Chapter 2

Brooklyn

On the curved glass face of the old fashioned television set was the image of a heavily mustachioed, slightly overweight, middle aged man, with a thick head of brown hair. He was all too obviously superimposed over a backdrop of New York City. The lighting reflecting on his shoulders did not at all match the lighting of the blue-screen images behind him. The man wore a grey, pocketed T-shirt over jeans and was wrapped with a toolbelt full of tools.

"Hey, look at a me! It's a Mario!" the man on the TV said in a seemingly exaggerated Italian accent.

He thrust his fist into an uppercut, emulating the mid-air pose of a long distance jumper. This pose was accommodated by a cartoonish BOING sound as pathetic film editing attempted to make the man leap high into the air.

"And I'm a Luigi!"

Now a taller man in the same uniform, sporting a similar mustache and a family resemblance bound up into the city sky.

The two men landed on a tall building's roof.

"And we're Mario Brothers Plumbing!" they said in unison as pixely graphics formed their logo. The Mario Brothers jumped off the building and into a manhole on the street below. As they descended (way too slowly) into the hole, another cartoon noise could be heard - as if entering a hole made a sound. It was a Zhunk Zhunk Zhunk sound.

At this point, bad, eighties' video-game-sounding music starting playing while the Mario Brothers rapped back and forth in a superimposed sewer tunnel.

"We're the Mario Brothers

And we're here to say

If you have a plumbing need

Call us right away.

We're affordable,

Adorable,

Pipe fixin' pros

If you need a plumber

Call the Mario Bros!"

This last line was said in unison.

After the rap, the scene switched jarringly to one in which the brothers were portrayed by retro computer graphics. They were tiny pixelated sprites carrying plungers, jumping on platforms, unclogging green pipes that were in the four corners of the screen.

At the center of this image was the Mario Brothers Plumbing logo again and their phone number. Suddenly the eighties' video game music ended mid-measure and the screen went blank.

Mario and Luigi stood speechless, staring at blank TV screen long seconds after the commercial played. They were wearing the same attire as they were in the ad minus the toolbelts. Standing beside them in the small apartment/video production house was a tall, skinny man in his late 20's with an expectant look on his face.

"Well?"

The brothers turned from the screen and faced him.

"Wow!" said Mario.

Luigi ran both hands through his hair, his face betraying his shock.

The other man beamed with pride.

"I gotta say…" Mario began. "At first, as you know, I was against doing the rap, but now…..Now that I see it all put together….."

Mario whistled.

The slender man smiled even wider.

"Now that I see it all together," Mario continued, "I want my money back."

The man's shoulders and face dropped.

"I thought you went to film school, Walter," Luigi said.

"That has got to be the worst commercial I have ever seen," said Mario. "Is this a joke? Are you just messin' with us? Where's the real one?"

Their real life Italian accents were not as strong as they were in the video.

Walter put both his hand up.

"Hold on, now. I did go to film school. But this was my first job. I didn't have any equipment. And you only paid me $300. 300 bucks doesn't go a long way when you are buying editing gear on ebay. If I had better gear, I could do more."

"What's up with all the old video game stuff?" asked Luigi. "It kinda reminds me of that old arcade game, Super Jump Man. Mario, don't you have that as your ringtone?"

"The invincibility music from Jump Man, yeah."

"Retro gaming," said Walter. "That's the theme. It's what I was going for."
"I can see that much," said Mario, "but what does retro gaming have to do with plumbing?"

"It's just cool. That's all. Do you really want your money back?"

"No," said Mario. "I was just messin' with ya. You're a good kid. You can keep the money. Just don't air this video."

"And don't let your sister see it." added Luigi.

"Well, I couldn't air it if I wanted to. You didn't pay me enough to buy air time. But I did put it online yesterday."

Walter hesitated as if he had something he did not want to tell them but knew he had to.

"It went viral. It already has 20,000 hits."

"In one day?!" exclaimed Mario.

"Has Pauline seen it?" asked Luigi, looking sincerely worried.

"I don't know."

"Can you take it down?" asked Mario.

"Do you really want that? You're getting a lot of attention. And besides, I can't totally take it down."
"What do you mean?"

