The Trip

 

 

 

Genre:  Novel, general, escapist surrealism.

Dedication:  To all of the homeless people of the world, particularly in the United States where it is still regarded as leprosy.

 

Certe, toto, sentio nos in kansate non iam adesse – “You know, Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.”

 

 

A struggling novelist, who edits other writers’ copy to make ends meet, goes to an island in the Mid-Atlantic to work on a "serious" book for a travel writer.  What happens after that is anything but serious.  He encounters an unbelievably bizarre and uproariously funny world of off-the-wall characters  and otherworld events.  (Written the year following 9-11 attacks this novel is, in part, a thinly-veiled lampoon at Bin Laden and the cowardly Al Qaeda terrorist organization.)  Recommended reading for anyone who enjoys outlandish, highly-imaginative escapist humor.< xml="true" ns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" prefix="o" namespace="">

 

 

 

Excerpt

 

 

 

CHAPTER ONE

 

 

All of the dolphin people had exited the lobby and were already in the pool by the time we got back to the front desk.  There was only a young couple ahead of us, but the adjoining dining room, which was separated by a wall of glass and an open door, looked to be almost full.  The sound of people crunching on something permeated the air.  To a soul–  man, woman and child, everyone was completely naked; their noses were crimped with clothes pins and all of their toenails were painted purple.  The entrance door from the lobby was open.  Fran-Fran and Kim didn’t seem to notice, but I sure did.  That being the case, I decided not to say anything, at least not right away, and focused instead on what everyone in the dining room was having for lunch.  It was a buffet affair, but from my vantage point I couldn’t see everything that was being offered.  I did get a glance at a number of plates at the tables, and from what I could tell the favorites of the day were ballast gravel, heated cockle shells, freshly dried cow chips, rotting rutabagas, uncooked carrots and ballast gravel, with a choice of either iced salt water or a variety of flavored fizzy Slurpees.

“...Can’t wait till dinner!”  I said to myself.

Gradually it occurred to me that the wait was becoming more protracted than I had expected, and I wondered what the holdup was.  I could hear people talking, but it seemed extremely muted.  Kim was standing behind Fran-Fran, and I was behind her, so I couldn’t see a thing.  I may as well  have been standing behind an Abrahams M-1.  Not wishing to appear conspicuous or impolite, I took a short step to the right and then to the left.  But each time I did, Kim turned around to smile hungrily at me, impeding my view with her basketball breasts.  Even if I had been able to circumnavigate her Spaldings, it wouldn’t have helped, because the couple ahead of us was standing side by side and leaning over precipitously and straightening back up alternatively.   It looked like something out of an old Ernie Kovacks rerun.

All of a sudden the couple at the desk stepped to one side and began to disrobe unabashedly.

When they did we stepped forward to be greeted by a four inch high ashen-faced corpse, who was himself totally nude and holding a tiny megaphone in his hand.  It was difficult to tell, but he couldn’t have been under eighty years old.  His being hispid didn’t help; neither did the miniature barong that was wedged in his head–   in point of fact, he looked like something our of the quaternary.

“...I bid you welcome to Nose Pick, the class of the Mid-Atlantic!” he said, yelling into the microphone.

HOUSE OF DECEMBER   (Copyright © 1972, 2008 by Richard D. Kennedy- all rights