Cover design by: Joe Oesterle
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BAD STANLEY
1. THE BIG BILLBOARD
Dinner was served.
The waiter at “Chun’s Chinese” placed the dishes down with an air of total efficiency, yet somehow managed to get none of them to the correct customer.
The Rumproast family soon sorted things out amongst themselves. But they still weren’t ready to dine. Their oldest son was not at the table.
“I’ll go get Stanley,” Mrs. Rumproast said to her husband, Ron Rumproast. “It’s a shame he has to smoke outside the restaurant. He’s missing all the conversation.”
“Maybe I should take up smoking,” muttered Stanley’s brother, Artie. “Lucky bastard.”
Mr. Rumproast pretended not to hear anything that either of his dining companions had said. It was easier that way.
Just then, a huge crashing noise was heard from outside.
“Holy f*ck!” screamed Artie.
“Language!” admonished Mrs. Rumproast. There were two things in life she loved above all else… politeness, and cooking sherry.
But Artie would not be silenced. He ran to the doorway and yelled again, “Holy f*ck! Stanley’s been crushed by a giant adult billboard!”
No matter how questionable his verbiage, Artie's eyes were quite correct. For there on the sidewalk lay an enormous outdoor advertisem*nt for “The Peppermint Hippo,” an adult establishment that proudly offered 2-for-1 lap dances as part of their “stimulus package.”
The giant billboard had plainly fallen from a nearby support structure, only to land heavily on the pavement below, and shatter into a jumble of jagged spears.
Underneath all this p*rnographic plywood was Stanley.
And Stanley was flat.
Flat as the dialogue from a George Lucas film.
“Good heavens! That is flat,” said Mrs. Rumproast, breaking the fourth wall.
Even Stanley’s cigarette was flat. A nearby bum picked it up, then decided it was too squashed to be worth smoking.
“I bet we can get our dinner for free now,” said Mr. Rumproast. “And we shall certainly consult our attorney in the morning.”
“What about a frickin’ doctor,” moaned Stanley softly. But his family had all gone back inside to eat. And just as Mr. Rumproast had suspected, their meal was complimentary.
2. THE LAW OFFICES OF J.D. SHYLOCK
In his office, J.D. Shylock, attorney at law, reviewed Stanley’s case file.
“This is as sure-fire a claim as you could ever have,” said Mr. Shylock, rubbing his fingers together in a cartoonish expression of greed. “Tell me… are you in pain?”
“Yes,” said Stanley. “Constant, unremitting agony.”
The lawyer smiled. “Oh, that’s good. That’s very good indeed.”
“Not for me,” said Stanley, but his lawyer was too busy punching numbers into his calculator to hear.
“With any luck, your condition will turn out to be chronic,” said Mr. Shylock.
“That means ‘of long duration’”, said Mrs. Rumproast cheerfully. “It comes from ‘Chronos’, the Greek word for time.” She was in the first flush of her morning drink, and she desperately wanted to impress Mr. Shylock, who after all, was an attorney, unlike Mr. Rumproast, who was “chronically unemployed”.
“Did you know,” continued Mrs. Rumproast, “that many people confuse Chronos for Cronus, the Greek Titan who castrated his father, then later ate his own children?”
“That’s almost as dysfunctional as our family,” said Artie.
“What do you think about that, Mr. Shylock,” asked Mrs. Rumproast, blatantly leaning forward to expose her bosom.
“Obviously, we’ll sue the billboard contractor for negligence,” said Mr. Shylock, who hadn’t listened to a word Mrs. Rumproast had said, so great was the gold-lust that had come over him. “We’ll also sue the Peppermint Hippo, of course. We’ll go after the city. And the restaurant. And, I’d say the cigarette manufacturers should have had a less addictive product, so you didn’t need to go outside, but maybe that’s stretching it. By the way, just how old are you, Stanley?”
“Twenty-three,” said Stanley.
“That’s awfully old to still be living with your parents,” said Mr. Shylock.
“Tell me about it,” agreed Mr. Rumproast, looking up from a Popular Science magazine he had picked up in the waiting room. Mr. Rumproast had hoped his children would move out after college so he could finally have a spare room for his Star Trek memorabilia collection. But it hadn’t worked out that way.
“Hey, it’s a tough job market,” said Stanley, who although almost completely flat, still had lost none of the ability to detect disappointment in his father’s tone.
