This story has been published in PDF format. If reading online bugs you, then try downloading the file by hovering over the Hyperlink image above and "Save target as" with a right click.
You must have Adobe Acrobat Reader to read this file.
It was a pleasant, warm evening, with the full moon rising over the peaceful little street where the corner boy practiced his guitar softly, the strains lilting down the trees to where Jason sat reading his book by desk light. Suddenly, a terrible scream split the night.
"Arrrgh! It's the Honkey from the Black Lagoon!"
There came the insistent pounding of monotonous drums, the off-key blat of unimaginative bass-work rattling the windows. A creature had invaded the quiet community and all up and down the street, where there once had been peace, wives fought with husbands and fistfights broke out in the alley. Jason looked out his window at the shattering of glass in the street to see a figure flitting quickly away through the darkness and hear someone calling out.
"Somebody hep' me! It's da Honkey from da Black Lagoon!"
Who was this Honkey and why had he come to stir up trouble? No one seemed to know. A deputation of citizens approached the door to the place from whence the noise had first come, and one of them knocked, then rang the bell, all to no avail. The creature would not come out.
Night after night, and frequently during the day, people's rest was disturbed by the Honkey, who uttered shrieks, groans, shouts, while pounding his drum most unmusically.
Neighbors attempted to meet with him without success. A lutist lay in wait for hours at a time until, just at the time when the sun begins to sink, he came out. The lutist greeted the Honkey with a pleasant good day, and was rewarded with ferocious snarls, barks and unearthly wails before it got down on all fours and ran up a tree, squeaking and gibbering and gnashing its long fangs before leaping through the air to the window of its abode, where it crawled inside, not to be seen again for days.
In appearance, the Honkey appeared to be human, of average height, slightly malnourished physique and pencil moustache. It liked to wear bright trinkets around its waist, sometimes in the shape of stars, although the rest of its attire looked drab. It did not appear to have a job and so no one knew how it paid the rent to the landlord who sorely regretted ever having laid eyes on him.
Some nights it would chant meaningless polysyllables that could have been poetry were it not for the sheer hatred that infected each sound. "Yabba dabba I dooba perplexity in france a made hooboogooboo knabbert a crumple all debble doo! Hey, hoo, hah!"
KRON TV sent a newsman out to interview the citizens terrorized by the nightly predations of the Honkey from the Black Lagoon. They talked to many of his victims, including Old Furrey, who lived in the blue shingled house. Old Furrey sat in dejection on his stoop with a bottle of Jim Beam to his left and a shotgun to his right. "Man, I woik in the warehouse scrubbing them acid vats, y'know, where they cauterize the metal over in Emeryville. I am just trying to get by, same as everybody else, but this Honkey came up on me one night and scairt the beejeesus out of me coming home from woik, and I says, 'Boy what you doing making that fool racket?' and instead of answering, the honkey tears my goddamn left arm off with his teeth! Now I don't know what I'm gonna do. Can't even play the mouth harp no more."
"That's right," said a woman from the Ministry. "That boy wants no amount of noise what ain't his own!"
"Say it sister!" said another gal who went by the name of Rachel. "I seen him grab a cello and just smash it over a feller's head on the end of the street. Seems any time anybody does anything he don't like he goes ape shit and chunks a fit like a ba-ba."
"Well I don't think that's right," said another woman. "We may not be talented but we got a right to at least SING, living the way we do. They done take every other goddamn thing away from us."
"Well I am going to make my music and I don't care WHAT that Honkey thinks. It's broad daylight and it's a free country," Rachel said.
"I can't even read my book," Jason said. "And that's not making any sound at all!"
"Here I go," Rachel began. "Um um hooo . . . La ci darem . . . !"
Suddenly, a shadow fell across the camera's field of view. In the surviving video, one can see in the jerky camera shots scuffling and loud screams are clearly audible. Then, everything went black. The Honkey had struck again.
The ending to this story occurred exactly as one would have expected. By the light of a brand new full moon, a posse of stalwart men culled from the Milwaukeens, the SF Gay Chorus and half a dozen rock bands, assisted by the White Witches Coven of Marin, gathered with torches, pickaxes and sharpened wooden stakes. While manfully roaring the theme-song to Der Rosenkavalier, they rushed the Honkey's door with a battering ram, broke in and after a furious battle of clashing adenoids, the Honkey was subdued by a rousing rendition of "Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show." As the stake went into his heart, a thousand violins and pianos as of first year beginners playing Phillip Glass soothed the air. Stakes were driven into his speakers and turntable for good measure, as these things appeared to manifest demonic tendencies. The creature shrank into the form of a star-shaped toad, which hopped back to the Black Lagoon. Everyone burst into a spontaneous choral outburst of Ode to Joy, and the neighborhood once again became safe for people to practice music, whether as novices or as accomplished musicians, and happiness and light reigned once more.
And Jason was allowed to return to his book.
Copyright 1997 by owen Montana. All rights reserved. Additional information can be obtained by contacting the address listed below.
OWEN Montana
PO BOX 1303
ALAMEDA, CA
94501
OMontana@EARTHLINK.NET
ALL CHARACTERS DEPICTED HEREIN ARE ENTIRELY
FICTIONAL. ANY RESEMBLENCE TO ACTUAL PERSONS
OR ALIENS, WHETHER LIVING OR DEAD IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL.
