Homer's Hardware Chapter 4

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Chapter 4: Genesis: ch2 v5 “ and Homer was bound and gagged.”
Homer got home that night and threw himself around his plush suite like Audrey Hepburn having a conniption fit. He took a moment to grin at his spectacularly feminine actions (which weren’t really his style being a hardware store CEO) then continued his weepy ballet until he was exhausted and flopped on his queen-sized bed. After lying with his arm over his face and tears streaming from the corners of his eyes for fifteen minutes he hit the mini bar. Hard. In an hour he had it emptied and he sat, stomach churning, staring at 36 tiny bottles of assorted alcohols. He looked at his hands, the hands that had typed the proposal for the hamster maze that had helped Bros.’ get back on top, and saw twenty fingers. Well, he thought, I guess I didn’t drink as much as I thought. Then he passed out.
He dreamed that he was drowning. He was cold and wet, and every breath he sucked was filled with water. He snapped awake to find himself soak and heaving for breath in front of the toilet. He looked up and saw two grim looking fellows in expensive suits standing over him. The one on the left was huge; about six feet for inches, build like barn and had a scar running from his left temple to his chin. The other was average height and thin with a pointed nose and beady eyes. To Homer he looked suspiciously like a rat.
“Did you put my head in the toilet?” Homer managed.
“Yep,” said Scarface.
“Why?”
“How the hell else were we supposed to wake you up?” said Ratface.
“You could have tried shaking me awake.”
“We carried you in here. You think a little slap would have woken you up?” Ratface again.
“Well, you could have dumped water on my head.”
“What’s the fun it that?” replied Ratface.
“Did you… Uh… you know…”
Ratface cut him off, “ What do you take us for? Animals? That’s disgusting. I’m shocked that you would even accuse us of such malice.”
“Sorry,” said Homer sheepishly,” I just figured the kind of person who sticks one’s head in a toilet to wake him up…” Homer trailed off.
“Who the fuck are you?” Homer asked, finally coming to his senses enough to realize that the two men who had just stuck his in a toilet had entered his locked room and stuck his head in the toilet.
“We,” said Ratface, ”are representatives an anonymous organization who have a business proposal for you. We would like you to come with us.”
“If I say no?” Homer asked.
“You can go back in the toilet if you want,” said Ratface, looking over at Scarface.
“ I think I’ll join you.”
“Good choice.”
As they left the suite, Homer slightly in the lead, Scarface leaned over to Ratface and said, ”You shouldn’t have made me flush.”
After a blind ride in a black Cadillac (Homer had a bag put over his head for the journey) he was pulled out of the car and lead down some steps. The bag was pulled off and Homer was left sitting in a concrete room that was dank and reeked of industrial basement.
“Wait here,” said Ratface. Then he disappeared thought a large steel door. Scarface was left to watch over Homer.
Scarface stood there and began to sweat a little. He hated being left alone with folks, especially with folks the organization was planning to keep alive. They always asked him his name and it happened to be a major source of embarrassment for him. Having a feminist hippy mother and no father, she had decided, in her infinite feminist wisdom and without regard for the trauma it would cause her son (he secretly blamed her for his involvement in organized crime), that he could be her junior instead.
“What’s your name anyway?” Homer asked.
“Junior.”
“Junior, of who?”
“Suzy.”
“So your name is Suzy Junior.”
“Do you want to know what your ass tastes like?” said Suzy Jr.
This was a difficult question for Homer to answer, as, on several occasions, he had wondered. Deciding that this was meant as a threat, rather than a friendly offer he decided on the appropriate response of “No.”
“Then shut the fuck up before I feed it to you.”
“You know,” said Homer,” you shouldn’t be ashamed of your name, I mean, it’s a label that has been given to you be someone who loves you-”
Homer was cut off by Suzy grabbing him by the ankles with one hand and using the other hand to force his face between his knees. As Homer’s face neared his own butt Ratface walked through the door and Suzy released him.
“What the fuck, Junior!!!”
“Nosy little fucker is asking to many questions.”
“Fat Tony said unharmed. Understand?”
“Yep.”
Homer was lead through the steel door and down a long, dank concrete hallway. The pipes snaking along the ceiling gave a faint squeaking sound as they transported water to the rest of the building. At the end of the corridor they turned left and approached a large oak door. Ratface turned to him.
“Don’t talk to him. Listen. If he asks you a question keep it short. DO NOT interrupt him or make any sudden movements.”
“Who’s ‘Him’?”
“Shut up!”
“Okay.”
Ratface opened the door and followed Homer through. The walls were rich hard woods. The carpet was forest green and plush. There was a huge mahogany desk in the center of the room. Behind the desk was a lumpy pile of a man who looked like he had been poured into an expensive suit.
“I’m sorry. We haven’t been properly—“ started Homer.
“Shut up!” Said the lump behind the desk.
“It’s just that etiquette dictates—“
“Shut THE FUCK UP!”
“Are you talking to me or at you giving an order to the guy behind me, referring to me as ‘the fuck’? This is a little—“
Homer felt a sharp pain at the back of his head and the world faded to black.
Homer came too with a pounding headache and found that he was tied to a chair with a ball gag in his mouth. He was not really worried as he had experienced this before after a long night of drinking in his youth, but upon realizing he still had his clothes on, he was a little unsettled. He looked around at the hard wood walls and the plush green carpet and remembered where he was. The oak door open behind him and three men appeared before him. One was Ratface, one was The Lump in the Suit and the third was a brick shithouse of a man whose most distinctive feature was the face that his nose whistled slightly when he breathed. The Lump in the Suit sat down behind the desk and the two men stood on either side of him.
“Alright,” he said,” we’ll do it your way with a little bit of my way. I’m Tony, known in the inner circles as Fat Tony, in the Bronx as Tony the Nose and in Cicely as Tony Tenor. The Man on my left is Toni the Rat, AKA Toni the Cheese-eater AKA Toni Two Teeth. The man on my right in Tonee the shithouse, AKA Tonee the tank, AKA Tonee the tank, AKA Tonee the -massive- motherfucker- who -will -rip- your-arms-off-you-fuck-with-us. Understand?”
Homer nodded his head, but had a million questions in his brain. None of them had to do with what these people wanted; they were mostly about the names.
“We have a business proposition for you. We know all about your little mishap today. We think you’re pretty smart. We will take care of your problem. You will open your own store. We will bankroll you. We get the profit and pay you well. You will keep your mouth shut or Tonee will pay you a visit and you can find out about his name. Agreed?”
Homer whipped his head around wildly and made some guttural and muffled sounds. Toni released the ball gag.
“Tony, Toni, Tonee?” Homer said.

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Comments

[Jessie]

interesting turn of events;)