The Golden Harvest

Everything good is in the middle of nowhere.  Seems like that should be a line in a song jammed between the hotness of farmer’s daughters and the high of scoring a touchdown on Friday night.  The middle of nowhere, that’s where I found myself three days ago.

         I know you know about the Golden Harvest.  Don’t interrupt, just let me get there.  The GH, the Shangri-La of strip clubs, a mystical place that couldn’t possibly be real.  Well, Mark had slammed home too many Jack and Cokes, and he started rambling about it again when we were out at O’Doul’s.  Enchanted by the whiskey, he went on about that place like it was the Holy Grail.  I told him to go blow his fairy tales out his ass, and I went to drain the lizard.  Get back, the little bitch is gone.

         I go to the parking lot, and there’s no sight of him. 

         “Excuse me,” I hear an unfamiliar voice say from behind me.

         I turned around.  Weird little guy I’ve never seen before just standing there.  Short guy, maybe 5 feet, maybe 120 pounds soaking wet.  Thin as a rail, looked weaker than one of my bowel movements.

         “Your friend left while you were in the restroom with that girl at the end of the bar.”

         Damn pussy hound, you know how he is.  I was hoping at this point that his dick falls off.

         “I can take you to the place you were discussing earlier.  The GH.”

         “Doesn’t exist.  Do you believe in the Easter Bunny, too?  You’re full of shit.”

         “Oh, it’s real.  Like I said, I can take you there.  And, get you in.  You know, private club and all.  They don’t just let anyone in.”

         The twerp wasn’t really convincing me.  But, on the other hand, my only other option was to call Sheila.  And, get bitched at, again, for being drunk.  I felt a little adventurous from the evening’s spirits, so I decided what the hell?  We climbed in his two-seater and took off.

         Being of course dark and me being tipsy, I have no idea where we are at.  We go, I don’t know, maybe twenty minutes and he pulls off and parks in some trees.

         “Sorry, we have to walk the rest of the way.  It’s through the woods, probably about half-a-mile or so.”

         I know what you’re thinking.  I know how your paranoid mind works, that he was leading me to my doom or a shack where a bunch of mountain men were going to play “Pin the Tail on the Donkey” with me as the donkey.  But, I was still buzzing, and with my drunken logic I figured it would be in the middle of nowhere.  Besides, I knew I could take the twerp in any fight.

         It was a quiet walk with him just asking one question, “Do you think it’s going to rain tonight?”

         “What am I, Al Roker?  Hell, got no idea.”

         We get there, and he was totally right.  No advertising, but there was a good-sized log cabin with a bouncer who nodded to the twerp and let us both right in.  How was it?  Remember that strip club we went to a couple of years ago?  It was better than that, but I’d have to say I don’t know how it got to be the Shangri-La legend of strip clubs.  After all the rumors, I expected ladies walking out of the pages of pin-up magazines.  They were hot, but I don’t know if it was worth a trek out into the middle of nowhere. 

         So, I am admiring the scenery, and I noticed the little twerp keeps looking out the window.  Weird, right?  Women are dancing around in various states of undress, and he keeps looking out the window.  I think I even elbowed him and told him where the show was at, but he kept stealing glances outside.

         Finally, he just tugs on my arm and says, “It’s going to rain.  We got to go.”

         “What are you afraid you’re going to melt?”

         A quick nervous laugh escaped him.  “Melt?  No.”

         Okay, we get halfway between the GH and his car.  All of a sudden, the rain does come.  We weren’t able to get back to his car in time.  The rain’s coming down hard, and we were stuck between both places.  Great, I thought, he’s going to whine now.

         “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!” he screamed.

         In the words of my mom, I just blurted out, “A little rain never hurt anybody.”

         “OH NO?” he yelled.

         And, that’s when he started to swell up.  His skin became bright red, like all the blood was coming to surface.  He grew, ballooning up right in front of me.  My jaw dropped.  I was glued to my spot, wanting to run but unable to take my eyes off what was happening to him.

         As the rain poured down all over him, his body continued to expand.  Within a minute, he towered over me and now weighed at least 350 pounds.  And with the rain beating down on him, there was no stop in sight.  He continued to grow and grow. 

         I kept my eyes on his head, which now looked like a piece of gravel attached to a boulder.  He tried to mouth something to me, but his words were drowned in a crash of thunder.  His body, continuing to expand, finally gave out with a sickening wet exploding sound.  His blood drenched me, clinging to me even with the rain washing over me.  Dazed and confused, I stumbled a little farther to some nearby trees and waited for the morning.

         Clingy stuff his blood.  I had to scrub and scrub all day to get my skin clean.  His blood, it’s like it wanted something.  It’s like it wanted a new home, a sturdier home that wouldn’t explode.  And, maybe, I’m never going out in the rain again.  Even though, I won’t melt.