POTATO MOON, Part 51: “Once More, With Peeling” by Brett Hudgins

NOTE FROM PAD:  Brett’s entry is nearly 2400 words, but I’m letting it run at its full length because something this unhinged and that involved this much work shouldn’t be curtailed.

Woeisme sighed.  Aunt Alesse had been drinking again.  Apparently it was a weekday.  That didn’t mean her visions weren’t within the realm of possibility, though.  The notion that a dangerous new player might enter their chaotic lives spurred the girl to action.  Gathering Something in her slipstream—deeply relieved that Something Else was no more than a Wild Turkey feather—Woeisme departed Sullen Manor.  She and her brother needed to find their parents immediately.

Doing so proved ridiculously simple.  This part of faux-Washington State was potato country—distinct from nuclear reactor country and magic castle country, of course.  Everybody knew that Stephen Colbert, the One True Potato, kept a cottage in the area.  Guided tours were available for a bear pelt per adult; children toured for free.  Edwood and Bela were there, like, all the time, and bears were becoming scarce.

Today was exactly like all the other days Woeisme and Something had tracked their truant father and mother through the potato Eden, except that Stephen Colbert had died fighting Captain Jacque Harness and Bela had been thought paralyzed after surviving the collapse of the nearby Castle Mario.  Fortunately, two paramedics—a balding git and a cute guy wearing a purple wife beater and black pants—had determined that she’d merely forgotten how to walk because she was devoting so much of her brain to thinking about Edwood and shopping and reality television.

Jakob was there too, looking typically forlorn and desperate.

“So that’s the situation,” Woeisme reported. “We’ve temporarily survived all the potato freaks and now we need to worry about this mysterious Queen of Hearts.”

Edwood, he of the vast music collection, eloquently facepalmed. “Oh perfect.  I knew I shouldn’t have written that erotic fan letter to country-pop superstar Juice Newton.  Now she must be as hot for me as every other mammalian female.”

“Hotter,” amended a familiar voice.

A man they all knew joined the gathering.

Edwood’s dreamy eyes narrowed at the sight of the new arrival. “Oh, good.  Dr. Terrible…again.  Does one of us owe you money or something?”

“Why do you always refer to me separately?” Something complained. “I’m one of you.  I am.  I’m not just the lovechild of Mike Weber and his keyboard.  I’m a real boy.”

“Quiet, Somethnocchio.  Bela does, in fact, owe me money,” Dr. Terrible explained, “for sundry examinations and hygienic supplies.  On her current installment plan I estimate she’ll be paid up in approximately nine hundred years.”

“Huh?” Edwood wondered.

“You know my doctorate is in gynecology, don’t you?  Were it not for me your wife wouldn’t be fresh like summer rain.” Bela was blushing heatedly. “However, I’ll pursue that debt another time.  The reason I’m here now is to represent Ms. Newton’s interests by subjecting you to a singing contest.  Twilight Idol, if you will.  I’ve hired a professional judge and everything.”

“Everything,” Something fumed murderously. “I can’t stand that guy.  Thinks he’s so perfect…”

“The winner,” Dr. Terrible continued, “will be given the chance to join Juice Newton’s entourage before she achieves the perfect alchemical union of song and potato that will give her ultimate mastery of the world.  She’ll be watching from a private box, so make it good.  Edwood Sullen, it goes without saying, will be her king regardless of his placement in this challenge.  Also, Tayna Laubaucher wanted songs, so songs she shall have.”

“That’s not fair,” Jakob protested, because his whole life wasn’t fair and maybe he’d like to be a heart king instead of a potato king if someone would just ask. “Unless we can make up points in the swimsuit round.  I’m waxed to the max, babe.”

“Twilight Idol,” mused Edwood. “Twilight Idol, Twilight Idol, Twilight Idol—”

“Dearest,” Bela interrupted, “what are you doing?”

“Twilight Idol.  If you say it fast enough, it sounds like ‘twaddle.'”

“Oh!  How…apt.  But aren’t you worried about being stolen away from me?  Aren’t you concerned about appearing as an accessory when I knock Juice Newton’s hussy teeth down her throat?”

Edwood didn’t reply.  He didn’t need an angel of the morning to break it to him gently that love had been a little bit hard on him and their current predicament was both a heartache and the sweetest thing they’d ever known.

Dr. Terrible led them to the nearby Gorge amphitheater, which Ms. Newton had booked for the contest.  As they arrived a bulletproof vehicle known in entertainment circles as the Dopemobile pulled up.  Surrounded by his retinue of submissive sycophants, and wearing a suit of human skin, out stepped the world’s bìŧçhìëšŧ man.  He nodded at Dr. Terrible.

