Lick Your Neighbor (27 page)

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.”

“Men like me?”

“There are dewberries, there are arseholes, and then there’s you and your friends. A bunch of fobbing arseberries.”

“That’s it,” John said. “Step aside, naked Dale. I’m going to do what I should have done three-hundred and eighty-five years ago and kill this dirty witch!”

As John took aim, the Cadillac came roaring over the hill. One of the beakmen stood on the roof of the car, as if surfing, his sword drawn and ready to strike.

John eyed the Caddy and lowered the rifle. “A bullet really is too good for you, Eberly. It’s too quick and painless. I think I’d much rather see you die impaled on a sword.”

“Maybe now would be a good time to call that flying goat you mentioned,” Dale whispered.

Eberly shook his head. “Too late. We’ll have to fight them off ourselves.”

“With what?”

“Our fists! I thrashed them earlier today, and I can do it again.”

“But that was when you could fly around like a cannonball.”

“This is true.”

“We’re going to die horrible deaths, aren’t we?”

“Probably.”

* * *

Out from the woods surrounding Wild Willie’s Farm slowly crept an old wood and iron catapult. Randy and Uncle Pookie were behind it, pushing with all the strength they could muster. The wheels dug deeper and deeper into the mud.

Randy grunted. “Are you mustering all your strength?”

“I’m at full muster,” Pookie replied.

“Well it feels like I’m doing all the mustering.”

“Well you can go to hell because I’m mustering my ass off over here.”

“Well I’m busting my plums over here.”

“Your what?” Pookie asked.

“My stones. My nuggets. My…Cracker Jacks.”

“What in God’s name are you—”

“My balls! I’m busting my balls, Pook!”

“Well so am I!”

“Ha!”

“Don’t ‘ha’ at me! You ingrate, you worm, you, you…”

Randy held up a hand. “Wait, wait.”

“You poopytits.”

“Hush!”

“Why?”

“We’re here.”

The catapult had cleared the tree line and was now out in the open, with the barn in the near distance.

Randy looked through his Happy Meal binoculars. “There they are. I told you his life was in danger.”

Randy handed the binoculars over to Pookie. The clown looked through them and saw two men standing next to a tree, and a third sitting on a tree branch, holding a rifle. They were too far away to make out the men’s faces.

Pookie squinted. “Which one is your brother-in-law?”

“The one standing next to tree with clothes on. The naked guy next to him is some kind of witch.”

“I thought witches were women and warlocks were men.”

“What’s the difference?”

“One has a penis and the other a vagina.”

“I know the difference between men and women, you twit. And for your information, the creature down there has neither a penis nor a vagina. So we can call him whatever we want.”

“Good,” Pookie said, “then I shall call him Bonky Wonky Wiggles, or Bonk Wonk for short.”

“He’s a witch, Pook. Not a damn clown.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather think of him as a clown. Makes me want to shit my pants less.”

“Ah.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“Simple.” Randy rubbed his hands together. “We load this baby up with a rock, I pull this lever, and its bombs away. We’ll pick off those bastards one by one.”

“Isn’t that illegal?

“They have guns! We’re preventing a murder.”

Pookie squinted into the distance. “Are you sure you can hit them at this distance? What if you hit your brother?”

“My dear friend, I could hit a target the size of your nostril from this distance. I’m a crackshot. Now, while I position the catapult, I need you to look around for a rock. Something about the size of a bowling ball will do.”

* * *

The Caddie skidded to a stop in front of the tree on the hill. The ninja on the roof did a back flip and landed with his sword at Eberly’s throat.

From the passenger side window, the ninja with the small knives jumped out and landed expertly, one knife aimed at Dale’s heart, and the other held just under his chin.

The bo ninja rolled out from the driver’s seat and popped up a few feet in front of Eberly, his bo ready to take off the witch’s head with a single stroke.

Out from the Caddie’s backseats came the nunchuck ninjas, along with Miles Standish, William Bradford, and Reverend Brewster.

“Jasper Eberly! You fiend!” Bradford shouted. “Why have you returned? Why aren’t you a turkey anymore? Why do you have a naked man with you? I demand answers!”

“Just wanted to stop by to see how you chaps were getting along.”

“More lies from the witch,” Standish said.

Farmer Brewster shook with fear. “He’s here to turn us all into various beastly creatures. Eagles, wolves, whales. As if he hasn’t given us enough burden already, now the fiend wants to saddle us with the burden of being an animal! Isn’t that so, devil?”

“That couldn’t be less so.”

“I say we burn him,” Bradford said, “like we should have done in the first place.”

Standish held up a hand. “First we need some answers. Why are we still cursed? We’ve killed more turkeys than there are stars in the sky.”

Eberly looked up at John. “Are you going to tell them, or shall I?”

John shook his head.

“Tell us what?”

“You didn’t have to kill any turkeys,” Eberly said.

Bradford’s eyes flittered. “Pardon?”

“It was all nonsense,” Eberly explained. “Do you really think that Satan, or any god, cares about a few men do or don’t do?”

“You mean to tell me that we’ve been obsessively killing turkeys for the past three-hundred years for nothing!” Bradford shrieked.

“That’s right,” Eberly replied, “you’ve been wasting the gift that I gave you. Back then I thought it was a curse, but really I gave you a gift. The gift of time. Time to change your ways, forget the past, and become a part this land, instead of trying to be its master. But instead you’ve wasted it. You’d think that after three-hundred years you would stop for a moment, look around, and see all the beauty around you, just begging you to get lost in it. But no, all you see are things to conquer. Well not me. Since John let me go I’ve spent every day giving thanks to whoever or whatever created what’s left of this beautiful, wild world.”

Bradford peered at John. “You let this devil go?”

“Promise you won’t get mad,” Alden said.

“Promise.”

“I did.”

“And did you know all along that we didn’t have to kill the turkeys?” Bradford asked.

“Maybe.”

“And instead of telling us, you decided to let us go on with all of this elaborate turkey killing and Thanksgiving promotion for hundreds upon hundreds of years?”