Bobby Dean
Did you know after a certain time in the evenings the kitchens of the MGM Motel Grand close down? The room service stops, the cocaine residue is wiped away, and the entire kitchen area becomes a deserted oasis. Did you also know that security for the kitchen area is practically non-existent?
“One hundred and thirty four Mississippi, one hundred and thirty five Mississippi, one hundr,” the monotonous voice of “Beautiful” Bobby Dean sounds throughout the empty yet cavernous kitchens, as COOL Cancer Jiles sits on a nearby counter top stuffing a brownie, probably laced with some of his special “herbs” into his mouth. Old Man Doozer is there as well, also stuffing his mouth, but instead of a pot brownie he’s eating a Nutrigrain bar, because he’s old as fuck and his body is probably held together with duct tape and hope.
And hope is running out.
The countertops in the back corner of the kitchen look like a bomb has gone off. Bags of flour and sugar are torn to shreds, a mixing bowl is resting on its side, a tub of blueberries is open, and half empty, and standing there covered in white powder from head to toe is Bobby Dean.
“One hundred and thirty seven Mississippi.” The counting pauses as Bobby dips a giant stainless steel ladle into a big bowl of what appears to be a lemon glaze. With the gooey glaze dripping down the ladle, Bobby proceeds to lick the ladle as if it were a lollipop, tonguing the giant spoon. It’s both strangely erotic, and equally revolting, yet Doozer and Cancer Jiles can’t seem to tear their eyes away.
“One hundred and thirty eight Mississippi, one hundred and thirty nine Mississippi.” Bobby continues to count, cleaning off the spoon in between licks.
Shaking his head, as if to erase the horrible mental images that are seared into his brain, Doozer calls out to the room, “So, ReVival 4 is coming up, how are you two feeling?”
Smirking in a way that only Cancer Jiles can smirk, he pops the remainder of his brownie in his mouth, as if he doesn’t have a care in the world. “Eggcelent, ready for Junior’s eggsecution.”
If Jiles is confident, Bobby is the exact opposite. The mere mention of his upcoming match has caused the large man to excrete nervous liquids throughout his body. Primarily in the armpit region, as well as the underboob, and ass crack regions. It’s not a pretty sight, and probably a worse smell, but luckily the big man is really good with applying antiperspirant.
“Why are you so nervous?” Dooze asks the big man, as the big man slowly lowers the spoon to the bowl, as if he suddenly lost his appetite.
“I’m no good with these multi-man matches,” Bobby begins to explain, with a forlorn look on his face and a quivering voice. As if he is mere moments away from sobbing. “I’m good with tag matches because I can stand on the apron and offer moral support to either of you guys. But in a ring with three other guys, all of which are looking to take out the weak link? I’M THE WEAK LINK!”
Bobby suddenly shoves the ladle covered in glaze into his mouth. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a proper ladle or not, but it’s kind of impressive that he’s able to scram the entire scoop into his gaping maw.
“On hun-red an for-y free Mi-ah–ah-ppi, on hun-red an for-y fur Mi-ah-ah-ppi.” Bobby continues his attempts at counting with a mouthful, which causes the brows of Jiles to rise, he can’t help but be impressed at the feat before his eyes.
“Why are you such shit at multi-man matches? I’ve always wondered that…” the man from Mount COOLympus asks.
Removing the spoon once more, Bobby looks slightly embarrassed as he confesses to his two friends. “I was diagnosed with ADLD when I was a kid. I think that’s one of the reasons why..”
“ADLD?” Jiles can’t help himself.
“You mean ADHD right?” Dooze offers helpfully, as if he knows.
“No, I’m waaaay too fat to be Hyper.” Booby admits, his eyes drawn down to the countertops, not able to look up to meet his friend’s eyes. “No, I suffer from the affliction Attention Deficit & Lazy Disorder.”
“One hundred and fifty six Mississippi, one hundred and fifty seven Mississippi.” Bobby continues, causing Doozer to snap, as he bolts upright, from his casual lean against the counter, he thrusts his hand out in Bobby’s direction and waves his fingers in a come on, gimmie motion.
