Mrs. Alfred Packer does Labor Day (final chapter up 08-31)

[franksolich]

Introduction.  â€œMrs. Alfred Packer does Labor Day” is the latest in the Packer Chronicles, based upon the adventures of the hippywife primitive and her hippyhubby in rustic northeastern Oklahoma, drawn from her comments in the cooking and baking forum on Skins’s island.

The first tales in the Packer Chronicles were nothing more than short affectionate heart-warming stories, after which they evolved into describing hippyhubby Wild Bill’s ineptitude with natural gas and other explosives, but since last spring, they’ve further evolved into something else.

There’s lots and lots of stories of the Packer clan here; too many to link.

Anyway, in their present state, the Packer Chronicles are a parody of the paranoia of the primitives.

hippywife Mrs. Alfred Packer, once one of the most prolific and entertaining primitives on Skins’s island, upon learning of the proliferation of the Packer Chronicles, for some perverse and utterly unwarranted reason, became embarrassed, and slunk away from Skins’s island, refusing to comment there any more, thus depriving the DUmpster of much superlative comedic material.

And then hippyhubby Wild Bill confided that, because the description of details in the Packer Chronicles were so true, so accurate, so exact in all the facts, he suspected franksolich of hanging around, in real life, down there in the woods of northeastern Oklahoma, peeking in their windows, opening their mail, tapping their telephone and internet service, hiding underneath the marital bed, inquiring of their neighbors and local law-enforcement, watching them through the lenses of a telescope from a road intersection, and hiring a helicopter to hover over the hippyhome, taking notes.

Everything franksolich wrote was so precise, so free from error, so close to the truth, that he couldn’t possibly be writing the Packer Chronicles unless he were actually right there in real life, spying on them.

Frankly, this pisses me off.  franksolich plays fair-and-square, indulges in clean sportsmanship, observes boundaries.

Because it tends to get too hot down south, franksolich has never in real life been anywhere near northeastern Oklahoma, or even Oklahoma in general.  But even if northeastern Oklahoma were convenient to me, I’d still desist from troubling the Packer clan.  It’s not in my nature to snoop.

Being deaf, one collides with all sorts of unpleasant experiences as it is; one doesn’t need to look for more.

The tales in the Packer Chronicles are based solely, wholly, and entirely, upon the comments of hippywife Mrs. Alfred Packer in the cooking and baking forum on Skins’s island, derived from nowhere else.

franksolich does not stalk, never has stalked.

And so now all these parodies of the paranoia of the primitives, where franksolich reverses roles with the paranoid primitives, and imagines they’re stalking him.

“Mrs. Alfred Packer does Labor Day,” in which the Packer clan returns, again, to the roof of Nebraska, on the eastern fringe of the Sandhills, to stalk franksolich, consists of twelve chapters, to be posted in sequential order on this thread starting Friday, August 19.

The first three chapters are those in which the main characters are introduced to the reader; then the story begins in earnest with hippywife seeing franksolich up close and real intimate-like, culminating in the final chapter, where the cadaver-carver-wielding hippyhubby meets franksolich face-to-face for the first time.

[franksolich]

Introduction: notes on Chapter 7.  Chapter 7, in which the defrocked warped primitive meets (the real) franksolich caused me grievous problems whereas the other eleven chapters proved a joy to write.  I wrote Chapter 7 at the request of certain avid readers of the Packer Chronicles, readers who thought they’d like to see if franksolich could write some pornography.

I really didn’t want to write Chapter 7, as pornography’s not my thing to do, but one is compelled to please his readers.  When perusing Chapter 7, I humbly request, if the reader has any respect for franksolich, to constantly keep in mind that in real life, I am considered a good Catholic boy, an enthusiastic proponent of God and the policies and dictates of Rome.

Actually, alas, it was necessary to write Chapter 7, to preserve my own dignity and honor.  Long-time readers of the DUmpster are aware that at one time I had much admiration and respect for the defrocked warped primitive, and expressed such sentiments often, right here on these pages.  I was fulsome in my praise, my awe, my affection, for her, and wished to be her friend.

But the more I praised the defrocked warped primitive, the more she damned me, from Skins’s island.

This confused me, because if anyone needs a friend, it’s the defrocked warped primitive, living in secluded humiliation in the wilds of New Mexico, after having been caught with her hands in the narcotics cabinet of a hospital back in Massachusetts.  We all know that beauty, or in the case of the defrocked warped primitive, ugliness, is only skin-deep, but surely she’s taken some knocks in life, having inherited the looks of her father, and the sex of her mother. 

The defrocked warped primitive is 100% femme, with all the usual female wiles, whims, and passions, but one suspects that her big bones, her square face, her broad shoulders, her husky voice, and the sporadic facial hair, has interfered with her enjoying being a woman.

