Fun at the races

Chartreuse Toad bit his lip, clutching the sides of his old, grimy table at The Mushroom Tip, one of the more disreputable pubs even in the Mushroom Kingdom’s red-spot district.  His face was the same shade of sickly yellow as the spots on his massive, white mushroom cap, as his beady black eyes were fixed on the bar’s lone TV screen.  Just about everyone in the building was, save the bartoad, preoccupied with wiping the bar with a dirty-brown rag.  But none of them had as much riding on the TV as Chartreuse Toad did.  Chartreuse Toad wasn’t sure of many things, but that was definitely one of them.

“Time flies when you’re having fun!” The announcer, a monty mole so covered in bling that Chartreuse Toad doubted he could even fit down his manhole, grinned into the camera, gesturing a ring-covered paw at the black-and-white checkered finish line in front of him.  “The third—the final—lap is coming to a close, and we here at the finish line of the Mario Circuit have one question on our minds: who’s going to move on to the victor’s circle of the Mushroom Cup?”

“Koopa Troopa,” Chartreuse Toad whispered to himself.  “Five hundred coins says Koopa Troopa.”

“Wait, wait!” the mole shrieked, clapping his hands, “Here they come! The karts are here!” Chartreuse Toad practically jumped out of his tiny chartreuse vest; his hands were shaking as he clutched his massive mushroom cap.

“Please,” he whispered, “please.”

His whispers turned into shouts of joy as the karts came into view.  “And Koopa Troopa is leading the pack by a mile!” the mole shouted.  “Next up is…Donkey Kong! Basic science says a car made of wood is a bad idea, but he’s not letting that stop him! And in a distant third is our sovereign leader herself, Princess Peach! May the House of Toadstool live on in this world as it does in our hearts.”

Everyone in the bar joined the announcer in his prayer.  Everyone except Chartreuse Toad, who was jumping up and down on the balls of his tiny, sproingy feet.  “Yes, yes!” He squeaked.  He’d placed his bet—the last of his money—in a drunken haze the night before, angry at his landlord for evicting him, his wife for leaving him, the world for screwing him.  But maybe things would work themselves out.  Maybe this would be a blessing in disguise.  The odds were five to one on Koopa Troopa placing in the top three.  2500 coins was way, WAY more than enough to pay off his landlord.  He could even pay the fee and get his license back, start his taxi business up again.  Maybe Lavender Toad would come back, once she saw how together he was.  Maybe she’d let him see the kids.

But suddenly the TV started making a terrible sound, a cross between a beep and a buzz, and Chartreuse Toad’s joy died in his heart.  “Oooh, just inches from the finish line!” the announcer moaned.  “A blue shell has brought Koopa Troopa to a complete standstill! Donkey Kong zips by him, claiming first place in the Mushroom Cup!”

“No! No no no no no…” Chartreuse Toad moaned.  “Please, please just get moving…”

Koopa Troopa didn’t get moving.  The blue shell had hit his soft, crushable head at eighty miles per hour.  He threw up on the steering wheel, head shaking.

“Aaaaaaand there goes Our Royal Majesty! A respectable second place!” The announcer’s words passed through Chartreuse Toad like a cold wind.  But his hope wasn’t dead yet.  Koopa Troopa shook his head; it looked like he’d gotten his bearings back.  A small puff of smoke started from his exhaust pipe.  If he could just scoot past the finish line, he’d make the victor’s circle.  Just a few inches…

Instead, Chartreuse Toad was on his knees.  He threw up on the floor.  A red shell had come out of nowhere, completely stopping Koopa Troopa’s momentum.  The driver’s head slumped, completely out cold.  Waluigi, cackling maniacally, zoomed by, taking third place.  “You fuck!” Chartreuse Toad yelled, spraying flecks of spit and vomit with every word he spoke.  “You lanky fuck! What even are you? What do you do?”

There was a tap on his shoulder.  Chartreuse Toad knew it was the whomp bouncer, but he didn’t care.  He was too fixated on Waluigi.  “Wario goes treasure hunting and invests it in a video game company! Wario does things,” he shrieked.  “This is all you do! All you are is tennis and go-karting and-and-and—“

“You need go, buddy,” the whomp said, scooping up the tiny, thrashing form of Chartreuse Toad.  “You making too big noise and mess.”

“A backwards seven isn’t even a ‘wa’ sound!” Chartreuse Toad threw up again, a khaki ooze spilling over whomp’s stony arms, but he didn’t drop the shaking mushroom man.  “You’re a lanky, pointless waste of space and you took all my money and I hate you!”

“DON’T COME BACK,” The whomp yelled, tossing Chartreuse Toad into the gutter.  He lay there for a moment, feeling at home amongst the drainwater and refuse, before sighing and picking himself up.  “Purple piece of shit,” he muttered to himself, before the bag went over his head and the world turned dark.

