40 minutes of introspection

Before you pull out onto the highway you run inside the store and buy a large black French Roast and a pack of Camel straights, the one pack you allow yourself a year (a tradition started after you read Still Life With Woodpecker when you were quitting smoking in 2010). You’ve left behind so many vices over the years that you figure this one extremely limited one is probably something you can survive. You roll down the window of the Lexus and light one. Yep. Still tastes like shit. With that you begin your drive North.

As you drive along on autopilot you run down a mental checklist of tasks you need to accomplish and how far along you are on it.

1. Find the twins.
2. Help Chrissy with money and/or a house
3. The Mr. Happy problem. Who really is “Greg Novak”
4. The Outlaws
5. Your own twin sister
6. Pay rent and bills for your five pied-à-terres

Well, we have a plan for the first one at least. No, we have a plan to start putting a plan in place for which we’ll need another plan. I calculate the odds of our success at about 3720 to 1. Never tell me the odds. Anyway, the second problem is well in hand. We could have fucked Melissa. She was willing. Sometimes it’s better to delay gratification. We’re going to get Chrissy a whole lot of money. Enough that she can do whatever she wants. Enough to bind her to us forever. I didn’t say- Shut up you pussy. You were thinking it. Beth is already ours, now we have to solidify our hold on Chrissy.

I’m the goddamn Batman. Jesus, you again? Yes, my child? Enough. On to this Novak guy. No social. Probably an alias, not that we would know anything about that now, would we? Still, we should be able to find SOMETHING. It’ll just have to go on the back burner for now. Or maybe we could ask around. Say we’re doing a documentary on children’s programming and how it traumatizes young people. Maybe we can finally prove that Axis of Evil theory. Seriously, I don’t think Elmo, Barney, and Spongebob are part of some diabolical plot to take over the world. Then explain the Teletubbies! Um... yeah, I got nothin’.

Moving on, I’m pretty sure we have the Outlaws taken care of. For now, they tend to hold grudges. Well, we’ll just have to deal with that when the time comes. Then we can be Batman! Sure, sure. Then we can be Batman. YAY! About the pink elephant in the livingroom. If our twin sister is as ugly as we are then I for one think we can do without fucking her. Why are we assuming that’s even on the table? You do know that you can’t actually lie to yourself, right Jimmy? I... got nothin’. Either way, one set of siblings at a time. Gotcha. Tabling ugo sis.

Last one’s fun. We just added in mom’s place and we should probably pay Beth’s rent to. So five properties to pay on. Or we can dump em all and get a bigger place. One with room for Mom’s bed. We’re gonna need it at the rate you’re collecting bedmates. At least two of your bitches don’t take up that much space. What? The goddesses we’ve been banging. Well, that’s a long term solution, and moving in Duluth in December is only slightly less like what I imagine hell is than spending six hours at the DMV. Valid point. So your short term solution? Can’t run the box scam again. Could do some credit card fraud. Title loan. Hrm. Forging the title shouldn’t be hard. We can probably get 10 grand for this. That’ll definitely cover living expenses until Chrissy’s insurance pays out. And we fuck Melissa. You really do have a one track mind. Dude, I’m your id. What did you expect?

You call Beth and ask her to meet you at the Proctor rest area with the leather case in your computer desk’s left hand bottom drawer. You can hear Chrissy giggling in the background, as well as Pyewacket’s satisfied “Blert”.

(AN: I’ve had to edit this chapter 8 times for formatting so far. If I wasn’t shaving it this morning, I’d be pulling out what little hair I have left.)