"Someone has already ripped the video and reposted it. I can take down mine but the other one will still be up."

"Mama mia!" exclaimed Luigi, running his hands through his hair again.

Mario's phone rang with the sounds of frantic 8-bit music .

"Oh, yeah, Super Jump Man. Cool." said Walter.

"Mario Brothers Plumbing," Mario answered the phone. "Delvecio's? Yeah, I know where that is. I love that place….You saw our ad online?...No, no problem….Sure, we're on our way."

"Boo ya! I got you business!" said Walter, beaming again.

Mario threw a couch pillow into his smug face.

xxxxx

The Mario Brothers' box truck rolled up in front of Delvecio's high end gourmet Italian restaurant. Their truck bore the same block letter logo from the commercial but also had crudely drawn cartoon caricatures of the brothers, making them look squat and bulgy eyed, each wearing overalls.

Mario and Luigi equipped themselves with the right tools and toolbelt from the back of the truck with all the confidence of seasoned warriors suiting up in armor. They were good at their job and they knew it.

Mr. Delvecio himself came rushing out to meet them.

"Mario Brothers! I'm so glad you could make it this quick. We've got a bad back up. Sewage is coming up from the floor drains. We can't use any sinks or flush the toilets. We can't open. Don Domingo, the famous food critic is scheduled to come tonight. A good review from him would mean good business for me. If we can't open, there's no telling if he'll come back."

The man spoke urgently.

"Not to worry, my friend," Mario comforted. "You'll be operational in no time. Please, show us where the issue is."

Moments later the issue was assessed and an electric snake was run through a cleanout.

"Mario, I'm definitely hitting something." Luigi was yelling over the noise of the snake. "Can't break it up, whatever it is. It's about 25 feet down. Probably about where the line dumps into the sewer. Gonna have to check it from there."

Outside the establishment, Mario and Luigi set up cones to divert traffic and then used pry-bars to lift the manhole cover in the center of the lane.

"Hey, I know you! You're the affordable, adorable pipe fixin' pros!"

A blue haired teen walked toward them, holding his phone out, apparently filming them.

Mario shook his head climbed down into the sewer. Luigi, on the other hand, decided to play along.

"Word to your plumber!" he said as he folded his arms in mock hip hop fashion before kissing his fingers and extended a peace sign in the teen's direction. "Peace out!"

The teen laughed. "Oh my God, that was awesome! Thanks!"

Luigi now climbed down into the dark, dank sewers of New York City. He flipped on his head-lamp.

Mario was already investigating something 20 yards away.

"What do you see?" said Luigi.

"I think I found it. Check it out. This seems to be where Delvecio's dumps into the sewer. But look here. There's something stuck in the pipe. It's like a….turtle or something."

But as Luigi approached something else caught his eye.

"Hey Mario, did you see this? What is it? Some kind of flower or something?"

Something glowed on the ground a few feet away from where Mario was standing. Luigi turned off his headlamp to better see its glow. Whatever it was was about 3 inches tall and had pedals atop a stem.

"Mario, look. This is weird."

Mario turned and saw it for the first time. He flipped off his headlamp and bent down next to Luigi to examine it.

"It's got some sort of bioluminescence."

The odd flower was mostly blue with lines of red and shimmering white on the pedals.

"It's growing in poop. Maybe that turtle stuck in the pipe pooped out a seed."

Luigi reached out and touched it gently. The light wavered, dimming just a bit for a second. Mario repeated the action.

Luigi then plucked the flower but as he did, all the glowing bioluminescent faded, starting with the pedals and ending at Luigi's fingers.

"Hey! What happened?" Luigi asked, disappointed.

"I don't know. That's weird. But I think you killed it."

"Humph."

"Hey, come check out this turtle thing."

Mario stood up, flipped on his headlamp went back to the pipe that was at about eye level and barely dripping fluids.

Luigi turned on his lamp took a look.

"How did a turtle get all the way up there?!"

"I don't know but look at it! It's like no turtle I've ever seen before. It's kinda reddish. And has spikes coming off its shell."
"What! Let me see."

Luigi nudged Mario out of the way for a closer look.

