Greegs & Ladders - By Zack Mitchell and Danny Mendlow

CHAPTER 13

  Dr. Rip T. Brash Makes a Wager

  Dr. Rip T. Brash The Third was neither a doctor nor was he royalty. He wasn’t the third of anything, he’d never been to school and he wasn’t really so much of a ‘he’ either. It’s just weird calling him an ‘it’ but he had no discernible sexual orientation. Not because he lacked sexual organs. Rip had no discernible sexual orientation precisely because he had so many sexual organs. He had an absolutely ridiculous assortment of penises, vaginas, coil rods, flipper flaps, egg baskets, cram rams, biddle twocks, horm guffles, abble taters, phrish kerrings, wodder musks, mickle shoots, marrinvioles, and all sorts of other exotic pieces of procreation and pleasure. At this point, Rip couldn’t really remember which ones he was born with, and which he’d had surgically implanted or removed. He was a hulky thing. A clunky, yet carefully put together specimen. He had many eyes, some of which were capable of site. He had a few brains, some of which were capable of thought. He had four arms, three legs, nine tentacles, eight nipples, three beards (but only one chin)… in general he had a lot of extraneous parts. He was like a car with too many accessories, many of which served no practical purpose. Practicality was not what Dr. Rip T. Brash The Third was all about. Rip was brash though, especially when wildly intoxicated at a carnival, which he most certainly was. He was prone to making outrageous and outlandish claims when drunk. Unfortunately for him, his friends were prone to taking him up on these claims and bets then collecting when he failed miserably to achieve them. This is likely the explanation for most, if not all, of his sexual organs. They weren’t really friends as much as they were leeches. This was so true that it was common for intergalactic debt counsellors to suggest to cash strapped clients “Perhaps you should try going drinking with Dr. Rip T. Brash The Third at a carnival.” Nobody knew how he had so much money to lose on outlandish bets. It’s true every once in awhile he would actually succeed in the task laid out for himself in a loud mouthed, drunken stupor the night before, but not nearly enough times to be breaking even. On this day Rip was more drunk than usual, and so his primary mouth was flapping more than usual. Sensing a real chance to not only cover his debts, but perhaps wind up owning a few thousand civilizations as well, Rip’s drinking partner, Jim, wasn’t taking Rip up on any of his bets early on in the night. He instead downplayed them as effeminate and pathetic in the hopes that Rip would continue one-upping himself until the bet was so outlandish and impossible to achieve that Jim could never lose.

  This is, of course, exactly what Rip did. Beginning with a paltry claim that he could stick his whole head up the anus of a Graffling Wocker Frit, spin around three times, return to the bar and still go home with the prettiest four headed being in the building, Rip eventually got so drunk and ran his mouth to such a degree that he made the most preposterous drunken wager ever made in the long and glorious history of preposterous drunken wagers.

  This was it.

  Dr. Rip T. Brash The Third opened his drunken face and guzzled back his eleventh Crammington Krish Fortini (about ten and a half more than one should engulf in a lifetime). He slammed the Jardian glass bottle on the top of the bar and shouted out “I got it!”

  At this point the entire bar had given up whatever false conversations they’d been having and were all just focusing on Rip’s self imposed escalating stakes, waiting to see what ridiculous final challenge Jim would pull the trigger on.

  Rip grabbed Jim by the hairy tube dangling from the back of his neck and dragged him to the Greeg cage. A crowd of about 200 visible beings, the odd specter and several recording devices followed the pair out to what had surely become the most interesting thing to happen at the carnival in days. Rip, always a showman, clambered on to the side of the Greeg cage, barely held on to the bars with one hand and held up his twelfth CKF with the other.

  “I, Dr. Rip T. Brash The Third, do solemnly declare in the name of all things…”

  Several shouts of ‘get on with it’ and other such encouragements were volleyed in his general direction, along with several pounds of half eaten food, severed limbs and hunks of hard granite.

  “Fine, fine, no sense of tact and ceremony but fine, here it is. I bet you, Graham…”

  “Jim!” corrected the mob.

  “Gerry, right, I bet you my priceless fleet of Obotron 7 Space Ships, er, Jill, that I, me, yes, can take a lowly, stupid, useless carnival Greeg, and have them smarter than enough to pass as a decent, semi intelligent creature, person, thing… in two years. Smarter than all of you even!”

  The mob went silent. Then a laugh broke out from the back and collectively rolled on up to the front. Jim, rolling around on the ground, unable to believe his luck, screamed out “Yes, yes! Hahahaha YES!”