____________________

            The world turned bright, and Chartreuse Toad moaned.  He felt the cuts and bruises on his face with his hands before he felt them, but once they started hurting they didn’t stop.  “Where am I?” he croaked.

            “A whole lotta trouble, is where you are, pal.”  There was a squeak and suddenly the light was pointing at a brick wall, dank and covered in moss.  Chartreuse Toad realized two hulking hammer brothers were standing on either side of him.  In front of him, relaxing in a roomy, luxurious green shoe, was Vinnie the Goomba, the bookie.

            “Oh, oh no, oh no no no…” Chartreuse Toad felt like he was going to throw up again.  “I…I said a lot of things last night, Vinnie.  I was drunk.”

            “That doesn’t concern me.  Boys, cigarette.”  A shy guy stepped out from behind Vinnie’s shoe, holding a tanooki leaf and some paper.  Using his small, red, nubbly arms, the shy guy crudely mashed up the leaf, wrapped it in the paper, and handed it to Vinnie before scurrying back into the shadows.  One of the hammer brothers—a fire brother, Chartreuse Toad realized—threw a fire ball, lighting the cigarette.  Vinnie breathed deeply, and burped up a cloud of smoke in the shape of a poison mushroom.  “That’s some good shit.  But anyway, whether you were drunk or not does not concern me.  What does concern me is that big shit you were telling me last night.”

            “Please,” Chartreuse Toad whispered.  “Please, I didn’t mean—“

            “You didn’t mean what?” Vinnie said, his voice slowly rising in volume as he spoke.  “You didn’t mean what you said to me last night? About the 2200 coin debt you’d finally pay me after your big bet won? About how there wouldn’t be any more lies, any more delays, that I’d finally get my FUCKING MONEY!?”

            Chartreuse Toad flinched.  Vinnie didn’t like that.  Roaring, he jerked in his shoe; it hopped seven feet in the air and came down square on Chartreuse Toad’s head.  The world froze as he shrank down to half his normal size, flickered, before stabilizing, shaking in his tiny shoes.  One more hit, and he’d lose a life.  “He almost made it!” he squealed.  “He got fourth place!”

            “Sorry, but ‘almost made it’ only counts when the super guide is on,” Vinnie said, breathing heavily from his exertion.  “But, you know, I watched that whole race.  I never saw a super guide on.  You’re not calling me a liar, are you?”

            Horrified, Chartreuse Toad shook his head.

            “Johnny and Jimmy watched the whole thing with me.  Boys, did you see the super guide turn on at any point during that race?”

            The hammer brothers silently shook their heads.

            “And you wouldn’t be calling my boys, and by extension, myself, dishonest, would you?”

            “No! Never!” Chartreuse Toad started sobbing.  “Vinnie, please, I don’t have any more lives.  The last time I saved was in the sand world.  If I game over I’ll be in the middle of the desert, you, you can’t—”

            “DON’T YOU DARE!” Vinnie jumped up and down, eliciting moans of fear from Chartreuse Toad with each small hop.  “DON’T YOU DARE TELL ME WHAT I CAN OR CANNOT DO! NOT WHEN YOU OWE ME THOUSANDS! THOUSANDS!”

            “I’m…I’m sorry.”  Chartreuse Toad whimpered, rocking back in forth on the ground.  “I’m so sorry.”

            Vinnie took a deep breath, and sighed.  Goombas didn’t visibly age, but his brown head looked wrinkled and old in that one moment.  “Aw, geez, fella, chin up.  I’m not going to kill you while you cry on the floor.  You’re alright; you even bet on somebody from the old country.”

            “Koopa Troopa’s our boy!” one of the hammer brothers yelled from behind Chartreuse Toad.

            “That he is, Jimmy,” Vinnie said.  “That he is.  Had he won, I probably would’ve forgave maybe half of your debt, I would’ve been so happy.  And he almost did, too.  Except for that stupid, sleep-deprived, lanky piece of shit.”

            “Fuck Waluigi! Purple bitch!” the other hammer brother yelled, while Vinnie nodded.

            “Right? He’s just the worst.”  Chartreuse Toad perked up; for the first time in this conversation he wasn’t scared.  He was so happy, he didn’t even notice the shoe coming down to crush him flat until the very last second.  The world went dark again.

Continue?

            Chartreuse Toad suppressed a sob.  “Yes,” he said, and suddenly he was in the middle of a sandstorm.  Reluctantly, he trudged forward.  “Who knows?’ he said to himself, jumping over a sentient cactus.  “Maybe I’ll get 2500 coins on the way to World 8.”