405

A Memoir by Smits

I shift my weight slowly back and forth from one foot to the other.  My eyes are wide open, unblinking, yet I see nothing of my surroundings.  The only thing occupying my mind right now is this third and final squat attempt.  My heart is racing.  I take deep, deliberate breaths in an effort to calm myself.

"Load the bar to 390 and set the monolift to number 13 for Stephen.  Kyle is on deck, Jake is in the hole, and Jason is four out."

My heartbeat surges despite my attempts to assuage the pounding in my chest.  I start putting my belt on and try to shift my focus to something other than my vital organs.  I remind myself how fast and light my warmup attempts were and that I crushed my first two attempts.  This is mine.

As I chalk up my hands I hear the clang of the monolift hooks being closed.  The meet director comes over the loudspeaker again: "And that is a good lift.  Load the bar to 405 and set the monolift to number 14 for Kyle . . ."

No more time to think.  It's fight or flight.

I focus all of my mental faculties on exactly two words:  Speed and Tension.  There's no use trying to recall every cue that I've used during training to target weak points and execute the perfect rep.  This is game day.  There are no style points.  You either squat the weight or you don't.  Months and months of training have ingrained the proper mechanics into my muscle memory.  Now's the time to just be a fucking savage.

I grab a handful of chalk with my left hand and toss it into the palm of my right.  The familiar feel of magnesium carbonate caked onto my hands brings me a little bit of comfort.

“The bar is loaded.”

I walk out onto the platform and face the crowd for the third time.  I don’t look at anyone.  My focus on the task at hand is complete.  I don’t even speak to the head judge when he asks if I’m going to be walking the weight out of the monolift.  I just shake my head to indicate that I won’t be.

My face is expressionless as I place my hands on the barbell.  Middle fingers go on the rings like I’ve done for literally thousands of repetitions back in the gym.  Hands set, I thrust my head under the bar and search for that sweet spot just above my scapulae where I want the weight to rest.  The skin on this spot is callused and discolored from all the times it bore the weight during my hour and a half long squat days.  I place my feet directly under the bar - a little bit wider than shoulder width and toes pointed slightly out.

Everything in place exactly how I want it, I take a huge breath deep into my diaphragm and lift the bar off the hooks with conviction.  It brings me great confidence to lift the bar like this.  I’m sending the message that I own this weight.  I expel all the oxygen out of my lungs with a long exhale.

The head judge drops his hand and yells out the command, “Squat!”

I take another deep breath, deeper than the last, and hold it while consciously contracting every muscle in my body - the valsalva maneuver.  My contracted glutes bring my hips in perfect alignment with my spine and my elbows torque forward after firing my lats.  My back is now utterly rigid.

Muscular tension radiating throughout my body, I begin the descent.  First the knees and hips unlock at the same time.  Next I push my hips back and incline my torso forward so that the bar stays precisely over the middle of my foot.  I continue downward into the hole until I feel my hamstrings and glutes stretched to their full lengths.  This is the signal I’ve been waiting for.

In one infinitesimal moment in time, I reverse the direction of the bar with a violent drive upward with my hips.  The fact that my spine is rigid allows this force to be transmitted to the barbell.  Initially I move quickly upward, but then I hit the wall, the sticking point midway between the top and bottom of the lift where I must grind the weight up with every ounce of testicular fortitude I can muster.

My hips have done their work.  My quads kick in to bring me back to the same position I started.  I try to push my head back so that my torso returns to it’s upright position.  Time ceases to exist.  The crowd is cheering me on and my back spotter is screaming in my ear right behind me, but in this moment I don’t hear anything.  It feels like I’m moving a millimeter an hour.  I close my eyes, bear my teeth, and grind, quads firing quite literally like they never have before this attempt.  This is 20 pounds more than I’ve ever squatted in my time on Earth.

Finally, I feel my knees lock back into place and I am standing erect facing the head judge again.  He yells out the final command, “Rack!” and I place the bar back onto the monolift hooks.  My face is beat red and my eyes are bloodshot from the pressure generated during the attempt as I turn around to see the judges’ verdict.  I made it through the attempt, but it still must be determined if the crease at my hip joint descended lower than the top of my patella.

