It's a Wonderful Knife

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It's a Wonderful Knife Page 5

by Elise Sax


  “Holy cow, Underwear Girl, it’s going to be the best monster truck rally ever.”

  I wondered if other bachelorette parties were like this.

  The door to our private room opened again, and the mayor walked in. The last time I saw him, he was arguing with the dictator of Fussia. The mayor was a well-dressed, attractive, older African-American man with a total devotion to his job.

  “Sergeant Lytton, is that the new police uniform?” he asked the mostly naked Fred without a hint of humor.

  The mayor was a moron. Everyone knew that.

  He pulled up a seat and sat down at the table, uninvited. Fred grabbed a remaining onion ring and a handful of nachos.

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” the mayor moaned. “Founders Day is all but ruined.”

  I took another sip of my so-called margarita. Rum and Dr. Pepper “margaritas” packed a wicked punch. I blinked, but the mayor had three heads, and I couldn’t decide which head to focus on. Even worse, his heads were dancing, like they were in a CrossFit class.

  Perhaps I was drunker than I thought. I took another sip of my margarita.

  “What’s wrong with Pounders Shay?” Bridget asked, slurring her words. She had discovered the evils of margaritas and champagne, too.

  Founders Day was on July fourth, which was this Thursday. The town usually put the two celebrations together, combining the country’s Independence Day with honoring the town’s founding, when gold was discovered in a local mine. The celebrations revolved around fireworks on the lake and picnics on its shores.

  Fred and Julie were taking advantage of the day to say their vows during the fireworks. If the Founders Day celebration was nixed, Fred and Julie’s wedding would be in trouble.

  Fred didn’t seem to understand the danger to his nuptials. He happily ate more nachos.

  “It’s all going to H-E-double toothpicks, as far as I’m concerned,” the mayor moaned, again. “First of all, we have the wedding, which will totally distract from the celebration. And now, we have a crazy dictator who wants to take over the whole world, or at least the whole town.”

  I felt like I needed to defend Fred, who was my first match, and I was going to be his best man. Besides, it was totally unfair of the mayor. Fred’s wedding was going to be a very modest affair. There was going to be no more than fifteen people at the ceremony and then a small picnic catered by Ruth.

  “I don’t think Fred’s wedding will disrupt the celebrations, Mr. Mayor,” I said and spilled my drink all over the table. Damn my hands. For some reason, they weren’t working anymore.

  The mayor pointed at me, accusatorily. “Oh yeah? Isn’t Julie going to be there?”

  He had a point. Julie had a way of burning down places or blowing them up or generally breaking everything she came in contact with. So, did I, for that matter, but when I did it, it wasn’t my fault. With Julie, it was always her fault.

  “We’re putting a perimeter around Julie,” Fred explained with his mouth full of our appetizers. “It’s all planned out so nobody’ll get hurt during the wedding. No sharp edges. Only plastic, rubber, and Styrofoam. Ruth’s got it all figured out.”

  The mayor nodded and seemed to be okay with that plan.

  “We’re having a bachelorette party, you know,” Lucy interrupted, clearly annoyed by the mayor’s interruption.

  The mayor flinched. Lucy was sweet and pretty, but terrifying when she had her full Southern going. She looked like Scarlett O’Hara, but she was all Robert E. Lee. The mayor stood and smoothed out his suit.

  “I know. I know,” he said, smiling. “Girls activities. Doing your nails, brushing your hair, pantyhose, and girdles. I know all about it. It’s not a secret from me. I’ll get out of here and let you get back to your giggling, hair curlers, slumber party People magazines.” I didn’t know exactly what he meant, but I decided to let it slide.

  He walked to the door and turned around to me. “What is the Chief going to do about the dictator?” he asked me. The Chief was Spencer, and I knew not to get involved with his business. It was bad enough that I stumbled over dead people all the time. I wasn’t going to get involved with how he dealt with an invading dictator.

  I shrugged. “Beats me.”

  “Does he really want to take over the town?” Bridget asked.

