Case # 3.5 (McDonald's from Heck)

Neorah, Mo.


Last Fall.


Hector and I had gone up to KC to catch a concert, of the legendary Butthole Surfers. Felt a mite peckish on the return trip, so we planned on stopping at some respected but sufficiently greasy fast-food place to satisfy our hunger for grease and a bit of food. It was about three in the A.M. This is an hour that we later came to quasi-fear-and-respect but in those innocent early days it was simply the hour at which we realized, with grumbled angst, that we would have to get up for work in less than three hours. As it was, we were still that many hours from home.


(grumbled angst, here, but for the glorious, grunge-psychedelia of the Buttholes. After having read this report, the inquisitive reader may wonder as to my and Hector's possible intake of certain...substances. Answer: Fuck yes. At least where Hector is concerned. My personal intake was, I assure you, merely "contact.")


Anyway, Neorah. Nestled in the northernmost hills of the Ozarks. Peopled with primitives. About 10,000 of them, according to the 2000 census. Near savages; if you've ever lived in the hills or have watched Wrong Turn, you can imagine. You think I exaggerate. Fuck you. You've never been chased by beer bottle-throwing "hill-folk" in souped-up ancient pickup trucks, as they thrust their loins at you and squeal like the hogs that populate their yards and living rooms.


I haven't either, but I'm pretty certain it's gonna happen any time now.


Savages.


Case in point: as I was helping a lightly toasted Hector from the passenger seat of my little '92 Nissan, after we'd found a satisfactorily greasy and open McD's, a hill-folk woman approached us. She probably weighed 85 pounds with a bladder full of piss, which, judging by the smell and discoloration of her clothes, wasn't currently said bladder's state. Her hair apparently had the same molecular structure as the cotton at the end of a q-tip. She could've been 18 or 58.


That would be the meth for you. One of our state's proudest accomplishments: in some circles meth is referred to by our area's area code. Which is ---. (Oh yeah. I forgot. I'm not telling you shit like that out of ID protection reasons.)


Not that meth is the only drug problem around here. We got your pills. Your Mary-Jane. Plenty of good ol' ethyl alcohol readily available (though that doesn't stop about 1,000 hill-folk from going blind every year from distilling their own.) Not so much cocaine. It's kind of ritzy for us. We ain't no high-class broads. If it ain't made from piant-thinner or grown in your closet, we ain't interested.


Anyway, this lady approaches Hector and me. She'd just come out of the restaurant, and she would throw these squinty glances back at it, like she was daring it to run away while she had her back turned. Possibly because it was a fucking building, it didn't.


Her: "That place be full of heck-spawn, dude."


Hector: "Whuhthuhfuhyuhsay?"


Myself, translating for Hector: "How do you mean, ma'am?"


Her: "Mah daddy alus said heck-spawn'll come at ya in ways you'd never think. I seen some freaky-ass shit, boy, but wait'll yuh see what that place be doing in there."


Hector glares at the woman through a red glaze of THC and beer. He is still halfway in the passenger seat, leaning out. His lower lip is jutting. He doesn't seem to have understood what the woman meant. Not that I understand either, and I'm even relatively sober.


Me: "Well, uh..."


Hector: "fuhyoumahh..."


The woman cackles (yes, like your generic broom-riding witch, cackles. If anything should tipped me off about the impending shitstorm of freakiness, it was that laugh) and climbs into an equally ageless-but-not-in-a-good-way pickup truck.


Despite the hillbilly woman's stoned, batshit quasi-warning, Hector and I made our way to the McD's. Hector shakes off his sleepy high a bit when he steps into the night chill. He's a big guy, a half-foot taller and darker complected than I am, with horn-rim glasses that clash somewhat with his Limp Bizkit-Korn chic.


(Future adventurers. People who don't watch enough horror movies. Others. Never ignore any kind of a warning from a hillbilly at 3 A.M. No matter how batshit. We learned the hard way, and now we don't eat McD's. Trust me, you don't want this kind of weight on your shoulders, even as it comes off your increasingly svelte ass.)



Things got weird as soon as we got inside. For one, seated at each table was a pack of wolves. Secondly, there was a very terrified looking man dressed up like a ballerina who seemed to be attempting to entertain these wolves by dancing like a. . .well. Ballerina. And C, the staff were all armed with shotguns, all pointed at the man.



I had questions.



I approached the closest clerk. She turned to me, aiming the shotgun right at my face. I made a conscious effort to keep my ass cheeks as tight as possible, lest a hot pantload rolled out of my boxer-briefs. Trust me, it's hard to remain composed in some situations.


"Welcome to McDonald's," she said, steely-eyed,"how can I help you?"


"Yeah, do you guys still have the McRib thing going on?" Hector. You dumbass. Then, "Holy fuck, what the fuck's with the gun, bitch?" Fucking dumbass.


"Hector, look around you," I whispered, probably more desperately than I tend to remember, "What the fuck!"


Every canid eye in the place is on us. Ears twitch expectantly.


"Oh shit..."


