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- a Full House tale -

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V1.4

UNSTOPPOLIS

- CHAPTER THE FIRST -

in which,

John Stamos Awakens as Jesse Katsopolis to an Image of the Beach Boys Above Him and Thinks Warmly and Fondly of Them, Before Going Downstairs to Breakfast.

or,

Awakening and a Quickening.

John Stamos awoke as Uncle Jesse just as the first pitch of new morning light eked in through the bedroom window. Gradually, yet quickly, the room became washed with a soft amber flavoring. On either side of the window, flanking like parenthesis, two dust covered Fender Squire guitars.

Lying in his bed: a lavender, billowy combination of plush and down, Uncle Jesse turned and faced the wall. He was only about half awake, half…aware. He turned over onto his back again. Half his soggy brain remained trapped in dreamland, not fully out here yet in the "real world" with the rest of him. The vivid images were still there. The dreams did seem far off, but some acute details remained: a large, endless stone wall; a face in the clouds with an ominous warning; a dog who could talk but saying something he could not understand.

Already under his eyelids the once deep purplish black void and near and distant, depth-less, geometric shapes were bled away with an increasing blaze of orange and red, that quickly spread across the whole field. Uncle Jesse stirred and groaned with discomfort, and slowly opened his eyes. First one spec but that a deluge of piercing like baptized his eyes by fire as if darkness were a sin. Uncle Jesse contorted, flinging his arms up around his face futilely trying to resist the speed of light. With rapid blinking at the speed of a kineograph, his eyes finally made the full adjustment to the light, and the dream world fully evaporated and was forgotten-except for those eternal pieces of dreams that ultimately mean nothing, but never really leave us, that we all know and have.

Then, looking straight up above him, the Beach Boys. Their image: a poster affixed upon the ceiling, right above the bed.

Uncle Jesse laid under that poster, staring up at it, eyeing it intently, without moving and hardly breathing. He gazed up at the five ageing Boys: their faces, like whetted leather-their cheeks and necks clumpy and puffed out. And you know what? John Stamos liked that. Looking at those sagging men, John Stamos felt a peculiar, percolating excitement. A warm spreading in his loins, that one might argue bordered on arousal.

He knew it was strange-and way weird-to just love the Beach Boys so much that, just looking at a picture of them -or even affixing a poster of them (so that they were the first thing he saw in the morning and the last thing he saw before falling asleep at night) so Uncle Jesse quickly rolled onto his side. and made sure that he was no longer looking up a them. He was staring at his jukebox now. He could think of nothing but the Beach Boys songs that were in there. That was no good right now. So, with all his might, he force-jammed his face down into his pillow and his mind into thoughts of something else-like chips and salsa or various ointments or breakfast cereals. Still, stimulating thoughts of the Beach Boys remained. Then, as he used his utmost willpower to do so, he morphed those unacceptable thoughts into fantastically erotic images of one, Rebecca Donaldson.

In fact, whenever he was having increasingly titillating thoughts of the Beach Boys, or of Elvis, or of Steve-he would always try to replace them with way-more-normal thoughts of Becky. And normal people would concur. Knowing that a "80s-ish" hot girl, Rebecca Donaldson (with her Vegeta-esque shoulder pads and hip-less, shapeless overly-wide pantsuits) was a far-more-normal kind of thing to be turned on about. Especially in real life. And especially on television.

John Stamos sat up. He stretched out his arms upwards, fully. With his head slanted back, and slightly sideways-inadvertently imitating a crucifix-and he inhaled deeply, through his nostrils. He then recoiled every stretched ligament to a relaxed, loosened and dangling position. He then turned ninety-degrees leftward and, with his hands on his knees and his bare feet flat on floor, he looked around the room. H looked at his phony plastic jukebox. It was really stupid. He looked down at his bed. It was stupid: with it's naturally pushy and sexually assertive-yet still, desperate-leopard print sheets and mountains of black and lavender. Those don't really work, do they? Nobody really likes those. He knew this was all made up. But of course it was! He felt though, still deep down inside, that the story was still pretty good. "It is as good as needs to be, for what it is trying to be." He always said, at least to himself

John Stamos got up, and looked around the room like a zooed panda: with an expression just as content, and simultaneously, dismayed. Everything he saw was so Jesse Katsopolis it wasn't even funny. Really, it was all a testament to his delusional, faux/ failed egos. Just thin, plastic imitations-broken pieces-examples of what could've been-or once was, or never would have been in a thousand years. An adorable pink bunny, framed and set apart clearly from all the other bric-a-brac, stood out. It was the sole survivor of an earlier time, when its kind surrounded the room and declared it's purness and sanctimony. The cutesy bunny was by far the least cornball thing on the walls, and John Stamos could barely look at it. Instead, he looked up at his cheap Squire guitars at either side of the now brilliantly shinning window. They weren't even good guitars, they were crap that he could barely afford. It was such a beautiful day, outside.

Then his eyes found the black-and-white portrait of himself on the far wall: Jesse Katsopolis in all his moussed up, primped, John Stamos glory and capacity, however limited or not so. Without looking, he shuffled into his slippers and left the room. He went downstairs. Soon, he was in the kitchen, on the show, Full House. He looked over at the island. It was slightly off center (as nearly all kitchen islands are) and standing over it, Danny was making breakfast. He had two frying pans going, one on low-heat with beaten, yellow eggs surely forming into solid curds, and another on high-heat that crackled loudly, with rapidly darkening and curling bacon. Jesse could smell it. He smelled the bacon. It was hickory bacon. The hickory flavor was in the air, and Jesse wanted to eat that bacon.

" 'Morning, Jess," said Danny. He was in a good mood today.

"Good morning, Danny,"

"Yes," Bob Saget said, as he folded the forming eggs in the pan.

At this time, Comet entered.

- CHAPTER THE SECOND -

in which,

The Family Dog Commandeers the Narrative and We Get a Brief-albeit a peek- Look Into a Dog's Mind.

or,

Barking Me In Rap City

"I'm Comet, the rockin' dog!

"Yo!

"The name's Comet D and I'm the fam' dog telly!

"I'm half Ol' Yeller!

"And a third 'Old Nelly!'

"Got to get hip!

"With my man, Uncle Jesse!

"Joey's not funny!

"He's the fool I pity!

"Give it!

"Give, give it to me!

"Give it!

"Give, give it to me!

"Yeah!

"Give it to me!

"Give, give it!

"Give it to me!

"Give, give it!

"Yeah!

\"Give it to me!

"Give give it it! Give it to me!

"Give it! Give it!

"Give, give it!

"Yeah!"

All that happened in Comet the dog's mind. And he begun it, right as he entered the room, and continued it as long as he pleased-just as all dogs do. Nobody on Full House could really understand what he was saying; but now, You do. It's like reading a dog's mind. There will be no further mention of the inner thoughts of Comet in this story.

- CHAPTER THE THIRD -

in which,

Two Men Eat Breakfast Together and One Wonders About the Other and the Other Knows It.

or,

A Breakfast Hunch

At the start of Chapter Three, Danny Tanner was just about finished cooking-up breakfast. Without looking at it, while still holding his gave on the sizzling bacon, he picked up a prepositioned dinner fork. He worked it under each of the crinkling strips-by the two's-and carefully lifted them out of the the jittering pan. In one acute motion, so rigid and exact, motionless, except at the waist, he turned to his left while holding the bacon clad fork in his stiff wrist with his elbow kept at a sharp right angle, looking like a well maintained animatronic. His upper body coasted in a fluid movement across the countertop. He stopped. Over a large serving plate that was draped in paper towel, he bobbed the dripping bacon up and down in yet another mechanical motion with the rhythm of a tocking grandfather-clock. Up and down. Up and down. Drip, drip, drip into the pooling puddle of boiling fat, that sounded like TV static whenever it made contact with the molten pool. Coy, he then turned to Jesse, and grinned at this display of command. Yet his smile did not seem natural. It seemed like it was not set by real happiness but by an automatic assumption of what would be perceived as an appropriate action-or, a following of outside expectation, or programming. Thus, furthering the impression, or at least imitation, of an automaton. Or, a sociopath.

Jesse thought, "do it over the pan!" but he said nothing. He sat at the counter at the center stool, like he always did when it was just him and Danny. He looked down at the countertop for a moment. He then looked up, ponderously at Danny. Did he kill my sister? John Stamos had long suspected Bob Saget of being a serial killer, and thus, the murderer of his sister, Pam. The first inkling of suspicion had been in the way that Danny obsessively cleaned. Serial killers are often, if not always, obsessive about cleaning. They would almost have to be, right? At least, that's what John Stamos thought, or maybe someone had once told him, or maybe he had just read it somewhere. Maybe it wasn't true. But Danny Tanner-the "Dad" on Full House-was a dangerous person, one way or another. Jesse Katsopolis was sure about that.

"Do you want some bacon, Jess?"

Jesse continued to look at Danny and tried to keep his face neutral, as he knew it needed to be and, although he knew inside himself that he felt otherwise, he heard himself say out loud, "no, just coffee for me. I've got to get downstairs. Into the studio."

"Another session with the Rippers today?"

"Everyday, Danny. Everyday."

Danny's grin grew wide. He nodded, characteristically, the way he always does when he knows that you know he is working his way in, or at least trying to.

Jesse nodded. He smiled back at Danny. His parallel grin signaled, as needed, that he meant no challenge. He did strain, a bit, to force at first and hold the reciprocating muscular action. In the end, his smile barely formed. But, it was there for Danny to positively react to. Mostly though, he pondered deeply the secrets that Bob Saget kept tucked away. That he covered-up under that small layer of superficial, endlessly congenial facade.

"Even if he did kill my sister," Jesse Katsopolis thought, "he is still letting me live in this nice Full House. He's still letting me live-rent free-in this multi-million dollar quasi-modern Victorian sub-mansion."

You see, it was the very late 1980s, and the cost of living in megalopolises coast-to-coast had terrifically ballooned to, what seemed at the time, nigh untenable levels. This was especially true in Southern California. San Francisco, due presumably to a series of economic and political factors and failures, was among, if not, the worst of them all-and this was back then! Housing in San Francisco had become so inaccessibly expensive, that the unobtainable homes outnumbered the ever growing destitute, but those numbers where close and shrinking fast. Costs were getting so high that people often made jokes like, "soon nobody will be able to afford anything in this town," and everyone agreed. Whatever the reason, Jesse Katsopolis-a no-talent, pretty boy, hack musician, who only sang lame Beach Boys covers-could never, even in a million-and-one years of looking like John Stamos, afford to live on his own, like a man, in San Francisco, or really anywhere else. No way. Of course, it would have been easy enough to become one of the few billion homeless people wandering around there, but John Stamos knew that nothing easy was ever worth doing. So he was doing this instead.

In loud glugs, Jesse gulped down the last of his bitter black coffee.

"Easy, Jess," cautioned the watching Danny, his thin voice only slightly deceptively domineering. "Not so fast. Don't choke. The basement's not going anywhere."

"Gotta get down there," Jesse replied, used to Danny's ways and gaze. He looked down, into his now empty coffee mug, "I've got so many ideas for what I want to do next! The music I want to create!"

"Another Beach Boys cover?"

"Yes!" Jesse snapped back, getting carried away, as if the question was dumb and obvious and a little insulting and also as if he had a sudden, reoccurring realization that he needed to resist the assertive one, and reassert his will. "The music I will create! My ideas! Re-recordings of all the old Beach Boys songs! My music!"

Danny grinned even deeper, almost inhumanly, and nodded. Equally unsettling and disorientating, his eyes closed slowly, but he was not enraging but, perhaps, forgiving of Uncle Jesse's burst of flippantness. "Just keep it up, Jess," he said. "You just keep going on that path. Follow your dreams. It's bound to make sense, someday."

Four eyes-two sets of two-stared into each other, acknowledging the tension and the unacceptable struggle for independence. But all in due-time.

Finished now with his breakfast of one cup of coffee, Jesse got up and exchanged a few more la-dee-dee, la-dee-da pleasantries with Danny, who responded in kind. We can play these little games. Jesse then turned to face the basement steps. The crest of the subterranean suburban submerged stairwell was only perceptible in a limited value-just the peak of the steps and the highest ends of the severely slanted banisters were able to be seen. All the steps plunged down, unseen, into nothingness, and you felt it, looking at it. For a moment, that seemed like a long time, Jesse Katsopolis did not move, and only looked straight ahead at the top of the stairs. Some more time passed. Then, at last, he moved towards them, he stepped one foot in front of the other, towards the basement. When he got to the top of the basement stairs, he didn't go down right away. He looked back, for just a moment at Danny's creepy, grinning, nodding face. Yeah, yeah. I'm going, he thought and pantomimed with his eyes, as Bob Saget gazed back, and mouthed eerily, "Get. Get, get down there. Go on. You get down there. Down in the basement. Go on, Get down. Yeah."

- CHAPTER THE FOURTH-

in which,

The Creature Joey Gladstone is Introduced in His Lair Below the House. Also, He and Jesse Katsopolis Write a Song Together For a Client.

or,

The Jingle-Jangle of Joey and Jesse

Down in the basement, there was a little hatch in the middle of the floor that could be locked shut but almost never was. Beneath that hatch, lived the creature Joey Gladstone. Joey had lived down in the darkness for so long that his eyes had adapted to seeing in the dark perfectly. This transformation happened gradually over time, but quicker than you might think for such a radical metamorphosis: a few weeks. Now, whenever he opened his eyes in the darkness, a bright yellow beam of light projected from each eyeball. This of course made no sense at all, since he went upstairs and interacted normally with everyone else in the daylight all the time. Still, when he was down here, in the cellar-really, his lair-his eyes beamed out into the black and murk like two floodlights.

