The Chupacabra tct-1

by Stephen Randel

  Kip found himself thinking that she must have aced the swimsuit competition, as the clearly nervous woman fairly butchered the performance, struggling to smile and sing at the same time.

  “Don’t you just love her dress?” said Jolene.

  “The sequins are simply divine,” Little Esther replied as she knitted away at the quickly forming sock in her lap.

  “Looks like a two-dollar whore to me,” Miss Pearl replied with her head propped on her fist and her white orthopedic shoe banging the table leg as she kicked away, impatiently waiting for the song to end. “Can’t we at least get Miss Austin?”

  “Now, you just hush up, Miss Pearl,” Polly said. “That little angel is a pageant winner, and that plumb makes her Texas royalty in my book.”

  “What book is that?” Miss Pearl asked sarcastically. “Streetwalking for Dummies?”

  “Don’t you get me started, Miss Pearl,” said Polly. “She’ll be done in a minute, and then I’ll get to work cleaning your clock at the bingo.”

  “Bring it on,” snapped Miss Pearl.

  After a few minutes, the song mercifully ended, with the still-smiling pageant queen trembling as she clutched the microphone in a death grip. Scattered applause came from pockets of the room as the nervous woman took her place beside the drum-like cage that contained the lettered and numbered ping-pong balls.

  “Encore, encore!” cried Polly as she applauded loudly.

  “I’ll slap the tar out of both of you if she touches that microphone one more damn time,” said Miss Pearl through gritted teeth. Polly turned and stuck her tongue out at her.

  “Thank you, darling,” said Old Man Handlebaum as he spun the cage. “That was delightful.”

  “Delightful?” said Miss Pearl as she stood and placed her hands on the table with one leg extended back in a runner’s stretch. “That old fool couldn’t hear a word she sang.”

  “What’s she doing?” Kip whispered to Polly as he stared at Miss Pearl in curiosity.

  “She likes to get warmed up before we start,” replied Polly. “In case she gets a bingo, she doesn’t want to pull a muscle jumping up to call it out.”

  “Here we go!” announced the caller as the girls leaned over their cards, bingo daubers raised and poised. Intently concentrating, the girls waited for the first number to be called, while Kip looked back at the door and wondered if this might be a good opportunity to make his escape. The pageant queen removed the first ball from the drum and handed it to the caller.

  “G-fifty-four!” the old man announced.

  “Fifty-four. Clean the floor,” said Miss Pearl as the girls furiously scanned their multiple cards and marked away.

  “B-two!”

  “Two. Me and you,” said Jolene as the girls rotated calling down the line.

  “N-thirty-four!”

  “Thirty-four. Ask for more,” said Little Esther as she alternated between marking her cards and knitting the sock resting in her lap.

  “G-fifty!”

  “Fifty. Hawaii Five-O,” said Big Esther as her small head with shortly cropped, slicked back white hair bobbed forward and back on her elongated neck.

  “B-eight!”

  “Eight. One fat lady,” chimed Polly as she looked to make sure Kip was keeping up.

  “I-twenty-seven!”

  “That’s you, Kip,” said Polly.

  “Uh, what’s twenty-seven?”

  “A duck with a crutch,” said Polly as the other girls stared down the table, waiting for him.

  “Twenty-seven. A duck with a crutch,” Kip said meekly.

  “Good job, sugar,” said Polly. “Now, don’t forget to mark your cards. You got one there, and one there.”

  “I-sixteen!”

  “Sixteen. Never been kissed,” said Miss Pearl as the calling rotation began again.

  “O-sixty-nine!”

  “Sixty-nine. Your place or mine?” Jolene said as she stared down the table at Kip and his broad shoulders. She twirled a lock of her bleached-blonde hair with her index finger, wondering what he liked for breakfast.

  “Back off, Jolene,” said Polly. “He’s already got plans this evening.

  “What a shame,” Jolene sighed as she winked at Kip again.

  “B-four!”

  “Bingo!” screamed a woman two rows in front of the girls and Kip, as she leapt into the air, waving her arms in excitement. “Bingo! Bingo! Bingo!”

  “Damnation!” swore Miss Pearl.

