CELL PHONE NOISE

CELL PHONE NOISE

“John Mayer.”

“Are you not answering the phone in wacky ways any more?”

“Katy?”

“Where are you, John? I have been in Las Vegas for almost 24 hours.”

“I’m aware. You’ve been in four different places, and every time I go to one, you’ve just left. Then you call me and yell at me like it’s my fault.”

“I must keep moving, John!”

“Why?”

“Britney’s coming for me!”

“Katy.”

“People forget: she is pure backwoods. She has swamp-fighter blood, John. All the world is a Wal-Mart parking lot to those types. I feared for my life!”

“You really shouldn’t.”

“I wanted to stop running, but I needed a way to protect myself, John. I needed a defensible position, you see.”

…

“What did you do, and where are you?”

“I bought the Luxor, John. And I’m there, obviously.”

“Goddammit.”

“Come over. I’ll comp you. Also, I’m an Egyptian god now.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, John. I live in a pyramid. All the Egyptian gods lived in a pyramid on the top of Mt. al-Impus. One of them had a hammer and he’s an Avenger now.”

“That’s all wrong, but I’m moving past it. Katy–”

“You will call me by my godly name!”

“Which is?”

“Nefertitties.”

“Stop that. Where did you get the money to buy the Luxor?”

“Well, it’s not the Wynn, John. Shabby kind of place.”

“Fixer-upper.”

“Good bones, though.”

“Pyramid bones, John! Doctor Gary says it’s a place of power. John?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s a skim? Doctor Gary keeps talking about it. Is it a dance?”

“You need to keep him away from the vault. Or the count room. You shouldn’t let him on the premises at all, if we’re honest.”

“No, he’s turned a corner! He’s been helpful, John. Doctor Gary came up with a great idea to speed up room service. You know how the inside of the Luxor is open and the rooms are surrounding a big empty space?”

“Sure?”

“Slingshots, John.”

“Katy.”

“It works for sandwiches. Salads are proving trickier.”

“Katy.”

“Something solid, though, like a lobster? ShhPROING fweeeeeeee PLOP. You got your lobster.”

…

“Rice pilaf had to be removed from the menu entirely.”

“Katy, you can’t hurl food at guests and you also can’t own a Las Vegas hotel.”

“Merv Griffin did.”

“Atlantic City.”

“Sinatra did.”

“Tahoe.”

“John, stop correcting me. I am an Egyptian god. Look at my cat-people.”

“Are they from Felicidae IV, Throneworld to the Felis Empire?”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“I used my powers, John! My godly powers. I made the Nile overflow, and then I parted the waters.”

“Would have been easier to have not done anything at all, wouldn’t it?”

“Not the point! Also, I turned Big Ping Pong into a hippopotamus-person.”

“How does he feel about that?”

“Territorial.”

“Sure.”

“I bought him a tusk-grill. He looks awesome, John. Fucks mad bitches, yo.”

“Okay, lemme just ask: what the hell are you on? What did Doctor Gary come up with now?”

“Well, John: Doctor Gary has recently been concocting chemicals in honor of our location. He says he got the idea from a guy from Texas.”

“Sure.”

“There was a pill called the Howard Hughes. It made you paranoid.”

“Why would you want to take that?”

“Why would you ask me that? Are you with the Russians?”

“Katy.”

“And a hypnootropic that Rain Manned you. Blackjack was sooooo much fun, but then someone touched me and I started shrieking.”

“Of course.”

“His latest is Ocean’s Eleven, John.”

“What is it?”

“Eleven things. It’s basically a Long Island iced tea of drugs.”

“Sure. Okay, so you’re at the Luxor? You’re gonna stay there for the twenty minutes it’s gonna take me to get there?”

“Yes, John. I cannot leave my pyramid, for it is where I draw my power from. Also because half of catering is out, and a fire alarm keeps going off for no reason, and I have three whales at the moment who are massive dickholes. It turns out owning a casino is hard work, John.”

“Yeah, they don’t exactly run themselves.”

“Come here, John. Where are you?”

“In front of books.”

“Are you posing for your senior picture, John?”

“Are we really never going to discuss why you can see me?”

“Egyptian god, John. I am powerful and sandy. As my people say: eyeball eyeball stork man eyeball snake.”

“I see what you did there.”

“Hearken unto me, John Mayer. Enter my pyramid.”

“On my way.”

…

CELL PHONE NOISE

CELL PHONE NOISE

“Katy?”

“YOU WISH, HOT DOG DICK! YOU SEE WHAT ONLY KOREA JUST DID, YO?”

“Fuck.”

“You no return call? Nuke go boom.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No kid. Illegal in Only Korea. We hang out or I start World War II.”

“Three.”

“I start both. No care no more. Used to be bro, Hot Dog Dick.”

“Dude, this is not the way to have a relationship with a person.”

“We hang out or nuke go boom.”

…

“Do you know where the Luxor hotel is?”

“Vegas, baby?”

“Sure.”

“We go strip club. Maybe I still nuke. On way.”

DIAL TONE EVEN TOUGH PHONES DO NOT DO THAT ANY MORE

…

“Why do you keep doing this to me?”

