One Way Ticket To Pluto  (Afternoon at Johnny's)

by Ben Simon

With wizened solid blue skin which rivaled that of Papa Smurf, nobody would have guessed that Citem was a twenty-three year old man named Cedric Taggart. To most, he was just another generic Plinusian, whose piloting of the planet's premier spacecraft was hardly taken into account by the populace. But to the planet's king, Johnny Lurg, Cedric was that rare link to the human world which he had abandoned and occasionally desired small portions of.

"All those years I felt like the token alien among happy humans," spoke King Johnny to Citem. "And now here I am among the aliens, and I fear happiness is still not with me." Johnny took a swig of skuzz as he turned his grizzled head toward his confidante. "Every stage of my life has been the same. They loved me for my plays, but all my life I've been nothing but a poet. I unleashed said verse upon the masses, and was met with critical scorn. The two loves of my life saw the Johnny I feared the existence of, and married my playwright companions. As I was loveless, my kin recommended Polly, to whom I was wed—a woman I could not love. I tried to salvage the remains of my long-lost love life by christening my daughters the names of both my old flames, a choice which left Polly in tears and ended our matrimony once she found out. I send gifts down to the girls every week from above, and they are less than grateful, as ungrateful as Polly herself. What else can I do?"

"I think you should give your Earth life a rest," said Citem. "When I think of my own father abandoning me and servicing himself to pimps and gangs, I lose track of my blessings upon Plinus. So few have been king of a country, let alone an entire planet, and you are lucky to have had that honor bestowed upon yourself. How dare you sacrifice this position in favor of Polly, this wench you never cared for to begin with!"

"I agree it seems trivial in comparison," said Johnny. "But my identity crisis is more complex than it seems. Growing up a small town Jewish kid was no picnic either—all those worthless days of Torah school with Mr. Sherman, Bernie, Jeff, and the like."

"But Your Majesty, you attended Mass every Sunday up until your grandmother's wake caused you to lapse," said Citem.

"You're right, for that was my nephew Melvin's upbringing."

"I think that skuzz is going to your head, Your Majesty," said Citem.

"Skuzz or not, you know who that silver haired nephew of mine reminds me of?" asked Johnny, gently sliding his prosthetic right finger in and out of its socket.

"Why, I can only imagine that he reminds you of yourself, what with the full scholarship to Sanford University."

"Guess again, my blue-hued friend. He reminds me of that kid Walter Jid, who aided me in times of yore. Where's he gone off to, anyhoo?"

"Well, the last either of us heard from him, he and that sent from Hell daddy of mine had been hand-picked by President Eddino to bust ghosts in the White House."

"You know my ex-friend Franklin Ramut used to run with Linda Eddino back in the day?"

"Somehow that does not surprise me given his daughter's own political aspirations," said Citem. "But what does any of this have to do with Walter Jid?"

"Hold tight, for I am approaching that notion," said Johnny. "You see, I want to patch things up with my daughters, both of them. But Lord knows what Polly tells them about me on a daily basis. They need a young, charming man to convince them to return respect to their father."

"Then I am pleased to tell you that our brilliant young protégé Etarip has invented a device which will give an old Plinusian the gift of youth. I can only speculate that it has the same effect on the only human around."

"No thanks, I'm not leaving this planet anytime soon," barked Johnny. "Why, I haven't even collected every pickogg card yet! I am still in dire need of card number seven hundred and forty two, ‘White Eyes Blue Pilot.'"

Citem rolled his twin orbs. "As you command, Your Majesty." Citem snapped the three fingers of his right hand, transforming himself into a prematurely wrinkly human of an olive complexion. He bid the old king adieu as he stepped into the POF, his stately spacecraft.

"Now, where could that Walter be?" Citem asked himself as he elegantly worked the spacecraft's stickshift. "Knowing his passion for adventure, I wouldn't be surprised if I were to find him battling Orcs down in Middle Earth."

"The paperwork should be neatly printed and stapled in front of my office," said Pritchard Heade, Walter Jid's svelte young supervisor at Tosser Limited, as he performed yoga while eating a zucchini walnut muffin and drinking a double shot of Americano with his feet on the blue mat beside Walter's Windows 98 computer.

"Uh-huh," said Walter blankly, daydreaming about the time he saved the metallic planet Citobor from the ghost of disgruntled and murderous ex-actor George Hiltrus, who at the time had taken up residence in a redheaded host, Walter's schoolyard rival Hank Jabbo.

"That must be McNommer," said Heade, hearing a strange knock on the office door. "He and his legal team were supposed to be here a couple hours ago, the liars."

"He's quite unreliable," muttered Walter, referring to the countless times Max McNommer had double-crossed him in the past.

