by Chuck Austen
Of course!
“Morgan!” I yelled just before he entered the store. “This way!”
I turned and ran off in the direction of Nuckeby’s Bar and Grill, the Duesenberg, and, perhaps, salvation.
“What?” Morgan called after me. “Why? Where are you…?”
He turned, saw the restaurant chef along with a couple of naked cops running fast in our direction, yelped like a whipped puppy, and hurried after me.
According to the police report filed later, Mindie had fashioned a bikini of sorts for herself out of leaves, twigs, and mud. She was still covered in boils and splotches, and the sharp sticks and dried foliage were cutting into her harshly, but she still felt somehow better having them there than being fully exposed to the unpopulated world around her.
She was struggling uphill through dense shrubbery, over rocks and dried leaves, and through tiny rivulets of icy water toward what she hoped was a road out of this place. A different road than the one beyond the bridge, which she hadn’t long ago abandoned. Too many nudists had kept coming by asking if she needed help. She did, of course, but certainly not from naked people.
She reached the clearing she had been angling toward, and glorybe-halleluiah, it was a road. A two-lane highway, in fact. Carefully— being sure not to overexpose herself, even though all her most important bits were well enough covered—she cautiously stepped to the edge of the asphalt and looked first one way, then the other.
The paved street curved off into the distance in both directions and disappeared behind thick trees lining either side of the road. No signs were visible anywhere to help guide her back toward clothed civilization, so she pointed alternately each way, silently mouthing ‘eeny, meeny, miny, moe’ until she had at last picked a direction that appealed to her.
Then she changed her mind and went the other way. She’d only gone about a hundred yards or so when she saw a police car parked on the opposite side of the deserted highway facing her. A trooper sat in the front seat, head down and apparently making notations on a clipboard.
“Oh, thank God!” Mindie cried and began jogging quickly toward him, bits of handcrafted bikini being tossed off her body as her pasty flesh bounced and jiggled in all directions. Inside the car, she saw the officer lift his head from his paperwork, and widen his eyes with amazement and surprise. He put down his clipboard and practically leaped from the car, which—of course—stopped Mindie in her tracks.
Because the trooper was nude.
Oh, he wore boots, a hat, a gun, and had a badge hanging around his neck on a lanyard. But the parts that Mindie feared most in the world were swinging loose, wild, and free in the summer breeze, and she screamed at the sight of them. After scrambling randomly in various directions, unsure of where to go (or look), she finally dove back into the bushes on her side of the road and disappeared into the underbrush.
The trooper ran to where she had vanished and stared helplessly as the poor woman—screaming the entire way—tumbled, bumped, and bounced her way down a surprisingly (to Mindie at least) steep hill to land on her back with a splash in a stream far below. The water, and friction from the fall, had dislodged her makeshift cover, and all her blistered skin was again exposed to the elements.
She was, however, mostly unharmed, and scrambled quickly back up onto her feet, turning her monstrous and blazing eyes several hundred feet back up the hill toward the trooper. Once she and the officer’s eyes connected, Mindie snarled like a beast and swatted at him as if his very gaze might be painful to her—like sunshine on a vampire. (Which is an apt metaphor in Mindie’s case.) Then she ran off into the dense foliage toward what only the great god Fockyoo knew for sure.
The trooper stared absently, frozen in stunned amazement, running his hand under his hat, scratching his head, and loosening a quarter pound of dandruff.
“What the hell?” he said.
I reached the end of the courtyard and its shops, emerged from the naked crowd and burst onto the street beyond. Morgan trailed just behind me, the chef and cops were nowhere to be seen. Had we managed to lose them somehow? Fockyoo could not be that kind.
There were no cars to speak of, so it was a clear path down the block to Nuckeby’s, where the Duesenberg was, just at that moment, being towed away at the owner’s expense. The naked gas station attendant was mounting up, and a naked River Nuckeby was waving him off happily.
“Hey!” I shrieked across the intervening distance. “That’s my car!”
