Rico Slade Will Fucking Kill You Read online

  “I’ve got no idea what you mean by that.”

  “You know, usually when I’m kicking ass, I do it to the beat of some seriously kick-ass tunes. But Baron Mayhem has taken them away or some shit. And I want them back. I will fucking kill you and anyone else who gets in the way of me and my tunes.”

  “So you’re demanding we play music for you?”

  Three police officers run out of the back, and Rico Slade takes each of them out with the cop’s Magnum.

  “Did I stutter?”

  26 - Harold Schwartzman Gets Mistaken For Joe Pesci

  “The Monster Mash” pumps through the speakers in the parking lot. How unfortunate. Unfortunate the obese police chief thought it was a kick-ass tune. Unfortunate Chip never specified his definition of a kick-ass tune. Particularly unfortunate for the desk cop who is being forced to call his mom and say, “I’ve wanted you for years but haven’t had the balls to tell you until now.”

  Harold Schwartzman gets out of his station wagon and approaches a formation of police cars scattered haphazardly around the building. He taps the shoulder of a tall, gangly police officer who is hiding behind a squad car with his gun drawn. “Excuse me, but I think I can be of some assistance here.”

  Startled, the police officer turns. Accidently unloading his firearm, he manages to aim it skyward at the last millisecond. “Sorry about that.”

  Harold hands the officer his business card. “The perpetuator is a patient of mine.”

  The stray bullet falls to Earth and gets embedded in a fellow officer’s skull.

  The police officer winces. “Damn. Guy had a wife, kids, and a monkey. Who’s gonna play with his monkey now?” His face morphs back into a facial expression of professionalism while he reads the psychologist’s card. “One moment, sir.”

  He crawls over to the obese police chief’s car, whispers in his ear, and motions over to Harold. The chief snarls into a megaphone, “Hey, you nut job! We’ve got your shrink here. He’s coming in to fulfill all of your mental health needs, so cut the guy a little slack and don’t punch him really hard in the arm, ok?” He signals Harold with an “all clear.”

  The psychologist marches towards the entrance, more concerned with the remnants of his livelihood than the danger of receiving aches and pains. He enters to find the station nearly empty and the desk cop trapped in Chip’s headlock as he asks his mom what she isn’t wearing.

  “Oh, hey there, Joe Pesci,” Chip says, removing one of his hands and waving to Harold.

  The psychologist is confused. Why does Chip think he is Joe Pesci? Joe Pesci is the wisecracking, short, Italian character who occasionally appears as Rico Slade’s sidekick in the movies. Joe Pesci is not played by Joe Pesci. But as the producers of the Rico Slade film series continue to deny, Joe Pesci looks an awful lot like Joe Pesci. And Harold knows he looks nothing like Rico Slade’s sidekick.

  The psychologist is confused.

  “Hello, Chip,” Harold says, trying to look non-intimidating, “It’s nice to see you again. I’m your psychologist—remember me? My name is Harold Schwartzman, not Joe Pesci. Do you understand?”

  Chip uses hysterical laughter to communicate his lack of understanding. “Rico Slade is totally pumped about his little buddy being here.” He tightens the headlock, asks the desk officer about his tunes, and calls Baron Mayhem a pussy.

  The patient seems to be experiencing a delusion where he cannot separate reality from fiction or a fannypack from a headband. Unlike the Rico Slade character he portrays in the cinema, he has the tendency to refer to himself in third person, as if aware of the rift between the character and himself, but powerless to act upon this knowledge. There has never been a recorded case study of an actor experiencing reality from the perspective of the character in which he portrays. Harold is going to make a fortune, but first he needs to escort him off the premises, unharmed. “Chip, we need to get out of here.”

  “Who’s Chip? Rico Slade don’t know that person. Chip? Chip? What the hell, Joe Pesci?” He clutches his head, as if in intense pain.

  “Sorry, Rico. I meant to say, ‘Rico Slade.’ And I have no idea who this Chip person is either. It was just a joke from your little buddy. But listen, Rico Slade, we really need to get out of here. Ummm…Baron Mayhem put a bomb in the basement and it’s supposed to go off in five minutes.”

