Hearing no discernible response, he took another large muscular mug of Goliath Ale over to Javelin MacLain, who was forgoing his usual round of darts with the hapless Stymie Tattoo so that the two of them could nurse the incredible hangovers they had acquired the night before.

"Sorry," Javelin hacked. "I'm going to have to pass. Give me seventeen minutes. I'm a little slow getting started tonight."

"Should have been here last night then," Clifford responded, downing the brewski himself.

"That's the story of my life," Stymie pipped mournfully.

Actually, on the preceding night in question, while chaos reigned triumphant at the Dirty Dwarf. Javelin was spending an all-too-sober evening on a blind date with Allison Spam--a lingerie model for boutiques specializing in clothes for the obesely full-figured (a qualifier his friend hadn't warned him about when he said he was setting him up with a lingerie model with a nice personality). He spend the evening searching for a beer as Allison stormed the Karaoke machine, doing inadvertently obscene parodies of Broadway Showtunes. The evening ended when the crowd joined hands and began singing the classic "You can have her, I don't want her, she's too fat for me..." as Allison defiantly ignored them. All the clichés about the fat lady singing became a total farce as the evening wasn't over until Javelin took it upon himself to phone a bomb threat into the establishment from a nearby pay phone. Leaving to the relatively pleasant sound of sirens, Javelin dropped off his date, turned down offers of sex as politely as possible without puking, left, and drove his truck through the living room of his former best friend, leaving only after he had beat the crap out of him and they sang a few old biker songs over a keg of beer.

Stymie had a little adventure all his own that night. While Javelin was monster-trucking his friend's house, Stymie had participated in an All-Male Review at a bachlorette party for a homely creature named Thelma-Bunny Headcheese, who was a sister/niece of Allison Spam through an incestuous marriage. As he gyrated his Lilliputian pelvis in a bikini brief that was constructed from a child's underoos, he discovered that he was having a noticeable effect on one of the bridesmaids named Talulah. After his dance numbers were over and he had carefully counted the pennies deposited in his bikini by the callused claws of Thelma-Bunny and the Headcheese clan and kin, he noticed Talulah staring at him and licking her lips like a poodle with peanut-butter stuck to the roof of its mouth. He casually bent over to retrieve a fallen penny, making certain to flash her a bit of leptonic butt-crack, and waited for the inevitable move. The move came moments later, when Talulah swept him off his feet and carried him out into the back of a rusty old pickup truck with a mildewed mattress in the back which was covered with stains of dubious origin. They were making out with a passion that would have made the Pope pound pud, until Stymie noticed that Talulah was sporting an enviable erection underneath her frilly little understuff. Realizing he was being used merely as a substitute for homosexual pedophilia, though still a little swoony from his/her wonderful perfume, Stymie extricated himself by screaming "Stranger! Danger!" at the top of his lungs. The maternal herd that stormed out of the club in response to this cry would have made any mother's heart proud, and Talulah pulled the old, "I think I heard it that way," ploy to get out of trouble while Stymie sprinted away to take an eight-hour shower.

The gentle scent of lavender permeated the bar like a whisper as Angela floated in ever so delicately and ordered her usual Holy Water with a rose petal. Clifford handed Angela her drink as the patrons all turned, narrowly avoiding eye contact and the obligatory tapioca experience.

"I hear through the grapevine that we're about to get some fresh meat at The Dirty Dwarf," Luci said, beginning another session of soul-sacrificing small talk.

"Really, now?" Angela said. "Why would you mention that to me?"

"No reason," Luci Damian snickered from her place against the wall as she slowly pulled an incredibly long string of rosary beads from her anatomically impossibly tight jeans. Angela smiled and Luci realized that it was pointless to continue taunting her and faked an orgasm instead.

"She can only do that during happy hour," Clifford mentioned offhandedly.

"I don't know. I'm just in a pissy mood today, I guess," Luci said, stretching and making sure that she knocked over a killing jar which fell off the bar counter and rolled over towards Angela so she could see inside the lifeless body of her favorite butterfly.

Angela knelt down and slowly unscrewed the lid of the jar. A single tear slowly began to roll down her cheek while the patrons of The Dirty Dwarf sobbed as if Bambi's Mother herself were stuffed inside that jar. Thunder was heard cracking outside. The tear dangled like a jewel from her cheek for a moment before majestically diving downward, landing on the lifeless body of the beautiful butterfly. Clifford himself was beginning to get a little choked up at the sight even though he hadn't shed a tear at his own crucifixion. But then the butterfly's body twitched once... twice... three times for the lady and flew out of the jar, flitting happily about the room as Angela burst into a smile and the entire bar was filled with sunshine and laughter from the standing ovation the butterfly received.

Luci sneezed for some reason and a mysterious draft caught the butterfly and pushed it back towards a ventilation fan that was whirring away, doing that which ventilation fans do and unaware that it was a bad thing to suck a helpless butterfly through its sharp metal blades, dicing it into a thousand beautiful little pieces. The crowd stood frozen, shocked, and stunned. Clifford burst into tears.

