The trouble with Bricks 5

Chapter Five – Sock Monkeys in the Blue Toupee Jungle of Death


         The jungle spread out before Suzie, Frank, Frank’s Colon, Flippy and Melvin like a giant sock and underwear drawer, where everything had just been tossed in, was not laid carefully in rows, and the underwear was not folded just so. This was a very untidy jungle.
         “Well, well”, said Frank, “The Blue Toupee Jungle. As I live and breathe.”
         “That’s a jungle, all right,” agreed Suzie.
         “Man, I’m hungry for some meat dog,” added Melvin.
         “Yipe, guv’nor,” put in Flippy.
         “What was that?” Suzie asked.
         Melvin shuffled quickly to cover his mistake. “I said that I’m really beat, dawg.”
         “Oh,” replied Suzie as she turned again to consider the jungle. “Frank, it looks pretty thick. Isn’t there any way around?”
         “Not that I know of.” Frank again consulted his rock map. “Nope. We’ll need to go through here in order to get to the Kingdom of Frosty Delights, wherein dwells the mighty and mysterious Mr. Wilson.”
         “Is there anything we need to worry about before we go in?” Suzie questioned.
         Frank’s chest puffed out and his plumage burst into bright colors as he prepared to share additional knowledge. “Well, now, the Forest of the Blue Toupees is forty miles in width from the shores of the Great River of Lard to the carpet-laden plains of the Kingdom of Frosty Delights . Originally discovered by Frankie the Weasel and exclusively mined for its prestigious amount of pastries even today.
         “Indigenous to the Forest of the Blue Toupees are the Blue Toupees, those aerial hair pieces of the skies. Flying from tree branch to tree branch, the Blue Toupees rarely kill a passerby unless they’re frightened or bored. In addition, the forest is also occupied by the bloated Gums Gums, which, if you’ll recall from my previous monologue, are the fiercest pastry chefs this side of the Chickpea Mountains . Oh, and there are sock monkeys, but we shouldn’t have to worry about them.”
         “Why?” Suzie questioned.
         “I don’t know,” replied Frank.
         Suddenly, Suzie realized that the sky had been steadily growing darker. “Is it getting to be night time or is something else dumb about to happen?”
         Frank tried to look nonchalant. “No, just getting to be night time. Why do you ask?”
         “Because the last time it started getting this dark, it rained fish.”
         “Oh, that.” Frank said. “That only happens on Tuesdays.”
         So they began to make camp. Frank rolled out his tent, which turned out to be a double wide when he felt like it. Suzie sent out Melvin to get some firewood and Flippy out to forage for something to eat. Frank’s Colon sat down heavily and wouldn’t get up even when someone said please. The night wore on, like Uncle Willie’s hot water heater.
         Soon, Melvin returned with his arms full of dead branches gathered from the nearby forest. He also had numerous bite marks all over his legs and knee caps, but, when pressed, he stuck to his story that he had simply fallen down a cliff and onto a giant mound of novelty teeth.
         Later, Flippy returned with a bag overflowing with items he had gleaned from the nearby countryside, including a hunk of bark, Frank’s wrist watch, a piece of French fry, and several hundred dead moths. Angrily, Suzie dumped the contents of the bag over Flippy’s head and went out on her own.
         She had not traveled far into the forest when she stepped on something partially squishy. Slowly, she reached down and brought the object slowly up in front of her face to reveal, interestingly enough, a ketchup packet. Odd, she thought, that a ketchup packet should be out here in the middle of nowhere. Quickly, she gathered up the packet, and the possum she had whacked in the head with a two-by-four and wandered back to the campsite.
         After a fine meal of possum burgers, possum salad, and French fries, Frank and Flippy retired to the tent to get some much needed sleep while Suzie, Melvin and Frank’s Colon hunkered around the camp fire to watch the stars and to swap tales of wonder.
Suzie began with the story of how she and her brother had ended up in this cursed land and how they were traveling to see Mr. Wilson to hopefully get some assistance. After that story, she told another quick tale about two teenagers that had run out of gas and had met a guy with a hook for a hand, who gave them a lift to the nearest gas station.
