Tom's House

I imagine most people, when faced with a stranger in their house, is likely to panic. I ain't never really had that happen to me, but there've been a couple times Douggy was in the dog house with his ol' lady and was sleepin on my couch where I heard him snorin in the middle of the night and darn near shot him. I ain't proud of it, but you get used to livin by yourself after awhile and, when you get to my age, you're likely to wake up confused every once in awhile, maybe thinkin you're back in that hotel in San Fran on that wonderful night in '69, with Becky Clodderingly still curled up next to you and a motorcycle rally goin on outside. But then, you get mighty disappointed to find out that you've really just got Albert next to ya and Douggy snorin loud enough that Helen Keller would complain in the next room. So I could understand a little panic upon discoverin there's a man in a giant spider silk suit that has suddenly appeared in the middle of your room.

But not that Tom Cruise, boy. That man is a class act all the way. He acted like he seen that sorta thing happen every day. Just sat back on his giant white couch in the shape of a snake eating a polar bear, greeted me and then asked if I preferred coffee or tea, just as casual as you like. It wasn't until after we'd had some refreshment that he asked me who I was and what I was doing in his livin room. It was downright Homeric, if you ask me.

I explained the situation to him, as best as I could without understanding the real nature of the dragon. I guess it didn't matter too much to him where the dragon came from or what kind of crazy dark magic it was a product of. The only thing he really seemed to focus on was the fact that there was angry alien ghosts attackin a bunch of people and makin em all crazy and whatnot. In fact, he got so excited about that part that he got to jumpin up and down on his couch and whoopin it up like he had ants in his pants and was pretty durned delighted about it.

He agreed to go with me back to the meth world but said he needed to get ready first. He ran around the living room grabbing things and shovin em into a satchel. I ain't sure I saw everything he was plannin on bringin with him, but I saw him grab a machine of some sort with paddles connected to it, a wad of cash and a book by some old sci-fi author. I didn't get a good look at the book, but I know it wasn't Asimov and, when it comes to sci-fi, if it ain't Asimov, I just ain't interested.

Once he had that bag packed, I thought he was right ready to go, and started to get up, but he waved me back down sayin he had "just one more small thing to do." Then he walked over to this control panel in the wall, hit a couple buttons and went out the back yard to this runnin track he had there. As I watched, it started rainin back there. At first, I was thinkin Tom Cruise was magic and had control over the elements, which wouldn't surprise me none. Ain't no one can look like him and divorce a woman as hot as Nichole Kidmann unless there's some sorta black magic involved. But, upon further inspection, it turned out that he just had some sprinklers installed on his roof that would spray water over the track while he ran around it.

I musta been standin there, just watchin him run in the rain, for about five minutes when his wife walked in.

"Is he running in the rain again?" she asked, exasperated.

"It would appear so, ma'am," I confirmed. "But I can't make hide nor hair of it. What's he doin that for."

She shrugged. "Damned if I know. But he always runs in the rain before doing something important."

She turned to go. "Ma'am," I said. "I sure did like them movies and shows you did."

"Thanks," she said.

I went on, "You ain't done that many since you been with this guy..."

"That's true," she said. "Sometimes, I wish I still did. But something's stopping me."

"Oh yeah? And what might that be?"

She shrugged again. "Dunno. Maybe it's black magic." And then she wandered into another room.

Right after that, Tom came in and toweled off. "All right," he said, vigorously drying his hair, "let's do something about this ghost dragon of yours."