If anyone needs a friend, it’s the defrocked warped primitive, and franksolich attempted to be her friend, only to have his kind and gracious and tender overtures to her angrily and bitterly scorned.

Chapter 7 was read by a panel of three women in real life, so as to assure I was not being offensive to women.  One is a farm-wife, mother of four small children, 35 years old.  A second is a school-teacher, mother of six children, 43 years old.  The third is a soil scientist, originally from Maryland, married only a couple of years, thus far no children, 29 years old.

All of these church-going women, paragons of modesty and decorum, have assured me that Chapter 7 is not offensive to women, and in fact during the writing of it, they all offered suggestions that vastly improved it, for which I am immensely grateful.

There are no unnatural acts, no violence, no bestiality, no humiliations and degradations, no sadism, no leather, no whips, no chains, no bloodshed, and only one dirty word, in Chapter 7.  While it might seem a contradiction in terms, I suppose to call it “wholesome pornography” is not inaccurate.

Every story in the Packer Chronicles is, of course, loosely based upon people I’ve known, experiences I’ve had, in real life.  I have not the imagination to create something out of thin air.  However, having never been privy to locker-room talk or barber-shop gossip for the simple reason that I’m deaf, and having never hung around places congested with members of my own gender in undress, I had to draw upon my own self on matters involving the description of male attributes and behavior.

If, in describing franksolich and his conduct, I have insulted members of my own gender, I apologize; offenses were simply because the resources upon which I could draw, were so scant.

I swear upon the Head of St. John the Baptist, kissing the Holy Grail, embracing the Crucifix, that Chapter 7 was written with only honorable and noble sentiments the motive; simply to enlighten and instruct the primitives on Skins’s island that, if franksolich extends the hand of friendship to any of them, it’s a good idea to take that hand, to clasp it, to embrace it, to caress it, to kiss it, to hang onto it with dear life.

There is an old saying, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”  This however is not quite true; even a woman scorned has nothing near the fury of franksolich scorned, as readers will discover from Chapter 7.

[franksolich]

Friday morning.  The hippycaravan arrived at the camp-site in northern Nebraska in early morning, having been on the road all night from northeastern Oklahoma. 

There had been hippyhubby Wild Bill and hippywife Mrs. Alfred Packer in the lead vehicle, the hippymobile with all the food and cooking implements stashed in the back; and then Wild Bill’s brother with no forehead, driving the 1974 two-door Chevrolet Impala, warpy in the front seat with him, Wild Bill’s ma, grasswire, and Ms. Ed, the unappellated eohippus, in the back; after which Wild Bill’s brother with no chin—his lower jaw receded into his neck—and the ancient Econoline van, filled with the camping gear; Wild Bill’s brother with both eyes on the same side of his nose, steering a New Deal-era pick-up truck, with  butchery implements, chains, rope, wrapping-paper and string, and empty Thermos chests in the bed; and finally, at the end was the former Fed Ex delivery van, now disguised as a multi-tiered funeral hearse, driven by the brother-in-law, with hippyhubby’s sister beside him.  It carried miscellaneous automotive parts, tools, and spare tires, in case something broke down in one of the hippyvehicles.

Something had in fact broken down; the road from the highway to the campsite by the river was not really, a road, being instead rough terrain that would tax the capabilities of a lunar rover, with considerable ruts, gullies, inclines, and drop-offs, the Impala getting its entire underside scraped off.

It had to be temporarily abandoned about halfway from the highway to the campsite, a couple of miles or so, its occupants walking, hiking, climbing, scaling the rest of the way to the campsite.

MineralMan and Odin2005 arrived down from Minnesota about an hour later.  Odin2005 was a chubby aspy lad who’d driven MineralMan nuts during the ride, incessantly chitter-chattering about himself.  MineralMan had brought him along purely out of sympathy, as the boy had no friends and no life, and MineralMan thought the expedition to get franksolich might be interesting for him.

MineralMan was around 65 years old, with a mellow, laid-back temperament, and very much resembled a 65-year-old John Lennon, down to the long hair and wire-rimmed eyeglasses.  A senior-citizen hippie, although in better shape than most old hippies.  However, despite that he’d been puffing on the weed since Minneapolis so as to dispel the abysmal presence of the aspy lad who bore him to tears, he got there in a shell-shocked ga-ga state.  Four ounces of dope and hash hadn’t been enough to shut out the aspy lad.

In fact, MineralMan had been so stoned the last part of the trip that, somewhere between the highway and the campsite, on lunar terrain, he’d gotten two flat tires, rolling in on the rims, and not knowing it.

hippyhubby Wild Bill supervised the set-up of the camp, which very soon began to resemble a third-world refugee camp, piecemeal half-tents attached to ancient motor vehicles, a fire burning in the center of the circle, disheveled hippywomen in skirts and shorts carrying things to-and-fro for their men.

