Snoopy Brown

Written by: Carolyn, Dr. Zombie, Moose, Misleph, Judge, Wampod and Damian K.

Edited by Damian K.

It was a dark misty night and guilt sifted through the air. Snoopy Brown retired into his log shaped mansion for his last night in it. The next morning, he would be tied in matrimony with the actress, Snapy Brawn. He took a last look at his comfortable brown shirt, polka dot tie and glasses. Snoopy looked unhappily out of his window, at the loud, dirty cars zooming by on his street, located in the west part of L.A. The night air weighed more heavily on his tired shoulders this night. Still, he could not escape this doomed marriage. There was no way of escaping his fate. Or, was there? Suddenly, an idea hit him! He called his faithful servants to come and witness his new will, which he was about to write. When Snoopy Brown died, everything would go to his son except for a few millions for a few charities. Snoopy drifted to sleep, excited about his escape. There was not any way his wife could take all of his money in case his plan did not work. The next morning was bright, and the bright sun had chased all the gray clouds away from the glorious, blue sky. After about a half of an hour of driving in his limousine, Snoopy arrived at the carefully selected spot of his wedding. A calm breeze swept through Snoopy's hair, but it could not penetrate his stiff, black suit. "Get to work, you lazy brute!" Snoopy turned around to face a red-faced woman. Her hair was a little messed up, and was a reddish brown color. A small stub of a pencil stuck out behind her ear and she carried a beat up, old, green clipboard with a lot of incomprehensible scribbles on crumpled pieces of paper.

"What?" He asked, surprised. "Get to work, now!" She screamed back to him. "I am the groom!" Snoopy said, finally understanding what she was saying.

"Oh." The woman's face turned purple and she turned and walked away rigidly. Snoopy laughed, but covered his mouth quickly. She went on to yell at another person, a woman. Snoopy hoped it was not his bride.

Snoopy felt strange as hundreds of people bustled, throwing together the wedding. Finally, a helicopter came to bring Snoopy and Snapy onto a cliff to bungee jump off. Before Snoopy stepped on the helicopter, he pointed disdainfully at two men who were not doing anything. "They are movie scouts, looking for a plot far a new movie," said the pilot. With that, he started the helicopter. Snoopy felt uncomfortable slowly climbed towards the top of the vast cliff. Once he was up there, he would say "I do" on the way down on the bungee cord. When the moment came, Snoopy stared down at the huge masses of people down way below him, cheering wildly. He looked at his wife to be, and smiled. He calmly took her hand, and jumped off the dusty cliff. Everything slowed down and Snoopy could only hear the wind blowing in his ears. He watched the priest pull out a gun and aim for his cord. With a huge explosion, his cord snapped. Snoopy took a deep breath, and then he fell to the ground, amongst the thousands of stunned people.

"Snoopy!" cried Snapy. "Snoopy, darling, speak to me!"
"I'm sorry, Miss Brawn," said a spectator.
"Please, call me Mrs. Brown. He said 'I do' with his last breath." With that, Snapy gave a worried look at her lawyer, and quickly walked off to her car. Meanwhile, Snoopy had managed to get his body double away from the area.

Snappy sat in her car and lit a cigarette. She looked quickly and menacingly at her lawyer, who smiled back. A petite, forced shit eating smile. The reporters who crowded around her made a formless mass that moved like fire. She shoved the keys in the ignition and hit the gas. There were a few bumps along the windshield as cameramen and reporters were knocked out of the way, and she hoped she wouldn't get a homicide on her spotlight.

She eyed the rear-view mirror, and her face softened for a moment, out of fear as he eyed the slender wrinkles that were growing on her face like ivy.

Her lawyer absentmindedly turned on the radio. She was about to smack his hand away, but realized she was curious as to what the media jackals would be baying about, too. Lite Californian rock filled the car, then a blurish static as he scanned for a news report. It didn't take long.

"...iore inventor, has just been declared dead on arrival at Marin County Hospital. The nobel-prize winning humanitarian was killed instantly in a tragic event that was supposed to be the most watched wedding worldwide in history. The marriage to actress Snapy Brown unfortunately came to a horrifying end when the suspension cord that was used in the bungee jump stunt, broke, sending Snoopy 400 ft to the ground. Ms. Brown is unav..."

"MRS!!!!!!" screamed Snappy as her fist went through the car radio. Her lawyer's eyes widened. "Damm," she thought while she pulled the bloody, ripped glove from her hand. "There's gonna be nothing but celebrities outside the mansion."

She tried to open the door, but a mass of photographers and nosy journalists. Her driver go t out and beat out an aisle, so Snapy could get to her house. Pulling a black veil over her face, she sobbed quietly as she walked through the living mass of people, quieted by this display of grief and sorrow. "This is much better than I thought it would be," whispered Snapy, to her bodyguard. "I have the money, but I don't have to live with the dope. At least, everyone thinks I'm married." With that, she let out an evil chuckle, which was quickly quieted by a gloved hand. "Shhh." said her bodyguard. "No one must suspect anything."

As Snappy entered her mansion compound, she passed by the awards she had won over her career. The last one was from 1989. She felt a tremor in her stomach when she thought of that.