Long ago, Joey Gladstone had tunneled out the cellar from its original dimensions and turned the whole space into a slight labyrinth. Joey Gladstone knew it though like the back-of-his-hand. He could, almost without thinking, navigate the bizarre and seemingly random, jutting passageways and dead-ends with animalistic ease. Yes, with his glowing eyes, but even if he were suddenly stricken blind and enveloped in ubiquitous dark, it would still be no problem. Everyone else inevitably and invariably found themselves hopelessly, and terrifyingly, lost when unescorted down there. Once, little Michelle had wandered into the abyss and she did not return to them for more than two days-enough time for everyone, including Uncle Jesse, to wonder the unthinkable. It was thereafter universally known to all concerned, that one must always use the Buddy System down there or, barring that, at least bring with them a blazing torch or, as was much more common, a flashlight (which is ironically what the British call a torch) or else, merely hope to wonder and wander. And in all this Joey Gladstone couldn't be more at home.

Jesse Katsopolis opened the hatch and introduced brilliant star-like web of light just at the entrance of the pit. He did not begin to descend the fraying Indiana Jones-esque rope later and he lit neither torch, nor flashlight. He merely ducked his mullet-ed head down into the brilliant blaze of invading upstairs light and stared out into the opaque, abysmal black hole This all may sound rather scary, but he had done this so many times before, he felt far more confident in it than a layman.

With a booming voice that echoed in the spacious caverns, Jesse called for Joey.

There was a small lake that Joey Gladstone had discovered, embedded in the underground that he dug out to surprising dimensions, before he found that he could dig no further. Actually, Joey lived on a small craggy island in the middle of that underground lake. This was a unique and totally original living situation that Joey Gladstone enjoyed. Nothing else was like this in any story.

The creature Joey Gladstone was on his island now, laying on his back, nearly naked. Only a tattered Detroit Red Wings jersey that was tied backward by its tattered arms adorned his flabby body and only, barely, covered his loin. When Joey heard Jesse calling out for him in the dark, it made him smile.

"Yo! Jess!" Joey echoed back, "good morning!"

Jesse called out something else, but Joey was already shouting, "Hold on! I'll come over there!" He then crawled across the jagged rock like an oversized, overweight waterdog and slinked onto the small raft that was resting on the shore in the black water. Taking hold of the raft like someone would take hold of you when you don't want them to, he laid across tit, belly down, straddling it with his enwrapping limps. He held the raft like this for such a moment, that the inanimate object seemed to spontaneously (as if by necessity) begin to produce a primitive feeling of awareness, that was limited to the very real feeling of being violated, and somehow-infinitesimally, however undeniably-the collected pieces of resisting wood squirmed in repulsiveness-even inching itself out into the water, just a little bit by this miraculous action.. Joey restrained and effectively raped the small wooden raft and gained full control over it. With one long, apish arm he paddled himself across the oil colored water. Soon, he reached the other side. His long skinny purple arms grabbed hold of the base of the ladder underneath Jesse's face. The outline of Jesse's mullet was really all that was perceptible, and it was casting a gigantic silhouette upon the cavern wall-like one that would be on the wall of a room of a children's sleepover while doing shadow puppets.

The creature Joey climbed up the ladder then, and he emerged in the regular basement fully clothed and combed and standing with his hands on his hips, smiling and nodding at Uncle Jesse.

"Should we get started?"

For the last year or so, Joey Gladstone had collaborated with Jesse Katsopolis on writing advertising jingles. Joey Gladstone, as it turned out, was a surprisingly cromulent lyricist, and just the kind of nominal poet, that Jesse Katsopolis needed for doing this kind of secular work. This afternoon, Uncle Jesse would work on new material (various Beach Boys covers i.e. "I Get Around", "Good Vibrations", "Little Deuce Coup", etc.) with the Rippers, like he did most all afternoons. But these Tuesday mornings were always reserved for Joey.

"Yes!." Uncle Jesse responded.

"Let's get to work then!"

Within less than a half-hour, they had their latest masterpiece complete and on paper.

When your goose is loose

And you don't know what to do

You've tried every goose trap

And set every geese clamp

And those goosesteps don't step to you

Don't you wonder

What gets your ganders

What makes them wander

What's a goose guy to do?

Just get a 'Goose Grab'

The 'Goose Grab'

And go ahead and put 'em

In the 'Goose Bag'

Yeah, the 'Goose Bag'

Get the 'Goose Grab'

With the 'Goose Bag'

'Goose Grab & Bag'!

When it was finished, the two men sat there huddled around the small Toys 'R' Us bought Casio keyboard and just sang their jingle a few times together. Harmonizing imperfectly. The jingle was good. Uncle Jesse thought, it was maybe perhaps the most acute tune he and Joey had ever written. Goose Gates, Gadgets, and More... would surely have no problem moving the Goose Grab 'N' Bag once it was backed by this ditty. Still, as John Stamos sat there singing the expertly emotive words and banging out what he knew were the right chords. It didn't feel right. He knew the song was as good as it possibly could be and that it was better than any other work he had ever done. Yet he remained unsatisfied. He was unfulfilled within. John Stamos knew he would not find satisfaction and fulfillment down in the basement, writing stupid jingles with Joey Gladstone about things that don't make any sense like the Goose Grab 'N' Bag. No. That won't do for much longer. Instead, he would find "it" in the basement alone. Without Joey. Without anyone else. He, John Stamos, would find it, or his name was not Jesse Katsopolis.

- CHAPTER THE FIFTH -

in which,

Danny's Daughters Arise and Join the Rest of the Family for Breakfast.

or,

The Sisters Tanner

Around this time, the girls upstairs began to rise. The Tanner sisters: three blondes, not non-fond of resolute truth. The three of them looked similar enough, for You to believe they were actually sisters. Of course, they were just three or four blond girls that They found for this purpose. The two older girls-who shared a room-usually awoke around the same time. Except Stephanie (the middle child) actually, sometimes arose slightly earlier. Almost always, as it was, except for today. On this day, D. J.-Donna Jo-woke up first and looked across the room and was surprised to see Stephanie still sleeping.

"Steph! Wake up, it's nearly noon!"

Stephanie grumbled, rolling to-and-fro. Then, she lain supine while twisting her small fists in her eye sockets while she yawned very deeply, as young children often do when waking up.

"Stephanie!" D. J. shouted again, "Come on! We overslept!"

"Stop shouting!" Stephanie growled back. Then, after a few seconds of incoherent morning grumbling, she said, "It's Saturday! You idiot!"

"It don't matter none!" fired back D. J., but in a calm and mature, assertive voice, "Saturday or not, we can't just sleep the day away. Dad'll be yelling for us soon, anyway. Then, he'll be the one shouting!"

I'm getting up! I'm getting up!" Stephanie snarled back.

"Girls!" their father hollered up the stairs. He was shouting.

Stephanie, dismayed when she heard the shouting, exclaimed, "How rude!": uttering the only catchphrase in the Work.

D. J: blonde and pretty-ish, but too wide of face and too tall to do her angles any justice, got herself out of bed. Just for a moment She just stood there. Thinking. She thought, "I am myself. Yet, all the others around me are somehow me too. All the others cannot be themselves and I cannot be me, except that we are all together and each one is the same but different. Each is willing to do the opposite. Still I become myself and never them, and they have never once been myself at all." She thought all of this, repeating this soliloquy loudly, over and over again but only within herself and only for a mere several seconds in totality. But still, becoming near frantic within her head as the phrase crescendoed and then repeated itself, again and again within her, as a mantra. Then D. J. thought, "I shall go downstairs now, to breakfast with my father."

Across the hall, kitty-corner to the elder sisters' room, was Michelle's room, she, unlike the others, had a room all to herself. Actually, there were two Michelles. You always saw one and one was the both of them and no one could tell, except for America.

Now, Michelle was Uncle Jesse's favorite and no one, not even her two older sisters, seemed to mind. The affection Uncle Jesse and Michelle had for each other was universally seen as endlessly endearing. No one was jealous or irritated by it. Everyone couldn't get enough of the sweetness.

Years ago-back when all this started-the girls all had separate rooms. When the time came that Uncle Jesse was going to move in and needed a room of his own, Michelle's original room was ceded to him. Yet, it was D. J. who really sacrificed. For it was determined that Michelle, still an infant, needed a room all to her own. So, alas, D. J.'s personal space was thus compromised, as Stephanie was brought into what was once, her room alone. This living situation for the girls had-despite occasional great protest from D. J-remained like this, to this very day. Nevertheless, and despite maintaining her own room (albeit moving to the considerably smaller quarters, so that Uncle Jesse could have the somewhat larger living-space) Michelle was a ham, at first, at the change. When the day came to make the transition, the near-toddler Michelle played the part of the displaced expatriate well. She sat for hours in her new room silent and facing the wall. Her small arms crossed in protest. These feelings, however, soon subsided and things neutralized soon enough. Eventually, everything soon seemed regular and almost as if this was the way things had always been To help matters, at least for Michelle, who Uncle Jesse loved the most, he preserved and framed the lasting relic of the Michelle's former room: the single, cutesy pink bunny rabbit, the last of its kind that once encircled the walls.

Michelle sat up now. She swung her little legs to the side of the bed and dangled her feet over the edge (not even coming close to touching the ground). The blonde spiral of her ribboned back hair sprang as she moved, but remained in several immaculately tight, compressed circle. She had gone to sleep last night completely in her regular clothes and with her ribbons and such, still done up in her hair. Even still, after a night full of tossing and turning, the toe-headed child looked lovely and adorable, if not still terribly sleepy. She stepped down to the floor and automatically performed a deep pandicuation.

She headed downstairs, and soon she was among them.

"Did you sleep well, Michelle?" her father asked.

Little Michelle looked over at her father. "Why even ask me that, isn't me being her enough?"

Her father glared, but said nothing.

D. J., sitting beside Michelle and eating toast, said next, "One more day; one more hour; one and only one lifetime."

"That's right," said her father, "and one lifetime can be determined-cut short, even-by so many, even a singular, thing."

Danny Tanner was still staring at the impudent D. J., when Michelle said...

"Why would anyone say anything so weird? Why would you not just say normal things, and think normal thoughts? What advantage does anyone gain from being so..." she searched her words carefully, yet ultimately, astutely, "cryptic," she said, aptly, at last.

"Cryptic?" her father challenged, with a laugh, " No," he specified, "I know exactly what she means," still smiling, still staring and smiling at D. J.

They sat. All of them in a moment of speaking silence, only the sound of the ting and clang of them sheepishly working on finishing their breakfast. Except for Stephanie. Stephanie did not come downstairs that morning. Where does Stephanie go when no one is watching?

"Today, I will be me and no one else," D. J. finally said, "Myself. There is no one inside of me but me and me only."

Bob Saget smiled and nodded, "Yes. Yes Deej, that's right. And today you will find exactly what you go out looking for."

The rest of the breakfast went uneventful.

- CHAPTER THE SIXTH -

in which,

John Stamos Laments, and Internalizes His Situation and Remembers His and Danny's Past, Does it Do Any Good? Who Knows...

or,

Tomorrow Never Grows, Tomorrow Never Shows, Tomorrow

Downstairs, Uncle Jesse could hear and was-as usual-disrupted by all this foolishness. It was dumb. What the heck were they even talking about? They were destroying his concentration. John Stamos is easily distracted. Oh! And now they're all just stomping down here. This is great! There's Danny. He's a total fricking weirdo. Fifteen years ago he meets my sister, Pam, at Gudger College and, the next thing I know, he was just everywhere. Just ruining every event with his outbursts of Tourette's level profanity. He thought he was funny. And some people told him he was funny. But only to see what insane thing he would do next. Danny was totally off the wall in those days. I didn't like him. Not many people back then actually did like him. And Pam hated him. Every other word out of his mouth was either the F word, or the N word, or "your mother _", or something like that. The sound of his voice too and the way he looks-especially the way he looked back then. He's got one of those faces, you know? Like, 'this guy's not a serial killer but-this guy could totally be a serial killer, for sure-faces.' With those little beady, creepy eyes of his. That Satan's own crooked nose that seems to have literally given birth to every nasty, wart-covered, jagged hook nose throughout human history. And that ominous, almost demonic, Caligulan smile. He was hiding something. It was hardly not concealed at all. Just under the surface. It was easy to see, to those that were looking, like John Stamos.

Still somehow, despite all this, despite all the warning signs and obvious red flags- before I knew it-Danny had conned his way into a date with Pam. Girls often date guys that they hate, especially if the guy is conning them and it is really obvious. I didn't like it, but I thought that it would just go away on its own, like you always hope stupid things like that do, but that never actually happens. By the time I realized that there was a very real chance that Danny Tanner could become a permanent presence and influence in Pam and subsequently, my own life, it was cliched too late And despite my best efforts-and I made many, desperate and boisterous efforts on this subject in those days-soon, they were, in fact, dating regularly. I kept on telling Pam, "Hey! This guy's a weirdo! You do not want to be involved with this guy! You need to get away!" It was true, but, of course, it just rolled off her back like water beads off a duck's pelt. She kept on telling me, "'s all right, s' all right, It'll be alright. I'll be alright. Hush now. I know what I'm doing."

Now, here's D. J., full-toothed, grinning at me with her serving plate sized moon face. Yes, okay, I see you. I see you. I hear you, D. J.. And Stephanie, stage-right, droning right into my ear.

Uncle Jesse's eyes rolled and, taxed, rested on each one of them: Danny-D. J.-Michelle-Stephanie-Michelle. "Get out of here!" he groaned to himself, "P-lease!"

However, in that moment of frustration and angst, little Michelle, in all her preciousness and sweetness, climbed up in her Uncle Jesse's lap. "Alright, alright," he capitulated, letting the child on his knee and holding her little hips.