“Come on, gimmie!” Doozer says with a huff, to Bobby’s blank look he follows up, “Give me your dang phone. You keep counting and it’s all wrong. Time doesn’t pass just when you count…”
Without much ado, Bobby shoves his meaty paw into his jeans pocket, a pocket that might be too tight as the hand mushrooming around the opening of the pocket turns white. A moment later he fished his phone out and tossed it over to his friend. Talk about trust.
With a swipe of the finger, Dooze is staring at the lock screen. “What’s the password?”
“Probably 8008…” Jiles answers, to which Dooze looks over at him, a question on his face, as if he were asking, why 8008? “It spells BOOB.” The proverbial lightbulb goes off above Dooze’s head, it makes perfect sense.
“Noooooo!” Bobby says full of indignation. “It’s 2662.”
Without missing a beat Jiles answers Dooze’s unasked question, “That still spells BOOB, Bob.”
Bobby once again drops his eyes, as he goes back to licking the glaze off the ladle, afraid to look up at his friends. With a couple of finger flicks Dooze is now staring at the homepage of a site he probably regrets seeing.
“What the hell?” Doozer asks rhetorically, turning the phone first to Jiles, whose eyebrows rise once more. Then he turns the phone to Bobby, asking aloud, “Why are you on Grinder, Bobby?”
The big man from Honalee doesn’t understand the confusion in Doozer’s voice, he answers simply, “I was hungry.”
“Hungry?” Doozer parrots.
“Yeah,” still at a loss Bobby continues, “I wanted a sandwich, and Cancer said that was the site to go to for the best grinders around.”
Doozer looks over at Jiles with a look of reproach on his face. Jiles stares back, his eyes may be covered by his T-Shades, but his face still conveys an expression of absolute uncaring. Without looking at the big man, Cancer asks, “How was your search? Did you find any chefs in the area?”
“Yeah!” innocent and full of naivety, Bobby answers with a voice full of enthusiasm. “His name is Anton, and according to his resume no one smokes sausage better than him in all of Nevada! We’re supposed to meet after the show actually, and he says as long as I bring the sausage, he’ll smoke it even if it takes him all night long.”
Still looking Doozer dead in the eye, Jiles smirks. Dooze shakes his head in dismay before handing the phone back to Bobby, a timer counting down is shown on the screen. Bobby smiles, now that he doesn’t have to bother counting aloud, he goes back to licking the ladle with much fervor.
“Why are you baking anyway?” Jiles asks, as he turns his attention back to Bobby.
“Well, I figure,” Bobby begins with a sheepish expression on his face. “Since I’m the weak link in this match, I should try and stack the odds in my favor? Maybe give Timo Bolamba a sweet treat
“I heard ole Timo has the Beetus.” Cancer informs, causing Bobby’s eyes to light up. “Me too!!!”
“You have diabetes?” Doozer asks, shocked as the big man continues to shove the melted sugar concoction down his gullet. “You’re not supposed to be eating that…”
“Why not?” Bobby asks, dumbfounded, as glaze pools in the corner of his mouth before dribbling down to his chin. With a mighty swipe of his tongue, he manages to wrangle the escaping glaze back into his mouth.
Cancer Jiles can’t help the shudder that courses through his body.
“Never mind…” Doozer answers, not wanting to be the one to break the news to Bobby.
“What if Timo doesn’t like cake?” Jiles asks, causing Bobby to audibly scoff.
“Who doesn’t like cake!?” Bobby asks rhetorically, because obviously, everyone loves cake!
“Just asking, you know, what if?” Jiles presses.
“Does Warstein or Nate like cake?” Bobby asks, as if his friend Cancer would know.
“I’m not sure, but I hear ole Zion loves himself some cake!” Cancer answers with confidence, and a smirk.
“Ew, not him.” Bobby grimaces at the mere mention of Darin Zion. “Anyone but him!”
Before Bobby can explain his distaste for Darin Zion the buzzer from his phone begins to emit throughout the room. With a gleeful clap of his hands Bobby dons on his special oven mitts and quickly reaches down to open the door. Heat rushes out as Bobby tentatively reaches in and drags out a simple round Bundt cake pan.
