To conclude our ongoing look at the continuing saga of the GOAT, we present the Dubious Duo’s two latest adventures, as they had appeared in Literally Stories UK. Stay tuned for Book Three from the Springs in August–Leila
My Fair Juan G, Starring Boots the Impaler
I was watching the 1969 Science Fiction flick The Valley of Gwangi on TV last month. It was playing on the ancient Philco set that connects the PDQ network in our sister realm of Other Earth to my home realm of Saragun Springs. The film was the final Ray Harrhausen/Willis O’Brien dinosaur picture. The story involved a thirty-foot tall, psychotic Allosaurus named (brace yourself) “Gwangi,” who somehow managed to reproduce (apparently without a Mrs. Gwangi) and survive at a “Forbidden Valley” in Mexico with other unlikely creatures for at least 145-million years–without, mind you, attracting notice until 1969–that from a reptile with the brain power of a caraway seed.
Cowboys (another possibly extinct species with seed-like mental powers) rounded up Gwangi, who, like all movie dinosaurs not named Godzilla, met a terrible death due to humankind’s lack of kindness toward monsters.
Anyway, that was how The Valley of Gwangi had ended for over fifty years in Other Earth copies of the movie until a month ago. Just before Gwangi once again met death inside a burning circus tent, I saw my lead Fictional Character actress, Miss Daisy Kloverleaf, clad in her superhero guise as the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) and her sidekick PDQ Pete (aka, Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon) enter the movie, whisk away what then became an obvious small clay prop Dinosaur in a scaled down set and replace it with an empty bottle of PDQ. Then I heard Daisy say, “Off to the interdimensional Vortex!” To which Peety squawked “Road Trip!” Then the screen faded to black.
Boots the Impaler (BTI), a talking Siamese Cat lay curled up on my desk. He’d watched the film with me and said, “Looks like more legal trouble.”
I stood and went to my window. I gazed toward the area of the interdimensional vortex Daisy had spoken of on TV. I was not surprised to see the silhouette of a thirty-foot tall Dinosaur in that direction.
“Renfield,” I whispered at the lowest possible degree of, well, whispering. It didn’t matter because she was already standing behind me.
“Yes, darling,” she said, and I could hear the smile in her voice.
I turned to face her. “How would you like another week’s vacation at Pipe Dreams Opium Emporium?”
“I’d like two better.”
“Deal,” I said, retaking my chair and putting my feet up on the desk, taking care not to disturb BTI.
We had made a deal for telling the backstory. Renfield and I have a psychic link, and since she only thinks about gain, it is pretty easy for me to judge the run of her thoughts. She’s also venal to the degree that her name should be a synonym for the word–then again that describes nearly all the Fictional Characters (FC’s) in my make believe realm of Saragun Springs. Renfield is also creative, hence her going to the window and whistling toward the silhouette of the Dinosaur.
Five minutes later. Daisy, Peety (no longer in their superhero guises) and the Dinosaur, whom I could not name in action due to the fact he is under copyright arrived outside the office. Renfield and I met them in the Barnyard.
“Hello, Miss Renfield and Miss Leila,” Daisy said primly, and not in a tone that suggested there was a several tonne monster beside her, one whose trod rattled ashtrays and shot glasses. Peety was lying flat atop the Thunder Lizard’s broad shoulders, apparently passed out with his everlasting can of PDQ in his feathery hand.
“Let me guess, he followed you guys home,” I said.
“This is Juan Gee,” Daisy added, ignoring me.
“We can’t say his name as an actor in the story–” I said, but Daisy then spelled out the name she had spoken. I glanced at Renfield who is also our attorney (she says she earned a degree at the University of Mars–in another realm at another time). She shrugged and said, “Good enough.”
Renfield then cupped her hands and called up to Juan Gee, who was surprisingly mellow compared to his behavior in the movie, and said, “Showtime, big fella!”
I should have known that she was several steps ahead and had her end of the deal ready to go even before she had made it with me. She took advantage of the Springs’ custom of FC’s new to the realm providing the backstory in their first appearance in one of my productions. But this was the first time that a FC created by someone else had come over, so the ethics may have been a tad dodgy.
“Hello to all,” Juan said. (For such a large person, he had an incredibly high pitched and grating voice.)