"Jess we're just so darn happy to see you and see and be around you every single day." Danny said, and his words could be heard, but hardly accepted with their mixture of erratic tone, exaggerated grinning and inconsistent body language.

"Yes, but...," Jesse began to say, but Danny interrupted.

"Hey!" Bob Saget barked, instantly silencing John Stamos.

Staring right at Jesse, the corners of Danny's mouth pulled back, showing his many sharp teeth. He had big teeth. The teeth seemed like they were too big for his big mouth. "Hey!" He barked again. Leaning in. His gigantic toothed bill just inches away for Jesse's face.

"What? Alright!" Jesse finally snapped back.

"That rhymes!: Danny chortled, nearly choking himself with satisfaction.

"Rh-?"

"Jesse and just! Jesse and just!" Then, Danny suddenly started to sing:

Jesse and just!

Jesse and just!

Whoa, ohh ohh

Jesse and just...

"Just like a song, huh, Jess? You like writing songs, don't you Jess? Write that song! 'Jesse and Just', yeah!" Danny belted, his Cheshire grin never ceasing as he stared, looking like empty glass bottles into Jesse's eyes, but not really into his eyes, more like: just into his wincing face. Danny stared in and past Jesse's eyes.

'Jesse and Just?' that doesn't even make sense! That doesn't even mean anything! That doesn't even rhyme really at all!

When I was a little boy growing up in Greece, I used to have a friend named Niko. Niko lived a few hectares down the road and was always scrapped across the knees, bloodily, yet fearless and ready for tomorrow. That was the old country and that was usually how it was. It wasn't like next-door neighbors here in America: one top of each other. Every chance I could, I would get on my zyrlecycle and pump on down the dirt road with my little weak arms. Niko would usually already be there standing outside as-if waiting for me. "Niko! Niko!" I would yell and he would run to me, and although he was only running and I was riding, pumping and huffing as fast and hard as I could, he would always run like the whistling wind and catch up to me long before I would ever reach his yard.

"Don't worry, Jesse. Don't try so hard. Stop yourself now and then and enjoy life!" he would say. I would always just laugh as I flicked another domino down on the table, or flung another stick onto the campfire, or pulled myself to a higher tree branch. Niko always put me at ease with how easy it all seemed to him.

Years later, we came to America. Pam had come over two years earlier with our parents and she met Niko and I at the airport when we first arrived in our new country. Pam was a pretty successful marketing agent in those days and she helped me get my very first job in advertising here in San Francisco. It was a great time: those old days. I had hoped that Pam would marry Niko. But, Niko turned out not to be real. He was just someone I had been imagining this whole time. This was all really random and confusing and really hard to follow. What to remember is, Niko was not real. He was made up the whole time. When Pam found out that I had been making up a whole other person my whole life and not realizing it until now, she really freaked out. For a little while we didn't even talk. She and Danny started having kids and I started getting used to Niko not being real. We saw each other sparingly in those days, and it was really painful for me. I suppose it would've gotten better on it's own with time, but one day, suddenly, Danny killed Pam and hid her body-or so John Stamos thought. Either way, Pam was dead-Niko was not real-and Pam is dead. Danny Tanner is real.

"Uncle Jesse! Uncle Jesse!" Stephanie blared as she yanked on his shirt sleave.

"What? Uncle Jesse exasperated, pushing her small arms down,
"quit pulling on my shirt! Stretch out the neck."

D. J. postured herself in the most volitional way-bracing her big feet shoulder length apart and her intensified voice sounding like the police through a megaphone. Her hands speaking, like dicing knives. "Steph, please!" she shouted, "Uncle Jesse! I need you drove me to the library, to study with Kimmy, p-lease! And , I need to be there before two. There's a presentation, or a class, or a something going on then and no one will be able to use the computers by then."

"Noo Uncle Jesse!" Stephanie yelled, "I need you to help me collect leaves at the park for my school project! I said you promised!" her abjective, shrill voice all but seizing the attention-achieving its objective.

"Girls, girls!" their father piped in. Then, with an incredible look of darkness and malevolent intensity, his black and white eyes skewered into Jesse, beaming lasers of checkmate. "You'll take these girls," he took a few steps closer to Jesse, "anywhere they need to go. Won't you, Jess?"

Jesse swallowed hard, like a cartoon character. He responded softly, "yes Danny."

Danny just stared. He never broke his gaze-like a viper. His unblinking eyes, black like street tar. Jesse could feel his unexplained and inconsistent dark power. He felt like a charmed cobra, entranced by a daring magician.
I once walked along a crescent beach at sunset. The sky was like a rare, collectable marble with an unusual pattern of crisscrossing oranges and sizzling, swirling reds and browns awash with the familiar blue. The air was clear and clean, like primordial water, and breathing tasted so so good. I just sat down Indian-style in the warm cushion of golden sand with my eyes closed, breathing. The intoxication of contentment over coming all earthly woes.

There was a group of teenagers some distance away on some rocks out in the water. They were far away and, although they were talking very loudly, I couldn't make out everything that they were saying. I could tell though, that the group was tormenting one of them. I couldn't make out specific words. I could really only sense the usually hurtful teenage words, like "fat ass," and "faggot" being tossed out into the otherwise, peaceful ocean breeze.

The sun was setting quickly. There was no blue left, now. The whole sky had turned to oranges and reds and the sun was a heavy maroon disk that hung low in the far sky that did not hurt to look at. The waves petted the beach sands gently, like how a child pets a baby animal and the soothing roar it made sounded like a dotting mother hushing her child back to sleep.

Glittering streaks of purple, amber and yellow drifted across the beach, linked with the gradually imposing evening sea breeze. The distant sound of the cutting word "faggot" suddenly shattered the serenity and my attention was drawn back to the far off teenage group. I tried to tune them out and focus on the beautiful place where I was and the marvelous sunset, but those kids ruined it. It's not so much people that ruin everything as much as it's young people that do-but everybody wants to be them. It was a beautiful moment, in the natural world for me and everyone-but they ruined it, as stupid young people often do.

"Sing a song with me, Uncle Jesse," said Michelle, looking up up with her overcoming blue eyes.

Uncle Jesse was immediately responseless, apart from a slight, genial smile that he let up turn his cracked, saddened lips. Then he reached out with his creamsicle soft fingertips and began to play some gentle chords on the keyboard. Then he started to sing, and soon, Michelle was singing along to most of the words. Together they sang. Her sisters looked on with somewhat oblivious, feigned admiration, but seemed instantly bored with the song, as they had heard it many times.

Woke up today

Feeling a certain way

What a different feeling

Feeling happy

Walking out the door

Who could ask for more

And all the people all around can tell

That I'm feeling happy.

Their voices leaked down beneath them and Joey lifted his slimy head up in the dark and tilted it toward the trickling song, while flaring his large, bestial nostrils, taking in the palpable dank sent. He stayed there, for a little while after the the singing was finished, listening all the while, hearing the charm of the straining adult/ child harmony and taking in the lingering sent of each of them and it made him very hungry.

-CHAPTER THE SEVENTH-

in which,

The Girls Are Dropped Off at the Surreal San Francisco Public Library, and Nothing is Ever Really the Same Again After That.

or,

An Interesting Escapade of Intellectual Endurance

The San Francisco Public Library was a new building that had only existed for a few months. The old library had been grounded into dust. The new building emerged, obtusely, out of no where, at the almost non-existent intersection of Walnut Cherry and Elmer Grand Ave. There was really nothing else like it. Ringling Brothers could perform on the roof and it wouldn't be half the spectacle as the building itself. Such a behemoth, crammed into a tint spic of a corner on the two crossing roads, like an oversized X etched beside a slight cross-hair on a lens. Just imagine that.

The old library seemed fine. It was really only that. Old. Its location alone was so…so sensible ,just at the crest of downtown. They destroyed it, and in its place-except miles away, tucked into a near inaccessible portion of uptown-they built this, the new library. It overwhelmed and overflowed the street. Often, those approaching form either direction on either intersecting road, would gird up in apprehension at the mere sight of the sudden, massive, other-worldly structure that seemed to just come out of nowhere and spill out into the street. Nothing was sensible and everything seemed awkward, either oversized or over-satuarted, and almost all of it in the wrong place. So, in other words, a perfect example of modern architecture and sentiment.

Where to even begin in describing the actual appearance of this thing? The far end from the entrance, the side of the building touching the rod-overhung the passing highway, and was tumored with absurdly sized and stacked overlapping buttresses that added nothing but perplexity to the structure-like Frank Lloyd Wright run amok. Even during construction, once the incomprehensible and formless contrariety began to take mind-boggling form, unfortunate people driving or walking past would see the beast and the scowling faces they made would be impossible not to notice, but, of course, this being San Francisco, everyone pretended to each other that they liked it.

Now, John Stamos, who had been here several times, had to suppress the rush of anxiety as he approached the ramp of the never-familiar, always terrible San Francisco Public Library parking-lot. The ramp was was too narrow, and it seemed like it would not be used for both coming and going traffic; but it was. Of course, that meant that there was always another car coming from the opposite way whenever anyone was trying to enter or leave. The inevitable: an impassable, insufferable, implausible situation that repeated itself. Again and again. In real time. Every day (except Sunday) on the side of this busy highway. Your car, their car, his car, her car-time and time again, all straddling the ramp nearly motionless, twitching at each other, locked and lost in a seemingly endless and tormenting unendurable agony that could and should go on forever, but surely only ever ends do to a Grand Rule of the Universe, that supersedes all situations and predicaments. Specifically there to correct uncorrectable stupid things, such as this. The rule that: Eventually-One-Thing-or-the-Other-Gives-and-We-All-Must-Someday-Move-Passed, if we can.

Sure enough, after a while, each time-which was every time-invariably, the coming-and-going cars awkwardly found their way around each other, like rival crocodiles uneasily making their way around each other in the Nile.

This afternoon for Jesse Katsopolis, in Danny Tanner's burgundy Astro van, was no different. A white Honda Accord-perhaps sensing or, more likely, pretending it could sneak past the elongated van, due to its acute size-suddenly turned onto the ramp and attempted to maneuver its way out, just as Uncle Jesse was attempting to maneuver his was in. The two vehicles equally tried, in vain, to hug the edge and give the other ample room to get by. But since they were brought together in such limited space-like sand. fighting to get through an hourglass neck-the outcome seemed in that singular, seemingly everlasting moment, impossible to achieve. They nearly collided. Both drivers leaned into their horns and together produced a jarring, mechanical wailing that sounded like, maybe a ship would, coming too quickly into harbor.

"Look out, Uncle Jesse!" D. J. cried.

John Stamos glanced to her briefly and rolled his eyes, and D. J. understood and felt silly. Then somehow, as if from a source Divine (it would have to be), the congested ramp parted, and the two cars sailed on their own separate ways and the driver of each exhaled, exuberantly in relief. The exiting Honda was free. The carefree open roads of San Francisco awaited them at their driving pleasure.

For Uncle Jesse, the challenge of the San Francisco Public Library parking-lot was just beginning. John Stamos was as well prepared for this as he could be. He had done this several times, of course. Still, looking out over the nonsense and frustration that was this parking-lot, it made him shudder. He strained his mental and physical grip and flexing prowesses. Another car was now trying to come in, behind him, and with just as much, if not more, frustration and tension. Blaring on their horn, in a primal, animalistic, form of desperation already, the only act any organism could muster under the infuriating circumstances. Uncle Jesse kept moving forward, but only very cautiously. Like some medieval carnival gauntlet from the movies, the parking-lot in front of him was laid out in series of hazards and obstacles. Haphazardly arranged pylons scattered throughout the lot and had to be wrestled with. Sudden, unseen dips into chasms always filled with rainwater where around, what seemed like every angle.

Such a desperate struggle. You couldn't just drive up to the library entrance. A specified rout was set up (like traffic cones are when simulating a residential area during a driving test). Navigating through bizarre twists and turns, leading one on a safari tour of the entire parking-lot, while the actual building stood and mocked mere yards away, like a smiling bank teller.

Finally, he got there. He rolled up to the front of the library and wiped the thickening sweat from his brow. The giant van door slid open and the girls got out.

"You're going to get a ride home with the Gibblers later, right?" he attempted to clarify, but their backs were already turned to him and they were quickly moving away. "Hey!" he shouted.

They stopped. Stephanie turned around and D. J. looked over her shoulder.

"You're going to get a ride home from Kimmy's mom, right?"

"Yes," D. J. answered.

"Okay. Good. Bye."

Uncle Jesse stuck his arm out and lifted his hand to form a wave. The girls reciprocated, but limply. Backing out of here was like death. You had to literally back out. You couldn't just drive straight through. Can you believe that? Once he started-in that whale of a van-Uncle Jesse seemed to have to stay backing up the entire time. The partitions and cones were set up in just the right, obnoxious way, were you never could position yourself to turn around. You'd be practically thrown out into the road in reverse, drastically increasing the ever present havoc of the San Francisco streets. This happened to every single car that tried to get in or out of this postmodern nightmare. As John Stamos struggled backward through all this, the Tanner girls (sans Michelle, neither one was with them) walked forward and the doors to the stupid San Francisco Public Library slid open.

Once inside, the girls' most immediate senses were bombarded by a plethora of all senses-except sound. It was almost completely silent (as a library should be), except for the ever present distant unanswered library phone and the whispered chatter and thumping stamps at the checkout counter. The walls of the library were adorned with vibrant, esoteric frescoes, not one of which was of any objectively clear theme. Gigantic, mind-bending mobiles hung, and slowly oscillated from the ceiling-each seeming as if they had sprung forth from the minds of Escher or Vasarely. The carpet itself was long and thick, like overdue grass, and when you stepped and walked on it, your feet sunk in and bounded a little bit, a sensation like one might imagine if they were walking on the surface of the moon. Long, individually separated, lights hung down from the ceiling looking like stretched out teardrops, but the amber light coming from them was dim and seemed only meant for aesthetics. Instead, the main floor of the thirteen tier library was lit by six massive rectangular windows-three on each side-and the glass of each was tinted it's own delicate color: pinkish, yellowish, baby blueish, teal-ish, purplish, and magenta, gently painting the room like it had been arranged by Crayola. Off to the far corner, there was a staircase that seemed to float up on air.

