Showing posts with label Humor. Show all posts

One of our goals in Catholic School was to save the Pagan Babies. For only five dollars, which seemed like a pretty good deal to me, we could get a Pagan Baby baptized and sent to heaven. They even showed us short movies of Catholic missionaries in Africa baptizing the Pagan babies to spur us on. We could buy a saint stamp for ten cents to paste in a book, and when the book was full, we could redeem the book for a Pagan Baby, whom we could name on our Pagan Baby Adoption Certificate. When we were first told about this opportunity, I rushed home to my parents and said, “Guess what, I’m going to have a baby, and she’s black,” which would have given my dad multiple heart attacks were it not for the biological impossibility of my statement at that tender age.

These Catholic equivalents to S&H Green Stamps prepared us for the future because they taught us how to buy on the installment plan. I asked our teacher if our book were half full, if we could we redeem it for half a Pagan Baby, but she said no, so there was always a rush to fill the book before the Pagan Baby Awards Day ceremony. There was a poster with Jesus in a pastoral scene at the front of the classroom and every time someone adopted a Pagan Baby, we got to add a child to the poster. By the end of the school year, Jesus had become the most prolific father in history.

In a way I thought the pagans were lucky. They automatically went to limbo and didn’t risk going to Hell until the missionaries baptized them. I could just imagine tribes fleeing the missionaries to make sure they kept their spot reserved in limbo. When my mother told me that our dog had gone to “doggie heaven,” I wondered whether unbaptized pagan dogs went to “doggie limbo.”

After realizing that once the Pagan Babies were baptized, they too would need a Catechism to guide them along the straight and narrow path, I wrote K’s Catechism for Cannibals in perfect Palmer Method penmanship, providing dozens of important questions and answers as well as prayers written just for the pagan cannibals.

Q: Is it better to cook a Virgin Martyr or a Heretic?

A: It is better to cook a Virgin Martyr than a Heretic because the Virgin Martyr is sweeter to the palate and the meat is softer to cook than that of a Heretic.

Q: Should a converted Cannibal woman continue to walk around topless?

A: A converted Cannibal should continue to walk around topless because Priests are celibate and will not be tempted.

I even provided the cannibals with a prayer to say before each meal.

Our Martyr, who hath been cooked, blessed be thy meat. Thy flesh be done, so thy sweet taste will fill us when we eat.

I sold my literary creation to my fellow students for a dime and then contributed all my earnings to converting the Pagan Babies in Africa. Despite my altruistic intentions, when the sisters got a copy of my addition to the canon, they imposed an excessive number of penances on me. The nun who imposed the greatest guilt and fear in us was Sister Mary Margaret whom we referred to as Attilla the Nun because she behaved more like a four-foot, ten-inch tall Auschwitz prison matron than a Sister of Mercy. Some students were convinced that not only did she have eyes in the back of her head, but that the Blessed Virgin Mary had endowed her with the ability to see through walls and read our minds. It was rumored that she made extra money in the summer by training Marine Drill Sergeants, and we had no doubt that she gave every penny she made to the church. We joked that Satan would rather do battle with the Archangel Gabriel than Sister Mary Margaret because at least Satan had a chance with Gabriel. Even K watched her step around Attila the Nun.

Nuns just want to have fun! But when three former Catholic nuns have too much fun and get in trouble with the law, they become nuns on the run.

Driving back to Washington D.C. where they work at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Parts, the three sisters are arrested in Tennessee. After defeating the local deputy in strip poker, they escape from jail, and are pursued by the zealous Detective Schmuck Hole, who has personally offered a $10,000 reward for their capture on The 700 Club. Little do they know that when the three sisters visit the Washington Monument, their lives will change forever.

Set in 1979, The Three Sisters is a sacrilegious satire that skewers not only organized religion, but the government, the media, intellectuals, corporate greed and every other part of the establishment. Maybe not the greatest story ever told, but possibly the funniest.

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Genre – Humor, Satire, Catholicism, Politics

Rating – R

More details about the author

Connect with Bryan Taylor on Facebook

Website www.threesistersnovel.com

Chapter 17 - Present Day

Baxter boasted, “If you Google the slang word for Johnson, you will find it’s synonymous with penis. The source of the reference is murky, and there are lots of theories, but the first recorded reference was in the 1860s. I believe I have now uncovered the origin of this urban legend.”

Professor Gladstone sighed, shrugged, and brought his right hand to his forehead as if he had a migraine. The summarization of the bar scene alone had Gladstone thinking of some good scotch he had back home. He half-wished he were drunk now.

Even if he’d been inebriated, he was not some sorority hussy. He could never fall for Baxter’s bullshit. Silly songs, college bar games, saucy dialogue, and nudity—the paper reminded him of some cheesy porn script covered over by a few historical clichés.

He recalled camping in rural Maine. At the one general store, one could get live bait, along with an assortment of goods, including playing cards, booze, condoms, and the four-pages-only local newspaper. It also had a small selection of rentable movies, half of which were porn.

Then he had been revolted by some of the titles: The perverted Dickens, A Tale of Two Titties; the Huxley bondage epic, Slave New World; the heroine Indian gangbang adventures of, Poch-a-Hotness; the make-love-not-war lesbian drama, Daughterhouse Five; Surecock Holmes in the “whore done it?”—The Mounds of Baskerville.

