Brian Cox and Anthony Weiner Walk Into a Bar
Part 1:
Brian Cox and Anthony Weiner walk into a bar. The man checking i.d.’s at the door is clean-shaven and thorough, though Weiner appears agitated at being submitted to such a process and mumbles something like “Cox, what’s this guy doing? Doesn’t he know who I am?”
The doorman says nothing, he just scratches his nuts. Which is saying something, maybe. And then being that he’s done verifying their legal ages he lets them in.
“When I’m elected again the first thing I’m going to do is make it against the law to i.d. anyone who looks over 40 and wants a drink.” Weiner says as they sit down at the bar.
“Good luck with that.” says Cox
“Thanks.” Weiner says, fiddling with the buttons on his cell phone. “That broad makes me want to take a picture of my crotch and send it to her. I just need her phone number. But I want to play it cool. How good are you at guessing phone numbers?”
“For Bourne’s sake Wiener, put that goddamn thing away.” Cox says, grabbing the cell phone out of Weiner’s hand. “I’ll keep this with me until we go home. You know you’ll never get elected again if you don’t stop texting young women pictures of your junk.”
“Says you.” says Weiner. “The general constituency has the attention span of a dead turtle. I’ll be Governor of some goddamn thing by this time next year. Cock shots or not!”
“Please don’t say ‘cock’,” Cox says “in that context.”
“Sorry pal.” Weiner apologizes. “You know me, I’m just all worked up. Say, let’s get her over here. We need some more drinks.”
“You need to pull your head out of your ass and stop jerking off to Avril Lavigne records, that’s what you need to do.” Cox says.
“Never!” Weiner screams, which draws the bartender’s attention long enough for him to hold up two fingers and shout “Two more, please!”
The bartender nods her head and begins to pour.
“I bet her phone number’s got a 2 in it somewhere.” Weiner says while taking a mental picture of his own penis and handing it to the bartender with his eyes.
“Knock it off. You’re gonna get us kicked out of here.”
“Lighten up. We’re rich white dude’s who also happen to be famous and this is AMERICA! We’re not getting kicked out of shit.”
“You looking for America?” the bartender chimes in as she walks over and slides Cox and Weiner their drinks “I just saw her a few minutes ago, sitting back at one of those tables over there.”
Brian Cox and Anthony Weiner both look in the direction indicated by the bartender and shit…it’s true. There’s America. Sitting alone at a small table in the corner. Reading a magazine article about something that almost seems obvious. Methodically fingering a half empty cocktail glass. Legs crossed like two disagreeing squirrels.
“What’s she drinking?” Weiner asks.
“A McRib Martini.” the bartender answers. “Mangled, not stirred.”
“I’ll be right back.”
Before Cox can stop him Weiner’s on his feet, across the bar, and sliding into an empty chair beside America.
“You’re not invited.” America says without looking up.
“Then for fuck’s sake, invite me.” Weiner suggests.
“What do I look like, Italy? Piss off.”
Weiner was expecting a different response maybe, but having received what he’s been given decides it best not to drag things out and excuses himself with a quick “Ok then, thanks for your time, and I hope as always that I can count on your vote.”
Upon returning to Cox and the bar Weiner mumbles “America fucking hates me.” before ordering a half dozen Rum and Cokes.
“How could you not already know that?” Cox says, while pondering the fact that the eyeglasses the he’d set before him earlier now seem to have transformed themselves into a $36,000 purse.
Noticing the handbag, Weiner inquires “Where’d that come from? Is Oprah here?”
Oprah wasn’t there. And neither was the bar. The two phalically last-named characters now found themselves sitting at a 1950’s ice cream parlor…their alcoholic drinks replaced by butter nut sundays, all whored up with whip cream and cotton candy colored sprinkles.
“Dickshits!” Cox harruphs. “The Universe knows I can’t handle dairy. How the bloody hell am I supposed to get drunk on this?”
Weiner isn’t listening. He’s too busy drawing a not-to-scale picture of his crotch.
“What the hell are you going to do with that?” Cox asks.
“They don’t have cell phones in the 1950’s so when the waitress walks by I’m going to slip this bad boy into her apron pocket.”
“Maniac. You’re like a serial killer with that shit. It must stop.”
“It’s how I flirt!”
Part 2
Far above the ice cream shop the sun is caught cashing the latest check it’s received from Coppertone…kick back money from the corporate suntan lotion machine.
“I’ve been framed!” screams the Sun, even though it hasn’t….as a sky full of Cloud Cops descend upon the situation and fluff the big star away.
“Now what do we do?” asks the Money. “With the sun gone and stuff what are we supposed to do with all this lotion? We can’t sell protecting lotion when the thing that it’s made to protect people from is off rotting in jail.”
“We’ll bring the Moon in on this.” Brian Cox tells Weiner, although he’s no longer Brian Cox. He’s a sentient Space Lizard hired by The Corporations Of Earth to keep profits rolling.
“Moon Tan Lotion will most definitely be a tougher sell.” Weiner says, even though he’s no longer Weiner, having been almost unnoticeably replaced by a 5 ft Pez Dispenser with a face shaped like a jerked off horse. “In order to create demand the general public will have to be given a reason to fear it. As it stands right now on beams just aren’t all that dangerous.”
“Well that’s just something that’ll have to be worked out.” the talking Lizard says (pause). “If this thing’s going to work the Moon’s going to have to kill someone.”