“Hello Juan,” we (save for Peety) said together, after it became clear he was awaiting a reply.
“I am grateful to Team GOAT for rescuing me from that repetitive, terrible fate and bringing me through the interdimensional vortex to Saragun Springs. I was astonished to discover that inanimate objects such as the clay figure I was over there and the drawing Master Peety had once been, are transformed to actual thinking beings upon crossover. No longer a fifteen inch tool constantly being moved one degree at a time for a single frame shot, but now I am a Full-sized Fictional Allosaurus.”
“Amazing how Team GOAT is able to enter stories and films at Other Earth and rescue fellow FC’s,” Renfield said, cuing the big guy, whose brain power had certainly increased from before.
“It is the GOAT’s passionly passion,” Daisy said, still clinging to her alter ego act, letting her addiction to adverbs slip.
Peety came to. He communicates only through quotes of the slob-coms and popcorn flicks of the late seventies through the early nineties–specializing in the eighties. So it was perfectly natural that he looked at the beast he was lying on and said (plus noting the source), “‘My God, the boy is dee-formed!’ Cherry Forever, Porky’s.”
“Um, why don’t you guys show Juan around the realm, while I figure out what to do with him,” I said, smiling, slowly backing toward my office, then turning and rushing in and bolting the door behind me.
“HeXopatha!” I called out and the crystal ball on my desk engaged, and there she was in all her Wiccan glory.
“I thought you’d be calling,” she said.
“Seems like everyone is one step ahead of me today,” I muttered, lighting a smoke and fishing a pint of anything out of my desk. I really should have read the label. It was the White Horse Whisky I keep around to remove nail polish. I’ve heard that three shots of it changes the meekest soul into a soccer hooligan. Somehow my esophagus held together as it went down. After locating my voice in the twists and turns of tubing that led to my lungs, I wheezed “I need magical help with this Juan fella–can you imagine the toilet he requires?”
“So, you are not sending him home?”
“What fun would that be?”
“Warner Brothers might send interdimensional sniffers around looking for their intellectual property,” HeXy said, displaying uncharacteristic level-headedness.
“Like hell-Gwa–Juan hasn’t appeared in as much as a beer commercial or on a game show since 1969.”
“It’s his voice,” BTI added. “Fellow sounds like Joe Pesci on helium.” Like all Cats, Boots is fully conscious and critical of others even when sleeping.
“Yes,” I said. “A face made for radio and a voice perfect for silent pictures.”
Actually, I was biding my time. HeXopatha (who bears a remarkable resemblance to her “arch enemy” Renfield) and BTI are also helpful when the price is right. We all knew that this situation meant that there were deals to be negotiated and sealed.
HeXy has been bleeding me for shares in a metal rich asteroid that the realm has put a claim on. So, she can be purchased in a standard fashion, which is exactly what happened.
But I also wanted BTI in on the project. Cats do not give a damn about money. Its only use is for people to buy stuff for Cats. But as long as you understand that a Cat is 99.99999% ego (the rest being mostly water and trace elements) you can come to an agreement. The payment for his services is in the title of this production.
The following is what I purchased:
It might sound strange, but famous, heavily monetized FC’s such as Winnie the Pooh, Bugs Bunny and a slew of Disney drones are or soon will be public domain while certain lesser known individuals are under copyright and will remain that way deep into the decades yet to come.
Such is the plight of the character Gwangi who is tethered to Warner Bros until 2065. But we consider Juan G a candidate for sanctuary. Still, if he were to appear as an Allosaurus the size of a building in any of my realm’s productions, we might run the risk of being sued for our asteroid.
So a makeover was in order. The only thing HeXopatha contributed was a shrinking spell that reduced Juan to the size of an average Earth man (5’ 9”). His immense tail caused him to weigh in at over three hundred pounds, but he no longer loomed large and obvious on the horizon.
BTI has the finest voice in Saragun Springs. It is cultured and mellifluous and allows him, like high-end English actors, to say the most horrid things and get away with it. For the price of his name atop the marque, I made him Henry Higgins to Juan’s Eliza Doolittle (both under copyright, but not in the metaphoric sense). Of course it does not matter what tone an FC’s voice has in a printed production, but word does get around the dimensions and the singular tone of Juan’s could easily lead the sniffers to us. (I bet you thought I hadn’t thought of that. Hah! This isn’t being written by a Chimp!)