“Look!  It’s Simon Cowbell!”

“Finally.  This story needs more cowbell.”

“May I have your attention, you worthless twits?” Cowbell asked in the British accent that made his simplest requests sound snide and disdainful.  The insults and hand gestures were just icing. “I’ve been hired to judge you.  In truth, I’ve already done so.  However, to earn the bonus that will pay for my new beach house, a marvel of architectural engineering hydroelectrically powered by the tears of my victims, I need to hear you insipid dolts sing.  I told Dr. Terrible, I’ve already listened to geese mating as I fed them roughly through a wood chipper, but my logic fell on ears as deaf as I often wish mine were.  Thus, please try to keep your offerings brief.  You’re wasting my oxygen.”

“Wow,” said Woeisme, “he’s much nicer in person.”

Cowbell seated himself on a throne upholstered in human skin. “Right, then.  Juice Newton is waiting.  Which one of you genetic tragedies is going to torment me first?”

“I will.” Edwood squared his shoulders and approached the stage Cowbell’s haunted, browbeaten staff had just erected.  It was surfaced in human skin and the robots that weren’t exactly Daleks had returned to act as the speaker system.  Edwood’s sequined jacket, from Corey Tacker’s fun and frisky Spring line, caught the spotlights as he seized the microphone, shooting harmless starbursts at his audience. “I’m not scared of Juice Newton, just her hair.  This song, which I’ll be improvising as I go along because I’m just that coolly detached, is dedicated to the deepest, most profound love of my eternal life.”

“Oh Edwood…” Bela swooned, crooning blissfully to herself as her husband launched into his tune:

I like big spuds and I cannot lie
You other vampires can’t deny
That when a waiter walks in with a snooty French face
And tuber treasure on your plate
You puff up, and hope Jacques brought enough
‘Cause you notice that spud is stuffed
Oozing bacon bits and cheddar
But wait—it gets even better
Oh tater, you’re my starchy dream food
Let’s chive and sour cream you
My dietician wants none of me
But this hot spud just makes me so hungry
Ooh, crispy brown skin
Hold still while I plunge my fangs in
Yeah, chew you, chew you
A thousand flavors run through you
Tried spuds fried and boiled
Scalloped don’t equal spoiled
But baked, caked
In all the toppings that she’ll take—
Ain’t no better potato
And that ain’t just my say-so
Ask the average witch in her coven
She’ll tell you lovin’ starts in the oven
So, vampires! (Yeah!) Werewolves! (Yeah!)
Have your girlfriends got the spud? (Hëll yeah!)
Tell ’em to bake it! (Bake it!) Bake it! (Bake it!)
Bake that healthy spud!
Baby got baked!

He proudly descended from the stage and rejoined Bela, who was on the ground curled into a heartbroken fetal position.  A far less demanding and water-retentive mistress, applause, followed him.

Simon Cowbell only grimaced, furiously blotting his eyes with a handkerchief sewn of human skin.  This always happened at these contests: he’d started weeping blood again. “Just when I thought I was all out of hate.  Thank you so much for that aural abomination.  My imminent nightmares are sure to be dreadfully fattening.  Next.”

Bela sprung to her feet, incapable of learning from even the most traumatic life experiences. “Ooh, ooh, me, me!” It was center-of-the-universe time once again.  Up to the stage she skipped.  She undid the top two buttons on her blouse and her voice went husky. “Edwood…no matter how brutally I assault Juice Newton in the near future, this one’s for you, sugarjunk.

Twinkle, twinkle, hot vampire
Set my underpants on fire
Nurse your sullen attitude
I get horny when you brood
You’re as strong as Hercules
But with fewer STDs
Like a cheetah you can run
Twinkle, twinkle, in the sun
Though Spike and Angel’d kick your ášš
I’ve loved you since science class
Oh, my undead superman
You have a sparkle, not a tan
Very tough to keep my cool
I’m not too ladylike to drool
Am I a superficial tart
To rank your butt above your heart?
You live according to a vow
To not kill men, so have a cow
My loins seethe with fierce desire
Twinkle, twinkle, hot vampire

Woesisme groaned. “Oh, jeez.  She’s singing about her unquenchable loins.  This is like our church picnic all over again.”

“Be reasonable,” Dr. Terrible chided. “Those loins will put my kids through college.  And retirement.”

Bowing and blowing kisses, Bela hurried back to her family and pretended they were congratulating her. “Did you see what I did there? ‘Cause Jakob was a cow and I’m sort of a cow and…”

Cowbell now held court inside a pentagram formed of smoldering black candles. “Deplorable, young woman.  Truly.  You’ve committed an egregious crime against humanity.  And whatever you cretinous throwbacks are.  Legend holds that Eva Braun serenaded Hitler with that exact song as Berlin fell.”

