Last week I was in a local Starbuck’s, waiting in line for a ridiculously overpriced coffee. I really hate Starbuck’s, partially because their coffee tastes like three hundred year-old skunk taint, partially because they charge you an arm and a leg for their shitty coffee, and partially because pretentious Bohemian fucks like to sit in there all day drinking said coffee while reading Nietszche, chatting on their cell phones and writing plays that will never get produced. Plus, they all stare at me in my kilt.
Anyway, I was standing in line, admiring the badonkadonk ass of the size 18 “Vampira” goth chick in front of me, when all of a sudden, I heard a voice from beyond the grave:
“How difficult is it to get a godforsaken cup of coffee the way I ordered it, you ignorant cow?!! I said two—TWO—sugars. That means two teaspoons of sugar, not
two bags of sugar. Do it again!” There followed the unmistakable sound of a cup of coffee being violently hurled, followed by a shriek from the counter girl.
I craned my neck around the woman in front of me, straining to see who could be the source of such a venomous diatribe. A man stood at the counter, all but hidden behind the several other patrons of the coffee shop that had arrived before me. I could only see the back of his head, but upon that head sat a very familiar bowler hat.
Surely, it couldn’t be!
I watched him for several minutes, watched as the hapless Starbuck’s counter girl was forced to make and re-make his coffee while enduring insults to her intelligence, body type, gender and breeding, until she could take it no longer. She fled, crying, with discarded coffee flowing from her apron and hair like rain. A new member of the counter staff fearfully made the customer a new cup to his specifications. At long last the customer took a sip of his coffee and did not return it as a projectile.
“Better,” he said. Then he turned around, and our eyes met.
“Ah, Piper,” said Dr. Murk, for it was unmistakably he, “How’s it hangin’, brother?”
“Murk!” I exclaimed.
“Keep it down, you insufferable poltroon. Can’t you see I’m trying to maintain a low profile?”
Murk wore a white T-shirt with the words “HERE'S THE BEEF” printed upon it in block letters. A large arrow pointed downward, indicating “The Beef” was located in his shorts, which were festooned with a garish Hawaiian print. A pair of orange crocs and argyle knee socks completed his outfit.
“But…you’re dead!” I said.
Murk didn’t bother to dignify my statement with a response. He brought his coffee cup to his nose and inhaled deeply. “Fresh-brewed java. It arouses me like nothing else, save the jasmine scent of my wife’s hair.”
“Is she here?” I looked around fearfully.
“Thankfully, no," Murk replied. "Christ, but that bitch gets on my nerves sometimes. Now, come, let’s sit down before you embarrass yourself further. Over here should suffice.”
We moved go to a nearby high table, where moments before a skinny, bespectacled über-geek sat typing on a small laptop. The laptop was still there, but its owner had stepped outside, where he was loudly chatting on a cell phone, hoping others would notice how important he was. Murk reached out and gave the laptop a shove. It shattered on the floor with a resounding crash. He sat down and watched me awkwardly mount the tall chair in my kilt, an expression of wry amusement on his face.
“You have to tell me what happened,” I whispered harshly. “Everyone thinks you’re dead!”
“Stop whispering harshly,” said Murk. “We’re in a Starbuck’s. Everyone in here is busy trying desperately to be more tragically hip than everyone else. There’s enough Emo angst floating around in this pathetic commercial shitpile to cover whatever we say, even if our conversation were audible above this horrendous Norah Jones CD.”
“Fine. What happened?”
Dr. Murk tore open a packet of “Sugar in the Raw” and poured it into his mouth. He sucked the sugar for several seconds before answering me.
“All right, Piper, it was like this: after the ambush at the WoW, I realized the bullet that was meant for me hit Cyrus instead. When he went down, I knew I was going to be blamed for it, so I fled and went underground. I knew I would be safe if I could just make it back to Coney.”
