Thursday, July 28, 2005

The Geezers Next Door

I hadn’t seen them or their forty pound wiener dog Schlitz in over two years. Perhaps they’d forgotten about me. No, damn it they couldn’t have forgotten. No one does something as absolutely fucked up as they had and forgets about the person they’ve done it in front of. Who am I speaking of you ask? Depraved and escaped convicts? Disgruntled fast food employees? Invading Canadians bent on world domination? No, much more dangerous than the above mentioned, for their hoary guises were perfect cover for their bizarre activities. The grandma and grandpa duo of which I speak lived not twenty yards from the wall of my brick Cape Cod. Yes, they are my neighbors, the ones with the yellow FLHRSI Road King Harley Davidson motorcycle and the pimped out conversion van with Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper painted on the side. I had thought them somewhat eccentric in the scant four five conversations I had with them but never expected that under their polyester clothing that two full fledged freaks were hiding, not until the morning I caught them peeping through the blinds in my bathroom. Things would only get weirder.

It had been a day like any other. That is nothing stood out that would make describing memorable so I will just say that there was indeed a sun and a big blue sky. Happy? Anyway, I had just awoke and had sent my two loyal and purebred attack Chihuahuas out in the yard to make sure the premises were secure and then had gone to relieve myself in the restroom. As I urinated I stretched my spine back to loosen it for the day’s toil and upon straightening back up I saw what was perhaps the most disturbing sight I had ever beheld. Through the open blinds I could make out two sets of bulbous blue eyes, they were watery like overflowing toilets and the skin around them was chapped and looked like something a bobcat had been gnawing on.

Startled, I grabbed for my penis with urine still streaming from it and tried to jam it back into my Polo boxer briefs. It took some doing but after several seconds of spattering piss on the walls I managed and then I lunged at the window and yanked up the blinds…they were gone I paused for a moment and wondered if perhaps they’d really been there at all. If they had been wouldn’t my attack Chihuahaus have alerted me? Wouldn’t they have sunk their little teeth into the rawhide ankles of those geezers that were peeping at me?

I quickly gathered myself in my bathrobe and ran out to the back yard. My attack Chihuahuas were busy rolling in what appeared to be reindeer shit. Their motto, I believe, though it has never been spoken to me, is perhaps the stinkier the better. Surely they had been around the other side of the house when the oldsters were looking in the window at me urinate. They would have never let them peer into my window. As I drew closer to the frolicking canines I noticed an empty Snausages bag and the bloated belly of Uma and Flea.

“Bastards,” I cried.

They’d sated my two miniature watch beasts with the fast food of the dog world. Their little arteries were probably hardening as I stood there up to my ankles in wet grass. I had to get to the bottom of this. My personality would allow for no other option.

BAM!

The garage door next door slammed shut. It was them. They had been hiding in the bushes and when I wasn’t looking had sneaked in. I cinched the belt of my robe and sprinted towards their garage.

When I reached the garage I heard the thunderous roar of a Harley Davidson motorcycle starting. I thought perhaps they were readying for a road trip. I’d seen them take off many times on such journeys, their forty pound wiener dog Schlitz riding in an oversized saddle bag, his long ears whipping in the wind.

What I did see through the window of the side door was not an elderly couple preparing for a jaunt on their hog. What I did see was instantly and thoroughly disturbing. It was whacked.

The old lady was hog tied with chains and hanging from a winch that was strapped to a beam in the ceiling in the center of the garage. She was dressed in black leather S&M gear. Some sort of funky swimsuit looking get up that didn’t have breast panels and which let her deflated sweet potato titties hang down and sway to and fro. She had on knee high black boots with spiked heels at least 6 inches high.

The old man had on a leather codpiece, black dress shoes, and white socks. The wiener dog Schlitz was wearing black leather shorts, a black mesh shirt and a black captain’s hat held in place by a leather strap.

The old man leaned his head back and let out a terrible cry and then ever so slowly he began to lower his wife. His wife seemed to be enjoying the whole thing so it didn’t even occur to me that I might call the police or try some sort of rescue. When her mouth was level with the exhaust pipe of the Harley Davidson the old man gently coaxed his wife forward. And then suddenly the old woman’s jaw unhinged like that of some great jungle snake and her mouth was now as wide as the opening of a large bucket of chicken and then she began to suck.

Schlitz walked up to the old man, laid on his back, and froze there as if he were a stuffed museum piece. The old man ran his wrinkled fingers along the length of the wiener dog’s elongated stomach. “Aha,” the old man cried and I heard the sound of a zipper unzipping. He then stood back and Schlitz split in half like a suitcase, his insides hollow and pink like used chewing gum. In the center of Schlitz’s innards was some sort of gold dust that was so brilliant in its color and reflection that I was sure it had to be some otherworldly substance like dry alien urine or the dandruff of a dry scalped god.

“Magic,” the old man said.

He then produced a coke spoon from a silver chain on his neck and dipped into the glittering gold powder. Schlitz closed slowly like an automatic garage door and then snapped shut, rolled back on his legs and stood their like a fury coffee table.

The old man put the coke spoon under the old lady’s nose and she snorted. Gold dust shot up her nostrils and the effects were immediate. She began to inflate like some great dirigible, her skin expanding and expanding. I tried to ready myself to run for help but it occurred to me that I wouldn’t know what to say when I contacted the authorities. How do you explain such a strange scene and furthermore was anyone really being hurt? These questions were beyond my capabilities of reason for I’d never been exposed to anything so bizarre in all my days.

The old man undid his wife’s bindings and she floated to the top of the garage bobbing happily about. The look on her stretch and inflated lips was one of unadulterated bliss, a anomaly amongst the normal elderly demeanor which hinges on the desperation of the glint of the Grim Reaper’s sickle.

It seemed she might have gone on floating forever and I don’t know that I would have ever tired of seeing her float around the garage and was half tempted to open the garage door and watch her float up up and away. She, however was not meant to float like this forever. In the next instant her back hit a nail in the roof and my elderly neighbor exploded. Blood, high heels, flesh, and black leather sprayed out all over the garage like some mighty fourth of July firework. I knew now why her husband had put on the safety goggles, rubber smock and elbow length gloves.

When the explosion had happened something seemingly heavier than the rest of the spraying matter had fallen straight down and into the arms of the old man. It appeared to be some small creature wrapped in a mucus membrane. Whatever the fuck it was it squirmed and kicked and I was overwrought with a terror that started in my resticles and rose up through my core like an ice water enema. It was of course useless to run for although I was terrified the curiosity overwhelmed me. Yes, I know it killed the cat but this was damn strange and I wasn’t considering mortality at that moment.

