Here's what happened to an acquaintance of mine a few years ago. She told me this over the phone after I mentioned the joose. I started taping the conversation with her consent after a lengthy preamble - she asked to clean up any direct references to people or locations, cause she promised the people involved never to make this public; one of the guys is still working.

The friend's from Ukraine, but after listening to the story again I'm not 100% sure this took place there, as she was moving about a bit at that time. She was trying to get press work as a free-lance journalist and had made a deal with an ambulance crew to accompany them at night in the roughest districts in return for a few hundred US dollars and a case of Jack Daniel's.

I transcribed and translated the talk from German dialect (we met when we were both living in the Rhineland-Palatinate region for a while), which neither of us masters completely, so there may be a few gaps in places due to line noise and language barriers. It's a pretty faithful transcription, but I did cut repetitions and interruptions. Sorry if it reads funny.

italics are mine:

"Okay, listen, I promised them not to use this (they gave me the money back and all) for obvious reasons, but I really regret it. I had to tell *** and *** 4 times and they wet themselves from laughing each time so I'm sure I could sell it."

"All right. So these guys were going to let me sit with them between 1am and 5am; they had this old Mercedes lorry with a big bench in the front. I thought it was an excuse for groping (oh sorry, hand slipped off the stick, blah blah), but X., the big guy (I guess at least 120kg) never shifted gears actually. Just did everything in second. In his words: combat driving."

"I got on just around the corner from what they called the multi-purpose emergency centre, and Y. joined us 2 streets further on. That guy looked exactly like that jealous guy in the Amelie Poulain film, with the laundry iron face. X. was like those american wrestlers with no brow and tiny ears; he said he was in the army but the way he fucked up later I wasn't so sure."

"They wanted to stop for a snack first, so we drove to this tiny park behind the ***. Y. downed 2 cans of cold beans in tomato sauce from an american(?) army ration - this guy is nuts about everything american; the bourbon was his idea and he told X. that it was irish brandy... X. ate a rabbit."

"I had to ask 10 times to show me the sick compartment in the back. It had like a big wooden medecine cupboard on one side panel and 2 spare wheels on the other. Just enough space for a stretcher (simple 2-pole and a cloth in some horrible red-brown-yellow), and shoved against the cab were 3 crates of booze and a huge bag full of needles and stuff. Oh, and a dead bird X. was going to eat later."

"You know I don't mind crazy as long as it's fun crazy. These guys were pretty fun crazy in my eyes, but you judge:"

"Just a few things X. said (before the other stuff happened):
- they don't see the moon in Australia cause it's on the other side of the Earth
- my mother was a woman
- the Beatles were okay until they did that disco stuff with the high voices

And Y.:
- I'm a Neil Diamond fan cause his albums came out on the best cassettes, transparent
- If you fuck with a Neil Diamond fan he will kick you out of his heart without alimony
- Quacking Rouzy WANNA DIE, Quacking Rouzy WANNA DIE (singing along to Cracklin' Rosie)
"

"Y. fishes half a dozen pill bottles out of his banana bag (fanny pack). I'll give you the equivalent names, cause generics have different names here: Xanax, Prozac, Librium, Valium, and what you call the joose (Y. called it 'brainwipe' - 'Tipp-Ex for the brain'). He also had lots of laxatives, but I'll tell you that later. X. downs an entire bottle of *** (cheap Underberg knock-off - a kind of stomach soother, basically alcohol with a few herbs) and a handful of pills of his own, and we take off for our first call; radioed in 10 minutes earlier."

"Y. explains that he likes working with X. because the stretcher hardly tips when they do stairs; small guy on one end, big guy on the other. X. rams 2 kids on a moped. The boy is thrown forward in a neat arc, the girl receives the handlebars in her face. X. is belching like a maniac from the *** and I don't think he even noticed anything. Y. yells at him to stop the van and I run back to the kids with him. X. backs up, twists the moped some more, and nearly lands on the boy's head when he drops out of his seat. Then he grabs the girl, wipes her face in the snow, and empties a half bottle of Slivovitz into her mouth. Y. is still yelling at him, but busy finding a needle so that he can 'wipe the kids brain'. I had no idea what this stuff would do at this point like I said."

"Anyway, you're not going to believe this, but these guys just dumped both kids and the moped in a big rubbish bin a few streets further. X. still belching like a whale, engine screaming in second gear, Y. turns on his big portable tape player and starts the Quacking Rouzy stuff. I wonder if our actual patient (the one we were called for) is going to like this."

"You've never seen an apartment as filthy as this guy's place. He had a pig in there and 2 dogs, though they were all quiet and didn't bother us. There was this gunk on the floor that looked like a mix of dust, spilt food, booze, and (animal?) excrement. The guy had a fridge covered in Esso stickers and a sofa cut in 2 to make 2 chairs. X. had another bottle in his hand, so I thought he was going to put it into the patient again, but Y. pulled up liquid from it in a big syringe and he and X. took the guy's trousers (sweatpants actually used for doing lots of sweating in, I think - they were the same colour as the stretcher) off and stuck the syringe up his (the guy's) bum. I don't know if they actually diagnosed the man with anything, but I was behind on the stairs, cause I wasn't sure whether to get any deeper into the stink. Y. said this guy looked like a troublemaker (big guy, for sure), so he gave him a double dose of 'Tipp-Ex'. Why up the bum? Y. said it was to show who's boss..."

"This joose stuff takes a while to come on, no? Cause the man was still wiggling a lot and screaming things (he was screaming before we got there, I forgot to say) like 'put my pants on' and 'stay away from my ass'. Also forgot to say I'd been hitting the Slivovitz a bit after the moped thing, so I was beginning to enjoy myself. I'd also taken a Valium when I left home to appear more professional. I didn't know it was going to be like this. Then X. starts going through the guy's things while Y. is cooking more bean rations of his on the stove, and lighting one cigarette after the other. He'd been popping big yellow pills since after our snack, so I think he was fairly out of it. X. finds a dress that almost fits him and the jokes about hefty women start. He puts it in his bag. So now we have theft on top of everything else. Oh, he also pinched a bunch of snowglobes; 'Rosebud, Rosebud!'"

"All right, so then this ruckus starts downstairs. First 3, then more guys come up and try to pick a fight with Y., who's squirting joose down the piglet's throat (using the same syringe that went up the guy's bum, poor piglet). Apparently he had business with one or some of them a while ago, and things turned sour. X. said something about those dopes not being able to distinguish morphine from ammonia water, cause that's what Y. had been selling them. He (X.) starts pushing the gang down the hallway and Y. drags the patient on the stretcher. The patient is out to lunch by now, big smile on his face too."

"I try not to get mixed up in all this and follow the parade down the stairs. When we get to the front door I see at least 8 guys and a horrible fat bloat of a woman jump from the back of the 'ambulance' (boozemobile) laughing their heads off. Things are getting nasty by the door and X. and Y. sort of run to the van and shove the patient in without looking. I could swear I heard this strange sucking sound when the stretcher went in, but I got so out of it later that I'm probably just wishing for nice details."

"We get in the cab as fast as we can and X. pulls out like a rocket. I think he actually shifted down to first, heh. You know that 3T Mercedes, right? There's just a small window between the cab and the back, and you can't open it. We just barrel down the alley and try to get on the main road and away from the vengeance brigade. Y. is blasting some Best Of Neil Diamond, and X. tries to balance a torch on his forehead - while driving at top speed, though second gear again."

"We get back at the centre and try to look sort of serious and busy, cause X. and I were now pretty woofed from the plum brandy. Y. had made himself a 'joose and coke' just before we arrived, but that wouldn't do much till later. Anyway, they pull open the doors and this stench comes wafting out. Those people I saw jumping off the back when we got downstairs? They'd shat all over the place and the patient had landed right in the mess when the boys dumped him on the floor instead of sliding the stretcher on the rails that were there for it. Have you ever wondered how much excrement about 10 people (or more, cause they may have been taking turns) with poor diets (the evidence was there) can produce in I'd say 12 minutes tops (from when the fight started)? A lot, believe me. We're talking volumes here, like someone opened a tap."

"Anyway, X. and Y. slide the stretcher out as is, and enter the centre's side doors. I almost didn't go in, but then I wouldn't have seen this biblical image of the crowds parting like the Red Sea on a smelly Moses's command. They parked the poor guy in the far corner of the hall, checked out with the administrator (they have to get the patient's insurance card and a signature) I don't know how, and we get out of there before anyone can ask questions. Imagine me with the silly giggles running after a (still) belching hulk and a wired maniac, both wiping their hands on anything they pass that looks like cloth. Including some poor old granny's hair..."

"Y. screaming mad about the mess, of course, so we're breaking our heads trying to think of a place where we can hose out the van. At this time I was feeling very weird from the Slivovitz plus joose. It was as if I was sitting piggyback on my own shoulders, observing what I said and did, which was all getting stranger and stranger. So I suggested we just drive the van in reverse into this prick's office garden, - the guy I told you about who tried to do a couch interview for a bloody researcher job - which has a pond in it. This we agree to do. Took a while to find it, during which Y. filled syringes with joose and coke and X. kept asking if we thought his lunch (the dead bird) would still be edible if he gave it a good once-over with the welding can (a spraycan with a valve for soldering metal, actually)."

"I seriously had these giggle fits that must be from the joose, cause alcohol doesn't really do much for me, and X. just kept on ripping these thunderous belches every 2 minutes or so. Drowned out even Neil Diamond. Of course, the way things were going, there are still people in the prick's office and X. tries to get us out of the little garden with the koi(?) pond. Doesn't work, so he opens another bottle of Slivovitz while Y. starts yapping about emergencies and we're on a mission and stuff. I thought he sounded pretty convincing, but then I noticed the fat woman's dress (that X. had taken from the piglet flat) was around his waist, and he'd taken his boots off."

"Long argument starts between X. and what turned out to be the watchman, his brother in law and 2 prostitutes. None of those 4 seemed very intelligent, to say the least, cause X. actually got them involved in finding a solution for cleaning our van and the gear instead of throwing us out on the spot. X. offers them a bottle of the unlabelled booze, Y. reaches over to fish the only clean one left from the sidepocket of the cabdoor, and squirts in a syringeful of joose & coke while the others aren't paying attention".

"Most of the rest is just flashes, but I do remember the lorry got clean somehow, and we took the watchman's brother in law back to the centre after Y. bet him his mouth couldn't hold a snowglobe. It could, but getting it out didn't work so well. The guy basically didn't know what he was doing anymore by this time, and X. told me a few days later that he was having doubts about Y., cause he had tried to make the guy pull his pants down and sit on another snowglobe while Y. was pushing on his shoulders from above. I believe him after the scene at the pig apartment"

"Anyway, that was the first night."