Three green lights flash across the board, indicating that my attempt was deemed GOOD.  I have been officially judged as a 405 pound squatter!

I big, toothy smile breaks across my face as I walk off the platform to celebrate with my wife and fellow brothers in iron.  I set the goal to squat 405 four months ago.  Now after several months of focused training, four days a week, between an hour and a half and two hours per day, I have reached my goal.  It is a positively euphoric feeling.

-

Several hours later, I have finished my first powerlifting competition, going 9 for 9 in my attempts and setting personal records in each lift.  I am riding the highest of highs.  One that can only come after months of delayed gratification via waves of doubt and disbelief that I could reach my goals, and difficult training sessions when I didn’t feel like leaving my apartment to go to the gym.  But then a funny thing happened.

As I drove home my feeling of accomplishment started to fade away.  I thought to myself, “Now that I know I can add about 30 pounds to my squat in 3 or 4 months, I should be able to squat 430 or 435 by March.”  The pure happiness I had felt in the moments after that last squat attempt had already vanished as I began dreaming about what I could accomplish at the next meet.  Before the sun had set on my grueling four month journey to 405, the sound of that number no longer brought me the same level of happiness as it did only a few hours ago.

Such is life in the iron world - a self-imposed Sisyphean existence.  My frame of mind doesn’t allow for long stretches of comfort.  By bed time I hear the iron calling me out again.  This journey has no end.

Once More, Unto the Breach: Fez-isms, Speak Like the Sexual Satch, Yahmsayin?

by Louis "Satchel" DiFez

Before we begin, let us venture deep unto the breach of my mind. We need something to set the mood, so go ahead and press play.

Ohhhh yeahhhhhh.  Uhhhhhhhh.

Let me preface this whole article with one simple, unmistakable fact:  I am a weird person.  I make funny mouth noises, I have strange thoughts, and I will say literally anything that I am thinking.  I am a weirdo, and I have no problem admitting that.

However, I feel as if my good friends have no idea what I am saying most of the time.  Or if they do know what I am saying, they have no idea what I actually mean.  Oddly enough, I usually have no idea what I mean either, until I sit down and think about it.  I have made it my goal to not only illuminate you on what I say and what it means, but for me to personally reflect on the crap that I say and what it really means to me.

Thus, I give you my baby:  Fez-isms.

Yahmean

Contraction for “do you know what I mean?”
Example: Let’s go hunting for the ladies tonight, yahmean?

Yahmsayin

Contraction for “do you know what I am saying?”
Example: “Dude, she looked so hot that I blew it real quick, yahmsayin?”

Doe

Word substitute for “though”
Example: “I’ma put the team on my back, doe.”

Jawn

A female, particularly of ample attractiveness.
Example: “Hey man, check out that jawn over there.  She got that big ol’ booty.”

"Yeah, I got that big ol' booty."

Fux wit it

It actually doesn’t mean what you think, but it also can mean exactly what it sounds like, depending on its usage.  Normally, I intend it to mean “Do you want to do this specific thing?” However, it can mean exactly what it sounds like, fux’n wit it, fux’n on them jawns, yahmean?
Example: “Hey, you tryna fux wit dinner tonight?”  “Yeah brah, does 6pm sound good?”

69/69 style

It is clearly referencing the best sensual position.  69 is also the best number, other acceptable numbers are 6.9, 6969, or anything ending with 69.
Example: “Dude, how many beers did you drink last night?”  “Like 69, brah.”

Veiny

From the movie “Waiting” where it is used in the context of the bat-wing scrotum and it is exclaimed, “Ohhh, it’s so veinyyyy!” Generally, veiny is a positive thing, kind of like loins, which will be covered shortly.  Anything that you’re excited about can be veiny, and also, anything that is appropriately literally veiny may also be veiny as well.
Example: “Yo how excited are you that it’s Friday?” “Ohhhh, it makes me so veinyyy.”