“But on the bright side,” said Mr. Shylock, “even by conservative actuarial tables, you still have at least 50 years of living in pain ahead of you, as well as a lifetime’s worth of lost earnings.”
“Ka-ching,” said Mr. Rumproast.
“Ka-ching,” said Mr. Shylock.
“Ow,” said Stanley. But Mister and Mrs. Rumproast were too busy dancing a jig to pay any attention.
3. BEING FLAT
When Stanley finally got used to coping with his agonizing nerve pain (thanks mostly to generous helpings of Oxycontin), he soon found that being flat had its advantages.
For one thing, he was easily able to sneak into places, merely by sliding underneath the door. One Friday, The Rolling Stones came into town on their eighteenth farewell tour. The concert was sold out, but that didn’t stop Stanley. He just slid through a backdoor and ended up partying all night in the green room with Keith Richards, and they became best friends, although Mr. Richards was certain that Stanley was a drug-induced hallucination.
Poor Artie was jealous, and tried to follow Stanley backstage, but he ran into the door and bumped his head. Some security guards thought he was trying to break in, so they beat him up, then tossed him in a dumpster.
Stanley’s flatness didn’t just make it easy for him to get into places… it helped him to get out of places too.
One day he was being driven around town by his new friend, Mr. Richards when they heard the sound of sirens behind them. This was problematic for 2 reasons. First, Mr. Richards was indeed driving over the speed limit. But worse, he was loaded to the gills on rum and heroin, and the car reeked from the large bag of marijuana which just so happened to be in the glove compartment.
“Don’t worry,” said Stanley, as they pulled to the side of the road. “Let’s switch places and I’ll take the fall.”
“You are the best hallucination I have ever had, mate” said Mr. Richards reverentially. “Way better than that stupid talking rabbit.”
Stanley was read his rights and taken to the police station.
“What’s your name,” asked the booking officer.
“Rupert Murdoch,” replied Stanley.
“All right, Murdoch,” said the booking officer, “time to get your picture taken.”
The booking officer had no trouble taking the frontal shot, but the profile picture was more difficult, since Stanley was well under a half-inch thick. Still, eventually the pictures were taken, and Stanley was thrown into the general population.
"Gen pop" was filled with drunks, crazies, murderers, and rapists. And Stanley felt like they were all staring at him. Then he realized what was the matter.
“Hi guys,” said Stanley. “I guess you must all be staring at me because I’m flat.”
“No,” said Tyrone, a muscle-bound, bald inmate with a tattoo that read “Fight or Die” on his thick sinewy neck. “We’re staring at you because you’re white.”
“And weak,” said another.
“And young,” said another.
“And fresh,” said another.
“Mmm… fresh, young, weak, white meat,” said Tryone, summing up Stanley’s position nicely. “Looks like this is gonna be a long evening for you.”
“It’s been nice meeting you fellas,” said Stanley as he deftly slipped through the gap between the jail cell bars. “So long!”
The enraged inmates screamed at Stanley, and hurled feces at him as he ran away.
Guards came rushing in as soon as they heard the commotion. One of them tasered Tyrone, more out of habit than anything else.
“Aaaah!” said Tyrone as 10,000 volts of electricity coursed through his body.
But soon the guards figured out that an escape attempt was in progress, and they turned just in time to see Stanley run out of the cells and through the booking area.
“Rupert Murdoch is escaping!” yelled the booking officer, who remembered Stanley from the mug shot session. The Desk Sergeant hit a button which locked the front door, but Stanley jumped through the mail slot and ran off into the night, free at last.
“I'm going to kill you, Rupert Murdoch,” said Tyrone darkly, still shaking from his recent tazing. “I'm going to rape you and kill you.”
“Not necessarily in that order,” he added softly to himself.
4. BEING RICH
Stanley wasn’t just flat. He was rich.
Even after taking his customary 40%, JD Shylock had managed to get Stanley a sizable fortune. And Stanley's newfound wealth was changing him almost more than his flatness.
For one thing, Stanley now had enough money to go to the Peppermint Hippo. The only problem was that he was too flat to hold a roll of cash to tip the dancers.
But once Stanley realized he could pay for lap dances with a slender plastic credit card, he became very popular at the club, and regularly found himself tucked into g-strings like a human dollar bill.
One night, Stanley slipped into the strippers' dressing room. At first the girls were angry. But once they realized they could roll Stanley up into a tube and use him to snort the cocaine that he brought, Stanley found himself up the nose of all his favorite dancers.