The large Chippendale mirror looked at her mockingly, her face- always imperfect in her eyes- stared back at her, with the same hate she projected as she looked at it. The mirror suddenly seemed very tacky, like something she had hawked on QVC. The nervousness again tied her gut.

"Yolanda!" She cried out, a little louder that she had wanted to.
The young Mexican woman walked briskly down the hallway, and Snappy didn't like her walk one bit.

Anxiety rolled down her brow when she remembered the way Hank, her bodyguard had looked at her the other day. "Yes, Ms. Brown?" Yolanda chirped in a perfected American accent.
Snappy suddenly went berserk, as if electricity was haloing her. "THAT'S MRS, YOU SLUTTY LITTLE WETBACK!!!"
She screamed as her claw like hand soared through the air at Yolanda. Once she realized what she had done, it was already too late. Yolanda was crumpled on the floor, crying and wailing in her native tongue. Snappy didn't see the point of apologizing now, so she firmly told Yolanda to get her a Valium. Averting her eyes, Yolanda got up, brushed herself off, and walked away, head down.

Snapy's eyes flew away from the broken maid's sulking figure, and noticed a letter on the nightstand. It was the last thing Snoopy had written to her. She picked it up and read.

"My Dearest Snapy-

I've loved you always. I can't lie to myself...I love you. It is so strange and so confusing, I won't try to think about it. I can't escape you, I never will, but I can try. And, my dear, I've tried so many times I can't try any more. This is why I have to leave you, I must escape. You are the most horrible person I could marry...you must understand, I had to get out. The money, the house, it all could be yours, if you want it. I can't pretend you don't want it, and I can't pretend you won't do anything to get it. I've taken it with me on a journey, and you'll never see you again. It will be painful for me, but I can last without you. Goodbye, my darling. I'll always love you. I'll always hate you.

-Snoopy Brown"

"I'll be hornswoggled!" she muttered to herself - trying to recall the last time she had been swoggled by a horn. "Snoopy has apparently been sniffing glue."

Then her last mutterings came back to her in a sickly rush. 'Hornswoggled' indeed! It was odious. She had made one horrid error months before when she had told Snoopy in a snooty air, "Well, I guess I'll be moseying along." but with a lilt in her voice. She knew that he knew that she was aware that he suspected that she realized that he understood full well that she could not do anything of the sort! It wasn't that she could not 'mosey' - it was that she could not 'GUESS' that she could mosey. Was the humiliation never going to cease?

How had Snoopy stood it for so long? And why didn't he ever shave that long, long black hair that grew out of his neck, for pity's sake? There was only one hair and it must have been sixteen inches long! Still, he had named it 'Thurgood' and giggled when she tugged on it playfully.

"Vagaries of a diseased brain!" she thought.
What did that mean?
"Oh, I don't know!" she said out loud. "It's something that I read in "The Outlaw of Torn" by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Was she secretly in love with that old writer? There was a slim chance that the old poot was still alive somewhere churning out stories of Pellucidar and the jungles of Africa where she could imagine Ron Ely carrying her off to do unspeakable things to her in a grass hut. Fat chance!

"Uh-Oh! Slim chance = Fat chance. Flammable = Inflammable. REfrigerator doesn't mean that it is 'frigerated' again. And, okay, if fortification means something like a large fort, why doesn't ratification mean something like a large rat?

"Oh, Snoopy! Why are you so confused when you're around me?

"Yolanda!" she screamed. "I'm sorry I treated you like poopy! Would you be a dear and bring me that other tube of glue - you know . . . the one that Snoopy didn't have rammed up his nose the other night?"

She remembered that Snoopy had said, sort of, that he had taken the house with him, but here she was in it. Poor fool must have been delirious. Still . . . the house DID seem to be moving. Could it possibly be true!?

Yes! The house was definitely moving and there was the sound of helicopter blades out the window.

She rushed to the nearest window and threw it open.

"It's gotta be three thousand feet to the ground she chortled happily. It's just GOTTA." She knew she would be able to confront Snoopy with her concerns - with the truth. This time she wouldn't have to guess - she would simply mosey up to him and plant a big wet one on him as she tugged at Thurgood. O frabjous day! Callou! Callay! She threw on a dressing gown, threw open the bedroom door and dashed off madly in all directions.

Snoopy Brown sat mournfully at the controls of the Sikorsky "Sky Crane" helicopter. The churning blades sent a continual rush of air past the cockpit and was doing a nice job of spinning the three pinwheels he had placed strategically outside the Plexiglas windows of the cockpit. But the pinwheels were no comfort to him now. Snoopy savagely struck two of the innocent toys and they fell away toward the distant earth. The co-pilot jerked his head around and stared daggers at Snoopy.

"Jerk!" he thought. "He's probably been sniffing glue."

Snoopy felt immediately ashamed of himself. What if that had been Snappy under his rough hand?

Snoopy was aware of the enraged stare of the co-pilot. He stretched out his gloved hand and began working the last pinwheel loose from its moorings. He was doing his best to show the dangerous co-pilot that he was of a repentant heart. The co-pilot seemed to soften at the care Snoopy was showing.

