Chapter 9
Little Betty walked down the hallway. She had her heart set on feeding the pet fish her father had bought her as a present to replace the bird she smashed to pulp with her Holy Bible. She had named her fish Booger to prevent anyone from cooking and eating it. As she rounded the corner, shaking her fish food container to some obscure rhythm only a child could clap to, she could swear the odor of smoke was in the air. Running quickly to the door, she threw it open, ran inside, and found herself in the middle of Bob McGillicuty, President of the Rare Fish Society, and Harry Blackball, professional Magician and pyrotechnics expert.
"Booger!" Little Betty shouted, and she ran for the tank.
"Stop that girl!" shouted Bob. "She's heading for the fish!" But before he could get a running start after her, Blackball had him around the neck and with incredible strength, tossed him into the Sword Trick Box that slammed closed on impact. In what seemed like seconds, Blackball placed the lock on the door and prepared to penetrate his captured prey with a gleaming metal sword, freshly sharpened just for the occasion.
Inside the Adventure Team office, Ron and Miller had suited up in their bulletproof protective gear as Frahn monitored the activity on the view screen.
"Little girl going for the fish!" Frahn shouted. "Get out there!'
Miller was first to the door. Gun in hand, he bolted from the office after the girl. Matheson was up, and he too took off running to the tank. "If I can't have it, nobody can!" he shouted as he ran.
Ron chased out the door after Claremont and began shooting at the guards, who ran from the room to avoid the barrage of gunfire. Claremont jumped, going horizontal with his outstretched hands and tackled Little Betty. She fumbled her steps, pitched forward, and rolled down a stairway into Bixie, the family poodle, crushing the poor animal between her head and the wall.
"You made me kill my dog, mister!" she screamed in terror.
Fraghn tore out of the Adventure Team office and, observing the horrific spectacle of a flamboyant wave of the hands by Harry Blackball, he reached into his pocket for some kind of projectile he could throw to prevent the magician from filleting his unwilling volunteer.
The two-day-old peanut butter and jelly sandwich had little effect.
"Step away from that box and drop the sword!" Frahn shouted. He began to cartwheel, choosing this technique over several others as the quickest method to reach his target. Blackball, stunned briefly by the full-grown man cart wheeling toward him, performed a reverse loop-a-dee-loop, effectively relocating out of the path of the oncoming fiasco.
"Ha! You missed me!" Blackball asserted, and he placed the sword along the edge of the guide hole. "Soon," he snarled to Bob in a Box, "you shall feel the taste of sweet revenge." He flourished his left hand as he made ready to push the sword through the chest of Bob McGillicuty when, to Blackball's shocking amazement, he himself had suddenly been speared from the rear with one of his own swords, as evidenced by the pointed metal tip protruding from out of his stomach. He turned slowly around and came face to face with Frahn Melon.
"You." he said, "You...you ruined everything." He took a staggering step forward.
"He deserves to die. He took half the world away from me. He delivered unto me the word, and left me with but one eye to read it."
Blackball coughed a ball of blood and fell to his head, which caused his glass eye to pop free and roll into the next room where Little Betty's new cat, Buttons 2, batted it around several hours.
"My God." Ron Log shouted, "Don't do it!" Matheson Avenue had his gun pointed directly at the Mississippi Spiny Fish. "Let's cut a deal. We can work it out so everybody's happy."
"No deal! This fish dies, and then you die with it! I get the Gem of Life and then kill you and all your miserable little Team of freaks." Matheson pulled the hammer back until it clicked into place. His hand was shaking and sweat was running down his brow. "No more bullshit here, a decision has been made!"
He turned to the fish, eyes widening, and he began to apply pressure to the trigger when a soft voice tenderly broke the silence of the room.
"Please daddy," Little Betty said as she tried to remain standing after her violent concussion, "please don't kill my fish."
Matheson was determined to put an end to the tragedy that had become his life and the symbol of that life which had become this fish, but the love of a daughter and the voice of a child began to break his heart.