The library smelt of a mixture of artificial floral scents and old paper. The fact that there was practically no sound was juxtaposed dramatically from one coming in from the bustling San Francisco streets outside that would briefly interrupt the quiet of inside, every time the door was flung open..

"Where's Kimmy, is she even here yet?" D. J. wondered out-loud.

"Shhh!" Stephanie chastised. "Be quiet!"

"Shhhh!" the librarian threatened from behind the front counter.

Both D. J, and Stephanie's faces squinched in embarrassment, and D. J. pantomimed, "sor-ry!"

The librarian nodded with a stern, unblinking eye.

"Come on," D. J. whispered to her sister.

"You go ahead," a whispering Stephanie responded. "I-I need to just...you go ahead." She began to wander off, and D.J. just shrugged her shoulders and headed over to the floating staircase.

Kimmy Gibbler was upstairs. Her homely face was buried in a large, ominous book.

"Kimmy!" D. J.'s bellow was a failed attempted at sotto voce.

A librarian, desked at the center of the room. responded in kind, "Shhhh!" the old bird squawked.

D. J. responded with that familiar, crooked look.

The old bird bent down her stern, serious stare.

D. J. stamped a bit closer the the Reading Table. "Kimmy..." D. J. whispered.

"Deej?" Kimmy responded-without looking up, still reading. Engrossed. "This...," her speech: like eyes, struggling to adjust to waking light, "it's...," she looked up now and her eyes met D. J.'s, epiphanously. "D. J." She closed her eyes; then she turned her face away from D. J. With her eyes still closed and now, slowly, a half-smile forming on her homely face, she looked back at D. J., but past D. J., in the distance. Into nothing. She then slowly opened her eyes and after a moment's longer hesitation-a final moment of thinking before she spoke-she asked D. J., "do you fight?"

"What?"

Kimmy snapped her obtuse face into D. J.'s like an alarmed meerkat. "He who would live, D. J., must fight." She spoke attackingly and impassioned but was still quiet. The old bird did not squawk. Kimmy swallowed hard and started again: "For those who do not wish to fight in this world," she took a deep, self-confirming breath, "has no right to exist."

D. J. looked down, low and off to the side, and said after thinking, "yeah..." and then again, after a moment more, "yeah!"

"Shhhhh!" the old bird condemned, and everyone looked up.

Kimmy Gibbler smiled a disturbing grin and motioned over to D. J., "come here."

D. J. sat down, across from her at the table. She was smiling.

Kimmy smiled back, but it was inauthentic, creepy, and weird. But of course, D. J. didn't notice anything more than her friend's familiar, Frankensteinian face. She just smiled and nodded back.

"Deej," Kimmy strained, her voice already annoying and sounding like she was about to give last-words. "Deej," she said again, just a pitch louder.

It wasn't loud enough. 'You-know-who' didn't say anything. But the old bird did look up, and shot Kimmy and D. J. a look that in another realm, would mean death.

Kimmy didn't look over at the mean old cuss. But D. J. did for just a moment and she shrugged, trying to seem innocent.

"D. J.!" Kimmy exclaimed. This time it was enough.

"Shhhhh!" the old bird bleated, rousing the whole room again.

Kimmy then whispered in a much lower tone. Only D. J. could hear her now: "Obstacles do not exist to be surrendered to. Obstacles are to be broken."

"Right," D. J. responded slowly, while nodding.

Kimmy continued. Her voice rolling with passion. "Become woke and," she paused, gathering her thoughts, "gird yourself in the strength of our great race and wrap yourself in the security of nationalism."

D. J. just starred back.

"Least we fall victim to the plots and ploys by the Jewish people, as expressed in the Protocols of Zion!"

"I'll not tell either of you again!"

Both girls looked over and sneered at the squawking bird.

"What are you talking about Kimmy?"

"The extent of the fall of a body is always measured by the distance between its momentary position and the one it originally occupied." Kimmy cleared her throat. "The same, D. J., is true of nations and states-like California: that is a state. That's the state we live in. And in California, a decisive significance must be ascribed to our previous positions, or rather, elevation. Only what is accustomed to rise above the common limit can fall and crash to a manifest low. This is what makes the collapse of the Reich so hard and terrible for every thinking and feeling man, since it brought a crash from heights which today, D. J, today, in view of the depths of our present derogation, are scarcely conceivable."

"Is that in the book you're reading, Kimmy?"

Gibbler slid over the tome.

D. J, picked it up. She looked at it. It was thick and heavy. The cover was black like a blackhole and the title was printed off-center in all capital letters that were a deep red like dried blood. She couldn't read the title. It was two words in German that might as well have been Greek, but the author's name, printed underneath the title, was recognized immediately: ADOLF HITLER.

D.J. looked around the Room: Tommy Wiseau. "Kimmy, you've been reading this?"

"This makes sense, D.J."

"It does?"

"Be quiet. Or leave!"

D. J. stood up while turning, facing the bird. Here, if looks could wound, the librarian would have been in agony. Instead, the old bird just stared back, answering with an equally savage look.

D. J. put the stupid book down-never breaking eye contact with the old bird. With purpose, she started walking over to the booth.

Kimmy called out-this time she raised her voice-but the old bird said nothing and just stared hateful darts at the approaching D. J.. "Deej! One blood demands one nation! Never will a nation possess the moral right to engage in colonial politics until, at last, it embraces its own sons within a single state! Only when the Reich-" she stopped. There was no shushes from anyone. In fact, all the other patrons met Kimmy's loud declarations with reverence and silence-perhaps respect-or was it...fear?

Back at the house, Uncle Jesse labored over a straining chord progression at his synthesizer. It didn't sound good. He didn't really know how to play-at least, not very well. Truth is, John Stamos really isn't that good at anything, really. He is not a good musician. He knows a few chords-C, A, D-that's about it. You can't do much with just those (or can you?). Still, he tried his best, playing those awkward chords and singing out his latest:

I am slowly leaving

Goodbye kitty evening

I don't know where to go

I know you are waiting

For me, so relating

I'll know you and you'll show.

D. J. stood defiantly before the old bird.

"Listen! If you can't keep your voices down!" the librarian-who actually was a literal bird-squawked at D. J., from her perch,

D. J. just rolled her eyes and sighed.

The bird glared with a scorching squint.

"Just tell me where the Y. A. section is." D. J. demanded.

"SQUAWK! It's right over there! It's right over there!" the old bird hopped up and down rapidly upon her perch and her feathered wings gestured to the west.

The west wing of the San Francisco Public Library was gained down a long book-less hallway adorned on both sides with recreations of mediocre twentieth-century art. After several paces, the passage opened into a small enclave of books upon books, selves covering every available space. When she saw the books, D. J. stopped. She looked around. There was no one else there. She was totally alone. She took a few steps forward and turned to the first aisle, but did not walk down it, she just peered for a few moments and then turned back and faced forward down the aisle way but more precipitously, as if drawn by some great external force. She turned down the third bookshelf encased corridor to her left, intently facing the columns of books before her. She did not know why. She did not know why she stopped and turned and faced that specific row of books. She only knew it seemed like she should, and so she did.

Outside the lone window on the far wall-in a vacant lot adjacent to the San Francisco Public Library-you could see little Stephanie standing there, in the middle of the field, her arms raised to the sky. What does Stephanie do when no one is watching?

Scanning the volumes before her, D. J. reached out and pulled down a white jacketed, bleakly adorned book from the shelf: UNSTOPPOLIS, the title read on its spine and face. The author was identified as anonymous. A strange trepidation shot through her, from her fingers that held UNSTOPPOLIS, to her thumping chest. She opened the book and read.

JOHN STAMOS AWOKE as Uncle Jesse nearly immediately as the first peach light of new morning eked through. Flanked on either side of the room's only window: two real (yet un-played) electric guitars-squires-hung, like intended parenthesis. The window was now becoming fully lit, and it gently, yet increasingly, glowed. The two flanking guitars seemed to be suspended as if they were being heled up by a heavenly host or, but could only be perceived by mortals as entering morning light.

Uncle Jesse lain there on his back in his bed: a lavender, billowy combination of plush and down. He stirred, half awake, yet a third still in dreamy sleep. Fuzzy images lingered before his mind of night's imaginations. All quickly fizzled, but some acute details still remained: a large, endless stone wall; a face in the clouds with an ominous warning; a dog who could talk but saying something he could not understand; slowly, he opened his red parched eyes and blinked twice in quick secession and the dream world seemed so absurd, and it simultaneously evaporated. Except, for those eternal pieces of dreams that ultimately mean nothing but never leave us, that we all know and have.

Then, looking straight up directly above him: the Beach Boys. Their image: a poster affixed upon the ceiling above the bed.

Uncle Jesse laid under that poster. Staring up at it. Eyeing it, intently for a while, without moving and hardly breathing. Gazing up at the five ageing Boys: their faces like wetted leather. Their cheeks and necks clumpy and puffed out. And you know what? John Stamos liked that. Looking at those sagging men, John Stamos felt a peculiar percolating excitement, a warm spreading in his loins, that one might argue bordered on arousal.

He knew it was creepy, and way weird, to just love the Beach Boys so much that just looking at a poster of them (or even affixing one directly above his bed so that they were the first thing he saw in the morning and the last thing he saw before falling asleep every night) would stir such feelings, so Uncle Jesse rolled over to his side and made sure that he was no longer looking up at it. Starring now at his jukebox, he could think of nothing but the Beach Boys songs that were in there. That was no good right now. So, with all his might, he force-jammed his mind into thoughts of other things-like chips or various breakfast cereals or seldom used but oft had seasonings (like cumin and thyme) and ointments. But still, stimulating thoughts of the Beach Boys remained. Then, as he used his utmost willpower to do so, he morphed those unacceptable thoughts into fantastically erotic images of one, Rebecca Donaldson. In fact, whenever he was having increasingly titillating thoughts of the Beach Boys, or of Elvis, or of Steve, or of anyone or anything else for that matter, he would always try to replace them with way-more-normal thoughts of Becky-and normal people would concur, knowing that an "90s-ish hot girl" Rebecca Donaldson (with her Vegeta-esque shoulder pads and hipless, shapeless overly-wide pantsuits) was a far-more-normal kind of thing to be turned on about, especially in real life and especially on television.

As she read, D. J. felt as if a million-and-a-half unseen eyes were watching her, like she was being broadcast and observed. She didn't like it. She felt the eyes were watching, and laughing and waiting callously for her next move. She read, and she knew what she was reading was impossible. Uncle Jesse? No. It couldn't be. Yet, she knew it was. She read on and knew as she did that she was reading and creating her reality.

He sat up. He stretched out his arms: fully and upwards with his head slanted back and slightly sideways-inadvertently imitating a crucifix-and inhaled deeply through his nostrils. He then recoiled every stretched ligament to a relaxed, loosely dangling state, and sighed with the deep satisfaction. He turned ninety-degrees leftward and sat with his hands on his knees and his bare feet flat on the carpeted floor. He looked around the room a bit more. Looking over at his phony plastic jukebox again. It was really stupid. He looked down at his bed. It was stupid, with it's naturally pushy and sexually assertive-yet still, desperate-leopard print sheets and mountains and valleys of black and lavender. Those don't really work, do they? Nobody really likes those. He knew it was all made up. But of course it was! He felt though still, deep down inside, that the story was still good. "It is as good as needs to be, for what it is trying to be." He always said, at least to himself.

Looking around the room some more: his head movements like a zooed panda bear, with an expression just as content, and simultaneously dismayed. Everything he saw was so Jesse Katsopolis it wasn't even funny. Really, it was all a testament to his delusional, faux/ failed egos. Just thin, plastic imitations-broken pieces-examples of what could've been-or once was. An adorable pink bunny, framed and set apart clearly from all the other bric-a-brac, stood out. It was the sole survivor of an earlier time when its kind surrounded the room. The cutesy bunny was by far the least cornball thing on the walls. And John Stamos could barely look at it. Instead, he looked up at his cheap Squire guitars at either side of the now brilliantly alit window. They weren't even good guitars. They were crap that he could barely afford. It was such a beautiful day outside.

At last, his eyes found the black-and-white portrait of himself. Jesse Katsopolis, in all his moussed up, primmed, John Stamos glory, and compacity, however limited or not so. Standing, and without looking, he shuffled into his shippers and left the room. He went downstairs. Soon he was in the kitchen, on the show-the kitchen on Full House. He looked over at the island. It was slightly off center (as nearly all kitchen islands are) and standing over it adjacent, Danny was making breakfast. He had two frying pans going, one on low-heat with beaten, yellow eggs surely forming into fluffy curds, and one high-heat one that crackled loudly with rapidly darkening and curling bacon. He could smell it too. He smelled the bacon. It was hickory bacon. The hickory flavor was in the air, and Jesse wanted to eat that bacon.

She quickly closed the book. Deep, long breaths with her eyes closed up tight and a slight leaning back, had become D. J.'s form. She was trying with all her might to wipe what she had just experienced from her mind. It wasn't real. It couldn't be. No. This is real. What is happening, now. Her spiderweb eyes strained open and darted frantically around-like as if she could see it, could find it. Whatever "it" was. Whatever it was that seemed to be becoming self-aware all around her, as if the air had eyes. The book was talking about her Uncle Jesse, but how could that be? Suddenly, she couldn't stay back here any longer. She quickly tucked the book under her arm and briskly walked back down the corridor.

