by Chris Genoa
“That tuft of hair on the bird’s head,” I said, “was it always there?”
“No,” said Standish. He too aim at the bird. “It was not. That hair was on Eberly’s head.”
Standish squatted down next to the turkey. The two of them locked eyes for a long moment. Finally Standish spoke. “I believe this turkey is Jasper Eberly. He’s transformed himself again. Tie him up, Alden.”
“I’m not touching him. Look at his eyes. That bird is judging me.”
“Just tie up the gleeking bird and let’s get some rest! We’ll need our strength for the morning.”
Thankfully, the Eberly turkey was rather docile, and I was easily able to tie him a tree. Standish fell asleep quickly, but I am still awake, scribbling in this journal and unable to sleep with such a foul day ahead of me.
If we fail tomorrow, and I perish, let it be known to whomever finds this account that we made this unholy pact with the Devil so that the glorious dream that is Plymouth may live. And if you believe that, then you are a bigger dewberry than I.
—John Alden
13
Send in the Clown
Even though by most standards it was a small catapult, Randy was having one hell of time getting it out of the Oldsmobile.
He was inside the wagon, with his back against the catapult. Heaving and ho’ing with all his might, but the thing wouldn’t budge from the mound of trash it was encased in.
“This thing is more reluctant to leave the womb than I was,” Randy muttered.
Just as Randy was about to give it one more push, a black Cadillac came skidding to a halt in front of the gate to Wild Willie’s Farm.
Randy ducked down and peeked out the window. He saw one of the beakmen jump out of the Caddie and fumble with a huge set of keys. He frantically tried to unlock the gate, but couldn’t seem to find the right key. As he continued to fumble, the driver grew impatient and honked the horn.
The sound caused something to stir on the roof of the car. There was something alive up there. Randy looked up and saw a woman in a green dress, wearing a police motorcycle helmet. The woman moved very gingerly as she sat up and slid the helmet off her head.
Randy rubbed his eyes. “Judy?”
Judy saw the man with the beak standing at the gate in front of her. She opened her mouth to scream but wisely slapped her hand over her mouth to stop herself. Looking around wildly for help, Judy saw Randy eyes peeking at her through the Oldsmobile’s side window. Randy lifted his head and gave Judy the shush sign.
Judy’s eyes filled with tears and her lips quivered. Her hands lifted, reaching in Randy’s direction. She was going to yell something along the lines of “Hey you! Over there hiding in the Oldsmobile! Help me!” and Randy knew it.
Randy did his best to mime to Judy the message that if she knew what was good for her, she would keep her mouth shut, or else they would both have their heads chopped off by the mutants. Unfortunately, the only thing Judy picked up from all of Randy’s gesturing was that she was in grave danger.
Just as Judy’s lips parted to scream, the Cadillac’s engine roared and the car shot forward, sending her flying off the roof. She hit her head on the trunk of the car and then again on the ground as she landed on her back. For the final time that day, Judy was knocked unconscious.
Randy waited until the Caddie disappeared into the farm before he scrambled out of the wagon. He kneeled down over Judy, straddling her, and tried to bring her back through the time-tested, medically sound method universally known as Shout and Slap the Holy Crap out of Her.
“Judy! Judy, wake up! Juuuuudy!”
Judy’s eyes blinked open to see Randy’s chubby cheeks and stubbly chin hovering over her.
“Dear God, woman, that was one hell of a fall? Are you alright?”
“That depends,” Judy replied. “Are you friend or foe?”
Randy had to think about that one for a second.
“Friend.”
“Oh good,” Judy said. “Then I guess I’m okay.”
Judy smiled, but it didn’t last long. Her face went white when she saw, slowly creeping up over Randy’s shoulder, the enraged and bloody face of a clown. With his mouth foaming he looking positively rabid.
“Judy, what’s wrong?” Randy asked. “Are you having a seizure? It looks like your head is about to explode.”
“Cuh…cuh,” stammered a breathless Judy.