“Is it really?” River said, the tone of his voice and the smile on his face telling me he knew damn well to whom the thing belonged. “Then why did you leave it in my parking lot? Go, Barney.”
‘Barney’ closed the door to the tow-truck, ground it into gear and hurried away. I was amazed the back end of the Duesy didn’t come loose in the process.
“Hey!” I repeated. “HEY!”
“Hay is for horses!” River told me.
Great. I was dealing with an overdeveloped three-year-old.
I had no response. I’d been running a good three or four hundred yards by now, and a series of ‘hey’s’ was pretty much all I could manage. Perhaps having a butler since birth wasn’t such a wonderful thing after all. Clearly getting up to make things for myself once in a while would have kept me in marginally better shape.
I hurried as best I could after the Duesenberg and tow-truck, fully intending to say rude things to—and make insulting gestures at— River as I passed. Instead I could only gurgle and flop my arms around like some inebriated squid.
River just laughed, which caused me to gesture more wildly, and in return he laughed even harder. Between us, we had generated a form of perpetual motion.
Morgan, still hot on my heels, called out to Wisper’s brother as he went by and managed a less wheezy insult.
“Ass…” Morgan gasped, taking in a few more deep breaths between syllables, “…hole!”
Which just made River laugh all the more.
There was no chance we were going to overtake the tow-truck, but I kept running nonetheless, all the way uphill to the gas station. Once Barney had pulled to a stop near a cyclone fence, and what I supposed were a host of other impounded cars, I leaped into the cab of the Duesy and began rifling under seats and inside door pockets, trying to remember where I’d stuffed Helena’s envelope.
I found an odd assortment of items: gum, hairpins, an earring, some unused condoms (Eww!), and Bare Britain, a book on nudist vacation spots in England (Ah HA!), but nothing that gave me a clue as to where I might have stuffed that damned envelope.
Finally, I pulled out my keys, opened the glove box, and found it, thick with bills, just as Barney came around the side of the car holding his baseball bat in both hands.
And by ‘baseball bat’, I mean an actual Louisville slugger. Not what you might be thinking after all my ridiculous, double entendres.
I stood up quickly and put my hands out defensively, trying my best to look like a harmless, doughy, clothing executive who was no real threat to anyone, least of all armed gas station attendants. Call it typecasting. As I waved my hands to show I was unarmed, the keys jingled in my fingers.
“Hey!” Morgan said. “You’ve got the keys!”
“What?” I said, mock surprised. “Goodness. Look a that.”
“You had them the whole time, and you didn’t know,” Morgan sniffed, amused. “What a dick!”
“Get out of that car!” Barney snarled, and Morgan snapped his mouth shut so hard sparks shot out from between his teeth.
“This is my car…” I began, then shut up too as Barney cocked the bat.
“This ain’t nobody’s car till they pay the fine!” Barney howled.
“Which I will be glad to do once I open this envelope and…”
“That’s impounded, too!” Barney cut in, and snagged the thing from my nervous fingers. Only a couple of loose bills remained with me. “And we ain’t responsible for any lost nor stolen articles, neither!” Barney glanced around furt
ively for unwelcome eyes, then opened the envelope and thumbed through the cash inside. His eyes widened at the number and quality of illegal tender he found, and a breathless sigh slipped out of him, much the way a satisfied lover slips out of bed, careless and content.
“Whooooa, mama.”
Ah. So Barney made a little on the side in the car-impound business. I wondered if River got a ‘finder’s fee’.
“Well,” I said, slowly and calmly, Mister Rodgers-like, “If you take all my cash, I can’t pay you to get my car back, now can I?”
Barney looked puzzled. But not for the reason I’d hoped.
“So?” he said.
So, indeed. What did it matter to him? He could have the cash, and keep the car here forever. I looked over at some of the other, dirty, dead, and sun-faded vehicles littering his ‘impound lot’, most of which appeared to have been here since the dawn of the automotive age. Clearly, outfoxing even this simpleton would require some brains. Where was Wisper when you needed her?
