When I was five years old, I was eating a Granny Smith apple in the kitchen and I stuck a slice in my mouth and bit it sideways so I had green teeth. BJ, who was a baby, though that was hilarious and tried to copy me. She swallowed the apple whole and it got lodged in her throat. I thought she was funny until she turned purple, then it got kinda scary. That's when I chose to tell my mom. My mom called the police and these firemen guys came really quick and got the apple out before BJ died, but it involved like all kinds of crazy stuff and oxygen and BJ's never liked Granny Smith apples since. After that day my mom made us all take Heimlich lessons.
I guess it was instinct that made me save the rapist-sheep.
My name is Nick Carter, and this is my story.
"Get a large cheese, with extra cheese, and ham, pineapple, and red pepper. Make sure they fry the red peppers first!" I called, standing at the foot of the tree Brian was up.
Howie was sitting on a stump next to me, and AJ was trying to swallow Advil with just his spit.
"I can't fucking believe you two," Howie grumbled, "We're lost in the middle of Peru with a crapton of llamas, you have no idea how long the reception will last, or where we are for that matter, and you're trying to order Dominos instead of calling the embassy..."
"Hey just because you aren't hungry doesn't mean everyone else isn't," I retorted, rolling my eyes.
"Hello? Dominos?" Brian asked, "Hey... I gotta question. Do you got a location in Peru?"
My eyes were pleading.
"Oh," he sounded disappointed.
"DAMMIT," I cried. I punched the tree. It shook. Brian clutched the branch. My hand hurt. "Ouch," I doubled into myself, holding my wrist, "That really hurt actually," I muttered.
Howie rolled his eyes. "You just punched a tree, what'd you think it was gonna do? Feel soft and make rainbows shoot out your ass?"
I frowned, "You're cranky."
"Ya think so?" Howie snapped.
AJ looked over, "Order water while you're getting the pizza," he demanded.
"There is no pizza," I said, "There's no locations in Peru."
"Any chance you'd deliver to a llama farm in Peru?" Brian asked. He paused, then held out the phone to look at it, "Hello?" He frowned. "They hung up."
"Shocking," muttered Howie. "Brian, just call the US Embassy. We can get food after we get rescued."
"I need water," AJ said, shaking the Advil container.
Howie groaned.
"And I need pizza!" I shouted, "Or I'ma starve to death! Like those kids in Ethiopia."
Howie poked my tummy. I instinctively laughed like the Pillsbury Dough Boy. "You're not starving to death quite yet," he said. He looked up at Brian, "They'll be able to get us out of here."
Brian stared down at his phone, "What's their number?" he asked.
Howie palm-faced.
"OH! I know, I'll call Leighanne and she can look it up."
"But you'll never hang uppppp," I whined, grabbing at Brian's foot. He kicked at me to knock me away and withdrew his foot from my reach. “I’m hungry!”
“We know, for the love of God, we know,” Howie groaned into his clasped hands, which he’d drawn over his face.
AJ was now shaking the Advil container like it was a maraca.
“I can’t help it if I’m hungry,” I cried, dancing away from Howie as he looked up and gave me the glare of death. I moved so AJ was between us, then realized being on that side of AJ left nothing between me and the llamas. I quickly did a balance in my head: pissed off Howie versus rapist sheep. Which was scarier? I moved toward Howie. “It’s been a really, really, super-dupers long day!” I whined.
“Hallo hunny!” Brian called from up in the tree. “How’re you? How’s Bay-Bay?”
Howie looked up. “Stick to the point, Littrell…”
“WATER,” AJ sang in a strange, beatnik-like voice, and returned to shaking the Advil maraca.
Howie and I both glanced at AJ.
“No seriously, I’m starving,” I complained again. My stomach felt like a void.
Howie gritted his teeth.
“Well, I’m in a tree right now,” Brian laughed suddenly. After a pause, “Yeah a real tree. In a llama farm. We kind of crashed the plane…. Yes, yes honey, yes I’m okay. I’m all right. I’ll be fine…”
“Give it time… But the ooo –ooo h- ooonlyyy … trouble isss I can’t get any foooood…” I sang, hearing Brian say the lyrics to the song. He waved his hand at me to shut me up and Howie covered his face again.
AJ shook the Advil maraca in beat with me.
“Seriously, none of us are hurt except – well a rouge llama gave me a shiner…”
“AND AJ FUCKING HAD SURGERY PERFORMED BY AN AMATURE!” AJ bellowed.
Brian waved him off too.
“Oh burrrrrrn,” I mumbled, pointing at AJ.
AJ muttered something under his breath.
Howie stood up, “Brian, God damn you, ask her for the US Embassy number. You can talk to her again while we’re waiting for them to come rescue us.”
Brian scowled down at Howie. “Honey, I’m getting yelled at by the guys. Can you get me the number to the Peruvian US Embassy?” he asked.
“Thank the Lord,” Howie muttered, tossing his hands into the air.
Brian had Leighanne text the number to him, and promised to call her back after he called the embassy. I was pacing under the tree, my stomach growling loudly. AJ had returned to shaking the Advil bottle, saying random words and clicking his fingers, sitting in a yoga-like position with crossed legs. Howie was rubbing his head. Finally, Brian’s phone vibrated and he laughed, “That always gets me,” he said flipping it opened, “It tickles.”
AJ looked up, “You know what’s really great about the phone vibe? When you have it in your pocket and it rubs up against your ---“
Howie’s head snapped up. “AJ, SERIOUSLY.”
AJ blinked, “What?”
Howie gave him The Look.
“I was gonna say hip…” AJ ended lamely.
“Why would it rubbing against your hip be great?” I asked, feeling stupid.
AJ looked at me and raised an eyebrow.
