Ridicula Page 14

  As expected, the dogged dog gave chase after MOOC embarrassed the others. He scrambled away, thinking of the best way to get the dog trapped in the tree again. That would be hilarious! And the Rottweiler deserved it, too, for the dog never gave up. Somewhat admirable, MOOC admitted. But he needed to be given a lesson.

  That Freckles character would never catch Rascally Rascal. That was obvious, probably even to that dimwitted loco cat, but the dog bashed his way through branches and bushes, on and on after Nocturnal Nuisance anyway. Eventually, when he tired the dog out sufficiently, the marten would loop back to the Douglas-fir and let the entanglement happen. MOOC wondered just how long it would take him to escape this time. He chuckled outwardly, making sure that the dog noticed.

  It was time. That dog looked exhausted. The marten ran to the tree, darting under it like he had done before. The dog would scramble after him and get himself trapped; if not right away, the marten would duck and dance enough so that the dog would become entangled. After all, MOOC knew the insides and outs of this tree. It was one of his favorite eating spots, after all.

  Then he saw the cat who, for some reason, still danced crazily around the tree. Perhaps Rascally Rascal could trap the dumb cat, too. He changed his direction ever so slightly to go after the cat. As he did so, the hummingbirds emerged out of nowhere. How could he have not sensed them? He must have been so focused on the chase that he had ignored his surroundings. He felt ashamed. Rookie mistake!

  The tiny hummingbirds, which MOOC counted at seven, swooped to him, humming like honeybees as they approached. Before he could react, they were upon him, confounding and misdirecting. And the cat was no help, still leaping around like a clawed lunatic frog, barely seeing possible prey in the hummingbirds. The kitty just added to MOOC’s bewilderment.

  With all this hubbub, the marten scrambled underneath the tree, and before he could orient himself, one of his claws struck a twig which seemed out of place, for he knew every nook and cranny of the Grand Fetcher. A part of him realized what that meant. MOOC had pulled a trick like this in a different part of the woods many times. But these three couldn’t be clever enough to achieve this feat. He slowed anyway.

  Too late. The box dropped, covering him entirely. Rascally Rascal had been trapped by one of his own ruses.

  Chapter 19

  The Rich and the Obsessed

  Hippie breathed heavily, trying to take it all in. For such a confined space, there was an awful lot to see.

  At the forefront of the quaint establishment lay a table that must have been constructed when the Amish way of life was the norm. It was finely crafted, almost like the wood had been stitched with the use of a sewing machine. Every roundlet detail was carved and woven like a spiraling staircase leading to the mahogany balcony, which exhibited artwork that the likes of Cézanne and Van Gogh would have difficulty replicating. The surface, exquisite in texture and style, depicted flowery and fruity imagery that looked like still-life wood sculpture. The chairs masterfully accompanied the table. Although unlikely to be part of the same set, the chairs had the same type of craftsmanship, interwoven in detail and unmatched by the machines which made today’s furniture. Hippie dared not sit on one of the chairs, not to chance breaking it, for they looked sturdy enough, but for fear of ruining its disposition ever so slightly.

  Nothing stood on the table save a single emerald. Surely this was one of the peyote emeralds in which Maude was so enamored. Now he knew why. This one’s green effervescence sparkled like nothing he had ever seen, emitting a smoky light that could break down the fog on a gloomy day or the smog in LA. Other emeralds of the same nature radiated off the walls with such splendor that even the greatest of fireworks displays could not render such magnificence. Each of the emeralds seemed to be linked in perfect synchronicity with their leader, the table’s lone object.

  While the sculpted table, chairs, and emeralds showcased the place, there was so much more the clubhouse had to offer. Every nook and cranny held artwork: paintings, watercolors, posters, and wrappers, or natural beauty, such as petrified leaves, prism-like crystals, naturally sculpted bark, and cherry blossoms. And the walls depicted more drawings, texts in many different languages, and ancient scrolls whose parchment was barely strung together. Christmas clothes similar to those of which he had seen earlier in the week littered much of the floor space. Hippie realized that it could take days or weeks to explore every detail of the interior of this eight square-foot wooden marvel.