This is the second night Zina (my Ukrainian friend's nickname) went out with the ambulance. Instead of typing X. and Y. I'll call them Xenu and Yoyo to make for easier reading. Btw, I passed on the reactions her talk got from some of you, and she's delighted - although I had to assure her several times that TCC isn't visible to outsiders. If she's anxious about it, it's because Xenu is still working, though not in the same district or for the same people.

italics are mine:

"It took days for that stuff (your 'joose') to wear off, and I didn't see why anyone would take it for pleasure. I mean, frequently. I'm not really a drug fiend as you know, but this really messes with your perception. I also felt sweaty and nauseous the next day, but that could have been the horrible booze. These guys may have made it themselves; I never asked."

Do you know where the phen came from, and is it a common recreational drug over there?

"I don't know where it came from, no. And I hadn't seen or heard of it before, actually. I was away for years though, so who knows. In the end alcohol is still the popular choice for most people, you know. It doesn't give you a good time if you take too much. Your judgment goes out the window and whatever happens seems fine. Without it, I would have run, seriously."

You took it again though, didn't you?

"Oh yes. Want me to go on..?"

I must urge you to do so in the interest of science.

"Uh huh. Okay, the next time was about a week later, I think. I was supposed to meet them where we had picked up Yoyo last time. Waited for half an hour, then heard a lorry come whining up the street, which almost gave me the giggles again (Pavlov). It was very clean this time, and Xenu had 3 or 4 of those smelly tree things hanging off the mirror. I asked him about stuff a bit while we were waiting for Yoyo. He told me they'd worked together before, in the meat industry(!), and that they were both farmboys originally. Yoyo did a sort of first-aid course with the same centre they were working for now, and got Xenu on board when the regular driver refused to go out into ***, at least at night. They give anyone who has some sort of association with the establishment a hard time there, and nights simply aren't safe there anyway. The van is actually Xenu's; he gets money from the centre for it."

"Yoyo told me something about Xenu too, but it was later. It's too funny, so listen: Xenu apparently wanted to be a motorcycle racer. By itself that's hilarious, cause given the size of the guy he'd basically absorb the bike the moment he'd sit on it. Well, maybe not the wheels. Anyway, he had this Suzuki bike with a huge sticker saying SUZUKI on the front flap thing they have for protection or speed, whatever - but he pronounces Suzuki as SUKUZI. So Yoyo keeps telling him that it's SU-ZU-KI until one day finally Xenu gets the idea and starts pronouncing it correctly. Shortly after that, Yoyo peels off the sticker while Xenu's on the bog, cuts it in 3, and puts it back; now saying SU-KU-ZI. Apparently took a few days, but when Xenu noticed what it said he had this surreal told-you-so talk with Yoyo, gently breaking it to him that, as evidently displayed on the sticker, it damn well was SU-KU-ZI after all. Yoyo said he just swallowed it, trying not to go hysterical. It's sorta cute, no?"

"I hadn't taken anything this time, just to make sure I'd have some reserves if this night was going to be as weird as the first. Xenu had this huge metal turreen under his seat with soup in it, so we had some and then he tells me he threw in some leftover pills from the night before in there, cause 'some guy at the centre told him molecular tension keeps things warm longer, and there were lots of molecules in medication'... You really wonder sometimes."

"Yoyo arrives in a hideous sports outfit and a utility belt. And the big black bag they had in the back last time. He says he had a toothache and took 14 pills. I asked him what sort and he just looked at me as if that was a strange question, so he either has some fave staple drug or goes by the rule that pills is pills and what does it matter what they are? I'm sure he'd taken joose though, cause he was forgetting his lit cigarettes again. Later even saw him put one back in the pack and not notice that his pocket was smoking. Xenu'd been staring at it with a puzzled look, and I was fascinated by the thought of that hideous polyester jacket igniting. Just to show you how things really don't matter when you have some joose in you."

"No call for a long time and Yoyo starts getting restless. We'd been sipping the brandy I'd brought them and the soup was definitely mellow soup, cause Zenu and I were okay with the Neil Diamond tapes and didn't mind Yoyo's horrible singing. I think they should pack Neil Diamond releases with a free joose pill, you know. Anyway, Yoyo starts hassling this guy on the street; not a streetsleeper, cause he was pretty well-dressed and shaven, but not too steady on his feet and giving us these growls from a few meters away. Sounded like a dog."

"So Yoyo gets out and discovers the guy is far taller than him, about a head at least, which makes him mad (he had this thing with people bigger than him - doesn't like it). I yelled at him to leave the guy alone, cause I'd seen police go by every few minutes, maybe a station nearby, and I wanted my money's worth instead of trying to get Yoyo out of custody for the rest of the night. You don't mess with the police here, you know. Anyway, that stopped him."

"Xenu turns up the radio over 'Sweet Caroline' (Yoyo's ghettoblaster is off-limits) and tells us we have a seizure. Off we go in second gear again, the lorry rattling through potholes (I bumped my head about 100 times in those 4 nights, and Yoyo fast-forwards to 'I am, I said', except he 'sings' it like 'I AM THE SAD, I AM A CRY'. This guy was really, really loud."

"Normal house, normal interior, abnormal patient. I don't know if you can have seizures while standing up, but this guy was having one. He had multiple coats on, and a chapska (fur toque?) over an army cap, was waving his arms like 2 asynchronous windmills and shouting that he wanted an x-ray, 'wanna x-ray wanna x-ray wanna x-ray' without interruption. Yoyo tells Xenu to choke the guy so he can give him a shot (I had this vision of a The Return Of The Pig Syringe movie poster, haha), but Xenu is too mellowed out; from the soup I reckoned. He (Xenu) actually receives a big blow to his nose from the guy's windmilling, and decides to sit down for the duration. I was too busy myself to be sure, but I think he caught a nap."

"So Yoyo gets really mad and says he's going to play darts with the guy's face if he doesn't stop - with syringe needles, I suppose. I thought I could help a bit here and started shouting at the guy he'd get his x-ray if he'll just shut up and stop moving. Then Yoyo starts sweet-talking him too, and the guy actually calms down some. While I stay just out of armslength Yoyo grabs the guy from behind and chokes him pretty hard; then gives him a shot right in the face (only part visible and not covered in layers of clothing). I tell the guy he needs to take his coats off for the x-ray (hoping Yoyo could then shoot him up in a more appropriate body part), but Yoyo pulls out this huge Rambo knife and starts slashing away at the guy's clothes. The 'wanna x-ray wanna x-ray wanna x-ray' starts again, so I start looking for some kind of medical equipment in Xenu's first-aid chest, hoping to fool him into shutting up. When I turn around the guy stands there waving his arms like mad in his once white underwear (please ask no details) with a huge heap of torn/slashed clothing at his feet (he was wearing those overshoes, like Wellies; looked ridiculous with the underwear); and Yoyo furiously pulling up liquid from that same bottle I'd seen him use last time. The soup worked for me too, so I yelled 'CHEESE' as I turned on Xenu's torch and Yoyo plugged the guy."

"We had to wait a bit for that one to take effect, but at least the shot in the face shut the guy up, and he was just gesticulating in slow motion now. Yoyo ditched the syringe in an open milk bottle in the fridge (he kept doing stuff like that - his idea of fun) and we both had some brandy from the guy's cupboard. Yoyo squirted joose in his, and I accepted just the last 2ml or so; really just because I wanted him to trust me. Anyway, the guy goes limp and it's inventory time again. Xenu is on his feet by now, going through the fridge one tier at a time - absolutely disgusting stuff in there, like liquid (beyond ripe) fruit and an oven dish that looked like a bedpan. Then there's a crash outside, cause Yoyo threw the TV out the window."

"Xenu just throws the guy over his shoulder (there's more money in it if they bring the patient in) and we dive down the stairs. This still wasn't the bad part of town, so police might come by if someone complained about raining furniture. Next thing I know is this incredible 'BOOOIIING' sound, which is from an old stand-alone bathtub (with lions' feet and all) Yoyo just chucked out the balcony window. Xenu doesn't even seem to notice and puts the guy, still in underwear only, on the front seat and starts the lorry. Only when he revs the engine does Yoyo come running down, carrying a case of balloons and a bloody megaphone of all things (our patient was in road construction), which we would regret very much later."

"I like to think that Xenu kept the guy in front cause he didn't want him to choke on his own tongue, but it could be just because there was too much junk in the back. The booze was gone, but I could see welding equipment. Anyway, there was very little space left, so I had to choose either Xenu's or Yoyo's lap while trying to stay as far away from the patient as possible - this guy reeked. Xenu seemed safer, even though he hadn't told me about the snowglobe thing yet, haha. Oh, and Yoyo was holding the megaphone's microphone next to the tape player, although thank God he pointed it out the window. Neil Diamond woke half the street and/or caused many a coitus interruptus. Did you see 'The Butterfly Effect..?'"

"We got underwear guy back to the centre and checked out his details. Nobody blinked an eye, btw. I was curious to find out whether the victim from a few nights before was still parked in the hall, cause I couldn't imagine anyone willingly touch a shit mummy like that. Poor guy. Then we drove close to the same spot we snacked last time, and Yoyo starts fooling around. He has his cap on and stops people to ask for the time. After they answer him and walk on he puts the megaphone an inch away from their heads and shouts 'THANK YOU' in the microphone. I saw at least one guy jump 2 meters. Xenu passes around cups and we all have soup. The funny thing is/was that once this joose is working, you think you're immune to everything. I also found the bathtub thing perfectly normal by this time. If they didn't want people to throw it off the balcony, why did they put it there in the first place, huh?"

Do you know how much you took?

"No, but it can't have been a lot, because I was conscious and remember everything (I think), whereas any patients or other unlucky bystanders certainly got knocked out big time from Yoyo's jooseplugs. I think the fact that I didn't mix it again with other stuff helped too."

"Anyway, we got another call. This time it was well within the super-bad neighborhoods, but a good bit away from where we were last time. The houses there are newish, but bad quality; and most people didn't even bother to cover the naked concrete block facades. Yoyo said he had a mate close by and wanted to go and say hello, so we were going to do that after checking on the patient. If just another Friday night zombie we'd keep him snug and warm in the back while Yoyo met his friend. There was definitely welding equipment in the back, btw. Xenu's."

