The shiny new catalog was resting comfortably in the walnut-stained mail tray. The tray had a faded, curled sticky note proclaiming “IN” taped to it. Stefano had just come back from a short tour, promoting his latest instructional DVD and Guitar Accessory Kit. It was also available on Blu-Ray and the Blu-Ray disc featured an interactive game starring Stefano and the other members of Yanstebangus.

Stefano had been looking into a cereal endorsement deal, but so far was the only member to even entertain such a concept. He recalled the day he’d mentioned it to the rest of the supergroup. Those three were always ambivalent about a new idea, until you “pitched” them, he thought.

“I’m not going to be a sellout,” proclaimed Bobby J. Memphis.

Stefano had looked at him incredulously. “You did that dancing show and you’re not going to be a sellout?” he quipped.

Billy P. and Giovanni were already snickering, suppressing laughter. They bellowed out explosions of hilarity when Bobby J. simply muttered, “Shut up, man.” Bobby J. had glared at all of them and scowled his way out of the room. He shook his head in disgust, mullet haircut swaying like a drunken lemur.

Stefano paused at the door, smirking at the visual, then turned the light on. He looked around the office, taking in how much it looked exactly as he’d left it. There were several things piled in his Inbox. A slick, shiny “Vote For Claghorn” mailer perched precariously atop the stack; unceremoniously, it flew into the recycle box under Stefano’s desk as he looked at his correspondence.

There were several items of equal importance. These invitations to marketing seminars in Las Vegas, “Urgent—Open Immediately” offers of 35%-Interest-Bearing Credit Cards, and Call Now To Receive Your Free Gift, Small Membership Fee Required notices met a similar fate.

A couple of envelopes resembling resumes, which Stefano flipped to his desktop, a Modern Marketing Methods magazine, and—a prize!

This quarter’s Johnny McStuff catalog… pages brimming with novelties, idiotic/obscene/offensive t-shirts, desktop decorations, and the finest in Phony Dog Poo. Now here was mail that defined what mail should be.

~_^.^_~

“Hey Merman. Visitor.” The gigantic, lantern-jawed walk-on playing the guard somehow dropped any form of accent, inflection, and tone below the usual low standards here in my sweet little cocoon. I think his name was Smith. It could have been Lurch.

I looked up, and, to my shock and dismay, my ex-wife was there. “Geez,” I said, “first, no pudding at lunch and now this. What’s the matter, overdrawn at the blood bank?”

“Save it,” she said, raising her hand to me, palm first. I’d talked to that hand for well over a decade. It rarely answered with more than one finger. “I don’t have time for that now, and neither do you.”

“So, to what do I owe the honor?”

“It’s your daughter… ugh!” She exhaled with that inimitable derision—a sound she’d mastered over years of dealing with the lesser intellects she was forced to endure. “She is heading for trouble, and she’s going to wind up in Juvenile Hall. You should be happy to know she takes after you.”

My eyes rolled, almost involuntarily. “No, really, I’m a captive audience, keep teasing me. What are you talking about?”

“I think you should ask her yourself.” The immense guard stepped aside, as if on queue. My daughter, Serena, stepped forward from his shadow, bedecked in her usual chain-covered Tripp pants, leather jacket, spiked hair, and various shades of black makeup and jewelry. All in all, the very picture of a normal, well-adjusted child.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Hey, kid, glad to see you! So, what brings you to my little resort here?”

“I don’t know, I, um… well…” She looked at the floor hesitantly as her voice trailed off.

My ex turned to her, arms akimbo. “You were pretty cocky about it a while ago. Well, tell him.”

I was almost glad I had bars around me at this point. “So…?”

The syllable hung there for a moment, and then the child spoke up. “I’m… umm… I… well, I might have to go to Juvy.”

Juvy, or Juvenile Hall, was for Problem Children to go stay for a while to consider the lilies. While it might seem impressive, it’s usually an idea best not considered. Certain types of glamour aren’t as nice as others. Then again, it beats glamour like Scissor Sisters, right?

“OK, so that sounds incomprehensible. Why would you be going there?”

“I… umm… you know your old chainsaw? I… umm… borrowed it?” Her sentence ended with a questioning inflection, as many teens’ did. I ignored the urge to tell her to use the inflection of making a statement and kept listening. Involuntarily, my arms folded across my chest.

“Well, you know Kelly Memphis?”

How could you not? Even here in the gray-bar hotel, you saw ads in magazines and on TV for Kelly-Memphisibilia. Bobby J. Memphis’ teenaged daughter had become a superstar in her own right; actually, No, she was not a superstar, but a merchandising icon. Somehow, some way, the Milt Dizzy entertainment megalith had snapped up Bobby J. Memphis and his daughter for a cheesy sitcom.

It had taken the world by storm, by dint of great self-sacrifice on Dizzy’s part. They had sacrificed millions in marketing dollars, and it must have been paying off. Bobby J. Memphis got to appear on a dancing celebrity show and enjoyed a renaissance of his own flagging career. I continued to sit in here.

“Yes, the height of quality entertainers, no doubt,” I said. “So what does she have to do with all this?”

“I kind of… umm… chain-sawed her head off.”

Eek. Murder? My expression belied my innermost thoughts. So I had to express myself. Sagely, I said, “Eek. Murder?”

“No, but it might as well have been!” Her mother could no longer resist, and burst into the thick of things. “Your daughter—“ long pause for dramatic effect, head sweeping as she turned to regard the offspring, toothy frown on her face—“your daughter took it upon herself to carve up a billboard!”

“What?”

