The Episodes of Sparky & Banes

Sparky is a former scab pro-wrestling referee—who is unaware of this fact—with a unique sense of fashion (based loosely on his real world counterpart who really is a pro-wrestling referee).  Banes is a washed-up and depressed drunken gambler with a speech impediment and is very aware of this (based loosely on his real world counterpart who really is washed up and depressed).  They're two of a kind, working on a full house, just looking for a good time.  Like birds of a feather they stick together, and this is their story:

SPARKY AND BANES:  Episode 5 - “Enter the Freak Part Two: The Great Paul Dini” – 8-27-03

“Hahaha…HA…hahaha…HA…haha…ha!” Brian gurgled, stuttering and choking while trying to sound frightening.

“No…” Sparky said again, trailing off, bored with his dialogue.  He sipped at the empty teacup that had been given to him and read the paper that had come with it to pass the time between Episodes.  Due to the fact he was tied up, the cup had been poured on him and most of the tea had dribbled onto his face and into his eyes.  It had also been scalding hot and he had screamed at the time.

Brian stood, his arms still raised to the ceiling.  He seemed to be waiting for something, and was—his next train of thought had been suspended for some time and he had become a drool covered, vegetable of a man.  It wasn’t really all that much different from the usual, brainless Brian though.  “That’s what they call me!  Branless Bunyon (Brainless Brian)!” Brian said, as a thought found its way into his brain.

As he was standing, one of the two, shadowed figures behind him stepped forward and hit him with a hammer, quite sadistically actually.  He went back to his infantile level of intelligence then collapsed to the floor.

Sparks saw the same shade of black as the lights in the room faded.  He, of course, fell asleep, moaning like he was dieing, which he wasn’t.

*                      *                      *

“Nobody loves me…” Brian sniveled.

“BOOM!” Brian yelled, acting like thunder had just erupted overhead, and catching the attention of a family walking across the street.  “What are you looking at?  Huh?  Never seen a fella down on his luck before!?” he yelled to them.

The parents covered their children’s eyes.

“See no evil,” Brian said, somehow uneventfully.

“Don’t look at the loser, kids,” the parents said instead.

“Laundry (loser)!?” Brian bellowed.

The kids obeyed.  It was a usually hidden human instinct that Brian triggered in people young and old.  When it was triggered though, few were impervious to the sudden rush of killer instinct, pitch forks, and monster hunting romps that they and this ass of a man called Banes could soon be involved in.

"I'm so bored," Brian said aloud.  "I'm so broke," he added.

Cars flew by him one after another, repeatedly splashing mud from puddles up onto the curb and Brian’s shoes—Shaq brand, K-Mart, used, not matching, and the wrong size anyway.  One of them wasn’t even a Shaq shoe actually but a wooden sandal/clog that looked actually quite pricy (to the right buyer).  ‘Air-Trebek (Tabak)’ was carved into the side, by Brian obviously, as it barely resembled even the misinterpretation that he had carved onto the side. 

It had been such a continuous event that the puddles had actually been emptied from the side of the road onto Brian.  A opportunistic few came on next though, carrying their own buckets of mud puddles, dish water, and pig urine (courtesy of a couple from down south:  two bearded men in suits and sunglasses, one of which whom was still washing off occult-like face paint) and taking aim to Banes with marksman-like accuracy.

“Dammit!  Whose idea was the pig urine!?” Banes cried, looking towards a cameraman that had followed him since the day he was born but whom he had rarely regarded. 

The man still believed he had the element of secrecy on his side and ran away from Banes—into oncoming traffic, and being sent bouncing off the windshield of a Ford F-150 before being repeatedly bludgeoned into the ground from the tires of every other careful driver on the highway.  The same rule applies to pedestrians as road kill:  if it’s not dead, try not to hit it, but if it is, make sure you do your part to keep the streets clean.

“Oh my, Timmy, I’m sorry,” Brian said, offering his sympathies to his lifelong companion-now roadside accident.

