Casino Heaven

Mr. King-Perfect opened the door of the casino and strolled boldly inside, releasing a low whooo exclamation of pent-up excitement due to him feeling supremely lucky on this nice winter day. Mr. King-Perfect was wearing his blue wool sweater since he thought wool interfered with the inner electronics of slot machines - fouling them up slightly, thus increasing his chances of winning some cold hard cash. He went over to the nearest slot machine, reached down and grabbed the two corners, raised it up two inches and let it fall, KA-WHAM. He liked this particular casino a lot since the slots were not secured down in any manner; and another of Mr. King-Perfect's gambling theories (like the wool sweater theory) was slamming a slot machine good and hard prior to coin insertion, which he also thought helped him win the Jackpot.

Luckily, him slamming the slot machine was not too loud, but Mr. King-Perfect still looked around to see if he had triggered any security guards. No one in sight. Excellent. Mr. King-Perfect raised his hands and touched his head, pondering deeply for a moment, taking his slamming theory even further and concluding that when a man is confronted by a problem of any kind, no matter how big or small, he only had to give the object in question a good slam and the problem would usually work itself out. Right on.

Mr. King-Perfect pulled a few coins from the pocket of his tattered blue jeans and put one in the coin slot and pulled the lever violently. "Rollin, rollin, rollin, come on now, let's get some cold hard cash flowin up in here," he mumbled to himself as he watched the spinning wheels.

You may be wondering why our protagonist is being called Mr. King-Perfect in this story. Well, he got that nickname from being an extremely detail-oriented, anal type of person and from his desire to always do things exactly the right way, which is the main reason he felt he would make a good slot machine gambler - he loved planning out various systems to win money and enjoyed following them to a T, but sometimes Mr. King-Perfect made drastically wrong decisions in life and caused major screwups and ended up destroying valuable things. Dale was Mr. King-Perfect's given name at birth.

The slot machine wheels finally settled and three cherries appeared. Mr. King-Perfect had won $500.

"YES! GOSH DARN IT I KNEW IT!" He yelled in an overly excited fashion. "I AM A WINNER. YOU GOTTA DO THAT SLAM IF YOU WANNA WIN THE BIG MONEY, HELL YEAH, I KNEW MY SLAM THEORY WOULD WORK!"

Mr. King-Perfect was smart enough to know that once you won a sum like $500 you should vacate the casino as fast as possible and enjoy your winnings before it all becomes a major loss. So he cashed out and strutted toward the glass doors grinning his big shit-eating grin.

He went out and climbed into his little yellow Ford pickup and drove to his job at CAT-TRACTOR-LAND where he worked the evening shift as a welder. Mr. King-Perfect hated the job but knew nothing would upset him on this day since he had already won a large sum of cash. He strolled through the parking lot, went in the building and over to his locker, got his hard hat and face protection and gloves, along with a few tools, went to his work station and started prepping his area for some good old welding work.

Before he could fire up his welder, his boss, Mr. Magovilli, came over and stood in front of Mr. King-Perfect, shaking his head and frowning. "I need to see you in my office for a moment, Dale," he commanded in a low authoritative voice.

"Can it wait? I haven't even started my welder yet. I gotta keep up my production."

"No, it can't wait. I've got to see you right now."

Mr. King-Perfect followed Mr. Magovilli to his office where they went in and sat down.

"Before you say whatever it is you're going to say to me," Mr. King-Perfect said, "I should tell you that I won $500 today at the casino and nothing is gonna upset me."

Mr. Magovilli cleared his throat. "Dale, did you know that the 1800 parts you welded up over the last few months are all scrap?"

"What."

"Your jig was set up wrong and every part you welded is garbage."

"No way."

"It's true. You've cost the company roughly $12,480."

"My jig wasn't set up wrong, I made that thing myself. It's perfectly fine."

"Nope, it's off by fifteen degrees. Everything you've done these last few months is a waste and has been sent to the scrap pile."

"Wh- wh - I..."

"You're fired, Dale. Now pack up your tools and get out. We don't require your services any longer here at CAT-TRACTOR-LAND."

"My God..." Mr. King-Perfect bent forward and held his face in his dry calloused welding hands. He almost started to shed a tear, but quickly remembered his slam theory.

Could he slam his boss?

