by C. L. Bevill
“And many heroes go through a phase where they become evil,” David proclaimed. “Just ask Stan Lee or Jack Kirby.”
“But you were just helping me. Just now.” Bubba pointed at the chaise lounge.
“Even super villains have friends.”
“You’re not going to kill anyone as a super villain, are you, David?”
“I’m not that kind of a super villain. I use my brains and my exceptional mechanicalizing skills to craft superior creations of evil personification. For example, I am recently making an automaton mecha-soldier constructed from advanced aether components and a metal smelted from a meteorite. Under my command, the soldier will take over the White House and hold the President for ransom. It cannot fail. It could never fail. But if it does fail, I have a plan to take over the Mississippi River.”
“But nothing at the wedding, David?” Bubba prompted gently.
“I swear. And my name is no longer David. I am the Baron Von Blackcap the Revenger.”
Chapter 1
Bubba and the Bright Beginning
of a Wonderful Day*
*Sarcasm is Strongly Implied
Saturday, April 27th around 6:30 AM
Bubba woke up in his extra-long bed and stared at the ceiling. He wasn’t alone, but he didn’t have the beauteous sheriff’s deputy, Willodean Gray, warming up his side. She had succumbed to the belief that the groom seeing the bride before the wedding would be bad luck. Since they didn’t need any more bad luck, she had absconded from the caretaker’s house of the Snoddy Estate.
Willodean had spent the last three days in Dallas with her parents, and the night before the wedding at the Red Door Inn. (There had been a rumor about a bachelorette party involving nonalcoholic drinks and beerless pong. Possibly it was lemonade pong or punch pong. Willodean was just about two months pregnant, and the smell of alcohol made her want to throw up, but then the smell of a lot of things made her want to throw up.)
He shook his head at the thought of more bad luck coming down on the Snoddy family’s heads. A muffled grunt from beside him revealed how his activity disturbed his bedmate. The lady in the bed with him didn’t care for him moving about.
No more bad luck, Bubba thought ardently. He reached down to the hard wood floor and rapped his knuckles on it. Please God, not today. Amen.
The lady in the bed with Bubba grunted again and raised her head to stare at him. Her brown eyes were large, round, and sad, as if she knew she was soon going to lose him forever to another woman, which wasn’t exactly true. “I’m always goin’ to be yours, baby,” he told her sincerely. She snorted disdainfully and put her head back down, clearly determined to ignore him.
Bubba could hear something going on outside. Vehicles were going and coming. One of his eyes came to rest on the clock on the nightstand, and he saw that the numbers said 6:29. First on the agenda for the day was a wedding breakfast with close friends and family. Then everyone would get ready for the remainder of the day’s activities. Willodean would be getting gussied up by a stylist at the Red Door Inn and then transported in a limo to the wedding.
Conversely, Bubba would dress in the gray suit hanging under plastic on the closet door. He would make sure he was all straight and that he didn’t have any elusive boogers hanging from his nose. He would put a shine on his fancy shoes. (Oxford wingtips that cost more than all of his other shoes and boots combined.) He would put a flower in his lapel. (White carnation.) He would take deep breaths and pray that his knees wouldn’t buckle while standing with the preacher. Finally, he would wait with bated breath as the spectacularly gorgeous Willodean walked down the aisle. The sun would come out from behind a cloud at that moment and cast her in a brilliant beam of light that would reveal her shining black hair (the precise color of the 1977 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am from Smokey and the Bandit) and her glistening red lips (the exact shade of a Swiss Army Victorinox knife, preferably the Handyman version with 24 functions). It would be all good. It would make me happier than a short-legged pony in a tall wheat field!
Self-fulfilling prophecy, Bubba reassured himself. I believe that all will be well. I believe that nothing bad will happen. I believe that there won’t be a dead body appearing at any time today. He took a very deep breath. That’s all there is to it. He thumped himself on the chest like Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle, would have done, just to emphasize the point.
