"Come on! Let's do this!" I shouted like a drill sergeant, "Inhale! Exhale! Uphale! Downhale! Lefthale! Righthale! Hale and Harty!" I smelled something in the air, "Somebody's cooking kale!"
On my couch, again, was Teriyaki Yoko. There was a blanket covering her lower half. Lammy had her head under the blanket also.
Egg-yolk started breathing heavily. This was a good sign.
"Okay, Lammy," I said, "Go for it!"
Lammy dipped her hands into the blanket. She got a hold of something, and started to pull it out.
It was... It was...
...a basketball.
I really had you there, didn't I? To be honest, we're busy prepping up Egg-yolk, because her baby is due this month.
Egg-yolk took the blanket off and stood up.
"Very good," I said, "Now you know what kind of noises you'll expect to make!"
In stepped Kramer, "Hey, people! Whatcha up to?"
"In a few days, Tom and I are gonna have a daughter," said Egg-yolk.
"Oooo! Can I be her godfather?"
"Go for it," I said to Egg-yolk, "It's an offer you can't deny!"
"Okay, Hon."
While Lammy and Egg-yolk left the apartment, Kramer tapped a lone bandage on his arm, and jittered.
"Did you give blood?" I queried.
"No. I'm hoarding it," He said, "See, I have an account at the local blood bank. If something happens to me, I don't back off until it's finished."
"Are we finished?"
"Done!"
I couldn't let this continue: I had to get Kramer a job. So I took him downtown to Midtown to find some worthy businesses for him. We passed an alleyway when I heard gunshots. I saw Sly's van parked on the curb, so we could only assume he was involved. We peeked down the alley to find Sly and Murray with a street tough. Sly retreated toward us.
"What's goin' on?" said Kramer.
"These street toughs robbed a nearby bank and we got them cornered. But now we're trying to bring him down, or at least disarmed, so he's ready for the police to take him in," explained Sly.
"What can we do to help?" I asked.
"Hang on a sec." Sly scrambled his way into the van to speak with Bentley for a plan, then stepped out.
"Okay. Bentley says I should lure the guy out into the open. What you can do is stick your foot out for him to tip over."
Sounds like a reasonable plan. Kramer was all for it, being an honorary member of Sly's gang. So we assumed positions.
I stuck my foot out at the right moment. The thug fell over. Murray jumped on the guy to keep him down, while Sly reached for the gun in the guy's hand. But he was too late. The gun fired in my direction, and the bullet hit my neck. I squealed "WOW!" and fell down hard onto the sidewalk, unable to breathe.
I woke up. I was in a hospital. I could tell by the white walls and the wooden door. Sitting on a chair next to me was Egg-yolk.
"Tom?" she said "There's something I wanna tell you..."
She stood up, and placed her hands on the top of her belly and pressed down. I was in a shock when I saw that Egg-yolk was never pregnant all along, because out from the bottom of her red dress came a basketball.
I screamed, and I fainted.
FOOLED YOU! THAT WAS JUST A DREAM!
I woke up. I was in a hospital. I could tell by the white walls and the wooden door. Sitting on a chair next to me was Egg-yolk.
"Tom?" she said, "Are you all right?"
I shot my hand from under the hospital bed quilt, and felt her belly. I quietly sang a few notes from "Blowin' in the Wind", and I felt a bump from underneath her dress.
'PHEW!' I thought.
"I just wanna tell you that PaRappa and Sunny had their baby," said Egg-yolk.
"Is it a dog or a flower?"
"Both," she said, "Maybe I'll get you to meet him once you feel better."
Egg-yolk left the room, and to replace her was Kramer.
"Kramer!" I said, "What happened to me?"
"Well, that bullet stabbed your neck. I'm sorry about that."
"It's good to hear that," I said in relief, "That's the last time I do a favor for Sly."
"Well, you were lucky I was there, because you lost a lot of blood."
My relief slowly waned.
"You got three pints of Kramer in you, buddy!"
I screamed. Eventually, so did Kramer. Then I fainted. Unfortunately, this was no dream.
