WHO: That one guy who’s always hanging around down by the tire store. Just some dudes. You wouldn’t know her, she lives in Canada, but her name is, uh, Melissa Pabodie. Wealthy young gadabout Herbert Hirschman. The producers of Vantasy II: Vampire Van. Some guys in a low rider, I think they where in a gang or something. Former Texas governor George W. Bush. Livy, the legendary historian of ancient Rome, described by Michael Grant as “an epic poet in prose”. A cybernetic shark constructed by the sinister genius Dr. Eusebio Gallows and coated with a special silver-polymer coating that makes it effectively laser-proof. A bowling team consisting of Hank Williams, Gilles Deleuze and Christian Hosoi. This chick with a fat can. Your mama. At any rate, it certainly wasn’t me.
WHAT: A raging four-alarm blaze at one of the downtown area’s oldest and most historically significant buildings. The storied Key of Agzalon, given to you by the Dwarf King Peomare for rescuing his daughter from the Wither Demon. The Super Pineapple Pesto pizza at Regino’s Pizza Putting Green. Five bucks and some change. A dime bag of the craziest Jamaican redhead you’ll ever toke in your fucking life, dude. The Tomb of the Extremely Well-Known Sailor. A computer keyboard where all the keys are Egyptian heiroglyphic characters from the Rosetta Stone. The rug that the cats puked on. A bronzed adult diaper reading “Tootsie” across the fanny. A bootleg DVD of Nards of Death. A hat that keeps you from sweating. A loaded 9mm, a briefcase full of cocaine, and the fastest car you’ve got on the lot. Look, man, I don’t know what it is, I just found it.
WHY: Because it was there. Because everybody’s doing it. Because God told me to, and I still wasn’t sure, so I asked Him for clarification and He told me again, but this time in much more detail. Because if I hadn’t done it, someone else would have, although probably with less bloodshed. Because I didn’t want to be the last one in the dorm with a tattoo on his neck. Because I thought you wanted to. Because I read too many romance novels set in 15th-century Italy. Because it’s the law. Because ever since I found out the president got a blowjob, it seems like nothing means anything anymore. Because damn it, somebody had to take a stand, and it wasn’t going to be me. Because I heard it was legal in this country. Because otherwise my testicles would have dropped off like a couple of overripe bananas. I just did, okay? Do I have to have a reason for everything?
WHERE: Over there, by the cabinet — no, not that cabinet, that one, over there, with the thing hanging on it. Elmwood, a quiet unassuming town somewhere in the Great Plains of the midwest. Up your ass, that’s where. Either at home or at the office, depending on whether or not I remembered to buy condoms. In my other pants. Nazi Germany, just prior to the invasion of Poland, in a tiny dank tavern called Der Schafnippel. In a subbasement of the famed pre-Prohibition breweries of Dandy Dirk’s Peppermint Beer Company. On page 437 of the sixth novel in the series, just before St. Peter does the striptease. In Bangla Desh or Sri Lanka or Viet Nam or one of those fucked-up countries. Stuffed under a drainage culvert out on Route 109. At the head of my pito. Either inside the case for my videotape of King Solomon’s Mines, or in King Solomon’s actual mines. How the hell should I know?
WHEN: Fifteen minutes ago. Before humans had any conception of time. In exactly three minutes and 22 seconds, so for God’s sake, hurry! At Ramadan. The day the music died. September 11th, 2001, but not the September 11th, 2001 you’re thinking of. Right before I fire your ass. After America’s Dumbest Reality Show Contestants. Six times a day — nine if I can get my hands on some raw Vitamin E. At the exact same time Rev. DuPree was winding his watch in the clock tower. Same time it was this time yesterday. Later than you think. I don’t know, I wasn’t keeping track.
HOW: The same way everyone else does it — one link at a time. Using a crudely made noose, some rotten artichokes, and a old Frito-Lay coupon. I can travel instantly from place to place without covering the intervening distance. It took a lot of work, but through the grace of God, the love of a good woman, and several pounds of concentrated plastic explosives, I pulled it off. It happens naturally when you reach a certain age. I’m not sure, but I know if you keep forcing it like that, it’s going to break. Just like you told me to, with the cheese grater. I dunno, I just winged it. You just have to blend it with a little canola oil and arsenic. The same way as my father did it, and his father, and his father’s father, going all the way back to my great-great-great-grandfather, who didn’t do it at all because electricity hadn’t been invented yet. I just went back in time and fixed it so that particular law of physics was never discovered. By standing on a chair. Whatever the case, there’s no way you could have done it by yourself.