CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK (2 page)

Seating himself, he carefully poured
the metal bowl full of cold beer. The tiny woman quickly dipped out
a cupful, and took one long drink. She smacked her tiny lips, then
let out a small belch. “Humph! Not nearly as good as I remember ale
tasting before.” She dipped out another cupful as the big cat
nosily lapped away.

Mike lit a smoke and sipped his beer,
cautiously watching the duo busily empting the bowl. The big cat
sure liked his beer! But Grizelda was no slouch when it came to
drinking either! When the thirsty pair had finished the five ounces
of beer, Mike opened another can and refilled the bowl for them. As
for himself, he barely sipped the remaining beer. He wasn’t sure if
he’d ever want another beer! Mike sat in his private dream world,
watching the impossible.

The white-haired lady gave out a
resounding belch, wiping her lips with the back of her tiny hand.
With a satisfied smile, she leaned over and scratched Charlie
behind his ear. “Okay. Now, this here big animal ain’t no cat. I
mean, he’s a cat, but he ain’t no cat. There never was such a thing
as cats, up until I got tired of my lover.” With a sneer she added,
“He wasn’t much of a lover anyhow. None of those old gods were for
that matter. They spent too much time admiring
themselves.”

Leaning against her cat, she continued,
“Anyhow, when I told old Hermes, by the way he’s Apollo’s brother,
well, when I told him we were done, he got upset with me. Hermes
wanted to severely punish me, but Old Zeus had made a law that the
Gods couldn’t directly harm a human. So Hermes had to find another
way to punish me.” With a heavy, regretful sigh she said, “He used
my pets to do that. Well, they were more my friends than pets.
Stroking the cat’s nose, she said gruffly, “Well, this old thing
here was my favorite. He went everywhere I went.”

Shaking her mess of white head in
disgust, she continued, “Those old Gods were awful vengeful. They
thought they could keep us folks believing in them by keeping us
scared. Anyway, Old Hermes convinced the other Gods that us humans
should be punished for our insolence. They decided to punish us
through the Unicorns.”

Grizelda began pacing around the
kitchen table. “Unicorns are gentle and magical creatures. The
magic is in the horn you know. When I was young there weren’t very
many humans around. But there were plenty of Unicorns, a whole lot
of them. The Unicorns protected the forests and supplied food for
our people. There wasn’t any growing of crops back then. All the
food we needed was in the forest for us to pick.”

Stopping in front of Mike with tiny
fists on hips, she said with an angry frown, “So the Gods, being so
vengeful, decided to whip up a spell to remove the Unicorns. Well,
because of the magic in Unicorn horns, they couldn’t get rid of
them. So Zeus called up some powerful old demons. The demons went
out to the forests where the Unicorns lived. Now, a Unicorn is
good, white magic. They won’t harm anything, just help and protect.
Those demons, they were bad, black magic. But even they couldn’t do
anything to harm the Unicorns.”

With fire in her tiny, green eyes, she
continued, “So my spiteful ex-lover, Hermes, convinced Kirke, the
Changer of Things, to do the job. And she did. Kirke couldn’t get
rid of the Unicorns, but she could change them into something else.
When she got back to Olympus, she reported the Unicorns Completely
All Transformed. Since there had never been an animal like what she
turned them into, they settled on using the initials. Completely
All Transformed. CAT. So ever after that, they were just called
cats.”

Wistfully eyeballing her empty cup and
bowl, she resumed her pacing circuit. “Now I know we got many other
names for them now, like felines and such, but they are really
Unicorns. If you don’t believe me, just touch Charlie’s head, above
and between his eyes. You’ll feel the small bump where the horn is
supposed to be. They still got a bit of magic in them, and they all
can talk, if you know how to listen that is. Most folks
don’t.”

“
Anyhow, Kirke changed me
into what you see now, and Zeus said I was forever to be the Keeper
of the Cats. Well, I did that for a long time. I could back then,
but now there are just too many cats. Besides, there ain’t that
many cats worth protecting. All the original CATS are immortal,
like me. But their babies grow old and die. So anymore old Charlie
and me, we just wander around. We currently live down by the
Missouri River close to here. There are a few more of the real CATS
there. That’s where I first saw you, and I knew right away you were
of my blood. So, I came to tell you the story of the cats that are
really Unicorns.” Stopping in front of Mike, she looked up at him.
“Now son, I want you to write my story and tell everybody the
truth.”