         “Well, that is a most queer and annoying tale,” remarked Melvin, as he stretched his long, hairy legs out in front of him. “Mine is only slightly less strange.”
         Quickly, Melvin belched and put his feet into the fire on accident. Upon extinguishing the flames, Melvin began his tale.
         “We sasquatch live in caves at the foot of the Chickpea Mountains . I live in one of the largest caves with my sister Luther, my grand pappy Turkey Slim, my grandmother Ernest, and a large cube of cheese that I named Mr. Hibiscus. We were moderately happy living in our cave, eating anything that happened to stray too near, and occasionally traveling to the nearby beaches of Scum Pond for our weekly bath and mud treatment. Happy times.
         “Then one day, nearly two weeks ago, Turkey Slim returned from a trip to Scum Pond to report a most unusual occurrence. Someone or something had drained the entire pond of scum dry. Not a drop remained. Well, I was angry. I can tell you. So, that day, I set out to journey to Scum Pond to see if I could determine the cause of the pond’s demise. So, I left with just a walking stick and Mr. Hibiscus perched on my back for friendship and possibly a late night snack. Oh, how I miss my cheese.
         “So, anyway, a few days later I made it to Scum Pond and saw with my own two eyes how low the pool had become. Why, there wasn’t even enough scum to roll around in anymore, let alone any to make scum pies or throw at each other. Something had drained the water. I turned to Mr. Hibiscus to cry on his shoulder, but he was gone too. In my hunger and aloofness, I had eaten him on the trip. I was all alone and kinda hungry.
         “Anyway, I decided to travel up the creek that fed into the pond to determine why all the water had dried up. I got to the top of the creek bed and found the problem. There was a giant slab of lard damming up the entire creek. Well, I soon set about to move that lard so we could have our pond back again.
         “Like a annoying puppy, my ignorance soon rose up to lick me in the face. As soon as I had moved the lard chunk slightly out of the way, the waters that had been dammed up were suddenly released and they carried me and the lard chunk far away. I clung to the lard chunk as best as I could, but before I knew what was happening, the chunk knocked into a tree, pushing me into its juicy center. After that, it was straight downhill and into the Great River , where I floated until you saved me.”
         Suzie and Frank’s Colon sat back, slowly absorbing the ridiculous tale that Melvin had just spewed all over them like a teacher with a spit problem.
         “That’s the craziest dang story I’ve ever heard,” pronounced Frank’s Colon , as it rose to go to bed.
         “Yeah, the colon’s right.” Melvin agreed. “I just made it up. Really, I was just trying to cross the Great River of Lard like you guys, but I sunk right into one of them. I guess I need to go on a diet or something.”
         “Yeah,” agreed Suzie, “or something.”
         Suddenly, with a smirk, Melvin leaned forward. “Hey, you want to see something funny?”
         “Yeah, I guess.” Suzie, replied warily.
         Quietly, Melvin rose to his feet and crept toward the open tent, where Frank’s snoring face was revealed. Softly, like a cat with pillows strapped to its feet, Melvin bent down next to Frank’s face, grunted and ripped the world’s largest fart directly into the open mouth of the leprechaun hunter.
         Frank’s eyes immediately popped open as he gagged for available air. Laughing hysterically, Melvin managed to scream out, “Oh man, I so got you, Frank. How’d you like that beef stew, buddy?”
         Frank, for his part, couldn’t respond, as his face was slowly turning blue from lack of oxygen. His Colon leaped onto his back and violently pounded away until Frank could breathe again.
         Meanwhile, Melvin marched around the camp, pumping his arms into the air and chanted the phrase “Frank Sparks eats farts! Frank Sparks eats farts!” over and over again, until Suzie told him that if he didn’t stop, she was going to hit him in the head with a shovel.
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             Sometime in the middle of the night, a rather large fir tree fell on top of a sleeping Melvin. It didn’t phase him, however, as he simply hugged his large hairy arms around it and spooned it. Everyone knew that Frank was the culprit, but they just couldn’t prove anything.
         After a brief meal of bacon and hash browns, the hash browns came from the river and Flippy produced the bacon and please don‘t bother asking where he got it, the party set off into the Blue Toupee Jungle. Frank, as self-entitled Senior Coordinator of the mission strode in front, with Suzie directly behind, followed by Frank’s Colon , and Flippy. Melvin brought up the rear, or, as he called it, the rump.
