by Casey Pendelton

Bio:  Casey lives in a hovel in Middle America with her pet gargoyle, Rassmussen. She has an honorary degree in Overactive Imagination from the School of Second Childhood.

When she isn't living in a fantasy world, she is feeding her interest in the ironies of human behavior. She enjoys reading the obituaries, restaurant menus, and serial fiction, of course. In her next life, she hopes to return as a wealthy, well-kept woman with aspirations to conquer the world. Barring that, she'd rather be a penguin.

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• Dream •
• Fairy Tales •

Chicken with Chickens

After my defunct sleuthing attempt, I felt I needed some me time, so I left Rassmussen a note and went away for a few days.  I would have been better off never coming back.   

Apparently my abrupt departure coincided with a spat between Rassmussen and his new lady friend.  Since I wasn’t there to console him, he decided to take a drive . . . in my second car, my little red baby, my Nissan 350Z . . . through the garage door! 

It isn’t like he has a driver’s license, or even knew how to drive, to my knowledge, and the police reports and my neighbor’s flower garden concur.  Why he chose to drive when he could have flown is beyond me, and he isn’t talking.  All he will say is:  “It serves you right!”  

As if that explains anything.  I’m almost positive my insurance will cancel me over this.  The neighbor won’t even look at me, even though I have already replaced his bushes, mallard duck mailbox, and most of the flowers.  I suspect it has something to do with the demise of his garden gnome; the one his grandmother made for him a week before she passed away.   

What I have been able to piece together is Rassmussen was headed east on I-70 when he saw a convoy of semis hauling live chickens going the opposite direction.  He left my muffler and a few other bits and pieces in the median as he made a quick u-turn.  One of the truck drivers reported Rassmussen was laughing hysterically, the top down on the Nissan, his wings billowing in the wind.  He kept yelling:  “Chicken with chickens!” while crossing back and forth beneath the trucks, zigzagging between, under, and around each truck in my pride and joy.  Before this little joyride, I’d only driven her twice.  It seems so unfair.   

Eventually, the inevitable happened, one of the trucks tipped, barely missing the car, but startling Rassmussen bad enough that he slammed on the brakes, causing the car to spin out of control and land nose down in a ditch.  The tipped truck slung chickens and crates asunder, including over my beautiful convertible.  If I had been there, I would have died on the spot from the sheer horror of it all. Hearing about it second hand was only slightly less demoralizing.   

When I stopped crying, the officer charged with informing me took me to my car.  The front end was smashed, the bottom destroyed, and feathers, dents, and droppings speckled the red finish, an unpleasant reminder of what had happened.   

I didn’t even think to inquire about Rassmussen’s welfare.  As far as I was concerned, he was a dead gargoyle, if I had to do the job myself!  Unfortunately, the officer did not forget.   

Not only will I be paying for one little red convertible, Rassmussen was attend by both as veterinarian and a medical doctor, since no one could decide whether he was man or beast.  You see, somehow, the monster contracted salmonella poisoning during all of this.   

After his release from intensive care—no one knew quite how to treat a gargoyle with food poisoning, so they were being cautious—he was incarcerated.  Rassmussen had not taken it well.  His raging, pounding, and caterwauling not only terrified his jailers and fellow prisoners, it increased his perspiration output so greatly that not even face masks prevented visitors and residents alike from tearing up from the stench.   

I do believe they would have shot him for the greater good had they not known he was mine.  Whatever the case, they offered me a deal I couldn’t refuse.   

Provided I made restitution for the damages to the truck, chickens, and flower garden, they would release Rassmussen into my care pending trial, which the prosecutor swears will never happen.  I suspect he is afraid his career would be over if his contemporaries heard he had tried a pet, a creature neither man nor beast, nor even confirmed as real.  And so, as in past brushes with the law, Rassmussen was released and entrusted to me.   

I’d turn them down, but who is better qualified?  At least I know how he likes his bathwater and how he doesn’t like to get his feet wet, not even in statute form.  Only I can burn his French fries around the edges while the middle remains frozen.   Who else would read to him while he dozed in the roses or rub his tummy when he eats too much?  No, he is better off with me, I think.