In My Life
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Makoto's sheep chase certainly had been wild, not quite ending in another encounter with the elderly sheep arsonist herself, Miss Bo Peep. Nothing short of a bruised and battered mess, Makoto made all the pathetic attempts he could to drag himself away from the crazed old lady, but he was dragged into her house and taking the worst beating of his life, adding bloody to the mess.
Dragging his numb legs across the linoleum floor in the hospitable country kitchen, Makoto was safe for a few moments behind the cabinets that lined the floor. He looked up, noticing a green corded phone on the wall. Struggling to reach up with his long arm, fingers a stretched, he grabbed and yanked the cord down, cushioning the receiver with his head. He worked straight to punching out a four, a one, and a one.
The phone rang, rang, and rang some more. And just as the generic woman on the other line picked up, the crazed old lady ran into the room with a thirty gallon fish tank over her head and a war cry.
A stream of goldfish, living and dead, gushed in the waterfall onto Makoto as he screamed into the mouthpiece.
"Medic!! MEDIC!!"
It took a moment, but the voice finally replied.
"Connecting."
As the theme from Fruits Basket eased its jaunty way onto the line, Makoto spat out a goldfish that just helplessly flopped in front of him. Finally, while the old lady was emptying out everything in the nearby hutch and one-by-one chucking plates, forks, knives, spoons, bowls, glasses, tea cups, frying pans and platter dishes at him. The driving focus on the phone call kept Makoto's mind off the incessant hammering, and the hammer that propelled at his head next.
Finally, a voice came onto the line. An all too familiar voice at that.
"Good morning, Mineral Town clinic. How may I help you?"
It was Elli.
The nails followed, grazing Makoto in the back of the neck. He took a moment to cover his neck with his left hand, huddling his upper body up.
"How may I help you?" Elli asked again, getting a little flustered.
"Legs…" Makoto murmured softly into the phone, taking all caution for the deranged old lady not to hear him. "Explosion…" With a wince that came from the nails that went flying next, he stopped. He sucked in a deep breath. "Sheep… explosion… paraplegic…"
"Makoto??" Elli shot out on the other line.
But just as Makoto was on the verge of replying, the piercing lightening shock of the painful-sounding clang overwhelmed his lower body. He let out a yell.
"YOU CRAZY BITCH!!!"
"Makoto, where are you??"
Just as Makoto was about to blurt out that he was in the middle of nowhere land, being beaten up by a senile sheep arsonist in her hospitable country kitchen, another clang rang out, and Makoto saw the green plastic cradle of the phone spin across the floor and under his eyes. All he could come to think of was Elli on the other line fresh from the most downright bizarre phone call in her Mineral Town life.
He also realized that if he felt the pain from the folding chair being slammed down on his lower back, he must not have been a paraplegic. There were more cries from the crazy old lady as she spun around and yanked open the nearest cupboard. Makoto almost spun around once he heard the cry from out of the old lady's mind.
"This is for everything you've done to me, farmer fuck!!"
And with that came a steamy, fresh, scrumptious, air born apple pie, meeting with Makoto, his nose in the wrong place. With a delayed drag of a reaction, Makoto now sitting straight up, he put his middle finger to his eyes to wipe a slit of hot apple from his view. With a glare from his cold gray eyes, he shot to his feet to meet the old lady's crazy glint in her eyes of eclectic blues and reds.
And the welcoming barrel of a revolver met his sternum.
"Get back, Jojo," the old lady muttered, cocking the gun.
With his eyes wide, Makoto made a pathetic attempt to convince the crazed Bo Peep to ease down.
"You're mistaken…" he uttered, his clattering molars betraying his cold eyes.
She ignored him, and with her other arm reached out for the round, plastic draped table. With the stretch of her wrinkled hands, and cricks and cracks from every bone, she finally reached in, fishing out a silver key ring with a giant palm tree rasp of a key chain dangling from it as she shook it in front of Makoto's face.
"Drive my car, Bitch," she ordered.
