Who Wants to Marry a Sniper Target? - Trinn
Chapter 5: Party Games
The rest of the day wore on as the caller made Stu stand in the street and sing songs from "The Little Mermaid," "Mulan," and "Cinderella." He appeared to have a passion for the Disney flicks.
Pretty much everyone had deserted Stu and left him to his fate after the chipmunk-tossing incident (the laser-eyed creature was now curled into a ball in its cage, nestled in the smoking remains of the phone booth), but Captain Guy still sat in his car and diligently watched everything that happened behind his dark sunglasses. The sunglasses in question were, in fact, so dark that no one could tell that Captain Guy was actually asleep.
The sun went down and Stu began yawning. "Hey, how much longer do I got to entertain you, guy?" his New York accent finally coming through.
On the other end of the line, the caller sounded like he was constipated, but he was really just trying to get the lid off a Gherkin jar. "Rrrrng, just a second -- grrrrrr, nnnng!" Then, finally, "GAH! Hah! I got it!"
Stu didn't think he wanted to know what the caller had been doing.
"Now what was that you said?" So Stu asked him again, slower this time in case the caller had suffered any brain damage while grunting like an elephant in labor. Then, "I guess that depends on you, Shephard."
"Meaning...?"
"I can make you do whatever I want for as long as I want and I plan to have a little fun with this."
Stu lost it and started screaming hoarsely into the reciever. "A LITTLE FUN?? Is this what you call A LITTLE FUN??!!?" He went on to repeat some of the inappropriate words he had said earlier, only in a slightly different order and with a LOT more of the F word.
"Whoa there Stu!" The caller on the other end seemed delighted at this reaction. "Remember, rifle!" Stu heard fumbling and then a loud clunking noise, followed by several scrapes, a quiet curse, an exhasperated sigh, and then finally, "Well I can't get it all propped up again so I can't make the scary noise. I know, I'll improvise!" The caller made a sound that was almost sorta like a cocking rifle. "Now THAT was horror movie material! What did you think, Stu? Think I should remake 'The Ring,' only with more loud noises and an even more confusing story line? I think so."
Stu was still out of breath from yelling, so he couldn't tell the caller what a stupid idea he thought that was. The caller didn't seem to mind this, as he babbled on and on about all the famous celebrities he had almost met, including Arnold Schwarzeneggar's estranged girlfriend's distant cousin's sister-in-law's former roommate. After an hour of this, Stu was almost snoring as he sat on the floor of the phone booth surrounded by broken glass. The sky was now jet black, but the streets were almost brighter now than they had been during the day because of all the neon lights. One lit sign said "PHONE BOOTH INSURANCE," and it kept flashing on and off. Stu wished sleepily that HE had some phone booth insurance.
When the caller became too hoarse to talk anymore, he ordered Stu to tell him a story. "A nice story, with a romance in it."
Stu's story was about a dragon who fell in love with an orange peel. They couldn't be together because all the other orange peels hated the dragons, and the dragons hated the orange peels. When the story was finished, ending happily with the dragon eating the orange peel so they could always be together (or at least, until the dragon's next bowel movement), Stu wondered if he could get it published.
The caller's mind had obviously been drifting through Stu's heartrending tale of romance, because the first thing he said was, "Truth or dare?" His voice seemed a lot higher than it was before.
"Wait, what now?"
"Let's play truth or dare! You go first. Truth... or dare?"
Stu had heard of this game. It was something his fifth grade girlfriend had kept trying to get him to play. He had always been more interested in the spin the bottle game. But he decided to play with this caller, since if he didn't he would probably get shot. "Uh, truth, I guess."
The caller giggled girlishly. "Oooh, let me think... okay, which famous celebrity would you most want to go out with: Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, or Keanu Reeves?"
"... Do I really have to choose?"
"I know, it's hard, isn't it?"
"That's not quite what I meant..."
"Well choose then!" The caller seemed a tad impatient.
"Erm... Tom Cruise?"
"EWWW!" The caller shrieked happily. "But you're a GUY!!!"
Stu, having already known this, was not surprised. He rolled his eyes and decided to play along with this maniac. "Your turn now! If you were on a desert island, which of these would you most want to take with you if you could have an unlimited supply of that and nothing else?" He didn't know it, but Stu was a born natural at Truth or Dare. "Chocolate, pizza, or popcorn?"
"Chocolate! For sure! But I can't have anything else?"
"No, only chocolate."
"I want to have something else!" The gun made a clunky noise in the background.
"Okay, okay, you can have one other thing."
"Three other things!"
"Alright! Three other things!"
The caller seemed happy enough with this. "Hmm, well then, I'd want --" Suddenly the caller's high pitched voice broke off as if the phone had been snatched away. The caller reappeared two seconds later in his normal voice.
"Sorry about that Stu, I had to go to the bathroom and I'm babysitting my niece here."
"Ohhhh!" That would make sense...
"Don't tell me you thought that was ME the whole time?" The caller sounded highly amused. In the background Stu could hear the little girl whining.
"Of course not! I just... Of course not!" Stu laughed loudly and fakely. "Heh... heh..." He coughed faintly.
"Uh-huh..." The caller didn't sound very convinced. "But moving on, Stu, don't you know all those famous celebrities you're always talking to on this phone out here?"
Stu started to sweat slightly. "Oh, yes... those... famous celebrities..."
"I want you to introduce me to the one called 'Pam.'"
"But she's really a hote-- I mean, she's quite busy this time of night."
"Oh, but you always have the most interesting conversations with Pam that I conveniently happen to listen in to..." The caller's amusement had a hard edge now.
"Yes, er..."
"It usually goes something like this:
Allnite Hotels! How can I help you?
'Hey Pam, it's Stu! You'll never guess who I met today -- Michael Jackson!'
Hello? Would you like to make a reservation?
'Oh, I completely agree. That Michael! Such a tease.'
Sir, do you need assistance? If you don't have business with Allnite Hotels then I'm going to have to hang--
'Pam! I'm so shocked! You can't say things like that OUT LOUD!'
Sorry, this isn't Pam, I think you have a wrong--
'But Pam, I'm MARRIED! We can't do a thing like that!'
... click bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..." The caller laughed softly.
Stu's face was redder than the neon lights blinking chaotically into the empty street. "You could hear... the other line?"
"Oh yes, Stu. Have you told your wife you're pretending to cheat on her... with a hotel chain?"
"Er, well technically I wasn't cheating--"
"A HOTEL CHAIN, Stuart? And this Michael Jackson... what is he, a fish market?"
"Hey, I have connections..." Stu the PR guy sank down in the bottom of the booth and pulled his stylish coat up over his head, apparently afraid that the laser-eyed chipmunk, his only audience aside from the caller, would learn his most embarrassing secrets.
"Very impressive, Stu! You can't even connect your computer to the internet! Yes, impressive indeed!"
"Well that's not my fault... the instructions didn't make any sense! They may as well have been in another language! It's all the fault of those idiot instruction-booklet makers..."
"Stu, you were reading it upside down. And... you WERE reading the French section."
For about ten minutes all Stu could do was cry. "You're right, I'm worthless!"
"Now now, I never said you were worthless. After all, you kept my niece entertained for three minutes. That's worth something."