Before Gonzo was Great

Slackbot

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I've been writing a series to try to give Gonzo a backstory. Given how many contradictions we've seen, it's impossible to tie everything together into one continuity, and I'm certainly not trying to lay out a definitive history. I'd break my brain if I tried. This is simply my version of what might have been in a series of vignettes, starting with...

*****
Eggs
by Kim McFarland

*****

It was a dark and cloudy night. In the middle of a scrubby prairie rested a spherical spaceship, like an Easter egg in a grayish nest. Its gaudy lights filtered through the nearby grasses and cast needles of color into the darkness.

Small shapes moved within the pool of light surrounding the landing craft. The inhabitants of the ship were investigating this newly-discovered planet. Because it was already occupied, as evidenced by broadcast emissions and the city lights visible from low orbit, the aliens had elected to visit a sparsely-inhabited section of the world at a time when the natives were unlikely to be about. They gathered air and soil samples and took images of the surrounding land. Up above, crews from the mother ship were inserting a relay satellite into a stable orbit. This was an interesting world, one they would want to watch–but from a distance, to avoid upsetting its inhabitants.

One alien was herding two dozen smaller ones. Children, who had never felt soil beneath their feet or breathed air that had not been purified by a spaceship's filters. She had a difficult task in keeping these nestlings from scattering. They were curious and fearless, as all children were; they would be taught caution when they were old enough to understand the need. At least they would stay close to the ship, in the light, where they could see.

Two children jumped back, startled, when a creature burst into the air with a great noise from the ground at their feet. It flapped great flat limbs as it flew into the darkness. A girl with aqua-colored fur exclaimed, "It came from nowhere!"

The other, a boy with purplish fur, was looking down where it had been. Grass stems and leaves were bent outward. On the ground below was a small platform made of plant material, with several small, pale ovoids resting within. He said, "It has eggs."

"Oh!" she said. Both stepped away.

Their minder said, "That was a bird. She was hiding with her eggs. You frightened her."


"I wasn't going to hurt her. I didn't even see her," the girl protested.

"She didn't know that. She is only an animal. Come away from there so she can return before her eggs get cold."

The children followed her obediently. Eggs were important, they knew. Everyone hatched from eggs. It would be cruel to harm these eggs by preventing their mother from tending them.

"Why was she afraid?" a dark blue-furred boy asked.

The minder replied, "On worlds like this animals must find their own food. Some animals eat smaller animals. That's how it is on planets."

Some of the children made faces of revulsion. The minder hid a smile. Though most of their race lived on spaceships, they had originally come from a planet similar to this, and they wanted to remember that heritage, even though they had left their home world so long ago they no longer knew where it was. So they brought their children down to the planets they visited, to let them see the sky and get dirt between their toes.

Something struck her nose lightly. She glanced up, and blinked when a drop of water hit her eye. The others, both adults and children, looked up. The adults, who had known that a storm was likely, began setting up a device to collect rain samples. The children, after their initial surprise, began to play in the rain. They did not mind getting wet, especially not with the novelty of water falling from the sky. Fur and clothing would dry, after all, and mud would wash off.

The children were all having the times of their lives. They had been told about worlds, but actually seeing one was more amazing than they could have imagined. There were things here like nothing they had ever seen on their ship. Alien animals and plants. Wind and rain! Where did it all come from? The land went on forever, without a bulkhead in sight! One, the dark blue boy, wandered to the edge of the pool of light. But there was no real edge, he found; the light was gradually filtered through the grass until it became scattered and blurred. The grass was waving hard now, and the wind was making noise like a large machine. It sounded angry, he thought. But wind couldn't be angry; it was just air moving. He squinted into the direction the wind was coming from, trying to see what was causing it. What he saw was a slender tendril of cloud, barely lighter than the surrounding darkness, descending toward the ground, waving as gently as grass in a light breeze. Intermittent flashes of light within the clouds above lit it up. He crouched down to avoid the wind and watched, his eyes adapting to the dark so he could see the storm better.