The ballerina man looks at us pleadingly, he whispers something through clenched teeth, but I can't make it out. A shotgun is...what? Cocked? Is that the right word? I don't know gun terms. But anyway, the sound that a shotgun makes when you pull back that one part is made, by the girl aiming at me. "Can I take your order, fuckers?"



"Hey! I just asked about the fuckin' McRib. Yea or nay? That's my order." Hector.


"McRibs are only available at certain times, and aren't available right now. Sorry sir. Is there anything else I can get for ya?" Hector walks up to the counter and gazes up at the menu thoughtfully. "Hey Matt, come here."


I'm in sort of a daze, though I nonetheless complete the not uncomplicated feat of walking all the way to the counter with my ass still solidly clenched. When I get there, Hector says, "Hey man, how do you feel about the..." before throwing his arm over my shoulder and forcing me into a huddle. He whispers, "Shit dude, you wanna know what I think is happening here?"


I look at him expectantly.


"I think they're making that poor dude dance for the wolves. I think he must've been the manager or somethin. And he done pissed off his workers one too many times. So they get a bunch of wolves together---"


I let out a sigh. "Hector."


"---and they get a big, nasty ballerina costume from Party City---"


"Hector."


"And then they set this shit up. These people are exasperated, man. It would serve us well to handle this situation with the utmost delicacy."


"Hector! That's such bullshit! This shit is crazy! How are we gonna get out of this? That's all I wanna know."


"Matt, if you don't keep your shit together, I'm tempted to just beat all these folks' asses using your dumbass, panicky self as a bullet shield."


I should let you know, under times of extreme stress, Hector tends to adopt the patois of a large black man. Possibly that of Marcellus Wallace from pulp fiction. This, you know, explains that. We stand up slowly, turn to the clerk, and I say, as smoothly and not-losing-my-shit-at-all-sounding as possible, "We'll take two Big Macs, super-sized. With Cokes. To go, please." When I say "to go," the clerk's eyes twitch, and I know we aren't supposed to leave this place alive. I glance meaningfully at Hector; he caught it too. We had to do something.


"Yeah," the clerk says. She'd be cute if it wasn't for the twitching insanity betrayed by her eyes. "That sounds good. You guys stay here, I'll be right back." She leaves, going into the kitchen.


I turn to the rest of the room. There are two other clerks. A shotgun a piece. They have that dead-eyed look you get with McDonald's clerks. Ballerina Man is mumbling "ohgodohgodohgod..."over and over again as he twirls clumsily, I finally hear. He is older. Overweight and balding. I'm pretty sure he's an unsuccessful used-car salesman. Outside the windows is just black. The wolves all have napkins tucked into collars. They move their heads in unison: me and Hector, Ballerina Man, me and Hector. How did hillbilly lady get out of here? The wolves start licking their chops, all at once. Ballerina Man starts freaking at the weird, united sound of the wolves' tongues going over their black lips. If you've never heard the sound of thirty wolves thinking about eating you, I have to tell ya, it's pretty eerie indiana.


Finally, Ballerina Man loses his shit. He screams, runs to the door. The clerks raise their guns, but the wolves beat them to the kill. It almost happens in slow motion: Leaping from the tables, wolves descend upon Ballerina man. It's almost like...ballet. They work as a team to bring him down, but of course, it doesn't take much. The screams are muffled by all those wolves.


I look at Hector: now's the time to act. I grab a napkin-dispenser from the counter, Hector just uses his fists, and we bash at the clerks. They go down like the flabby nerds that they are, and we grab the shotguns.


"Dude, we gotta go out the back, no way we gettin past these wolves." We jump over the counter, I get my feet caught on the edge of the counter and fall face-first into the McFlurry machine, resulting in the only injury I obtain, miraculously, that night. I nobly regain my composure, just in time to run into Cute-but-Crazy, who's carrying two Big Mac cartons filled with what can only be cat vomit, from the looks of all the hair. I wonder where she got all the cat vomit---I mean, seriously? Even if you have a shit ton of cats, it doesn't necessarily follow that you have unlimited access to such admittedly fresh-looking cat vomit. Can you induce a cat to vomit? And was she planning the cat vomit from the moment we walked in, or was it a stroke of brilliant insanity when she went to the back?---when Hector clubs her over the back of the head with his gun. She falls over the counter. I think, looks like she got the club sandwich. I say, "looks like she got the club sandwich."


"Haha, dude, you're like an action hero." You can always depend on Hector to appreciate good material.


We make our way through the kitchen, looking for the fire exit or pick-up window. But we surely didn't count on a giant crab-monster wearing a McD's standard issue XXXL shirt to materialize right in front of us.


It hisses," Welcome to the ninth circle, my pets! You're to be given to---"



BLuuumB!!


That's how I spell a shotgun goin' off, bitch. Hector stood manlyly over the corpse of crab-beast, and said something like, "Hard-broiled...meat...crab."


"The fuck you just say?"


"Something witty about Red Lobster or something, but I've never had Red Lobster, or crab meat or anything. Lack of information equals no witty remarks."


Hector will have many opportunities in the coming months to work on his action-hero bon mots, though. No worries.


We find the exit and charge into the cold night. We pack into the Nissan and drive. End.