Unfortunately, Stanley was totally unable to get an erection due to his flatness. Or it could have been due to the cocaine. Either way, impotence frustrated Stanley. He got so angry he lashed out and hit a stripper named Skinderella, giving her a tiny paper cut.
A huge Russian bouncer grabbed Stanley and held him over a paper shredder.
“Help,” cried Stanley.
“Stop!” said the club manager, Mr. Radovic. “He's our best customer.” Then Mr. Radovic pimp-slapped Skinderella himself, just to show that he didn't like trouble. Still, the mood at the club was decidedly sour, with all the dancers giving Stanley stink-eye, so he took the hint and headed home in a funk.
At breakfast the next morning, Artie said he had it worse than Stanley.
“You can't get laid because you're flat,” said Artie. “But I can't get laid because I'm ugly and I don't have any money. So, we've both got blue balls, only mine are in 3-D.”
After hearing Artie complain, Stanley said, “It sucks being you.” Then Stanley smiled. “Now that I realize what a loser you are, I feel much better about myself.”
“That's called ‘schadenfreude’, Dear,” said Mrs. Rumproast. “It means ‘experiencing pleasure at the discomfort of others.’”
“It's called being a douche,” said Artie.
“Language,” chided Mrs. Rumproast from the computer room as she logged in to “Ashley Madison dot com” and searched for excitement outside of her marriage.
Stanley decided that some travel might do him some good, and still bleary-headed from the night before, he decided it would be fun to send himself to California via the United States Postal Service.
Artie was all too happy to have a break from his brother. So, he helped Stanley get into a manila envelope, and sealed it up. Then Artie went online and found the address of Oprah Winfrey's house in Santa Barbara and wrote it on the envelope.
“That tickles,” said Stanley, as Artie's marker squeaked across the overnight envelope.
“Hee, hee, hee” laughed Stanley when the postage was applied.
“Wheee,” said Stanley as he was loaded into the truck.
“Oof,” said Stanley when tub after tub of mail was stacked on top of him.
“Oh crap,” said Stanley when he was dropped down the chute and into the high-speed automated dual pass rough cull system.
“Aaghh,” said Stanley as he was tightly bundled into a shipping container and taken to the airport.
“Soooo.... cooooold,” shivered Stanley as he flew through across the country at 32,000 feet in an unheated, unpressurized cargo plane.
“...”, said Stanley when he finally blacked out from lack of oxygen, crushed under the weight of a thousand parcels.
Stanley awoke to the sound of a letter opener sliding through the manila envelope's gummy fastener.
“I wonder what this could be,” said a strangely familiar voice.
A woman's hand grabbed Stanley by the head and pulled him out of the envelope.
“Hi, Oprah,” said Stanley happily.
“Oh... my... God!!!” screamed Oprah, who had not expected to come face-to-face with a two-dimensional man.
Before Stanley could explain anything about his unique situation, Oprah stabbed him repeatedly with the letter opener. Then she ran out of the room in terror, leaving Stanley badly wounded on her desk.
Fortunately, Oprah's desk was well stocked with office supplies, and Stanley was able to repair even the most nastily gashed parts of his body by the simple application of Scotch tape.
Soon Oprah came back into the room.
“You must be that Stanley Rumproast boy I read about in the papers,” said Oprah sheepishly. “I'm so sorry about how I behaved back there. I just... well, I've never met a flat person before. Would you like to come on my show?”
“Would I ever!” said Stanley. “That would almost make up for you cutting me into a million little pieces.”
“Deal,” laughed Oprah.
A week later, during a 5-minute backstage lunch break at the Peppermint Hippo, Skinderella saw Stanley telling his remarkable story, and sighed happily.
“They say you can judge a person by their enemies,” said Skinderella. “And I've been hit by a man who's been on Oprah. That's not too shabby.”
“You're gonna get hit by a Russian pimp if you don't get back onstage,” said Mr. Radovic, and they both laughed as he co*cked his hand back playfully.
Then Skinderella saw a glint in Mr. Radovic's eye that said joke time was almost over, so she cut her break short, just to be safe.
Skinderella wasn't the only person watching Oprah that afternoon. Across town, in the most expensive penthouse in Manhattan, a shadowy man leaned forward in his leather chair with hatred in his eyes, as Stanley told Oprah everything that had happened to him. A slow, twisted smile crept across his weathered face.
His mottled leathery hand reached for a phone.
“This is Rupert Murdoch,” said the man into the receiver. “Get me Stanley Rumproast.”
