First off I need to tell you that a couple strong men had to carry Dandy up th' stairs at Clap 'n' Clap to get him to th' practice room for our meeten about th' Christmas show. Captain Crocker chattered an' jumped up an' down all nervous like to see his master lifted an' moved. I almost comforted that monkey but decided not to as I didn't want Chazz to get all jealous, and besides, I could see the fleas crawlen on th' coat a th' little Santa suit th' Captain now wore. I'd already exterminated them pests from Chazz the day before, an' I weren't about to make another smudge pot usen creosote an' catfish an' bad bourbon an' sit in a phone booth for four hours breathen in all that foul smoke just to make a critter comfortable. My head still buzzed an' swarmed from that nasty but healen miasma (fancy word!). Damn dumb way to spend a day in my opinion, but you got to comfort animals an' I'd do it again—just not for th' Captain.
So we was all getten together in th' practice room an' it were quite a sight. First off, they was a huge pile a robes an' scarves an' sandals an' all kinds a Bible clothen an' some finery i guess were meant for th' Wise Men, I know Dandy wheeled hisself immediately over to th' stack a gold vests an' crimson robes an' enormous turbans th' size a an eagle's nest, he picked up such a turban an' barked at th' Captain to help him rewrap it so it fit his head better. That monkey scooted straight over in his Santa suit an' unwound th' turban about as fast as he could peel a banana, then bound Dandy's head with th' many feet of white linen binden cloth. It reminded me th' times I'd wrapped up dead relatives before we gave them a bayou burial, which weren't a matter a diggen in th' dirt an' plunken th' body in like you was planten taters or onions, but instead hewen out a skiff from a felled tree usen an old adze, setten the mummy body (for that's what it looked like to me) in the boat an' given it a hard shove into a river channel, where nature's undertakers an' sextons take care a th' remains an' return our package back to its sender, you know what I mean.
Damned old Dandy did enjoy dressen up, the Captain, too, from what I could see. Somewhere that monkey scrounged up a beautiful red stone like a garnet or a ruby to fix to Dandy's turban. I could tell by the way Dandy held his head he felt pretty proud a hisself, an' only a heartless sumbitch could begrudge a legless man his pride. He then sent the Captain over to seize some a that beautiful Wise Men clothing before others could claim it for theyselves. The way that monkey minded Dandy impressed me a lot, an' I pointed that out to Chazz, who by now had left Sister Edith's beehive hair nest for a perch on my shoulder an' th' handful a oyster crackers I was eaten an' now shared with him. "You might want to learn from that monkey about how to treat yore master," I suggested. An' Chazz did! He scooted down to th' floor an' dashed over to a pile a clothes an' picked me out a beautiful robe whose deep blue color complimented my eyes, an' was just th' right size, too. Chazz dragged that robe back to me, demonstraten the fearsome strength rats pack into they small bodies. He even helped me put it on, pullen a corner a th' robe up over my shoulder as he held it in his mouth an' ran up my body. "You definitely th' smartest pet in Louisiana," I told that sewer rat, kissen him on top a his head.
"I sure hell am," Chazz answered.
This nearly floored me an' only th' desire not to seem weak to Sister Edith, now in th' room, an' Dandy, an' th' other girls, an' a couple other down-an'-outters Dandy had dragged in from th' street, an' Nazi Klaus, who sat in a folden chair on th' yonder side a th' room eaten a big black sausage he held like an ear a corn, nibblen on it like th' animal he'd been an' maybe still was. An' for an instant I almost thought I was psycho like so many a my relatives. A rat talken to me! Not even Chazz could be so smart.
"You sure hell heard right," Chazz said.
My eyes musta saucered up cause Chazz balled up his paws an' rubbed his own eyeballs with them before pointen at me. "You always a talker, or you learned it now?" I finally managed to ask my little friend.
"I speak always," Chazz answered. "Learned at Tulane. Born there inna sorority house. My home still."
I didn't want to admit I didn't know what a sorority was. Find me a dictionary later. "Let's keep yore talken quiet," I suggested to Chazz. I could just see Dandy exploiten my pal the way he did the Captain. I shuddered wonderen how he'd take Chazz from me, a scary image formen a his buddy Nazi Klaus setten down his sausage an' picken up a luger pistol an' shooten me when I aint looken. I didn't trust that fat man but he did give me a good meal. You got to pick th' good parts a folks, I guess, an' cobble them together to form a vision a humanity aint as bleak as what you get from individual people, who always disappoint.
Sister Edith clapped her bony hands a few times to get our attention, motionen to th' folden chairs to set our asses down an' listen. I picked a chair up front an' off to one side. One nearest th' door, in fact, for reasons I cant explain except I grew up always looken for an' escape route an' often needen to use it. Aint easiest thing in th' swamp to find, either, what with all th' water you swim in only you wanna lose your feet to reptiles. But I weren't bad at swingen from tree-to-tree like a monkey I needed to, probably better at it than th' Captain, judgen from his nervous little body, that monkey radiated fear an' likely could use counselen, not that he'd ever get it, Dandy been Dandy an' concerned about hisself mainly. Not my goddamned business anyway, but I couldn't help feelen a little sorry for that ape. I turned my head toward Chazz, who was still resten on my shoulder. "I glad I got you an' not another pet," I said, poochen my lips out an' kissen my rat's nose.
"You best, Ethel," Chazz whispered back. "Better than sorority girls."
Tears sprung to my eyes like a couple a spurten fountains an' I covered my face quickly an' rubbed it hard. I learned you let people see you cry you might just better let them knock you on yore skull with a clawhammer, they got you they see you looken weak. Damned old world is too hard sometimes you got a tender bone in yore skeleton. But it's better to be that way I imagine than hard as an iron skillet. Who'd want to kiss an old fry pan? Or call it Mama?
"Listen now," Chazz ordered. He was right, I was getten off track in my thinken. By now Sister Edith had shusshed enough folks an' gotten them to sit down so she could speak instead a yellen. That women had her a presence I seldom seen in others. My Aunt Junie Bugg might a rivaled but not surpassed Sister Edith. Junie Bugg was over six feet tall an' weighed in at 280 pounds an' could hold two ten pound mauls at arm's length for a whole afternoon, she did that once to win a smoked ham at th' county fair, then went home an' ate that whole chunk a meat herself for supper, I seen this with my own eyes. Nobody said nothen cause Junie Bugg weren't all there after she got tail whipped in th' head by a big mama gator she'd crept up behind to steal its clutch a eggs it was warmen under a pile a leaves an' shit. Not that Junie Bugg ended up dumb, exactly, for my Grandmaw Dominique had the healen touch an' made a heavy poultice she strapped to Junie Bugg's head for a whole week, what all went into th' sack I can't say other than th' smell was worse than a rattlesnake den. But Junie Bugg acted odd an' moody rest a her life, not sleepen much an' believing she was Queen a th' Jews an' Jesus Christ hisself was gonna marry her swamp cracker ass. An' you suggested otherwise to Junie Bugg only at yore own peril. Damn shame she died when she did an' in th' manner a her demise. Eaten by wild pigs when they cornered her against a cypress tree when she was out seeken herbs an' roots to make some medicine from. All we found a her was her spine an' her shoes an' a ring made outta both barbed an' copper wire twisted into a metal braid. Oh, an' four dead pigs includen th' big boar we all called "Jerome" after an especially fat cousin a my mama's. Never thought that elephant pig would meet his match. Junie Bugg appeared to have strangled him, God only knows how.
Sister Edith commanded my attention not because a what she looked like or said, but what she didn't say. She possessed what you might call a horse face, not that she was butt ugly, precisely, but that it was long as a child's torso an' full a big teeth. Oh, an' she could flick her ears different directions, twitch, twitch, twitch, like she was chasen off flies, or listenen to two folks chatten in separate conversations. She was beautiful in her own way, though, tall an' pale an' she had big grey eyes she swiveled round in they sockets so as not to miss a beat. She was clad in a gown a her own craften, cloth wrapped about her like th' rich Roman wife a Gus or Julie Caesar. She had black hair she'd pulled behind her head so it hung like a noose nearly down to her hips, all ribboned up, I thought a horses an' they fancy manes. An' long elegant arms she waved in th' air like they was cobras an' she was charmen them. The effect was peaceful, even hypnotic. Every damn fool in th' audience shut up an' watched, even windbag Dandy, who'd wheeled hisself to th' front a th' room an' sat beside Sister, th' Captain actually sleepen in his lap an' looken like th' Baby Jesus, his constipated little face relaxed at last, like he'd unclenched all his sphincters an' let flow everythen he'd ever bottled up in his short mean life's journey from th' jungle to th' French Quarter.
"Thank you all for coming," Sister finally said. "This year's show will be our best ever, I'm convinced, as we have a new manger constructed by our friends at St. Louis Cathedral. I also am very pleased to welcome a remarkable young lady who's new to town, Miss Ethel Thibodeaux, late of the bayou, and her pet rat, Chazz. Both will take part in our show, Chazz as a lamb, and Ethel as Mary. We'll have more animals this year, too, including, I am told, three genuine camels for our Wise Men, an ox and an ass, and of course Captain Crocker, whose role is evolving. My initial intention for tonight was for us to read through our script, so capably written by our very good friend, Dandy, but as it's a beautiful evening and the manger has just been erected, I suggest instead we head over there to get a feel for it. Any questions?"
I looked round th' room an' waited until I was sure no one else had nothen to say, then I raised my hand.
"Yes, Ethel," Sister said. "What's your question?"
"Who you haven be th' little baby Jesus?"
Sister smiled. "Miss Dawn has graciously offered to lend us her own baby for the performance, provided, of course, she delivers by then."
I looked at th' half-wit girl what was about eleven months pregnant judgen from her enormous size. Roundest person I ever seen, an' slow upstairs, not that I have any trouble with that in folks generally, but Dawn weren't dumb from brain problems best I could tell, instead she just made peculiar decisions such as rubben her big belly with Miracle Whip she pulled from th' fridge. I shit you not that I caught her smearen that crap onto herself at lunchtime. I said nothen then, but upon hearen Sister's comment, I leaned over an' asked Dawn what hell she'd been up to smearen sandwich spread on her stomach. She looked at me with her blank ewe's face an' said she wanted her baby exposed to miracles much as possible. I couldn't help myself when I blurted out that as that goes she was whippen her kid, too, count a th' second half a that product's name.
What I would a done different had I known Dawn's reaction was just about everythen. But time's an arrow that rarely double back's on itself an' flies home to its sender, so it aint good to dwell on th' what-ifs and would-a-beens. Whole damn world thought this way more often we'd be hell th' better for it. Not that Dawn herself was likely to ever think on anythen more weighty than what kind a toothpaste to buy an' when to brush her teeth with it. I come from a line a folks so many a whom got they's bells rung hard an' often I aint got th' sympathy I should for those who act stupid but truly aint. Meanen Dawn an' how she blubbered. "I aint a child abuser," she balled. "I just want a miracle baby."
Sister glided over to Dawn an' snaked her long cobra arms around that poor silly thing, murmurren soothen words an' cooen in her ear an' such while flashen me a nasty look that reminded me they aint no true refuges in life, least not for a swamp cracker runaway like me. Sure I was a little disappointed, maybe more than a little, but I gave Chazz a squeeze an' it settled me, critters been on th' whole better companions than man miserable man. "Watch out for Sister," my rat whispered into my ear. "Her hair's nice but she's a madam."
"Th' hell," I whispered back. "She's like a nun."
"Chazz found fetus tucked inna Sister's hair."
"Was it human?"
"Little girl. Now hush."
This was absolutely disgusten, and I was now on watch for trouble. My temptation was to bolt, but I truly had nowhere to go, an' besides I really wanted to play th' Blessed Virgin while I still was one. I did some quick thinken an' reckoned Sister must a been transporten th' remains a th' "procedures" what went on in th' Clap 'n' Clap clinic. Why she'd take a chance a haven Chazz drag out a little dead arm or foot or somethen was harder to figure. Maybe she thought Chazz would gobble up th' dead baby an' she'd be spared tossen it into th' river, or whatever hell she aimed to do with it.
"You eat youself any a that fetus?" I asked Chazz softly.
"No. It smelled too bad."
"You mean to tell me a rat can find a stink too rank to abide?"
"I sorority rat, Ethel, so I classy," Chazz reminded me. "Quiet! Here come Sister."
That big rangy woman sidled over to us. She knew I knew she were up to no good, I could see this in her grey eyes I'd admired so only five minutes before. My warm feelens a yesterday seemed a year ago to me, an' I regretted i didn't have my sticken knife on my person. But my fists would do in an emergency, I figured, an' Chazz had hisself some mighty mean choppers I could hear him gnashen. "Steady," I said. "She aint likely to go after us here."
"I chew her nose off she bother you, Ethel," Chazz said plainly. There go my eyes again, misten up! Damned nicest thing anyone's ever said to me, I believe. "You a rat sent by God hisself," I told my little chum.
"Amen," Chazz replied. He hopped on top a my head, assumen what I could only suppose was a battle crouch. His claws kind a hurt diggen into my scalp, but kind a felt good, too. Besides, I didn't begrudge my bodyguard th' need for good purchase. An' this way he could pretty much stare Sister straight in th' eye, me been pretty tall myself, an' Chazz a good eighteen inches long, not counten his whippy tail.
Sister stared at me good an' hard an' long. I met her gaze blink for blink. An' Chazz I couldn't see, but I imagined his bulgy rat eyes locked in place an' mightily focused.
"Okay. Fine. I understand you, now, Ethel, and you appear to understand me," Sister said with ice in her voice.
"I understand I aim to play th' Virgin Mary, then get hell out a this place," I answered. "Chazz an' me got plans."
Sister set her jaw hard like she was cracken Brazil nuts with her big teeth. "We all have plans, Ethel. What matters is whether we can execute them or not."
Chazz gripped my scalp extra hard at th' word 'execute.'
It got my attention, too.
Sister whirled around like them hippo ballerinas in th' movie "Fantasia." "To Jackson Square, all," she ordered, clappen her hands three times. "Let's march like soldiers of Christ."
"If you don't mind, I'll just wheel myself like one," said legless Dandy.
Everybody laughed but Chazz an' me.
27 December 2007
19 December 2007
Th' Christmas Rat: Part III
Clap 'n' Clap is where Chazz an' me went after I left Dandy an' Captain Beauregard Crocker to they routine a preparen for th' day's beggen, excuse me, performen on th' street for they livelihood. But basically they begged for they daily bread, what Klaus didn't give them, at least, as th' Captain's act grew thin as a muskrat's tail, his rope work interesten but only until the novelty a seen a monkey twirl a lasso lasted. For me that meant about five minutes, an' truth be told, I found Chazz more fascinaten an' intelligent than th' Captain ever was, as you'll soon see for yourself. An' Dandy tried to compliment his monkey's tricks by speaken in all sorts a old languages, reciten the Pledge a Allegiance in Mesopotamian, or th' Lord's Prayer in th' Viking tongue, or th' Gettysburg Address in Leprechaun, though I a course had to take his word for all these, as I know Swamp Cajun an' that's it. Honestly, I figured that Dandy was just maken up everythen he said, he all but admitted to me what a big liar he was, an entertainen one, to be sure, but a liar nevertheless. So when I went over to Clap 'n' Clap an' shook hands with Sister Edith an' felt the warmth in her grasp an' th' kindness in her eyes, I felt maybe I'd stepped up outta the swamp mud an' the street gutter an' into a new life a truth an' beauty. Not just her response to me, either, but to Chazz, who I held up to her face to gauge her reaction to that big white rat.
Her smile just widened an' she kissed Chazz on his whiskery snout! I about dropped my supper right there on th' street this surprised me so. "He's beautiful, and so are you, cher," she said all elegantly. "Now come inside and I'll show you to your room."
My room! Closest thing I ever had to a room was an old outhouse that outlived it's usefulness an' Daddy said could be mine I took care a the snake an' the overflow problem the builden had. That weren't too difficult, as snakes never scared me none. I took a five gallon can a diesel fuel I stole from Daddy's own stash an' poured it down th' hole an' lit a match an' tossed it in. Two things I figured to happen happened. One, the snakes skedaddled quicker than you can say "Grampaw's yore mama." They hate the flames, snakes do, an' you leave some ashes an' cinders around a place you burned they dont come back for fear it might could happen again. An' two, the contents a the outhouse pit'll burn an' burn an' burn till it's all gone, not spectackularly like an' airboat blows up when a person shoots at its fuel tank, but gently an' smolderenly, over a period about a week or ten days. Fact is, th' gentle burnen is perfect you wanna slow cook somethen like a big wild boar, which I did outta gratitude for getten my own place. I killed a boar with a shotgun an' gutted it an' doused it with peppers an' onions an' garlic an' red beans an' Tabasco an' brown sugar, then tupped him into th' hole after first clearen away the shitter seat boards, which I used to make myself my own chair. Now this way a cooken might not sound appetizen to non-swamp folk, but they aint no germs nor crap itself left after the burnen, an' they's a pleasen caramelizen effect on th' boar's skin, which becomes crispier than cracklens. Umm God but my mouth do water at th' thought!
So the family had itself a feast, kin from three swamps over, includen an especially primitive bunch a rubes liven in some place so removed from th' world they's rumors a dinosaurs liven they still. This I dont believe, but these cousins aint got airboats or even guns, but skiff an' dugouts they trained snappen turkles to pull, alligator gars, too, like water chariots, the sight is wonderful to see but not the cousins theyselves, who were coated with swamp mire so thick an' crusty they look like animals theyselves. The language they speak is somethen only Dandy could understand, given he traffics in gibberish an' so did they. Th' stories a what transpired at th' party I can tell someday, provided you agree not to sue me for wrecken yore view a humanity.
But I had my own little place—for about a week. I'd whitewashed it an' made a swingen bed a vines an' had my little shitter board chair an' a matchen table an' a kerosene lantern an' three books I'd hidden from my idiot brothers an' parents, none a who could outread a cypress tree, they'd a tore the books's pages to use to roll into bayou blunts an' smoke theyselves silly on Red Delta hash mixed with wormen syrup. Damn bunch a drunks an' drug addicts. Back to my beloved books. One was the Bible, another was "Henderson the Rain-King" by Saul Bellow an' th' third was "Life on the Mississippi" by Mr. Mark Twain. I read each a them cover-to-cover maybe one hundred times, who was counten? I probably could say them books backwards still while standen on my head, jugglen okra an' drinken a tall cold glass a cherry Coke. An' fact is I done just that later on in my stay in New Orleans, after th' tragedy a th' Christmas pageant came an' went an' I needed a way to support myself till I was old enough to pole.
Here I'm ramblen again the way my least favorite brother, Denver, tended to do after he fell outta a tree an' cracked his head open an' you could see the white sharp pieces a skull poken through his torn skin an' grey-white bits a brain bubblen out like the foamy wake an airboat trails it speeden through dirty water. Mama cleaned him off with her hair an' closed everythen together best she could an' sat on his head for an entire day to bind the wound an' kill any germs. Pore damn Denver did live but he only can turn left now when he walks an' count no higher than two an' whistle while he talks. Worst thing an' why I hate him, though, was Mama made me turn over my new little home to Mr. Brain Dead for him to convalesce in, an' damned if he didn't succeed in burnen down that pretty outhouse (an' my books, too!) when he was amusen hisself by setten beetles on fire an' watchen them run. Damn fool Denver I do hate him so!