  “The man nearly got into fisticuffs with me today,” the mayor said, his voice rising. “He threatened me, nearly pushed me. The chief didn’t do a damn thing. Somehow that crazy dictator got the right paperwork to set up a country in my town. I say, if he has the right paperwork, we need to start changing papers, immediately.”

  “I hear he’s organizing an army, and he has a machine that can change the weather,” Fred said.

  It took Fred fifteen minutes to find his clothes and get dressed, and the mayor took twenty minutes to finish complaining, but finally they left us alone. Luckily, we were still blotto. We were drunk out of our minds. But Lucy was upset that the bachelorette party had been marred by the moron mayor and the terrible stripper. I was just thankful that I was drunk when I saw Fred strip, otherwise I would’ve had to wash my eyes out with Clorox.

  Completely drunk, our bellies filled with junk food, it was time to move the party, but to where? The town closed down at nine o’clock. Bar None was the only thing open. Even the twenty-four-hour mini-mart closed an hour before.

  “I’m so sorry I let you down, Gladie, Lucy said. I put my arm around her.

  “You didn’t let me down, Lucy. I had a great time. I love being with my two best friends, especially when I don’t have to pay for the drinks.”

  “But I wanted it to be better. More Shlong and less Fred.”

  That would have been nice, but more Shlong and less Fred would have been out of character for Cannes and my life.

  I was hit with a wave of genius. “I know what we could do,” I told her. “Let’s invade a country.”

  Funnily enough, it didn’t take a lot of convincing to get Lucy and Bridget to invade a country with me. Maybe because they were both sloshed out of their minds.

  I was so drunk that my boob had permanently popped out of my dress, and I didn’t give a damn. Bridget and Lucy didn’t care either, but every once in a while, Bridget would point at my chest and laugh.

  I was excited about invading a country. I’d never been outside of America, not even a short trip to Tijuana. Sure, I wasn’t really leaving the country. I was just going a few blocks away, next to the pharmacy on Main Street, but a bottle of champagne and five margaritas later, Main Street and France were pretty much the same thing in my blotto brain cells.

  We piled into the limo, and the chauffeur drove us to the land of Fussia. I slapped my finger against my lips. “Shhhhh,” I said, spitting in Lucy’s face. “You two have never done this before, so I’m going to be in charge.”

  “You’ve done this before?” Lucy asked.

  “If it gets hairy in there, I don’t want anyone shooting anybody,” I said.

  “We have guns?” Bridget asked.

  Lucy patted her peach clutch purse. “Don’t worry. I’m always packing, darlin’,”

  I looked down at her purse. “Maybe we should leave your purse in the limo.”

  We fell out of the limousine, and it took a good five minutes for us to help each other up. There was no sign of the dictator except for the signs announcing the dictator with the dictator’s face on them. There was a sign threatening death to invaders. There was a sign about the visa requirements. And there were a few signs about Fussia being the greatest country in the world. But there was no actual sign of an actual person.

  “Shhhh,” I said again loudly, slapping my finger against my mouth. “So far so good. No barbed wire and no machine guns. This will be a snap.”

  “Barbed wire?” Bridget asked. “Doesn’t this man know the meaning of democracy and a free country?”

  “No. That’s why he’s a dictator,” Lucy said and hiccoughed.

  It was pretty easy to break
in. Even drunk, I seemed to have an almost magical ability to pick a lock. It was my one great skill, and if I had just been a little less honest, I could’ve monetized that baby to the hilt. But as it was, I didn’t use my breaking and entering ability for monetary gain, just to break into other countries.

  There were more signs inside than out. There was also a cot with a couple folding chairs next to it in an otherwise mostly empty room with dictator uniforms tossed on the bed.

  Oh, and there was a huge cache of weapons in the corner, too. Big weapons. Lots of them.

  “I’m glad I’m drunk,” Lucy said.

  “I think I’m really drunk,” Bridget said. “I’m seeing all kinds of crazy stuff.”

  There was a sound outside, and the three of us jumped a foot in the air and clutched each other.

  “Oh my God. We’ve been found out. We’re going to get mowed down and sent to Siberia,” I moaned.

  “I’m not going to Siberia. Organza doesn’t work in the snow, Gladie,” Lucy said.

