Gluten free pizza

I was doing what I usually do around 6 in the evening and that is sleeping on the couch. I thought everyone does that, but apparently that is not true, because there was a pounding at the front door that woke me up. I stood, almost naked, and walked to the door and opened it. There a man in a bright uniform with horizontal yellow stripes asked if I ordered the gluten free pizza? For a second I thought I might be sleeping. My lone experience in the gluten free universe was a recent hamburger served on a gluten free bun which tasted surprisingly like ground up sheetrock.

No, I said to the clown like delivery boy, I certainly did not, nor would I ever, order a gluten free pizza. Just then I noticed the candles, the front yard filled with large helium filled balloons, the dancing midgets and the man dancing wildly on stilts. I looked again at the delivery man, who was no delivery man at all but my dear friend Houdini, standing at my door, in person, with a box that now looked to contain some sort of cake, with candles. "Happy birthday my friend."

I looked over his shoulder onto a sea of merriment and insanity, the clowns were either drunk or high, or both. There was a large animal, possibly an elephant, but more likely a Manatee, out of water and slowly dying, and what appeared to be a family of gypsies. Great, just what my ghetto needs is a family of gypsies. Well, they would have to compete to with crack dealers, the gun fights and of course fat momma, the worst mother in the world, who lived close enough to me that I could hear her screaming rants at all hours of the day.

Right at that point, as if on que, fat momma herself leaned out of her front door, her girth visible to this new community of clowns and freaks and screamed at the top of her lungs, "get that fuckin elephant off my god damned front yard you stupid faggot."

See, that's why I like my neighborhood. There is no pretense at civility. Houdini, upon hearing fat mommas dictate, looked over at her ample self and said in a voice loud enough for every circus performer to hear, "you heard that monster, get our elephant away from her feeding trough."

Oh dear I thought, no one, as far as I could remember, had ever challenged fat momma on any level. She is an angry bitter and loud woman, who seems bent on screaming at everyone in the worst possible language available. A few nights earlier, during her nightly parenting session with her seemingly unwanted child, she spent the better part of evening belittling her child with warm mothering wisdom such as "shut the fuck up you useless piece of shit."

So, imagine my surprise when Houdini actually insulted the obnoxious bully. She retreated into her cave like existence.

"Come with me," Houdini said, as he grabbed my arm and led me to his waiting convertible. The crowd of circus freaks and other assorted felons parted, we drove off, Houdini in a tuxedo, me in boxer shorts and a strained t-shirt. "Where are we going?" I asked. He looked at me, smiled and turned the radio on, where I could hear some sort of loud, bass heavy music bother my inner peace.

We drove for at least an hour, I am not quite sure, because I fell asleep. When I woke, we were parked illegally in front of Trump Plaza in New York City. Houdini was gone, I was alone in his car, the top down, the music off, the city opening up in front of me and me, sitting in someone else's car. in a stained t-shirt and some boxer shorts. This was probably not going to end well.

Houdini came out of the Plaza, threw me a key card and said, "hey sleepy head, ready for the best birthday ever?"

I was awake at that point, but still a little bewildered. "I guess I am, I mean, I need some clothes and a shower."

"Everything is in the room, I have everything under control."

"You do know it's not my birthday, right?"

"Really? Am I close?"

"A few months off, but it's the thought that counts."

"Sure is."

To be continued.