Oliver Benjamin
finger at something. “Hey, shut up you guys! There they are!”
We were crouched low in the bushes outside the Omniraja’s
office, waiting for the weekly delivery of his nitrous oxide tanks. The
four delivery guys were in the process of unloading the huge and
heavy tanks one by one. Carefully, we crept out of the bushes and
launched our attack. Yippee ran up to the first victim and struck him
hard with his forehead, sending him sprawling to the ground. Then,
Joe effortlessly picked up two of them and clanged their heads
together, knocking them out.
Oscar and I were having a significantly more difficult time with
the fourth. I was holding him down while Oscar hit him as hard as he
could, but it really wasn’t doing much damage. In fact, after three
swings, Oscar had connected only once, and was now clutching his
hand and sobbing.
“Goddamn, it Oscar! Hit him again!” I pleaded, trying to choke
the guy with my forearm as he squirmed under my grasp.
“I think I broke my hand!” he cried.
“Then hit him with your goddamn head!” said Yippee, already
pulling off the uniform of the one he had knocked out.
Oscar took a deep breath and grabbed the remaining delivery
guy by the hair. He then cocked his head back and struck him hard
with his forehead. The sound was like two watermelons splitting
open. The guy stopped struggling immediately.
“Good going Oscar! You got him!” I said, standing up.
Oscar lay motionless on the floor.
“Shit! Oscar knocked himself out,” I said.
That wasn’t our only problem. Joe stood there in his underwear,
frustrated, a shredded delivery shirt and slacks at his feet. We had
overlooked the fact that Joe couldn’t possibly fit into any of the
delivery uniforms, and without his help, there was no way we’d be
able to switch the Omniraja’s nitrous oxide with another tank, this
one containing liquid nitrogen. If we could manage to pull this off,
the Omniraja’s gas mask would soon have to be removed from his
face with a chisel—frozen, along with his insane Utopian dreams.
Yippee and I were going to have to go in and ask for help. We
dragged Oscar behind the building and covered him with a blanket.
Then, while Joe stood watch over the Indian delivery truck and
personnel, Yippee and I strolled carefully into the corridor that led to
the Omniraja’s office. Stopping near his door, we overheard a fevered
discussion in progress between the Omniraja and an unidentified
219
 |
 |
 |
 |