I kin heah Jeb comin’ from a million miles away—or at least I kin heah his ATV. I’m standin’ jus’ in from the road when he come out from the cornstalks agrinnin’ ‘n’ awavin’ like a fool, him with his dawg, Gopher, runnin’ behind. He pulls up in fronna me and gits hisself off real stiff ‘n’ slow ‘n’ you kin tell he’s really feelin’ the arthritis today—maybe cuz it’s bin cooler’n usual these past few days. It ain’t like the ol’ days when we was doin’ this—way back in the fifties. We was teenagers then but now we’re in what they call the autumn years. Er sunset years. Er whatever years.
So Jeb comes up to me with that dumb ol’ grin of his. “How ya doin’ Jeb?” I sez.
“Pretty damn fine Jed,” he sez. “How ’bout yerself?”
“Pretty damn fine myself, Jeb,” I sez.
Then he tells me that joke—the one I know he’s gonna tell me—I know cuz of the dumb ol’ grin on his face. He sez: “So I was tellin’ Marge this mornin’ ’bout Gopher here, an’ hows I’ve learnt him to speak. I git ‘im to sit in front of Marge an’ I sez: ‘Gopher, now you tell Marge here what’s on top of a house.” ‘N’ Gopher sez: ‘Roof!’ ‘N’ then I sez: ‘Gopher, now you tell Marge here what 80 grade garnet sandpaper feels like when ya lick it.’ ‘N Gopher sez: ‘Rough!’ ‘N’ Marge rolls her eyes ‘n’ sez that’s jus’ plain ignorant. So I sez to Gopher: ‘Gopher,’ I sez, ‘You got anythin’ more complicated you cud say to Marge heah that’d convince Marge that you know how to talk?’ ‘N’ Gopher sez: “Now lookey here, Jeb, I sed fuckin’ Roof! ‘n’ I said fuckin’ Rough! What the fuckity-fuck more do you want me to fuckin’ say?’ So I sez to Marge: ‘Marge,’ I sez, ‘Gopher here kin talk all right, but I forgot to mention how he’s got that Tourette’s Syndrome thang.”
At which point Jeb is bent over an’ slappin’ hisself on the knee. ‘N’ I does my best to smile ‘n’ make like I never heerd the damn joke afore. But the fact is: Jeb’s memory is slippin’ a li’l bit ‘n’ he tells me the same damn joke every damn time he sees me.
Now you may be wonderin’ what a stupid joke ’bout a dog with that Tourette’s Syndrome thang has got to do with the price of corn. Which is a fair question. But bear with me It’s got everythang to do with the story I’m fixin’ to tell y’all. Fer one thang, tellin’ this joke to certain people helped clear up a—ahem—lemme jus’ say it solved a li’l mystery fer Jeb ‘n’ me. But more’n’at, it’s Jeb’s twisted humor got us into this fix in the first place. Humor ‘n’ good ol’ fashioned American enterprise. So you jus’ take a load off fer a while, sit back here on my porch, set yer eyes out across the corn fields there ‘n’ lemme tell y’all how it started.
Now y’all may have noticed, settin’ here—lemonade cool enough? More ice? Normally I like a cool beer round ’bout ten in the mornin’. Helps me think clearer fer the rest of the day. But we sold all our beer by yesterday afternoon—so like I was sayin’, y’all may have noticed, settin’ heah, how I have a real good view of Jeb’s fields. Well … back in the day, when we was beanpole teens, we didn’t actually own these farms. They belonged to our daddies like they belonged to theirs afore ’em. But all the same we had the run of the place so it come as no great surprise one fine mornin’ not much different ‘n’ this one (only practickly sixty years ago) that I steps out onto the front porch heah then sits myself down the way we is now ‘n’ I lookey out yonder. There’s a slope to the land heah so’s I have a real nice view of Jeb’s place. ‘N’ whadya thank I sees Jeb doin’ that fine mornin’ but he’s up on a li’l tractor—not the big one mind, but the li’l guy—out in the back forty drivin’ round and round in circles knockin’ down a swath of corn. ‘N’ I’m thankin’: OOO lordy, lordy but that Jeb’s gonna git the hidin’ of his life when his daddy finds out. So I sets heah neah hafanour er more watchin’ him drive round ‘n’ round makin’ big circles in the corn—one, two, three. So I ambles on down the road to his place. When he’s done, I ask: “Whachya doin’ that fer?” ‘N’ he sez it come to him in a dream. Why not make big circles in the corn then phone NASA er the Department of Defense er both ‘n’ tell ’em aliens made the circles where their flyin’ saucers landed? He thought it’d be a hoot. ‘N’ that’s where my bright idea takes hold. Why not bring Jimmy Durante in on the deal? Jimmy Durante’s this buddy of ours, see? Couple years ahead ‘n’ just started in at the county newspaper. Still’d be there today if it weren’t fer gittin’ run down by that hearse. Hasn’t bin right in the head since. Anyhoo he prints a story ’bout it in his paper with a real good picture he took from up on my roof here. Roof! ‘N’ pretty soon we git not just scientists ‘n’ real smart folks from NASA comin’ down here fer a look see. But we gits reguler folks too, ‘n’ whadya thank they needs but a drink ‘n’ a bite t’eat seein’ as most of ’em is comin’ from some distance. So there I gets myself a stand sellin’ beer ‘n’ juice ‘n’ corn dogs ‘n’ burgers. ‘N’ soon we’re gittin’ a fair bit of traffic so we’re sellin’ souveneers—see?—’n’ bits of corn husk we sez the saucers landed on ‘n’ bits of caked dirt in li’l baggies we sez is alien poop ‘n’ we git this ol’ feller named—oh, now what was his name—oh, no matter. But we pays him to set in a lawn chair ‘n’ tell a story ’bout how the aliens tried to abduct ‘im ‘n’ how he jus’ barely excaped gittin’ the anal probe ‘n’ all.
