A theatrical puff of smoke appeared with a subtle farting sound and Clifford looked up to see Luci Damian sitting on the bar, legs spread wide, cleaning her nails with a crucifix. "I was never that fat," Clifford stated indignantly as he walked passed her and began wiping down the bar.

Luci raised an eyebrow as he walked by. "That's a cute little booty butt you got there Cliffy."

Clifford blushed piously and feverishly attempted to keep his mind clear of thought so that Luci would not be provided with yet more ammunition with which to taunt him. He achieved this by inwardly incanting that cute little "Plop, plop, fizz, fizz" jingle from the old Alka-Seltzer commercial. It achieved its primary purpose without any mental effort whatsoever and had the added bonus effect of really, truly pissing the bitch off.

At this point, a seedy looking little man slithered into the bar. "You Clifford Godson?" he hissed. "Yes," Clifford answered, knowing that seedy looking, little men hissing at the Messiah could mean no good whatsoever.

"Then this is for you, bud," the seedy looking little man hissed, slapping a subpoena into Clifford's hand. "See you in court."

With that, the seedy looking little man turned and began to slither away until Clifford called after him, "Can I buy you a drink?"

The seedy looking little man turned back. "Are you trying to bribe me, bud?" he hissed.

Clifford shook his head. "I just thought Angela could use a little company."

The seedy looking little man turned his seedy looking little head and his beady pig-eyes stared into Angela's. Angela smiled angelically. Instantly, the man felt an orgasmic rush descend through his spine and ended up a quivering mass of tapioca pudding, percolating on the floor like so much microwaved vomit. Clifford spiked his bar towel to the floor in victory and proceeded to bring a mop and bucket to the front of the bar where the formerly seedy looking little man with the seedy looking little head and the beady pig eyes soon joined ground up peanut shells and stale beer swilling about in the recesses of the garbage disposal. For about ten minutes, Clifford looked appropriately apologetic... on the outside.

"What was that all about?" Angela inquired sweetly.

Clifford frowned and read the subpoena. "It seems that last year I turned some water into an unassuming, but assertive '79 Red Zinfandel with a light bouquet and pleasing aftertaste. Now I'm being slapped with a lawsuit from Ernest and Julio Gallo themselves."

"That's terrible!" Angela replied with genuine concern. "Do you have any defense planned?"

Clifford shrugged. "It's my blood. I'll do what I want with it."

"I wouldn't worry about it, Clifford. We've got more important things going on here. Just leave it to the lawyers."

"Godless Philistines!" he sputtered, slamming his dishrag down. "You'd think I could find one that wasn't Jewish, Atheist or Republican. I don't want to talk about it."

Luci watched this scene with much amusement before being distracted by a tug on the top of her boots. She looked down to see Stymie Tattoo leering at her suggestively. "What's up, handsome?" she asked, with unbelievable pleasantness.

Stymie, having no clue about her identity or her track record, just thought he was doing great with her. "You and me, babe," he chuckled, rocking back and forth up onto his toes. "We could make some sweet sweet music together."

Luci seemed to beam at the complement. "I don't know," she said. "I have certain things I look for in a man."

Stymie, sensing the inevitable rejection, took the offensive. "Hey, if you're a bigot, fine... But don't jerk me around, OK?"

Luci ran her nails along the side of his face. "No. I find you incredibly sexy. But I need a man who could be devoted to me... totally... and forever."

"Not a problem," Stymie stuttered. "Not a problem at all."

"I tell you what," Luci said. "I'm going to kiss you once. If it works, we'll take it from there... Deal?"

Unaware he was making a deal with the devil, Stymie searched his brain for the catch, but his testosterone level made it completely unreasonable for him to formulate any thought other than his overwhelming desire to jump her bones. "Deal," he said.

Luci placed her hands under his arms and lifted him towards her. Stymie was putty in her hands. She then placed her lips on his and French kissed him deep and long. After about five seconds of this, little Stymie came like a geyser. Luci set him down and Stymie announced that he would love Luci forever before falling to the floor, babbling happily, and sucking his thumb as his dear friend Javelin chanted, "The Chicklet shot his wad!" over and over, punctuating each exclamation by shooting a bullseye.

The patrons of the bar soon joined the chant and a good time was had by all until several minutes later when Stymie rose to his feet, oblivious to the jeers of the patrons as well as the embarrassing wet spot on the front of his little elastic-waisted trousers, and staggered around the bar indiscriminately until he bumped into Angela and fell to the floor.