Maybe it would actually work.

Why not give it a try.

It had already helped him win 500 smackaroos.

Hell, he was already fired, surely a slam wouldn't hurt anything else, would it?

Mr. King-Perfect stood up from his chair and went over to Mr. Magovilli and held out his hand. "Well, I guess this is goodbye, sir."

"Goodbye, Dale. Good luck to you, I hope you..."

But before Mr. Magovilli could finish his sentence, Mr. King-Perfect stepped forward and grabbed him round the waist and bear hugged him. He lifted him up over a foot and pulled him down toward the wooden floor for a good slam, WHAM.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING, DALE?" said Mr. Magovilli, visibly shaken from the slam.

Mr. King-Perfect stepped back and looked into his boss's face intensely. "Am I still fired?"

"Of course you are! Now get the hell out of this office, you retard. I don't know what's the matter with you lately, but you sure are turning into a weird son-of-a-bitch!"

Mr. King-Perfect went out and gathered up his tools and shuffled through the parking lot, slowly and forlornly. He came to his little Ford pickup and started up the engine and began the long drive home.

Mr. King-Perfect felt mad. His neck and chest were burning. His face was hot and red, it felt like he'd been scalded with a bucket of Long John Silver's grease. He wanted revenge on his boss for firing him. So he started prowling the streets in his little Ford truck until he saw a crack head selling dope on a corner and an idea formed in Mr. King-Perfect's brilliant but slightly warped mind.

He stopped his truck and waved the crack dealer over. "Do you have any DMT?" Mr. King-Perfect asked. The crack dealer nodded in the negative, but pulled a cell phone from his baggy rapper pants and made a few calls, then he told Mr. King-Perfect exactly where to get some DMT.

DMT stands for dimethyltryptamine, which is a powerful hallucinogenic drug that possesses a chemical structure very similar to the neurotransmitter, serotonin.

Mr. King-Perfect drove to the location and acquired a vial of DMT. His plan was to dose his boss with the powerful psychedelic drug so that it would scramble his brains enough to let Mr. King-Perfect have his job back. That's an awesome plan, thought Mr. King-Perfect.

He bought a vial of DMT from a fat man in a dilapidated trailer wearing a dirty black Lamb of God t-shirt splattered with animal blood, then he headed back toward CAT-TRACTOR-LAND. He went in the building and told the security guard he'd forgotten one of his tools. Quietly, Mr. King-Perfect slipped into the break room and bought two coffees and poured some of the DMT into one of the cups.

He walked to Mr. Magovilli's office but did not see him in there fucking off as usual. Good. Mr. King-Perfect went in his office and set both coffees down on the long oak desk. He went out and fiddled around in his locker until he found a small screwdriver near the back and stuck it in his front pocket. Then he went back to Mr. Magovilli's office again and his old boss was now sitting in front of his computer playing a card game. Mr. King-Perfect knocked on the thick metal door and went inside.

"What are you still doing here?" said Mr. Magovilli.

"I forgot my screwdriver. Oh, and I picked you up a coffee while I was out, it's right over there," he said, pointing to the desk. "No hard feelings?"

Mr. Magovilli eyed the coffee suspiciously, but then took a drink, smiled and said, "Of course not, Dale, no hard feelings. I appreciate the coffee!"

Mr. King-Perfect went over and lifted the other cup, had a long drink since the coffee was now cooled and said, "See ya later, Mr. Magovilli," although he planned to return after the DMT went to work on his boss's mind to try and talk him into getting his welding job back.

On his way out of the office, Mr. King-Perfect realized he'd forgotten which coffee was dosed and which wasn't. Vaguely he thought he might have picked up the wrong cup. But he stopped trying to remember and decided not to worry about it.

Mr. King-Perfect made it half way to his pickup when the DMT kicked in full force on his mind and a period of intense hallucinations began. He dropped to his back in the gravel as his soul traveled upwards into the heavenly clouds above. Up and up, Mr. King-Perfect's body and brain went, until he was soon in Heaven, standing before Almighty God himself.

God was in the form of a giant slot machine. He looked huge and boxy and psychedelic and his holiness had three large spinners with the letters, G.O.D. written above them. Brilliant multicolored lights flashed across the entire surface of his machine-body and a huge golden lever protruded from one side, with a large white fuzzy ball on the end.