Gently, yet as quickly as he can, Bobby places the pan on the counter and closes the door to the oven. Smiling Bobby looks at the cake with a hunger in his eyes. Reaching over he drags the bowl of lemon glaze closer to the pan, but his face drops as he realizes there was no glaze left…
“Nooooooooooooo!” Bobby wails.
“Now you’re definitely gonna lose.” Jiles says, patting his friend on the back, causing a puff of white powder to appear.
“Sorry big, better luck on the next ReVival…” Doozer chimes in with his moral support.
———————————————
A few days have passed since the Bundt cake fiasco. As Cancer Jiles helpfully pointed out, “It’s probably a good thing you ran out of glaze, that cake, it tasted like ass.” With Dooze nodding along, Bobby was forced to go back to the drawing board.
Bobby and a drawing board are never a good combination.
It’s how the trio ended up at Naked City Tattoo, one of the worst rated tattoo shops in all of Las Vegas…
There sitting in the chair wincing, grimacing, squirming and shirtless, is “Beautiful” Bobby Dean. A tattoo artist is sitting between the big man’s open legs, head down, going to work, as Doozer stands by Bobby’s head, clutching his friend’s hand as if he were a lifeline.
Jiles, sitting in an empty chair nearby, scrolls through a book of flash, pre-drawn, pre-colored pieces, occasionally looking up at his friend with a shake of head and a look of dismay on his face.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this. It’s gonna be permanent!” Doozer says, chuckling, as Bobby cries out before squirming like a fish trying free himself. “Stop moving, this was your idea!”
“It hurts so much!” Bobby admits, with a tear in the corner of his eye. With his proclamation Jiles can’t help but laugh aloud, getting another reproachful look from old man Dooze in response.
“Come on Dooze, get out of the 1930’s man!” Jiles admonishes his friend and his old man views on body modifications. “I still think you should have gone for that face tattoo, Bobbo. Party Poopin’ Dooze up in here having to ruin it.”
“A “Insert Food Here” tattoo with an arrow pointed at his mouth would not have gone over well with the eGG Queen!” Doozer defends himself, as Bobby once again squirms uncomfortably while whimpering. “It’s okay, big guy, you’re almost done, big guy,” Dooze consoles his friend with a gentle, yet awkward pat on the shoulder. “It’s looking amazing!”
Bobby tries to look down at the ink, but the rise of his massive stomach makes it impossible to see.
“Here we are buddy,” the familiar voice of the tattoo artist calls out as he sits up and leans back.
“Thank you again Blueberry!” Bobby says cheerfully as King Blueberry smiles in response, saying, “Hey, when my good friend asks for a favor I’m there!”
The big man scrambles out of the chair and rushes over to the nearest mirror, which happens to be right next to the lounging Cancer Jiles. As Bobby stares in the mirror his breath catches, his eyes go wide, and the biggest smile you’ve ever seen on his cherubic face slowly spreads.
There, arched over his belly ala Cancer Jiles’ “COOL” tattoo is a single word:
Bobby reaches down and grabs Cancer Jiles, roughly pulling him up to his feet. Dragging him to stand next to him in front of the mirror, before he reaches down and yanks Jiles’ shirt up, revealing his stomach.
“Oh my gosh!” Bobby squeals happily, looking at the two similar tattoos. “We’re twins!”
“Yeah, I always thought of you as a taller Danny DeVito.” Cancer deadpans back, shaking free of Bobby’s lecherous hands as he awkwardly lowers his shirt.
“Now, I can be just like you!” Bobby happily informs his friend. “You win your match and now I can win my match!”
The logic doesn’t make sense to anyone else in the room, but maybe King Blueberry who is sitting there nodding his head as if it all made perfect sense. King Blueberry, with a serious tone to his voice warns the big guy, “Now remember, don’t get that wet, and try to not scratch at it for at least six days! It needs time to heal!” He then proceeds to replace the cap to his PRIME blue Sharpie marker with a flourish, before putting it down on the counter next to the six empty Sharpies markers.
“I’m gonna WIN!” Bobby shouts out, happily spinning around before jumping in the air as if he were Mary Tyler Moore.