"Daddy, Booger is my only friend. Please don't kill Booger, because I love my fish, daddy." The tears streamed down her face. It was too much to bear; the pain of loss that Matheson had the power to inflict on an innocent. Such as in his own life, the pain of loss when the Matheson Avenue Lemonade With a Twist 'O Lemon Factory mysteriously blew up, and the boy, Bob, whom Matheson had come to know as a son was never seen again.
Matheson uncocked the hammer and slowly put the gun on the table.
"I won't kill Booger, honey. No I won't. Come and give your daddy a hug." He held his arms outstretched to her, and she ran to him, stumbling once, and jumped into his arms and they hugged as tenderly and lovingly as only a daughter and father could.
Frahn stuck a sword into the lock mechanism and twisted it off, thus freeing Bob McGillicuty from his capture. McGillicuty was dazed as he stepped out, but not too dazed to notice the rubble and the bodies and the blood. "Holy shit! I was almost skewered like a shish kabob. You, sir, you have saved my life."
"No thanks necessary," Fragn said, "That's what the adventure team is all about. It's what we do. We may not have a conventional approach to problem solving, but we damn sure get the job done."
"But there is still the matter of the fish, and there's still the matter of the Gem of Life. Maybe we could all sit down and discuss this matter like reasonable people instead of just shooting at each other. The world would be a better place if business were handled like that."
Bob walked over to the big table and took a seat. He gazed with wonder and admiration at the Mississippi Spiny Fish, swimming back and forth as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.
Thoughts of the fish
Big blurry gorilla man… looking at me funny… probably going to try and eat me… not going out without a fight!
In a most unprecedented and unusual event, Booger performed a convulsive thrust of its body, propelling itself skyward from the tank at least ten feet up into the air. Matheson, Miller, Frahn, Ron, and Little Betty, mouths agape, eyes wide, faces filled with terror, watched helplessly as the fish reached the zenith of its height and then began to drop.
Bob McGillicutty, hands instinctively in the air for protection as the dawning realization of what was about to happen, hit him like a ton of bricks. The prophecy, Bob thought to himself as a burst of light preceded a flashback that seemed like days but occurred in an instant;
The Priest, his hand on Bob's cheek…
Don't be surprised when one day, you're just minding your own business and suddenly sea life drops down upon your head…
"Booger!" shouted Little Betty. Bob could swear he could see Booger's eyes, see the fish aiming for him, going for the kill. There wasn't even enough time to scream. Booger, all ten pounds of it, struck Bob McGillicutty's face and stuck in good and hard, pumping the venom, smiling at the thought that he was the last, and the best of them all.
"Mufma," Bob gargled, as the narcotic effects of the poison began to produce their painful and hallucinatory effect. The Adventure Team, moving quickly to act, removed their fish clamps from their belts and latched on to the flapping scaly monster and cast it across the room where it hit the marble wall. At that precise moment in time, a pink fluorescent stone shot from Booger's asshole back across the room and into the open mouth of Harry Blackball.
His dead eyes immediately opened. He reached around and pulled the bloody sword slowly right out of his own back. Blackball got to his feet as the Adventure Team reeled back in horror.
"He's alive! He's coming to kill us all. Shoot him! Somebody shoot him!" Everyone got a weapon and began to fire as Zombie Blackball lurched forward against the piercing bullets. One shot took out a chunk of face and left a bleeding hole. Another shot blew open his chest. Another ripped off Blackball's black ball, sending it spiraling into the white marble wall where it slid down, peeled off, and then dropped to the floor.
The kitty, Buttons 2, abandoned the eyeball and ran for the blackball.
"Jesus, he's not stopping! Run for cover!" Everyone scurried for the office as Blackball, hands outstretched and looking like creeping death, made his way toward the convulsing President of the Rare Fish Society.
