Some disclaimers: I do not own either Foster's Home for Imaginary friends, nor Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, or any of the Characters depicted within them. Nor do I claim to be anywhere near as good a writer as Mr. Hunter S. Thompson, Few (of which I certainly am not) will ever be. This is merely an attempt to pay tribute to two of the finest stories on the face of the earth.
This story is based on the theatrical version of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, as I have not had the opportunity to read the worded version of Mr. Thompson's masterpiece.
This story contains some strong language, drug use, and (attemptedly limited) out of character situations involving the prodigal eternally-eight-year-old.
Fear and Loathing In Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.
Chapter 1: Somewhere around Wala Wala.
"We were somewhere around Walla Walla, just before the turn to get to our street, When the sugar began to take hold."
I remember saying something like:
"I feel like I'm going to pass out, maybe you should Drive."
Suddenly there was a terrible roaring, and the sky became filled with what appeared to be pencil marks all swooping and screeching and fussing above the car. And a voice was screaming:
"HOLY JESUS! WHO OPENED GOO'S WINDOWS!"
My indigo-tinged friend looked up from his frantic, (literally) sugar-coated nightmare of a game-binge on some sort on his 'gameguy' and gasped out "Did you say something?!" , clearly too engrossed in the all-important virtual incarnation of Rod Tango's opus "Clonely at the top" to notice.
"Nothing… it's your turn to drive"
"No reason to tell him about the 'primal imaginings of neonates'" I thought. "Cruel bastard will be causing chaos with them soon enough."
We had 2 cans of "Rockstar", 72 pellets for a bb gun, 5 sheets of "Imag-Creation" Blotter Acid, a two pound bag of Sugar, A whole galaxy of playboy pictures hastily chucked under the spare tire when my brother thought no one was looking, also a quart of tequila, some dipping snuff, case of beer, a pint of laughing gas stolen from the dentist, and two dozen flannels.
Not that we'd ever need all of it, but once you start stealing things from your asshole brother on a bad day, the tendency is to push things as far as you can.
The only things that bothered me were the pictures,
There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved, than a post-pubescent punk realizing the loss of his porno stash. And I knew the rotten ass would be getting home soon.
Bloo, who had switched seats with me as I retreated to the stash to retrieve whatever I could find to make the trip interesting, now festooned himself to the steering wheel with the sort of hyper efficiency only found in an imaginary playmate who had freshly downed a 48 pack of chocolate bars.
He reached down and flipped the dial to an underground station that blared over the speakers with a song from taco fiesta.
"Coco Potatoes man! Coco Potatoes!" Bloo began shouting "Coco Potatoooooeoeoeoeoes! sitting down town in a taco fiesta!"
"Fiesta you fool?
Wait till you get to those damn scribbles man."
"Sweet sweet coco, sweet sweet coco, with lime!"
Suddenly, like the horrid, onus, malignant vibes of an encroaching tidal wave drill, he appeared out of the redwoods that dotted the surrounding forests, what looked to be a member of a boyband with a superimposed black eye,
Two, in fact…
"Let's give that guy a lift." Blue said and slammed on the breaks.
"WAIT, NO! We can't stop here!
This is Goo country." I begged to no avail,
Bloo backed the car up, causing my face to face meeting with the windshield.
"Hot DAMN I GOT TO GET OUT OF HERE!" shouted Dylan, obviously in the life of a 'player', faces meant very little, as ours didn't even recall the memory of the last time we had met.
Said lives also seemed to be very repetitive by the looks of those peepers.
"Is that right?
Well I guess we could do you a great service then, couldn't we?" I said.
"We're your friends, were not like that other little blue thing and kid." Bloo said, possibly receiving my idea before I had.
"NO MORE OF THAT TALK OR I'LL STICK THE FUCKING JUMPER CABLES ON YOU AGAIN, UNDERSTAND!?" I said to Bloo, smiling from the realization of personal catch-22 that flickered in Dylan's face.
"Get in."
How long would we maintain? How long could we go before one of us started raving and babbling in a caffeinated frenzy? This forest was the same place my grandfather had forced my uncle into a shotgun wedding, would the user feel that old Karma creeping up on him? well, in that case, we'll just have to whack him in the face with a shovel, because it goes without saying that we can't turn him loose, We'd been on the receiving end of intimidation the last time we'd come across this guy, and this time we wanted to turn the tables."
HUH?
"Jesus, did I just say that" I said, Dylan looking, in intensified fear, at the apparently nutty eight year old in the front seat.
Or did I just think it, was I talking? Is he getting un-easy?"
"Maybe I should have a chat with this multiple-time abuser," I thought, "If I explain things, maybe he'll crack easy."
"Okay, there's one thing you should probably understand, CAN YOU HEAR ME?!"
Dylan nodded, seemingly convinced that I was about to simultaneously reveal my cult affiliation and a shiv.