  “Now let’s just calm down and think clearly,” Bridget said.

  We paused but still held on to each other. I tried to think clearly. Nope, it wasn’t going to happen. My brain cells had been pushed out by the devil’s evil brew. Damned margarita specials.

  There was another sound, and we squeezed each other, holding on for dear life.

  “I got it. I got it,” Bridget said. “We run away. That’s what we do. We run away.”

  I gave Bridget a huge kiss on her cheek. “Genius,” I exclaimed. “How did you figure that out? Pure genius.”

  We ran through the building and out the back door. Out back, there was a large patch of dirt enclosed by a fence and beyond, was the alley.

  “I’m stepping on something squishy,” Lucy complained.

  “Me, too.” I was stepping on something squishy, and there was a pungent smell, which I couldn’t place. Then, there was the noise, again. Louder, this time.

  “Does the dictator have four legs and a long nose?” Bridget asked.

  “I think he has a long nose, but I didn’t notice four legs,” I said.

  “Look at that. The dictator stole the mayor’s donkey,” Lucy said.

  The sound turned out to be the braying of a donkey. I gasped. The mayor’s beloved donkey Dulcinea was trapped behind the storefront in the penned in space. The squishy substance we were stepping on was its poop.

  “I know what’s going on here,” I said.

  “Me, too,” Lucy said. “Fussia is a weird, depraved sex party, donkey excuse for a country. You think you’ve seen it all, and then you see this.”

  “No. No, that’s not it,” Bridget countered. “This Fussia dictator guy is playing hardball with the mayor. You heard him. They had an almost fight. Didn’t the mayor want this country out of here immediately? So, the dictator went ahead and stole the mayor’s donkey. This is a war between Fussia and Cannes. Lucy, Gladie, we’re witnessing war, and it’s up to us to fix it.”

  There was something about Bridget’s reasoning that I found troubling and not quite logical, but the margaritas and the champagne, not to mention the nachos, were blocking any clear thinking. So instead of arguing with her, I nodded.

  “Sounds about right,” I said.

  Bridget raised her hand like she was the Statue of Liberty. “Justice!” she yelled. “Justice!”

  Bridget’s cries for justice were contagious. Imbued with a sense of purpose, we decided to steal the mayor’s donkey back and return it to him.

  At first, the donkey fought against us, as if she liked her new home better than her old one, but we found a small supply of carrots and bribed her out of the stall and around the back of the building until we got back to Main Street and to the limo.

  “This is a first,” the limo driver said, staring at the donkey.

  “It’s the justice donkey,” Bridget explained.

  The driver hooked the donkey to the back of the limo with rope, and we drove through town at five miles an hour to the mayor’s house. It was touch and go in a few places because the donkey wasn’t too keen on being tugged by a limo. It fought against the rope, and I was starting to get worried for its well-being.

  A few months before, I had had a run-in with an animal rights group, and I didn’t want word getting out that I had hurt a donkey. I opened the sunroof and stuck my head out.

  “You’re okay, Dulcinea,” I cooed at her. “You’re okay. Who’s Mommy’s little girl? Who’s Mommy’s little girl?”

  Despite Bridget’s warnings that I was hurting the donkey’s brain, it worked. The donkey calmed down, and we rode like that with the donkey behind us and my head sticking out of the sunroof cooing at it until we got to the mayor’s house.

  By the time the mayor opened the door, I was all in on the justice plan. Like heroes, we had managed to right a wrong. We managed to find justice for the mayor and his beloved donkey. Score one for democracy and down with dictatorship. I had never felt so patriotic.

  When the mayor opened the door, I shouted “Justice!” And I lost my balance and stumbled. Lucy caught me.

  The mayor was wearing silk pajamas, which were crisply ironed. He wiped his eyes. “What’s this? What’s this? Has the town burned down?”

  “We have returned your beloved Dulcinea,” I announced.

  “That evil dictator stole her, but we got her back for you,” Bridget said.

  “I stepped in donkey droppings, darlin’, but I guess it’s okay in the name of truth, justice, and the American way,” Lucy said and hiccoughed again.

