DRESSED IN A DIRT-SMEARED Amish shirt and trousers with suspenders, Diedrich strained to lift the huge pumpkin into a wagon made of rough-hewn wooden planks.
“That’s another one,” he said.
“Nice and easy, mate, nice and easy,” said Nick Frost, from the cushioned driver’s seat. A broad-brimmed straw hat shielded him from the morning sun and a rifle casually rested on his lap. A brown mare hitched to the front of the wagon lazily switched her tail.
In a nearby field, Sergio struggled to carry a pumpkin the size of beach ball toward the wagon. The pale, sweat-soaked actor was dressed in the same Amish farmer’s garb as Diedrich.
Diedrich took a swig from a plastic water bottle and watched Sergio shuffle over the uneven mounds of dirt.
“You know, Nick, our old friend doesn’t look so good,” he said.
“He’s not our friend, you moron,” said Nick. “Did you forget already how he tortured us and kept us locked up?”
“Right, about that. When can we have another quiz show?”
“If you ask me that one more time, I swear to God I’ll murder everyone in sight.”
Sergio hoisted a pumpkin into the wagon. “You won’t shoot anyone, you fat windbag. You’re not a stone-cold killer, just an overweight Limey with a Napoleon complex.”
Nick leaned forward. “Go for the gun again,” he said through clenched teeth. “I promise I won’t miss this time.”
“Guys! Why do you always have to fight?” asked Diedrich. “It’s like I’m back home, and my mom and dad are throwing plates at each other.”
“I’m sorry,” said Nick. “Did your parents separate when you were a child?”
Diedrich shook his head. “No, I was talking about last week.”
“Right,” said Nick. “Well, keep loading the pumpkins, boys. Once we make enough money for a plane ticket back to London, then I’m outta here.”
Sergio held his arms straight out. “Stop this nonsense! You can leave anytime!”
“I know, but it’s more fun watching you sweat,” said Nick.
“I wish the police would have recognized either of you or what dumb TV programs you were on,” said Sergio. “At least in prison I’d get some rest.”
“Well, they didn’t,” said Diedrich. “They also didn’t recognize you, Mister Please-Kiss-My-Butt-I’m-a-Famous-Actor-That-Nobody-Remembers.”
Sergio leaned close to Diedrich’s face. “I can’t help it we’re in Kentucky. These gormless tobacco-chewing cretins can’t spell ‘Martinez!’ They can’t even spell ‘spell’! ”
Two more pumpkins rolled into the wagon.
“Stop with fighting words,” said Duke Nichego. He adjusted his wide-brimmed Amish hat. “It is making Vassily and me see the––how do you say––red mist on our eyes.”
Nick spread his arms and spoke to the blue sky. “Calgon, take me away!”
END
Spurious Footnotes
1. Orlando Furioso (X, 84): “There never was such beauty in another man. Nature made him, and then broke the mould.”
2. The correct form of the joke: “Euripedes pants, Eumenides pants.”
3. This never happened.
4. December 15, 1967, in Point Pleasant, West Virginia.
5. As told to me through the drive-through window of a Rax in Ironton, Ohio, by an employee on B shift named Carl who wishes to remain anonymous.
6. Fong lay on the motel bed and smoked while Lee paced the threadbare carpet. As he walked, Lee rubbed his face with both hands, like a teenager trying to scrub everything away.
“Maybe they won’t see it. It’s so small,” he said in Chinese.
Fong hated Lee and his working-class Beijing accent. The slurred r’s made him sound like a dog trying to talk. Fong wasn’t high-class either but at least he made an effort to speak like a human being. He flipped the fake security badge onto the nightstand.
“Let’s try it anyway,” said Lee.
Fong shook his head. “The date is wrong on the chip. The scanner will pick it up.”
“But my family won’t get the money!”
“I know. Do you think I’m stupid?”
Fong lit another Hongtashan from his dying cigarette and flipped the butt across the room. It bounced off the peeling wallpaper and lay on the dead carpet like a dead mealworm, a trail of smoke curling up from its dead mouth.