The old man took the squirming egg shaped membrane and laid it on his work bench in a pile of sawdust. What the Hell was it? I wondered. Some sort of pupal stage of a giant blood sucking insect?

The old man removed a pair of garden sheers from his work bench and began snipping away at the membrane. Beer like juices spilled from the membrane onto the floor and formed a foamy puddle that pulsed and glowed purple.

After some extensive snipping the old man stepped back, crossed his thin arms across his chest and watched.

First a gangly paw shot out and then out shot another leg and another and finally a fourth.

“By God, it’s heinous,” I said under my breath.

The old man picked a piece of saw dust covered membrane off his work bench and bit into it. He chewed with his mouth open which was perhaps the grossest thing I saw that day.

“Oh my treasure. My beautiful little treasure,” he said and dipped his hand into the egg shaped membrane.

I was prepared for most anything but not for what he pulled out of that membrane. He clutched it by its long ears like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat. It was…

The old man spun suddenly on the heels of his black S&M boots. The garage door swung open in front of me, seemingly under no human power, and I stood there exposed, caught peeping into my neighbor’s garage.

“Uh, I was wondering if I could borrow some sugar,” I said.

The old man didn’t say a word. He just walked towards me. I tried to take my eyes off what he held in his hands but noticed his codpiece and went back to looking at the long eared rascal he held like a delicate egg.

“For you,” he said.

I reached out and he laid the tan Chihuahua puppy in my hands. Its hair was wet and it smelled like hay.

“Thanks?” I said.

I held the puppy up to my face and it licked my cheek. Its eyes were so big and blue I thought if you looked at them too long you might lose yourself and never find your way back.

The old man pointed to the strange beer like liquid that had spilled from the membrane and collected in a heap of foam. The foam pulsed violently red now. It crackled and grew at an incredible rate.

“What the Hell is going on?” I said.

The old man held up an old chicken bone finger as if to say be silent and watch. I did.

The heap of foam began to take shape and then seemed to harden but not dry. Rather it took on the likeness of wet skin and then the shape of a human. I watched before me as a pair of breasts grew out and hair sprouted from all the appropriate areas. Soon enough I realized it was the old lady reborn from the foam. Only she wasn’t old anymore. She was you and beautiful. Wait. I’d spoken to soon. The vision of this gorgeous young woman now standing before me quickly began to deteriorate, her skin drying and wrinkling, her breasts deflating, her hair graying. Finally she was the old lady again.

She took a step towards the old man.

“Put this on,” the old man said, handing her another S&M outfit and a pair of high heeled boots.

The old woman put her gear on as I watched. The Chihuahua puppy yapped and strangely I knew it was time to go. I turned and without saying anything. I had the feeling that it wouldn’t make a difference if I said anything or not.

“Oh, yeah,” the old man said. “Her name is Macy and she’s purebred. The papers will come in a few weeks.”

‘Thanks?” I said.

Purebred what I wondered? Although my new puppy looked like a Chihuahua it seemed somehow different. Just how I couldn’t tell.

I didn’t sleep for weeks after that, constantly peering out from between my blinds to see if the elderly couple next door was doing anymore weird shit. I didn’t see them though, not even their fat wiener dog Schlitz. It’s strange because their lawn has always been cut, their mail always taken in but by who? I’ve watched that house at all times of night and day and have seen no sign of human habitation. What the Hell am I saying? Obviously they weren’t of this world. Or were they? Hell, I don’t know.

At least I gained something from my weird experience, yes my new Chihuahua Macy. She likes me to put her leather lead on and walk her around the neighborhood. She never leaves my side. She always watches me while I change and take showers, her big blue eyes brimming with water like the old lady’s…

WTF?

Only in Texas. Someone from Texas did a search for "doctor fucking their patient" and ended up on my blog. Great. You go to the doctors office for a flu shot and wake up in the dumpster out back feeling like you sat on a two liter Pepsi bottle for six days. People are just F-ing weird.

Other searches that landed people on my blog:

Tighty whitey lap dance
all rotten false teeth
Bokum cafe
Troegs beer babe
ping pong and tookoo
breasts and piglets
Novelty plastic viewfinders

Freak me out why don’t you


A client came into the office this morning. She was an elderly and very large black woman dressed in a black jacket and dress. Yeah, it was a little hot for that getup. She had trouble navigating the stairs with her giant walker that seemed constructed of old shopping cart parts. I stuck my hand out to help her. She ran my foot over with her walker. I smiled.

I offered her a seat in the waiting area. She eased her very large behind so slowly into a chair. I’d never seen anyone take that long to sit before. I might have timed boiling eggs in that time, I might have flown to the moon, I might have grown old in that time but I didn’t.

“Can I get you anything to drink?” I asked her.

She didn’t respond. Her eyes grew wide with the whiteness. Her pupils disappearing somewhere there within.

“You have an unwanted visitor,” she said, her voice cracking.

“Where?” I asked turning to look.

“Don’t look,” she cried.

“Okay?” I said.

“He’s there in the doorway. He’s big and black and standing right there. You’d best get your pastor to pray him out of here,” she said, her hand on her heart.

I chanced another glance.

“I told you. Don’t look. He’s about yeah wide,” she said, spreading her hands apart as if showing the size of a fish she’d caught. “And very very tall.”

“Does he want a drink?” I asked.

“I warned you,” she said, picked up a magazine and began to read.

Now, a few hours later, I'm wondering if she really did see something or if she just didn't take her medication. My money would go on a lack of medication but then again...

Friday, July 22, 2005

Sorry I've been absent most of the week. I've been sending out query letters for my book the Barbecue Wire Boy and haven't had time to get any extra writing in. Stick with me. It will be worth the ride. Next week I'm thinking of starting to write a book online. A few pages every day? Who knows? We'll see what can be done. Until we meet again...

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Monday, July 18, 2005

I was digging you Holy Roller babe

Twenty-one and all Jesused in. Damn I thought maybe I could get between you and him, push the cross aside and nuzzle your neck. Thought maybe since you were a part time porn star that I wouldn’t wake up to you leafing through the Bible, fingering yourself frantically to the illustrations. Do you really think HE would have composed such a poorly written gossip column? Come on, live a little. Lie a lot. Tell me that we can sleep in Sunday morning and fuck. Me on top of you. You on top of me. Me on top of the world.