Somehow it weren't more than five minutes after meeten Sister Edith she got this whole story outta me an' I even cried a little an' let her an' Chazz comfort me, the one through hugs, the other with little claw scratchens on my arm at an accupressure point, rats a course naturally knowen all about the body's meridians a health an' healen. Why else does science think they an' not we will survive global heaten an' nuclear war an' catastrophes a all stripes? Sister Edith herself saw that Chazz was special, she told me so an' let him burrow down into th' tremendous beehive hair heap toweren above her scalp. Durren the few days I stayed at Clap 'n' Clap, th' sight a Chazz's snout poken outta Sister's hair was common.
I got a quick tour a her place, met a bunch a th' other girls, most seemed a little slow an' not a few waddled about with a belly taut with a baby. But they was polite an' clean an' we all took our meals together in a communal dinen area next to th' kitchen. We shared th' household chores includen the cooken, an' my but I am proud a th' fact that everybody's favorite was my special dessert made a sweet plums an' sorghum topped by curdled buttermilk an' dumped over a pile a stale bread dusted with brown sugar. Sister herself had three helpens!
My room was simple an' clean an' small, just an iron bed with a thin mattress, nice cotton sheets an' a quilt, a pine wardrobe, a table, a chair an' a Bible. But it opened onto a fancy iron balcony I enjoyed sitten on an' watchen th' spectacle that is th' French Quarter every evenen reveal itself to my bayou peepers. Better to be two stories above it all, cher, than down in th' thick a it, like Dandy an' the Captain, who I waved to often.
Th' religious part weren't forced upon me, though I went to several a th' services an' found them most curious. Sister herself sat up front next to Father Wayne, who when I asked him admitted he weren't no Catholic priest, but that he was religious nevertheless an' devoted hisself to th' Lord. Funny thing about him is his name truly was Father Wayne, or so said his drivers' license when I lifted his wallet an' peeked through it. I ask you this: who th' hell would name a baby "Father"? Course I couldn't ask my new friends about this owing to picken his pocket an' my not wanten to admit it. No, I stole nothen, only snooped.
Anyhow, th' church service consisted a all us girls standen up an' holden hands in a circle an' moven first three full turns to th' right, then three to th' left, then crowd in together an' raise our hands high, then let go a our hands an' lower our eyes to th' ground an' stand there for a couple minutes, mumblen "God is God is God is good" while Sister an' Father walked slowly around the lot a us sprinklen a little red wine on our heads. After this, we reformed our circle an' hummed a soft tune while Sister read from her Bible. Then we had to lie down on th' floor forehead first, palms flat in front a us, grinnen, as Father gave a short sermon. This took only about five minutes, but the girls heaviest with kids took to moanen, as they was uncomfortable, which Father an' Sister paid no never mind. Then we got to get up, kissed Sister's ring an' Father's ring an' pledged ourselves to good behavior an' daily showeren, which Father emphasized was th' first step to salvation, look at John th' Baptist always waist deep in water, an' Jesus hisself washen th' feet a his friends. Then church was over until the next afternoon, as worship was a daily event at Clap 'n' Clap.
An' I did ask Sister about the name a her place. The Clap part as in th' gonoree I understood, an' never once did I peep behind the clinic door, though there was always patients streamen through it. My hunch was there was a few abortions occurren there, too, maybe even mainly those, at least on Tuesdays. Also, th' patients seemed exclusively to be ladies in th' entertainment industry, if you can grab onto my meanen. Once I took to th' pole myself my hunch was confirmed. But that was a couple years down th' pike. What I wanted to know at th' time was why the church service didn't seem very Gospel, what with no clappen a hands or singen songs or any a that good old time religion stuff. An' Sister smiled when I asked this an' said wait till the Christmas show, I can hear all the clappen I want then.
"Okay I'll wait," I said, "but I been here three days an' Christmas is next week an' aint we gonna practice any for th' show? I got no idea how to be th' Virgin Mary an' Chazz sure hell dont get he's gonna be a lamb."
What I'm tellen you now is th' absolute truth. I say his name, Chazz looked out from all a Sister's hair. "Baa, baa, baa," he said in a perfect lamb's voice. "Baa, baa, baa."
I didn't know what to say. Chazz grinned at me as did Sister Edith. "The Lord will provide," she finally proclaimed. "Tonight we start. Seven. In the chapel."
Then she nodded an' left, Chazz with her, I didn't mind him spenden time elsewhere as I had a headache from all th' strangeness an' needed to sleep. I got in a good three hour nap filled with th' damnedess dreams, what all I couldn't say they were so bizarre as to defy speech. But I woke up refreshed, Chazz by then had returned and nuzzled me again. A knock on th' door, Sister's voice, I was off to become th' Virgin Mary. Apart from wedden Donald DeVries an' haven plastic surgery on my chin, worst damn decision I ever made in my life, cher, was to walk through that door an' follow Sister to rehersal. You'll find out why soon enough.
Her smile just widened an' she kissed Chazz on his whiskery snout! I about dropped my supper right there on th' street this surprised me so. "He's beautiful, and so are you, cher," she said all elegantly. "Now come inside and I'll show you to your room."
My room! Closest thing I ever had to a room was an old outhouse that outlived it's usefulness an' Daddy said could be mine I took care a the snake an' the overflow problem the builden had. That weren't too difficult, as snakes never scared me none. I took a five gallon can a diesel fuel I stole from Daddy's own stash an' poured it down th' hole an' lit a match an' tossed it in. Two things I figured to happen happened. One, the snakes skedaddled quicker than you can say "Grampaw's yore mama." They hate the flames, snakes do, an' you leave some ashes an' cinders around a place you burned they dont come back for fear it might could happen again. An' two, the contents a the outhouse pit'll burn an' burn an' burn till it's all gone, not spectackularly like an' airboat blows up when a person shoots at its fuel tank, but gently an' smolderenly, over a period about a week or ten days. Fact is, th' gentle burnen is perfect you wanna slow cook somethen like a big wild boar, which I did outta gratitude for getten my own place. I killed a boar with a shotgun an' gutted it an' doused it with peppers an' onions an' garlic an' red beans an' Tabasco an' brown sugar, then tupped him into th' hole after first clearen away the shitter seat boards, which I used to make myself my own chair. Now this way a cooken might not sound appetizen to non-swamp folk, but they aint no germs nor crap itself left after the burnen, an' they's a pleasen caramelizen effect on th' boar's skin, which becomes crispier than cracklens. Umm God but my mouth do water at th' thought!
So the family had itself a feast, kin from three swamps over, includen an especially primitive bunch a rubes liven in some place so removed from th' world they's rumors a dinosaurs liven they still. This I dont believe, but these cousins aint got airboats or even guns, but skiff an' dugouts they trained snappen turkles to pull, alligator gars, too, like water chariots, the sight is wonderful to see but not the cousins theyselves, who were coated with swamp mire so thick an' crusty they look like animals theyselves. The language they speak is somethen only Dandy could understand, given he traffics in gibberish an' so did they. Th' stories a what transpired at th' party I can tell someday, provided you agree not to sue me for wrecken yore view a humanity.
But I had my own little place—for about a week. I'd whitewashed it an' made a swingen bed a vines an' had my little shitter board chair an' a matchen table an' a kerosene lantern an' three books I'd hidden from my idiot brothers an' parents, none a who could outread a cypress tree, they'd a tore the books's pages to use to roll into bayou blunts an' smoke theyselves silly on Red Delta hash mixed with wormen syrup. Damn bunch a drunks an' drug addicts. Back to my beloved books. One was the Bible, another was "Henderson the Rain-King" by Saul Bellow an' th' third was "Life on the Mississippi" by Mr. Mark Twain. I read each a them cover-to-cover maybe one hundred times, who was counten? I probably could say them books backwards still while standen on my head, jugglen okra an' drinken a tall cold glass a cherry Coke. An' fact is I done just that later on in my stay in New Orleans, after th' tragedy a th' Christmas pageant came an' went an' I needed a way to support myself till I was old enough to pole.
Here I'm ramblen again the way my least favorite brother, Denver, tended to do after he fell outta a tree an' cracked his head open an' you could see the white sharp pieces a skull poken through his torn skin an' grey-white bits a brain bubblen out like the foamy wake an airboat trails it speeden through dirty water. Mama cleaned him off with her hair an' closed everythen together best she could an' sat on his head for an entire day to bind the wound an' kill any germs. Pore damn Denver did live but he only can turn left now when he walks an' count no higher than two an' whistle while he talks. Worst thing an' why I hate him, though, was Mama made me turn over my new little home to Mr. Brain Dead for him to convalesce in, an' damned if he didn't succeed in burnen down that pretty outhouse (an' my books, too!) when he was amusen hisself by setten beetles on fire an' watchen them run. Damn fool Denver I do hate him so!
Somehow it weren't more than five minutes after meeten Sister Edith she got this whole story outta me an' I even cried a little an' let her an' Chazz comfort me, the one through hugs, the other with little claw scratchens on my arm at an accupressure point, rats a course naturally knowen all about the body's meridians a health an' healen. Why else does science think they an' not we will survive global heaten an' nuclear war an' catastrophes a all stripes? Sister Edith herself saw that Chazz was special, she told me so an' let him burrow down into th' tremendous beehive hair heap toweren above her scalp. Durren the few days I stayed at Clap 'n' Clap, th' sight a Chazz's snout poken outta Sister's hair was common.
I got a quick tour a her place, met a bunch a th' other girls, most seemed a little slow an' not a few waddled about with a belly taut with a baby. But they was polite an' clean an' we all took our meals together in a communal dinen area next to th' kitchen. We shared th' household chores includen the cooken, an' my but I am proud a th' fact that everybody's favorite was my special dessert made a sweet plums an' sorghum topped by curdled buttermilk an' dumped over a pile a stale bread dusted with brown sugar. Sister herself had three helpens!
My room was simple an' clean an' small, just an iron bed with a thin mattress, nice cotton sheets an' a quilt, a pine wardrobe, a table, a chair an' a Bible. But it opened onto a fancy iron balcony I enjoyed sitten on an' watchen th' spectacle that is th' French Quarter every evenen reveal itself to my bayou peepers. Better to be two stories above it all, cher, than down in th' thick a it, like Dandy an' the Captain, who I waved to often.
Th' religious part weren't forced upon me, though I went to several a th' services an' found them most curious. Sister herself sat up front next to Father Wayne, who when I asked him admitted he weren't no Catholic priest, but that he was religious nevertheless an' devoted hisself to th' Lord. Funny thing about him is his name truly was Father Wayne, or so said his drivers' license when I lifted his wallet an' peeked through it. I ask you this: who th' hell would name a baby "Father"? Course I couldn't ask my new friends about this owing to picken his pocket an' my not wanten to admit it. No, I stole nothen, only snooped.
Anyhow, th' church service consisted a all us girls standen up an' holden hands in a circle an' moven first three full turns to th' right, then three to th' left, then crowd in together an' raise our hands high, then let go a our hands an' lower our eyes to th' ground an' stand there for a couple minutes, mumblen "God is God is God is good" while Sister an' Father walked slowly around the lot a us sprinklen a little red wine on our heads. After this, we reformed our circle an' hummed a soft tune while Sister read from her Bible. Then we had to lie down on th' floor forehead first, palms flat in front a us, grinnen, as Father gave a short sermon. This took only about five minutes, but the girls heaviest with kids took to moanen, as they was uncomfortable, which Father an' Sister paid no never mind. Then we got to get up, kissed Sister's ring an' Father's ring an' pledged ourselves to good behavior an' daily showeren, which Father emphasized was th' first step to salvation, look at John th' Baptist always waist deep in water, an' Jesus hisself washen th' feet a his friends. Then church was over until the next afternoon, as worship was a daily event at Clap 'n' Clap.
An' I did ask Sister about the name a her place. The Clap part as in th' gonoree I understood, an' never once did I peep behind the clinic door, though there was always patients streamen through it. My hunch was there was a few abortions occurren there, too, maybe even mainly those, at least on Tuesdays. Also, th' patients seemed exclusively to be ladies in th' entertainment industry, if you can grab onto my meanen. Once I took to th' pole myself my hunch was confirmed. But that was a couple years down th' pike. What I wanted to know at th' time was why the church service didn't seem very Gospel, what with no clappen a hands or singen songs or any a that good old time religion stuff. An' Sister smiled when I asked this an' said wait till the Christmas show, I can hear all the clappen I want then.
"Okay I'll wait," I said, "but I been here three days an' Christmas is next week an' aint we gonna practice any for th' show? I got no idea how to be th' Virgin Mary an' Chazz sure hell dont get he's gonna be a lamb."
What I'm tellen you now is th' absolute truth. I say his name, Chazz looked out from all a Sister's hair. "Baa, baa, baa," he said in a perfect lamb's voice. "Baa, baa, baa."
I didn't know what to say. Chazz grinned at me as did Sister Edith. "The Lord will provide," she finally proclaimed. "Tonight we start. Seven. In the chapel."
Then she nodded an' left, Chazz with her, I didn't mind him spenden time elsewhere as I had a headache from all th' strangeness an' needed to sleep. I got in a good three hour nap filled with th' damnedess dreams, what all I couldn't say they were so bizarre as to defy speech. But I woke up refreshed, Chazz by then had returned and nuzzled me again. A knock on th' door, Sister's voice, I was off to become th' Virgin Mary. Apart from wedden Donald DeVries an' haven plastic surgery on my chin, worst damn decision I ever made in my life, cher, was to walk through that door an' follow Sister to rehersal. You'll find out why soon enough.
10 December 2007
Th' Christmas Rat: Part II
Hey good people, this is Miz Gator Ethel back with more a th' story a my first week in New Orleans and the special people I met, th' rat I befriended, name a Chazz, the monkey Chazz wanted to kill, Captain Crocker, and a course Dandy, th' gent who
lost his legs back in th' war. Last time I brought you all to th' point where the German restaurant owner was gonna feed us, an' that he did, even Chazz got a little coffee cup filled with jambalaya made with knockwurst an' sauerkraut, the flavor was very strong an' unique, sorta like fried skunk, Daddy use to eat that with th' stink sacs on th' side for spice! But th' jambalaya was good an' the German, name a Klaus, was friendly for an old Nazi. We ate at an old beat up table behind th' restaurant on a little patio, an' there was cold beer to drink, black bread about as tough to chew as gator tail, an' a sweet pudden made out a cake an' fruits an' covered with heavy cream that was flavored with cloves an' cinnamon. Klaus was short, fat and merry, with eyes blue like a baby catfish, stiff red hair he cut short over his jug ears, a meaty face with long sideburns clingen to his jowls like a couple a fox squirrels, a little nose bright as a brass key an' a heavy belly hangen low over his groin. He had a German way a talken, too, kinda hard to follow. I said nothen to him beside what politeness demanded. He did like Captain Crocker, I could tell by th' way he petted him an' fed him little cookies he pulled outta his pocket. But still an' all, I could definitely see him shooten at Dandy, shooten to kill, too. An' vice-versa for that matter.
It's hard to go from wanten to kill someone to haven them as yore friend, though both men probably didn't realize this then. They would shortly, though, when the Christmas show went to hell. An' that's what I intend to tell you about. Now!
I thanked Klaus for th' meal once I finished an' he pressed a little pot wrapped in a towel into my arms. I thanked him again an' peeked under th' towel to find it full a curly sausages an' that black bread an' some shiny apples an' a fat wedge a cheese. Mmm mmm! Smell was wonderful. It'd keep me full for three days, an' the pot would make a nice place for Chazz to sleep, who was scratchen my leg and snufflen it. I looked down an' there he was grinnen at me again, an' he winked! Damn smart snowy rat I loved him already. Still, I wasn't about to turn him lose around the Captain, who was over squatten in th' alley relieven hisself. An' Dandy led us down the alley to his dumpster-cabin. "I'd invite you in, but it aint proper a young girl like you stayen there with an old amputee and busker like me. But I got a friend you'd like who could put you up a while. Name a Edith Ramouleaux. Everyone calls her Sister Edith."
I stepped back a step from Dandy an' asked who exackly was this Sister Edna, some nun?
"No but she run a church an' a clinic."
"Both?"
"Both. She a remarkable woman. Church is called 'Clap 'n' Clap.' Clinic runs by the same name. Anyway, she takes girls in who's leaven they families. Puts 'em to work, educates them, helps them better theyselves. But she fun, too, likes to laugh."
"She mind I have a pet rat?"
"That what he is now?"
"Yes."
He drew a deep breath an' reached for a pill vial in his shirt pocket, uncorked it an' shook our four, five big yellow tablets he swallowed without any liquid but th' spit in his mouth. Then he looked at me an' said, "You can ask about Chazz, but I aint maken any promises."
"Hey, never make any an' you never break any's how I see it."
"Good. They's one other thing."
"Oh?"
"Yes. We got ourselves a little tradition, Sister an' me, we put on a liven creche every year down in Jackson Square. For th' poor. Get animals an' people an' decorate up a stable we haul in an' Sister Edith an' me we tell th' Christmas story the way it really went down, usen Secret Gospels hidden by Charlemagne an' Alfred th' Great an' th' Emperor Constantine an' Josephine Bonaparte an' a slew a others down through the ages."
"Go on, you fibben."
"Am not."
"How you know all this?"
"When I fought in the Battle a the Bulge, we hunkered down for a week in an old monastery th' Germans had blasted with they shells. Place all crumblen an' busted up, but I found a vault. Another fellow an' I took a mortar round, pointed it against the vault's door an' fired at it from a safe distance back. Scared shit outta everyone, who was other end a th' builden, they heard the explosion an' just figued it was th' damn Germans again. So we ran back to them, offered to check it out, ran back again and dug through th' rubble into th' open vault. Walked in on somethen amazen, too."
"What? What you find?"
"First I gotta ask you if you with us?"
"Huh?"
"I asked if you with us?"
"Hell yes I with you. Now, what you find in this vault?"
"You be part a our Christmas show I tell you?"
"Do I have to strip?"
"Hell no you dont. This a religious exhibit. What you take me for?"
"A man."
"I grant you th' point. No, no strippen required, encouraged or permitted. I'm thinken a usen you as th' Virgin Mary, if you dont mind."
I didn't know what to say this seemed such an honor, even to someone like me brought up mainly as a member a th' Bayou Baptist Church a Christ th' Terrible Redeemer, which includes a healthy dose a voodoo in th' service an' much talk a Hell an' damnation, which didn't sound all that different from what my life was like anyway. "Sure I'll be yore virgin," I agreed. "Now what you find in that vault?"
Captain Crocker was all snoozy an' jumped onto Dandy's lap an' curled up an' fell asleep, snorren like an old grandpa after a trip to a whorehouse. I sat down on a bald abandoned tire an' let Chazz perch on my shoulder an' nibble some nits from my hair.