Through a blissful fog Stymie felt her gentle hands lifting him to his feet and heard her enchanting voice saying, "Here, let me help you." Stymie felt an adrenaline surge coursing through his body as Angela touched him.

"I'm sorry," Stymie said with the articulation of a common heroin junkie. "You're way too beautiful to have to pick up scum like me."

Angela laughed. "Stymie, how could you say that?" she asked. "I think you're absolutely wonderful." Then she gave him a hug. Every nerve ending in Stymie's body reached orgasm simultaneously. The room turned into a swirl of vivid colors and the voices that bounced around in his happy head were like notes from a little piccolo. Stymie bowed twice to Angela, muttered something incomprehensible, and floated out of The Dirty Dwarf... literally.

Everything was back to normal. Morton King sat at the bar discussing chess strategies with M. Lawrence Windowpane, who had inadvertently encouraged a fascinating lecture about the viability of using the Sicilian Defense against Pro-Iranian sympathizers by nodding as if Morton had actually existed. Morton had segued into a lengthy parenthetical explanation about Christian vs. Moslem queen aggressiveness and was about to meta-segue into an even more detailed treatise on wind direction and barometric pressure in regards to their effects on knight and bishop movement when Marilyn Janice Snow pried herself from a particularly intriguing hallucination and sat down next to Morton King, who was, as always, at the chess table.

After six Tequila Fanny Slammers, four hits of acid, and an extraordinarily offensive bout with P.M.S., Morton didn't look half bad. In fact, when the light hit him just right he looked like a cross between the dick in fourth grade that ate long, stringy boogers just to gross people out and Jerry the janitor, who lived in a refrigerator box in a railroad yard and often wandered the streets in his underwear, claiming that he was John the Baptist. Which didn't even come close to explaining why, as soon as the light finally did hit him just right, she deliberately and with no subtlety whatsoever, stuck her tongue in his ear.

"Look, hose beast, if you don't mind, I happen to be in the middle of a conversation," he said gruffly.

"I can make you see God," she replied, causing Clifford to look up with interest.

"Maybe later, clamdip. This is important," Morton said, doing his best to ignore the fact that Marilyn was still acting as a human Q-tip. Undaunted, Marilyn happily caught the eye of a naked, frolicking, extra-terrestrial who was sensuously melting by the bar. It beckoned to her and, as quickly as she had come, she left and returned to her own private paranoia. M. Lawrence Windowpane, realizing that some moments are best left without commentary, ordered another drink.

M. Lawrence Windowpane was an accountant, but an accountant with an unusual distinction: He bore the inauspicious cross of being the first Woodstock Baby. Had not his normally prudish mother been so stoned that night, or had not his normally timid father been so persistent, casing her to cast aside both her inhibitions and her psychedelic jumpsuit, thus losing her virginity in the back of a dilapidated Volkswagen bus, his life might not have been the eternal Hell it had become seven and one-half months later. Had it not been for that demonic twist of fate that cause him to be born six weeks prematurely, his historical significance to the Woodstock generation would never have been. But, fate being the bitch that it was, he was cursed with the name Moonvibes Lawrence Windowpane--God to a counterculture he detested.

He hated 60's music. He hated peace signs. And the very thought of bell-bottom jeans gave him the dry heaves. He rebelled against his parent's plans for him to become an Environmental Activist dedicated to the preservation of the breeding grounds of the Mayfly, cast aside his love beads and tie-dyed underwear, and enrolled in Harvard Business School.

Moonvibes was politely asked to leave Harvard after his first semester when the school had become a Mecca for 60's loyalists who held candlelight vigils outside his dorm, singing Bob Dylan songs and banging incessantly on bongo drums just to catch a glimpse of him flipping them off. For them, every curse was a blessing, every obscene gesture a peace sign. He transferred to Berkeley, which gave him a full scholarship just to use his picture in their recruiting brochures, but left after five days when he found that his existence was taught in a required course titled "Moonvibes the Icon--His Life is Our Hope". Eventually he graduated as the only white student from the previously all Black Bethune-Cookman College where he found solace in the student body's zealous rejection of Caucasian music of any decade and his would-be groupies reluctance to drive into that neighborhood.