When we met at the restaurant with the triangular bar you were throwing back martinis like Satan’s blond step daughter. Now you’re talking of holy matrimony and the Garden of Eden and paradise…my hard on is gone. Paradise is a cold beer on a hot beach as the sun drops like a quarter tossed into a fish tank. You’re too young to be so Jesused in. You’re too young not to travel to all those place in my heart. You’re too old to believe in fairy tales. So let’s start a new. Let’s go someplace, just me and you. Leave him behind and for God’s sake tell me you believe in Dinosaurs…

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Forthcoming from Paycock Press

Kiss the Sky: An Anthology of Fiction & Poetry Starring Jimi Hendrix

250pp (ed. by Richard Peabody)
Featuring: Matt Agosta, Brian Ames, Mark Ari, Bruce Bauman, Robert Bixby, Patrick Chapman, Robert Cooperman, Barbara DeCesare, Matthew Dillon, Kevin Downs, Richard Flynn, Enid Futterman, Jaimy Gordon, Reuben Jackson, Shelley Jackson, George Kalamaras, L. A. Lantz, Graham Masterton, Nancy Mercado, Steve Messner, Martin Millar, Matthew L. Moffett, Rebecca Motil, James Norcliffe, Gerry Gomez Pearlberg, W. T. Pfefferle, Meredith Pond, Doug Rice, Lewis Shiner, Rozanne Gooding Silverwood, Michael Spann, Chris Stevens, D. E. Steward, Sara-Jayne Townsend, Walter Williams, and more.

Monday, July 11, 2005

Day 3 Moving. Delirious... Posted by Picasa

Helping my sister move. Day 3. Of coure I'm happy damn it!

Sunflower seeds in cheek. Posted by Picasa

Lie to me

Tell me that the things that matter aren’t lost, that kindness isn’t dead, that a smile is more important than a profit, that you will be there forever, that your words are worth more than the lies they’re printed on. On second thought don’t lie to me, let the mountains deflate like punctured lungs, let the seas evaporate like Viking spit on a hot hearth stone, let the roads curl like sapling bark in a great nuclear fire, and please please let me go. I don’t remember why I’m HERE anymore but I think once it had something to do with being me and now I don’t even know who me is anymore. Either I’ve lost my way or the world has. Funny I don’t feel any different. Maybe, just maybe it’s time to pull the plug on this great experiment, to admit that it will never work, to admit that people are their own worst enemy and we deserve ourselves until this violent end comes…nah, that’s too easy. Drink another beer and watch me blur, my image getting fainter and fainter…

Friday, July 08, 2005

See, I do wear a suit once or twice a year... Posted by Picasa

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

900 Pound Gorilla

Percy Wingham wove drunkenly through his yard on his John Deere lawn tractor, running down the occasional shrub, intermittent lawn ornament, or one of the thousands of Titlist golf balls he’d hit off the roof of his carport while practicing his chipping. He didn’t even bother to glance over his shoulder now and again, as pieces of ceramic, hunks of aluminum, wedges of foliage and slices of golf ball skin were spit out the side of his riding mower, creating neat trails of mower discharge. The reason he hadn’t tried to avoid these objects is because, well, he couldn’t see them.

No, Percy wasn’t blind and no his eyes weren’t closed, he could see all right, although his vision might have been a little blurred by the half dozen or so Pabst Blue Ribbons he’d drunk as lunch. The reason he couldn’t see the many objects that littered his lawn was because they were buried in nearly three feet of Kentucky Blue grass, which had gone to seed, making his yard look like the prairie backdrop on a John Wayne movie set.

The retired city bus driver hadn’t mowed his grass since the previous September, it was now July, and might have left it grow until the end of time if he hadn’t been threatened with legal action by a coalition of concerned neighbors, led by the flamboyant and somewhat nosey, Reverend HQ McDuffy, who also happened to be the county’s premier real estate agent.

That Percy’s yard had gone to pot was in large part due to the death of his wife, Juanita, who died of lung cancer two years prior. He hadn’t seen the point of a well manicured lawn when the feelings inside him, especially those of loneliness and sadness had become so overwhelming, had grown so completely out of control, much as the Kentucky Blue grass of his own yard had, when no one was around to care for it anymore. But fearing the loss of his home he reluctantly complied with the neighborhood coalition’s wishes and fired up the John Deere.

The neighborhood coalition would be pleased that Percy was finally taking care of his lawn but it was only the first item on a growing list of complaints that they had received concerning his property. The house itself was also in great disrepair, the paint on the shutters had bubbled and was peeling off, the two windows on either side of the front door—broken by the snowballs of neighborhood hooligans—were covered over haphazardly with the lids of a rusty washer and dryer, the bricks at the top of the chimney—uprooted by the freezing water which had seeped between them—had caved in, some of the bricks falling onto the driveway below, and the shingles on the roof—over thirty years old—were cracked and brittle and slowly sliding out of place. There was also the matter of the swimming pool in the back yard which was empty, cracked and thick with weeds, cigarette butts, and empty beer cans. The driveway was likewise a mess, littered with two years worth of soggy newspapers which created a pulpy barricade that made it impossible for Percy to pull out of the garage with his red Cadillac Coupe DeVille. Not that it mattered much, for he hadn’t taken the Cadillac out since Juanita had died, preferring to order his food from take out joints, Swanson’s frozen delivery service, and Klinger’s grocery. Even his X585 4-Wheel-Drive John Deere lawn tractor with 25 hp, V-twin, liquid-cooled, 2-cylinder gasoline engine, which he now drove, once the envy of the neighborhood husbands, was rusty with disuse and burped up angry blue smoke as he drove it around the yard.

As Percy tilted his head back taking a long slug of Pabst Blue Ribbon he saw a clearing up ahead in the high grass.

“Damn,” Percy said, pushing down hard on the John Deer’s breaks and coming to a stop just inches from his open septic tank.

The previous spring a terrible stink consumed Percy’s property followed by a bubbling crude that wouldn’t make Percy rich but would have effectively ended any picnic set up down wind from it. When the neighborhood coalition had posted a complaint on his door ordering him to take care of his overflowing septic tank he called Burman’s Septic Service and had the septic tank sucked clean but having been stiffed by Percy seven years prior, over a disputed surcharge, Burman’s refused to place the cement lid back on the tank until he paid both his bills. Not one to back down, for Percy was a man of principal, even if his principals were influenced by alcohol and the fundamental belief that everyone owed him something, he rented a portable toilet from the parks and recreation center and did his business in that rather than stink up his septic tank and have to pay Burman’s Septic Service to put the lid back in place.

