Oh, momma, it is my birfday.

Yes it is, little Davy, Darlene says, who is really quite beautiful or maybe that was when she was 21. She rolls over with her little baby boy wrapped in her beefy arms and hugging him says and we will have a special day my special boy, we will start off with ice cream and candles and then a cake out of a box not a bucket like on Sundays normal and then we will go to the diner just you and me my big boy!

Davy coos and smiles and then gets quite serious for a septarian. What's bein' borned, momma?

Gosh Davy, aren't you so smart? All of the women's magazines at the local hairdresser where husbandless women like myself go to trade cigarettes and relive stories from our youth all agree that such questions don't never surface till your older! Well, let's see. She rocks her baby in her grip, him smelling like little boy farts and she like perfume and peanut butter. There's birds involved, and bees, and then a little while later the bees catch the bird with a tramp from the trailer park and they fly away to a different town!

Davy has a nose bleed. Uh oh he says. Nose bleed.

Oh dear and you're not even crying what a great big boy my little baby is and Darlene gets up and with one hand and him giggling carries little Davy Gravy into the bathroom and throws him in the bath and runs him a bathtub at exactly one hundred degrees Celsius aka centigrade. The water turns his skin a bright red like a Chevy before a good rain and little Davy grabs his wee wee.

Gotta go wee wee, momma.

Not in the bath, boy, did I raise a seven year old fool! She picks him up by his hair and holds him over the toilet while 21 tiny golden drops drip and then tosses him back splash into the water. She checks her reflection in the mirror while Davy Gravy little foams his head with shampoo. She wipes the peanut butter from her cheeks.

But you got to go to work, momma, he says, sweetly, such a darling boy!

She towers over him, meaty hands on her hammy hips and smiles through great big fat lips and that mole. No, Davy, mommy took the day off to give her special lover boy a real birthday treat we're going to eat presents and open your cake and then go to the diner like I promised you seven months ago!

Birfday cake is my favorite birfday food, Davy blows bubbles into the water.

Don't drink the bathwater baby it's got diphtheria. She picks him up by his right arm and dries him off with her other hand and a towel big enough to wrap a S-10 Blazer, any color, in. Now, go get dressed, put on your shoes and your shirt and come into the combination TV living sitting dining room. I'ma have a cigarette.

Kay mom. Love you.

Darlene really is an extraordinary sight to behold with your clothes on or off, or it might have been when she was 35 or so. She perches her several stones if she was England on a tiny kitchen chair and smokes a Pall Mall with aggressive sucking tugs on the filter. She holds the cigarette first in between in her thumb and index like she's France, then between her index and middle at the tips likes she's Hollywood, then at the crook like she's Italy. She expertly grinds the butt into the plate of almost eaten eggs expertly and for a very long time, relishing it, the way the crispy whisper of burning paper gives over to an ashy wet gurgling that only dog ears could hear, the asphalty gray of the blackened end mingling with the anemic yellow of the not quite cooked eggs and smearing a sort of brown tobacco and ova smear onto the plate, Darlene drooling out of her mouth as she gets lost in the act of slowly slowly rolling the butt between her fat thumb and her index and middle, her wrist clicking over a tendon as she twists back and forth, back and forth, her finger white at the tips where she grips so tight not even her precious life blood can feed the individual cells that make up the skin beneath thickly lacquered nails.

Davey walks in wearing a shirt tucked into his underpants and his Sunday shoes. Shouldn't smoke, momma. Killed grandad.

Darlene smiles at her little Davy Gravy sweetest sweet pea on God's earth! Hush now, child. And where's your pants? She grabs him by his ankles and dangles him in front of her like dirty laundry or a carrot before a mule and carts him into his combination bed study area sitting drawing room. She drops him on his desk and he tumbles off onto his chair, breaking it, laughing.

Pops! he stands. But I can't open the drawer. Darlene!

She turns to him. I'm momma!

I'm seven— I will call you Darlene, like a growned up.

Darlene grows even taller then she already is, her head scraping the ceiling, the floor creaking under her tripled weight, the buttons on her blouse straining to hold back the additional flesh that pours out of her souls to stand over this little man who thinks he can just poop out of her womb and talk to her like any old person. Young man. You will wait to you're of legal age, until you are pre-sice-lee 21 before you call me anything but momma.

