Volume 02, Story 13
The backyard smells like grilled meat and cheap weed. Uncle Hank mans the grill. Chuy hurls a trash can lid across the lawn while Rawr teleports through puffs of black and purplish smoke to snatch it mid-air. Uncle Rob broods under a black umbrella in all black, sunglasses included, watching Killian and Lucy rustle in the bushes. “I can’t wrap my head around why Killian and Satan would choose the backyard to fuck in, when there’s an entire mansion with a fuck ton of rooms they could horizontal mambo in.” “My name is Lucy,” she says. “I hate it when you call me Satan.” Then Jesus, a Mexican man in work boots and a tool belt, approaches Uncle Rob with an iPad, and Rob’s day is ruined. “Oh for fuck’s sake. Can I have one beautiful fucking day where nothing weird fucking happens?” The Emperor of the Universe is paying Earth a visit. Unannounced, of course.
In the Ominous Forest, Mr. Bitches stands with his back against a gnarled tree, a cigarette between his lips and a chrome Desert Eagle in his hand, when a blinding white beam explodes down from the sky. A shuttle descends through the canopy. A red carpet unrolls itself with mechanical precision and stops at his boots. Down it struts a humanoid alien draped in a Liberace-inspired military uniform, complete with epaulettes, rhinestones, and a cape that spreads dramatically behind him. “Greetings,” the figure says magnanimously. “I am the Emperor of the Universe. Is this your planet?” “But of course.” The Emperor is searching for two subjects: a Chino and a Homeboy, read off a jewel-encrusted smartphone held up by The Emperor’s Servant. “I demand justice and recompense for the crimes they have committed against my property.” “I have found them guilty of vandalism, theft, offending the honor of my ladies, and terrorism.” Mr. Bitches does not know where the boys are, but he knows where their women are. “Capture them, and Chino and Homeboy will come to you.” The Emperor sends his Servant with Mr. Bitches into the forest while he waits at the shuttle, because he is the Emperor of the Universe.
At the mansion, Uncle Rob explains the Emperor to Sarah Yazzie: a self-given title, nobody questioned it, now he is a big celebrity in several galaxies. “So he’s a con artist.” “You’re smarter than I give you credit.” The more popular he gets, the more planets just start giving him power. At the strip club, Mr. Bitches presses the Desert Eagle to The Strip Club Owner’s forehead. “Of course you are.” The owner calls Mary Jane and asks her to come dance for a very special client. “Hey, Katie,” he says. She winces. “You know I don’t like it when you use my stage name.” Katie Bloom is Mary Jane’s stripper stage name, and she has not used it in a while. Two thousand for two hours, conversation and a dance or two. Sarah insists on coming with. The moment they walk into the office, the door shuts behind them. “I fucking knew it.” Mr. Bitches aims the Desert Eagle at them. “For fuck’s sake. This is the third fucking time I get captured by you. I seriously need to stop smoking weed. It’s making me fucktarded.” The Servant fastens metal collars around their necks. “So what the fuck are these? Collars that’ll make our heads explode if we try to escape?” Mr. Bitches claps slowly. “Clever girl.”
At the mansion, Uncle Rob’s command center scans Earth for the rogue shuttle while the boys realize the girls have been gone too long. Chino’s phone rings. “Sarah! Where are you?” Mr. Bitches’s voice replies, smug and unmistakable. “That’s for me to know and you to find out.” “Nothing… yet. But if you’d like your precious Sarah back, I recommend you get to the Ominous Forest post haste… tick tock… tick tock.” The crew piles into the Gremlin, Killian and Lucy running to join them, and Homeboy and Killian push the stubborn car until the engine sputters to life.
