sus," I said, "Give it a rest, pal. There's only so
much Mork Dishwashing Liquid to go around. No,
no, no." (Yeah, like that mattered, was all any-
one could think in those days of clammy Spam
and Sprite.) "None of that's available, not since
the wreck. Man, you know that -- should know
that better than anyone's cousin. Does the word
plesperous mean anything to you? Please say no
-- Please say no." Real casual and all. Like no-
thing mattered anymore. Then he picks up a
bright-green chunk of it and sniffs it, licks it with
his tongue. "First of all, you can't put that stuff in
your mouth, you idiot." Frank had a way of telling
it like he saw it. "Man, sometimes I think I hooked
up with a goddamn moron." The thing Frank didn't
understand about me -- one of the things, any-
way -- was that moron spelled backwards spelled
norom. That got me through a lot of lonely nights.
When the cattle cars finally came, me and Frank
wandered around the back for a quick Yoohoo,
but by then everything had gone to hell. "Why,
why, why," Larry (Frank's accountant) said, I
think to himself more than anything. "We always
get stuck doing the stuff that nobody else wants
to do. We always get the short end of the stick.
Screw them." Larry sometimes went off like this,
blah, blah, blah, whatever -- Spoons and forks,
whatever. The point to him was always that there
was no point, except maybe for the point on his
pointy ass. "Jesus," I said, "Give it a rest, pal.
There's only so much Mork Dishwashing Liquid
to go around. No, no, no." (Yeah, like that mat-
tered, was all anyone could think in those days of
clammy Spam and Sprite.) "None of that's avail-