The Legend of Boothman and Other Guy

A picaresque tale.

by funtax

Aside from the time of day and the hours of churchyard lurking, it had been a perfectly normal evening. In the wee-est of the wee hours of the night, mal and I finally found Nightmode's house, nestled behind the only church on the eastern seaboard that we DIDN'T wander around aimlessly.

At 3AM, Denny's and 7-11 are your only options. We wanted some upscale eating, so Denny's it was.

As is often the case in remote Denny's at odd hours of the night, a fellow was passed out in the booth next to ours. After we ordered our drinks, however, he woke up, muttered to himself and wandered off. Returning five minutes later, he commented about the refreshing effects of splashing water on one's face. We nodded and offered token agreement, hoping he'd go back to sleep.

But we'd forgotten that in "crazy-Denny's-customer" language, ANY response is an indicator that you want to engage them in a lengthy and, if possible, profoundly disturbing discussion. So the proverbial flood gates were open.

Prior to our food arriving, Boothman became progressively more energetic towards us. Here's a short list of examples:

-Showed us some sort of card trick involved a Joker, an 8 of something, the instruction card from a regular deck and an Uno "Draw Four" card. None of us could decipher what the actual TRICK was.

-Declared that, regardless of race, we're all brothers, except the women, who are all sisters.

-Inasmuch as we are all siblings, we are united against The Government.

-Inasmuch as we are united, there will soon be a Revolution.

At some point he noticed that, rather than responding to his muttering, we were all gripping our silverware very tightly and trying not to move very much. (I, for example, was trying to figure out how I could best get the table to flip over and act as a shield, if need be. This seemed like a very good thing to have planned in advance, as the Revolution could happen any time now.) Many people would have gotten the message and assumed we were not really in a "talk-to-the-wacko" mood. But not Boothman. Nothing would dissuade him from ennumerating the various things that we were all united against. His super-power seemed to be an odd (possibly nuclear-powered) oblivious tenacity that allowed him to ramble forever, even in the face of an obviously uncomfortable audience. Nothing could stop him.

Except maybe bitchy teenagers.

We were granted a reprieve after about 5 straight minutes of madness, when two lanky, pale kids ("Girl" and "Other Guy," respectively) wandered in, presumably boyfriend and girlfriend (but who knows). This distracted Boothman. He clued them into their status with regards to the Revolution and such. Other Guy seemed pretty thankful to know it was on its way, and soon. Girl seemed irritated. We missed about 5 minutes of Boothman action at this point because our food arrived and we were trying to eat it as fast as possible so we could beat feet with our respective posteriors still intact.

Boothman was now doing his "big finale" for the kids.

He looked at Girl and, very seriously, declared that he knew her. She didn't think he did. Here's what came next:

Boothman - "Yeah... you're Tony's friend, ain't'cha?"

Girl - "Tony So-and-so?"

Boothman - "Yeah!"

Girl - "You don't know him."

Boothman - "You gotta cell phone? I'll call him right now."

(Other Guy hands Boothman his phone, Boothman seems to dial some number.)

Boothman - "Tony? Hey. What's that blonde bitch's name? You know, the one that was always chewin' on yer neck?"

(to Girl)

Boothman - "Your name Andrea?"

Girl (to Other Guy) - "You told him that when I was in the bathroom."

Other Guy denies it.

Girl - "Fuck you!"

She storms out of the Denny's and doesn't return.

At this point, mal blows soda and eggs out of his nose.

Boothman laughs a bit and tells us he knew her name because he was an angel. Now we're eating with reckless abandon and I am trying to discreetly signal our waitress that our lives depend on her getting the check to us, post-haste.

At this point, Other Guy gets up and joins Boothman at his table. He asks Boothman if he reads the Bible. Boothman says that he doesn't read it because he WROTE the Bible. The two go back and forth about random stuff, the government, Revolutions, etc. At some point, Boothman produces a pile of cdrs. It seems he's a musician. His proof that these were his albums was somehow related to the fact that there were 40 tracks on the cd (well, on the label at least). Random Guy tries to buy one off of Boothman, who won't them sell for two reasons:

1) He don't sell nuthin' to his brothers.
2) He ain't heard half of the songs cuz he wrote him when he was all fucked up.

During this bit of fun, the waitress comes out with Other Guy and No-Longer-Here Girl's food. Other Guy says "she ain't with him, she with Boothman." Boothman insists "she with Other Guy."

The waitress, obviously angry, turns and takes No-Longer-Here-Girl's omelette back. Other Guy is now fully under Boothman's spell, having seemingly abandoned No-Longer-Here Girl to her own devices in favor of dining with his new friend.

As we're finishing what we all thought would be our last meals on this mortal coil, Boothman realizes it's been a full five minutes since he babbled at us. He yells over to us and let us know that "Shit... I'm the Demon Son of God."

Right after this revelation, he let me know that I "ain't never gonna die." Normally, I would find that comforting, immortality being a handy thing to have at one's disposal and all. But in this instance, it seemed less pleasant than usual. Maybe it was the idea of demonically-granted immortality I found unsavory. It also could have been the fact that I'd inhaled a Denver omletee two minutes earlier that made me feel a wee bit unsettled. Evidently, mal and Nightmode can continue to expect death at some point.

We left.

The word "surreal" doesn't begin to describe the experience.

We never did find out what happened to the girl.

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