About mid-morning, two things happened.  One was the sudden appearance of a woman on horseback, riding up to the camp.  She was in her mid-thirties, tall and thin, with dark red hair, looking very much as if out of a painting by Renoir or Cassatt. 

Curious as to what was happening, she dismounted, and walked over to the hippycamp.  When told they were there for the holiday weekend, she welcomed them, mentioning that she was a good friend of the owner of the property, and that he was the sort who always liked visitors.  He wasn’t around this morning, but she was sure he’d be around later; he was hosting a picnic the afternoon of Labor Day, and per his instructions, everybody and anybody was welcome to come, she said, pointing to the house and grounds about a football field’s length away from the campsite on the river.

hippywife Mrs. Alfred Packer recognized her as the same woman who’d been with the stranger most of the time on the 4th of July; that woman with the nice-looking husband, who himself took three of their children, two little twin girls and a littler boy, around with him, while she and the stranger pushed a male infant in a baby-carriage.

The horsewoman, interested in what hippyhubby Wild Bill was doing at a table, sat down next to him.  She thought the collection of knives he had all laid out, different from other knives she’d ever seen.  hippyhubby recounted to her how he’d gotten them cheap, even though they were of highest quality, from a surplus-property auction at the county coroner’s office down in Oklahoma.

“Cadaver carvers,” he called them, at which she laughed.  She had a crystal-clear laugh, much like the tinkling of glass or chimes, and she seemed to laugh a lot at other things Wild Bill told her.

hippywife Mrs. Alfred Packer was kind of uncomfortable with that; she seemed to be sitting rather too close to Wild Bill, and hippyhubby on his own part seemed to warm to her too much.

But the woman stayed only several minutes, saying she had to ride back home now.  Mrs. Alfred Packer watched as she rode down a dip in the meadow through a grove of trees, over to the faraway house, circled the house itself and its outbuildings, and then rode off on the dirt road leading north from there, a faint cloud of dust in her wake.

hippywife, seeing hippyhubby watching her, hoped she wouldn’t come around any more.

But at the same time Wild Bill was looking longingly in the distance, on the other side, three boys came floating down the river on a make-shift raft.  Mrs. Alfred Packer thought they were all perhaps about 10 years old, and looked rather Tom-Sawyerish, rather cute.

They hollered something towards the hippycamp, getting Wild Bill’s attention, compelling him to shuffle down to the banks of the river to hear them.

“ARE YOU HIPPIES?” they hollered.

hippyhubby flashed the “thumbs-up” sign at them.

“REAL HIPPIES?” they shouted.

Wild Bill grinned.

“HIPPIES LIKE THERE USED TO BE?” they asked.

Wild Bill, standing on the shore, flashed the “thumbs-up” sign at them again.

“EW, ICK,” one of them screamed, “REAL HIPPIES, DIRTY HIPPIES, LAZY HIPPIES, SMELLY HIPPIES.”

Wild Bill, insulted, ran out into the water towards them, but the boys poled the raft further near the center of the running water, out of his reach.  He threw rocks at the boys as they drifted away, hearing them scream, “ICK, HIPPIES, DIRTY HIPPIES!  LET’S GET AWAY FROM THEM!  EW!”

As the raft floated around the bend, the hippycamp could still hear, “HIPPIES!  HIPPIES!”

Well, Mrs. Alfred Packer didn’t think much of the welcome, but these were fundiebrats, after all, she reminded herself, as she tediously rubbed Wild Bill’s dirty shirt against the wooden washboard.

Wild Bill’s ma was darning socks, grasswire was churning butter, warpy was chopping wood, and Ms. Ed was playing with one of Wild Bill’s brothers behind a tree.  All the other hippymenfolk, including Wild Bill, lazily slumbered on the ground.

Then suddenly everyone heard the roar of a motor vehicle, and looked up.  There was a pick-up truck coming their way, bouncing and tumbling down the ravine and gently sliding down the drop-offs. 

hippyhubby cursed.  More campers, he bet, and here, they’d hoped for solitude.

The pick-up truck, with three cowboys in the cab, pulled up near the hippycamp and drove slowly by, three grinning faces staring out at the hippyassembly.

After seeing the sight, the cowboys rode on down the river, towards a county road three miles away.

Mrs. Alfred Packer wondered what that was all about.

But she didn’t have much time to wonder, because soon thereafter there appeared a Buick sedan jostling along the the trail, with two old folks in it.  They too pulled up near the hippycamp, drove slowly by, staring at the hippycrowd, and then continuing on down the path.

And close behind them was yet another pick-up truck, a farmer and his wife who slowed down near them, gaped and commented to each other inside the truck, and went on their way.