  “How’d she get one so fast?” inquired Little Esther.

  “Must be sleeping with the caller,” answered Jolene.

  “Why that’s purely disgusting,” said Big Esther, covering her little ears with her huge hands.

  “Shut up, you old prude,” Miss Pearl replied. “You’d jump Old Man Handlebaum if he gave you half a chance. Might be a good match, too. He couldn’t hear your squawking.”

  • • •

  As he sat down at the front of the hall, the woman’s scream of “bingo” had snapped Ziggy back into focus. The hallucinogenic mushrooms he had taken before he closed up the Curio Shop, although he actually hadn’t remembered to open today, were just starting to go to work.

  Ziggy enjoyed coming to bingo, though he really didn’t play much. He preferred to get highly inebriated and listen to the caller announce the numbers. In his delirious state, he could see the ping-pong balls floating through the air and filling the room like numbered and lettered balloons.

  He also really enjoyed the game room in back, filled with vintage video games. The game room was usually empty as opposed to most of the video arcades in town, which were filled with rowdy teenagers playing modern three-dimensional shooting games or bouncing around on dance contest machines. No, the arcade here was his favorite. All the classics like Galaga and Ms. Pac-Man were there, and it was one quarter, one play. No tokens or game cards like the newer arcades. The name “Ziggy” dominated the high score column on almost all the machines. Plus, Ziggy thought the concession stand in the back of the hall served a pretty mean hot dog.

  Feeling a little queasy from the drugs, Ziggy decided that one of those fine tubular sausages might help. He stumbled down the aisle past the row where the girls and Kip sat, desperately concentrating on not falling down. Weaving his way down the aisle, he finally reached the back of the hall.

  “Like, one foot-long, please,” Ziggy said as he endeavored to pull some money out of the back pocket of his baggy cargo shorts with one hand while holding onto the counter for balance with the other. The attendant produced the long hot dog and took Ziggy’s money.

  “Mustard?” Ziggy inquired.

  “Over there,” the attendant replied. “Same as it always is.”

  Suddenly paranoid, Ziggy snuck over to the condiment bar, attempting to not draw attention. Hunching over to avoid being seen, he pressed down on the lever of the large jar of mustard, sending a long stream of the bright yellow liquid oozing along his snack.

  “Like, far out, man,” Ziggy mumbled as the mustard filled the bun and began to run over the sides. “Like, liquid gold, dude.”

  With mustard dripping from the covered hot dog, Ziggy turned to find his seat. After a few staggering steps, he stopped and returned to the jar.

  “Like, just a little more, man,” he said as he squirted one last stream across the completely submerged and overflowing hot dog.

  Slowly making his way back down the aisle, Ziggy focused intently on his delicious possession, trying desperately not to leave a dribbling trail of mustard in his wake.

  “She’ll go to Baylor over my dead body,” said a large man to his wife, who was sitting directly behind the girls and Kip. “No daughter of mine is going to a school that don’t allow dancing. How’s she going to meet a husband?”

  “Honey,” his wife calmly replied, “they changed that rule years ago.”

  “Still don’t matter,” the large man answered. “She needs to go to A&M. They got lots of boys in the Corps at College Station. Better odds s
he can find a man there. Plus, the Aggies have a better football team.”

  “Darling, she won’t go to A&M. She says maroon makes her look fat.”

  “Well, for Pete’s sake, Gladys, she is fat!”

  “Shut the hell up!” Miss Pearl exploded, as she turned and glared at the couple behind her. “I’ll come back there and brain both you and your fat little hussy if you don’t pipe down so I can hear my numbers!”

  “Who are you calling a fat little hussy, you gnarly old toad?” Gladys stood up, facing Miss Pearl with her hands on her hips. “Nobody talks about my sweet little baby girl like that.”

  “You wanna go?” snarled Miss Pearl, standing up and raising her clenched fists. “You wanna go now?”

  “Ladies, please!” Polly cried as she moved to separate the two women. “Can’t we all just act like mature Christian ladies? There’s no need for violence.”

