My Fair Juan G Starring Boots the Impaler By Leila Allison

I was watching the 1969 Science Fiction flick The Valley of Gwangi on TV last month. It was playing on the ancient Philco set that connects the PDQ network in our sister realm of Other Earth to my home realm of Saragun Springs. The film was the final Ray Harrhausen/Willis O’Brien dinosaur picture. The story involved a thirty-foot tall, psychotic Allosaurus named (brace yourself) “Gwangi,” who somehow managed to reproduce (apparently without a Mrs. Gwangi) and survive at a “Forbidden Valley” in Mexico with other unlikely creatures for at least 145-million years–without, mind you, attracting notice until 1969–that from a reptile with the brain power of a caraway seed.

Cowboys (another possibly extinct species with seed-like mental powers) rounded up Gwangi, who, like all movie dinosaurs not named Godzilla, met a terrible death due to humankind’s lack of kindness toward monsters.

Anyway, that was how The Valley of Gwangi had ended for over fifty years in Other Earth copies of the movie until a month ago. Just before Gwangi once again met death inside a burning circus tent, I saw my lead Fictional Character actress, Miss Daisy Kloverleaf, clad in her superhero guise as the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) and her sidekick PDQ Pete (aka, Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon) enter the movie, whisk away what then became an obvious small clay prop Dinosaur in a scaled down set and replace it with an empty bottle of PDQ. Then I heard Daisy say, “Off to the interdimensional Vortex!” To which Peety squawked “Road Trip!” Then the screen faded to black.

Boots the Impaler (BTI), a talking Siamese Cat lay curled up on my desk. He’d watched the film with me and said, “Looks like more legal trouble.”

I stood and went to my window. I gazed toward the area of the interdimensional vortex Daisy had spoken of on TV. I was not surprised to see the silhouette of a thirty-foot tall Dinosaur in that direction.

“Renfield,” I whispered at the lowest possible degree of, well, whispering. It didn’t matter because she was already standing behind me.

“Yes, darling,” she said, and I could hear the smile in her voice.

I turned to face her. “How would you like another week’s vacation at Pipe Dreams Opium Emporium?”

“I’d like two better.”

“Deal,” I said, retaking my chair and putting my feet up on the desk, taking care not to disturb BTI.

We had made a deal for telling the backstory. Renfield and I have a psychic link, and since she only thinks about gain, it is pretty easy for me to judge the run of her thoughts. She’s also venal to the degree that her name should be a synonym for the word–then again that describes nearly all the Fictional Characters (FC’s) in my make believe realm of Saragun Springs. Renfield is also creative, hence her going to the window and whistling toward the silhouette of the Dinosaur.

Five minutes later. Daisy, Peety (no longer in their superhero guises) and the Dinosaur, whom I could not name in action due to the fact he is under copyright arrived outside the office. Renfield and I met them in the Barnyard.

“Hello, Miss Renfield and Miss Leila,” Daisy said primly, and not in a tone that suggested there was a several tonne monster beside her, one whose trod rattled ashtrays and shot glasses. Peety was lying flat atop the Thunder Lizard’s broad shoulders, apparently passed out with his everlasting can of PDQ in his feathery hand.

“Let me guess, he followed you guys home,” I said.

“This is Juan Gee,” Daisy added, ignoring me.

“We can’t say his name as an actor in the story–” I said, but Daisy then spelled out the name she had spoken. I glanced at Renfield who is also our attorney (she says she earned a degree at the University of Mars–in another realm at another time). She shrugged and said, “Good enough.”

Renfield then cupped her hands and called up to Juan Gee, who was surprisingly mellow compared to his behavior in the movie, and said, “Showtime, big fella!”

I should have known that she was several steps ahead and had her end of the deal ready to go even before she had made it with me. She took advantage of the Springs’ custom of FC’s new to the realm providing the backstory in their first appearance in one of my productions. But this was the first time that a FC created by someone else had come over, so the ethics may have been a tad dodgy.