Bonair’s

My personal favorite, it means exactly what it sounds like: boner.  However, I did not come up with this. The one known as Dr. Funk devised its name.  The story goes as follows: while in Spring Mills, PA for a weekend, Funk was laying with the First 1st Lady of the KeyPAP, Troltits.  As I lay in bed, I heard him speak tenderly to the Trol, “I have Bonair’s disease.” I immediately began crying laughing, as it was the funniest thing I’ve heard in a while.  This was inserted instantly in my everyday vernacular.  However, it became modified, which I will take credit for.  Acute Onset Bonair’s is the blood flow type, as caused by a jawn.  Chronic Bonair’s is of the morning variety, usually due to bladder backup.  For more information on Bonair’s, check this out.  Lately, I have been using it in conjunction when I am excited about something, I say that it gives me “the thickest of Bonair’s.”
Example: “Finally being able to go out every weekend gives me the thickest of Bonair’s!”

Yarp

Yes (said in a vague pirate accent) – taken from the movie “Hot Fuzz.” If you have not seen this movie, you should definitely be all up in that.
Example: “Are you gonna drink some beers tonight?” “Yarp.”

Narp

No (said in a vague pirate accent) – again, from “Hot Fuzz.”
Example: “Are you gonna drink some jawn-drinks tonight?” “Narp.”

Brah

Substitute for “bro.” One of your boys.
Example: “What up, brah?”

"Nothin's up, you stupid sumbitch.  And that's the bottom line!"

I smell ya

Substitute for “I understand what you are saying.”
Example: “I sucked at golf today.”  “Me too, man, I smell ya.”

Bukkake Salad

Probably my newest and not frequently used.  Blowing a hot, sticky one and/or a multitude of bukkakes. For those of you who do not know what a “bukkake” is, go on the tremendously educational Urban Dictionary and check it out for yourself.  Fun fact:  in my younger days I thought “bukkake”
(correctly pronounced boo-kah-key) was actually pronounced “buh-cake.” Stupid . . . I know.
Example 1: “Dude, I heard you and Molly hooked up!”  “Yeah bro, straight up bukkake salad errwhere, yahmean?"
Example 2: “I gave her the sweet bukkake salad last night like BLLLAAAAAGGGHHHHH!!!  All over the place, baby!”

Bung/Bunghole

The anal sphincter, the entrance to the brown highway, the butthole.
Example: “I poop out the bung.”

Loins

For the most part, I mean it as my reproductive organ.  However, it can mean any part of your body.
Example: “My loins tingle in anticipation of tonight.”

I also like to use Olde English (O-E baby!) words, such as:  Ye, Thy, Doth, Mine (as in mine own), etc. Welp, that’s about it for now.  The single most important factor in using my Fez-isms is:  embrace the weirdness. Also, it is important to give credit when credit is due, i.e. the Bonair’s with Dr. Funkteets. Lastly, all words can be used in conjunction with others, and obviously this is highly encouraged.  As I develop more weird phrases/words, I will surely post them at once.

Good luck, I hope they work out for you, and may the jawn be wit you, doe.

Terry Cakebread: Human, Part IV

My name is Terry Cakebread and this is the fucking story of my life.

Previously:  Part III

8:00 AM day 18 with the Aliens

I was dreaming that I was on top of the Hell in a Cell and the Undertaker was about to throw me 20-feet to the table below.  I tried to stop it but his strength was too much, I felt my center of gravity float as I plummeted to the earth.

“Damn, what are they feeding you, you stupid piece of monkey garbage, you shit bigger than a horse at a golden corral.”

I did not know where he was getting these phrases but he said them with such conviction I swear he could channel the spirit of Stone Cold himself.

He looked at me and said, “I got the matches if you wanna watch some ass whoop'ns.”

For the next two weeks Stone Cold ET and I watched WWE matches all day long.  His favorite wrestler by far was Stone cold Steve Austin and I think I offended him once when I showed some slight admiration to his least favorite wrestler, The Rock.  When I told him that the Rock would become much more popular than Stone Cold he told me, “Those other humans must be twice as stupid with half the balls as you, you bag of monkey shit.” He knew my name was Terry, but mostly I was various forms of monkey shit.  Stone Cold ET was infatuated with the hulking physiques of the wrestlers in the movies.  Most of the people on his planet were frail beyond comprehension because of the lack of physical work they had to do.  I showed him how to do some basic muscle building exercises like pull ups and pushups.  Because his body was so unaccustomed to physical work it began to respond very rapidly, much more rapidly than any human would expect.  After just two weeks he had a body that would rival the Ultimate Warrior’s!  In that time he told me that the other aliens were impressed with humans’ ability to achieve beyond their means and intended to find out what it was that helped us do so, and that to figure it out I would likely be killed.  I could tell that he was upset by this.  We were actually having a lot of fun watching the matches together, and I found Stone Cold ET and his hatred for the Rock to be hysterical.