He gives her a slit gaze under furrowed brows, his bottom lip stuck out and shiny with seven-year-old's saliva. His tiny fists on his tiny hips, staring up at her as if she didn't outweigh him by two Chevy Caprices and a Nova. When I am 14.

Oohh, you're just like your father. Now hush and put these on, she says, snatching a drawer open with enough force to fling a pair of bright blue Rustlers onto his legs. She kneels down and ties his laces.

Davey hugs her huge back as she makes the rabbit go around the tree, twice, into the hole. I love you momma, I sure do!

She almost wants to cry, he is so sweet. She stands up, flinging him into the ceiling, him bouncing off the velvet painting of those wrinkly dogs, bouncing him off his bed and out the window of their seventh story apartment. He lands next to a lime green Chevelle and hops in.

Let's go, the diner! She can barely hear him yell.

Darlene is outrageously gorgeous or that was perhaps when she was 42 and she checks her fat face in the mirror, moving her nose around until just exactly right, the center, and trips down the stairs to her little Davy for Gravy and the only other good thing that that man ever gave her, a 77 Chevelle with four good tires and radio with black plastic dials which never left KJME, AM 1080!

:) :) :)

Daniel is a good dad, a very good dad. he peers at his little girl, Alice Beautiful. She is alseep, as precious as an angel. A cherub. She is in her bed, her white and pink and yellow and carnation bed, her lace and chintz and taffeta and chamois and goose down bed, her blanket tucked under chin and her long pretty eyelashes lying on her rosy cheeks. She has the little girl asleep innocent look on her face, and Daniel is a good father, he wonders. What is she dreaming of? Puppy dogs, or tea parties with the fairy princess? Maybe a pony? No, she's not old enough to dream of ponies. She's only six. Today she is six, and Daniel is a good father and can't believe that six years ago today god blessed him with perfect Alice Beautiful, his sweet darling. Her golden blonde hair is spread out on the pillow behind her, her dimpled hands are pressed together and on her cheeks, she is so pretty, so wonderful, she snorts loudly and wakes her self up, blinking. What the fuck, she says. Did you cut one, dad?

You're awake Alice Beautiful, and it's your birthday!

Whatever. Give me cigarette.

Daniel is a good daddy and he hands her a cigarette, a Pall Mall, one of six in the package he always keeps ready just in case. She pulls a lighter from the neck of her gown and lights the stick on fire. She drags, blows, and hacks for thirty seconds. Jesus Christ, I need to quite this shit.

So what do you want to do on your birthday, my darling? We could go to the park, or the ice cream parlor, or maybe even go to the pictures and see a feature. What do you want to do?

She glares at him with one eye closed against the smoke. I'm six. What the fuck do you think I want to do? Cake, Ice cream, whatever. She lies back on the bed again, gazing at the ceiling. Oh, God: give me puberty and let me get the hell out of here.

Daniel picks up the bell on the table next to her bed and makes it tinkle. Immediately a host of two servants arrives, bearing trays of eggs and boxes wrapped in shiny paper. They run around the room, sweating Mexican sweat, and Alice Beautiful ignores them so completely they might as well be Pilipino guards at an art museum. They jump on the bed and arrange the eggs, leap to the ceiling and around up there to make sure the presents are arranged perfectly, all 36 boxes, jump to the walls to avoid crushing the gifts and then hurl themselves out the window to start the lunch buffet. I hope you like what I got you, darling, Daniel the perfect dad says.

Alice Beautiful parks the cig in one corner of her mouth and proceeds to rip all 36 boxes open with one vicious sweep of her tiny cherubic little hands. Oh boy. A trike a toy oven that bakes real fucking cookies a refrigerator a fish tank a Nintendo 64 with extra controllers even though I have no goddamn friends to play multi player goldeneye double oh seven death match with a stereo a new car a curry a gift certificate to raid the pentagon's secret vaults for an hour a picture of you in solid gold frame a ring a tiara a scepter a pair of socks a new dress a puppy some frogs a bulletin board a can of peas a rubber ball and an actual three hundred and sixty pound chunk of the planet Uranus as well as a bunch of other crap that will engage my six year old interest for all of ten seconds, dad, thanks a lot. She smirks at him. Give me cigarette.