  “No prob, guy,” Chip says, waving the dead tourist’s umbrella. “I’ll defuse the bomb by cutting the red wire with my machete.”

  Chip’s transition to first person speech indicates his personalities are integrating, with Mr. Johnson’s fantasy dominating his reality.

  “That is impossible, Rico Slade. Baron Mayhem has invented a special bomb that doesn’t need a red wire to explode.”

  Chip lifts his fists into the air, eyes the ceiling, and opens his mouth wide. “Damn you, Baron Mayhem!”

  Harold convinces him that he needs a disguise to get past Baron Mayhem’s henchman, so he holds down the desk cop while Chip removes his clothes.

  “You don’t need to do this,” says the cop.

  “If I don’t, he’ll force me to call my dad with an offer of naked kisses,” Harold says, securing the officer to his desk with a pair of handcuffs and wondering if he should slip him a business card. Somebody will need to help the man work through the trauma of this experience, and Harold is fully qualified to assist him. But he looks in his wallet and realizes he has forgotten his business cards. He supposes he can write his phone number on a piece of paper.

  Maybe not. Because it seems unprofessional. And Harold Schwartzman is a consummate professional.

  Chip finishes getting dressed in the police uniform, and they exit the building. “Hold your fire!” Harold says, “My patient released a hostage and I’m taking him to my office for post-traumatic counseling.”

  The Hollywood police officers are easy to delude and the pair get inside the psychologist’s station wagon without any incident.

  “Damn,” says Chip. “I forgot my machete. Damn.”

  27 - Rico Slade XXX: Grand Theft Station Wagon

  Joe Pesci is freakin’ hilarious. He is telling Rico Slade about his new job as they drive to Baron Mayhem’s fortress. Rico Slade does not understand why he seems to have a new job every week, but he appreciates the hilarity of each new position. “OK OK OK OK,” Joe Pesci says, and it gets more hilarious with the rapid-fire delivery of each syllable. “So it was my first day on the job and those school children weren’t gonna cross themselves. But one of them is just standing on the corner, watching the cars pass with a shit-eating grin. So I says, ‘Listen up, motherfucker. Get your ass across the street or I’m gonna shoot you in the fucking face and strap your corpse onto a chicken.’ So the kid says—”

  Joe Pesci’s hilarious monologue is interrupted by his cell phone’s Girl from Ipanema ring tone. “The fuck?”

  He answers. “Yes, dear…Yes…Of course…You know I do…I know how important Tupac is to you…Yes, and gold necklaces shaped like dollar signs…It’s just…I know…If you give me a little time to write this book about Chip and become a multi-millionaire…Please let me finish…If you give me a little time, I can buy you everything you’ve ever wanted...Please be reasonable…All I need is a little…Fine…Immediately…I hear you…You want the necklace immediately…I can do that, I think…I love you, honey.”

  Joe Pesci has stopped being freakin’ hilarious. Rico Slade’s mind has started being totally blown.

  “My mind is totally blown. Damn.”

  Joe Pesci removes a cubic zirconium chain from his neck. Swinging it in front of Rico Slade’s line of vision, he chants, “You are getting sleepy. You are getting sleepy. After you fall asleep, you will wake up and have sex for money whenever I say the words, ‘pimp juice.’ Also, when I say the words, ‘economic stability,’ you will locate the wealthiest woman in the vicinity who is not morally opposed to paying celebrities for sex.” He snaps his fingers. “Awake Rico Slade and fulfill my darkest desires!”<
br />
  “Dude. Been awake this whole time. Heard everything you said. Damn, was it messed up.”

  Rico Slade shakes his head in disbelief. He steals Joe Pesci’s wallet, opens the driver’s side door, and throws him head-on into incoming traffic. Calmly, Rico Slade slides into the driver’s seat and takes the wheel, still shaking his head in disbelief.