A year later Percy’s neighborhood, by order of city mandate, was hooked up to the city sewer system and Burman’s Septic Service effectively lost their leverage. Percy no longer required Burman’s services or the portable toilet he’d rented from the parks and recreation center. In Percy’s mind he’d outsmarted Burman’s Septic Service, even if the cost of renting his portable toilet had well exceeded what it would have cost to pay the original septic service bill.

So, when Percy happened upon the open septic tank in his front yard while mowing the grass it didn’t surprise him, what surprised him was the nine hundred pound gorilla at the bottom doing pushups.

The gorilla didn’t startle Percy, he’d been desensitized of surprise during the second world war, when he’d fought for the Army in the European Theater against Hitler’s aggression. In comparison to seeing your best friend’s head blown off my a mortar round, a gorilla in a septic tank was no big deal, at least that’s the way Percy saw it.

Without any sign of emotion he turned off the John Deere, drained the last of his Pabst Blue Ribbon and dismounted the green lawn tractor. More than anything he was annoyed to have to stop his mowing, the Phillies were playing the Pirates that evening and he’d planned to chill a twelve pack of Pabst and watch them on the satellite dish, which was also in disrepair, leaning like a wilted flower, and buried under a bevy of creeping ivy, but still mostly functional.

“Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,” Percy said.

The gorilla gave Percy the finger.

It occurred to Percy that the gorilla trapped in his septic tank might be one of the educated gorillas he’d seen on the Discovery Channel, a gorilla that was taught sign language and had good table manners. For a moment he thought about inviting it into the house for dinner and he just might have if he were a little drunker.

“I can’t fiddle around with this monkey now,” Percy thought, “If I do I’ll miss the game.

“Oorrrrrrrrrrahhhhhhhhhh,” the gorilla shrieked.

“Sorry old fella, I have a date with a twelve pack of Pabst and nine sweaty guys in tight polyester uniforms.”

Without anymore thought on the matter Percy mounted his John Deere and drove it to the front door of his house. Inside he called Klinger’s Grocery and ordered four dozen bananas, six bags of trail mix, and a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon. He wasn’t quite sure what gorillas ate but didn’t have time to research the matter since game time was drawing near.

That night Percy watched the Phillies lose eight to three while the gorilla ate his bananas and trail mix, disregarding the yogurt covered almonds, tossing them up and out of the septic tank. After the game Percy slept passed out on his La-Z-Boy while gorilla slept in a nest he made out of the grill cover and lawn trimmings Percy had thrown down to him.

The next morning Percy called over his neighbor George Stamm and the two stood at the edge of the septic tank drinking glasses of George’s hangover remedy, which he called the morning clam. It was a mixture of three cups Mott’s Clamato juice, one raw egg, a shot of Worcestershire sauce, three drops of Tabasco sauce, a dash of lemon juice, a pinch of pepper and salt and two shots of Absolut. That this “hangover remedy” was very similar to a Bloody Mary didn’t matter to Percy because coupled with six or so ibuprofen it always seemed to roll back the waves of nausea and stomp out the fire of any headache.

“What’s a nine hundred pound gorilla doing in your septic tank?” George asked.

“Anything he damn well wants,” Percy said, peering over the edge of the septic tank, being careful not to get too close to the edge for fear he might slip and end up in the gorilla’s grasp.

On the ground next to the open septic tank lay the Pabst Blue Ribbon can that Percy had been drinking out of when he discovered the gorilla. Seeing the empty can George picked it up, crushed it on his forehead and threw it at the gorilla hitting him on the nose. The gorilla smiled but the look in his eyes said, “Just wait.”

“I could get my deer rifle,” George said.

“No, we don’t want to shoot it. It might’ve escaped from a zoo,” Percy said.

“Escaped from a zoo? There’s not a zoo within in one hundred miles of this place. If you ask me-“

“I didn’t,” Percy said, taking a pack of Kool’s from the breast pocket of his red and blue flannel shirt and offering one to George. “But if I had I’d tell you that gorillas aren’t native to North America, and that the only way it could’ve gotten here was if it escaped from a zoo or maybe a laboratory.”

“Maybe,” George said, taking a cigarette and sticking it in his mouth. He claimed to only smoke when he drank and since he drank pretty much nonstop Percy thought it was ridiculous that he claimed to be a part time smoker.

“Well he was educated somewhere, he gave me the finger,” Percy said.

“I don’t think giving the finger is necessarily an indicator of higher learning, but I see what you’re getting at. You think someone taught him to give the finger.”

“I’m sure of it. That finger didn’t just pop up by accident. The movement was deliberate, crisp, and precise,” Percy said, inhaling deeply on his cigarette.

Both men stood a while longer watching the gorilla watching them drink beer.

That night, after a Swanson’s Hungry-Man Turkey dinner, a slice of Pepperidge Farms Frozen Walnut Layer cake, and four cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon, Percy went up in the attic and found the cardboard box with the G World Book Encyclopedia in it and looked up Gorilla. Through his attic research Percy was able to identify the gorilla in his septic tank as a male mountain gorilla, or silverback by which they were commonly known because of the silver streak of hair they develop on their backs. He learned that that they enjoyed munching herbs, vines, leaves, roots, fruits, shrubs, bamboo shoots and occasionally a fist full or two of grubs. Reading further he discovered that they are nomadic, diurnal, and build nests of leaves in which they sleep in at night but what really caught Percy’s eye was the description of their size. Normal mountain gorillas didn’t usually weigh more than four hundred pounds at tops, and although he didn’t have a scale to weigh the beast on Percy was pretty sure the gorilla trapped in his septic tank was close to nine hundred pounds.

Wanting to further his gorilla education Percy found his way to the library the next day where the librarian issued him his own library card and taught him how to access the library’s vast store of microfiche. It was while reading about Koko, a lowland gorilla that was able to learn sign language, mastering over 2000 words, that Percy, suspecting his gorilla to be already somewhat educated, decided to try to teach him sign language. “After all,” Percy thought, “he has the rudiments of communication down,” which Percy found evident by the gorilla’s ability to flip him the bird.

The gorilla took to the sign language with surprising rapidity and the two communicated back and forth, discussing such things as the weather and whether green bananas were better than brown bananas, the gorilla chose the former, Percy the latter. Communicating with the gorilla via sign language was great fun for Percy but after a while the gorilla began to withdraw, only then communicating with the sign for loneliness. It soon dawned on Percy that a septic tank was no place for a gorilla, that a body that big, and a mind that developed, needed stimulation, new experiences, and new challenges. He might have released the silverback posthaste, if he was drunk enough, and if a tiny voice of reason, that of his beloved dead wife Juanita, hadn’t asked him if it was wise to unleash a 900 hundred pound gorilla in a residential area.