  “Where?” the mayor asked, looking around in a panic. “Where is my beloved Dulcinea? What do you mean that evil man stole her?”

  “He’s right in front of your eyes,” I said tugging at the donkey.

  “That’s not my Dulcinea,” the mayor said. There was a sound of sirens in the background, but I ignored them. Since I was already seeing three mayor heads, I figured that hearing things would be next.

  “Just a minute. Just what do you mean by that’s not your Dulcinea?” Bridget asked.

  “I know Dulcinea,” the mayor said. “This isn’t Dulcinea. Dulcinea is beautiful. Dulcinea is the world’s smartest donkey. And besides, Dulcinea is female.”

  Lucy, Bridget, and I froze and then in unison, bent down and looked under the donkey. “How the hell did that get there?” Lucy asked.

  “I didn’t see that, either,” Bridget said.

  Dulcinea had grown a huge donkey penis.

  And the sirens were getting closer. A bit of common sense and logic were starting to invade my senses.

  “Mayor, I swear that penis wasn’t there when we stole the donkey,” Bridget said. But I noticed that she crossed her fingers behind her back.

  “So, who is this donkey?” The mayor asked. The sirens were very loud and getting louder.

  “Beats me,” I said. “Never seen it before in my life.”

  “I’ve never seen it before, either,” Lucy said.

  “What do you mean?” Bridget asked. “It’s the donkey we sto...” Lucy kicked her with her poop covered shoes, shutting her up.

  “Oh, geez. The fuzz. I think we should beat it,” I urged, turning around. One squad car and one unmarked police car that was very familiar to me parked next to us. The sirens stopped, but the lights continued to flash.

  Spencer stepped out of the unmarked car and took a look at the three of us, the limo, and the donkey. He approached me, and he wasn’t happy.

  “Are you kidding me?” he said.

  “It wasn’t my fault. Bridget wanted justice.”

  Spencer started to respond, but I threw up all over his Armani suit and passed out cold into his strong arms.

  CHAPTER 5

  The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, bubbeleh. We always want what we can’t have. And most of the time, we don’t realize what we actually have in the first place. It’s hard to make a match when they don’t know what they got and think they want what they wouldn�
�t want if they knew what it was. The Dalai Lama calls it the mindfulness of matchmaking. At least that’s what he said to me on the phone a couple months ago. He might’ve just been pulling my leg. Anyway, make them focus on what they got. Never mind the schmuck next door.

  Lesson 49, Matchmaking advice from your

  Grandma Zelda

  Thank goodness Bird’s hair salon had a great air-conditioner. Our heatwave was getting worse. If we continued like this, I would be sweating through my wedding dress on Sunday.

  “Is business bad?” Grandma asked Bird, as she sat in one of the hairdresser’s chairs. It was her day to get her hair done. We were the only ones there except for Bird and the pedicurist.

  “No, Zelda. I usually block off Mondays to come to your house to give you the royal treatment. Now, you come here. So, you’re my only customer. Although, we should start work on Gladie. There’s a lot to do to get her ready for her wedding.”

  “No offense, Bird,” I said. “But your voice sounds like a jackhammer. Can you turn it down? And could you turn off the Frank Sinatra? I’m not going to let you do anything to me today. I have days before my wedding.”

  “What’s with her?” Bird asked. She draped a cloth around my grandmother’s neck and snapped it together.

  “Gladie has a hangover,” Grandma explained. “She and her friends had a little party last night and over-imbibed.”

  “I heard you stole a donkey and started an international incident,” Bird said, putting rollers in my grandmother’s hair.

  “It wasn’t an international incident. It was Main Street,” I insisted. I had insisted the same thing to Spencer when he had also accused me of inciting an international incident.

  “Only you can turn a bachelorette party into an international incident,” he had complained. The country of Fussia next to the pharmacy wasn’t a real country, but breaking and entering and grand theft donkey were real charges.

  And the dictator was pressing charges.

  The night before, Spencer arrested us. Lucy, Bridget, and I were all fingerprinted and let go. I didn’t remember much because I had been unconscious for most of it.

 

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