His name wasn’t actually Timmy.  Brian didn’t know what it was.  He’d called him everything from Timothy to Tonka Truck (as well as Meredith to Moxy).  And he wasn’t actually hurt enough for traffic to have made ground beef out of their victim and still continue their day with dignity.  This wasn’t a very dignified group today though and a make-shift road block had been set up and ticket takers were already offering front row parking spots to those who wanted in on the action.

“How much Skip?” Brian asked, walking up to one of the newly appointed ticket takers.  The man looked at him and trembled, hemorrhaging from his ears and sobbing for a second as he looked upon the face of Banes.  He shook in fear and handed Banes a ticket—which was actually a Mentos wrapper picked up off the side of the road and marked with a dried-out marker—whatever works.  ‘Skip’ the ticket taker then ran off, screaming for his life, and in a newly found search for religion.  “Why that was Regis (rude),” Banes said, and found his seat.

The cars that had been commuting had now circled the fallen body of Timmy the camera guy and were revving up for any move he might make towards recovery.  He came to and rolled over, making all of the cars jump slightly.  He held his ribs and gripped his camera then started slowly to his feet, realizing he was in the middle of the highway.  The cars rocked back and forth, waiting for him to come to his feet.  When he did though, a strange man, glowing with fire (and from the shine off his eyebrow ring) swung from a vine (hanging off a street light or something) and grabbed Timmy and the camera just as the cars crashed into each other.  No one really knew why but knew, at least, that this man must be a hero.

“I am Wanell,” the hero said, letting go of the vine and flying off into the atmosphere.  He apparently forgot about Timmy and let him go as well, plummeting to his doom (all eleven feet off the ground they were).  Everyone in the cars stopped for a moment and applauded, the men taking their hats off and placing them over their hearts, featuring tears in their eyes.  They offered a moment to honor him then went back to their savage, and sudden, demolition derby.

“Yeah!  Demonstration Darcy (Demolition Derby)!” Brian exclaimed.  He tried to grab a beer off a newly set up concession stand—in the middle of the highway no less—but was shot down and sent whimpering down the street.

“Nobody loves me!” Brian sniveled again, shouting.

An unmarked, battered, and strange (strangely familiar) van rolled up next to Banes.

“Why that looks like the ol’ shaggin’ wagon I used to have in college,” Brian said as the van rolled by him slowly.

“You never had a shaggin’ wagon Joe,” said the driver.  “And don’t even try to say you went to college.”

“No I…I’m a pathetic liar…living a life of shame-  HEY!  How would you know you dumb bastard stranger person?” Brian said, spitting all over the side of van and into the rolled down window onto the driver leaning out.  He slowly slicked the saliva off his face and eyes but into his hair and onto his neck doing it in an entirely way too intimate manner.  “That’s just sick,” Brian added, being disgusted even himself.

After the driver had enjoyed his little saliva adventure…or whatever it was (and brought his passenger in on it—it had actually turned into quite an almost disgusting act of intercourse—not almost disgusting, but almost intercourse…thankfully), he answered Brian-  “Oh, because we’re with the National…Survey Society…”  -with a perfectly worthless answer that shouldn’t have made much sense.

“Chevrolet Sorority (Survey Society)?  Well that makes sense,” Brian replied.

“As a matter of fact Br- er Joe…we’ve got a perfect survey for someone like you,” the passenger said, getting a glare from the driver from his slip up.  A person in the next lane over drove by slowly, glaring as she went by as well, in search of a malt shop certainly.

“Beckons with me…  Beckons with me!” Brian answered.  Why exactly, no one may ever know.

“Have you been drinking sir?”

“Part of the survey?” Brian asked, then smiling with a blank look in his eyes.

“No, and don’t answer the question.  I’m sure I already know.”

“You know nothing peasant!” Brian screamed, then calmed down and continued smiling blankly.

“Alright,” said the driver, putting the car in park, right in the middle of a busy street.  The car behind them put on the brakes and skidded to a stop and a pile up ensued behind them (even though they had been stopped for a couple minutes now and it wouldn’t have been that big of a surprise for the driver behind them to actually need to slam on the brakes).  “First question:  are you a fan of candy?”

“Who wants to know?”

“The International Survey Brethren,” the passenger threw in, way off.