My eyes narrowed. Murk continued: “It was rough going for a while, even with Swan as War Chief after Cleon got aced; first Ajax got pinched, then The Lizzies almost took my nuts off, then I had to hide from the Turnbull ACs—and all the while, the lights of the Wonder Wheel at Coney Island were like a beacon promising salvation, if only I could get there—“
“For fuck’s sake!” I blurted. “That’s
The Warriors, Murk!”
“The what, now?”
“
The Warriors. You know, ‘Warriors, come out to playeee’.
The fucking
Warriors, Murk— a classic gang film from 1979!”
“Never heard of it. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. All you need to know is that I decided to lay low for a while. Closed up the palatial estate, signed the
S. S. Murk-errific over to that costumed fool the Angry Veteran, dismissed the Barrys; gave up all the trappings of wealth.”
“What about Mrs. Dr. Murk?” I asked.“You mean you abandoned her, too?
“Hell, no. Her I kept. I mean, the things she does to me in bed are absolutely incredible.”
“That’s great, Murk,” I said, hoping not to hear more.
“Her carnal skills and sexual appetites are legendary.”
“Swell,” I said.
“She does this thing with some rubber tubing and a yak pelt that’s just—“
“Yeah, ok. I get it.”
“And when she puts on the SCUBA gear—“
“Christ, Murk! I said I get it! Spare me the sordid tales of your sexcapades!”
Murk poured more sugar into his mouth, sucking noisily. He stared at me in silence.
“My dick is bigger than yours, you know,” he said at last.
I sighed. “So, how long is this “laying low” bullshit going to go on?”
“Until I’m ready to return. Speaking of which, here comes our table’s previous occupant.”
Our ponytailed predecessor came over to the table, took one look at his destroyed computer and screamed. “My laptop!” he wailed. “What the hell did you do to it?”
“It fell,” replied Murk. “Sorry about that.”
“You assholes! All my work is ruined! My novel is destroyed!”
“Let me guess,” said Murk, “you come here to this public venue to toil away on your “novel”, because there are too many distractions in your parents’ basement, where you live.”
“How did you—“
“It’s a work-in-progress of “erotic horror”, in which vampire women, bondage and nuns feature prominently; no doubt the same puerile fantasies that fuel the frantic masturbatory urgings of your flaccid member while you sit upon your toilet, dreading the inevitable jiggle of the doorknob that heralds your mother’s untimely entrance into the bathroom.”
“You can’t know—“
“Oh, please,” Murk continued. “I can see your pathetic life laid out like a road map. You’ve seen
Star Wars more than thirty times. Your favorite “author” is Anne Rice. You bought prosthetic fangs, but stopped wearing them because you once bit through your lip by accident. You own at least one replica sword and at least one pair of leather pants. And I would say it’s been no more than six hours since your last foray into the
World of Warcraft, where your online girlfriend (at least you hope it’s a girl) meets you every night for awkward and frequently-misspelled cybersex.”
The man’s lip quivered. He burst into loud, wracking sobs and ran out of the store, leaving the remnants of his laptop behind.
Murk smiled. “Looks like it’s turning out to be a good day after all. As for me, don’t worry, Piper. I’ll be around. I am forever the gadfly, the mosquito in your tent that you just can’t kill. I am Prometheus; I brought fire to the losers over at the WoW, and now my liver is torn out daily by vultures, only to regenerate before the next dawn.”
“I don’t think that last analogy really works well," I said.
“Silence!” said Murk. “Where would the WoW be without
me? I provoke responses; I urge people to action. Like so.”
Murk reached over the table and emptied his still-very-hot coffee into my lap. I screamed in pain and leapt up from the table. “What the fuck?!!”
“See? I wanted you gone, and now you have vacated your chair.”
“Jesus, this hurts!”
“Yes, I imagine so. Well, I must be running along. Don’t tell anyone I’m alive, now. It’d ruin the surprise.”
I told him I wouldn’t.
Labels: Angry Piper, Conspiracies, Dr. Murk, Tales of WoW
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