It appeared to be a procession, all sorts of motor vehicles coming down near the hippycamp, the occupants staring, and then going on.  Some vehicles, especially those with small children in them, slowed down enough so that cameras could be taken out and pictures snapped.

hippyhubby Wild Bill was choking from the dust, and shaking his fist.

The last straw was when a pick-up truck with the logo of a television station from faraway Sioux City came down, and circled the hippycamp several times, a man standing in the bed of the truck, where a television camera had been bolted to the floor, rolling film for the noon news.  The truck circled and circled, as the camera picked up the faces and expressions of each of the camphippys.

Wild Bill shook his fist at them, saying words that couldn’t be quoted on television.

Then more cars, more trucks, more vans, even a couple of semi-trucks with 53’ trailers, bounced by.

About noon, the county sheriff jogged down there.

Seeing they weren’t from the area, he welcomed them, asking how they were doing.

Wild Bill complained about the parade that was passing by.

“That’s what brought me here,” the sheriff said; “to be sure everything was okay.

“You see, there’s three boys up on the highway with a big sign, SEE THE HIPPYS $1 ADMISION, and I wanted to check.”

He handed Wild Bill a piece of colored paper, a photocopied job in a child’s handwriting, SEE THE HIPPYS -- $1 ADMISION PER PERSON – RULLES – DONT FEED THE HIPPYS – DONT TOUCH THE HIPPYS – DONT TALK TO THE HIPPYS – JUST LOOK AT THE HIPPYS -- $1 ADMISION.

hippyhubby got hot under the collar about that, his grey ponytail bristling.

“Well,” the sheriff said, “I can’t do anything about it, because nobody’s breaking any laws.  It’s not against the law for people to look at things, since you have the owner’s permission it’s not against the law for you to be here, and as for the kids, there’s no law against charging admission to a freak show.”

Turning to leave, he saw the hippywomen—Mrs. Alfred Packer, Wild Bill’s ma, Wild Bill’s sister, warpy, grasswire, and Ms. Ed—sitting in a row at the table, and tipped his hat to them.

“Good day, ladies.”

Then turning to Wild Bill, he said, “But keep it clean, G-rated.  This is a family area; don’t have any naked hippie women running around doing all this ‘free love’ stuff.”

[franksolich]

Friday afternoon.  Bothered by the traffic flowing past and the dust it stirred, MineralMan decided to take a walk alongside the river; about a mile away from the hippycamp, he came upon a clearing, where there was a man and some cats.

The man was tall and thin, with thick long dark brown hair, dressed in gym shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt, and was playing with the cats in a most peculiar manner; it was as if they were dogs, chasing a frisbee and bringing it back to him.  He could be heard hollering “STOP” or “STAY” or “GO” or “HEEL” or “FETCH,” and the cats could be seen obeying him.

It was just really odd.

Not only that; the guy had the most level voice MineralMan’d ever heard.  It was a flat, broad, shallow voice, but so level; if it’d been measured on some sort of voice-o-meter, it would’ve been a straight line, no blips up or down in it.

MineralMan walked towards him, asking “Hey man, what’s up with the cats?”

He ignored MineralMan.

MineralMan got closer, to within about ten feet of him.

He ignored MineralMan.

Puzzled by the non-response, MineralMan got nearly into his face, after which he was noticed.

“What’s going on?  What’s up with the cats?”

He looked at MineralMan blankly.

Finally, MineralMan got a clue.  In sign-language, he asked, “ARE YOU DEAF?”

The guy dismissively signed back, “YES.”

MineralMan asked, “DO YOU WANT TO TALK?”

He signed back, “NO.”

MineralMan was taken aback, and the other guy, noticing it, further explained, “I HAVE NO IDEA WHO YOU ARE.  I DON’T DEAL WITH PEOPLE I DON’T KNOW.”

MineralMan signed, “WELL THEN, HOW DO YOU GET TO KNOW PEOPLE IN THE FIRST PLACE?”

“TIME AND CHANCE, RANDOM ACCIDENT, CHANCES AND MISCHANCES OF FORTUNE.”

MineralMan was getting ready to ask why this didn’t apply to him when the guy with the frisbee added, “I’M SORRY, BUT I NEED TO SPEND ‘QUALITY TIME’ WITH THE CATS; THEY DON’T GET ENOUGH ATTENTION AS IT IS,” and then motioning as if to shove MineralMan away from him.

MineralMan backed off, and went to sit on a rock, where he rolled a joint.

Geezuz, he thought; so much for the legendary Nebraska hospitality.

While getting high, MineralMan tried to recall all he’d learned about the deaf when in college during the sixties.  There wasn’t a whole lot of material about them—as compared with other categories of people—and one time MineralMan asked a professor why.

He had been told that, unlike other categories of people, the deaf tended to make themselves inaccessible, and so there were considerable difficulties in studying them.  “Getting anything out of them,” said one professor, “is like trying to pry open a clam with a wet paper towel.”