"Heh, better get your report done if you want to avoid hypocrisy." Heade swung open the door to let in the knocker. And welcome to good ol' Tosser, Mr. McNommer."

"My name is Citem, I mean Cedric," said the man in the doorway, the fluorescent light reflecting on his aging beige flesh. "I have come to relieve Walter of his duties."

"Walter, you're fired!" yelled Mr. Heade. "I told you time and time again, stop bringing in these damn guests! It was Taggart last week, and your obnoxious brother the week before, and before that it was that greasy pizza man. How am I supposed to maintain my lean physique when the temptations of pizza are in my aura?"

"Don't worry about that, he's constantly firing and rehiring me," said Walter. "I'm the only one in the entire Tri-County Area with ghost-zapping and planet-hopping experience who hasn't got a felony on him."

"It's true, my old man has more murder ones than bastard sons," said Citem.

"You know, I got your old man on speed dial," said Walter. "In just one call, I can fix everything that's gone wrong between the two of you."

"That's okay, Walt," said Citem. "I'm not here for you to repair my estranged relationship with my father. I'm here for you to repair King Johnny's relationship with his daughters."

"Daughters?!" said Walter. "I traveled across four planets with the old man, and he never mentioned he had daughters."

"Don't tell me you're looking to marry into the Lurg family and become Prince of Plinus," said Citem. "No offense, but I think both of Johnny's daughters are a bit, how you say, out of your league." Citem snapped his fingers and suddenly the two men found themselves on the porch of a McMansion.

"If simply snapping your fingers causes you to teleport, then why do you need a spacecraft to get to Earth?" asked Walter.

"Not now, I'm concentrating." Citem rang the doorbell, on which somebody had actually been able to etch the words "This is the home of Johnny Lurg, Polly Lurg, Melissa Lurg, Leslie Lurg Inerni, Bert Inerni, and Melvin Steinem."

"I thought you said the Lurg girls were out of my league," said Walter. "So what's the younger daughter doing with that greasy pizza man?"

"What part of ‘I'm concentrating' don't you understand?" asked Citem. "Also, she's the older daughter. Melissa's a bit spoiled from my understanding, so I guess she was enough of the favorite to be higher on the doorbell hierarchy despite Leslie's seniority."

"Come in, come in!" said a bitter voice with fifteen tablespoons of sarcasm and Walter finally became face to face with the only woman who ever had the opportunity to call herself "Mrs. Johnny Lurg." Or rather, stomach to face would be more accurate, as Polly Lurg was a three-foot lump of cellulite confined to an electronic wheelchair. Her bright red mouth was twisted into a permanent scowl, and her hair was ablaze with red dye #6. Each of her crusty violet four-inch nails had the word "Polly" scrawled across it in fool's gold. "You, you're not the caretaker! What in God's name do you want?" Her seven chins jiggled in a way that brought to mind the impression of a cow chewing its cud.

"Mrs. Lurg, are your daughters home?" Walter politely asked the troll-like woman.

"No and no! After that ghastly wedding with the greasy goomba, I don't want my sweet Melissa marrying the likes of you, you J…"

"Jid. My name's Walter Jid. And this is my associate, Cedric Taggart."

"At your disposal, Polly," said Citem, trying to recall how to shake hands with a human being again as he contemplated his two additional digits. Is that short for Paulina? Because that's quite a gorgeous name if it is."

"It isn't and it isn't!" barked Polly. "I'm calling the cops if you don't leave!"

"Mom, don't!" An hourglass silhouette hovered over the three-foot blob and suddenly Walter and Citem found themselves ogling a most attractive brunette.

Cursing unintelligibly, Polly rolled herself into her cave, a mauve-wallpapered bedroom at the far end of the foyer that was filled to the brim with cartons of zucchini pudding.

"Joey, I'm so glad you could show up today after all," said the woman, bending over to display some leg. "I told you McNommer's threats of litigation were nothing to lose sleep over. Now, why don't we celebrate another suit-free week with some champagne?" She extended a pair of tall glasses, and offered one to Walter.

"But you see, I'm not Joey..." began Walter.

"And I'm not Melissa Lurg, heiress to the Lurg fortune," the brunette laughed tipsily. "Joey, baby, I didn't know you were into role-playing!"

"Actually, I'm more of a tabletop guy," he muttered. Unfortunately, hundreds of people in more sober states than Melissa had confused Walter with his identical twin brother Joey Jid. He had mixed feelings as he followed the drunken heiress to her bedroom upstairs. Though Walter felt morally bankrupt, he knew that his brother was too unattached to any woman to even care if he ever found out, and hey, Walter hadn't even been laid in a good two to three years unless he counted elf wenches in virtual reality.