Dandy coughed up about half his lung, took another few a his pills, an' said they was only a small but fancy scroll in th' vault made outta animal skins an' wound around a gold-plated rod that was shaped on both ends into smilen skulls. Neither Dandy or his buddy could understand the writen on the scroll, which appeared to be in some other language, maybe Roman or Grecian or Jew, they didn't know. But they dropped their treasure into a rucksack an' cinched it tight an' swore they wouldn't tell a soul, an' if either a them got killed, th' other could keep th' scroll outright, otherwise they'd share it, an' once th' war ended go to a library an' figure out what it said.
"An' that's what I did, Ethel, I took that scroll home with me an' moved down here to New Orleans where I went to Tulane an' got myself three degrees in ancient languages, an' I translated it an' published a book about it called 'The Secret Gospel According to Jebenezzarchaiahakukaphazz.' Gospel a Jeb's how I refer to it usually."
"What's it about?"
"You'll find out as we rehearse. It actually aint that long, but it's revolutionary. Most a th' scroll consisted a recipes—many a them used by Klaus here."
"What about yore friend? He help decipher th' code?"
"He never made it outta that monastery, Ethel."
"Germans kill him?"
"Dont know. He was shot in th' back that night. We found him dead face down in a puddle."
"You kill him?" I blurted this out as I couldn't help myself.
"No," Dandy said. Oddly he didn't seem angry about my question, which made me think a course he was fibben.
"Can I see th' scroll?"
"No, that's gone, I'm afraid."
"Happened to it?"
He nodded at the captain, whose snorren had quieted. "He ate most a it last year."
"Good God. You whup him?"
"Hell no. That scroll was made from a dead animal. I aint gonna punish a liven one for been true to his nature. Besides, I wouldn't want to hurt th' Baby Jesus."
"Huh?"
"Captain here play Jesus in th' show every year."
"You mean I'm playen that monkey's mama?"
"That bother you?"
"No, I guess not. I got to tell you, though, I dont believe any a yore story."
Dandy laughed. "You a smart girl. But a story aint gotta be true to mean somethen, you know."
I nodded.
"I gotta go," Dandy said. "Sister's place just across the street. That her waven at you from th' door. You go over there, come back here tomorrow at noon."
"You sure she'll let me bring Chazz along?"
"Hell yes. He can be in th' play hisself. A Christmas lamb. Think he'd like that?"
"Yeah."
"Guess we'll find out soon enough."
lost his legs back in th' war. Last time I brought you all to th' point where the German restaurant owner was gonna feed us, an' that he did, even Chazz got a little coffee cup filled with jambalaya made with knockwurst an' sauerkraut, the flavor was very strong an' unique, sorta like fried skunk, Daddy use to eat that with th' stink sacs on th' side for spice! But th' jambalaya was good an' the German, name a Klaus, was friendly for an old Nazi. We ate at an old beat up table behind th' restaurant on a little patio, an' there was cold beer to drink, black bread about as tough to chew as gator tail, an' a sweet pudden made out a cake an' fruits an' covered with heavy cream that was flavored with cloves an' cinnamon. Klaus was short, fat and merry, with eyes blue like a baby catfish, stiff red hair he cut short over his jug ears, a meaty face with long sideburns clingen to his jowls like a couple a fox squirrels, a little nose bright as a brass key an' a heavy belly hangen low over his groin. He had a German way a talken, too, kinda hard to follow. I said nothen to him beside what politeness demanded. He did like Captain Crocker, I could tell by th' way he petted him an' fed him little cookies he pulled outta his pocket. But still an' all, I could definitely see him shooten at Dandy, shooten to kill, too. An' vice-versa for that matter.
It's hard to go from wanten to kill someone to haven them as yore friend, though both men probably didn't realize this then. They would shortly, though, when the Christmas show went to hell. An' that's what I intend to tell you about. Now!
I thanked Klaus for th' meal once I finished an' he pressed a little pot wrapped in a towel into my arms. I thanked him again an' peeked under th' towel to find it full a curly sausages an' that black bread an' some shiny apples an' a fat wedge a cheese. Mmm mmm! Smell was wonderful. It'd keep me full for three days, an' the pot would make a nice place for Chazz to sleep, who was scratchen my leg and snufflen it. I looked down an' there he was grinnen at me again, an' he winked! Damn smart snowy rat I loved him already. Still, I wasn't about to turn him lose around the Captain, who was over squatten in th' alley relieven hisself. An' Dandy led us down the alley to his dumpster-cabin. "I'd invite you in, but it aint proper a young girl like you stayen there with an old amputee and busker like me. But I got a friend you'd like who could put you up a while. Name a Edith Ramouleaux. Everyone calls her Sister Edith."
I stepped back a step from Dandy an' asked who exackly was this Sister Edna, some nun?
"No but she run a church an' a clinic."
"Both?"
"Both. She a remarkable woman. Church is called 'Clap 'n' Clap.' Clinic runs by the same name. Anyway, she takes girls in who's leaven they families. Puts 'em to work, educates them, helps them better theyselves. But she fun, too, likes to laugh."
"She mind I have a pet rat?"
"That what he is now?"
"Yes."
He drew a deep breath an' reached for a pill vial in his shirt pocket, uncorked it an' shook our four, five big yellow tablets he swallowed without any liquid but th' spit in his mouth. Then he looked at me an' said, "You can ask about Chazz, but I aint maken any promises."
"Hey, never make any an' you never break any's how I see it."
"Good. They's one other thing."
"Oh?"
"Yes. We got ourselves a little tradition, Sister an' me, we put on a liven creche every year down in Jackson Square. For th' poor. Get animals an' people an' decorate up a stable we haul in an' Sister Edith an' me we tell th' Christmas story the way it really went down, usen Secret Gospels hidden by Charlemagne an' Alfred th' Great an' th' Emperor Constantine an' Josephine Bonaparte an' a slew a others down through the ages."
"Go on, you fibben."
"Am not."
"How you know all this?"
"When I fought in the Battle a the Bulge, we hunkered down for a week in an old monastery th' Germans had blasted with they shells. Place all crumblen an' busted up, but I found a vault. Another fellow an' I took a mortar round, pointed it against the vault's door an' fired at it from a safe distance back. Scared shit outta everyone, who was other end a th' builden, they heard the explosion an' just figued it was th' damn Germans again. So we ran back to them, offered to check it out, ran back again and dug through th' rubble into th' open vault. Walked in on somethen amazen, too."
"What? What you find?"
"First I gotta ask you if you with us?"
"Huh?"
"I asked if you with us?"
"Hell yes I with you. Now, what you find in this vault?"
"You be part a our Christmas show I tell you?"
"Do I have to strip?"
"Hell no you dont. This a religious exhibit. What you take me for?"
"A man."
"I grant you th' point. No, no strippen required, encouraged or permitted. I'm thinken a usen you as th' Virgin Mary, if you dont mind."
I didn't know what to say this seemed such an honor, even to someone like me brought up mainly as a member a th' Bayou Baptist Church a Christ th' Terrible Redeemer, which includes a healthy dose a voodoo in th' service an' much talk a Hell an' damnation, which didn't sound all that different from what my life was like anyway. "Sure I'll be yore virgin," I agreed. "Now what you find in that vault?"
Captain Crocker was all snoozy an' jumped onto Dandy's lap an' curled up an' fell asleep, snorren like an old grandpa after a trip to a whorehouse. I sat down on a bald abandoned tire an' let Chazz perch on my shoulder an' nibble some nits from my hair.
Dandy coughed up about half his lung, took another few a his pills, an' said they was only a small but fancy scroll in th' vault made outta animal skins an' wound around a gold-plated rod that was shaped on both ends into smilen skulls. Neither Dandy or his buddy could understand the writen on the scroll, which appeared to be in some other language, maybe Roman or Grecian or Jew, they didn't know. But they dropped their treasure into a rucksack an' cinched it tight an' swore they wouldn't tell a soul, an' if either a them got killed, th' other could keep th' scroll outright, otherwise they'd share it, an' once th' war ended go to a library an' figure out what it said.
"An' that's what I did, Ethel, I took that scroll home with me an' moved down here to New Orleans where I went to Tulane an' got myself three degrees in ancient languages, an' I translated it an' published a book about it called 'The Secret Gospel According to Jebenezzarchaiahakukaphazz.' Gospel a Jeb's how I refer to it usually."
"What's it about?"
"You'll find out as we rehearse. It actually aint that long, but it's revolutionary. Most a th' scroll consisted a recipes—many a them used by Klaus here."
"What about yore friend? He help decipher th' code?"
"He never made it outta that monastery, Ethel."
"Germans kill him?"
"Dont know. He was shot in th' back that night. We found him dead face down in a puddle."
"You kill him?" I blurted this out as I couldn't help myself.
"No," Dandy said. Oddly he didn't seem angry about my question, which made me think a course he was fibben.
"Can I see th' scroll?"
"No, that's gone, I'm afraid."
"Happened to it?"
He nodded at the captain, whose snorren had quieted. "He ate most a it last year."
"Good God. You whup him?"
"Hell no. That scroll was made from a dead animal. I aint gonna punish a liven one for been true to his nature. Besides, I wouldn't want to hurt th' Baby Jesus."
"Huh?"
"Captain here play Jesus in th' show every year."
"You mean I'm playen that monkey's mama?"
"That bother you?"
"No, I guess not. I got to tell you, though, I dont believe any a yore story."
Dandy laughed. "You a smart girl. But a story aint gotta be true to mean somethen, you know."
I nodded.
"I gotta go," Dandy said. "Sister's place just across the street. That her waven at you from th' door. You go over there, come back here tomorrow at noon."
"You sure she'll let me bring Chazz along?"
"Hell yes. He can be in th' play hisself. A Christmas lamb. Think he'd like that?"
"Yeah."
"Guess we'll find out soon enough."
04 December 2007
Th' Christmas Rat: Part I
Hallo, cher, this is Miz Gator Ethel Thibodeaux here with a heartwarmen Christmas tale that's true mostly, which parts exackly I no longer remember, but they's truth in what I say, if not always in how I say it. But you been polen yore Cajun ass away in th' joints I've worked over the past thirty years, it's almost been, an' you forgive youself the details you forgotten. Now Whiski Rae got herself outta th' business in time to salvage that smart mind a hers, thank God! That is one sharp femme, a premier proctodermatologist, I think I got the spellen right, my protege one time an' now our roles is reversed, ever since I agreed to spend most a the year up North at th' Balzac Institute a Partial Recovery, where I am chief cook an' menu planner an' she is co-director with that wild man a hers, Dusty. But if you read this blog (and God bless you if you aint been spenden yore time better an' wiser) you know all this already. So, to the story of th' Christmas rat.
I was fresh outta th' bayou back in th' late 1970s when I ran away from my family such as they were. Now I aint about to tell you a sob story about my life growen up with the dumbest group of scumbag dirtball cockroaches ever the swamp spit up then swallowed again, though they was all that an' less. Uncles married to cousins who birthed they own grandmas. A kidnapper so dumb he put a ransom out on his own head, then cut off his fingers an' toes an' mailed it to hisself as a warnen against what? Suicide? My mother meaner than a stuck wild pig, an' longer tusks, too. My dad th' drunkest man in Louisiana, he was even born drunk thanks to my grandma, who then bottle fed him malt liquor mixed with molasses for th' first several years a his life. Weighed over two hundred pounds by the end a his five years in third grade! Time I left th' swamp the sugar beetus shrunk him down from a top weight a four hundred pounds to less than a quarter a that. Nickname a Cornstalk at th' time a his death. Ma danced on his grave then married Dad's own sister's mother-in-law's niece's stepson. Meaning her half-brother. Held th' ceremony right at th' funeral. Voodoo priestess officiaten. I aint seen none a them since that time. Whole goddamn mess a nutjobs.
So I snuck away after th' wedden an' made my way to th' Crescent City. I'd hardly been to a town before, so to see this fabled city for th' first time was a treat beyond compare. I might as well landed on Mars it was so unusual to see all them people, especially ones with teeth that closed flush with each other. My God but the variety of persons I saw was amazen as well: peoples of all colors an' races an' about five or six different sexes when I thought they was at most 2 1/2. I saw Cajuns like me staggeren around mouths draggen open like they was inviten a pigeon to lay her eggs in the hole, an' jazz musicians a all hues standen in the streets tooten they horns an' fiddlen they fiddles an' dancen an' singen an' bangen spoons on they knees an' strummen banjos an' guitars an' some magick men with card tricks to cheat you outta money an' a legless gent with a shaved head who owned a little monkey he kept on a leash, that monkey was dressed in sparkly finery and he had a little lasso he twirled over his hairy ape skull. Throwed the loop at crickets, mice, june bugs whatever strolled by. Caught them more often than not--includen somethen that monkey and Mr. No Legs came to regret: a big ole sewer rat about th' size of a lamb.
I aint kidden you neither. I was maybe fifteen, an' it was December the week before Christmas an' I was hungry an' cranky an' wet an' scared. Not scared like I couldn't take care a myself, for what else had I done since Mama pulled her nipple outta my mouth when I was six years old? But scared cause I'd hardly ever been to school an' I didn't really have any city work skills. Now, they need someone to kill a nutria with a thrown rock at twenty paces, or tame a cottonmouth down to chase it outta yore skiff, or dive deep into th' swamp waters to catch a snappen turkle for supper, or gut rub a gator an' put him to sleep, or brew up some Bayou Booze so powerful you numb yore tongue for a week just sippen a little a it, or take out a pendicks from yore little brother when it's just about to explode, then I was the girl for them. But so far in my week in New Orleans, sleepen on a bench in Jackson Square in front a that big goddamn church, the lights shinen on it throughout the night so bright I had to pull a bag over my head, nobody asked me to do none a those things, cher, no way. A few men wanted sick favors from me but once they saw the sawed off ten gauge double barrelled shotgun that hung round my neck from a lanyard and was hidden under my coat, they backed away fast. Not that I couldn't a torn them in two just with my fingers. Like I'd never had to do that to some randy old buck before! I knew how to keep myself safe from twelve foot gators, after all. Some horndog with the syph an' the clap wasn't no challenge to me.
But seen that roped rat made me feel vulnerable. The noleg man yelled at his monkey to let it go. "Beauregard, drop the lariat! Boy! Let him loose!" But th' little monkey seemed to think it was a game, he chattered away an' hopped up an' down an' peed himself he was so thrilled, I could see the dark seep in the crotch a his fancy pants. The rat, as I said, was huge! An' he was an albino, so as I said he seemed like a little lamb to me, only not very gentle. Now rats they dont usually bother me, we kept them for pets as kids, as dogs an' cats dont last in th' swamp, as they's dumber than the natural critters that tend to see a meal they see Rover or Fluff. This rat was twice th' size a most bayou rats, which I suspect had to do with all that fine food the Big Easy's known for, you just know you walk by trash bags outside a restaurants they bound to be full a munchen rodents. An' I could see by th' way he set his eyes on that monkey an' tensed his hindquarters he was about to pounce an' kill th' fellow. Eat him, probably, for rats aint choosy.
So I stepped in. No, not with my ten gauge, either. The rat sprung, the man cried "No!" The monkey shit himself. I snaked a hand out an' grabbed that rat by the tail. Must a weighed a good eight, ten pounds, too, he did. I gave the rat a few swings around my head, the monkey as well, he was either too scared or too dumb to drop his lasso. But this is the way we put babies to sleep in th' swamp, singen a lullaby to them while they's twirled. Such as I sung:
Twirl, baby, twirl.
Twirl yoreself to sleep.
Spin an' swing around
an' round.
Spin yoreself to sleep.
Dont puke while you do whirl,
Just whirl yoreself to sleep.
Dont wake up till my bottle's drunk,
An' I've drunk myself to sleep.
Bye and bye both animals stopped they strugglen an' I layed them down at th' feet—excuse me, the stumps—a the man, who introduced himself as Professor Dandelion Horatio Longacre, IV. I looked at him an' said since he obviously was fibben me—no way he weren't some fool by th' name a Robideaux or LeBoeuf—I'd just call him Dandy. He said fine.
But I did soften to him some as I watched him cradle his monkey an' stroke its head an' coo to it. Meanwhile I kept an eye on th' rat an' cinched the lasso tight around its neck an' looped the cord around its legs to hobble it. An', yes, I found myself scratching it behind its ears an' smoothen its coat down an' flicken fleas off a its back. An' he sneezed an' opened his eyes an' stared at me a little nervous first until I hummed the lullaby to it an' fed him a boiled crawfish I found in th' gutter. He chewed it carefully an' flashed me a little rat grin. I knew then we was gonna be tight.
"Chazz," I said softly.
"Pardon?" This from Dandy.
"I'm callen my rat Chazz. After my favorite brother."
"Yore rat?"
"Yes."
"Okay," he said. "Just dont let him kill my monkey. I paid lots a money for him. We performen on th' streets a this town for over three years."
"You do well?"
"It's a liven. Cops watch out for me."
"You got a home?"
"A shed back a this builden, in th' alley, all the home I need."
I stood up an' looked where he pointed an' saw an old rusted dumpster turned upside down with a door an' a couple a windows hacked outta the metal. "That's where you live?"
"Yeah," he said, an edge to his voice. "Where you liven?"
I swept my hand back an' forth.
"So you on the street?"
"For now. How'd you lose your legs? Or didn't you ever have any?"
"I did. A German 88 millimeter shell tore through my tank in Belgium duren World War II an' took my legs with it."
"I'm sorry. How'd you live?"
"The cold froze the bleeden vessels shut until a medic found me."
"Did it hurt?"
"No."
"Really?"
"Course it hurt, but it don't now."
"Well, I guess that's good. I suppose I should be getten on now."
"You got an appointment somewhere?"
"You know I dont."
"Then wait here an' have supper with me. The restaurant owner feeds me an' th' monkey every night."
"That's nice a him. Why's he do that?"
"He fought in the war, too."
"He was yore buddy then?"
"Not exactly. He served in th' German army. For all I know, he might a been shooten at me."
"You think?"
"I dont, but it's possible. We were in th' same area at th' same time."
"An' now you friends?"
"An' now we friends. Here, give me a little tug so I can wheel over back a th' alley to the restaurant's kitchen door. He let's me eat inside."
"I can go inside with you?"
"I dont see why not."
"What about Chazz?"
"Hell, long as you keep him on you, I dont think Klaus would care. They's rats in every restaurant in th' Quarter, includen th' fancy ones."
So that's how I come to meet Dandy, his monkey, Captain Crocker, the restaurant owner, Klaus von Reinkampf, and how Chazz an' me came to play big roles in th' Christmas paegant Dandy put on every year in Jackson Square—except never after the one Chazz an' I was in. More a' that story to come later, cher.
I was fresh outta th' bayou back in th' late 1970s when I ran away from my family such as they were. Now I aint about to tell you a sob story about my life growen up with the dumbest group of scumbag dirtball cockroaches ever the swamp spit up then swallowed again, though they was all that an' less. Uncles married to cousins who birthed they own grandmas. A kidnapper so dumb he put a ransom out on his own head, then cut off his fingers an' toes an' mailed it to hisself as a warnen against what? Suicide? My mother meaner than a stuck wild pig, an' longer tusks, too. My dad th' drunkest man in Louisiana, he was even born drunk thanks to my grandma, who then bottle fed him malt liquor mixed with molasses for th' first several years a his life. Weighed over two hundred pounds by the end a his five years in third grade! Time I left th' swamp the sugar beetus shrunk him down from a top weight a four hundred pounds to less than a quarter a that. Nickname a Cornstalk at th' time a his death. Ma danced on his grave then married Dad's own sister's mother-in-law's niece's stepson. Meaning her half-brother. Held th' ceremony right at th' funeral. Voodoo priestess officiaten. I aint seen none a them since that time. Whole goddamn mess a nutjobs.
