And then this happened.

I hate this shit" is what Normal Grain said last night. He was drunk and reading the funny pages with his feet propped up on the kitchen table, a dinette with the boomerang pattern Formica table and the dull metal trim around the side that was supposed to make the stuff look sleek and jet age, but only look dull like a soapy film in a wash basin full of brown, tepid water.

Normal Grain slapped the newspaper with the back of his hand and craned his neck to stare at the backside of Marcus Garvey, who was over the sink , staring out the kitchen window and into the neighbor's backyard, observing one sweaty man carry boxes into the detached garage from the house, one after the other , back and forth. Marcus Garvey was on his third Benson and Hedges when he turned around and noted that Normal Grain was talking, drunk as a vacuum packed goose, wobbling in the rickety chair as he rustled the pages of the newspaper.

"This goddamned shit fucks up my shit" said Normal Grain, "I mean, you get to reading some lame Steve Roper comic strip adventure in which Mike Nomad gets buggered yet again by some East Lansing squid monger and then they go and change the artist and the writer and then the paper drops the strip altogether, leaving all the emotional investment you've made just hanging there  like pink Cootie Grope waiting for Knuckle Sandwich of Destiny to lay a five spot on ya..." He slapped the newspaper again in a motion that was too broad, too sweeping for the chair. the back legs , thin metal stalks, bent smack dab in the middle. Normal Grain fell backwards, his feet kicking the coffee pot over--a river of hot scalding coffee, brewed by Marcus Garvey in th wan hope of sobering up his sotted roommate, poured on to Normal Grain's already lumpy visage.

"Yeah, I hate syndicated comic strips too" said Marcus Garvey,"they make me want to sharpen a spoon and take a shiv to work."  He looked back out the window and made note of what was coming out of the garage, small robots on training wheels with industrial light bulb eyes and mechanical fingers resembling tiny, jointed lawn rakes driving around in manic circles and loope-de-loops,  ramming into each other as best their speed allowed; sparks, blips , insect squeals mixed nicely with the the sweaty man's choice of tunes on his vintage 1982 Ghetto Blaster, "Groin Pull Goes Lunar", a squalling morass of guitar hysteria and big band music.

"I am a lizard for love" said Normal Grain. A chunk of the ceiling gave way, falling on the kitchen table; as the dust cleared, the resident Death Ray from the apartment upstairs was revealed appearing angry, it's one red eye glowing red as an insane hen.