Chapter 1

The Maple Street Chowder and Interplanetary Rocket Society by Louis Cannon

[Dear reader. If you lose track here and there, don’t worry about it. I lost track quite a bit while writing this. Typing with one hand gets iffy, sometimes. Just go with the flow and maybe it will seep in.]

“This meeting of the Maple Street Chowder and Interplanetary Rocket Society will now come to order,” I intoned from my lofty position as High Chief Muckitey-Muck, Lord of All He Surveys.

“Yeah, yeah. Get on with it” murmured my worshipful sycophants.

“Is there any old business?”

“Sure as hell is”, exclaimed Old Jeb. All of us were pretty damned old, but Jeb had us by a week or two.

“Are you still bitching about that stupid bet, Jeb?”

“Sure am. Jim Bob said if he couldn’t answer my riddle then he would send Becky over to give me the best blow job I ever had. He failed miserably to answer correctly and my knob still needs a good polishing.”

Jim Bob jumped up and told us that he didn’t say he would send Becky. He just said he would ask her to do it. “She’s pretty damned busy with cheerleading practice and all that other stuff. Besides, the team keeps her pretty busy.”

Jeb wasn’t going to take this lying down. “I played football, too.”

“Not since Red Grange was coaching”, I offered.

“Aw fuck you, Jake. You been pretty damned high and mighty ever since you got to be HCMMLAHS”. (see above)

“At least I ain’t bitching and moaning about a hummer that ain’t never gonna happen. Offer to swap with something you might actually get, like a week with his old lady.”

“I done tried that. He said it had to be at least three weeks and I don’t think I can go without that long, while I know he’s home thumping Becky and I’m listening to the 10,000 reasons why his old lady needs to keep her knees together.”

“Ok, ok. Let’s get on to other business. Any progress on the interplanetary rocket ship project, Jim?”

“Well, we did add a paragraph or two to the spec. Volume 93, Section 18, paragraph 13.04.92.233 was a bit ambiguous, so we expanded it by 97 pages.”

“What did he say?”

“Aw, come on, Art. Just record it as no progress and let’s get to the good parts. Any more new business? No, well, where’s the chowder?”

“Wait a minute, Jake. Not so fast. I’ve got new business”.

“Well, Bill. Come out with it. We don’t have all night. All right, maybe we do, but that chowder ain’t gonna eat itself.”

Billy offered, “That’s what your wife always says.”

“No she don’t.”

“I didn’t say she said it to you.”

“Oh.”

“Everybody shut up. It looks like Bill’s new business is a DVD. Is this one you made yourself, Bill”

“Sort of.”

“What do you mean, sort of? Did you or didn’t you?”

“I did leave the spy cam in Jim Bob’s bedroom the last time I went over to provide a little comfort to his old lady, but I wasn’t there when these scenes were recorded.”

“Whoooeee! Looks like Little Jimmy ain’t as little as you thought. Look at the log on that sucker. You sure he is any relation to you, Jim Bob?”

“Ain’t no way to tell. Are you certain about any of yours?”

“Probably not, but look at the bright side. It ain’t really incest if you ain’t the daddy, is it?”

“You got a point there. Course it might be if you are visiting the neighbors.”

As the glorious leader of this mongrel pack it was my duty to keep us aligned toward specific goals. “Anybody get any strange this week?”

“The closest I come to strange was Frank’s wife wanting it in the front. She’s usually bending over the table holding a can of Crisco when I walk in the back door.”

“Is that why she calls you her back door man?”

“That’s part of it.”

“Any new blood?”

Nobody could think of any, but one of the guys mentioned that there was a new math teacher at the high school who looked pretty sharp. He said she was the Homecoming Queen at the U of F the previous year and she was just getting started.

“Ok, let’s see a show of hands for those willing to interview her for the perennially open position of Club Doxy.”

“What the hell is a doxy, Jake?”

“If you can’t figure it out, then you don’t get any, George. Look it up.”

“Is that it? Ok, let’s eat. Bring out the serving wenches.”

“Hollleee sheeit, Ben. Is that your youngest, carrying those twelve big beer steins like an Oktoberfest Fraulein? Shit! She’s about to pop out of that Oktoberfest dress she’s wearing. Oh, damn, now the beer slopping over the rim is making her blouse wet. Oh, sweet Gracie! Now she did pop out and her hands are too full for her to be able to pop them back in.”

As fearless leader, I asked for a show of hands of those willing to help the poor child recover her dignity.

“Ok, ok. My, don’t we have a room full of selfless volunteers who are willing to give up their time to help that poor child. Perhaps we should hold an auction?”

“I’ll give everything I own and everything I’m likely to make, borrow, steal or smuggle for the rest of my life”, shouted Fritz. He always was pretty excitable. Perhaps it was the combination of his German blood and the Oktoberfest theme of the event?