         It didn’t take a long time for the party to run into trouble.
         They were traversing through a particularly hairy part of the jungle, and that wasn’t just a clever metaphor because there was literally hair hanging from some of the trees. This was, after all, the Blue Toupee Jungle. The toupees had to come from somewhere.
         As Frank used his machete to chop some hair from in front of his face, he felt a soft slap across his face as something struck him. He looked around to see the perpetrator, but could see nothing besides the party. Although Melvin, in the rump, was smiling and whistling softly to himself.
         Bending down, Frank’s hands quickly found the item that had assaulted his cheek. He held it up to show to the rest of the party.
         “You got hit in the face with a ketchup packet?” Suzie questioned.
         “Yes,” agreed a slightly irritated Frank. “Someone threw a ketchup packet at me. Now, was it one of you?”
         “Well, it wasn’t me,” answered Suzie.
         “It was wasn’t me neither, guv’nor,” threw in Flippy. “Although I do enjoy a good ketchup packet now and then. Just for nibbling.”
         Melvin shrugged non-committingly while Frank’s Colon busied itself by throwing firecrackers into the nearby bushes.
         Just then, the wild shriek of a monkey was heard and Frank again felt the sting of a well-thrown ketchup packet.
         Annoyed, Frank turned to Suzie. “Okay, what is going on?”
         Suzie shrugged and was hit in the forehead with a ketchup packet. Immediately, packets came flying from all directions of the forest, immersing the weary travelers in a virtual gauntlet of ketchup packets. Quickly, Frank and company broke into a run.
         “Man, they’re all around us.” Melvin yelled.
         “Frank,” yelled Suzie as ran, “what do we do?”
         “We run,” yelled Frank.
         “No,” said Suzie, “we can’t run forever. Flippy’s in no condition to run. He’s wheezing already and we’ve only gone ten feet.”
         Flippy was lagging behind, breathing heavily.
         Frank looked back, then answered. “I can’t feel sorry for every chain-smoker. Plus, if he falls behind, maybe they’ll eat him and let us go.”
         “Frank!” Suzie yelled.
         As they ran, Frank and Suzie began to notice certain shapes flitting through the trees and running parallel to the party. From a distance, the looked like monkeys made from large socks. And they were flinging ketchup packets as they among the vines of the forest.
         “Frank,” observed Suzie, “those are sock monkeys. I thought you said we didn’t have to worry about sock monkeys, Frank.”
         “Well, that’s the travel guide said.” Frank reached into his back pocket of hidden treasures and produced a copy of The Land of the Misbeggoten Woe and Surrounding Hinterlands Unofficial Travel Guide. He turned quickly to page 43. “Yeah, it says here that sock monkeys are also indigenous to the Blue Toupee Forest and often accost travelers by throwing ketchup packets. Oh. Whoops.”
         “Good one, Frank,” replied Melvin, from the rump of the party.
         “Can’t you do something, Frank,” asked Suzie. “After all, you’re the leprechaun hunter.”
         Frank didn’t even slow down. “What are you, nuts? Those are sock monkeys. I can’t fight sock monkeys. They’d eat my lunch. I’ve only been trained to hunt leprechauns. Now, if those were leprechauns…well, then you’d have a fight on your hands. Let me tell you.”
         Suddenly, Frank’s Colon stopped, causing Flippy to flip over and sprawl into Suzie and causing Melvin to expel gas, like he ever did anything else.
         Angrily, Frank’s Colon turned around, while several ketchup packets struck it in the arms and chest, if he had a chest. “No more running,” it stated slowly.
         “ Colon , don’t be a fool,” yelled Frank.
         But it was too late. The colon slowly pulled an extremely large firecracker from its bag of tricks and lit the fuse.
         Now, first of all, no, I don’t know where the Colon got a bag of tricks since it hasn’t been mentioned before in this story. And second, I don’t know what the Colon ’s fascination was with blowing stuff up, but it liked to blow stuff up and it like to do it a lot.
