With Necktal Artery Throbbing

by Delo White

I stared into the mirror and saw the artery in my neck throb. Whatever that artery is told me how my heart was doing. I could actually visualize the blood pumping from the upper chambers (atria) to the lower chambers (ventricles). Cool!

But all I had to do was look down at the scar that ran from my chest to my stomach to remember how my fixation started. I had a hole in my heart that required open heart surgery. They cut me open like a turkey. I used to tell people that I’d prefer a hole in the heart to a hole in the head. That would not have left a pretty scar.

“You’re not normal, Peter Wellesley. You’re just a damn freak!”

The nurse pulled the plug on me, including the IV in my right arm where she’d blown two veins, and shoved a pillow over my face. She was doing it symbolically for all mankind. This I imagined.

A life of abnormality was mine. Never fitting in, thinking strange thoughts, jerking off one too many times, playing with cats who were spies for the Catnip Society, espousing my theories of insubstantiality to wives of slovenly dressed executive golfers.

It took years for me to get it. Things just weren’t right. Then my heart started doing tricks on me. There were so many close calls where I saw death as a cartoon character using an inflatable hammer to bop me on the head.

“Freak!” he uttered before falling through the hole in the ceiling.

“Let me play the game and I’ll be a good boy,” I promised, but only I heard.

I thought I’d played the game: college educated, a respectable work history, volunteerism, and involvement in other things. But I was kidding myself.

“You are a most affable, potent and egregiously laughable man, Peter,” an employer told me once as he escorted me to the elevator. “However, I think your skills could be better utilized in a higher yet lower capacity. Have you ever considered government service?”

The artery in my neck began to throb which caught the man’s attention.

“My, that sucker is really vividly pronounced. Do you know that if you put your finger here,” applying his right index finger to my throbbing necktal artery, “and apply pressure as such...”

I came to shortly in a dumpster a few blocks away. I guess I didn’t get the job.

That was one sure-fire indication that I had heart problems. The next was when I was hired by a covert government organization appropriately called WANA, short for We Are Not Anonymous, as a lowly clerk. Immediately my heart went into an arrhythmia that brought fainting spells, cold sweats, pain, numbness, and the ability to understand gibberish.

This skill brought me to the attention of the assistant to the vice president in charge of covert, very hush-hush operations. WANA’s front was as a quaint, innocent greeting card company. The cards held subliminal messages. They sure did give Hallmark a scare.

“Wellesley, I’ve been advised that you have a gift for gibberish,” the man in the shadows said. His voice was also disguised by the use of helium. “Gibberish as you know is a non-language yet mischievous and useful in intelligence hindquarters.”

He rose from behind the desk named Melvin, took a couple of steps to his right, struck the wall with the flag on it with his head and promptly fell down.

Once seated behind Melvin he uttered, “Higgy piggy floo floo catcha ratta matta.”

“That’s not a nice thing to say about subterranean floor lighting, sir.”

“Aha! So you do speak gibberish, Wellesley.”

My heart was making me short of breath as I felt my neck artery pumping excitedly and heard a kettle drum in my left ear.

“It is known in many Argentine theaters that those with a certain heart condition and pronounced neck artery throbbing have the gift. We are offering you the opportunity to use this gift to uncover the secret ingredient in a most delicious and addictive food that most of our higher level officials and superstars are eating, which causes them to act irrationally and drool uncontrollably. Do you accept this mission?”

Well, howdy do, friends. Just when I thought my physical condition was nothing but negative. Here I could use it to serve God and country.

It was highly reported that people of power and wealth had mysteriously started acting stranger than usual. They were already borderline nuts. Then when politicians started making sense and caring for their constituents, forcing normally hostile and mistrusting voters to believe them, the eyes of WANA fluttered.

Shortly politicians, superstars, business leaders, and those with sharp-tipped noses metamorphosed into amateur cartoonists and took long vacations at their own expense. Because of their considerable absence America became threatened. For without their overpowering, unsympathetic and tyrannical rule nothing got accomplished.

People stopped working and nothing got produced. The economy became less economical and classical music replaced football as America’s number one source of entertainment. At the same time large reptiles ran rampant, causing more politicians to take moderately inexpensive vacations, usually to upper Newfoundland.

“Infiltrate and speak the gibberish, Wellesley,” commanded Dr. Henry L. Kabooboo, neuro-cardiologist transfixer-upper. “With this specially implanted fibrillator, with homing pigeon precision, you will penetrate the circle of gibberishers who are causing our powerful and political figures to turn sane yet most stupid.

“From a secret kitchen in an alley that was a cave you will find the onerous chef who has spiked this addictive food. Use the gibberish to find the ingredient responsible and with said special device fibrillate the ingredient into another special device to be stored for a later date in a nuclear yet unstated device for very hush-hush porpoises.”

