7. Dick makes his getaway
"What? You sold the dog to one of the aliens? Don't they eat dogs?" Dick, not the swiftest when it came to catching up[1], was still struggling to absorb all that Normal had told him.
Normal shrugged. "Yeah, they do, but can you blame me if Rover Roast sounds delicious to them? I just sold them the bombed animal. What they do with it is their lookout!"
"Isn't that a bit ... cold?"
"No, I'm told that they heat up the ovens before they make the roast ...," began Normal, all wrapped up in his description of Martian culinary habits.
"I meant selling your wife's beloved pet to a Martian!" Dick was beginning to wonder if Normal was crazy or if he was just stupid[2].
"Oh, that. Yeah, I did think of that afterwards," Normal admitted with a hint of contrition. "That's my problem, I never think things through before I do them and that's why I always end up in messes like this. By the time I thought of Kathryn and what she might say, it was too late. I was back at home, and the dog was probably on its way to Mars, or wherever those bombed aliens come from. Besides, I don't actually know this alien - they all look alike, you know. I just met it at a bar."
"You've been meeting aliens in bars? Just what do you get up to when your wife's away?" interrupted Dick, fascinated by this new facet in Normal's character.
"It's not like that I was at the bar looking for somebody to buy the dog!"
"Sure, sure ... we've all been there at one time or another," replied Dick, soothingly.
"What? At the Drum?"
"No, I mean at a bar looking for somebody to ... umm ... buy our dog ...," Dick leered.
"Huh, fancy that, I thought I was the only one," said Normal, wide-eyed. "But to get back to what I was saying, how in Teller's name was I supposed to find the Martian anyway?" If it was possible for somebody to look both helpless and defiant at the same time, Normal would have been that person. Dick wasn't sure if he was pleading for help or just making excuses.
"So you're running away from your wife and going to Donagar because of a dog. Is that what you're telling me? Isn't that a little drastic?" Dick decided to use a bit of logic, which was as interesting a spectacle as a butcher using a scalpel, and just as effective.
"Drastic's my middle name!" Normal looked Dick straight in the eyes and drew closer as if to impart a great secret. He continued in a lower tone, "Well, not really, I never had a middle name, you know. Always hated that," said Normal, drawing away. "All the other kids had middle names, but I never had one. But I do have this bad habit of doing drastic stuff. Like that time I destroyed a brand new holovision set because they showed an image of a cockroach. Did I tell you that I hated creepy, crawly insects?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm getting the picture," said Dick, thinking to himself that in fact, it was more like the whole art gallery. He was on uneasy street, heading straight downhill towards fear junction. "How'd you end up in the middle of nowhere, on foot?" he asked, to keep Normal's mind occupied, just in case Normal was prone to homicidal rages as well as destroying household furniture.
"Did I tell you Kathryn gets mad? I love her to death, but boy, can she get mad! When she's mad, she's got this habit of throwing stuff at people ... Well, mostly me. And she's a good enough shot that she usually hits her mark. I tell you, she sure can put quite a dent in my credit card, not to mention my head, with all the stuff she throws around. Anyway, I figured it's safest to be somewhere else till she cools down. You know, till it's safe to return home and explain stuff to her." Normal finished with the air of one who says, 'There, that should explain it all. Doesn't it make perfect sense now?'
"Yeah, I got that bit ... well, most of it anyway. But that still doesn't explain how you ended up here." Dick resisted the urge to scratch his chin again - he'd been told by his publicist that it made him look lousy.
"If you'd hold your turbos, I'll get to it. Sheesh! It's like this: I hitched a ride with this guy who was on his way to Donagar. I figured I might as well save some money. He wanted to know why I was going to Donagar, and I told him the whole story. Guess what? He was a dog lover. I just can't catch a break! The guy gets upset at me and leaves me in the middle of nowhere and takes off. Can you believe that?"
"That's not a trick question, is it?" Dick wasn't sure of anything by this point, least of all, how he was going to handle the loony that fate had dropped in his lap.
"What?"
"Never mind." Dick waved his blaster dismissively and hurriedly lowered it as Normal looked ready to dive to the ground. "Yeah, so here we are," said Dick, not quite certain what else he could say.
"Yep, here we are. You're not a dog lover by any chance, are you now?" asked Normal, looking in apprehension at Dick and his gun, now pointed, like Pinocchio's nose, at somewhere between the ground and him.
Dick, however, had his own worries. His worry was that he had no idea of what to do with this crazy guy. He didn't want to turn his back on Normal and walk away since Normal might take it into his head to follow Dick all over the place, asking about joining Dick's outlaw band or something. On the other hand, he couldn't stay here since he knew Normal would bring up the question of becoming his sidekick, and saying, 'Sorry, the vacancy has already been filled!' didn't sound like the safest course of action either, not when you were dealing with a nutter.
"So how about that sidekick job? I think I'd make a pretty good sidekick," began Normal, confirming Dick's worst fears. Dick looked around in the wild hope of finding something, anything, to distract Normal. He could have whooped for joy at the sight of fresh hope moving towards them along the highway in the form of a hoverbus - the sleek, rounded, red tube of the passenger compartment nestled amongst the inflated tan skirting, looking for all the world like a giant hotdog rushing down the gullet of the black python that was the highway.
"Oh drat, there's a hoverbus!" He tried to hide his relief but didn't quite succeed. "Can't hang around, gotta do that dashing thing, you know. I'm sure you can take the hoverbus to Donagar. They'll stop for you since you are stuck here in the middle of nowhere," he said over his shoulder while running off towards the shoulder of the road and safety, away from the crazy, crazy man.
"Wait! What about the sidekick job?" asked Normal after the departing bandit, hope still apparent in his voice.
"If it doesn't work out in Donagar, why don't you look me up? We can figure something out and we'll definitely do lunch," Dick shouted as he made his getaway and left Normal alone on the road, looking back and forth between the departing highwayman and the approaching hoverbus. As he ran off as fast as his legs could carry him, Dick wondered if the sight of hoverbuses made Normal hungry, too.
[1] Dick's strength was in not letting others, most notably the Cheese, catch up.
[2]When Dick wondered if somebody was stupid, that was saying something. About the other person's IQ, that is.