So I snuck away after th' wedden an' made my way to th' Crescent City. I'd hardly been to a town before, so to see this fabled city for th' first time was a treat beyond compare. I might as well landed on Mars it was so unusual to see all them people, especially ones with teeth that closed flush with each other. My God but the variety of persons I saw was amazen as well: peoples of all colors an' races an' about five or six different sexes when I thought they was at most 2 1/2. I saw Cajuns like me staggeren around mouths draggen open like they was inviten a pigeon to lay her eggs in the hole, an' jazz musicians a all hues standen in the streets tooten they horns an' fiddlen they fiddles an' dancen an' singen an' bangen spoons on they knees an' strummen banjos an' guitars an' some magick men with card tricks to cheat you outta money an' a legless gent with a shaved head who owned a little monkey he kept on a leash, that monkey was dressed in sparkly finery and he had a little lasso he twirled over his hairy ape skull. Throwed the loop at crickets, mice, june bugs whatever strolled by. Caught them more often than not--includen somethen that monkey and Mr. No Legs came to regret: a big ole sewer rat about th' size of a lamb.
I aint kidden you neither. I was maybe fifteen, an' it was December the week before Christmas an' I was hungry an' cranky an' wet an' scared. Not scared like I couldn't take care a myself, for what else had I done since Mama pulled her nipple outta my mouth when I was six years old? But scared cause I'd hardly ever been to school an' I didn't really have any city work skills. Now, they need someone to kill a nutria with a thrown rock at twenty paces, or tame a cottonmouth down to chase it outta yore skiff, or dive deep into th' swamp waters to catch a snappen turkle for supper, or gut rub a gator an' put him to sleep, or brew up some Bayou Booze so powerful you numb yore tongue for a week just sippen a little a it, or take out a pendicks from yore little brother when it's just about to explode, then I was the girl for them. But so far in my week in New Orleans, sleepen on a bench in Jackson Square in front a that big goddamn church, the lights shinen on it throughout the night so bright I had to pull a bag over my head, nobody asked me to do none a those things, cher, no way. A few men wanted sick favors from me but once they saw the sawed off ten gauge double barrelled shotgun that hung round my neck from a lanyard and was hidden under my coat, they backed away fast. Not that I couldn't a torn them in two just with my fingers. Like I'd never had to do that to some randy old buck before! I knew how to keep myself safe from twelve foot gators, after all. Some horndog with the syph an' the clap wasn't no challenge to me.
But seen that roped rat made me feel vulnerable. The noleg man yelled at his monkey to let it go. "Beauregard, drop the lariat! Boy! Let him loose!" But th' little monkey seemed to think it was a game, he chattered away an' hopped up an' down an' peed himself he was so thrilled, I could see the dark seep in the crotch a his fancy pants. The rat, as I said, was huge! An' he was an albino, so as I said he seemed like a little lamb to me, only not very gentle. Now rats they dont usually bother me, we kept them for pets as kids, as dogs an' cats dont last in th' swamp, as they's dumber than the natural critters that tend to see a meal they see Rover or Fluff. This rat was twice th' size a most bayou rats, which I suspect had to do with all that fine food the Big Easy's known for, you just know you walk by trash bags outside a restaurants they bound to be full a munchen rodents. An' I could see by th' way he set his eyes on that monkey an' tensed his hindquarters he was about to pounce an' kill th' fellow. Eat him, probably, for rats aint choosy.
So I stepped in. No, not with my ten gauge, either. The rat sprung, the man cried "No!" The monkey shit himself. I snaked a hand out an' grabbed that rat by the tail. Must a weighed a good eight, ten pounds, too, he did. I gave the rat a few swings around my head, the monkey as well, he was either too scared or too dumb to drop his lasso. But this is the way we put babies to sleep in th' swamp, singen a lullaby to them while they's twirled. Such as I sung:
Twirl, baby, twirl.
Twirl yoreself to sleep.
Spin an' swing around
an' round.
Spin yoreself to sleep.
Dont puke while you do whirl,
Just whirl yoreself to sleep.
Dont wake up till my bottle's drunk,
An' I've drunk myself to sleep.
Bye and bye both animals stopped they strugglen an' I layed them down at th' feet—excuse me, the stumps—a the man, who introduced himself as Professor Dandelion Horatio Longacre, IV. I looked at him an' said since he obviously was fibben me—no way he weren't some fool by th' name a Robideaux or LeBoeuf—I'd just call him Dandy. He said fine.
But I did soften to him some as I watched him cradle his monkey an' stroke its head an' coo to it. Meanwhile I kept an eye on th' rat an' cinched the lasso tight around its neck an' looped the cord around its legs to hobble it. An', yes, I found myself scratching it behind its ears an' smoothen its coat down an' flicken fleas off a its back. An' he sneezed an' opened his eyes an' stared at me a little nervous first until I hummed the lullaby to it an' fed him a boiled crawfish I found in th' gutter. He chewed it carefully an' flashed me a little rat grin. I knew then we was gonna be tight.
"Chazz," I said softly.
"Pardon?" This from Dandy.
"I'm callen my rat Chazz. After my favorite brother."
"Yore rat?"
"Yes."
"Okay," he said. "Just dont let him kill my monkey. I paid lots a money for him. We performen on th' streets a this town for over three years."
"You do well?"
"It's a liven. Cops watch out for me."
"You got a home?"
"A shed back a this builden, in th' alley, all the home I need."
I stood up an' looked where he pointed an' saw an old rusted dumpster turned upside down with a door an' a couple a windows hacked outta the metal. "That's where you live?"
"Yeah," he said, an edge to his voice. "Where you liven?"
I swept my hand back an' forth.
"So you on the street?"
"For now. How'd you lose your legs? Or didn't you ever have any?"
"I did. A German 88 millimeter shell tore through my tank in Belgium duren World War II an' took my legs with it."
"I'm sorry. How'd you live?"
"The cold froze the bleeden vessels shut until a medic found me."
"Did it hurt?"
"No."
"Really?"
"Course it hurt, but it don't now."
"Well, I guess that's good. I suppose I should be getten on now."
"You got an appointment somewhere?"
"You know I dont."
"Then wait here an' have supper with me. The restaurant owner feeds me an' th' monkey every night."
"That's nice a him. Why's he do that?"
"He fought in the war, too."
"He was yore buddy then?"
"Not exactly. He served in th' German army. For all I know, he might a been shooten at me."
"You think?"
"I dont, but it's possible. We were in th' same area at th' same time."
"An' now you friends?"
"An' now we friends. Here, give me a little tug so I can wheel over back a th' alley to the restaurant's kitchen door. He let's me eat inside."
"I can go inside with you?"
"I dont see why not."
"What about Chazz?"
"Hell, long as you keep him on you, I dont think Klaus would care. They's rats in every restaurant in th' Quarter, includen th' fancy ones."
So that's how I come to meet Dandy, his monkey, Captain Crocker, the restaurant owner, Klaus von Reinkampf, and how Chazz an' me came to play big roles in th' Christmas paegant Dandy put on every year in Jackson Square—except never after the one Chazz an' I was in. More a' that story to come later, cher.
28 November 2007
Stop 'em dead!
I'm Y.Z. Newell and I'm here to tell you about proper safety techniques when it comes restraining a madman. No, I don't mean the patients at our hospital, who are all pretty nice and not a really crazy one among them, except maybe a few, but not really that bad, no, not at all. I mean restrain Dusty, who has got Fourleg Fever, meaning he never did fully recover from life in the burrow. Me, I'm not like Dusty, despite my own years in the wild. Maybe it was all that solitude, as Ki wasn't real sociable and my family was, for coyotes, that is. I chalk it up to Ki's artistic talents, her poet side, and maybe being a little off. I don't know. I'm basically a cop with a fancy job title, Director of Security and Community Relations, and I act more than I think, if you know what I mean. You don't? I'd sooner taser your ass than dialogue with you. That help you understand? Does it?
I thought so.
But we are a hospital, of a kind, so we don't want to hurt anybody, except maybe that idiot, Durwood. Why we keep that methdog hanging around I'll never get it, other than Whiski Rae's his sister, and a finer woman I'd never want to meet in my life. Dusty's crazy in love with her, as she is with him, I envy them both that kind of closeness. Sure, Miz Thibodeaux and I have our moments together and I admire the boudin out of her, swamp raised as she was, by the worst pack of slobbering halfwits, whacked-out inbreds and damnable polecats in all of Dixie, and that's saying plenty. But Miz Thibodeaux isn't the settling down kind, and I'm all jangled inside from my days as a member of the Coast Guard Special Forces, or the Zodiacs, as we're better known, after the inflatable boats we favor on missions. I spent time in Grenada during and after the invasion, and it wasn't very pretty down there, except for the beaches, the nude ones especially, where wealthy young Brazilian women tended to vacation, Yowza! But I mean those dunderheaded medical students, the ones we rescued, some went out by chopper, but we Zodiacs took a dozen out of the anatomy lab, where they were hiding out pretending to be cadavers, they were so scared, some even partially dissecting themselves to further their disguises. I guess they feared retribution by the Marxist overlords who wished to redistribute the island's wealth, all $37 of it, not that we ever found a true Red, worst goddamned excuse for a war I ever seen. I got a helluva sunburn and they wanted to give me a Purple Heart for that, I shit you not! I turned it down and left the Coast Guard as soon as my tour was up, after 16 years, my plan was to be a lifer but hell, not if the next war took me to Little Diomede Island or some other goddamned place.
See, I'd left the Sourdough County sheriff's department back in 1974, shortly after I met Dusty and took him to Dr. Ken's clinic in North Dakota. I'll let Dr. Balzac tell you that story, if he chooses to, which I'm sure that lovable blowhard will. I think of him as my kid brother—I'm ten years older than him. I realized on the long drive being a county mountie wasn't for me, and after I dropped Dusty off at Dr. Ken's place, I drove back to Sourdough, resigned my post, and drove back to the Great Plains in my jeep, where I hung around on the prairie for a month or so. Yes, yes, I stripped down for a while and ran with the coyotes, but unlike Dusty I lost my edge, maybe my desire as well, I wasn't feral anymore. Plus I was sick of all the land. Water preoccupied me, and not just the Missouri River, though that wasn't bad, the big reservoirs in particular I liked. I bought a row boat and paddled around Lake Sakakawea, trailing a line in the water. Sometimes I'd catch perch or walleyes and if nobody else was around to see me, I'd eat them raw. Nummers, as Whiski Rae likes to say.
Anyhow, I got the idea one day to join the Coast Guard, and once there, to try out for the Zodiacs. I was a few years older than the average recruit, but that was no disadvantage, my past ferality giving me extra strength, speed and endurance—so much so, in fact, that I had to dial these attributes down considerably so as to call less attention to myself. And until we went to war with Grenada, being a Zodiac wasn't a bad gig. Broadly speaking, my specialty was busting drug runners, though I also spent time at both poles aboard an icebreaker as a marine mammal wrangler (memo to all: never flirt with a female leopard seal), and was a special observer for the U.S. government during the Falklands War, concealing myself as a sheep. Which was a hoot: me, a coyote in sheep's clothing! The Deenkera clan still gets a laugh out of that.
Well, here I am telling you a shaggy-dog story, though when you think about it, what other kind is there? Nah, don't worry, I won't get all existential on you. I have read Sartre and Camus in French, and can smell the amphetamines in the former's writings. Camus I like, especially "The Plague," as I've lived through epidemics on the prairie, including, most dramatically, the terrible virus that wiped out 99% of all black-footed ferrets.
So suppose a madman, somebody like Dusty, charges you with serious hurt on his mind. Hurting you, I mean. What would you do? Most people would try to land a punch, which is the single dumbest thing you can try, as people generally aren't used to punching anything, another person in particular. Basically what usually happens is a person swings hard, doesn't connect, falls off balance, and is stomped or crushed or shot or stabbed by their attacker. None of these outcomes is especially desireable, you'd have to agree, and if you don't, God help you because I sure won't.
So again, a madman charges. Today's madman is unweaponized, beyond his limbs, his head and his teeth. With weapons present you've got yourself a whole new deal. This madman has none, but he's madder than mad, his face is red and the steam's billowing out from his ears like in the cartoons, and he's grinding his teeth. Simply do this—if he charges you from at least two body lengths away. Closer than that and I can't help you right now because I'm talking about the first situation. So, you're charged. All you need to do is to wait until he's about six feet away (if he's running), drop to the ground and roll towards him. You'll almost surely trip him up, as we won't have time to react. Then you scramble over to him and sit down on his head, hard, facing away from him. And stay there. And stay there longer. You could suffocate a man this way if you wanted but that isn't the goal. The goal is to settle him down.
And he'll settle. You tell him he's got to settle if you're going to let him up. Once he's quiet, lift a cheek a little to make sure he can breathe. He starts to rile up, you sit back down. Call for help however you can.
I didn't learn this technique, I'm proud to say, I invented it when I was a Zodiac. I used it to quiet a cow leopard seal, a creature much stronger than your average man, and even stronger than me, a badass fourleg Special Forces operative. And while that story didn't end very well (the cow's bull came by and blindsided me), I'm still here and the only part of them you could still find would be my sealskin long johns, which are very warm and indestructable. Kind of like me, once you know me better.
Yours in self-defense,
Y.Z.
I thought so.
But we are a hospital, of a kind, so we don't want to hurt anybody, except maybe that idiot, Durwood. Why we keep that methdog hanging around I'll never get it, other than Whiski Rae's his sister, and a finer woman I'd never want to meet in my life. Dusty's crazy in love with her, as she is with him, I envy them both that kind of closeness. Sure, Miz Thibodeaux and I have our moments together and I admire the boudin out of her, swamp raised as she was, by the worst pack of slobbering halfwits, whacked-out inbreds and damnable polecats in all of Dixie, and that's saying plenty. But Miz Thibodeaux isn't the settling down kind, and I'm all jangled inside from my days as a member of the Coast Guard Special Forces, or the Zodiacs, as we're better known, after the inflatable boats we favor on missions. I spent time in Grenada during and after the invasion, and it wasn't very pretty down there, except for the beaches, the nude ones especially, where wealthy young Brazilian women tended to vacation, Yowza! But I mean those dunderheaded medical students, the ones we rescued, some went out by chopper, but we Zodiacs took a dozen out of the anatomy lab, where they were hiding out pretending to be cadavers, they were so scared, some even partially dissecting themselves to further their disguises. I guess they feared retribution by the Marxist overlords who wished to redistribute the island's wealth, all $37 of it, not that we ever found a true Red, worst goddamned excuse for a war I ever seen. I got a helluva sunburn and they wanted to give me a Purple Heart for that, I shit you not! I turned it down and left the Coast Guard as soon as my tour was up, after 16 years, my plan was to be a lifer but hell, not if the next war took me to Little Diomede Island or some other goddamned place.
See, I'd left the Sourdough County sheriff's department back in 1974, shortly after I met Dusty and took him to Dr. Ken's clinic in North Dakota. I'll let Dr. Balzac tell you that story, if he chooses to, which I'm sure that lovable blowhard will. I think of him as my kid brother—I'm ten years older than him. I realized on the long drive being a county mountie wasn't for me, and after I dropped Dusty off at Dr. Ken's place, I drove back to Sourdough, resigned my post, and drove back to the Great Plains in my jeep, where I hung around on the prairie for a month or so. Yes, yes, I stripped down for a while and ran with the coyotes, but unlike Dusty I lost my edge, maybe my desire as well, I wasn't feral anymore. Plus I was sick of all the land. Water preoccupied me, and not just the Missouri River, though that wasn't bad, the big reservoirs in particular I liked. I bought a row boat and paddled around Lake Sakakawea, trailing a line in the water. Sometimes I'd catch perch or walleyes and if nobody else was around to see me, I'd eat them raw. Nummers, as Whiski Rae likes to say.
Anyhow, I got the idea one day to join the Coast Guard, and once there, to try out for the Zodiacs. I was a few years older than the average recruit, but that was no disadvantage, my past ferality giving me extra strength, speed and endurance—so much so, in fact, that I had to dial these attributes down considerably so as to call less attention to myself. And until we went to war with Grenada, being a Zodiac wasn't a bad gig. Broadly speaking, my specialty was busting drug runners, though I also spent time at both poles aboard an icebreaker as a marine mammal wrangler (memo to all: never flirt with a female leopard seal), and was a special observer for the U.S. government during the Falklands War, concealing myself as a sheep. Which was a hoot: me, a coyote in sheep's clothing! The Deenkera clan still gets a laugh out of that.
Well, here I am telling you a shaggy-dog story, though when you think about it, what other kind is there? Nah, don't worry, I won't get all existential on you. I have read Sartre and Camus in French, and can smell the amphetamines in the former's writings. Camus I like, especially "The Plague," as I've lived through epidemics on the prairie, including, most dramatically, the terrible virus that wiped out 99% of all black-footed ferrets.
So suppose a madman, somebody like Dusty, charges you with serious hurt on his mind. Hurting you, I mean. What would you do? Most people would try to land a punch, which is the single dumbest thing you can try, as people generally aren't used to punching anything, another person in particular. Basically what usually happens is a person swings hard, doesn't connect, falls off balance, and is stomped or crushed or shot or stabbed by their attacker. None of these outcomes is especially desireable, you'd have to agree, and if you don't, God help you because I sure won't.
So again, a madman charges. Today's madman is unweaponized, beyond his limbs, his head and his teeth. With weapons present you've got yourself a whole new deal. This madman has none, but he's madder than mad, his face is red and the steam's billowing out from his ears like in the cartoons, and he's grinding his teeth. Simply do this—if he charges you from at least two body lengths away. Closer than that and I can't help you right now because I'm talking about the first situation. So, you're charged. All you need to do is to wait until he's about six feet away (if he's running), drop to the ground and roll towards him. You'll almost surely trip him up, as we won't have time to react. Then you scramble over to him and sit down on his head, hard, facing away from him. And stay there. And stay there longer. You could suffocate a man this way if you wanted but that isn't the goal. The goal is to settle him down.
And he'll settle. You tell him he's got to settle if you're going to let him up. Once he's quiet, lift a cheek a little to make sure he can breathe. He starts to rile up, you sit back down. Call for help however you can.
I didn't learn this technique, I'm proud to say, I invented it when I was a Zodiac. I used it to quiet a cow leopard seal, a creature much stronger than your average man, and even stronger than me, a badass fourleg Special Forces operative. And while that story didn't end very well (the cow's bull came by and blindsided me), I'm still here and the only part of them you could still find would be my sealskin long johns, which are very warm and indestructable. Kind of like me, once you know me better.
Yours in self-defense,
Y.Z.
