What I'd Say to the Martians (9 page)

T
he greatest fly fisherman I ever knew was a big bear of a man. When he stood up straight, he was well over six feet tall. He had powerful, hairy arms and massive, hair-covered legs. His body was also hairy. For some reason, he kept his fingernails and toe-nails long and sharp. He didn’t need a lot of fancy equipment to catch fish. In fact, most of the time he didn’t even use a rod and reel. He would just wade out in the river, reach down, and catch a fish with his bare hands. Sometimes he’d just stick his head underwater and catch one with his teeth!

He didn’t believe in highfalutin, “politically correct” ideas like catch and release. Whatever he caught, he ate—usually right there, while it was still alive. Once I even saw him eat a muskrat. The only thing he liked better than fish was honey. He’d sniff out a beehive and tear it open with those long fingernails of his.

Sometimes the bees would sting him and he’d let out a big roar of pain. I’d usually start laughing and he’d charge over and swat me across the head, opening up my scalp. But it was all in good fun. I think the only other thing I ever saw him eat was garbage.

He didn’t say much. In fact, hardly anything. He’d puff and growl if he didn’t like the story you were telling, and you’d usually have to play dead until he calmed down. But then, after another bowl of whiskey, he’d be ready for the rest of the story.

He seemed to follow his own set of rules. For instance, he never wore any clothes. And trust me, he didn’t like you trying to put clothes on him. Another one of his quirks was, well, he stank. He never bathed and his breath was terrible. Even after you offered him a mint, and he took the whole roll away from you and ate it, his breath was still bad. At least when he would defecate, he’d go in the woods.

Even worse, he had a drug problem. More than once I saw him staggering around, disoriented, with a syringe stuck in his buttock. The authorities would come and carry him away, usually in a net hanging underneath a helicopter. But a few days later he’d be right back, raring to fish.

And boy, could he fish! In fact, when other fishermen saw him coming, they’d usually run away, screaming, because they knew they wouldn’t be catching anything while he was around.

After the fishing season ended, he seemed to lose interest in just about everything but sleeping. I think he’d sleep right through the winter if I let him, which I finally learned to do, after repeated skull bites.

People ask what was the most important thing I learned from him about fishing. I guess it would be that you don’t need to be a slave to matching the hatch. A lot of times you’ll get just as many fish by chasing them into shallow water and pouncing on them. Or by stealing them from other fishermen.

The odd thing is, I never knew his name. Some people would yell out “Griz!” when they saw him, but I don’t think that was it. I tried calling him “Lonnie” for a while, but that didn’t seem to stick either. When I think back on it, all I can do is scratch my head, and then wince, from the stitches in my scalp.

But this spring I discovered the most surprising thing of all, when I saw him again after the long off-season. With him were two of the cutest, hairiest little children I had ever seen. And then it finally hit me: the greatest fly fisherman I ever knew wasn’t a man at all, but a woman.

A
s new president of the Waffle and Pancake Council, I am pleased to announce that the council has returned to its old mission of promoting waffles and pancakes. The crime phase is over. The ringleader, Doctor Ponzari (real name Willard Cadwallader) has been kicked upstairs, along with his chief henchman, Extractus. Others have been demoted or offered early retirement.

I wish to apologize to all those we killed or addicted to drugs. This was certainly not the goal of our founder, Abraham Cadwallader, when he started the Waffle and Pancake Council in 1905.

We knew we had to act when, as recently as two years ago, public opinion surveys showed that the things most associated with the council were “baby-stealing,” “extortion,” and “running over people with a motorboat.” “Waffles” and “pancakes” were not even in the top ten.

Things first started to go bad, in my view, in 1962. That’s when the council announced that it would promote not only waffles and pancakes, but also, where appropriate, bank robbery. At first we targeted banks that did not hold at least one annual pancake breakfast. But soon even that restriction was dropped.

The council was involved in everything from arson and prostitution to giving away waffle irons that we knew would break after just a few uses. The low point probably came in 1973, when the council announced that waffles and pancakes “suck.”

There was a brief period of reform in which the council went back to promoting pancakes, but only ones laced with psychotropic drugs, to turn people into mindless killing machines. The quality of the free waffle irons was much improved, but only because they were used to imprint crime instructions in the waffles.