These thoughts were interrupted when Morton King finished a technical analysis replete with parenthetical footnotes discussing the advanced castling techniques of various unpronounceable lesser-developed countries and slapped him on the shoulder. "Are you following any of this?" Morton asked suspiciously. Fortunately, Moovibes didn't have to answer. Luci, still seething by the fact that she was upstaged by a hug to an ankle biter, chose this moment to hop up onto the stage, make sure her G-string was slightly sharp, and scream into the microphones, "Only when man can piss into the abyss will he find the true color of his soul! This one's for all the prophets, freaks, and lardass fat people. It's called Wingding with the King!"

Elvis had a stinky butt
A big, fat hunk of burning love
His hound dog liked to hump his leg
And piss on his blue suede shoes

Wingding with The King
Wingding with The King
Wingding with The King
Fuck you!

He's banging a teen queen in the Heartbreak Hotel
Slapping her tits with a teddy bear Loving her tender,
Loving her true Like only a man with a stinky butt can.

Wingding with The King
Wingding with The King
Wingding with The King Fuck you!

Luci repeated the chorus until she collapsed to the antiquated applause of Professors Klaus and Jerund, who, in their senility, had randomly mistaken Luci for a performance artist. It was at this point that Buffy Nobel strode into The Dirty Dwarf assertively.

Clifford, feeling the need to act extraordinarily professional, asked, "What can I get you?"

"Double Scotch. Straight up." Buffy said confidently. Clifford sighed righteously and poured the drink, then watched as she drained it in one powerful motion. "Hit me again," she said without a waver in her voice. Clifford gave her the drink which she again downed in one powerful motion. "Is there anyone in this dive who can play a decent game of chess?" she asked incredulously.

Morton's entire being perked up. He bolted from his chair, sucked in his stomach, puffed out his chest, stuffed a few napkins down his pants and screeched in his manliest of manly voices, "I've been known to partake in a skirmish or two, sweet tits."

"You're not fooling anyone with those napkins. You should wad them up instead of folding them," Buffy said with not a little disdain.

Morton masked his embarrassment by guffawing like a dweeb. "O.K., Mensa-bitch, we gonna play or what?"

"Quit acting like a dink and set 'em up," Buffy growled through gritted teeth. As the alleged music from some redneck, trailer-dwelling, three-toothed, cousin-marrying, shit-kicking, sheep-humping, tobacco-spitting, butt-scooting boogie of some generic country music artist unworthy of public identification yeehawed off the walls and ceiling, Morton found himself in a chess battle of epic proportions. He was fighting for his unblemished chess record, his life, and his rather delicate male ego.

"You're not bad for a bimbo, wench. What's your name?" he asked, hoping to distract her.

Buffy glared, dying to tell him that she was a world-renowned physicist, ten time runner-up for The Golden Fleece Award, and possessed the only government grant issued to forward the cloning of inanimate objects. Her most successful, and by far most controversial project to date was the well-heralded cloning of a sandstone boulder, creating perfect pebbles possessing the precise chemical composition of the source rock. Unfortunately, researchers from Utah State University--eager to restore their reputation after their cold-fusion fiasco--denounced the entire experiment by claiming they had replicated her results using the pointy end of a common geologist's hammer. Undaunted, Buffy forged ahead with her research, determined to prove the scoffing male masses wrong and rub their collective noses in her glory.

"They call me Buffy," she said with fire in her eyes.

Morton looked at her for a long moment, instantly sporting a woody. "Cool," he said.

"Checkmate," she replied.

Morton went limp.

Elsewhere in the bar, Jerome-just-Jerome tapped his foot to what he thought was a really neato song, but was in actuality Morton King banging his head against the wall and emitting ear-splitting screams which, when measured in decibels, broke the previous volume record held by Quincy Van Dyke, set when he had rectally impaled himself on an unpropitiously placed conch shell as he stumbled down the stairs of his Great Aunt Xenobia's house during a meeting of her Literary Mah Jong Club on Ernest Hemingway Day.

Jerome-just-Jerome looked like a five-foot cross between Pee Wee Herman and a rabies-ridden Benji. He had long, stringy hair that reeked of nasty things. He wore a leather vest with no shirt on his hairless body. He wore taupe bell-bottom Hash corduroys complete with the gaudy star on the butt. Around his scrawny wrists were big, thick, black leather wrist bands with metal studs.

He bopped up to the bar and ordered a shot of Jack Daniels with a twist of parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. Clifford suppressed a smile and poured the drink. Jerome-just-Jerome looked around the bar mysteriously and motioned to Clifford. "Psssst... Hey... Dude... Where can a guy get some tickets to the Groovy Nasturtiums show in Miami?"

