a sea of white-robed sannyasis wrestling and slugging it out with
blue-robed Juddhists, their red blood commingling on the hot,
Indian soil.
“Whoo hooo!” cried Yippee, head-butting every white-robed
rioter in sight, to which Joe answered with a “Hooo-eeeee,” and
began cutting through the crowd like a lawn-mower with a sports car
engine. “If you can’t join ‘em,” yelled Joe, “Beat the shit out of ‘em!
That’s my credo!”
I just tried to hit anyone weaker than me. All of a sudden, I was
struck by a hard right, and turned around to retaliate. Of all people,
it was Madge. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I screamed
at the old lady.
“Giving you a spanking you bad, bad boy!” she cried, taking
another swing and missing.
I grabbed her hand and twisted it carefully behind her back. She
doubled over in pain.
And there it shone before me, all glitter, gleam and glory,
Charly’s ring. I yanked it off Madge’s pudgy finger, then let her fall to
the ground and placed the ring carefully in my pocket.
Suddenly, Nivenada grabbed my arm. “Jake! Why are you doing
this?” she cried.
I shook her. “Listen, Nivenada. This is all wrong. What you are
all doing here is bad! You have to believe me! The Omniraja is
insane!” She pulled from my grasp and sent a kick to my groin,
leaving me sprawling into the dirt. Just then, a furious voice came
over the loudspeaker:
Fellow sannyasis, the time has come for you to sacrifice
yourselves to the greater good of the Vegetarian Resistance. If
the Omniraja is to die, then we must all join him in the
afterlife. Praise Omniraja! Down with the heretics!
The din of the loudspeaker was overshadowed by a massive rumbling
that grew louder and louder. Apparently, we had all underestimated
the extent to which the Omniraja’s compound had been fortified. The
crowd shrieked in unison as the incredible specter of a full-size
combat tank appeared from behind the Omniraja’s administrative
building and began indiscriminately firing bullets into the crowd.
Pulling frozen Nivenada to the ground, a bullet whizzed by inches
above our heads. I tried to pull her to safety, but there was none to be
BIG AMERICAN BREAKFAST
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