Sleeping Beauty

The Yellow Pages

“I did it my way.”  -- The Diary of Jiles Frank, probably

“He was supposed to be here an hour ago.”

Bobby's daughter Annabelle shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly as she replied, “Hey, I'm not the parent here.”

She was right.

“Sorry, I didn't mean to take it out on you.”

I was the one to blame here. I was the one that made the appointment without taking to Bobby about it.

“He hasn't responded to your texts either,” she asked me as she swiped her finger across her screen. I still pecked away with the tip of my finger every time I tried to send a text, savvy at the texting and jabbing I was not.

“Nope,” a single word response was all I could muster as I stared at my screen. It's obvious we aren't going to make it in time, but the chime from her phone gave me a brief spark of hope.

“It's Uncle Cancer,” and just like that it was gone. “He wants us to head to the house. Apparently my dad's there asleep.”

Crap.

---

The Eleventh Hour

“You grew up way too fast, and now there’s nothing to believe. The reruns all become our history. A tired song keeps playing on a tired radio.” -- Goo Goo Jiles, probably

To observe the wild beast in his natural habitat is to observe the darkest, deepest, most decrepit pit of hell.

Bobby.

Fucking.

Dean.

I just know if I had won at UltraViolence he wouldn’t be up to his old tricks. I know it. We wouldn’t be here. Me, carrying the weight of his future humiliation, just like the good ole days.

Blowing off matches instead of holes.

Whale joke.

No Diddy.

The worst part is there was some traction there. He had momentum in his favor. He was rolling uphill. Him and Tiny could have made a good run at those Tag belts and brought more shame upon my name.

Oh well.

Zapp Angolagin would have been a tough out even if the Holaleean Prince were at the top of his game.

I suppose.

As opposed to the top of his bed of course.

Ha.

Which, as fate would have it, brings us to the now, and the aforementioned natural habitat. There I am, donning my customized blazer because I lost and Coral won. Captain Coral the Great is beside me, with Ian and Two Books standing in front of us.

We are all watching Bobby Dean sleep.

His snoring is mesmerizing.

Hypnotizing even.

And we’re all watching helplessly.

Tony tried pleading with him at first, having sniffed relevance for the first time since Bob and I carried him out of last year’s marquee pay per view.

Nothing.

Bob didn’t even flinch.

Next to go was Hessian, and boy did he hulk the fuck up and scream in Bob’s face. It was terrifying, Bob wet himself, but did not awaken.

So, nothing.

Then it was my turn to go.

The Flaccid Eggsecutioner.

I held my hand over his nose and mouth, trying to suffocate him awake. I forgot, in my haste, that Bob is a whale and capable of holding his breath for an extended period of time. Worst of all, he tends to get a little noxious in those terse moments, and his body and the air trapped inside of it fight a resounding battle.

Still, I hunkered down, and called out to my friend.

“Bobby, you can stop this ruse now. Wake up, I’ll be your tag team partner instead of Tony. It’s okay.”

Nothing.

Well, Tony shot me a glare but I assured him that it was just part of the bit. I then continued to talk to my beautiful friend.

“Listen Bob, Belle is here, and she’s looking at you lustfully like you told me about in your dream that one wet time.”

The Champ’s jaw drops, and the look of amazement on his face makes me warm for the first time in a while. Still, Bob remains asleep, so I continue down the road less traveled.

“Oh, what do you know? Bob, The Egg Queen is now here, and she’s got those lustful eyes for you just like Belle does. They’re beggin you, Bobby. Please, they need you to wake up.”

Still nothing.

Probably too busy playing Back for Blood.

I turn back, and look over the worried and disgusted faces of my brethren. In a last ditch effort to rouse the beast…

… I remove my hand form his face, and position myself over his prone body so that I can fart directly inside his agape mouth. It’s an old trick we used to do back in our Dream days to get his blood pumping before a big match.

Not a subtle boner joke.

Now, keep in mind my fart is no Noxia blast, and I would usually perform the act while Bob was awake, so it should come as no surprise that my efforts, much like my attempts at COOLOSSUS, failed.

---

The King’s Court

“Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone?” -- Jiles Jackson, probably

I’m not going to lie.

I have no idea what circumstances led all of us to watching Bobby sleep. Really, we all had a great and productive meeting about the upcoming show. At least, I thought we did. I think most of them were sleeping through it, or at least pretending to listen. I didn’t think Bobby would fall asleep like this.

Immutably so. We might as well have put him in the frickin’ cryochamber, that’s how done he was. My beautiful man was cooked. Gassed, if you will. Unfortunately, that’s becoming all too literal.

“Hey, Bobby,” I offered, “Look, man, you gotta wake up. Your snoring could wake the dead, and that’s really bad around here when there’s so much dead as it is.”

We didn’t sign up for the snore-type necromancy, I’d decided.

Didn’t matter. Bobby was sawing those logs, counting those sheep. I think I’m the one that’s supposed to count sheep.

“Bobby, this is your Captain speaking. There’s a muffin hidden somewhere in the kitchen, and you’re the only one with the super sniffer needed to find it.”

I added, hopefully helpfully, “It’s blueberry. Your favorite.”

I had no idea if that was his favorite, by the way. I think his favorite’s “all of them”. I probably should be encouraging him that he has a big match with the Anglo Luchador and not encouraging his diabetes to get ornery, but… y’know. Desperate times and all that.

I also had no idea why the blueberry muffin idea would work after the whole fart mouth thing that just transpired and we watched and condoned and kinda accepted as having happened. About a year ago, I’d probably have been mortified over having watched that, but… Well. I’ve seen some crap. Most of it was fart-related. Most of it was Bobby-related. That Venn diagram was a full circle.

I used to be such a good guy before I joined the Bandits, I swear.

“Bobby, while I’ve got you here,” Coral said, “I need to tell you something very important, and it’s that Lunchbox Larfleeze over here definitely took one of your donuts.”

Lunchbox Leisure Suit Larry didn’t look all that happy about the fact that I just narced him out, because he said, “Dude! Not cool!”

It didn’t matter.

Bobby still slumbered like the dead.

…He’s not dead, right?

If he was dead, and we woke the dead trying to wake him, will he be back for our blood?

It is Halloween season, after all.