With a little tug, the pinwheel came loose and Snoopy was about to bring it inside, but he had not figured on the powerful downdraft of the huge 'copter's immense blades. The pinwheel was ripped from his hand toward the unforgiving earth. It fell with a barely discernible whine of terror.

The co-pilot had had enough. He drew a Beretta 9mm from a vest holster.

Meanwhile, Yolanda was searching desperately for a tube of glue...any glue...any glue would do. Even shoe glue. Would shoe glue do? In lieu of glue, would a shoe do? And if a shoe would do in lieu of glue, could it be blue? But a blue shoe is not tried and true in lieu of glue, and perhaps blue is not the right hue. Hmm...if a blue shoe is not the right hue, and will not do to replace glue, then perhaps some new doo goo would rule. And fortunately, while Yolanda had not a clue who had a blue shoe, or if the blue was the true hue to replace glue, her friend Sue had just got some new doo goo- and would pool the goo for egg foo stew. But where could Yolanda get egg foo stew to pool for the new doo goo of Sue to use for glue, when she had no clue if a blue shoe could do true? From Jonny Woo? Would Jonny Woo give egg foo stew to pool to Sue for new doo goo, there was no clue, for new doo goo could do true the glue where a blue shoe would not do true, not even two.

Please no "poo" jokes, people

She woke up a few hours later and looked at the floor. That was an easy thing to do because her eye was against the carpet. What in the world had happened? She sniffed. Oh, Lawsy! What an odor! Her mouth and nose were buried in the opening of one of Snoopy's old tennis shoes. It was one of the shoes that Snoopy had tried to repair with industrial glue! She had passed out smelling that awful odor. Wait a minute - it wasn't the left shoe. She had passed out smelling the OTHER shoe. Snoopy always did have a foot odor problem. Something was different. The house was still moving, but it was moving differently. She staggered to a window. Yes! The house was going down toward a desert-looking area.

"What is it that fascinates me about that man of mine?" she thought to herself.

"He is so full of . . .well, how do I say it? I don't want to say he is so full of beauty - that sounds unmasculine, but I don't believe I can say he is full of HANDSOME. . .my goodness, if it weren't for the perfidious odor of his feet, he would be perfect. But he did take the house away - and he left ME in the process! The turd!"

Snoopy dove headfirst out of the helicopter. He didn't remember what number to pull the ripcord at so he chose 36. 36 had always been a lucky number for him. As he freefell (unless there is no such word) he noticed that he was gaining rapidly on the last pinwheel. After he snatched his aerodynamically inferior decoration he half turned toward the chopper above. "I got the pinwheel back, please, let me back in.," he shouted futilely.

The only reply was a zipping 9mm slug that narrowly missed his ear.

"Sheesh! What a grouch!" he commented as he turned back to face the upcoming earth. He was running out of time and the pinwheel was spinning so fast that it was about to self-destruct. "If that psycho pilot sees this pinwheel destroyed, he's likely to unload that Beretta my direction." He began pulling the other rings on the parachute. 36 had done him no good at all and he couldn't help wonder what all these rings were for. It suddenly came to him. This wasn't a parachute at all. It was the control panel for the helicopter and these were navigational setting tabs. He chuckled. He knew he was introuble but he couldn't help thinking what was going to happen in the cockpit of the copter when that pilot pulled the ring to acknowledge a navigational beacon.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted another of the pinwheels he had thrown overboard. If he could just stretch out and - There! Now he had two pinwheels and they were both spinning like mad as he descended. He had to lose the weight of the control panel. The extra weight would only foil his rapidly developing plan for self rescue. He unstrapped the heavy panel and pushed it away from him. He noticed with a little consternation that the panel moved a short distance away and continued down with him at roughly the same speed he was falling.

He looked around desperately for the last pinwheel. It was about 20 yards away and off to his right. He did some quick experimenting and found that he could steer his falling body toward the toy. Barely in time, he grasped the last pinwheel with his free hand as his other hand bucked and flopped with the friction of the other two pinwheels.

The landmarks below were beginning to grow in size. He quickly poked the wooden stick of one pinwheel through his trousers just below the crotch. The material of his pants would hold against the stick while the pinwheel would be free to spin inresistance to the uprushing wind between his legs. The other two wheels he simply held outstretched and let them spin madly. Making his body as wind resistant as possible, he watched the approaching ground.

Just before he hit the ground, he thought, "I've probably reduced my free fall speed by at least - oh, I don't know - maybe 2.5 miles per hour."

Ezekial Rice - E. R. to his friends - was watching a rerun of "The Avengers". The window that faced the cow pasture was open to let in a little air. He heard what sounded like a watermelon hitting pavement right outside. He leaned forward to be able to see out the window. A man was lying in his field face down with a pinwheel in each hand and what looked like another sticking out of his butt. He flopped back down in his chair and looked at the wall on the other side of the room. He wanted to say something to someone but his wife was grocery shopping and the phone was over on the other table. He almost said something to himself a couple of times, but nothing would come out. He almost decided to look out the window again, but he was afraid he was going to see what he saw the last time and he just wasn't in the mood to experience that sensation again. He did giggle a couple of times, but shut it off pretty quick when it sounded sissy to him.

