This is the second in a series of blogs were meant to hype a potential Connect Community Radio interview with Hank Zetterberg. The entire story is fictitous, or is it...On last word of our Los Angelenos Heroine, Juice, and her interviewee extraordinaire, Hank Zetterberg, the two had been unceremoniously tossed into a limo on PCH, which now careens down Highway 5 carrying two Wings, a Jackson, the Juice and Dr. Cox, heading for Tijuana.
Really with a crew like that, what could go wrong???
Juice looks around at her present company and could not help but sit there grinning like a loony Cheshire cat. She whispers in Zett’s ear:
“Are we hostages? Do you think they will ask for a ransom?”
Z snickers and says:
“Come on, these guys couldn’t kidnap a puck bunnie if she hid in the trunk of their Ferrari.”
“Waaait.” Juice says confused, “Ferraris don’t have trunks”.
“Exactly.” Zetts says. Juice doesn't understand, but giggles anyway. Z gives her side a little poke.
All the giggling and poking catches the attention of Samuel L. Jackson who is fastidiously licking an ice cream cone. He points the drippy cone at Juice and Z with a menacing flourish,
“WHAT THE HEDHS ARE YOU SMILING ABOUT GIRL? THIS IS A KIDNAPPING! DON’T MAKE ME WIPE THAT ICE CREAM LOVIN SMILE OFF YOUR FACE….” He booms, shaking the cone around like it was a glock.
Juice giggles more and says “I can’t help it. Ice cream gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy and happy people don’t cream their hostages, they just don’t!” then she reaches for a Guinness and quickly gets her hand slapped by Dr. Cox.
“no no, Blondie… you’re a hostage.”
Z and Juice start laughing again.
“Shut up back there.” Chelios says with a cheeky grin and turns the radio up.
“
This is a story about Hank Zee and Juicey JuiceTwo young hockey lovin foolsWith nothing better to doThan sit around the house, eatin’ ice creamDrinking brewAnd here’s what happened when they decided to cut loose:”Cheli starts to sing along at the top of his lungs. Cox cringes and put his head in his hands.
“
Go on take the ice cream and runGo on take the hot fudge and runGo on take the Guinness and runGo on take the ice cream and run"
Z leans in and whispers to Juice: “Have we fallen down the rabbit hole?”
“Drink me? Eat me? Alice? More like the proverbial five hole, Z.” she whispers in his ear.
Z stifles a laugh and the two sit there poking at each other, trying to make the other giggle.
Suddenly, the limo lurches across 3 lanes of traffic, barrels over the shoulder, takes out one of those huge yellow garbage can looking traffic barriers, careening onto the exit ramp, hopping the curb to make a right turn onto the surface street and screeching to a halt in a parking lot bathed in 1,000,000 watts of Neon:
Juice finds herself once more in Z’s lap. Abandoning all pretense, she doesn’t bother to quickly move off of him, its very “Gone with the Wind” Rhett Butler-Scarlett O’Hara.
Lucky for Juice, all the rest of the kids quickly pile out of the limo, head into restaurant. She gazes into Hanks eyes, thinks she's getting a clear signal, so she goes in for the kiss JUST AS Chelios opens the car door behind her head. Z looks up, Juice’s kiss lands smack on his cheek.
Chelios yells at them:
“Three tomatoes are walking down the street, papa tomato, mama tomato, and baby tomato. Baby tomato starts lagging behind. The papa tomato gets really angry, goes back and squishes him, says: "Ketchup!"
Z responds: “chelios Du er den värst vingsjuta besätta!"
Z and Juice look at each other, sigh and scoot out of the car.
At the door, they are greeted by a super buff host dressed as Rod Brindamour in a Hurricanes uniform. All goofy smiles, he stands with hands on his hips as if he were posing in the tightey whitey pages of the Sears catalog, at his side a vaguely familiar and deliciously oversized Trophy cup.
“Name’s JH Brindamore, welcome to the Slim, grab a booth in front, the Twist contest is about to start.”
“OOHH” Juice’s eyes light up. As they walk to the front booth, she looks at Zetts and says:
“You’re my Ice Cream Twist Partner… Now I wanna dance, I wanna win, I want that trophy. So dance good.”