"Xenu rings, knocks, yells; finally an old woman opens the door. She's shaking a bit, but seems okay otherwise. Yoyo comes up behind us with the bag and dragging the stretcher. When the woman sees the stretcher she becomes really agitated and starts this tirade in some kind of taiga talk, like Kyrgyz or similar. Yoyo just slips past us and her, and heads straight into the living room (these houses don't have halls), dumps the bag on the table and goes 'HELLOOOOOO' into his megaphone. Woman's eyes almost pop out of their sockets, she turns around and Yoyo sticks a syringe under her left armpit. Very nicely done too, like in a film."

"So what does this guy have in his utility belt now? A bag of syringes, a thermos with pills, the jar of joose, loads of balloons, a pair of bedroom slippers I suppose he took from our last housecall, and the megaphone microphone (it's attached to a curly cable that comes off the megaphone, which is slung over his back). If I rang an ambulance and this guy showed up, no way I'd let him in! Anyway, the woman's on the couch with Xenu taking blood pressure and Yoyo on fridge duty. The woman's speech is very slurred now, but she still seems agitated; she's really shaking. Suddenly it smells nice, cause Yoyo's making an omelet. Xenu's in a good mood tonight, almost gentle, but food is food and he leaves the woman with me. I don't feel very adequate, so (this is joose thinking again) I figure making myself one of those nurse's bonnets would be nice. I find a stack of paper napkins in the kitchen and hey presto, I'm a nurse. In the meantime Yoyo's been going through the woman's wallet and looked for other papers, but can't find her insurance card or whatever it is they need. Xenu goes back to the van and radioes the centre, only to find out we're in the wrong street. Oops."

"Naturally, we got out of there real quickly. I hope the woman had a good night's sleep, compliments of *** centre. The right address was close, and indeed very similar in name, so it was an honest mistake, even if it hadn't been made because of Yoyo's godforsaken Best Of Neil Diamond. Oh, btw; Yoyo's flat is supposed to be covered wall-to-wall floor-to-ceiling with Neil in his 1970s look with the tent shirts and stranglepants. And when he first brought him up, and I said something like 'could be worse, could be Barry Manilow', he was not amused - turns out it's his second choice. I just wish Neil and Barry could be made to spend an evening with their number one fan. He might joose them up and make them forget about music."

"The next stop was definitely the correct one, judging from the crowd outside. Well, about a dozen people actually. Yoyo storms in with all his gear while Xenu goes around the bushes for a wee - one has his priorities, I suppose. I decide to wait for him by a window, cause Yoyo's eyes are out of kilter and he's not talking much sense - as far as I can tell... Next thing is Yoyo blaring through his megaphone, so in we go to a scene of various dazed people in a sea of empty bottles and playing cards while Yoyo is sort of barking traffic directions at them, like 'PLEASE WALK PAST THE SOFA AND LINE UP AGAINST THE BUFFET' and 'YOU IN THE RED SHIRT GET MOVING BUT MIND YOUR SPEED'. That thing makes a terrible din, but with a little joose in you outside irritants become more like the weather - no use trying to do anything about it. After several 'I NEED A VOLUNTEER TO TELL ME THE WHEREABOUTS OF THE OR A PATIENT' some people (drunk beyond caring, apparently) point at a door and Yoyo charges in with 'I AM A FAID, ...A FIRD, ...A FRISTAID PLEASE STAY CALM THANK YOU'. Xenu was either completely bewildered or just surprised at being awake, cause the only thing he did was keep the people in line in front of some huge old piece of furniture with lots of religious stuff over it."

"When I went into the little room after Yoyo he was going through the pockets of an older guy who was draped face down on the bed. I asked Yoyo if he'd K.O.'ed the guy; he said he didn't know. Got the guy's papers, called Xenu in, and they carried him off, all proper procedure except for the fact that when the stretcher was hooked on the rails in the van the guy had a net full of thistles shoved into his face. Xenu's, for soup. Yoyo insisted on staying in the back with the patient, so we got to the centre without Rosies or Carolines, thank God."

"It must have been around 3am, which is the latest you'll find open bars on weekends, and Xenu decided it was time for coffee and dumplings. Yoyo had been blowing up balloons since the last patient and the back was full of them. We got to a place Xenu knew, which was just a house without any signs or indication there was a bar there. This still in a very bad part of town, but the punters were all well over middle age, with paunches and husband faces, really. The kind I suspect went out just for a kneetrembler behind the nightclubs, didn't get lucky, and ended up here. Xenu said it was the cheapest bar in the district. He knew the owner and they went to a table to talk about something in private - probably something to do with medicinal alcohol and kickbacks - but that was a mistake. Yoyo was behind the bar in seconds, mixing the weirdest drinks (he said he wanted a perfect grey cocktail to 'match his soul'(!) and spiking the vodka (there were 2 huge bottles behind the bar from which people were served in coffee mugs). I thought he was doing his complimentary surprise shots of joose again. Not so. I'm not going to say what it was over the phone, but it was very popular in the 60's..."

"I felt really apprehensive, cause I'm afraid of what you call the mindaltering stuff; plus this was definitely not within even the most elastic professional limits. Whatever the manner of treatment, everything they'd been putting into their patients was legal and they were technically authorised to administer it. I also feared he might have put it in the soup, or the brandy or whatever, you know. So I tried to catch Xenu's eye, so he could do something about it, but either my facial muscles must have been joosed or Xenu misunderstood or both, cause he went all winky winky and smoothing his (mostly non-existing) hair. Btw, the fact that Yoyo is a spitting image of that jealous ex-husband in Amelie Poulain makes a whole lot of this a lot funnier if you can image him like the lantern-jawed drug dwarf that he is/was."

"Anyway, Xenu finishes and gets ready for drinks and food, and Yoyo is off to the facilities with a jar of Nutella he took from behind the bar. I try to tell Xenu about the spiked vodka, but Yoyo's back with a roll of toilet paper and the Nutella and starts telling Xenu about how he just thought up this great joke where you dip both sides of a strand of toilet paper into the spread and then stick one end to the inside of a guy's jacket, from the back of course."

"The hilarity is supposed to come when the guy leaves or moves about and he has sodden toilet paper hanging from his trousers, or so it seems. I don't really like toilet humour as you know, and this was pretty childish, but when Yoyo has an idea you'd better just let him go through with it or end up joosed in an alley somewhere. What did make me laugh is he'd been explaining this to Xenu without lowering his voice whatsoever and then just worked his way down the bar, slipping the paper under their jackets, coats, etc. One guy wasn't wearing any, so he stuck it straight into the back of his trousers without the guy noticing anything. The sight of a bar full of careless wipers was pretty funny, I admit. I also imagined what it was going to be like in about half an hour or so, if you know what I mean. Anyway, Xenu had forgotten about the dumplings and just took out some bread and a (sealed!) bottle of vodka."

"Yoyo went in the back again, said he wanted to take a nap, so I tried to take advantage of the silence and ask Xenu for some generalities about the job; for padding out the article I was going to write, basically. Here's just a few things he said:
- you don't want to let Yoyo near people, really; or to animals and things
- I don't mind hospitals, but sick people shouldn't be outside
- we're professionals - we never hurt our patients beyond what's necessary
- I had a girlfriend once, but she wasn't home
- this is my 5th transmission; German manufacture is overrated
- I don't like pigmeat anymore and the thought comforts me
As I understand it, to him the job meant turning up in his van when the big hand said this and the little hand that, and do what Yoyo tells him. Yoyo seemed to have great faith in Xenu, however. Never said anything nasty about him or called him stupid to his face."

"I wish I'd gone home then, but we'd had more joose soup and I was lulled by the engine of the van idling - we'd parked by a closed fishstand to rest and have a snack. Anyway, we got a call for immediate assistance, again in the bad part of town. Yoyo had come back to the cab and emptied balloons in front of the megaphone's microphone, so we had a kind of fart siren (the van itself didn't have one) going FWEEEOOOOOP FWEEEOOOOOOP. He really did have a thing for toddler-level fun, but again, with the joose nothing is worth getting annoyed about."

"We arrived at a flat complex, not a soul in sight, pretty spooky. Xenu goes to find the lift and Yoyo and I share some brandy, cause it's raining now and generally miserable. We get to the patient's flat, door's already open, and find this big, big brawler of a guy waiting for us with a piece of plumbing pipe in his fist. Apparently his wife had called the centre by mistake; she really wanted the cops, but we didn't know that until later. Anyway, Xenu goes over and tries to take the pipe away from the guy. The guy hits him and Xenu goes down; second time tonight (though the smack from the windmilling guy was just a caress compared to this one). Yoyo yells at me to call the cops, but I don't see a telephone and I don't want to go back down to the van alone. I don't know who hit me then, cause Yoyo jumped the guy at about the same time, but I was really off the planet for a bit. So I sit up and it's rodeo time: Yoyo riding on the guy's back, trying to stuff his head in the horn of the megaphone (way too small, of course). The plumbing pipe's on the floor, but I've never hit anyone with an object and I'm sort of hesitating when Yoyo gives up on the stuffing and just shouts into the megaphone at full strength with the horn over the guy's right ear. You can't believe the din in that small flat, yet nobody came to inquire. Probably knew this guy was bad news."

"So there's nothing much left to do apart from putting knowledge gleaned from the first night in practice and I wriggle the joose jar from Yoyo's toolbelt while the guy revolves around his axis like that cartoon Tasmanian devil, howling against Yoyo's crazy screaming through the megaphone. Perhaps Neil Diamond would have come in handy here, haha. No syringes on Xenu and Yoyo's are inaccessible in all that madness, so I yell at Yoyo to try and force the guy's mouth open. Which he does, with that huge knife of his, using it as a wedge between the guy's clenched teeth. Doesn't work, so then he smacks him hard in the mouth with the top of the hilt and there's this explosion of blood and stuff, absolutely disgusting. Yoyo is yelling to put the jar in the guy's gullet and I sort of just aim for the general location and hold it there for a few seconds. Forgot to say that the liquid is a bit stingy, so the guy howls some more and tries to flatten Yoyo against a wall, but he's hanging on. Xenu is now getting up and very angry. He puts his head between his shoulders like a boxer you know, and lets loose this awful punch, right into the guy's solar plexus. The guy makes a kind of 'meep' sound real quietly and that was it. Since the boys are professionals, they pull his tongue forward and put him on his side, then Yoyo sits on him and asks for a beer. No beer, no nothing in the fridge, but a woman hiding in the bathroom. We can't get a word out of her (drunk), so Yoyo decides better safe than sorry and hands her a half glass of booze left in the kitchen; with a good gulp of the joose jar in it, of course. They're not sure whether to take him in, as a) he weighs a ton; b) he's not really sick or hurt. Well, now he is, but that's from us."