MineralMan, looking at the guy with the frisbee, supposed that was still true.

After a while, the guy quit tossing the frisbee around for the cats to catch, and started shouting new orders.  “DRESS RIGHT,” he ordered, and the cats all fell in line.  “EYES FRONT,” “DRESS LEFT,” “EYES FRONT.”  The cats marched in lock-step in a neat square.

Now, MineralMan was stoned, and might’ve been imagining things, but it was as if the Changing of the Guard, the cats forming and marching and turning; it was almost as if they were in kilts, and he was hearing bagpipes.

“QUICK MARCH,” and then “DOUBLE MARCH,” he ordered.  “HUP TWO THREE FOUR, HUP TWO THREE FOUR, HUP TWO THREE FOUR…..”

While MineralMan was watching, a car pulled up nearby, out from which two women emerged.

“CATS, AT EASE,” the guy ordered, and the cats relaxed.

They both looked to be in their early thirties.  The taller of the two, the one wearing eyeglasses and with dark hair, went over to the frisbee-tosser, while the other, a blonde, approached MineralMan.

The latter introduced herself to MineralMan, ignoring the lit joint in his hand.  She was from town, although she actually lived in Lincoln, where she was marketing manager for a computer firm.  The other was a friend of hers, originally from Maryland but now a soil scientist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture out in western Nebraska.

MineralMan identified himself, remarking he was with the campers a mile down the river.  When told they were staying until late Monday evening, she commented that he—pointing to the other guy talking with the other woman—was having a big picnic at his place Monday afternoon, and she was sure he’d be delighted if he and his fellow campers showed up.

“I dunno,” MineralMan said; “he’s not very friendly.”

“Oh, but that’s all wrong,” she protested; “he’s a nice guy, one of the nicest guys one can ever hope to meet.  You and your friends should come; everybody always has a good time there.”

The guy with the frisbee opened all four doors of his automobile, and hollered for the cats, who eagerly piled into the car.  As they took off, MineralMan noticed they acted exactly as if dogs, their heads out the opened windows, their tongues lapping up the moving air, all agog and excited about going for a ride.

It freaked him out, the way those cats acted.

The other woman, the taller one, came over, and after introductions, also invited MineralMan and his fellow campers to the Labor Day picnic.  “You’ll have a great time; he’s a nice guy, one of the nicest guys one can ever hope to meet.”

MineralMan again expressed his skepticism, describing the encounter.

“Oh, but you see,” she said, “and of course you didn’t know, you signed to him. 

“He’s touchy about that; he’ll sign only with other deaf people, never to hearing people.  He’s hostile about hearing people signing to him, as if they don’t think he can understand them.

MineralMan stared at her.

“Well, if he can’t hear us, how the devil does he communicate with us?”

“Oh,” she said, “it’s simple.  He guesses what you’re saying.

“On a good day, he can guess right about one in ten times.

“The rest of the time, it can lead to some, uh, rather interesting twists and turns in a conversation, one person talking apples while he talks oranges, because he’s not guessing right about what the other person’s saying.

“Like, more usually, you might be talking about the weather, or about having had a flat tire, and he, guessing, will assume you’re talking about the cultivation of silkworms, and so he’ll respond about that.”

MineralMan thought about it.  “Okay…..weird, but whatever.

“Tell me, what’s up with the cats?”

But she’d already started walking away, reminding him he and the others were invited to the picnic.

“What’s up with the cats?  How come they act like dogs?” he hollered again, but they had walked too far away to hear him.

[Karin]

Great read so far! 

If I were Hippiewife, I'd be praying for some other woman to come along and turn Bill's head, make him run away with her.  Life would be vastly superior without him.  Or his brothers. 

You should invent a long-lost cousin someday, with his face directly on top of his head.   

[franksolich]

You should invent a long-lost cousin someday, with his face directly on top of his head.   

I vaguely recall I did, in one of the first stories in the Packer Chronicles.

But I kept forgetting to use him in subsequent stories, and so forgot, having been too involved with the image of the brother with both eyes on the same side of his nose.

Chapter 3 comes up sometime tonight (Friday), and then the story begins in earnest with Chapter 4, probably tomorrow (Saturday), when Mrs. Alfred Packer meets franksolich up close and intimately, although of course no one is aware their host is franksolich, since hippyhubby Wild Bill has declared that the real franksolich is too stupid to be the real franksolich, given his "retarded" voice.

[Chris_]

The cats, man... the cats.

[franksolich]

Friday evening.  As MineralMan walked back to where the others were, hippyhubby Wild Bill was running around angrily chasing a carload of teenagers, who like the television truck hours earlier, were circling the hippycamp as if wild Indians attacking a huddled wagon train, jeering and snapping photographs.

As he chased them, Wild Bill was yelling up a storm, cursing them, throwing sticks at them, giving them his middle finger.