  Hippie looked around some more—this time taking in the clubhouse architecture. It seemed like nothing special, but there was something about the craftmanship that intrigued him. After another second, he realized what it was. “This place is made of the nearby petrified wood forest, correct? “

  “You got it, bro,” replied Maude and then addressed the boy, “Now get to work, Ranger! I’ve got some money to make.”

  The ranger boy got busy collecting emeralds for Maude, carefully picking through them as if it made a difference which order he took them. “Is there really peyote in those emeralds?” Hippie inquired.

  “You see the smoke, right? You smell it, don’t you,” Maude answered as she sniffed the smoke.

  “My nose is pretty stuffed, so I don’t smell it, but yeah, I see the smoke, although it seems cleaner than normal smoke. Where is it lit?”

  “The smoke is a fragrance. It don’t need to be lit.” She took in another whiff.

  Hippie sniffed, too, but not with much gusto. He was uncertain what the peyote would do to him, especially if it counteracted the niacin oddly. Was peyote bad for your health or could it be medicinal? Did it enlighten your mind or kill brain cells? Did it have a lingering effect? He honestly didn’t know any of those answers.

  Oh, what the hell! he thought and took a stronger whiff to take in its odor. Except it had none. He would have been able to smell it by now. He gave Maude an inquisitive stare.

  “Oh, yes, that’s right. Peyote has no tangible smell. It’s the smoke we’re smellin’,” she said, kind of admitting that her previous statement had been wrong. “That’s what makes the peyote so good,” she added offhand. “But even better is the cash I make from these emeralds.” Maude snapped her fingers to let the ranger kid know that she wanted to hold one piece of her precious cargo.

  The boy obliged by handing her the one he happened to have in his hand before going back to work. “Oh, what a beauty!” Now Maude seemed to be sniffing money instead of the odorless peyote.

  “Will the peyote affect us since we are enclosed in such a small place without any windows?” Hippie asked, although he guessed at the answer by the way he was starting to feel.

  “You bet!” Maude confirmed. “Just wait till the mescaline takes effect. Sometimes, I really do see money emitting from those emeralds.”

  “I’ll soon be traveling back to the sixties or when the Native Americans ruled this land. A New-Age Hippie going back in time!”

  “Peyote might induce hallucinations and has medicinal value, too. Stand away, weed!” Hippie wasn’t sure if Maude was truly seeing the marijuana plants in a hallucination rather than the emerald, but she certainly had a glazed look in her eyes.

  He felt a little something but was not yet seeing anything out of the ordinary. Perhaps the niacin was fighting the effects of the peyote.

  Ranger boy had just about completed his work of gathering and bagging the peyote emeralds. He reached for the one on the table. “No—leave that one!” Maude screamed, turning toward him like a cheetah first spotting a gazelle. “That one’s sacred.”

  Hippie observed the emerald on the table. At first, he had thought that all the emeralds were emanating a similar light, but now that this one stood alone, he could tell that it was the most powerful, for its light still bounced off the walls even without the others being there, and green smoke leapt off it like frogs jumping in ponds. The frogs were energized, too. They jumped and bounced and skipped all over the cabin, which expanded into beautiful green ponds
with green waterlilies, avocado rocks, and olive dragonflies buzzing amongst the frogs. He thought he saw the dragonflies spread their winged dollar bill, flapping and whisking away the money.

  Hippie glazed at the bag that Maude held. On the front of the sack was a green dollar sign, like you’d see in a bad cop and robber’s vaudeville show—Maude was getting away with the loot!

  The boy ranger, meanwhile, was gathering more loot from the treasure chest clubhouse. These were not peyote emeralds but other types of smaller rocks and wood and jewelry, which fit nicely in another green dollar signed sack. Maude grabbed this sack and then said to the ranger, “Great, and as agreed upon, you retain all rights to everything in the clubhouse, besides the remaining peyote emerald and anything made from petrified wood, on the condition they stay safe, of course. Happy spending!” With these words, they all departed the clubhouse of riches, and the albino lad padlocked the doors.