Two more tears slowly rolled down from Angela's cheeks, one from each eye. Outside the rain poured down. The people in The Dirty Dwarf began to wail like a Black Baptist family at the funeral of a friend. People who didn't even know the butterfly offered their condolences and a memorial fund was immediately set up at a local bank to fund greater insect awareness among the citizens of Orlando.

Luci, in typical Satanic fashion, kicked up her heels with glee, revealing that her anatomically impossibly tight jeans were also crotchless and unencumbered by undergarments of any kind. At which point, starting with the pouty little Stymie, Luci turned into a human milking machine, mounting each and every willing male or female and causing an epidemic of premature ejaculations and other eruptions of bodily fluids as she boinked like a whirling dervish around the bar. People soon forgot all about the butterfly and there was a tremendous run on cigarettes as The Dirty Dwarf quickly turned into a smoking lounge for post-coital bliss.

Luci turned, pushed an out-of-place hair spike back in order and bowed. "I rest my case," she said to Clifford and Angela. "Sex is truly the only effective religious tool of the '90's."

Angela just sniffed daintily and stood up. "The illustration was unnecessary, Luci," she remarked.

"Which is precisely why it had to be done with excess," Luci replied.

Clifford reached for a muscular mug and poured as he looked at Luci. "You were banished once. It can happen again."

"Where are you going to send me this time, Pittsburgh?"

"No. Alaska," said Clifford over his shoulder as he took the beer over to Javelin.

Luci mumbled something profane and reinserted the rosary. She looked at Clifford and imagined what he'd be like strapped to the garage door, grass clippings covering his sweaty body while she bounded up and down in the nude on a pogo stick, wielding a weed-eater with a mink whip attachment. Then she started giggling uncontrollably and had to go to the bathroom.

Moonvibes Lawrence Windowpane watched Luci run by as he peeked into the bar, paying particular attention to the rafters and under the tables, to see if the coast was clear. Jerome-just-Jerome anticipated this contingency and had cleverly concealed himself in the trash can behind the bar that received the empty beer bottles. He emerged with a shout, still punchy from repeated blows by the empties.

"I wondered why they didn't clink," Clifford commented.

Jerome-just-Jerome clung to Windowpane, getting beer and backwash on Windowpane's previously pristine double breasted suit. "I live to do thy bidding, O Exalted One. What can I do to please you, O Divine Gardener of the Flower Children?"

"I thought that sort of talk went out in the 1600's," said Clifford.

A sinister smile appeared on Moonvibes' face. "Get me the underwear from a 300 pound biker at a leather bar, a nose ring from the mosh pit at The Reeking Navel, and a date with the prom queen from Winter Park High School... by midnight. And if you fail, you will have to become a roadie for the Abba revival tour in Japan. Understood?"

Jerome-just-Jerome looked at his watch. There wasn't much time. He quickly licked Moonvibe's shoes and bolted out the door.

Butch Stilletto first encountered reeking navels in the 'Nam immediately after the great rice patty fiasco in '69, when Butch lay underwater for days with nothing but snorkel equipment and C-rations, assigned to look for a variation on the Trojan Horse ploy involving water buffalo. It was a fruitless mission.

Suddenly the newlywed Daphne Bloodwash-Stilletto marched into the bar, denouncing Butch's evil ways and stood before him, achieving the classic martyred-wife stance.

Butch belched sheepishly and tried to explain that he had experienced a 'Nam flashback within a 'Nam flashback that reminded him of his Aunt Tilly. And, thus, it was obvious why he was there drinking.

"Sweet Jesus, what am I going to do with you?" Daphne cried.

"Leave me out of this," Clifford said from across the room.

Butch struggled for a reply.

Daphne struggled for an appropriate bible verse.

It was a classic Dravidian standoff, where members of mixed races of non-Indo-European languages would stare at each other, often for days, until one of them had to go to the bathroom. Phlegm Smear broke the tie by urinating on Daphne's faux-patent leather shoes with the sensible heels and non-reflective polish.

"That's my wife you're pissing on," Butch observed with envy.

"What are you gonna do about it, fag?" Phlegm snorted. It was more the tone of the language than the articulation that led Butch to believe that he had been insulted. With simultaneous, albeit cacophonous primal roars, Butch and Phlegm leapt at each other. In the ensuing scuffle, Phlegm's nipple ring mysteriously transferred itself to Butch's scrotum, but not before Butch had managed to sever his own jugular vein with his survival knife.

By the time Clifford had bandaged Butch and mopped up the blood, the bar was quite crowded. Buffy/Jacqueline in her Buffy mode and a beat-up-looking Morton King were locked in yet another brutal chess match. Marilyin Janice Snow was having a fervent conversation in Ugric with a Hungarian figment. And George Phoenix sat unblinkingly in the darkest corner of the bar, patiently waiting for his prophecy to be fulfilled.