"I'm going to sit right here and look at that wall 'til Agnes gets home and then maybe she'll ask me why I'm sitting here looking at the wall over there with the television on - and, by gum, I'm gonna tell her. Yep. That's what I'm gonna do."

E.R. heard a muffled groan out the window, but he wasn't gonna look out there again - nope.

"Zeke! Why is there a dead pinwheel salesman in the cow pasture? Is this like the time you threw the deckchair at the Avon lady?".

Agnes was home.

"I didn't do nothing Agnes. All I heard was a thud and the next thing you know there was a guy laid out there with a pinwheel up his butt."

With a gust of wind one of the pinwheels flew out of Snoopy's hand and landed in the barn where the Rice family's herd was hiding from the summer heat. The cow's, never seeing a pinwheel before decided that this would be a good time to panic and stampeded out the barn and were running toward Snoopy.

Just as it looked as if Snoopy would be trampled his mugging alarm had activated (with the pre-set fifteen minute delay).

"HELP, HELP, I'VE BEEN MUGGED AND KNOCKED UNCONSCIOUS!" it said.

This startled the cows again and sent them racing off in the direction of the Rice's trailer home.

"Besides, Agnes, I never threw that deck chair at that rubber-gummed Avon lady - I tripped and the chair slipped out of my hand when I tried to grab it."

"The chair was folded up, Zeke. You gonna say it folded itself as it flew through the air at her."

Zeke lolled his tongue into his right cheek trying to dislodge a piece of corn caught there.
"I ain't gonna say NOTHIN' except 'the cows are hainted'."
"What?"
"Look at 'em!"

Agnes glanced out the trailer window.

"Is that pinwheel salesman botherin' the cows?"
"Now SEE? That's just the kind of presumption yer always layin' on things. That ain't no pinwheel salesman. He just fell out of the sky - clear as water - and you think he's a salesman that I ass-whupped."

"Yeah, well I can see where yer version makes more sense." Agnes turned and trudged to the kitchen.

Zeke looked at the cows running and tossing their heads in confusion. The fellow was beginning to stir a little. Presently, his head raised up a bit and he turned toward the window where Zeke was watching him with a baleful eye.

"Uncle Zeke!?" he said in total disbelief.

As Snoopy regained his consciousness he remembered a myriad of sweet memories from his carefree summers down on uncle Zeke's little ranch. Milking the cows, the TV that seemed to show nothing but old reruns, the peculiar ping of a penny dropped down the trailer home's chemical toilet. Snoopy tried to think of a fourth childhood memory related to this place but couldn't. He never really realized how dull his carefree summers here really were.

He saw the cows charging for the little sun beaten trailer. Snoopy got up and ran to the other side of the pasture where the remote control panel had landed. With deft precision he called the Siorsky back from over the horizon and positioned it so that it would drop his mansion in the cow's path. the plan would have been flawless had the cows been moving slower.

At this moment the trailer's walls had been destroyed. The cows were all over the place licking up the sour mash that had spilled onto the floor from Zeke's overturned moonshine still. Zeke and Agnes were on top of the rickety trailer roof that was being held up by it's flimsy frame, mere feet above a many hoofed demise. Snoopy maneuvered the mansion around so that the second floor porch of the log shaped building landed just above the tiny teetering structure. He dropped the building, crushing a fat drunken bessie and allowing his aunt and uncle to climb to safety.

While Zeke looked down lamenting his trampled trailer Agnes went inside. She saw Snappy Brawn amongst the disheveled furniture with a shoe glued to her long auburn hair.

"Hey, Snappy Brawn, hi, Agnes."
Snappy gave a look of faint recognition and strong annoyance.

"Agnes Rice, remember at the weddin', when we met down at the gate and I said how I was yer biggest fan and how great it's gonna be be'in related and all and how maybe I could visit you down on the movie set. Remember? Then you sez how Snoopy said we weren't allowed at the wedding."

"Oh, yeah, aunt Agnes." she said as she showed off her collection of phony polished caps with a synthetic smile. "You haven't seen Snoopy recently, have you?"

"I thought my high-falootin' nimrod nephew done got himself killed, least that's what Zeke said when he went down to the burial."

"Um, never mind Agnes, could you drive me to the nearest hospital or hair salon? I seem to have a shoe glued to my hair. There's an autographed photo of the two of us in it for you if you do."

"Maybe Zeke was lying to me. That man's always lying to me so he can get out of the house." Suddenly the stars burst back to Agnes dry angry eyes. "Did you say autograph?"

Snappy hollered at Yolanda to find her Polaroid camera and then to clean up the house. As Snappy and Agnes sped off in Zeke's pickup Snoopy watched, crouching, from across the pasture. At the same time Zeke watched them pull out from the balcony. Simultaneously they both thought "Dammit, the house should have landed on the other old, drunken cow."

Though they saw and thought the exact same thing they were thinking of two completely different people (Funny how that works out some times).

Zeke finally turned and looked at Snoopy, who was just finishing landing the helicopter with the remote unit. He noticed that Snoopy kept looking up and ducking down as he looked at the large 'copter.

"He's probably been sniffin' glue." Zeke thought to himself.