The lady in his bed abruptly nipped his elbow which caused Bubba to jump. Pillows fell to the floor because of the abrupt movement. “Precious!” he protested. She slipped off the bed and padded to the door, pausing to glare over her shoulder at him. Her long brown ears flopped as she jerked her head back around. It hadn’t been a hard bite, but merely a warning nip from the Basset hound. Her collar jingled as she moved down the stairs. She paused to woof softly. He knew what she was thinking. It was something along the lines of “Get up and feed me, subhuman slave being. I demand your compliance.”
Precious probably believed in the self-fulfilling prophecy. She believed her food bowl would be filled, and thusly it would be. It was theoretical socio-psychology hard at work in a canine fashion.
Bubba sat up and looked around warily. He could see through the part of the curtains covering the window that the sun was about to pop up. The array of colors ranged from orange to pink to a splash of purple. The skies appeared clear through the meager two inch range which was allotted to him. He had checked the weather the day before and nary a thunderstorm was to be had. There was a 0% chance of rain. No one had mentioned anything about tornadoes, hurricanes, or earthquakes. It was an auspicious beginning, to be sure.
Five minutes later and Bubba was feeding his dog. He stared down at her brown and white head as she consumed of the doggy kibble goodness in a way that might suggest that she had been starved for several weeks. Self-fulfilling prophecy, see?
He made himself a pot of coffee and sat in a chair to wait for it to percolate. Precious finished her food, checked to see if any had spilled over the side, snorted when it hadn’t, and wandered to the door, looking at him expectantly. Bubba got up and let her out without comment, but he couldn’t let the moment pass. “You’re my favorite dog, little wubsie-bubsie boo-boo.”
I shall nip you again, Precious thought and stared intently at his bare, defenseless leg. Bubba was still dressed in boxer shorts with “Honey Buns” printed over the backside and “Hot Stuff” on the front. (A gift from Willodean or it would have been used as a shop rag on the soonest occasion.) I shall nip you with great glee and then I shall prance down the lane and find another subhuman slave to tend to my canine needs. They will grovel. I am to be worshipped.
Bubba knelt and scratched around her jowls. He reached back and got the spot on her neck that she particularly liked. One of her rear legs began to thump on the floor. I shall drool on your boots. I shall poop in your garden. I will pee on your truck to show my dominance.
“Who’s my baby-wavie-mavie?” Bubba asked, continuing to scratch.
Who’s a what? What am I? Oh, the heck with it! Precious thought and fell to her side so that her subhuman slave could better reach the good spots on her belly. A few minutes she’d had enough and went out to show that she wasn’t his bitch. Also there were wedding supply vendors to chase. One never knew when a cake or some ribs might fall out of a subhuman slave’s hands into her mouth.
Bubba watched Precious spot a squirrel who was clearly trespassing upon her domain. He went back into the kitchen and poured coffee that was only halfway finished. Some clever individual had given him a Mr. Coffee programmable 12-cup machine. It had a “grab-a-cup” feature that allowed him to do just that. Once the pot was replaced the cycle resumed. (He hadn’t figured out how to program the machine, but he knew how to turn it on. The one thing he was certain about was how to make the brew the strongest that it could be so as to be at maximum caffeine strength when he swallowed it down.) (The Mr. Coffee programmable 12-cup machine also had a feature that told him how fresh his coffee was, but that wa
s hardly an issue since it tended to be consumed within a half-hour period.)
Bubba took the mug out to the porch and sat in the solitary Adirondack chair there. It was a small porch and had only room for the one chair, but it was a nice spot to sit and watch the goings on. (He was going to have to figure out how to put two chairs on the porch or possibly make a larger porch.) He watched his dog hunting for the errant squirrel and observed as how half the lights in the Snoddy Mansion were on. Movement of people going and coming to the gazebo were evident. He even hear the wedding planner’s strident voice echoing back to him.
“DID your mother raise you in a barn, Billy? No, don’t answer that!” the wedding planner yelled.