The shuttle is a shrine to excess: gold-leaf paneling, red velvet seats with gold-plated cupholders, velvet drapes in electric blue, LED strips pulsing everywhere, and a wall of screens flashing the Emperor’s face in heroic poses under an orchestral “We Are the Champions.” Sarah and Mary Jane sit cuffed together while the Emperor eyes them with disdainful curiosity. “These are their women?” “What a far cry from my exquisitely magnificent Amazons.” “Who the fuck are you?” “And insolent! Gah! Execute them at once!” Mr. Bitches talks him down: no proof of life, no Chino and Homeboy. Alone with the girls, the Emperor lays out the charges: Chino and Homeboy had their way with his Amazons, offending their honor, and that is the terrorism. “I was frightened I wouldn’t get my Amazons back.” “And did you?” “No… and that’s why I’m seizing what belongs to the Chino and the Homeboy.” He raises a finger. “And impregnated a majority of them.” Sarah pinches the bridge of her nose. Mary Jane’s eyes widen. “Wait… Homeboy is a daddy?” “One thing at a time, Mary Jane. One thing at a time.” Sarah tries to explain that she and Mary Jane are not property. The Emperor nods thoughtfully. “So the Chino and the Homeboy are your property.” Sarah exhales sharply, scrunches her face, and gives up.
The Gremlin barrels over the red carpet. “My carpet!” Chino, Homeboy, Killian, and Lucy step out. “Give us our women, puto!” The Emperor’s eyes land on Lucy and he gasps. “Who is that magnificent, gorgeous creature?” “That’s the Morning Star,” Mr. Bitches says. “The daughter of the Creator of the Universe.” The Emperor drops to one knee before Killian. “Are you God? The Creator of the Universe?” “What?” “God… I wish to ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage.” “What?” “I will give you planets. And the life teeming on them. As dowry.” “What?” “I will beg if I have to.” Killian looks at Mr. Bitches, then at the Emperor. “No.” The Emperor’s lower lip begins to quiver. Then Sarah and Mary Jane step out of the shuttle. Mr. Bitches raises his Desert Eagle toward Sarah. “Na uh… not today, motherfucker.” She yanks the gun from his hand and tosses it effortlessly to Chino. He fumbles for the collar remote and presses the button. Nothing. The girls casually remove their collars and drop them at his feet. “I know cheap jewelry when I feel it,” Mary Jane says. Mr. Bitches screams. “No! No! No! YOU!” He turns to charge the Emperor and catches the full, forceful swing of Uncle Rob’s cane right in the face. He hits the ground hard.
Uncle Rob steps up to the dazed Emperor and holds out a hand. “Get up. Don’t let these peasants see you like this. You’re the Emperor of the Universe.” The Emperor brightens. “Uncle Rob! Why are you here?” “This is my planet.” “But Mr. Bitches said it was his planet.” “Who you gonna believe? That nobody who’s never been to space? Or me, Uncle Rob, Scourge of the Galaxy?” The Emperor is ashamed. He is not God, Lucy is not the Morning Star, the whole thing was a fairy tale. Uncle Rob throws his arm around him. “Come on. Let me buy you a few rounds at the restaurant at the edge of the Universe.” “Don’t we need reservations?” “What? Not me. I’m Uncle Rob.” He glances back at the boys, mouthing: you owe me. They snap off crisp salutes. He flips them off. The red carpet rolls itself back up, the shuttle roars into the stars, and Chino says it: “Let’s go blaze up.”
Back at the apartment, joints move between them and Mary Jane turns her head. “I’ve been wanting to ask you, are you a daddy?” Homeboy looks at Chino, sheepish. “I wish! But if I did, it was to save the Amazonian civilization from extinction.” Sarah raises an eyebrow at Chino. “And you?” “What can I say, babe?” Homeboy sits up proudly. “We are fine examples of near perfect genetic expression.” They both take a hit at the same time, hold it, then exhale slow and synchronized.
Featuring Uncle Hank, Chuy, Rawr, Uncle Rob, Chino, Sarah Yazzie, Homeboy, Mary Jane, Killian, Lucy, Jesus, Mr. Bitches, The Emperor of the Universe, The Emperor’s Servant, The Strip Club Owner.
Read the full story in The Adventures of Chino & Homeboy, Volume 02