“Oh, well of course it’s sunny on the face of cheese, why wouldn’t I want to test drive a new Ft. Lauderdale!? (?)” Brian said harshly, grabbing the rearview mirror and bending it down.

The driver blinked blankly, but broke the silence with, “That’s viable.  Next question:  are you more a fan of hard candy or chocolate bars?”

“What the hell is this?  Some damned interrogation?  I’ll tell you nothing you squabbling spy!  Nothing!”

Those in the van simply waited for the brain deficiency to pass.  They would be waiting for another seven minutes.

“What if I said I liked both?  At the same time!” Brian answered.  “-If you know what I mean!!  Heh heh heh!!”  Brian was now obnoxiously elbow knocking the side of the van.

“Yes, you’re saying you’ve had personal feelings for a Hershey’s hard candy.  That’s actually quite common…I’m sure.  You know as well as we do that they never extended beyond that, as feelings are the extent of your relationships.”

“Why must you be so cruel?” Brian asked, ceasing the elbow knocking, after long last.

“But your answer does tie into our next question though.  Third question:  how many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?”

The earth trembled.  This is a question that Brian was destined to one day meet—and challenge.

“Answer the question!” a local jock wearing a varsity jacket yelled at Brian as he walked by with his pack of…jocks in varsity jackets.

“I can’t simply answer your question off hand,” Brian answered, wanting to avoid an answer anyway.

“Well, what about some hands on work?”

“You’re vulgar.”  Brian had actually said a word incorrectly that had the same meaning as what he was trying to.

The driver pulled out a clean, shiny, new Tootsie Pop and waved it in front of Brian.

“It beckons me…” Brian said again, this time making a little sense.  He had obviously mixed up his lines earlier.  He grabbed the lollipop (with Tootsie Roll center) and began to work at getting off the wrapper.  While he was deep in concentration, the driver, the passenger, and a large, muscular, and tanned man continuously flexing his brow, jumped out of the car and picked up Brian, carrying him to the back of the van and shoving him inside.  He sat in the corner, still working at the wrapper.  He hadn’t noticed the abduction.

The van sped off, back to Episode 4, and onto the rest of Episode 5.

*                      *                      *

Heat wet Sparky's brow from the popping bubbles and a goateed man sat with a guitar in the corner.

"The bubbles, they're POPping yeah, they're POPular, a POPulation...of bubbles..."

The man looked a lot like Bob Burnquist the skateboarder.  In fact, he might have been Bob Burnquist.  Or he could have just looked a lot like him.

Sparky hung with his ankles tied over a boiling brew of barbeque sauce.  The Rock and JR worked feverishly on their latest recipe.  After the revelation of Brian as 'The Great Paul Dini', Mike had been dragged, face down along the street behind a horse-drawn carriage.  His destination was just next door but the drivers had decided to take a detour around the block.  Spark's (Tom Spark) face came out looking quite beautiful.  His capturers sedated him afterwards and with, of course, a cracked baseball bat, so he didn't remain that way.

"DADDY liked his baseball bat... MOMMY liked the day he DIDN'T come back...  BASEBALL!  BASEBALL!  BASEBALL!"

He had come to about twenty minutes earlier as the water had just began to boil beneath him.  He, being quite hungry, had tried to reach his lips out towards the stew but to no avail...being suspended nearly six feet above it...

"SIX feet, above it...he loves it...  Suspended, SIX feet!  SIX feet!  SIX FEET!"

Brian sat on a throne designed for him with a Keno machine that strapped over his lap.  It was enough to keep him there as he had yet to win.  He wouldn't have known that it was made so no one ever would.  "Damn it all!" he cried, pounding the edge of his fist on the screen.  "Damn it all to hurdles (hell)..." he whimpered, breaking down in tears on the screen.  Something kicked in to the back of his head and he bolted up suddenly.  "You!  The black man!"

A loosely Asian man looked up, being the only one in the direction of Banes' beckoning.

"Back to work you foul creature!" Brian screamed at him.  "Or you'll watch me cry wolf (?)!"

The man looked at him, puzzled, and continued on with the work that he had never ceased to do.  Suddenly a pack of actual black men stormed into the room and tackled him, carrying him out, since he really didn't belong here, because the person that had put him there really couldn't think of a funny reason why he should stay.

