I was asked to join this blogs by an acquaintance. I am not a fan of bloggering, I find it to be a little too self-indulgent, arrogant and pretentious. But I thought I'd be nice and help his number of readers skyrocket by lending my fame and reputation as one of America's most universally loved/respected authors. I wasn't quite sure what I should blogging about in my first entry, since I'm unaccustomed to the interwebs medium as a whole. After some meditation time in my personal sweat-box, I figured I'd just reprint a short story from my Pickleberry Award winning short story and poem collection "Nightmares of the Wolfsword: A Collection of Short Stories and Poems by Charles Chantecleer" ($59.99 Amazon.com) Now, let's be realistic here... I can't imagine most of your reading levels is up to par with my work, but I'm hoping a few of you can decipher the metaphorical imagery and double-helix lyrical structure of this one of my many magnum opuses.
Enjoy my first of several the blogs.
[Side note: You'll all be relieved to know that my lawsuit against that blood sucking monster Patricia Reynolds is finally over and I am happy to report that the brilliant judge ruled in favor of me, the plaintiff. She is to pay me approx. $600,000 in damages and lost revenue and she is to immediately change the name of her so called "antique store" from "Mr. Chantecleer's Rooster Coop" to "OUT OF FUCKING BUSINESS". Seriously, I hope you're happy you fucking bitch. ]
This story originally appeared in "Nightmares of the Wolfsword: A Collection of Short Stories and Poems by Charles Chantecleer" copyright 1989 Camp Rathbun Publishing:
If you live in upstate New York, chances are you’ve seen those natural gas wells that have been springing up over the last couple of years. The vast majority of those wells are drilled and operated by The Clark & Cooper Energy Company. I worked for the company for about 11 years. When I first started, they installed and maintained elevators. Before they got into elevators, they built roller coasters and before that, they were a logging company. They switched to Energy during my 9th year of employment. Luckily my vast knowledge of elevator maintenance made the transition to natural gas well maintenance rather seamless. About 1 year into the job, we put up a new well that would prove to be a real stick in the mud.
One of our surveyors discovered what was at first believed to be the largest natural gas deposit in the entire Finger Lakes Region. It turned out to be the largest natural gas deposit in the entire north east. Clark & Cooper stood to make an absurdly large profit from tapping this source. The deposit was in a limestone cavern located directly beneath land owned by Mike Schmidt. Now, I know what you’re thinking “Hall Of Fame 3rd baseman Mike Schmidt??” No, this was former Binghamton University Professor of Medieval Studies Mike Schmidt. In most cases, Clark & Cooper writes a big check, the landowner forks over a few acres, and that’s that. That’s because most people don’t know just how valuable their property is in the situation. Mike Schmidt, like the other Mike Schmidt, was not most people. He knew that he was sitting on a gold mine and that Clark & Cooper could not afford to not buy his land. So figuring that he was calling the shots, he decided to make them play by his rules. All sorts of ridiculous restrictions were set on what Clark & Cooper could and couldn’t do with his land. He did not allow us to build a maintenance road through his land, instead he insisted that we use his private driveway. Unfortunately for us, the driveway stopped about 300 yards short of the actual well. From there, workers would have to walk down a 2 foot wide path that traced the edge of his backyard before disappearing into the woods. The path was walled on each side by a 6ft tall chain link fence. This made it very difficult for a worker to walk freely down the path. Schmidt admittedly did this for no other reason than to watch someone uncomfortably squeeze themselves through the fences.
My boss assigned me to the well based on my physique. I was the skinniest of all the well inspectors, and thus most suited for walking that path. What my boss and coworkers did not know was that I was actually a lot larger than I appeared. Due to a cripplingly low self esteem, I had worn a girdle for most of my adult life. The story behind the girdle is not relevant. Once a month I was to make a routine inspection of the wells to which I was assigned. So, once a month Mike Schmidt, with a smile on his face, would watch as I slowly squeezed myself down that path.
