Chapter 5: The Most Important Meal of the Day

written by: Bradley Werner (appearing courtesy of Vowel Movement)

Tim and Jerry were sitting on a pink leather couch in the almost vacant hotel lobby. The couch was close to the elevators, but situated behind a fake bush that kept them from being seen by elevator passersby. To keep things fair, the two took turns watching the elevators while they waited for Jane and Julia to leave their room. Tim was halfway through reading a large stack of tourist brochures he’d taken off the front desk, and Jerry was trying to seem inconspicuous by kneeling on the couch to peak through the fake plants behind them

"Listen to this," Tim said, quoting from a brochure that had a picture on its cover of a group of nuns whitewater rafting. "It says here, ‘Most guests to Bermuda rarely ever venture off the luscious beaches or away from the world renowned night clubs, to see the other wondrous activities and adventures it’s people have to offer. In fact, most tourists don’t even read these brochures, unless it’s the one about the All-Night Rasta Sex Club, "Boob Marley’s" or the Marijuana Wax Museum. Is anyone reading this? I quit, I hate this fuckin’ job and don’t want to write copy for brochures any more.’" Tim put down the pamphlet and turned to Jerry’s behind, which sticking out of the forest of fake plants.

"Most of the other brochures read the same way," he said to Jerry’s behind.

Almost immediately after Tim told Jerry about the disillusionment sweeping over Bermuda’s brochure writing industry, Jerry backed up from the bushes and slowly lowered himself onto the couch.

"Don’t be upset Jer...the art of brochure writing is alive in other parts of the world."

"Tim..." Jerry’s face was blank and pale, "remember the guy we off’ed before coming down here?"

"Which one?"

"The one we killed because he stole the Boss’s sausages and threatened to go public with them - the Anthony Edwards impersonator. The one we shot...five times...in the head...at point blank range."

"Yeah, I remember," Tim said, smiling to himself, "why?"

"Because he’s playing Connect-Four and enjoying a complimentary continental breakfast with our girls." Tim shot straight up and looked into the hotel restaurant to see a lively Andrew Edmonds playing table games with Jane.

"Maybe he had a twin?" said Jerry, who quickly produced a flask from his inside jacket pocket.

Without turning away from the girls or their zombie compatriot, Tim reached down next to Jerry and found a pair of binoculars. He looked through the high-tech spy goggles.

"Negative," said Tim, "he’s carrying a feminine hygiene purse in the back of his pants"

"So?" asked Jerry as he jerked the flask up and down over his mouth, desperately forcing the remaining droplets of liquor condensation onto to his tongue.

"Well...that’s exactly where I’d hide an original can of 1889 Von Heindrick-Wein Vienna sausages." Tim lowered the binoculars and headed towards the restaurant.

Jane and Andrew were sitting at the table, their plates filled with mounds of soggy, sterno-cooked scrambled eggs and flimsy imitation bacon. The Connect-Four board was pushed towards the center of the table and the two watched from afar as Julia stood at the buffet, demanding to see a manager. Suddenly, a large muscle-bound woman in a waitress uniform appeared before them.

"What can I get you?"

"It’s a buffet...and its complimentary...why would we need a waitress?" Before the husky-sized waitress could answer, pots, pans and glasses crashed to the floor and every patron turned their attention to Julia.

"How do you serve breakfast without offering any sort of alcoholic beverage you pulverable gamin?! There’s no way in any of Dante’s hells that I’m going to go through this whole chapter sober! My entire cranium is exhibiting the symptoms of a pulsatile thrombus! Get me a large cup of demitasse, and four ounces of your domestic rum!"

Jane and Andrew looked at Julia in confusion and she returned their gazes with an equally contorted expression. "Julia needs a drink, stat," Jane said as Julia walked back to the table and sat down. "Can we please forgo this morning ceremony and forfeit our monetary investment in this establishment so I may swiftly imbibe at least a miniscule dosage of alcohol? I would like to disburden my being of using this cerebral logos. My interest in becoming more jejune is fleeting though, so before my mental transfiguration becomes eternal, perhaps we should venture to the fleshpot our zombie comrade mentioned upon his arrival last eve, the Palm Fronds?"

"That’s right!" said Edmonds remembering his raison d’ étre for being in Bermuda. He stood up, "we need to get those sausages to Elliot Bonaroo at the Palm Fronds so that..."

"Now L’il Brotha!" yelled the large muscle-bound waitress.

From the elevator in the lobby a frail but jittery man with an eye patch, scurried across the tile, passed Tim and Jerry and bucked into the restaurant towards the girl’s table.