27 November 2007
Butterflies and Raw Liver
Dearest friends,
I'm still weak from my recent illness, ably described by my dear sweet wife, Dr. Whiski Rae Shamrock, and owe my survival to her love and quick thinking, as well as the love and dedication of my staff. The CBI (Coyote Bureau of Investigation) is hunting for the perpetrators of this foul (in all senses of the word) deed, and I am determined to bring these malefactors to justice, whether that be meted out by twoleg courts or dealt with directly in fourleg fashion. I have my preference as to the method, but vowed my dear coyote mother, Ki, to bridle my strong need for personal vengeance which, regrettably, I've not always contained (viz., my parents and Claude).
Anyway, I'm too indisposed to write much, so I'll share with you two of Ki's beautiful poems, translated by me from coyotespeak, and soon to be published along with ninety-nine other stunning works by Ki. The volume's title is, tentatively, "Butterflies and Raw Liver," after the names of two my favorite poems written by my mother.
Butterflies (After Rumi Olaf Petersen)
As dawn is to day, so butterflies are to sky,
As colors are to light, so butterflies are to bugs,
As birth is to gestation, so butterflies are to pupation,
As angels are to demons, so butterflies are to mosquitoes,
As right is to wrong, so butterflies are to moths,
As perfume is to stench, so butterflies are to vultures,
Now I must hunt and eat and sleep till noon,
As butterflies dance to soundless tunes.
Oh that you understood coyotespeak and could have heard Ki singing this beautiful poem! Now:
Raw Liver
For dinner,
Raw liver,
Slides down,
No sound,
So slick,
And quick,
To eat,
This treat,
Raw liver,
It quivers,
Swallow whole,
Then roll,
In guts,
In smuts,
It teems,
With heme,
The blood,
Will flood,
A Nile,
Of bile,
Spurts out,
In gouts,
So sweet,
This meat,
Like life,
Sans strife,
An orange,
Is....
Now excuse me as I go off to rest and to weep at the memory of my coyote mother, Ki.
Dusty
I'm still weak from my recent illness, ably described by my dear sweet wife, Dr. Whiski Rae Shamrock, and owe my survival to her love and quick thinking, as well as the love and dedication of my staff. The CBI (Coyote Bureau of Investigation) is hunting for the perpetrators of this foul (in all senses of the word) deed, and I am determined to bring these malefactors to justice, whether that be meted out by twoleg courts or dealt with directly in fourleg fashion. I have my preference as to the method, but vowed my dear coyote mother, Ki, to bridle my strong need for personal vengeance which, regrettably, I've not always contained (viz., my parents and Claude).
Anyway, I'm too indisposed to write much, so I'll share with you two of Ki's beautiful poems, translated by me from coyotespeak, and soon to be published along with ninety-nine other stunning works by Ki. The volume's title is, tentatively, "Butterflies and Raw Liver," after the names of two my favorite poems written by my mother.
Butterflies (After Rumi Olaf Petersen)
As dawn is to day, so butterflies are to sky,
As colors are to light, so butterflies are to bugs,
As birth is to gestation, so butterflies are to pupation,
As angels are to demons, so butterflies are to mosquitoes,
As right is to wrong, so butterflies are to moths,
As perfume is to stench, so butterflies are to vultures,
Now I must hunt and eat and sleep till noon,
As butterflies dance to soundless tunes.
Oh that you understood coyotespeak and could have heard Ki singing this beautiful poem! Now:
Raw Liver
For dinner,
Raw liver,
Slides down,
No sound,
So slick,
And quick,
To eat,
This treat,
Raw liver,
It quivers,
Swallow whole,
Then roll,
In guts,
In smuts,
It teems,
With heme,
The blood,
Will flood,
A Nile,
Of bile,
Spurts out,
In gouts,
So sweet,
This meat,
Like life,
Sans strife,
An orange,
Is....
Now excuse me as I go off to rest and to weep at the memory of my coyote mother, Ki.
Dusty
24 November 2007
A Miraculous Recovery
Hi folks,
Dr. Whiski Rae Shamrock here to let you know where we've all been for the past few weeks. Illness struck the Balzac Institute of Partial Recovery, affecting yours truly, our chef extraordinaire, Miz Gator Ethel Thibodeaux, our director of security and community relations, Y.Z. Newell, my brother, Durwood Del Monte Sherwood, assorted staff members, all of our patients and, most critically, my husband, Dr. Dusty Balzac. Simply put, we were quarantined because of treachery, or, more accurately, treachery's effects. Here's the story: everyone who knows him knows there's nothing Dusty loves to eat more than Andorran Jellied Eels mixed with Count Chocula cereal, and sprinkled with fried chipmunk paws, sweetbreads and brains spiced with cloves and nutmeg, and topped by a meringue crown whipped from fresh turkey eggs. Well, what pulls up to the gates of the Institute one fine fall day than a delivery van bearing a gift for Dusty. Yes, you guessed right, the present turned out to be an enormous tureen overflowing with Dusty's favorite repast, which he calls "Eel Surprise 3.0." Durwood was manning the entrance that morning and suspected nothing unusual about the transaction, though a review of videotape from a safety cam revealed that the van bore the familiar brown colors of a UPS truck but was emblazoned with the Fed/Ex logo. Still, an honest mistake, and one we all could make, particularly if strung out on Jaegermeister spiked with Coricidin and Adderall, as was, unfortunately, Durwood's case.
But whatever: forgiveness greases the world's axis and permits it to spin more smoothly. Back when I poled my way through Tulane University as a Welsh studies and cell biology major, I indirectly killed five Shriners at one go when they took a break from their conventioneering and enjoyed a river boat cruise. I'd just finished my senior thesis (a translation into medieval Welsh of Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer") and was exhausted and intellectually spent. To revive myself, I elected to launch into a primitive and unrestrained artistic celebration of the female orgasm. I was very sleep deprived and undernourished, and as I danced I felt a giddy delirium sweep over me. The Shriners sat at a distant table, their fezzes tipped nearly to their eyes in an apparent effort to conceal themselves. I was wearing a tiny g-string no larger than a silver dollar, and ruby colored pasties with little propellers on them I twirled through shake-my-booty power. I concluded my regular performance with a variation of my customary signature dismount (leaping off the stage with legs apart, then twisting in the air until I faced backwards as I landed on some happy patron's heaving lap), this time springing from a small trampoline, thus allowing me to fly across the room and onto the Shriners' table, knocking over their beer bottles and upending their chicken baskets.
They seemed not to care, as I jumped to my feet and continued my dance atop their table, moaning and howling and shaking my love nub and mercy mound just inches from their bespectacled noses. I wailed and writhed and groaned and shuddered as though I was possessed, then taunted the men to come and have me, demanding they sate my deepest desires, and acting out what effect their ardent thrustings would have on me. The old boys really started to steam, and one got a little goofy with lust, he actually dropped his trousers and drawers and tried to climb onto the table, which was a serious breach of etiquette aboard our ship, the "Crescent City Crawfish," where the firm policy regarding the artistes was "look but only touch yourself." Not that the Shriner could have done much harm; he was a stalagatite, not -mite. Still and all, our bouncers took this offense seriously, and two of them, Bruiser and Ray Ray, hurried to my defense.
Here's where things start to blur, the confusion a welcome balm whose anodyne effects include sparing me from recalling the worst of the ensuing violence. But Miz Gator Ethel, who was also dancing that night, remembers the follwing: Bruiser and Ray Ray grabbed the Shriner and dragged him to the door, only to be pursued by his pack of friends. One old codger withdrew a .45 semiautomatic pistol from a hidden shoulder holster and pressed it against Ray Ray's neck. Bruiser yelled "Gun!" and Ray Ray wheeled around and grabbed the Shriner's arm. Nobody suspected that the other Shriners were packing heat, and in a flash they'd pulled out their guns, including the pantless offender, who shot both Ray Ray and Bruiser in their chests, dropping, and killing, them both. Meanwhile, our other bouncers, Terrence, Sam-a-lam and Kudjo, ran to their own comrades rescue, shotguns in hand. The Shriners formed a defensive circle like a herd of musk oxen and proceeded to fire coolly. Their pistols were no match for shotguns, however, and all five men fell in less than a minute to head shots. Sam-a-lam lost his testicles to a bullet but survived. Terrence and Kudjo were unscathed.
So, in many ways I was the proximate cause to this carnage, since I should not have danced on their table, as my boss reminded me sternly. But he also forgave me, for he hated Shriners and said that all secret societies were nothing but trouble, attracting the desperate and depraved; and that the Shriners were worst of all, for as a child he underwent a series of painful orthopaedic surgeries in one of their hospitals, enduring many failed attempts to correct a congenital problem where his feet pointed backwards. Infections came and went, and one morning he rolled over in bed and both of his feet fell off. He stole a wheelchair, wheeled himself out of the hospital around midnight, and hitchhiked to New Orleans and its renowned Jean Lafitte Pediatric Polyclinic, where he was fitted with peg legs and given a pet parrot and offered a job as a cabin boy on the "Crawfish," which he later captained and then owned. "Only in America, Whiski," he'd often say. "An America where one day the sun will set finally on all Shriners."
Forgiveness, then, comes honestly to me, and I forgave the scamp Durwood for his drug-addled inattentiveness. The special treat bore a card for Dusty, and said only "Enjoy. Your secret chef." We were in his office when he lifted the cover off the tureen. The smell was hideous, as is the case with Andorran eels, which are pickled in goat urine; it is literally impossible to tell by their odor if they are tainted or not. Gator Ethel warned Dusty against eating this treat, as we didn't know its origins, but he abandoned his customary good judgment, reminding us that his digestion was far better than ours owing to his ferality. He offered bowls to the core staff, but even Y.Z., a fellow fourleg, declined, begging Dusty to consider that an enemy might have sent over the "delectable," Claude Balzac being the most likely suspect, who still could be relied upon to occasionally attempt to kill his twin brother. But Dusty would have none of it, and excusing himself, he placed the tureen on the floor, stripped off his clothing and gobbled up most of the pottage, abandoning knife and fork for the coyote style of burying his snout deep into his food and practically inhaling it.
We left Dusty's office upset at his stubborn refusal to follow the common sense precautions he'd expect everyone else to abide. Ten hours later he clung to me in our bathtub, where I was washing him after he'd uncorked the most spectacular GI explosions I've ever seen in my medical career. The crew had gathered for the Friday at Four meeting we held each week to decompress before the coming weekend. Y.Z. was discussing the need for additional security cameras and new check-in procedures, and at one point blew up at little brother Durwood, who was coming down from his special libation and did seem a bit dazed and disoriented. Perhaps this accounted for Durwood's charging Y.Z., who easily side-stepped him, then grabbed Durwood by the arm and wrenched it up and back into a submission hold, forcing my brother to the ground, and stepping lightly on his face while screaming "I could rip your fucking arm out of its socket and cram it up your arse!"
You can imagine the commotion, particularly with Gator Ethel in the room, who cut her teeth wrestling bobcats in carnivals when she was only five years old. Before she could pounce, though, Dusty, who was still nude from the morning save for the breechcloth he favored on Casual Friday afternoons, jumped onto the conference table and unleashed his piercing "coyodel," a ululating, yipping, tremunckulizing cry you could hear over the roar of a 747 thundering towards take-off. Dusty rarely coyodeled at work unless he was truly upset, so we all stopped what we were doing and regarded him closely. He looked terrible: his skin had the bluish-grey hue of old asphalt and he trembled like Pat Nixon on her wedding night when she first beheld what the late president invariably referred to as "The Great Nixini" (this from her underpraised memoir, "Thank God for Booze, Billy Graham and Barbs: A First Lady Copes").
The mess...the mess...the mess...
Dusty shat. And puked. And shat and puked and shat and puked. And shat some more and puked some more. And groaned and strained and retched. I've seen—and suffered from—dry heaves many times, but I've never seen nor had the dry shits. Dusty had them, after liters of fluids had shot from both of his alimentary orifices, then dribbled, then seeped, then stopped. Yet peristalsis persisted, no increased, wave after wave of deep abdominal contractions rippling through him, the cramping horrible, like a herd of charlie horses galloping through his colon. And though the room reeked worse than the foulest Andorran eel, a stench such as could not even emanate from the rankest charnel house on the hottest day in August, compassion filled us all, even as we had to scrape the thick film of excreta from our exposed skin, and knowing then that we'd likely fall ill in a few hours, which, as I've already noted, all of us did at the Institute, staff and patients alike.
I trained for one year at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, researching bubonic plague, and before I fell sick I placed a call to a dear friend who worked on one of the Center's emergency response teams. Within hours, nearly twenty physicians, nurses and epidemiologists rappeled out of hovering black helicopters into the Institute's courtyard. By then everyone was ill, and larger helicopters lowered four inflatable field hospitals that technicians set up in less than two hours. It was in these facilities we spent the next four weeks, Dusty drifting in and out of a coma. Fortunately his greedy appetite meant he consumed the lion's share of the pestilence, as it were, sparing the rest of us the worst of the toxins the stew contained.
And what were these poisons? Nobody knows. None of us was obviously infected by any known viruses, bacteria, fungi or protozoa. I use the word poison figuratively, for no evidence emerged to pinpoint any of the thirteen thousand known poisons with whom contact can sicken or kill. Leaving what?
"Voodoo," Miz Gator Ethel insisted. "It's th' only thing, cher, what does this to healthy folks like we all is. What happened is we done all been hexed."
Who's to say we weren't? Lacking another explanation, I'll go along with some serious hexing. Who hexed us, and why, also remains a mystery, but I've got my suspicions. When we went back and reexmained the morning's security tapes, we noticed that the delivery van was escorted to and then from the Institute by several middle-aged men on little motor scooters.
Yes, they were befezzed.
Yes, they were Shriners.
Love,
Whiski Rae
Dr. Whiski Rae Shamrock here to let you know where we've all been for the past few weeks. Illness struck the Balzac Institute of Partial Recovery, affecting yours truly, our chef extraordinaire, Miz Gator Ethel Thibodeaux, our director of security and community relations, Y.Z. Newell, my brother, Durwood Del Monte Sherwood, assorted staff members, all of our patients and, most critically, my husband, Dr. Dusty Balzac. Simply put, we were quarantined because of treachery, or, more accurately, treachery's effects. Here's the story: everyone who knows him knows there's nothing Dusty loves to eat more than Andorran Jellied Eels mixed with Count Chocula cereal, and sprinkled with fried chipmunk paws, sweetbreads and brains spiced with cloves and nutmeg, and topped by a meringue crown whipped from fresh turkey eggs. Well, what pulls up to the gates of the Institute one fine fall day than a delivery van bearing a gift for Dusty. Yes, you guessed right, the present turned out to be an enormous tureen overflowing with Dusty's favorite repast, which he calls "Eel Surprise 3.0." Durwood was manning the entrance that morning and suspected nothing unusual about the transaction, though a review of videotape from a safety cam revealed that the van bore the familiar brown colors of a UPS truck but was emblazoned with the Fed/Ex logo. Still, an honest mistake, and one we all could make, particularly if strung out on Jaegermeister spiked with Coricidin and Adderall, as was, unfortunately, Durwood's case.
But whatever: forgiveness greases the world's axis and permits it to spin more smoothly. Back when I poled my way through Tulane University as a Welsh studies and cell biology major, I indirectly killed five Shriners at one go when they took a break from their conventioneering and enjoyed a river boat cruise. I'd just finished my senior thesis (a translation into medieval Welsh of Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer") and was exhausted and intellectually spent. To revive myself, I elected to launch into a primitive and unrestrained artistic celebration of the female orgasm. I was very sleep deprived and undernourished, and as I danced I felt a giddy delirium sweep over me. The Shriners sat at a distant table, their fezzes tipped nearly to their eyes in an apparent effort to conceal themselves. I was wearing a tiny g-string no larger than a silver dollar, and ruby colored pasties with little propellers on them I twirled through shake-my-booty power. I concluded my regular performance with a variation of my customary signature dismount (leaping off the stage with legs apart, then twisting in the air until I faced backwards as I landed on some happy patron's heaving lap), this time springing from a small trampoline, thus allowing me to fly across the room and onto the Shriners' table, knocking over their beer bottles and upending their chicken baskets.
They seemed not to care, as I jumped to my feet and continued my dance atop their table, moaning and howling and shaking my love nub and mercy mound just inches from their bespectacled noses. I wailed and writhed and groaned and shuddered as though I was possessed, then taunted the men to come and have me, demanding they sate my deepest desires, and acting out what effect their ardent thrustings would have on me. The old boys really started to steam, and one got a little goofy with lust, he actually dropped his trousers and drawers and tried to climb onto the table, which was a serious breach of etiquette aboard our ship, the "Crescent City Crawfish," where the firm policy regarding the artistes was "look but only touch yourself." Not that the Shriner could have done much harm; he was a stalagatite, not -mite. Still and all, our bouncers took this offense seriously, and two of them, Bruiser and Ray Ray, hurried to my defense.
Here's where things start to blur, the confusion a welcome balm whose anodyne effects include sparing me from recalling the worst of the ensuing violence. But Miz Gator Ethel, who was also dancing that night, remembers the follwing: Bruiser and Ray Ray grabbed the Shriner and dragged him to the door, only to be pursued by his pack of friends. One old codger withdrew a .45 semiautomatic pistol from a hidden shoulder holster and pressed it against Ray Ray's neck. Bruiser yelled "Gun!" and Ray Ray wheeled around and grabbed the Shriner's arm. Nobody suspected that the other Shriners were packing heat, and in a flash they'd pulled out their guns, including the pantless offender, who shot both Ray Ray and Bruiser in their chests, dropping, and killing, them both. Meanwhile, our other bouncers, Terrence, Sam-a-lam and Kudjo, ran to their own comrades rescue, shotguns in hand. The Shriners formed a defensive circle like a herd of musk oxen and proceeded to fire coolly. Their pistols were no match for shotguns, however, and all five men fell in less than a minute to head shots. Sam-a-lam lost his testicles to a bullet but survived. Terrence and Kudjo were unscathed.
So, in many ways I was the proximate cause to this carnage, since I should not have danced on their table, as my boss reminded me sternly. But he also forgave me, for he hated Shriners and said that all secret societies were nothing but trouble, attracting the desperate and depraved; and that the Shriners were worst of all, for as a child he underwent a series of painful orthopaedic surgeries in one of their hospitals, enduring many failed attempts to correct a congenital problem where his feet pointed backwards. Infections came and went, and one morning he rolled over in bed and both of his feet fell off. He stole a wheelchair, wheeled himself out of the hospital around midnight, and hitchhiked to New Orleans and its renowned Jean Lafitte Pediatric Polyclinic, where he was fitted with peg legs and given a pet parrot and offered a job as a cabin boy on the "Crawfish," which he later captained and then owned. "Only in America, Whiski," he'd often say. "An America where one day the sun will set finally on all Shriners."
Forgiveness, then, comes honestly to me, and I forgave the scamp Durwood for his drug-addled inattentiveness. The special treat bore a card for Dusty, and said only "Enjoy. Your secret chef." We were in his office when he lifted the cover off the tureen. The smell was hideous, as is the case with Andorran eels, which are pickled in goat urine; it is literally impossible to tell by their odor if they are tainted or not. Gator Ethel warned Dusty against eating this treat, as we didn't know its origins, but he abandoned his customary good judgment, reminding us that his digestion was far better than ours owing to his ferality. He offered bowls to the core staff, but even Y.Z., a fellow fourleg, declined, begging Dusty to consider that an enemy might have sent over the "delectable," Claude Balzac being the most likely suspect, who still could be relied upon to occasionally attempt to kill his twin brother. But Dusty would have none of it, and excusing himself, he placed the tureen on the floor, stripped off his clothing and gobbled up most of the pottage, abandoning knife and fork for the coyote style of burying his snout deep into his food and practically inhaling it.