8:00 AM day 42 with the Aliens

“Wake up you floating pile of monkey turds, I got an idea!”

ET came storming into the room muscles blaring with a makeshift pair of jean shorts and a bad replica of Steve Austin’s vest.

“I think I can save you, you no good sumbitch.  If I send you back in time I think I can get you back to Earth.”

I knew that even though Stone Cold ET was retarded on his planet that he was much smarter than I was.  I also knew that time travel into the past was impossible.

“Stone Cold ET, you can’t time travel into the past.  Even if you could how would you know where to send me?”

“Stop flappin’ your gums and listen to me you stupid sack o’ monkey goddamn sumbitch.  I said we can send you back in time, just because your dumb ass didn’t figure it out yet don’t mean it can’t happen.  And as for that other stuff, those guys already got all that figured out about when you left and where you came from.  You had a calendar, and clocks and shit in the ship, we ain’t no stupid piles of wastewater like yourself.”

Perhaps Stone Cold ET was smarter than I was giving him credit for.  The accent made it nearly impossible to assume otherwise.  I started to have some hope but it was dashed by the thought that if they did have time machines they would likely be heavily guarded.  The chances that two idiots, by their standards, could hatch a plan to get out seemed impossible.  I voiced this concern to Stone Cold ET.

“You think you got it all figured out don’t you, ya stupid S.O.B. but did ya ever stop and think for a minute?  This place is heavily guarded, on the outside.  You are what they are guarding you dumb pile of monkeys ass.  We are inside, we have a one way ticket to the time machine.”

“What do you mean we?”

“I’m the toughest S.O.B. to ever walk the light of day on this fucking planet and they treat me like some dumb pile of monkey shit like yourself.  I’m hitching my wagon and coming with you to Earth.  WHAT?  I said I’m comin’ with you to Earth.  WHAT?  I said I’m comin’ with you to Earth, and that’s the bottom line.”

I did not see Stone Cold ET for the next two days.  He was busy setting the time machine for October 2014.  I wanted to go back to that day when I watched the time travel documentary.  Hopefully I would be able to push myself in a more fruitful direction.  I sat in that room skeptical that the plan would work and hoping that Donny and Cher didn’t have me killed by then.  The last month was probably the best month I had had in the last fourteen years.  I spent it with a special needs alien who had an affinity for role play but I figure he was probably the best friend I’ve ever had.

8:00 AM day 44 with the Aliens

Stone Cold ET came bursting into the room in his usual fashion.  He was sweating profusely, I think.  I don’t really know if they sweat or not.  It seems equally probable that he was just taking his Stone Cold act to a new level.  He even tried to smash a ridiculous looking knee brace onto his little nub of a leg.  He threw me a bag.  In the bag was a black vest with CAKEBREAD 3:16 written crudely in some make shift glitter on the side.  There was a pair of cutoff jean shorts in there as well.  As I got dressed in my apparent uniform I noticed some cans in the bottom of the bag.

“What are these cans for?” I asked.

“What’s the matter?  You ain’t never seen a god damn beer before you pussy?”

“Beer?  You know how to make beer?”

“Just shut up and have at it boy, you’re gonna need your strength.”

I took a swig of the “beer” or from what I gathered a liquid he managed to get to look like beer.  Fortunately Stone Cold rarely actually drank his beer, he just dumped it all over himself so I followed suit and was thankful for his wasteful ways.  Stone Cold ET started trying to get me pumped up to take down the other aliens. This was our day and I knew that Stone Cold ET was getting fired up because he started mixing The Rock’s catchphrases with Stone Colds when he spoke.