"Good." I smiled, and hopped in the back of the '83 Pinto that had been "Converted" into a "Bitching Convertible" by my brother's circular saw in a night of Terrence-styled genius.
"I want you to have all the background, this is a very ominous assignment, with overtones of extreme personal endangerment." The last bit sent him into a bit of a catatonic stretch, as I put my arm, the one holding said circular saw (which I had retrieved from the trunk for no particular reason other than to pass the time away "Finishing up" the modifications on the inside of Terrence's car 5 minutes earlier, and which now served a much more entertaining purpose) around his shoulder.
"THIS IS IMPORTANT GODDAMN IT STOP FUCKING AROUND!" I shouted hitting Bloo with the can of Northwestern Brew I held in my other hand, sending the car, and Dylan, sprawling about from left to right.
"GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY FUCKING………
UH, NECK!"
Shouted Bloo after careful anatomical consideration.
Our vibrations were getting nasty, But Why? Was there no planning involved, were we going to toss this perfect opportunity out the "permanently opened" window of Terrence's so called "Badassmobile"?
"I want you to understand that this blob in the front is my best friend. He's not just some punk who thinks he knows how to break thumbs, man. He's an imaginary, I think he's probably from an acid trip. That doesn't matter though does it?"
I turned and shot daggers at Dylan.
"Are you distrustful of childhood!?"
"Hell no." he struggled.
"I didn't think so." I was enjoying this too much "because despite of his factuality, this blob is a very angry soul…" I'd lay off for a bit. I needed to resupply anyway.
"Oh shit, I forgot about the beer, do you want some?"
He shook his head no. Afraid of what else I might pull out of the trunk.
"How about some porno pics?" I said jokingly.
"What?" he asked with a sudden twinge of hope.
"Never mind." If there was one degenerate in the world I had wanted to suffer through the lack of a porn stash more than Terrance, it was this asshole.
"Alright, let's get to the heart of this thing, About 8 hours ago we were sitting in the back alley behind the Redwood Acres Bowling Alley, drinking from the scattered boxes of hooch left outside the loading dock by a driver with very little time. Hiding, from the brutish realities of this foul year of our lord: two thousand and five.
"Perhaps this is the paper you've been looking for this entire time sir" the owner, a man very receptive to bribery, said as I rummaged through the filth in by rucksack to find the directions to my newest school-sanctioned road trip.
I took it from him and looked at it at turned to Bloo,
"This is Fantastic," I began as the owner coughed, I realized what position I was in and tossed a twenty dollar bill in the door leading back inside.
"Thank you…" he hissed, still not pushed far enough to call the police on his most valued customers, and walked back inside, bolting the door behind him. Attempting to keep the prying eyes of the nanny state in, and the normal shenanigans of the two of us out.
"They want me to go to the house of a selected classmate at once, go meet a Canadian transfer student named goofball, he'll have all the details. So all I'll have to do, head up to your room, he'll seek me out, what do you think?" I asked.
"Sounds like a lot of doing, you'll need plenty of help before this is done." Bloo said. "As your compadre, I advise you to take Terrence's car while he's out smashing up signposts, and you'll need the sugar, tell your mother it's a slumber party, school project at a friend's house, get away from home for at least 36 hours."
Bloo started shoving bottles from the boxes marked "DO NOT TOUCH" (in an attempt to keep us out of the high shelf stuff by the management) into my backpack.
"There goes my weekend!" Bloo whined.
"Why?" I foolishly asked.
"Because when you do schoolwork you always make me help, and it gets so boooring!" he yelped in the usual scene making Blooism.
"And to prevent boredom, we'll have to arm ourselves, to the teeth." He finished in the much couther tone we had both seemed to had picked up, as he held up a bottle of wild turkey.
"Well…" I said as I looked to make sure the door was still bolted, finding that the owner had found, after closer inspection, that I had indeed given him duopoly money, and was slowly unbolting the several deadlocks it took to keep us out when we arrived on sugar binges. "Why not, if a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing tight." I said as I put the bottles in my pack and got up. "This is an Imaginary Dream in action."
"WAIT!" the owner shouted charging after us.
Not caring to look back at the owner who had run smack dab into the open door of the supply truck that had yet to pull out, I said to Bloo "Shit, we'd be fools not to see what good can come of this assignment."
"So what kind of assignment is this?" he asked.
"It's photography class, some kind of 'Youthful Expression' noise they want to put on for the local news. It's a fantastic spectacle in honor of some neo-lib artist who gives the school half of it's funding. At least that's what they don't want you to hear." I said as I jumped in the driver's side of the bicycle-go-cart I'd put together back in my speed-racer-fanboy days as blue hopped in the makeshift bucket seat.
"Well, as your compadre, I advise you to send in nudie pics, how else can you ruin this thing righteously?" Bloo asked.
