Pt. 12

the rotting wooden floorboards were replaced with lime green shag carpeting and the peeling brown and green striped wallpaper had vanished. Instead, the walls were paneled with floor to ceiling mirrors and the ceiling was adorned with a massive fresco of four plump, naked, cherubs partaking in some type of Pagan ceremony involving wine and a lot of rose petals. Bo was only slightly disturbed that the cherubs faces were painted to resemble Jon Bon Jovi, Mick Jagger, Steven Tyler, and Gene Simmons.
"That's quite an unusual scene up there," said Bo, trying to make small talk.
"It is not unusual!" snapped Tom Jones, the brashness in his smooth, soulful voice making Bo jump slightly. "It happens every day!" he continued, "no matter what that plump little mouth of yours says, you will find it happens all the time. So just shut up before you offend me again."
"Are you crying?" Asked Ebenezer, who was busily switching on lava lamps so as to give the trio some light to work by.
Tom Jones, who had apparently suffered some deep psychological trauma brought on by Bo's narrow minded comments shrieked, "It is not unusual to see me cry! Oh, I wanna die!"
And with that, he bolted from the funky room, nearly tearing the glow in the dark curtain of beads from the door frame.
"Do you think he'll be OK?" asked Ebenezer.
"Yes, but I do think it's a bit unusual that someone as euphonious as him can have no style or grace and be such a loser."
"It is NOT unusual" came a distant cry in the front room.
 "Yes, well, enough about this Jones cat," said Ebenezer, taking a seat on a taxidermy tiger that was sitting nearby. "Let's get down to business."
Bo gingerly removed the tooth and cornrow from his satchel and handed them to Ebenezer. 
 The old man's turquoise eyes became very round and shiny and almost seemed to reflect the stunningly gold lame shirt he wearing, unbuttoned down to his crusty navel. This made him look halfway possessed. 
"Boy, where did you find these gems, these relics of rock, these gewgaws of groove?"
Bo related his bizarre tale to Ebenezer. When he got to the part about the Christmas party photograph, all the hair on Ebenezer's chest- or torso, I should say- stood up on end, making him look like a senile porcupine.
 "Bo, what I am about to share with you is knowledge that could very easily put your life at risk, but as you are young and not particularly attractive, I don't feel any trepidation in telling you."
"Telling me what, Ebenezer LaBoeuf?" said Bo, who was beginning to sweat again.
"I belong to a specialized group of people," began Ebenezer, "A club, you might say. We are the men and women who never quite made it in the rock scene. We possessed vulgar personalities, drank more rally juice than was perhaps good for us, and purposefully made our physical appearance as hellish as possible. We were the type of people who could only become successful in a rock band. And as we aged and lost all our money, teeth, and sex appeal, we began to realize that our Rock dreams could never roll. And so now we have joined forces and are creating a new being... the ideal rock instrumentalist/vocalist."
"I don't quite see where you are going with this," said Bo, whose rubber tube top was becoming very uncomfortable on account of all the sweat accumulating in it.
"Bo, we are shaping the new generation of Rock! We are bringing it back from the dead by piecing together a hybrid man from the body parts of the legends of rock! Don't you see? You are the link, the only youngster with the gift of attracting these precious pieces of the puzzle. We are all growing too old to hunt them down, but you, you my great big hippo of a boy, are the ONE."
Ebenezer dropped this last word with such force, Bo's fountain of perspiration ceased to flow, if only for an instant.
"Your next task," continued Ebenezer, "Is to