Lee stared at the blue security uniform in the closet, then punched the flimsy plaster of the nearby wall. “It has to get into the––”
“Stop!”
Fong lowered the finger he’d pointed at Lee. He finished his cigarette in silence.
“Time for what the Americans call, ‘B Plan,’” he said.
7. 2 Kings 2:23-24––“And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.”
8. Again, this never happened.
9. Children should not be reading this.
10. The two Chinese left the motel and sprinted across the street. Leeani used both hands to rip the seam of her pencil skirt to the waist, and clicked her heels like Dorothy. The spiked pumps were very fashionable and five-inch, but also military-grade footwear. The spikes made a metallic snap as they flattened to a soft rubber sole, and Leeani began to run.
11. The county population was 62,450 as of the 2010 census.
12. The original lyrics were “God save the Queen - God save Windowleen.”
13. Try Wilkinson’s down the block. No, not that way, the other way.
14. A better novel that’s set in post-apocalyptic Colorado: A Girl Called Badger.
15. Originally, it was to be a coming-of-age story about the daughter of a traveling barbeque salesman and titled “A Grill Called Badger.”
16. It takes three hundred bands to make a super-stripe fishtail bracelet.
17. According to Jim. Not that putrid television show––Jim the plumber who lives across the street. He once busted his head on the inside of a cabinet and it swelled up like a watermelon. His head, not the cabinet.
18. One baby in two trash cans.
19. Orlando Furioso (XVIII, 58): “Che l’uomo il suo destin fugge di raro.”
20. It’s an urban myth, because frogs always jump out of the pot before it starts to boil.
21. It was a beastly thing for Charles to do and everyone knew it, especially Charles. The ring had been a gift from his previous fiancée, Angela, who had died of consumption only a handful of years before. The shock of presenting this ring to her sister Amelia and asking for her hand in marriage before the proper end of mourning turned the entire community of Biggleswarte against him, and he was hanged from an oak tree the next day. This was a frightful problem for Charles, but not, in fact, for anyone else.
22. Peter Ostrum left the film business and later became a veterinarian.
23. Manufactured by baby monkeys on equipment that processes tree nuts. What other kind of nut is there? I’m not counting peanuts, that’s a fruit.
24. Developed by Markus Persson and released for the PC on May 17, 2009.
25. The /a/ in “Lara Croft” is pronounced the same as the /a/ in “lard,” not like “Larry.”
26. The security demands of the conference and an unfortunate ten-minute satellite blackout meant that Leanni was on her own. She didn’t like being on her own, and didn’t like having only Pete as backup. She sprinted down the alley after the Chinese and turned a corner. Something boomed and a massive force like an elephant’s kick slammed into her stomach and rolled her over and over on the asphalt. The Chinese were stupid and more interested in getting away with the virus than finishing her off, however, and Leeani pulled her Colt XSP from the leg holster. Holding her bloody abdomen with one hand, she turned sideways on the asphalt and emptied
the magazine at the backs of the two running men. One flung out his arms and collaped with a hole in the back of his skull and one in his spine, but the other only missed a few steps and kept on going.
Leanni wasn’t one to pray in time of need or otherwise, but she knew that wherever this Fong was sprinting with his vial of toxic virus, it wasn’t going to end well.
27. “Die bayerische Bier” by Die Koenigsbaum
28. It’s a little known fact that all billionaires wear pantyhose under their trousers and attribute a large part of their success to this humble but fashionable support garment.
29. Gimme A Call by Sarah Mlynowski
30. Filmed in Munich in 1970 and released on June 30, 1971.
31. Eddie Deezen of Midnight Madness fame
32. Previously known as “Twist Bands.”
33. This “Land” did exist as recently as sixty years ago, but was three hundred kilometers by bus from Lhasa and received few foreign visitors. Consistent with the legend, there were mountains of chocolate, rivers of fudge syrup, valleys of ice cream, hillocks of cake, and vaults of candy. One of the Guggenheim boys heard of this confectionary Xanadu and trekked overland with a swarm of sherpas in 1957. However, he was unaware of his own allergy to peanuts and died there in a contradictory mix of utter joy and extreme agony. His family torched the place and shipped the inhabitants to Belize.