After considerable thought Percy decided that the best way to find out the gorilla’s intentions was to simply ask him and so through sign language he put the question to the silverback. The gorilla relayed to Percy that he wanted to be friends and then almost bashfully he crossed both hands over his heart, which in sign language means love. This was good enough for Percy who always took a man by his word, or in this case a gorilla and although he wasn’t quite sure about the implications of a gorilla’s love he was willing to take the chance that it was platonic.

At first Percy tried to pull the gorilla out of the septic tank by tying a bull rope on the back of his John Deere but he found that the lawn tractor lacked sufficient horsepower to pull the oversized primate from the septic tank. So, he borrowed George’s aluminum extension ladder and lowered it into the septic tank. Lickety-split the gorilla scaled the ladder, the aluminum rungs bending under his extreme weight like licorice whips.

When the gorillas feet touched the grass Percy half expected it to take off into the wooded area behind his house, but to his surprise the gorilla instead extended his hand. Cautiously, Percy took the gorillas hand and shook. The gorilla, overcome with gratitude, embraced him, crushing his reading glasses, which were in the breast pocket of his favorite Hawaiian shirt.

After some small talk, by means of sign language, Percy invited the gorilla into his home where they shared a dinner of bananas and trail mix. It was the beginning of what would become a beautiful friendship.

Percy named the gorilla Carlton, after his all time favorite Phillie’s southpaw Steve Carlton, and soon they became inseparable…not that they ever left the house or surrounding lot but still they enjoyed each other’s company.

At night they would watch Phillie’s games on the satellite dish and Percy would sit in Carlton’s lap drinking Pabst. Carlton was more comfortable than the love seat Percy and his wife Juanita used to watch the games on and besides he hadn’t been able to bring himself to use the love seat since she’d died, which still held the imprint of her sizeable rear end.

While the games were in progress Percy would drink Pabst and bitch at the umpires while Carlton groomed him, looking for bugs and other edible tidbits on the sides of Percy’s nearly bald head, which is the only place he still had tufts of kinky gray hair.

Being a giving person Percy tried to share his love of Pabst Blue Ribbon with Carlton but when he pushed a can of his favorite beer to the gorilla’s muscular lips he batted it away. This hurt Percy’s feelings and not until he’d read more about mountain gorillas in the World Book Encyclopedia did he learn that they don’t drink like a human might by sticking their head down to the source of water our by cupping their hand and spooning it into their mouth, but when they do drink which is rare for they get most of the liquids they need from the plants in their diet, they soak the fur on the back of their hands in a puddle or stream and suck the liquid out. To Percy this explained Carlton’s aversion to the cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon. So, that night, instead of offering Carlton a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon Percy poured a good four ounces of the beer on the back of the gorilla’s furry hand and immediately and greedily Carlton sucked up every last drop of the intoxicating nectar.

From then on, while watching Phillie’s games Percy would pour beer on the back of Carlton’s hands and the two would get drunk watching their favorite baseball team. He also taught Carlton to crush Pabst Blue Ribbon cans between his massive pectoral muscles and to burp on command. All evolutionary differences considered, the two were as close as man and primate can be.

Percy still loved his dead wife Juanita but now thought of her less and less since he had his new companion Carlton. Life again took on meaning for Percy, the unruly feelings of loneliness and sadness disappeared. He started to take care of his home again, mowed the grass regularly, stripped and painted the shutters, fixed the cracks in the swimming pool and filled it, and cleaned up the small mountain of soggy newspapers that had collected in his driveway. And although he was retired and didn’t need the money he took a part time job at a Tyler’s Fruit Stand on Route 322.

Instead of receiving his paycheck in cash like the other employees Percy, per his request, was paid in fresh produce, all of which he gave to Carlton. Every day after work Carlton eagerly awaited Percy’s return, sitting on the front stoop, roaring and pounding his chest when he heard the bad muffler of Percy’s Coup De Ville approaching. How he loved fresh produce.

The neighborhood coalition, having caught wind of a mountain gorilla living in their neighborhood took a vote on whether a primate of such size should be allowed to reside amongst them. That the gorilla won the right to stay in a lopsided 8-1 vote didn’t surprise most on the coalition panel, it did however anger the Reverend HQ McDuffy, who saw the gorillas presence possibly driving down real estate prices, which would cut into his commissions. Those that stuck up for the gorilla thought he didn’t seem like the violent type, but none the less warned their children to stay clear of Carlton for he was in the habit of flipping off cars that drove by the house and parents knew this couldn’t be a good influence.

But the Reverend HQ McDuffy wasn’t the only one in the neighborhood that was bothered by the gorilla’s presence, George Stramm, didn’t want Carlton around either. That Percy seemed to have a new best friend didn’t sit well with his former best friend. The two no longer shared a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon on Saturday afternoons or drank while watching the Phillies, or chased away the previous night’s hangover while drinking morning clams and bullshitting on George’s deck. For the demise of their friendship George blamed Carlton and decided something had to be done to win back Percy’s friendship. He came up with a very devious plan.

One day while Percy was out working at Tyler’s Fruit Stand on Route 322, George came over to Percy’s house and found Carlton dusting Percy’s dead wife’s collection of over three hundred Hummels. That George didn’t particularly care for Carlton didn’t keep him from admiring the gorilla’s fine motor skills. The feather duster pinched between his huge index finger and thumb looked almost too small to be real.

“Hey there big guy,” George said, trying to imitate Percy’s deep and raspy voice.

Carlton didn’t turn away from dusting the Hummels but grunted in recognition.

“You like bananas don’t you big guy?”

Now George had Carlton’s attention, the word banana had gotten it. Carlton turned and their stood Percy, or rather what looked like Percy. Carlton was confused.

George was wearing a paper mask with Percy’s likeness on it, which he’d made by blowing up their championship bowling team photo on a wide format copier down at Kinkos. Something wasn’t quite right, Carlton could tell. He slowly turned his massive head, reaching out to touch the mask but George pulled away.

“Banana?” George said.

. That George’s voice was coming from what looked like Percy’s face was secondary to the fact that Carlton might soon be munching on his favorite food, so he ignored the incongruity.

“If you follow me,” George said beckoning Carlton outside, “I’ll show you the bananas.”