Before anyone could yell, spit, or build a small house out of toothpicks, Frank’s Colon threw the lethal firecracker into the surrounding woods, aimed at the last sock monkey it had seen. The resulting explosion blew the entire party to the ground, including Melvin who usually had the best pair of sea legs, not to mention a good pair of canal arms.
         As she raised her head, the first thing Suzie noticed was that the air seemed filled with that cushion material that was used to stuff pillows. The second thing she noticed was that she had either gone deaf or it had become deathly quiet. Of course, the third thing she noticed was that the party was surrounded by the angriest bunch of sock monkeys she had ever seen in her life. And that was saying something.
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         They were quickly tied up with hauled off to the sock monkey’s secret lair, which turned out to consist of a couple barrels turned upside down and a coffee machine.
         Now, I know what you’re thinking. How did a bunch of sock monkeys capture Frank, Frank’s Colon , Suzie, Flippy and Melvin? After all, even Melvin was thinking, man, I could just rip these guys in half. Well, let’s just say they had a bunch of ketchup packets and weren’t afraid to use them.
         Once back at the secret lair, the sock monkeys quickly hung everyone upside down from the nearby tree branches and waited. After an hour, the blood went to Melvin’s head and he began, as sasquatches do when they’re held upside down for too long, to get a little loopy.
         “I smell chickenpox,” Melvin gurgled. “an alabaster white tail’s kicking at my grandpa. Somebody, give me a half eaten wingnut quick. Melon!”
         Frank’s Colon lashed out with its foot, striking the sasquatch in the head and temporarily quieting him down.
         “Thank you,” said Suzie.
         The crowd of sock monkeys grew very excited and began chattering as if the sock monkey Olympics had just started. Suddenly, the crowd parted and a large sock monkey, forged from a very large sock and wearing glasses, strode toward the group. It looked up at the group from over the top of its glasses like a very disappointed math teacher and produced a ledger made from socks. Slowly, it began to read from the ledger.
         “As the party of the first part, hereafter known as the strangers, did lawfully and willfully encroach upon the Blue Toupee Forest, and as the strangers did willfully make annoying noises and smells, and as the strangers did knowingly cause a ruckus, and as the strangers did knowingly blow up Tom…”
         A female sock monkey (it had a dress, okay?) began weeping loudly, as the first sock monkey continued.
         “And as the strangers were knowingly and willfully ugly, this court has no other recourse but to pass sentence. However, sock monkey trial procedure requires this court to explain, in brief, the proper rights of the defendants. Reggie?”
         Reggie, an extremely muscular sock monkey with a bat its hands, broke from the crowd and approached the party.
         “You have the right to shut up!” Reggie yelled. “You have the right to not get on my nerves! You have the right die quietly!”
         Melvin interrupted, with a quick, “The chips stole my toothbrush!”
         Reggie paused long enough to quickly whack Melvin with the bat before continuing. “You have the right to hang upside down! And you have the right to be ugly for the rest of your lives!”
         The sock monkey with glasses stepped forward again. “Well done, Reggie. Now, do the defendants have anything to say on their behalf?”
         “We was framed, guv’nor,” started Flippy.
         The sock monkey with glasses motioned with his hand, which caused Reggie to break from the crowd, walk toward Flippy and whack it with the bat. “You have the right to shut up!” Reggie repeated, before stepping back into the crowd.
         “Anyone else?” The sock monkey with glasses questioned.
         The rest of the party kept quiet, with the exception of Melvin, who was making grunting noises and blowing spit bubbles. The sock monkey with glasses leafed forward a few pages into the ledger before continuing.
         “Then, by the power invested in me by the residents of the Blue Toupee Forest , I hereby pronounce…”
         It was immediately interrupted by a loud voice from the crowd. “Hey, what about the clause?”
         The crowd took up the chant. “The clause. The clause. The clause.”
         The sock monkey with glasses rolled its eyes before responding. “People, really. Do we seriously have to go through this each and every time?”
         “The clause.” The crowd replied.
         “Okay,” said the sock monkey with glasses, “I’ll read the clause.” It leafed a few more pages forward into the ledger before continuing. “Section 2.5, paragraph 4, clause C states: wherein the party of the first part, if it can prove itself on the sock monkey field of battle, may win its freedom.”