Daniel the very good father catches the butt she flings at him in his hair and lets his toupee burn while he gives her another Pall Mall. She fetches a lighter from the band of her thigh high stockings and lights the 'rette and puffs on it languidly, rolling her eyes up to gaze at her self in the mirror hung over her bed. So, daddy, Alice Beautiful says to her father. You going to work today?

I think the DOD FBI CIA NSA INS SS IRS and TBA can do without little old me for one day, dear. I want to give you a special time for your special day. Daniel gets up and throws all the boxes and gifts out the window and spoons some eggs onto a solid silver fork encrusted. Eat your eggs, they'll make you big and strong.

Alice holds her cigarette in one fists and accepts the bite. They better give me boobs, is what they better do. Yolk runs down her chin, and she ignores it.

Oh my God. Consuela Maria Latina Susanna Formica Esperanza Perez! Daniel the fucking brilliant daddy screams. Get in here with a towel now!

Alice B. rolls her eyes, takes a drag.

CMLSFEP arrives with enough towels to emasculate Christo, and gingerly uses every one to wipe the angelic chin clean. Daniel gives another bite. She chews it slowly. All the time eggs, dad, for breakfast. How about some bacon? Maybe some corn flakes? A plate of hashed brown potatoes now and again.

Daniel grimly sets his grim mouth in a grim line and tries extremely well to not look his daughter in the eye malevolently. Eat your goddamn eggs, bitch.

Alice smiles. Or, you know, a piece of cantaloupe, or a pancake, or maybe, like, a sausage link.

Daniel grips the fork so tightly in his fist that it melts and leaves him with a fistful of tines with egg on it. Eat your motherfucking eggs.

Alice takes the bite, and chews with her mouth open. I don't know, maybe you could bring me a flute of champagne and a bagel, or muslix like they eat in Portuguese would be nice, I hear in English they eat baked beans for breakfast

The plate Daniel is holding explodes into a thousand red-hot shards, peppering the walls like grape-shot form a Napoleanic cannon, killing several of the help in the next room over. You will eat eggs like good little girl, or so help me got I will rip out your guts viscera by viscera feed your entrails to the fucking cat.

Alice smiles, and in her best little girl voice, cause she's six, says, okay daddy.

Daniel, visibly relieved, and the best gosh darned pop in the world, stands up. Okay, dear! Why don't you get dressed and we'll go have some fun for your birthday.

Gimme cigarette.

Daniel places one between her yolk-crusted lips and walks away, whistling. Alice Beautiful digs a lighter out of the crack of her ass and lights the Pall. Better than last year, anyway, she says.

:) :) :)

Joe the cook stands back, hand on hip. He has only one hand. But he has two hips. He smiles. That is beautiful, That is just beautiful

What the hell is it says Old Roy.

Joe looks at Old Roy. That my friend is a genuine Roberto Matta, and it is hanging in my diner. Joe looks at it with his one eye, then grabs a rag off the counter top and flicks it at the dust on the painting.

Matta was born on eleven eleven eleven Old Roy says.

That's right Old Roy. And when that sucker dies, I'm gonna be a rich man. Joe the cook walks back around the counter and pours some cups of coffee for customers. Ted the assistant teenager from the local pokey where he is on work release for lifting cars and cooking up some eggs for the customers, shouts, order up, and throws a plate of scrambled through the window, knocking an old lady off her stool.

Joe the cook helps her up. Yup, it shore weren't easy getting that Matta. But I've been wanting one for years.

A man at the end of the counter gazes at the painting. He looks citified. Who's Roberto Matta?

A Chilean surrealist, born like Roy said early part of this century, who's work up until the eighties depicted alien landscapes and their denizens, engaged in alien activities, an indication of the post-war mentality that life is chaos and chaos is art.

You fool, that's post-modernism, not surrealism, Old Roy says.

Joe the cook looks at Old Roy. Don't listen to Old Roy, he says. He's not right in the head,

Queen of England gots three boobs.

See? Now, Matta was a surrealist, yes, and post-modernist, but now he's watcha call a post-surrealist.

