Billy Deploys An Attitude Adjustment: Part 15: Bart Meets A Non-Racist

The afterglow of the world’s first Ursus Americana turbo wedgie didn’t last long. With immense ferocity, an explosion tore part of the roof from the building. Everyone scattered; except Billy. He stepped back two paces, planted his feet carefully, and drew his pistol.

The first two extreme greeters, slipping into the gap in the ceiling on their rappelling gear, took two expertly placed 9mm hits to center mass each. Wincing as their armor deflected the bullets, both men dropped their lines and fell to the floor. Billy’s view of center mass was obscured as the third man roped down, so he drew a bead on his head. Then, for reasons even Billy couldn’t explain, he refrained from the headshot he’d lined up. Quickly, he holstered his weapon, grabbed Doogie, and slipped through the glass door of a beer cooler.

Meanwhile Bart had an epiphany. The third man down the lines was NOT a racist! It was Bart’s first exposure to a black human being.

He rushed forward to embrace his new-found brother, who was momentarily distracted unhitching his harness. He crashed into him like an over-eager puppy, butt wiggling, and both of them fell to the ground. Team member #3 found himself flat on his back with a bear on top of him. His rife was pinned to his chest.

The bear opened his toothy maw and… SLURP!”

Team member #3 screamed as a big slimly stinking bear tongue licked his face; from chin to eyebrows.

Member #4 was looking down from above. “A bear is eating Mike’s face!” he screamed. He leveled his rifle but any shot that got the bear would pass through and hit Mike.

“Confirm report.” The leader ordered.

“Shots fired. Two men down. A bear is eating Mike’s face.”

Twitch skittered away from the chaos only to press the bar on the back door that said “Alarm will sound.” It did. Inexplicably, this also set off the sprinklers.

Bart, desperate to make a good impression on his new soulmate, decided it was a good idea to shield his “friend” from the water. Mike, still screaming from being licked by a bear went silent as his face was shoved into the smelliest bear armpit in creation.

Two more men in full battle rattle slid down the rappelling lines while a third kicked in the back door and immediately tripped over a wet hyperventilating unemployable comic book colorist. As he went down his trigger finger involuntarily jerked and he sent a three-round burst into the Slurpee machine; which exploded in a volcano of neon green icy sugary goo.

The two men rappelling turned and reflexively fired at more or less anything in the vicinity. They missed Twitch, hit their colleague and, realizing what they’d done, blanched. Shooting your own team member was a one-way ticket to six months of retraining followed by demotion to the TSA. Each realized there was only one other witness to this mess. They turned on each other, but team member Roscoe was quicker on the draw than team member Stevens, who took three hits and collapsed.

“Are they shooting each other?” Doogie whispered.

“Shut up.” Billy hissed. He was trying to figure out an exit strategy. At the moment, everyone was too busy screaming, tripping, and shooting each other to notice the two of them hiding in the beer cooler. What to do?

Just then Achmed leapt over the counter and made a beeline for the door. Achmed, using the faulty logic that his traditional garb was more generic than his work uniform, had slipped into what most Americans would call a big white robe. Achmed could be forgiven for his miscalculation. Everything had gone pear shaped from the moment the K-cup man had started burning faces with coffee and being the only man in the time zone wearing a salwar kameez was the least of his worries. For example, after vaulting the counter he’d landed on a dead soldier, a manic soldier who was desperately trying to aim at a writhing pile of neon green goo near the Slurpee machine, and a bear with muffled screams coming out of its hairy armpit. All in a pile.

As Achmed rolled off the heap, two squirrels scampered up his leg, across his face, and leapt for the rappelling cable. The first two soldiers, still wincing from Billy’s hits to their armor, aimed for the squirrels and fired like all of their ammunition was free. As any squirrel hunter will tell you, two magazines of 30 rounds each isn’t enough to hit a squirrel that’s moving fast. Terry and Mary had scaled the cable and were in the helicopter before the hot brass landed on Bart’s stincky black hide.

Angrily, Bart bashed his tormenters, who despite years of combat training, had missed the “swap magazines while getting a wedgie from a bear” lesson.

Billy’s ears were ringing from all the shooting, so he tapped Doogie on the shoulder to get his attention and relay what he needed. Doogie nodded and handed Billy a porter from a nearby rack. If you’re going to let chaos play itself out while you’re hiding in a beer cooler, you might as well have a drink.