PART 1
Hugo Long was coiled up in the back seat around his favorite log. The Autumn sun flickered over the prize winning boa constrictor as the car swerved over the river and through the woods. The librarian suggested, but did not insist, that he take the unwieldy piece of driftwood to keep Hugo at ease. It seemed to be working.
Ziggy Odyssey was driving. Ziggy was uncomfortable around reptiles. He wished his traveling companion were of the warm blooded variety. But a mission from the librarian was always an adventure... even if it meant spending three days driving time with a non-conversational serpent. Hail Mumbo Jumbo!
He'd been with the organization for nearly seven years and he had the merit badges, schtick, and Polaroids to prove it.
It had once been thought that he'd make an excellent High Priest someday, but at age 30 he had developed a proclivity for gallivanting. He hung up his seeker goggles and turned to adventuring. And so, the organization kept him on board as an errand man of sorts. As to the hows and why-fors of the Mumbo Jumbo echelon, they kept him much like one would keep a prize mushroom: in the dark and full of shit.
Which was just fine with him. Ziggy thought mushrooms were magical. All he knew was that he was supposed to deliver his serpent friend to a fortune teller in Peoria, Illinois by Tuesday, plenty of time to lolly-gag and root about.
He unrolled the window (snakes stink!). He lit a cigarette.
"Welcome to Wisconsin, Hugo!" he said to his backseat passenger as they crossed the state line.
"Hey Hugo, do you know Wisconsin's state motto?" Hugo didn't answer.
"It's 'FORWARD!'" The little speck in the center of Hugo's yellow eyes were motionless.
"...forward..." Ziggy muttered less enthusiastically this time.
Forward- being near, at, or belonging to the front. Eager. Ready. Brash. Bold. Getting ready for the future. Forward.
Flash "forward" a few hours later... (at Ludy's Cafe in Noplaceville, Wisconsin.)
Ziggy spun around in dizzying circles on the lunch counter stool. weeeee. The jingle bells on his official Mumbo Jumbo fez clattered as he squeaked his seated pirouette to a halt.
He looked like a beatnik shriner. He was accustomed to the cautious stares of strangers but he got a good vibe from this place. Nobody seemed to pay him much attention and he found it very liberating. He felt at ease the moment he walked through the door and he had a giddy notion to kick off his All-star tennis shoes and prop up his long-toed stinky feet.
He surveyed the moment at hand. The chatter of small town Wisconsin folk enjoying a pleasant lunch percolated like popcorn. Ludy's was bustling. The scene was so packed with brightly colored Americana that it looked like a fucking Norman Rockwell jigsaw puzzle.
Silverware clanked. A chubby platinum-haired lady wrapped her lipsticked mouth around a roll. Shakey legged old men read newspapers at the front door. Across the street an American flag flapped in the wind. A boy in a green jacket rode by on a bicycle. The sun was warm and bright. The jukebox was "wham bam a lam bam a bing bong booing". The pie display was aglow.
And so was Ziggy. Get a load of the decor... Farmer Bill bric-a-brac and autographed baseballs. The twisted, majestic rack from some unlucky stag loomed over the dining room and a slew of plaqued fish were frozen in time with their big mouths gaping in holy aquatic ferociousness. A black & white photo of a midget in a ten-gallon hat shaking hands with Richard Nixon hung above the milkshake machine.
A waitress was taking an order. Ziggy was taking hers. What an outfit! Was this 1955? Saddle shoes & bobby socks. Tanned legs and a light blue car-hop skirt and apron; its curt hem whispering around her firm thighs. Embroidered on the back of her satiny black shirt, in flamboyant, pink flamingo loops was the call to "Eat at Ludy's". A cute little paper hat was nestled in her long honey golden hair. This blonde was devastatingly sexy. Men whistle at shapes like her's. Me-my-my.
And what have we here? Another sock-hop waitress breezed by and gave him a crooked smile. Her fire red hair coiled and spun out in frizzy spastic untamed locks. A vulcan-voodoo princess if he ever saw one. Green bambi eyes blinked their fanning lashes behind her black rimmed glasses. Lanky. Jaunty. Tall. Young. Her sharp little nose. Her pointed tits.
Ziggy wanted to spread this fire goddess's long skinny legs akimbo. She'd be all shy and blushing and awkward at first but during the bucking and bouncing and grinding and fucking she'd scream her fire engine off. Yes, you delectable little doormouse, Ziggy would love to tip your teapot. Push your crooked smile into the soft pillows and work out a rhythm on your pale white backside amidst your muffled screams... ooo la la.
Ziggy's daydream was interrupted when a kid with a bow tie and standard issue Ludy's paper hat set a glass of water on the counter for him.
He was dressed all in white, except for his silly little red bow tie. His apron, which might have once been white, was dingy with the smears of grease spit and chocolate malt.
"Trade ya hats..." said Johnny Bow-Tie with a smirk.
"Not on your life, but I'll tell you where you can get one of these jim dandies if you tell me the names of your enchanting waitresses," Ziggy propositioned with a raised eyebrow.
"Okay. It's a deal," laughed Johnny Bow-Tie.
"Good! Here's what you do: Go to The Fifth Dimension, just outside of Normal, Illinois. Tell 'em Ziggy sent 'cha. Fast Larry might even throw in a free swizzle stick," he said.
