Randal Telk and the 396 Steps to Sexual Bliss

by Walter Knight

  “No!” shouted Telk, pulling the pin on the grenade and tossing it at the Grim Reaper. Thanatos disappeared in the dust of the explosion.

  * * * * *

  The explosion woke the camp, bringing legionnaires. Sergeant Williams found Telk lying in the dirt, bleeding. Dead fish floated in the canal. Williams detailed privates Krueger and Knight to get the fish.

  “You can’t even fish right,” complained Sergeant Williams, checking the blood on Telk’s shirt. “What happened? You forgot to take cover?”

  “I was attacked by a ghost skeleton!” answered Telk. “It wore a black hood and cut me with a razor.”

  “Bullshit!” shouted Sergeant Williams, shaking Telk by the collar. “You’re a screw up. I thought you had some potential, but you’re just a screw up. You finally flipped out, boy!”

  “That’s enough!” ordered Master Sergeant Green, listening in on the conversation. “Patch Telk up, and put him in my armored car. We’re going to keep a close eye on him. Death will be back!”

  Chapter 12

  Corporal Ceausescu sat in the dark, tied to a rickety wooden chair, bound at the hands and ankles. She was blindfolded, not fed or given water, and left to soil herself. When Invisible-Claw and his henchmen entered, Ceausescu was almost glad to see them. “I need a drink,” she demanded. “I’m dying of thirst!”

  Invisible-Claw ignored Ceausescu as he set up a video camera and lights. The others strung power cables.

  “Do you hear me?” asked Ceausescu. “I need water!”

  Invisible-Claw viciously backhanded Ceausescu across the face, breaking her nose and knocking the chair over. Blood flowed freely as she lay sideways on the floor.

  “You’re tough when someone is tied up and defenseless!” shouted Ceausescu, spitting out a front tooth. “Asshole!”

  Invisible-Claw cut Ceausescu’s restraints, daring her to make a move, playing for the cameras. “This is a game to you?” he asked. “You still think the Legion is going to rescue you?”

  “I don’t know,” replied Ceausescu, quietly, looking down. “Probably not.”

  “We offered to return you to the Legion in exchange for political prisoners held in your South Pole gulags, but Colonel Czerinski kept to his rhetoric about not negotiating with terrorists. Then I find out you are already a movie star!”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “Oh, come now, you are way too modest,” taunted Invisible-Claw, holding his communication pad up for all to see. “Research of database archives shows you participated in the torture and firing-squad execution of one of our comrades. After the first volley deliberately failed to kill my cousin, you shot him with your pistol as he pleaded for his life. You are a war criminal.”

  “I was following orders. I am a medic. I save lives, mostly.”

  “Smile for the camera,” ordered Invisible-Claw. “It will be your last chance to say goodbye to loved ones.”

  Ceausescu smiled a missing-tooth smile, giving the camera the one-fingered salute. Invisible-Claw viciously sliced off her extended finger with Ceausescu’s own captured combat knife. Ceausescu fell back in pain, clutching her hand.

  “I told you earlier this is not a game. I will mail you in pieces to the Legion if our comrades are not released. Next time wave with all four human pestilence digits.”

  “Fuck you, bug!”

  * * * * *

  I let Private Telk watch Elena’s painful scream on the database news. She was so brave, not once crying. Telk wondered aloud how he would hold up to torture. Probably not well. I switched off the screen, leading Private Telk to the side of my armored car. A handcuffed spider stood next to Major Lopez, off in the field.

  “Do you know who this spider is?” I asked, giving the spider a shove.

  “No, sir.”

  “This is River Rat Claw, leader of the River Rat Gang. He just shuttled up from the South Pole. The terrorists want to exchange your wife for him.”

  “Elena is going to be exchanged?” asked Telk, brightening. “Now?”

  “Not yet.” answered Major Lopez, handing Telk a sawed off shotgun. “Blow his legs off first.”

  “What?” asked Telk, horrified. “No! They’ll kill Elena for sure!”

  “It’s okay,” I assured Telk. “Spiders grow back most lost appendages. He’ll be fine once the pain stops.”

  “I don’t understand,” argued Telk. “I won’t do it!”