They finally went away.

At the same time, a black pick-up truck approached, coming from the house across the meadow.  Wild Bill, catching his breath, started gathering more sticks and stones, but then Mrs. Alfred Packer recognized the driver as the neighbor, the husband of the red-headed horsewoman who’d showed up in the morning.  She’d always thought him a nice-looking young man, and was gratified his wife wasn’t with him.

“Well, the boys up on the highway had to go home for supper,” the neighbor said, “so I don’t think you’ll be troubled any more tonight.  They had two full shoe-boxes, and one partial, of one-dollar bills, so I guess everybody in the county’s been here.”

The neighbor had dropped by because his wife had told him of the predicament of the hippycamp; that the 1974 Chevrolet Impala had bottomed out on the “road,” and that MineralMan’s car had two flat tires, and he had only one spare tire.

The neighbor took care of the latter problem first, taking the two wheels off and tossing them into the back of his truck.  “No point in using your spare,” he told MineralMan; “we’ll take these to the big city, get them repaired, and bring them back here and put them back on.”

Then the neighbor and hippyhubby went to look at the Impala.  It’d high-centered on a rock, and was facing down a drop-off, its nose buried in the ground.

The neighbor was dubious.  “This thing has more rust, than metal.  It’ll probably fall apart the first time it’s grabbed by a crane.  You sure you want to bother with trying to save it?”

Wild Bill insisted it had sentimental value; it had to be salvaged.  The neighbor said he had a portable crane used for lifting capsized tractors and other farm machinery, but they’d bother with it tomorrow, in the afternoon.  In the meantime, best to get the two tires to the big city, before places shut down for the holiday weekend.

hippyhubby decided he’d go too, thinking it might be a chance to run into franksolich, or at least his friend the retard.  But as he didn’t care much for the neighbor, he said he’d follow along, in the hippymobile.  The stoned MineralMan got into the truck with the neighbor, and since aspyboy Odin2005 wanted to go too, he got into the hippymobile with Wild Bill.

Five miles down the highway, Wild Bill regretted he hadn’t brought his cadaver carvers along, to shut the aspyboy up.

While they were gone, an apparition familiar to hippywife suddenly appeared; the little wizened bald bug-eyed property caretaker, coming up to the hippycamp driving one of those miniature all-terrain motor-cars.

“Are you folks all comfortable here again,” he inquired; “when the boss comes back, I’d like to tell him you’ve been comfortable, because the boss prides himself on his hospitality.”

hippywife admitted that all things considered, everybody was comfortable. 

“There’s still plenty of tomatoes, and the cucumbers are now ripe, up by the house,” the bug-eyed one said, “and if you want any, you’re welcome to them, as the boss doesn’t care.  As with tomatoes, when the boss wants cucumbers, he buys them at the grocery store in town.

“There’s probably a whole truckload of cucumbers up there now.”

Wild Bill’s brother with both eyes on the same side of his nose popped open a can of beer.

The caretaker saw that, and pulling out a 36-pack of Budweiser from the back of the miniature motor-car, insisted, “No, not yours, save yours for later.  Courtesy the boss.

“The boss doesn’t drink himself, but doesn’t mind if others do, and if that’s what it takes for someone to get comfortable here, well, beer it is. 

“It’s a good thing you’re not camping in a state park, where alcohol’s illegal; here on the boss’s property, you can have all you want.

“A nice guy, the boss; one of the nicest guys one can ever hope to meet.”

Everyone had supper, and the other four returned from the big city, the tires repaired.  After the neighbor reattached them to MineralMan’s car, he took off, as he had chores to do at home.

The bug-eyed one kept the congregation entertained around the campfire, regaling them with stories of the boss, whom none of them had met yet, although he was hoping they would, soon. 

And being drunk, he spilled plenty of beans about the boss.

After it got wholly dark, the group suddenly saw a flashlight approaching them.

It was a woman, about 40 years old although she looked younger, tall, thin, and with dark blonde hair.

Mrs. Alfred Packer immediately recognized her; the gold-digger.

The wanton hussy who’d danced with the stranger the 4th of July, giving the impression that the two of them had been meant for each other, to the exclusion of anybody else.  The woman in the parking lot who’d ruined the HOPE AND CHANGE bumper-sticker on the hippymobile; an accident she’d said, but she hadn’t seemed too bothered by it.

The woman shone the light in the individual faces; Wild Bill, Mrs. Alfred Packer, Wild Bill’s ma, Wild Bill’s sister, warpy, grasswire, Ms. Ed, MineralMan, Odin2005, and Wild Bill’s brothers and brother-in-law.  She scowled as she looked at each face, especially at hippyhubby’s murderous countenance.

“Why are these people here?” she sharply asked of the bug-eyed one; “who are these people?”