"We are the NATION of DomiNATION!  The NATION of DomiNATION!" the goateed man sang.

One of the men sat where the man had been.  He bobbed his head back and forth bonelessly.

"Nantucket..." Brian muttered, since he did those sort of things.

Banes sat back upon his thrown, struggling a number of times as it was up off the ground that a man would have to hop a bit to sat upon it.

"A throne that's too much THRONE for his king..."

Sparky had rotated his body to see what was all the commotion.  In doing so, his momentum had caused him to begin spinning.  He had tried to shift himself to stop it but had done more harm than help.  He was now spinning at an extremely high-fast pace, vomiting in a circle around the barbeque brewing pot. 

Brian looked up from his perch.  "Oh, you're still there?" he said cockily.  The octave of his voice didn't allow for much audacity in his humor.  As he laughed, the curtains behind him flung open and the old women, who seemed to enter whenever a sarcastic joke was cracked, entered.  They circled around Brian and fed him grapes.  He giggled and snorted, choking on them and coughing all over himself, then smiling as if it were all so cute.

"Yes, and I don't appear to be going anywhere," Sparky attempted to snap back at him, but unsuccessfully as he was still spinning quickly.  He vomited again.

"He thinks he's cute.  He knows he's SEXY!" sang the man still, getting into it now.

"What are you going to do with me?" Sparky asked, trying to be daring in his tone.

"Oh, I know how the sun rises," Brian said, confusing even himself.  He held out his hand to stop another verse from coming from the singing man. 

"Please don't let the sun rise, it BURNS me... The sunburn...  The sunburn...  The SUNBURN!!"  The man of course ignored him as Brian really had no control in the place even as he would have been led to believe so. 

Banes looked at the man, eyes flaring.  "How dare you ignite (ignore) me!" Brian said, leaping (and tumbling) down to challenge him. 

"I found me a reason..."  The man kept on playing.

"I will neuter you!" Brian threatened, actually saying what he meant to say, sad as it was.

"The devil's on roller skaters..."

"Come my minions!" Brian cried, raising his arms in a very Paul Bearer accompanying Kane way.  The room stayed quiet besides the man's guitar playing and singing.

"Push and push till it hurts.  Push and push TILL IT HURTS!"

A small, green, cartoon cricket hopped his way out from behind the curtain.  "P-pinocchio!" it said.

"Pinocchio-Schmicinicci...shicci...nicci...licci...," Brian stuttered, making a sad and faltering attempt at a mockery of the name.  He wheezed and grabbed the cricket and threw it at the musician with all of his might.  Due to the fact his own might wouldn't have been enough to lift the cricket from the ground, his throw was fairly formidable, as one of the black thugs who had come in earlier had come and helped him lift and throw it, doing most of the work, if not all. 

"AND IT'S SO BAD...  IT'S SO BAD!"

The cricket bounced off of the man's guitar, not phasing him.  Brian's hooligan returned to his post, and Banes took it onto himself to do something.  He leaped at the man playing guitar and fell a few feet short.  He got to his feet again and repeated the process, missing by an equal distance, actually losing some ground somehow.  Wheezing heavily, he ran at the man and grabbed onto the guitar.

"I GOT me some good grades..." the man sang, as Brian hung from his guitar, trying to pry it from him, and not moving it an inch from the loose, playing grip.

"HELLO TIME BOMB, WAITING TO GO OFF!"  After saying this the man got up and began swinging the guitar up and down as Brian held on and swung with it.  The result came to sound much like a guitar solo, as Brian struggled to regain his grip, grabbing the strings up and down the handle.  He finally lost it and flew off into a wall behind one of the curtains surrounding the room.  The man continued playing but left through an opposite curtain.

A camera switching back to Sparky would have revealed him shifting the contours of his face as a brown liquid substance was now running down it, and dripping into the BBQ.

"MY GOD IT'S SPICY!" J.R. bellowed, shifting his retarded looking, cowboy chef's hat.