Order yup shouts Ted the assistant cook, and flings a plate of hashed browns through the window, smashing into the jukebox.

Joe picks up the plate and hands it to the customer. Whatever, you don't pick up Matta at the local Goodwill, and that's for sure.

How much it cost ya?

Joe pulls up his sweaty grease-stained diner cook's shirt and displays a rude scar, proudly. Most of my liver. But it's worth it. Matta's a genius.

The man blinks, sips is coffee, adds some Tabasco to his eggs. You an art collector, mister?

Joe shrugs, and steps back behind the counter to bowl a pour of cornflakes for Tracey's kid Stacey. Not really, I just know what I like.

Order up! The plate of flapjacks hits Tracey in the ass, knocking off her waitresses apron

Joe throws some syrup at her. Got me a Diberkorn, Joe says, pointing at the patch over where his right eye would have been, and a Nagals, and a Brechtle.

No god damned photorealistic painting is worth my left nut, much less your left lung, Joe.

Mebbe, Old Roy, but I still get short of breath every time I look at it hanging in my bathroom.

Where do you keep the Dabenkort?

That's Dibenkorn a voice in a back booth says.

Order up screams Ted the, and a bowl of oatmeal punches through the plate glass window and dents the sheriff's car.

Joe turns to look at the voice. It is a little tiny man, dressed in tweed and a hat. You know modern American art, mister?

Yes I do, says the man, standing up and dropping a wad of bills, a tip, on his table. I know Matta, too. Where did you get it?

Hey, man, my question first, says the citified. Where do you keep the Dabankart?

It's Dibenkorn, like the man said, Joe says, leaning across the corner to touch his nose to the nose of the man. I keep it in my garage, where else?

Richard Simmons was an astronaut, Old Roy says.

And I got the Matta at a fire sale in New York. They were unloading a whole bunch of surrealist and retro-cubist-pop stuff, but I only had eye for that Matta.

But why Abrir Los Brazos Como Se Abren Los Ojos? The tiny little man says, pulling out a pipe and sticking it in his mouth. Why not Estar Con Ellos? Or—

Well, the fella wanted my lung for Le Prophéteur, which I can't give him on account of the Brechtle and all, and Estar is in Amsterdam, anyway.

Not selling? The man said, lighting the pipe.

Order up! A plate bounces off the pay phone, covering it in baked beans and spam.

Sure he is, but I'm saving this baby for a Van Gogh, Joe says, slapping his remaining thigh. Come on now, a Matta for 83% of your liver ain't bad at all.

The tiny man shrugs, puffing on his pipe. No, it's not. And you're right, when Matta dies, it'll be worth triple what you paid for it.

Whatcha gonna do with 249% of a liver, I don't know, though, says Old Roy.

Never mind Old Roy, Joe smiles. Yeah, maybe there's better Matta out there, but I got to admit, Abrir is starting to grow on me.

The man re-lights his pipe, and gazes at it, the painting. I don't know. It lacks the intensity of his early work. He walks up to the painitng, poking it with the lip of his pipe.

What, like Star, Flower, Personnage, Stone? Tracey here could do better with her own box of crayons.

I'm a good drawer, Tracey says, pulling out a well creased canvas and unfolding it. It was Richard Laugnesy's Claudia, with little pigs and cows crayoned on the grassy hill

Joe beamed. Fifth birthday. I didn't need those toes anyway, and the foot went to my Hanson a year later besides.

The old man nods. I see. Actually, to get back to Matta, by earlier work I meant Estar, which I mentioned, and How Ever, and—

Order up! A plate of bacon and toast, covered with dead cockroaches. The back of Mrs. Yannum's skull.

Sure, sure, Joe says, and Crucifixhim. That was 47— I thought you meant his 30's stuff.

What about, and an even tinier old man gets up from another booth and waddles over, crawling simian like up on a stool to join the conversation, his latest work? A l'intérieur de la Rose and Le Feu de la Lumière?

Both the normally tiny old man and Joe look at him.

Old Roy says Sharon Stone's got rickets.

Are you crazy? Joe says.

The normally tiny old man nods his head, brows furrowed. I quite agree with the cook here. That nineteen nineties stuff is all so chaotic, so, scrambled, so—

So modern Joe says, making a face.

