Free Kill Two Birds & Get Stoned by Kinky Friedman

saw one.
    "Don't worry," she said when I got to the cab. "This is one time when it's a real advantage that the driver doesn't speak English. How'd it go?"
    "Pretty smoothly," I said. "Considering."
    "Considering what?" said Clyde, crossing her arms and smiling blithely into my eyes.
    "Considering that just a few weeks ago I wouldn't have imagined in my wildest dreams that I'd ever be setting off a smoke bomb in a mental hospital."
    "Are we feeling a twinge of guilt?"
    "Possibly."
    "That's not a bad thing," she said softly, cradling my head in her hands. "It's just God's way of letting you know that you still have a conscience."
    "What if I don't believe in God?"
    "Listen, Walter. There is a God. He's just in a state of deep depression. He has a bad case of narcolepsy. In other words, God is sometimes on the nod. Teddy is a sweet, harmless man who should never have been locked up in this place. What you did was a necessary diversionary tactic that will help him gain his rightful freedom. If God's awake at the moment, Fox and Teddy should be coming out of those doors any minute."
    "What if he's on the nod?"
    "We're fucked," she said.
    She looked around at the taxi driver, who appeared to be sleeping under his turban. Then she glanced again in the direction of the entrance to the building. Then she smiled a sudden crazy smile and her eyes sparkled with some odd brand of cosmic, momentary mischief.
    "So you don't believe in God?" she asked. "I doubt if that's true. Maybe you just need a bit of waking up yourself. How about a little vacation Bible class, Sunshine?"
    She stepped very close to me then. Our lips and our bodies came together right there on the street in a manner more passionate than I had ever known. I forgot about smoke bombs in mental-hospital wards, taxi drivers in turbans, and everything else in this wretched world as the two of us held each other as closely and as seamlessly as moonlight on a lamppost. As that kiss continued beyond all time, I became quite aroused and began sporting a monstro-erection. This very natural physical reaction, of course, did not go unnoticed.
    "You are happy to see me!" said Clyde. "Now do you believe in God?"
    "I've become an agnostic at the very least," I said.
    "Hallelujah!" shouted Clyde. "I've finally found a man who's punctual, practical, and he blushes. And he's still blushing."
    There are times in your life, I suppose, when it's best just to say nothing and savor the moment. Clyde's brown eyes now seemed to fill with galaxies of light, galaxies my dark soul could fly right into and never be found. There was passion, madness, and wisdom in those eyes, qualities distilled from a life lived on the edge of the moment, qualities, I was keenly aware, that were sorely lacking in my drab existence. I needed this woman in a way I could not articulate and, very possibly, did not fully understand myself.
    Sirens could now be heard coming up a side street. Moments later, a fire truck had pulled up at the nearby curb. The firemen began running into the building.
    "Fox is taking too long," said Clyde. "Something's gone wrong."
    Together we ran toward the front of the hospital where, indeed, confusion seemed to reign. Through the glass doors, the lobby area looked like a madhouse within a madhouse. People were scurrying about all over the place and I noticed, as well as the firemen, a police presence beginning to manifest itself. As we gazed up from the front steps of the place, the scene looked like bedlam. There was still no sign, however, of Fox or Teddy.
    Clyde took my hand and gave it a quick little squeeze. Her eyes seemed to scan the hospital lobby in vain.
    "I'm going in," she said.
    "I'm going with you," I heard myself say.
    It's always easier to get into a mental hospital than it is to get out of one, and that particular theorem held true on the second time around as well. In a matter of moments, we were standing in the middle of the lobby with mass confusion prevailing all around