If there was one thing I never thought I'd ever say to my wife on the cell phone it's the sentence No, my eye is fine, it was just a rouge llama. And I never thought I'd ever hear anyone ever - especially not Leighanne - say, I'm sorry the llama beat you up, sweetie.. I mean, it's just not a sentence that's on anyone's radar, but especially not mine. I could see a llama farmer maybe having to worry about those types of sentences, but me? I never thought I'd ever see a llama this close! But seeing as how I can't open my left eye because of how much it's swelled, I'm thinking anything is possible now. Except Nick giving up something once he's got it in his kung-fu grip of death.
But I mean, really, he should've just given them the damn crackers!
My name is Brian Littrell, and this is my story.
I’ve been in some sticky situations before. It kind of comes with the territory of being a pop star, I guess. I mean we’ve had stalkers, we’ve had crazy fans who went a little too over the top. I’ve been at the bottom of mobs. Hell right here in South America in 2000, we were practically killed by a throng of over 10,000 people in a very tiny street. Yet standing back-to-back with Nick… I realized that none of the crap fans have put us through ever prepared me to face a pissed off llama.
“They’re gonna kill us,” Nick whispered in a husky voice. “Kill us, and sodomize us.”
Under any other circumstance, I would’ve been impressed that Nick knew the word sodomize.
Okay, well I guess I was a little anyway, despite the angry llamas.
“Give them the crackers,” I hissed.
“My sustenance?!” Nick sounded panicked, “Brian…”
“Dude, that’s what they want – clearly… give them the crackers and we’ll make a run for it.”
I could feel Nick’s shoulder blades tighten and he shook his head, “I ain’t givin’ up the crackers, man.”
“Are you kidding me?” I asked. “Nick…”
A llama stepped forward toward me. I backed harder into Nick and he stumbled closer to his side of the ring of llamas, which made him jump back harder into me, and I almost fell down on the ground. I caught myself at the last moment, my face nearly smacking the llama in its face.
Seriously, in like a million years, I never would’ve believed I’d ever be in this position.
Ever.
“Nick,” I turned around and scrambled in front of him. The llamas were seriously getting closer. I grabbed at the bag of crackers, “Give’em the crackers,” I demanded.
“NO!” Nick’s fingers tightened around the bag. “You’ll have to pry them out of my kung-fu grip of death!” he yelled. His knuckles turned white with the ferocity of his grip.
“They’re crackers,” I exclaimed.
“And I’m starving,” he said defensively, “These bastards can eat grass, they’re not starving. They don’t need the crackers.”
“Well they sure seem to think so,” I snapped. I had one end of the bag, Nick had the other. Neither of us was about to let go. A llama was breathing down my neck by this point. “JUST GIVE THEM THE DAMN CRACKERS!” I pleaded.
“NO!” Nick cried, “I’m not rewarding them for being bastard sheep!”
“Nick! For the love of Pete, I wanna get the hell out of here! Just give’m the crackers. We’ll get you new crackers!”
“WHERE?” Nick shouted, his eyes wide, “Have you seen this place?” he cried, “It’s like the eleventh circle of hell Brian!”
“I highly doubt Dante would’ve had a circle full of llamas,” I argued, tugging the cracker bag.
“ONLY IF HE NEVER MET ONE!” Nick bellowed, “They’re vicious, evil, demonic, bitch—“ He whirled around, letting go of the bag and I fell backwards into my obscene phone call llama as he faced the llama that had just snuck up behind him and begun chewing on his pants. “GET YOUR MOUTH OFF MY ASS, SHEEP-BASTARD!” he cried in the highest-pitched voice I ever heard Nick yell in.
Ever.
Even at twelve.
I landed on my ass in the grass beside the llama, who panicked as I fell towards him, and reared, kicking his weird llama hooves just about a foot and a half off the ground. He came down, his foot landing on my shoulder, and panicked even more, his hooves catching the side of my face as he tried to turn around. “Ouch!” I yelled as it kicked me in the eye and I rolled away, covering my head and closing my eyes, as security once taught us to do if we were caught in a vicious mob of fans.
Nick was yelling loudly, swearing at his llama. The llama’s tongue was hanging out like it was a retarded dog and it leered towards him. Nick ducked around it and scooted to the right, bumping into another llama, one that looked like it was slightly less psychotic.
“NICK!” I shouted as he darted and weaved, getting further away from me.
He didn’t even pause.
He was leaving me for dead.
“NICK YOU LITTLE SHIT,” I yelled, “GET BACK HERE!”
He still didn’t pause.
I struggled to my feet, still clutching the peanut butter crackers. My face felt like I’d had a volleyball surgically added to the side of it. I ripped open the bag of crackers and the llamas all started making these funny, squealy sounds. I quickly upended the bag as they started trying to mount each other to get to the bag of peanut butter crackers that was now spilled on the ground.
Quickly, I ducked away between them, bolting for Nick.
He was in deep shit now.
I tackled him – catching him off guard and getting the advantage quickly, my weight actually toppled him to the ground when I jumped on his back. His arms flailed and he kicked his feet, shouting, “Get offa me! Get offa meee!”
Howie and AJ had paused about fifty feet ahead of us, and turned to watch. Neither made a move to help us – or to help Nick as I pegged him to the floor. “You were gonna leave me there! With the rapist llamas!”
“You weren’t gonna give me oxygen on the plane!” he yelled.
“Bastard!” I shouted, “It said not to!”
“I’M NOT AN INFANT!”
“YES YOU ARE!”
“NO… YOU ARE!”
“NO, YOU ARE!”
“YOU’RE A JERK!”
“YOU SMELL LIKE LLAMA SHIT!”
“YOU WEREN’T BEAT THE CRAP OUT OF BY AJ IN LLAMA SHIT!”
“NEITHER WERE YOU!”
“SO!?”
“YOU WEREN’T REALLY RAPED BY A LLAMA EITHER!”
“YES I WAS!”
“NO YOU WEREN’T!”
“YES!!! IT’S FACE WAS IN MY ASS!”
“DO YOU EVEN KNOW THE DEFINITION OF RAPE?!”
“THAT’S IT…. NEXT TIME WE CRASH, I AIN’T GIVEN YOU THE OXYGEN EITHER!”
“YOU ARE A BABY!”
“YOU’RE A.. A… a…” he faultered. “A BUTTMUNCH!... And plus, YOUR EYE IS BLEEDING!”
“I KNOW!”
We paused, staring at each other.
“What the fuck happened, man?” Nick asked in a slightly more normal tone.
“Well they aren’t rapists, but they do throw a mean left hook,” I explained.
Nick blinked up at me. “They punched you? They’re rapists and physically abusive?!?” He shook his head, “Shit llamas are just BAD!”