- CHAPTER THE EIGHTH -

in which,

Jesse and His Band, the Rippers, Rehearse Together and Jesse Grows Frustrated By What Can Only Be Described As a Lack of Fulfillment.

or,

"Am I to Become Like A Clockwork Orange?"

"Nooo!" lamented Uncle Jesse, "that's-that's not it!" Not how I want it!"

"Okay, okay," Alvin-the Ripper-his guitar slung down to his waist, said.

Band practice with the Rippers.

"Jess, we're trying, here," said Hyrum, on drums.

John Stamos took a deep, concerted breath, "I know, I know. It's just. Let's try again."

Hyrum counted off, clacking sticks," a-one, two, three, four!"

Jesse and the Rippers started playing again. Their sound was neither generic, nor could it be said that it was unique. They sounded as crickets: so in sync it seemed natural; yet to the listener it was a drone of the same thing. That sound droned on for a few bland moments and then, without cue, they all came to a stop, nearly at the same time. Just a little while longer passed of no one talking.

"Fellas," spoke Ephraim, as he re-tuned his guitar, "we just need to play it straight up."

"You always say things like that," snapped Uncle Jesse. "In fact, you wanted to name the band 'Straight Up' and I had to tell you, and keep telling you, it doesn't mean anything!"

"Jesse..." Sammy, on piano accordion, chimed in, trying to pacify with his honey silk voice, only he couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Yeah," said Don Carlos, letting his bass guitar hang, "Eph is just trying to keep it positive. We all are"

"*Eph is just tryin' to keep it positive, we all are*," John Stamos mocked.

"Dude, come on!" retorted Don Carlos.

".I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's just, when we play, what we play, what we don't play, it's just..."

"Just, what?" Alvin snapped.

"No. Nothing. Let's just go again."

An uneasy silence became the room. Then, Hyrum counted off again. The music started. Only, it was just a charade of engagement and feel. Nobody felt anything. John Stamos Sang:

If every word I said

Could make you laugh

I'd talk forever...

They played the song, "Forever." But it didn't last forever. And thank God for that. The rendition was dull. John Stamos sang it weakly. The Rippers tried their best, but struggled at the 'my my my my's' and the ' na na na nana's'-sounding not at all like the classic Sunflower cut. Perhaps it was because they had sung it so many times before. Perhaps it was because it was a cover and so it was harder to feel a connection to it. Probably a bit of both. The song finished, and Uncle Jesse took another deep, huffing breath. The Rippers looked at him, like desperate dogs. There was another Ripper-Billy, who also played guitar (lead guitar actually) but this one never said anything.

"This,' he began, but he got no further.

Down the basement stairs came the girls, thundering like the march of death. Their voices carried in ceaseless, shrill choruses of, "Uncle Jesse! Uncle Jesse!" Soon they were right on him. All three of them, but it might as well have been three-hundred of them. Their grabbing and tugging hands, touching and pulling at him, all over and mostly at his face. He didn't much like it. But what could he do? Danny would pounce upon any protest or suggestion of complaint because that was exactly what he was waiting for. Danny would love nothing more than for Jesse to resist or protest. Although he knew that Jesse knew better by now, and that such an act was almost never to occur, he not-so secretly set-up nearly all of these invasions of Jesse's privacy, as an obvious blatant flex at his ability to do so, and his admiration of the clearly mutual unspoken acknowledgement that the submissive one would remain in his place. So, Jesse just sat there, clenched up, allowing, and Danny stood, watching adamantly and contently just a few steps below the top of the stairs. Particles and attitude seemed to multiply and maximize all over him and the observable universe.

Like an old-fashioned dictator, Danny Tanner stood, gripping the banister powerfully with one hand, as if posed for portrait.

"Jess," he exclaimed, and gestured to his daughters with his free hand, "they have come to greet you. We have come. Now honor us."

"Danny," Jesse returned, " don't you think this is all kind of dumb?"

"Why is it dumb?"

Jesse looked incredulous, his eyes widowed, his brow sharpened as he looked about the basement with his arms held at his elbows with desperate palms facing up like they wanted to grasp at something-maybe sanity-but they remained empty. All around him, the room dissolved into a mélange of blonde pigtails, yelling, touching, declarations, and demanding (Uncle Jesse Uncle Jesse, Uncle Jesse Uncle Jesse! Uncle Jesse Uncle Jesse...woah Uncle Jesse-Uncle Jesse! Uncle Jesse!.) His band slowly disappeared, and his mind gradually augmented, and he began to believe there had never been a band at all. One by one, they vanished all around him, until only the Tanner sister, and Danny, where there. The Rippers would never return. There never was a Jesse and the Rippers.

"How 'bout me?" cried John Stamos. "Where do I come into all this? Am I like just some animal or dog? Am I just to be like a clockwork orange-?"

The girls stopped spinning around him. Bob Saget was silent and still for a moment. Then, he guffawed up at the ceiling and returned his look to Jesse with an insidious smile. He took a few, slow, Machiavellian steps towards Jesse and then alighted his hand, surreptitiously upon Jesse's shoulder.

"Jesse," his voice was calm and monitorial. "What is it? Is there something you want from us? Something else I can give you?"

A sesame seed of sweat formed and slid down the Cliffs of Moher forehead of John Stamos. He did not blink or look away, despite the stinging it made in his eyes. He did not want to. He kept looking forward. He trepidated under the dark power of Bob Saget's serpentine gaze. But from within him, he could only make himself respond with an unblinking stare back. And the truth.

"I," he began, "I am an artist. I am a musician. The way it's going-the way things are? It's only a matter of time. You only have so much time. I-I need more time. This isn't it."

"Are you not getting enough time? Do you need us to give you more time? What do you mean by, 'this isn't it, Danny?'" The last question, he greatly emphasized, especially the last word-"Danny!"

"Yes Danny, yes," Jesse answered, his stupid voice now gaining a degree of strength. "All of that! That's exactly what I'm saying! I need time! I need undisrupted time! I need more time down here, in the basement! In my studio! To work on my art-my music! What do I mean by, 'This is not it?' Exactly that! It's what I mean! This. Is. Not. It! I'm not doing it! I don't have a chance to do it because every other moment of every other day, someone's coming down here! What do I mean by, ' you only have so much time?'" He proceeded to answer that question, even though it hadn't been asked, "I mean, you only have so much time until you're dead. An artist only has so many moments to draw up something beautiful. I'm losing that time. Right now, I'm having those moments taken from me."

The three or four girls looked around the room, examining faces. They only met one another's with what should have been an universal shock and dread at Uncle Jesse's tirade. They were taken aback. But their father-the real danger-seemed unphased; no, even more than that: he seemed understanding.

Nodding, Danny Tanner replied, "alright Jesse, alright. I hear you. I get you. You want your space. You want your peace, You want your time. What are you going to do with it? What are you going to do with all your new time?"

The question was so direct it hit Jesse Katsopolis hard like Danny Tanner's left hooks. Jesse's face briefly twisted in unsure ponderance. Then, his face took on a new look. That that certain look of purpose-absolute satisfaction in determination of mind. He said proudly: I'm going to make the greatest album ever made.
Everyone else in the room said nothing in response, but each gave that sideways look of perked interest.
"And not just any album," Uncle Jesse proclaimed, "an utterly unstoppable album. Unstoppable Jesse Katsopolis…Jess Katsopolis…is…unstoppable…"

- CHAPTER THE NINTH -

in which,

John Stamos Installs a Red Light Over the Basement Stairwell as an Indicator of When He Is Working Hard Creatively Down the Stairs, and Cannot be Disturbed.

or,

The Red Light

"The red light," Uncle Jesse spoke, with his extended hands bracketing the glowing, crimson bulb. "When the red light is on, it means I'm working on Unstoppolis. Believe it.""Because your name is Katsopolis, and that rhymes with Unstoppolis,and you're supposed to be unstoppable?"

"Jesse Katsopolis presents: Unstoppolis. The greatest album ever made." "The greatest album ever made? That's what you think you're going to make That's what you think you are going to make? That greatest album ever made? Who do you think you are, Jimmy Buffet?" John Stamos had long felt within him for a long time now that something deep within him was trying to get out. A certain stewing percolation that was now beginning to boil over. When it was still just a slight warmth in the depth of his heart and soul, he wasn't really sure what it was, or what he was supposed to do. But now as his passions were full steam and all his ideas were coming to a head, he at last had clarity, no-even though he did not have words or a name for it, he had always been clear within himself in that he was going to accomplish his mission. What was happening now was just finally knowing what it really was he was doing in acute detail and purpose, and what to call it.

In his handmade studio, Jesse Katsopolis had made several homemade albums with the Rippers. He and them had mutually invested in top-notch equipment. Joey had even pitched-in in building a soundproof booth with near-perfect acoustics. There they had recorded Beach Boys song after Beach Boys song, and sometimes, they even sounded a little bit like them...or so they and others told them. But with each cool little sea of tunes they made, John Stamos had always felt within him, that a bigger, more original work was waiting just under the surface, and now it was here. He wanted the Rippers with him on this project, but if they couldn't get with it or couldn't keep up, he would do it on his on. What he wanted to do was make a whole new album, right here, in his gay little studio. With just under an hour of thinking and sketching, Uncle Jesse had come up with his master plan. He would made an album-a song-cycle-a record of twelve tracks, each one thematically linked and musically related. Yet, also, each song would be just that: a song, a piece that could stand interdependently on its own. It would be an album that told the story of his life. That to;d the story of America. It would be a record that explored the history of this continent and his own life story. He would call it UNSTOPOLIS. It made sense to him.

Standing there, in the dinning nook beside the kitchen at the basement stairs, with drill in hand, him drove in the last screw to secure the Red Light. Now it was installed. He turned to them and he expected them to at the very least, be grinning with a little bit of mutual satisfaction. Instead, he found them looking at him sternly. He was surprised, to say the least, and he let them know he didn't really understand by the pronounced furrow in his brow.

They just smiled back at him, coolly, and he was a bit subdued in his enthusiasm by witnessing the expression of blase in his counterpart.

"I know I've got this album inside of me." John Stamos declared. "These songs. These sounds. The need that I have to nurture it and them. I need to take care of them. Like pets. It's," he paused for a moment, searching for the right word, "and in that way, it's a responsibility."

"You have a responsibility to this family too. And to me." Jesse turned around and looked at them. He nodded and spoke in one of those strenuous whispers, that really conveys energy, "I know. And I know that you-that all of you-will understand and be a system of support for me while I do this." Silenece while everybody thought. They where still so unsure, but it was clear that he wanted it so baldly.

"Jesse Katsopolis presents Unstoppolis?' Just Jess Katsopolis? What about us?

Uncle Jesse turned his back and walked a few steps away. "What I want to do. The music I've got in my head. It isn't going to sound anything like the Beach Boys at all. It's going to be a whole new kind of music."

"They aren't going to like that."

"They will when they hear the tracks. Everyone is going to love it when they hear Unstoppolis."

"You're serious?"

Uncle Jesse turned and faced them with a crooked smile. "It's the album I was meant to make. The album everyone was meant to hear."

Their face: full of love and nodding, "Okay."

Jesse gave a full-toothed grin.

"Okay," smiling back. Walking forward. Then, reaching out and gently kissing the side of John Stamos' face with their brushing fingers.

The look of love.

All you need is love.

"You can do this," they said, "but I expect you to understand. You start up all this, string me and this family along-and fail? I shall be very 'put out.'"

And they said that just as darkish and threatening as Prince Humperdinck.

"I won't fail you," Jesse said confidently but quietly.

Just then, Comet the dog entered. He pressed his furry golden body up against Uncle Jesse's leg, and then the moved to the other. They bent down and ruffled the dog's ears and kissed all over his soft yellow face, which was returned eagerly by sloppy laps of a long wet pink tongue. Two faces pressed together: one long and hairy and rhythmically emitting hot breath; the other, dove-like-silky and smooth like crushed velvet. John Stamos petted the dog. He was a good boy. And all the while as they smiled and nuzzled and kissed the beloved animal. Their eyes stared back as piercing darts into his own-a look that was both a promise and a warning.

- CHAPTER THE TENTH -

in which,

John Stamos Attempts to Conduct a Band Practice with the Rippers, but is Prevented by an Interruption by the Others-Or Does He? Or Do They?

or,

Does This Make Any Sense to Anyone?

That night, as the family ate dinner, the sound of Uncle Jesse's Toshion keyboard rang out through the warped floorboards beneath them. They noshed on corn-nibblets, and instant 80's mashed potatoes, and made unsubtle, awkward glances at each other, as they could hear, muffled and distant, but distinct, the sound of Uncle Jesse's song. They could make out no particular words or familiar phrases, except an occasional "ahh" or "ooh". Other words were there, but listening like this provoked a feeling not dissimilar to that you get when hearing Adriano Celentano's, Prisenclinensinainciusco, all right?

The song was far-off, and the distant hearing added to the experience of the obscure piece. Under it's oblique serenade, they ate their evening meal. Below them, the most lovely, most melancholy song was bled from the piano setting on that electronic toy keyboard. The far-out sound was a blend of honest trying, and very conscientious thinking. The lyrics, with even a certain "Asher"-like quality, simple, but deeply emotional, and received warmly in silent satisfaction by each of them at the table. The indiscernible song was a beautiful, welcomed reprieve to the usual meals conducted under the lash of the tyrant, Bob Saget.