"We just got out of there and Xenu told the centre everything was okay, though I hope they didn't catch the sound of Yoyo doing the balloon siren again. I was bruised for days afterwards, I can tell you that. When I got home I noticed in the hall mirror I still had that paper napkin nurse's thing stuck in my hair and the collar of my coat was gone. The guy must have ripped it off. Anyway, I took some more joose and went to bed for a day or two."

This is aspiring paparazza Zina's third night with the ambulance crew. To those who PM'ed me re. reproduction elsewhere: no, sorry. The material is her IP and she only agreed to have it shown here, in TCC specifically. As for getting her an acount, as someone suggested, she has no time for that, and her English is weak. She visits now and then; I'll show her the thread.

italics are mine:

"You remember my Dad? He and *** were passing through on their way to Hong Kong and he was going on as usual about his imaginary diseases. At some point *** said that the next time he woke her because of his phantom asthma she'd just call an ambulance, and I went 'NOOO', haha."

"I felt absolutely wrecked after that night, you know. I slept for almost 30 hours and woke up dehydrated and totally limp, and bruised all over. Mrs *** had come in and cleaned up, though I don't remember anything. Next time I'd better leave a note in case she calls an ambulance! Sorry, haha. Anyway, the next night (about a week later, I think) we met someone you know. He was in that band that did Towers Of London, the blond guy with the glasses."

Andy Partridge...???

"I think so, it sounds like it. That night was terrible, btw. I was so out of it at some point I wanted to sit on top of the van and let the wind keep me awake. The only reason why I didn't was because Xenu had welded the megaphone to the roof at Yoyo's request (orders) and I really had enough of that damn thing. Yoyo had put the microphone on a longer cable and stuck to the speaker of his ghettoblaster, and he had a whole bag of tapes with sound effects and crazy stuff from old records. You know, that 'HELLOOOOOO BAAABYYY' thing that discjockeys do."

Listen, are you sure it was him, seriously? As far as I know, he doesn't travel if he can help it, and wtf would he be doing over there? When was this again? And was he alone?

"Umm, well, I think so. English, getting a bit pudgy, balding, round glasses? And he had that 'browrowr' accent (Wiltshire). The centre called it in, said it was a foreigner, a popstar or something, and we should ask for cash at the hotel reception. Pretty sure that was the name on his papers too. Oh, but he was listed at the hotel as Sir John, single room, full board. Had guitars in his room and all, so you decide. I told you this was the mid-nineties."

Jesus Christ. OK, so what did you do to him?

"Hang on, I'll start at the beginning or I get mixed up again. Okay, so we had nice weather and I felt really up for a night with the crazies. I'd had the rest of the joose Yoyo gave me. Dosed in syringes with diet coke stuck in pink bubblegum. Xenu was going to pick me up. I gave him the address after I was hit last time, in case they needed to dump me in a hurry."

"So around the corner comes the van, completely sandblasted, megaphone welded to the roof, and of course screeching in 2nd gear. They're both there already, so I climb over Yoyo and almost put my foot in a big open bucket of red paint. Yoyo said they were going to give the van a make-over to make it look more official, cause they'd had trouble with the cops a few nights before. I still don't know what the arrangement was, but officially they were sort of auxiliary orderlies without the statutes of municipality-based personnel, I think they said."

"They'd been on shift for hours already, cause the early night crew had had an accident (I wondered whether they were all like my boys, but never had a chance to find out), they'd been run over by a bus hauling tourists from Denmark. Mood was great though. They wanted to stop for snacks before we radioed in, so we went to the opposite corner of the park from the first night where they had stands with stuff, mostly horrible oily junkfood and mystery meatballs."

"I'm sort of ashamed to admit this, but I immediately thought of fucking up some customers at the stands, with surprise medication I mean. Oh, I asked Yoyo if he knew what had happened at the bar from last time, and he said they'd been back the next night and it was totally empty, but the floor was like the mother of all cocktails, covered in liquids. He actually didn't remember his thing with the vodka bottles, but I think he was well pleased when I told him. I'd hoped for something a bit more sensational, like people running around flapping their arms and all that, but I did wonder what had happened to them and hoped they were all right."

"One of the stands was doing imitations of the stuff you find in Germany, in snackbars I mean. Curry sausages and meatblobs on sticks, all dripping in sauce, yuck. So Yoyo goes over and orders like 20 pieces of curryblob with extra gristle and this guy (the vendor) doesn't like it of course. He asks 'take out?' and Yoyo says something like 'no, we'll throw it away right here chief'. Guy even less amused, but Xenu tells him to keep his pants one or we'll call food inspection. Anyway, Yoyo gets his load of greasemeat and while the guy is ranting about the quality of his wares, he (Yoyo) dumps the sausages straight back into the deepfrier behind the counter, but with a squirt of coke & joose in each. I was laughing my head off."

"We actually got some food from one of the other stands that did sandwiches and soup, and I think that was a good idea, given the amount of drugs we'd be ingesting later on. There was no booze in the van this time, but Yoyo had a huge plastic Nescafe jar with everything from benzedrine to methaqualone(?) and Xenu had refilled the joose jar, which was now stuck into a gap in the dashboard. I remember it looked positively vile after it had gone into that madman's mouth last time I was with them. Xenu said they'd dumped the rest in the coffee cistern at the railroad cafeteria. I tell you, better not eat out here! There was also some morphine, though they were supposed to sign for that, so it was off-limits for now. Pity."

"First call was a cardiac arrest not far away, so we took it (we shared night duty with a crew from another district, cause there was a football match on, and you know you're in for a double load when that happens). Intervention was uneventful, so I won't get into that. Except of course the usual fridge pilfering. Xenu scored a big Tupperware thing with macaroni, which we forgot about till I discovered it on our next night together, moulding away under the steering column, all green and with wiggly bits in, yuck. The cardiac was a clown from one of the local circuses (they have lots here), which inspired Yoyo to give the van an extra touch, but I'll tell you about that later. I don't think they did stuff to him, just kept him alive."

"Next call we got when we were still at the centre, and this one was the one with the singer. Now, the moment the boys heard 'English', 'popsinger', they went ape. Yoyo insisted on going by his flat to pick up a copy of Neil Diamond's Hot August Night (please look at the cover), and Xenu had heard this Michael Jackson joke he tried to share with anyone with a few words of English (the punchline required it), so a real Englishman was going to assure plenty of laughs by his logic. I'm not sure Xenu actually got the joke himself, but knowing it was a joke was enough for him. Also, his English was limited to the names of cars, junkfood, and about a dozen words of idiom."

"The story was that the singer in question had been bothering fellow guests at the ***, which incidentally provided the centre with lots of business. I'll tell you later (next time we were out). He'd oiled himself up in some kind of animal fat and was 'inspecting' every room on the floor to check for people wearing toupets, wigs, or any kind of fake hair, bellowing like a sea elephant. I couldn't wait to get there, but Yoyo was serious about taking Neil along and made us wait around the corner from where his flat was (didn't want me to know the address). He comes back with 2 copies of a bootleg (those white cover ones) of Hot August Night and a kitbag full of stuff. We all take some joose & diet coke to brace for the encounter with international fame and Xenu actually uses 3rd gear for a change. The megaphone is operational and Yoyo is screaming 'YOU GOT THE WAY TO MOVE ME' along with Cherry, Cherry. I must say that I dearly loved those guys that night. Hadn't had that much fun since I was small and expectations and standards were so much lower. Xenu had cleaned the seat for me."

"Okay, down at reception they told us they had only a skeleton crew for that night, cause everybody was out at the game, and could we please just go up there and sort things out asap. No lift, so Xenu starts cursing up the stairs, Yoyo is up 2 floors already, and I gather the info I just gave you (about who it was), cause I was pretty curious muself. When I caught up with them Xenu was trying to hold a smallish guy who was slipping through any grip Xenu was trying on him, so the fat thing seemed true. Basically, you don't really question that sort of thing after a few hours on the nightshift anyway. Xenu was panting like mad, cause he was trying to get his joke out at the same time. Btw, it went something like Michael Jackson is on a plane and it's about to crash and there's only so many parachutes, so when the steward offers him one he asks 'what about the children?' and the steward says 'fuck the children' and Michael goes 'is there time?'; anyway, Xenu only got to mentioning Michael Jackson once before the guy went ab-so-lu-te-ly kerrrazeee. To be fair, I'd feel the same way, haha."

"He actually shakes off Xenu and flees to his room, doing the barking seal thing and leaving big sticky footprints on the faded red carpet. I thought of the Cannes premiere of Tarzan. Yoyo is in another room, apparently distracted by a couple who are visibly panicked by the situation, and he's tellling them he has something for them if they only shut up for a sec. Joose jar, washstand glass, ginger ale from the mini-bar, 2 more happy customers. He's actually furious with Xenu for getting to the star first and making him mad with his stupid Michael Jackson joke, so he breaks out the heavy artillery that is Neil Diamond's Hot August Night. Of course he's got it on tape too, but thank God the megaphone is stuck on the van now. He starts pummelling the guy's door with his blaster on full volume and a rather scary look in his eyes. Like a Jehova's witness, you know. Zealous. The guy is roaring at him from behind the door just about as loud, though. I wish I had better English, cause I'm not sure what he said most of the time, even when he wasn't screaming. Anyway, Xenu's going to kick in the door, so we back up and he dislodges a few layers of plywood before the lock comes off."

"Xenu's struggling with the guy again, with Yoyo circling them both, waiting for an in. It's just that instead of a syringe, jar, or knife he's brandishing his damn Neil Diamond bootlegs. I risk his wrath and turn off the tape player hanging from his belt, cause the noise is just crazy and who knows, someone may call the cops. All the time I was with them I had this idea it might be a very bad idea to run into cops, certified first-aiders or not."

"The next bit is like a cartoon in my mind, maybe because the joose was really working with the blood pumping overtime, I could see it in the others too. Yoyo had his eyes so wide open I think he'd lose them; whereas Xenu seemed to be on autopilot. He (Xenu) had torn down the curtain cords and was trying to tie the guy's left arm to his left leg and vice versa for the other side. When he was done we had a greased up frog with glasses sitting on the bed (his arms were pulled back by an umbrella that Yoyo had slipped between his elbows and his back). I thought the tasseled ends of the curtain ropes looked nice, so remembering my nurse's bonnet from last time I made a fez from a lampshade and elastic I removed from the hem of my parka, and put it on the guy's head. Yoyo liked this very much and suggested we give him a big droopy moustache too, and that we might break his glasses in half to make it a monocle."