“Yes, a billboard.” My ex growled and pushed on Serena’s elbow. “Go on, tell him.”

Even the gargantuan Smith, or Lurch, whatever his name was, shifted uncomfortably. For a fleeting moment, I considered asking him if he wanted to be in the cell where it was safe.

“I was sick of seeing all these advertisements for Kelly fu—–, uh, umm, Kelly Memphis all over the place. They put up a billboard like a mile from my school. I can’t stand seeing her plastic smile. So me and some friends got your chainsaw.”

I raised an eyebrow, but nodded for her to go on.

“Well, umm, we climbed up the billboard and I kinda, uh, chopped off her head.”

I stifled a laugh, snorting, pretending I sneezed. Nobody bought it. The Ex glared. Lurch frowned. Serena sneaked a smirk over her forced blank expression. The kid definitely was paying attention. However, I had to play the Dad here. Granted, that’s A Little Difficult To Do from behind bars. In fact, it started to creep into my consciousness that this scene didn’t make any more sense than a bad soap opera from the Milt-Dizzy-owned Already Been Cancelled network. I shook off the logic and proceeded.

“And when, exactly, did the thought ‘bad idea’ pop into your head?”

“I don’t know.” She got mad, more at being caught than at being put on the spot, I’m sure. She inhaled and exhaled, loudly. “I guess when the cops got there. Somebody ratted us out.”

The picture in my mind’s eye was just wonderful. Twilight’s gathering gloom; Goth Child on rickety billboard ledge with sputtering, smoky, rusty chainsaw, removing head of pop-superstar icon. Nice. “Did you think maybe the noise of that clanky old chainsaw might have given it away?”

Her cheeks flushed, brows furrowed, head dipped down so I could just see the glaring eyes from underneath. A familiar, inherited expression I had seen elsewhere many times before as well. “No…” The strained force with which this was uttered could have hoisted a girder to the top of a tall building.

“Look, I don’t have a lot of room to talk, but what exactly were you thinking?”

“I don’t know.”

What do you say in a situation like this? Obviously, the protest sentiment was awesome, if a little over-the-top. OK, completely over-the-top; fine. Thanks, fathead, I need to be kept straight, especially given the company in the preceding narrative. Whatever. I’m used to it by now.

Moving right along…

The ex again jumped in. “I just thought you should see what your little stunt inspired your daughter to do. She’ll probably be in Juvenile Hall until senior year. Thanks to you.” The accusatory tone and glare came to rest on me with immaculate, split-second timing.

“Well, that’s not that long, anyway,” I shot back. “Besides, it’ll make a model citizen of her.”

Serena’s jaw dropped a bit. She gave me one of those quizzical one-eyebrow-up, one-eyebrow-down frowning looks that teens are genetically hard-wired to use. I smirked at her and her expression lightened.

The ex gasped audibly and shook her head. “I knew it was useless to try to get a straight answer out of you.” She grabbed at Serena’s arm. “Come on, young lady, we’re going to go.”

“Well, umm, uh, thanks for stopping by?” Trying to make sense out of this was also useless, so I had given up.

“I was going to see if you could help with a lawyer. You never did anything else, of course,” hissed the ex, stopping by the security door and turning back. “I called your wife and she said to ask you.”

This was a complete fabrication. If she’d spoken to my wife, the answer would have been to suggest she check into a hotel and enjoy fornication under consent of the king by herself. Besides, my wife had a pretty fair grasp on the family finances and doctors and lawyers and such. It was pretty essential for a starving artist and suburban cowboy to have someone gifted that way. That she hadn’t dusted me when I got thrown in the clink was a testament to her character. Maybe not to her sanity, but definitely to her character.

“I will call my lawyer and see what he can do,” I said, magnanimously, palms upturned with a minor shrug of my shoulders.

“Oh, we already found a good attorney. We just need to have help paying for her. My daughter needs to have the best attorney money can buy. Your lawyer got you stuck in jail.” She had a fist on her hip and gave a sharp, pointed nod of her head, like a cobra striking at its rodent prey.

Still with the palms upturned, I looked up at the ceiling, silently asking if Anybody Up There Was Watching This. I suppressed a sighing groan. “Well, I don’t know then. I’m a little removed from my accounting stuff here, ya think?”

The ex huffed in exasperation and turned to go.

To Serena, I said, “Look, kid, you screwed up. Funny! Probably a strong statement against greed and corporate consumerism—but it was a screw-up. “

Very quietly, she said, “I knowwwww…..”

“OK, so make the best of it now, do what you have to. We’ll pull for you best as we can. Just think: we’ll have matching striped pajamas.”

“Da-ad…” Serena shook her head, rolled, her eyes, and smiled in spite of herself.

Smith let out a low, rumbling groan, either of disgust or indigestion. “Time for the visitors to go,” he said, in his deep monotone.

“Oh, yes, we were leaving,’ spat the Ex. “Thanks for nothing! As usual!” She stormed out the door, then turned and folded her arms, watching Serena until the child reluctantly walked to follow her.

“Bye, Dad,” said Serena, as she walked out. She seemed resigned to her fate; certainly, her stay at home would be just as punitive as the visit to the judge and the possible excursion as the guest of the county.

“See you kid, I love ya!” I intended to call my lawyer and see what advice he could give.

A quick turn of the head toward me as she paused; “Love you, too.”

The Ex rolled her eyes and motioned for the child to hurry up.

The door slammed shut. Wow. Merman—the Next Generation. Maybe there’s hope after all.

~_^.^_~

TO BE CONTINUED…

Previously…