"Three pints of Kramer's blood?" asked Sammy when we got back to the apartment.
"Yeah. I can feel his blood invading my blood like Hitler invaded England!"
"I can only imagine how Kramer's gonna treat you now!"
As if on cue, Kramer entered the room.
"Hey buddy. Were you just talking about me?" he queried.
"No," I said.
Sammy left and closed the door behind him.
"Look at this!" Kramer started rubbing the back of his neck, "My hair is all tangled and brambly back there."
"So?"
"Would you mind shaving it off for me...BLOOD brother?"
I had a feeling this was coming. I went to the bathroom and took out a clean razor and began to shave. I couldn't believe I was doing this.
Sammy came back in.
"I ran into Pammy out on the street…Omigod!" She was shocked to see me shaving the back of Kramer's neck.
"I told you I had it coming to me!" I remarked, and turned to Kramer "Is that enough?"
"Uh, sure. Thanks, bloody!" He stood up and left.
Sammy continued, "So anyway, Pammy asked me if I wanted to go to the zoo with her."
"The Central Park Zoo?"
"Yep. So you come too?"
"Sure. I think I'm gonna need some time away from Kramer for a while."
And so to the zoo we went. Pammy went out of her way to bless every animal we stumbled upon. I turned around behind me, and saw PaRappa and Sunny with their new baby in a stroller.
"HI!" they said.
We said "Hi" back. Pammy knelt down to bless the child.
PaRappa was somewhat confused. "Lammy?"
"Whoops!" I realized they haven't yet been formerly introduced. "PaRappa and Sunny, this is Pammy and Sammy."
Sunny waved happily, and pointed to the baby. "This is Nate."
The girls got to talking for a while, and then we were on our way again.
I grabbed the attention of a small little roped off playground. We all stopped to look (and bless) the little critters in the playground. A nearby sign read
Wingless Birds
Quite rare
Native to Piggy Island
I looked back at the birds in the playground. One was red and circular, another was yellow and triangular. Three were small and blue, one was as black as a bomb.
I walked down the fence to find a small vending machine. It had a label on it:
Feed the birds. One dollar a bag.
'Reminds me of a classic children's musical', I thought. We each brought a bag. Pammy and Sammy were able to open their bags with ease. They tossed the bread crumbs all over the playground. But as for me, I had trouble opening my bag. I gave it to Pammy-She couldn't do it. I gave it to Sammy-No luck there either. I was on my own. I wrestled with the bag for several minutes until…
POOF!
The bag popped open, and I was covered all over with bread crumbs. The wingless birds were excited to see more food. The hopped into a giant slingshot in their playground, and launched themselves at me. I fell down, and once again, I fainted.
Wouldn't you know it? I'm back in the hospital bed.
Sitting next to me this time was Carmelita.
"So they mistook you for bird feed?" she asked
"Well, they kept pecking and biting at me (they had teeth) until I started bleeding to a point where I fainted," I said.
"Ay carumba."
"That's that last time I go to a zoo."
Then Egg-yolk came into the room with our new baby in her arms. She was completely human, only with antenna-no green skin. In short, the kid was 3/4 human, and 1/4 bug!
"There she is!" I said, "Little Marinara Yoko Fay!"
"Marinara?" asked Egg-yolk.
"Why not? You're named after a sauce too!"
Egg-yolk put Marinara into Carmelita's arms-She was her godmother.
"Woah, those birds got you good, hon!" she put her hand over one of the bandages. Then she sat down next to Carmelita.
Next to come in came Kramer.
"Hey, buddy," he said, "Heard about your bird problem, so I came right over to see how you were doing."
"That's thoughtful of you," I said, "They told me I got more blood, so I guess I owe you again."
"Wait-You didn't get the blood from me!" Kramer was confused.
"Then from who?"
In stepped a plump man with a single bandage on his arm, and an "I gave blood" pin on his shirt. He looked unfortunately familiar...
"Helloooo, Tom!"
It
was
NEWMAN!
We all screamed. Even Newman eventually screamed. Because he didn't know what we were all screaming about.
THE END