[mvisconte]

So there we were... cast back decades into what I am guessing is the late-mid-thirties of never-when, stuck tail-first in a field outside of Baumfauk, Virginia.

Set upon by animalistic natives (or at least one mutant native).

The rosettes in the Flabbercasters had gone out, and we'd lost most of our bouyant atmosphere (ha! got out of writing "lost our gases"!) We had no current means of creating additional luminiferous aether without some high-purity cohols.

To top all, the mutant was a big baby who was afraid of women.

Let's listen in!


------


"... Clovis."


"Wait. You're named CLOVIS? Did your parents hate you?"

(Clovis) "Naw! My daddy loved me and mammy too! It's a fam'ly name. Clovis. Ain't you never heared of Clovis?"

"Ok, first, 'ain't' and 'never' is a double negative. So apparently, I HAVE heared - er, heard - of Clovis, but for the life of me, I can't imagine what one is. Does it have anything to do with Trifolium? Or, maybe... are your feet split hooves?"

(Clovis) "You shur talk funy. Of course *I* heared of Clovis! I AM Clovis. You mean trefoil? We sow that for the cows 'n' deers. An' it's HOOFS. I walk this way 'cuz ma shoes too small. You'd walk like thet too."

"Boss, can I shoot him?"

"GEOFF!" (KK)

(Geoff) "Just kidding! Can I shoot the barn?"

(KK) "Hey! I want to shoot the barn!"

"Kids! Hush! Let the grown-ups ta- oh, never mind. I'm talking to a mutant while trying to talk the crew out of blasting everything in sight. Who am I kidding. Did anyone look at the script?"

(DS Vick) "Um... was it important? I used it to paper the cyborg chicken coop."

"What? What coop?"

(DS Vick) "Well, actually, I just spread it around outside the dirigible. There was a lot of it. I think the chickens are re-forming."

"... Well... I. What? Hm.. well, at least we'll have reformed chickens. No more trying to eat the crew."

(DS Vick) "Assimilate. And that's not what I meant. I meant, they're forming back into the larger chicken again. But! It's ok. It's quite...tame. I think. Anyway, it'll be a while 'til they all get back together... right now, we've got about 20 big chickens."

"How big?"

(DS Vick) "Large enough to carry off lambs. I didn't know chickens ate lamb."

"Mutant! Do you have lambs?"

(Clovis) "Jes' a couple. an' goats. Fer ma mom."

(DSV) sotto voce "well, maybe not. The goats went first. Do we tell him?"

(Clovis) "I'm stan'in' right here, you know."

"I guess we don't bother. He seems to know. Um. We can buy you some more goats. And a lamb or two."

(Clovis) "Oh, don' bother. I never did like them goats. Ornery critters. Always attackin' things. I only kept 'em for mom, and she bin gone for years now."

"Always attacking things... I wonder where they learned that. I'll be you were a good role model. Anyway, we need an implausible solution to our fantastical dilemma. What do you have up your sleeve."

(Clovis) "Damn, you city folks don't know how to tell a story, do you? Why, we simple, placid country folk'd take a week or two to draw out the situation, and flesh out the characters."

"Clovis, we'd like to, but we don't have time. What time is it, anyway?"

(Clovis) "'bout 1932, if'n I reclect co-rectly."

"I didn't understand that at all."

(DS) "He said it's 1932, if he remembers with any accuracy."

"Is that was you said?"

(Clovis) "Mostly. I unnerstan' you need some shine."

"How do you figure?"

(Clovis) "Ah bin readin' the intro, while you're jabberin' yer jaws. You need some high qual-i-ty moonshine to flabber yer casters, whatever that is. Ah can fix you up, man! That's what I do. You think FARMIN' pays fer anythin out here? It's just after the great de-pression. The one the gubmint caused."

Man, I'm glad I recapped. That saved a lot of finagling.

"OK, yes, we need about one hundred and sixty gallons. How long will that take you to make?"

(Clovis) "Shucks, I thot you needed a LOT! Hell man, we make more then that Sunday nights! After meetin'. The Parson helps. You lookin' pretty dumfounded right now. Let me spell it out. WE. Make. LESS. On. Sundays. On. Account. Of. It's. Meetin'. Night. At. Church. Damn... is he always like this?"

(Deb) "You should see him when I'm wearing heels."

(Clovis) "..."

"Clovis? Clovis. Are you alright? CLOVIS! I think we lost him. Deb, did you have to mention that? He's already hard to talk to."

(Deb) "Well, you know you do. You get all... stupid. Like you're hypnotized."