Mr. King-Perfect approached the God-Slot slowly, his hands trembling and his heartbeat racing over 200 BPM. Mr. King-Perfect was totally in awe of the spectacle and the God-Slot noticed him standing and shaking with his mouth wide open. God said, "PLAY THE GAME AND RIDE THE TRAIN, MISTER."

But Mr. King-Perfect didn't pull the lever yet. Instead he said, "God? Why are there periods after each letter in your name on the surface of your machine-body? Do the letters stand for something else? Is G.O.D. an acronym?"

"Yes, it is."

"What does it stand for? What are the other three words?"

"They're way too powerful to simply say aloud, son. The three words are part of the most powerful secret of the Universe. If I repeated them here, you would die instantly upon hearing them."

Mr. King-Perfect looked down at his welding boots and grimaced. "Can you tell me what the words mean without actually saying them?"

"Of course not. Now quit wasting my time and pull the lever. Let's see what Granny Luck has in store for you today."

Mr. King Perfect went over and pulled the lever and watched the large reels spin. They spun and spun until finally two lemons and a banana registered and he'd lost. God smiled and said "Goodbye and good luck," in a sincere tone and Mr. King Perfect vanished and descended to a lower level of Heaven.

The walls of this lower section were covered with blue and red swirls. Large puffy bean bags were setting around everywhere. Loud heavy metal music was blasting from big speaker cones sticking out of the walls all around the room. Mr. King-Perfect looked around to see if there was a D.J. present, but he only noticed Jesus standing on a small stage, playing a double-necked Flying V electric guitar, putting on a concert with his 6-piece band, The Groove Devils. Jesus Christ was the greatest electric guitarist in Heaven and Mr. King Perfect observed his Lord and Saviour jamming out with impressive conviction and emotion as he head-banged with his long dark hair swaying to and fro and his followers loudly cheering him on. Jesus seemed to be really on a roll tonight and he was grooving with the music as his Divine Love showered the audience in thick spasmatic waves. Some people in the crowd even swooned from the pure ecstasy Jesus was unleashing with his natural charisma and enchanting rock-n-roll music.

Mr. King-Perfect remembered that he used to played bass guitar back in high school and was in a rock trio briefly, so he went closer to where Jesus was playing, and realized this would probably be the only opportunity he would ever have to actually meet Jesus Christ, (even if this was only a DMT hallucination), and he wanted to speak with him on a personal level and maybe even jam with him. He made his way to the front of the crowd, pushing people out of the way, and began yelling as loud as he could over the heavy metal music:

"YOUR HOLINESS! SORRY TO INTERRUPT YOU! HEY, YOUR HOLINESS! I PLAY BASS GUITAR AND I THOUGHT I COULD JAM WITH YOU FOR A MINUTE!"

Jesus heard the loud shouting, stopped head banging and looked up. A small amount of irritation registered on his boyishly handsome face, but it quickly dissipated and a smile appeared. "What do you need, sir?"

"DO YOU HAVE A BASS GUITAR THAT I COULD BORROW? I WANT TO JAM WITH YOU!"

Jesus signaled his band The Groove Devils to keep playing while he went over and procured a beautiful blue B.C. Rich Warlock bass guitar from a stand at the edge of the stage.

Mr. King Perfect said "Yeah!" and pumped his fists and jumped onto the large stage. He grabbed the Warlock bass, put it on and cranked up the volume. He began playing the riff to "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida," the psychedelic rock classic by Iron Butterfly.

The band stopped and listened to his menacing riff, then they joined in full force. Jesus played the riff too and stood next to Mr. King-Perfect, head banging and swaying and smiling at him. They jammed for a long time until Jesus went over to a microphone and sang some of the lyrics to the song, but he didn't know them well enough and quit singing, walked away smiling and shaking his head.

They played the riff awhile longer and Jesus took a lead solo in which he used some cool hybrid picking licks ala Danny Gatton, then played some fast chromatic sweep picking, after that trailing off into some mindless shredding ala Yngwie and Mr. King-Perfect had to nudge him and nod his head to let Jesus know he was going a little too far. So Jesus quickly headed back into the main riff.

