Cooking and Cinema

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Category: Short story

Brood X Revenge in 1987

October 28, 2023 /

That last one hurt. Hopefully, he didn’t crack one of my ribs. I rolled on my back next to a large oak and noticed the sunlight streaming through the forest behind the morons looming over me.

Clinton laughed when he saw my nose bleeding, and the others, Jim and Scutter, looked on nervously. The back of Scutter’s mullet glowed in the light and highlighted him like a backwoods messiah.

“I guess you know after this that you shouldn’t get any ideas about going after Renee or dropping by for any tutoring seasons or whatever with her ever again,” said Clinton.

“What the hell were you guys meeting so early for? What was it, a quarter to seven in the morning?”

That’s funny. He ambushed me and beat me up and doesn’t know why I was there. This is going to hurt his ego.

“I’m not her tutor, you idiot. Renee’s smart. She doesn’t have to walk down to the basement where your classes are held. And besides, she’s two years older. She should be tutoring me . . . and I guess, in a way, she was.”

“I didn’t meet her there in the morning. I’ve been seeing her for a few weeks, and since her parents are out of town, we got to drink beer and watch Predator on her parent’s projection screen.”

“She got up early to make me French toast, and I left to help my Mom at the flea market. That’s when I guess butt breath here was jogging by the house and saw me.”

“Then, he reported it to you, and even though you went out with Renee once and struck out, you seem a little possessive. So, you decided to get the hillbilly stooges here to ambush me on the way  . . .”

Clinton charged at me again but only got one kick in the back of my thigh before the Clampets grabbed him and held him back.

“Cool it, dude. His parents can sue you if you mess him up,” said Scutter. He and Jim pulled him back toward the walking path.

“Stay away from her, or I won’t be as nice next time,” said Clinton.

Magicicada septendecim Is Coming

Poor guy. Clinton’s been obsessed with Renee since she gave him the Heimlich in the cafeteria. He was choking on a hard-boiled egg when attempting to beat Cool Hand Luke’s record. He asked her to dinner to repay her, and she accepted out of pity, I guess.

Clinton can’t accept or doesn’t realize that even his friends can’t stand him most of the time, but his plan worked. He and the goons got me pretty good.

My head and face are killing me; I’ll have to wait a minute before I get up. I hope they’re not too many people in the garden when I get there.

Even though she has a big garden in our backyard, my mom volunteers at the community garden on East Washington Avenue. She has since 1975—when it was “cool” to share vegetables and puny fruits with the neighborhood community.

The Washington Garden is on the way to my house when I take the forest trail, and I told her I would water her tomatoes and sesame plants. I’m not fond of tomatoes, but I love her sesame cookies.

I heard a scratching sound behind me and turned to see a cicada, still in its shell, crawling across the base of the oak’s trunk. I don’t know if they’re uglier in their shells or when they hatch into flying noisy assholes.

An alien brood made up of thousands of red eyes, vibrating tymbals, and clicking wings is on the way, and we’re supposed to have a shit-ton this year.

Anyone living on the edge of Wainscoting Forest will get a biblical wave of the 17-year brood, and Clinton lives in Dale Pines. His neighborhood will see a lot more of them than mine. Maybe I can get back at him that way.

That ape-jawed, crew-cut freak loves the president, even though ‘ol Ronny is out of it now. There was a rumor that Clinton’s mom, who had rushed back home to get her bingo dabber, caught him groaning with his hand under his Star Wars blanket while he was staring at a framed photo of a smiling Reagan

on his bedside table. I don’t know if that’s true, but he’s the only guy I know who carries a picture of the president in his wallet.

It should be any day now that the swarm will rain down on Shellinkank, and my uncle will know when and may be able to help me with the plan percolating in my brain.

Kerouac B. Webster—my grandparents were Beatniks, and everyone calls him “Ackby”—was excited about the brood because he’s an entomologist specializing in periodical cicadas.

Acky is a professor at Shellinkank Tech, and he said he’ll be staying up all night for the next six weeks, estimating swarm counts, taking photos, and taking dead and living cicadas back to the lab at his house. Luckily, my aunt is a biologist, and she’s pretty supportive and tolerant of his brood X fever.

Ackby’s Lab and the Pheromone

I like visiting Ackby and checking out the weird insects and equipment in his lab. He and my dad are only three years apart but alike in several ways.

They have a strange sense of humor that sometimes drives their wives crazy, but Ackby is more of a goof than my dad. He’ll appreciate what I want to do, and hopefully, he won’t tell my dad until I’m finished.

I walked past his garage on the stone path that led to the backyard lab and was greeted by artwork that could’ve only come from my uncle. A large, petrified branch planted firmly in the ground next to the holly bushes near the lab’s entrance held a cicada as big as a Cocker Spaniel.

When I got close to it, the tymbals fluttered, and a speaker in its head blasted me with the cicada call. I jumped back. How’d he get it to do that?

It must be motion-activated, but I don’t see the sensor. He should keep that thing around for Halloween, but it would probably scare the hell out of the little ones.  I stopped for a second before opening the door and put my ear to it.

I could hear a guitar twanging through the door. Sounds like Kinky Friedman; he was also into the oddballs. Ackby was bent over his examination table and turned his head, with his magnification glasses making him look like a mad scientist.

“What’s happening, my second favorite nephew?” he asked. He flipped the lenses back on his head and stood up to shake my hand.

“I have a few questions about the brood,” I said.

His face brightened, and he said, “You’ve come to the right hombre, Fred. Now, what’s on your mind?”

“I was curious about how the cicadas flock to certain places. I know they use trees to mate and lay eggs, but do pheromones attract them? And do you have any cicada pheromones here in your lab?

He stared at me; his grin remained, but his eyebrows sank to their “what the hell” position. “If I were to tell you, would you tell me why you want to know?”

“Ackby, of course. It’s for revenge. And love, I guess, but mostly for revenge.” I said.

“Three guys jumped me in the woods on the way home. Jim and Scutter held me against the tree while Clinton, “the dim” Telmers, beat the hell out of me. I don’t care about his buddies, but I’d like to get Clinton back. I think getting frightened of something would do him good.”

Ackby smiled and started to laugh, which I wasn’t expecting. He got up, walked over to the massive, refrigerated cabinet with specimen drawers, and fiddled around until he pulled out a small vial.

“Of course, if I help, you can’t tell anyone I assisted. Not your parents or your friends! I could lose my job here or at least lose tenure. What did you do to him anyway?

“I spent the night with a girl he’s obsessed with, and his friend saw me leaving her house. Don’t mention it to your brother, please.”

“Hmm. Well, I’ve been in your position before. Instead of cicadas, it was roaches. After getting beat up by a hockey player in college, I encouraged the Blatta orientalis to follow him around.”

“I won’t go into why, but if you want a less terrifying but more grotesque alternative, a dead fish does wonders for revenge,” he said with a smile.

“Regardless, I have the solution in a small bottle, but when you’re ready to use it, replace the cap with this little spray nozzle. It will only be potent for about 6 hours, so you’ll have to employ your sabotage at the right moment.”

“If you screw up and wait too long, you’ll get swarmed as you apply the pheromone. It has to be before dusk, or you’ll become a giant communal vibrating bed populated by copulating cicadas.”  

“It would be easier if you had a few friends to help, but the fewer people, the better. Everyone has a friend who can’t keep a secret. Now, here’s what you do.”

Revenge Preparations

My only accomplice was Hermey. We’d been friends since the second grade, and he agreed to bump into Clinton in the hallway after 5th period while I spritzed his back with the solution. He got pushed by Clinton and threatened, but it all worked out.

Unless it was raining, he always left the top down on his MG when he brought it to school. At the end of sixth period, I got permission to rush to the bathroom with my hand on my stomach.

I ran out to the parking lot to coat his car with the pheromone but didn’t see it and decided to run home.

On the way, I snuck over to his house and saw the MG in the driveway. I used about half the bottle on his car and the other half on his bedroom window. His parents were still at work, and I don’t think any of his neighbors saw me.

Run Like the Wind, Clinton

According to third-party sources, my timing worked out pretty well. After debate club, Clinton took the same path home through the woods but stopped by the creek to smoke a Winston.

He heard someone approaching and saw Clara and Clem smiling and walking toward him. They had been best friends since they were infants and are next-door neighbors.

Both have black hair and clothes and are into makeup effects. Some of their bloody eye photos were in last month’s Fangoria.

“Got a couple more of those, Reagan junior,” asked Clara.

He would turn them down, but he secretly liked them, as he did most of the girls in his school, so he gave them the cigarettes and pondered how a romantic night with them would play out.

“So, what brings you out here? You have a ritual to perform or something?”

Clem laughed and said, “Yeah, we wanted to sacrifice a virgin before dusk. We’re having a little trouble cause, you know, not many virgins at our school, but when we saw you, I said, hey, we’re in luck. Gomer over there has never had his wiener warmed. Much less touched!”

“Very funny, Clementine, but ask around . . . Ahhh!” shrieked Clinton as he brushed two cicadas off his right shoulder.  The setting sun was cutting through the dense woods around them, and one of the rays seemed to spotlight Clinton.

A “zombified” male landed on his head, dropped a spore, and buzzed away before he swatted it off.

“Wow, man. They really dig you. I heard cicadas are attracted to weirdos with a lot of pent-up sexual frustration. They sense your inadequacy,” said Clara.

Her smile disappeared as she looked around the woods and sensed the mood shifting. The once-quiet forest was rumbling, and the not-so-distant buzz echoed around them.  The brood was nearby, calling for females.

“We’ll see you, Clint, said Clem.

“Yeah, don’t violate any natural laws—they’re living things, for Christ’s sake,” said Clara with a grin as she grabbed Clem’s arm and rushed up the path toward the school.

“Ok, take my smokes and just leave me here. I see how it is. Don’t worry, I’m not afraid of a few locusts.”

From the top of the hill, Clem yelled, “They’re cicadas, Gomer, not locusts.” The girls ran up the path out of sight as Clinton walked casually in the opposite direction while looking around at the trees.

The area around him darkened as the wind calmed. It smells different right before a storm, but usually, the storm aroma isn’t bitter. The ozone wasn’t there, but an earthy musk saturated the forest.

As he walked quickly down the path, the noise got louder. The chattering, fluttering, white noise assaulted his eardrums and traveled deeper until it rattled his brain.

