Plopped in a booth, solo, Bob chomped at the corners in cyclical intervals. Left vertex, right vertex, tip of the isosceles pizza, all soon down the gullet. Bob is a connect-the-dots typa chap. He sees the world in shapes and considers himself somewhat of a pentagon. The invariable hood on. Always calculating, always mapping. And at Martini Spillini's Spaghetti, the dots were everywhere.
He hadn't come for the spaghetti or the pizza on the menu. He came to locate the puddle of ancient cum he knew was simmering just below the shop. He eyeballed the manager. Locked his red eyes on him, sizing the bastard up. Guy was but a pawn for the top of the chain: Billary Blinton. Prior to his investigations, Bob had run an aggregated porn-review site: Rotten Bukkakes. He'd earned himself a moderate income with the site, though it hadn't been enough to remove himself from his mother's basement. He needed a better way out and craved space for his private interests. His mother was ill and she consumed much of his time. And what better way to justify his way out than by serving his country and freeing it's children? The biggest plus out of Rotten Bukkakes was the audience he'd generated. They liked him...his unique sense of humor and his relentless pulse for justice. He'd acquired a following of listeners and even had the honor of doing a handful of Ask Me Anythings on reddit, i.e. :
"How old are you?" 36.
"Married?"
To the game.
"Religion?"
Jewish-ish.
"One piece of advice for those seeking the truth?" Seek and ye shall find. Simple as that.
When Bob first hopped on board the Billary takedown and began examining the dots, it wasn't long before pieces started to sync up. The first sure sign for him happened around Kobe's death. With Billary's laundry list of connections to questionable "deaths" and "suicides", she also just happened to be in California when Kobe's helicopter went down? And when her financial advisor mysteriously had a heart attack in Vermont the following month, she just happened to be only one state away in New York?
Christ.1 + 1, people, thought Bob.
The curated evidence painted a clear picture. The Left wouldn't get away with this. They'd covered for years with payoffs and putdowns, but he could taste their unraveling. And in what was the final validation of Bob's efforts, his idol...the President of the United States of America, Ronald Clump, tweeted at him. Twice!
Tweet:
Billary Blinton in California when Kobe goes down...SEEMS FISHY. You're a patriot @rottenbukakkes. To VOTERS, honor Kobe and VOTE CLUMP this year! TOGETHER we EXPOSE the left! HIDIN' BIDEN!
Tweet:
@rottenbukakkes is ON TO SOMETHING. Martini Spillini's Spaghetti is a SHAM and a DISGRACE. What happened in the basement, Billary & Hidin' Biden? SEEMS FISHY. We must FREE OUR CHILDREN by VOTING FOR CLUMP next Tuesday!!
These tweets had solidified Bob's place in the race as an investigative lead.
Bob's fond recollection of bygone tweets fades as a young girl passes by his booth, cup of Pepsi barely managed in two hands. He hangs and shakes his head, eyes fluttering closed. They don't even know...they just don't even know the danger they're in. He sees flashes of petite pink dresses and his face opens up again. Well enough is enough, alright?
Bob empties his tray. Asks a busboy where the bathroom is.
"Right down there and to the left, pal." "The Left. Of course." Turns and starts off. Bob pauses, spins back around. "Actually, sir, I have another question." "Sure, buddy, what's up?" "Where is...the basement?" "Oh, we don't have a basement, pal. One story shop." "Mm...sure you don't." Bob is disgusted by the look of confusion in the young man's eyes. Pathetic. These are children we're talking about for God's sake. Don't you get it? Or were you paid off, too, busboy?
Bob marches forward, priding himself on being one of the lone soldiers who would never accept a payoff. Though if pressed, Bob thinks, a cool $20K would surely launch him into his own apartment. But he shovels the thought away, as it remains totally irrelevant. It is neither here nor there. Why? Justice, folks.
In the hallway of the bathroom, Bob examines the walls, the floor, anything at all that resembles a loose tile and might lead like a portal to hell beneath. Nothing. Well played, he thinks, but I'm just getting started. With latex gloves, he locks himself in the men's bathroom and slides a finger-painted map out. Following suspected pink x-spots, he tickles the cracks of tiles. Pulls out a mini-mallet he'd briefly debated hiding up his ass in case anyone tried to pat him down here. In favor of his anal cavity, it ended up fitting just fine in his Gor-tex coat. Bob double-taps at possibilities.
His eyes dart to a dinky crack found below the far right partition. Oh my god, he thinks, a discreet storage room on the other side? Stocked with minors? He waddles over, eyes peeled. Slit at the bottom proves too small to really see through, but just agape enough to slip a note through that he'd pre-written in the case of an incident like this: "I've found you, don't worry! Help, I repeat HELP, is on the way!" He always tells his listeners to be prepared for anything.
He pauses, calculates a maze of thought...the exterior. Of course. There must be an exterior entrance. He darts out from the bathroom, through the hallway, out the Italian shop door and into the cold, unforgiving night. He high-steps through a layer of snow, examines each side of the terror castle. A piece of paper blows in the breeze just at the foot of a corner. Right where the storage room would be. He rushes over, reads: "I've found you, don't worry! Help, I repeat HELP, is on the way!" Bob couldn't believe it. Someone else had already attempted a save. Unsuccessfully, of course, as the note was clearly fucking off with the wind into no-man's-land. But still, an attempt was made. And that...meant Bob was in on the right cause. Bob gulps a wad of icy air and flops down on the parking lot curb. Wipes a bead of sweat from his cheek. He crumples the lost note and stares at the concrete wall he so needed to see through. The bastards, they have this place...well-defined, so to speak. This operation would require a more meticulous plan. Perhaps even a break-in during off-hours, armed with greater tools, and an assembled team. As flakes of snow lay to rest and melt on his forehead, he grins as the thought of The Avengers crosses his mind...he, well, of course, Captain America. "You're a patriot, @rottenbukakkes".
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Back home, he makes a Bobtail: Glass of red wine.
10mg of Lexapro.
300mg of Seroquel.
He checks in on his mom upstairs. She's half-asleep but recognizes his disarrayed hair in silhouette at the door frame. She smiles, he returns one.
"Love you, hon." "Love you too, Mom. You take your pills?" She nods and he closes the door.
He showers upstairs then heads down to his basement, both closing and locking the door behind him. He logs into his reddit threads and replies a flurry of responses to concerned users. Tomorrow, he'll recruit. They'll plan and take appropriate action.
The drugs begin to open up with the red wine inside of him. He unlocks a little peace. Zones out on a picture of Billary on his bulletin board. Horns stick out from each side of her crooked skull.
Ruckus from a dark corner of his basement startles him. He fumbles out of his chair. In a bit of a blurred dutch-angle shot...two petite pink dresses, fragile and embodied, eventually come into focus. He crawls over, finding them trapped in a cage. A mere two pillows paired with cotton blankets lay at rest inside with them.
"It's...the children," he slurs.
They inch forward, requesting water in shaky chords. "Of course! Oh my god, of course."
He bolts upstairs in zig-zag strides, grabs two glasses of water, and returns back in a curvaceous dash. He sheds a couple tears as they appreciate the water. "There...there," he consoles. The drugs are guiding him on the fastest route to slumber. "Bob Christianstein will save yous a'both," he repeats like a broken and guitarless Bob Dylan record as he slides over to his couch and lays face first on the largest pillow in the room.