  “I guess he’s not staying at the clubhouse tonight,” Maude said to Hippie. “He must be sleeping at the hammock house in the petrified woods.”

  Hippie was intrigued. He loved hammocks about as much as he loved niacin gardens. He had slept on quite a few hammocks in his time but never a whole hammock house. “What’s that place like?” he had to ask.

  But before she answered, Hippie heard a crunch of a branch, which alarmed Maude. “It’s them!” she exclaimed.

  “Who?”

  “Them!” and she pointed to the brush. Carolyn and Bearman came out of their hiding place before Maude could catch them and beat them to a pulp. They were busted, and running from Maude could only lead to blood and mayhem. Bearman had seen it firsthand when his friends became human pretzels.

  But it seemed that Jim had another reason not to run, “Jesus, please forgive our eavesdropping.”

  “Haven’t we been over this?” Hippie replied, amused rather than annoyed.

  “I am a reporter,” Carolyn declared, convincing nobody. “What you have in there, Maude, must have been obtained illegally. That makes quite a story.”

  Maude laughed bitterly. “Nope to both your assessments. What I have was not stolen, and nope, you aren’t no damned journo.”

  At that moment, Hippie did something he hadn’t done in a very long time: he supported Maude by confronting someone who had not challenged him first. “Carolyn, you’ve never shown any evidence of being a reporter. Do you have any identification supporting your claim?” he asked, weakly challenging her.

  “I am a reporter. Better than any journo you ever met, Maude,” Carolyn said with a bravado that Hippie did not find convincing, especially since she still had not provided something like an AP press pass to help make her case.

  “I’m not familiar with reporting jargon, but I believe that you first learned the word ‘journo’ when Maude said it.” Hippie didn’t much care about reporting lingo, but he suspected that Carolyn didn’t either. “And you still haven’t given us any proof of your profession. Who are you, really?” he asked, now giving her the puppy dog furrow of his eyebrows. Few women could resist telling him the truth when he did that. He didn’t do it often, though, because he rarely cared whether the truth was being spoken or not. What difference did it make to him? He would live his life carefree no matter what lies might be told. He suspected, however, that he had mostly been told the truth throughout his life for precisely that reason. People tended to open-up to him because he had a friendly face, and he always listened. The Jesus appearance helped, too.

  “And who are you, really?” he repeated.

  “Carolyn,” Carolyn said, because it was her real name after all, although that was not precisely what Hippie had been asking her.

  “Jim.” Bearman stated a second after Carolyn.

  “Yes, go on,” Hippie said, sympathetically.

  “Jim,” Bearman repeated. Then added, “You are my savior, Jesus.” He looked as if he were about to bow to him again, but Hippie stayed his hand, telling him to stop his reverence.

  Well, at least Jim had not been pretending.

  Meanwhile, Carolyn softened as Hippie gave her that look that said, “Please tell the truth.”

  “I’m no reporter,” Carolyn admitted, finally unable to carry forth the lie any longer while also acquiescing to Hippie’s charming expression. “I’m an out-of-work actress and hairdresser.” Hippie could see the relief in her face as the truth came out at last.

  “But would you rather hear that I need blood to quench my thirst?” Was she joking, or was this some insane ploy to detract from her lie?

  “Why are you here, Carolyn?” Hippie asked, ignoring her last question, because it was just an insane attempt to change the subject, and he instinctively knew that the truth would come out now.

  And Carolyn burst out yelling, “I love George Cramwell!”

  Chapter 20

  Bloodshedder’s Soulmate

  George Cramwell heard Jade holler his name, but he could not respond, not right now. He had some thinking to do and was still recovering from the hot air balloon ride from Hell. Not that the balloon journey had been the worst thing to make him ill recently. The breakup with Jade had been no picnic; the main reason for the separation made his stomach hurl.