  At the same moment, Ziggy, fighting to maintain his balance, passed the commotion. Looking up, he saw Polly with her exploding mane of curly red hair between the two ladies. Terror filled Ziggy’s mind as he stumbled with his mustard-soaked hot dog.

  “A flaming Medusa!” Ziggy screamed as the hallucinogen made Polly’s wild hair look like fiery red serpents hissing and weaving in all directions. “I’m done for!” he wailed as he lost control of his hot dog, sending it flying directly at Miss Pearl. The dripping foot-long arced through the air and crashed into Miss Pearl’s baby blue dress with a wet smack, sending a spray of mustard over her and her bingo cards.

  “Oh, no, you didn’t!” Miss Pearl said as she examined her splattered dress. Picking up her huge white purse by the straps, she used both hands to whip the bag around her head and slugged Ziggy right in his face. The heavy bag made a dull thump as it smacked the side of Ziggy’s head, sending him crashing to the floor like a sack full of hammers. Reaching into the purse, Miss Pearl produced a huge chrome-plated .357 Magnum handgun. She clutched the enormous pistol in both hands and stood over Ziggy, pointing the gun at the lizard-like man curled up in a fetal position.

  “Pearl, stop!” cried Polly.

  “Make one move, you freaky little tie-dyed gecko, and I’ll clean your ear with a lead Q-tip!” Miss Pearl commanded. “I mean it. I know how to use this shooting iron!”

  “Jesus, Pearl!” Jolene cried. “Where in God’s name did you get that thing?”

  “What? It’s my hand cannon,” Miss Pearl replied. “I got a concealed-carry permit last month.”

  “Shoot the Medusa!” Ziggy pleaded as he rolled in agony on the floor, peering through the fingers of his hands as they covered his gaze. “Just don’t look her in the eyes!”

  The bingo hall erupted in panic as the other patrons noticed the commotion, particularly the frail, mustard-stained black woman brandishing an enormous chrome pistol nearly half as long as her arm. People scampered for the exits, knocking over chairs and tables in the process. Bingo cards and daubers flew through the air in the chaotic stampede.

  “Miss Pearl!” implored Little Esther. “Please, put the gun down!”

  “Don’t look in her eyes!” Ziggy repeated. “She’ll turn you to stone! Just shoot the Medusa!”

  “Quiet!” demanded Miss Pearl. “Quiet, all of you! You’re making me crazy!”

  “Miss Pearl, please,” pleaded Kip who had slipped down the row toward the enraged little woman. “It’s going to be okay. Let me take that for you.”

  “Boy, don’t you dare touch my hog leg!” Miss Pearl snapped.

  “Noooo!” Big Esther cried as she sobbed into her man-sized hands.

  “Shoot it!” cried Ziggy.

  “Quiet!” Miss Pearl again bellowed in the midst of the screams and shrieks of terror as bingo players climbed over each other, fighting their way to the exit. “I can’t hear myself think!”

  “Just shoot!” Ziggy screamed as he flopped about in his hallucinatory state. “Just shoot!”

  A thunderous roar exploded through the bingo hall, the echo reverberating off the concrete walls. A thin curl of dark blue smoke swirled from the barrel of the gun Miss Pearl held above her head with both hands, pointed at the ceiling. Bits of plaster floated down from the dinner plate–sized hole in the ceiling above her, flecks of plaster and dust sticking to the mustard on her dress.

  Everyone in the hall froze in place. Silence filled the room. No one moved. No one even breathed.

  “B-eleven.” Old Man Handlebaum broke the silence, having failed to notice the commotion.

  “Eleven. Chicken legs,” said Miss Pearl, lowering the massive pistol.

  Half an hour later, a handcuffed Miss Pearl stood in proud, defiant silence as a police officer prepared to take her to the station. Ziggy lay nearby on a gurney, receiving treatment from an EMT for the wound to his head.

  “Kip,” said Aunt Polly. “I’m so sorry, honey; I can’t take you to meet your little friend. I’ve got to go straight to the station and figure out how to bail out Miss Pearl.”

  “Don’t worry,” replied Kip. “I understand. You go and help Miss Pearl. I’m only headed about six blocks from here. I know the way. I don’t mind walking.”

