We made the plans several minutes ago. We thought long and hard about the plans, that's why so much time passed in between making the plans and taking the actions outlined by the plan. When I first met Boris, I knew there would be plans. It was just a matter of finding that missing piece. That's when Yevgeni strolled out of the bathroom.
The American football game was on the television above the bar. I was drinking chocolate milk. The Laughing Vagina was the bar. It made the best chocolate milk this side of the town. The Colts and Steelers were playing. It was a silly game made sillier when laser-eyed bunnies and jumping-jacked monkeys attacked the players at half-time. I'm not sure why they attacked the players when their shared known nemesis was standing right there. The Colt! There was a scuffle behind me. As it turned out, Boris Yeltsin had just showed up.
I don't generally go backward in time. In fact, I've stopped at this very moment and begun going forward in time once again. I looked at my watch. 2:59. What the goddamn fuck!? You see? This is why you shouldn't spend much time going backward in time. When you do, an event that you have waited for all your life and is about to event itself upon you takes forever to event upon. I noticed that Yevgeni and Boris were talking though. So maybe my watch was just a minute slow.
"Yevgeni! Boris! How the hell are you?" They laughed at the pleasant tone in my voice. I don't speak with pleasant tones often. Nor do I paint my house with pleasant tones. I like subtlety. Yevgeni spoke first, "You are a minute late Jason, how come?" I knew he'd ask that question. He told me a few minutes ago that he would. Even if I weren't late. Wait, that's it. "I'm not late Yevgeni, and you know it." Boris slapped Yevgeni across the face. I did the same. I had won.
"So Boris. Now that we've executed our spectacular plan, do you think we can do something else?" Yevgeni, cheeks red from two slaps across the face seemed to think that was a good idea. You could see it in his feet. "Well, I hear the devil is making a visit sometime later today. The devil always does something wildly unpredictable that makes everyone either happy or sad." I knew the devil was coming and had hoped that Boris didn't. Those damn Russians, always wanting to get involved with the devil. I knew that if we did something with the devil, this re-telling of the day's events would take for-freaking-ever. I suggested something else, "How about cartwheels? The weather is perfect for it." Boris and Yevgeni sprung to their feet. "Cartwheels it is!" they screamed in unison.
She watched us through the whole encounter. The slap, the suggestion of bedevilment, the exclamation. That part startled her. Boris and Yevgeni really did scream quite loudly. It hurt my ears. Before we could make it to the open fields where cartwheels are allowed to be performed, she said our names. "Jason... Yevgeni... Boris... I can't believe it." It was a strange way to get our attention. I wondered to myself how she knew us, and then I wondered it out loud. "How do you know us?" She was obviously a very bashful woman. At my question, she pulled a large blanket from her purse and covered herself in it. "I don't know you, why would you think that?"
Boris and Yevgeni stood by my side for a few sentences of non-sensical conversation between myself and the lady. And then, just when we were starting to have an interesting discussion about the ramifications of the Wu-Tang Clan on Lindale Mall politics, they took off for the hills. That's where you do cartwheels if you don't do them in the open field. And when they reached the hills, instead of doing cartwheels, they did back flips. Sacrilege! They must be stopped.
Our blanketed lady also took offense too back flips in the cartwheel designated area and apparently, she cared a lot more about this sort of thing. Swinging the blanket from her body and simultaneously pulling a Civil War era cannon from her pocket, she was going to punish Boris and Yevgeni. And punish she did. First, she shot some cannonballs. Except, they weren't cannonballs, they were Russian classics. It's hard to tell the difference when they are going so quickly through the air. Then, she shot some real cannonballs. But not at Boris and Yevgeni. She shot them at the Russian classics. Boris and Yevgeni couldn't believe it. They begged for her to stop and also begged for her to tell us what her name was because I made the signal that meant that they should ask that question. I was curious. She did stop, but not until Boris and Yevgeni were cartwheeling themselves all over the hill. The did nice cartwheels.
"I am Anna." And so she was. If she was someone else, I imagine she would have said something like, "I am Larry" or "I am Yvette." But she didn't say those, she said Anna was her name. I thought about this a little more because when someone reveals their name, it's a very deep subject that must be thought about carefully. You don't want to end up with some misconception that misconceptionalizes what it is to be whatever that person's name is. I thought so long actually, and so hard, that when I opened my eyes (I have to close them to think hard), Boris, Yevgeni and Anna were all gone. That sucked.