“This is it you sack of monkey shit, we are gonna open up a can o’ Whoop Ass on them jabronis out there.  We only have about fifteen minutes before they send the guards in after us if you smell what Stone Cold ET is cooking.”

“I think I’m ready.  So you’re going to lead me out into the room and say we have a problem, then we ambush them?”

“Hell yeah, let’s get going, Earth better get ready cuz I’m gonna open up a can on its candy ass.”

We walked out into the hallway trying not to look suspicious.  This was hard to accomplish considering we were wearing matching outfits.  I drew stares from every alien we passed by but I did my best to look like Stone Cold ET's captive.  We entered a large room filled with technological advancements I can only dream about to this day.  ET motioned in the direction of the time machine and I saw it.  On the outside it looked very plain, like a polished white box with nothing on it.  The room was filled with other aliens.  There must have been fifteen or twenty of them.  I started to get nervous.  I waited for Stone Cold ET to give the signal.  He called Cher over.  He did not speak because the language of the aliens is unspoken.  He only used his crude Stone Cold speech with me.  Without warning Stone Cold ET lifted his stubby little right leg off the ground and buried it into Cher’s midsection.  Cher’s hair flew around his face as he bent forward in pain.  Without hesitation Stone Cold ET had Cher’s head on his shoulder and delivered his first and most devastating stunner.  Cher was knocked out cold and flew to the floor.  Stone Cold ET stood up with his head flying side to side in a frenzy spraying spittle everywhere as he gave two glowing middle fingers to anyone he could see.  This was our subtle signal.  I sprinted toward Donny and heard alarms going off all around me.

Shit our time is running out.

I got to Donny and leveled him with a rock bottom.  It was euphoric as I felt the power of my legs driving him into the ground.  I was alive!  I narrowly avoided disaster because Stone Cold ET saw that I used the move of his arch enemy and was not amused.

“You do that to one more of these here jabronis  and I’m gonna open up a can on your ass.”

Noted, I moved around the room leveling aliens with DDT’s and piledrivers.  I could see down the hallway armed aliens rushing toward us.  Our time was running out.  I looked across the room and saw Stone Cold ET delivering another devastating stunner to our rivals.  He got up, pulled his alien beer out of his pocket, and began dousing himself with it, waving his free middle finger in the direction of the armed gaurds.  Stone Cold ET was living his dream.  I ran to the time machine and yelled for Stone Cold ET.

He threw me a beer and shouted, “Take that to remember me you hard headed sumbitch, I’m gonna open up a can on these guards to give you some time.  I got it set for Earth already, just do what I told you and don’t flap your gums at me no more.”

Stone Cold ET was right, we didn’t have time.  He ran to the first guard into the room and gave him the stunner.  He lowered his face to within an inch of the unconscious alien’s head wielding dual middle fingers and said as spit flew everywhere,  “This here is for my friend Terry, who believed in me unlike you ungreatful sack of monkey candy ass jabroni sumb–”

The second guard leveled a blast from his weapon that blew Stone Cold ET’s head clean off of his body.  As his body fell to the floor his middle fingers still burned bright white at the tips, his spirit refusing to surrender.  I closed the door to the time machine and heard a loud bang hit the wall.  I had tears in my eyes and could barely compose myself.  I followed the instructions given to me by Stone Cold ET and the machine began to move as I traveled back through time to a place I thought I would never see again.

8:00 AM October 15, 1980 Cincinnati, Ohio

Stone Cold ET was close.  His calculations were a little off but in the grand scheme of things it was a pretty incredible feat.  He managed to set the machine for a distance countless light years away in a time that had long since passed and only missed by 27 years and some miles.  Nonetheless I was back on Earth but in a time that I knew nothing about.  I thought that I was probably going to be done with the whole time travel idea and decided I would leave my mark on the world through my other passion, entertainment.  No one would ever have known I lived most of my life as Terry Cakebread in the near future.  They would only know me as Steve, the name I took to honor my best friend.  Two years later the Movie ET would come out where Spielberg made that impossibly lucky guess as to what the aliens in that distant planet would look like.  Then again maybe that guess had a little bit less to do with luck than I thought.