Sam Jackson starts to laugh, soon he’s choking on his own guffaws and has tears in his eyes. He sits in the booth, wipes the tears, points at Zetts and says,
“I could take Cheli up there and beat the two of you.”
“I’m not “effing” dancing with you Jackson." … Chelios pauses. "Again.” as he looks around for a waitress.
Juice crooks an eyebrow, extends her hand, thumb jutting to the sky and says:
“Bring it Coach Winfield, Bring it. Best 2 out of 3?” Samuel L. Jackson grins, nods and locks his fingers in to hers, thumbs standing at attention. Samuel L. Jackson has at least twice the reach of Juice, but she doesn’t waiver, locks in her stare.
“One two three four, I declare a Thumb War” they say in unison and the first match begins- dead lock.
Just then the waitress arrives, she’s a Punk Rock version of Betty Paige.
Jackson catches her attributes out of the corner of his eye, blinks, turns to stare at the waitress and Juice capitalizes to smush his thumb down and counts:
“One two three!”
“Miss Juicy, you are one Bad Mothra Fokker.” he mumbles conceding the match, his full attention on the hot waitress. The boys sit with their collective tongues hanging out, staring.
“What’s your name Darlin’?” Juice finally asks as it clearly appears none of the boys have their wits about them.
“The Name is Su, Betty Paige Su and I’m your waitress. We have the best $5 shakes in town. What can I bring you?”
“A $5 shake” the boys all say in sing-song unison. She nods, winks at Chelios and sashays away. Cox and Chelios lean out of the booth to watch her walk. They then get up and disappear in the direction of Betty Su.
As the shakes arrive, Juice and Z dive into the frosty goodness, the music starts and there is JH Brindy on the stage, announcing the Twist contest.
“Ladies and Gentleman,
Now the moment you've all been waiting for
The world famous Jack Rabbit Slims Twist Contest!
Now let's meet our first contestants here this evening
Young lady what's your name?”
“Juice!” she gleefully chirps as she jumps onto the stage, turns around and grabs Z’s hand, he feebly resists muttering unintelligibly…
“Utom JAG icke gör det dansa , din främmande Amerikanen tradition skrämma och förvirra jag”
Juice has no idea what he said and she doesn’t care as she is hopped up on the High Fructose Corn Syrup in the $5 shake she just sucked back.
“Oh Hush Hanky Panky” she says, dragging him to the center of the floor “And take your shoes off!” Z kicks his shoes off and reluctantly begins to twist.
“
It was an Ice Cream Social and the old folks wished them wellThey could see that Pierre did truly love the mademoiselleNow the young monsieur and madame have licked the ice cream coneC’est la vie folks it goes to show you never can tell”
The song ends and Juice jumps gleefully up and down while Hank tries to slink back to the booth. Juice walks over and starts to slide down into the booth. Samuel L. Jackson spoke:
“Oh no you don’t missy, my partner is otherwise occupied” Juice, Z and Samuel L. Jackson looked over at the neighboring table where Chelios is flanked by Waitress Su and another chicka sitting on Chelios lap giggling:
“Name’s TG, but you can call me Jojo.”
“Nice!” Juice thinks to her self “Another chance to win that Trophy”, she grabs Samuel L. Jackson by the hand and they hop up onto the floor, the music starts up again and as they start to twist their ice cream lovin’ behinds off, Juice feels a tap on her shoulder. There stands Cheli, in a pair of holey socks… Juice sighs and ducks out to let the boys show their stuff.
The music ends, shakes sucked down, Juice with her vaguely familiar and deliciously oversized trophy, the kidnappers and hostages head back to the limo. As they pass JH Brindamour, Su, and TG, JH says:
“Congratulations cats and pajamas! Come back soon ya’ll.”
Juice notices a mariachi band playing in the parking lot...The musicians looked oddly familiar.
“Hey Z” she whispers. “Do you see that?” He looks in the direction Juice pointed.
“Is that a mariachi band?” he whispers. Juice nods, they look at the others who appeared oblivious to the sound of
“Hay ya ya yeHay ya amorHay me morenaLo me con esson”
The crew piles into the limo and hop back on the highway, heading south. Juice watches the mariachi band disappear into the darkness.