  28 - Baron Mayhem Tidies Up

  George is a clean freak, but his apartment resembles a city dump. He keeps it this way because he hates stereotypes and thinks there is nothing more retarded than speaking with an effeminate lisp, loving glitter, and having a passion for interior design. Unfortunately for him, cleanliness encompasses Chip’s being, and their relationship was doomed from the first time they got scatological together. Maybe Chip has worked through his phobia, but he never responded to George’s question on the phone, so he needs to plan for every contingency. In case Chip still hasn’t worked through his phobia by the time he arrives, George must clean all the vomit, pizza boxes, dead goldfish, used condoms, pigeon droppings, dust, bones, silly string, food wrappers, fossilized entrees, and gorilla hair. This is his last chance at happiness, and he doesn’t know what he will do to himself if he screws it up.

  29 - Rico Slade XXXI: Rico Slade vs. Islam

  Rico Slade is lost. Hollywood seems different than he remembers. So he goes into a gas station to buy a Map to the Evildoers. “Yo, hombre. Where are your maps?”

  The cashier puts down his newspaper.

  Rico Slade realizes the cashier is not a cashier. Rico Slade realizes the newspaper is not The New York Post.

  The cashier is a radical Islamic fundamentalist.

  The newspaper is a copy of The Terrorist Times.

  There is a bomb strapped to the cashier’s chest. There is also a bomb strapped to the copy of The Terrorist Times.

  Rico Slade is used to terrorists with bombs strapped to their chests, so this doesn’t faze him. But a bomb strapped to a newspaper…What the crap?

  Before the newspaper bomb explodes, Rico Slade dropkicks it in the face.

  Wait…newspapers don’t have faces…What the crap?

  Disoriented, Rico Slade reaches for the cashier’s throat. Before he makes contact, the cashier blinks in and out of existence like he’s a baddie who has just been killed in an old Nintendo game.

  But then the blinking stops, and the cashier returns. But his robe, turban, and six-foot-long beard do not come back with him. Neither does his bomb. And what about…you know…being a terrorist? Rico Slade realizes the cashier is a cashier, not a terrorist. Rico Slade realizes the newspaper is The New York Post, not the Terrorist Times.

  The cashier—now an Arabic teenager in a Chevron shirt and a baseball cap—looks terrified. He whimpers, “Our maps are over there, next to the air fresheners.”

  Rico Slade spazzes out. Has someone injected him with psychedelic drugs again? That would explain getting lost in a city he knows like the back of his fist and the cashier’s refusal to adhere to an ideology.

  The cashier turns back into an evildoer. The bomb reappears. And Rico Slade defuses it by punching it in the fucking face a bunch of fucking times.

  30 - Harold Schwartzman Vows Revenge

  When Harold Schwartzman shaves his pubic hair, he usually does it in a place that is inaccessible to the public. But getting tickled by a client until he agrees to trade his wallet and car for a giggle-free existence is not a usual occurrence, so his pants are dangling from his ankles in a public bathroom, in plain view of the first person who really needs to have a bowel movement.

  “Chip Johnson must die!” he says, stroking his Bic razor with such violence that he’s in danger of self-castration.

  Screams echo in the distance, but the psychologist never concerns himself with insignificant things while eradicating hair from his body. But he does concern himself with significant things—and is a talented multi-tasker—so he takes out his palm pilot and looks up Chip’s emergency contact information.

  George Proctor

  1517 Nope Way

  Hollywood, CA 90027

  1-900-FOR-A-GOOD-TIME

  [email protected]

  Perhaps this man can help Harold locate Chip. This is an emergency, isn’t it?

  So he dials his cell phone and spends five ninety-nine for the first minute.

  “Hello?” says George, excitedly. “Is that you, Chip?”

  “No, this isn’t Chip,” Harold says while shaving an area near his right testicle. “Actually, I’m looking for Chip.”

  “Who is this?”

  “I’m sorry I failed to introduce myself. My name is Harold Schwartzman and I’m a psychologist. Chip is a pay-AAAAAAAIIIIHHH!”

  Blood seeps down his leg, and he spends three ninety-nine for an additional minute.

  “Are you ok?”

  “No worries, I just cut myself while shaving.” He inspects his wound. No permanent damage. Just nipped the corner of his taint. But damn does it sting! “As I was saying, Chip is a patient of mine and I’m trying to locate him.”

  “Yeah, he’s mentioned you once or twice. But what is this concerning?”

  “I can’t go into specifics, but he may be a danger to himself and others.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? He’s fine. Actually, he’s on his way over now to rekindle our intimate relationship. Wow, I really need to get this place cleaned up.”