In all likelihood Carlton probably only understood one word that George had uttered, that being the word banana, the name of his favorite food, but this was more than enough impetus to capture the heavily muscled primate’s interest and so he followed George as he lead him out to the septic tank

“The bananas are down there,” George said, beckoning Carlton a little closer to the open septic tank.

“Oorrrahhhhh,” Carlton replied, edging closer.

When Carlton was teetering on the edge, looking into the dark septic tank for the bananas that were promised him, George pulled a syringe full of Acetyl Promazine from his camouflage hunting vest. His wife was a veterinarian’s assistant, and had swiped a vile of the animal tranquilizer for him when he said he was going to take care of the pit bull that kept stealing their morning newspaper. She knew nothing about George’s plan for Carlton.

“The bananas are right there,” George said, pointing.

Carlton was breathing hard, the air coming out of his quarter sized nose holes sounded to George like the gas powered generator he took on camping trips.

Very quickly George plunged the syringe at Carlton’s arm just as the massive beast made a sudden and unexpected turn, the needle stuck right in the center of Carlton’s nipple.

“Bullseye,” George cried, as he drained the large gauge needle into Carlton’s pectoral muscle.

For a moment the silverback, didn’t realize he’d been stuck by the needle but as George persisted in pushing the liquid into his nipple, a sharp pain radiated from through his chest and up his neck.

“Oooh, Oooh, rahhhhhhhhhhh,” Carlton cried.

Now greatly angered, for it doesn’t take much to piss off a nine hundred pound gorilla, Carlton seized George by the neck and might have snapped it like a dry spaghetti noodle if the Acetyl Promazine hadn’t taken affect at that very moment. The gorilla’s entire body suddenly went limp, he slumped over onto the ground, and with just the slightest kick from George he went tumbling into the septic tank.

It was George’s plan to inject Carlton with enough of the tranquilizer to kill him and seeing the massive beast lying at the bottom of the septic tank with his eyes rolled back in his head and his mouth gaping open, he was sure he’d done the job. Hastily he kicked lawn trimmings into the septic tank until Carlton was covered and then sneaked back to his house.

That night, when Percy returned from the fruit stand, he was beside himself with grief to find Carlton gone. He searched everywhere, even looking in the septic tank, but he didn’t see the 900 pound silverback because he was lying unconscious at the bottom, covered in a thick blanket of lawn trimmings. Dejected, Percy took three of his dead wife’s valium, and went to bed.

For weeks there had been a drought in Central Pennsylvania and there wasn’t enough moisture in a square foot of Percy’s lawn to put a match out but that night the rains returned, overflowing birdbaths, sating gullies with debris, flooding drainpipes, and swamping dry lawns. When the rain finally subsided a bit, around three Am, Percy awoke to the frenzied hoots and chest beating of Carlton, which echoed hauntingly from within the septic tank.

Carlton,” Percy cried rising from bed, “I’m coming.”

During the night the septic tank had begun to fill with water and had awoken the gorilla, who hadn’t been killed after all.

Following the increasing frenzied hoots Percy found Carlton in the septic tank splashing madly in the water which was rising quickly. Percy hurriedly retrieved George’s aluminum ladder from the garage and placed it in the septic tank so his gorilla friend could climb to safety.

“How did you get down there buddy?” Percy asked in sign language. He remembered reading that gorillas couldn’t swim and avoided water, even shallow streams at all costs. He knew his friend must be scared beyond belief.

Scaling the ladder four rungs at a time Carlton raced up and out of the septic tank. He stood menacingly over Percy…Percy coward…snot flew out of Carlton’s flaring nostrils…Percy shook…hot gusts of sour breath hissed from between Carlton’s clenched teeth…Percy whimpered…”Oohrahhhhhhh,” Carlton screamed…”Holy fuck,” Percy said.

The panic and fear—the adrenaline rush—the grogginess from the tranquilizer—confusion—the anger—more adrenaline—the humiliation—more anger—more adrenaline—more anger—these emotions swirling up into a volatile cocktail mixing with an overpowering charge of testosterone. “Was that Percy that pushed me into the well?” the silverback might have wondered, but of course this is only speculation, for although the silverback might be conscious, a primitive thinker, not acting purely on instinct, its thoughts certainly couldn’t be as pure as man’s…or could they? At any rate it didn’t matter for emotion was the mad dictator that would rule this day, not reason.

With a slash of his mighty forearm Carlton toppled Percy knocking him into the septic tank, where he landed with a splash, cracking his head on the cement wall and then sinking below the surface. Still angry beyond reason, Carlton picked up the cement top of the septic tank and dropped it into place, effectively sealing it, and then he ran off into the rainy night.

In his home George waited throughout the night for Percy to come and tell him that Carlton was gone and that he needed him to help hunt for his lost gorilla (this of course was all part of his plan). George figured that they’d hunt for the gorilla together, share a few beers, and when Carlton couldn’t be found things would eventually go back to the way they’d been, that once again he and Percy would share cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon late into the night, but Percy never came. By the next morning George realized something must have gone wrong with his plan and was putting on his goulashes, for the rains had once again begun to fall, when he suffered a major heart attack. George died on the way to the hospital but not before, while taking in his last breath, raising his arm and give the paramedic the middle finger.

George was laid to rest in Holy Oak Cemetery, which due to a strike of city workers, just after his funeral, wasn’t maintained and the grass above his grave grew to astounding lengths. The grass around Percy’s house and over the septic tank also grew to astounding lengths for no one was there to care for it either. The neighborhood coalition posted a notice on Percy’s door, warning him that action would be taken if he didn’t mow his grass, but of course no one responded and as time passed more and more notices were put on the door, until it was completely covered. Once the door was covered, overgrown with notices, approximately a year later, the Reverend HQ McDuff was caught in a religious money laundering scheme and the coalition disbanded for good and no one placed anymore notices on Percy’s front door.

It was later rumored that Percy had taken Carlton to Florida, and then soon after the rumor had circulated people in the neighborhood stopped wondering what had happened to the elderly widower and his pet gorilla. .

The newspaper boy continued to deliver the newspaper, Percy had won a lifetime subscription at the fireman’s carnival, and since Percy wasn’t around to collect them the papers continued to pile up in the driveway until the whole left side of the house was buried.

Eventually Percy’s home was taken over by crack addicts and a few years after that the city condemned it and slated it for demolition. While the crew was bulldozing the house down one of the front end loaders drove over the septic tank and cement lid cracked away. No one thought much of it until the next day.

“Hey boss come over here quick,” said a frantic workman nicknamed Curly. He was standing at the edge of the septic tank peering down in.