“Get out of that car,” Barney said again, threatening.
Slowly, I did as I was told, and Morgan, who had stood by watching in awe the entire time, moved closer to me so I could shield him from any potential Barney thrashing.
Cautiously, with Barney making occasional threatening pumps on the bat, each of which caused Morgan and I to flinch as if we’d actually been struck, we backed away, out of the gas station, and into the middle of the street. Barney took one last threatening swing at us, we ducked, and he backed toward the Duesenberg so he could lean his bare ass against it, without even bothering to look around for a towel first. An obvious act of defiance. He continued to stare at us, bat at the ready—both bats, actually—and I turned to Morgan.
“That’s all the money we have here.”
“How are we going to eat?” he asked, again missing a few of the more pressing matters at hand.
“How are we going to do anything?” I asked him. Then I remembered the bills in my hand. Was there enough for…
Before I could even get a good look at them, the chef, and cops ran over to us, calling out angrily for Morgan and I to stay where we were.
“I’m sorry,” I said to them. “I’m really sorry. I left my money in my car, and…“
One of the cops snagged the cash from my hand and turned to the chef from the Headless Horseman.
“You should have stopped,” the cop said, without looking at me and counting through the bills. “We could have sorted this out without all the running. How much does he owe you, Denny?”
“Eleven fifty. Plus a tip for Nikki.”
The cop peeled off a bill and handed it to him. “Keep the change.” Then the officer turned and glared at me. “Call it an exercise fee.”
He handed me my remaining bill, and the three men walked off back toward town.
“Is there enough left to buy some lunch?” Morgan asked pathetically.
“Who cares about lunch,” I said, shoving the crinkly cash into a pocket. “How are we going to get out of here, Morgan, if I can’t pay the impound fee, pay for repairs, pay for anything?”
“Whoa,” Morgan gasped. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“I could tell.”
“We’re stuck here!”
“Yes, we are. And on top of that, we have no place to stay, we’re obvious outsiders, nobody likes us…”
“Nobody?” Morgan whined. “Not even that girl you were going to have sex with?”
“Especially her.”
“Wow.”
He thought about it for a moment. “Not even Sophie?”
“The hotel counter girl?” I asked. “Why would she like us?”
“She seemed pretty nice.”
“She’s paid to be.”
“Really?”
“Really. Hotels give classes on how to be nice to people you hate.”
“Well, when she said she’d go out with me, I thought…”
“She said she’d go out with you?” I asked, floored.
“Yeah. When she came to tell me we were kicked out of the hotel for using someone else’s credit cards. I asked her out.”
“And she said ‘yes’.”
“Uh huh.”
“I’m astonished,” I said, astonished.
“Why?”
“A woman believes you to be a criminal, and then agrees to go out with you on a date, and you ask why?”
“Oh, yeah. I hadn’t thought of it that way.” Something delightful seemed to occur to him. “Hey. Maybe she’d go with us on our crosscountry crime spree.”
“I’m not going on any…there’s not going to be any…where were you going to take her on a date? You have no money either.”
“We were supposed to meet at the auction later. I told her you were going to buy the hot, hostess chick, and she got really excited. Said something about how it was going to piss somebody off, and she wanted a front-row seat.”
“Well, it’s not going to happen, now that—Oh, my God! Ms. Waboombas!”
“What?”
I said nothing. There was no time for a response. I ran off toward the town, and after an instant of confusion, Morgan followed.
“What?” he yelled. “What’s the matter? And why do you always call everyone ‘Ms.’?”
The town square glowed, warmly, in the waning minutes of evening sun and igniting streetlamps. A platform had been set up around Homer, decorated with festive oranges and browns, and lots of happy, flaming pilgrims everywhere. It must have been a joyous death they’d suffered, God’s angry will making them ecstatically happy in their final moments no doubt.