It was all so vile, but no more so than Baxter’s thesis.

Baxter had more to say. “All those songs were real, Professor Gladstone, except of course the one he made up on the spot. All those people, John Edwards, Little Archie, Frank James, Badger Bob—they existed.”

Professor Gladstone took his hand from his head and pointed at the student. “The first three names I’m well familiar with, but this Badger guy is likely your own creation—along with the rest of the bit characters.”

“What about the main character, Captain Coytus?”

The pounding against his skull intensified. He closed his eyes for several seconds and willed this nightmare to end. Continual harping about this Captain Coytus reminded him of a matter with his only son, Theodore. For almost a year, his son had insisted a monster lived in his closet. No matter how many times the room was inspected and the closet cleared, when the lights dimmed, the monster returned.

How much more must Baxter’s frightful tale continue? The comparison brought something else to mind—the closet. Behind his office closet door lurked another monster, a deposit of Baxter’s mischief.

He spread his hands. “Mr. Baxter, I really have had enough for one day. We don’t need to rehash this sordid story. I’m at the point where I’ll give the paper a D- grade just for your conviction. Will a passing grade and graduation from Harvard be enough to send you on your way?” His furrowed brow etched with hope.

“It certainly will not,” an insulted Baxter replied.

Professor Gladstone massaged his temples. “How about a C?”

Baxter straightened. “For this magnum opus, I will take nothing less than an A+.”

With vigor that bordered on panic, Gladstone shook his head, holding both hands in a stop motion. “An A+ paper will be seen by fellow professors. If this was ever to see the light of day, I would be ruined with ridicule.”

The student grimaced. “I plan on publishing this. Consider yourself lucky that you got a sneak peak.”

“Publish?”

“I owe it to the academic world. I came here expecting at minimum, praise, but I never considered that you’d be envious of my work.”

Heat swelled into his cheeks, and he gripped the armrest of his chair until his nails turned white. “Envious?”

Baxter nodded. “Jealousy is the only explanation I can fathom for pretending to ignore the obvious.” He paused, raised an eyebrow, and asked, “You’re not trying to play dumb, only to steal this scoop for yourself, are you?”

To think he, a professor, would ever author something so maniacal! “I would never—”

Baxter cut him off. “It’s unethical.” And tapping his chest, he continued. “Unlike me, you do not possess the evidence to make the case.”

Like an electrical eel that keeps shocking its already dead prey, Baxter kept zapping away. Professor Gladstone’s brain buzzed but felt short-circuited, as though he couldn’t quite bridge the gap between what was happening and what should have been happening.

“Anyway, at least I don’t have to offer you the privilege of penning the foreword. I felt obliged, being your student. There are plenty of other more acclaimed historians who surely will jump at the chance of having their name associated with this surefire seller.”

Baxter paused for just a second and continued. “I could have placed a review from you on the back cover. Naturally, I would have been happy to return the favor for one of your future endeavors, but it’s your loss on mutual prestige.”

This was beyond cocky; the lad suffered from delusions of grandeur.

Yet he wasn’t finished. “I can see the book tours. I suspect you could meet a lot of women on the road. They dig that intellectual, author thing.” He stopped to observe Professor Gladstone and then quipped, “Well, usually.”

After leaning back and with a cocky smirk, he shrugged. “If you ditch that comb-over and your Mr. Rogers’s sweater-thing, you might reel in a few ladies yourself. Try suspenders; they seemed to work for Larry King. Speaking of which, he might come out of retirement just to interview me.”

Professor Gladstone instinctively moved his wedding-ring-less hands below his desk. His marriage lasted six years, gave him a son, and then his wife left him, claiming he was a bore. He took Baxter’s insults like the anesthetized take pain. The absurdity was heaped in such rapid fashion it was mind boggling. Nothing registered. The boy had to be done with this bravado … he hoped.

Baxter preened. “I’ll do what J.D. Salinger should have done—quit after the first book. Sometimes you only have one classic in you.”

“Indeed,” Professor Gladstone offered at last. “What is this proof you speak of? I want evidence that this Captain of yours existed.”

"“A historical fiction comedy that packs
as much heart as humor.”
—Michael Dadich, award-winning author of The Silver Sphere

When a Harvard history professor receives a thesis paper titled Jesse James and the Secret Legend of Captain Coytus, from Ulysses Hercules Baxter—an underwhelming student—he assumes the paper must be a prank. He has never read such maniacal balderdash in his life. But after he calls a meeting with the student, Professor Gladstone is dismayed when Baxter declares the work is his own. As he takes a very unwilling Professor Gladstone back in time via his thesis, Baxter’s grade hangs in the balance as he attempts to prove his theory.

It is 1864 as philanderer and crusader Captain Coytus embarks on a mission to avenge his father’s death and infiltrates the Confederate Bushwacker posse looking for the man responsible, Jesse Woodson James. Accompanied by the woman of his dreams, Coytus soon finds himself temporarily appointed to be the sheriff of Booneville and commissions his less-than-loyal deputy to help him carry out his plan.

But when tragedy strikes, the Captain is forced to change his immature ways and redefine his lofty mission—more or less."

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Genre - Humor, Historical Fiction

Rating – R

More details about the author

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