  Harold Schwartzman slams his phone shut, races out of the bathroom, and falls on his face. It is difficult to avoid falling on your face when your pants are around your ankles. While the psychologist pulls his pants up and rubs the bruise on his forehead, the words “intimate relationship” slash through his brain.

  Intimate?

  Relationship?

  Intimate…relationship?

  Oh.

  That explains why Chip always talked about an overwhelming urge to suck on lollipops even though he never brought them into their sessions. That always puzzled the psychologist. Chip would often talk about this urge for the entire hour. If he were really so infatuated with lollipops, why didn’t he ever bring them to their sessions?

  Oh.

  He walks out of the bathroom.

  Wait, why does the cashier have his foot in the gas station’s rotisserie?

  Curious, he approaches.

  “Hey, bro,” the cashier says. “Can you help me out?”

  Something is written on the wall in cherry slushie.

  “This douchebag jammed my foot in this thing and I’m stuck.”

  Harold reads the writing on the wall. It says, “Rico Slade XXXI—Rico Slade vs. Islam: Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You.”

  “C’mon, man. It’s burning the shit out of me.”

  The psychologist doesn’t care. He is too focused on his mission. So he leaves the cashier to suffer second degree burns.

  31 - Baron Mayhem Is Totally Screwed

  George’s phone rings while he’s trying to clean the semen stains off his couch. “Mr. Schwartzman?”

  “That your new henchman, Mayhem? Got him poisoning the city’s Bud Light supply or something? Damn, that’s cold.”

  “Oh, hi, lover,” George says, frantically scrubbing the cushion with a stain stick as he tries to suppress the panic in his voice. It’s like he’s in a Rico Slade movie, as if every piece of trash and splotch in his apartment has a time bomb strapped to it. And when the timers run out, an explosion will destroy his opportunity for happiness.

  “Cut the shit, Mayhem, or I’m gonna cut you to pieces. And I don’t need no goddamn machete when I’ve got a bunch of these hard, white things in my mouth. I forgot what they’re called. Damn.”

  “Umm…teeth?”

  “Shut your mouth, brain crab, or I’m gonna shut it for you!”

  “It’s so nice to hear your voice, Chip.”

  “I just cut one of your henchmen into pieces without a goddamn machete. It was freakin’ sweet.”

  “Uh...ok?”

  “I got a
Map to the Evildoers and know exactly where your secret fortress is being secret.”

  “That reminds me, I had a press conference earlier today and our secret is out,” George says, scrubbing, scrubbing, and scrubbing. He hears a baby crying in the background. Then a blast of silence.

  “Gonna be there in a hot minute. Don’t start beating the fuck out of yourself without me.”

  “You know I won’t, honey,” he says, and the timer beeps with each passing second at a deafening volume.

  George clutches his head and shrieks.

  32 - Harold Schwartzman is Culturally Insensitive

  Golf is a sport of the privileged class. Harold Schwartzman is not a member of the privileged class, therefore he has an intense hatred for golfers. He watches with intense hatred as a man wearing golf apparel pumps gas into his Cadillac. If the man’s back wasn’t turned to him, Harold is pretty sure he would hate the sour look on his stupid, privileged face. He is definitely sure he hates the massive amount of golf-related bumper stickers that are stuck to the back of the man’s Cadillac: I’d Rather Be Golfing, Golfers Make Better Lovers, Playing Golf…Fuck Yeah!, and others too heinous to repeat. He doesn’t know what he hates more: the bumper stickers or the golf clubs and bucket of balls in the car’s backseat. He wants to take the golf clubs and beat the shit out of the Cadillac—just fucking destroy it—and then dump the bucket of balls on the ground and eat a diarrhea-inducing meal and then squat over the balls and shit, just shit all over them, and put the fecal-covered balls back in the bucket and pour the balls over the golfer’s stupid hat while chanting, “Golf sucks! Golf sucks!”

  Unfortunately, Harold Schwartzman does not have the time to follow his dreams. He must get over to George’s apartment before Chip shows up. Because Chip Johnson must die. So Harold Schwartzman needs a car. And this douchebag’s Cadillac fits his needs.