Yesterday, Daisy and I went to see how Juan’s lessons were going in the studio city of Agoville. We entered a little rehearsal theater that contained a few seats and a stage.
Being a Cat, Boots had delegated responsibility for Juan’s voice lessons to a Eager Beaver FC just dying for a speaking role, named Eve.
BTI was in his usual state of sleeping on a table, while Eve held one of those megaphone things that silent film directors used to bellow through. Juan was nowhere to be seen, but I figured that he was backstage rehearsing.
“Good evenly evening, eagerly, eager Eve,” Daisy said. The GOAT has been getting loosely loose with her adverbs anymore. But, what the hell, it’s not like she’s hooked on fentanyl.
“Do you require further backstory, Miss Leila?” asked Eve.
I didn’t but it was Eve’s big moment and customs are to be followed, for how else are stupid ideas to become traditions? “Sure, why not.”
“Juan has memorized the opening of Richard the Turd,” Eve said.
“Shakespeare’s public domain,” I said. “You can say the correct title.”
“But that was a witticism,” said Eve.
“Oh? Well hell, forget booking my passage to Heaven. Very hilarious, Eve. And I’m certain that no one else in the multiverse has issued the same bon mot for at least ten minutes,” I said.
“How is your studently student doingly doing?” (Although it is superfluous to note, Daisy said that.)
“Behold,” Eve said. And she picked up the megaphone thing and called “Action!”
Juan appeared on stage. He was wearing a fez, a pair of armless glasses…
“They’re called pince nez, dolt,” BTI called out in his sleep. He was lying on a copy of this script and knew what I had written even though I hadn’t spoken it (Ha! Another plot hole filled in the desert).
Juan was also wearing a smoking jacket and an ascot due to a bad case of what is called “Turkey neck” amongst older actors.
We watched.
“Tut, were it farther off, I’ll pluck it down,” Juan piped, concluding the famous passage. To emphasize the plucking, he leaned backwards, and reached high. Unfortunately, Allosaurus’ arms are no longer than those of a T-Rex. So he had to pluck the invisible “crown” at chin level.
It was amazing what BTI and Eve had done with Juan’s voice. It was even worse than before. Much. I was expecting O’Toole, Burton, even Benny Hill and I got something that sounded like Yoko Ono singing backwards into an autotune.
I was about to complain, but BTI raised his head and said, “You wanted him to have a different voice, and that is what you have. The sniffers won’t come anywhere near it.”
“You have to admittedly admit that it is the Catly Cat thing to do.”
Not one of the five of us had anything to add that would give this production some kind of sense making ending. But that was when PDQ Pete staggered in to save the day. He had brought Daisy’s GOAT outfit. We had to close our eyes until she stomped her hoof twice. Because no one knows who the GOAT is, she just is like gravity, you silly fool. I opened my eyes and there she was, the realm’s greatest superhero team.
“‘I can’t believe they took the fucking bar,’–Bluto, Animal House,” said Peety.
“Fear not old chum,” Daisy said, fishing out the pint of White Horse I thought I had thrown away, out of her cape and giving it to him.
Then the six of us just stood and sat in dumbfounded silence, because that too fizzled as an end–not even Peety would touch White Horse.
“My horse, my horse, my kingdom for a white horse,” Juan ad libbed, in a tone that was the audio equivalent of White Horse.
We all looked at each other, again, and all together we said “Curtainly curtain.”
Wuthering GOAT
-1-
Meanwhile, “inside” a song playing in the fantasy multiverse….
A middle aged man dressed in late 18th century finery stood pensively at a window. It was late in the evening and he was gazing across the wily, windy moors at an ethereal, yet extremely familiar young woman in a fleecy white dress. She was singing (incredibly, accompanied by an invisible orchestra) and steadily progressing toward the window in an artistic dance. He heard his name in her song, “Heathcliff.” (The lyrics also contained some character observations that Heathcliff could have done without.)