“Oh now, don’t get all bent out of shape,” the caretaker assured her; “some of them’ve been here before, they’re not exactly strangers any more, and you know the boss’s rule about hospitality.”

“Yes, yes,” she snapped back, “but I don’t want them here.  I want them out. 

“Nothing good can possibly come of this.”

“But it’s the boss’s rule,” the bug-eyed one said; “hospitality to anyone coming his way.

“And besides, you’re not married to the boss yet.”

hippywife was bothered at hearing matrimony was apparently contemplated.

The woman with the flashlight glowered at the caretaker, and they both decided they’d better carry on further conversation without an audience.  They moved closer to the river, and sat on a fallen log in the darkness.

“Yes, yes,” she snapped back; “I know that’s his rule, and it’s a lousy rule. 

“Not only is he out here all alone, but he’s always been an Innocent, a child, a naif, a Pollyanna, credulous, unworldly, simple, unaffected, with no guile, ignoring the bad, never knowing what’s going on, never knowing the natures of people—he’s going to get hurt somehow, some day.

“And maybe even by these…..these…..these…..people, whoever they are.

“They’ll probably do all sorts of things without his knowing they’re even there.”

[GOBUCKS]

But I kept forgetting to use him in subsequent stories, and so forgot, having been too involved with the image of the brother with both eyes on the same side of his nose.

I could have sworn that relative was a woman. Maybe it's a dominant Packer gene.

[Karin]

I got it from Florence King's "Southern Ladies and Gentlemen."  She said some woman had given birth to "a monster with his face on top of his head."  This from a chapter on the southern obsession with wombs.  It just sounded like a Wild Bill relative. 

[franksolich]

Saturday morning.  In the early morning, Mrs. Alfred Packer decided to go up to the house, to get some cucumbers from the garden there, that the little old wizened bug-eyed caretaker said they could have.  She carried along two old pails with her.

As she approached the house, she noticed the cats were no longer silhouetted in the windows; no one inside was watching outside.  Then she saw the cats romping and playing over in the south meadow.  

Mrs. Alfred Packer peeked inside the first window nearest the lawn spigot, and gasped.

It was the stranger, stirring himself awake in bed.  He rubbed his eyes, sleepily glancing at the portable clock, and slowly rose.  So it was the stranger who lived here, the pal of franksolich, the one hippyhubby Wild Bill called “the retard.”

Mrs. Alfred Packer watched as he walked over to the mirror above the bureau, where he carefully examined his face and neck and shoulders, as if looking for something.  He obviously found something and grimaced, his back turned towards her.

She noticed, from the back, that there was a large scar on the rear of his right arm, running from near the shoulder down to the wrist, and wondered what was up with that.  But that distracted her not long at all, as there was so much more to see.  Mrs. Alfred Packer was a little disappointed that for such a man with such dark hair and fair skin, he was only moderately hirsute.

He was solid, no flab, but not especially muscular.  He was tall, but thin for his height.

It would be superfluous to mention the stranger had slept without any clothes on; when he turned around, Mrs. Alfred Packer saw that he was, undeniably, a member of the male race.

Oh my, she thought.

He walked through the door on the south, and she hurriedly hiked up her skirt and scrambled towards that window, only to see it had frosted glass on it.  She heard a running tinkle, and then a flush.  She rushed over to the next window, the kitchen, and watched as he poured water into a coffee-maker, turning it on.

Mrs. Alfred Packer sighed; she wished Wild Bill looked like that in the morning.

The coffee brewing, the stranger then walked back through the bedroom and then out a door to the east, going into the living room.  Mrs. Alfred Packer, her pails discarded and still holding up her skirt so as to not trip over the hem, scrambled from window to window, trampling flowers, as he walked through.

The house had windows all around; in fact, the house had more windows than walls, as if someone wished to have a clear vista of the panoramic landscape of the Sandhills outside.

In the living room, he checked the indoor thermometer, absent-mindedly scratching himself.

He peeked through the curtains of the front door, and seeing no one was there, opened the door, and then returned to a table in between the living room and the dining room.  Leaning over the table, he turned on the computer.

While waiting for the computer to finish turning on, he grabbed a cigarette, lit it, and stepped outside onto the front porch, leaning against the wall of the house, contemplating the scenery to the east, where the sun was rising.

The computer finally on—his home page was the Drudge Report—he went back inside and bent over the table again, quickly scanning the contents.

Mrs. Alfred Packer sighed again.  She wished hippyhubby looked like that in the morning.

The coffee done, the wholly nude stranger opened the back door, to the west, towards the river.  He grimaced when he noticed that someone had set up camp on the river, but as that was quite far from the house, they couldn’t see him, so he walked outside, carrying his cup of coffee, still smoking a cigarette, and stood on the back porch for some minutes, contemplating the meadows, the trees, the river.