The border comes quicker than Juice expects. They pull up to the Border Patrol Checkpoint. The Border Guard is the cutest little blonde thing, and Chelios instantly starts flirting…
Blonde Border Guard Girl looks oddly familiar to Juice, so she leans forward to get a better look. BBGG leans on the limo window, briefly looking in the back, then turns to Chelios and says:
“Sir, I need to see your license.” Chelios hands it to her smiling away and she looks at it and frowns:
What’s a limo from Michigan doing headed for Mexico?” She doesn’t crack a smile.
“What’s a girl from Tennessee doing working the Border in Tijuana?” Chelios asks her. Cox drops his head into his hands and groans, Samuel L. Jackson grimaces, rolls his eyes and sighs to the heavens.
“Excuse me sir, what are you talking about?” BBGG asks, deadpan, not even a glint in her eye.
Hank softly groans: “Don’t do it Cheli.” Juice stares wide eyed- convinced she KNOWS this border guard.
“Well miss.” Cheli grins like a love sick puppy, “I assume your from Tennessee cause you’re the only ten I see.”
BBGG stands up, speaks Spanish into her walkie talkie and then says:
“Get out of the car sir, in fact all of you out of the car.”
Samuel L. Jackson looks at Cox, who looks at Juice who looks at Hank. Then Samuel L Jackson cuffs Chelios in the back of the head and says:
“You better pray that I don’t get strip searched, CC.” They all pour out of the limo. BBGG had called for back up and now there were two Blonde Border Guard Girls.
Juice stares, and takes a step closer to get a better look,
“Hey back off Blondie” barks BBGG No.2 as she shoves a flashlight in Juice's face. “OK all of you on the limo and spread ‘em.”
And the BBGGs throw them all onto the hood of the limo only to focus curiously on Zetter. Both girls begin to take turns frisking him. He looks toward Juice, they exchange slightly confused sideways glances. BBGG No. 1 catches the exchange and says:
“Blondie, cool it. One more look from you and I promise there won’t be ice cream in that interrogation room.” Juice swore she recognized the voice….she wanted to laugh but dared not.
“All you have for identification is a Baskin Robbins frequent buyer card and Swedish passport, Mr. Zetterberg??? BBGG No. 1 says as she walked slowly around him, shining her flashlight up and down.
“Honey you are a long way from Sweden….” Said BBGG No. 2. as she twirls handcuffs on her index finger.
Suddenly the BBGGs announce they will be taking Z into the interrogation room. Just as they handcuff him and lead him away, BBGG no. 2 runs back, reaches in the limo and grabs three Guinness and an ice cream cone. She looks Cox right in the eye and says "Evidence."
The rest sit there waiting and waiting. It must have been an hour before the BBGGs emerged. Finally, they walk out, one smoothing her hair, the other wiping along the bottom of her lip, cleaning up her lipstick. They have Z by the arms, his hair is disheveled, he has red lipstick "slap dashed" across his face, his shirt is covered in red lipstick kisses, his 501’s askew, and the remains of an ice cream cone in his hair. He looked as happy as a clam.
“jag er glad som en mussla” He says and hiccups.
A light bulb goes off over Juice's head, she thinks: Why, these girls are no Border guards! its JLE! Kiki B! Juice almost yells their names out and blows their cover!!! Kiki B saw the light bulb go on over Juice’s head, she winks says “you all can go now” then JLE and Kiki turn and walk away. Juice suppresses a giggle and helps Hank back into the limo, he seems happy if not a little dazed and confused…
“jag er glad som en mussla” Hank mutters. Dr. Cox pulls the ice cream cone from his hair and throws it on the ground.
Just then the troublesome travelers all hear the sound of a mariachi band in the distance:
“Hay ya ya yeHay ya amorHay me morenaLo me con esson"Chelios looks at Juice, says “Do you see that?” and points over to the hill on the Mexico side of the border, there stands the same mariachi band from Jack Rabbit Slims.
Originally Posted on Monday September 15, 2008 @ 02:02 AM EDT at http://fans.nhl.com/members/JuiceinLA/blogs/20452
Copyright 2008-2009. All Rights Reserved. No use or reproduction without the express written permission of the author.