"Uncle Zeke, get down! There's a crazy co-pilot in there with a gun!" Snoopy called to his uncle.
"Boy, what you doin' lyin' in my field with a pinwheel stuck up yer butt?"
"It's not in my butt, it's stuck through the coveralls and wedged between my groin and the coveralls."

"We-ll. . . that sounds regular."
"Never mind that Unk! That co-pilot is liable to start shooting if you don't get down. I'll tell you all about it later if that guy doesn't shoot us first."

Zeke turned his head toward the helicopter. Sure enough, there was some movement toward the front end. Yep, a door was opening and a man was stepping out. He began to walk over to where Snoopy was standing. The gun was in his hand. Snoopy thought the end was near. Zeke dug in his cheek with his tongue for another piece of corn.

"Look," said the co-pilot, "I'm willing to be reasonable about all this. Just give me the pinwheels and I'll go. Just. . .give me the pinwheels." The gun was leveled at Snoopy's head.

Snoopy slowly bent and pulled the pinwheel from between his legs. Zeke screwed up his face when he saw it.

"Naw, that thang was up his butt fer sure." he thought to himself.

Snoopy gingerly handed the pinwheel to the pilot. "Where are the other two?" the pilot asked with menace in his voice.
"Uh, one is over there on the ground where I fell and the other is . . .over there in the barn."

Keeping the gun trained on Snoopy, the pilot sidestepped over to the indentation in the ground and lightly picked up the fallen toy.

"That other one had BETTER be in there." he said as he moved toward the barn.

Snoopy waited as the pilot disappeared into the barn. Moments later, they heard five shots - rapidly fired. The loud bawl of a cow was heard in the din. Soon, the pilot emerged with all three pinwheels. One of them had cow tooth-marks on the stick.

"Okay, fine!" the pilot said as he tossed the Beretta on the ground and walked away toward town.

Zeke watched the pilot as he walked away. "What do you guys from the city do every mornin' - just shovel yer brains in a hopper somewheres an' go fairy dancin'?"

"Well, that's a fine how-do-yo-do. No 'Snoopy, thank God your alive.'! No 'Snoopy, I saw you fall to your death, I was at the funeral, how could this be?'!"

"I wasn't at the burial. I just used it as an excuse fer Agnes to git off my back."

"But how could you have missed it, my death was all over the news."

Zeke paused for a moment. He had almost dislodged the piece of corn and didn't want it ruin his concentration. He then swallowed the kernel and said "I don't much watch the news. I figure there's no sense getting all worked up over other folks affairs. All that happened was Lily was yappin' to Agnes and she said that after we got kicked out of the weddin' you done got killed in a whirly bird accident. So I just up and said 'Well, Agnes, he may have kicked us out of his fancy weddin'but I just have to be the bigger man, pay my respects and tell him I don't bear him no ill will.'. Then I just went down to the creek spent the day fishin' for brim"

"No, none of that's true. You were invited to my wedding, It must have been Snappy who kicked you out. Secondly, I didn't die in a helicopter crash. I faked my death as a bungee jumping accident so that my so called wife Snappy wouldn't get my fortune. I had to move my house because I mistakenly put the house in my son's name but Snappy still got the land. If I didn't move it to my property in Michigan she would have gotten it in court. That's why I rented the helicopter. Unfortunately I had to land because the pilot tried to shoot me for breaking his pinwheel."

"That sounds like a bunch of crazy hoity-toit gibberish. At least everyone dyin' at the weddin' sounds a mite believable."
"But I'm here." said Snoopy "I only FAKED dying."
"You got some crazy yearnin' for fallin' out of helicopters or something boy?"
"No!, anyway, we have to get this house moving before Snappy calls the police or something. You ever fly in a helicopter?"
"No, you ever get out of a helicopter after it's landed?" Zeke laughed under his breath at his little joke. Snoopy was wondering in what direction would he find Michigan.

With corn in his cheek and a muddled understanding of balance, uncle Zeke began attaching ropes to the base of the mansion. As he continued to attach the bulky hooks to the underside of the house, Snoopy was busy trying to figure out how to make parachute work for a control panel. After Zeke attached the final hook to the outer corner of the house, Snoopy had consequently just started the helicopter. "Well Snoopy, all the hooks is attached, better attach it to the copter."

"Thanks Uncle Zeke, but I...."

A shutter rushed the feeling from Snoopy's legs as his stomach tightened to the sound of pavement pushing the tires, accompanied by the low roar that could come only from the unharnessed engine of uncle Zeke's truck, carrying along the only way to ruin Snoopy's day.

In a panicked succession of turns and mumbled advice, Snoopy knew he was going to sacrifice safety and go, or his house, and Snoopy knew he couldn't work for nothing.

Snapy stepped out of the truck. In her mind she rehearsed the revolver scene from her 1987 B grade police flick "Metro Squad". "Just one easy motion out of your holster *swoosh*, cock the hammer*click* and squeeze *BLAM!*"

She ran her fingers through her new shoulder length hairdo and took off her sunglasses *swoosh*...

...blinked slowly *click*...

...and gave Snoopy "The Look" *BLAM*.

Snoopy was powerless before her adoring gaze. He was about to fall to his knees and beg forgiveness for faking his death, stealing the house, never shaving his neck hair, having smelly feet, murdering Nicole Brown Simpson, inventing ewoks and the causing The Civil War. That look was just something he couldn't resist.