Things reached a crisis point in 2005 when the Waffle and Pancake Council announced that it had acquired nuclear weapons. The device itself was nothing more than a flat cake of plutonium which, when struck with a uranium spatula by an unknowing stooge, was supposed to explode. The press had a field day. And even though most scientists agreed that the bomb would not have worked, it was enough to give pause to some on the council.

Across the country, local waffle council presidents spoke up, and were assassinated. But the message was starting to get through. The Cadwallader family received thousands of letters from ordinary citizens telling how they had been kidnapped and tortured by the council, or had been promised money for delivering drugs but still had not received payment.

That’s when I was brought in. After the personnel shakeup, the first thing I did was fire the advertising agency that produced the spots which had hypnotized so many people. Next, I ordered that the council bylaws be rewritten so that the definitions of “pancake” and “waffle” were more traditional, and not so vague that “pancake” could mean practically anything.

Doctor Ponzari’s hideaway, Skull Island, is being restored to its original shape and topography, and has been given its old name, Turtle Head Island. Also, the inhabitants of the island have been set free and given electric mixers, without charge.

Safeguards have been set up. All council members must have picture IDs, and if your face is surgically altered to hide your identity, you must get a
new
picture ID. Eye patches are prohibited, even with a note from a doctor. The council will promote waffles and pancakes only as food items, and not as “high-speed projectiles” or “suffocating devices.” We are also severing ties with our so-called “sister council,” the Muffin & Dynamite Board.

The council chamber has been renovated. The dramatic under lighting, which made everyone look so sinister, has been taken out. The microphone system has been adjusted back to normal, so people’s voices don’t have that ominous bass sound. The chamber is now no-smoking.

I don’t kid myself. It will take years to get things completely back to normal. For instance, in a concession to some senior council members, it was agreed that we would not only promote waffles and pancakes but also a type of maple syrup whose fumes, when released, will knock you out. Doctor Ponzari is still technically chairman of the board, but his deranged memos are now quietly filed away.

In short, we are back to pushing buckwheat, not buckshot. We sing the praises of the Belgian waffle, and not the “Mexican Waffle,” which is a type of torture. I am hopeful that the words of Abraham Cadwallader, carved in wood and now back on the wall where the missile-tracking screen used to be, will once again guide us: “All a boy needs to keep himself amused is a good pancake.”

T
he other day I was thinking up some funny New York things, and here are some of the things I came up with:

A guy is in the subway, and suddenly he turns into a monster. I don’t know why he does, and it doesn’t really matter. But here’s the funny part: another guy comes up to him and asks him what time it is, and it doesn’t even bother him that the guy is a monster! Can you believe it?!

Or how about this: there’s a long line of people waiting to pay for their groceries, and some lady comes and tries to cut in line, and the other people just yell at her! I don’t believe it! They don’t even know her, but they yell at her anyway!

But you can’t talk about New York unless you talk about the subway. Oh, wait, I already did that one.

What about how expensive the apartments are. Picture this in your mind: a pirate is trying to rent an apartment, and he has his treasure chest with him, and he asks the landlord how much of his treasure will he have to use to pay for the rent. And the landlord says, “All of it.” All of it?! Now, that’s a high rent!

And what about the cabs, you’re saying. I was just getting to that. But first I have an idea for a situation comedy that I want to put in here. Maybe it could be in New York, I don’t know. Anyway, a funny situation comedy would be one where Dick Butkus is married to Zsa Zsa Gabor, because think of it: Dick Butkus and Zsa Zsa Gabor! They’re not even alike, those two!

First, Dick Butkus comes home. Then he starts yelling, “Zsa Zsa, I’m home!” At first you don’t see Zsa Zsa, and you’re thinking, Oh, no, what has Zsa Zsa gotten herself into now?!

But then she finally comes out, and she’s holding a gun. “I’m going to kill you, Dick Butkus,” she says, “because we’re not alike at all. I’m Zsa Zsa Gabor, and you’re a big football player.”

I don’t know what happens next, but so far it’s pretty good, don’t you think?

Oh, anyway, the thing I was saying about New York cabs is, the drivers are all from foreign countries. I’m not sure why that’s funny, but it seems like it is. Maybe what’s funny is there’s a cab driver who’s real goofy and funny, and he drives so wild that you fall out of the cab onto the street! Hey, come back here!

And even though you’re all scraped up and your bones are broken, a wino comes up to you and says, “Gimme some money.” Gimme some money?! Your bones are all broken, but he still says gimme some money! He’s a New York wino, all right!