Peyton was the man’s name. He was about five feet ten inches tall, and had about four different shades in his streaked brown hair. He enjoyed wearing manscara and manstick, as well as talking about his buxom girlfriend, Ginger. He was a rather persistent fella, as Bubba saw it, and had helped Bubba and David Beathard a few weeks earlier when there had been a sorry incident of murder-poo at the Dogley Institute of Mental Well-Being. He appeared around the corner, and shouted, “DO NOT drag the linens on the ground, Carson! Do you think grass stains disappear as if by magic?” He paused to glance at Bubba. The tone of his voice went down as he asked, “You’re not wearing those boxers today, are you, my perspicuous redneck associate?”
Bubba hadn’t really given his underwear any due consideration. His suit, which he had thought about quite a bit, was a double breasted tuxedo with matching pants. The material was pure wool, woven in Italy, presumably by Italians. The arm holes were hand sewn for added comfort and movement. (Bubba had had to swat the tailor’s hand on three different occasions because she had gotten fresh with him while hand sewing the arm holes.) The color was heather graying gray or something of that ilk. If he took into account the laws of fashion and high style, then the underwear should match, but he was fairly certain that he didn’t have any grayity grayly grayish boxers, or briefs for that matter. (There was a pair of Buck Naked Performance Boxer Briefs from Duluth Trading Company, but the color was cobalt blue, which might clash with gray or it might not clash with gray. He didn’t know. Possibly he should go commando because he didn’t want underwear lines, but the whole thing was giving him a severe headache, not to mention an inadvertent shudder for having to think about such things.)
Bubba took a drink from the mug, thinking about kittens frolicking with yarn to cleanse his mental palate, and waved at Peyton with his free hand. It was Bubba’s sincerest belief that conversation in the morning, on any morning but especially Saturday mornings, should be limited to “Uh,” “Urg,” and “Meh,” not necessarily in that order
“Meh,” Bubba said.
“Gotcha,” Peyton said. “I’m going now. I’ll be back when you’ve had more coffee and had a chance to put on your real manties.”
“Urg,” Bubba said.
Peyton disappeared.
“Uh,” Bubba said to no one in general.
Precious bayed and chased the squirrel to the nearest tree where the rodent took residence, only to chitter at the canine from a high branch.
The noise began to dwindle away and Bubba sighed. Just for a moment, no one was yelling, arguing, doing anything, except being peaceful. It might very well be his last peaceful moment. The sympathetic pregnancy symptoms had also dwindled away over the last week and Bubba hadn’t barfed except once when Willodean had thrown up a tuna salad sandwich. (That smell and the memory of that smell made Bubba’s stomach twitch ominously, and he had to take a moment to talk his stomach down.) There had been the nice talk with David Beathard who was wrapped up in his latest persona. There had been a bachelor’s party the night before at Grubbo’s bar. (Bubba had been smart enough to limit himself to two beers, but the same couldn’t be said for some of the other attendees. Pegramville’s only taxi had been busy the night before, and Bert Mullahully, Pegramville’s only cabbie, was still probably cleaning out the inside of his vehicle.) (Peyton had also attended, and all of the attendees had been forced to drink his favorite drink, pink pantie droppers, which was made from gin, white tequila, vanilla ice cream, and pink lemonade. Apparently another one of Bubba’s acquaintances, a fella from Dallas by the name of Bam Bam Jones, had introduced it to the group, and therein the stuff of legends had begun.)
Bubba took a deep breath. So far the day was going well. A volcano hadn’t suddenly erupted, nor had mutant radioactive vampires from an alternative universe attacked. The only downside was that his cable had not been working for weeks and he couldn’t get the company to come out to take a look. The night before, he had checked the connections before he’d given up to go to bed after 2 AM. He wanted to see the weather again, but the service was still belly-up. Furthermore, he couldn’t find his cell phone to check the weather on it. He could have sworn it was plugged in at a small charging station in the kitchen, but it was notably absent.
“Did you eat my cellphone, Precious?” Bubba asked his dog.
Precious cast him a dubious look and returned to performing a canine dance beneath the tall oak tree. The dance was akin to a Native American rain dance, except it was to make squirrels fall from the skies instead of liquid.
Bubba eyed his dog. Precious probably wouldn’t have eaten the phone. He certainly didn’t like the idea of visiting the veterinarian for an emergency X-ray and operation on his pet, but she wasn’t acting oddly, and there wasn’t anything wrong with her appetite.