"I voted against the latter, but agreed on the moustache, so Xenu is sent to look in the other rooms for something to make one. It did occur to me that we were now on a postiche hunt ourselves and I hoped the lard rubbing wouldn't follow as a consequence, you never know. The guy starts shouting about which rooms have people in them whom he suspects may be wearing wigs or stuff, at least that's what I understand. I'm supposed to translate for the boys anyway, but I'm feeling less than adequate. Then Xenu returns with an old man in pyjamas and a full head of hair and an impressive moustache, a bit like you know who (she means Stalin). He props him up in front of our talking frog and starts lecturing about certain people who are not being nice would have to explain themselves to the Little Father here, and never mind he's in pyjamas, he's got all night. The popstar only has eyes for the guy's moustache."

"Yoyo is following this and tells Xenu to hold tight, then puts a strip of duct tape on the moustache and cuts it off with a few slashes from his Rambo knife. The old man is petrified, but accepts a glass of vodka filled to the brim I scrounge from the room next door. We now have a full moustache sitting on duct tape and are thinking of a way to put it on the popstar intact. Xenu's brain fires an extra cycle and he goes down to the lorry for some heavy duty epoxy stuff he's got in his toolbox. While we're waiting for him Yoyo leads the old man back to his room and locks the door from outside. I try to find the star's papers, but he only has a customs chit about a visa and stuff; maybe his passport's in the hotel safe. I ask him his name, but for the moment he seems to be in a low dip - we later find out he cycles through 3 modes: insane, interesting, and inanimate. When Xenu slabs the epoxy on his upper lip he's actually helpful and muttering things like your Queen talks, you know? Like your chin's in your neck, 'dah dah dah'. We pass around Yoyo's Nescafe tin and pick out pills like Smarties, with Xenu complaining about Yoyo taking all the yellow ones. I stick to speed and joose, which is a good way to obliterate inhibitions, I tell you. Leaves an awful taste though."

"After a minute or so the moustache goes on and wow does this stuff stick to human skin. The only trick now is to get the duct tape off without destroying our work. The guy's still docile and saying 'warm water', so Xenu runs some of the tea in his thermos behind the tape. A bit too hot, it appears, cause now the star is thrashing again. Froggy style. Yoyo's had enough and rips the tape off the guy's face and hurray we have a big bushy moustache under a winered fez with a tassel from the curtain cord stuck on top. Yoyo suggests we put some clothes on the guy but doesn't want to untie him, so they put him in several sets of baggy pyjama pants also from the next room, and then a woollen jumper or two. The effect is now one of a guy with only 2 limbs; the pyjama bottoms are hoisted over his shoulders and the jumpers' sleeves hold both his arms and legs. Xenu puts him under his left arm and thunders down the stairs while Yoyo and I shovel everything that looks like personal belongings into a big briefcase. We'd later find 2 toupets in there, by the way. Didn't fit our star though."

"There's a brief altercation downstairs between an assistant manager and Yoyo, but to my surprise Neil Diamond bootlegs have use as bribe currency, cause the guy accepts one and turns away. To Yoyo this seems perfectly natural, btw. Anyway, Xenu chucks the frog prince in the back of the van and we get out of there. Off to a quiet place to get our breath back, and for a chance to find some valid papers (read: cash) among all the junk in the briefcase."

"Back at the park, and Xenu is feeding our guest, he seems to really like the guy. Yoyo is chomping at the bit to lay some Neil on him, but Xenu keeps him at bay with the soldering spraycan he's using to heat the soup turreen, which is now in the back, tied to a spare tyre."

Sorry, did you know it was Partidge at this time? The barking like a seal bit sounds like him all right, but you couldn't know that, right?

"Oh no, I only knew he was checked in as Sir John something, and since we don't have the habit of putting Mr and Mrs in front of people's names so much, and the difference between Sir and Mr was a bit hazy for me then, I just took it for Mr John. I heard the other name, Partridge, at the centre, later ('PADDREECHZ'). Someone had called the police, who called the hotel, who called the centre. Anyway, you'll see. For the moment we were just happy to have him. He seemed like a good sport when he wasn't shouting or rolling his eyes back into their sockets, and I helped Xenu explain to him that we were going to paint the van now. He agreed."

"So we got out the red paint and a stepladder from the back, then realised there was no brush. Xenu was on a roll tonight and came up with the idea of using the toupets we'd found in the briefcase. We asked the guy if that was okay with him, and he didn't seem to mind, so we cut them up and tied them to a jack handle, a plastic stop sign and Yoyo's big knife. Xenu and I were working on one side each and Yoyo was doing the back. My side looked pretty good to me, though I broke the stop sign. Turns out Yoyo did this huge clownface on the doors. It looked really nice too, with a huge red mouth and rings around the eyesockets, and he'd scraped away all the paint from where the eyes where, so they glimmered in the light. My idea to glue the wigs on to make clownhair, you know with 2 bulbs on the sides. Looked great!"

"Our star liked it too, and we sat on a low wall admiring the work. Then Yoyo ran to the cab and came back with lots of mayonnaise he'd swiped from the foodstand earlier, miced it in with the remaining paint and got it to turn a sick yellow, enough to paint horrible teeth with, so he did that and gave the clown some nice fangs to top things off. Now this clashed apparently with our patient's good taste, cause he started roaring incomprehensibly again."

"Xenu thought maybe he was afraid of clowns, but Yoyo said that clowns are for fun and how could you be afraid of something funny, and 'DON'T TOUCH THOSE TEETH OR I'LL PISS IN YOUR SOUP', which settled it. Yoyo got in the back with the guy and we were ready to drive back to the centre, but then things got a bit funny. I could see Yoyo holding his Neil Diamond bootleg in front of the 'patient' (we hadn't really treated him - yet) and gesticulating with his right hand as if playing a guitar. It looked like a scene from a Bogart movie gone wrong, because of the fez and moustache on a tied up prisoner, with Yoyo as Peter Lorre getting the truth out of his victim by threatening to play Hot August Night again; torture, as it were."

"Anyway, Xenu was trying to see what Yoyo was doing as well, and as we went round the next corner he barreled straight into a mini-bus. Which was packed with hooligans - the football game, you know. Now these people were very, very drunk, and this plus their reputation in general should have put us in the clear with any cops that might appear soon, if it weren't for the fact that we were transporting a bound Levantine mutant frog in a van with a giant clownface on the back. I suppose being loaded on and with all kinds of drugs was a minus too."

"The others must have realised this even quicker than I did, cause Yoyo comes storming out the back dual-wielding a jack handle and a tyre iron, while Xenu is hitting and stomping on the hooligans as they fall out of the minibus. I decide to go sit with the patient in case a stray thug finds him, but not before I hit play on Yoyo's ghettoblaster. I was (joose) thinking that Neil Diamond from a megaphone would at least puzzle the rowdies long enough for the boys to get some hits in. In fact, I saw Xenu hammer a skinhead as 'Holly Holy' started."

"In the back the patient was making faces with his moustache and blubbering 'quite' 'indeed' 'rather' 'oh dear' with a snort in between each words, like an old train gaining speed, you know. He also stank really bad from whatever it was he'd slathered all over himself, despite the layers of clothes. I suddenly felt deeply sorry for him and wanted to make him comfortable, so I shared 2 coke & joose and a handful of bennies with him and put a tangerine in his mouth. I think I forgot to peel it, though. Then the whole van was rocking, cause the fight had gone out of hand and the hooligans had Xenu and Yoyo pinned to the right side."

"For some reason this made me very mad. You know I hate sports, and people who get worked up over sports even more, and especially the loud and violent kind. So in fact here's a chance to let off some steam, thanks to the drugs and the boys' moral support. I got the welding can and lit it to a big blue flame and jumped outside, I felt like Mel Gibson, haha. Oh man, how nylon, polyester, dralon, and all that stuff lights up easily. I got 3 or 4 of them just swooping past with the can, but then Yoyo took it away from me before I got him by mistake, and he was partly sticking to the fresh paint, so he couldn't get away. Xenu was delighted."

"Yoyo got the worst of the thugs, a Russian skinhead, by his ankles and dragged him to the back of the van, while Xenu went stomping on the guys who were rolling on the ground to put out the fire. The minibus was totalled by the looks of it, but apart from a big dent the lorry was okay. I pulled Xenu back, cause I wanted to get out of there, and Yoyo was yelling to get a move on from the back of the van. So we got the hell out, in 3rd gear again, even."

"Now, I don't know if I should elaborate on the next bit, but Yoyo had the skinhead in the back with him and was giving him a hard time, so to say. I was going to make Xenu stop the van and do something about it, but then the doors flew open and Yoyo kicked the thug out. I reckon from the outside it must have looked like Bozo the clown coughing up a meatball."

"We drove to the park to inspect the damage before going to the centre. Xenu looked okay, but Yoyo had so much blood over him that his hair stood up; it was caked in it. No water nearby except for a small fountain/birdbath sitting on top of a 3m high column, so Xenu says he'll hold the stepladder and Yoyo should climb up and try to put his face in the birdbath. Yoyo won't hear of it though. Instead, he says we're going to shove the stepladder up the inside of the patient's jumpers from the back and he will catch water in the empty paint bucket, which of course still has some in it, but hey. I have no idea how the guy's supposed to catch the water with his arms and legs tied, but Yoyo's already busy with the ladder. Next thing I know, Xenu has a popsinger on a stick, and starts raising him to the fountain. Another car appears though, and Xenu puts the guy back in the van, ladder still attached, while Yoyo will do the talking, if necessary. I get in the back with the guy and tell him to keep still."

"Uh oh, it's the police. Yoyo is emcee'ing, trying to appear jovial, offering cigarettes, etc. Just a pity he looks as if he just stuck his head into a fresh carcass. Xenu is looking up at the sky, going 'hem' and 'haw', and I really fear this means trouble. I hear the cops asking what's in the back, so I nudge the doors open to the maximum, hoping they won't see the clown's face that way, and try to tidy up things as best as I can. When they get there, I make as if I'm taking the patient's pulse and try to look busy. Obvious questions: 'who are you?' - 'nurse', 'who's he?' - 'patient', 'why's he stuck to the ladder?' - 'slipped disc'."