34. Spoon Snake, from Noel Fielding’s “Luxury Comedy”
35. Steve Coogan, without question.
36. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971). The children lick the wallpaper and Gene Wilder pinches the cheeks of Veruca Salt and her little tongue sticks out.
37. For the third time, this never happened.
38. Contrary to what is stated in the passage, the main character is not ‘too sexy for a shirt.’
39. If you’ve made it this far, you may have realized that every single footnote I’ve included is completely fake. If not, the nice man will be in soon with your medication, Aunt Martha.
40. So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
Full Soundtrack
1. Moi Je Joue – Brigitte Bardot, Alain Goraguer
1. Saturday In The Park – Chicago
1. Computer Games – Mi-Sex
2. Maui Waui – Chuck Mangione
2. Ain’t Nobody’s Business But My Own – Tennessee Ernie Ford & Kay Starr
2. Hells Bells – AC/DC
3. Born To Run – Bruce Springsteen
3. Something About You – Level 42
3. Jubel (Original Mix) – Klingande
4. The Modern World – The Jam
4. Our House – Madness
4. Runnin’ Down A Dream – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
5. Nightshift – The Commodores
5. Obsession – Animotion
5. Take On Me – A-ha
6. Cowboys and Indians – Pearl Harbor & The Explosions
6. Familiar Spirit – Allen Bruce Ray
6. I Got Stripes – Johnny Cash
7. Missing Cleveland – Scott Weiland
7. Major Tom (Voellig Losgeloest) – Peter Schilling
7. Why Does It Always Rain On Me? – Travis
8. Drivin’ – Pearl Harbor & The Explosions
8. White Wedding – Billy Joel
8. Ila Nzour Nebra – Jalal Hamdaoui, Driver
9. Russian Dance (Trepak) – Christmas At The Devil’s House
9. God Save The Queen – The Sex Pistols
9. Surfin’ Bird – The Ramones
10. Tonight, Tonight, Tonight – Genesis
10. The Lady In Red – Chris Deburgh
10. The Way It Is – Bruce Hornsby and The Range
11. Dreams – The Cranberries
11. Our Lips Are Sealed – The Go-Go’s
11. True – Spandau Ballet
12. Learning To Fly – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
12. Run-Around – Blues Traveler
12. The Joker – Steve Miller Band
13. Losing My Religion – R.E.M.
13. Salsa Cubano – Mambo Companeros
13. Son de Baloy – Afro-Cuban All-Stars
14. Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door – Bryan Ferry
14. Begin the Beguine – Artie Shaw & His Orchestra
14. Lone Red-Tailed Hawk – Allen Bruce Ray
15. My City Was Gone – The Pretenders
15. Head Over Heels – Tears For Fears
15. Call Me – Go West
16. Ain’t Gone ‘N’ Give Up On Love – Stevie Ray Vaughn & Double Trouble
16. Space Oddity – David Bowie
16. I Fought The Law – The Clash
17. The Lonesome River – The Stanley Brothers
17. Oh Very Young – Cat Stevens
17. Suicide Is Painless – Johnny Mandel
18. This Is Heaven To Me – Madeleine Peyroux
18. Down By The River – Neil Young
18. Ohio – The Black Keys
19. Throwing It All Away – Genesis
19. Shaker Song – Spiro Gyra
19. Last Christmas – Wham!
20. Run To You – Bryan Adams
20. King of the Road – Roger Miller
20. Cleveland Rocks – Ian Hunter
Full soundtrack on Spotify
Coming Soon
The Roman Spaceman
Dean Cook travels to Europe to unravel the mystery of his kidnapped bride. Unfortunately for Dean, he travels with the only person in the world more oblivious to reality than himself: his Uncle Phineas.
Available now! For updates and release information, visit amishspaceman.com.
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