We left Dusty's office upset at his stubborn refusal to follow the common sense precautions he'd expect everyone else to abide. Ten hours later he clung to me in our bathtub, where I was washing him after he'd uncorked the most spectacular GI explosions I've ever seen in my medical career. The crew had gathered for the Friday at Four meeting we held each week to decompress before the coming weekend. Y.Z. was discussing the need for additional security cameras and new check-in procedures, and at one point blew up at little brother Durwood, who was coming down from his special libation and did seem a bit dazed and disoriented. Perhaps this accounted for Durwood's charging Y.Z., who easily side-stepped him, then grabbed Durwood by the arm and wrenched it up and back into a submission hold, forcing my brother to the ground, and stepping lightly on his face while screaming "I could rip your fucking arm out of its socket and cram it up your arse!"
You can imagine the commotion, particularly with Gator Ethel in the room, who cut her teeth wrestling bobcats in carnivals when she was only five years old. Before she could pounce, though, Dusty, who was still nude from the morning save for the breechcloth he favored on Casual Friday afternoons, jumped onto the conference table and unleashed his piercing "coyodel," a ululating, yipping, tremunckulizing cry you could hear over the roar of a 747 thundering towards take-off. Dusty rarely coyodeled at work unless he was truly upset, so we all stopped what we were doing and regarded him closely. He looked terrible: his skin had the bluish-grey hue of old asphalt and he trembled like Pat Nixon on her wedding night when she first beheld what the late president invariably referred to as "The Great Nixini" (this from her underpraised memoir, "Thank God for Booze, Billy Graham and Barbs: A First Lady Copes").
The mess...the mess...the mess...
Dusty shat. And puked. And shat and puked and shat and puked. And shat some more and puked some more. And groaned and strained and retched. I've seen—and suffered from—dry heaves many times, but I've never seen nor had the dry shits. Dusty had them, after liters of fluids had shot from both of his alimentary orifices, then dribbled, then seeped, then stopped. Yet peristalsis persisted, no increased, wave after wave of deep abdominal contractions rippling through him, the cramping horrible, like a herd of charlie horses galloping through his colon. And though the room reeked worse than the foulest Andorran eel, a stench such as could not even emanate from the rankest charnel house on the hottest day in August, compassion filled us all, even as we had to scrape the thick film of excreta from our exposed skin, and knowing then that we'd likely fall ill in a few hours, which, as I've already noted, all of us did at the Institute, staff and patients alike.
I trained for one year at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, researching bubonic plague, and before I fell sick I placed a call to a dear friend who worked on one of the Center's emergency response teams. Within hours, nearly twenty physicians, nurses and epidemiologists rappeled out of hovering black helicopters into the Institute's courtyard. By then everyone was ill, and larger helicopters lowered four inflatable field hospitals that technicians set up in less than two hours. It was in these facilities we spent the next four weeks, Dusty drifting in and out of a coma. Fortunately his greedy appetite meant he consumed the lion's share of the pestilence, as it were, sparing the rest of us the worst of the toxins the stew contained.
And what were these poisons? Nobody knows. None of us was obviously infected by any known viruses, bacteria, fungi or protozoa. I use the word poison figuratively, for no evidence emerged to pinpoint any of the thirteen thousand known poisons with whom contact can sicken or kill. Leaving what?
"Voodoo," Miz Gator Ethel insisted. "It's th' only thing, cher, what does this to healthy folks like we all is. What happened is we done all been hexed."
Who's to say we weren't? Lacking another explanation, I'll go along with some serious hexing. Who hexed us, and why, also remains a mystery, but I've got my suspicions. When we went back and reexmained the morning's security tapes, we noticed that the delivery van was escorted to and then from the Institute by several middle-aged men on little motor scooters.
Yes, they were befezzed.
Yes, they were Shriners.
Love,
Whiski Rae
19 October 2007
A Prairie Escape
Thousands of blog readers are requesting, no demanding, I continue the amazing story of my journey from ferality to running a prestigious psychiatric institute, and though I hadn't wanted this humble endeavour to focus on me, I do understand their interest, as most people still stumble blindly in the dark when it comes the their fourleg brethren, the majority actually doubting that there are indeed men and women among them, many prominent and even famous, who were raised by animals. My life is devoted in large measure to combating this prejudicial attitude, part of which suggests, sadly, willful blindness, and another part bald incredulity. I excuse the latter and condemn the former. Period.
Who, you may ask, are some famous people who were raised in a fourleg home? Given my profession and the fact that many patients at the Balzac Institute have ferality in their background, I shall only share the names of celebrities who have outed themselves, in person, in print, or by legend. In no particular order, these include:
1) Romulus and Remus, historic founders of Rome, and raised and suckled by a wolf.
2) Beatrix Potter, brought up by the hedgehogs Josiah Thumpleton Crotchtitty and his wife, Penelope Higglety Pizzleberry-Crotchtitty.
3) JK Rowling, nursed by a griffon and nurtured by a phoenix.
4) Rudyard Kipling, improbably raised by a cobra, a mongoose, a tiger and Penelope Higglety Pizzleberry-Crotchtitty.
5) Wyatt Earp, armadillo parents.
6) Jane Goodall, had a sea cucumber as a governess.
7) Cameron Diaz, coyote mother (yes!).
8) Jimmy Carter, a pair of turkey vultures captured him as an infant and raised him in their nest.
9) Fitty Cent, racing pigeons sheltered him in their coop.
10) Charles Nelson Reilly, entire childhood spent with peafowl.
I could provide you with another three-score celebrity names but won't, as it isn't germane to this posting. I'm procrastinating sharing my personal story with you, as the memories are as bitter as a wormwood and quince smoothie. But my personal mission statement is "No fear!", and so I must plod on.
After crucifying Seminole, my father, I left the house and ran naked through the streets of Sourdough toward the Sourdough River, which bisects the town into what some local wag named the "Left Bank" and the "Not Left Bank." The names stuck, unfortunately, thanks largely to students at the town's two colleges, which occupy prime riverfront territory, Melancthon College on the Left Bank and Lost Souls College on the Not Left Bank. My entire confrontation with Seminole took little over ten minutes, so it was still barely after dawn, a time coyotes refer to as "treetop sun" for the obvious reason of where the sun resides at this important time of the day: young coyotes nurse then, after which they fall sleep. My coyote mother, Ki, always loved treetop sun, when the air was crisp, the shadows long, and creatures of the night crossed paths with creatures of the day, some returning to sleep while others stirred and rose. Ki often composed poetry in the early morning hours, chanting it in her lovely warbling voice. While a translation fails to do justice to the oral complexities of her spoken verse, I offer one of my favorites below, which I call "Sparrows":
Chittering they fly so free,
Over land and over tree.
Flapping wings they take to flight,
How wondrous is their aerial sight!
While mud-bound stays the coyote,
Emburrowed must our tenure be.
Yet we fly, too, when we perceive,
The sparrows flitting o'er the leaves.
I'm crying as I write this, at the memory of my dearest mother, Ki, killed by a twoleg trapper. What would she think, were she alive, of my murderous intentions toward Emmeline, Seminole and Claude? Forgiveness is the sole commandment of the coyote moral universe, expressed usually as: "Forgive your neighbor as you would yourself, for everyone fucks up a lot."
So I let Ki down, probably, by my actions toward my twoleg family. We'd talk about them through my years of loneliness on the prairie, as I watched Ki's litters come and go, my own siblings with whom I'd play, and over whom I'd watch, and though I was older than my brothers and sisters chronologically, my own development was perforce slower, given my species and our protracted human childhood, and Ki forbade me from leaving before I was ready, I had so much to learn about life as a coyote, and so few instinctual resources to draw upon to help me naturally that Ki feared, with good reason, I'd simply die on my own, and on occasion she'd broach the possibility of my returning to the twoleg world once I was of mating age, despite the sly looks I'd get from a few of the girls from the burrows around us, Greet and Lala in particular watched me with deep aching lust shimmering in their eyes, and Ki would chase them away, fangs bared and dripping, fangs snapping. "You musn't donk those bitches," she'd order, and I obeyed Ki as I never have any being before or since—that is, until I met my beloved future wife, Whiski Rae Shamrock, MD, who could insist I extinguish a burning brand by thrusting it up my fundament, a command she's issued me more than once, only to stop me right before I fully comply, much as YHWH stopped Abraham from plunging a knife into his son, Isaac's, chest.
I adore Whiski Rae's bossiness, as I find it sexy, much as I admired Ki's take-charge attitude, though not for Oedipal reasons, but because it kept me alive. The very best example I can offer is my escape from Sourdough after attacking Seminole. As I noted above, I ran immediately to the Sourdough River and dove in, I was a good swimmer and the heat I felt was like a grass fire, not heat from the day, which hadn't yet built, but heat from passion's furnace, in my case the passion of hate and revenge. I swam into the river's main channel, where the current was swift and the river a good eight feet deep. The water cooled me at once, and I felt my limbs loosen up as I drifted through the heart of the town, allowing only my face to surface, lest the assorted loiterers on the river's banks spy me and shout Huzzah! But I needn't worry, for I could tell that the few twolegs who were up and about were already mired deep in the day's relentless minutiae, their brows furrowed in pointless contemplation of their mean and sorry existence. My temptation was to roll onto my back and relax completely, my arms and legs floating as though weightless while I pondered the bottomless sky above and tried to think past all that blue. Although I'd lived the life of a coyote for nine years, I hadn't been cut off from the human world completely, as I'd sometimes sneak into Williston, North Dakota, the closest town to our burrow, and watch television through some family's window. Thus I was familiar with a little of the news of the day, and was especially interested in the moon landings, which had occurred some five or six years before. I knew the names of the first lunar explorers, Armstrong and Aldrin and Collins, and I even sent them a fan letter, recalling dimly how to spell and mail things, much as I occasionally sent hate mail to my twoleg family, addressing them as "The Poopheads," which was the sole scatological rebuke I remembered from my human childhood. To my delight the three astronauts, or more likely, their lackeys, sent me a signed photo, which I hung in the burrow above the ledge I'd dug for himself below our home's family room. For a return address I used the communal P.O. box shared by the area's coyotes, as several of them enjoyed buying dog sweaters from L.L Bean, the prairie winters being severe, and paying for the garments with stolen checks I'd complete for them . Greet's father fancied the Casco Bay polo shirts as well, and often trotted about wearing a pink one, sometimes even sporting a pair of Madras shorts he favored when the lesions on his rear end festered and ran, as he was very vain and hated to be seen in such a state.
But anyway: I didn't dare relax my guard until I left the town's environs, which didn't take long, Sourdough being small. I stayed in the river until I reached a little county park a few miles from town, then swam to shore and, after scanning the grounds for twolegs, stretched out in the long grass and let the sun beat down on my face and slept, surrounded by the sound of the rushing water, the calls of yellow-headed blackbirds, bobolinks and coots, and the distant whine of traffic on a county road. I was hidden, more or less, by the tall grasses, which also absorbed some of the water that beaded up on my greasy filthy skin. The peace of nature infilitrated my very core, and I felt an incredible rush of understanding rattle my soul. My soul! I was an avowed atheist and rationalist, unusual for a fourleg, especially one raised by coyotes, who are mystics to the bone, they believe in the Great Meadow, as I've mentioned, an idea that appeals even if I don't believe it myself, but they are also fond of the teachings of St. Theresa, Hildegaard von Bingen and Teilhard de Chardin, or the bastardized corruptions thereof told by my one sworn feral enemy, Claudetta Jean Tomattino, who at fourteen escaped the convent of Our Precious Lady of Weeping Sores in Sioux Falls in the midst of a roaring Great Plains blizzard, running shoeless through the mounting drifts, abandoning her wimple and habit for the thin shift she wore underneath, a vision ostensibly compelling her to escape into "nature," she expected Hildegaard to protect and succour her, instead she slowed and staggered and fell shivering into the deep snows, spent and frightened, her whimpering oddly coyote-like, leading Skuse the Grand to leave his comfortable burrow and investigate, he found the poor deluded girl and dragged her from the storms into his home, where his wives, Neetz and Woofle, licked and cosseted and nursed the trembling novitiate, who recovered by and by, then flourished, she remained with her adoptive parents until their deaths, then stayed in their den and took a series of coyote lovers, mating openly and loudly with them in violation of every tenet of fourleggedness, her egregious disregard of this more abided chiefly because she was a superb if dishonest storyteller, she convinced many coyotes to embrace the inexplicable and seek within it special messages and epiphanies that appealed as if a narcotic, indeed there was something addictive about her, she grew tremendously fat off of antelope marrow, brains, kidneys and liver, spending her days in shady repose under a tremendous cottonwood tree on the banks of the Niobrara River, eating and receiving oral pleasuring from a series of rank young male coyotes, Ki despised them and she hated Claudetta Jean, warning me away from her on our annual trips to South Dakota to visit relatives, which she needn't, I found the fat nun contemptible, not because of her lewd corpulence, which was merely disgusting, but rather her mystical maunderings, which struck me as being ad hoc, cynical, manipulative and frankly dumb. I had in fact intended to kill Claudetta Jean, as she threatened to destroy the coyote community in the Dakotas, dozens of young males in particular were drawn to her for obvious reasons, she was large enough to accomodate the urgent humpings of six at a time, provided each first bring her a freshly killed pronghorn, she'd spout her puerile blather to the legion panting acolytes lolling at her feet, worn out by their erotic exertions and unquestioning of her philosophies. But I was spared the role of executioner when she choked to death on an enormous gallstone lodged in one of the hepars she'd downed. She was in her fifties by then, toothless and weighing nearly a quarter-ton, and though gone her influence continues, if attenuated with the passing generations, there is still much pointless talk of the soul and the numinous and the possibility of sudden revelation through a self-induced emotional delirium. Bah!
I slept for hours that day by the river, the deepest sleep of my life, satisfied I'd castrated my brother and fixed my father to a cross of thorns, and that I'd indirectly tormented my mother through the sufferings of Claude and Seminole. Yet when I woke to the hooting of an owl and saw the dark sky reaching towards me there in the rolling countryside, a fat moon bruised and bright above, its face mottled but proud and refusing to look away even once during the past three billion years, unflinching as it regarded, and was regarded in turn, by its showy blue overseer, I felt ill, my throat raw, my scalp and groin itching, my limbs exhausted, a fever burning my brow, my lungs rigid and dense, the breath slipping from me, and a sharp pang of terror seized me by the scruff and shook me rudely. I was dying! I had intended to kill, and now was being killed myself, by what I had no idea, were Ki still alive she might be able to diagnosis me from the stench of my breath, the taste of my urine, the aroma and consistency of my stool, her veterinary skills were celebrated, creatures came from all around to attend her healing clinics, there was amnesty for all within eyeshot of our burrow, the fattest chipmunks could come with impunity to be ministered to by my coyote mother, though were she to come across them an hour later while hunting she'd break their little necks without mercy, this was understood by all species, the arbitrary nature of rules saying this is fine here but not there, or you can do this in this way but not that, for no more reason than order must be imposed, anarchy benefiting only the cagiest and strongest, those crafty enough to get away, quite literally, with murder, while all else goes to hell all around, until eventually the utter and complete collapse of critter culture comes with the sudden, avenging force of a volcanic explosion, or more insidiously in the manner of some grave and unstoppable epidemic, the whiskey shits, say, which eradicated over ninety per cent of Great Plains coyotes back when the Toadbellies first populated the prairie, this being the coyote name for European twolegs, referencing the sickly pale hue of their skin, and their intestinal malady which was likely cholera but was colloquially named after the intoxicant the Toadbellies introduced to our land. Damn them, and damn me for being their descendent!
How long I lay shivering after I slept I can't say for sure, but I believe there passed at least three treetop times, during which period I could neither eat nor drink nor even move, other than roll first to one side, than to the other. I was concealed more completely than I had realized at first, for occasionally visitors roamed the park, teens, mainly, to party and to mate, and at one point five or six peace officers to search for me. How did I know this was their purpose? They came close enough that I could hear them, and in the case of one heavyset fellow with flame red hair and an unkempt moustache, see him. How he couldn't see me I can't fathom, for I could see the reflection of myself frozen in fear in the lenses of his oversized mirrored sunglasses. Yet the deputy seemed to perceive nothing even as he peered seemingly right at me, his breathing stertorous, the buttons threatening to pop off of the cheap brown uniform shirt that barely covered his proud hard belly and fatty chest. I lay very still, willling myself not even to breathe, as the cop chewed the inside of his lip and hummed to himself a tuneless ditty, and sang a little as well, something about muskrats copulating, a song I later learned was a pop sensation of the era, obviously written by someone who'd not witnessed such fornication directly, as I had myself, there was nothing romantic about the fast and mildly gruesome screwing of two water rodents, who are tasty, admittedly, I'd eaten many a muskrat myself, some of whom I'd killed while they were in the midst of their outlandish and perfervid coition. Muskrat love indeed.
After the lawmen left I determined I must again move on. I now suspected I had both distemper and mange, and knew if I were to survive, I'd need to make my way to a ranch outside of Dickinson, North Dakota, and see Dr. Ken. Dr. Ken was a man of legend and mystery. He was a fourleg by way of California, where a cougar killed his parents, then abducted the young Ken who grew up to be a medical doctor, a veterinary surgeon, a dentist and a notary public. Now is not the time to recount his story, which would take a thousand and one postings; instead I will merely note that all wild creatures between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains know that if one of their young needs health care, he's the man to see. When Ki had an especially tough case, she'd summon Dr. Ken using the Coyote Express, which permits the rapid transmission of messages in emergencies through serial yipping. But I had no such service available to me now, for the Express didn't extend into Minnesota. Instead I would have to steal a car or a truck and drive myself westward.
You may wonder how I knew how to drive, given that I was only seven when Emmeline and Seminole cast me off. The answer is that I was a bit of a juvenile delinquent, often going to a truck stop off the interstate, which coyotes call the Hard River, and sneaking into idling vehicles whose owners had run into the store to pay for gas or buy some pork rinds and condoms. I was always a watcher as a boy, and possessed a photographic memory, and I'd slip behind the steering wheel and close my eyes, imaging what Emmeline or Seminole did when they drove, then opening my eyes I'd emulate their actions. In this way I learned, by and by, how to operate vehicles with automatic transmissions, though the intricacies of clutching and shifting eluded me, and I sometimes stole a car and would drive for hours at night, often with several of my friends aboard, they seemed fascinated by this exposure to twoleg culture, and enjoyed especially listening to the radio and, even more, watching the windshield wipers sweeping back and forth.