"Then Yoyo pulls out a small flat bottle of Black & White whisky; the sneak had had it in his utility vest underneath the sports jacket. The cops smile, Xenu goes for the plastic cups we had our soup in, and everybody's beaming. 'So who's the guy then?' says boss cop after his 2nd cup. Yoyo hadn't eaten much and was full of joose, so the whisky had hit him hard, I guess. He comes over to me, puts his arm around the patient's shoulder, props him up as far as he can to face the cops, and says 'my friends, this... is... NEIL DIAMOND!' I completely lost it there, couldn't stop laughing, and the cops thought it was super funny, although they clearly had no idea of who Neil Diamond was. Xenu looked a bit hurt (maybe he had another identity in mind for our patient), but we were so tight suddenly, it was all okay. Saved by a piddling amount of whisky, by local standards that is. The cops asked if we had any goodies with us, and Xenu offered them the morphine, but they went with some benzedrine and 2 syringes of joose & coke. Decent guys, really. Didn't bother us any longer, even when the popstar on a stick asked to see the Tsar immediately. Boss cop said the Tsar had left the building, in English! Anyway, we gave them some more pills and got ready to zoom off again."

"Back at the centre we had some problems with papers (read: no cash on the patient) until they got the message from the cops. Xenu put the popstar on one of the big radiators and we split. I later learned two more things: 1. he'd made a big pool of animal fat under the radiator while waiting for an English speaker to process him; 2. he was initially checked in as Sir Neil Diamond (Yoyo's work). We left the fez and moustache on, now that I think of it."

Fourth and last night of girl with joosed up nightshift ambulance crew. I forgot to post it yesterday. Thanks for IMs. Sorry if it's getting on anyone's nerves though.

italics are mine:

"Oh God, I'm so embarrassed now when I think of what we did to that singer, but like I said, that stuff (joose) switches off all judgment and reason after a while. If you still want to try it for yourself, make sure you lock away everything you wouldn't trust a small child or a pet with. I'm horrified at the idea of someone sitting at a nuclear missile console and taking this stuff. But then there's always been alcohol and we're still alive."

Hey, what about the half-life - is it really that long? One guy said 40-60 hours.

"What do you mean? It lasts long, yes. The problem is that you forget how much you took already, so you can have it trailing behind you for more than a week. I probably didn't leave enough time between that last night and the next, because I was roaring to go and actually hoping for more craziness. I think Yoyo was like that too. Anyway, that was the last time for me; went a bit overboard, so please don't mention any particulars when you type it, okay?"

Yeah, sure.

"No, I mean it. Remember ***! (a barman who was always bragging about things he did when he was younger - one night a cop hears something, verifies old records, bags the guy)."

It didn't stick, and the cop was a cunt who owed the bar 1000s. Anyway, get on with it.

"Okay. So after staying at ***'s for a few days I went home and started putting everything on paper. I know there was more than what I told you, but I threw away the notes after the final night and can't remember it all. I got hold of Xenu shortly after that and we picked a date."

"Unfortunately, there'd been some rearranging at the centre, or a fuck-up, I don't know, and when I met them at the park this time they said they weren't working tonight but were willing to go out and have fun if that was okay with me. I thought that was very nice actually, so we decided to hit the bad neighborhood after 2am when it was basically a no-go zone. Yoyo had a fuckload of pills with him in a plastic bag, it looked like liquorice all sorts from a distance. Uppers, downers, happy pills, and what have you. Also what he said was joke medecine, meaning laxatives and emetics. A case of pear vodka in the back, the joose jar stuck in the dashboard, and crushed mushrooms in an old sock that Xenu kept on a chain around his neck. To stir up courage before I decided what to start with I had some joose, cause frankly the idea of tearing through any combination of that Christmas mix frightened me."

"While we were waiting for the joose to kick in Yoyo showed me the clown on the back, which they had touched up and embellished with spraypaint and blobs of silicone window stuff to make a kind of bas-relief. It now had a funny hat with a 'Dr Yodelpants' badge, much bigger teeth (real white now), crossed eyes, and a necklace made of yellow balloons. Xenu had signed his name at the bottom; he was pretty proud of the thing, though Yoyo had done all the work."

"We were taking a bit of this and that and getting really loose and chummy from I think some Xanax and more joose topped with bennies and heavy sugar tea, but I made sure I kept my eyes on Yoyo who'd been thinking out loud about the ways he could use the 'joke medecine' on people who 'deserved a lesson' - in his eyes that means humankind in general. I've always been afraid of being slipped something nasty and he (Yoyo) had sent a whole bar into orbit after all. Oh, and Xenu had brought icecream and bananas and whipped cream in cans, yum yum."

"Anyway, we were stiff and steaming from all the stuff we were taking and were looking at our options to fuck with Yoyo's 'dregs of society'; some of the things I remember we considered:
- find a rapist, make him drink a bottle of vodka, glue all his orifices shut (me)
- round up youth gang members, lock them in a cellar, pump sewage in (Yoyo)
- go to the vivisection lab, free the animals, castrate the lab workers (Xenu)
All of that idiocy seemed way too much work though, so we decided just to drive over and go with the flow, see what happens. The only thing we had to watch out for was the firebrigade and the first aid crew on duty, nobody else goes there apart from emergency services."

"Yoyo went into this thing about all the alternatives to joose up people. Remember this was the cheapest stuff ever and actually not dangerous as long as you kept people away from sharp bits and fire sources. He had his bag with the needles and rubber hose and a waterpistol (looked like a real one, like the pointy one in war movies (Luger, probably). They'd mixed it with something more sticky this time, it was like runny glue or very light honey."

"We had some bananas left, so I showed them that trick how you can slice it up with a needle without peeling it, which gave Yoyo the idea to just pump them full of joose and keep them as special treats for the unruly. Of course, later Xenu forgot and had one, haha. We also went back to the food stands to get a bag of dumplings and Yoyo put something in those too. No idea what though. Oh, the van was making a lot of noise, maybe because of the accident last time, but the dent in front had been hammered out. And Xenu'd taken the megaphone off the roof after they nearly lost it coming out of a closed parking. Yoyo'd kept the long curly wire but sheared off part of the horn so now it sounded really metallic. He had his tapes, of course. Neil Diamond, The Bellamy Brothers, Baccarat (spanish duo, really awful), and lots of old stuff like that. And the sound effect tape with the discjockey stuff. 'HELLOOO BABY!!!'."

"So we cross the railroad tracks, which is sort of the demarcation line between the good citizens and the inkultniks and the van blows a tyre cause of a big spike sticking out of the road. Planted of course. Just to give you an idea: in that neighborhood throwing stuff on people from the 2nd floor and up is just sports. The month before, a fireman was hit by a rotten ham someone chucked out of a 5th floor window. And a district official on a forced goodwill tour (btw, thanks for democracy, world) had his cars set on fire before getting shitbombed by a gang of 9yr olds. Yoyo had over 30 big ugly scars on his arms from blocking broken bottle attacks by patients' drunken family members and friends. Really nice lot, see?"

Yes, charming. You get that everywhere though. I hear even the US has places like that.

"Maybe, but at least there you can hope some day someone will do something about it. In the ex-SSRs, at least at that time, there was no money, no control, no direction, no hope, etc. It's much better now, of course, but back then people were used to chaos and hadn't any experience taking intiative yet. Ukraine is pretty nice now, and I'm glad I went back."

"Okay, to the mayhem now. Xenu and I were putting on a spare wheel while Yoyo was circling the van cursing into his robophone. Took 5 minutes before the first people appeared, most of them gang kids. Yoyo's small but he looks damned scary, especially when he's got his eyes wide open from drugs and stuff. So they stayed out of reach for the moment. Yoyo was baiting them with the bag of dumplings, saying the city was handing out bonus food for the homeless, but that they could have some if they wanted. Like I said I didn't know what he'd put into those things, but Jesus you should have seen this. The first few kids (they were in their mid-teens, not much younger than me in fact) had eaten their dumplings about 5 minutes before the others dared to have some - they were basically waiting for the others to roll over or smile - but then one of the early birds started wailing 'gotta puke gotta puke' and his trousers basically exploded. They all wear knock-off brand tracksuits and this year pastels were the thing, so you could literally see the fabric soaking up whatever it was that he was ejecting."

"You know in Tintin when the 2 detectives grow beards and blow colour bubbles? I thought of that when I saw this. Yoyo was going 'WHOA' 'WHOA' and trying to aim one victim at another!"

"Yes you can laugh, but this was eerie you know. I mean, it had been clear from the start that Yoyo wasn't exactly sane, social, or subtle, but come on. On the other hand, I knew these kids on average had at least one rape and perhaps worse under their belts, and that sort of put things in perspective after a while. Maybe I hadn't had enough joose yet, cause the stuff we did later was much worse, although it all seemed perfectly okay to me then."

Did you at least try and give the man a decent game of bodyfluid ball?

"...no - I wanted that wheel changed and get the hell out. You know I hate that kind of thing! We left them (the kids) at the crossing, but Xenu suggested we radio the crew on duty to warn them. Yoyo said that would probably put an end to our night out, so we voted against it. We were hitting the vodka (pear vodka really is nice) Yoyo went ape with his megaphone; 'HELLLOOOOOO BABY', 'IT'S RADIOOO LONNNDONNN', 'OOOOOOOOOH I LIIIKE THAT', like a kid."

"So we're still discussing those kids and how there's more youth gangs everyday and they're all crazy from sniffing glue and stuff, when Yoyo says he knows where a bunch of them hang out not far from here. Xenu said something like 'cool, let's go fuck them up' and how he was ready to run a few of those gluesniffers through the wringer, cause he'd seen them torture dogs not far from where he lived, but never managed to get close enough to catch them. Fine with me, cause I hate cruelty to animals too. I think Xenu was even crying a bit, but then again he was on his 2nd bottle of vodka. I tried to sing the 'International' cause I didn't know any battle songs and Yoyo gave me a very nasty look, so I switched to Lollipop. You know that weird old song that goes Lollipop Lollipop La-la-la-Lollipop Lollipop POP badeng deng deng. He liked that and did loud burps through the robophone when it comes to the POP bit."

"Xenu misunderstands Yoyo's directions and turns left under the *** so he nearly ploughs into a whole gaggle of them (kids). We hit the brakes just when Yoyo farted really loud into the microphone when I did another La-la-la-Lollipop Lollipop - 'BOOORP'. The kids got hostile immediately, kicking the van and trying to get on the roof, and they had chains and knives and sticks with barbed wire around the tip. I was flying by that time and went on with the Lollipop Lollipop. Yoyo jumped out, still trying to make appropriate noises in rhythm with the 'POP', and he did manage timed hits on skulls with the big torch. Music While You Work!"

