A Pinstriped Finger's My Only Friend (13 page)

(Guess again, dudes!)

Mom is the first one in, leading the charge--but instead of bolting over to comfort Nick and make sure he's all right, she grabs hold of Judd's shoulders. Eyes big as toilet seats, she shakes him like a scarecrow in her ham-fisted grip. "Help me next, Judd! Talk to me next!"

Judd's baffled by this and lets her flop him around without saying a word--until Dad and Brooke grab hold and start a tug-of-war.

"No, Judd! Listen to
me
!" Dad's eyes are bugging out like Mom's, and his pink forked tongue's flickering like a windsock in a hurricane. "I thought I'd get laid off at work this week, but instead I got a promotion!"

"No,
me
!" Brooke slips between Mom's arms and reaches up to grab Judd's throat, tugging him down to face her. "Everyone in the family
loves
me and
accepts
me for who I
am
!"

(What is
with
these people??)

The weight of the three of them pushes Judd back until he trips over a shoe and slams up against a stained glass wall.

"Wait, what?" Judd's flustered in a big way, bombarded by his family's demands. "Hold on...one at a time, please..."

"Judd, listen!" Brooke is hopping up and down, her green-scaled face demanding attention. "Nobody else could help
Nick
the way you did! You're the only one who can help
me
, too!"

"That's right!" Dad grabs Judd's face and yanks it around. "There's so much I need to
tell
you!"

"Let go!" Judd's pulse is racing. "Let go and I'll talk to you!"

"This can't wait!" says Dad. "I'm ready to do myself in!"

"So am I!" says Mom.

"I've already taken
pills
!" Brooke jerks Judd's head back down to face her. "I can feel them starting to
work
!"

Suddenly, a new voice cuts in, deep and resonant as an opera star's. "I'm not miserable enough! I still enjoy sniffing butts and eating poop way too much!"

You guessed it: that was Sphinx the chocolate Lab speaking. As if the other three Judd-clutchers weren't enough, good ol' Sphinx jumps up and lands his paws on Judd's left shoulder!

Which is when brother Nick gets back in the action. "Judd! I changed my mind!" He locks his hands like a vice around Judd's left forearm. "It isn't enough knowing that things'll get worse
eventually
! Can't we screw something up really bad
right now
? Like
cripple
me for
life
or something?"

With four people and one talking dog pinning him to the wall, Judd's in line for an old-fashioned panic attack. The weight of them all is crushing him, making it hard to catch his breath.

(Okay, now even
I'm
starting to feel trapped!!)

They're so
needy
. They just keep babbling at him about how miserable they are because things aren't going
badly
enough for them. Tears are streaming down their distraught faces as they plead for help, as they try to outshout each other and nab his undivided attention. It's a full-blown competition to see who can steal the spotlight.

Who needs serial killers? This desperate bunch is enough to drive a dude to lose his cool. I know they're his family, but he seriously needs to get the heck away from them.

Time for a little
Killdigit
action, if you ask me.

"Judd!" I yell at the top of my lungs...

(...if I
had
any lungs...)

...to try to punch through the interference of the family chorus. "Get me in position and turn me loose!"

I know he hears me, because he moves his left arm...

(...with me attached...)

...but he can't move it very far with Nick holding on tight to his forearm. So much for turning loose his secret weapon.

Meanwhile, the babbling continues.

"I found a lump in my armpit, and the doctor says it isn't cancer!" says Dad. "Can you imagine how that makes me
feel
?"

Mom plants a hand on Dad's face and pushes him away as she makes her latest pronouncement. "I thought your father was cheating on me with the lizard-queen down the street, and guess what?
He isn't
! That
bastard
!"

"Hey, Judd!" Brooke lets go of Judd's throat and smacks him across the face, knocking his head hard to the left. "I cry myself to sleep every night because there isn't enough
drama
in my life!" She smacks him again, pitching his head in the opposite direction. "Everyone I know is less happy than
I
am! It isn't
fair
!"

"I eat my own vomit and I never get sick," says Sphinx in that dignified opera-star bass voice. "What's
wrong
with me?"

I feel Judd's blood pressure rising, and I know where this is headed. His whole body tenses up at once, every last muscle contracting like the muscles of a cornered mountain lion.