It was everywhere. He was breathing the horrible sound and tasting it. Clinton felt something wet hit the back of his neck and looked up at the black mass landing on the trees. He picked up the pace but was glad they seemed focused on the oaks rather than him.

That changed in a few seconds when they detected the scent, detached from the trees, and flew toward him.

Several landed on his head, face, and shoulders. “Ahhh. . . fuckin’ locusts,” he shrieked as he moved his hands around, knocking and smashing them off.

He could hear them buzzing all around him, but he ran as fast as he could toward the end of the path that led to his street.

Clinton had to get to his car and escape the woods. After pulling one out of his right ear, he rushed to his car and looked around to ensure they weren’t following him.

He grabbed the top of the door with his hands and jumped into the seat but smashed his knee on the gearshift. “Damn,” he said as he grabbed his knee. The pain throbbed and distracted him for a few seconds before the noise returned.

The cicadas dive-bombed his car and honed in on the pheromone, and the ones buzzing in the trees next to his house dropped down to join them.

He fumbled with his keys and dropped them on the floor as they covered his windshield and explored his body. Some crawled down his back under his Polo while others buzzed around in his armpits.

Clinton shook and yelled, pushed back against the seat to smash the bugs on his back, and slammed on the horn. Only a few flew away temporarily, but more came and crowded onto the living mass growing on the automobile. The noise was too much for him.

He probably didn’t know until then that the brood can get as loud as a low-flying plane or a relative from New Jersey.

The frisky bugs kept coming and piling on Clinton until his entire body was carpeted. He stopped fighting as hard and laid still for a few minutes and whimpered. Can they kill me? he thought.

More just keep coming. Has anyone been suffocated from locusts before? They’re not biting, but they’re scratching. Their little fucking legs are scratching at my eyes.

Digging around in my ears. . . dropping something wet near my eyes. What the. . .are they shitting in my eyebrows?

Finally, motivated by the cicadas scratching around in his nostrils, he leaned against the door and opened it, stumbling onto the concrete. He thought about putting the top up and heading out, but too many were in the car already, so he ran to his house.

He ripped off his shirt, knocked them off his legs, and clawed at his face and neck. His right eye was swollen from where he smashed one of their thoraxes into his eyeball. After making it to his front door and unlocking it, he slammed it shut.

He ran to his room and went for his cordless phone but stopped when he saw a cicada crawling on the top of the golden frame of his Reagan photo.

“How’d you get in here, you bastard?” He ran toward the frame and pulled back his right hand to smash it, but it flew off and landed near his window.

“You can’t do that to Ronald Wilson Reagan!” Clinton grabbed his Reagan biography (hardback edition) and crept toward the cicada on the wall. He heard buzzing and clicking outside and pulled back the curtains.

The shifting, noisy mass was huddled on the glass of the top pane and the screen on the bottom. Unfortunately for Clint, I had made a slit in the screen earlier, which was widening from the weight of the throbbing bugs.

The invaders piled in and flew toward Clinton. He swatted them and yelled like a bloodthirsty warrior, but when more entered and swarmed his face and chest, he dropped his book and tripped over a 10-pound dumbbell while backing up.

He tumbled into the dresser before crashing on the floor.

When his parents found him, he was still knocked out on the floor with buzzing cicadas enjoying their time in their temporary brothel. His mom is terrified of insects and had to stay outside the room as his dad dragged Clinton out.

They took their traumatized son to the hospital, and although he had a concussion, he wasn’t too damaged, physically at least.

Before they reached the hospital’s main entrance, the brood detached from the trees near the west side and swooped in to greet Clinton and make love to his hair.

The Music Is the Problem

July 2, 2023 /

Downtown North Side Avenue 1989

“I’m having premonitions about this one. Maybe we should wait till tomorrow,” Franklin said as he scratched the stubble on his face. He stared at Bill’s tape deck in his BMW and thanked God it wasn’t playing. Although he didn’t mind some of his music, Franklin preferred silence, especially after last night.

Bill looked down at his watch and said, “It has to be tonight. This isn’t the kind of appointment you bump to the next day. Besides, I’ve got a badminton class tomorrow.”

Franklin smiled and pictured a group of uncoordinated forty-something men and women decked out in sweatpants and legwarmers, watching a badminton instructor demonstrate the finer points of the game.

Above them, the sky lit up with lightning, and the rain poured down. Although it was early evening, the tornado-like glow in the sky and coal-colored clouds made it look much later.

“How much did you pay to become a badminton wizard?” asked Franklin.

“It’s only $150 a month, but Susan’s a world champ. She can hit anything with a shuttlecock. It’s funny, but she got into trouble a few years back when she blinded a dude in the stands when he wouldn’t shut up. Instead of the shuttlecock, she served up a small rubber ball she always carried in her match uniform.”

“It was a good luck charm her grandpa bought in a gumball machine, but I bet he never would’ve believed his gift would someday pulverize a guy’s eyeball. . . but, wait a minute, why don’t you think we should visit these guys, again?”

Franklin looked over at Bill and tried to crack a smile before he started but couldn’t. “It started a few weeks ago but really fried me last night. Tanya has been out of town with her mom, but I don’t think this has had anything to do with her absence.”

“You know, until recently, I hadn’t remembered a dream in years. But in the last two weeks, I’ve probably had ten dreams that all have the same theme.”

“And not like the ones I had as a kid. They terrified me but were made up mostly of monsters, carnies, Joseph McCarthy, and dead people, and they were nothing like the ones I’d been having lately. These don’t seem like dreams, and the sounds and lighting all look real.”

“In your dreams, have you ever been attacked by a guy wearing 3-D glasses and swinging a cleaver in one hand and a broken whiskey bottle in the other while Creature From the Black Lagoon plays in the background on a giant projection television?” asked Franklin.

“Please don’t tell me about your dreams, man,” said Bill. “I’d rather hear about a boil you got lanced or a venereal disease that’s taking over your body than one of your dreams. . . and maybe even that story, and it’s a true one, of your cousin and that poor, defenseless sloth.”

“How did his wife sneak that sucker into the country anyhow, and what was his name again? Not the sloth, the peterbeast. I’ll never forget the sloth’s name: Roger Waters.

“I guess old Roger couldn’t block the tour in ’87, and he couldn’t stop David Gilmour from carrying on, but still, the guy’s a regular horse-faced genius.”

“The only problem is that he’s kind of a prick. The other guys in the band are cool, but sometimes I regret listening to the ones Rog wrote because he’s the heavyweight champ of shitheads.”

“Just a regular scrotum-lipped, sour-brained weirdo. A real toilet clogger, I think, is a good way to describe him.”

“He hates the fans, and he hates the world, but at least that baboon-faced crooner inspired a young woman to name a friendly sloth before your cousin raped him.”

“And back to your cousin, no, it’s coming to me. It was Rueben! Reuben, the violator! He stole pour Roger the sloth’s innocence, and the thing is so slow, what could he do about it?”

“This is different, and I want you to hear about the dreams ‘cause they’re gonna affect you if the dirtbag up there is playing a sad song,” said Franklin.

“What?” asked Bill with a blank look on his face.

“See, you’re a little interested. I know it sounds nutty, but lately, I’ve dreamed of us walking into apartment buildings like when we make collections, but it doesn’t go very well. And. . . from the outside, the apartment looks a little depraved or evil.”

“You mean I’m in it too? You sick bastard!”

“No, man, it’s nothing creepy. I mean, except for what happens to us every time. You see, we’re walking through the halls, and that’s usually about the same in every dream, but the interior rooms and the song are always different.”

“Last week, the first one I remember was playing Sing by the Carpenters, and while it may look inspirational on the surface, it’s sad and devilish as Hell. We walked in, and the guy wouldn’t pay up or turn off the music.”

“He finally said he’d be back with the money and walked back to his bedroom, and the whole time, that stupid song was blaring through his system at full blast.”

“At least his setup was top-notch. His primary speakers were five feet tall. Well, the little troll strolled back from his bedroom, wearing a Spiderman mask and holding a flamethrower.”

“We both bolted for the door, but he blasted us before we got there. We dropped to the floor and tried to roll out the flames, but he ran over and roasted us again. Then, as we burned, he poured some kind of blueberry sauce over us from a gold saucière. I could smell it sizzling on my back.”

“Smelled like blueberry cobbler coming out of the oven. That’s when I woke up. The crazy thing is that it’s always overkill with these guys in my dreams.”

“Anyway, the second night was Perfect Day by Lou Reed. And on the third, it was Now You’re All Alone by David Hess. On that trip, the killer . . . and this time he was six-foot-five and had long black hair; he charged us and sliced us up with a scythe.”

“At least, that took less time than on Wednesday when a sumo wrestler used a giant hammer. He kept smashing me in the face with the thing, and it seemed like forever before I woke .  . . wait, what are you smiling at?”

Bill chuckled and said, “It’s time to go up there head case. Do you want some earmuffs?”

“No, thanks, but one more thing. There’s always a rabbit in the dreams; sometimes, it’s a chocolate bunny or a calendar with a bunny. It’s never a live rabbit. The sumo wrestler was wearing a white bunny ring with ruby eyes, and besides the hammer fracturing my skull, those shiny red eyes really freaked me out,” said Franklin.

“Who the hell wears a bunny ring anyway?” asked Bill. “Anyhow, I appreciate the warnings, but I’m not afraid of rabbits, sad songs, sumo wrestlers, or psychos with flamethrowers.

“But I have to admit that our target’s apartment over there looks a little off in this rainstorm. You’ve got your number two stashed on your ankle, right?”

“Always,” Franklin said.

Bill looked over at Franklin and snickered at the seriousness of his voice. “Well, good. You wanna share an umbrella, comrade . . . just kidding, let’s go.”

The Requiem

In the elevator, Bill and Franklin didn’t say a word. When the door opened on the fifth floor, Bill poked his head out of the door and looked in both directions. “We’re okay so far, angel britches. And I don’t hear any gloomy tunes.”

They turned left and walked down a dimly lit hall decked out in dark-green carpeting and wallpaper. The crown molding was gold but looked dented and dusty.

“Wow, you have to be an odd duck to live in a place like this,” said Franklin. Deep inside his worried mind, he was happy about the silence.

As they turned the corner, the sound of a solo violinist backed by an orchestra and completing only three notes filled the hallway and made the fake crystal under the light posts on the wall jingle.