Uncle Zeke stood in front of him cursing and slapping him silly. All snoopy heard was an old love ballad. His stare was burning a heart shaped hole in Zeke's forehead to meet Snapy's eyes.

A gunshot went off a few feet away from Snoopy and Zeke. Yolanda stood with a glistening chrome Beretta held over her head. Her black housekeeper's nylons showed beneath a pair of shredded denim shorts. She wore Snappy's leather jacket over a t-shirt that quoted something rude in Spanish. Her pockets were full of Snappy's pearl chokers and an Emmy from 1989. A huge backpack and guitar rode on her shoulders but she stood straight and strong.

"I finally found that glue you stupid cracker bitch!" she said as she lit the jar of modeling glue in her left hand off the cigarette that hung from her lips. Snappy lept into the car as a fireball erupted in front of it.

"Get out of here Mister Brown."

Yolanda stood motionless as a gargoyle keeping the pickup at the business end of the gun. The helicopter started off like a drunken bumblebee and barely cleared the tree line. Snappy and Agnes sat in the truck too fearful to move. When the chopper was out of sight Snappy's brain got in touch with her body and de-paralyzed her. She shot a derogatory sneer at Yolanda. Yolanda shot back with the remaining 9mm rounds.

The front and back windshield shattered. The rearview mirror fell off and the headlights exploded. The jilted wives were lucky enough to have ducked at the last second.

Yolanda stood gasping and looking into the locked, empty chamber of the gun. The pickup sped off in pursuit. "A man on a motorcycle will come and we'll ride off into the sunset and I'll give him a pearl necklace for his kindness." On second thought Yolanda was sick of California. She stared into the darkening east and scanned for Las Vegas' warm and smoky neon glow.

"'This Daytime Emmy was awarded to Snappy Brawn for Best Supporting Actress in the Soap Opera 'Heartbreak Ranch' 1988'. Sheeit what a horrible show. Stupid Agnes and her stupid soaps." Zeke was looking through Snappy's personal stuff while Snoopy flew the house from the breakfast nook.

"Why didn't you tell me there was a shotgun in the back of the truck?" Snappy shrieked. "What else would you be expecting in a gun case?" Agnes replied. Snappy was mortified to ever have planted herself in the grove of Snoopy's family tree. The truck was almost under the house. If it got low enough Snappy would try to take the helicopter out.

Suddenly a 1988 "Best Supporting Actress for a Soap Opera" Daytime Emmy was tossed out the window and imbedded itself like a golden hood ornament into a turd colored truck. Snappy and Agnes gave each other covetous sideways glances. At the same time they reached through the windshield and ...........

The truck went careening into a ravine. Agnes realized a moment too late that she should not have reached for the statuette with both hands. Snappy pulled herself out of the wreckage of the pickup, and watched soulfully as Snoopy's mansion disappeared over the horizon. "Damn you, Snoopy Brown," she cried. "I will hunt you down! I will find your house, and your money, and your hidden glue stash, if it's the last thing I do!"

Snoopy frowned. There was something he was forgetting, he just knew it... The helicopter sputtered and began to fall to earth. "Oh yes," he said. "Fuel. I forgot fuel."

The helicopter and mansion descended, not terribly gracefully, and came to rest on a hill. Zeke stumbled out the door, a glue bottle stuck to his nose. "Whar tha hll ar wee?" he slurred. Snoopy scratched his head. It was turning into a bad day.

Glue bottles safley extricated from noses Zeke and Snoopy looked for the nearest town that sold helicopter fuel.

They came upon a casino. Must be Nevada.

Not some wondrous Las Vegas gambler's paradise was this, or even an okay Reno one. This was a casino that was squatting in some scorpion infested corner of Nevada that God had permanently zoned for desert long ago.

This was the Insanian Romanian Casino of Obscure Soviet Block Games of Chance. The name sort of rolled off the tongue the same way a busload of schoolchildren rolls off a bridge and into a shark infested bay. Over the word Soviet the word "former" was hand painted.

The casino, like much of the town surrounding it seemed to be made partially of car parts and scrap metal or lumber.

Farm animal walked the streets. To it's credit the town did not have a visible Thunderdome.

Snoopy and Zeke entered the casino. Bizarre Red and yellow lighting played against a blue and green color scheme as klezmer music wafted in the background. Neon signs heralded the attractions.

"Romanian Hair Sausage Poker"

"Zlot Machines (no slot machines)

"Chicken Lift"

"See the real Elvis Presley"

"Russian Roulette"

"Man in a Gorilla Costume"

"Tonight's title bout -Nikolai "Hoppy" Oleksak Vs. Henry "'Nam Minesweeper" Collins-
Two One-Legged Men in an Ass Kicking Contest"

"World Famous Pirogue Buffet"

A banner declared "Win This Super Deluxe Raffle Prize!!!" The banner was wrapped around a working SS24 30 megaton dispersal ICBM missile.

"Hmmm..." thought Snoopy "If only I could attach those booster rockets to mansion I wouldn't need a helicopter."

