To fully understand all that happened to you, the poor deceased Ricky, and the unsuspecting, mournful gathering during these few chaotic moments of your escape, we must take it one step at a time.

When that misbegotten, mischievous fork finally landed on the unsuspecting bill of Ricky's Oakland Raiders' baseball cap the malicious ball of foul potato salad exploded like a wet hand grenade viciously splashing the evil mixture around in a three-foot arc. Rancid chucks hit the two vivacious, busty dimwits who were still dancing around the poor deceased. Spraying their black dresses while splattering off-white specks across their painted faces, predominately bared, amble chests, exposed flexing thighs and immersing into their long black hair. They of course began to scream hysterically, and amazingly they were in almost perfect harmony.

The sorry fellow, who had been standing in line in front of you awaiting his morbid turn for a picture with Ricky, while thoroughly enjoying the two bimbos jiggling up and down before him, was not only also covered with this fluid rancidity but was temporarily blinded as well when small, sharp bits of this potent salad hit him square in both eyeballs forcing him to cry out in a somewhat exaggerated yelp of pain as he threw both hands up to cover his face. In his defense it must here be stated that part of what made Mom's potato salad so popular was her inclusion of an amble amount of red peppers and she was always a bit heavy in her addition of Dijon mustard in her secret mix. Within seconds this somewhat innocent, albeit enthusiastic, voyeur's eyes began to swell completely shut.

Likewise, the kneeling photographer who had almost entirely forgotten about the dead guy because of the two bouncing vixens, was caught right smack dab in the center of this small explosion wherein he too was covered with a fine mist of this almost lethal spray as he fell backward heavily onto his butt. Ironically, at the time his camera had been concentrating on the high daring split in one of the floozies' skirts where it fully exposed the slender, flexing hip of one of the dancers. But as he fell backward he inadvertently took a picture of the fork still upon the bill with the exploding potato salad clearly expanding out from the dark bill of the cap. It was an amazing photo to say the least. One of those accidental, split second wonders of the photographic world, and one, which would later be used as evidence in the many lawsuits that where just starting to head your way.

Of course most everyone else in attendance had already been set well on their way down that terrible road to the quaint little village named 'Shock' when you had yelled 'TIMBER!" These pursuant happenings only added to their horror but as it has often been said, "They hadn't seen anything yet!"

For Ricky, who was the hapless victim of this direct hit of your potato salad aerial assault, that is if you can still call somebody who is already dead, a victim? Be as it may, Ricky clearly took the brunt of the punishment from your misplaced fork and its aftermath. When the fork hit the bill of his cap it knocked the cap forward and down the dead man's face, in turn dislodging his Ray Ban sunglasses as well. This alone caused some frightful hysterics within the gathered party as the undertaker, a distant relative of the family who had taken on the preparations of Ricky's funeral for half price and so had mostly tried to cut costs, had forsaken part of the application of the dark sun tan skin tone make-up that had otherwise been applied to Ricky's face and scalp. That is this make-up had been applied except for where Ricky's sunglasses concealed his eyes and his cap covered his always clean-shaven head. Thus when the cap and sunglasses fell away the corpse suddenly had large white, eye sockets and a circular white spot on his dome! But in the dim lighting of the parlor what appeared to the mourners across the room, and especially to Ricky's poor distraught mother, was that Ricky had unexpectedly opened wide his eyes, almost to the point of popping out of his skull, and that he had been scalped!

By now almost everyone in attendance were screaming in disbelief and horror! But, as stated, this was just the beginning! Ricky had been set in place on a kind of cheap, thin wire tripod with the thinking that there wouldn't be much of a concern in the way of his moving about, or tipping over. "After all," the distant relative of the family undertaker had figured, "the guy is dead." Well, again, as they say, so much for thinking.

But just the weight of the potato salad and the fork, along with the movement of the cap and sunglasses falling off was enough to make the inanimate Ricky start to pitch ever so slightly forward. Still everything would have been okay if it hadn't been for the unfortunate, but timely and rather forceful slap to the back of his dead head by the flailing arm of one of the now hysterical dancers. "WHACK!" Once she smacked his noggin there was nothing anyone could do! So in front of everyone present, poor dead Ricky was finally going down for the count!