"For some reason all the kids went for Xenu. He told me afterwards that he gets this all the time in bars. Little guys full of booze taunting and provoking him to impress their friends, I mean. He had at least 4 or 5 of them all over him so I didn't know what to do. Yoyo was off on the other side of the lorry now and I couldn't see how many he was up against. Anyway, first thing to do was drag the microphone (wasn't going to touch it after what he did earlier) over to the ghettoblaster and press play. I expected Neil Diamond but it was the 70's mixtape: 'YES SIR I CAN BOOGIE - BOOGIE WOOGIE - ALL NIGHT LONG'. I thought of taking a bunch of syringes, but I'd never injected anyone before so I took a fork from Xenu's foodbox and started sticking it into the kids hanging from his (Xenu's) back. Others jumped me from the back and it got a little hairy cause these kids were crazy to begin with, but now also angry as hell. You know I'm not exactly the muscular type so I didn't have a chance."

You should have stayed in the cab and provide the soundtrack.

"Yes, but this joose makes you want to do things. I wasn't even scared or angry or whatever. I just wanted a piece of the action, haha. Anyway, Xenu let himself fall on his back and that got rid of his kids. He grabbed the one who was going to punch me in the face and broke both his arms, horrible dull crack. The ones holding my legs tried to get away, but he stomped on the closest one and Yoyo came around the back of the van just in time to hit the fleeing one in the face with his elbow. Tata, cavalry over the hill. The one Xenu stomped clearly had other things in mind when he was over my legs, so Xenu held him for me while I gave him the fork. Honestly, there's a thrill in fighting when it's serious like that. I have never ridiculed men for watching that sort of thing since - you know, like Rambo - that's for sure."

"Yoyo on his side had dealt with 6 kids all by himself, which is pretty impressive, no? Btw, I say kids but they were all taller than me and certainly taller than Yoyo. Like I said, most of them not much younger than me and obviously with a lot of experience on the streets. Older people here keep saying that never mind the cliche of 'kids today' there is a difference between the pre- and post- 80's generations. If it's true, is that the case everywhere?"

...

"Ah well, something like that crossed my mind when were tidying up then. Yoyo adapted one of our earlier ideas and (super-)glued the knocked out and dizzied kids' faces together, cheek to cheek. Because of their shoulders being in the way, the end result looked like a flower, or some synchronised swimming exercise. Xenu remembered the tortured dogs and suggested we break their shins with the tyre iron, but Yoyo didn't want to disturb his human mandala."

"As we got out of there 3 zombie cars (scrapyard specials) loaded with more kids were approaching from the opposite direction, so Xenu steered us into the next alley to the right. Bozo on the back might have given us away if it weren't for the fact that most streetlights in that area are dead. Time for refreshments. We passed the vodka, and Yoyo let us dip into his pill bag. I got a handful of speed and a kind of Seconal clone, and Xenu just shoved a fistful of everything into his mouth. Yoyo was fishing out the yellow ones as usual. I was told to put in a buffer in case the speed would run away with me, so I did and we all had some more joose from the jar. It was easier to dose now that it wasn't as liquid as before."

"Xenu had read in a biography of Elvis (the singer) that he liked to go to funfairs at night when there was nobody else there. We thought that would be great, but how about running the machinery? Easy, find and bribe a funfair operator, haha. There was a small fairground on the other side of town; Xenu knew someone who'd manned a stand in the kids' section, where you fish for duckies with a magnet on a pole, you know, so he was going to call the fellow at home. We got out of Evilville and on the peripheral (ring road) to one of the few new petrol stations, with luxuries like a telephone, a toilet, and a small bar where they served tea and coffee and a sort of doughnut that's popular here. Xenu parked the lorry in reverse, so the patrons (long-haul truckers on uppers and hot tea spiked with brandy) had a good view of a huge and hideous clown's face creeping up on them in slow-mo. Always arrive in style!"

"Xenu started calling around for his friend while I took advantage of the loo, and Yoyo saw to it that we got fueled up. I forgot to tell you: Yoyo had painted a baroque anus and bum around the tank hole in light grey primer paint. Only visible from close by. I remembered this while I was on the loo and had a nervous giggle fit (that damn speed was very strong), which made me drop my wallet into the bowl - I'd taken it out cause the door had one of those coin locks, a real nuisance. Now I wasn't going to touch it, and I couldn't remember if there was anything important in it, so I just flushed it. Unfortunately, that clogged the plumbing and from the person in the next stall came this horrified scream when their bowl as well was coughing up a blast from the past, so to say. With the difference that they were sitting."

"Somehow you can't do anything right on joose. Yoyo was quarrelling with the pumpnik and Xenu had called the wrong friend, who was threatening him with disembowelment over lost sleep. I decided not to mentioned the mishap on the toilet and bought doughnuts with one of the notes I always keep in my socks. Oh, speaking of socks, Xenu had given Yoyo a handful of mushrooms earlier, even though he'd intended for us to wait and take some together just before dawn in a quiet place somewhere. Don't think it had kicked in yet cause Yoyo wasn't beyond his normal level of craziness. I remember I was glad when I realised Yoyo didn't drive. Anyway, Xenu actually found his man and got the name and address for one of the funfair people, so we were off to ***, which was more or less on the way to the fairground. But not before Yoyo had stepped back into the station for hearty greetings and blessings over the megaphone..."

Is that guy still alive?

"According to Xenu, he is. Apparently he's hiding out somewhere in one of the old far eastern SSRs. Something about unpaid bills, cheque fraud, and double assault on a police canine team."

Is the team OK? Probably not.

"I don't know. Haven't talked to Xenu for a while either. After I got back from Germany I saw things in general a bit differently, and didn't revisit the old places or meet old friends. I know Xenu's still a driver, though. I tried to get him a job with the newspaper but he said he'd rather stick with what he knew. 'Newspapers may fold, but there's always sick people'."

"Okay, so we arrive at the gypsy's place - many travelling circus and funfair people are gypsies, often Romanian or Albanian. When I said he was Xenu's friend I was exaggerating. Xenu seemed almost afraid of him, which is odd for a guy as big as a bear. This guy called himself *** (loosely translated as Captain Cunt), presumably in honour of his reputation with the ladies. Now this was the most disgustingly dirty, oily (both literally and figuratively), arrogant, reeking slab of ambulant blubber I have ever seen. His teeth looked like the slightest touch would make them crumble and dissolve into green foam; his hair seemed to have been used as a garage rag after 100 oil changes; his fingers had a visible crust of grime on them; his feet stank from within his shoes; his armpits must have been as ripe as 2-week old jungle meat judging by the stench; and his breath was indescribable; comparing it to the atmosphere in the mausoleum of the Limburger King would be an insult. I was prepared to see vermin crawling from his pockets, and my toes were actually curled up from apprehension. Even Charles Dickens would have passed on this specimen!"

"Yoyo was staring at the guy from a safe distance and told Xenu that under no circumstances would this thing enter the van while he (Yoyo) was in it. The guy didn't seem bothered by this at all. He and Xenu negotiated a suitable reward for Captain Cunt's services at the fairground - 6 bottles of pear vodka and 6 vials of (I think) rohypnol did the trick. At that time I didn't know about its reputation, but I feel sick just thinking of that now, aaah!"

"Anyway, the guy has his own car, a beat-up Lada with huge mirrors on the sides; probably for a caravan or animal trailer, poor beasts. We're to follow him to the fairground, and once there let him do a tour of the grounds to make sure there's no one else there. So off we go, and Yoyo just keeps staring at Xenu for actually knowing a walking rubbish tip of a human being. Can't help feeling the same, but I suppose you can't always choose your acquaintances."

Alas, no.

"Very funny. I'm serious about this man, though. If it weren't for all the clothing - another 3-layer advocate, you get that a lot here - I'm sure his odour would have caused mass nausea. Yoyo must have been thinking along those same lines, cause he flipped down the ventilation slots and insisted on closing the windows. Xenu was pretty embarrassed by the way, poor guy."

"So we get to the fairground and Captain Cunt does his thing. It's hard to see in the minimal lighting, but there's a merrygoround, a teacup ride, dodgems, etc.; basically the smaller attractions, no big rides. Not sure a roller coaster in our condition would be a good thing anyway. Yoyo heads straight for the dodgems (bumper cars), me too - always my favourite. They're far too small for Xenu to get in, so he goes scouting for leftovers by - I hope inside - the foodstalls. They're closed, but hey, we paid our booze & drugs entry fee!"

"Riding the bumper cars is really weird without the music and crowd noise. There's just this zoom and crackle from the electricity and the sound of the wheels on the floor. The crashes are more spectacular though. Yoyo has no chance, cause he's got joose and whatnot coming out of his ears. At some point he ploughs through all the unoccupied cars in the corner, shouting at imaginary drivers to get out of the way. Come to think of it, it must be the mushrooms."

"So after I almost send him flying out of his car from a brilliant sideswipe if I say so myself, he's having trouble finding the wheel and I take him back to the booth, where the Captain is going through drawers and anything that might hold a few coins. Really disgusting. I mean, we may have been a bit out of line on occasion, but we didn't steal. Well, no money. At least I don't think so. I didn't. Yoyo looks at the guy with renewed repulsion - I suppose the mushrooms were indeed working now - and pulls on a flap of his vest. I think that's where the knife is, so I pull him away to go and find Xenu. The Captain follows at a distance."

"I can't remember the details, but I had this utterly weird conversation with Yoyo while we were looking for Xenu. He was tripping hard, and I'd always heard you should be nice to people on hallucinogenics, agree with them and all. So he forbids me from 'naming things', avoiding nouns, that is. I immediately thought of the smurf comics, so I asked if smurf was okay. He asks what's a smurf, so I sort of try to explain that smurfs are little smurfs who live in a smurf in the smurf, a bit like smurfs, but smurfless and blue and with funny smurfs on their smurfs. He didn't say anything for a while, except moan a bit, so I quickly told him don't worry, smurfs aren't real. Then we find Xenu mucking about in a hamburger stand. Not real hamburgers like american hamburgers, just flattened chunks of ground pork in batter."

"He's making a meat sculpture with the hamburgers, which apparently were just lying around instead of in a fridge, eek. Yoyo's observing this and says make a smurf and put it on your smurf. I explain to Xenu what's happening and he starts holding hamburger meat against his body till Yoyo cries 'oh yeah' when the meat's on Xenu's head. So he (Xenu) kneads a big blob into a ball and punches it till it looks more or less like a flat cap and puts it on. Yoyo's delighted and starts making pictures with an invisible camera; Xenu's happy with the success."