“Lots of someones. says the Pez Dispenser.
“Agreed. The Moon will have to turn itself into a goddamn serial killer.”
“I’ll do it!” says the Moon, who up until a few seconds ago had been a Pez Dispenser.
“Than it’s done.” the Lizard who’s no longer a Lizard says. It’s no longer a Lizard because it’s now the current Body Count assigned to the Moon’s flash forward/rampant streak of murder and inedible doom, and as Coghlin’s Law # 137 clearly states: Don’t go getting’ greedy, cocker. One cannot be two things at the same time.
“Wait. I watched Cocktails the other day again, and I don’t recall that law actually being cited in the film.” The Moon says (as it wipes the entrails of what had until very recently been the entire population of a small village off the edge of its Coppertone sponsored Cheese Grater of Shredded Doom).
“That’s because it’s not in the movie. It’s in the novelization of the movie. Based off the screenplay’s almost unrecognizable 129th draft.” says The Body Count. Have you read it?”
“Of course I’ve read it.” says the Moon.
“Bullshit. You haven’t read it.”
“Fuck you! You haven’t touched me in months! How the hell do you know what I haven’t read?!”
Frustrated, the Moon flips its bloody cheese grater up into the air and then catches it behind its back and before the entire move can be completed the Body Count’s gone, its absence causing the sort of ripple through time that turns the sky into an old episode of The Six Million Dollar Man, one in which the Moon finds itself sitting behind a desk dressed in a top and bottom matching 1970’s jumpsuit trying to figure out what the fuck’s going on.
“Where did she go?” the Moon asks a robotic version of Bigfoot that sounds like Andre the Giant.
“Where do you think she went? You just killed your own Body Count.” Bigfoot says.
“Seriously?”
“Well, no. Not literally. But she no longer loves you anymore, so she’s gone.”
“My Body Count doesn’t love me?”
“It doesn’t want anything to do with you.” Bigfoot says.
“Shut up!” the Moon screams, its track suit only half zipped, exposing its various craters and wild poofs of chest hair. “I can’t go on without her! What do I do?! And what the fuck’s going on with this track suit?! This is so not fair!”
Bigfoot walks over and pats the Moon on the back in slow motion, which in Six Million Dollar Man terms means he’s patting him on the back really fast.
“Look, you’re making me feel horrible right now and I wasn’t going to tell you this but…your Body Count’s moved on.”
“What’s that mean?” the Moon asks. Tears shaped like old footprints are now walking down the side of its face.
“Your Body Count’s in love with someone else. She’s living with some guy in Cincinnati. They have sex a couple times a week. Inside a little house or something. It’s sort of gross and goes on forever and he’s got a huge penis and you probably don’t want to hear any more it if, it might make you sad.”
The Moon can’t believe what it’s hearing. Its true love shacked up with some prick in Cincinnati? How could this be true?
“Coughlin’s Law #12 ½: The only thing that remains constant is that constant don’t exist.” Bigfoot says.
That did it.
“Stop making up Coughlin’s Laws! You hideous Care Bear! I’ll murder you!”
And that’s what the Moon did. It murdered Bigfoot, and just like that a new Body Count was forged. But it just wasn’t the same. The Moon didn’t have the same feelings about this one and the new Body Count was even less fond of the Moon than its previous Body Count had been. Their relationship , if it was that, didn’t last long. She left the Moon a couple months later for a traveling dog salesman with orange hair…if that even makes sense.
The Moon was inconsolable. It bought a couple of cats and moved into Jupiter’s basement and spent the next four years drinking cheap whiskey, experiencing brief flashes of previous lives, and ignoring its own weiner. Also, the Moon watched a lot of movies, every one of them at one point or another featuring the sharply honed acting skills of the Brian Cox.
Part 3: One Thousand or Two Years in the Future
“Daddy, I don’t get it.” the small boy said to his father, “How can the Moon watch movies for 4 years if Brian Cox is in every one of the? I mean, wouldn’t he run out of?”
“Brian Cox has been in a lot of movies, son. Almost as many movies as there used to be stars in the sky.” the Father who’s been telling this goddamn story assured his son. “I mean, it’s pretty much impossible to run out of Brian Cox movies.”
His son sat there with a perplexed look upon his face as if he’d just shit his force field Chinos.
“More movies than Nicolas Cage’s been in? the boy asked.
His father damn near slapped him.
“Are you being serious? the Father said, “You know Nicolas Cage isn’t real. HE’s just a fucked up Boogey Man the Sky Masters made up to scare kids into hatin’ Elvis and eating their McVegetable and shit like that.”
“Oh yeah,” the boy said. “I forgot.”
Stupid kids.
“That’s alright.” the Father said. “It’s gettin’ late now. Go unplug your mother goodnight and get yourself off to bed.”
“Ok.” the kid said. “Goodnight father.”
The father stood there for a second staring up at the sky where everything besides Fox News said the Moon used to be and felt like he was forgetting something.
“Maybe I was Brian Cox in a past life.” he thought to himself, but man, he was way off, so out loud he just said:
“Goodnight.”
(written for the Rob Bomb/F Bomb reading, Mercury Café Denver CO)
Tags: America, Andre the Giant, Anthony Weiner, astronomy, bars, Brian Cox, Cloud Atlas, Cocktails, ice cream, love, movies, Pez, politics, writing