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"This is DJ Murray, hostin' the all 60's Album Weekend. For this block, we're bringing you back to 1965 with John, Paul, George and Ringo with their wildly popular Rubber Soul album. We'll be highlighting some of the best, like 'Drive My Car', 'Nowhere Man' and the ever sweet 'In My Life'."
The DJ dragged on as Makoto clenched his clammy hands to the dry, taupe leather steering wheel as a small, fluffy sheep gnawed idly at his mop top under the blazing noon sun. His hair was matted to his head in dirt, and now layers of crusted over sweat and the fresh, profusely dribbling sweat. The source of the sweat either being the sweltering, thermometer popping weather or the revolver pressed to his right temple.
"The Beatles??" the old lady huffed. "Those boys with the stupid hair cuts, like yours, Jojo?" Makoto ignored her, squinting at the barren road that stretched on ahead as more senile drabbles dribbled from her mouth. "Those boys are a bunch of ragamuffins! And I think they're on marijuana. You can hear it in their new album, that Rubber Soul crap."
"And not to mention…" the DJ cut in. "The song 'In My Life' has inspired an awesome story bearing the name. Read it. You'd love it and the charming protagonist."
"Yeah right!" the old lady almost replied to the DJ. Makoto looked over briefly, only to be backhanded by the old lady a prompt five seconds later.
"Hey!" Makoto huffed, gripping the steering wheel with another squint at some up coming signs.
"Can't you see anything, Jojo??" the old lady griped. "You're almost blind as a bat!!"
Makoto grimaced, gritting his molars again.
"I can see fine, Bo Peep."
It didn't shake her.
"Where are your glasses??" she demanded. She quickly looked up to the passing sign. "Turn now!! It's the one after nine-oh-nine, Jojo!"
Makoto had missed the one after 909, and in retaliation to his lack of attentiveness and terrible near sightedness, the old lady took the wheel into her own shriveled, liver spotted hands. To her, Makoto's stream of curse words seemed to blend well with Paul and John's harmonious singing.
People screamed as the station wagon barreled its way down the cheesy board walk, taking no care as it fishtailed into every possible stand. A plethora of novelty goods spent some time on the windshield, including some 'The Man, The Legend' shirts, cheaply made plastic kites, penny whistles, Wooly Willy boards. But the colorful globs of salt water taffies refused to budge much, spreading into little visual hindrances for Makoto, aside from his eyes themselves.
"Now," the old lady began, letting go of the wheel before Makoto's widened eyes. "Learn to drive--" Makoto snapped his hands on the wheel. "—or I'll make you blow my whistle. Bitch."
And while approaching the end of the board walk, the Mineral Town bound ferry was already to shove off when Makoto's foot plunked like a brick of lead to the pedal. With a swoosh of the wind, the car almost was air born for that second before gravity took over for the quick descent. The car, like Makoto's foot, plunked into a splintery canopy on the surface of the deck.
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"Well, you know you can confide anything in me."
"I guess you're right…"
There was an odd pause.
"Well?"
"Umm… Doc… you know… it um… doesn't seem to… errm… stand at attention…"
"I'll have you up with a method I developed through past studies of erectile dysfunction. You're secret's safe with me."
Secrets were never safe in Mineral Town. The station wagon plowing through the wall of the examination room of the Mineral Town Clinic only solidified the aforementioned thesis with the invasive crash. It stopped short of the calm, hands-shoved-in-pockets Doctor and the wine-red-with-embarrassment Duke.
The passenger door slid down and plunked onto the floor, the old lady nimbly stepping out from the car. She walked over to the back door as the Doctor and Duke watched with dumbfounded faces as she popped open the back door and dragged out the placid, chain leashed sheep with little effort.
"Get outta the car, Jojo!"
It was just as Makoto stepped out of the car that Elli came in through the mortar dust air that hovered around the second entrance. For a moment, they stared at each other, Makoto extremely grimy with his gray eyes reflecting underage abuse and Elli wondering about the abuse the crazy old lady standing on the other side of the wagon put him through.
Popping out her revolver once again, the old lady let everyone in the room have their fair share of observing the barrel as she walked over to Makoto with the leashed sheep. She took the other end of the chain, a metal cuff, grabbing his arm and clamping the cuff onto his thin wrist with one motion.