Nice hangery, Mrs. Alfred Packer, who was seeing him in profile, thought to herself.

He finally put down the cup of coffee and stretched.

Mrs. Alfred Packer got all tingly and excited, and stumbled over a rose bush.

She cursed out loud.

By the time she had gotten all straightened out and determined the stranger hadn’t heard her, he had gone back inside, and she rushed to the next window, where she watched, disappointed, as he donned a pair of gym shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt.

[tanstaafl]

Nice hangery, Mrs. Alfred Packer, who was seeing him in profile, thought to herself.

Hangery?

[Chris_]

Hangery?

Engrish for you is the most happy.

[franksolich]

Hangery?

I was desperate.

I'm trying to keep this story clean, and couldn't figure out a non-dirty way to say it.

Just like in the upcoming Chapter 7, wherein the defrocked warped primitive seduces franksolich, I used the word "orbs," but then cancelled it out, as "orbs" sounded a little lascivious.

[tanstaafl]

I was desperate.

I'm trying to keep this story clean, and couldn't figure out a non-dirty way to say it.

Just like in the upcoming Chapter 7, wherein the defrocked warped primitive seduces franksolich, I used the word "orbs," but then cancelled it out, as "orbs" sounded a little lascivious.

Quite alright, franksolich.

When I read that, the first thing that popped into my mind was the scene from Monty Python's "Holy Grail".

"Give us your shrubbery!"

[franksolich]

Quite alright, franksolich.

When I read that, the first thing that popped into my mind was the scene from Monty Python's "Holy Grail".

"Give us your shrubbery!"

I'm still having an editing problem with Chapter 7, though.

There's the part where franksolich approaches the defrocked warped primitive to present her a flower, and ".....as he walked up to her, the pendulum swinging....."

Trying to write clean pornography is an art I don't seem to have mastered yet, but I'm trying.

That has to go, but I'm stymied.

[Chris_]

Maybe a nautical reference instead.

[franksolich]

Maybe a nautical reference instead.

Already used, but I forget where; I think in Chapter 10, where Ms. Ed wants to seduce franksolich.

You're aware of course that no one knows the guy in the house, their host, is the real franksolich; they think he's just the stupid guy who hangs around with franksolich.

[Chris_]

I had figured that.  I assume "franksolich" lives nowhere near you.

[franksolich]

I had figured that.  I assume "franksolich" lives nowhere near you.

Nope, I cut that out in Chapter 3 because I thought it more important to point out something else.

Remember, hippyhubby Wild Bill thinks the other Rover Boy, the blond cowboy from way out west of here, the car salesman, the horse-trader, the certified public accountant (CPA), is franksolich, because he has an intelligent articulation, whereas this Rover Boy talks like a retard.  And so this Rover Boy can't possibly be franksolich.

[tanstaafl]

".....as he walked up to her, the pendulum swinging....."

Trying to write clean pornography is an art I don't seem to have mastered yet, but I'm trying.

That has to go, but I'm stymied.

'...her globes of feminine flesh, straining to escape their entrapment from the cage of wire, spandex, nylon and velcro swinging like pendulums...'

Feel free to use any part. No Charge.

[franksolich]

'...her globes of feminine flesh, straining to escape their entrapment from the cage of wire, spandex, nylon and velcro swinging like pendulums...'

Feel free to use any part. No Charge.

Sorry, sir, but all that's way too explicit.

And remember, Chapter 7 is clean, no unnatural acts or toys in it.

[franksolich]

Maybe a nautical reference instead.

There's a word that the late columnist Westbrook Pegler once used, that got him into all sorts of trouble; I think it begins with "a," but for the life of me I can't remember what it was.

Besides the three respectable women in real life who read Chapter 7, there's one equally decorous and respectable woman here--and no, it's not delilah--who's seen the whole thing, but she's not on-line right now, and I plan to ask her what terminology I should use so as to not offend women.

I'm treading very carefully with this.

[GOBUCKS]

"Hangery" is as artfully descriptive as any neologism I've seen.
(The San Diego know-it-all will nadin both those words.)

[JLO]

Introduction.  â€œMrs. Alfred Packer does Labor Day” is the latest in the Packer Chronicles, based upon the adventures of the hippywife primitive and her hippyhubby in rustic northeastern Oklahoma, drawn from her comments in the cooking and baking forum on Skins’s island.

*****************

hippywife Mrs. Alfred Packer, once one of the most prolific and entertaining primitives on Skins’s island, upon learning of the proliferation of the Packer Chronicles, for some perverse and utterly unwarranted reason, became embarrassed, and slunk away from Skins’s island, refusing to comment there any more.

I, for one, miss her posts.  I found her posts quite good in that community of Cooking and Baking.  I think it's too bad she feels intimidated to post there anymore.  I miss seeing her picture posts!