Danny could literally not hear the music at all. His mind was a fusion of fortress and deep-freeze. As always, he sat at the head of the table, as the head of the house, surrounded by various prepared meats and assorted sides and desserts, and he only let in and heard the things that he wanted to and did what he wanted to. Joey sat to the right. D. J. and Stephanie, and Michelle on the left. They all ate, and they all could hear and listened to the cycling, calling chords coming up from below. The rhythms was not complex, but grandiose. The melodies were inventive, but teetering on that thinning hairline of brilliance and contrived. If he could pull it off, then it would be a real masterpiece. But if it was stupid, then it would just be something stupid.

Was it the same song, on and on below that that Uncle Jesse played? Was he changing the tune and playing another? They could not see, but his hands blitzed across the keys, from octave to octave, leaping and dancing from tip to tip to make a music that was more than sound. A sound that was more than music. It was at least clever, he thought. Or at least, he hoped. He knew deep down, within himself that he was either losing his mind, or he was discovering the most progressive sound ever. That this music would tell, and he would be the last to know. He knew it, very deeply and almost not at all, but he knew it.

Taking in the world around him, with his head spinning inside an internal symphony of clanking forks and cool chatter above. From the inside out, he conjured and formed images of parties and suppers: butlers escorting trays of hors d'oeuvres wrapped in paper cut meat and held together by a toothpick adorned with a green olive. Suddenly, inspiration overcame him and without even thinking about it, he composed His dripping lips sang out, and the words he was singing created all this around him and would do so for anyone else who heard the song:

Eat'm up, eat, eat 'em up

Eat 'em up up!

Hors d'oeuvres

Desserts deserved

Reversed, err…

My, I'm sorry

Dried berries and yogurt

Up, up, up, up, up, up, ohh..

Eat 'em up, eat, eat 'em up

Eat 'em up up!

The best things in life

They are free

So you can go ahead

And serve it to me

There's nothing good to eat

Now,

Didn't your mother or

Didn't your father

Ever once bother

To tell you

The secret in life

Is pay two less than twice, ohh..

Eat 'em up, eat, eat 'em up

Eat 'em up up!

His voice broke with emotion, and he was barely able to continue on. So overcome with feeling, but he did not cry. Instead, he sang out another verse in cracked voice:

I saw cheese sliced with turkey

Now those foods just work me

Right into a sweat

'Cause you know they're the best

They're served on a salt cracker

And nothing else matters

To me...

When I'm eating for free

As happy as can be, ohh..

Eat 'em up, eat, eat 'em up

Eat 'em up up!

John Stamos filled and expelled his lungs, and sucked in more great gulps of air. He was unnaturally starved for oxygen. He was out of breath. He could barely breathe. He had stopped singing and playing, but his hands were still shaking. His eyes were still shut from all the emotional singing, and his quivering hands held each other. It was totally silent. And then-!

"Uncle Jesse!"

The pounding. The cascading of little feet charging down the stairs. He didn't have to look up. He knew who it was. . It had happened so many times now. The girls, always three or four, and always followed by the heavy clops feet of two stupid grown men, thudding down the stairs too.

"Jesse!" Joey boomed, "I got it! I got it! I got it! I got it! I got it, Jess! Jess, I got it! Jesse! Jesse! Jesse! Jess! Jesse! Jess! I know how we can make copies of our video jingles for our clients, like Chuck and such. Now, I don't think it's the way they want you to do it. It might not be the way they want us to do it, but basically, we're going to need another VCR and a lot of tape, masking-no, Scotch tape-that's what we're going to need."

But it wasn't really them. No one had really come down the stairs. It was just in John Stamos' mind. Perhaps it was insanity, or maybe it was, at least, a partially reasonable hallucination brought on by the fear of them interrupting him and his work. Which they had done again, and again, more and more so lately-even after he had installed the Red Light. This time though, they weren't in the basement with him. He was actually all alone. But he could clearly see them and hear them interrupting him, even when they weren't. He never knew when the next literal invasion would commence, so he imagined it all the time.

Yes, even with the Red Light on, Uncle Jesse had been bombarded with heinous interruptions since the new project began. Mostly by Michelle. Uncle Jesse loved Michelle, probably more than he loved anyone else in the whole world. But even with that abundance of love and spiritual innocence, he still groaned and tensed-up each time the preschooler-or two-waddled down the stairs.

And Joey too, who was in more ways than he should be, like a preschooler. He was always violating the sentinel of the Red Light. Each time he did, he was caught and each time he was caught, he would hang his large misshapen head down low, like a dog or a child scolding. He wasn't there now, though. No one was down there with Jesse right now. He saw and heard them all. But it was all in his head. He was going crazy, maybe. And maybe You were watching and you thought so too.

It was always the same, since it started a few days ago. They would make up some deal with Liz at the yogurt shoppe, or Chuck at the hardware store. They would get about halfway through a jingle of whatever it was and John Stamos-eager like a beaver-would make one of the usual excuses and shoo Joey away while flicking on his very serious Red Light. To no avail. Right now not a soul bothered Uncle Jesse, just his head. Time and time again, it wasn't really real. Just his head. John Stamos was alone in the basement with his Casio and four-track and above him, a conversation directly about him prattled on in the kitchen, but he could not really hear it and he was not really listening.

Danny was on his back, half submerged under the kitchen sink. His lanky legs lain sprawled out across the floor. Standing above him, Joey Gladstone, complete with curly misshapen mullet, rattled on about some stupid thing. It wasn't funny.

"I told Jess we need another VCR. We need another VCR to make a copy of that tape and give it to Chuck. But he's all like, 'No, uhh I gotta work on Unstoppolus, uhh.''

Bob Saget replied, "Another VCR?"

"Yes man, we need another VCR, so we can make another copy of that videotape of our 'Crispy Cringle Shingles' jingle, so we can them give that to Chuck to-"

"A new VCR costs hundreds of dollars, Joe. No one just goes off and buys another VCR. It's too expensive."

"Well, somebody's going to have to do something. We're going to have to do something. We haven't sold a jingle in months. And, we're-I know I'm-running out of money. So let's do what we can do and get another VCR so we can make some more copies."

"Joe, we're not millionaires. We can't just buy another VCR."

"Well I can't, Danny! I don't have $950! I don't have $25! I'm a terrible stand-up comedian, who's not funny at all-at all! I'm frickin' terrible! Nobody's hiring me!"

"Listen to me! Listen to me!" Bob Saget grabbed Joey's shoulders, his eyes like heart attacks. He spoke slowly now. "Nobody. Nobody, just has VCRs. Rich people like me," he paused and focused closer into Joey Gladstone's small pebble eyes, "because I do Wake Up San Francisco, have one VCR, because they cost $950. You don't just get VCRs! You get that from being funny and/or being on TV. You don't get that from Mr. Woodchuck."

A halt, that seemed almost for Shakespearean effect, where Joey bowed his head like he was praying, "I know Mr. Woodchuck's not funny," he said.

" is not funny. No, he is not. You don't have a million dollars. You don't have one hundred dollars, you don't have one dollar. You don't have any money because you and Mr. Woodchuck are both not funny. That's why you don't have $950 to buy another VCR! Get real."

Defeated and dejected, Joey groaned out from below, "I don't have $950..."

Jesse Katsopolis heard none of this stupid conversation above him, and even if he had been there in the same room to hear it, he would still not have been able to really hear it. His mind was indefinitely elsewhere, always firmly on Unstoppolus and its song now. Below the talk of VCRs and money and Mr. Woodchuck, Uncle Jesse played and sang this song:

But now that time is over

And I just got to know her

Some say she's been gone all along

But I swear I just now saw her

I called she came on over

But when she got here, she was gone

And like the world is turning 'round

Everywhere I turn this girl is found

But some say she is just illusion

Got me right now in confusion

It's allusion

Can I just hold on longer

To a love I know is stronger

To love her now even though she's not

Still I can feel her arms around me

Just the way I know they ought be

This I still love for I have fought

He sang out! Loud, but no one upstairs could hear him, no matter how much they might have wanted to.

And like the world is turning 'round

Ev'rywhere I turn this girl is found

But some say she is just illusion

Git me right now un confusion

It's allusions.

- CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH -

I called out to one of the bearded men fishing on the other side of the river. They rose and looked at me from across the water.

I raised my arms and frantically waved them above my head and called out to them saying, "I say, ah-hoy there!"

They nodded.

They had a vessel, a small wooden canoe beside them and the men got in it and started moving towards me, though with no aide nor tide, or wave or wide. The men simply stood still at bow and at stern, and looked out over the glimmering water and moved across the river right to me.

"I -" I began and stopped, thinking and starting again, "I know not why I've come, for you see, I have merely just awakened."

The canoe reached the beach. The lead man was smiling but he didn't speak, yet. He just reached his hand out me, silently inviting me to board.

When I stepped into the canoe, it bobbed slightly with my added weight, but easily righted itself. Soon it was the most serene and peaceful I had ever been in my entire life. The sky was afire with purple and amber and the water was colored like marmalade with the far setting sun.

"You are the one called Katsopolis?" he at last asked.

"I am." I replied, "I am Jesse, son of Nicolas."

"You know why you have come?"

"I have only just now awakened, and my mind is still fogged, but I know a voice from above brought me here. Beyond that, no. Why have I come here?"

"You, Jesse Katsopolis, do know why you've come. You seek to become that which is unstoppable."

"All I wanna do is be true to your school. To dance, dance, dance. Please, let me wonder you still believe in me."

"Those are Beach Boys songs. You wish to do and become that which is unstoppable."

"Unstoppable," I repeated in affirmative awe.

A sly, nodding smile was retorted. "And in order to become unstoppable, you must Unstoppolus. Jesse Unstoppolus. Jesse, the Unstoppable."

The canoe was moving now. I looked around me. We were slipping into a chasm rowed on either side by tall cliffs. Atop the unsettling crags were grouped several many people, each one irate and screaming down at us. There were so many and they were all screaming and cursing so loud, that at first I could make out no specific words, and I did assume that the mob was addressing every occupant of our distant, passing canoe. However, after a moment of carefully focusing my attention, I became aware that their hatred was directed solely at me, and the stones and jagged pieces of wood and metal that they were casting were-despite my ever stoic comrades and myself and the kerplunking into the ginger-ale colored water-really was just meant for me and I, unlike my companions, winced and cowered with each direct hit.

"They hate you," the one who had been doing all the talking said.

"I know!" I said, echoing in a near yell.

From the cliffs above, I could make out barely a complete sentence, but the shouts and jeers were peppered with "Hate you!" "Loser!" "Stamos!" "Sucks!" all raining down on me with sticks and rocks, and each one hurt.

For a while, that seemed like a small eternity, no one spoke at all. Finally, the one standing before me spoke and the one behind him remained silent.

"The farther you go down the river, the more progress you make. Those who imagine themselves as above you, will caste stones. They will curse you and damn you. But he who wishes to be unstoppable must never cease. For when you cease your striving, when you give up under the burden of the task and the other's closed-mindedness. Then, the vessel stops and just wades. You make no more progress down the river."

We stopped. The canoe stopped right there in the middle of the river. More and more, the rocks and the sticks and the slander and hatred fell. Striking me. Cutting me-my bloodied face and my bloodied heart.

"I cannot take it! I would if I could not be on this river! Take me from this place, oh fates, and let me be free of this terrible plight!"

The older sage, the one who had not yet said anything, looked right at me and said in a resonate, intelligent voice, sounding not unlike Leonard Nimoy. "You wish to leave this river, to be free from the torment?"

"Yes!" I cried, "oh yes, I want no more part of it! I want to be free of this inquisition!"

And suddenly, it was so. No sooner had those words left my mouth, did I find myself no longer in the canoe with two bearded men on the river. The terrifying cliffs towering on either side, upon which throngs of terrorizing villains pummeled me with sticks, rocks and hate. All gone. I was now totally alone in the absolute blackness and sand of the desert in the dead of night. It was so cold. I was shivering. The opaque sky above me was utter blackness and starless I stood under it for what seemed like forever, even more so in the darkness of this new realm, where time seemed to stop.

At some point I started walking, which I wasn't sure I could even still do, until I started lifting my legs and moving forward. They were lifted strenuously. For some reason now I could barely move. I took a few labored steps forward. The struggle was real. My legs felt turgid and heavy. But I walked on, I could see almost nothing. The sky was totally black and the powdered sand I walked on had a slight blue tint to it. Without realizing it, I soon came upon an incline and I stumbled and feel and soon I was crawling and pawing around on my hands and knees like a newborn puppy: unable to see or hear anything. The blueish-white sand that was everywhere was thick and rose up to my elbows and I had a mouthful of the dry, choking powder. For desert sand is not like coarse beach sand and has more of the consistency of talcum.

I was afraid, but I was driven on by some unknown force from within or, at least, the want to understand and know what exactly was going on. I dug my arms and knees into the sand and began to rise up the side of the slope if the dune. I made it up over halfway. But then, I lost my foundation and tumbled down, falling shoulder over shoulder, my eyes burning from invading and embedding dust. Even the gravity of this place seemed off. I knew I was not that high up, nor was I on even that steep of a rise, yet the fall was slow and seemed to hold me a half second longer and harder on each and every bump and skid. I finally landed, and around me had formed a crater-like I was a meteor. I laid there, gasping for a moment. The air was so thin. I reached out some fingertips. The powered walls of the crater tumbled as easily as I touched them, and without meaning to, I immediately found myself nearly buried in the powdery desert sand. I was gagging and gasping for air or anything to breathe other than sand. I flailed my arms and legs, casting off as much blue sand as I could and turned over and rolled over into the palm trees that lined the background.

And just then, when all around me was dust and gray and cold and hurting and pain and wandering and wondering; and all about me was blackness and bleakness and dark, and empty, and pale; I heard a voice. There was no one there that I could see. I was all alone in the windy, billowing pits of sand and nothing above me still, but the splash of black across above. But I had heard the voice, and I could feel the presence of accompaniment all around me. I was comforted. Then, I heard it again:

"John Stamos, son of Bill, walker in the night, searcher in the sands, take the defeat of the dunes and the empty cold no longer and arise. Hear my words."