"Disobey ME, Jojo…" she began her ultimatum. "And I blow you, Pixy Dust, and everyone here."
"Up?" Makoto asked as his eyebrow arched its way up his forehead.
The old lady ignored him, proceeding to circle around the room. By this point, some assorted villagers had gathered around the dissipating mortar dust of the second entrance, some of them noticing the look of despair Makoto focused on Elli with. Elli looked back at him, knees not quivering like most everyone else around, but a similar look back at Makoto.
Barley had made his way into the crowd of dumbfounded villagers, stepping forward to adjust his glasses and point out the old lady.
"It's Miss Bo Peep!" he exclaimed. A look of bliss spread onto his face with a naughty little smile.
"It's a hostage situation, Barley!" Karen told him as she blocked him with her arm. "Don't get in the way! She's the sheep arsonist that blew that bus up!"
The old lady finally ceased her circling, coming up to Makoto with a harsh tap on the shoulder.
"Jojo, I want you to bitch slap Barley and show us the way to your farm!"
With a scowl, Makoto made his reply simple.
"I'm not bitch slapping anyone."
For a moment, the old lady didn't even seem phased, putting the barrel of the gun to her chin in contemplation. She then pointed the gun at Elli.
"Bitch slap the girl and tell her to take us and Pixy Dust to the farm."
Makoto strode up to the old lady, towering over her by at least a foot and a half with his cold gray eyes challenging her insanely flaring ones.
"A, you're senile. B…" He gritted his molars. "I am not bitch slapping her." His eyes were set like stone as the old lady simply took it. She reached into her blouse, feeling around her bosom for the trigger.
More smoke rose into the room from the floor up. Makoto looked down at the floor and noticed it rising from the old lady's feet. The smoke grew more intense, the old lady finally taking notice to her hot foot.
"What the??" she cried out, taking several steps back from the car and Makoto.
The hot foot grew hotter, and so did the hot torso, hot bosom, hot head. Pretty soon, the old lady was pretty damn hot, and her dress flared up in the heat.
"JOJO!! GET WATER FOR YOUR LOVER!!"
Makoto shrugged idly, watching the flame jump up to her bonnet and hair. She was getting lost in the fireball that engulfed, frantically and pathetically stopping, dropping, and rolling around on the floor. Everyone, even Pixy Dust, stood around and watched as idly as Makoto.
"Well," the Doctor said as the last of the flame flickered out in the air. "The medical field could use some more research on spontaneous combustion." He looked to Elli. "Umm… could you get Gotz in here to give us an estimate on…" He motioned to the new entrance. "That?"
"I'm on it," Elli replied with a nod. She proceeded to head out the hole, but not without one stop for a last look at Makoto. Makoto stood tall, looking at her with a look of content in his eyes.
"You're too much, Makoto!" she smiled.
Later on that day, after freeing the chain link between himself and Pixy Dust with an axe and a Makoto-method, Makoto talked to the eased Barley from within the once again used barn, while May stayed out of the conversation while seemingly fused to Makoto's legs.
"So, it looks like Pixy Dust will be fine here," Barley said, petting the fluffy sheep's fleece. The sheep serenely snorted a little meep.
Makoto nodded crossing his arms over his chest. The left over cuff and chain links jingled a bit as his expression became cross.
"Why Pixy Dust?"
Barley looked up at Makoto's discontent face.
"She's used it, I bet."
"Fu…" But Makoto felt the hug from May. "Fudge…" he strung out with a sigh.
For a moment, there was silence. Barley finally reached out, palm outstretched.
"By the way, Makoto," he began, flexing his hand. "It's Cliff's payday. He did a top-notch job, you know."
With a groan, Makoto replied.
"Tell him to raid the Cup-O-Noodle stash, and I'll pay him after the harvest."
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Yeah, it's about time. 3:30 in the morning.
Shout-outs… to Anime26angel, because actually reviewed, you damn lazy readers! XD XD XD She gets a cookie, while no one else does. (Except you, Mr. Wanker. You had reason.)
XP