"We'll, I guess that'll do nicely, pure "Gonzo Vandalism".
We pulled out just in time, angered, assorted authority figures could be viewed behind, cursing us, "how familiar would this become?" we wondered.
Selling the Slumber party story and getting the sugar would be no problem, but the car and the contained porno were not easy things to walk off with at 8:00 in the morning.
We called to make sure the police would take care of Terrence, but we were delayed on route to the house when an old lady started spinning into the street in front of us.
We had trouble again, while taking the car.
"Listen there buddy, you're gonna drive real careful with this car right?" asked the parking lot attendant. "oh, yeah man. Of course" I said as I signed the document stating that I was removing the car from the lot next door with my cousin's permission, which was easily "Proven" by the fact that I had the keys and Terrence's often abandoned driver's license.
I then floored it in reverse to where Bloo stood on the curb next to our apartment. The attendant ran after me shouting "NONONONONONONO!" as I bounced onto the sidewalk while Bloo tossed the Provisions in the back seat.
"you just floored it backwards and nearly took out that house, what were you going? 60?" he shouted.
"Oh, no man, that's my house, and I always do that, to keep it on it's toes."
Bloo tossed by backpack in the car not even attempting to hide the bottles that spilled out, one half empty.
"You two haven't been drinking, have you?" the attendant asked, angrilly.
"not me man, I'm responsible." Said I, "Prince Albert", or at least that was the story according to the attendant's sheet, as that's the name I put down.
I floored it and took off down the street the attendant following and shouting. "GODDAMN IT YOU'VE GOT MY PEN!"
And one could barely hear him exclaim as we pulled out of sight…
"GODDAMN BEATNICKS!"
We spent the rest of midday driving around, and through fields, then we drank most of the supply and went swimming.
Our trip will be different, one that will affirm everything that is right and true in the imaginary spirit, a massive show of force of what is possible through the unknown, but only for those with true imagination.
AND WE ARE CHOCK FULL OF THAT!" I said as Dylan squirmed awkwardly. That a 25 year old could be so terrified by one with the stature of an eight-year-old was beyond me, but then so was the idea that I was an eight-year-old, the age I thought I had reached 3 years ago, hmm….
"Damn right!" Bloo said in the front as he coughed up some of the chocolate he believed so adamantly that he had digested.
"My imaginingling understands this concept, but do you?!" I spat at Dylan.
He told me he understood, but I could see in his eyes that he was doing what he did best.
"He was lying to me."
Bloo began convulsing in the front seat as he pulled the car over.
"What's that?" I inquired to his mumbling.
"Medi… Medicin…."
"Ah, medicine, of course." I said as I pulled a baggie of electric lights out from under the seat and smacked Bloo in the forehead with them. "Here you go, big electric show." Bloo, still in a sugar-fit fell backwards as the lights amused him into passivity. Meanwhile, I pulled out the domino sugar bag and downed some. "EEEEEEEEH!" I shouted and collapsed backwards, Dylan sitting paralyzed in complete shock and confusion next to me.
Bloo awoke first "What the fuck are we doing in the goddamn forest man, Somebody call the police we need help, we need help, WE NEED HELP!" he said as he pounded his hand-arm on the horn and started laughing.
This separated me of the silent "Fun Attack" I'd been having as I dropped the saw and picked up the empty can in expectation of having to toss it at Bloo as he turned and looked at Dylan. And said "the truth"
I was genuinely curious at what Bloo had come up with as I lowered the can and asked "the truth?"
He fought off winking and continued "Is that we're going to town to croak a Lady's man named Savage Harriman."
I knew Bloo had trumped me here "It's true." I said, tossing the dice.
"And why? cause we've known him for years, but he cheated on our freind!"
"And you know what that means…" I followed up as blue withdrew a stapler from under the seat
"And you know what that means." Bloo continued.
"No." Dylan squeaked.
"Savage Harriman has cashed his check" he said as he pulled the bugs bunny decoration mom had left on Terrence's dash forward and placed the stapler around it.
"And were gonna rip his feet off." He finished and dry fired the empty stapler into the rabbit over and over before dropping them both.
"And wear them" I finished the sentence as Bloo moved over into the passenger seat tittering.
"I mean, what is going on in this country when a guy like that can get away with sand bagging a 25 year veteran of being 8 years old, can you tell me that!?" I shouted as Dylan disappeared back over the top of the seat and into the woods screaming.
"Wait a minute, come back, we'll give you one of his ears!" I shouted, but he was long gone.
"Shit, Fuck it. I'm gonna miss him, Frankie won't." I woed.
"Scoot over, we've gotta get out of the park before he finds a ranger!" I said as I hopped over the seat. In retrospect, it seemed that we had had a real FREAK on our hands, or at least that was Bloo's story.