The gray and brown hair on Franklin’s neck stood at attention, and his gut sank. “I know this. It’s in the movie, damn it! We’ve got to go, Bill. We’ve got to get the hell out of here!”

The sound of the choir from Mozart’s Requiem Mass in D Minor (VIII. Sequentia: Lacrimos Dies Illa) thundered through the hall and shook the brass light fixtures above them.

“We’ll be fine, man. We don’t even know if it’s coming from his apartment, but I have to admit, it’s not a happy song. Pretty loud, though,” shouted Bill.

He put his hand on Franklin’s shoulder and yelled, “Calm down. It’ll be over soon. It’s right up here. Number 57.”

They were getting close to the source of the noise, and when they reached 57, Bill said, “Uh, sorry, man. It’s loudest right here. Let’s pray for no bunnies.” He pounded on the door and pulled out his revolver.

“Come in, sweethearts! Bout time you turds scraped your way out of the porcelain bowl,” screamed a voice behind the door.

Franklin moved closer so his face was almost touching the door. “Turn that music off right now! We’re not coming in till it’s off!”

“I’m having a moment, so I don’t think I’ll do that. Wolfy helps ease the pain, so you either come in and deal with it or take off! Anus for brains!” screamed the voice with a laugh.

With his face burning bright red, Franklin started pounding on the door. “Turn it off! Turn it off! Are you insane, man? It’s got to be 120 decibels!”

He screamed like a child having a tantrum and pummeled the door harder with his fists. Bill grabbed him by the arm but fell back when Franklin’s head exploded from buckshot and sprayed him with blood and pieces of brain.

The door opened halfway, but Bill didn’t notice as he leaned against the wall and slowly wiped his face with his left hand. A grenade wobbled out into the hall and bounced against the gold floorboard.

“Sorry, Franklin. Should’ve listened,” said Bill, with a tear dripping down through the blood and gray matter on his cheek. He looked at the doorway and saw a Cottontail rabbit, wearing a red collar with the words Belezebunny emblazoned in black, twitching its nose at him. The rabbit took off and dashed down the hallway.

As he sped toward the stairwell at the end of the hall, the force of the explosion knocked him against the door of an apartment. He was stunned but hopped away slowly as the hall behind him filled with smoke and dust.


 The End

Harassing the Diamond King, Act Three

May 13, 2023 /

“Some people hate dogs, and I’ve never understood why. I’m an experienced dog trainer, but I got tired of training dogs whose owners despised them and only wanted protection animals. After hearing that one of my graduates was mistreated by his owner, I hit the breaking point. I developed new rules for my business. Well, they were unwritten rules . . . ones no one else knew about. When the clients really hated their dogs, I threw in a few hostile training commands. They barked whenever anyone said ‘sit,’ ‘heel,’ ‘roll over,’ ‘get off the couch,’ or ‘bad dog.’ If someone said ‘literally’ or ‘super,’ the dogs growled and went into attack mode. That didn’t work out well when one of my Tibetian Mastiffs experienced his first slumber party with a group of teenagers. So many ‘literallys’ and ‘supers’ were tossed around that the dog went into a rage. Luckily, Thorny Titus, the family’s hefty hedgehog, casually walked up and curled into a ball when the dog charged at the girls. The burly Mastiff ran into the spines and yelped away, crying. The incident killed my reputation, and I lost my business. Most people didn’t care that I manipulated the dog to annoy the family or carelessly endangered their lives by inserting ‘kill words,’ but they were upset one of my protection dogs was bested by an overweight hedgehog.

Unemployed Dog Trainer

Mary Poppins Kills a Butterfly

The words Love Knows No Bounds Even When Your Love Defecates in a Box appeared in white on the black screen. It faded to show an overhead view of a clearing in the forest. The narrator’s voice, one with a deep southern drawl, said, “Try JayTimmy’s Petacular Pet line for that extra special pup, pussycat, or hedgehog in your life.”

“They’ll love the elegance, the shimmering jewels, the precious metals, and our proprietary catnip glaze that coats all our fine pet jewelry pieces. Dogs and hedgehogs may not react to the coating, but the pussycats will love it!”

“And now, your pets are guaranteed not to die from licking, biting, or scratching our jewels, earrings, precious metals, tutus, or leg bands. Yep, no more tiny coffins and cremation costs, folks. No more digging shallow holes in the backyard and taking out all your grief on the rest of the family.”

“No more punching your best friend’s dog or cat in the butt when they’re not looking after they’ve bragged about how they have the perfect pets. No more stuffing laxatives in the puzzle toys of your uncle’s obnoxious Terrier or coating the perch of your sister’s lovebird with Vaseline.”

“That’s in the past, everyone. JayTimmy promises to have your pet’s best interests and health in mind. Now. . . let me take a second to mention the tragedies that occurred not too long ago. We’re sorry for all the pain we caused and all the pet cemeteries we filled up to capacity. Seventeen hundred deaths are horrible, yes.”

“If it were up to me, it would be zero. Or at least 97. . .no . . . make it an even 100 cause I don’t like the sound of that ’97’; it sounds subversive. Maybe that means adding a few Chow Chows or Pomeranians to the death count, but what’s a few more gonna matter?”

“A dang shame, but we moved past that and continue to improve our products, so your Chihuahua doesn’t vomit purple foam or jump on the couch and lose a foot.”

“Your beautiful Persian can strut in style wearing a necklace that won’t burn her neck or cause dementia, and your Siamese can sport a diamond-studded tutu without her hind legs separating from her torso.”

Leaving the overhead view, the camera zoomed in on a large clearing with sunflowers and three large moss-covered rocks. In the center of the clearing was a wooden playhouse with a slide, climbing bars, and a swing set. Franz Schubert’s Marche Militaire played in the background.

The camera panned to the north side of the clearing by the trail entrance and focused on a cheetah-like cat creeping up to the sunflowers on the border near the oak trees. It was a beautiful beast, an F1 Savannah, with gold fur, black spots, and large pointed ears, but the camera panned back to the animal’s tail end.

A purple tutu decorated with tiny diamonds and embroidered with the name Mary Poppins adorned its rear, and the cat strutted confidently and didn’t seem bothered by the tacky ballerina gear.

The film speed shifted to slow motion when the cat saw a yellow butterfly flutter past her head. She turned her head to the right and tracked a Monarch butterfly landing on a sunflower.

The Monarch was closer but dining on nectar and not moving around very much. The other one, a Mimosa Yellow, fluttered around like a maniac. Her gaze shifted from one target to another, but she jogged to the yellow butterfly as it approached the swing set.

When the soundtrack went into a crescendo, the cat leaped into the air with the diamonds twinkling from the sun’s rays.  She swatted the butterfly, turned it into a cloud of yellow dust, and then landed on the rubber seat of the swing set, which rocked it back and forth.

Keeping her balance, she eyed the frame the swings were screwed into and hopped to the top. It was only 4 inches wide, but she casually trotted to the end of the wooden frame and sat down.

She turned to the camera as it was coming in for a close-up and screamed. The raspy squawk echoed through the forest as the camera zoomed backward.

The words JayTimmy Petacular appeared in small block letters at the corner of the screen in the forest. They quickly expanded, flew to the center of the screen, and broke through a clear wall. Splintered pieces of glass shot in all directions in slow motion.

“This jerk stole that from the Friday the 13th trailer. What a dingus,” said Jarvos.

“Nice observation, Mr. Stoyner. But please refrain from commenting until the end of the ad,” said Prollen. Jarvos smiled and nodded his head.

The narrator from the beginning appeared, superimposed over the forest scene, in a camouflaged business suit and an orange hunter’s cap.

He looked almost like Darden P. Johnson, but the dark Aviators hid his eyes. He said, “So you see folks, your kitty can even hunt in their JayTimmy wear and look pretty dang fabulous.”

“Once again, I’d like to personally apologize to all the cats, kittens, dogs, and puppies that my company murdered with our prior line of fine pet jewelry and outerwear.”

“I think we killed a few horses, birds, and maybe just one iguana that swallowed a cyanide-laced dog collar. It shouldn’t have happened, but at least we gave those craft coffin makers some business. “

“Those poor fellas make the occasional buck when some rich old lady loses a yappy dog, but it really helps them out when there are multiple fatalities. And boy, when it comes to high death counts and propping up the tiny coffin market, JayTimmy beats the competition. “

“We’ve killed over 500 puppies, destroyed families, ended marriages, and broken countless hearts, but we’re always willing to improve. I’m not just saying that; it’s coming right from my big ‘ol chubby heart!

“By the end of the day, we came to the conclusion that making a pet jewelry line without poison may solve the problem. There are no toxic chemicals or poisons in the jewelry we make for humans, but I guess . . . well, we just wanted to be different with the products we made for pets. “

“We cut some corners regarding our suppliers, and we paid a price for it. Well, we actually made a lot of money, even though some customers sued us for killing their pets. But since we proved that animals shouldn’t be chewing on jewelry in the first place, we won our cases, and I guess our only losses were those attorney fees.”

“It hurt our rep a little bit, but we’re bouncing back in style with our new and improved JayTimmy Petacular. I guarantee our bracelets, tutus, scarves, tail rings, and clip-on earrings are 100% pet-safe.

“No more crying over that wooden cross behind your tool shed. We care about your furry babies and promise not to kill them this time. God bless all the world’s pet parents, and see you soon.”

*** Bobcat Hunting With Darden P. Johnson***

Skernston Forest is densely covered with longleaf and southern pines, and like many old woodlands, it has its share of legends and scary stories. Older residents think it’s haunted, but some stay away because a crazed Boy Scout leader, Clemy Perkins, slipped a large handful of tranquilizers into a cauldron of beef stew and shaved the heads of 20 young scouts in their sleep in 1986.

He failed to extinguish the campfires when he took off with his clippings and left the snoozing bald children in their tents. After a wind gust sent the embers into the pine straw, a fire quickly spread and moved closer to Troop 999’s tents.

Luckily, Clauson “Moonchild” Forester woke up first and tried to wake and warn his friends. Some of the boys had to be dragged by their sleeping bags to safety, but those with higher tolerances for painkillers and other various opiates were able to assist in the rescue.

The fire scorched 60 acres but didn’t claim any lives. However, the assault on the kids and burned land led to a lengthy sentence for Clemy Perkins.

Two sheriff’s deputies caught him in the act behind his cabin. He was pasting the scout hair onto a giant Bigfoot statue he’d been working on for months.