  “They cut off Corporal Ceausescu’s finger on galactic TV,” I explained. “That’s a bad precedent that needs to be set right before negotiations can resume. Shoot his legs off. That’s an order!”

  Trembling, Private Telk approached River Rat Claw, aiming the shotgun. He fumbled with the safety.

  “I am being executed?” asked River Rat Claw. “First you freeze my ass in your gulag, then you shoot my ass for no good reason? What about my Constitutional rights?”

  “Sorry, nothing personal.”

  “Nothing personal, my ass,” complained River Rat Claw. “The Butcher of New Colorado is behind this atrocity. Don’t get drawn into his murderous web. Someday there will be an accounting!”

  Private Telk fired one blast at the spider’s feet, missing. River Rat Claw danced high into the air. Telk steadied himself, firing again at River Rat Claw’s legs, this time hitting him dead center in the chest.

  “Damn it, you weren’t supposed to kill him!” I shouted, grabbing a roll of duct tape for first aid. Not good. River Rat Claw was very dead. I could see air through the hole. Shit!

  “What now?” asked Major Lopez. “I knew this was not a good idea. I told you so!”

  “Shut up! Get another member of the River Rat Gang. We can still trade for Ceausescu.”

  The entire incident was broadcast across the galaxy on the database from our helmet cameras. Ratings hit an all-time high.

  * * * * *

  “What a putz!” sighed Corporal Ceausescu, viewing the execution. “My hero strikes again.”

  “Maybe the Legion does not want you back,” suggested Invisible-Claw.

  “Your death won’t be so merciful,” threatened Ceausescu.

  “Do you and Colonel Czerinski have a history?” asked Invisible-Claw. “That would explain a lot. I do not detect any sense of urgency on the part of your Legion commander.”

  “Czerinski is an asshole, just like you.”

  “Just saying. Negotiations are not going well. Maybe your loving husband does not want you back either. Community property issues?”

  “You know nothing!” cried Ceausescu. “Sometimes I can be a bit difficult. I freely admit that. But Randal loves me, and the Legion is my family.”

  “You will be executed soon.”

  “It is you who thinks war is a game. Harm me again, and you will die slow and painful. It’s a Legion tradition.”

  Chapter 13

  Private Telk was the runt of his family. No matter, lots of great people in history were short. Napoleon, for one, and ... Napoleon, the second time he tried to conquer the world. What an asshole. Maybe that’s why Telk liked Private Krueger. Krueger was even shorter than Telk, and he didn’t take shit off anyone. The man always carried a grenade in his pants, and was not afraid to use it.

  Thinking back to his childhood was not pleasant for Telk. He had to walk ten miles to school, in the snow, uphill both ways, through the ghetto. He always got robbed of his lunch money and Nike shoes. Telk went barefoot until he graduated. Yeah, barefoot in the snow. Others had it worse, he supposed. Some got killed, dying of frostbite. Actually, Telk’s memory was a bit fuzzy since his last concussion. But he knew it was probably bad growing up on the wrong side of the tracks, barefoot, stepping on devil’s club thorns the whole way to school, on the mean streets of Tukwila, Washington.

  Turning to crime to escape poverty and sore feet, Telk became known as the Barefoot Bandit. A judge gave Telk a choice, ten years in prison, or join America’s Galactic Foreign Legion. It was easy to choose boots over prison.
Some had it worse. Private Telk immediately started imagining a childhood worse than his own for one of his many fantasy alter-egos...

  * * * * *

  Born the second son to dirt-poor devout Southern Baptist gypsies living on the Louisiana bayou, Randal Moses Telk was named after a man of the cloth. Being undersized and the second-born son, Randal was cursed to be a failure. In keeping with gypsy tradition, infant Randal was set on the tide, afloat in a reed basket.

  Swamp turtles snapped and pulled at the basket, keeping it from sinking. Pa Telk, a mean and spiteful poor excuse for human debris, threw rocks at the basket, attempting to sink the abandoned baby. Hurricane Katrina forced Pa Telk inside and beached the basket. Sensing an easy meal, a large alligator followed, looming over the helpless baby. Randal pulled a large safety pin from his diaper, skewering the gator under its soft chin, tearing out its throat.