Motivated by the dancer's headshot Ricky's head jerked forward and the rest of his limp frame followed in turn. For one brief instant it actually seemed as if he had come back to life and was taking an awkward step off of his flimsy tripod as his arms and right leg swung slightly forward! But that was all the movement he could muster from his dead, flaccid limbs as he then fell like a rock face first into that now ill placed plateful of chicken and potato salad on the TV tray before him.

Now if the potato salad on the fork exploded like a wet hand grenade then Ricky's face slamming into the plateful of potato salad was like a five hundred pound bomb landing in a swimming pool as it spewed more of that dastardly side dish everywhere! No wall, window, piece of furniture or guest escaped this barrage of warm, fluid shrapnel! Like an undersized wrecking ball Ricky's head loudly smashed through the aluminum tray bending both sides upward to incase his skull while breaking the tray's thin aluminum legs like kindling. His face, the solid plastic plate and the tray then violently continued this free fall to the hardwood floor resulting in a booming, reverberating crash of metal, bone and wood! The brutal impact was so hard that Ricky's legs, bent at his knees and kicked upward one last time before his violated, wilted form finally came to rest.

By now everyone was either fully indulged in their own little fits of hysteria, screaming to the high heavens or sitting silently absorbed in total shock and disbelief! Both of the dancers had panicked! The one who had been on Ricky's right had blindly tried to flee to her right but after taking just three full strides ran headlong into the wall knocking herself out and falling back onto Ricky's legs in total unconsciousness. At almost the same moment the dancer on his left had also turned to run away but instead ran directly into the closed coffin leaning against the wall. Although this collision stunned her she was amazingly still on her feet as she made a half turn away from the coffin while holding her head and trying to stay afloat on trembling, weak knees.

Meanwhile, as a result of this impact, the top of the coffin slid downward against the wall in an arc away from the dazed damsel gouging a ragged trail in the wallpaper until it loudly crashed into and then through a glassed encased curio cabinet filled with knick-knacks that Ricky and his brother had given their loving mother over the last thirty odd years. There wasn't much left of this cabinet, or the knick-knacks, by the time this heavy sarcophagus hit the floor. As the casket bounced on the hardwood the lid flew open and the entire casket pushed back towards the staggered and unsuspecting stunned dancer hitting her just below the back of her knees causing her fall backward into the open coffin!

This poor girl was now beyond hysterics, way beyond! In her frenzied attempts to claw her way out of this deathbed she flailed away at the air like a woman possessed kicking madly and shrilly screaming bloody murder at the top of her panicked lungs! In her delirium her hyperactive arms and legs waved furiously while her head bounced up and down inside this box of doom. One, then the other of her black, spiked high heels shoes went flying through the air. Soon her skirt was up around her waist and her amble bosoms had at last broken free from their flimsy, inadequate bondage as she reached, grabbed, pushed, jiggled and bounced in her vain attempts to escape that hideous container.

Over by the buffet table Hilda and another old woman were desperately trying to dislodge a piece of your frosted brownies from the third old woman who had inadvertently sucked it down her throat at the sound of the first blood curdling scream. The poor old gal was just now entering her second shade of blue.

On the couch the deceased's mother, a rather attractive and sexy widow in her early fifties, had fainted dead away while being consoled by the priest. When Ricky's face had hit the floor the poor woman had made one last loud gasp and dropped her head face down and dead center in the priest's lap. She was out as cold as a mackerel with her head buried in his crotch and the priest sat there in stunned silence. Unambiguously his astonishment had nothing to do with what was going on around him but rather to the fact that for the first time in his long life of abstinence he found himself in this predicament. He really didn't know what to do to remedy the situation, or if he even wanted to? All he knew was that he felt really… really strange.

In the middle of the room two men were physically holding down the temporarily blinded man on his back and were trying to flush out his eyes. Unfortunately they were not using water as they had grabbed the nearest liquid available, a bottle of Scotch! The blind man was screaming and writhing in abject pain but the other two persisted until one said to the other, "I don't think this is working, maybe we should try something else." But the other man insisted, "No I've seen this in a thousand Westerns! Whenever somebody gets wounded they always pour whiskey over the wounds…" To that reply the other man shrugged his shoulders, nodded in agreement and they continued the treatment. The blind man then reached up with his right hand and desperately grabbed at the Western watching man's shirt until he found the man's tie. His hand crawled up the tie to its knot and once there, with a blind, frantic lurch he clutched the man's throat choking him with all his might while yelling, "I'll kill you! You son of a…"

The photographer, who had now recovered from his fall, was now slowly circling the coffin snapping picture after picture of the struggling and now half naked girl. In her frantic desperation she did not even notice him at first but as her strength ebbed she started to plead to him for help. But the photographer would only smile and reply, "Just one more." Finally after saying, "Just one more" about ten times he stopped and pulled the poor creature out of her unyielding tomb.