"You need to wait to be seated, sir!" yelled the hostess who turned away from Tim and Jerry, grabbed the ‘Please Wait To Be Seated’ sign and metal stand, and ran after the eye-patch wearing gremlin.

"It’s Ernest!" yelled Edmonds as the muscular waitress put him in a headlock and threw his body onto the table. Eggs flew threw the air and Jane, adhering to her no eggs in her hair rule, jumped up.

"I’m assuming our waitress is Ernestine..." said Julia, still sitting in her seat.

Ernest leapt on the table and started hugging Edmonds’ face. Ernestine started head-butting Edmonds’ back and without thinking Jane pushed Julia’s chair away from the table. A half second later, the Hostess arrived and repeatedly smashed the fighting threesome’s heads in with the ‘Please Wait to Be Seated’ sign and stand. In the confusion, the feminine hygiene purse fell on the floor inches away from Julia’s feet.

"Julia! Grab my Playtexâ Gentle Glideâ Soft Plastic Applicator Tampons - the ones that are so comfortable you can't even feel them!™" yelled Jane.

With a bloody splat, Ernest, Edmonds and Ernestine fell to the floor. There was silence until the hostess raised the ‘Please Wait to Be Seated’ sign in the air and turned around to face the bystanding patrons. "Are you not entertained!?! Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here!?!" she yelled.

Silence again fell over the restaurant and a man in a medical mask and O.R. scrubs took his stethoscope off Andrew Edmonds’ chest.

"This man is extremely, very, dead," he said as if questioning his own prognosis. The room was suddenly filled with the sound of a hundred disposable cameras being wound at the same time. tik-tik-tik-tik-tik, tik-tik-tik-tik-tik-tik

Jane grabbed the feminine hygiene bag with her left hand and Julia with her right. "What the heck is wrong with you, Jules?"

"I’m filled with overbearing ennui, I need a drink, and I figured out the meaning of life."

"Could you save it for a later chapter? We need to get out of here," said a panicking Jane. "I’ll give $50 dollars to anyone who can get us to the Palm Fronds!"

"Also, I have a deep yearning to watch Dave Lynch’s Lost Highway," added Julia.

From the crowd of amateur homicide photographers, a large black man garbed in a white tunic approached the two girls and told them he had a car and could get them to the club.

He wrapped his massive right hand around Jane’s wrist and dragged her and Julia towards the kitchen. For reasons unknown, as the large man lead the girls through the kitchen and out the service entrance of the hotel, he explained that his parents were big fans of Willy Nelson, and thus, as homage to Mr. Nelson, named him "Willy Nelson." His last name was "Guildenstern," so he insisted that people only refer to him by his first name.

"Well, Willy Nelson, thank you for getting us out of there," said Jane as she shoved Julia into the backseat of Willy Nelson’s 1993 Hyundai.

Tim and Jerry stood over the once-again-lifeless body of Andrew Edmonds, the comatose Ernest and the weeping Ernestine, who held the unconscious Ernest to her bosom. The excitement incited the vacationing patrons to start a wet t-shirt contest on the beach that emptied the room. Neither Tim nor Jerry said anything until a waiter interrupted their silent vigil.

"Which one of you ordered the strong black coffee with a quadruple shot of rum?"

In a single fluid motion, Jerry raised his right arm from his side, took the cup of coffee from the waiter’s tray, brought it to his mouth and chugged the drink.

"This guy we shot, and this guy you farted on..." observed Tim.

"Yup," said Jerry, wiping coffee dribble off his chin. "Let’s hope we don’t reap what we sow...we better get going, huh..."

Tim’s cell phone sprung to life. Deat-da-da-Deat, Da-deat-da, da-deat-deat-da, Deat-da-da-Deat, Da-deat-da, da-deat-deat-da...

"I hate the Nokia ring," remarked a slightly intoxicated Jerry. He sang the ring to Tim.

"Shhh," said Tim, "it’s Willy Nelson. They’re at a gas station. One of the girls had to pee and the other wanted to pick up a copy of the Wall Street Journal. He’s bringing the girls to the secure location where the sausages will be safe from the Man in Blue Suede and away from Elliot Bonaroo."

"What secure location?" Jerry clamored, who was starting to feel out-of-the-loop.

"The only place on this island no one is going to go...the Planet Hollywood gift shop."

As the two men walked away, Ernest’s eyes popped wide open and he and Ernestine kissed passionately. Both wanted to say, "I love you," but soon felt the presence of someone watching and turned their heads to see two legs, garbed in blue suede, standing beside them.

Stay tuned for the next titillating chapter - coming soon!