I pulled myself to my feet, flush now with a fever, the sweat coursing down my flanks in steaming rivulets, the day's heat high and the air drenched with humidity. The last thing I wanted to do (excluding another hearing of the deputy trilling "Muskrat Love") was move, yet I had no choice. I mustn't die, so I must see Dr. Ken. I decided that trotting might be easier than merely strolling, and found I had a little more strength than I expected, so I ran down the lane leading out of the park in search of a car to steal. I had run only a few yards when I rounded a bend and dove immediately into a ditch. A sheriff's cruiser was pulled off to the side, but the officer wasn't in sight. I waited for a minute and heard, in the distance, loud chewing interspersed with a few strangled snatches of that hideous song about the schtupping rats. I climbed from the ditch and headed toward the noise, dropping to all fours to keep close to the ground. There lay before me a gentle hill I surmounted, atop which I spied some grazing cattle, several of whom were lowing plaintively, while the rotund redheaded flatfoot was himself on hands and knees eating grass with obvious relish and enthusiasm. Fatso was a fourleg!
There is a signal we fourlegs have which permits us to identify one another, irrespective of which kind of animal raised us. I hurried to the deputy, tapped him on the shoulder, and immediately identified myself to him as belonging to the feral community. He rejoiced to see this and signaled me back accordingly, and we fell into an easy and warm colloquy, talking for hours, he explained to me that his twoleg mother, who was an orphaned milkmaid on a dairy farm near Brattleboro, Vermont, was impregnated at age fourteen by a vile herdsman who then fired her, giving her $75 and a one-way bus ticket to Waxahatchie, Texas, in the Big Bend country, where his brother ran a livestock inseminating service. This latter man was an outright psychopath who mainlined sheep dip and smoked jimson weed, and the pregnant young girl lived in terror, as the addled inseminator spent hours describing to her how he'd skin and eat her baby at its birth. He had fashioned a pair of leg cuffs linked by a stout chain, which he affixed one end to her ankle and the other to his. The chain was only a dozen feet in length, so she effectively shadowed him everywhere, including to the outhose, where he'd sometimes fall asleep. This shitter was quite literally the worst place she'd ever been, as it housed rattlesnakes and tarantulas and black widow spiders, and the feces overran the pit and spilled onto the dirt floor, she'd stand on her tiptoes for hours lest the droppings besmirch her bare feet, waiting for her cretinous master to snap out of his druggy reverie and leave the shithouse, his habit then was to do tai-chi for an hour, then fix a large breakfast for himself of calves brains and waffles, offering the poor pregnant girl only what food he couldn't eat, which she must lick off his plate like a dog.
My new friend, whose name was Y. Z. Newell, was only two weeks from birth, and he apparently kicked like a chorus girl in his mother's womb. This rendered impossible standing for hours in the outhose, and in frustration and fear she searched her captor's pockets and extracted a folding knife with which she calmly and precisely slit his throat, his eyes opening and meeting hers in terror and incomprehension before he slumped over and died in a fountain of blood. Y.Z.'s mother waited for the blood spurt to stop, then heaved the dead man head first through the crapper's hole until only his legs were visible, as forked and spindly as a turkey wishbone, and fled into the night.
"Guess where she ended up?" Y.Z. asked.
"Where?"
"Dr. Ken's clinic. That's where I was born."
"But how do you know of Dr. Ken? And how did she get to his clinic?"
"Coyotes led her."
"You mean...?"
"Yes. Coyotes raised me. Mother fared poorly after she gave birth, and was an invalid for years before she died of kennel cough when I was twelve. The Deenkera clan cared for her as though she were a sister."
"The Deenkeras outside of Pierre, South Dakota?"
"The very same. My parents were Reever and Skraw."
"My God! We knew them! Skraw was a dear friend of my mother, Ki"
"I have heard of Ki," Y.Z. said, smiling. "Perhaps we met at some coyote convocation."
"It's possible, though I don't remember it."
"Me either," said Y.Z. "What I do remember is how to get to Dr. Ken's clinic. You need to get there ASAP, as you look like death's leftovers warmed over. I'll take you there myself."
"That's extraordinarily kind of you."
Y.Z. dismissed my compliment with a wave of his beefy hand. "It's nothing. Plus, it's time for my annual physical anyway. It'll be a two birds, one stone deal. Get in the squad car."
"Gladly. A question, if I may."
"Of course."
"When I saw you grazing just now, I presumed you were raised by ruminants."
Y.Z. laughed as we drove off. "Indigestion," he answered simply. "Nothing beats grass for that."
"Amen," I nodded. I lay curled on my side in the backseat of Y.Z.'s cruiser, soothed by the soft leather, and the car's gentle rocking, and before long I'd slipped back to sleep, dreaming of my boyhood burrow, dreaming of Ki.
Who, you may ask, are some famous people who were raised in a fourleg home? Given my profession and the fact that many patients at the Balzac Institute have ferality in their background, I shall only share the names of celebrities who have outed themselves, in person, in print, or by legend. In no particular order, these include:
1) Romulus and Remus, historic founders of Rome, and raised and suckled by a wolf.
2) Beatrix Potter, brought up by the hedgehogs Josiah Thumpleton Crotchtitty and his wife, Penelope Higglety Pizzleberry-Crotchtitty.
3) JK Rowling, nursed by a griffon and nurtured by a phoenix.
4) Rudyard Kipling, improbably raised by a cobra, a mongoose, a tiger and Penelope Higglety Pizzleberry-Crotchtitty.
5) Wyatt Earp, armadillo parents.
6) Jane Goodall, had a sea cucumber as a governess.
7) Cameron Diaz, coyote mother (yes!).
8) Jimmy Carter, a pair of turkey vultures captured him as an infant and raised him in their nest.
9) Fitty Cent, racing pigeons sheltered him in their coop.
10) Charles Nelson Reilly, entire childhood spent with peafowl.
I could provide you with another three-score celebrity names but won't, as it isn't germane to this posting. I'm procrastinating sharing my personal story with you, as the memories are as bitter as a wormwood and quince smoothie. But my personal mission statement is "No fear!", and so I must plod on.
After crucifying Seminole, my father, I left the house and ran naked through the streets of Sourdough toward the Sourdough River, which bisects the town into what some local wag named the "Left Bank" and the "Not Left Bank." The names stuck, unfortunately, thanks largely to students at the town's two colleges, which occupy prime riverfront territory, Melancthon College on the Left Bank and Lost Souls College on the Not Left Bank. My entire confrontation with Seminole took little over ten minutes, so it was still barely after dawn, a time coyotes refer to as "treetop sun" for the obvious reason of where the sun resides at this important time of the day: young coyotes nurse then, after which they fall sleep. My coyote mother, Ki, always loved treetop sun, when the air was crisp, the shadows long, and creatures of the night crossed paths with creatures of the day, some returning to sleep while others stirred and rose. Ki often composed poetry in the early morning hours, chanting it in her lovely warbling voice. While a translation fails to do justice to the oral complexities of her spoken verse, I offer one of my favorites below, which I call "Sparrows":
Chittering they fly so free,
Over land and over tree.
Flapping wings they take to flight,
How wondrous is their aerial sight!
While mud-bound stays the coyote,
Emburrowed must our tenure be.
Yet we fly, too, when we perceive,
The sparrows flitting o'er the leaves.
I'm crying as I write this, at the memory of my dearest mother, Ki, killed by a twoleg trapper. What would she think, were she alive, of my murderous intentions toward Emmeline, Seminole and Claude? Forgiveness is the sole commandment of the coyote moral universe, expressed usually as: "Forgive your neighbor as you would yourself, for everyone fucks up a lot."
So I let Ki down, probably, by my actions toward my twoleg family. We'd talk about them through my years of loneliness on the prairie, as I watched Ki's litters come and go, my own siblings with whom I'd play, and over whom I'd watch, and though I was older than my brothers and sisters chronologically, my own development was perforce slower, given my species and our protracted human childhood, and Ki forbade me from leaving before I was ready, I had so much to learn about life as a coyote, and so few instinctual resources to draw upon to help me naturally that Ki feared, with good reason, I'd simply die on my own, and on occasion she'd broach the possibility of my returning to the twoleg world once I was of mating age, despite the sly looks I'd get from a few of the girls from the burrows around us, Greet and Lala in particular watched me with deep aching lust shimmering in their eyes, and Ki would chase them away, fangs bared and dripping, fangs snapping. "You musn't donk those bitches," she'd order, and I obeyed Ki as I never have any being before or since—that is, until I met my beloved future wife, Whiski Rae Shamrock, MD, who could insist I extinguish a burning brand by thrusting it up my fundament, a command she's issued me more than once, only to stop me right before I fully comply, much as YHWH stopped Abraham from plunging a knife into his son, Isaac's, chest.
I adore Whiski Rae's bossiness, as I find it sexy, much as I admired Ki's take-charge attitude, though not for Oedipal reasons, but because it kept me alive. The very best example I can offer is my escape from Sourdough after attacking Seminole. As I noted above, I ran immediately to the Sourdough River and dove in, I was a good swimmer and the heat I felt was like a grass fire, not heat from the day, which hadn't yet built, but heat from passion's furnace, in my case the passion of hate and revenge. I swam into the river's main channel, where the current was swift and the river a good eight feet deep. The water cooled me at once, and I felt my limbs loosen up as I drifted through the heart of the town, allowing only my face to surface, lest the assorted loiterers on the river's banks spy me and shout Huzzah! But I needn't worry, for I could tell that the few twolegs who were up and about were already mired deep in the day's relentless minutiae, their brows furrowed in pointless contemplation of their mean and sorry existence. My temptation was to roll onto my back and relax completely, my arms and legs floating as though weightless while I pondered the bottomless sky above and tried to think past all that blue. Although I'd lived the life of a coyote for nine years, I hadn't been cut off from the human world completely, as I'd sometimes sneak into Williston, North Dakota, the closest town to our burrow, and watch television through some family's window. Thus I was familiar with a little of the news of the day, and was especially interested in the moon landings, which had occurred some five or six years before. I knew the names of the first lunar explorers, Armstrong and Aldrin and Collins, and I even sent them a fan letter, recalling dimly how to spell and mail things, much as I occasionally sent hate mail to my twoleg family, addressing them as "The Poopheads," which was the sole scatological rebuke I remembered from my human childhood. To my delight the three astronauts, or more likely, their lackeys, sent me a signed photo, which I hung in the burrow above the ledge I'd dug for himself below our home's family room. For a return address I used the communal P.O. box shared by the area's coyotes, as several of them enjoyed buying dog sweaters from L.L Bean, the prairie winters being severe, and paying for the garments with stolen checks I'd complete for them . Greet's father fancied the Casco Bay polo shirts as well, and often trotted about wearing a pink one, sometimes even sporting a pair of Madras shorts he favored when the lesions on his rear end festered and ran, as he was very vain and hated to be seen in such a state.
But anyway: I didn't dare relax my guard until I left the town's environs, which didn't take long, Sourdough being small. I stayed in the river until I reached a little county park a few miles from town, then swam to shore and, after scanning the grounds for twolegs, stretched out in the long grass and let the sun beat down on my face and slept, surrounded by the sound of the rushing water, the calls of yellow-headed blackbirds, bobolinks and coots, and the distant whine of traffic on a county road. I was hidden, more or less, by the tall grasses, which also absorbed some of the water that beaded up on my greasy filthy skin. The peace of nature infilitrated my very core, and I felt an incredible rush of understanding rattle my soul. My soul! I was an avowed atheist and rationalist, unusual for a fourleg, especially one raised by coyotes, who are mystics to the bone, they believe in the Great Meadow, as I've mentioned, an idea that appeals even if I don't believe it myself, but they are also fond of the teachings of St. Theresa, Hildegaard von Bingen and Teilhard de Chardin, or the bastardized corruptions thereof told by my one sworn feral enemy, Claudetta Jean Tomattino, who at fourteen escaped the convent of Our Precious Lady of Weeping Sores in Sioux Falls in the midst of a roaring Great Plains blizzard, running shoeless through the mounting drifts, abandoning her wimple and habit for the thin shift she wore underneath, a vision ostensibly compelling her to escape into "nature," she expected Hildegaard to protect and succour her, instead she slowed and staggered and fell shivering into the deep snows, spent and frightened, her whimpering oddly coyote-like, leading Skuse the Grand to leave his comfortable burrow and investigate, he found the poor deluded girl and dragged her from the storms into his home, where his wives, Neetz and Woofle, licked and cosseted and nursed the trembling novitiate, who recovered by and by, then flourished, she remained with her adoptive parents until their deaths, then stayed in their den and took a series of coyote lovers, mating openly and loudly with them in violation of every tenet of fourleggedness, her egregious disregard of this more abided chiefly because she was a superb if dishonest storyteller, she convinced many coyotes to embrace the inexplicable and seek within it special messages and epiphanies that appealed as if a narcotic, indeed there was something addictive about her, she grew tremendously fat off of antelope marrow, brains, kidneys and liver, spending her days in shady repose under a tremendous cottonwood tree on the banks of the Niobrara River, eating and receiving oral pleasuring from a series of rank young male coyotes, Ki despised them and she hated Claudetta Jean, warning me away from her on our annual trips to South Dakota to visit relatives, which she needn't, I found the fat nun contemptible, not because of her lewd corpulence, which was merely disgusting, but rather her mystical maunderings, which struck me as being ad hoc, cynical, manipulative and frankly dumb. I had in fact intended to kill Claudetta Jean, as she threatened to destroy the coyote community in the Dakotas, dozens of young males in particular were drawn to her for obvious reasons, she was large enough to accomodate the urgent humpings of six at a time, provided each first bring her a freshly killed pronghorn, she'd spout her puerile blather to the legion panting acolytes lolling at her feet, worn out by their erotic exertions and unquestioning of her philosophies. But I was spared the role of executioner when she choked to death on an enormous gallstone lodged in one of the hepars she'd downed. She was in her fifties by then, toothless and weighing nearly a quarter-ton, and though gone her influence continues, if attenuated with the passing generations, there is still much pointless talk of the soul and the numinous and the possibility of sudden revelation through a self-induced emotional delirium. Bah!
I slept for hours that day by the river, the deepest sleep of my life, satisfied I'd castrated my brother and fixed my father to a cross of thorns, and that I'd indirectly tormented my mother through the sufferings of Claude and Seminole. Yet when I woke to the hooting of an owl and saw the dark sky reaching towards me there in the rolling countryside, a fat moon bruised and bright above, its face mottled but proud and refusing to look away even once during the past three billion years, unflinching as it regarded, and was regarded in turn, by its showy blue overseer, I felt ill, my throat raw, my scalp and groin itching, my limbs exhausted, a fever burning my brow, my lungs rigid and dense, the breath slipping from me, and a sharp pang of terror seized me by the scruff and shook me rudely. I was dying! I had intended to kill, and now was being killed myself, by what I had no idea, were Ki still alive she might be able to diagnosis me from the stench of my breath, the taste of my urine, the aroma and consistency of my stool, her veterinary skills were celebrated, creatures came from all around to attend her healing clinics, there was amnesty for all within eyeshot of our burrow, the fattest chipmunks could come with impunity to be ministered to by my coyote mother, though were she to come across them an hour later while hunting she'd break their little necks without mercy, this was understood by all species, the arbitrary nature of rules saying this is fine here but not there, or you can do this in this way but not that, for no more reason than order must be imposed, anarchy benefiting only the cagiest and strongest, those crafty enough to get away, quite literally, with murder, while all else goes to hell all around, until eventually the utter and complete collapse of critter culture comes with the sudden, avenging force of a volcanic explosion, or more insidiously in the manner of some grave and unstoppable epidemic, the whiskey shits, say, which eradicated over ninety per cent of Great Plains coyotes back when the Toadbellies first populated the prairie, this being the coyote name for European twolegs, referencing the sickly pale hue of their skin, and their intestinal malady which was likely cholera but was colloquially named after the intoxicant the Toadbellies introduced to our land. Damn them, and damn me for being their descendent!
How long I lay shivering after I slept I can't say for sure, but I believe there passed at least three treetop times, during which period I could neither eat nor drink nor even move, other than roll first to one side, than to the other. I was concealed more completely than I had realized at first, for occasionally visitors roamed the park, teens, mainly, to party and to mate, and at one point five or six peace officers to search for me. How did I know this was their purpose? They came close enough that I could hear them, and in the case of one heavyset fellow with flame red hair and an unkempt moustache, see him. How he couldn't see me I can't fathom, for I could see the reflection of myself frozen in fear in the lenses of his oversized mirrored sunglasses. Yet the deputy seemed to perceive nothing even as he peered seemingly right at me, his breathing stertorous, the buttons threatening to pop off of the cheap brown uniform shirt that barely covered his proud hard belly and fatty chest. I lay very still, willling myself not even to breathe, as the cop chewed the inside of his lip and hummed to himself a tuneless ditty, and sang a little as well, something about muskrats copulating, a song I later learned was a pop sensation of the era, obviously written by someone who'd not witnessed such fornication directly, as I had myself, there was nothing romantic about the fast and mildly gruesome screwing of two water rodents, who are tasty, admittedly, I'd eaten many a muskrat myself, some of whom I'd killed while they were in the midst of their outlandish and perfervid coition. Muskrat love indeed.
After the lawmen left I determined I must again move on. I now suspected I had both distemper and mange, and knew if I were to survive, I'd need to make my way to a ranch outside of Dickinson, North Dakota, and see Dr. Ken. Dr. Ken was a man of legend and mystery. He was a fourleg by way of California, where a cougar killed his parents, then abducted the young Ken who grew up to be a medical doctor, a veterinary surgeon, a dentist and a notary public. Now is not the time to recount his story, which would take a thousand and one postings; instead I will merely note that all wild creatures between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains know that if one of their young needs health care, he's the man to see. When Ki had an especially tough case, she'd summon Dr. Ken using the Coyote Express, which permits the rapid transmission of messages in emergencies through serial yipping. But I had no such service available to me now, for the Express didn't extend into Minnesota. Instead I would have to steal a car or a truck and drive myself westward.
You may wonder how I knew how to drive, given that I was only seven when Emmeline and Seminole cast me off. The answer is that I was a bit of a juvenile delinquent, often going to a truck stop off the interstate, which coyotes call the Hard River, and sneaking into idling vehicles whose owners had run into the store to pay for gas or buy some pork rinds and condoms. I was always a watcher as a boy, and possessed a photographic memory, and I'd slip behind the steering wheel and close my eyes, imaging what Emmeline or Seminole did when they drove, then opening my eyes I'd emulate their actions. In this way I learned, by and by, how to operate vehicles with automatic transmissions, though the intricacies of clutching and shifting eluded me, and I sometimes stole a car and would drive for hours at night, often with several of my friends aboard, they seemed fascinated by this exposure to twoleg culture, and enjoyed especially listening to the radio and, even more, watching the windshield wipers sweeping back and forth.
I pulled myself to my feet, flush now with a fever, the sweat coursing down my flanks in steaming rivulets, the day's heat high and the air drenched with humidity. The last thing I wanted to do (excluding another hearing of the deputy trilling "Muskrat Love") was move, yet I had no choice. I mustn't die, so I must see Dr. Ken. I decided that trotting might be easier than merely strolling, and found I had a little more strength than I expected, so I ran down the lane leading out of the park in search of a car to steal. I had run only a few yards when I rounded a bend and dove immediately into a ditch. A sheriff's cruiser was pulled off to the side, but the officer wasn't in sight. I waited for a minute and heard, in the distance, loud chewing interspersed with a few strangled snatches of that hideous song about the schtupping rats. I climbed from the ditch and headed toward the noise, dropping to all fours to keep close to the ground. There lay before me a gentle hill I surmounted, atop which I spied some grazing cattle, several of whom were lowing plaintively, while the rotund redheaded flatfoot was himself on hands and knees eating grass with obvious relish and enthusiasm. Fatso was a fourleg!