“Cathy,” he sighed. The same Cathy who died eighteen years earlier. Although Heathcliff had hardened some since, he remembered everything. The romance, the betrayal, the misunderstanding, the great loss. “Damn it,” he thought, “I just had to dig her up and instruct her to haunt me forever, and to take my soul.” Indeed he had done this right after Cathy’s burial. Of course that had been melodramatic grandstanding on Heathcliff’s part; he never seriously believed that Cathy would try to cash that check. And for years that assumption held true–yet, there she was, headed his way, looking remarkably fresh for a person who has spent eighteen years in a loamy moor grave at Wuthering Heights.
When Cathy arrived at the window, Heathcliff realized that they had come full circle. His soul was going to be taken by a person who neither blinked nor cast a shadow in the moonlight.
Yes, the prolonged saga of Cathy and Heathcliff at last approached denouement. The endless years of class bigotry, jealousy, temper, duplicity and shoveling shit in the stables were at last over. And just when the anticipation was so thick that you could slice it with a Bronte sister, both lovers were startled by a sharp little knock at a previously unseen door.
This chased the ethereal right out of Cathy, who actually blinked thrice and looked at Heathcliff, who had been gobsmacked nearly catatonic.
Fortunately, Cathy had seen plenty during her long absence from “wuthering-wuthering” wherever. And she certainly had better control of her wits than Heathcliff had over his. A determined look entered her face and she simply passed through the window into the room. She glanced at Heathcliff with tired contempt. “Just don’t stand there, ninny, answer the door.”
“Um, uh, come-come in,” Heathcliff said.
“I could have done that, arsehole,” Cathy said. She strode confidently across the room to the door and called “Please come in. I am a Ghost and have lost my power over doors, save to pass through them.”
The door swung open and Cathy saw a brown and white Pygmy Goat wearing a cape and a pair of dark eyeglasses. That would have been queer enough on its own if not surpassed in strangeness by the Goat’s companion–an apparently alive, yet crude two dimensional drawing of some kind of Bird–perhaps a Woodcock. The oddity had free movement yet was somehow limned onto the fabric of reality more so than in it, and was the size of a large toadstool. The creature was wearing a top hat, and in one wing, which behaved like a hand, it held a metal drinking vessel. Cathy assumed that the contents of the vessel had something to do with the individual smelling greatly of ale.
“*Greetingly Greetings,” said the little Goat. “I am Daisy Kloverleaf, the Goatessly Goatess of G.O.A.T.–The Greatest Of All Time. This is my sidekick, PDQ Pete. We bringingly bring an opportunity. ” (*Here, and everytime she spoke, a greatly great many adverbally adverbs were usedly used by the Goatly “GOAT”–from here, nine in ten have been editly edited for content.)
“Hello, there, Daisy and PDQ Pete,” Cathy said, much more amused than bemused. She had also learned that on the “otherside” it was best to indulge the nutters, it kept the drama down to a minimum.
Heathcliff had recovered his senses and demanded “What is the meaning of this?” all Master of the Manor and dick-like.
“Silence, insolently insolent stableboy!” Daisy said, with a stomp of a hoof.
Daisy’s hoof stomp engaged an interdimensional vortex, which took everyone in the song to the fantasy realm of Saragun Springs.
-2-
Meanwhile…Inside a dingy little office in the realm of Saragun Springs…
I was sitting in my office, listening to music, searching the contents of a fifth of Old Number 7 for a purpose other than cleaning litter boxes, when I “heard” the preceding scenario unfold on my Unsteady Jukebox (a tablet and bluetooth speaker). Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights was playing–and I imagined Heathcliff at the window, finally opening it, like I usually do. Then in the fade I heard the knock and all that followed. I picked up the fifth and wondered if it had caused an audial hallucination–just a little aged fermentation gag, between friends. But I knew that I wasn’t that lucky.
There was a sharp little knock at my door.
If this piece had passed its thousandth word the door would open no matter what I said. If under, there was still a possibility of escape. It must have been over because the knock on the door was one of those unnecessary knocks executed by someone who’s opening it at the same time. I’ve always wondered why people do that. Guess people figure if you are doing lines that you’d have sense enough to shoot the bolt.
