The Rheumatic Sleeping Doomsday Machine

John Patriot was cornered. His back was to the wall, literally, and his feet were on the ground and he was reaching for the stars, literally. The stars in question were world- famous action movie heroes Bruno Wills and Armin Schwarzengroove. They were pinned down on the second floor and Patriot, the C.I.A.'s premiere agent, was trying to save them, but had himself been pinned down by a sharpshooter in a tree across the street, who had in turned been pinned down by a large rottweiler just beneath the tree. It wasn't pretty, nor was the situation.

"Please save us!" moaned the cowardly box office star Wills. "I think I speak for both of us!"

"Definitely," said Schwarzengroove, through a barely-discernible accent. "Help to save us, please, Mr. C.I.A. man."

Patriot hadn't told them his name.

"I'm John Patriot! Stay calm. I've saved the president six times so I think I can handle this situation." Joking helped alleviate the situation for Patriot.

"I'm scared," cried Wills, soiling himself.

"Just take it easy!" shouted Patriot again, growing sick of the two little toads as a bullet whizzed past his head, and Wills' whiz also whizzed past his head down the wall. "Two fat gay rabbis walk into a bar—"

"Patriot!" a familiar voice screamed from across the street. It was Ed McMahon, inexplicably standing in the middle of the firefight, and he was gesturing to Patriot's partner Decent Smith. Smith was standing over the tree sharpshooter, who was now dead on the ground and being gnawed at by the rottweiler.

"Smith, you old son of a bitch!" shouted Patriot. Smith winced, knowing too well it was true. "I thought for sure my bacon was cooked! I'm glad you got here in time!"

"Save the cordialities," Smith rudely said. "You've still got to rescue those rich Hollywood prettyboys!"

"Right!" said Smith, throwing his empty gun aside and pulling a pump shotgun from his back waistband. "We'll continue the cordialities later, at a time when there's no one shooting at us!"

Patriot kicked open the door to the building, knocking a nun standing behind the door unconscious, and speeding down the hall as fast as the C.I.A. 9-time Employee-of-the-Month's legs would carry him.

"I'm coming, prettyboys!" shouted Patriot.

He quickly climbed the stairs and kicked open the door, sending a troop of Boy Scouts careening across the room. At the end of the hall, standing over the two prettyboys, who were cowering in puddles of themselves and begging for their lives, was the wealthy communist drug-dealing terrorist Macarbo Gabizi. Macarbo was from the Middle East and heavily involved in terrorist groups, whom he financed with drug money sold from his Colombian estate, drugs he helped smuggle into the United States through his connections in communist Cuba. Castro, if you must know.

"Macarbo!" exclaimed Patriot, aiming his pump-action shotgun at the hideous villain's face. They had known each other for years, since the beginning of this novel, and as many times as they had nearly killed each other, they felt comfortable on a first-name basis.

"Back off, capitalist western drug-free swine!" muttered Gabizi in his ethnic accent. "These Hollywood scum will be the first to die! How will your America feel when I destroy its two greatest heroes!"

"Its greatest movie heroes," reminded Patriot. "You've still got the real thing to deal with. That's right, Macarbo, these two may be more used to trailers and Hollywood Boulevard she-males than real bullets and blood and bloodshed from bullets. But I'm the one you really want. Let them go. And I'll exchange myself for them."

Though it made no sense, Macarbo agreed, shoving them forcefully from the second-floor window, causing both to sprain their uvulas. As promised, even though it was a promise to a good-for-nothing godless communist smackhead pusher-man insane terrorist… Patriot lowered his gun.

A Normal Family (Sarcasm Voice)
Bernard hated going home for the holidays. Flag Day was no exception. Flag Day always brought out the worst in the family—Dad's drinking, Mom's neurosis, brother Bob's verbal abuse, sister Val's being dead. Bernard was the only normal one, as... (2/18/02)