  He hadn’t done anything wrong. Really, it was true. He hadn’t cheated. That woman was just plain nuts, totally bonkers, out of her mind. He had barely known her. Maybe he had seen her once or twice, that was all, although she may have been stalking him. She sure had spoken crap to Jade, too. He had only brushed up against that woman once, in passing, hardly seeing her. There had been no other contact whatsoever, let alone sex.

  I was faithful. I still would be faithful. I’m a good man. At least George told himself that.

  However ridiculous this whole adventure had been thus far, at least it had gotten George far away from Carolyn. Jade said that the woman had moved to California. But how did she really know? From what a crazy person said. And even if Carolyn had moved, Wyoming certainly wasn’t California. Perhaps he’d just move here. Alone. Get away from everything else. Perhaps it was his destiny to live in Wyoming. That’s why he had somewhat willingly ventured on this journey, an unconscious path to his fate.

  The balloon ride had played a part of his journey and he could have been fine with that, but after rising a hundred feet in the air, he had realized that he was deathly afraid of heights. He had never been in a plane or even atop a roof of a building, so he had not known, although his subconscious had never allowed him to face his fear. Hence, the fear took over so that he could barely move during the entire terrorizing trip, nearly frozen like a human icicle.

  This whole trip, especially the voyage on the hot air balloon, was “Ridicula”. To George Cramwell, the invented word meant: extremely ridiculous but somehow plausible. For instance, most balloons traveled around thirty-five kilometers, such as the distance from New York City to New Rochelle. His trip had lasted more than double that, but that distance was certainly not out of the realm of possibility, especially with the involvement of inclement weather. He had experienced it, so he knew. And he had been through a lot since New York, and it had been largely ridicula.

  But now he was down in Wyoming. He had seen the park map; he sort of knew his whereabouts.

  In any case, he was away from that woman, for sure. Carolyn could not possibly trace him here.

  Why Jade was convinced that this woman had been his mistress was still a bit of mystery to him, for their final conversation as a couple had not enlightened him much. It had gone something like this:

  “How dare you cheat on me?” Jade had come roaring into his workplace like a train into a tunnel. Everyone in the little office stared, but she didn’t care. Having a few hairs out of place on her head was embarrassing, but this was only his pathetic marketing job, so it meant nothing to her.

  “Huh?”

  “You’re such an ass. You and that bitchy hairdresser being all lovey-dovey,” Jade said. “And that Caroline, or whatever her name is, does not hold a c
andle to me.”

  “Huh?” he repeated. “What hairdresser?”

  “I know you’re good at it, but stop acting dumb and just accept that we’re over.” She stomped down her heel and then slapped him like lightning on the face.

  He smarted but managed to say, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  But the brief discussion about his supposed misconduct was over. She stormed out like booming thunder.

  He had been too stunned to go after her. All he heard was the knucklehead salesman in the next cubicle say, “Dude, that was your girlfriend? Wow! And you had another hottie on the side? Righteous!”

  Only later would he find out who the woman was that Jade had been convinced he had been cheating with. But the why was still hazy. He and Carolyn had only met a few times since that first time in passing. And still, he had never had any romantic inclinations toward her. He did not have interest in Carolyn, mainly because she was nuts. Bat-crazy!

  He had tried to find out more about the situation by going to Carolyn’s workplace. And yes, he had been stupid enough to let her cut his hair. Before she attempted the haircut, she began talking about vampires and sucking his blood. After she pricked him with the scissors on the neck, presumably to taste his blood, he had run from the salon like a bat out of hell, his protective hair gown still on, drips of blood oozing from neck to gown.

  Bloodshedder! That’s who she was, and that had become his nickname for Carolyn.

  In the following few weeks, he had had no more encounters with Carolyn, thankfully. As for Jade, they rarely saw each other and never talked after their breakup. He couldn’t find any words that would set things right because she would not believe him anyway. He was not even sure he had wanted reconciliation, for their relationship had not been going well. She was too materialistic, and he had no money to spend on her. She had her trust issues while he was carefree. He liked the simple things while she was more intellectual. For instance, she liked foreign, not action movies. Enough said!