Everyone starts in on their next whiny spiel, but before they can run through the latest complaints, Judd explodes into action. With a roar and a surge of adrenaline, he pushes away from the wall and plows through everyone, sending them tumbling. They might be his family, but he shoves them all aside and keeps going without looking back.

Head down, arms and legs pumping like pistons, Judd charges down the hallway...and straight into a surprise. Just as he's about to round the corner, there's a flash of white light.

When the light vanishes, we see that everything has changed again. Only this time, it has changed for the better.

(
Definitely
for the better!)

I almost don't believe it. The hallway has gone back to the way it used to be before all the quick-changing started. Instead of multicolored stained glass, the walls are made of painted plaster over drywall. Instead of fluorescent red marble, the floor is covered with beige Berber carpet.

(Is it
possible
? Can it
be
?)

Judd slams on the brakes and whirls to look back down the hall. Mom and Dad are standing outside the door to Nick's room with Sphinx at their feet.

(This is
incredible
! This is
fantastic
!)

Mom and Dad have good old-fashioned pink skin instead of bright green scales. Sphinx just has sleek, dark brown fur instead of glowing porcupine quills.

(OMG! OMG!)

"We made it!" Judd's face instantly lights up. His pulse speeds up, but not because of stress or fear this time. "We're
home
!"

*****

Home at last!
Overjoyed, I emphatically tap Judd's palm. "It must be because you
helped
them! You learned a lesson and changed into a better person!"

"Thank God." I can feel the relief in his body as his muscles relax. "I didn't think we'd ever make it, Pinkerton."

"It's
Oogachucka
," I tell him, "and I never had a
doubt
in my mind."

Just then, without warning, our surroundings flicker. The walls shift back to stained glass, then back to plaster; the floor changes to marble, then carpet...then marble again.

And I get a very sick feeling in the pits of my knuckles.

"What the heck?" Judd scowls as everything flickers again. "What's happening?"

Suddenly, there's another flash of light, and the plaster and carpets are gone, replaced by stained glass and marble. The pink skins of Mom and Dad revert to green scales, and the dog regains its glowing quills.

(This is
so
not fair.)

"We're back." I slump against Judd's palm. "We didn't make it home after all."

"Damn!" Judd lingers in the hall for all of a split-second--but Mom, Dad, Nick, Brooke, and Sphinx start barreling toward him. Spinning, he whips around the corner and runs for the jagged gap where the front door once stood (before Mom shattered it). He charges through the gap, not looking what's in front of him till he's out on the porch.

And I think I know what he's thinking right at that moment. I think I know the exact words:

I should've gone out the back door.

Because there on the front lawn is a mob of green-scaled people...hundreds of them, I'll bet. Maybe more.

And as soon as they see him, they all start babbling and reaching for him at once.

Every last one of them has a problem of some kind, and they all want him to fix it. They all have it too good in one way or another; even the ones with bad luck don't have
bad enough
luck. Even the ones who are on the verge of disaster or death aren't
close enough
to disaster or death.

(Isn't
anyone
in this world even
remotely
happy or well-adjusted?)

A green-scaled version of Kaela squeezes through the front of the crowd and clambers up the porch steps. "Judd! Brooke texted the whole
school
about how you helped
Nick
! We all need you to help
us
, too!"

Judd stumbles back a step...and bumps into Mom and Dad, who each grab hold of one of his arms. He jerks himself free before they can tighten their grips, but then Kaela jumps up and wraps herself around him.

"Get off!" Judd pries her away and sidesteps Mom and
Dad as they make another grab. He sees a crowbar on the porch...

(...like the pink and yellow one Mom used earlier to smash in the front door, only this one is orange and neon blue...)

...and ducks down to snatch it.

(Could someone tell me
why
they keep so many
crowbars
outside their
glass houses
??)

Judd swings the crowbar up and sweeps it around him in a wide arc with the hooked end facing away from him. "That's
enough
!" Dude lashes it back around, making Mom and Dad and Kaela scuffle away from him. "Everyone
back off
!"

(Gotta say, I'm kind'a diggin' this new action-hero
Juddinator
.)

The crowd doesn't quiet completely, but they settle down some. Random people keep calling out their issues, but the group as a whole is much more subdued.

