Deep in the heart of Appalachia.
Somewhere on the side of a mountain. Blue Ridge? Great Smoky? Doesn’t matter much, so long as you don’t find yourself out there without a guide or a reason. That is to say, for your own sake, mind your business and steer clear of any random banjo music.
King Kong Frank stalks, bare-footed and fully loaded, in the kind of comically slow fashion that betrays his child-like perception of the world around him. It’s not his fault, the big lug’s been drinking corn whiskey since he was in utero. On Frank’s hip, as close to connected at the waist as is humanly possible, Frank’s ol’ lady Luanne Delphine James brandishes a massive rolling pin. She has the undeniable look of a hen who is ready, willing, and able to peck.
Furthermore. it’s one-hundred percent likely that ol’ Luanne’s more apt to swing that rolling pin at Frank for some unseen slight than at any kind of enemies, domesticated or otherwise. Frank halts and in all seriousness turns to Luanne with wild bloodshot eyes and a thin, bony finger held up to his lips.
“Be real gyat-dang quiet!” Frank blurts. “We’s a’huntin’ us up a RAYCOON!”
As soon as a line of sight on the decades-old refrigerator sitting on his front porch presented itself, the Smoky Mountain Savage pulled his shotgun up to bare. The Hillbilly Jesus does his best to hold back a chortling giggle of satisfaction as he uses every ounce of precision and control that his lifetime of drinkin ‘shine has imbued him with.
Click.
Clack.
BLAM~!
Frank blows a hubcap-sized hole in the front of the ice-box. At his side Luanne’s face slowly and deliberately transforms from shock and surprise to dismay and disgust. Had the big fella been paying attention to her instead of the smoldering hole in his fridge he might be ready for what comes next. He is not.
“WHAT IN TARNATION?”
Wait for it…
“You done gone an’ shot up the wrong fridgerfrater, Frank! That’s the outside fridge!”
The realization begins to set in. “Wait a gol’darn minute…”
Luanne does indeed not wait.
“YOU IJIT! That dadblasted raycoon’s holed up in the INSIDE fridge! You done shot up-”
Slack jawed, Frank takes his sweet time connecting the dots. Eventually after putting two and two together in his head enough times to come up with sideways eight he finally figures out what that amber wave of foam gushing through the gaping hole in the door is. So much for an airtight seal.
“-the gyatdang BEER FRIGERFRATER!”
Behind red cheeks and bushy brows a single tear forms at the corner of the Appalachian Nightmare’s eye. You could liken this to one of them ‘Merican Injuns getting all teary-eyed when the white man litters or what have you.
“MY DANG BEERS!” Frank yells.
Spittle flies from his mouth and settles in his beard.
It’s all Frank can do not to trip over himself to save the beer. Before long he’s got mason jars and straw hats laid out trying to catch and/or soak up as much Natty Light as he can before it slips through the antique planks of wood on his porch and soaks into the dirt, lost forever.
Luanne smashes Frank upside the head with her rolling pin.
“I TOLD YOU THAT RAYCOON WAS IN THE INSIDE ICE-BOX!” Luanne screeches. “WHAT’N THE DAMN HELL IS WRONG WIT’CHOO FRANK?”
Having finally had enough, King Kong Frank turns on Luanne.
“WOMAN!” Frank starts. “I DONE TOLD YOU! FRANK DYLAN JAMES AIN’T NO HUNTER, AIN’T NO RAYCOON TRAPPER, AN’ AIN’T NO PUSSYWHIPPED HOUSE HUSBAND SET TO WAIT ON NO DADBLASTED WOMAN HAND AND DADGUM FOOT!”
Luanne raises a brow, the look on her face could melt concrete.
“Oh.” Luanne’s demeanor darkens. “It’s like that, then?”
“You GYATdang ri-”
THWAP!
He never got the rest out.
She wallops him across his giant head again, crossing his eyes and putting his big ass to sleep the hard way. Luanne, pleased as punch, stands over him and harrumphs. She goes about calling him every kind of sorry piece of hillbilly trash that she can come up with. Suffice it to say, the majority of her effications are wholly unfit for television, even of the wrestling sort.
Fin.