She glared at him while pulling down her skirt and putting away the twins. Meanwhile he stood there holding the camera high in his left hand like a shot put while idiotically smiling and trying to make small talk with her amid the ongoing mayhem. Exhausted the young woman bent over placing both hands on her knees and with her head down took long deep breaths. He did not notice when she balled up her right hand into a tight fist and he was still babbling along like an imbecile when she reared up with all of her might and caught him with a right uppercut square at the point of his jabbering jaw. The man was actually lifted off of his feet by the surprisingly powerful blow as he flew backwards. He was out as cold as a cucumber before he even hit the floor. At the punch's impact his camera had been launched out of his hand and shot putted across the room hitting the large picture window almost dead center. Shattered glass rained down into the parlor and out onto the lawn as fresh new screams of shock and horror echoed throughout the neighborhood and as the camera bounced across the front yard.

For a moment the woman stood over the photographer's comatose form lying in a heap before her. Contemptuously looking down at him, while rubbing her sore right hand she spat, "Just one more my ass!" She then went to help her unconscious dance partner who was already being assisted by Junior's two lackeys.

By now to the neighbors up, down and across the street it seemed that all hell had broken loose at Ricky's house! Most were certain that a mass murder was taking place and so many of them had flooded the local police hotline with 911 calls. Others had come outside onto their front porches and lawns to see what was going on. Together they stood there listening to the screams, crashes, booms and bangs coming from inside while watching some of the guests run from this mad house and with squealing tires race away in their cars.

Meanwhile back inside the house, in the far corner by the front archway, the old 'mummy' man from the bathroom had his own problems. When Ricky had hit the floor like a giant dead herring, Junior, in his haste at moving to his dead cousin's aid, had inadvertently, and unknowingly, swung one of his tree trunk arms backward hitting the old man in the chest as he sat in his chair. The force of this blow had knocked the old man backwards, chair and all, leaving the old boy still in a sitting position and also still encased in the overstuffed chair. His cane had gone flying on the way down and his glasses had been sent sailing off his head on impact. Now he 'sat' there with his short little legs and thin, flimsy arms flipping up and down while his small, skinny frame was hidden from view in the chair. As he struggled his small wrinkled, baldhead was bobbing up and down and right to left. Because his glasses had been swept off of his face he was now squinting through his diminutive clenched eyes. His pursed thin his lips looked more like a beak than a mouth. Now add in the fact that the chair was dark green in color and it all resulted in making the old-timer look just like a large ancient sea tortoise that had been flipped over onto its shell. With Junior and his lackeys already aiding someone else the old man would lay there beached, until the cops showed up.

When Ricky so violently kissed that plate of chicken and potato salad, his brother had immediately leapt from his mother's side off the couch and, like Junior, went to Ricky's aid. With the two men kneeling on either side of their dead and now damaged relative, Junior pulled back the aluminum tray encasing Ricky's head as easily as if it had been tin foil. They then rolled the poor guy over to find the plastic dinner plate glued to Ricky's face. Peeling this plate off they found that Ricky's face was now covered from just above his eyes and down to his chin in potato salad. But what really got everybody's attention was the Southern Fried chicken leg that was now embedded across his forehead! As Junior pried the chicken leg out of Ricky's skull, his brother wiped the potato salad off of Ricky's face. To theirs, and the other onlookers' added horror they now found that Ricky's face had been smashed as flat as a pine board with his nose pushed flat against his left cheek! Groans and shrieks of disgust spread throughout the small crowd of onlookers as the two men lifted dead, mutilated Ricky up and finally placed him in the coffin where he had actually belonged all along. At the sight of Ricky's mangled face one woman fainted and fell on top of the still struggling blinded guy and his two idiotic would be medics. Alas, ironically, after Ricky's vain attempt at showing himself off for one last time with his request to be visible at his own wake, Ricky would now have to have a closed casket service the next day at the church.

