Skoolz

Back in high school, before I became Supreme Ruler of Hypnotopia, I was not a popular child. I like to think that it was because others thought I was too cool for them in a James Dean sort of way, or that they were in awe of my massive brain, and the way the green light reflected off of it in my See-thru SkullDome(tm). But looking back, I realize that it probably had something to do with my pulsating death aura, and the effects it had on human skin. I had some friends, of course, like Baron Firebrand, the Insatiable, and Old Tom. As his name suggests, Old Tom wasn't really a student, but more of a hobo who lived down the street and paid me in hard candies to lure my fellow classmates to his "shack of pain," whatever that meant. Still, he was a friend. I also had a zombie friend named David, but he was eaten by a condor when we were still freshmen.

I tried to become more popular, by joining some clubs and extracurricular groups and keeping my grave-robbing on the down low. I joined the baseball team, and even hit an in-the-park home run my first time, mostly by refusing to drop the bat as I circled the bases and wildly swinging at anyone who came within several feet of me. I was disqualified for putting five opponents, two teammates, and one argumentative umpire in the hospital. My coach came to the prison to tell me he was kicking me off the team, so I caved in his sternum with another baseball bat I had sneaked into jail. Where did I hide it? It is a mystery even I cannot answer...

I still wanted to play sports, though, so when I got back to school I joined the basketball team, which for some reason refused to let me use my baseball bat on the court. I wasn't very tall, so I mostly rode the bench and drew pictures of various crimes against nature that I wanted to create, like the "manticorsican" (a beast with the body of a lion and the head of a Corsican sailor). When I did finally once get to play, I knew what I had to do to prove my worth to the team: I placed the ball under my shirt so it looked like I was pregnant, pulled down my pants, and "gave birth" to the basketball. Did I also possibly shit my pants? Yes, but that's my secret. The ref was unamused by my antics, but that might have been because I kicked his five-year-old daughter in the face afterward. I guess I figured at the time "well, I'm probably getting kicked out of this game anyway, so I suppose the least I could do is steal that girl's teeth and make a necklace." So I did that, and then I sold the necklace to Old Tom for sticky handful of Jolly Ranchers. Back at school, people considered me a hero. No wait, not hero, madman--they considered me a madman.

I was also kicked off the rugby team when I mistook the ball for a condor egg and stabbed it with a knife, because of my hatred of all things related to condors (I hope you can read this story in zombie heaven, David).

It was around this time that I realized my place was in the lab, among the formaldehyde, test tubes, and three-legged dog fetuses, where I could do the preliminary studies that would later win me the Nobel Prize for Unicornology. Only one person could actually rival me in the lab: Brainallax. Man, he was smart. No one was as smart as he was, not even Brainallax. We became rivals; if I built a thirty-foot robot, he had to build one thirty-five feet. If that robot had ice breath, mine had to have flamethrower hands. If he then gave his robot a laser katana, I had to kill Brainallax, because nothing tops a laser katana. Afterward I would have to put his body under my shirt so I looked pregnant, and then "give birth" to the corpse (this is called "doing the dingo").

I did have a modicum of luck with the ladies, and many of the more effeminate men. If I couldn't get a particular lass to go out with me, I'd just convince her with my "mind control ray," which is what I called this heavy lead pipe I once found in a ditch. One time a raccoon ate my date's face, but that's a different story altogether. My first real girlfriend was Marilyn Monroe (no relation) who worked with me and King Kong Jr. on the school newspaper. We dated for about six months, and it was so cute: she'd insult me lovingly, and I'd follow her home, pretending to hide in the bushes. Then I'd climb up the ivy trellis on the side of her house and watch her get undressed--often, she'd roleplay with her friend Arthur for my benefit. Sometimes she'd even get her dad involved in our little games; he'd run outside, firing his shotgun into the night and screaming my name, but he knew it was all in fun, and so he'd always shoot to wound and not to kill. One time she got the sheriff to play along, too, although I'm not allowed to talk about that.