“Cuh? What’s a cuh?”
“No. Cuh-lau. Claaaaaau.”
“Clau? Are you trying to say Claus? Look, Judy, we all love Santa Claus. He’s Grandpa Jesus. But at least wait until after Thanksgiving to start pining for the guy.”
“Not Claus,” Judy said. “Clown.”
Randy sat up straight. “Clown? Clown. Clown!”
Randy spun around just in time to get socked square in the nose by Uncle Pookie. The blow sent Randy to the ground. Judy sprang up and dove into the Oldsmobile for cover.
With his nose now equally as bloody as Pookie’s, Randy got to his knees and screamed. “That was a sucker punch, you coward! You broke my nose!”
Pookie, still only wearing boxers, was back in The Queensbury Rules boxing position, shuffling his feet with his fists raised high.
“That’s not all I’m going to break,” Pookie said. “Put up your dukes, so I may thrash you fair and square.”
“Listen, listen to me, goddammit!” Randy staggered as he got to his feet, almost falling over multiple times as his knees came close to giving out. “There’s no time for this. We must put our personal differences aside so that a life may be saved.”
“That’s right. Your life. Because you’re about to die, Tinker. Die by my fists of fury.”
To showcase this fury, Pookie cut the air with a swift round of jabs, hooks, and uppercuts.
“This isn’t about me,” Randy said. “It’s my brother-in-law Dale. He’s in that barn over there with a half-man, half-bird creature. His life is in danger.”
“Ha! A lie! Nice try, Tinker.”
“I swear by the perfect spleen of Saint Quadragesimus that it’s true.”
Pookie dropped his fists. “Did you say Saint Quadragesimus?”
“Yes. Yes I did.”
“So you are serious.”
“Indeed,” Randy said. “It may not mean anything to you, but my sister loves Dale. Not in a rip your clothes off and pound you like a jackhammer while a sea of candles burn around us and salsa music blasts in the background kind of way. She loves him in a Hey you don’t make me want to shove a fork in my eye every morning at breakfast like everyone else does, so let’s get hitched, kind of way. And I’ll be damned if I going to let him die just so you and I can engage in a jaunty round of fisticuffs.”
Pookie looked up at the barn on the hill. The clouds above it were blacker than the rest of the sky. And, the rain, which was only misting down where they were, seemed to be pouring on the barn.
“What do you say, Pook? Will you help me save a good, decent man’s life?”
“I will. But on one condition. Tomorrow morning, at sunrise, you will meet me in the ring of battle to settle this thing once and for all. Queensbury Rules, with a referee, and absolutely no cheating.”
“Agreed.”
“If you win, you have eternal first rights to every woman who enters the Thirsty Pilgrim. And that is regardless of race, age, religious persuasion, or the presence of nylon stockings. If I win, those same rights are eternally mine.”
“Agreed,” Randy said. “And after the fight, no matter the outcome, we shall sup together for a lavish Thanksgiving feast, like true gentlemen.”
“Agreed.”
“Also, to sweeten the pot, the loser shall wait on the winner hand and foot with five-star table service during the feast.”
“Agreed,” Pookie said. “And to sweeten the pot even further, the loser must shave the winner’s back every morning during beach season. And that includes the shoulders and that unkempt region just above the ass crack which I li
ke to refer to as The Forbidden Forest.”
“Okay you’ve gone too far.”
“Agreed.”
“Good.” Randy shook Pookie’s hand. “By the perfect spleen of Saint Quadragesimus, you have my word. Now that that’s settled…help me get this catapult out of the car.
14
Unleash the Dragon
Even though he was no longer playing it, Dale still had the crumhorn pressed firmly to his lips. Over the instrument Dale watched as Jasper Eberly, the former manbird, stretched out his now human legs.
Eberly did a calf stretch, followed by a hamstring stretch, and finally a groin stretch. Due to the lack of a flap-dragon, the latter was the most disturbing to Dale.