Snoopy moseyed up to the folding card table where a wizened old Bolshevik, complete with brown wool coat and one of those fuzzy hats, was selling raffle tickets. He noticed that none of the tickets had been sold. He further noticed that the price of a single ticket had been marked down to 1 ruble. "I'll take every single raffle ticket you've got," Snoopy declared.

The Bolshevik looked at him despondently, then handed over the entire roll of tickets. Snoopy produced his American Excess card, and wham bam thank you ma'am, he had the raffle drawing in the bag. Snoopy turned to share his victory with Zeke, and quickly noticed that Zeke was not there.

"Damn," Snoopy thought. "Where did he wander off to?"

Zeke, unknowingly, had wandered up to the "man in a gorilla costume" booth and gazed at the grunting personage with wonder. "ughhh" said the man in the gorilla suit. "Uggha" said Zeke. This was his type of guy.

Snoopy caught sight of Zeke's half open mouth and tight bellbottoms immediately and started to lead him out of the casino with his bag of raffle winnings when he suddenly heard the man in the gorilla costume saying, "uggh!" and scratching his armpits. "I know that voice," Snoopy said. "Where do I know that gorilla?"

"Boy, my armpits itch." said the gorilla in a surprisingly feminine, lilting, muffled voice. The man in the gorilla began to tug at his gorilla mask with vigor, but couldn't seem to get it off. "Dammit! dammit all! I knew that shoe glue wouldn't work on the mask."

"Hey!!" Zeke said. "That's not a man in a gorilla costume at all!"
"No, it sure isn't a man in a gorilla costume!" said an innocent bystander.
"It's a woman!" said another innocent bystander.
"It's..."

"Yolanda the wetback! What are you doing here?"
Yolanda glared at Snoopy scornfully.

"I was going to Las Vegas to make my fortune, when my motorcycle went careening out of control across the desert. I wound up here instead, and the only job I could get was this stupid gorilla-mask gig. All because of your nasty gringo wife!" Yolanda spit on the ground to emphasize just how nasty and gringo Snappy was.

"Er...sorry to hear that, Yolanda." Snoopy gazed thoughtfully into space for a moment. "Say, how would you like to come back to work for me?"
"Sure, anything beats this dump," Yolanda sneered beneath her gorilla mask.
"Uh...are you going to take off the gorilla mask?" Snoopy asked. Yolanda struggled with the mask again, but with no more results than before.

"Guess not," she sighed. Snoopy rolled his eyes. "All right then. Let's go, Zeke." Soon afterward, the Brown mansion had been retrofitted with a nice set of booster rockets.

Inside, Zeke was microwaving some popcorn while Yolanda, still wearing the gorilla suit, set about tidying up the place. Snoopy hopped in and began slamming all the windows shut.

"All right gang, get ready for takeoff!" he shouted. Yolanda planted herself in a nearby BarcaLounger, while Zeke strapped himself into a folding lawn chair that happened to be at hand. Snoopy leapt into the breakfast nook and started the ignition sequence. "Outer space, here we come!"

"Wait, wait, wait." said Zekes. "Smell that? The popcorn's burning."

The mansion left a wide rut a quarter mile long, an exclamation point in the sand with a dot of fulgorite at at it's bottom (science fact: fulgorite is the name for raw molten sand-glass). It was a shaky takeoff and sure to lower the property value but the mansion was flying.

"The glue on the windows is all heat sink ceramo-mucilage seven, one of my most brilliant adhesives." boasted Snoopy "It should last through the stress of takeoff and the heat of re-entry." Yolanda was unimpressed and sucked down a cold one through the masks mouth (if she can spit through it she can drink through it). Zeke was trying to put out the fire in the microwave with the dish sprayer from the sink. The plumbing system, being several thousand feet lower and in California was less than cooperative.

Billy "Bong" Waters sat in his car, telephoto 35mm in hand, whistling the first six notes of the X-Files theme song "Pwee-pwee-pwee-PWEE-Pwee-pweeeee". He had gotten a hot tip from "Deep Throat" on his chat room about the real location of Area 51, about 60 miles west of Salt Lake City. He disassembled the lenses, polished all the glass and put it back together.

"Pwee-pwee-pwee-PWEE-Pwee-pweeeee"

Screeeee......shooshhhhhhh!!!!!!

"Holy...
*Click* bzzt
...sheep...
*Click* bzzt
...shit...
*Click* bzzt
!!!"

As the mansion hit high altitude some of the little square windows in the breakfast nook popped out. A freezing wind entered the room. Snoopy screamed the unsettling manta of "We're all going to die!" over and over again to settle his nerves. The wind rippled majestically in Yolanda's costume forcing some much wanted fresh air through the layers of fur and foam padding. The mighty (and refreshed) she-gorilla grabbed Snoopy and began smacking him to his senses.

Billy picked up his car phone.

"Hey, uhh Dana, this is Agent Fox Mulder ." A young woman on the side answered. "No one's listening Billy, you paranoid nimrod. You can knock that shit off."

"See, I told you, just like the X-files. I'm all suspicious and believing and shit like Fox Mulder and you're like 'Your all paranoid and wrong and shit' like Dana Scully."

"Except Scully never did Mulder on her dad's pool table."

