Here, let’s you and I, Precious Reader, continuing from Part 1, and barreling fiercely headlong right into Part 2, skip the burdensome details of how the antique furniture restoration apprenticeship of Ference Romchuk under Zippy Zamazda, as set up by Welsh Losser, Kansas-based farming generalist and consultant extraordinaire, started, which basically devolved into the following:
“Eh… huh-eh… huh-eh… huh-eh… uh… uh… uh… Aah, heh, Zippy, did I get your name right? Dude, heh, anyway, sanding down this ancient table top is really kind of hard, and, heh, it’s, ah, taking a lot out of me, and I’m not used to it, so…”
“Oh, Ference, as you recall, I just needed you to initially sand down the rough spots, especially in that one small area near the corner, and, well, that’s about it. It couldn’t be all that –”
“Yeah, no, heh, I mean, I know, I know, but it’s like, I’m not good at it yet, and don’t have any practice, and I think it would be better if I just watched you work for a while, and pick up, you know, hints and insights, heh-heh…”
“I don’t –”
“Dude, because, like, I could learn the trade and be, like, a consultant, heh, and help tell you what to –”
“A consultant? Ference, I-I-I-I-I…”
‘Dude, dude, ah, Zippy, right? Ah, it’s just like those guys who are coaches in sports; a lot of them weren’t good at playing the game, but they were experts at how it’s played, because I know what I’m talking about. I used to play hockey and was almost a professional… and a doctor, too, and, well, anyway, heh, we had a great coach, really respected, and all that, but he was like this really clumsy guy, heh… heh…”
“Well, um, Ference, okay… why don’t you just sit over there and take a break, and when I’m done with this seat cushion, we’ll talk about it, and…”
“Yeah, yeah, heh, that’s good, heh, that’s good… I’m gonna get some coffee…”
Ding-a-ling-a-ling… tinkle-winkle-dingle… ding-a-ling-a-ling… go the little welcome bells above the workshop door…
“Oh, why, hello there. You must be the new antique furniture craftsmen everyone’s talking about. Zippy, is it?”
The workshop suddenly fills with the scent of smoked hickory.
“Why yes… yes, sir, but is everybody really talking about me? And you are…”
Just as Zippy goes up to shake the short, unusually large-headed, and intense-looking older man’s hand, the latter turns away to pick up an old, three-legged stool to sort of shove in Zippy’s face; a stool that didn’t appear to be with him, when he walked in.
“Don’t mind me, son. I’m just anxious to see you get started on I guess what would be a combination repair and restore job on this little thing. Found it up in the attic. Brought back memories. Used to be my grandpappy’s, and his grandpappy’s before that… before I killed ‘em… Ha-ha-ha… That was just a joke, my boy. Don’t pay me no mind. I’m just an old coot, ha-har… Tore their guts out with a big knife, ha-ha-ha. Cut ‘em up ‘n’ et ‘m’ – haw!!!”
“Heh, heh, dude, ah, Zippy, right? I’d strongly advise you not to take it. Don’t forget, we’ve got this big cherrywood table and chairs job to finish, and we’re already running behind on what we promised. There’ve already been too many interruptions – heh… heh…”
“Oh, I don’t mind waiting. I can come back in a day, or even two, if it suits you better. It’s just that I’ve got a sentimental attachment to the ole thing. They used to bounce me on it as a baby, tell me stories. Stories very much like this story that you and I, Zippy, and that ferrety-looking critter over there are in right now. It’s a treasured family heirloom, and I just wanted to get it fixed up and pretty-looking again, is all…”
“Okay, Mr… ah… so, if you just leave it here, over there, and later today I can –”
“Duuude – heh, dude… dude… I don’t think it’s a good idea to take it. We need to, heh, I don’t know how to put it… ah, refuse the job, or something like that…”
It is apparent that there is a certain power Ference Romchuk is inexplicably able to exert over Zippy Zamazda, who just as inexplicably sees in Ference a charm of sorts, an irresistible appeal, which he does not have the strength to resist. He thinks that perhaps Ference was right; maybe he should work as a furniture restoration consultant next to Zippy, and help him in that way, rather than the kind of apprenticeship Mr. Losser had had in mind, and about which Zippy would speak to Mr. Losser later…
“Um, sir, so, we’re going to have to, ah, refuse the work…”
“Do you mean to say, you won’t be taking it at all?!”
‘Yes, yes… that’s right. I’m afraid you will have to take your business elsewhere. Goodbye…”
‘Heh… heh… heh…”
“All right then, son. I guess we’ll see about that…”
Ding-a-ling-a-ling… tinkle-winkle-dingle… ding-a-ling-a-ling… go the little farewell bells above the workshop door…
Ference Romchuk calls someone and, cupping his little pawlike hand around his mouth, starts whispering into his phone:
“Heh… whisper-whisper-whisper… heh… psst-psst-psst… heh… heh… heh-heh-heh…”
A minute later, Welsh Losser bursts in.