Anyway, it did not matter because at the door was Daisy (who had removed her GOAT costume), an unknown Donkey with a surly expression on her/his face, someone who looked a hell of a lot like Kate Bush (circa 1978–this time wearing the red dress) sitting on the Donkey and Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pigeon passed out on the Kate lookalike’s right shoulder.
“Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the Jackass,” I said.
“Hello Leila,” Daisy said primly (there were the adverbs, which can be read in the Director’s cut of this piece–all 6,000 words).
“I heard what happened,” I said, pointing at the Unsteady Jukebox. “Why is it that everytime I see you, Daisy, this little line between my eyes gets deeper?”
“Because you are aging?”
Well, I had that coming. It’s wise not to feed straight lines to Saragun Spring’s FCs. Although I am the Chief Executive Penname of the Springs, like most other leaders I’m not overly wise.
“I take it that the Jackass is Heathcliff?” This was a rhetorical question because the interdimensional vortex sometimes changes people who pass through it into the animal that they were compared to most often in life, upon entering Saragun Springs. It doesn’t do a thing to persons native to the realm, nor much to Ghosts–Cathy’s dress changed color, but she was still
Cathy. (Or the Demon who took her shape.)
“I demand an explanation. This is highly irregular!” brayed Heathcliff.
“Well, it’s like this Heathcliff, old pal,” I said, after pouring myself a shot and downing it, “lots of people must have referred to you as a Jackass–and the vortex you passed through has a peculiar sense of humour. But you can relax, you are still who you are in movies, the book and the song, but when you are portrayed here in the Springs, you are a Donkey–an otherwise sweet beast defamed by your behavior. And the more you bitch about it, the longer this production will take and thus the longer you shall remain an Ass–capice?”
Apparently that got through because he said nothing and accepted the carrot Daisy fetched from the herbivore pantry in my office.
I made eye contact with the Ghost of Cathy, who’d been conspicuously, perhaps necessarily, silent, but appeared to be happy and enjoying the situation.
I smiled, “Hello Cathy.”
“Hello Leila.”
“You’re probably wondering why Daisy and that snoring derelict on your shoulder brought you to Saragun Springs–which gives us something in common–doesn’t it, Daisy?”
“If you say so,” Daisy said. She had been tossing walnuts into her mouth, shells and all.
“Yes, I think I need to know why you and Peety kidnapped Cathy and Heathcliff and brought them to my office.”
“HeXopatha is conducting job interviews,” Daisy replied. “We told Cathy that she was the favorite for the position of Wiccan Apprentice. We brought the Donkey along for transportation.”
I looked at Cathy. “So, you are here because you want to join the team, and he’s along as the ride?”
“Absolutely,” Cathy said. “You see I feel that I’ve reached my full potential as a Ghost. I cannot possibly add another layer to Cathy. But as a Wiccan in a new fantasy realm, I see nothing but possibilities.”
The crystal ball on my desk flashed red. It was Saragun Springs’ resident Witch, the Great HeXopatha. Her wholesome yet malevolent visage filled the ball.
“Bravo, Cathy,” HeXy said, ignoring me. “That is the attitude I’ve been seeking.”
“Does that mean I get the job?”
“Indeed! I will have a coach fetch you anon.”
“Hey, hey, hey–” I said. “Could we at least pretend that I am in charge just once in a while–especially when I’m in the room?”
“Oh, hello there, darling,” HeXopahta said. “Have you forgotten the conversation we had a blackout or three ago?”
I cast back through my memory and located a recent fuzzy moment when I may have green- lighted an “outsourcing” project for the Witch, without listening too intently because that sort of thing gets between me and my bourbon.
“Ha!” I said. “Part three is coming up and since you want something, the backstory is all yours, darling.”
-3-
Meanwhile…A drunk blackout or three ago…
HeXopatha is a facetious Witch. I do not know if all Wiccans are sarcastic, but she certainly is. The crystal ball she communicated through swelled to the size of the bubble that Glenda the Good Witch of the North used for transportation in The Wizard of Oz.
This enlarged ball contained an image of myself slumped at my desk, with an empty bottle of Number 7 lying on its side and the last of its contents in a glass that was in my hand.