Darden P. Johnson was one of the scouts shaved that night. After the incident, Darden struggled a little; he had nightmares of thousands of motorized blades shredding his curly blonde hair. In his dreams, he could hear Clemy laughing and snorting like a pig like he always used to.

To help the bald children, a nearby wig outlet donated a batch (they dubbed the British invasion series) to the boys to assist with their recovery. Although It’s Always a Good Hair Day promoted its act to benefit the community, it was sued by two attorneys representing aging British rockers.

The owners of the state’s premier fake follicle outlet didn’t realize they’d violated copyright by replicating the moppy hairstyles.

Darden’s whig made him look like a miniature Ringo Starr, and his mother had a rough time getting him to ditch the rug when his hair grew back. He refused to give it up and pushed her back when she reached for it.

She tried grabbing it several times, but although he was goofy and not the most coordinated youngster, he was quick and protected his toupee like a German Shepherd. Doris Johnson was frustrated and embarrassed for her family. They were, after all, Elvis supporters, not Beatles folks.

However, she didn’t give up and soon found inspiration from her son’s ex-scoutmaster and waited until he was asleep. After taking the last pull from her Camel Light and stamping it out, she dimmed the lights and headed toward her disturbed son’s room.

She crept up to his bed and stifled a giggle when she saw his arms clutching a photo of Ringo in his Sgt. Pepper costume. What a dingbat, she thought.  She lowered her right hand slowly toward the shimmering hairpiece, then ripped it off and charged into the living room, throwing the bowl-shaped mass into the fireplace.

Darden ran out of his room screaming, with his hair flattened from constant wig-wearing, and headed to the fireplace to rescue his Ringo, but his mom grabbed him and held him back. Doris tried to calm him down while he whimpered and mumbled the lyrics to Yellow Submarine in a monotone like he was in a trance.

Forty-seven years later, Darden sat 20 feet from the forest floor in a deer stand and squawked into his mobile phone. The metal structure shuddered as he shifted his weight; he had put on a few pounds but not enough to bother him.

He had the classic male hourglass physique if the hourglass was heated with a torch and shaped with a leaf blower until the center expanded.

“My daughter asked the same thing,” he said. “Yes, it’s legal; it’s a dang wild cat—a killer. Would rip the head off your grandma in a second, and if you have a dog or cat, they’re done for if they come across one of these bastards. I’m helping control the population by poppin’ a few.”

“You see, by the end of the 19th century, we’d nearly wiped ‘em out completely in this area, but they rebounded a few years ago, and there’s too many now.”

“I have every right, as a citizen of this fine land, to end that kitty’s life. . . why am I what? I’m whispering ‘cause the cat has ears, Howard, and it’s not as dumb as you.”

“And no, it’s much bigger than a housecat. . .well, you heard wrong. It’s not just a little bigger; it’s much bigger and nasty too. Its fangs can puncture a paint can, and it climbs up trees like a monkey in the rainforest.”

Most serious hunters in the world, especially those without Darden’s eccentricities, would not speak to their friends on a mobile phone if they wanted to be successful and most likely would not look for bobcats in the afternoon. Bobcats are not known for hunting or exploring in the middle of the day.

“Crepuscular, what the heck are you talking about? I’ve never heard of that before…well, then I’ll just wait till dusk to shoot ‘em. I’ll watch a movie on my phone and maybe take a nap. But I’ll be ready for it. Yeah, I heard what Dirty Frank said about the whole thing. He thinks he’s an expert in hunting, but to me, he’s just a damn loudmouth.”

“I’ve heard that you shouldn’t be in a tree stand, and it’s better to hide in cover from far away before you start using the call. But I don’t care; I’m sure someone has killed a kitty from a deer stand before, so I definitely won’t be the first.”

“I’d rather be up high anyway, in case one of the cats flanks me when I’m looking the other way. I don’t want it creeping up on me from behind. Those ‘ol cats have long fangs and sharp claws, and I’d rather shoot ‘em in the neck from the safety of my double-wide stand.”

Darden’s face turned red, and he got a little annoyed with Howard’s laughter. “Yeah, it’s double-wide, so I have enough room to film and hold my cooler and my guns and ammo and all that camera gear, so stop laughing, you idiot. You’re not so trim either, my friend.”

Darden’s lower lip curled into his mouth and exposed the patchy growth on the bottom of his chin as he listened to Howard criticize him. He wasn’t a prime candidate for growing a beard, but he was trying.

“I don’t care if you heard they hunt alone. I’ve seen them in groups before, and that’s bullshit that they’re afraid of people and never attack them.”

“That kid Billy that lived down the street from my Grams . . . Yeah, the one who looked like a miniature Roy Orbison with the dark sunglasses. Well, he got attacked by a deranged bobcat when he was playing with his tortoise in the backyard.

“The cat killed the armored-shelled slowpoke, and he was 45 years old. His daddy got him as a birthday present when he was five. He named him Doctor Moriarity. Yeah, his dad was a weird kid, I guess.”

“Can you believe that? You have this prehistoric creature living with you for decades. Minding his own business, not bothering anybody. . . and then some psychotic feline prances into the yard and ends all that slow-paced, turtley love he’s been giving all those years.”

“Naw, his shell didn’t protect him much; the cat pounced on his head, dug in with his claws, pulled his head closer, and then bit into him. Thing could’ve made it another 100 years, well. . . as long as it was part of a will and someone fed it.”

“And then he went for Billy, and Billy ran, but not fast enough. Just as he rounded the side of the house with the screen door, the bobcat tackled him and started tearing into his right armpit.”

“Some people say it was the deodorant, and it was strange that Billy preferred his mom’s Secret Antiperspirant to the Old Spice she bought for him. I mean, I’m not certain, but I think that cat was a dude, and he was attracted to the scent and went for the pit instead of the neck.”

“Which was good for Billy in the long run, and I guess the short run too since he woulda died if he’d got it in the neck.”


“He was saved when his grandma shot the cat with a pressure washer. She was cleaning the side of the house and didn’t notice the bobcat. You know, ’cause that compressor was so loud, and she couldn’t hear the kid screaming. “

“But she saw him running and came to the rescue with her giant compressor on wheels in tow. Blasted that cat right in the butthole, and it took off.”

“Billy recovered and doesn’t look too bad, but he doesn’t go diving anymore. So, I don’t believe that .02% or whatever you said your odds are of getting attacked by a bobcat. “

“I know there are plenty of injuries and fatalities from the cats . . . how do I know? I know ‘cause I hear people talking and know it in my gut.”

“This is a public service, for God’s sake! At least I’m not doing trapping or any of the crueler forms of bagging one. What I call “lazy hunters,” or trappers, use traps that just cut into their legs. That poor cat has to sit there and suffer till you finally get to him and put his lights out.”

“What I’m doing is more humane. You know, more American. One .30–.30 is all it’ll take, and I have my sawed-off as a backup. But before I shoot my cat, I’m going to tear into that po’boy and live-stream it for my Podcast. I told Betsy I’d give her a shout-out on my show about her delicious damn oyster po’boys.”

Darden laughed and said, “No, I’m not going to eat it cold ‘cause I don’t have to. I brought my hiking stove and got a full fuel tank. Might grill a few marshmallows after I clean my kill. I’ll hit you back when I start filming; bye.”

Man, he thought, I’m real glad Howard didn’t come along.

Big as a mule and useless as refried beans without the beans. How does he look at himself in the mirror in the morning without crying? I guess he doesn’t see what I see, but when I look in the mirror, all I see is greatness and, sometimes, Ringo Starr.

Since Darden had time to kill before the big hunt, he checked the inventory list on his phone and set up the cameras and mics. He had four cameras, but his newest model recorded in infrared and was attached to a swivel mount so he could turn it around toward the forest. He wanted to capture a bobcat sneaking up before he delivered the fatal shot.

He spaced out the three microphones around the stand’s perimeter and attached them to the rail. Most of the time, he pointed all of the mics toward him, but tonight was different. Darden wanted to catch all of the forest’s sounds, especially when the sun went down.

After watching a video of an overweight Canadian hunter shooting a Lynx, he set an alarm on his phone, pulled out his travel pillow, got comfortable in his chair, and drifted off to sleep. In his dreams, he was surrounded by beautiful women in black bikinis cheering his name; “Darden! Our King! Darden! Our King! Bring Us the Beast!“

He was in the same part of Skernston Forest as his deer stand, and with a dead bobcat slung over his right shoulder, he approached a tall brunette and dropped the cat by her feet. He no longer had a tubby physique but looked like a chiseled athlete in dreamland.

She said, “Thank you, my lord,” and held out her hands. As he approached, the other women’s faces changed. Their eyes got large, their smiles disappeared, and the white light shining through the forest died out and was replaced by a rusty orange.

Their eyes turned amber and glowed brightly. With their mouths opening, they grew fangs and hissed like cats.

The brunette lunged at Darden and sank her cat fangs into his neck while digging her claws into his back. He screamed and woke up. Man, where the hell did that come from? Hope to God that’s not what they call foreshadowing, but I guess I won’t mind the bikinis if the women attacking me don’t turn into frigging cats.

His oyster po’ boy had cooled down, but since it was wrapped up in foil, he figured it would be simple to heat it up with his portable gas burner and skillet.

Darden flipped on the gas lever on the burner and struck a match against the stand’s metal floor. As he lit the burner, he tried to calculate how much he’d just spent by lighting the match.

Strike-anywhere matches were hard to come by, and Darden paid a fortune to have a case shipped to his house from a private seller in Finland. He turned down the flame and jammed his po’ boy into the nonstick skillet. The sun was setting, and the nighttime forest was coming to life.

Although the LED lamps Darden used to highlight his scruffy face in the video were brighter than anything for miles and probably weren’t beneficial to his hunt, he figured that shooting a brief video shouldn’t hurt his chances of killing a bobcat.

He planned to turn the lights off when he finished eating, and since he had an infrared camera, he could continue filming his show. If there were as many of them in the woods as he thought, he would have several opportunities to shoot one.

After a few sound checks with his microphones and more than a few camera adjustments, Darden was ready to film and eat. As he hit a button on his phone to record, they approached silently, each spaced 10 yards apart.

When the mountain lions walked past the third marked tree on their route, they turned their heads up and screamed. The screeching barks echoed through the woods and glided into the audio track of Darden’s live Podcast.