         “What was that about freedom,” Frank asked quickly.
         Reggie strode forward and was halted quickly by the sock monkey with glasses. “Not this time, Reggie, it’s a legitimate question.”
         Reggie, looking sullen, wandered back into the crowd, only shaking its bat at Frank once.
         “It’s really quite simple.” The sock monkey with glasses answered. “If your champion can beat our champion in a traditional contest of wit and wills, your entire party can go free. However, I must advise you that our champion has never lost a match.”
         “Okay,” said Suzie, “and what is this great contest of wit and wills? And why is everyone so eager for us to do it?”
         “Well,” started the sock monkey with the glasses, “it’s really quite simple. The two champions stand fifty feet apart, holding an inflated pig bladder in one hand and a sharpened stick in the other. On the count of three, they throw the sharpened sticks and the one who can pop the bladder first wins.”
         “Oh, is that it?” Suzie answered.
         “What do you mean, is that it?” The sock monkey with glasses said. “It’s really tough. No one has ever beaten our champion. No one!”
         “We thought you had something really tough for us. Not pop some goofy pig bladder. We could do that in our sleep.”
         Frank leaned in close enough to Suzie to whisper. “What are you doing?”
Suzie whispered back. “It’s okay. I’ve got a plan.”
         The sock monkey with the glasses slammed the ledger closed and turned to the crowd. “The clause has been accepted.”
         The crowd of sock monkeys erupted in a loud cheering, punctuated with whooping and hollering, that quickly died down as the sock monkey with glasses raised its hands. It turned to face the party. “And who do you name as your champion?” It asked, with a grin on its face.
         “Melvin.” Suzie answered.
         In response to his name being called, Melvin’s eyes popped open and a crazy slew of words flew out of his mouth. “Hedgehog hosepie. Dog-licking mama said I crafted a mean whicker. But badger says I.”
         Reggie again stepped forward, stopping once to confer with the sock monkey with glasses, which nodded its head. Reggie whacked Melvin good.
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         In a little over a half an hour, Melvin was untied and on the ground, while the rest of the party looked on. Frank again leaned forward to whisper to Suzie.
         “This was your plan? Melvin gets free and the rest of us are stuck up here?”
         “I didn’t say it was a good plan,” said Suzie.
         On the ground, Melvin was getting his equilibrium back up and revving along. “Okay,” he asked for the fourth time, “what am I doing again?”
         The sock monkey with the glasses was slowly losing its patience. “How many times do I have to repeat the same thing? See that sock monkey about fifty feet over there?” It pointed across the clearing, where a large sock monkey with one button eye stood, holding a pointed stick in one hand and an inflated pig’s bladder in the other. “That’s Sylvester, our champion. On the count of three, you and Sylvester will both throw the sharpened sticks and try to pop the other guy’s pig bladder.”
         “Why?” Melvin asked.
         “Cause that’s the clause. That’s what you have to do to get your freedom.”
         “And what if we pop each other’s balloon’s at the same time?”
         “You won’t,” the sock monkey with glasses answered quickly.
         “But, what if…” Melvin said.
         “Then we’ll have a do-over.” The sock monkey with glasses explained quickly. “Okay, we’re just gonna go. If you can’t understand now, then you’ll never understand.”
The sock monkey with glasses backed up until he was standing directly in front of the crowd. “Okay,” he yelled, “I’m going to count to three. When I say the word ‘three’ then that’s the signal to throw the pointed sticks. Everyone got it?”
         At the far end of the clearing, Sylvester nodded. Melvin, looking doubtful, shrugged and held up his bladder and pointed stick.
         “Okay,” the sock monkey with glasses yelled, “Ready? One. Two. Three.”
         As the word “three” rang out through the clearing, three things happened nearly simultaneously. First, Sylvester threw his pointed stick with such accuracy and such deadly force that it not only pierced Melvin’s pig bladder, but it kept going and may still be in orbit around the earth to this day. Second, Melvin threw his pointed stick with such total abandon that it flew through the air and managed to impale the sock monkey with glasses directly in the forehead. And, of course, the third thing was that the sock monkey’s lair was suddenly attacked by the sock monkey’s natural enemies, the Blue Toupees.