats.”  Then the big guy turned back to me. “These were passed through Albino Asian Palm Civets with severe acid reflux and kidney failure, thus giving a unique even more complex slightly acidic flavor,” my new thug friend said, still rearranging heads.
“

When I saw Sedgwick,” Agnes squat thrust in, as she was doing squat thrusts.

“Sedgwick?” I asked.

“Yeah, Sedgwick, that’s my name.  Sedgwick Galileo Robestelliano.” He started to pull his gun out, but stopped when he matched a broken tooth with the right mouth.

“I told him what had just happened and he offered his help, and gave me a week’s visitor’s pass to his health club,” she said, as she spotted her beloved shrink’s head. “There you are sweet cheeks!” She picked up the head, kissed it and then gave it a hickey on what was left of the neck.

“Apparently, this crew has been cutting off people’s heads for years, using only the finest silverware.” He said holding up glistening carving knife and head.” Like my old capo here who’s been missing for months.  “What do you say we get out here?” the gunshots might have attracted some attention.

“Okay, I could really use a cup of coffee that was thrown up by Asian cats.”

“Defecated by Albino Asian Civets with acid reflux, week kidneys… and possibly a limp,” he corrected me, while he bagged his old capo’s head.

“Whatever, as long as it’s not decaffeinated,” I joked, then drop kicked FDR’s head through the basement window as I started for the stairs.

“Sounds good to me.” Agnes turned to her ex shrink and hopefully ex lover. “How about you Rudolf? She asked demurely.  Then she shook his head up and down indicating “yes.”  We all laughed, side-stepped a few skin and hair trophies and climbed the stairs, talking about drinking the most expensive coffee in the world.

The End

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