These memories are the kinds of things, like our love of hard candy, that never leave us, no matter how old we get or how many people surround our murdercastle with torches and pitchforks. We can try to run from them, or tell the sheriff they didn't happen, but we always get drawn back, looking for our lost youth, like a zombie searching for a kid, only the kid is really the zombie from before he was dead, and also the zombie has astigmatism and needs glasses--but you know what? No one's going to prescribe glasses to a zombie. The point is we're all that zombie. Or possibly the kid, I'm very bad with metaphors.

My Travels (or The Time I Killed a Whole Town)

Like everyone does once they graduate from college or, in my case, prison, I spent a large portion of my first year of freedom traveling this great land we call America. I've been all over the place; I've seen New York, New Jersey, New London, New Mexico, and other places, some of which don't even have the word "new" in their name--though these places were, of course, inferior, and I spit on their memory. I've seen the Grand Canyon, and also the Tiny Canyon. What, you don't know about that one? It's down the street from the Grand Canyon (ask for Perro). It's okay, I guess, but they shut me down when I tried to open a churro store there, so I had to kill the mayor--not the mayor of the Tiny Canyon, the mayor of Boston. Look, it's a long story, that's what I'm trying to say.

I did all this back in the 70's when hitchhiking was still a viable option, mostly because people didn't know yet that we hitchhikers are quick to kill you dead for half an erection.


pictured: me hitchhiking.
Anyway, that trip to the Southwest was pretty great. I had sex with a coyote. My only regret is that he wasn't alive to enjoy it. I went to--and lived in--a human zoo, and made friends with the zombies in the Indian graveyard next door (if Prancing Wolf is reading this, I promise I'll email you those pics when I get a chance, man). I remember how their baleful cries of "Brains! Brains!" used to lull me to sleep--now I can't even doze off without someone in the room moaning and scratching. One time a child got separated from his parents on a visit to the human zoo (or, as we called it, the "anthroparium") and wandered over to the zombies. Boy, I've never seen a group of zombies so happy, or a young child so terrified/devoured. The city council denied our petition to make that day a holiday, but we celebrated anyway, with a child-shaped cake filled with jam and human organs. If the banks didn't close, we'd make them close, at gunpoint if necessary. Anyway, we always made sure to invite that kid's parents to our holiday party, but they never showed up. I guess they were really busy.

After a while, I grew bored in that sleepy little town of Hambone--did I mention it was called Hambone? Stupid name. I hopped a ride in an empty car at the back of an astro-train and traveled through a wormhole that dumped out in the middle of Nebraska. There I did a few odd jobs to get some money, just a little something for food, shelter, and Brazilian fart pornography. Maybe a little farm work over here or a little mayor-killing over there--just the normal stuff us hobos do in the small towns we visit. I was working at a carnival, catching rats to grind up into kosher hot dogs, when I met the love of my life, a leopard lady working in the freak show. I gave her the biggest rat I caught that day, and she bit its head off right there, which in carny-speak means "we're dating, my horse" ("horse" is carny-speak for "lover"). We made love day in and day out. Sometimes we'd just kiss in the bushes as my dwarf friend, David, watched us. Sometimes we'd dry-hump in the portable toilets, in case one of developed an instant case of violent diarrhea (neither one of us ever did, but it was nice to have the option open). I kept detailed photographic records of our sexual exploits (Nala, if you're reading this, I promise I won't send those pics to Prancing Wolf). What can I say? We were two horses in love, and extraordinarily horny and weird.

That all ended one day when I walked into our S&M tent with a new pain-bridle and found her sleeping with Hugo, the resident strongman.


pictured: the strongman.
I was heartbroken. I flew into a rage, and threw open the hatch on my rat vault. The whole carnival was flooded with rats. Only myself and about a dozen others, like the stilt-man, escaped the town with our lives.

I guess I needed to just get out, partly because there was a warrant out for my arrest (crybabies--who doesn't like being covered in meaty rats?!), but more importantly I needed someplace a guy could just get lost. So I packed myself into a cardboard envelope and mailed myself to the Big Apple. Having seen that, I stole a schoolbus and drove to New York City.

Something about New York is different. The first day I got here, I saw the Statue of Liberty give birth to a black baby made out of iron (he later became Mike Tyson, heavyweight champion of the world), and I knew I was home, that this was my city. I guess that's why I had to kill its mayor.