Rising up, weakly, I pressed the strength into my wobbling knees. As I did so, I answered in a graveled stammer, "I-I hear you and I rise! But, p-pray tell, w-where are you? I see no one."

"Rest assured, I am here with you."

"Who are you?"

"I am the one who perceives and conceives."

"Oh? You talk in riddles?"

A disembodied chuckle, "no, I speak as only I could speak and tell what could only be my truth. I am the creator. I am the Great Executive, the Show Runner, the one who writes and directs."

"...You?"

"I am Jeff Franklin and it is I who placed you, Jesse Katsopolis, there together with those others in that house of comics-that passed you forward, that took you past the fourth world, toward tomorrow, to more than pain and sorrow."

"My passed is always past. My future, always towards where I am going."

"And where are you going, John? Why can't you find what you are looking for?"

John Stamos lapsed in reply and the unbroken chain of response was suddenly broken. For a moment all was silent again and since John Stamos was talking to somebody with no body, all instantly again became an abyss of nothing but nothing and the mind-all cold, black and feeling. In that dreadful moment of blank thought, Jesse Katsopolis analyzed: gathering his trembling insight and at last responded.

"I knew that once. Or, I thought I did. Now, it's everything. Joey is a creature that lives under the basement. He's not funny. We write jingles. He's great. It's crazy. Danny is crazy. The cleaning and cleaning, and the eyes. Where is my sister? Becky is the love of my life, but I have to think twice or at least, be nice. None of this makes any sense to us! There are two Michelles! D. J. is reading some book about all that is happening and everything, that we are all trapped in! I must become myself to become out of the Fourth World. Where does Stephanie go when no one is watching? Steve!?"

"I know Steve and I know you, John Stamos. Your mind is one great vision, unstoppable-unstoppolis."

"Unstoppolis, that is all I want. All I need. If I could just get one quantum of my ideas in Unstoppolis..."

"You can. But, you have to do what you know and know that you can."

"I want too, but the others..."

"The others are essential. It's about the others. The others are your life. You are just you. UNSTOPPOLISis your life."

"Unstoppolis is my life."

"UNSTOPPOLIS is your life."

"But I can't work if I can't think. The interruptions-the stairs."

"You have the Red Light."

"The red light."

"The Red Light."

"But will they respect it?"

"Let them. Let them do it. That is the only way they will know how, if you let them. That is the only way they will."

"Let them, then they will show me?"

"If you let them, others will always be exactly what you need them be."

John Stamos smiled, and though it was still cold and dark, he felt warmth and light on the inside.

"Now," Jeff Franklin boomed, "go ye past the last gray dune to the east. There you will find my associates, Miller and Boyett. Go with them. Follow them, and they will lead you down the river."

John Stamos looked and off, barely visible in the thick darkness, he thought he saw a form in the distance standing and then quickly darting away. The voice continued a bit more, but gradually faded out like rolling thunder. He was alone again, in the dark and cold. He was alone again with the bite and the wind , but now, unlike before, he had conception. He felt certain. And he felt certified-like crystal. He was confident in where he was going, refined and reinforced exquisitely by the laser words of Jeff Franklin. Inside and out, and endowed with great purpose and direction, John Stamos-more Uncle Jesse than he had ever been-looked to the east and headed to the somewhat distant sandy knoll.

When he got there, he looked down and I saw that the curtain of sand descended sharply both on my side and opposite. It formed a wedge in the middle that ran along the expanse, enveloping a slender river at the center. On the near bank, there was a long wooden canoe. I could see beside it, two fishermen. One of them was bearded.

Then...

- CHAPTER THE TWELFTH -

in which,

A Tale Is Told, But What Really Happened? The Power Goes Out in San Francisco and Uncle Jesse Wanders the Night's Streets and Watches the Sun Rise, Where He Then Has a Pivotal Moment.

or,

The Unstoppable Night, The Impossible Soul - The Last Songs/ Spring Cleaning

There is truth in all warnings

Madness and nonsense enter in

Yet never enough to render full Judgement

The serpent walks upon the desert floor

The eagle swims deep beneath the blue sea

Triumphant truths correct the error

And the dolphins pardon the violation

While falcons hem and haw

Over infractions of 'what is'

To be explained

Sometimes the things that should not be are

And sometimes, the things that are are

Not to be.

To be, or not

You'll see, that is

Not another line of word

Is heard, until I have

The proper introduction.

Danny Tanner parceled off household chores one by one. Unknown to all, for they did not want to do any of it, Danny kept "the best" chores for himself. Danny coveted and retained the right and the ability to clean the toilets; to Joey, he assigned the kitchen floor. He would have to scrub and grind it down to the purest and simplest linoleum. Stephanie was given dishes-though Danny was fully knowing that they would not be fully cleaned to his satisfaction, no matter how long she labored or how long it took. Michelle, being the weakest yet most sincere, was put to work in the living room: meticulously restoring configurations of pillows on the sofa that were long since memorized in her five years-hammered in by her father's teachings

Michelle was right now evening a row of magazines on the wiped and shined coffee table. D. J. was upstairs, reading and it was blowing her mind. Danny crouched like a harpy by the porcelain bowl, his hands as machines, pressing and spinning over every inch of the commode.

It was not only Danny Tanner's love of cleaning-and especially, cleaning toilets-that urged him on and wound his enthusiasm. He also wanted to finish very quickly in order to move onto those…holes in the backyard. He had left a few open from the night before and they needed to be closed up. No one had seen, and that was good. What does Stephanie do when no one is watching?

Jesse, however, took no part in the daily spring-cleaning. He had now spent the better part of the last few weeks sequestered in his subterranean subpar homesick studio, hammering piano chords and singing new and different songs than before. At this moment, he eased into hisbest applied Bon Jovian voice, and solemnly yet astoundingly sang a new, carefully crafted song.

If we were just children

We'd probably fall in love

If we were a bit younger

And had nothing to fear

If our hearts were pilgrims or pioneers

Just fearless, still tear-less

The words came to him, in a flurry of images and rhyme reflecting and injecting re-images of his childhood in Greece and his falling in love with Becky Donaldson, as if the two things had happened together at the same time. Peanut butter and bacon lingered on his breath from the sandwich he served himself at lunch. He could smell it. He could also hear the words emitted with the hot stinky breath from his mouth, and issuing fast and concrete, spontaneous in reality, but seemingly pontificated on and labored about for hour upon hour. Still, without effort, he played and he sang:

If we were still innocent

We'd probably soar above

If only we weren't so afraid

With so much left to know

Just lay back and watch the flowers grow

Pretending, then ending.

The false memories and sensations of he and Becky running hand-in-hand through the open, green fields poured all over his mind. He smiled, but he knew it was not true. Really, he believed that it was probably not totally true for anyone. No one, come on, found love like that. Life is never a real fairy-tale. He thought, and he sang:

If we were just children

We'd probably hie above

All I can see over my shoulder

T-

The power went out. The keys on the synthe' stopped producing any sound, save for the manual bap of dead plastic. And now it was total darkness. Uncle Jesse found that he was unexpectedly a little afraid at the abrupt advance of oblivion, never mind the interruption to his work. The blackness of the basement-always the most terrifying room in a house-was now the same as the cold and dark of outer space.

The door high above shouted open with a beam of piercing white light that blitzed through and destroyed all the darkness around the staircase and left a tangible, lighted tunnel, ascending out of the void. Above, a cute little Michelle stood, one tiny hand on her cocked hip and the other gripping an enormous, blazing flashlight. Her little face peered down. Her tiny nose squinting as she searched for something she recognized in the dark. "Uncle Jesse!" she ventured.

John Stamos made his way into the light. Michelle saw him and her face gleemed with happiness and John Stamos could see it in the light and that made him happy. They made each other happy. "The power went off, huh?"

"Uh-huh," she answered as her clog-like feet thumped down a few steps.

"Stay right there. I'll come to you."

She stopped and turned the beam of light and held it right under her chin as if she were telling ghost stories. Her Uncle Jesse was left in total darkness to her as he creaked up the stairs. Since she could not see him at all now, and only hear his approach on the steps like one might hear in a haunted house from a distance, and since she knew the ominous aesthetic was harmless, Michelle's little body just rattled with that type of playful trepidation a little child has when knowing "The Monster" is about to get them. She could barely contain her giggling as each deep step drew closer and closer.

"Woouuuhhh...," Uncle Jesse feigned as a phantom, his fingers extended and wriggling playfully like wispy tentacles of a spirit, tickling her belly.

Michelle responded in a delighted squeal.

"Another-oh!"

The electricity fluttered back to life. A brief eruption of light and sound and the whole full house was on, again. Uncle Jesse's recording equipment whirled into action with a jarring, monotonous, 'Ommmm...…'

"The power's back on!" exclaimed Michelle, her gleeful face arching around the room.

"Power Surge," Uncle Jesse said.

It was very bright in there now, much brighter than it was before, or mush brighter than normal. The fluorescent tubes that lit the basement and stairs pulsated with varying intensity and hummed sternly in the brief surge of power-and then went out again. Another brownout.

In the summertime in sunny San Francisco, so many businesses and people and others were running air-conditioners all day by the millions, consuming giga-joules of energy. The rolling blackouts were becoming more and more frequent all over the Bay Area. The lights were back on, and it seemed like everything else was back to normal again.

"Were you working on Unstoppolis?," Michelle asked.

"Yes," replied Uncle Jesse, "of course."

For a moment, Michelle's little face seemed poised to respond with an explosion of enthusiasm and curiosity. Then, she remembered that she was never supposed to bother Uncle Jesse while he was working and she was never supposed to come down here when the red light was on. But the red light hadn't been on, because the power had gone out. Still, she felt bad. "I'm sorry Uncle Jesse," said Michelle, "I know you don't want us to bother when you're working down here."

John Stamos just smiled. "Come and hear the new song I've just written." He bent down and scooped her up. He then carried her the rest of the way down the stairs, her seated on his arm, into the basement-into the studio- into another realm of just the must of John Stamos. "Let me play for you something I wrote this morning." He placed her beside him on the bench at the keyboard, and she sat sideways to face him as he played. "Here," he prefaced, "tell me what you think." He played….

Coffee for breakfast ev'ry mornin'

And with a bit I sip a think of you

Cigarette smoke out of my balcony

And with me blow another kiss to you

Ooo everything I do

I do a little thing for you

Yes I do

Stop in for luncheon in the city

And munchin' on the thought of you

You know you can always count on me

With the daily rough my number's always there for you

Ooo everything I do

I do a little thing for you

Yes it's t-

"Michelle."

The voice, like a lance of instant rebuke, came from the center of the stairs. Danny Tanner stood there. In their merriment, they did not hear him start to come down. He looked down at them. His mummied eyes looked like vast, open sockets. His flaring nostrils and clenched mouth were hardly visible in the flickering spear of blue florescent light. He attacked again, this time without even speaking. His black eyes staring without abatement, seeking without saying a word.

"Daddy..."

He started to descend the rest of the way. His steadily approaching footsteps, though nothing more than gradual, metamorphosed in Michelle and Uncle Jesse's minds, and each step that dropped Danny lower, filled them with a radiation of apprehension as he drew nearer and nearer.

Soon, he was out of steps and now he was right in front of them. Draining them, with all his said but unspoken disdain and judgement. So much so that they had to look away from him, as if he were the Sun. "You know you're not supposed to come down here, especially when Uncle Jesse is working on his Unstoppolis."

"Daddy..."

"You know when the Red Light is on-"

"The power went out! The red light wasn't on!" Michelle screamed.

Danny grinned like a rat about to steal food, and took a few more steps forward, nodding. Both Jesse and Michelle recoiled and inhaled, sharply. "You wanna make excuses?" Danny challenged, bearing down on little Michelle.

"Danny," Jesse timidly interceded, "she is fine. She and I were only singing."

Danny's head slowly clicked over, until his phosphorus eyes met Jesse's and transferred their choking toxicity. Jesse gulped. He wanted to lick his lips, they wear as dry as poorly kept leather, but he was too terrified to move at all. Danny's stare had disempowered him, and he just stared back, but it wasn't the same. Danny spoke. "Michelle. Go."

Immediately the tyke sped across the basement floor and whipped up the staircase, not saying a word and, actually, not even breathing. In an instant she was gone. The very different faces of John Stamos and Bob Saget were all that remained.

It seemed like a century before one of them spoke. Throughout that same silent moment, there were unblinking eyes and closed mouths that actually said so much.

"Jesse," Danny finally whispered, slowly.

Jesse did not respond back with words, his throat could not find any, but his glassed eyes reacted with a meager, but yet glowing self assurance, which the imposing Danny met very readily and confidently with a sinister smile and nod.

"Jesse, Jesse, Jesse, Jesse..."

"Danny," Jesse choked out.

Danny, wanting to impart as much intimidation, trepidation and malignance as possible, curled back his lips, showing his teeth like a chimpanzee and snaked his head forward until his and Jesse's noses were almost touching. Through clenched teeth he then said, "You've been working on Unstoppolis, Jesse?"

"Yes, I have," said Jesse back, but so quietly he barely said anything at all.

"Play me a song. Sing me a song."

In the moment that followed, Jesse said nothing. He looked, flickering down into Danny's still, stale eyes. He swallowed hard and then, at last he said, "okay." Trembling slightly, he merely stared back at Danny for a moment longer. Then, without further words he slid over to the piano bench. He sat down. With one trepidatious look back at Danny, he began to play and sing:

Nine A. M.

Awaken eyelids

Accept the hours ahead

Done for them

Your wife and your kids

Do it until you're dead

Five o'clock

Look out the window

See the homeward caravan

Close up shop

See you tomorrow

Don't you be late, understand?