But the thing many people miss, especially amateur collectors— no offense intended.

Joe shrugs and holds his palm up. No problem.

—What they miss is his use of color, and of depth. That's why he broke from the other surrealists in the late fifties— he was working too abstractly, as you might say.

No it's not, the citified man breaks in. All eyes turn to look at him.

What would you know, little Tracey says.

Order up! two ham and egg and cigarette butt croissants hit the door with a wet thump.

I was just playing before. Actually I'm Ralph Goings. The man gets up and leaves.

Holy Jesus! Ralph Goings! I've got his Pie Case in my laundry room! Gave my kidney for it!

Never mind that, the tinier old man says. Matta's use of color—

Wait just a minute, Ralph was right, Old Roy says. He split from Dali et al because he insisted on continuing the use of figures. You got it backwards, feller.

Whatever, I'm talking about color now. The tinier old man fishes a pipe twice the size of the bigger tiny old man's out of his coat and lights it with a quick strike of a match on his thumbnail. What Le Feu de la Lumière lacks in form, it makes up for in—

Sure, okay, yes, says Joe the cook.

Order up, a leg of lamb covered with 40 weight oil and severed dog's head.

Joe the cooks says, I admit, Océan de la Nature has some stunning color, like the Matta of the early fifties—

You have Mondrian to thank for that, an even tinier old man with a huge fucking pipe says, crawling out from between some seat cushions.

What, everybody, including Ted and Stacey the waitress, say.

The yellow, he says, and walks out.

Everybody nods. Yeah, I guess so, Joe said. Anyway, Okay, maybe I'd hang Océan de la Nature in here, but no way I'd give that asshole in Paris—

Pirre Fontainbleue Old Roy says.

Yeah, no way I'd give him 83% of my liver for it!

Is that what he's asking? asks the bigger tiny old man, puffing away on his pipe.

Not even that! Joe says.

Order! A human head matted with those crinkly peanut shaped packing foam things.

He wants and arm and a leg. Can you imagine? For fucking Océan de la Nature? That nineties bullshit?

Calm down, Joe, Stacey the waitress says.

Matta should have staid in France, where artists belong, Joe says.

Well, the tinier old man says.

I seen Tarzan with no pants on says Old Roy.

Well, the tinier old man says again, I suppose we all see things different. Cheerio, and he leaves.

The other old man still stands before Abrir Los Brazos. He traces the lines from the central figures left "arm" towards the figure on the left. I'll say this, the old man says, pushing his pipe onto the canvas, scarring some of the paint away, he certainly has an incredible sense of balance

Joe stands right behind him, scratching what is left of his chin and cheek, nodding what is left of his head. I'll say. And it looks great right over the espresso machine.

Order up! a Dali shotgun blasted and in a busted frame, twirling end-for-end and knocking all the ketchup bottles off the counter.

Pretzels are made out of mouse poop Old Roy says.

:( :( :(

Bam the doors to the diner where Joe works open and in walk Darlene and Davy with hands on their hips and smiles on their lips and a hankering for some pie! The walk into the joint amidst the chaff and wastrels of your average roadside diner and standing erect utter their pronouncements, via the mouth of one Darlene Darling, tough as nails, large as the box a refrigerator comes in, and more willing to snap a man in two with her thighs than a pole cat will scratch your eyes out: We're here for pie, give us your pie, it's my boy's birthday and we want pie!

Take a seat yonder Joe says, pushing the Stetson up on his head and gesturing to a booth over between a cactus and a dead Indian, Casey will be right with ya.

Darlene and Davy go and sit down. And then I rode a pony and then I was in a real fire truck and momma and then I and the momma we ate cotton candies and played with the llamas and bathed in salts of the god Odin and his malcontented son Thor! little Davy Gravy says, all a-gush with the joys of a perfect birthday with his perfect mother. Such a cutie!

I know, sweetie, I was there the whole time, Darlene says, so God damned beautiful you'd want eat a jeep, and smiles at her boy. She adjusts the red kerchief on her neck and wriggles her massive toes in her dust covered boots.