Howie smacked his forehead. “Oh holy shit, they should make pills for this.”
“Want an Advil?” AJ asked, waving the bottle at Howie.
Howie smacked his hand and the Advil bottle went flying and rolled down the hill.
An enthusiastic llama picked it up and started chewing on it.
AJ stared at it, dumbfounded.
“The llama’s gonna die if it eats that!” I cried. I paused. “EAT UP YOU BASTARD! EAT UP!”
“NICK!” Howie groaned.
“Hello, US Embassy of Peru?!?” Brian cried from the tree. All three of us were diverted from the llama and looked up at Brian. “Hi! Our plane crashed, we’re stuck in a field of llamas!”
“Brian!” I called.
“Please come rescue us!” Brian pleaded.
“Briiii-aaaaan,” I called. AJ was looking down the hill at the llama with the Advil bottle. Howie was staring up at me. “BRIANNNNNN,” I whined louder. “Brian, Brian, Brian, Brian, Brian, Brian…”
He didn’t even look down.
“Okay.. Yes, okay, I understand. Yes I can do that,” Brian was saying into the phone.
“Brrrrrrrrriiiiii-aaaaaaaaaaannnn…” I reached for his leg but he had it out of my reach still. I jumped trying to catch him.
On my way down from the jump, I stumbled and fell forward into the tree.
Now would probably be a goodtime to mention that by tree, we really mean what looked like a large stick with a branch sticking out of the ground. It wasn’t that big. Seriously it had one branch, which was what Brian was on, and it looked all dead or something. Llamas probably pissed on it so much it died.
I’d die if a llama pissed on me, too.
Anyways, I fell into the tree and it snapped.
Yeah, that’s right. It snapped.
Brian’s limbs flailed as he came down, his eyes big as those plates we talked about before, and he landed with a thump in the grass, his cell phone falling through the air. Howie’s jaw dropped in horror.
“You asshole,” Brian cried, wincing and grabbing the general area that he was referring to.
I bit my lip.
Brian grabbed at his cell phone as it landed next to him and looked, “Shit I got disconnected. There’s no reception again.” He glared at me. “Now I can’t call my wife.”
“OR FOR PIZZA!” I panicked.
Howie closed his eyes. “PLEASE tell me the embassy said they’d disbatch help before numb-nuts here broke the damn tree?”
Brian frowned, “I – I dunno. I think so.”
Howie didn’t move.
“OH JESUS,” AJ suddenly exclaimed.
All three of our heads turned to him.
“The fucking llama really is choking.” He pointed. The llama was convulsing, a lump in its throat where the Advil bottle was located.
“SAVE IT!” I commanded. The other three guys looked at me like I was nuts. “WELL, WE CAN’T JUST LET IT DIE!” I cried.
AJ looked at me, “Why the fuck not?”
“HAVE YOU NO HEART?!?!?” I cried.
“I think that fucker that ate my boot ate that, too,” AJ answered.
“I’LL SAVE YOU, RAPIST SHEEP!” I cried, running down the hill as the llama started hacking very loudly and desperately, his eyes bulging. My feet carried me as fast as I could. Part of me felt like Tweety bird or something, like my legs were doing 360* turns as I ran – even though they weren’t, but dude you know the feeling I mean right? When you run too fast down hills?
I reached the llama as it’s neck was getting wobbly. I leaped onto its back, my arms wrapped around it’s chest/neck and I squeezed, trying to give him the Heimlich. The llama bucked, rearing up and kicking its front legs in panic. “I’M TRYING TO HELP YOU, YOU DILDO!” I cried at it. I reached for the lump where the Advil was and figured there was nothing I could do to make it worse - it wasn’t like if it died it was ‘cos I killed the bastard thing, so I started pushing the lump up towards its face.
The llama’s head jerked around as I pushed, it’s tongue out and a wild look in his eyes.
“STOP MOVING BITCH!” I yelled at it as it continued bucking like it thought it was a rodeo bull.
Finally I worked the bottle up to its throat area and, in a move I’ll never understand the thought-process behind, I caught its face in my hands, yanked its mouth open, reached inside and stuck my arm down its throat, and grabbed the Advil. The llama thrashed.
I extracted my arm and the pill bottle and the llama started coughing. I jumped off him and he bolted like there was no tomorrow, his legs carrying him through the fields, the other llamas parting like the Red Sea before Moses as he ran off.
“Fucking ingratful bastard…” I muttered.
I turned to look at the fellas, and started walking up the hill towards them. They all looked thunderstruck. “What?” I asked.
“You saved a rapist sheep,” AJ muttered when I got closer.
I frowned, “Don’t remind me.”
Suddenly, the air overhead was filled with a loud humming. The llamas all looked up, as did we. A helicopter was hovering over the field. The llamas scattered, giving the helicopter wide berth.
“DUDE,” I shouted over the noise, “WE SHOULDDA GOT A HELICOPTER A LONG TIME AGO!” I pointed at the fleeing llamas.
“WE’RE RESCUED!” Brian cried, waving at the helicopter as it lowered to the ground.
“Halle-freaking-lujah,” Howie grumbled, doing the sign of the cross on his face.
A dude in a full bodysuit and a big ass gun jumped off the helicopter and ran towards us, “Brian Littrell?” he asked, looking at us.
Brian raised his palm.
“My name is Jake, and I’m –“
“A LLAMA SNIPER!” AJ cried. He pointed at the fields, “KILL’EM ALL!”
The guy blinked blankly at AJ. “I was thinking ‘here to rescue you’, actually,” Jake answered.
AJ flushed.
“DID YOU BRING PIZZA?” I cried.
Jake blinked. “Was I supposed to?”
“DAMMIT BRIAN!” I yelled.