“Hello to all,” Juan said. (For such a large person, he had an incredibly high pitched and grating voice.)

“Hello Juan,” we (save for Peety) said together, after it became clear he was awaiting a reply.

“I am grateful to Team GOAT for rescuing me from that repetitive, terrible fate and bringing me through the interdimensional vortex to Saragun Springs. I was astonished to discover that inanimate objects such as the clay figure I was over there and the drawing Master Peety had once been, are transformed to actual thinking beings upon crossover. No longer a fifteen inch tool constantly being moved one degree at a time for a single frame shot, but now I am a Full-sized Fictional Allosaurus.”

“Amazing how Team GOAT is able to enter stories and films at Other Earth and rescue fellow FC’s,” Renfield said, cuing the big guy, whose brain power had certainly increased from before.

“It is the GOAT’s passionly passion,” Daisy said, still clinging to her alter ego act, letting her addiction to adverbs slip.

Peety came to. He communicates only through quotes of the slob-coms and popcorn flicks of the late seventies through the early nineties–specializing in the eighties. So it was perfectly natural that he looked at the beast he was lying on and said (plus noting the source), “‘My God, the boy is dee-formed!’ Cherry Forever, Porky’s.”

“Um, why don’t you guys show Juan around the realm, while I figure out what to do with him,” I said, smiling, slowly backing toward my office, then turning and rushing in and bolting the door behind me.

“HeXopatha!” I called out and the crystal ball on my desk engaged, and there she was in all her Wiccan glory.

“I thought you’d be calling,” she said.

“Seems like everyone is one step ahead of me today,” I muttered, lighting a smoke and fishing a pint of anything out of my desk. I really should have read the label. It was the White Horse Whisky I keep around to remove nail polish. I’ve heard that three shots of it changes the meekest soul into a soccer hooligan. Somehow my esophagus held together as it went down. After locating my voice in the twists and turns of tubing that led to my lungs, I wheezed “I need magical help with this Juan fella–can you imagine the toilet he requires?”

“So, you are not sending him home?”

“What fun would that be?”

“Warner Brothers might send interdimensional sniffers around looking for their intellectual property,” HeXy said, displaying uncharacteristic level-headedness.

“Like hell-Gwa–Juan hasn’t appeared in as much as a beer commercial or on a game show since 1969.”

“It’s his voice,” BTI added. “Fellow sounds like Joe Pesci on helium.” Like all Cats, Boots is fully conscious and critical of others even when sleeping.

“Yes,” I said. “A face made for radio and a voice perfect for silent pictures.”

Actually, I was biding my time. HeXopatha (who bears a remarkable resemblance to her “arch enemy” Renfield) and BTI are also helpful when the price is right. We all knew that this situation meant that there were deals to be negotiated and sealed.

HeXy has been bleeding me for shares in a metal rich asteroid that the realm has put a claim on. So, she can be purchased in a standard fashion, which is exactly what happened.

But I also wanted BTI in on the project. Cats do not give a damn about money. Its only use is for people to buy stuff for Cats. But as long as you understand that a Cat is 99.99999% ego (the rest being mostly water and trace elements) you can come to an agreement. The payment for his services is in the title of this production.

The following is what I purchased:

It might sound strange, but famous, heavily monetized FC’s such as Winnie the Pooh, Bugs Bunny and a slew of Disney drones are or soon will be public domain while certain lesser known individuals are under copyright and will remain that way deep into the decades yet to come.

Such is the plight of the character Gwangi who is tethered to Warner Bros until 2065. But we consider Juan G a candidate for sanctuary. Still, if he were to appear as an Allosaurus the size of a building in any of my realm’s productions, we might run the risk of being sued for our asteroid.

So a makeover was in order. The only thing HeXopatha contributed was a shrinking spell that reduced Juan to the size of an average Earth man (5’ 9”). His immense tail caused him to weigh in at over three hundred pounds, but he no longer loomed large and obvious on the horizon.