Orderup a yell is made, and Joe the cook grabs Ted the assistant short by his face and stuffs him into a garbage pail. What can I get you good folks, Joe says through the window.

Little Davy jumps up on his seat, hands on his holster, and shouts, Key Lime Pie!

The room goes silent: the folks stop talking, the boys at booth six stop their poker game, the piano player stops playing "Jam On It" by Newcleus and stares, and outside in the cracked asphalt parking lot a burning wagon wheel slowly rolls by.

Joe comes out around the corner, the spurs on his boots going chink chink. Ma'am he says to Goddamnit Darlene, Maybe the boy would like apple instead.

Or pecan a poker player mutters.

Or dutch cherry says the dead indian.

Mince the cactus.

Custard piano player.

Pumpkin the painting by Roberto Matta With whipped cream on it.

Cocunut Old Roy says With a bottle of sasparilly.

Shut up Old Roy says Davy Gravy, hopping down over his momma off the booth. He stalks over to a stool at the counter, climbs up on it, and grabs Joe by the shirt collar. He drags Joe's face to his, his moustachio tickling Joe's nose. Listen here, you grease fetching egg cooking no good son of a sack of rotten taters. When me and my momma come into a roadside diner after a hard day in the station wagon chuckin' pecan shells at squirrels and drinking warm flat diet caffeine free Mountain Dew, the last thing we need is some poor son of bitch like the likes of your dad-blasted self to tell us what we want to eat. You here me, paisan? Capiche? We don't say Key Lime to exercise our vocal cords, and we sure as fuck don't ask for something thinkin' we gonna get something else, right G? Yo, fetch the pie or I'ma busta cap in yo ass and split yo bitch like the sticky finger ho she be. Word. Davy checks his pager, hops off the stool, lets go of Joe's shirt, and says, We're going to have Key Lime, momma!

Darlene beams at her darling boy. Such a joy these seven years! She picks him up by his nostrils and flings him into the seat next to her. Fetching crayons from her bosom, she turns over his place mat. Draw me a picture while we wait, dear.

A dinosaur? Davy starts to draw a car.

Anything darling.

Lacey the waitress waltzes up with two plates of Key Lime balanced on arms laden with steaks and chops and mounds of mashed potatoes, corn on the cob and off the cob and never having known the cob and divorced the cob and estranged from the cob and once knew the cob in grade school but hadn't seen it since the swirly after the fire drill. She drops everything on the table, then quickly sweeps up the busted cutlery, leaving their two slices of Key Lime on the clean formica next to a pair of gleaming forks, covered with swill.

Momma my fork's dirty.

It's just their way, dear, Darlene says, smiling sweetly at everyone who goes back about their business. The poker players play more blackjack, the couple branding cattle dip the iron in the fire, and Joe crumples Stacey into the trashcans on top of Ted. God damn it, he almost says.

Davy shrugs and picks up the pie in one fist, then shoves the fist into his mouth up the elbow. He pulls it out, pie free. Mmm, that's sure good momma! He turns and his eyes fall on the Matta. Holy shit. he says.

Don't curse, darling, Darlene says, then her eyes fall on the Matta. Fuck me running she whispers.

Joe is all smiles. You like it? I just got it— it's a real beauty. Matta isn't the kind you can say bold strokes and composition of colors about exactly, is he?

That's the photorealists your talking about again, stupid, says Old Roy.

Shut up Old Roy Darlene says. I must have it. For my boy. She stands up and walks over to the Matta, tracing her finger along the gouge the tiny old man put in it with his pipe stem. What will you take for it?

Oh, it's not for sale. Joe says, running a finger over the scar where he'd swapped his thorax and mandibles for a Christopher Bell.

It most certainly is says Daniel rising slowly like a wave of water in a cartoon, and flowing over to the painting like Death in his shrouds sans sickle. It is for sale and you are selling it to me for my daughter. Alice Beautiful hops up from where she sits on the booth and says Hi there!

Joe shakes his head. I'm real sorry, but I can't sell this puppy 'till Matta is dead.

The man is only 87 Darlene says. Davy is still in awe, mouth agape. Alice pops a jalepeño in; he chews it juicily, eyes never closing.