“Okay . . . I’m not sure what that was. Couldn’t have been a bobcat cause I know they don’t sound like that! Probably some kind of bird, maybe a wounded owl or hawk?” said Darden. He loved astounding his viewers with his knowledge of wildlife.

The bobcats came from the north side, and the mountain lions crept up from the south. One of the cats would have been enough, but since he knew Darden would probably have several guns, Bob decided to send all four.

The mountain lions, Diana and Olga, were the backup crew and weren’t trained to go near Bob unless the bobcats were in trouble.

Bob and Laura found out quickly that training females was more challenging than working with males, but once trained, they were more focused than the males and less distracted by the raccoons, snakes, and nocturnal birds.

Like the cougars, Janet Leigh and Shirley Eaton wore gold collars outfitted with Bob’s homemade devices. They didn’t shock the bobcats but clicked when Bob sent commands from his watch. If he wanted them to scream, he sent the two-click command; three clicks meant he wanted them to advance.

“Umhhhhh . . . Man, thas wha I call a sanwith . . .,” Darden said, with a full mouth and remoulade dripping down his chin. He chewed for a few seconds, wiped his face with a Halloween napkin, and smiled at the cameras.

“Folks, I sure hope you’ll head down to Betsy’s Crusty Cajun Claws and Shells for one of her delicious po’boys. I’ve taken, what, four bites, maybe? And I haven’t even hit the halfway mark. There must be three pounds of oysters in this thing! Shit’s dripping everywhere, but Goddamn, it’s tasty!”

Janet Leigh leaped on the roof of Darden’s four-wheeler next to a pine tree and scaled up the tree until she saw a branch pointing toward the deer stand in the tree to the left. She climbed out onto the branch and waited until it was time.

“Now, after I finish this sucker, I’m going to teach you about hunting bobcats. If I spot one with the scope, I’ll turn one of the cameras around so you can see it.” Bob swiped over to the mountain lion controls on his watch and pinged the button two times.

Olga screamed Reeeraaaaaaaaah, and Diana joined in during the “aaaah” part. The sound sent a raccoon running up a tree east of Darden’s stand, which startled him and made him drop the sandwich on the stand’s metal floor.

“Damnit!” he said and grabbed his cat’s eye. After seeing the Burbs as a kid, he knew he would own one someday.

He looked in the direction he thought the sound originated but couldn’t see anything unusual. Janet jumped from her branch and landed on a branch above Darden’s head. “Shit, what the . . . said Darden, as he looked up and saw a growling bobcat swiping down at him with her left arm while gripping the branch with her right.

He dropped the scope and rushed toward the rifle and shotgun propped against the tree to his right but slipped on the remoulade from his sandwich and landed on his back.

Janet looked down at him and growled and waved her claw furiously. He heard a scratching sound coming from the other side of the stand where the ladder was attached and yelled when Shirley grabbed his ankle and bit it.

“Holy hellllllll!” screamed Darden, yanking his leg away from the cat. He scrambled against the railing and pulled himself up. While he kicked his right leg over the side, he thought, He didn’t get my leg as bad as I thought, but this is my only choice. Probably break a leg, but it’s better than getting eaten!

Darden moved his other leg over the rail while he held on and wondered why the bobcats weren’t moving toward him. He looked down at Shirley, and she growled while Janet dropped down from the branch and swatted at the rail beside Darden’s right hand.

He moved it quickly but lost his balance when the sweaty fingers of his left lost their grip, and he fell off the stand. Shirley yowled twice and climbed up toward Janet. She had discovered the wonders of Betsy’s cooking, and when Shirley went for the po’boy hanging out of her mouth, Janet pulled away and snorted at her.

Shirley growled but didn’t fight her sister; instead, she yelled at one of the cameras in front of her and sent it flying into the woods when she swatted it off the mount.

Laughter erupted from the 10,000 followers watching Darden’s live-streaming event. Their fingers danced around phones and tablets as they commented on Darden’s dinner manners and hunting skills.

As he stared at the sky with his left leg twisted in an unnatural position, Darden remembered his phone was still lying on the deer stand’s floor. He thought, am I going to get out of this? These damn cats are gonna kill me, and his anxiety ramped up when he saw the cats approaching him.

He could barely move his arms or legs, but the fear crippling him was more powerful than his injuries. The backup crew was staggering the screams, and the sounds seemed to surround him. Reeeraah! Reeeraah! Reeraah! Reeerah!

What the hell is making that sound . . . it can’t be. Cougars disappeared around here 100 years ago. Kind of sounds like em, though. Like that National Geographic I saw the other night, he thought, as Diana and Olga cried in the distance again. Darden had hunted other animals before, especially when he was young, but he was never afraid of the game.

Doves, quails, ducks, and a wounded rabbit were the only creatures he’d faced. The cougars kept screaming until Bob tapped his watch, and they ran off.

One of the bobcats had something in her mouth. It was Shirley; she strutted up to him casually and dropped his phone by his right hand. Janet approached and walked around Darden until she was hovering over his head and looking into his eyes. She made a “wuhh” sound and licked him on the head.

Act IV of Harassing the Diamond King Is Coming Soon; See You Soon!

Harassing the Diamond King, Act Two

March 25, 2023 /

*** Recipe Included: Cast-Iron Pizza***

“If you don’t think life is absurd or unfair, go see my therpist. When I asked her what she was writing as I relaxed on her crimson leather couch and spilled my soul to her, she said, ‘Just making a few notes, nothing to worry yourself about, but since I’m a progressive therapist, I’ll give you a sample’…this guy is a psychopath; he’ s selfish, ignorant, godless, funny-looking, pretenious, unsanitary, vertically, mentally, and phyically challenged, pungently fragranced, lacking cells on both sides of the brain, profane, overly passive aggressive, overly active agressive, and just an all-around dull turd!”

Anynomous Foosball Champion

*** Death and Love on the Run***

“Now, we’ll take a look at what has the Diamond King sweating carbon… this one didn’t irritate him and his online pals as much as the cat video. We’ll view that later, “ said Prollen. He dimmed the lights with the remote and hit play.

The video began with a black screen and a caption in bright white letters reading, “How Love (and Diamonds) Can Conquer Anything.” The screen faded into a black-and-white scene showing a young couple grinning at each other as they sat together in the darkness.

Their toneless skin suddenly had a spotlight shining on it, and it made the sad pair glow like they were on a stage. You could vaguely see the bench they were sitting on, but the rest of the frame lacked definition. They were a glimmering, slightly depressed couple floating in a pitch-black universe.

Jarvos couldn’t wait until the end of the clip and blurted out, “Did he borrow Stephenson to shoot this?; It looks just like the Jaylene video. He’s not cheap, and this looks like his style.

“He even found a similar actor; she looks like the crybaby from the original commercial. That’s crazy. How would the Butttruth afford someone like Stephenson?”

Prollen glared at Jarvos and calmly said, “Yes, as I said, the similarities are obvious. It’s not the work of a single amateur with a few dollars to spare. This one is well-produced; a team had to make it. Not just an average wannabe, and no, Stephenson didn’t shoot it.”

“I talked to him this morning, and he seemed offended that I accused him of working for someone else. After telling him we were looking into other production companies for Jaylene’s commercials, he became much friendlier. But I believe him. I don’t think it was him.” Prollen unpaused the video.

The woman in the clip stopped smiling and looked sadly at the camera. “This ring has been in my family for generations,” she said. “It’s not just a diamond sitting on precious metal. It’s a gift from God. I can’t tell you how many times it’s comforted someone in my family when times got tough.”

With her eyes welling up with tears, her husband reached over and put his arm around her to comfort her. She said, “This ring shows that love and a little luck can overcome just about anything.

“Well, they can’t conquer death, but they sure helped my family survive. The story of how this diamond wound up in my family began many years ago when my grandfather was clipping his toenails on the front porch.

“He always said dirty nails were good for the soil and made sure he swept the clippings into the lawn.” She smiled for a second, possibly thinking fondly of her grandpa’s grooming routine.

“He heard a car racing down the road to his house, and he walked down the driveway to see what was going on.” The screen flashed white and then showed a black muscle car barreling down a dirt road with a dust cloud in its wake.

“The driver was going too fast and lost control around the curve by the driveway and crashed into the woods. My gramps said the concussion shook his birdhouse off the oak.

“He ran to the wreck and found a dying man and his bride lying by the smoking car. They were covered in blood and pieces of glass from the windshield, and my grandpa said the bride looked much worse than the groom.”

“I guess they weren’t wearing their seatbelts when they plowed into the tree, but it was more than just that. They had lost a lot of blood before they even got in that wreck. “

“Gramps found out later all about the couple’s story, but he sure didn’t mention to the cops that he had grabbed the wedding ring off the bride’s bloody finger. I don’t think she was completely dead at that point, but I don’t hold that against him.”

“Well, the story was that Martha and Johnny had been married that morning and decided to rob a bank for their honeymoon. They got plenty of money, but the getaway didn’t go well since they didn’t plan on an off-duty security guard coming to retrieve the jacket he’d left on his last shift. This is how it went down…”

The screen faded away and showed a security guard walking into the bank parking lot. He paused to scratch his butt, and he turned his head and saw a well-dressed, masked couple, both with bleached blonde hair, with large white bags running toward a black car.

He later told the cops he had reacted quickly with his gun (and bragged he had used an extended clip: fifteen rounds in his 9-millimeter), but actually, Hank Besper had froze and waited until they started out of the lot before he unloaded on them.

He knew it was his moment to shine; hopefully, he’d get on the force after doing this. No more security work and no more disrespect. Remember your training, he thought, and everything will work out. The scumbags will be dead, the money will go back to the bank, and you’ll be a hero. It’s almost Miller time, buddy; just hang in there and shoot straight.

The car screeched out of the parking space and roared towards the exit (and Hank) at high speed. He pulled the trigger quickly and managed to shatter the drive-thru window of the fast food restaurant across the street with one of the 13 bullets that missed their targets. Two more “known” bullets grazed the car’s roof and damaged the brick of a nearby church.

One whizzed over the passenger side mirror and shattered the plastic tire of a toddler’s Big Wheel while the three-year-old rolled beside his father on the sidewalk. Martha was shot in the neck through the windshield, and Johnny was hit in the shoulder.

His last “identified” round cruised to the left of its target and blew off the Dodge’s side mirror. Two out of fifteen isn’t bad, I guess, Hank thought. The scene faded back to the melodramatic wife.