“Cool!”

Jakob took a deep breath.  His stomach rumbled, suggesting he shouldn’t have had those butterflies for lunch. “Guess it’s my turn.  I can’t possibly top you, Bela.  In any sense of that phrase.”

“I know,” she agreed cheerfully. “Hey, remember that time you tried to shapeshift and only a fourth of you turned werewolf and Edwood said, ‘I didn’t order a quarter-hounder with fleas’?  Wasn’t that hilarious?”

Onstage, Jakob sang from the neglected depths of his soul:

Imagine there’s no Edwood
With cheekbones a mile high
No tortured mood swings
To catch fair Bela’s eye
Imagine if I wasn’t
Always second best…
Imagine there’s no daughter
Edwood and Bela’s brat
How am I supposed to tell folks
“I’m almost hittin’ that”?
Imagine if I wasn’t
Rocketing to jail…
I swear it’s not jungle gym fever
It’s just the way werewolves mate
I’d prefer a certain MILF
But Woeisme’s my fate
Imagine there’s no vampire
With perfect skin and hair
I could have romanced Bela
With lycanthropic flair
Imagine if I wasn’t
Such a jealous douche…
I swear it’s not jungle gym fever
It’s just the way werewolves mate
I’d prefer a certain MILF
But Woeisme’s my fate

“Sounds like communism to me,” Cowbell carped, wondering who’d get the reference. “You wretched, besotted imbecile.  Human skin.”

Jakob cocked his head. “Pardon?”

“Did I say that out loud?  I meant, next.”

And here it was.  Woeisme didn’t know how she’d ended up last.  Just the story of her life, she supposed.  Nothing to do but make the best of it—nothing being her dilemma, we hasten to add, not another character, sweet Lord.  She trudged up to the microphone.  A confusing knot of intertwined destines depended on her; the pressure was colossal.  Simon Cowbell watched keenly, as if studying a menu.  His venom sacs bulged; his forked tongue caressed his lips.

For her future and her sanity, she sang:

I was born under circumstances highly contrived
A werewolf imprinted on me when I arrived
Mama is human, Papa vampire
Don’t know what that makes me
But I figure it’s high time I inquire
Werewolves, vamps and me
Plus a bunch of potato gods and kings
Look at us: werewolves, vamps and me
As we discover that everybody sings
About ludicrous things
We’ve had fries and made fun of Dan Quayle
And of how Jakob’s bound to end up in jail
A swarm of authors has put us through hëll
But let them emphasize
That former Vice-President Quayle simply cannot spell
Werewolves, vamps and me
Plus a bunch of potato gods and kings
Look at us: werewolves, vamps and me
As we discover that everybody sings
About ludicrous things
I look forward to escaping this tale
Then selling it for a ton
It’s the American dream to get rich off this dreck
Wait—what do you mean it’s been done?
What do you mean it’s been done?
I will die under circumstances highly contrived
But later—for this story’s rules keep me alive
Mama is human, Papa vampire
Don’t know what that makes me
But I figure it’s high time I inquire
Werewolves, vamps and me
Plus a bunch of potato gods and kings
Look at us: werewolves, vamps and me
As we discover that everybody sings
About ludicrous things

There was stone silence as she finished.  No one had imagined this interminable chapter would actually end.  All eyes turned slowly to Simon Cowbell, who had unhinged his jaw and was busy eating live mice.

“Appalling,” he proclaimed between swallows. “Atrocious.  Satan likely regrets betting me I couldn’t endure all four songs.  I might get my soul back.” Down the hatch went his last mouse. “Believe me when I say a lesser institution than myself would declare war in retaliation for your sonic cruelty.  I hardly know from which bodily orifice to expel my displeasure.  It’s entirely probable you’ve given me malignant ear cancer.” He regarded them all with slitted reptilian eyes. “Still…I advise you to clench your bladders.  Juice Newton is the one human being of whom I live in abject terror.  It behooves me to declare a winner.”

“Couldn’t she just judge us herself?”

“Who says she isn’t?”

The singers stood huddled together.  Something, who couldn’t carry a tune in a fanny pack, lurked at their periphery, alert for his arch enemy, because Stephen King put it best: Everything’s eventual.  Pleased with his latest intercession, Dr. Terrible idly wondered what became of the gifted, playful physician with whom he’d completed his residency.  Yes, good old Harvey Teeth had precipitated all sorts of electric mayhem…

Savoring the practiced pause that made him the focus of such nervous attention, Cowbell finally opened his whørë mouth to pronounce his wicked judgment.