  Kip gave Aunt Polly a hug and said a quick goodbye to the still shaken girls, who stood in a small circle, holding hands.

  “When you get to the holding cell,” Kip said to Miss Pearl as he walked past her heading to the exit. “Find the biggest, meanest-looking woman in the room and punch her in the nose. Then they’ll know you mean business.”

  Miss Pearl nodded in agreement.

  “Not so bad,” Kip said to himself as he walked past the police cruiser and ambulance parked outside the bingo hall and pointed himself toward downtown. “Not nearly as boring as I thought it would be.”

  • • •

  Back in his room, Avery furiously typed away.

  To: President and CEO

  TummyTuck 9000

  Dear Sir,

  I’m writing to express my extreme displeasure with your latest product, the TummyTuck 9000. In a nutshell, your revolutionary, state-of-the-art, laboratory-tested, patent-pending, doctor-approved, celebrity-endorsed, portable, battery-operated, electronic abdominal stimulation exercise device sucks Himalayan yak testes. Although the product is purported to stimulate the muscles of the abdominal region over nine thousand times in a ten-minute period, after two weeks of using said torture device, I’ve seen no noticeable improvement in my physique. In particular, the conditioning and definition of my upper and lower abdominals, oblique muscles, and intercostals is significantly worse than when I began your training regimen of lies. Instead of sporting a “Sexy, Athletic Six Pack of Firm, Toned Muscle” as promised, I find myself afflicted with debilitating back spasms, excruciating abdominal swelling, and pain when I urinate. According to my team of personal physicians at the famed Mayo Clinic, emergency abdominoplasty may be required to surgically repair the damage your insidious equipment has caused me before it becomes permanently irreversible. I am currently awaiting the results of a second opinion from my team of specialists at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Additionally, according to your felonious half-hour TV commercial, once beginning your daily program, I would immediately appear more attractive, virulent, confident, secure, and energetic. None of this has materialized. Bevies of beautiful, voluptuous, tan, bikini-clad women wearing high heels do not approach me unannounced on the street and beg to caress my midriff as your miserable advertisement so clearly illustrates they would. I’m assuming this is why you only broadcast your pathetic infomercial of deceit in the early morning hours. I demand immediate quittance of the first of my “Three Easy Payments of Only $19.99.” Please be completely aware that if you fail to immediately reverse payment on my Diners Club card, or have the audacity to charge me for the two remaining payments, I will unleash my unholy legion of permanently retained attorneys to destroy you! By Zeus I swear.

  Sincerely,

  Avery Bartholomew Pendleton

  • • •

  As Avery crafted his
correspondence, Maximilian jangled his way down the main staircase, stopping at the bottom to rest on his haunches and scratch one of his overly large ears with his hind leg. After some sniffing around to make sure that everything was safe and secure in the main house, he trotted into the kitchen for a quick bit of refreshment from his water dish.

  Max slaked his thirst in the same manner that he approached everything in his life, with gusto. His broad, flapping tongue slapped noisily at the water, lapping more out of his bowl than into his mouth. The spilt water on the floor formed a small, growing pool. Continuing to slurp, Max circled his bowl away from the offending puddle in order to avoid stepping in it. When he had drained the bowl, he stood with rivulets of water dripping from his jowls. Max aggressively shook his head to shed the excess water. Like all of Max’s shakes, they started with his head, but ended up running all the way down his sturdy little body in a wave of jiggles, culminating with a twitch of his rump and a quiver of his tail.

  Satisfied with his appearance and with his thirst abated, Max proceeded to sniff around the kitchen floor, hoping that one of the human inhabitants had mistakenly dropped something tasty for him to eat. Master was fairly tidy with his food, but the stinky one was careless, regularly leaving pieces of sugar-coated cereal or potato chips on the floor for Max to graciously vacuum away. The new guy in the house, the one that vaguely reminded Max of Master, well, the book was still out on him. Max wasn’t sure if he left snacks or not.

  After determining there would be no in-between-meal nibbles today, Max plopped down under the kitchen table and nestled his stout head between his outstretched front paws. Max let out a long, despairing sigh. He was bored, and bored Frenchies are trouble waiting to happen.