O l i v e r B e n j a m i n
Part Four:
HOLOCAUST
CHAPTER 22
Milo was the first to start the celebration. On the way, he picked up
three young female hitchhikers, four gallons of cheap wine, two live
chickens and three pounds of premium hash. Luckily, he had driven
back with Spinoza, who approved of such things.
They both stumbled into the abandoned Order of the Fern’s
headquarters superbly tanked, and were embraced by the jubilant
Fern members, who despite being responsible for absolutely nothing,
had been busy congratulating themselves for hours. The Ferns had
already exhausted a seemingly inexhaustible stockpile of beer, but
two of them had left in Harvey’s car to buy some more.
Unfortunately, the nearest store was thirty miles away, which meant
that either everyone would have to drink some of Pangaea’s leftover
Green Cheese Moonshine, or they would have to drive fast. They
drove fast.
Among the party members, only Vlad was sober, sitting so stiffly
one would have thought he had fallen into a vat of concrete rather
than a vat of excrete.
“C’mon sugar,” Jewel coaxed, “It’s all over now. You’re a hero,
probably saved the whole darn planet. You ought to be celebrating.
We couldn’t’ have done it without you! Why don’t you forget about
the caca and come do the cha-cha?”
“I’m not in the mood,” he replied, “as you might imagine.”
“Of course, I understand. But pouting’s not gonna help. I bet if
you go in and celebrate with everybody you’ll feel a lot better!”
Vlad threw up his arms. “That’s just it! Don’t you see? I don’t
want to celebrate with
everybody
. I want everybody to celebrate
me!
But no one has carried me on their shoulders and sang ‘hip hip
hooray’ or ‘he’s a jolly good fellow’ or anything. I mean, my whole life,
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