Oliver Benjamin
gazpacho. “Biddenbrooks standards?” he ejaculated, barely able to
eke out the words. “Biddenfucking brooksmotherfucking stand-
ards?” His associates took him by the arms and tried to calm him.
But Partment was overcome with outrage. He tried to lunge at the
young intellectual liberal helpy-boy, but they held him fast,
screaming and squirming.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “We’re friends. We’re here for you.”
Partment stopped struggling, tried to catch his breath. When he was
at last quiet and still, the man smiled and touched his shoulder.
“Now,” he said, “How about a nice soothing mug of
Biddenbrooks coffee?”
Partment broke free of his vassals and might have choked the
man to death if he hadn’t sprained three fingers in the attempt.
“Don’t worry,” his victim said after he found his breath, “I forgive
you. Really, I feel your pain.”
“That was the idea shitbrain,” Partment retorted, pulled away
and out the door by his friends, still ranting, still scheming, still
dreaming, still damned.
He strode faster. “Okay. That’s it,” he grumbled, “Happy
Doomsday to you. I’m going to blow up the place. Then I’m going to
blow up Biddenbrooks. Then, I’m going to blow up Bidden. Then…I
don’t know what after that. But that seems like a pretty good plan for
now.”
Partment dragged his gang down the Promenade and made a
right turn at the Undergrounds alley, marching as fast as his spindly
legs would take him. Stomp, stomp, stomp, each footfall making him
stronger, nearer to his goal. Blow up the fuckers. Yeah.
“What the…?” he said. The colorful collage of debris that was the
Undergrounds sign, part of the renovation that he himself had
financed, was now something else entirely. “Hell Dorado?” he
screeched, “What the freaking fuck is that?”
He charged into the blackened room, a hallucination of
deliberate darkness, screamed again, and charged back into the
garden where the anarchangels were lounging in drunken disarray.
“Who the hell are you?” He screamed at the shady bunch.
They laughed out loud. “You got that right,” the leader said
proudly. “We are denizens of hell. Mad as hell. Raising hell. You get
the picture. Welcome aboard, downtrodden brother.”
The Dismembership Chairman ran up to him. “You guys look like
you’d fit in perfectly. Like to fill out an application?” He handed a
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