"Okay. Fair enough," chuckled Johnny. "Well, that's " ----- and his voice just cut out. Johnny Bow-Tie's lips were moving, but all Ziggy heard was something that sounded like centipedes doing a rhumba.
Then, for an instant, time seemed suspended. The honey-blonde waitress looked over her shoulder at him. There was a roaring sound like a train. Her pale blue eyes met his disoriented stare. She looked straight into the mirror of his mind and pursed her glossy lips in a mocking kiss... the world was screaming inside his head, and then... POW!... everything was fine again.
Ziggy pulled on his ear, completely thrown off guard by the strange auditory hallucination.
Bow-Tie Johnny's voice cut back into the soundtrack, "so the guys all call her RAGING Ragina. She can be a real bitch when she wants to. Don't tell her I said that. The tall red-head with glasses, that's Sarah. She's nice but kinda weird.
"Miss Shikeena don't work the lunch shift, neither does Kayla or Lori," Johnny Bow Tie said as he toweled off a glass.
Another waitress bolted from the kitchen, dropped her order pad, lost her silly paper hat when she bent over, and bumped her head on the counter as she came back up. *thunk* "SHIT!" she shouted.
"...And this is Cass. She's the one who'll be taking your order," said Johnny Bow-Tie as he headed back to the kitchen with a bus of dirty dishes. "Hello there," said Cass. She was feeling for a lump under locks of chestnut brown hair. Ziggy swooned. He instantly liked her. Curses! He wanted to fuck every waitress in this place. Cruel fate, why must you mock thee?
"Are you o.k.?" Ziggy asked dreamily. The milliseconds spun by, he fell in love with her three or four times and Cupid's arrows (eros) kept right on falling.
"yeah, I'm o.k... just clumsy..." She blushed as she fixed her hat.
"Embrace chaos," Ziggy said, as if he were being helpful.
She gave him a blank stare,"...hey...YOU got a cool hat. Are those hummingbirds? I love hummingbirds," Her northern voice was musical. All those stretched vowels made Ziggy crave oral sex.
"They ARE hummingbirds." Ziggy cooed. She enamored him. It didn't take much to enamor Ziggy Odyssey. Ziggy would be what you would call "a free spirit" if only he could learn to stop falling in love with every waitress, cashier, and telephone operator that struck his fancy.
"ALL the chicks dig my hat. I'm starting a fashion revolution," he stated matter-of-factly.
"hhmph!...yeaaaah well...I wish SOMEBODY would revolutionize the fashion around here," (rolling her dancing dark eyes). She flipped through her order-pad.
She was cute. Round doll face. Demure lips. He noticed the acne scars shadowing through her makeup. He wanted her even more. Wide hips that could hula him into oblivion. Her tits were pert little teacups.
"Yeah *chuckle*... that's quite a getup you've got on..." (Did he just say "getup"? Ziggy Odyssey, your Midwestern hick roots are showing.) His eyes crept up her soft arms and shoulders.
"I'm surprised they don't make you wear roller skates with this car-hop outfit," he briefly imagined fucking her on roller skates.
"Very funny. Don't give the boss any ideas!" she quipped. "What'll you have?"
"What's the special?" he asked her.
Her big brown eyes twinkled, "Everything's pretty special here, mister."
"In that case..." he leaned over the counter. "...I'll eat whatever you bring me," Ziggy whispered provocatively.
"ooo. Aren't we brave..." Cass drew an arcane symbol on her note pad. "Dishwater and stewed beets, coming up!"
She read the painted scrawl on his ridiculous hat, "What's...'Mumbo Jumbo'?"
"It's a cult of crazy sex maniacs," he said nonchalantly.
"OOOOOOooooo!!!! Do tell! Can I join?!" she almost seemed to quiver with delight. Was she being sarcastic? Was his cock getting hard? He was digging this chic.
The truth be told, Cassandra Lynn Clark, age 24, size 32 b tits, poet, waitress, James Brown fan, and nymphomaniac... was digging the fuck out of him as well.
She leaned over the counter and whispered something in his ear. Her breath, warm and damp. She smelled like apricots and french fries. Her shirt gapped and his peeping eyes zoned in on the corner of a pink bra strapped tight against her creamy caucasian chest. But he couldn't make out a single damn word she said because all he could hear was that weird sound again.
Like a hundred clicking feet from a cosmic swarm of millipedes tap dancing on a sandpaper sidewalk. Then there was a swooping rush inside an aluminum tunnel only it throbbed like drumbeats. What was going on? Was he having flashbacks? He hadn't done acid in years.
*pppzzz!* Cass tore the ticket from her order pad and spun around... (ass: sexy. spankable. squeezable. bubble butt. yum yum.)
"Boris! ORDER UP!" she shouted. *ding*
Boris gave a dark menacing scowl over the order counter. Boris... villainous fry cook. Outlaw. Bad dude with a spatula. Ziggy made a mental note: do not complain about the food.
A boy in a green jacket bicycled past the window. A tough looking dude with a pony-tail smoked a cigarette. An old lady sank her dentures into a chicken leg.
Raging Ragina floated out, balancing a stacked and steaming lunch tray. Once again, her icy stare met Ziggy's pondering eyes. Her face seemed to flicker between laziness and intensity. Ziggy thought her teeth were kinda big but everything else about her was fuckable to the 100th degree.