"That's when the lights around the merrygoround come on and Captain C. starts waving at us to join him. Yoyo kind of stiffens every few yards as we approach Stinkenstein; hindsight and all, but we really should have known something was going to go wrong there. The Captain sees Xenu's meat helmet and starts making disgusting remarks. I'm not at all the feminist type, but this guy's vulgarity and total lack of taste was just repulsive. I was getting mad at the guy too; perhaps that's why I didn't see anything wrong with Yoyo's growling like an animal."

"The merrygoround had these little seats on chains that would swing outward as it picked up speed; must have been really old, cause I remember they made a fuss about a similar one in Germany, safety standards, etc. Captain Crud had climbed on after putting the machinery in motion and - I swear this is true - was creating a cloud of body odour with every revolution."

Cumulonimbus stincus...

"I'm not kidding, I had to step at least 10ft back. It got worse with the increasing speed. Xenu was actually ready to go then; said we should leave the guy on his pong mill and get the hell out - just leave the machine on, haha. We were talking about that when Yoyo went crazy."

You mean crazIER.

"No, crazy. Really off. Screaming in tongues, foaming at the mouth, eyes rolling around like pool balls. Xenu was so startled, he was looking around as if to find the thing or agent that had set him off. I ran to the nearest foodstand to get on the roof, cause an uncontrollable Yoyo was frightening. Now I didn't see exactly how it happened, cause I'd only just got on the roof - and ripped my pants on the broken glass stuck in a supporting beam - but when I looked up Yoyo was on the ground holding a piece of building iron (rebar) and the Captain was hanging from one of the chains previously attached to his seat, which was now dangling on the other chain. I suppose Yoyo had tried to land a tremendous blow on the guy, but had hit the link that held the seat. The guy was hollering like a maniac, but nobody did anything. Yoyo thrashing on the ground, with Xenu trying to approach him from a safe angle."

"Anyway, it only took 1 or 2 turns for the guy to lose his grip, of course. The thing is just that it happened the moment he went past the entrance booth and he slammed right into it. I'm probably just imagining this, but when I see it in my mind there's a sound like a giant slurping his soup. Or a ton of fish dropped from some height, comical but horrible too."

In the US they have a breakfast cereal called Captain Crunch.

"Oh this was more like a wet thud, actually just horrible, not comical. Xenu was yelling to me to get the hell off the roof and give him a hand with Yoyo, but I had to improvise a skirt with my torn jeans (hurray for cheap) first, and Yoyo was sort of slithering towards the guy."

"I got closer but stayed behind Xenu. Captain Cunt was rolled up at the foot of the booth, and had actually - again, I swear - left a trail of goo on the wall, like a slug full of cheese and blood. It was absolutely disgusting and I almost threw up. Yoyo was poking him with the iron, still blubbering nonsense; and Xenu pulled him back by the scruff of the neck."

"I couldn't see his head or his hands, he looked like leftover parts at the human body plant. I didn't know if we should call someone or just get the fuck away from this. Whichever way it would turn out in the end, the cops were inclined to shake you down and give you a hard time in general when there's any doubts about your case. But then Xenu tossed his hamburger hat on the heap of clothes and Yoyo started moaning again (maybe he thought he'd bagged a smurf), and I knew we weren't going to explain this to a pair of pissed off cops. So we took Yoyo by the arms, dragged him to the van, threw him in the back, and got the hell out. Pheeewww!"

"After we'd put a good distance between us and the fairground, Xenu wanted to look at Yoyo, so we parked on the death strip - we were back on the peripheral - cause the little window to the back was all steamed up. That idiot Yoyo was building a fire in the lorry! He somehow seemed much better though, over the hump as they say. He was speaking normal words again and I think he'd thrown up in the corner. Anyway, he was going to roast 'Wiener Wuerstchen' (Viennese sausages) he had in one of his vest pockets. Xenu had enough now, though. He emptied 2 whole bottles of antifreeze over Yoyo's head and slapped him a few times. Confiscated the sausages, naturally. Yoyo was exceptionally tame for a while after that. We took him back to the cab and I turned on his ghettoblaster, put a little Neil on his wounds."

"We felt we had to get Yoyo in better shape, so we went back to that place I told you about earlier, with the fish pond. There was nobody else around now, so we dumped Yoyo in the pond (very cold, believe me) and sort of rinsed him for a bit, like laundry, you know. Xenu had 2 of his coveralls in the back, so we put those on Yoyo and stuffed everything soft and malleable we had in, cause they were 3x Yoyo's size and we didn't want him to catch his death. We'd taken his boots off before he went in the water, so that was okay. He looked like an obese cosmonaut, or you know those fake rubber fat suits they sell for carnaval (shrovetide/mardi gras)? He had to get in the back, of course. But at least he was sober."

"Well, sort of. I was trying to signal to him that we'd go over to my place for food and making plans in case there'd be trouble cause of the funfair caper, and I thought he understood. But then he whacks out the little window with his torch and goes 'SORRY WHAAAT?' right in my ear and I nearly had a heart attack. Xenu got off the road for a moment and we took down some of those plastic reflector thingies. Damn idiot, I mean Yoyo. Anyway, we got to my place at around - I have no idea when actually, but it was still dark. Xenu hauled Yoyo up the stairs and I carried as much booze and jars and bags and stuff with me. I usually only have tea and milk at home, cause in spite of all this madness, you know I'm pretty austere."

"I tried to keep Yoyo off the booze, cause neither of us felt like having to get him out of the coverall in case he needed to pee. Just fed him his yellow mystery pills and some joose, which so far had seemed to keep his behaviour in sort of acceptable limits. Xenu drank, and I stuck with joose too. I was wired from the speed I took earlier and the panic at the fair."

"Thankfully, I didn't have much in the flat, only the bare necessities, so no danger of Yoyo wrecking the place. Or so I thought. He managed to blow out the fuses (I had candles) and when he finally had to pee anyway he got impatient with the clothing and just made a big tear in front... Luckily there was so much stuffing between the 2 coveralls that any dangly bits were covered by scarves, plastic bags, a greasy plaid, a burlap sack, lots of soft foam from an old mattress Xenu kept rolled up in the back - I hadn't noticed it before - and I think Xenu had slipped the Wiener and other more or less edible leftovers in there too, haha."

"I suggested we agree on how it happened, I mean the thing with the Captain. Closest to the truth would be simply to say the man had tried to do a stunt, the seat had come loose, and splat. Yoyo was much better now and said the best defence is to deny all knowledge and shut up. Xenu reckoned we could go back and get one of the kids we'd left under *** and blame it on him. Anyway, after some time we lost interest in the whole thing and basically decided to forget about it. Xenu said he'd drive Yoyo home, but I insisted on accompanying them, just for loyalty's sake, you know. Share the fun, share the chores. So we left, Yoyo in the back, the 70's partymix on (some of that stuff is hilarious), and everybody having joose nightcaps."

"We were about 3 blocks away from Yoyo's place when we had another blowout. I now realise why Xenu had 2 spare tyres in the back, must have happened often. So we loosen the wheel, jack the van up, pull on the wheel, and have the whole van come crashing towards us... You know the bit under the car where you place the head of the jack? It must have been rusty or something. Anyway, I froze - it all took only a few seconds, but it felt like slow motion, just like the movie cliche. Xenu slams into the lorry like a bull and Yoyo pulls me back by the hair and the van rocks, but doesn't tip. Took a while to catch my breath, I tell you."

"Yoyo says we have to put something solid under the van and put the jack against that or it may just go through again, so we break some slats off a (booze) case and hope it'll hold. Works, but then we notice the spare tyre is damaged, probably got thumped by one of the sharp ends of the wheel well. Yoyo says he knows where to find another spare, so we leave Xenu with the lorry and go back around the last corner to a big old house or several houses actually, around an inner courtyard. With a van in it, tada. We lift it and take the wheel off in no time and hurry back to Xenu, Yoyo dragging the jack and me rolling the wheel ahead of me."

"I have no idea what we got it off, but obviously not the same make as our van, cause although the holes were more or less in the right place (Xenu filed them a bit bigger), the diameter was smaller and the tyre thinner. Less wide, I mean. But, hey, it did the trick. The problem was that you couldn't leave anything in the streets, so we had to get it to safety."

"So we sort of hobble along for a few minutes - really slow now - when Xenu sees this guy in the rearview mirror, running behind us but trying to stay in the dead angle so we wouldn't notice him. 10:1 it's the owner of the van we cannibalised, so we'd better get on with it. Xenu's had enough though, and stops. Jumps out, ready to make an amicable arrangement with the guy, then gets shot - by the sound of it. Great. Yoyo looks at me, we hop out, sort of try to rush the guy each from a different side, but he's already running away. Maybe cause Xenu is still standing there with a hole in his gut, scratching his head in mild confusion."

"He got hit on the upper left side of his stomach, I'd say, but was't bleeding or anything. Just had some slimy white stuff come bubbling up, and the wound was bending outwards. I wanted to radio the centre immediately, but he didn't want to hear of it, said he'd drive there himself after dropping us off at our respective places. Yoyo seems completely drained and goes for the joose jar in the dashboard (good thing the liquid was so thick now - nothing had spilled) and we all have a few sips. Then he (Yoyo) says okay that's it for me, grabs a few bags and goes off on foot. We just watch him disappear down the street, bits of stuffing falling out of his coveralls every few yards. I try to convince Xenu to let me accompany him to the centre but no go. He'll promise me to go there straight away though, and agrees to radio for a cab - some drivers keep a receiver on our frequencey so they can get tipped off by crews and centre staff in return for a kickback on the fare. I'm worried, but he looks OK."

"Just a few minutes later the taxi arrives. Xenu hands me the joose jar and half a chicken in a plastic bag that he said was his emergency snack. I felt really sad and gave him a kiss and told him to call me from the centre as soon as they'd examined him. On the way home the taxi guy was looking at me through the rearview mirror all the time and kept asking if I was ill or something. Then he says do I want him to call somebody, like an ambulance! I was really worried for Xenu, so I get catty and go wtf did you think that was back there eh? He turns around and says in this weird hopeful voice, looking perfectly serious: 'space aliens'..."

The End?

"...The End."

How about the rest? Gunshot wounds, pulp guy, gang mandala?

"Ah, I'll tell you some other time. I feel sorta sad now, sorry."