"I do not. I just... Crap. CLOVIS! ARE YOU IN THERE!!

... And for the record, the heels are---"

(Deb) "Well, there he goes again. You know, I didn't think this would be such a cherry job. I haven't had to beat up hardly anybody, and he spends most of this time with that silly smile when I walk by. ... Still, I'd like to be beating up bad guys."

"I'm sorry... was I out long?"

(Clovis) "I can get you yer 160 gallons, but you gotta help me."

(Ps) "A 160 isn't enough... we really should restock the bar. I've been through most of the good booze already."

(Am) "I'll say. How much of it did you serve?"

(Ps) "You should talk... you were guarding the whiskey. And chocolate."

(Am) "Well, it worked didn't it? Nobody got any!"

(KK to Deb) "Nobody ELSE"

(G) "Can't I shoot something?"

(Unison) "NO!"

(WD(E)) "Who's Unison, and when'd HE some in?"

(DS Vick) "Why do you have so many parens in your name?"

(W(D)(E)) "Don't make me lick your face again. We're out of bacon-flavored vodka. If I do it again, you're getting nothing but dog!"

"Hey! EVERYBODY QUIET! Sheesh. You guys are all getting cabin fever! We need a good side-adventure. We're going to HAVE to find something to shoot or blow up. "

(Everybody IN unison) "YEAY!"

(Clovis) "I bin to Unison! that's in Tennessee!"

"No, that's Unicoi... Hey, when'd you ever get to Tennessee?"

(Clovis) "I drove there with ma daddy! He'uz makin' a delivery."

(KK) "Is your dad a doctor?"

"Not that kind of delivery, I don't think..."

(G) "Did you get to shoot anything?"

(DS Vick) "Never mind that. Did you get to blow anything up?"

"Guys, we're gittin' off script again."

(Clovis) "Naw, I'm th' one'at talks like thet. You don' do it right."

"Ok. So, what do we need to do. To help you. The help that you alluded to... about twenty lines ago. To get the booz-, er, high-purity cohols."

Clovis paused for a second, and looked off into the distance. This was hard to do, because we were all still inside the lounge. After a few seconds (much of it spent bickering by WD(E) and DS Vick), a tear came to his eye and he looked back at us. Teary-eyed.

(Clovis) "Ah need you to he'p me bust ma baby brother outta jail."

"Oh. Is that all. No problem. Can we get the shine first?"

(Clovis) "No dice, you city slicker. You carpet-baggin', women-stealing, silver-tongued, agents of evil! You'd take my shine an' be outta here faster'n a... ...well, fast!"

"He's evidently seen me operate before. Ok, Clovis, I give you my word. And as all new questionable-characters-turned-friendly-allies know, once I give my word, I have to do what I say. It's the code of the... uh... code of the... Wait a minute, I know this... (sotto voce) Code of the. Code of the. Damn. I know this."

(Clovis) "Code of the kind-hearted-trickster-and-lovable-con-man-with-a-heart-of-gold?"

"I wonder why I can never remember that. Anyway, YES. And I give you my word."

(Ps) "And it's worth everything it's printed on. And may I remind you, this is in E-format... we don't PRINT e-format."

(Clovis) "Waal, if'n you say so, it's good enough for me. Now, let me fill you in on some back-story while you cogitate on what to do next... Ma little brother, 'Tiny", has-"

(DS Vick) (sotto voce) "Ha. Let me guess... his little brother "Tiny" is actually taller than he is!"

(WD(E)) "Woof"

(Clovis) "Do you mind? Yer makin' me fergit my carefully memorized lines. Now where was I? "Tiny" has a bit of a temper when he's bin drinkin'. We'uz ta watchin' the still, whilst Uncle Lester's indisposed. He's gonna come outta hidin' as soon as the heat's off, but fer now, I'm suppose ta say that he's down with the rhumatiz. He's actually holed up, tho'.

Now, "Tiny" -- his given name's Timorous, 'cuz mammy had an uncle named-a Tim -- mammy use-ta call him Tiny Tim 'n' it just stuck... "Tiny" kin' git a bit feisty if he gits a snoot-full. 'n' Tiny done like him some 'shine. We'uz watchin' it, an' Tiny started ta sample it... Quality con-trol is very important when yer doin' hi-qual-i-ty shine. Ya gots ta sample it lots 'tween batches -- you know, ta monitor the pro-cess-sees.