"Right, yeah, so anyway I got a picture of a UFO, A cigar shaped one, like in that big German sighting of '76 . It went by pretty fast but I got a close up picture of the front cockpit. I saw an alien it was large and covered with fur."

"Was a young Harrison Ford or Mark Hamill flying with him?"

"Shut up you, I swear. I couldn't get a clear view of the other alien, but as it headed off into the horizon I saw some parts, crystalline parts and shit, fall off. It looked like it was going to crash. I'll drop the photo's off at your place and follow it, I wanna scope out the crash site. I'm serious so could you not call me Billy on the cellphone."

"Whatever you say... Agent Mulder. Love you."

"See you."

Meanwhile, in Nevada, at an altitude of exactly seventeen above sea level feet plus the height of a Yugo's back seat.

"Oh Nikolai!"

"Oh Snapy!!"

The shocks rocked back and forth with the tune from the klezmer.

"Take me you stumpy commie gimp!! Uhn, Unh!!"

"Give it to me you saucy capitalist pig-whore!!!"

The 1984 casting of Snappy Brown on Heartbreak Ranch was a minor boost to the soaps but a crippling blow to the hardcore porn industry.

Cut to---> cuddling and pillow talk:

...no, you were wonderful"
"So, let me get this straight, your husband is in fact a Chinese spy who faked his death to give a secret glue formula to China through a network of secret agents."
"Yeah."
"And he's delivering it by flying log shaped mansion."
"No one would suspect it."
"So you want me to use my KGB assassin training to track him down."
"Pretty please, Nicky baby."
"Those damn Chinese, first they steal communism from my Mother Russia, now it's glue and nuclear reactor plans from my Step Mother America. Over a billion of you and not one original idea not one."

He shook a fist at the sky as tears rolled from his eyes. He was a passionate man, as Snappy could testify. He was also weird.

"So you'll do it?"

"Sure, let me just pick up a fast car, my portable radar, radio tracker and fill the ol' KGB spy leg with some fresh napalm"

Waiting outside the car Snappy discovered something. "Oh Snoopy, always leaving a mess, this time that bitch Yolanda isn't here to clean up after you. Just take what you want and throw the rest away, *SOB* just like me." She picked up one of the devices off the top of a pile of about a dozen. It was big, but it could fit in a car. It was heavy but she could just barely hold it under her arm. It was an atmospheric dispersal nuclear warhead

Snoopy, now calmed from the concussive beatings of Yolanda, had stopped screaming "We're all gonna die!" Now he whispered breathlessly, "We're all gonna die."

Fortunately, just at that moment, Zeke slipped on a banana peel and hurtled head first into a Barca Lounger. The enormous easy chair was instantly airborne in the near weightlessness of free fall. It quickly flew across the room and plugged the hole in the window snugly. Suddenly inspired to action, Snoopy leapt to the Barca Lounger and applied Duct Tape™ to firmly secure it to the wall.

"Well," he muttered, "looks like that's the end of that."
Just then, an ominous beeping sound came from the microwave.
"Oh no!" Snoopy cried. "Something's approaching on the radar!"
"Radar?" Zeke muttered. "I coulda swore it were a microwave. No wonder it burnt my popcorn!"

Sure enough, a fiery point of light was headed directly toward them.

Down on Earth, Snappy cackled maniacally.
"Cackle cackle!" she cackled. "Burn in hell, Snoopy! Cackle!"

A Russian surface to air missile struck the mansion destroying it's booster rockets.

Moving slowly down the highway was Nikolai behind the wheel of a black pickup truck. In it's cargo bed was one of the most destructive and violent forces known to man, Snappy Brown. Along with her was a thermonuclear explosive and some conventional weaponry.

Snappy lit a cigarette and stroked her man-portable SAM launcher. "Oh my little Snapple-lemon-ice-tea." called Nikolai "We probably could move faster if we didn't have all of these weapons aboard. Especially the warhead, if you used it you'd probably kill us all seeing as it can no longer be launched."

"Nah-ah, I love them all like my,.. our little children, especially the warhead. When I was a little girl I wanted to be miss North Dakota, and I was. Then I wanted to be Miss America, but I wasn't and it made me so angry. But I stuck in there and became and actor, and after that a legitimate actor! When I won that Emmy I knew my ultimate dream, what I was destined for. Snappy Brown must become a nuclear power! Cackle cackle!!!"

"Okay darling, hey, give me a light." Nikolai said as he held a cigar out the driver side window. Snappy searched herself for her lighter. She looked at her cigarette and wondered how she lit it. She figured she must have used that crate of grenades that was set alight by the missile exhaust.

!

"Nikolai, I think you're right, we need to lighten the load."

A young man in a fast car passed them by.

"Pwee-pwee-pwee-PWEE-Pwee-pweeeee"

The mansions engines were no longer burning due to the fact that they were in The Great Salt Lake. "What do you know, heat sink ceramo mucilage seven is waterproof, and buoyant." said Snoopy.

The mansion was submerged up to second floor. The dish sprayer began to spray.

Well, that's it. It never saw a conclusion but it was pretty good for what it was.

Back to "The Rest of It" Back to So-Called Never Ending Stories. See this story in raw form.