  “Who’s top dog now, bitch?” exclaimed Randal, uttering his first words. “Who’s your daddy?”

  Baby Randal crawled to the family shack and kicked in the bolted door. He climbed up into his crib and kicked his toddler first-born brother out. Randal lit a cigarette, breathing out through his nose, just kickin’ back, trying to relax from a first day of kicking ass. Soon he was snoring. Pa Telk grudgingly decided Randal might be a keeper after all.

  Randal grew up fast, hard, and mean. Randal lost his virginity at age four to cousin Yolanda, teaching her the three-hundred-ninety-six steps to sexual bliss before he even knew how to count. At age six, Randal was already being used for gator bait. Pa Telk dragged the boy on a line behind their flat swamp motor boat. Big for his age, at ten Randal could pull the biggest meanest alligator from the water with just one hand. That’s all Randal had because an alligator bit off the other hand. At age twelve Randal, kicked his old man’s ass and threw the bastard to the gators.

  The sheriff investigated, going into the swamp to find Randal, but disappeared himself. Everyone wondered where the sheriff got off to, knowing you can sure get lost in the Louisiana bayou.

  Randal’s childhood was mostly normal, other than a few more scrapes with the law and losing his pa to gators. Randal boated to school forty-five miles each way north to Tippitoe, Louisiana, where he excelled in sports, bringing home a state championship in luge racing. His teachers described Randal as a polite, quiet, mostly normal boy, popular with the girls. Other than his fascination with winter sports, Randal was like any other boy at Tippitoe High School, mean as a snake and could eat his weight in groceries. Tippitoe High School was a rough place, and kids had to be tough to survive. Randal always put on his game face before going to school, wearing a cap backwards that was so old it didn’t have a logo. Randal was famous for his mad-dog stare. Make eye contact with Randal for more than a second, and the fight was on. His family was so poor, Randal often had to wear his father’s old clothes, starting a hip-hop droopy drawers craze that is still going on at Tippitoe to this day.

  As an adult, Randal maintained the family business traditions of self-employed gator poacher and welfare food stamp fraud. Randal excelled at poaching, using super human reflexes to make a good living at such a dangerous occupation. Welfare fraud investigators lurked behind every tavern and massage parlor. Just last week Randal kicked ass on an investigator disguised as a tourist taking videos of the French Quarter. Randal pawned the revenuer’s video camera for some nice coin. He had to be careful out in the swamp, too. Fish cops lurked everywhere, fascist bastards.

  Business was good out in the swamp. A water moccasin dropped from a tree onto Randal’s red neck. Randal snagged the snake with his one hand and beat it to death with his callused black stump. He gutted the snake with his fighting thumb nail. The skin would make a fine hat band, and the meat good gumbo for Yolanda’s pot.

  Randal married his childhood sweetheart. Yolanda was his little Queen of the South. They were two of a kind. She was his lady luck, and he was her wild card man. Randal worshiped and needed that little woman like a crop needed rain. They shacked up in a castle double-wide floating mobile home barge so Randal could be closer to his work and avoid arrest warrants.

  Unlike Randal’s no-account parents, Randal and Yolanda took an active roll in parenting, home-schooling all ten of their children in reading and cyphering. The oldest boy aspired to higher education at Oxford, forty miles upriver, home to a junior high school and ox crossing. No child of Randal’s would ever be used for gator bait. Randal ended that family tradition once and for all.

  * * * * *

  Private Telk was conflicted about whether he would reenlist. Telk signed up for fun, travel, and adventure, and the Legion delivered. But was the Legion the place for a family man with responsibilities? Would Telk raise his kids to be little legionnaires, never to see Old Earth? Maybe. Old Earth was overrated.

  Aliens were fully integrated into America’s Galactic Foreign Legion. Private Telk wondered if that was a good idea. Didn’t Rome fall because they let Germans and French in the Roman legions?

  Telk watched Corporal John Iwo Jima Wayne from afar. Corporal Wayne was a true alien bad-ass. There was no doubt the spiders could fight. Wayne had already saved Telk’s life once, pulling him to cover off the turret from sniper fire, so Telk supposed that Wayne was a ‘good’ spider. But what about the rest? Were they good spiders and scorpions? There was no way to tell. No human could read their stoic faces. Hard exoskeletons masked their every thought. Was Wayne loyal to the Legion? Were any of the spider and scorpion legionnaires loyal? What if the aliens turn on us?