There is a signal we fourlegs have which permits us to identify one another, irrespective of which kind of animal raised us. I hurried to the deputy, tapped him on the shoulder, and immediately identified myself to him as belonging to the feral community. He rejoiced to see this and signaled me back accordingly, and we fell into an easy and warm colloquy, talking for hours, he explained to me that his twoleg mother, who was an orphaned milkmaid on a dairy farm near Brattleboro, Vermont, was impregnated at age fourteen by a vile herdsman who then fired her, giving her $75 and a one-way bus ticket to Waxahatchie, Texas, in the Big Bend country, where his brother ran a livestock inseminating service. This latter man was an outright psychopath who mainlined sheep dip and smoked jimson weed, and the pregnant young girl lived in terror, as the addled inseminator spent hours describing to her how he'd skin and eat her baby at its birth. He had fashioned a pair of leg cuffs linked by a stout chain, which he affixed one end to her ankle and the other to his. The chain was only a dozen feet in length, so she effectively shadowed him everywhere, including to the outhose, where he'd sometimes fall asleep. This shitter was quite literally the worst place she'd ever been, as it housed rattlesnakes and tarantulas and black widow spiders, and the feces overran the pit and spilled onto the dirt floor, she'd stand on her tiptoes for hours lest the droppings besmirch her bare feet, waiting for her cretinous master to snap out of his druggy reverie and leave the shithouse, his habit then was to do tai-chi for an hour, then fix a large breakfast for himself of calves brains and waffles, offering the poor pregnant girl only what food he couldn't eat, which she must lick off his plate like a dog.
My new friend, whose name was Y. Z. Newell, was only two weeks from birth, and he apparently kicked like a chorus girl in his mother's womb. This rendered impossible standing for hours in the outhose, and in frustration and fear she searched her captor's pockets and extracted a folding knife with which she calmly and precisely slit his throat, his eyes opening and meeting hers in terror and incomprehension before he slumped over and died in a fountain of blood. Y.Z.'s mother waited for the blood spurt to stop, then heaved the dead man head first through the crapper's hole until only his legs were visible, as forked and spindly as a turkey wishbone, and fled into the night.
"Guess where she ended up?" Y.Z. asked.
"Where?"
"Dr. Ken's clinic. That's where I was born."
"But how do you know of Dr. Ken? And how did she get to his clinic?"
"Coyotes led her."
"You mean...?"
"Yes. Coyotes raised me. Mother fared poorly after she gave birth, and was an invalid for years before she died of kennel cough when I was twelve. The Deenkera clan cared for her as though she were a sister."
"The Deenkeras outside of Pierre, South Dakota?"
"The very same. My parents were Reever and Skraw."
"My God! We knew them! Skraw was a dear friend of my mother, Ki"
"I have heard of Ki," Y.Z. said, smiling. "Perhaps we met at some coyote convocation."
"It's possible, though I don't remember it."
"Me either," said Y.Z. "What I do remember is how to get to Dr. Ken's clinic. You need to get there ASAP, as you look like death's leftovers warmed over. I'll take you there myself."
"That's extraordinarily kind of you."
Y.Z. dismissed my compliment with a wave of his beefy hand. "It's nothing. Plus, it's time for my annual physical anyway. It'll be a two birds, one stone deal. Get in the squad car."
"Gladly. A question, if I may."
"Of course."
"When I saw you grazing just now, I presumed you were raised by ruminants."
Y.Z. laughed as we drove off. "Indigestion," he answered simply. "Nothing beats grass for that."
"Amen," I nodded. I lay curled on my side in the backseat of Y.Z.'s cruiser, soothed by the soft leather, and the car's gentle rocking, and before long I'd slipped back to sleep, dreaming of my boyhood burrow, dreaming of Ki.
17 October 2007
Recipe: Swamp Eggs
Part of good health is eating right. My own diet, when I'm not on a wilding spree and killing my own prey, is admittedly eccentric, as my profile suggests. But it keeps me healthy beyond belief: I can run for over twenty-four hours at a stretch, swim up a raging river well over a mile, outdig the most determined badger, and maintain an erection for over three weeks without permanent damage. Perhaps my coyote upbringing accounts for my toughness, its effects maintained despite decades away from the prairie, slowly moldering in libraries as vibrant as the local beggar's tomb, my many years of indoors schooling threatening to strip me of my ferality but failing, genes prevailing over environment in my case, as an earlier posting documented. But for the washed majority, the twoleg crowd, attending to proper nutrition is vital, and constitutes an important part of our treatment program at the Balzac Institute, where patients leave, on average, weighing a good stone-and-a-half less than when they entered our facility. And while none of the men has yet reported getting it up as long as I am able to regularly (they don't have a chance!), they do note improvements, which I attribute largely to better nutrition, our meals entirely planned by that doyenne of pole and stage, Miss Gator Ethel Thibodeaux, the Cajun Maven. Today's Gator Ethel recipe is for "swamp eggs," a delicacy I confess to enjoying if I run short on my supply of Andorran jellied eels. Here she is, our chef and muse:
"Dis is Miz Gator Ethel, cher, talkin' wi' you about de needs of de body, not what's you thinken, either, but de fuel for our motor, as it were, de foods we eat an' de fluids we drink. My oh my but do us Cajun folk know de way around our plates! My Uncle Raoul Rene Thibodeaux wuz de biggest eater I ever saw an' yet he ate healthy and weren't too fat neither, cher, no sir. Uncle Raoul was a poacher an' a drinker an' a professor and he wud a spent life in prison most likely had his airboat not been powered by two Mezzashitz engines from a Nazi bomber, he got them from a gud friend down in Argenteen, that boat cud fly an' de game wardens never had a chance. Plus Uncle Raoul lived in de mos' remote part a de bayou an' it wuz like a watery maze getten to his complex deep in de' swamp. I never seen nothin' like his house, cher, it wuz de mos' interesten colleckshun of buildin's you ever wud want to see. Dey wuz all raized uppen poles stuck right deep in de' swamp mud, ten yards in de' air at least, six or seven a dem, and connected by gangplanks, rickety ol' things dat swung dis way an' dat, it scared me outta my undies to visit. You'd pull up in Uncle Raoul's airboat he tied to a dock, den climb up an ol' rope ladder dat musta been knotted together by Methuselah hisself. You'd climb an' climb and reach de first home where his conjammed twins, Gus an' Gus, lived, dey shared many of de' same organs but had only four limbs, dey was kinda double-wide like my sixth husband's trailer, dat ol'boy was rich, and Gus an' Gus were about my age, dey had dese two heads poken outta dey t-shirt, one canten one way, de other de other, dey looken pretty different as well, dey voices also weren't at all de' same, Gus he wuz gay an' had a voice dat matched dat trait like a shandleer inna ol' maid's parlor, while Gus wuz a womanizer an' quick wid de one hand he controlled, you kept yore distance! His voice was deep an' growly an' smutty an' I didden like Gus, but I did like Gus. De two hated one another fierce, an' one mornen Gus wuz sick a bein' called a fruit an' a fag by Gus, I didden blame him a bit, an' in de night Gus strangled Gus, but dat wuz a most unfortunate mistake, cher, for Gus controlled de heart of de both of them, an' when Gus died so did Gus, but smilen cuz he got his wish even though he lost his life.
"Anyway, I got off track, like my dog, Boo, does when he chasen de' possums outta de French Quarter in de' mornin', Boo keeps de Quarter clean a pests. Back to Uncle Raoul's place: You went from de twins cabin to a separate builden where Raoul hisself lived, den to a big kitchen, den to Raoul's wife's home, den to a shitter, den to a 'normous den an' liberry, Raoul taught at Tulane an' he had thousands a books, mostly 'bout Raoul's special area a interest, Cajun Studies. An' one whole shelf wuz books about Cajun an' Creole cooken, mos' of dem recipes tried and tested by Uncle hisself, dat ol' boy cud eat as I said. His very favorite dish of all took two whole weeks to prepare! Here's de recipe:
"Take a gator 6-8 feet long an' shoot him in de brain. Have a pit dug first, maybe four feet deep an' 9 feet long. Fill dat pit wi' sappy pine cones an' branches, an' some dried pine needles, an' some hard wood. Light a fire an' burn it gud an' hot. Keep adden hard wood an' pine cones and keep it burnen day an' night for three days. Meanwhile take de dead gator an'pull out his brain an' his innards. Clean out his body an' his guts. Start stuffen de gator wi' onions an' garlic an' sausages an' peppers of all types. Pour vinegar all over dis mess an' stitch de' gator closed. Take de' cleaned guts and putten 'em in a cauldron full a Dixie Beer an' horse piss. Boil dat whole load a slop for three days itself. Once you done wi' all dis, lay de gator on de incredible hot coals and dump de' cauldron over de' gator. Shovel clean sand on top a de' gator till dat big bastard's all covered. Start a fire on top a dis closed pit an' keep dat burnen two weeks. Den let de fire go out, an' once de ground's cool dig up de gator. Now you got yoreself one big smoked treat, and oh, cher, but dat meat is gud! Succulent an' smoky an' spicy. De whole critter's good for eaten, de skin, even, which is chewy an tasty. De eyeballs is what you fight for, as dey is sweet as cherry pie. De nice thing is, too, is dat de gator will keep for days without needen a fridge. Jes' scrape any rot off de' beast an' eat de rest. Uncle Raoul loves his smoked gator and I do too.
"But dis aint a meal mos' folks can fix for theyselves. What to do, den, when yore appetite spikes an' you want somethin' good an' real quick? 'Swamp eggs' is my choice every time, cher. Dey's scrumptious an' nutritious an' quick to make. Hell, I even taught Whiski Rae Shamrock how to whip up a batch for us to eat in between shows when we poled together in de old times. Dat girl wuz smart wi' de books but dumb in de' kitchen. She actually tried to toast a pair a pork chops for us once for supper! Unique effort, I have to say, but de chops only burnt in de toaster an' started to flame. I 'bout split my g-string laffen to see dat pretty young girl tryen to blow out de fire an' only maken it flare brighter! I grabbed dat toaster by de cord and flunged it outta de window a de river boat where we performed, an' it crashed into de Mississippi an' sank from sight! Some alligator gar ate gud dat evenin', an' so did we. Behold:
"Take a dozen gud speckled hen's eggs an' dump 'em in a pan a boilen tomato juice dat's got tequilla an' Barq's root beer mixed into it. Cook dem eggs for three or four minutes, den drain de pan an' fill it wi' ice water. De shells a de eggs will bust open maken de peelen easy. Take dese naked eggs, den, and put 'em in a corn meal mix dat's moistened wi' buttermilk till it's gud an' smooth. Add a liberal dose a Tabasco, a tin a sardines smashed into a paste, goodly amounts of peeled garlic an' salt an' cayenne pepper to taste. Den spoon a healthy dollop a bacon grease into a skillet and crank de heat up high. Once de grease bubbles angrily, upend de whole mess an' fry everythin' up, taken pains not to rupture de eggs. Once de coaten is crispy an' brown, remove de eggs to a plate, squirt mustard over em' an' serve wi' Wonder bread an' ripe pears. Oh my god but you got yoreself some tasty treats! First time Whiski Rae made dem she ate ten herself! Dey's 'bout as healthy a food as you'd like. Come to think a it, Gus an' Gus prackly lived off a swamp eggs due to dey strange digesten problems. If a food is gud enough fo' conjammed twins, it gud enough fo' you, cher. Try it tomorrow an' get a little Cajun in yore sad dumb life. Jes' kidden."
Thanks, Gator Ethel, for that wonderful culinary tip. Would you believe me if I told you I ate twenty-four swamp eggs this morning? It's true! If only my coyote mother, Ki, could have eaten some during our years together. I hope they're on the menu in the Great Meadow. They certainly are at the Balzac Institute for Partial Recovery, where we believe that what goes down between your teeth is every bit as important as what passes back up through them.
That's it for today. Bon appetit!
Rusty
"Dis is Miz Gator Ethel, cher, talkin' wi' you about de needs of de body, not what's you thinken, either, but de fuel for our motor, as it were, de foods we eat an' de fluids we drink. My oh my but do us Cajun folk know de way around our plates! My Uncle Raoul Rene Thibodeaux wuz de biggest eater I ever saw an' yet he ate healthy and weren't too fat neither, cher, no sir. Uncle Raoul was a poacher an' a drinker an' a professor and he wud a spent life in prison most likely had his airboat not been powered by two Mezzashitz engines from a Nazi bomber, he got them from a gud friend down in Argenteen, that boat cud fly an' de game wardens never had a chance. Plus Uncle Raoul lived in de mos' remote part a de bayou an' it wuz like a watery maze getten to his complex deep in de' swamp. I never seen nothin' like his house, cher, it wuz de mos' interesten colleckshun of buildin's you ever wud want to see. Dey wuz all raized uppen poles stuck right deep in de' swamp mud, ten yards in de' air at least, six or seven a dem, and connected by gangplanks, rickety ol' things dat swung dis way an' dat, it scared me outta my undies to visit. You'd pull up in Uncle Raoul's airboat he tied to a dock, den climb up an ol' rope ladder dat musta been knotted together by Methuselah hisself. You'd climb an' climb and reach de first home where his conjammed twins, Gus an' Gus, lived, dey shared many of de' same organs but had only four limbs, dey was kinda double-wide like my sixth husband's trailer, dat ol'boy was rich, and Gus an' Gus were about my age, dey had dese two heads poken outta dey t-shirt, one canten one way, de other de other, dey looken pretty different as well, dey voices also weren't at all de' same, Gus he wuz gay an' had a voice dat matched dat trait like a shandleer inna ol' maid's parlor, while Gus wuz a womanizer an' quick wid de one hand he controlled, you kept yore distance! His voice was deep an' growly an' smutty an' I didden like Gus, but I did like Gus. De two hated one another fierce, an' one mornen Gus wuz sick a bein' called a fruit an' a fag by Gus, I didden blame him a bit, an' in de night Gus strangled Gus, but dat wuz a most unfortunate mistake, cher, for Gus controlled de heart of de both of them, an' when Gus died so did Gus, but smilen cuz he got his wish even though he lost his life.
"Anyway, I got off track, like my dog, Boo, does when he chasen de' possums outta de French Quarter in de' mornin', Boo keeps de Quarter clean a pests. Back to Uncle Raoul's place: You went from de twins cabin to a separate builden where Raoul hisself lived, den to a big kitchen, den to Raoul's wife's home, den to a shitter, den to a 'normous den an' liberry, Raoul taught at Tulane an' he had thousands a books, mostly 'bout Raoul's special area a interest, Cajun Studies. An' one whole shelf wuz books about Cajun an' Creole cooken, mos' of dem recipes tried and tested by Uncle hisself, dat ol' boy cud eat as I said. His very favorite dish of all took two whole weeks to prepare! Here's de recipe:
"Take a gator 6-8 feet long an' shoot him in de brain. Have a pit dug first, maybe four feet deep an' 9 feet long. Fill dat pit wi' sappy pine cones an' branches, an' some dried pine needles, an' some hard wood. Light a fire an' burn it gud an' hot. Keep adden hard wood an' pine cones and keep it burnen day an' night for three days. Meanwhile take de dead gator an'pull out his brain an' his innards. Clean out his body an' his guts. Start stuffen de gator wi' onions an' garlic an' sausages an' peppers of all types. Pour vinegar all over dis mess an' stitch de' gator closed. Take de' cleaned guts and putten 'em in a cauldron full a Dixie Beer an' horse piss. Boil dat whole load a slop for three days itself. Once you done wi' all dis, lay de gator on de incredible hot coals and dump de' cauldron over de' gator. Shovel clean sand on top a de' gator till dat big bastard's all covered. Start a fire on top a dis closed pit an' keep dat burnen two weeks. Den let de fire go out, an' once de ground's cool dig up de gator. Now you got yoreself one big smoked treat, and oh, cher, but dat meat is gud! Succulent an' smoky an' spicy. De whole critter's good for eaten, de skin, even, which is chewy an tasty. De eyeballs is what you fight for, as dey is sweet as cherry pie. De nice thing is, too, is dat de gator will keep for days without needen a fridge. Jes' scrape any rot off de' beast an' eat de rest. Uncle Raoul loves his smoked gator and I do too.
"But dis aint a meal mos' folks can fix for theyselves. What to do, den, when yore appetite spikes an' you want somethin' good an' real quick? 'Swamp eggs' is my choice every time, cher. Dey's scrumptious an' nutritious an' quick to make. Hell, I even taught Whiski Rae Shamrock how to whip up a batch for us to eat in between shows when we poled together in de old times. Dat girl wuz smart wi' de books but dumb in de' kitchen. She actually tried to toast a pair a pork chops for us once for supper! Unique effort, I have to say, but de chops only burnt in de toaster an' started to flame. I 'bout split my g-string laffen to see dat pretty young girl tryen to blow out de fire an' only maken it flare brighter! I grabbed dat toaster by de cord and flunged it outta de window a de river boat where we performed, an' it crashed into de Mississippi an' sank from sight! Some alligator gar ate gud dat evenin', an' so did we. Behold:
"Take a dozen gud speckled hen's eggs an' dump 'em in a pan a boilen tomato juice dat's got tequilla an' Barq's root beer mixed into it. Cook dem eggs for three or four minutes, den drain de pan an' fill it wi' ice water. De shells a de eggs will bust open maken de peelen easy. Take dese naked eggs, den, and put 'em in a corn meal mix dat's moistened wi' buttermilk till it's gud an' smooth. Add a liberal dose a Tabasco, a tin a sardines smashed into a paste, goodly amounts of peeled garlic an' salt an' cayenne pepper to taste. Den spoon a healthy dollop a bacon grease into a skillet and crank de heat up high. Once de grease bubbles angrily, upend de whole mess an' fry everythin' up, taken pains not to rupture de eggs. Once de coaten is crispy an' brown, remove de eggs to a plate, squirt mustard over em' an' serve wi' Wonder bread an' ripe pears. Oh my god but you got yoreself some tasty treats! First time Whiski Rae made dem she ate ten herself! Dey's 'bout as healthy a food as you'd like. Come to think a it, Gus an' Gus prackly lived off a swamp eggs due to dey strange digesten problems. If a food is gud enough fo' conjammed twins, it gud enough fo' you, cher. Try it tomorrow an' get a little Cajun in yore sad dumb life. Jes' kidden."
Thanks, Gator Ethel, for that wonderful culinary tip. Would you believe me if I told you I ate twenty-four swamp eggs this morning? It's true! If only my coyote mother, Ki, could have eaten some during our years together. I hope they're on the menu in the Great Meadow. They certainly are at the Balzac Institute for Partial Recovery, where we believe that what goes down between your teeth is every bit as important as what passes back up through them.
That's it for today. Bon appetit!
Rusty
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