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Bastard Flud Talley Gets His PAGE
TWO: Cap'n Crunch was a forbidden fruit when I was growing up. My Mom had declared it an "uncontrolled substance" and banned it from our house. Of course, her reasons for doing this were completely understandable. Not only did "the Cap'n" make kids more hyper than puppies on crystal meth, it also shred the roof of the eater's mouth into a bloody pulp. To a kid, however, the risk of oral surgery was a small price to pay for the ultimate in sugar highs. Like a junkie with his jones on, I was willing to take my chances. After arriving at the base of the ladder leading to my tree house, I wedged my box of sugarcoated booty under my chin and began my ascent. But after only two rungs, I heard a strange hollow "thunk" followed immediately by a searing pain in my skull. The next thing I knew I was laying spread eagle on the ground facing up at the sky. As my eyes regained focus, the first thing they saw was a pair of ugly-ass glasses peering down at me from the door of my tree house. I quickly realized there was only one person in the world with a pair of glasses that hideous -- Flud! Flud Talley was in MY tree house and had just nailed me in the head with a rock. I was as good as dead! "Gimme the goddamned box!" Flud demanded. Still fuzzy-headed, I groaned, "Wharg?" "You heard me," he howled, "Gimme that fuckin' cereal or I'll bust my foot off in your ass!" He punctuated his ultimatum by chucking an even bigger rock at my head. Soon I heard another "thunk" followed by another blinding flash of pain. I reached up and felt a knot the size of an eggplant taking root on my noggin. Then, despite my greatest efforts not to -- it happened, I started to cry. But this wasn't your regular crying, this was gut-heaving, body-wracking, snot-projecting, caterwauling. I was crying so hard it seemed that I wasn't crying only for myself, but for all humanity. Within seconds my "I'm With Stupid" t-shirt was completely soaked. Unfortunately, tears to a guy like Flud were like chum to a shark. I lay on the ground convulsing like a beached manatee as he climbed down for the kill. "Maybe next time you'll listen when I'm talkin', you fuckin' pussy," he snarled, stepping over me en route to his ill-gotten plunder. And although I wanted to stop him, all I could do was lay there and bleat like an epileptic goat. But as I lay there I felt something happen deep inside me -- something that, even after all these years, I still can't explain. We've all read the stories. You know, where the tiny mother gets so filled with adrenaline that she saves her baby by hoisting a Buick over her head? Well, blame it on adrenaline if you want, but when I saw that bastard Flud rip open my box of Cap'n Crunch and start stuffing it into his pie hole, I totally lost it. If I had been a cartoon, steam would have hissed from both of my ears. Before I realized what I was doing I was on my feet and heading straight for him. It was like someone had taken control of my body. I had no idea what I was going to do, but I could tell it was going to involve violence. My fists clenched involuntarily. Although
I'd personally never punched anyone in the face before, I'd seen enough Star
Trek episodes to understand what needed to happen. Being a devoted follower
of Captain Kirk, I knew that any given punch could be broken down into four basic
parts: I waited for the loud cracking sound I'd always heard on Star Trek, but it never came. If you've never hit anyone in the face (and I strongly urge you not to, unless they're Quaker because they're not supposed to hit you back) it is really weird. The first thing you notice is an intense pain in your hand because you just hit bone, which just so happens to be really fucking hard. The next thing you notice is that you don't hear that loud "cracking" sound made popular by TV shows like C.H.I.P.s or The View. Instead, you hear this flat, dead, "splag" that just makes your stomach curl. Any "first punch" is a weird, life-changing event, but mine proved even weirder because when I punched Flud I hit him so hard I knocked his hair off. That's right. After I experienced the cold, hard splat of flesh striking flesh -- I opened my eyes in time to see what appeared to be a raccoon leap from Flud's head, and land in a nearby mud puddle. Looking at Flud standing there totally bald was like walking in on your Mom as she's stepping out of the shower. But what was even more horrifying was that Flud was still alive -- which meant that I was going to be dead soon. Realizing that I had only seconds to live, I whipped out a hasty "Our Father" and got ready to say "Howdy" to Jesus. But instead of hearing a howl of rage I heard something no one had ever heard before. Like the "Fah who doh rays" of the Whos in Whoville -- it started in low and then it started to grow. I heard Flud Talley start to cry! I was stunned. Here was the meanest sumbitch in all of Indiucky bawling like a baby. It was official, Flud Talley's reign of terror had come to an end. But you want to know something weird? Instead of feeling the joy of a conquering hero -- I was overcome by an overwhelming sadness, like I had witnessed the end of an era. I was so confused by my own emotions that I began crying again, too. We stood there for a moment, Flud and I -- our tears mixing on the battlefield like the blood of so many valiant warriors. Wordlessly, I fished Flud's hair from the mud puddle where it floated, shook a tadpole from it and returned it to him. With as much dignity as he could muster, he replaced it like a hairy divot and started for home through the liquid air. As
for me, I stayed there until long after dark, when I finally cried myself out.
My tears weren't shed for the loss of my favorite sugarcoated breakfast cereal,
but for the loss of my own innocence.
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I
had just bought a box of Cap'n Crunch cereal down at old man Hinton's store and
was sneaking off to the privacy of my tree house to eat myself into a sugar coma.
In case you're from another planet or your parents were dentists, Cap'n Crunch
is the single-best breakfast cereal in the history of humankind. I don't give
a damn what Wheaties says, Cap'n Crunch is the undisputed "Breakfast of Champions."
