The Big Nap Time

Actually, I’m thinking of pitching some hard-boiled children’s fiction to some people. I’ve even got my first title.

The Big Nap Time.

Once, there was this kid. Doesn’t matter what his name was. Call him Kenny, if you gotta call him something.

So, anyway. One night, Larry’s mommy comes to check on him and–what?

Yeah. What did I say? I said ‘Larry’?

Okay, Kenny. Kenny’s mommy.

Like I said, the kid’s been up for seventy-two straight hours. His name could be fucking Trixibelle for all he knows. Try to focus here.

Where was I? Oh, yeah.

So, Kenny’s mommy comes to check on him, and Kenny’s sitting there bolt upright, speed-reading The Gruffalo.

Kenny’s mommy is like, Kenny, what the fuck? Go to sleep already.

Kenny just looks at her with these big, googly eyes.

“I can’t sleep.”

“Can’t sleep?”” Kenny’s mommy says. “What are you talking about, you can’t sleep?”

Kenny’s all, like, I’m scared. Boo fucking hoo or whatever.

“Scared? Scared of what? You’re eight, for Christ’s sake. What do you got, a scary pattern on your jim-jams. Go to sleep, seriously.”

“I can’t,” Lenny says. “I just can’t sleep.”

“Bullshit,” says Lenny’s mommy. “You lie down, you close your eyes. Boom.”

Then Lenny’s like, there’s gonna be an explosion when I fall asleep?

That’s what he says, I swear to God. Half fucking nuts, this kid.

So Donny’s mommy, she does what any mother would do. She gives Donny a Jim Beam and Coke, just to take the edge off.

Then she takes off her name tag from the waffle place and pins it on his jim-jams.

“There,” she goes. “It’ll be just like Mommy’s here.”

Then she tucks Johnny in and turns out the light.

“Goodnight, sweetie. I got a shift. There’s Nicorette if you get hungry.”

Next night, it’s the same thing. When his mommy checks on him at 3 a.m., little Bobby looks like he’s put a whole fucking kilo up his nose.

She’s like, the fuck, Bobby? I thought we talked about this. Go to sleep.

Bobby gives her the googly eyes.

“I’m scared, Mommy.”

“Scared of what? Is it some kid at school? Because your daddy can make things happen, even from a federal prison.”

“It’s not that, Mommy.”

“What, then? Because Mommy has a monster rush coming up and needs to take some other medicine.”

“A monster is going to come up here?”

“It’s a fixture of speech. Now tell Mommy what you’re scared of.”

“Mr Naptime.”

“Who the fuck is Mr Naptime?”

“Ssshhh! He’ll hear!”

So, it turns out Danny thinks there’s this creep called Mr Naptime who wears purple pants and lives in his dreams. Kid’s a straight-A wacko.

Jimmy’s mom is thinking, Jesus, this is some Stephen King bullshit up in here. Why me, where did I go wrong, eck cetera. Chick’s hysterical.

So, next morning–well, technically it’s next afternoon–she brings little Jimmy to this bar she knows called Actual Fucking Nicky’s Place.

The bar’s got some other name, but everybody calls it that on account of there used to be some other Nicky’s place where the guy was dead.

She marches little Ricky up to this booth right at the back where there’s this cybernetic biker called, I swear to God, Ding-Dong Micky.

I say cybernetic. He had this arm and like a quarter of his face that some MIT guys made him after he got back from Afghanistan.

And Ding-Dong Micky was because his buddies wanted to test whether the arm was bulletproof. Turned out he was and they weren’t.

She lets little Benny get a load of this guy, then she takes him by the chin and she goes, well? Is Mr Naptime scarier than Ding-Dong Micky?

Benny just nods. Real slow like.

She thanks Ding-Dong Micky for his time. “And bless you for what you did for our country’s independence.”

So then, Benny’s mom is thinking, who the fuck do I know that’s scarier than Ding-Dong Micky. Then it comes to her. Connie Five Stars.

Connie Five Stars pretty much says what goes in the what do you call it now? The Asian community or whatever. Runs a serious crew.

The way she got her name was, she opened up this Cantonese joint to give her nephew a start, who was apparently this fucking wok genius.

Be that as it may, Connie is a family-centric kind of boss and she wants to do right by this kid. So she works her press contacts.

And everybody does their piece, except for this one smart-ass. Runs a blog called Eat, Pay, Leave. You believe that shit? Fucking prick.

This asshole puts up a hatchet job on his blog, and it’s like 14,000 words. You could starve reading this shit. Connie reads every word.

Now, Connie’s not what you might call the letter to the editor type. She likes to be probiotic. Boom, get it done.

What does Connie do? Call her publicist? Get some juice? Fuck that. She hosts another press night. Only this time, there’s a shark tank.

Now, everyone is standing around sipping Grey Goose and there’s an an actual visible fucking shark in a tank in the room.

They all got “issues” with eating shark, but nobody wants to say nothing in case it’s racist or some shit. Connie likes that just fine.

Long story short, Mister Tofu Weekly Dot Com gets lowered into that shit at a key juncture. Everybody claps. Isn’t this place refreshing?

And what do you know? Eat, Pay, Leave feels the time is right to take a “second look” at Connie’s nephew’s joint. Hallelujah.

Now, here’s the other thing about Connie Five Stars. Apart from she likes her leather a lot, how this chick looks pretty much checks out.

You might even say, if you had reached a point in your life where you wanted to end the suffering, that Connie was verifiably fucking hot.

Thing was with Connie, you might be sitting in front of a hot woman, but all your lizard brain saw was this fucked-up fish from a mile down.

So, Tommy’s mom is like, is Mr Naptime scarier than Connie Five Stars?

Tommy looks up.

“You mean the Charlie’s Angels lady?”

Tommy’s mom is all, Jesus, I’m so sorry. What do I do with this kid?

Connie shushes her. She knows Lucy. It’s cool. Ease up.

“So, Tommy?”

Timmy shakes his head.

“Mr Naptime is scarier.”

Then he pees his pants, right on the fucking Siberian tiger rug.

And that’s it. The story don’t got no satisfying décolletage or whatever.

There ain’t no moral either, except that life is basically a cocksucker and maybe you should hug your kid once in while.

The fucking end.