So off I went. My special necktal artery pulsated as I floated in the air, causing much anxiety to special yet unclassified airline attendants.

“You are Here,” announced the man dressed as a pumpkin. “Here in Here we tell no secrets and dress funny in order to disguise our true identities as egomaniacal business executives. We also eat a lot of Putt Fry Thai Pai Harrumph. Follow me as I show you Here which is different from There since There to Here is practically nowhere, man.”

I got on top of the pumpkin and rode him for a couple of blocks until in exhaustion he stopped and spat out a mouthful of seeds. I felt for the man/pumpkin/business executive. I briefly saw his necktal artery throbbing and knew that he had a heart problem.

“What did you use to do, pumpkin man?”

He/it smiled most inhumanly and said with his pumpkin mouth, “I was a reputable, egomaniacal slave driver who cared most savagely for money, causing my wife, children and dog Schleppo to bury themselves in a hole in the front yard and barred me entrance until I agreed to not cancel our subscription to ‘Cock-a-doodle-doo and You’.

“Then I ate It and my life changed. A little square man in a kitchen in an alley that was a cave handed me a plate of Putt Fry Thai Pai Harrumph and said, ‘Enlightenment will soon be yours as your salivary gland reaches your medulla oblongata, which will tingle your necktal artery, causing much joyful throbbing’.”

I realized that he was speaking gibberish when a strange two-tailed, three-nosed reptile called a mudwonk whizzed past us and said, “You gibberishers should get a life. Man, are you weird!”

A couple of days later in upper lower Newfoundland I stood in a field of much weirdness. Farmers had discovered some years before that growing appliances was more profitable than growing vegetables. Looking to the north I saw this year’s TVs, CD/DVD players, computers, printers, digital cameras, Xboxes, PlayStations, and home theater systems. To the east grew microwaves, blenders, food processors, refrigerators, toasters, coffee makers, stoves and can openers. I gazed in awe as my heart beat excitedly and my neck artery throbbed majestically.

“Hey, you!”

Marching towards me from the electronics side appeared a short, stubby, gray-bearded band director. He wore a sparkling pink and black jacket with yellow leather pants with red stripes. On top of his head sat a large, square, white, feathery hat with a live penguin perched on top of it, guiding the band director. Such a noise the penguin made.

“Are you in the band?” asked the penguin. The man beneath the penguin showed no life. An absolute zombie.

“What?”

The penguin stretched out and gave me a most foul look. “I said. Are you in the band?”

It’s strange what one experiences when one’s heart beats irregularly.

“Do I look as if I’m in the band?”

The penguin leaned over and whispered something into the man’s left ear. The band director suddenly struck me over the head with his baton which didn’t feel good since it was made of steel.

“You are an invader!” squawked the penguin. “We, the state champion marching band, the screaming Doorknobs from western Montana in Champagne, Florida, are the royal appliance protectors. Go, screaming Doorknobs!”

Rising from nowhere marched three hundred members of the screaming Doorknobs. The tune they played sounded vaguely like “Your Momma Doesn’t Know But Your Sister Sure Does. Wink. Wink.” They steadily marched forward through sprouting appliances, swaying side to side.

“Say. I’m just looking for the chef in the kitchen that’s in an alley that was a cave.” Still the band marched onwards. Panicking I shouted, “I just want to experience the ecstasy of Putt Fry Thai Pai Harrumph!”

Suddenly the band stopped fifty feet short of me. It was at this point that I recognized many in the band. There was United States Vice President Taylor R. Nailed on tuba; Congresswoman Patricia Pukeswater on trombone; superstar/film actor Peter Pastrami on xylophone; and opera singer Ethel Stumpy Me on a gorilla who played bass drum. Upon close inspection I detected the characteristic throbbing neck artery and look of zombie possession.

“You really want to meet the chef that is?” asked the penguin. “Seeing that you speak the language that isn’t which is gibberish that only we the anointed and cursed speak, you will naturally know what is.”

“Is what?” I inquired as the band sank to their knees. I was quite annoyed as I wasn’t feeling well. Luckily the defibrillator kicked in and I remained alive.

“Look,” I said with much restraint. “Do you know where the chef is?”

“Define is.”

I felt my heart running like a locomotive and felt the hand of something touch me. “Is is!” I exploded, which was quite a sight for I’d turned into my mother’s father’s cousin’s left hand on a broom.

“Correct!” said penguin man.

Suddenly I found myself transported to a very dainty kitchen that was in an alley that was and still is a cave.