HeXopatha was in the room with me, wearing a long dress whose train was held by Black Rats in Waiting. She and her little retinue (who all wore little gowns of their own, with tiny Black Ratlettes in Waiting holding their trains, and those dunce-cap like things with strand of lace attached to the top–this Rodently pattern repeated to the vanishing point) paced about the room as the Magnificent Master pitched her big idea, knowing that she had caught me at the perfect time.
“I require an Apprentice to help me with my day to day enchantments and spells, darling–but no one in the realm has the correct personality–so, I need your permission for a project.”
I caught a glimpse of the way I was on that occasion and “boiled” sums it up perfectly. “Awright, HeXy,” I slurred, “I gotta feelingth that if’n I juss say yesh, you and those little black dee-tees will goeth away–” At this point I relinquished consciousness, and my head made a disconcertingly loud smack on the desk.
The crystal shrunk back to its normal size.
“Swell,” I said. “But you must admit, friend Cathy here looks a hell of a lot like Kate Bush, a famous person, very much alive and whose disappearance from Earth is likely to cause trouble.”
“Who’s Kate Bush?” asked Cathy.
“No, no, no, not in the song,” said HeXoaptha. “In the song she is still the Ghost of Cathy–or the demon pretending to be Cathy–that has never been established. In all other realms, like Earth, the song will sound the same to all who listen, and Cathy will appear as she has always appeared in people’s minds–their personal ‘head videos’–for the taped one is static. Only we in Saragun Springs will know of the alteration, only we will know that the original Cathy is no longer in the song–but rest assured that an adequate substitute has been procured.”
“‘Adequate substitute’?” I said. And that was when the “coach” arrived. Since it belonged to HeXopatha, it was, of course, fancy and gleaming black, and pulled by a team of what appeared to be horned ebony Shetland Ponies. Penrose the Flying Weasel was at the reins. When the coach stopped a figure clothed in a shawl emerged.
“Your ride awaits Cathy! From here on your name is Eira-Lysbyrd.” HeXopatha said.
“What’s that mean?” I asked.
“It’s Welsh for Snow Ghost–I so miss ancient Wales,” HeXy said, pining for the land where she began her own career as a Witch.
Cathy–now Eira–needn’t be told twice. She leapt off Heathcliff, placed passed out Peety on Daisy’s back and sprinted to the coach. She briefly hugged her replacement, hopped in the coach and it was off before I could say anything about it.
The figure stood outside the window, still concealed.
“What’s she waiting for?” I asked.
“He, actually, darling,” HeXy said, laughing. “Open the window and you will see.”
I didn’t need to ask why Heathcliff couldn’t open the window. Give me that much credit–I doubt that Donkeys need to do a lot of window opening in life. I sank another shot, walked over and opened the window.
The new Cathy dropped his shawl, and there in all his glory (even shrunk down from thirty feet to human size) was the recently hired Allosaurus, Juan G. He was dressed in the flowing white Cathy dress and began dancing in the courtyard. He performed a cartwheel. That was something to see. His short arms couldn’t reach the ground so he rolled on the top of his fairly flat head and landed on his tail. But that was nothing compared to his singing voice. The pitch was so high and uneven that my shot glass exploded and the fifth of Jack on my desk began to vibrate dangerously on the table.
“Please hoof stomp the vortex open, Daisy, before I lose my bar.”
Daisy activated the interdimensional vortex with a stomp of her hoof and both “Cathy” and Heathcliff vanished, but come by regularly whenever someone in the realm plays the song Wuthering Heights.
HeXopatha had signed off, but on her way out the crystal ball once again expanded and there was Juan out in the wily, windy moors. Unlike Earth, we get a view of Heathcliff in the “video.” The shot panned to the window and there in 18th-Century finery stood a man with the head of a Donkey.
Before I could complain, I heard HeXopatha’s voice telling me that on its way back into the multiverse the song passed through a rendition of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream and the effects were temporary.
My glass was a memory, so I grabbed the bottle and said, “Bottom’s up.”
Our Cast
Juan G…..himself, yeah, that’s it…
Daisy/GOAT…herself
Peety…himself
Renfield…herself
“Cathy”…Flo the Trade Rat
Heathcliff…Andy the Trade Rat
Eve…Taffypuller the Berkshire Hog
Saragun Springs 