“Mommies, where do we come from?” the left portion of THEABS asked Mil and Aggie.

The right portion had not spoken since the separation. It had been 4 years. But the elderly couple did not worry. They were vaj-deep in an anthill pile of Sweet and Low tiletamine. Their collective attention could only grasp the immediate tasks at hand and the mute nature of one half of their adopted child was not on the list.

“Wow, quite a question from such a precocious little boy! Mil, you wanna take this one? It’s my snort anyway.” Aggie replied, fucked up to the gills.

But Mildred, like THEABS-right, was silent.

“Mil?” Aggie inquired. She turned to see her lover stagnant, sheet-white. Eyes were blood shot and wide open like an owl’s. Her face motionless. Her nose crimson.

She got this way pretty often these days. Often enough that Agnes could just shrug it off and continue in her own grotesque indulgence.

“Roll tide, Mil. Roll tide.”

And so the existential question went unanswered, leaving both THEABS to do some research on their own. Thumbing through stacks upon stacks of magazines and newspapers, they were dedicated to finding the answer.

While silent, T.R. was not completely useless, providing his more able-bodied brother with knowledge in his own ways. More specifically, if he felt he had uncovered a critical piece of information, T.R. would maniacally jerk off all over the pages.

One particular article, in fact, had tickled his fancy and he unloaded a dollop-sized stream of toddler gravy upon it. T.L. knew his brother must be on to something.

“Thatta boy, T.R.! See? You really can help!” he exclaimed as he surveyed his brother’s discovery: a Boy’s Life interview with actor F. Murray Abraham.

In the Q&A, the thespian was promoting his new film, Amadeus, in which he gave the “performance of a lifetime.” His temperament came across as borderline megalomaniacal; he made outlandish statements about the power of his sperm and no less than 176 times referred to himself as “God.”¹ It was these proclamations that had caught T.R.’s attention.

“This makes perfect sense, T.R.! It reads here “Charlie Parker’s jazz sure as fuck ain’t the maker of men. Mine is. Abraham out.” Men are what boys become. We’re boys! And this periodical is about the life of boys! This must be where we come from!!” T.L. said, not at all reaching.

Excited as though they solved some great mystery, THEABS took the Boy’s Life issue to his mothers to show them their unearthing. However they were having “mommy time,” and the boys knew they were not to be disturbed.

But they couldn’t wait.

Bursting through their bedroom door, T.L. screamed with elation: “Mommies! We come from F. Murray Abraham!”

Agnes removed her face from Mildred’s Sahara-dry lab-maj and burst into laughter.

T.R. handed her the magazine, still soaked in his joy juice. “Well, he does make some pretty valid points in here. And he did play Omar in Scarface. What do you think, Mil?”

“I think you need to get back in here and finish whatcha started. I’m incomplete², you fucking cunt-tease!”

And that was that. THEABS came from F. Murray Abraham. Or so they would believe for years and years…

— 

¹Alec Baldwin would later site this interview as his inspiration for his role in Malice.
²In 1988, Mildred and Agnes would unsuccessfully sue Van Halen for stealing one of their many intimate bedroom quips.