Mr. King-Perfect and Jesus were swaying back and forth there, really rocking out, when Jesus leaned over and said, "We've got to start a band, man. You've really got what it takes. What's your name anyway?"

"They call me Mr. King-Perfect."

"Hmm, that's quite an unusual name."

"Yeah, I know. It's actually my nickname. My real name is Dale."

"Nice to meet you, Dale."

They were still playing the riff to 'In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida' and it sounded bitchingly heavy and thoroughly intense.

"Thanks for the band offer, but I really can't join you right now, Jesus."

"Ahh... That's too bad."

Mr. King-Perfect then changed the subject. He leaned over and said in a loud voice: "I really need to speak to you about something important for a minute."

"Yes, what is it?" Jesus said.

"Maybe we can go off stage and talk, I can't concentrate good while I'm playing."

"But I can't just end this concert now, my followers will go berserk and wreck the place."

"All right. What I wanted to know is, what do the letters G. O. D. stand for in your father's name?"

"Huh?"

"I saw there were initials on his slot machine body in the higher realm of Heaven that I visited earlier. G period O period D period. What do the letters stand for?"

Jesus threw in a brief, pinched-harmonic lick of shrill squeals, then continued playing the 'In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida' riff. "Hmm, I never noticed that before. I don't really know what the letters stand for."

"They are obviously an acronym for something. Your Dad even said that three words make up his real name, but they're so supremely powerful they can be deadly if spoken aloud by a non-diety."

"That's weird," Jesus said after a couple more headbangs. "He never mentioned that to me."

Mr. King-Perfect looked off into the crowd. He suspected Jesus wasn't being totally honest with him for some reason. Yet he really needed to know the truth. He grooved on his bass some more, threw in some slaps and pops while fingering the higher register of the neck, then bent the highest note possible, when suddenly he remembered his gambling-slam theory and realized it might help him arrive at the truth of G.O.D.'s real name. He stepped over a few feet and took off the Warlock bass and leaned it against the drum riser. Jesus was too busy playing another shred solo to pay any attention to him. Mr. King-Perfect ran back over to Jesus, put his arms around the Lord's waist tightly, lifted him high in the air, and brought him down hard onto the stage for a good slam, KABLAM!

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING, DALE?" Jesus yelled in a highly irritated voice. "YOU CAN'T JUST PICK UP AND SLAM THE SON OF GOD ANYTIME YOU WANT TO."

"I'm sorry, Jesus, but now will you tell me what the letters G. O. D. stand for?"

"I already told you I didn't know."

"All right, I'm sorry."

Mr. King-Perfect walked off the stage as the crowd booed. For a second he thought the Christians in the audience would rip him to pieces but luckily they refrained from harming him. Mr. King-Perfect was thoroughly bummed since he realized his slamming theory didn't work worth a shit and that he would probably never know G.O.D.'s real name.

As Mr. King-Perfect strolled off, Jesus stared at him, frowning, still highly upset about a pathetic human slamming him on his own stage, so he flicked his slim fingers that were filled with magic, splendor, and supreme spirituality, and hence zapped Mr. King-Perfect back up to the higher level of Heaven where he had previously seen God. The DMT that Mr. King-Perfect had taken was beginning to wear off now though and he knew soon he would begin a fast descent to Earth, falling perilously through the puffy white clouds and hitting the ground with maximum force.

Mr. King-Perfect walked around on the higher level of Heaven for a few minutes, checking out the enlightened scenery of puffy blue sofas and white non-cold snowflakes and floating feathers and chubby cherubs stroking harpsichords and midgets blowing bugles, when before long he chanced upon G.O. D. again, still in the form of a gargantuan slot machine. Mr. King-Perfect stared at the huge letters of G.O. D. once again wondering what they might stand for.

"God?" said, Mr. King Perfect. "Will you tell me what the letters of your name stand for?"

"No, son. You would die if you heard them. Your body and head would explode into millions of tiny pieces."

Mr. King-Perfect got another idea. Maybe he could slam God's slot machine body. He decided to test his theory once more before abandoning it forever. He casually walked toward God and when he was within three feet he sprinted over and strained to lift the edge of His Slot Machine Holiness and the edge alone must have weighed 800 pounds. But Mr. King-Perfect managed to lift it a quarter of an inch, then he let it fall with a loud bang. KA-WHAM. The slam triggered the spinners to whirl and after a few seconds three Jackpot signs lit up and over a million gold coins poured from the front of the machine onto the floor. Mr. King-Perfect was a winner this time.