"That concert was last week... dude," Clifford said, inwardly chastising himself for the un-Christlike ridicule he felt for this slovenly creature. Clifford had to laugh at the clandestine way in which such an unbelievably stupid question was presented.

Jerome-just-Jerome slapped himself on the forehead. "Every goddamn time!" he said, and went to a dark corner of the bar and sulked next to George Phoenix, who was still naked and patiently waiting for his prophecy to be fulfilled. Jerome-just-Jerome had been unsuccessfully following the Groovy Nasturtiums around the world for the last 15 years. Through innumerable strange and inexplicable cosmic quirks, Jerome-just-Jerome either: 1) showed up in the wrong town and began advertising tie-dyed concert shirts, burritos, and sheets of acid for what people presumed was no apparent reason; or 2) showed up after the concert was long over and had to be content with staring forlornly at the psychedelic rubbish left behind, or 3) he showed up in the right town at the right time but was unable to attend for a plethora of pathetic reasons. Like the time in Topeka, Kansas, when, trying to find his way to the concert, he wandered in front of the national headquarters of Payless Shoes during a corporate photo session and was blinded by the flash reflecting of 500 pairs of horn-rimmed glasses, causing him to stumble through the safety barrier around an open manhole cover into the main line of the city sewer system where the understandably disoriented Jerome-just-Jerome spent three days sloshing through the bowels of Topeka.

Or the time in Jaspar, British Columbia, when he was mugged by a renegade band of overzealous, fanatically Christian Brownies from Mrs. Renoray's 3rd Grade class who had mistaken him for Charles Manson and pummeled him into unconsciousness with soft bound copies of The Brownie Code of Conduct . Convinced that they had earned their Public Service Merit Badges, they left him for dead in a dumpster behind the local Green Peace office. Jerome-just-Jerome spent the next three days trying to extricate himself from the Jaspar Public Landfill, surviving only by drinking the glacial run-off captured in a rusty Copenhagen container.

But the creme-de-la-creme occurred in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1983, when he showed up five weeks early to secure a front row seat. When he actually made it into the stadium without incident he was so unable to contain his excitement that local police, fearing that he had gone into drug-induced convulsions, promptly shoved a tongue depressor into his mouth and took him to the local jail for observation. Unable to understand English, they mistook his cries of, "I'll sue your frozen asses!" for the pidgeon-Icelandic pronunciation of "fart frogs thusly, yay!" and accidentally lost his paperwork so the graveyard shift could have some laughs.

Meanwhile, back at the bar, and not realizing any of this, George Phoenix cleared his throat indignantly and asked Jerome-just-Jerome to please vacate the booth before he called the authorities.

Jerome-just-Jerome merely sighed. Bobby Fern and The Groovy Nasturtiums had been his idols since the early sixties when he had been part of a counter-counter-culture movement whose roots dug into the San Diego groove scene. Of course, Bobby Fern was the only remaining member of the original Groovy Nasturtiums that still performed with the group. Bobby's dubious pitch, marginally lyrical lyrics and violently spontaneous tamborine/kazoo solos gave The Groovy Nasturtiums a distinctive sound that spawned several copycat groups and more than a dozen bomb threats. The group did pick up several followers, who called themselves, appropriately enough, "The Nasties."

The Nasties had been a devoted and zealous lot, spending hours and hours camping for a glut of Nasturtium tickets for concerts that rarely sold out in the United States. In fact, outside of some venues in the Lesser Antilles and one little bar in Nova Scotia, The Groovy Nasturtiums had never sold out a show. But when Jerome-just-Jerome heard his first Groovy Nasturtiums' album, "Chewing the Cud of Cool" he was a chosen man. And though he had never actually been to a Groovy Nasturtiums concert as of yet, since 1972, he had been trying really really hard. Of course, there had been the Controversy of 1978, when Sven Hasenpfeffer, the lead guitarist and tap-dancing phenom quit the group and sued for the right to use the name The Groovy Nasturtiums. This caused a violent split among the Nasties, as the Fern and Hasenpfeffer factions geared up for a Holy War that made the towel rush at the local Motel 6 look significant by comparison.

In the end, however, Bobby Fern prevailed, and Sven was relegated to touring under the name "The Righteous Chrysanthemums." Thus, the newly-converted Nasties became "Mummies", and whenever the paths of the two crossed, unbridled thumb wars would inevitably break out. And although Bobby Fern and Sven Hasenpfeffer were a frequent focus of the "Are Those Assholes Still Alive?" spot of the music channels, their followers were a motley, yet obdurate crew, and served as a hopeful reminder of just how much trivial information can pass through the mind of a misguided loser kicked out of a bar booth and in search of sanctuary.

