Buck stepped out of the marinara- and mozzarella-covered building, carrying the Delivery Boy in a mylar bag over his shoulder.
The weeping superhero was in need of a spandex change, but otherwise he was in near-mint condition.
The gravedigger tossed the Delivery Boy in the back of the van and shut the door.
Buck crossed the street, far enough away from the cellophane-covered cries of the caped crusader.
Once the crying came to a stop, Buck would take the Delivery Boy to the graveyards.
Where they’d bury his tombstone in a pit that went all the way to the other side of the world.
Where baby bots built better baby bots for the betterment of humankind.
But that was later.
Sparkman was standing in front of a boarded-up mom-and-poop shop.
A once-bustling diaper den where sitcom moms served vanilla-frosted scat to their clients one spoonful at a time.
Buck peered through a crack between the boards covering the front window.
The diaper pails were overflowing.
The walls were stained with spoiled milk.
A life-size teddy bear was bent over a pack ‘n’ play, a rattle between its cheeks and a hole in its head.
And the floor was covered in crisscrossing lines of baby powder, making the place look like a three-dimensional treasure map to severe mommy issues.
Through the glass, Buck could smell the sweat, the shit, and the vanilla frosting.
It was everywhere.
His stomach growled.
Either that or it was his tinnitus acting up again.
Buck didn’t know which.
As for the tinnitus, Buck first noticed it after busting a nasty international Hand Roll ring, one that had shut down the movie industry for nearly a year.
During that time, every film that hit the silver sphere was Star Cars.
OK. That’s not exactly correct.
Every film became Star Cars.
Could be after the opening credits.
Or midway.
Or inside of an Easter egg hidden in the bottom right corner of the sphere.
That’s where you’d find Star Cars.
You know, that kung fu, epic fantasy about farm boy-turned-vigilante drag racer Luke Shaftwalker, the wizened old mechanic/bookie Obie Wang, the prostitute with a heart of gold and fists of iron Princess Laya, the lovable six-string samurai pusherman Handy Dandy, and the corrupt vice cop Commander Dick Dickard.
It didn’t matter what movie it was.
An Old Testament rom-com.
An inspirational biopsy.
Cock.
And then, the plot would shift, not quite so subtly into George Lupus’ masterpiece.
The dashing but semi-dastardly aristocrat would stop pursuing the comely, virginal commoner and instead embark on a quest to rescue a Labrador retriever that had been nabbed by an asthmatic dogcatcher.
Or the mask-wearing, chainsaw swinging psychopath would look down at the pot-smoking prankster moments after severing one of his limbs and announce a previously unknown and unimaginable familial relationship, delivering moviegoers with an unexpected shock.
Or the vampire bride would, during a wedding-planning montage, suddenly announce that the maid of honor had a high midicalorian count.
Most viewers didn’t even recognize that anything strange had occurred when the Hand Roll began.
They rolled with it.
That is until the obligatory shot of a leading character in a sexy slave girl outfit appeared.
That’s when the riots would inevitably start.
No one likes being Hand Rolled.
Long ago, maybe.
But we’re far away from all that now.
At the height of this particular Hand Roll, the weekend death toll broke box office records and committed war crimes.
After the 18th straight week of Hand Roll riots, Buck Sparkman was called in.
On his first assignment, a bigfoot-like Yukkie boxed his ears.
On the second, Buck was hit in the nuts by a cuddly chiwong.
On the third, he got a right good spanking by the gummi hand of a Haribo raider.
On the fourth, he was punished by a probe droid until he blurted out the location of the secret Weeble base.
Each job was a failure.
And the Star Cars Hand Roll rolled on.
Before the fifth assignment arrived, Buck realized his efforts to stop the Hand Roll had been wrong.
Star Cars could not be stopped by mockery.
It could not be stopped by flooding the market with endless iterations of the same cheap merchandise.
It could not be stopped by resurrecting the corpse of Joseph Campbell and subjecting him to a thousand frakking facials, from a thousand frakking men.
That only increased the Hand Roll’s power.
And the death toll was rising.
Ultimately, Buck Sparkman realized he needed help.
He needed Truckers.
At Sparkman’s summoning, the die-hard fans of Star Trucks came to the multiplexes in the hundreds.
They were dressed in Star Flagellation yellow, red, and blue, reciting De Sade in its original Lingon, their phasers set on stun and their phalli set on never-been-laid.
But what Buck had in mind was not a direct assault on the silver sphere.
Nope.
He intended to take on Star Cars indirectly.
The beginning of the end of this particular Hand Roll began with a simple question.
Buck directed it to the multiplex Truckers in the audience and said it within earshot of the actors on screen who were trapped in the Hand Roll: Could the U.S.S. Coitus Interruptus take on an Imperial Star Fellator?
At first, the Oscar-winning actress who had been stripped of her prudish Jane Austen clothes and been downgraded to a slave girl bikini paid no attention to the Truckers as they debated amongst themselves in the theaters, halls, and restrooms of the multiplex.
To the bikini-bound actress, the answer was obvious: the Interruptus was nothing more than an intergalactic dinghy compared to a Fellator.
But the Truckers were relentless with their theories.
Photon torpedoes were fired.
Shields were raised.
And thermonuclear bomb-strapped ensigns were teleported onto the bridge of the Fellator, detonating themselves and destroying the imperial vessel.
The actress on screen couldn’t take it anymore.
She had to enter the debate.
Unfortunately for her — and for the rest of the Hand Roll players — once you entered the debate, you could never escape.
There was no answer.
There was no way to survive.
This was a Kobayashi Haiku.
Meme death.
And for the next eight months, Buck and his army of Truckers traveled from one multiplex to the next, putting an end to each Hand Roll.
In the end, the movie industry was saved.
The Truck fans and Cars actors realized they were glad to have someone to talk to.
And Buck was paid.
How much?
Unfortunately, that was a matter for debate.
One that had yet to be had with the powers that be.
But one thing was certain: Buck Sparkman couldn’t get the Star Cars theme song out of his head.
He even sought medical help.
While the doctors could treat it, the insurance wouldn’t cover it.
Not with a blanket.
And certainly not with a pillow.
Fortunately, Buck crafted a plan.
Within a week’s time, every medical textbook that had ever been published and every medical textbook that would ever be published had been revised.
Tinnitus had been redefined as the inability to get the Star Cars theme song out of your head.
The insurance industry was helpless.
They had to cover it.
Needless to say, a class-action lawsuit against George Lupus soon followed.
Even Academy Award-winning Star Cars composer John Thomas was among the plaintiffs.
Outside the van, Buck stuck his finger inside his ear and wiggled it.
The theme momentarily subsided.
Sparkman had a job to finish, tinnitus or not.