Well we took in a fair haul that summer—enough fer Jeb to git hisself a real beauty of a motorbike with a chrome fender, ‘n’ I gets me a nice used red Chevy pickup truck. ‘N’ we was all set to make this a reguler biz niz only Jimmy Durante said we should thank twice ’bout that on account of two thangs, one bein’ some notion of market satur- satur-somethang-er-t’other saturation—there’s only so much people kin take of a tall tale even if’n it gits a credibility boost from bein’ picked up by the National Enquirer, ‘n’ t’other bein’it just don’t seem so terribly believable that a flyin’ saucer should keep landin’ in the same field year after year. Er we’d haft’invent some fancy story why our field was specially tractive to the aliens. So we hung back. We only did it when we was real strapped fer cash. So we done the crop circle thang once more in the seventies when I needed a down payment fer a new tractor after the engine in t’other burnt out ‘n’ Jeb’s Marge needed a boob job. Then we done it agin in the nineties, when Jeb needs a new set of teeth and my li’l Martha took a notion she’d set herself up a biz niz sellin’ mail order knick knacks ‘n’ poh porrie ‘n’ such but needed startup cash fer invintorry. ‘N’ then there’s now. We don’t really need any cash now at this point in our lives. It’s more a senteemental thang. There’s Jeb with his arthritis and his brain turnin’ to rot. And there’s me with Martha gone now and my boy fixin’ to marry ‘n’ movin’ to the coast so there’s no real call to hang onto the farm not much longer. So this is probably the last year the two of us have left to pull everybody’s leg one more time. ‘N’ that pretty well sums up why Jeb did his crop circle thang with his fancy new ATV ‘n’ why I ordered a gross of dogs ‘n’ burgers ‘n’ buns ‘n’ kegs of beer ‘n’ even some hoity-toity European beers what come in bottles what taste like molasses stirred into the hooch we make in the off season. ‘N’ we got a young fella down at the paper to do a story fer us (out of respect fer Jimmy Durante). ‘N’ it was just like ol’ times. Buzz from NASA ‘n’ scientists from the pentagon ‘n’ all kinds of folks drivin’ through fer a peek. ‘N’ we was movin’ lots of food, barely keepin’ up. ‘N’ we’ve gotten fancy-schmancy now with our merchandise thanx to all Martha learnt herself ’bout marketin’. So we put our bits of corn husk in cloth baggies with ‘ficial certificates of authentickity ‘n’ we put our alien poop in li’l wooden boxes what makes ’em look like from a museum—though we still had the same ol’ problem of uppity mother’s complainin’ ’bout how junior thot it was chocklate ‘n’ tried to eat it.
So everything was goin’ just tickity-licious until last night when the competition shows up. We’ve started doin’ a special thang at night with glow-in-the-dark effects ‘n’ black lights ‘n’ eerie atmospheric stuff I don’t unnerstan’ how it all works. But these two characters shows up ‘n’ I see’s right off how fishy-lookin’ they are. No manners at all. Just pull up in that weird pickup of theirs—a brand I’ve never seen afore—not even on the TV commercials—’n’ they’re haulin’ a grill on wheels rig behind ‘n’ just a flick of a switch heah and just a push of a button there ‘n’ shazaam we’ve got ourselves some real competition—sides which their food smells real good. ‘N I’m thankin’ these folks must be European cuz they’re cookin’ schnitzels ‘n’ sellin’ warm pretzels ‘n’ all sorts of thangs I ain’t ever seen afore. I dunno. There’s just somethang ’bout ’em. Like their overalls are just too clean, ‘n’ their faces are shaved just too smooth, ‘n’ their talk is just too …
Well when biz niz dies down a bit so’s there ain’t nobody ’round when we confront these characters, Jeb ‘cides to sidle up to their grill-on-wheels outfit ‘n’ strikes up a conversation with ’em. So he begins the way he always does—with a joke. Same joke he always tells. Gopher runs up aside ‘im so he introduces his dawg. Then he gits into his story ’bout how he’s learnt his dawg to talk. Well now, you gotta unnerstan’, Jeb kin git some sensitive ’bout his joke-telling. See, he’s got this notion he’s the greatest joke-teller in the tri-county area. Truth be known—sometimes he’s on—sometimes he’s off. But tonight he’s on. Even I’m havin’ a hard time keepin’ myself from bustin’ my gut. But these two characters are stony-faced. When Jeb finishes tellin’ the part ’bout how his dawg has that Tourette’s Syndrome thang, ‘n’ when he finishes slappin’ his leg ‘n’ hootin’ ‘n’ howlin’, one of ’em looks straight at Jeb an sez: “That was real interesting.”