There was an unexpected noise that rippled through the air. Bubba sat straight up in the Adirondack chair because it was such an odd sound. Precious immediately froze and her ears flopped up as much as they could in order to better hear. In fact, everything else seemed to freeze. Birds, insects, and humans all halted in turn, and went silent waiting for it to repeat, which it did after about ten seconds.
The sound was a high pitched cackling laughter that reverberated over the entire area. Bubba would have thought it was a wayward mad scientist or possibly a hyena, if he wasn’t completely positive he was in Pegram County, Texas, where mad scientists were rare, and hyenas were unknown, unless one was prone to count politicians.
“What the heck?” Bubba asked no one at all. He looked around and decided the noise had originated back of the caretaker’s house, probably where the barn was located. He tilted his head as if he should get up and see what the hullabaloo was or finish his coffee and pretend it hadn’t happened. The coffee and pretense won him over and he settled back into the Adirondack chair.
It doesn’t matter what it was, and it’s not a dead body, Bubba told himself firmly. It’s a good day. Bad things WILL NOT happen. Self-fulfilling prophecy.
Precious took her cue from him and resumed the hunt of the elusive tree squirrel. The tree squirrel had taken advantage of Precious’s brief inattention and leapt from the one tree to the next one. Then it had crossed over some other branches into another tree and sat on a tall branch with its tail rapidly whipping back and forth in silent admonishment of the dog’s pursuit.
Precious looked up, failed to find her prey, and whined unhappily.
Bubba settled himself in the chair more comfortably. He thought about putting some clothing on before someone looked out one of the mansion’s windows and saw him half-naked. However, the coffee was calling his name. “Bubba,” it inveigled seductively, “drink me. Clothes later. Who cares what those people think? They know you so this isn’t such a big deal, except for some of them like your soon-to-be in-laws, but they don’t count right now because you…have…me.”
There were a few soon-to-be in-laws in residence like Willodean’s parents, Evan and Celestine Gray. They had come down the night before, and Miz Demetrice had offered them the blue room while Willodean spent the night at the Red Door Inn. Anora Gray, Willodean’s sister, along with her husband were in one of the many other bedrooms while their three children were in another one. (That included Anora’s daughter, the would-be police woman, Janie, who was often
Brownie’s cohort in crime.) The other sister, Hattie, was with Willodean. Those were the ones who didn’t really need to see him in his Honey Buns/Hot Stuff boxers. (Only Willodean. And Peyton, but he didn’t really count because he had a girlfriend named Ginger.)
The remainder of the family didn’t really need to see Bubba that way either. His mother would glower. Miz Adelia Cedarbloom, the housekeeper and long term family friend, would frown. His cousin, Fudge, would laugh. Fudge’s wife, Virtna, would turn pink. Their only son, Brownie, would giggle and reach for his smart phone with which to record the event for posterity. (Record Bubba’s posterior for posterity. There was a joke there that Bubba couldn’t properly appreciate at the moment.)
His aunt Caressa would probably blink at him and then giggle. A few other cousins in residence would laugh hilariously, and Bubba would be the subject of many a ribald joke for the next twenty-three years.
Bubba finished the coffee and went inside to dress. When he came back downstairs, his mother was waiting for him. She had another mug of coffee for herself and had given Precious a Milk-Bone. Precious had a certain ha-ha-I-got-a-Milk-Bone-illicitly expression on her canny canine face.
Miz Demetrice wasn’t a tall woman. She wasn’t more than two inches above five feet, which made her a full fourteen inches shorter than her only child. (Elgin Snoddy had been the tall one and passed those genes onto his son.) Her hair was snowy white and typically kept in a bun at the base of her neck. Her eyes were the same cornflower blue as her child’s. To underestimate her because of her unassuming size and age would be a tremendous mistake. It was sometimes said she was so intimidating that she could stand by the side of the tracks and make a freight train take a dirt road. (Whoever had said it first had rapidly vanished, so it couldn’t be traced back to them, which had probably been a wise decision.)