"YES! GOSH DANG IT I KNEW IT!" Mr. King-Perfect yelled. "I AM A BONA FIDE WINNER BABY AND YOU GOTTA DO THAT AWESOME SLAM IF YOU WANNA WIN THE BIG CASH LIKE ME, HELL YEAH, I KNEW IT WOULD WORK, EVEN ON G.O.D. HIMSELF, IF ONLY I KEPT TRYING! HELL YES!"

Just as Mr. King Perfect was going over to gather up the humongous pile of gold coins, all the DMT in his system wore off completely and the hallucination ended.

A small cloud opened beneath him.

He fell through the thin sky for a long time and eventually he awoke lying face down in a puddle of dirty water that tasted like thick motor oil. He was back on earth, still in the parking lot of CAT-TRACTOR-LAND. He slowly pushed himself up, blinking mud from his eyes and spitting out foul grains of dirt. Gradually his vision adjusted and he saw Mr. Magovilli standing over him, his fists clenched as they rested on his large hips and his ugly face showing a pissed-off demeanor.

"You freakin' louse, Dale! I told you to get off this property. What are you still doing hanging around here! You're really beginning to irritate me, you know that?"

"Yeah, I know."

Mr. King-Perfect almost made it to his knees when Mr. Magovilli stuck out his large work boot and pressed it to the center of Mr. King Perfect's skinny back, pushing him back down into the motor oil and mud. Mr. King Perfect made a fairly large splash and ate a face full of mud.

"Boy, standing over you, you know how I feel?" said. Mr. Magovilli. "I feel like some Gorgeous Old-Testament Diety with infinite power and all knowing intelligence. It really feels wonderful."

Mr King perfect heard the words 'Gorgeous Old-Testament Diety' and remembered desiring to know God's real name. Could that be it? he thought. No way. Too simple. Those can't be the words corresponding to the initials of God's real name.

Then he looked up just as Mr. Magovilli's head exploded. His boss's skull shattered into thousands of pieces and a load of green bile shot out with bright red brain tissue and a mass of yellow sludge that must have been in the exact center of Mr. Magovilli's brain slopped down onto the gravel. A little horny toad crawled out of the foul yellow debris, looked up at Mr. King-Perfect and hissed loudly.

"What is that? A horny toad?" Dale said. "That was inside Mr. Magovilli's brain the whole time I knew the man? Why did his head explode though... Because of God's warning? Surely someone had pronounced that combination of words before on earth? How could those three words be correct? It isn't even really three words, more like four. Hmmm... maybe I should take this little horny toad creature home with me. Guess it was some type of parasite living inside my boss. Wow, look at that thing moving around so fast down there and jerking. Perhaps that's the reason Mr. Magovilli had all those personal problems. But those three words. How bland. I could always try to say them aloud myself as a test. Nope. Better not take that chance. Don't need my head exploding anytime soon. I know one thing though. I got to quit dicking around her and split before somebody thinks I killed Mr. Magovilli. I also got to get another job soon before my rent is due. Hey, come here little guy."

Mr. King-Perfect reached down and scooped up the little yellow horny toad that used to live in his boss's brain and carefully put the creature in the pocket of his wool sweater. Mr. King-Perfect giggled at the horny toad since he looked so damn cute sitting there, then he climbed into his little Ford pickup and zoomed out of the parking lot, whistling a religious song that he'd heard one of the chubby cherubs playing on its harpsichord in his vivid DMT hallucination.

-end-

(Thanks for reading. If you know of any magazines that would like to publish this story, please contact the author. Also, you would be helping out the author greatly if you purchased one of his books from Amazon.com or another online book store. Thanks again.)

http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
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Bio: Jason Earls is the author of Cocoon of Terror (Afterbirth Books), Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, Red Zen, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); }, and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, M-Brane SF, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover's books, Mathworld.com, AlienSkin, Recreational and Educational Computing, Escaping Elsewhere, Neometropolis, Thirteen, Dogmatika, Prime Curios, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG's Speculative Fiction, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Oklahoma with his wife, Christine.