“Would you look at that. I wonder what he’s doing in there,” the foreman, Al Myers said approaching the septic tank.

“Anything he damn well wants to,” Curly said..

“Well, someone’s got to get him out of there,” Al said, hooking his thumbs in the belt loops of his Levis.

At the bottom of the septic tank, doing push ups over top of a human skeleton was a 900 pound gorilla.

“Here monkey, monkey, monkey,” Curly called out.

The gorilla calmly lifted his massive arm skyward and up popped his middle finger.

“That gorilla just flipped me off,” Curly said.

“That looks like an educated gorilla to me,” Al said. For a while Curly and AL stood watching the gorilla watch them and then Al looked at his Casio wrist watch. “Well, we’ve got to quit monkeying around,” ha ha “this lot needs to be cleared by tomorrow. I’ll call the Humane Society after we’re finished here.”

Curly finished off his can of Mountain Dew, crushed it between his palms and threw it at the gorilla. It hit him in the forehead. The gorilla didn’t move a muscle but smiled and gave Curly a look that said, “Just wait.” Curly hurried back to work.

That two gorillas would fall in the same septic tank in central Pennsylvania is unlikely, that the second gorilla would flip people off is even more unlikely, but what was really weird was that the gorilla was wearing a Philadelphia Phillies baseball cap and holding a 16 oz. can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Yeah, sure stranger things have happened but not many of them in the same neighborhood and even fewer in the same septic tank. And if there was to be a moral to this tale it would probably be that a wise man always pays his bills, because really none of this might have happened if George would’ve paid to have the lid to his septic tank put back in place.

Friday, July 01, 2005

I ain’t livin’ life like I should; PS I’m still your friend

We sit under the vast blue umbrella at a small round table and the waitress with green tattoos on her neck shuffles by, the corners of her tired breasts visible through the slit of her black man shirt. You light a cigarette and the smoke looks like a tiny soul rising up into the moist summer sky, and I figure it just might be the Marlboro Man going home.

You say something like, “I don’t think people think of you like that.” And for the first time I believe it because before I always thought they did “think of me like that” but now I don’t because I know your eyes don’t lie.

Sitting across from you, when my heart is in the chair beside you doin push ups, and I so want to say, “Hey, me and you. How about it? On an island, knee deep in the blue blue water. Hand in hand. No beginning. No end. No middle. Because you can’t time happiness. Because it isn’t a race. Because it isn’t a word. It just might be me and you together as the world burns down around us…but I don’t say it.

I pour beer after beer into my mouth like a small fire has been burning intensely there, a fire set by my doubt burning on the words stuck in my throat. You smile and my jaw drops a notch and becomes unhinged; smoke and words pour out.

I look inside through the vast glass window to the bar and see lonely people seated there, skin sagging white like that of plucked and deflated chickens, cigarettes drawing life from their lips, inch by smoldering inch. The only thing for them waiting in bed is their drunk. The only thing to wake up to, their alarms and the death grip of their hangovers.

“We shouldn’t have waited so long to get together,” you say.

“No we shouldn’t have. I love talking to you,” I say and immediately I know that it is the wrong thing to say so I swear. “Shit,” I say and I keep swearing after every sentence like I’ve got Tourett’s Syndrome and I think for sure I’ve really fucked up but…

Too my utter fucking surprise you LAUGH and it sounds like rain hitting a roof and us dry inside looking out.

I close my eyes.

“I don’t want to be “that guy,” I say and open my eyes but you’re not there. You’ve gone to the bathroom.

You return. The waitress hovers around our table, her spiked heels never touching the deck, her tattoos glistening like the scales of a chameleon. I count out the money for the tab. In between pushing my chair in and you saying, “We should get together again soon,” you are gone and I’m standing on the sidewalk alone. I wonder where you’ve gone and whether you’ll return or if I imagined it all…I know I know I’m just your friend. That’s okay, really it is.

Skinwalker of Love

Hank Haberdough kept love in a rusty chocolate tin beneath the air mattress in the back of the ’73 Chevy pickup truck which was bequeathed to him by a girlfriend who died of lupus. The pick up truck was bequeathed to him, not the love.

When Hank’s girlfriend, Polly Anne, died, she was watching Hank cut the corns off his big toes with a serrated kitchen knife. He was placing the corns in a rusty chocolate tin, where for years he had been placing superfluous skin tabs, moles, corns, and the occasional hang nail. As Polly Anne took her last breath, and then exhaled for the last time saying, “I love you Hank,” he was able to catch the love on the tip of her last breath in the open chocolate tin and quickly seal it shut with duct tape.

For a while after Polly Anne’s death Hank tried to live in the couple’s 1951 Landola Trailer Home but the memories of his deceased beloved haunted him continuously. He decided he could not go on living where he’d once found love and now found only emptiness. So one night Hank packed a few necessities in a Nike duffle bag, doused the innards of the Landola with kerosene, struck a match, and watched it burn to the ground. The next day he left Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania traveling west towards Arizona, the chocolate tin duct-taped to his abdomen along with sixteen hundred dollars in cash and a nickel plated Browning 9mm with a custom cherry handle.

He took his time traveling across the United States, really seeing the country, weaving in and out of states, avoiding major highways and skipping any town which housed buildings over four stories tall. He spent the nights in fields or campgrounds, sleeping in the bed of his truck on an air mattress. After a week or so of traveling, with the rusty chocolate tin pressed against his abdomen, he developed sores which grew infected, oozed, and really smelled quite bad. After removing the tin and cleaning the wound with peroxide he’d found in the first aid kit under the seat of the Chevy, Hank decided that he didn’t need to be that close to Polly Anne’s love anymore, so he placed the tin under the air mattress in the back of his Chevy, the cash in his glove compartment and the Browning in his waistband.

The wound the rusty chocolate tin full of love left on his abdomen would leave a scar.

When he reached Windrock, Arizona where his grandmother’s people were from (she was full blooded Navajo) he stopped at a small mom and pop grocery store, bought a six pack of Budweiser, a can of Bush’s Best Barbecue Baked Beans and a thick T-bone steak. That night he set up camp in an abandoned field outside of town and built a roaring fire out of tumble weeds and broken up skids he’d found behind the local Wal-Mart. He planned to cook his T-bone and barbecue beans over the open flame and then when his belly was full drift off to sleep listening to the Diamondback’s game on his Walkman.