Jeb looks back a minute then sez: “Whatsa matter? You guys git yourselfs a humorectomy when you was younger?”
One of ’em cocks his head sideways, then the other one of ’em cocks his head sideways, like they’re listening to the sound of the ocean in a shell, only without the shell, then the first one sez: “I’m afeard I don’ unnerstan’. Is a humorectomy some kinda surgical thang?”
Well Jeb’s gittin’ a bit antsy ‘n’ sez: “Lookey heah, whyn’t the two of you high-tail it on back to Harvard er wherever the hell it is you come from, cuz you sure ain’t from around heah, now is ya?
So the second one speaks up. ‘N’ I’m thinkin’ I can’t really tell this second one from the first, ‘n’ I wonder if maybe they’s twins. He sez: “We’ll git right to biz niz. You two is hornin’ in on our franchise.”
Well Jeb’s about to explode boilin’ blood. “Franchise? Franchise?” He’s practickly screamin’ ‘n’ I have to remind him of his blood pressure. “This here’s my land ‘n’ I’ll do whatever the hell I please on my land. Lemme remind you two fellers that it’s the other way around—you’re horning in on my franchise.”
“No.” They speak together, pretty matter-of-fact ’bout it. Then they both reach behind. It’s amazing to see how flexible their arms are—real bendy, like that feller in the comic books. We both heah this zippin’ sound ‘n’ next thang we know their faces come apart in the middle and slide away ‘n’ unnerneath is this smooth green glow-in-the-dark kinda skin ‘n’ one big eyeball right in the middle of their foreheads ‘n’ these thin slits fer mouths only without any lips as far as I kin see and nothing that looks anythang like a nose fer breathin’. So one of ’em speaks ‘n’ sez: ‘I am Jethro, son of Gork.’ ‘N’ the other one of ’em speaks ‘n’ sez: ‘I am Jimbo, son of Glurp.’ ‘N’ then the one what calls hisself Jethro sez: ‘Ya’ll need to know we come in peace. But ya’ll really need to know another thang or two. Fer one thang, crop circling is a patented procedure ‘n’ we’ve come to deliver an invoice. You folks owe us compen—compen—damn, Jimbo but I sure do hate how humans manage t’invent such big words.’ So the one what calls hisself Jimbo takes over ‘n’ sez: ‘What y’all need to know that my brother Jethro was tryna say is that y’all owe us money fer all of yer crop circles you’ve made without our say-so.”
“But it’s our land,” I shout.
“But it’s our crop circle procedure thang—’n’ I’m citin’ the Inter-Galactic Protocol on Intellectual Property which is IGPIP fer short.”
Well that jus’ gits Jeb goin’ somethang awful with words that make ‘im sound like a dawg with that Tourette’s Syndrome thang ‘n’ I even git the feelin’ maybe his talk turns Jethro ‘n’ Jimbo’s green skin a few shades of pink. But they take thangs real cool like, ‘n’ when Jeb is done his rant, they sez: “Now lookey heah. Jeb. Jed. We all are bein’ ultra-reasonable heah. Yer lucky we ain’t goin’ after you two fer defamation of character.”
“What?” sez Jeb.
“That’s right. You’ve been tellin’ a story ’bout anal probes. That really hurt. We have a real bad image problem as it is without you two makin’ up some lame-ass story ’bout abductions. Now we’ve got damage control to do. Why, there’s at least twenty different systems where the anal probe thang’s spread like wild fire. How d’y’all thank that makes us feel? Huh? Ever thank a minute ’bout how we feel?”
“You mean y’all don’t use no anal probes?” sez I.
“Shit no. Why, I can’t thank of the last time any of us used an anal probe—cept maybe Billy-Bob, son of Plish, ‘n’ even then it was only cuz the ol’ geezer had hemorrhoids.”
Anyhoo, the conversation went a li’l better after that. We sez we’re sorry. We had no idea ’bout IGPIP ‘n’ we sure as heck had no idea we was hurtin’ any alien’s feelin’s. So everythang seemed to go real smooth. We tol’ ’em how’s we’re ol’ men ‘n’ can’t be doin’ this sort of thang ever agin anyways. They really did turn out to be a righteous pair once ya git to known ’em. In the end (so to speak), they gits back into their pickup up thang which was really somethang to see. Some kinda plasma drive ‘n’ super a/c ‘n’ a real thumpin’ stereo system that they cud use fer playin’ their hurtin’ songs. So they took off ‘n’ circled round a couple times, ‘n’ hooted ‘n’ laughed ‘n’ yelled, ‘n’ Jethro, son of Gork let out a real loud burp, ‘n’ Jimbo, son of Glurp, threw an empty out the window, then they floored it ‘n’ tore off into the night sky, ‘n’ I guess you’d say we parted on real good terms.