BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

I happen to like fried chicken…

I mean, after all, I’m from the South. I would probably be disowned by my kin if I didn’t like fried chicken. You see, much like Texas has the “he needed killin'” law, there’s one of those unwritten little ditties in the original South as well. It’s the “I ain’t eatin’ it” rule. Basically, you are allowed one free pass on a regional comestible. In my case I used my freebie on Head Cheese – that gelatinous loaf of aspic and cranial meat that comes from boiling down a hog head.

Truth is, one would think that having grown up on a farm, and therefore having been physically present (and even directly involved) during an actual “chicken running around with its head cut off” incident (several times, to be honest) I would have been more likely to use my “get out of eating it free” coupon on just that. However, I’ve also seen a hog’s head floating around in a soup pot. And, witnessed my grandmother digging the eyes out of the skull… And…

Well… You get the picture. Suffice it to say, in my way of thinking the crazy, bleeding, headless chicken made a far less horrific impression, believe it or not.

So, now that I’ve whetted your appetite, let’s move right along…

This past weekend I headlined at Festival of Souls in Memphis, Tennessee. FOS is a fantastic alternative spirituality gathering put on by Summerland Grove and held at Meeman-Shelby State Park. Incidentally, Meeman-Shelby is where a piece of my luggage now makes its home, but that’s another story… Thing is, this wasn’t my first time at this particular fest, but it had been a few years, so I have to say it was great to visit with old friends once again.

But then there came the chicken.

Now, as I said, I love fried chicken, so when I saw that it was on the menu for Saturday night’s dinner feast, I was to say the least, pretty excited. Granted, we were in Tennessee and not Kentucky, but hey, it’s still the same geographical area, so they oughta know how to fry chicken. So, all good… I was going to have fried chicken… My mouth was all set for it.

Fast forward a bit to Saturday evening. The feast was scheduled to begin after the main ritual for the fest. Some of us – namely Tish and Patrick Owen, E-Mac, Johnathan, E K, and Moi – who were not attending the ritual had parked ourselves at the Group W book signing table in the dining hall. Here we played with pencils, chatted, signed books, talked about the mysteries of the universe, reveled in the lovely fried chicken smells wafting from the nearby kitchen, and watched E K torturing wayward insects that fell into her “you don’t belong here” category.

(NOTE: E K will rescue insects that belong here, but if they are an invasive species, or are just plain nasty and annoying… Well, let’s say it sucks to be them. See “Mistress Of The Flies,” “Missouri Kat And The Scarab Of Doom,” “Eeek Of Destruction,” etc…)

Eventually, the ritual was over and folks began rapidly filing into the dining hall for dinner, and as hungry people will do, they lined up in front of the window, anxious for a plate of chickeny goodness. Seeing the length of the queue, we all decided to kick back and wait for it to die down. So, we continued chit-chatting while E K continued introducing various bugs to the sole of her shoe as she giggled that cute, intensely evil giggle of hers.

However, the kitchen staff had another idea. Not about E K and her bug crunching, more like about us not eating right away. Because, out of the blue… Well… not blue, really… More like out of the kitchen door if we want to be completely accurate… Anyway, suddenly a couple of tray laden folks appeared and placed loaded plates of fried chicken, mashed ‘taters & gravy, green beans, and glazed carrots in front of us. We were also duly chastised for not having walked into the kitchen ahead of everyone else to be served at the head of the line, since Tish and I were the headline authors and everyone with us qualified as our entourage, so to speak.

Well, truth is, Tish and I really don’t buy into that dynamic. There are many authors and presenters out there that do, but we aren’t them. So, if the staff of an event hustles us into the dining hall ahead of everyone even after we strenuously object, we will go. We don’t always have a choice.  But we are NOT about to jump ahead of paying attendees, and we aren’t big fans of folks who do.

But now I digress…

So… Where was I? Oh yeah. At any rate, we were now in a quandary. We were embarrassed that we had been literally served our dinner while many folks were still waiting in line, but by the same token we were hungry. Fortunately, nobody minded that we had been brought our plates, and they insisted that we eat before it got cold. So, we did… And there were these piles of fried chicken. And the fried chicken was not good. The fried chicken was freakin’ EXCELLENT. So very excellent, in fact, that we just kept eating since they had a surplus and they had provided us with monster chicken pieces.

Fast forward again…

Late in the evening we stood about, smoking cigars, chit chatting, watching EKay step on things, and being amused by a field mouse that chased Johnathan around the porch after it had used the restroom. Well, we assumed that’s what it did. It went into the restroom, then came out later and started chasing Johnathan. At any rate, we eventually piled into our room and retired for the night. Sometime during the wee hours of the morning, however, the “incident” happened.

“The Incident”? you ask…

Yes. “The Incident.” We still aren’t positive about the hour of the occurrence, but when sunrise arrived, as usual we climbed out of bed and headed for the restroom. It’s one of those morning things, ya’know. Upon opening the door to the cabin we found “it”…

It being two large pieces of fried chicken affixed to our cabin door with duct tape. We had been vandalized… We had been victimized… We had been the target of a “Drive By Chickening”…

Being a mystery-thriller author, of course I launched a full scale investigation, co-opting whatever I could find in order to process the crime scene. I even interviewed witnesses, one of them being a rather wet and naked young lady in the unisex shower facilities. She seemed to know who it was, but was unwilling to give up the info. Since she was wet and naked, and I really wasn’t all about interviewing her in that state, I was unable to pursue the line of questioning any further.

Later we discovered that we weren’t the only victims. It seemed someone using the very same roll of duct tape had attempted to tape Tish and Patrick into their cabin. Obviously we had a “serial tapeist” on our hands…

While the perpetrator of these crimes still runs free, we are relatively certain we have narrowed things down to a single suspect. During her interview she was evasive, and even offered a rehearsed answer, stating that we had been the victims of Tennessee Hoodoo.

That was when we knew for certain she was lying. Everyone knows that if fried chicken is involved, it’s Kentucky Hoodoo.

So, she might as well just fess up. Otherwise I’ll just have to invoke the Colonel. Trust me, I have a secret blend of eleven herbs and spices, and I’m not afraid to use it…

More to come…

Murv