The curtains that Brian had disappeared behind twisted and rustled around to the point they finally ripped off and rolled in a clump down a few steps to the foot of the boiling pot.  Brian, apparently inside, stood up and struggled some more, ultimately falling into the pot and nearly knocking it over.

"Roody-Poo!" The Rock cursed, turning towards Banes.  "The Rock says watch what you're doing!"

Banes got up, kicking off the curtains, mumbling curses (none of which resembling actual curse words).  He looked at the Rock.  The Rock looked back, throwing off his chef's cap and bugging his eyes out.  Banes tried to bug his own eyes out in the same way but began shaking and fell to his knees crying.  The Rock broke his pose and kneeled over by him.

"Is there something The Rock can do to help?"

"A...strudel.  Get me a strudel would you?" Brian requested.

"Strudel?" The Rock asked as Sparky looked on amazed that Brian had pronounced it right.  He licked his chocolate... covered lips.

"Coming right up!" J.R. yelled out as he stuffed some barbeque sauce into a pop tart.

Before the two could bring Brian anything his black roughens tackled The Rock and J.R., dragging them out behind the curtains.  Before they were finished though, The Rock had provided counter maneuvers and J.R. had himself provided commentary.

After they were gone it was only Sparky and Banes.  And a brewing pot of barbeque stew.

Sparky's face was now covered in a brown substance and he licked his lips and nose, trying to keep it from suffocating him.

"So it is you and I.  Frank (Freak)!" Banes said, circling Sparky and attempting to strut, instead bobbing like the bear-bellied cripple he was.

Sparky started to say something but suddenly had a recollection brought on by Brian's comment...

The door swung open and a strong gust of wind blew in through the opening.  Racks tumbled over and shelves fell, shattering glass.  Sparks stood in the door, holding it open, letting more of the curse that was Montana wind into the doorway.  A man would have looked up at him were one of his eyes not already on top of his head.  He was a hunchback, and deformed in a very similar way to the famous hunchback Quasimodo.

"Can I help you?" the man asked him with a heavy English accent, sounding straight of a Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory. 

Sparks didn't answer him but looked into his eyes with a purpose.  He held the door open and grabbed a coat rack, pulling it into the door rack, holding it ajar for the simple reason of rebellion.  He walked away smugly, and scably you might say.

The man's single, chameleon-like eye on the top of his head rotated, watching Sparky as he trotted slowly across the room.  He was also wearing spurs, and very large spurs at that.  They chinked under him loudly.  He still glared into the man's eyes sternly, looking back over his shoulder as he walked at an off angle, running into a rack in his path, knocking everything off of it.  The man would have said something but wheezed frighteningly as his hump bobbed with his breath, as if it was breathing itself, as it probably was.

"Can I help you?" the man asked again.

"I don't know," Sparky said finally.  He grabbed a rack and tore it to the ground.  Sparky was also wearing rolled up jeans and a leather jacket with the collar turned up.  He was a rebel.  Had he not had a receding hairline he would have had the gelled and slicked black curls.

Sparks walked around the man's counter in the center of the store.  The eye on his head rotated to follow.  His other eye, sunk into his face in the position it should be, stood in place, unable to move or do anything useful.  Sparky stopped in front of him, the door behind him, the wind blowing his clothes in it.  "Can you help a scab?" Sparks asked.

"A scab?"

"Who you callin' a scab?”

They looked at each other, across the counter, two 5'6ers, going at it.  Sparky's lip trembled lightly.  He licked it.  The hunchback's eyeball trembled terribly, looking as if it was going to fall out of place.  He licked it as well, his long tongue slivering out of his mouth and over his face, leaving a trail of slime behind it.  Sparky did the same...licking the hunchback's face too...  Before they could both continue licking they caught themselves and moved apart.

"Keep your hands off a scab!" Sparky demanded.

"A scab?" the man asked yet again.

"WHO YOU CALLIN' A SCAB!?" Sparky yelled this time.

"Are you here to take my job?" the creature asked.  "I'm not on strike."

Sparks looked him in the eye again, sizing him up as he had done since he walked in.  He yanked the sides of his collar and pushed it back into place.  "This scab's lookin' for a change," he said.

"Well," said the hunchback, "I'm sure I can help you."