Mike stared dumbfounded at the small
woman. Shaking his head he finally said, “I’ll be damned if this
isn’t the craziest story I’ve ever dreamt up! Cats, Unicorns, all
of it. Everybody knows that Unicorns aren’t real. They were
fictitious beings. Magic? Bull! Why don’t you be a nice dream and
just go away? Then I’ll wake up. Go on. GET!” He waved his hand as
if he was shooing away flies.

The cat growled, but it was a cross
between a big dog and a lion! “GRRROOWWLLL!”

Mike jerked back in his chair,
pin-wheeling his arms, almost going over backward. For just a
second, the cat had appeared different. The cat growled again, and
this time he clearly saw it. The horn! A glowing, twisted, golden
horn! Then it was gone, and there was just a big, mangy, black cat
angrily glaring at him.

“
Insolence!” Grizelda
yelled, “Always insolence! I’m going to teach you a lesson boy! One
you ain’t likely to ever forget!” Finger to lip, the irate Grizelda
looked around the table. “Yes. I’ll turn you in to something for a
spell. Then you’ll see how we feel”

Mike watched in frightened fascination
as the tiny lady walked over and bent to look in an open bag of
chips. He was pinching the back of his hand so hard he could feel
the intense, sharp pain. Glancing down at his hand, he saw blood
where he had been pinching. Why wasn’t the pain waking him up? He
had to find a way to wake up!

Looking into the bag of chips, Grizelda
said, “Yeah. I know what these are. That’s what I’ll do; turn you
in to a potato chip! How’s that sound, Charlie?”

With a toothy grin, the big cat hissed,
“Yessss!”

In a quaking voice, Mike said, “Asleep
or not, I’m getting the hell out of here!” Quickly rising from his
chair, he felt a rush of dizziness overcome him. With the room
spinning around, he looked down at the intimidating cat-rider. She
was mumbling and gesturing wildly with her arms over her head.
Suddenly all he could see were black boots, but they were enormous!
Somehow, he was lying on the table, looking up at her! And now she
was huge and the cat was monstrous!

Charlie’s giant head lowered toward
Mike, a long pink tongue flicking out. “Ssssalty!” he
hissed.

“
Of course,” retorted the
giant cat-rider. “He has ridges too! I do good work, Charlie.”
Glaring down at Mike, she admonished, “Now boy, how does it feel to
be a lowly potato chip? But don’t worry yourself any. My spell will
wear off in half an hour or so. I think. Sometimes my spells last
longer. I never can tell anymore. Magic ain’t what it used to be.
Well boy, when you come out of your transformation, I want you to
think back on my story. If you don’t want me coming back here and
going through this again, then you’d best be telling everyone what
old Grizelda told you. Folks should know about Unicorns”

The monstrous-sized cat crouched low so
his amused cat-rider could climb aboard. With an easy motion, the
cat jumped three feet to the window, and turned around looking down
at him. Grizelda adjusted her floppy black hat, saying, “Hmph!
Don’t you worry boy, you’ll come out of the spell.”

The cat gave another toothy grin,
saying, “Maybeeeowww!” then jumped out of the window with a flick
of his long tail.

Mike was in a panic. He
couldn’t feel his heartbeat.
I’m dead!
That’s why I can’t feel my heartbeat. I died!
But he knew that wasn’t right. He could feel, some things,
just not his body. And he didn’t think the dead could feel
anything.

Concentrating intensely on what he
could feel, he felt the cold, hard table beneath him. He also felt
the rush of cold air flowing down on him from the open window. The
window was so far above him, he could barely see it, but he could
still hear the dripping of water from the gutters and the
twittering of birds.

Turning his concentration to
his body, he couldn’t feel any arms, feet or other body parts. What
he did feel were bumps. Weird bumps. In horror he realized they
were ridges! All over his body and they ran in uniform lines.
Trying to see the little that he could of his body, he faintly saw
lumps.
No, it can’t be!,
he thought. But it was what he feared, lumps of
salt all over him. His mind twitched in revulsion as he
cried,
My God! Somebody wake me up! I’m
having a nightmare! Help! Help!