Luci, for her part, could have given a gnat's shit or less about Jerome-just-Jerome at that particular moment. She noticed that Clifford was distracted and presumptively off-guard, so naturally chose this moment to confront him just to piss him off. "I heard you talking to Angela earlier, Cliffy," Luci said. "Where the fuck do you get off giving her pointers?"

Clifford, who was in fact caught off guard, but nonetheless prepared for an altercation such as this, simply said, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Bullshit."

As Clifford realized that the typical male ignorance ploy was getting him nowhere, and that Luci's responses were attracting unwelcome attention, opted for flattery instead. "I just told her that you had a really good chance this time," he said.

"Bullshit."

"What do you want me to say, Luci?" Clifford said, keeping remarkable composure in light of the fact that the Devil herself was intensely pissed off at him.

"I'm going to win this time, Cliffy," Luci snarled. "And I don't want you and that bitch ganging up against me. Are you going to be objective or not?"

Clifford rolled his eyes. "Luci, we've been doing this for nearly two-thousand years. Haven't I been fair and just in every way?"

"Yes. But this is now."

"Haven't I always wanted Angela to win? In fact, would I be who I am if I didn't want Angela to win?"

"No, but..."

"Then get away from me... Now... I have paying customers to attend to." Clifford faked a huff and walked away, inwardly glad that there were lots and lots of customers to keep Luci's temper in check. By definition, she could be the biggest bitch in the universe and he felt like he was coming down with a cold and didn't need the stress.

By this time, Jerome-just-Jerome had finally found a seat he was allowed to stay in next to Marilyn who was conversing with either a bottle of tobasco sauce or something not readily visible to the naked eye. "What's your sign?" asked Jerome-just-Jerome, drawing on his archetypal memory.

"Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick," Marilyn answered, spinning around on her stool and staring across the bar.

Confused, but somehow encouraged, Jerome-just-Jerome pressed bravely on and queried, "What are you staring at?"

"A God among men," she answered breathlessly.

"Huh?"

Marilyn pointed at M. Lawrence Windowpane.

"So?"

"Don't you recognize him?"

"Who? That yuppie fuck?"

"Moonvibes Lawrence Windowpane himself," she said reverently.

"Moonvibes? No shit?" asked Jerome-just-Jerome. He peered at Moonvibes intently and was struck with the sudden realization that it was his destiny to serve this man. He bounced in a Tigger-esque fashion to, around, and eventually on the table where M. Lawrence Windowpane was trying to sip a Whoremonger beer in relative obscurity. "Tell me thy bidding, Oh Exalted One," Jerome-just-Jerome said, falling prostate on the floor and licking Moovibe's shoes with ritualistic circular tongue swipes.

"That's totally rude and disgusting," said Moonvibes.

"I live only to serve you," Jerome-just-Jerome said between mouthfuls of alley grit.

"Leave me alone!" screamed Moonvibes, twisting his left foot on Jerome-just-Jerome's face as if he was extinguishing a cigarette butt.

"Truly, you are the Messiah," said Jerome-just-Jerome through contorted lips.

"No, he's not," said Clifford, walking by and picking up the empty glasses.

"I shall follow and serve you until the day I die," intoned Jerome-just-Jerome faithfully.

"Have it your way, asshole!" cried Moonvibes, smashing a chair over Jerome-just-Jerome's head and storming out of the bar.

Clifford interrupted Marilyn's conversation by asking her if she wanted another drink. "Are you a figment?" she asked.

"I'm the Messiah."

"Then go away. I'm not in the mood to talk to figments right now," she said, returning to her conversation with the bottle of tobasco sauce.

Clifford sighed, rolled his eyes, and rang the shiny brass bell. "Last call, everyone," he said loudly.

At the sound of the bell, Marilyn caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye. Investigating, she noticed that the collective hosts of the E! channel were prancing in a clockwise circle around the rim of her glass singing the theme from "Mr. Ed" at the top of their lungs while a spike-haired and still teen-aged Dick Clark, wearing scuffed combat boots and an "Anarchy for Spiritual Enlightenment" T-shirt, stomped defiantly in the opposite direction, shoving the insipid little cable hosts into the drink, laughing heinously as they futilely flailed and, just as the Time Square ball hit midnight on yet another New Year's Rockin' Eve, drowned.

And she ran screaming from the bar.