After a few quick wind sprints, Eberly looked at Dale and said, “There, that’s much better. Oh, you can put down the crumhorn now. Well done though. As you can see, your playing was quite adequate.”
Dale let the crumhorn slip through his hands and fall to the barn floor. “Who are you?”
“I am Jasper Eberly,” he said. “Who are you?”
“Dale Alden.”
“Alden? Are you related to John Alden?”
“Yes. He’s my ancestor.”
“Really? Well isn’t that something. Did you say hello to him?”
“To who?”
“To John.”
“He’s dead.”
“No he’s outside,” Eberly said. “Looks a bit different without the beard, but it’s him all right. He’s right out there with Standish, Brewster, and Bradford. All three of them waiting to kill me. All because of something so silly.”
“John Alden? Captain Miles Standish? Reverend Brewster? And Governor William Bradford? That’s who those farmers are?”
“That’s right.”
Dale sat down on a bale of hay. “The Historical Preservation Society will never believe this.”
“Yes well if we don’t get out of here soon your society friends will never know about any of it. Because you and I will both be quite dead.”
“Why do they want to kill you? Did you write an article in a local paper about John’s diary too?”
“No,” Eberly said, “they want to kill me because they’re miserable and they think it’s my fault.”
Eberly walked away from Dale and toward the barn door. The turkeys parted like the Red Sea for him to pass.
Dale trotted after. “Why are they miserable?”
Eberly sighed. “People always want to know why, why, why. There are only two reasons why a miserable man is always so damned miserable. It’s either because he is a dewberry and is making himself miserable through his own dewberriness, or it’s because he’s a good, decent man and some fobbing arsehole is making life miserable for him. It’s either one or the other, or sometimes a combination of the two. For example, in the case of those four fools out there, it’s a little of both.”
Dale stepped back and squinted his eyes. “So who’s the fobbing arsehole making life miserable for those dewberries?”
Eberly smiled. “I’m the fobbing arsehole.”
“Ah.”
“But that was years ago. Since then I’ve gotten so much better. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still an arsehole. People can only change so much, you know? I’m just not a fobbing arsehole anymore. Being a turkey will do that to you.”
Eberly cracked open the barn door and looked around. “The coast is clear. Now, Mr. Dale Alden, I must ask that you remove your attire.”
“My clothes?”
“Yes. All of them, including undergarments. And quickly please. I must make my escape before those foot-lickers return with their sons.”
“But then I’ll be, you know, nude.”
Eberly regarded him indulgently. “I’m going to make this simple for you. If you don’t remove your clothing, I’m going to snap my fingers, like this, and your flap-dragon is going to disappear forever.”
“What’s a flap-dragon?”
“Here’s a hint. I don’t have one.”
My clothing flew off
Unleashing my flap-dragon
Behold its sad roar
15
Incoming!
A fully clothed Jasper Eberly cautiously exited the barn. He looked in every direction, including up and down, before darting up the hill to the tree. Pressed flat against the trunk, he whistled like a bird.
Dale poked his head out of the barn and looked around. Eberly gestured to him, and a naked Dale, covering his crotch with a handful of hay, scurried over.
“Now then,” Eberly whispered, “we must get to your automobile as quickly as possible and without being seen. We have two options. Option one. We crawl on our bellies like snakes over to the tree line over there and then, once we’re under cover of the trees, we pop up and gallop away like monkeys.”
“Monkeys don’t gallop.”
“Option two. I ask Satan to appear before us in the shape of a winged porcupine, on the back of which we shall fly to the car. Afterwards we’d most likely have to allow the porcupine to bugger us. Or we’d have to bugger the porcupine. It depends on how much mead Satan has drank today. Anyhoo, which option do you prefer?”
“Option one.”
“Are you sure?”
“Quite.”
“Very well. Let’s crawl.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” The voice came from up in the tree. Eberly and Dale looked up and saw John Alden sitting on one of the limbs, pointing a rifle down at them.
“John Alden!” Eberly exclaimed. “My dear old friend! Why, it looks like you haven’t aged a day since I saw you last. What’s your secret?”