Anyway, Tiny's a samplin', and philosophizin' on Free Will 'n' th' Nature of Man... Tiny's a good philosophizer onc't he bin drinkin'... Tiny's holdin' forth on the Good versus Evil, 'n' Moral Relativism, ag'in the Nature of Free Will, ya know, 'n' he be liken'in thet you have ta have Moral Absolutes or Chaos will be the Ultimate State befalling Man.

Tiny likes his words... he done real good at our spellin' bee in Miss Stanhope's Third Grade class last fall. Anyway, so's we got to debatin, me takin' the stand that Good 'n' Evil are one-in-the-same based on vantage and relativity, and Tiny arguin' that th' Slippery Slope of Relvisom erases the line 'tween-"

(DS Vick) "Is this going to go on much longer? I've got some shiny things that need polishing, and all this talk is making me wonder if I can put a whole grenade in my mouth while leaving room for a finger on the pin..."

(WD(E)) (eyes closed, curled up in KK's lap, legs a-twitchin') "Get the squirrel! Get the squirrel! Why don't they tell me to 'Get a beer! Go on boy, Get a Beer?"

Deb is alternately twirling her metal-hoopy-throwy-thing around a finger and spinning it on the table. There are deep scratches in the table. That's gonna show up on the rental agreement, I'm sure.

Pshrynk and I have started a game of Odd Man with a box of toothpicks that I happened to have saved for just such an occasion. I'm currently ahead due to a second box I have secreted in a sleeve.

KK is twirling WD(E)'s ears in her fingers, and whispering "What is it boy!? Did Timmy fall down the well? Go get him! Go get him boy!"

Outside, the sound of clock-work chickens pecking in the dirt is punctuated occasionally by the cries of a lamb -- cut off suddenly after a crescendo of clucking.

Geoff is pretending to hang himself on a old school tie, tilting his head to the side and hanging his tongue out while rolling his eyes -- to the amusement of Am. Am is throwing stale bar peanuts, trying to get them in Geoff's mouth.

(Clovis) "... an' then the Sheriff said 'BOY! If'n you ain't outta mah squad car in FIVE seconds, I'm gonna run you IN!'

Now, right there, that's th' wrong thing ta say to Tiny when he's bin drinkin' He stepped out 'n' grabbed that sheriff up and flung him a right ways. Then th' deputy -- he's al-uz jumpin' th' gun -- th' deputy done pull his re-volver out 'n' threatened he's gonna shoot Tiny for re-sistin' a rest. Tiny done rassled him ta the ground and picked up the re-volver 'n' flung it through th' window on the squad car.

Now, thet squad car's the sheriff's pride 'n' joy. He done pulled over a whole lotta outta-towners on account of the speed limit sign bein' partially obscured by that bush he planted 'bout 6 years ago... an' he bin' saving up from all the bribe money he gotten, and bought him a bran' new Edsel -- now, I know what yer thinkin', the Edsel wasn't MADE 'til the late '50's, but I don't see YOU takin' much care in YOUR timelines -- 'sides, don't Edsel sound better'n' a Ford Model "Y"? hell, they didn't even MAKE an American Model "Y"!

So Tiny flung it 'n' then proceeded ta kick the deputy in the head and then smashed all th' lights, th' si-reen, the wind-shield, an' even tore off the fenders 'fore the sheriff 'n' the deputy whupt him over the head with a fence post. They proceeded ta busting every post they could pick out th' ground, and done wrong off one-a his ears, and punched out one o' his favorite teeth. They called for the wagon and trussed him up and took him 'fore the judge and put his butt in JAIL.

He's gotta stay there fo' a month -- which, guessin' about the snootful he got, should be about when he sobers up --

The sheriff is claimin' he can execute him on account of he de-stroyed public city government property. Now, I can't r--"

(DS Vick) "That's it! I'm pulling the pin."

"OK! OK! Everybody! We have a humanitarian mission to undertake! We have bad guys to fight! We have... to get out of here before DS blows us all up! Let's go!"

(General whooping and hollering by an evidently joyous crowd of previously very bored crew members)

(Clovis) "Now, this is where it gets interes--"

"CLOVIS! GET OUT HERE OR WE"RE LEAVING WITHOUT YOU!"

We don't even know where we're going, but we're gonna have to leave him to save our sanity.

(Clovis) "An' actually, I was the runt of the litter, momma always said. Now daddy said thet HIS side o' the fam-"

And that's the way it went, all the way to the jail. For a guy who didn't seem to have the rudiments of speech down when we originally met him, he's acting like he's making up for lots of time spent in the monastery. As if!