As one would imagine this once somewhat subdued house of mourning had now been transformed into one of boisterous, chaotic hysteria! Everyone present was now either screaming, fighting, running out the front door, passed out or trying to help someone else. Everyone that is except for one sweet, diminutive eighty-three year old woman who was sitting just inside the front door.

Her name was Mrs. Ida Billingsworth but everyone in the neighborhood called her "Crazy Billie." But she wasn't really crazy in a textbook manner. She never did anyone or herself any harm. It is just that a little more than ten years ago her husband had passed away and ever since then Ida has been, well, shall we say, confused. As a childless widow her life had become an array of mix-ups and perplexity. For example she was constantly getting the holidays wrong in such a random fashion that on Easter she sat out carved pumpkins and hung small white-sheeted ghost on her porch. On those Easter evenings she would sit just inside her front door with a large bowl of candy on her lap and wonder why no one ever rang her doorbell to yell, "Trick or Treat!" At Christmas she would display a U.S. flag on the front of her house while on Veterans Day she would color eggs and hand them out to children she passed on the street. Of course on Halloween she would decorate her tree, hang a wreath on her front door and tell everyone she met, "Merry Christmas!" However there were a few times when she would actually get one of the holidays correct! But this only added to her confusion, as she couldn't understand why everyone else got it right this time? Still she would feed dog food to her cat and cat food to her dog but never understood why they kept eating out of each other's bowls? People would try to explain these misunderstandings to her but she was sure that she had it right and everyone else, including her dog and cat were wrong. So she would simply smile at the person who was trying to help her, pat them gently on the hand as if to say, "God bless you my poor misguided child," and then say a prayer for them that night.

So it was in this constantly confused state that Ida, or "Crazy Billie" wearing a light blue dress adorned with small purple printed flowers, had walked into Ricky's house carrying a large brown paper bag just after 3:00 PM that afternoon. She said nothing to no one and no one spoke to her as she quietly placed the bag on the floor next to a wooden chair just inside the front door and just outside the archway to the parlor. When she sat down in the wooden chair she was delighted to find that she had a full view of the comings and goings of the gathering.

Delicately she reached into the paper bag taking out a large purple plastic tumbler and a bottle of Boru Citrus Flavored Vodka. Filling the tumbler half full she then placed the vodka back inside the bag, took a sip, and then leaned forward in the chair to concentrate on what was going on in the next two rooms.

It must now be noted that although Ida was no stranger to this potent 80 proof indulgence, what she was actually drinking here was a mixture of her own design which had rendered the vodka a tad less, shall we say, intoxicating. Her husband, Walter had developed a deep fondness for this particular Irish vodka when he had been stationed in Ireland as a U.S. Army radar technician during the war. He then introduced his young bride to its palatable delights soon after they were married. Now the petite and pretty Ida had always been a demure and rather timid young girl who was not very worldly when she wed. But that soon changed after good old Walter introduced young innocent Ida to the pleasures of the wedding bed. To put it mildly, soon after the honeymoon began, Ida became a wildcat. I know, it is always hard to imagine little old ladies in this situation but hey, remember, everybody was young once, even eighty-three year old widows.

Now Walter drank this vodka on a daily basis. Usually it was just a drink or two during the evenings to help him relax after a busy day at the office. But as one would expect occasionally he would over do it. It was not long in coming that young Ida would soon learn that after a night of Walter over indulging in his favorite drink he wasn't good for much, especially in bed! So Ida had set about with a little mischief. Like most women who decide to intervene in a man's life, Ida convinced herself that it was for Walter's own good, not to mention her own. She bought herself a small funnel and over a year's time, little by little, she added more and more water to Walter's favorite vodka until what he finally ended up drinking was a mixture of fifty percent water and fifty percent vodka. Although there were times when Walter wondered why he could drink so much more now without becoming as intoxicated as in the past he never did catch on to what his sweet, darling, little, sex-crazed wife had been up to. Plus the results of Ida's mischief were well rewarded in the bedroom! An added benefit, which Ida had not even thought of, was in their bank account for as it turned out the couple ended up saving tens of thousands of dollars over the next fifty years by Ida watering down the vodka.