To one side, a giant, cheery, three-dimensional pilgrim had been set atop a pile of sticks, logs, and paper, presumably so he could be merrily ignited somewhere near the end of the festival weekend. A burning man, kind of thing. Or burning Duck, if you’re a Jimmy Neutron fan. And if you’re a kid, or just very much like one, who isn’t a Jimmy Neutron fan?
A crowd had gathered around the stage, and I could see several people getting ready for both buying and selling. Near the front, unaware that I was anywhere even close, stood River, proud, defiant, and hung (okay, I have issues), looking as though he would be one of the first put up for auction.
My original plan had hinged on this, figuring that Wisper, as one of the organizers, and possible emcee, would likely go last, particularly if she were intended to be a main attraction of the show. This would leave River available to be bought up early, and with Ms. Waboombas doing the buying, she could keep him out of my hair while I tried to work my magic on Ms. Nuckeby.
Now, of course, I had to find Ms. Waboombas and stop her before she began spending money I didn’t have. Whatever River might cost—and I presumed that damned penis of his would go for a bundle—I could no longer afford to pay it, and neither could my comrade in arms, Wendy.
She, unfortunately, was nowhere to be seen, and neither—I noted offhandedly— was Ms. Nuckeby.
As I continued to desperately scour the crowd, I eventually came across Reverend Winterly. It was the first time I’d seen him in hours, and I was amazed to note that he looked somehow more—I don’t know—comfortable in his surroundings. Not that he was nude and dancing or anything, but he was also not on the verge of heart failure either, or hiding in his Bible. In fact, he was moving quickly and apparently excitedly my way, and smiling as though I were a longlost friend.
“Hello,” he said, waving.
I tentatively waved back, but something seemed off. Eventually I realized he was looking just to the left of me, where stood a mostly nude, older, blonde woman in ministerial collar and simple black shoes. She scowled at the smiling Winterly and lifted a paper cup to her lips, so she could avoid greeting him.
“The first thing I wanted to say,” Pastor Winterly told her, “is, I’m sorry.”
She stared at him intently, measuring his honesty. Slowly, gradually, the scales tipped his way, the blonde woman softened, she lowered her eyes briefly, and when she broug
ht them up again, they were shining with unexpected brightness.
“It’s all right,” she said, smiling. “I’m a bit sorry myself.”
“I did as you suggested, and I fear I came up short on anything in my Bible,” my erstwhile traveling companion said.
“Of course you did,” she told him.
“I must admit,” Winterly admitted. “I was amazed.”
“I knew you would be.”
“So—you truly think God is a nudist?”
My eyes went wide. Sometime later I was going to have to get the full, unabridged story on this from the pastor. And as you can likely tell from my earlier description of the scene, I did. Isn’t time a wonderfully unique and fluid thing in a novel? Perhaps that’s why it’s called—a ‘novel’. Because it is. Novel. One of the reasons anyway, and...yes, I know. I digress. Yet again.
“I like to think He’s a nudist,” the woman in the collar said. “But—really—honestly—we both know the story of Adam and Eve is simply a parable. A metaphor of sorts.”
“For what?” the pastor asked. The male. The one in clothes. Apparently not ‘knowing’ anything of the kind.
“For teenagers leaving the home,” the pastor without clothes said.
“What?”
“It’s a story to illustrate the inevitability of growing, maturing, and finding your own way. Didn’t you know?”
Of course, he didn’t. Wasn’t that clear by now? It certainly was to me.
“It’s a fable,” the collared woman continued, “constructed to show how, at some point in our lives, we must challenge the wisdom of the all-knowing parent and eventually leave, by choice or by force, the perceived utopia of our home where all our needs are met and all our cares are simple. Girls become fertile women, men become hunter-gatherers, and they must make their way in a harsh, unforgiving, and often seemingly barren world.”
She studied his flabbergasted face and chuckled a bit, surprised. “You really didn’t know that?” she asked again.
“No, but…” He paused, and briefly thought about it. He seemed, for a moment, about to say something else, then instead he said: “What a…useful story.”
