Chapter 17: Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye.

I became accustomed to life at Farthing Farthwest, as Rendol called his complex, and spent many an hour watching Tiddleybox-Upon-Entertainment Center, or "television" as you and I know it. Rendol had a pet name for everything, including his pet. Sir Drummond Alexander Crustmuffin, a basset hound, was better known as Captain Horatio Sanchez Ruffintuffin among the band.

By and by I became aware of an incredible homoerotic attraction between Rendol and Long Johnny, the bassist known throughout the world for his immense genetalia, which Rendol had given the pet name of Little Johnny Floofy-Poo. The two shared a sexual energy strong enough to power a small transistor radio for several seconds, or give one a good, sturdy shock if one was wearing wool and standing in water. Entranced by the possibility that hot man-on-man action might break out at any moment, even during breakfast or while vomiting the previous night's whiskey (Often, the two went hand-in-hand, as did Rendol and Johnny), I kept a careful eye on the two. My other eye was to continue facing forward.

It was during a particularly intense episode of Jeopardy! that tensions came to a head. Rendol was quite insistent that, "What is your mother?" was the correct question for every answer given by Mr. Trebek. Long Johnny, on the other hand, would counter with the argument that "less filling" was the way to go. They exchanged heated words, followed by heated nacho cheese. Quickly, things escalated, and by the time Double Jeopardy had started, the two were naked and as contorted and twisted as the argument for war in Iraq.

Clearly this was Rendol's first time with a man, as he wasn't quite sure what to do until I intervened with a helpful diagram of an anatomically-correct bird putting the moves on an anatomically-incorrect gay bee. Johnny was also most instructional, explaining, "Some people call it a he-hole". Rendol nodded, shoved his tongue down Johnny's throat, and then smacked him upside the head with a whiskey bottle. It was touching. And they were touching. Well, Rendol was, at any rate, as Johnny took an inopportune nap soon after the blow from the bottle.

Rendol, crying out the name of his sister, eventually collapsed into a crumpled, sticky fetal position, having spent himself and perhaps even gone into debt. "Oy!" he exclaimed. He had truly not known he-hole until that moment. But Johnny clearly wasn't enjoying himself on the same level, as he had stopped breathing and lost most of his blood through the large gash across his head. Bits of broken glass mingled in the crimson pool next to him, and momentarily I considered that perchance the glass bits were also getting it on. But this was no time for pornographic thoughts about inanimate silicate shards! A man was dying, or dead, or something. And Rendol was in no shape to towel up and invent an alibi involving a wood chipper and pig farming.

Once again, I found myself charged with saving the day. I explained to Rendol that now might be a good time to urinate, then went about finding the necessary equipment to ensure that the long arm of the law would come up empty-handed in investigating the afternoon's unpleasantness. Long Johnny, you see, was never here at all. Oh no. This, I would later tell federal agents, was Long Johnny's brother, um, Other Long Johnny. I drew a mustache and goatee on the corpse, and scrawled the word "OTHER" across his forehead to make it more obvious. With that out of the way, I went about disposing of the body the best way I knew how: setting the house on fire and killing seventeen more people. Although I acted most bravely in the face of danger, they were the true heroes. They died the way they lived, screaming in anguish. It had always been a rather noisy household.

Rendol later wanted to refer to the events as, "the day the music died." I told him the phrase had been copyrighted, and he decided instead to christen it Saint Paddington Gloucestershire Kidneypie Day and never speak of it again.