One day while shimmying along the path, I noticed that a lot of the plant life I had usually seen, had been crudely chopped down. Perhaps Mike Schmidt has taken up landscaping. On the other side of the fence, I saw what looked like bloody feathers scattered about the yard. On my way back to the truck, I knocked on Mike Schmidt’s door to tell him. He told me he had spotted some coyotes on his property and that they probably got a hold of one of his chickens, but not to worry because he had shot one of them, and they would probably keep away. He then mentioned that he had some coyote meat in his fridge, and offered to sell me some. I declined. The next month, while heading to the well, I saw what looked like the remains of a mangled coyote. It didn’t look like it had been shot, but rather attacked by an animal. Continuing along the path, I kept looking back at the bloody mess until I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my leg. At first, I thought I had stepped into a bear trap. I looked down to see that my leg was knee deep in the mouth of a giant rabbit. Right hand to God, it was the size of that St. Bernard from that one movie with Charles Grodin. It had big red eyes, the size of basketballs. It wasn’t nearly as scary as it was adorable. His massive ears flopped over the tops of the fence. I soon realized he was more or less sucking on my leg, not biting so much. This went on for a while.
My initial overwhelming curiosity as to the origins of the beast gradually faded and I found my self feeling just plain uncomfortable. I’m not sure what sort of satisfaction the rabbit was getting from all of this, but I had grown bored. My leg was going numb and I could feel that my pant leg was soaked in rabbit saliva. After about 20 minutes, I decided that if I didn’t do something, the bunny was likely to suck my leg clean to the bone. I slowly moved my hand along the fence, my plan being to tug on his ear in an attempt to shoo him away. His ear was very soft and relatively heavy. It felt like shag carpet wrapped around the Sunday paper. I gave it a quick tug and the rabbit immediately bit down on my leg, breaking the skin. He spit my leg out with a look of disgust on his cute bunny face. Apparently he did not enjoy the taste, I was a bit insulted. He hopped over the fence and bounced off into the woods. It was precious moment, short lived. I tied off my leg with my belt, catching a quick shot of blood in my eyes. I hobbled back up the path, barely able to see. I knew I was getting close when I heard Mike Schmidt laughing from the back porch. That was my last well inspection for the Clark & Cooper Energy Company.
Since the accident had occurred while on the job, I was able to take some time off to recuperate while collecting worker’s comp. For 3 weeks I laid around in sweat pants eating pizza and watching Ernest movies. One morning, about a month after the accident, I woke to the sound of 3 of my ribs cracking. A young stock boy was violently jabbing a broom handle into my side. I soon realized I was lying in the produce section of the Top’s Friendly Market, which was very surprising for numerous reasons. First of all, I shop at Wegmans, not Top’s, secondly I don’t usually sleep in grocery stores, and the thirdly, I was naked. I jumped to my feet and ran for the door. I really didn’t want to spend the rest of my vacation locked up for public indecency. My peewee football skills came back to me in a flash, I found myself juking and jiving my way through the Top’s employees on my way to the door. I noticed a large hole had been cut into the metal security gate hanging over entranceway. I hopped through the hole and ran off through the parking lot. While running home, still nude, I noticed that my ribs no longer hurt and the soreness in my leg was completely gone.
I went back to my apartment to lay low for the rest of the day. My mouth was dry and my breath tasted like I had eaten a massive salad without dressing. My urine was bright orange. I had no idea what was happening to me. At some point I fell asleep on the couch watching Police Academy 2 or 3. That night, I was violently woken up by the sound of the upstairs neighbors stomping across their floor. It sounded like the people across the hall were shouting at one another. Michael Winslow’s robot sound effects were unbearably loud. I felt hung-over. My feet were heavy, my nose throbbed up and down. I plowed into the bathroom, knocking over lamps and chairs along the way. I looked into the mirror and all I saw was this white hair and 2 big red eyes. I was adorable.