  Raised in New York City, Private Telk as a school kid memorized the message of the Goddess of the Harbor: ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.’ That was what America was about, being free. But how did letting spiders and scorpions into the Legion make America any more free? It doesn’t, concluded Telk. This story won’t end well. The government should have put a stop to aliens a long time ago.

  Telk closed his eyes for a second. The fantasies were coming more frequently, and he was powerless to resist...

  * * * * *

  United States Air Force Major Randal John Wayne Telk was appointed in charge of Project Bluish-Green Book, a top-secret mission to coverup UFO sightings and contacts. Most people already did not believe in aliens. It was Major Telk’s job to keep it that way.

  Personally, Major Telk knew the existence of aliens to be a fact. As a child growing up in the corn fields of Nebraska, young Telk had been abducted by aliens and probed. Major Telk only thought of that mostly repressed memory when drunk on weekends, and on Mondays when drunk watching Monday Night Football, and sometimes during the week when drunk at social occasions, or when drunk trying to pick up women at bars, or at work, or at AA meetings when he usually wasn’t drunk yet.

  Major Telk was determined to get payback and readily volunteered for Operation Bluish-Green Book. The governments of the world agreed that something had to be done about the increase in UFO sightings. This is our planet, they decided, and we were here first. The United Nations unanimously passed a no-immigration-from-space resolution, which America agreed to enforce and fund. Those alien bastards could go back to Uranus, by force if necessary.

  Major Telk was dispatched to investigate a report of UFOs landing on a strip mine in Dupont, Pennsylvania. Telk took his skeptical assistant, Airman Bruce Bongwater, who briefed Telk on the short drive from DC.

  “I’ve been to DuPont,” advised Bongwater. “It’s a shit hole. The initial report is that thirty townsfolk witnessed an oblong glowing cigar-shaped craft land at the strip mine outside of town. Then the phones went dead.”

  “Sounds like it could be a credible report,” replied Major Telk thoughtfully. “Thirty witnesses?”

  “Not likely,” scoffed Bongwater. “It was Saturday night. That means the whole town was in its usual weekend state of alcohol-induced assholism. You should fit right in.”

  “What did you say, airman?”

  “I meant the locals will talk to y
ou. You know, when you’re in disguise, pretending to be drunk all the time. Stupid drunks, right?”

  “You don’t believe in extraterrestrials, do you, Bongwater?”

  “I have an open mind on the subject,” answered Bongwater defensively. “If there really are space dudes out there, we need to kick their ass. I can see letting their women in, if they’re really hot. But if they’re green and fat, no way.”

  “That’s very astute and insightful. Did you come up with that all by yourself, or from talk radio?”

  “The part about the fat green alien babes came from the first chapter of the Bluish-Green Book.”

  “Yes, quite right. No fat alien babes allowed. The United Nations was very clear about that, especially if the heifers nag as much as Earth women. The Air Force will pimp-slap any fat green alien bitches that nag.”

  At Dupont, Major Telk and Bongwater immediately went to the only bar open in the morning to interview witnesses. The bartender was very informative.

  “I think it was an alien that came down the ramp to talk to me,” advised the bartender. “It’s all kind of hazy to me, now that I’ve almost sobered up.”

  “An alien, not of this Earth?” pressed Major Telk. “Was it green with big black eyes and no lips?”

  “It definitely had no lips,” slurred the bartender, wanting to be helpful. “Or it could have been a groundhog, you know, like Punxsutawny Phil. Did you know that if Phil baby sees his shadow, we are going to freeze our asses off for six more weeks? So much for global warming.”

  “Are you willing to put that in a written statement?” asked Major Telk, sliding the statement form across the bar.

  “Absolutely!” answered the bartender, already writing. “Global warming is bullshit. It could even be seven weeks, with snow too!”

  A nice looking woman sat next to Major Telk, her short skirt sliding up past her bubble butt. Major Telk tried to stay professional. Temptation of the flesh often interfered with investigations.