"Now, where did Cedric go?" asked Walter, as his bedmate lit a Camel.

"The brown dude? I saw him talking to Mom as we were heading upstairs," said Melissa. "Now, Joey, are you ready for another round?"

"No thanks, I've had my fill," said Walter. "There's just something on my mind right now. When was the last time you talked to your dad?"

"Ugh, you want to talk to me about that jerk now? Save it, Joe. I feel enough like the crown princess of Mars right now as it is."

"All I'm saying, Melissa, is that your dad misses you and would do anything to have you back in his life."

"Oh, and that's why he abandoned my sister and I to take these expensive-ass trips alone to Hawaii, Alaska, and Pluto?"

"The natives call it Plinus, but that's not important right now," said Walter.

"Get your ass out of my bed!" yelled Melissa. "You know, Mom was right about you and your kind." She shoved the cowering naked man to the floor, making enough noise to alert the other occupants of the house.

"Missy! Have quieter sex, please!" shrieked another woman's voice, and Leslie Lurg Inerni walked into the room, trailed by her hirsute and hulking husband.

"Get this creep off my floor and out of my house, Bert," said Melissa.

Bert Inerni wiped the pizza grease off his chinstrap with one hand as he tossed Walter down a flight of stairs with the other. The last Walter saw before blacking out was a tattooed Hispanic man in a caretaker outfit socializing emotionally with a solid blue humanoid, and he was in too unconscious a state to fathom what it could have meant.

When Walter finally came to, he was lying on a solid blue cot, surrounded by three other individuals. Two of them were males and the other was a female.

"Joey, don't tell me you don't recognize your old adventuring amigo!" said the tattooed man. "Tom? Tommy? Tomas? Taggart? Taggo? Are none of these names ringing bells? Dang." He turned to the blue man. "Cedric, the poor guy's got amnesia."

"I will not respond to anything but Citem on my home planet," muttered Citem, but then his heart shook and he began to weep green tears.

"Unless it's my father addressing me by the name with which I was christened."

But it wasn't until he glanced at the woman that Walter realized just how long he had been unconscious. Melissa Lurg was just as beautiful as the day she mistakenly slept with Walter, but this time around, she was quite pregnant.

"Joey," she whispered. "You're going to have a son of your own soon. What do you think of the name ‘Johnny?'"

"But that's your father's name," Walter groggily gurgled.

"Joey, my father is a great man. Leslie and I had it all wrong. Thankfully, a few chats with your friends the Taggarts were enough to convince us. I mean, just take a look at this kingdom he runs!"

Walter began to stretch his limbs as he prepared to lift himself out of the cot. "I could have convinced you myself."

Melissa and the Taggart father and son walked Walter out of the Plinusian infirmary to Johnny's throne. Leslie was eagerly conversing with her father about her childhood while her husband Bert waited impatiently on the sidelines, making pizza deliveries from Earth to Plinus and back again on an intergalactic phone. Walter noticed a Bert's Pizza Palace in the distance that was not present on his previous trips to the planet known by

Earthlings as "Pluto," and beside the phone lay box after box of what Walter assumed were pizzas.

"Thank you so much, Citem, for rekindling my once-vanquished bonds with both of my daughters," said Johnny.

"And what am I, zucchini pudding?" asked Walter.

"That reminds me," said Leslie. Walter noticed that the colors on the traditional Plinusian garments she wore clashed with her long red hair. "Mom decided to kick her binge eating habit. Question is, what do we do with three lifetimes' supplies of zucchini pudding?"

"My boss is a huge zucchini nut," said Walter. "Actually, he's a quite fit and trim zucchini nut, and he's always bragging about his lean physique. I think even one lifetime's supply should be enough to humble him."

"Well, Walter, are you ready to go?" asked Citem. "I just got the POF re-juiced, and this baby now goes 88 light-years an hour!"

"Walter? Who the hell is Walter?" asked Melissa.

"I am," said Walter. "Joey Jid is my identical twin brother, which is what I've been trying to tell you this entire time."

"But can you still provide for Melissa's child?" asked Leslie angrily.

"I'm afraid not," explained Walter. "I'm a struggling freelance writer with no benefits. But as my brother Joey is a self-made multi-millionaire, I think he would make a great father for baby Johnny."

Taggart coughed loudly. "I know I may appear to be a lowly caretaker, but I've got great connections in legitimate business and could probably provide as well." Melissa shot him a coy glance before he asked for her hand in marriage and she accepted.

"Sounds like I will soon have an outlaw for an in-law," laughed King Johnny Lurg and waved goodbye to Walter, Melissa, Leslie, Bert, and the Taggarts as they boarded the POF spacecraft back to Earth.