^^^
“Don’t blame Ference, Zippy. He’s got nothing to do with this. It’s the same problem with you. He’s just your apprentice, only, and that’s all! Moreover, it’s his first day on the job! You are the one who makes the decisions, unless it’s a brainer, in which case, you consult with me, and I’ll make the final call. But this one’s a no-brainer, and your decision was obviously wrong. We lost business because of you. I’m going to have to dock your pay!”
“I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all. Nothing about this is turning out fair, or the way you described it. You made it sound so good and noble and generous on your part when you told me all about it and I agreed to sign on. But… but… I want out of this! I WANT TO LEAVE!!!”
^^^
It is nighttime, and Zippy Zamazda, locked by Welsh Losser into the workshop, where he has a room and a shower and toilet in the back, walks up to the workshop’s door in his pale-blue onesie footed bunny-rabbit jammies that used to turn on his wife – one he now barely remembers. He steps up onto the very three-legged stool left by the man who’d come in earlier that day, which Zippy could have sworn he’d taken back out with him, when Zippy’d told him to take his business elsewhere. Zippy presses his face against the door window.
The heat off a fire burning in a teepee pyre of wood in Zippy’s direct line of vision some 40 yards away reaches his cheeks, which scares him.
But what’s this?! Blinking and blinking, in the midst of the fire, Zippy now sees the horror of a live man hung on a scarecrow post, all of his clothing stuffed through with straw, including his winter wool cap, and the man, kicking and thrashing, seems to be screaming:
“I am a writer… I… AM… A… WRI-I-I-TE-E-ER!!! AAAAAARRRGH!!!”
And as the man burns up, his flesh turning to a crisp, Zippy now also sees men, dressed in long, black cloaks, with, like, animal heads over their own heads, sauntering around the burning figure, at some distance, of course, like it was nothing, passing bourbon whisky among themselves and taking swigs straight from the bottles through the mouths of their animal heads. The men are exchanging raucous comments and laughing.
Zippy’s mind breaks and he begins banging his fists against the door, screaming in a rather high-pitched, whining, whinnying, shaking, nasally neigh, as much in crazed horror as in extreme panic and fright:
“LET ME OUT OF HERE!!! AH – AAAAAHHH! GET ME O-O-OUUUT!!!”
Zippy shits his jammies.
His mind goes to such an extent, that he loses all sense of his own strength and bashes his fists through the door window, ripping up and bloodying his hands.
Three cloaked figures suddenly appear at the door; the one in the warthog head producing a key and opening it. The shorter one in the fox head pulls Zippy outside with savage power, actually lifting him off the ground by his rabbit suit with one hand.
The shortest one of all, with the head of a weasel, pumps his paws out from hunched shoulders, taking short quick erratic steps, two-three at a time, first this way, then that:
“Heh… heh… heh…”
“Well, I’ll tell you,” says the fox, in a voice strangely reminiscent of the man who’d brought in the stool earlier that day, “I don’t much like the look of those bunny ears. Otherwise, I think we’ve got a sweet little piece here.”
“Nyariggafits, ar-akh; not a problem there,” the warthog congenially replies. He pulls out a big horse-gelding knife and cuts away the head and rabbit-ears part of Zippy’s pajamas at the neck, letting Zippy’s blood at the nape with the swipe.
From thin black air behind himself, the fox whips out a cowhide with horns and hands it to the warthog, who quickly fits the cow head over Zippy’s head, pulling it to, to make it irreversibly nice and snug.
“Nyag-nya-nyaaaarr…”
“Thank you, my good man. That’s much better…”
“Heh… heh… heh…”
The trio drag Zippy toward a makeshift stone-slab altar adjacent to the fire, now dying down; the straw man in it, still alive and screaming but moments ago, merely hanging from the scarecrow pole, a charred skeleton-mummy.
A crow – as there are no rooks in America – silently alights upon the burnt corpse’s head, seen by no one, because the crow is so black, and the night is so dark, and foul…
EPILOGUE
Some time, early the next morning: The Hunched Cornish and The Half Guinea in the Kansas Diner…
“Hey, how did you like that guy in here last night in the beatnik sweater and wool cap who kept announcing he was a writer before ordering something?”
“Reminded me of Andrew Plumb. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was him. Yeah, looks like you were right about operating through The Commix as opposed to The Checkout. I hate to admit it, but one really does get more done in less time. Back there, it’s like we’re slow as hell.”
“Yeah, Hunchie, Like I said. I wish you’d trust me more on these things – I’ve racked up –”
“Grrr… I don’t want to hear it, Guinea. Frankly, listening to you talk after I’ve eaten disturbs my digestion. As to what I think, you ask. I’m glad those local militia guys, whom I initially was thinking of tearing to pieces, took that asshole out. It made me suddenly like ‘em a whole lot better. I wonder what they did with him… Are you having those hash browns?”
“Nah, Hunch-thing, I’m thinking of going back into the kitchen for seconds.”
“Fuck you, Guinea.”
“Yeah, that’s what she said…”
Filed by One Who Shall Remain Unblamed, March 7, 2026