The moon loomed large that night, like a mammoth ping-pong ball on the vast ping-pong table of the sky, and it made Hank, for the moment, forget about Polly Anne’s love, which was buried under the air mattress in the bed of his Chevy. Feeling better than he had in months he decided a little music was in order and retrieved his Martin Backpacker guitar from behind the seat of his truck. His guitar playing really wasn’t that good but it made him happy, and for Hank there hadn’t been a whole lot of happiness as of late. So he played “Mother” by Danzig, the only song he knew besides Kenny Roger’s “The Gambler” and sang along in a voice better suited for a slasher movie than a stage. Soon, a pack of wolves came and joined in, howling along with Hank's really rather bad guitar playing. The wolves had just been reintroduced to Arizona thanks to the effort of conservationists, and to the chagrin of farmers and livestock.

The wolves were of a rather clever bunch and although unaccustomed to love in its deepest forms, knew of its supposed mystical powers, for they’d gathered outside the campfires of lonely cowboys and listened to them lament of love lost, and once in the darkness outside a nearby drive in theater they had watched Pretty Woman while gorging themselves on partially eaten hotdogs they’d discovered in a dumpster.

The wolves having senses much more highly developed than mans’ could smell love under Hank's air mattress and a T-bone in his Igloo mini-cooler. Being pack animals they didn’t have any need for love but a juicy T-bone steak was another story. The decision was made through a series of sign language executed with various positioning of ears—an abbreviated form of Morse code—that Hank would have to be taken out in order to secure the T-bone.

So, when Hank hit the first chord of Kenny Roger's “The Gambler” the wolves converged on the paunchy guitar plucker and ripped a hole in his esophagus. While Hank lay on his guitar, gasping for air, his legs flaying, drowning in his own blood, the wolves set about tearing the Igloo cooler open and wrestling the bloody T-bone out. Hank never even had time to reach for his pistol, which was still in the waistband of his Levis.

One wolf, known by the name of Lanie, having already eaten a prairie dog that day, wasn’t interested in the steak, but was curious about the love she smelled, and rooted out the chocolate tin from under the air mattress in the back of the pickup truck. After some more nosing she was able to pop the seal on the chocolate tin and the love, along with moles, calluses, skin tabs and other assorted skin fragments came tumbling out. Lanie gasped, and accidentally inhaled the love and a handful of dead skin. She felt suddenly very strange and looked at Hank lying on the ground. Her heart bucked and shimmied, went pitter patter pit, warmth like hot chocolate flowed through her veins. It’s very likely that Lanie would have finished Hank off for the mere sport of it, if she hadn’t stumbled upon the rusty chocolate tin of love.

“Goddamn, look what you’ve done,” Lanie howled.

Although the other wolves were kind of freaked out that Lanie had spoken like a human they were too busy tearing at the T-bone to acknowledge the aberration. Undaunted, Lanie knelt by Hank’s side. He was gasping for breath from the hole in his neck. She saw the plastic wrap from the T-bone by the fire and an idea formed in her mind. She retrieved the plastic wrap and dropped it over Hank’s wound and held it down with her forepaw, instantly sealing his wound. A few moments later he awoke, very weak. Lanie was licking his cheek. Her heart pounded from the love she’d inhaled, which was really Hank’s dead girlfriend Polly Anne’s love but it was love just the same. This feeling was simultaneously wonderful and dreadful for now Lanie cared more than anything that Hank should live. She knew that he needed help.

Lanie was a hellish big she wolf and was as mighty as any male in her pack and much, much more intelligent. With her powerful jaw she clamped down on the collar of Hank’s Dickies work shirt, dug her paws in the sand and dragged Hank to the pickup truck. Within five minutes she had him in the passenger’s seat and was driving him to Kronkite General Hospital. The drive was difficult for she lacked thumbs—her paws slipped whenever she made a turn—but she managed to get Hank to the hospital with only one minor fender bender, which occurred when she ran over a newspaper machine in the parking lot of a Seven Eleven.

On the sidewalk in front of the entrance of the emergency room Lanie parked the Chevy and then honked the horn three times with her nose, which stirred Hank from his near coma. For a moment the two stared at each other and Hank wondered what the hell a wolf was doing in the driver’s seat of his truck. He thought he must be hallucinating from the loss of blood but then he remembered about the legend of the skinwalkers that his Navajo grandmother had told him as a child. These shape shifters, according to Navajo legend, were evil witches who could wear the skin of any animal they wanted, mimicking the animal but retaining their human intelligence. “Is it possible,” Hank wondered, “that this wolf is a skinwalker? And if so why hasn’t it killed me? I’m sure Grandma Doba told me skinwalkers kill their victims. So why would it drive me to the hospital? This doesn’t make sense.” Of course Hank didn’t know that Lanie had swallowed Polly Anne’s love or it just might have made perfect sense.

Just then the doors to the emergency room burst open and two EMT’s came scurrying out. For reason’s he couldn’t explain Hank suddenly felt like embracing the wolf and dare he think it? Kiss the wolf. These strange emotions left him feeling terribly unsettled but before he had time to fully comprehend the implications of this bizarre occurrence Lanie licked his cheek, bound out the open driver’s side window, and disappeared into the night, and then Hank promptly passed out.

For six days Hank was in and out of consciousness, dipping in and out of dreams in which wolves figure skated on top of giant cans of Bush’s Barbecue baked beans. On the seventh day he suddenly popped back into reality. His eyes fluttered open and for a moment he didn’t know where he was.

“Are you comfortable?” a feminine voice asked.

From his prone position in the hospital bed Hank looked up and his gaze met that of a beautiful nurse. Immediately he was reminded of Polly Anne, although this woman, curvaceous with black hair, was nothing like his fair and petite deceased love.

“Water,” Hank whispered.

The nurse picked up a glass on water on the table beside Hank’s bed and held it to his lips.

“She smells like Polly Anne, like her honey shampoo and the Marlboros she smoked,” Hank thought.

“You’re a lucky man to have survived that wolf attack,” the nurse said.

Hank nodded, although inside he was wondering just how lucky it was to have one’s neck ripped open by a pack of wolves.

In the weeks to come he would find just how lucky he was, and would come to believe that the wolf attack was the luckiest thing that had ever happened to him. “If it weren’t for the terrible wound,” he reasoned, “I might never have found love again.”

That Hank fell in love with the nurse won’t surprise many people, that they were married a year later might be lost in the footnotes of mankind, but what might be of interest to those who don’t believe in skinwalkers or shape shifters of any kind is that when Hank and his new wife would have sex, when the passion would become great, she would scream out and to Hank it sounded just like the howling of a she wolf.