Morph Maniac: Finally, I'm myself again.

Disclaimer: I don't own Trix & components, Roger Rabbit & components, Elmer Fudd, ACME (not to be confused with acne), Betty Boop, or Phase Ten.

Chapter 4: "In which the Cliffhanger Is Hung"

Or, "Getting to Know You"

"Is it over? Can you tell me now?" Randolph asked anxiously.

Elmer looked around somewhat superfluously. "Yes, I can. Randolph, I received a letter today." He paused for dramatic effect. "It was from…" He paused again. Traffic flew by. A turtle crawled across the porch. A fly flew into Elmer's mouth. Randolph picked his nose.

"Yes?" Randolph said after several moments.

Elmer coughed out the dust and spider webs that had settled in his mouth. "Right," he said. "It was from your brother."

"My…brother?"

"Yes," Elmer said lazily. "Apparently you have one."

"Oh, that's nice," said Randolph.

At this point, it might be appropriate to add some backstory, explaining how the brothers were tragically separated at birth after their parents had died in a terrible accident involving Coldplay and a reenactment of Romeo and Juliet in order to construct an experiment evaluating the childhood environments of developing rabbit children, but frankly this author was to lazy to write one. Although, upon reflecting the previous sentence, she figured it was all explained pretty well enough to avoid such an elaborate detail.

Elmer cleared his throat at the exposition. "Anyway…your brother would like to meet you, and basically I'm just going to give you this letter so you can read it and…see where he is."

"Why didn't he just mail it to me?" Randolph wondered aloud.

"How else would we have solved the cliffhanger?" Elmer answered…with a question.

"Good point," Randolph said. Then he read the letter. "So, I'm supposed to meet him at the entrance to Toontown?"

"Evidently. I don't read other people's mail."

"Then how did you know—"

"No more questions! Now, off to meet Roger."

"Roger? How did you know…and wait, aren't you coming with you?"

"ME? Accompany an underage bunny to an unfamiliar setting to witness a beautiful but somewhat poorly constructed reuniting between two long lost brothers?"

"You're right," Randolph agreed. "That's ridiculous."

"Damn straight," said Elmer.

Randolph gathered his meager belongings: some empty bags of fruit seed, a poster of a rather large cluster of loganberries, some clothing, and his sleeping bag. He put them all in a knapsack, and then turned to the rest of the bunnies, who were engaged in a ferocious game of Phase Ten.

"Well, I'm off," he said. No response. He tried again, a little louder. The rabbits paid him no heed. So Randolph, quiet and saddened by the un-goodbye-d-ness of it all, left the barn for good, never again to return—at least in this chapter.

Randolph waited at the tunnel anxiously. He once again checked the paper Elmer had given him: "Toontown: Straight towards the freeway, take four lefts and then stop." Four lefts? That just turns you right back to where you started! Randolph thought. The night was dark. But suddenly, two lights appeared in the distance. They seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. The two lights were headlights, coming from a car! Soon, the car was beside Randolph. The car door opened, slowly, oh so slowly, and then a rabbit stepped out of the car.

If Randolph hadn't known better, he would have momentarily thought they were brothers but shrugged it off as a coincidence. However, Randolph immediately saw the likenesses of Roger to himself. He had a pink nose, he was white, and his two front teeth stuck out a little further than they should have. But, unlike Randolph, Roger did not have any of the worry lines or wrinkles which Randolph had gained as scars from his bullying. In addition, as Randolph soon learned, he and his brother were complete opposite personalities.

Roger walked toward Randolph, holding his hand out, and said, "Put 'er there, buddy!" Randolph shook his hand, only to be buzzed by one of ACME's buzzers. Randolph let go quickly. The identical rabbit said, "Hey! I'm Roger Rabbit! You must be Randolph Rabbit, because you look just like me!" Obviously, their likenesses—and differences—had not been lost on this somewhat goofy rabbit.

"Yeah, that's me!" said Randolph.

Roger and Randolph drove to the Ink and Paint Club, where Roger's wife was headlining. They had a few drinks and caught up, when Randolph realized that he would need a job if he were to live in Toontown, but Roger had already thought of everything.

"You can stay with me for a week or so. Jessica doesn't mind. And I've all ready checked out the job specs, and…well…have you ever thought of working in television?"

Randolph said he hadn't.

"Well, I think you could have a career in it! We'll start with commercials, and see how you do! Why don't we go talk to those producers conveniently over there?"

To make a long story short: Randolph agreed.

Roger and Randolph went back to the corner, and, after meeting Roger's wife, talked to the producers.

To make a long story short: they agreed.

As they were leaving, Randolph spotted a very pretty 'toon cleaning up their table. She was singing something that sounded suspiciously like "boop boop be-doop." Randolph tried to play it cool, but instead he slipped on a banana peel and fell into her! He learned her name was Betty Boop. They walked home and talked all night long.

"Hey, Betty," he asked that morning (for that was her name.) "Will you marry me?

To make a long story short: they did.

Betty and he got a place, and for a sheer sliver of time in Randolph's life, he was happy.

Years later, Betty had this to comment on their marriage:

begin

It was fast. I mean, my life was kinda slow since cartoons went to color, and meeting Randolph was like a blur, you know? For what it's worth, it was great. I mean, we had it.

Did you ever notice anything…off?

You mean, did I ever know he was crazy? Not at first. I suspected, you know? I mean, sometimes he'd say stuff, and I'd get scared. But…when you look at him now, and then look at him then…I don't think any of us thought he'd be like that.

Do you think you had any part in it? What made him that way?

That's not fair. I had my safety to think about, too!

You're not answering the question.

Look, why do we have to bring that up? It's just silly. Yeah, maybe a little, I guess. But, you know, he was kinda that way when we started. So you know.

end