Angela and Clifford were discussing ways to get those nasty stains out of the Shroud of Turin when in from the dark when in from the dark strode P. Charles Charming, graciously hoping to ask for directions. Spying Clifford as the authority figure in the bar, Charles politely inquired as to the whereabouts of the local orphanage. Clifford began to answer but stopped in mid-sentence when he noticed Charles had made eye contact with Angela and remained standing.

If ever in the history of time there was love a first sight, it was at this moment. A heavenly shaft of light burst through the plate glass window, banked off Luci Damian's earrings, and shone on Angela and Charles. An unseen orchestra of 101 strings began playing "Unchained Melody." Little cartoon hearts exploded above their heads. And then there were those birds that do that heart-shaped thing with the ribbons...

P. Charles Charming and Angela floated over to a vacant booth, allowing everyone to get back to their drinks. "Farkleberry Champagne for everyone!" announced Clifford happily. He was ignored. Charles and and Angela spoke of raindrops on roses, visions of sugar plums, tangerine dreams and marmalade skies, and frolicking through Autumn mists in a land called Honnelee. They spoke of chestnuts roasting on an open fire, someone leaving cake out in the rain, their own private Idaho's, and dootin-doo-doo... feelin' groovy. They prattled on about how they decided long ago not to walk in anyone's shadow, liking Pina Coladas and getting caught in the rain, of what it sounds like when doves cry, and they wondered... wondered who (ba doo-oo who) who wrote the Book of Love?

Luci Damian stomped up on stage, made sure her G-string was slightly sharp and screamed into the microphone, "You are what you eat! This one's for all those asshole fucking vegetarians! It's called 'Fight for Toast!'"

Toast is bread from Hell
Wheat bran makes my bowels squeaky clean
Throw some at your neighbors
Then run and kick their dog

Fight for Toast
Fight for Toast
Fight for Toast
Fuck you!

Toast is violence on rye
Mail some to your Congressman
Take a stand for burning bread
Grab some buns in the name of toast

Fight for Toast
Fight for Toast
Fight for Toast
Fuck you!

(bridge) Toast is fun
Toast is life
Life is shit
Toast and die!

As the last note plopped gently on the floor, Luci noticed that Clifford was momentarily predisposed, putting away the unused Farkleberry champagne and glasses. She gave a knowing look to Phlegm Smear who promptly took off his clothes and announced that the orgy had begun. Luci's clothes exploded in flames and, when the smoked cleared, she and Phlegm were nibbling each other's naughty bits as they rolled across the barroom floor.

Marilyn Janice Snow jumped on George Phoenix thrusting her tongue far down his throat, urging the Hungarian figment to join in. Jacqueline Nobel, dominated by Buffy's sensibilities too oft, chose this moment to leap up on the table, tear off her blouse, and dance the flamenco while Morton claimed victory by forfeit when her king fell over. And Professors Klaus and Jerend began chanting, "Bark, Bitch, Bark!"

Butch Stilletto made sure that Daphne had truly fainted at the sight of all this undulating flesh by prodding her cheek with a bar stool. Thus assured, he wasted no time in pulling out his combat knife and began masturbating.

Even the usually focused Javelin MacLain knew a good time when he saw one and did not resist when the Devil pulled him and his pants down to the floor as P. Charles Charming gallantly escorted Angela from the bar.

Adding to the confusion was Jerome-just-Jerome who ran into the bar proudly proclaiming that he had completed his quest. To verify this, a bruised and bleeding Jerome-just-Jerome held the nosering, the underwear, and the struggling Winter Park High School Prom Queen aloft. Moonvibes responded by guzzling a fifth of tequila and dubbing Jerome-just-Jerome a knight errant by smashing him on the head with the empty bottle. Jerome-just-Jerome dropped to the floor unconscious only moments before Moonvibes passed out from the sudden influx of alcohol into his system. The Prom Queen, having no one to talk to and feeling the incredible peer pressure all teens experience, succumbed to the need to conform and shed her taffeta dress to join in the orgy.

By the time Clifford re-entered the bar, his once dignified establishment had turned into a writhing daisy-chain of steaming pulchritude. With the utmost of reluctance, but fearing for his liquor license, Clifford held a lighter to the sprinkler system sensor. The resulting downpour caused the libidinous mass to break up and seek higher ground. But, having worked with the Devil before, Clifford completely quenched the mood by turning on the air conditioner to its coldest setting and let nature take its course. Soon, order was restored to The Dirty Dwarf.

Marilyn Janice Snow, like the other patrons, was drinking her complimentary hot-spiced cider. Unlike the other patrons, when Marilyn looked into her drink she saw a noble German Shepherd desperately paddling towards the cinnamon stick, clutching a copy of the Sunday New York Times, as an environmental terrorist from Greenpeace was bearing down on the dog in a politically correct speedboat, screaming about the plight of the sea urchin before slicing the German Shepherd to ribbons in the boat's propellers. The New York Times headline read, "Daed si Dog."

And she ran screaming from the bar...