His voice sounded strong. His voice sounded good. His words were sung clear-just the way that they should. And though Danny was there, his face a burning scathe, Jesse found courage to bare. In such a heart there could not be a slave.

I walk down Cobble Street

Greet the people that I meet

I smile, they wave

It's all the same

He took a breath.

We all just pretend

We're not just waiting for the end

They smile, I wave

It's all the same

Anyway.

The final word of the song, Jesse repeated again and again, letting the word resound and carry where had You not been there with them in that basement, You would have felt like he was singing out into vast, echoing canyons. Danny laughed. He stood there and he laughed. Danny laughed and Jesse just sang, and as he, Danny, laughed, his laughing grew until the tiny, annoyed chuckle became a hard, mocking guffaw. Jesse stopped the song. It was done anyhow.

"Tell me, you think that's good? Do you think Unstoppolis is actually good?!"

Jesse stammered, but the weak muttering wasn't even words.

Danny scorned, imitating the pathetic whimper, "bh,ph..bh bh..pi,"

Jesse hung his head.

"Unstoppolis. Get real. You're just sitting in my basement with your writings in your Wal-Mart notebook, playing on your Toys 'R Us keyboard. Yelling out your little songs at night."

Jesse sunk low under the combined incredible weight of insult and truth. He felt the burning of shame and self-loathing, but as Danny began another round of put-downs at Jesse and his Unstoppolis, John Stamos felt anger and looked up and locked eyes once again with Danny. His brow furrowed in another defiance. It was strong. It was brave. It was long overdueand apt, but Danny was hardy phased.

After a brief look of surprise, Danny sneered back and quickly regained the edge. He said, "right, you don't like that. Well, go and write another song about it Jes-"

The power went out, again.

In the dark, Danny spoke again, and with such satisfaction, "yeah, now you know the night, Jess-the dark."

Having heard enough and not having anymore, Jesse turned and, knowing the way automatically, he started up the darkened staircase. Danny, of course, could no longer see him but he heard Jesse's stomping advance up the stairs and continued his sideways verbal onslaught. "Yeah, maybe you should just go. Go out there and really know the night." He could hear that Jesse had stopped in the middle of the stairs and he could sense that he was facing down at him. Danny then sang. He sang a song so haunting and with such depth, You could hardly believe that previously he has only offered up the likes of "Jess and Just". Here, he sang to Jesse Katsopolis to "Know the Night":

When you don't want to go

But you just somehow know

That you can't stay tonight

That's when you know the night

No one say 'goodnight'

When you're kicking out the door

Don't you say a word no more

When you just can't see the light

That's when you know the night

Just can't get it right

And I think that I could get it soon

If I just find out what's in this room

Someone turned out the light

Don't you know the night?

So when you're walking down the street

Don't know a soul to meet

Something just ain't right

So know the night

And I think that I can get it still

Even though you can't see no more than you can kill

When you can't tell your left from right

That's when you know the night

Know the night. That's when you know the night. Danny repeated the phrase again and again, losing it's form and becoming just a drone in the black as Jesse crossed the threshold at the top of the stairs and closed the basement door behind him.

Outside it was San Francisco nighttime, balmy and crisp, but a darker nighttime, a night as God intended it, for all the curved and Suessian San Francisco houses were completely darkened by the most recent attack of power outages, and appeared on the horizon just as unnerving as an outline of shadowy mountains in the distance. Of course all the streetlights and everything else were out too. Even the Moon hung new in the night sky.

Danny had followed Jesse outside. Neither man spoke. Then Danny did, "Jesse, I-I'm sorry," he was speaking tenderly now, it is confusing, "I'm sorry, I-"

"I know Danny," Jesse said back and, as if just sensing-since he could not see-reassuringly and affectionately reached back and touched Danny's arm.

"I just get so..."

"I know," Jesse reassured, patting Danny's arm again.

There was then another moment where neither of them said anything. It only lasted a short while but, like nearly all short silent moments between two who should and really do have so much to say but can't, it seemed to last almost forever.

"Well, come inside will you? I can't see a thing out here."

"No."

"No?"

"No."

"Jess..."

"I'm going to walk around for a while."

"Walk around? It's the middle of the night!"

"I know. I just need to clear my head."

"Jesse, come on! Now I said I was sorry! Come back inside and-"

"I'll be back later."

Jesse was already walking away as he said those last words. Danny could only slightly tell he was moving away from him, by the change in the sound of his voice. Jesse wasn't coming back inside. He was walking away. Jesse wasn't listening to Danny. Danny didn't like it.

"Jesse! Jesse!"

There was no response.

Out here in the night air I breathe deeply and taste the evening air as hibiscus and marigold on the tip of my tongue and nose. Looking above me, the stars are as tiny cameras in ultraviolet scanning the topography, scattered and watching all around the world. Lowering my head, I know that I cannot escape them.

Blackest night will come within my sight. Will you blight or will you bright? I'll find you within mine tonight. A layer of prayer and I share. Nothing really compares to the dares of the midnight fair. Where? Where am I? As the lights come back on, rolling over the San Francisco hills. Not one-by-one, but as massive clumps of tumorous spheres: oblong orbs of blue and pale yellow light, grouped together in increasingly larger and larger formations of luminescence. And just like that, the whole neighborhood is lit up again, fully. Along the road I can see rows of glowing lampposts that cause the tiny crystals embedded in the pavement to sparkle in the indigo of the night's air, looking like a whole other set of stars upon the earth.

The streetlights, at first, don't seem to be placed conscientiously. But as I walk among them, a pattern does emerge: syncopated groupings, two-by-two, and then four-by-four on each side of the road. I look out and can see that this layout continues all the way down, off into the oblivion.

The night was bliss with all the streetlights now on. Then, they went off again. The void-like darkness was complete and total in just mere seconds. Then, the streetlights behind me began to beam on and off. Soon, a chaotic web of light surged all over the streets, keeping no set shape or intensity for even the briefest moment. At it's brightest and briefest, the light seemed to reach out and grab me and, no, I did not like it. I turned around and the idiocentric, yet homogeneous, succession of San Francisco rowhouses (misshapen, with erratic bulges of lopsided bay windows and partial terraces) so unlike human dwellings anywhere else in the world, while still-paradoxically-looked so much like the other, flash and black and back again like breathing. In some of their obtusely shaped windows, I thought I could maybe see with one flash of light or another, families gathered and sharing, even though I knew that that was impossible. I began to sing…

My home, what happened to my home

That home of mine

Alone, I feel so alone

With empty time

But I know I can go on longer

And my heart will become stronger

In times like these

I go, I go alone along

Too long, I think

And I feel so tired

Thirst love-no drink!

And each night the winds come colder

But my wisdom becomes bolder

In times like these

In times like these!

Li ah ah ah ah oh ohh!

In times like these

Li ah ah ah ah oh ohh

Oh!

I think that, with Danny at least, it can't be stopped. It can't be helped. It only does so if he kills me. Which he won't do (because of Michelle, if for nothing else). Even if he does, that means that I would win the most ultimate victory! You can't stop Unstoppolis. That's the whole point. You can only kill it. Which would make it an immortal martyr and an automatic masterpiece. What artist could ask for more than that?

When I return, I will look Bob Saget in the eye again and Bob Saget will look back at me, and we will both smile-most likely him just sardonically, but I will mean it. I am an artist who lives and breathes on a plane that is perpetually above the ever present opposition. Or the "misguided jealous', which ever qualifier best suits, if there is even a difference.

Into a tiny park, I make my way and sit down on a bench. My eyes closed. I was still awake. It was just before sunrise and the sky is that certain wash between deep black and subtle indigo, before the light. Total peace. Total understanding all around me and within me. In my wonderful mind, I get an image and a sound of words always heard and never sung. A song that I know has always been there and been a part of me since everything here got started. Words, that without knowing and always knowing, I realize and I repeat again and again, without speaking and with seeking and singing and staying silent:

Everywhere you look

Everywhere you look...

There's a heart

There's a heart...

A hand to hold onto

Getting up and going forward, as the newly glistening orange dawn comes over me and San Francisco, I see the Full House ahead of me. Though distant, through the overlapping hills, it seems like it is getting nearer and nearer. It doesn't worry me, though. I know I must return for syndication. A man is chasing a waterfowl. With one hand, he holds out an empty palm, his five digits fully extended each and curling in an invisible ball. The person's right hand, engaged the Goose Grab and swiftly gripped the goose and gathered the gander into the Goose Bag. And when I see such a thing, I can only Smile. I think that, 'yes I can.' It is going to be alright. I head home.

- EPILOGUE -

D. J. read the words again. Maybe this was the third of fourth time that see had read it, she wasn't sure. Each time she restarted, apart of her conscience told her it was the first time, though she knew it was not. Last time, she was sure the text said she was confused and looking around, and biting her bottom lip. She was sure of it. Now it read accurately, that she had shifted her weight to center, and she was shaking now with an incomprehensible confusion that was quickly morphing into great fear. She read the passage out of the book again.

D. J. read the words again. Maybe this was the third of fourth time that see

had read it, she wasn't sure. Each time she restarted, apart of her conscience

told her it was the first time, though she knew it was not. Last time, she was

sure the text said she was confused and looking around, and biting her bot-

tom lip. She was sure of it. Now it read accurately, that she had shifted her

weight to center, and she was shaking now with an incomprehensible confu-

sion that was quickly morphing into great fear. And she let the book drop

From her hand, and it thudded loudly on the floor, shattering the dead sil-

lence of the room.

She bent down and picked the book back up, then-shuddering-she realized what she had just done. It couldn't be real! She held the small book in her hands. She slightly twisted it, apprehensively. Shaking and trembling, she opened it again. Immediately she went to close the book, quickly, but she dropped it again and at the last second, she glanced and read.

Immediately she went to close the book, quickly, but she dropped it again and at

the last second, she glanced and read.

She made a slight motion for the exposed book, but it snapped shut on its own like a mousetrap. And just before it snapped shut and lay still, she clearly (though she very much did not want to believe so) saw the words "dropped the book" and "snapped shut". Her mind flashed and throbbed with a new indescribable burning fear, that made her sweat and start to pant. She looked around the room frantically. It was the same room, but something about it now seemed unreal and unwanted and unsettling. She looked back down at the book. She trembled a bit as she reached down to pick it back up. She held it in her hand again and reread the cover: UNSTOPPOLUS was all it said. She had never seen that word before until now but each time she reread it, it unsettled her more and more. She opened the book to a random passage and read it, as much as she could take.

I once walked along a crescent beach at sunset. The sky was like a rare,

collectable marble with an unusual pattern of crisscrossing yellows and

sizzling, swirling reds and browns. The air was clear and clean, like

primordial water, and breathing tasted so so good, I just sat down Indian-

style in the warm cushion of golden sand with my eyes closed, breathing.

The intoxication of contentment over coming all earthly woes.

There was a group of teenagers some distance away on some rocks out in

the water. They were far away and, although they were talking very loudly,

I couldn't make out everything that they were saying. I could tell though,

that the group was tormenting one of them. I couldn't make out specific

words. I could really only sense the usually hurtful teenage words, like

"fat ass," and "faggot" being tossed out into the otherwise, peaceful ocean

breeze.

The sun was setting quickly. There was no blue left, now. The whole sky

had turned to oranges and reds and the sun was a heavy maroon disk that

hung low in the far sky and did not hurt to look at. The waves petted the

beach sands gently, like how a child pets a baby animal and the soothing

roar it made sounded like a dotting mother hushing her child back to sleep.

She could see the beach. She had never been there before, but she had seen it many times before in her mind-like, in dreams. But she was not dreaming now. What was happening? She had never been on that beach before, but she knew that beach. She had never read this book before, but she read its words and not only did she like she had known then her whole life, she felt like it was her life. The more she read, the more it became about her.

She was just standing there, facing the upright mirror in her and

Stephanie's room. She knew that beach. She had never been to

that beach before. But she could feel the sand between her miss-

happen toes like it was happening now. "What the…?" she tho-

ught.

Her vision became out-of-focus and now, she was just starring blankly. A force came oevr her. Unable to do the opposite-as she wanted and screamed for inside- she read on even now, emitting a strange really creepy sound from her agape mouth. "Auuhhggz," as she read, to herself.

Her vision became out-of-focus and now, she was just starring

blankly. A force came over her. Unable to do the opposite-

as she wanted and screamed for inside- she read on, even now

emitting a strange, really creepy sound from her agape mouth.

"Ahhuuuuggghhhhz," as she read, to herself.

No. She snapped out of it. She closed the book immediately. She was quick, but she dropped it again. When the book hit the floor, it was opened up to almost the exact middle. D. J. didn't want to, but she couldn't help but read.

She closed that book immediately. She closed it quickly,

but she dropped it. The book hit the floor. It opened to

almost the exact middle. She read it, but she didn't want

to. …

Soon, she would lose her grip, and fling UNSTOPPOLIS

Across the room.

And lo, she realized that she was reading the words as it happened all around her, and she had done the actions exactly as UNSTOPPOLUS, had described. Reading and walking away at the same time, D. J. fumbled the book in her hand, and just like she has just read she-inadvertently-flung the cursed white book now across the room, and only after doing so did she realize again that she had just read that it would happen. D. J. fled out of the room. Her flip-flops whopped like rhythmically moving through a swamp. She shuffled frightful out the room for no other reason than UNSTOPPOLUS said she would. And yes, just like the Book said: as she entered the stairs, she passed by the slightly larger-than-life landing window. Outside it, there was little Stephanie the grass beside the house. With her itty-bitty little arms extended up rigid and her contorted little demonic face, obscurer looking up, towards the sky. What does Stephanie do when no one is watching?

THE END

.