Blackball issued a scream of incredible magnitude and ferocity, but then he leaned down and whispered something softly in Bob McGillicutty's ear. Walking over to Booger, the Mississippi Spiny Fish, zombie Blackball returned it to the tank. He pointed his finger at the floating dead carcass and a white shaft of light emerged from it, passing across the pale flesh of the fish and bringing forth new life where life had ceased to be. Gradually, the color began to return. Booger began to swim around in circles again and seemed none the worse for wear.
Then, Zombie Blackball looked through the broken ceiling and out to the night's sky and held his hands toward the full moon. "I can see!" he loudly exclaimed. "I see everything!"
And then Harry Blackball simply disappeared.
Bob McGillicuty began to strangely revive from what should have been certain death, as the Adventure Team, Matheson Avenue and his daughter, Little Betty, emerged from the office.
Matheson made his way over to Bob and helped him to his feet.
"Holy Moses," Bob exclaimed, "what happened? Am I dead?"
"No." Matheson replied, "Your here with us. Everything's OK. The fish is fine."
"Christ, for a minute, I thought I was dreaming. I felt myself falling through the sky and into the ocean where I swam with the stingrays. We were talking together about life and love and respect for one another, and about families. It was the most beautiful thing I ever saw.
Did you know when you look at a stingray from underneath, you'll see they are always smiling. The universe is not this cold unfeeling place. I think the universe is happy. You can see the happiness when you look at the dolphins playing in the surf. You can see the happiness in the waves of the ocean, in the color of the coral, in the movement of the fish, and in the grandeur and magnificence of the whale.
With every breath I take, I thank the universe for the abundance offered to me through my island of experience, and I shall share it with everyone I meet." With these words, Bob turned to Matheson and said, "Matheson, there's a secret I've been keeping from you for many years, but now I can tell you the truth. Remember the little boy who rode his bike into your limousine? The boy you thought you lost in that explosion in your Lemonade with a Twist 'O Lemon? Well Matheson, that boy was me. I'm the son you never had.
Then, you went and got married and had yourself this beautiful little daughter. Well you have her now, and I have fish. Sometimes, the gems of life can be the little things we love, and not just some expensive stones. I hope when you get out of jail for the security guard murder, you'll have the happiness and freedom that you've always wanted."
The words of Bob so touched Matheson that he decided to continue his business relationship with the Adventure Team and he continued to be their best client for many years to come providing income which in the long run, far outweighed the value of the gem.
Bob took care of Little Betty while Matheson served his four-month term for murder. During that time, nineteen small pets suffered an untimely demise. Matheson's lawyers, after breaking his bank, managed to befuddle the jury into a verdict of maybe, and the whole thing was eventually thrown out of court. At this point, Matheson sent the Adventure Team on one last mission: To take Little Betty and Bob McGillicuty to the Mississippi River, and release Booger into the wild. There had been a sighting recently of another Mississippi Spiny Fish and perhaps Mother Nature would take care of the details.
As the flying office descended to the Mississippi shore, and Miller, Melon, and Log joined Bob McGillicuty and Little Betty for the ceremonial release of Booger, tears of joy ran down their faces. They released booger into the freedom of the water, and it swam around in circles several times before finally heading out.
"Good-bye Booger," Little Betty said as she waved. Bob McGillicuty left Little Betty and the Adventure Team to their own devices and stepped into the office to reflect on all he had been through. He fondly remembered the newspaper delivery job, and he wondered about all those people he had blinded.
He thought about blowing up Matheson's Lemonade factory with a poorly twisted wedge of lemon. He remembered the gang and the joys of Dive Bomb the Schools of Stingrays. He imagined the possibilities of drinking enough liquor to settle down with Balinda, waitress at the Good Good Balloon Saloon.
He thought about the admonition of the strange priest who killed all those people, but most of all, he remembered the last secret words of Harry Blackball, just before he merged with the fabric of the universe.
"Ala Peanut Butter Sandwiches!"
THE END