Terry Cakebread: Human, Part III

My name is Terry Cakebread and this is the fucking story of my life.

Previously:  Part II

8:00AM Day 2 with the Aliens

I sat in that room staring at the door waiting for it to open.  This was exciting for me, when you have been sitting in the same room where nothing happens for fourteen years straight, staring at a door waiting for an alien to bust through wasn’t so bad.  I sat watching the door for eight hours until it finally opened.  ET looked like he was wearing a long black wig, I think it was just his hair.

Do they have hair?

The long haired ET was carrying some of the food that was left on my ship and a bottle of the whisky.  They must have assumed I needed these things to survive.  He dropped it off next to me and walked out. This daily routine would go on for the next 2 weeks.  At least I was drunk.

Sometimes two or three would come in at a time and stand around me.  They looked like they were communicating with each other but they never made a sound.  I was always uncomfortable when they walked into the room – who knew what they were planning to do with me.  They mostly just brought me my food watched me eat it and left.  There were three different aliens that tended to me and the only thing that I could distinguish them by was their hair.  The one with the long black hair I nicknamed Cher, then there was one with a Donald trump sweeping comb over (Donny), and the standard bald ET.  The bald ET was the one who got the daily honor of removing my shit from the corner of the room every day.  I wondered if their hair was a sort of status symbol.  I wondered a lot of things while I was in there, but mostly I was just drunk.

8:00AM Day 15 with the Aliens

“We would like to speak with you.”

I opened my eyes.  My head was pounding, I think I drank a little more than usual the night before.

Did Cher just talk to me?

“What did you say?”

“We would like to speak with you.”

How could they know English?  There were many people on earth who couldn’t speak English and these people were certainly not from Earth.

“How do you know my language?” I asked Cher.

“It was quite difficult really, there are a lot of concepts that are foreign to us, like names and mathematical concepts.  We were able to learn your language by watching your videos and reading your books and notes.”

“You learned my language by watching WWE and reading my notes?”

“Yes we did.”

“You definitely don’t talk the way they do on WWE.”

Cher gave a meaningful expression, I think, and said, “We were able to use the words and their context in the videos to cross reference your dictionary.  This way we were able to learn the whole of your language and not just the dialect employed by your WWE.”

I was done; they could do what they wanted to me.  What was I going to do to stop them?  They figured out the English language in two weeks by watching wrestling with a dictionary that they presumably didn’t know how to read.  They probably learned how to read from those goddamn signs.  I couldn’t outsmart them.  ET was definitely not the most physically intimidating specimen that I had ever seen but I still had no hope of overpowering them.  In the last fourteen years I had achieved never before seen levels of skinny fat that would be appalling to most humans.  I would have to just sit there and let them run their experiments on me.

“You have come an incredible distance with such crude technology.”

“My ship is crude?  I spent years and years developing the most advanced spaceship ever seen on earth!”

“Yes, I understand but your people have very limited intelligence.  Our kind don’t actually have to do calculations as you call them, we just understand math, or the convention of math that you on earth have created to understand certain things.  It really is remarkable how humans were able to develop such a convention to allow them to understand what their limited minds cannot grasp.  It would almost seem to require a higher intelligence to work with so little.  What a paradox that is, isn’t it?  Anyway your ship is very rudimentary but we are very pleased that it worked as well as it did.  I’m sure deep space travel must have seemed nearly impossible to your kind.”

This was amazing, these people looked at me like a chimpanzee who found a way to pass high school with nothing but sign language and a diet of bananas, and everyone knows you can’t open a beer bottle with a banana.

“What do you call this planet?” I asked.  Cher looked frustrated that he had to explain these things that he had already made clear, but he was talking to a fucking monkey after all.

“We do not have names.  We just recognize things as they are.  This is why we do not have spoken communication.  We can look at each other and know exactly what the other desires us to know.”

I felt so stupid at this moment.  I thought that this must have been what it felt like to know me back on earth. I discounted everything anyone else said to me in favor of my own theories.  I talked down to everyone else and ejaculated my superiority all over the face of anyone who came to near my greatness.