“It’s very romantic when you think about it, but Gramps said the inside of that crumbled car was a sight. That was back before everyone was snapping pictures from their phones. “

She paused for a second, caught in her memory, and smiled. “He painted a picture of the accident scene and titled it Plush Interior Crime Scene. It made my grandma gag whenever he pulled it out to show it to people.”

“It’s probably good that they’re dead because, for God’s sake, before the robbery, Martha was wanted for killing a door-to-door salesman with a wiffleball bat. She knocked him off the 5th-story balcony of her apartment into the windshield of a Buick. “

“The poor guy was only hawking pop-up bibles and trying to make a living. And Johnny, well, he was wanted for assault and torturing his kidnapped victims with an enema kit. He supposedly got the idea from some pervert in Illinois.”

“After the guts and brain matter were removed from my grandfather’s property, the soil still looked stained. You’ll see it if you return to the same spot today. We used to call it the ‘Lovers’ Last Stand.'”

She teared up while smiling, but her husband gave her a confused look. “Weird, huh? But it’s also kind of beautiful.” She wiped away another tear.

“Anyway, the ring’s been in my family ever since, and anytime life takes a massive dump on one of us, the ring is shared. I gave it to my sister last year when she was going through a rough patch.”

She looked at her husband with puppy-dog eyes and blew her nose into a Kleenex; a small piece of it, aided by mucous, flew between his incredulous eyebrows.

“She’s struggled with a glue-sniffing addiction for years, and it’s taken a toll on her. Besides her lungs being all gummed up, she kept gluing the tube to her face when she nodded out.”

“My sis fought through it, though, and with the Lord’s grace and this blessed ring, she went from huffing rubber cement to Elmer’s. She even stopped snorting the keyboard cleaner. Now she’s doing great. Everything she huffs, smokes, snorts, or injects is organic.”

Her husband smiled and pulled her closer into a hug. After a kiss on her head, he asked, “where does the ring stay when no one’s in trouble?”

“What do you mean, Elliot?” she asked.

“Well, you pass this ring around to everyone in the family who’s had a loss or is a screwup like glue-baby Jill, and it makes them feel better, right? But how does the family decide where the ring is stashed when everybody is happy?”

“Do you rotate it around, or maybe you have a time when, let’s say, your sister is pulling from the ring’s immense power to make her drop that epoxy tube, and she’s had it too long, do you have to confiscate it?”

“Have you had to say, sis, you’ve had your time with the ring, but now it’s time to give it to your uncle Davis cause his hemorrhoids are acting up, and he needs some diamond voodoo?”

With her face turning red and her fists clenching, she tried to keep her cool; she took a deep breath and resisted the urge to slap him.

“Those are all valid questions, Sherlock, but should I have passed it to you when you were fired from your last job—when you were caught on film sneaking into the boss’s office and licking her keyboard?”

*** Dirty Digits ***

Jarvos covered his mouth to stifle his giggles, but his boss still noticed his eyes filling with water.

“All right, I’m glad you think this is all so comical, but we’re not finished. I think Jaylene’s commercials are overly dramatic and maybe cheesy, but they’re not as pretentious or …elitest as the ones in the ‘80s and early ‘90s.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” said Jarvos trying to wipe away his happy tears and struggling to catch his breath. “It’s just, the Butttruth’s models are right on. She’s the spitting image of the sad mama from the diamond ring ad, and her husband . . . looks just like the guy Jaylene hired, the one with the eyebrow deformities.”

“And the background music. It’s public domain stuff but sounds like he had an orchestra.”

Prollen doubted that his star joker really masterminded the videos, but he had to ask since so much was on the line, and it wasn’t about their reputation; their lives were at stake.

“Jarvos, did you have anything to do with this?”

“What? No, sir, I’m not that creative.” His colleagues all grinned in unison, everyone but Prollen. “I just think it’s funny. I don’t have the time or money to pull off something that looks that good. The film quality is much fancier than anything on my website.”

“Your website?”

“Yeah, but don’t worry, I don’t have my name or any connection to Nelters on the site. I only designed it to win a bet.”

“What was the bet?”

“Well, first, I have to say that I won the bet. Please, no applause, everyone. Anyway, Mel, my neighbor, told me one night that he couldn’t believe his cousin was getting rich from selling online courses on how to make hemp clothing for injured cats.”

“Just injured cats?” asked Prollen.

“Yeah, you know, sweater patterns for three-legged cats and ones with bulbous heads. The guy is making a killing off it. Well, I said, Mel, anyone can make money selling useless products or information online, and I bet him I could come up with something ridiculous to back up my claims.”

“The bet was for $500; if I lost, I had to buy $500 worth of merchandise from CrippledKittyHempFantastique or whatever it’s called. I created Switchingoffthemlights.com, won the bet, and continue to profit from my site.”

Prollen stared at him for a second and considered moving on, but he had to know what the fool had created in his downtime. “Ok, before we move on, enlighten us. What is the switching the light thing about?”

“Exactly what you said. It’s mostly just photos and short films of my finger switching the lights on and off. But I keep it interesting, and I always change the setting and sometimes disguise or modify my finger.”

“Last week was Thumb Week, and all the switches were manipulated by my left thumb.” Jarvos held up his thumb and slowly turned it for his audience like he was doing an ad for a hand model agency.

“The nail looks better on this one than the one on the right, and I like to keep things up-to-date and polished on my site. During the Dirty Digits week, I purposely jam coffee grounds in my nails before hitting the switch, and the one where I wear a dirty bandage is especially popular.”

“I got thousands of views and now have a skincare startup paying me for their ads. I also sell a course on light switch remodeling.  I didn’t think anyone would ever download it, and no one did at first.”

“But after about three weeks, it started picking up. You know, when that storm hit the coast a few months ago, well, somehow, that helped boost my course purchases.”

“You wouldn’t think people whose homes were nearly destroyed would care about their light switches or the covers or the best lighting to photograph light switches, but they apparently put it high on their list of remodeling projects.”

“It’s nuts, but I’m glad. I was able to go to Paris because of it, but man, it’s an insane world, isn’t it?”

His colleagues stared at him in disbelief, but in the back of each of their minds, they weren’t surprised. Although he was talented and well-liked by most, his sense of humor sometimes rattled the traditionalists in the organization.

“During Halloween, I’ll have monster fingers, bloody fingers, sexy fingers, fingers smeared with chocolate, greasy fingers, fingers with the bone poking out, and, you know, stuff related to the holiday.”

“I play scary music in the background, something creepy like ambient music from the 80s, and in one film, I have a fake hand getting stabbed when it reaches for the switch. Oddly enough, my most popular film is one of a hand getting slapped with a slice of pizza before it turns the light off.”

“Last month, while I was waiting for my car to get fixed, I wandered into the garage and took a few shots and videos with more industrial-looking switches. Most of them look like gigantic versions of the ones you’d see in a circuit breaker panel.”

“But man, that place was dirty. I understand a garage isn’t gonna look like an operating room before they start slicing patients up, but I expect a little more from a European auto shop. I mean, some dude’s whitey tighties, soiled, I might add, were hanging out of the garbage can.”

“But it’s not surprising, considering how things turned out. The mechanics were pissed when I started messing with the lights. I have to click them back and forth quickly when I make short films, and I heard one of the guys yell, ‘ You can’t pop them on and off like that idiot. You’ll blow the breaker!’ I think that’s why my Porsche smelled like sauerkraut.”

Marshall smiled and wondered why a garage would have sauerkraut on hand. Maybe they keep a jar in the back in case they encounter someone obnoxious like Jarvos, or they could have dismantled a Reuben and smeared the fermented cabbage under his leather seats.

“I want to get some in a manufacturing plant or something like it, but I’m trying to avoid getting arrested. Oh, one more thing, during Safe Sex Week, I wrap a condom around my finger…”

“That’s enough! Thank you so much for considering our reputation, Mr. Snoyner. Please avoid flicking the lights around here. You can do that in your downtime when you’re creeping around a paper mill or slaughterhouse.”

“We’ll look at this next masterpiece if there aren’t any more interruptions. It’s not a parody of a specific Jaylene ad, but, as you’ll see, it mocks Darden directly and pokes fun at the company’s failed pet jewelry line.”

“I’m not sure why my predecessor would allow one of our subsidiaries to embark on such a ridiculous concept, but luckily, Jaylene recovered from that disaster. And I have to say, when Darden took over Jaylene after Serinno left, he did an incredible job rebuilding the company’s image after so many deaths. “

“At the end of the video, the Darden impersonator exaggerates the number of pet fatalities even though the actual figure is pretty shocking. It wasn’t 1,700, but at least 50 animals died from the toxic jewelry, and, incredibly, Jaylene survived it, and we, in turn, survived it without dumping them.”

“Maybe it was unfair of the filmmaker to target Darden since he came in after the scandal, but these videos are for entertainment, not for toppling the king of diamonds and his ego.

“And everyone who’s familiar with him knows he’s a good ‘ol boy from his online videos, so they parodied him instead of Serrino. I think that bothered Darden and his fury has animated several of his online fans, but we’ll get to that later . . . let’s watch the next film.”

End of Act Two

Up Next: Harassing the Diamond King Act Three: Mary Poppins Kills a Butterfly and Bobcats Hunt Darden P. Johnson.

Harassing the Diamond King

March 17, 2023 /

Act One

“The Farmer’s Almanac told me my pigs’ tails would freeze in January unless I kept ’em warm, and except for the duct tape at the base, they look pretty cute with that puffy pink insulation on their tails, especially the ones that aren’t covered in crap.”

anonymous

The executive office of Nelters Inc. is only five miles from Almond Rock and somewhat hidden in the dense oak and pine forest. It’s a far cry from the company’s previous location on the 25th floor of the Horlen Elkes Tower in the city.

Nelters is a global corporation that owns mining operations, jewelry chains (including Jaylene and Kaleb’s), precious metal distribution centers, trucking companies, and recycling centers.

Unlike the view from the city, on the roof of the Almond Rock office, you could see rolling grasslands that turned tan in the winter, dense forests of eastern white pines and white oaks, and the looming Chesline Leer Mountain range.

There were no abandoned buildings with broken glass, ozone warnings, unidentified aromas, attorney billboards, bikers with androgynous hairstyles, or well-dressed prostitutes.