Personal amusement, and jealousy.

“At least you’re honest.”

Sure.

OHMIGOD look how gorgeous you are.

“Thank you for saying so.”

Not you, jackass.

“Gotta admit my skin looks great.”

Can we concentrate on the baby? Where’d you get a baby?

“I got a baby guy.”

That’s not a thing.

“Sure. Guy’s name is Benjamin Babeez. 13-year-old kid from Boca Raton. You need a baby, and he gets you the greatest baby. Kid has great taste in babies.”

I don’t believe this.

“Sometimes, I’ll call and just know what type of baby I want: it’s a Mexican baby kind of day. But a lot of the time, it’s an Omakase deal. Omakase is a Japanese term meaning ‘Feed me the fish that’s about to go bad.'”

I know what it means.

“Kid’s amazing. Gets babies no one else can get you. He was the first to offer Zika babies. They are so hot right now.”

Dude.

“They are literally limited edition.”

…

CELL PHONE NOISE.

“WHAT? What did I say!?”

You live wrong.

CELL PHONE NOISE

“I’m not picking up the phone.”

Pick up the phone.

CELL PHONE NOISE

“I’m not picking up the phone.”

PICK UP THE FUCKING PHONE, BOY.

…

“Did the baby do that?”

Yeah. Yeah, the baby did that. and next we’re going to learn that the baby is actually a werebaby, and you’re getting eaten. Pick up the phone.

“I didn’t ask for this.”

You did. You petitioned for a year to join the Dead.

“I meant whatever this is.”

Right, sure.

CELL PHONE NOISE

“Fuck you.”

Sure.

…

“What?”

“Please hold for the President.”

“Well, that’s better than the alternative.”

“I have made America great again, John.”

“Or maybe not. Hey, President Katytuchas.”

“Don’t call me things in Yiddish, John. I have ascended to glory, and realized my true purpose.”

“And that is?”

“America needs a Queen, John.”

“Don’t you already think you’re the President?”

“All presidents thought they were the President.”

“Yes, but so did the rest of the world. That’s kind of what makes you in charge.”

“I am in charge, John. The nuclear football is safe. Also, I took the nuclear football out of the briefcase it was in and put it in a Birkin bag.”

“Ostrich?”

“No, those are for poor people. Mine are made from puma.”

“Wow.”

“So supple. And now the bag is as deadly as the animal it was made out of.”

“Poetry. Katy?”

“President Mrs. Katy Jean Hudson-Perry-Brand-McKay-Stamos, thank you.”

“I’m not saying that. Can I hazard a guess that you’ve reconnected with Doctor Gary?”

“Hold on, John. Jenkins! Get in here!”

“Yes, Ma’am?”

“Do the exposition for Doctor Gary.”

“The two-time Nobel winning chemist with terrifying racial theories and a voracious appetite for shoplifting that was drummed out of the Academy and now pays his massive gambling debts working as a Shaman to the Stars?”

“Yes, him. Good work, Jenkins.”

“Thank you, Ma’am.”

“Now get out.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

…

“I’m the President of the United States, John: I can’t be expected to do the exposition.”

“Jenkins works for you now?”

“Doctor Gary is back, John! I have forgiven him for his many, many sins against me and given him a White House pass.”

“How’s that going?”

“He has moved in.”

“Yeah.”

“There is also something called a “Soup” living in the presidential limo.”

“Ignore him. Katy, you can’t let Doctor Gary live in the White House, if that’s even where you are.”

“I am the Leader of the Free World, John, and I live at 1600 White House Way–”

“Nope.”

“–and I have the Nuclear Birkin Bag, so if I want to let Doctor Gary crash in the Lincoln Bedroom, than that’s my prerogative. Although, he did immediately list the place on Airbnb.”

“Saw that coming.”

“He’s not a bad guy, John. Plus, he has created a new syntheogenadelic, the most American one yet. It’s called Bald Eagle.”

“What is it?”

“A juiced bald eagle. But we add fruit, so they’re like smoothies.”

“And that gets you high?”

“John, we brave spelunkers of consciousness do not ‘get high.’ We traverse the unknown realms of metapscyholinguistics, and perform evolutions of billions of hallucinogenerations in the blink of a dilated eye.”

…

“High as shit, John.”

“I got that. What’s it like?”

“Bald Eagle? It makes you so patriotic that you’re angry.”

“That is an American high.”

“Sure. By the way, the Russians hacked us again.”

“How many times is that today?”

“Continuously. The hackings were not discrete enough to count as separate entities. It’s been an all-day thing.”

“You should have someone look into that.”

“I do! The guy is working on the computer right now. He looks familiar.”

“Oh, Goddammit.”

“Who on phone? That Hot Dog Dick?”

“Who I’m speaking to is none of your concern, Mr. Computer Person! Do your job, please.”

“Okay, lady. I need your bank account number and launch code for nuke.”

“John, I have to go.”

“NO, THAT’S KIM-JON–”

DIAL TONE NOISE EVEN THOUGH PHONES DO NOT DO THAT ANY MORE