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Gahome
By CrazyJim
I was once fortunate enough to meet a guy named Gahome. He was little taller
than the chunk of plaster missing from my wall after my last encounter with my
telephone, and seldom spoke anything more than “Kid” and “Day”.
I know if I was reading this story I’d be thinking “What the hell sort of a name
is Gahome for a dyslexic midget?” In response, I’d probably have to take you
back on a journey beginning on the day of Gahome’s birth.
You see, Gahome’s parents drank a lot. Gahome’s father was drunk when he named
Gahome. Gahome’s birth certificate was made to bear the name “Go home”. It was
later changed to Gahome after his mother realised the potential name-calling
that could result; specifically “Gonads” and subsequently “Nonads” and “Spastic
Face”.
As they do when printed on a birth certificate, the name stuck and Gahome was
known from that day forth as Gahome or Loser Face.
Despite his happy childhood, Gahome became traumatised due to an overwhelming
sadness that resulted from frequent blows to the head. You see, he fortified
himself once underneath the coffee table his father had dragged home one night
when it became attached to a powerline after it became attached to the car, and
acquired himself the Guinness World Record for the most consecutive cases of
coffee-table-induced amnesia.
This had some unexpected repercussions later in Gahome’s life, specifically
during the time I first met him. At random intervals through a conversation, he
would scream, “I don’t want to hit my head on the coffee table again!” and
continue screaming for thirteen seconds or when I hit him—whichever came first.
Apart from this amusing quirk, there was little extraordinary about Gahome. He
lived an ordinary life in a house made entirely from cereal boxes and rubber
tubing. Despite his obvious learning disorder, Gahome soon learned the value of
a door, and immediately pasted to his wall the figure ‘$53.80’.
One afternoon, while scrambling over the largest wall in his house on his way
to, what he called, his job, Gahome came across a large clump of styling gel he
stuck to his shirt some days ago in an attempt to prioritise the various scents
exerted by the shirt. This, of course, failed. Finding this gel was a stark
reminder to Gahome that in order to not break one’s neck, one should not let go
of the cardboard wall in order to grab at the clump of gel on one’s shirt.
It was this incident that saw our meeting. We were both in the ‘People who fell
off their walls’ ward, three doors apart. One morning, I awoke rather suddenly
and ran into these doors, stacked in the middle of the room while the hallway
was being redone. I was confused to hear one of them scream “I don’t want to hit
my head on the coffee table again!”
I wandered over, “Come on… it’s just some doors… stop screaming!” Nothing
helped. I waved my hand in front of his face to distract him from his shock, but
he just kept screaming. Soon I lost patience, and found my open hand quickly
closing as my arm was thrust toward his face in an action that would have looked
really cool if it was filmed and played back in slow motion.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t, and all that happened was that Gahome stopped
screaming and started gasping for air, mostly because I was holding a pillow
against his face. A nurse finally arrived and broke up the fight. I threatened
to superglue my scalp to the bed-head if she interfered, but my plan lost
substance when I went to put it into action—three skin-grafts later, my scalp
was finally back in place. In addition, I had made a friend. He may not have
been the greatest of friends, but considering my last friend was a cat that
turned up at my doorstep each night and attempted to scratch my eyes out every
time I went near it, he was as good a friend as any.
Despite Gahome’s lack of intelligence, he was generally amusing to be around.
One particular incident I recall, which was, in fact, the last I can recall, and
the last Gahome would ever experience, happened last Tuesday. We were sitting
around outside the hospital, staring blankly at the sidewalk. Occasionally,
somebody would walk past and Gahome would scream out “Nice ass!” Some turned and
smiled, until they realised he was pointing at their head. Seven of them seemed
somewhat unstable, and quickly sprinted across the road as soon as they heard
his voice. Once across the other side, three of them began performing the
Macarena. The other four supplied the music.
I found this quite amusing at the time, as did Gahome. It was normally difficult
to tell when Gahome found something amusing, but when he screamed, “My leg has
gone numb!” at the top of his voice, I could tell he was amused. This was one
such thing.
We soon became bored of watching this display, so we started heckling. Gahome
screamed, “Your socks are inverted and need to be replaced!” and I ran across
and started calling them names.
It was fortunate we were still in front of the hospital. It seemed those seven
people packed a bit more of a punch than I imagined. We were both back on the
street within hours, and set off on a spontaneous journey to find the one named
Jehome, who Gahome claimed was his long-lost twin brother.
I wasn’t sure whether to believe him at the time, but just to shut him up I went
along with it. He led me far and wide in what he entitled the ‘Aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrggggghhhhhh!!!!’
The ‘Aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrggggghhhhhh!!!!’ was very tedious. It just kept going and
going, and sometimes I just had to question whether we had been wandering around
the same block for four hours. It took me five hours to figure out that that was
the case an hour ago. I was nearly about to go right off at Gahome for this
stupid, inconclusive quest for nothing, when there came Gahome’s scream from
behind. I was pretty certain, however, that Gahome was still to my left. A quick
glance to the left confirmed that he was.
“Gahome… how did you do that?” I asked.
“Do what?” he replied. I hate when people answer questions with more questions,
so I hit him. I then proceeded to answer his question, “How did you speak from
behind me while you’re standing to my left?”
Gahome stood up quickly. I turned to face where he was looking, only to see a
fist hurtling toward my face. Gahome calling, “Jehome!” was the last thing I
heard. I soon woke up in the hospital.
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2003 JimSoft