Besides, he's Chilean, he'll be around for a while, Daniel states, folding his arms and rocking back on his heels, making a forty five degree angle with the floor, for effect. And affect. Sell the painting, it's for my daughter's birthday.

No, me, Darlene says. She tears open her dress, showing the moony globes of her bosoms in her corset. It's my sons birthday, milord, and he is seven. Oh, do be good and sell me the Matta!

Daniel shoves her aside. Do not listen to this fool woman, good chef. Daniel picks the chef up and sets him on the counter, rubbing his knee and gazing into his eyes. You must give me the painting. I will pay you a thousand dollars!

Pshaw! It's worth more than a measly G, you stupid fuck.

Ten thousand!

Double pshaw!

One hundred thousand!

Triple pshaw with a twist!

One million, my final offer, and a bucket of Kentucky-Fried.

Extra tasty crispy?

Damn you! Two million, then.

Darlene Darling wads Daniel into a ball and throws him at the cactus, where he punctures and whizzes around the room, coming to rest like an underused condom on top of the ketchup bottles. She sews her dress closed and rips it open again, tears coursing tracks through her thick makeup and collecting on her outsized mole and dropping wetly on to her exposed globy white moonish round cantaloupy bosom thingies. I beg you, Joe! I will give you my body! I must have the Matta! For my boy!

Davy Gravy is still in awe. Alice B. pulls up his dress and gives him a zerbert on his tummy.

Balderdash! Daniel screams, bursting out of the bathroom with a piece of toilet paper stuck to his heel. I'll give you my daughter! Raise her, eat her, do whatever you want, that Matta is mine! It is her birthday she is six today!

Never screams Darlene, picking up Davy by the ankles and beats Daniel with him. For good measure, she gives Alice a good smack too. Alice and Davy giggle.

Daniel douses himself in gasoline and holds aloft a Harley Davidson lighter. I will not be taken not seriously! The painting or we all die.

Darlene takes off two petticoats and a slip to reveal an ICBM strapped to her calves. The Matta is mine or I wipe out all of east Texas!

Daniel grabs two atoms out of the air, separates them neutron from proton, and holds aloft three quirks: a down, a left, and strange. Me and the Matta, or the entire space-time continuum gets reinvented!

Darlene kicks off her shoes and yanks off her athletic socks, pulling God from between the threads of the right heel. God shakes his hair loose and strokes his moustache. Holy Shit he says. Darlene screams, I'll have the Matta or God Himself gets it!

Daniel turns a bright purple and a lovely shade of magenta, then hurls himself at the Matta, his throat leaping out of his throat as he mutters it will never be! The Matta bursts into flames.

Pandemonium. People start to run around, screaming. A car crashes though the front window, a train collides with the side wall, a Boeing 747 falls out of the sky and flattens Darlene's station wagon and Daniel's Rolls Royce Caprice like a kid with the "jer-lim" volume of the encyclopedia does a bug. An old Hopi woman, wrinkled, emerges and begins to scream, holding her hands to her her ears, her eyes wide, her mouth drooling. Abrir los brazos como se abren los ojos she hollers, madre de dios, zer machen schnell mit keine muter, si vous voulez un coca tu a besoin d'un parapluie, she screams, Deux ach machina.

Plagues, famine, disease, death, war, all ensue. The diner crumbles into the dust. The stock market. The lions at the zoo. Fairies from all over the world. Jails. Pharmacies. Bottles of Capri Sun. Microsoft Corporation.

Joe stand up amidst it all. God damn it he says.

The chaos stops. Darlene and Daniel retract their talons, and stand before Joe, their faces cast down in shame. Alice Beautiful and Davy Gravy stand next to them, their eyes shut, their lips pressed together, quiet. The Hopi woman stuffs the car, the train, and the 747 into the trashcan. Old Roy sweeps up the floor, and the two tiny and tinier old man appear, and wipe down the counters and get a fresh pot of coffee brewing. Macey's little girl Tracey gets a degree from Harvard.

It's my God damned Matta, I paid most of my liver for it, fair and square. He walks back to the painting, and draws his finger along the pipe scar. When Roberto dies, which may be today or next year, then we can talk. Until then, pay for your chili fritoes and your pie, and get out of my diner.

They pay and leave.

They come back next year.