CHAPTER 34
Arriving at my old hotel, I knocked on Oscar’s door. He opened it and
screamed.
“Aaaaahhh! Stay away from me!” he shrieked, diving behind Joe
Fortune. Evidently, Oscar thought I still wanted to kill him.
Joe called to me, “Rippy! Where you been?” He rose to embrace
me. I started to speak, but as soon as he released me from his grip, a
sharp pain on my forhead sent me tumbling back onto the bed. It was
Yippee and his lethal forehead. “You wanker!” he exclaimed, “We
were worried about you! What happened to you?”
In looking around Oscar’s room, I realized that Yippee, Joe and
Oscar had the revolution well underway. This was the headquarters
of the resistance, complete with marked-up blueprints of the ashram
on the wall, pictures of the Omniraja with darts stuck in them, and a
single manifesto hanging from a banner:FLOOD YOU, OMNIRAJA.
“I’m back now,” I said. “and I’m here to help. Vikash filled me in
on the situation.”
“You met with Vikash?” said Joe. “So now you’re involved too!
Exceptional!”
“You, me and Yippee going ballistic I can understand, but what
convinced Oscar to get involved in something like this?”
“He thought it would be good publicity for the Juddhists—his
first holy war. Pretty brave of him, I thought,” said Joe proudly.
“Yeah,” I said. I hollered in the direction of the closet: “You can
come out now Oscar, I swear I’m not going to hurt you.”
The closet door creaked open slowly, and we all sat down.
*
“Are you sure they make the deliveries here?” Oscar moaned, “We’ve
been sitting here for hours and no one’s showed up.”
“Will you stop complaining, mate?” barked Yippee, “This is
India! Nothing happens on time in goddamn India!” It didn’t seem to
me that Yippee and Oscar got along very well. Their twin brands of
insanity were utterly incompatible. Suddenly, Joe pointed a beefy
BIG AMERICAN BREAKFAST
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