Needless to say with Walter having a good paying job, no kids to provide for, but plenty of 'amore' life was very good for these two water/vodka swilling lovebirds! As Walter had always been a fit, robust man and Ida had always likewise managed to stay healthy the couple were still steadily going at it when Walter passed away at age seventy-three! Oh how Ida missed her dear sweet Walter! Even now at her advanced age Ida was firmly convinced that she and Walter would still be 'making hay' if the old boy hadn't been hit by that darn train!

Ida had never told anyone about her water/vodka mischief and now she didn't even remember why or how she had started mixing it that way in the first place. She only knew that this was what she had always done when she bought it and so this was how she would always drink it. She was also now convinced that it had been Walter's idea in the first place because that was the way he liked it and he was such a good provider that he knew they could save money that way. Time and the absence of a loved one do have a way of making them smarter than they actually were. Anyway that is why this little old lady could now sit there all afternoon, sipping at what most believed was 80 proof vodka yet never fall out of the chair! It all just added to her "Crazy Billie" mystique.

So it was that Ida was a witness to your abject paranoia and its ill-fated effects on everyone else present. Through it all she mostly sat quietly watching, sipping at and then refilling her tumbler while thoroughly enjoying everyone's crazy antics. At times she would laugh out loud and slap her knee when someone fell or ran from the room. To her it was all in fun, as she had absolutely no idea that it was not just folks horsing around and playing pranks on each other. She was now laughing with extreme delight and fully convinced that this was the best damn birthday party she had ever been to!

After they had placed Ricky into his coffin she quickly finished off the rest of her vodka and placed the purple tumbler back inside the bag. She then removed a gift-wrapped package from the bag and stood up. The package was about sixteen inches long, eight inches high and eight inches wide. The gift-wrapping displayed the repeated image of a little boy football player in a blue jersey with a white helmet kicking a football through a small yellow goal post. She knew that Ricky loved football and that he had a favorite team so inside the package was a Nerf football with the name and logo of the Kansas City Chiefs. Carefully stepping over the destroyed TV tray she carried the gift over to his coffin and placed it on the floor. Gently she touched the closed lid and whispered, "Happy Birthday Ricky."

Returning to her chair she picked up her brown paper bag and turned back to the parlor to say to no one in particular amid the ongoing noise and calamity, "Thank you. I had a wonderful time." Now in the distance could be heard the echo of sirens from what would eventually result in the arrival of four police squad cars, two ambulances, a fire truck and three mobile news units from local TV stations. Moving through the open doorway Ida made her way down the porch steps and walked down the sidewalk to the street. Turning right, she smiled and waved at the concerned neighbors gathered in their lawns across the street thus again further enhancing her 'Crazy Billie' reputation. As the first two police cars with their lights flashing and sirens blaring skidded to a halt in front of the chaotic house, Ida slowly made her way home hoping that little Ricky would like his new football.

In her eighty-three years 'Crazy Billie' had been to many birthday parties and to too many funerals and wakes. At many of those birthday parties the guests had pulled jokes on the guest of honor. But at none of those previous funerals or wakes had the guest of honor ever been standing in the corner. Yet people believed that she was the one who was confused, and she was the one they called "crazy."

Hours later after the police had interviewed everyone still at the house and the paramedics had taken care of those who had been injured the neighborhood finally quieted down from the pandemonium, which you had created. For now all the police knew from some very conflicting reports, was that for whatever reason at this somber, peaceful gathering some crazy SOB had started a food fight with a dead guy. The bad news was that the police were now looking for you. The good news was that although it had been determined that you had once lived in the neighborhood, no one could remember your name. When all was said and done the house had been reduced to ruins. Twelve people were treated on the scene for minor injuries while six others, including Ricky's distraught mother and the old lady who had gagged on your frosted covered brownie had been taken to the hospital for observation. The two dancers were released after spending the night in the hospital, rescued it seems again the following morning by two firemen who just happened to stop by to see if they were all right. The photographer had a broken jaw along with a concussion. It would take three weeks before the blinded man could even open his eyes. After being treated for cuts and bruises his two would be moronic medics were arrested for assault and one of Junior's lackeys was detained for an outstanding warrant.

And you missed it all…

To Be Continued:

Up Next: The Final Chapter

The Wake: Part One

The Wake: Part Two

"Copyright 2008.  Michael E. Tank   All rights reserved. No part of this document may be copied, faxed, electronically transmitted, or in any other manner duplicated without express written permission of the author."