"Yeah, you're right. I think that's how it got stuck. It's clogging up the line. If we free the turtle, the rest should flow out. Man! That's a one a weird a lookin' turtle! When we get it out, I'll take a picture of it and show it Pauline. Maybe she'll know what kind it is."

"Whoa! Look at this!" said Mario.

Mario was running his hand along the sewer wall just below where the clogged pipe was supposed to empty out to. There were small holes in the concrete. Two lines of them starting from the floor of the sewer.

"You don't think those are claw marks do you?" asked Luigi. "From the turtle? You think he climbed up the wall?"

"That's what it looks like to me. If it did, that one bad turtle!"

"Well, I'm not sticking my hands in there to pull him out!"

"No," said Mario. "Get the tongs from the truck."

Minutes later, the brothers were heaving on the old set of tongs, trying to pry the spiked, red turtle from the pipe. They were making progress, however slowly. Its thick, short spikes dug into the pvc, dragging trails along the inside of the pipe. As the creature shifted, brown liquid in increasing volumes seeped past its body over the plumber's gloved hands.

Finally, with one last grunting heave, the large turtle burst free, falling with the Mario Bros. backwards into the sewage as the pipe exploded chunky brown water over them. More fearful of the turtle they just saved than the disgusting sewage that now drenched them, Mario and Luigi jolted up and out of the way. Good thing too. The frightened turtle snapped at them.

Luigi, with one eye on the monstrous beast, slid off a glove, removed his phone from his pocket, and took a short video.

"Should we just leave it here?" Luigi asked.

"Well, I sure as heck ain't gonna carry it up."

"Let's get out of here. He doesn't look to happy. And after seeing what he did to that concrete…."

"Say no more!" Mario ran past the red turtle and ascended the ladder out of the manhole with Luigi on his heals.

Mr. Delvecio came running out to meet them as they clamored out from below the street.

"I heard gurgling. It it done?"

"We're the Mario Brothers. Of course it's done. We always get it done," said Mario.

Delvecio was so excited he almost gave them hugs but stopped short when he realized they were covered in sewage.

"Normally we'd clean up the floors," said Luigi, "but as you see we're not too sanitary ourselves."

"Oh, no! Don't worry about it. We'll clean up. You just saved the day. I'll go get your check." Delvecio stopped, considering something. "I'll tell you what. Why don't you come by tonight? Bring a date. Both of you. Get whatever you want. It's on the house."

Mario and Luigi looked at each other. More was said in their look than Delvecio could guess. Such as, "Date? Who are you going to bring? Who am I going to bring?"

"We'll still get a check, though?" asked Mario.

"Yeah, yeah, of course. I just wanted to give you something extra."
"Well, thank you. That's very generous. We'll see you tonight."

xxxxx

Luigi let the warm shower water wash away his long work day as he thought about how he might ask Pauline to the restaurant. He knew Mario would not approve but it was about time he minded his own business.

Satisfied and refreshed, he turned the water off and reached out of the shower curtain for his towel. Not feeling it at first he reached further. Suddenly he felt a warm sensation in his palm and saw a flash. Popping his head out of from the curtain, he saw that his towel had burst into flame. He jerked his arm back, slipped on a bar of soap, and pulled the shower curtain down on top of him. The flame on the towel started to lick at the ceiling. Luigi held both hands out from his position on the shower floor as if he could motion for the fire to stop. But the action caused a blast of fire to burst forth from his hands, further igniting the towel.

Luigi screamed. He turned the shower back on and tried to aim the head at the towel but the stream would not reach. He tried cupping and tossing the water but that was even less useful. Finally he grabbed the towel from the only part that was not on fire and yanked it from the rack, throwing it into the shower water. The shower curtain melted under the towel's flames before the water extinguished it.

The bathroom filled with steam and smoke. Luigi, naked, sat on the toilet seat and stared at his palms, wondering what just happened. For a half second, his palms lit up. It was just enough time to duck, avoiding the blast of fire that was aimed at his face. The fire singed off his side of his hair and hit the fire sprinkler on the ceiling, setting it off along with the fire bell.

Luigi stared up at the water cascading out of the sprinkler.

What the heck was happening?