Murk's New Year's Rockin' Eve- A Tale of the WoW

Thursday, August 07, 2008

I was determined not to spend this past New Year’s Eve the way I had the previous year, staring through a drunken haze at stroke-afflicted Dick Clark mumbling and slurring his way through a backwards ten-count as the ball dropped over Times Square. I jumped in my Hyundai Accent, popped some Real McKenzies in the tape deck and weaved my way over to the palatial estate of Dr. Robert J. Murk, where, I knew, I was certain to find a Great Gatsby-esque party in full swing.
Or so I thought.
Instead I was met at the gate by my bug-headed acquaintance, Dr. Mantodea, who had just opened the door to his metallic green Cooper-S. I stumbled out of my car clutching a handle of Beefeater and staggered toward him.
“Mantis!” I yelled. “Happy New Year, you old son-of-a-bitch!”
Dr. Mantodea regarded me with inscrutable, insectoid eyes. “There have not been a sufficient number of ‘Fuck Yous’ uttered since the dawn of time to properly greet you, Piper. I hope you die.” He got in his car and drove away before I could say anything else.
I made my way to the door, where I was greeted by Murk’s stodgy English butler. Rumor has it Murk has his own Academy of Servitude somewhere in Europe, from which only the most disingenuous, wheedling, sycophantic and servile are chosen to be his servants. This one betrayed none of these qualities, to me at least. His lip curled in a sneer as he beheld my kilt.
“You,” he said.
“Me,” I agreed.
“The doctor is in the conservatory. At his organ.”
I snickered. He glared.
“This is a dry house, sir. Your…beverage…must remain outside.”
I thrust the bottle into his hands, gin sloshed over his cufflinks. “I’ll find my own way, Jeeves.”
I wandered around the first floor for what seemed like hours, following the crashing, thunderous notes of a somehow familiar tune. At last I found Murk in an expansive marble hall, seated before a towering medieval pipe organ. He pounded at the keys in a frenzy, causing the organ to moan, wail and scream in agony. I listened for a while, fascinated, until at last Murk collapsed across the keys, spent.
“Wow,” I said.
Murk lifted his head beneath his bowler hat and blinked a few times. “Ah, Piper. Forgive me if I do not rise. I was just playing my favorite composition. It always leaves me emotionally and physically drained.”
“What was it?”
“The most beautiful piece of music I have ever heard.” A solitary tear rolled down Dr.Murk’s face. “It’s called The Curly Shuffle. Anyway, what brings you here?”
“It’s New Year’s Eve, Murk. I thought I’d spread some cheer.”
“How trite. I suppose you have a New Year’s resolution as well.””Not yet.”
“Well, you should resolve to change your kilt. It smells of stale gin and balls.”
Murk was clearly not in the holiday spirit. Did I mention I was carrying my bagipes? Well, I was. I lifted the pipes to my shoulder and fitted the bag under my arm. I blew into the blowpipe and inflated the bag. The drones began to hum in harmony. My fingers moved along the chanter, picking out the melody of Auld Lang Syne.
Murk stared, enraptured. Slowly, he rose from his bench. It was working! Thus encouraged, I continued to play as he walked slowly over to me, a spellbound look upon his face. I realized then hat Murk had never really heard me play. He must be so impressed.
At last he stood before me. He balled up his fist and punched me as hard as he could. In the groin.
My pipes abruptly stopped with a shrill squeak. I doubled over. “Ow! My groin!”
Dr. Murk stared at me coldly. “Do not ever—ever—play that hideous thing in my presence again.”
I felt nauseous. My gin was threatening to make a return appearance all over Murk’s marble floor. “I need your bathroom,” I gasped. “Now.”
He waved his hand dismissively. “You know the way.”
I didn’t; Murk’s house seemed to have an ever-changing and endless number of rooms and passages, different each time I visited. I stumbled out into the corridor and leaned against the wall to catch my breath. When I could breathe again I wandered up a circular flight of stairs upholstered in a Persian pattern. At the top I opened the first door I saw, hoping it was a bathroom.
It was not.
