{"id":14302,"date":"2014-06-25T08:07:23","date_gmt":"2014-06-25T13:07:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=14302"},"modified":"2014-06-23T17:49:52","modified_gmt":"2014-06-23T22:49:52","slug":"a-tale-with-no-names-by-vera-p","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/a-tale-with-no-names-by-vera-p\/","title":{"rendered":"“A tale with no names” (by Vera P.)"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story originally appeared in <\/em>The Local Voice<\/em><\/span> #205. To download the PDF of this issue, click here<\/span><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

\"ColumnHeaderVera\"<\/a>Carpenter<\/strong><\/span> – wood artist, probably of Native American origin, big hippie man with a Neanderthal forehead, sweet soft smile, and a great sense of humor. Likes to run his arms through rosemary bushes and then through his dreadlocks, so they are always smelling like rosemary and wood shavings<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Surfer<\/strong><\/span> – restaurant owner and Carpenter\u2019s best friend, adventurist, ladies\u2019 man, musician, artist, idealist, trickster and care giver<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Carpenter fell from the back stairs of the restaurant and got a huge bump on his head. He refused to go to ER, cursed everyone, clumsily trying to run away and get to his truck, but was captured by Surfer and a couple of others, restrained, buckled up and locked in the van.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the way home he slurredly declared:<\/span> \u201cI! Want! Chicken!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNot a problem, man, we gonna stop and get you some.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Fried-Chicken-Leg\"<\/a>\u201cI want CHICKEN!!!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSure thing, just let me get there\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI !!!!! WANT !!!! CHICKEN!!!!!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDamn it, I told you, we\u2019re heading that way!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIIIIIII!!!!!! WAAAAAANT!!!!! CHICKENNNNNNN!!!!!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShut the f**k up and let me drive!!\u201d Surfer was losing his shit.<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally there was a drive through.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you want, bro? Leg, thigh, breast, chicken strip?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI want CHICKEN!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Frustrated Surfer just ordered a whole bunch of different pieces, got a paper bag and handed it to Carpenter, who slowly took it, looked down, squished it with his big working man\u00a0hands and played back and force sort of like making a snow ball.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then \u2013 SMAAASH \u2013 threw it all on the floor. Legs, thighs, chicken strips flew all over, red ketchup and yellow mustard spilling on a top of it. The abstract picture was not looking bad at all. It was not smelling bad, either. \u201cDammit, Carpenter, what a f**k!? It\u2019s my Mom\u2019s van, what would she say?! Why did you do it?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Carpenter was already nodding his heavy head. He opened blurry eyes, not aware of all the mess and mumbled:<\/span> \u201cSurfer…was that a chicken? I am sorry, man. I love you, buddy…\u201d and started snoring.<\/span><\/p>\n

A few days later they were sitting again at the bar with friends, sipping on beer and laughing, because the scary looking goose egg disappeared, strong Neanderthal forehead didn\u2019t happen to be cracked, and only a dark yellow-and-purple bruise under one of the mischievous Carpenter\u2019s eyes reminded of an epic fall.<\/span><\/p>\n

Surfer was finishing the story:<\/span> \u201cAnd next morning I woke up at\u00a05 am\u00a0to put some more ice on your forehead! I also needed to check if you didn\u2019t croak on me there!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was not even drunk! I just had a few beers, I don\u2019t know why I was so messed up! It was all that girls who were always fighting over me. I swear they put something in my beer when I was not looking!\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This story originally appeared in The Local Voice #205. To download the PDF of this issue, click here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"featured_media":14304,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[96,464,443],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-creative-writing","category-contributors","category-vera"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/VeraNoNamesFeat.jpg?fit=620%2C349&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}