The question is, how long will it last? And what will Judd say now that he has their attention?

Maybe I've got some ideas along those lines. "Dude, this is perfect! This is our ticket home!"

"How do you figure?" Judd whispers and barely moves his lips. He doesn't want the crowd to see him talking to his pinky finger.

(Dude needs to come out of the talking-pinky closet, if you ask me!)

"When you helped Nick, we flashed back home for an instant, but we didn't stick." I give his palm a light jab for emphasis. "That was from helping
one person
. Imagine what could happen if you help
all these
people."

Judd frowns at the throng of needy whiners as his brain chugs through the possibilities. He knows I'm right.

(Which I know because
I
know I'm right.)

Just then, Sphinx makes a move to trot toward him, and Judd whips the crowbar around to block his route. Sphinx growls and curls his upper lip but backs away with his spiny tail between his legs.

Judd straightens and clears his throat. "Here's the deal." He raises his voice to project out over the crowd. "I'll talk to you
one at a time
."

The disappointment is palpable and instantaneous. Everyone in the front yard and the house moans at once.

"Kaela!" says Judd. "I'll talk to you first, and then you're in charge of the line. If anyone argues with you, they're gone."

Kaela shrugs and salutes. "Yes, sir."

At this point, I want to make sure he covers the bases, so I speak up. "Hey, Judd, how about a..."

"And there's a time limit!" He's a step ahead of me.

(Which irritates the
crap
out of me!)

"Five minutes per person." Adding insult to beating me to the punch, Judd holds up the five fingers of his left hand (including me) for all the crowd to see. "That's the only way this can work! Otherwise, it'll take
days
."

Someone in the crowd pipes up this time. "Did he say five hours? That's fair!"

"
Minutes
!" says Judd. "Five
minutes
."

I'm still over his head, but I holler down to him.

(Puttin' in my ten cents whether the dude wants 'em or not!)

"Limit the number of turns!" That's what I say. "Or you'll be sorry, bruh!"

Judd folds down all his fingers except one, the index finger. "And one turn per customer! No repeats, understood?" He looks at Kaela, and she grins and nods her scaly head. "All right then. Let's get started." Judd walks over and sits on one of the two gelatin chairs on the porch--a yellow one.

"Nice job, dude," I tell him. "This is gonna pay off big time."

"You better be right." Judd motions for Kaela to join him. "Because I've got a feeling this is really gonna suck."

"Maybe it would, if you didn't have
Oogachucka
to give you advice on the sly." I pat the palm of his hand reassuringly. "Just think of me as your Cyrano de Knuckle-Crack."

With that, Kaela takes her place on the other chair, which is bright red and also made of gelatin. "Ready?" She holds up her right wrist, on which she's wearing a glowing pink watch. "I'll time it for you."

(Cheating alert! Cheating alert! Whoop whoop whoop!)

"Bad idea, dude," I tell Judd.

He holds out his hand and smiles. "How 'bout if you give
me
the watch, so you can concentrate on what you're saying?"

She hesitates, then takes it off and gives it to him. The second it hits his hand, her mouth starts running, pouring out all the inner agonies that are making her miserable.

(A.K.A. all the stuff that ain't really so bad, yo.)

And I realize, as I listen to her litany of despair and gaze out at the sea of people who are dying to vent their woes to Judd...

(Why? Because everyone here is too caught up in their own whining to listen to anyone else's troubles? Because Judd's the only one who seems to have an outsider's objective perspective? Because they're all so screwed up that no one has ever managed to actually help anyone else before?)

...I realize, for the first time, the staggering magnitude of the task we've undertaken. The brain-numbing breadth and depth of the tidal wave of torment that's about to engulf us.

How could such a colorful world, with its psychedelic sky, movie screen lawns, pain blotch cars, and stained glass houses, be so overflowing with stark, black-and-white neuroses? You'd think the people would be in a constant state of wonderment, right?

But the words of crushing anguish tell a very different story, one of endless distress and lamentation, of total color-blindness in the midst of the most colorful world imaginable. After listening to this kind of relentless heartache for a while, I start to kind'a want to kill myself.

And that's just during Kaela's turn, the first of many...the first of what I just know is gonna feel like a hundred billion.

Times a trillion.

*****