Sparks walked around the room, looking at different articles of clothing.  "This scab's lookin' for a change," he said again, "a fashion change."

"Well I'm not a fan of the cafe gang bad boy look myself anyway," the man said, commenting on Spark's current attire.  Hypocritically though, since he was wearing a leather jacket with the collar turned up himself.  “Right this way.”

The creature led Sparks to the back of a store, then through a back room, and somehow ended up in the ancient catacombs beneath the store (like all those catacombs throughout Montana).  They followed a labyrinth that the hideous man (with the hunchback—unlike the hideous man that was best known as a scab) had seemed to have memorized…for he had led many scabs hence forth before (which would translate out as, ‘from now on before’ which is so wrong I’ll have to leave it that way).

They had actually only gone down a mere flight of stairs and the room they were now in far from resembled catacombs, but Sparky had done his fair share of overacting to add excitement to the situation—enough so that you may have actually thought you were in catacombs—and if you were blind and confined to a bubble…now that’s a cruel image.

“A boulder!” Sparky screamed, tackling his companion into a wall.  A boulder actually had just rolled down the street upstairs and outside, but not that it would have affected them any.

Sparks now lay on top of the hunchback but didn’t move and pinned him to the ground.  “Why, isn’t this a situation?”  Sparks leaned in and tried to lick the hunchback’s face in a manner resembling passionate but was held at bay.

“We mustn’t!  It’s too early!  I’m scared!” the hunchback replied, his bulging eye, sad excuse for another eye, disgusting lump of a hump, and hands trembling.

They arose and brushed themselves off then continued all seven feet to their destination.

“What an adventure we’ve had,” said Sparky, looking to the creature again, dreamily.

“Yes we have, like the time we-“

“Would ya get to the damn point?” Brian blurted, in reality once again.

“Can you give a scab a break?  I’m trying to recollect my long, lost past you impatient bastard.”  Sparky continued, still spinning…and vomiting…

The hunchback pressed an indentation on the wall and the plaster fell through revealing how poor of condition it was in.  He then grabbed hold of a closet door and slid it open, revealing the most beautiful thing Sparky had ever seen.

“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Sparky cried.

Inside the closet was a single outfit:  a white bonnet as a southern belle might wear if tending flowers in the hot, spring sun, a blue dress, covered in yellow, pink, and blue flowers, resembling a spring day, and a pair of booties, emitting the same glow of spring as the rest of the attire simply because it was in the scene.

Sparky’s eyes filled with tears as he stared in awe.  The hunchback had seen it all before and butted in, grabbing the dress and taking a huge whiff of it, covering it mucus and hair.  “Ah, spring fresh indeed.”  He tore it from its hanger, actually letting off a tear sound.  The dress hadn’t actually ripped but the foul creature was instead now smelling quite foul as well.

“You think that’s something?” Sparky asked, then himself ripped ass to raise Hell.  The two then began exchanging blows—comparing farts in a completely indecent scene of, to put it best, indecency.

“On guard!”

“Why buy a costume?”

“I know I’m cute!”

“SPOOK-tacular!”

“I’m a scab baby!”

“But don’t call him one…”

“Where in the hell is this going exactly?” Brian asked again, now seated back aboard his throne.  He hadn’t actually been paying attention to the recollection since his last comment but had taken that long to make his way back onto his seat.

“Right up your ass if you don’t know your role and shut your mouth!” Sparky replied, ripping off someone else’s line.

Brian cried.

When the scene had ended and the crap had cleared Sparky was wearing the dress and bonnet and Jim—the hunchback, as his name would have been found to be—was putting the final touches on tying the lace in back.

“This baby has lace?” Sparky asked.  He didn’t know that.  “I feel like a tramp baby.  It excites me.”

Sparky paid the man (with his old outfit of leather and spurs) and made his way back up the stairs.  After another adventure, and Jim having to find him after he had gotten lost, Sparks made his way through the back room and back into the store, now in shambles from the wind that had come through from the door left ajar.  Sparks closed the door on his way out—leaving the store, and unleashing the being known as Spring Freak on the world.  Jim had laughed sadistically behind him.  His master plan was now in the works…

“Again, what in the hell is your point with all this?” Brian asked, still crying.