“Being cursed. By you.”
“You’re not still hung up on that old nonsense, are you?”
“You know damn well I am.” John pointed the gun at Dale. “And you? What are you doing running around naked with this monster? You’re not going to start dancing cheek to cheek in the moonlight with him, are you? And I’m not talking about your face cheeks.”
“I wasn’t planning on it.”
“Good man.”
Eberly leaned casually against the tree. “So, John. How’s life been treating you? What have you been up to all these years? Anything fun?”
“You know damn well I haven’t been having fun. Well, I take that back. I did get to tie a kite with a key around Benjamin Franklin’s balls and then fly it in a thunderstorm. The old fool was trying to make the turkey our national symbol. What a nightmare that would have been. Listening to him yelp like a turkey when that bolt hit the key was a bit fun I guess.”
Dale snapped his fingers. “So that’s why Franklin changed his mind about turkeys.”
“He was a stubborn old fool,” John said. “Only a lightening bolt to the nuts and berries could change his mind.”
Eberly shook his head. “So I see you and the others are still at it. Incredible. Over three-hundred years and you still haven’t learned a thing.”
“You try learning anything when you’re busy building a Poultry company, convincing millions of people to eat a dry, tasteless bird. Not to mention all those years I had to pretend to be a woman. I was far too busy shopping for bonnets to learn anything of value.”
“Well I bet you at least made a handsome lady, John.”
“No I was quite ugly as Sarah Josepha Hale. Of course that didn’t stop Abraham Lincoln from coming on to me. You have no idea what it’s like to be dry humped in the Oval Office by that man. It was like being groped by a chimp in a suit.”
“Sounds delightful.”
“It wasn’t. None of it was. See these bags under my eyes? I haven’t been getting a wink of sleep lately because we have some old kook tied up in the attic. Right above my bedroom. Try sleeping with an old man bound and gagged above your bed some time. And he’s costing us a fortune in Werther’s Original candies. He eats a bag or two a day. We’re thinking of killing him just to cut costs.”
“Silas,” Dale said to himself.
“What about you,
Eberly? Where have you been all these years?”
“Me? Oh you know, I’ve been flying around the country, taking each day as it comes.”
“Really now? And how did you get by? How did you make a living?”
Eberly smirked. “Make a living? I was a bird, John, I lived off the land. I tell you a meal is so much more delicious when you have to hunt it down and pluck in from the earth yourself. And of course I had all of my forest critter pals to help me along the way. Chipmunks, rabbits, owls. I reckon we drank acorn wine, danced, and told stories almost every night.”
John scratched his chin with the end of his rifle. “So let me get this straight. While I’ve been living in hell on earth, you’re telling me that you’ve spent the past three-hundred years soaring through the air, roaming through the country and dancing the night away with a bunch of small animals? Nothing bad happened? Nothing at all?”
“Well there were always small battles to be fought over food, territory, and women. And I didn’t win all of those fights. But isn’t that what life’s all about, eh? Fighting the good fight for love and survival. I tell you, you haven’t lived until you’ve beaten the stuffing out of a turkey bigger than you for the right to bed down with a sexy young gobbler.”
“If your life was so grand, Eberly, then why did you come back to this place?”
“Well I was eating some bugs near a road outside town early this morning, when a Duxbury Times truck sped by and one of the papers flew out and smacked me right in the face. It was my first contact with human society in hundreds of years. So I read the paper to find out what was going on in the Not so Wild World of Man, and what did I see but an article about you and your diary. It peaked my interest, so I headed downtown and broke into the Duxbury Library before it opened. There I did some quick research, and learned all about Ferdue and the horrible things that you and the others have been up too. It made my stomach turn and I threw up! Threw up my delicious bug breakfast. So I came back for the Auwaog, John. I always thought they would be safe as turkeys, for who would want to eat such a majestic and yet bland tasting bird? But not with the likes of you around. It’s both impressive and disgusting what men like you can accomplish.”