Almond Rock and the surrounding area, including the high-end residential properties that housed many of Nelters’ employees, was a safe place to live, for the most part. It had a low crime rate, but in the past year, the crimes that occurred were more bizarre and violent than those of other small towns in the state.

***The Last Thoughts of Frank, R.I.P.***

Frank Skolly, Nelters’ IT chief, unfortunately, came to work early on Fridays before anyone entered the parking lot. He liked to leave early to get home before his wife so he could make dinner. Friday was their “gourmet night,” and it usually took him several hours to prepare the meal, including the appetizers.

The security attendant checked the lot in the morning at 7:00 am and in the evening before he left, but he failed to recognize anything strange about the late ‘70s Mercedes with a red flame decal on the hood and a key-lime paint job.

The day before, the driver used a stolen guest pass to enter the parking garage and parked across from Frank’s usual spot. The car’s tinted windows allowed him to remain unseen, and he spent the night in his car.

When he saw Frank exit his car at 5:45 am, he started his engine, pulled slowly out of the space, and headed towards him with his foot slammed on the accelerator.

Frank turned around when he heard the engine’s roar and then ran at full speed towards the elevator and stairwell. Instead of ditching them, he held his briefcase in one hand and breakfast burrito in the other.

He looked back and tried to zig off to the right. With only a few yards to the stairway exit, the car slammed into his back and flung him into the concrete wall next to the elevator.

His briefcase flew to the left and bounced against the guardrail, but his beloved burrito (a homemade recipe) splattered against the blue emergency light, coating it with orange hot sauce, white cheddar cheese, onions, peppers, and bits of runny eggs.

The Mercedes slammed on the brakes, backed up, and raged forward as Frank, stunned and dizzy, turned around to face the light-green luxury junker.

Why were the West Germans obsessed with that color in the 1970s? Frank thought before it smashed into him, forced the hood ornament into his chest, and pinned him against the wall.

The car quickly reversed, with the engine smoking and wheels turned to the right. This ripped the hood ornament from Frank’s chest and left him crushed and bleeding in a fetal position on the concrete.

The car reversed 50 feet and stopped with the white smoke from the hood getting thicker and mixing with the morning fog. The driver held down the accelerator and brake while the engine roared.

The smoke billowed towards the roof of the parking deck and seemed to be in tune with the screeching moan of the 8-cylinder.

Frank, broken and bloody, tried moving his head towards the car and was hit by its blinding headlights. Squinting from the light, he tried shielding his eyes with his hand but couldn’t get his left hand to obey as he propped himself up a few inches with his right. I’m surprised his lights work, he thought.

His mind always seemed to wander at odd times. He’s really going to burn out that engine if he keeps it floored like that, and it will cost a pretty penny to service unless he has a solid service contract with the dealer, which is prepaid and isn’t a good deal, but hey, it’s convenient, and you don’t have to worry about some Bubba Fett murdering the repair job.

But wait a minute, that’s maybe a ’77 model or so, and there’s no way you’ll get a service contract with something that old. Why did I even consider that but, more to the point, why is this flame-trimmed freak after me? I wonder if that’s Kelly’s husband, but doesn’t he drive a Puegot?.. Maybe it’s a Citroen…

The driver released the brake and quickly adjusted the steering wheel so that his left tire was lined up with Frank’s head; the tires squealed in place, then roared forward.

The driver-side wheels missed his head but plowed over his neck and chest, and the car slammed on the brakes as the mangled front grill smashed into the wall again. With the engine clanking and smoking, the driver put the car in reverse and backed slowly over Frank’s head.

Frank’s final thoughts were related to the last image he saw before death: the spinning Hardline Ridge tire. He had thought Hardline? I deserve better than that. My God, those crummy 4th-world tires are discount quality, at best. Belkmontison, Eribbiccinni, or the one named after that Pilgrim would be perfect.

What was it called again? Smith’s Tires, or was it spelled the old-timey way, like Smythe’s Tires? I know there’s a Mayflower brand, but that’s not it; they make gluten-free fritters, not tires.

After three weeks of investigating the crime, the Almond Rock Police could not identify suspects, a motive, or much evidence, except the mess found at the crime scene.

Although they had a few calls about a green Mercedes being spotted and checked nearly every repair shop in the eastern side of the state, the cops had no leads about the murder weapon’s location.

Cecilia, Frank’s wife, was having a difficult time dealing with the details of his will. Unlike men his age, Frank took out a will as a newlywed and left everything to his wife.

He was intelligent but paranoid about death, and when he talked to his lawyer about his will, he added a few ridiculous clauses to ensure his passing was memorable.

Cecilia initially rejected his final request, but she honored Frank’s wishes and had the organist play Butt to Buttresucitation by Funkadelic at his funeral.

*** Companion Pet Performance Art ***

Marshall looked down at his phone and kept looking up while he walked towards the elevator of Nelters’ parking garage. Like many of his colleagues, he initially hesitated to stare down at his phone in the lot after what had happened.

Marshall’s wife sent him a picture of a large, spotted cat relaxing in a lawn chair next to their backyard pool. Beneath the photo, she asked, “Isn’t this Bob’s?” Man, he thought, his cats barely ever leave the property unless he’s walking beside them. He forgot that Laura had not met one of the web’s rising pet stars.

The proud cat looked like a cheetah but was smaller and leaner and had gold fur and black spots. Luckily, he wound up at Marshall’s house instead of three doors down at Clyder’s. Dr. Clyder had four Tibetan Mastiffs.

However, although the dogs were fierce and massive, they weren’t as agile as Rita. She could leap over a six-foot fence easily and sprint like a track star.

Looking at the photo closely, Marshall realized it wasn’t Rita; she always wore a black collar and was smaller than her brother. No, that’s the other one.  I think that’s Edgar; he’s quicker than the others and maybe smarter, he thought.

“Yes,” he texted, “That’s Bob’s cat. Give him a call to pick it up, or go outside and say, ‘Edgar, go home to Bob,’ but don’t yell; just say it calmly at a normal volume. He’s harmless. He won’t get angry if you yell, but he’ll get scared. He’s the sensitive one, and sometimes when he gets scared, he urinates.”

Bob’s parents, Ellen and Michael, were retired cat breeders. They owned a massive tract of land in the Appalachians, where they allowed a colony of rescued felines and their retired breeding stock to rule the land and irritate their neighbors.

The cats claimed various parts of the 80-acre area as their territory, but they were trained to avoid attacking the chickens near the farmhouse, and although some of them were fascinated by the odd creatures, the cats never crossed the line with the hedgehogs.

Bob said his dad fell in love with the spiked blobs after a trip to England, and he was one of the first people in the United States to breed them.

Before retiring, Michael and Ellen left their adult children in charge of the cattery and traveled the country with a performance group that featured feline and canine acrobatics.

One of their fan’s favorite acts involved a Russian Blue cat named Judas, who wore red boxing gloves embossed with tiny yellow hammers and sickles.

With the Russian national anthem blaring on the loudspeakers, he strutted into the miniature boxing arena with his butt proudly propped up, meowed to the crowd, and turned around to face his opponent.

Judas growled at a patriotic Pekingese wearing American flag shorts and sat down in front of him. He raised his right glove and repeatedly punched the dog in the face, switching from right to left after four punches until it rolled over and played dead. A white-haired Siamese kitten wearing a bowtie played the referee; he jumped over to the dog and pawed the mat 10 times to count him out.

Little Chubbs the Pekingese had padded headgear, much like a boxer’s sparring partner, and Judas never made contact with the gloves. The duo was trained intensively to pull off the gag, and it only took Chubbs a few hours to learn how to move his head back slightly every time Judas threw a punch near his nose.

However, some people didn’t like the inter-breed boxing match because it was so convincing. They thought the wicked cat, with a name like Judas, was beating the poor Pekingese senselessly.

After several angry letters and death threats, an animal rights group, The Pekingese Purists, showed up to protest the Sucrose Lake performance. They headed to the restrooms to get changed, and none of the attendees questioned their appearance when they rushed out of the bathroom exits in Canis familiarus regalia; the onlookers thought they were part of the show.

Before their dress rehearsal, Michael and Ellen asked their assistants to watch their animals while they stretched their legs. As they walked around the outside of the cement dome of the coliseum, a low rumble erupted behind them.

Michael turned and said, “What’s that? It’s been getting louder as we’ve been walking…is that growling?” Ellen turned around and grabbed his hand when she saw them.

A large group jogged towards them and then stopped. They stood together wearing black and white costumes and rubber Pekingese masks. The couple turned around and casually walked in the other direction, but the Purists started to follow them. Some of them started to yip and growl as they walked.

Ellen and Michael went from a brisk walk to a light jog, and the activists picked up their speed until they were running, but after closing in on them, they stopped suddenly. They made snorting noises that turned to yelps and transitioned to high-pitched howls.

The five Purists in the front started throwing paint bombs at the fleeing couple while a few on their flanks launched the bombs with giant rubber slingshots. One ballon hit Micheal in the head, soaking his gray hair with red paint and Pekingnese urine. He was lucky compared to Ellen.

She was pelted with two bombs that hit her in the back, but when she turned to confront the attackers in a rage, she was hit in the face by a large one launched from the slingshot.

Some of the staff came to their aid to hose them off while the others chased after the activists, but the cheap paint dye and dog urine made Ellen feel like her eyes were burning. Later that night, Bob rushed her to the hospital when her eyes swelled up.

After Ellen’s eyes were treated and drained, she lost her vision for six months. She and Michael decided to retire their animal act permanently and return to breeding and training.

Eyeballs, Manhood, and Killer Siamese

Like his parents, Bob and his wife Laura loved cats and were exceptional trainers. Some of their colony acted like guard dogs, but they never crossed the property line or bothered the neighbors, which is why it was odd that one was relaxing next to Marshall’s pool.

Although the local police and animal control had never received calls complaining about Bob’s cats, they were called to his house recently, along with a few ambulances.

A small, ignorant group of friends decided to rob the house after one of them heard a rumor that Bob had had rare coins, loads of cash, and gold. They were right about Bob being wealthy, but he didn’t keep gold or rare coins on his property.

Before the men got close to the two-story stone-trimmed home, they were stalked by the night patrol. One of the men dressed in black whispered, “it’s bad luck to do this on a full moon cause people are expecting crazy shit to happen, and they’re prepared. ”

Everyone kept walking and ignored the comment until the crew’s leader, Smitty, said, “I heard it was good luck, and as you know, I’m usually right. Now, shut up, and let’s go rob this dude. He won’t be back till Sunday. Besides, he doesn’t even have a security system.”