BTI has the finest voice in Saragun Springs. It is cultured and mellifluous and allows him, like high-end English actors, to say the most horrid things and get away with it. For the price of his name atop the marque, I made him Henry Higgins to Juan’s Eliza Doolittle (both under copyright, but not in the metaphoric sense). Of course it does not matter what tone an FC’s voice has in a printed production, but word does get around the dimensions and the singular tone of Juan’s could easily lead the sniffers to us. (I bet you thought I hadn’t thought of that. Hah! This isn’t being written by a Chimp!)

Yesterday, Daisy and I went to see how Juan’s lessons were going in the studio city of Agoville. We entered a little rehearsal theater that contained a few seats and a stage.

Being a Cat, Boots had delegated responsibility for Juan’s voice lessons to a Eager Beaver FC just dying for a speaking role, named Eve.

BTI was in his usual state of sleeping on a table, while Eve held one of those megaphone things that silent film directors used to bellow through. Juan was nowhere to be seen, but I figured that he was backstage rehearsing.

“Good evenly evening, eagerly, eager Eve,” Daisy said. The GOAT has been getting loosely loose with her adverbs anymore. But, what the hell, it’s not like she’s hooked on fentanyl.

“Do you require further backstory, Miss Leila?” asked Eve.

I didn’t but it was Eve’s big moment and customs are to be followed, for how else are stupid ideas to become traditions? “Sure, why not.”

“Juan has memorized the opening of Richard the Turd,” Eve said.

“Shakespeare’s public domain,” I said. “You can say the correct title.”

“But that was a witticism,” said Eve.

“Oh? Well hell, forget booking my passage to Heaven. Very hilarious, Eve. And I’m certain that no one else in the multiverse has issued the same bon mot for at least ten minutes,” I said.

“How is your studently student doingly doing?” (Although it is superfluous to note, Daisy said that.)

“Behold,” Eve said. And she picked up the megaphone thing and called “Action!”

Juan appeared on stage. He was wearing a fez, a pair of armless glasses…

“They’re called pince nez, dolt,” BTI called out in his sleep. He was lying on a copy of this script and knew what I had written even though I hadn’t spoken it (Ha! Another plot hole filled in the desert).

Juan was also wearing a smoking jacket and an ascot due to a bad case of what is called “Turkey neck” amongst older actors.

We watched.

“Tut, were it farther off, I’ll pluck it down,” Juan piped, concluding the famous passage. To emphasize the plucking, he leaned backwards, and reached high. Unfortunately, Allosaurus’ arms are no longer than those of a T-Rex. So he had to pluck the invisible “crown” at chin level.

It was amazing what BTI and Eve had done with Juan’s voice. It was even worse than before. Much. I was expecting O’Toole, Burton, even Benny Hill and I got something that sounded like Yoko Ono singing backwards into an autotune.

I was about to complain, but BTI raised his head and said, “You wanted him to have a different voice, and that is what you have. The sniffers won’t come anywhere near it.”

“You have to admittedly admit that it is the Catly Cat thing to do.”

Not one of the five of us had anything to add that would give this production some kind of sense making ending. But that was when PDQ Pete staggered in to save the day. He had brought Daisy’s GOAT outfit. We had to close our eyes until she stomped her hoof twice. Because no one knows who the GOAT is, she just is like gravity, you silly fool. I opened my eyes and there she was, the realm’s greatest superhero team.

“‘I can’t believe they took the fucking bar,’–Bluto, Animal House,” said Peety.

“Fear not old chum,” Daisy said, fishing out the pint of White Horse I thought I had thrown away, out of her cape and giving it to him.

Then the six of us just stood and sat in dumbfounded silence, because that too fizzled as an end–not even Peety would touch White Horse.

“My horse, my horse, my kingdom for a white horse,” Juan ad libbed, in a tone that was the audio equivalent of White Horse.

We all looked at each other, again, and all together we said “Curtainly curtain.”

Leila