Penguin man stood before me laughing and trying to regurgitate a salamander. Then before my eyes he/it became the most gorgeous woman I’d ever seen. Her long dark hair smelled of chicken soup.

“Now it can be revealed that the world’s power is held by a woman,” she said in a voice that not only melted my butter but caused me enormous chest pain and ringing in the ears.

She seized my hand, licked and kissed it, saying, “My name is Dandy as in dandelion. I come from the rock of ages which is really old and well sat upon. For ages women have been seen as inferior to men. So once unleashed from my rocky prison I set about seeking man’s downfall.

The sheer brutality of those money grubbing, inconsiderate egotists who pretend to care for others but in actuality only care for their clout and golfing scores is outrageous. But now they are the zombie morons in my award-winning, all-state marching band. Soon I will march them into the river of Putrid which will send them to the bottom of the sink that is most unfiltered to think endless nothing thoughts yet scratch most productively.”

I was stunned. “But how will America survive without the tyrannical powerful?”

She smiled and whistled, “They won’t. For to not be is to be and to sit around watching TV is to not know but to know that by not knowing one knows. You know?”

Suddenly I felt very stupid but all-knowing. I knew that without the slave drivers and money men, people had no direction and thus were reduced to sitting around not knowing what to do while the economy and the game show Jeopardy collapsed. What a plan.

“Do I assume that you or another you will then step in and take over?” I inquired as my defibrillator gave my heart a good juicy hello.

From the stove named Seymour she poured a concoction of oriental food onto a plate that wasn’t named and handed it to me.

She smiled and said in another voice, “Please. I would be honored if you would partake of my special recipe called Putt Fry Thai Pai Harrumph. Or as it’s called in non gibberish- Flutt Pry Sai Winnie Winnie. Or even further in non gibberish gibberish- Eat At the Risk of Being Perceived As Silly.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” I retorted tartly.

“I have no further aspirations for mankind except to see its demise. I will return to the hole in the rock and sleep with the Martians who snore most profoundly.”

I took the plate, smelled it, and almost took a bite. Then suddenly I whipped out the special device, which was the non-defibrillator, and fibrillated the ingredients.

Seeing my actions Dandy gasped, belched, roared, sighed and proclaimed my actions a violation of eater’s etiquette.

“You suck, Peter Wellesley! What forever is the meaning of this?”

I chuckled and turned the sucky fibrillating device on her chefness.

“I am here to suck the main ingredient from your Putt Fry Thai Pai Harrumph which causes powerful people to be sane yet most stupid. Give it up, Dandy!”

She cringed, craned, stooped and took on many transfigurations including a mole on the cheek of a Grecian urn.

I chased her through the alley that was and still is a cave until she dropped onto the trampoline in disgust, yet smiling as she appreciated a good chase.

“Come on, Dandy. I hold the trigger of the sucking machine which makes much joyful fibrillation and hurts my left elbow.”

She smirked and said as she bled into the rock of ages, “That which you seek is inside of me. The damage is done, and your world is doomed!”

Faster than you can think of an ending for this silly story, I applied the special fibrillator to the rock. Dandy horrifyingly came right out and fibrillated to the tune of “Everybody Tremor Along With Me Since We Have No Bones.”

“You’re such a meanie, Peter!” she said, blowing milk bubbles at me. “Do you really want to know what the special ingredient is, huh?”

My heart had so calmed down that I couldn’t understand her. It came out as “Dingle wingle wombom?” So I turned the fibrillator on myself.

“Okay. Would you repeat that?”

In frustration and capitulation she went with the fibrillator and was sucked into a state of non-being and bits of gravy.

Meanwhile back in the field the band was clapping and jumping up and down most insanely while admiring the latest crop of appliances.

Back at WANA Dandy was analyzed extensively. Ah, what spices she indulged in. But there was one specific ingredient that was rare and had no DNA. Testing it on ten thousand malnourished termites revealed that termites fancied linoleum over wood and liked taking extensive vacations.

“You’ve done well, Wellesley,” said the assistant to the vice president in charge of covert, very hush hush operations, who remained in the shadows but sporadically rose from his chair to bang his head on the flag-draped wall. “You have restored insanity and tyrannical rule to our domestic agenda. Now fall down, chant three yo mommas, and rise and accept your new mission.”

So, I am currently engaged on a mission to rid the world of the sane policies of shyster herbal tea dealers from the planet Oops. With heart and neck throbbing it allows me special insight that only those who understand and speak gibberish have.

To the unknown world and my mother I am not a hero. Every time I go home to visit my mother she punches me in the neck and calls me a freak. My defibrillator’s warranty is about to expire and the manufacturer has taken an indefinite vacation. But until the defibrillator quits I will fight to keep America free from freaks who speak gibberish.