“How should I know?  I’m putting puzzle pieces together here dammit!” Sparky answered, starting to slow to a stop from his spin.  He let out one last burst of puke, hitting a man in a wheel chair that had come to watch Sparky’s memory with the rest of the gang.  The force of it turned his wheel chair around and sent it rolling out of a curtain and out of the scene.  He was puking himself in the distance.

“Now, where was I?” Brian asked.  “Oh yes, MUAHAHAHA!!”  He pulled a lever (about the size of a toothpick so it wouldn’t be a challenge to Brian’s strength—which it actually ended up being) and Sparky began lowering towards the brewing pot of BBQ, now lukewarm after all the events that had delayed its purpose. 

Sparky lowered for a split second then stopped again, suspended in air.  The cable was also designed to toothpick scale for some dumb reason and ended up being about as long as a toothpick.  Sparky was at the end of the rope…but still almost six feet above his demise…or his dinner—either/or.

“Would you let me down?” Sparky asked simply, tired of the events of the episode finally.

Before Brian could start the wheels in his head a’ spinning a voice broke out through a cheap, makeshift sound system around the room.  “I’m afraid that Mr. Joe cannot,” it said.

“Who the hell is Mr. Jane (Joe)?” Brian asked, the wheels a’ spinning, backwards probably.

“Why you are, oh Great Paul Dini.  It doesn’t matter though.  The point is, there’s really no possible way you’re going to succeed in getting him down.  Look at your track record so far today.  You made it to three on the Tootsie Roll pop.”

“Haw (hey)!” Brian defended.

“But alas, this episode is running dry, and we’ve other things to do, so I’m afraid we’ll have to end with this:”

“Huh?” Sparky and Banes uttered simultaneously, as the lights went out.  Brian didn’t actually say ‘huh’ but instead recited the Canadian pledge of allegiance, which is almost as many syllables.

In a confusing mess, Sparky and Banes were stripped of their attire (although given suitcases including it—which they would ultimately lose before the mess was over sadly) and put back in their regular street attire.  Sparks was cut down, and let to fall into the mass of BBQ, which wasn’t that bad actually, and somehow Brian had played a winning game on the fixed Keno machine (although it was dark, and he wouldn’t know it).  They were sent down a tube and ended up on the side of a highway in Maryland of all places…

The two arose to their feet, wiping themselves off.  Sparky was a poopy mess-

“Poopy I say,” he said.

-and really couldn’t do much, brushing as they were.

"Great Scoot!  You have a tattoo!" Brian said, obviously aghast, as two singing lesbians ran by.

"I do?" Sparky answered, traditionally.  "My I'm handsome, you have one too!"

"Dingleberry!" Brian shouted, reading the word 'dude' on Sparky's hideous and blemished, cream colored back.  "What's mine say?"

"Scab!" Sparky shouted, reading what obviously was the wrong tattoo on the wrong person.  "What's mine say?"

"Donahue!" Brian shouted, wrong again.  "Who's Line Is It (what's mine say)?"

"SCAB!" Sparky shouted, louder this time, getting angry that whoever had tattooed them had messed up (or perhaps did exactly what they set out to do...hmm).  "What's mine say?"

"Dennehy!" Brian yelped, drooling uncontrollably as his eyes rolled back into his head.  "Why's it always rain on me (mine say...etc)!?"

"I'M THE SCAB DAMMIT!  BUT DON'T YOU DARE CALL ME ONE!!" Sparky finally exploded, digging his paws into Brian's back, trying to rip the tattoo from his flesh.  Luckily it was a stick-on and the layer of film came right off.

There was a moment of silence between them as they just stared into each others eyes uncomfortably (and a bit romantically), uncomfortable because of the masses of feces in their pants and the first bit of authentic tension the two had ever experienced between one another, besides of course the time that Brian's alter ego had tried to lower Sparky into a brew of bubbling JR's BBQ earlier that day.

"Cool," Brian said.  "I've never had a tattoo like that before."

It was Maryland of all places, but they were on a highway, and at least a few people know what state Maryland borders…