Big lazy yarblockos stemmed in, stampeded into the theatre. “We got to keep these suckahs moving!”, my good friend Max the Pimp excitedly shouted. I looked around, and everybody was there. Max the Pimp was leading the procession, followed by Fat Dave. What a fat bastard. I didn’t really like him much, he was always either eating or spitting out a mouthful with a big ‘chortle’ or something. Mary Lee Alsatian was a bit too tough. I wouldn’t eat her. There were a bunch others. Everybody. A lot others, then. None of them were interesting, so for all I care there wasn’t really anyone there except me. Me and the beef. When I’m alone with them I like to rub them, pat them, and draw on their bodies with chalk exactly the parts that I plan on eating. What a relief, I was alone after all! So I proceeded to rub them, pat them, and draw on their bodies with my chalky appendage. One of those pens that you fill with lead, except I had retro-fitted it to fill it with chalk instead. Pure engineering genius! A marvel! One day parents will be telling their children, tour guides will be telling their guideds, electorates will tell their electeds, “forget the Eiffel Tower; screw Babylon; fuck the pyramids. Just show me the goddamn chalky appendage”. And the bell rang, and it was time to eat, and then go home.

So I ate, and then I went home, and made for bed with the lovely pen that I had crafted - for I kept my journal on my bedside table, a table I had so fondly taken to calling my journal table, or “Joleen”. Joleen was lovely, but no Eiffel Tower. Did she really like me? Did she ever really love me? I made it with her, a few times. A lot of times, actually. Sometimes we tried to make it some sort of competition, how many times we could actually make it in a day. But I don’t think she ever really cared. I had a falling out with her ex-, anyway. I owed money to the vinnies where I found her, and they didn’t like me much. Maybe she still had feelings. Maybe I only ever had feelings for saint vinnie, and was just using her like a cheap jealousy junky would. None of it mattered any more, any way, not after I turned her into a table. She can’t exactly get away now, wooden legs and no muscles. She’s good like that.

It was a fine summer’s day and the sun was shining, and since it was only about ten in the morning we all decided to go on a road trip. Joleen, my chalky appendage and I all piled into my Hudson Esquire ‘96 and we shot off to find some ‘roos to maim.

About twelve seventeen we found our first ‘roo. By this point I’d been itching for a few hours, and my usual playful tac was replaced with nothing but pure bloodlust. Crash, straight over and onto the windshield. Would have to remember to find the owner, for insurance purposes. I stopped for a minute to contemplate the meaning of life, the meaning of this sport, the meaning of my chalky appendage sitting, leaking onto Joleen (but not in a dirty way) and I sitting at the wheel with my arm around her shoulder. It was love, all right. Love of my country, love of my Hudson, love of my Nike Prestons, and above all things, the Eiffel Tower, sitting there, towering over and making us feel all so insignificant but also making us think, hell, it isn’t so bad if we all stick together, is it? And that’s when I decided Fat Dave was following me in his Datsun Sixteen. Poor fat bastard. He was wearing a bandana that covered his eyes, but if you squint real hard, you can see what he’s seeing, and it’s not actually so bad as you’d think. Cuts out a lot of glare. Cats do it too, I think.

I got out of the car and spoke to him sternly, spoke to him with resolve. It was hard, I actually had a stammer when I was at school, and I’ve been working hard to get rid of it ever since. The Pimp says he used to be able to speak the even words of sentences, but he got through that. I think he might have been making that up, just so I wouldn’t feel quite so alone. What a nice guy. I guess that’s why all the women dig him. I got out of the car and spoke to him, but I didn’t really care any more. I just wanted back the days of Joleen and I. But she didn’t want a piece of me, and I knew it. I didn’t have the Adidas for it. Here I was, a cheap Nike boy standing around with some bastard so fat his entire identity is pinned on that fact. Whatever. She could go either way, and either way I go, I’m an American and hell a P.R.I.M.E. citizen of these here states, and a proud citizen of this world.