Then he froze in fright, as much as a
potato chip could.

Movement . . . by the bag of chips. A
brown cockroach was tentatively crawling over the bag! The roach
was as big as a full-sized car. And it was heading straight for
him!

He tried to move, but
couldn’t.
Of course, you idiot! In this
dream you’re a potato chip, and they can’t move!

The roach inched closer and closer,
slowly crawling down the bag of chips, legs making scratching
noises as they moved, antennae twitching around, seeking something
to eat. The pair of antennae were bigger and longer than any of
Mike’s fishing rods. One of the antennae slowly descended, landing
on Mike, the other one right behind it. The antennae lightly
skimmed over the potato chip, searching. And Mike could feel each
stroke, his mind shuddering in revulsion! In a mad panic, Mike
tried to remember if cockroaches ate potato chips!

His panic turned to absolute terror as
the giant cockroach slowly inched its way on top of him! He could
actually feel the weight of the cockroach, all six legs moving
independently as it roamed over him, plus the fine hairs tickling
his potato skin.

As the roach was nibbling on a piece of
salt, a piece of Mike’s chip body suddenly broke off with a slight
snap. He could see a part of himself, lying there, disconnected.
Losing a piece of his body hadn’t hurt. It just broke off. As the
roach continued wandering over him, he realized he was cracked. He
had a crack all the way across his body. As he focused on the
crack, he could feel the crack widening. The weight of the crawling
cockroach was going to break him in two!

He yelled, “Shoo! Shoo you!
Get off me, damnit!” Then he remembered that potato chips can’t
talk. Mentally he screamed,
Damn you,
Grizelda! Why did you make me with a crack?!

The roach quickly scampered off and
Mike did a potato chip equivalent of a sigh of relief. Then he
heard a familiar voice.

“
Mike? Honey? Are you here?”
Tammy’s voice echoed through the small apartment as she advanced
into the bedroom. “I got off early today, honey. What’s for dinner?
You have anything planned yet? I went to the store if you don’t.”
Tammy stopped in the doorway of the kitchen, looking around,
perplexed. “Hmm. I wonder where he is.”

He watched Tammy as she shrugged out of
her coat, laying it on the bed, then headed for the bathroom on the
other side of the kitchen. She was carrying a sack and as she
passed the kitchen table, she set the grocery sack down, right on
top of Mike. CRUNCH!

No pain. Just a vague disconnected
feeling.

In utter darkness, and with the sound
of rustling paper and thumping on the table, he felt the weight of
the sack lighten as Tammy took out the contents. Suddenly there was
light as she lifted the sack off the table. Mike took inventory of
his broken body. He was broken into at least three pieces, and
Tammy absentmindedly picked up one piece and ate it.

With heart-thudding, (if he
had a heart), understanding, Mike realized that wherever he was, he
was only in one piece of the broken potato chip. Then he angrily
reminded himself,
Christ man! You’re out of
your tree! You’re having a daydream.

But his dream took on a sense of
reality as Tammy made a face and went, “Yuck! Stale!” and brushed
the rest of the broken chip into her palm. Panic was quickly
becoming the order of the day as he felt the warmth of her hand as
she slowly closed her hand into a fist, crunching him into tiny
pieces. The next thing he knew, he was lying on top a bunch of cold
potato peelings. He knew then, that she had thrown him into the
garbage sack.

As his body kept getting broken down
smaller and smaller, Mike realized that his conscious mind, soul,
whatever, was actually in only one small piece of the potato chip.
But which one?

He kept repeating to
himself,
Just a dream. Just a dream. Just a
dream!
He was rudely distracted from his
mantra when something cold and wet was pushed down over him. Trying
to decipher what it was, he recognized it as the bag from the
thawed out chicken.

As Tammy was pushing down harder on the
garbage, she mumbled a complaint to herself, “He never gets the
garbage ready until the last minute. I might as well do this now.
Then it’ll be ready for tomorrow morning.”