The Return of Maurice, The Dogfaced Boy

 

            By our reckoning it was about midnight when Ramona woke up.  She heard something at the door. Ralph was lying flat on his back, snoring. Cherry was tucked in between them, fussing a little because of the noise.  Twigg was in his basket nest with Berry and Bob, the puma bros.  It should have been a peaceful scene, except for that noise.

            She finally woke enough to realize that someone was knocking at the door of their cave.
            “Ralph, wake up,” she whispered loudly. He kept snoring.
            “Ralph, wake up, somebody is knocking on the door!” His eyes opened. He wasn’t smiling.
            “Huh?” Ralph sat up. He rubbed his face. He listened. He determined that Ramona was correct. Some rash character was knocking on his door in the middle of the night.
            All eight feet and five hundred pounds of Ralph got out of the big wooden bed and padded to the door. No fumbling around and asking, “who’s there?” He just opened it. Yeah, there was somebody there alright.
            Looking scrawny, disheveled and smelling bad, there was Maurice. In the light from the sky Ralph could see a sad twinkle in Maurice’s eyes. This was obviously going to take some time.
            “Hey Ramona, it’s just Maurice, I’ll be back later,” whispered Ralph slipping out and shutting the door. You will notice that he didn’t ask Maurice in.
            “Hey, Maurice, what’s up,” said Ralph. “Why are you here in the middle of the night? You woke Ramona up and that means you woke me up.”
            “Aw, Ralph. They fired me. They still think I ate that cat.” Maurice sounded like he hadn’t spoken in days. His corduroy britches were gone and his shirt too. “I’m sorry, I just didn’t know where else to go. Jeez, there are millions of cats!”
            “Let’s go stir up the fire and sit over there,” said Ralph, heading for the stone circle. He got some pieces of broken branches that Ramona had put there for morning, stirred around in the ashes until he found a few coals still red, and laid in the pieces. Soon the fire woke up, providing some light and a focus for guys sitting up late and talking.
            “It’s over a hundred miles to Tacoma. How did you get here? You look like hell by the way, Maurice.”
            “They took my outfit,” mumbled Maurice.    
            “Yeah, that figures, how did you get here,” asked Ralph again, as they took seats on the convenient fireside logs.
            “I walked sometimes, usually at night. I laid low in the daytime. Once I slept behind a grocery store in their dumpster. The other day I crashed up under a bridge with some boxes pulled over me. Sometimes I hung onto the back bumper of a truck. Man, that freaks people out when they see me there. It only took a couple of days.”
            “I’m hungry.  You got any, like, bones laying around here?” said Maurice hopefully. “What does Ramona do with leftovers, man?”
            “Hang on, I’ll get you some duck. It’s inside. Right back,” said Ralph. “Any bones and stuff she gives to the pumas to mess around with.”
            When he got back, he had a duck prepared for cooking in his big hand. It had been a while since Ralph had eaten raw meat, but he knew it would be just fine with Maurice, the Ozark Monster, as was. Maurice had even been known to eat roadkill.
            “What are you going to do next,” asked Ralph, watching Maurice chomp down the raw duck, including the bones.
            Maurice cleaned his toothy muzzle with his long red tongue and sighed. “Aw, shoot, I dunno.  I’d like to get another gig singing. You’d be surprised how hard that is…”
            “You scare people Maurice,” said Ralph. “That might work for one of those hard screaming type bands, I can’t think of one, you know what I mean.”
            “I’m just kind of discouraged Ralph. Life as a monster isn’t all like in the movies, with crazy fun and hauling off the babes and all that cool stuff.  It’s just hard to make a living,” groaned Maurice. “I thought maybe you could think of something I could do.”
            “Oh, you just need to have some cryptid type fun. It’s a sure cure for the Kozmik Blues,” giggled Ralph, waking up for real and feeling more like his amiable old self. “Tell you what, dude. I know where there is a bunch of newbie Bigfoot hunters camped, just over the hill and by the river. I think we should visit them and give them some of what they are hoping for! Contact!
            “Then you’ll feel more like scaring up a job of some kind,” said Ralph, enjoying his little joke, which Maurice didn’t notice anyhow.
            “Sure! Gosh, thanks Ralph!  That sounds good! Let’s go,” yelped Maurice.
            It was still the dead dark of the night when they set out on their journey.  There was just a little of that ghostly light from the sky allowing them to see their way. Ralph didn’t need much light anyhow and Maurice was pretty much a creature of the night already.
            The walk took about an hour.  It was further than Ralph had said. He’s like that. Anyhow, when they got to the camp they stayed back in the cover of the trees and underbrush, just scoping the scene.
            There were five campers. A couple asleep in their RV. There was a young guy in a sleeping bag near a small fire. One couple were in a tent, also near the fire. How did the boys know who was in the tent or the RV?  Well, Ralph has some uncanny skills.  He can kind of hear stuff through walls, etc. That’s how he learned to speak English.
            “Now, watch what they do,” whispered Ralph to Maurice. Then he sucked in a mighty breath and made a shriek like a dying banshee, dwindling down to a gruesome moan.
            The guy in the sleeping bag sat up. A man staggered out of the tent, goggling at the trees. An old woman opened the door of the RV and stuck her head out.
            Ralph blew a noise like a moody elk.  Then he chattered like an Asian madman on speed.
            Soon the Bigfoot hunters were fumbling with sound equipment and hooting at the woods for all they were worth. The cacophony was marvelous to behold!
            Ralph tossed a grapefruit sized rock in by the fire. Then he and Maurice moved so nobody would follow the trajectory back to them.  They were having a tough time not laughing.
            “Okay, now watch what they do,” hissed Ralph. He stood up and made a sound like somebody slamming a huge hunk of log into a tree.  He knew that Squatch hunters just dote on that effect.  So, he did his best for them. His decibel level was tremendous.
            And just as truly as like calls to like, the two younger men were soon manfully pounding away on a couple of trees with some largish windfall. Ralph had Maurice do some bloodcurdling howling for a grand finale, then they split. Return howling echoed in their ears as they walked away.
            They trudged happily back toward the home clearing just as the sun was starting to come up. Ralph was a little sleepy, but Maurice looked much happier, as Ralph knew he would.
            “Hey, Ralph, it’s been fun!  But I gotta book it outta the woods. Stuff to do man! Stuff! To! Do!”
            “Yeah, ok, Maurice. Stay out of trouble.” And Ralph rumbled his way, laughing, back to Ramona, some breakfast and a good long nap.