Smitty was wrong about the moon and mistaken about Bob. He was watching a movie with his wife in the bedroom and wasn’t checking the wildlife cameras on the property. He usually scrolled through them on his phone before bed, but he was having too much fun watching The Thing with Laura.

As the four men in black approached the topiary garden in the backyard, a seal-point Siamese named Cleavus, with a white hemp collar emblazoned with the word “KILLER” under his chocolate face, waited in his favorite weeping beech pruned like a giant mushroom with his tan fur hidden by the branches and leaves.

Laura had spent several years perfecting her garden and worked on similar projects as a landscape designer. Most of her shrubs and trees in the topiary zone were shaped like vegetables or fruit, but she had one giant boxwood devoted to Kurt Russell.

He saw them come closer and trembled with excitement; Cleavus was always up for a challenge and seemed happy that visitors had wandered into his territory.

He clinched the branch beneath him tightly and swayed slightly back and forth until he centered his balance and remained motionless. He licked his lips, and as they approached, his ears bent back, and the hair on his back stood up.

Cleavus watched until the second-to-last man passed by and sprang from his hidden perch. He landed on Smitty’s face, shredded his ears with his front paws, and kicked back into his eyes with his back claws.

Smitty yelled, which sounded like a loud whimper, as he covered his eyes with his gloves. The others turned and were stunned at seeing a cat launching off their friend’s face.

Cleavus twisted in midair like a circus cat and landed in the face of Smitty’s best friend, Reese, who was known as the lady’s man of the bunch (even though he smelled like potpourri and graham crackers), and instead of repeating his prior attack, the cat slashed the masked Romeo’s eyes with his front nails and kicked his back claws into his mouth.

The two remaining burglars turned to run away but were met by the blue-point Siamese brothers, with their backs arched and tails fluffed up.

Josephus and Andy Kapp, who looked like miniature blue panthers, walked towards them slowly, making growling sounds like sputtering small motorcycle engines. The guttural noise from the felines’ mouths was constant and increasingly becoming louder.

The men froze, and the cats changed their motor sounds to hisses. Andy Kapp made the move first, but Josephus was a split second behind; they reared back with their tails thumping on the ground and jumped into the unlucky men’s genitals.

They bit down hard (and deep) and shook their heads around as they had been trained. Andy Kapp took a few punches to his head and neck before he swiped the man’s scrotum with his left claw and dropped to the ground.

But Josephus’ victim tried to pry him loose instead of hitting him, which only worsened his pain and made the cat dig in harder. He finally released his grip on the cat as his chances of procreation sank lower, and Josephus sprang off his chew toy, hit the ground, and dashed toward Cleavus and Josephus.

Cleavus groaned at the pair, signaling them to stand guard, and ran to the cherry-stained gazebo next to Kurt Russell’s impressive green mullet. He crept over to the southwestern corner and hit the silent alarm under the bench with his right paw.

“Man! Right when the head starts crawling away,” said Bob as he paused the film. He looked at his clothes lying across the room on the dresser and didn’t want to move, especially after his eyes drifted to the curves of Laura’s right leg wrapped around his left.

I’m so lucky I married a woman with calves like that...so symmetrical…like elongated grapefruit…mine are like wilted eggplants…pathetic! Bob thought. “Well, I guess we need to put some clothes on for the five-O; I don’t want them to think we’re nudists, ” he said.

When the police arrived, the cats were sitting twenty feet in front of the screaming men, with Cleavus perched in front and Andy Kapp and Josephus behind him, forming a triangle. A low-toned wail greeted the officers from the trio while they turned their heads toward their victims.

“The hell? “said officer Steve Neen of the Almond Rock police department. The cats shined in the moonlight, and their calm motionless bodies, with the full moon beaming above and the gruesome scene below, seemed to pull Steve into a brief trance. It didn’t seem real or possible.

Josephus turned his head towards Andy Kapp and licked him behind his left ear, where he had been punched. “That’s something else,” said Steve, as he pulled out his phone and snapped a picture; Cleavus raised his head and released a “waaahhh” in acknowledgment. “See ’em looking at us like that, Sarge?”

Steve moved closer to the group and bent down. “They’re…they’re purring, sir. Do you hear that?” He reached down and petted Cleavus on the head, and he purred louder.

“Don’t ya think they look proud of it?” asked Steve to Sergeant Alfred Gillington.

Alfred studied the gruesome-looking group, clutching their faces and crotches, and sighed. “Well, Steve, I don’t think a cat, even a dang Siamese, is capable of showing pride, but I …”

He was cut off when Smitty yelled, “officers, officers!” and stumbled and fell when he tried to stand. ” Wait,” he said, pulling off his gloves and moving his hands over the large knobs that were his eyes.

He started to scream when he realized his swollen, slashed eyelids and eyes seemed to grow larger by the second. Later, at the hospital, one nurse would whisper the nickname “fish eyes” to another before his face was bandaged up.

“Well,” Alfred paused for a second to let the man scream louder again. “I’ve never seen a feline blind or neuter a man before either, so…yeah, they look proud.” He turned when the floodlights kicked on above the walking path around the topiary garden.

Bob and Laura appeared on the northern side and walked up to the police. Bob, with a big smile, said, “Good evening! Looks like those guys have had a rough night.”

He looked at the squirming burglars and started to giggle. “What a pile of pathetic jackasses. They had no idea what was creeping around in the night.”

“You know, it may be a good idea to mention to the EMS folks that their wounds will probably get infected. It’s not guaranteed, but who knows what was on their claws!

“Those cats live part-time in the house, but most of the night, they’re stalking around the property by the gardens. Josephus killed a mole the other day and batted it around before biting its neck, so his nails could still have loads of bacteria and possibly faint traces of fecal matter, and you know what that means?”

Alfred stared at him blankly and shook his head back and forth. “It means that something is gonna get plucked out or chopped off if these buttheads don’t get the proper medical attention and follow the recovery instructions.”

Training the Untrainable Beasts

Animal rights activists in the state applauded the blinding and ball-biting attacks, but the authorities and his friends were unaware that Bob could train wildcats.

When he was five, his father introduced him to Mortimer, a pet mountain lion. His parents had a few scars from training him, but he became a loyal family pet and constant security guard. If someone entered the property when the family was indoors, and the cat didn’t recognize them, he screamed and sent them fleeing.

He lived for 21 years, and later as a teenager, Bob raised and trained a bobcat named Melba Toast without his parent’s help. Mortimer (or Melba Toast) wasn’t allowed in the house but followed Bob around from a close distance whenever he played outside.

Unlike most cougars, he stayed active during the day when Bob was around and slept at night when the family went to bed, but he was always alert.

He intervened when a seven-year-old neighbor picked on five-year-old Bob before he walked into the house for supper. Donny, the bully, called him kitty boy and shoved Bob into the prickly shrubs near the front door.

Though the tan cat didn’t hurt the child, he scared the stool out of him when he leaped from the bushes, screamed, and showed off his fangs.

Mortimer’s high-picked wail was enough to scare an adult but would not, in most circumstances, lead to an evacuation. Donny sloshed away crying and never bothered Bob again.

No Menudo in the Parking Garage, Please

Marshall’s wife replied, “I thought you were kidding, but it worked. He made a weird whine and walked away.”

As he was saying goodbye, he saw Jarvos running up to him with a wide grin on his face. “What do you think this is all about; what has the ‘ol silver beansprout all riled up, and what the heck were you listening to when you drove by?” he asked.

“Menudo, of course. And I don’t know what this is about. Maybe someone left another thong tied to the side mirror of his Bentley,” said Marshall.

“Or…another fake profile set up in his name.” Their boss had a lot of friends but also had his critics.

As they entered the elevator, Marshall grinned and said, “I was hoping it was a meeting about getting a new coffee machine.” He hit the 5th-floor button, backed against the wall, and stared at the ceiling.

“Why is a machine that only makes one cup at a time sitting in our break room, asked Jarvos, “and why do some of those flavors taste like cough syrup?”

Online Parodies

Kent Prollen stood with his armed crossed and watched his department heads file into the conference room. Karen Murphy, Kent Oleander, Marshall Dullar, and Jarvos Snoyner had each worked for the company for over six years, but Marshall had been there the longest.

Although Nelters’ interior was post-modern in most of the building, the conference room had green wallpaper and cherrywood paneling. It made new visitors feel like they were entering a smoking lounge at a gentlemen’s club in the Prohibition era. Prollen’s predecessor had lived in another time—in his mind—and his influence had not yet been erased.

He wasn’t imposing, but Prollen could be intimidating when necessary. At 5’11 ¾”, with bright white hair, long stringy arms, and a lanky body, he looked more like a game show host than a CEO. However, his reputation for quickly resolving conflicts kept his staff from relishing surprise meetings.

He had a sense of humor but rarely smiled when someone told a joke or tried to be intentionally humorous at a meeting. Today, Prollen didn’t look particularly angry, but something else was hidden in his face. Was it . . . concern?

“Good morning, everyone. Well, it’s not a good morning for Darden; he’s worried someone is trying to discredit him and somehow damage the company with online attacks.

“A satirist is targeting Jaylene’s sappy diamond commercials. Darden calls them terrorists, but as you will see, the videos are only parodies of Jaylene’s commercials.”

“The prankster’s online handle is thehonestbutttruth… whatever that means.” Prollen looked around the room and saw Jarvos snickering about the profile name. “Yes, it’s a hilarious name, but some of his footage initially seems to toy with plagiarism.”

“The filming style, soundtrack, and even the models look like the ones in the Jaylene ads. But, our lawyers claim that the filmmaker has not violated copyright laws.”

Prollen pushed a button on his remote and turned to look at the wall-sized video screen “Here, you’ll see the company’s logo.

butttruth Productions  
Free your blinds, and your rickets will follow

“Darden is online spreading a theory that this drawing has hidden code embedded in the graphics. I disagree and think it’s the only low-quality aspect of their operation.

“It looks like someone used a spirograph program and fooled around for five minutes, but that silly fool is convinced it contains viruses intended to cripple Jaylene.”

“The man isn’t a complete idiot, but lately, he’s been a little erratic. I think someone is dosing his pork rinds.”  

Up Next: Harassing the Diamond King: Love and Death on the Run and Dirty Digits.

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