I can’t think of any more funny New York things right now. So
EXCUUUUSE ME
!

S
LIM
P
ICKINGS

I had never eaten dog before, and I didn’t intend to start now. “Just give me some more of the copilot,” I said, extending my plate.

B
LOW
D
ART

The first blow dart hit me in the neck. The second hit me in the leg. After that, I blacked out. When I woke up, I asked Lelani how many blow darts had hit me. She seemed annoyed. “What am I,” she said, “your personal blow dart counter?”

I
NVISIBLE
G
UY

If it worked correctly, the paste I was smearing on my body would make me invisible. And even if it didn’t, it would probably moisturize my skin.

L
OST
W
ORLD

A world ruled by dinosaurs? It didn’t make any sense! I could understand a world where dinosaurs had some say, but not rule.

D
RUGGED

After I finished my second double gin and tonic, I felt woozy, unstable on my feet. Then I realized: my drink had probably been drugged! I had a beer, then two more, to clean out my system, but they made me feel even dizzier. I thought some exercise might counteract the drug, so I got up on the diving board and started dancing. But it was no use. When the drug finally wore off, I was lying in the backyard wearing nothing but a hula skirt.

T
HE
C
URSE
F
ULFILLED

As I watched in horror, Lucinda’s face grew old, hideously old, right before my eyes! The curse had come true! Hoping she didn’t notice, I slipped her engagement ring back into my coat pocket.

A H
ARSH
L
ESSON

I tried to explain to little Betsy how, when horses get old, you have to take them out and shoot them. But then I thought, Why not wait until she gets a horse?

T
HE
S
EVERED
H
EAD

You don’t forget the first time you ever see a severed head. Especially if it’s your best friend, Don. And especially if he’s got a cigar clenched between his teeth, even though the last time you saw your so-called friend he swore he didn’t have any more cigars.

G
ENETIC
E
XPERIMENTS

While I was looking around the nursery, I suddenly realized: these weren’t ordinary children; these were children specially bred by Doctor Ponzari and his wife to be their own family!

A
DRIFT

I drifted in the lifeboat for days, maybe months. To be honest, I guess it wasn’t months. That would be too long. “Weeks” is probably too long too, because I would have dried out or something by then. “Hours” is too short. To tell you the truth, I don’t even think it was a lifeboat.

B
IG
S
HOES AND
B
ULLETS

I knew if I was ever going to catch the killer clown, it wasn’t going to be enough to dress up like a clown. I also had to
think
like a clown.

T
HE
L
OOK ON
H
ER
F
ACE

“Hold on to my hand!” I yelled.

“I can’t!” said Lucinda. “I’m slipping!”

“Hold on!” I screamed. But it was too late. She let go, and fell, landing hard on her buttocks. And that was the last time we ever went square-dancing.

A G
RIM
D
ISCOVERY

When I looked into the microscope, I couldn’t believe my eyes. The deadly dangerous germs I had been studying were now dead. All dead! Now, how was I going to study them and find a cure for them? Whoever or whatever had killed them was going to be in big trouble.

T
HE
C
HOICE

I picked up a stick and drew a line in the sand. “Whoever wants to go with me, cross over on this side,” I said. Tears welled up in my eyes. Before I even finished speaking, all three of my dogs crossed over. Then Scruffy grabbed the stick and ran away with it.

N
ATIVE
L
ORE

So this was what the natives called the “terror bird.” It turned out to be nothing more than a gigantic forty-foot eagle that shot fire out of its mouth.

T
HE
L
URKER
B
ELOW

As I maneuvered the one-man sub into the enemy harbor, I smiled a little smile to myself. It amused me to think that the people of Massachusetts did not even realize that a Connecticut resident was right under their very noses.

T
HE
S
AD
F
AREWELL

I tried to explain to Lelani that she could not come back with me to civilization, that she would die there. A tear trickled down her cheek. Then she put something in my hand.

It was a shrunken head—the same one that had made us laugh so much that first day.

M
ARTIAN
T
RICKERY

The Martians hooked me up to what I thought was a lie detector, but turned out to be a torture device. And after that, they had me sign what I thought was a recording contract, but which turned out to be a confession.

P
REY,
T
ELL
M
E

As I understood it, the tribe would give me a head start, and then they would hunt me down, for sport. I got an idea. Instead of running, I began to ask them a bunch of questions about the rules, to stall and confuse them. That’s when the clubbing began.