Cher spoke again, “We do have one question for you.  What is the purpose of this WWE?”

“It’s just entertainment for humans.”

“Yes, we were able to gather as much, but what is the function of entertainment?”

“It doesn’t really have a function, it’s more so that the audience can take a break from your functions.”

Cher looked confused for the first time.

“What about your fucking hair?” I blurted out, after all I had some questions of my own.

“Our hair is just that, hair.  It distinguishes us, physically, from one another.”

Cher glanced at the others and they all turned to exit.  I was left alone in the room once again.

8:00 AM day 17 with the Aliens

I was sleeping, dreaming about a life back on earth when I heard a loud voice calling toward me.

“Wake your goofy ass up you stupid sumbitch.”

I must be dreaming

“I thought I made myself clear, I said wake your dumb ass up you stupid sumbitch for I hafta open up a can of Whoop Ass on your ass. They got me in hear cleaning up your goddam monkey shit again, and I got a few words to say to ya.”

It was ET and he was talking in a completely accurate impression of Stone Cold Steve Austin’s voice.  He sounded angry, but I don’t know if he intended to.

“Why are you talking like that?” I asked.

Stone Cold ET was acting like a maniac.  He was strutting around me swinging his arms back and forth with power in his stride.

“Let me tell you sumthin, and don’t you go flappin’ your gums while I’m talkin’ to ya.  You see I’ve been watching that WWE that they have been talking soooo much about.  You know it’s been causing quite a ruckus on our planet.”

“It has?”

“Shut up and listen when I’m talking to ya, I thought I warned ya ‘bout flappin’ those gums when I’m talkin’.”

ET was in a frenzy at this point, he had his hands on his knees and his face about an inch away from mine as he spoke to me.

“They keep yammerin’ about this entertainment thing you were talking about because they can’t understand the concept.  I tried to talk to them about it but they just think I’m some stupid sumbitch who don’t know his ass from a hole in the wall.”

“Who can’t understand it?  Cher?”

“Who the fuck is Cher?” ET bellowed as spittle covered my face.

“That’s a name I made up for the guy with the long black hair, the other one is Don, and I imagine I’ll be calling you Stone cold ET from now on.”

“Stone cold ET?  Hell, you know what you sack of monkey shit, I think I like that.  You’re god damn right that’s my name and that’s the bottom line.  Like I said those ass wipes have been yammerin’ about this entertainment thing and they reckon I ain’t smart enough to help them.  That’s why they got me in here wiping your shit outta the corner cuz they say I’m not much smarter than the god damn human.  I think they might be right because I get it, I get entertainment.  I got to watchin’ those big ol’ musclemen in that ring and couldn’t get enough.  That Stone Cold is one tough S.O.B. and I decided I was goin’ to be just like him.  If anyone wants to stand in my way of that then I have two cans of Whoop Ass I’ve been dyin’ to open up on ‘em.”

I didn’t know what to say.  Here was an alien.  A real goddamn alien that looked like fucking ET from the movie!  And he was acting like Stone Cold Steve Austin.  This was actually happening to me.

“What are they going to do to me?”

“I reckon you got about a month in your time before they split your ass to timber to figure out what makes you tick.  Until then they will probably just run some tests on your ship and try to figure out which side of the Mississippi you came from.”

Stone Cold ET was clearly mixing phrases and confusing me in the process.  What I did gather was that I had about a month to live on this planet before I was a dead man.

“Stone Cold ET, do you think you can bring in some of those matches to watch the next time you come in?”

“You're god damn right I can and that’s the bottom line.” His head was bobbing wildly side to side as he spoke.  He started to walk toward the door.

“Stone cold, I have a question.”

“Then spit it out, or are ya too dumb to talk?”

“Did your people ever hear of Jesus?” I asked.

I don’t know what in the Christ you’re talkin’ about boy.  What’d ya say ET?  What? What’d ya say ET?  What?  Boy, you better not be getting smart with me or I’ll knock that stupid little smile clean off your face before you can count to two, and that’s the bottom line.”

“Yeah, I figured you didn’t.”

Stone Cold ET strutted feverishly toward the door and slammed it shut as he left.  I liked him.

To be concluded . . .