The scent of jasmine and lotus blossoms assailed my prodigious nostrils. I pushed my way through hanging silken sheets. From somewhere deep within this ethereal seraglio, a dusky voice purred. “Oh, Robert,” it said, every syllable drenched in promise and longing, “you came at last.”
Most men would have felt an immediate rush of lust at that succubus’s voice. But I am not most men. I knew better. I knew how much danger I was in, for I knew who it was that spoke.
I had unwittingly blundered into the bedchamber of the smokin’ hot Asian wife of Dr. Murk!
I moved aside another silken curtain, hoping against hope to find the exit before she noticed me. Instead, the veil parted to reveal that same beautiful and deadly woman I sought to elude. She lay upon a luxurious bed, faced away from me, her body draped in a gossamer sheet, one shoulder exposed and bare, revealing a tattoo. Despite my fervent desire to escape unnoticed, I was irresistibly drawn forward to peer at the tattoo. I squinted. I could just make it out.
It was a bowler hat.
Cold sweat broke out on my back. I inched backwards as stealthily as possible, but at that moment I stepped on a large bullfrog that had somehow found its way into Murk’s bedroom.
“RIBBIT,” said the bullfrog. Then it died.
Mrs. Dr. Murk’s head swiveled around, causing the sheet that draped her body to shift a little. Through sheer willpower I forced myself to stare only at her face. Our eyes locked, and in that moment, I was certain of one thing: I was going to die. I turned and ran as fast as I could, tearing silk sheets down in my headlong rush to the door.
She was after me in a flash, one hand clutching the sheet around her naked body, the other reaching for something lethal. Two ornate—and very sharp—hairpins embedded themselves in the wall a fraction of an inch from where my head was moments before. By some miracle I found the door and tore it open. I plunged into the corridor as something big and heavy shattered against the door.
I bolted down the stairs, feet barely touching the surface of each step, kilt billowing behind me. Half a dozen throwing stars thunked into the wall in my wake. Finally I reached the bottom and ran for the conservatory door.
It was locked.
I had little time to panic before Mrs. Dr. Murk landed behind me, her bare feet making not a whisper of sound. One hand still clutched the sheet, the other now held a very long and very sharp sword. She smiled. I felt my bladder let go.
I ran, expecting at any minute to feel the blade plunge into my back. I reached the end of the corridor and risked a look back. She was walking slowly forward, as if she had all the time in the world. I tore open the nearest door and ducked inside.
I was in a library. “Ah, Piper,” Dr. Murk said. “It seems you found me.”
He sat in a leather chair, a chessboard resting on his lap. He had changed into a velvet smoking jacket complete with ascot, and cradled a Meerschaum pipe in one hand. His ever-present bowler hat sat upon his head. From somewhere in the room came subdued music; Rachmaninoff, I thought.
I looked for a lock, but the door didn’t appear to have one. I tipped over the nearest bookcase, barricading the door behind me with a terrific crash. Dr. Murk raised an eyebrow.
Just then, a full three feet of steel—Mrs. Dr. Murk’s sword— was thrust through the door.
“You seem to have upset my wife, Piper” Dr. Murk said. “Perhaps you’d better explain yourself.”
I fell to my knees and sobbed out the whole sad tale. Dr. Murk listened in silence while his wife’s efforts to gain entry to the library intensified. The door was rapidly becoming a splintered ruin. When I finished, Murk sighed and stood, placing the chessboard on a nearby table and returning his still-smoldering pipe to the rack.
“So let me get this straight, Piper,” he said. “You came to my home uninvited, offended my ears with your horrid instrument, entered the private chambers of my wife, ogled her while she was in a state of undress, murdered her pet bullfrog, urinated on my carpet, toppled a Louis XIV mahogany bookcase and have now been instrumental in causing the destruction of my library door. I’m afraid there’s no hope for you, Piper. I’m going to have to shoot you now.” He leveled an antique flintlock pistol at my head and pulled the trigger.
It clicked on an empty chamber.
“Confound it. I forgot I already shot someone today. Be a good fellow and wait while I reload, will you?”
I don’t know how I made it outside, but I even managed to snag my gin bottle on the way out. One thing is certain: next year, if he’s still alive, I’ll be watching Dick Clark.