*

The ship suddenly began emitting a loud tone. Everyone looked up, startled, at the alarm. The technicians hastily finished their tasks and returned to the ship. They had planned to stay longer, but the storm had suddenly and unexpectedly turned violent. Now a column of spinning wind was roaming the land, and it was intense enough to endanger the landing craft. The minder, recognizing the threat, began shouting to the children, calling them back.

They were reluctant to obey her summons. They did not understand the danger; they had never experienced any kind of uncontrolled weather until today, and had never heard of tornadoes. They dawdled, wanting to watch the spectacular, strobe-lit display as long as they could.

One of the techs within the ship shouted, "It's coming too close! We have to lift now!"

The minder and two other techs darted down the gangplank and into the harsh wind. They carried or dragged those who were having trouble fighting the wind. When they had filled the airlock with all the sodden, muddy-footed children they find, the minder looked out once more. No others were visible within the ship’s light. She closed the outer door, then tapped a communication panel and said, "Take off!"

As the roar of the ship's drive started, the minder told her charges, "We don't have time to get to the chairs. Lie on the floor!" She did so, and the children followed suit. They knew that tone of voice; now was not a time to hesitate or ask questions. Something very bad was happening. Soon they felt a pressure as the ship lifted into the air.

*

The boy tore his eyes away from the twisting cloud when the light from the ship winked out. The howl of the wind outshouted the sound of the landing craft's engine as it rose up and disappeared into the swirling, turbulent clouds. They had left him behind!

For the first time in his young life he tasted real fear. They had left him on this planet! Were they fleeing the cloud thing? Was it dangerous? He decided quickly to hide like a bird, to keep safe until they came back. He crouched down in the grass, his heart hammering, and kept very still.

It worked for a while. The wind howled and flung debris at him, and rain and hail pelted him, but he stayed down. Then the wind picked him up and flung him into the rainy night.

*

It was a wet, bleak morning. The tornado had torn a worm-trail of destruction across the land. Fortunately it had not hit any of the few scattered farmhouses, but the crops were in poor shape.

Cattle and horses were let out of their barns to graze on the wet grass. Chickens peered out of their coops, then came out for their food. Their usual allotment had not appeared on schedule, so they spread out to forage.

One hen squawked in surprise and alarm. All heads turned to look at her. When she did not flee, the other clustered closer to see what she had found. They saw a strange storm-blown beast. At first they thought it was a bird, as it had what looked like a beak and blue feathers. But it had no wings, and it was wearing torn clothing. There were red stains on the ground around it and in its matted fur. Yet, surprisingly, they could see that it was breathing. One of the hens listened to its chest and heard a clear, steady heartbeat.

She clucked quietly to herself. It was small, maybe half the size of a chicken. Its beak, though curved, was not sharp, and it had no claws or fangs. It was not a predator, thus no danger to chickens. After a long, thoughtful pause she clucked to the others, then seized part of its clothing in her beak. Several others grasped other parts of its clothing, and they half-dragged, half-carried it into their coop.

Once inside, then set it on a pile of straw. It left smears of blood, but it was not bleeding now. It might live. Two of the hens settled down, one on each side of it, puffing out their feathers to warm it.

*****

Gonzo (obviously) is copyright © The Muppets Studio, LLC and is used without permission but with much respect and affection. This story is copyright © Kim McFarland (negaduck9@aol.com). Permission is given by the author to copy it for personal use only.
 

The Count

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Hmm... Intriguing, and I hope more of this series gets posted here.
It's got elements of a Star Trek field trip class and it also reminds me of the Cluck Kent storyline from Muppet Babies.

Again, thanks for sharing.
 

Slackbot

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Thanks, glad you liked it. I have another ep finished, and another nearly done. There are more scenes in my head after that...

Cluck Kent? I hadn't thought about that, but I see what you mean. I haven't seen much Star Trek, so I don't know about their field trips.

I have an illustration for this story. I've looked for rules regarding posting pictures, since I don't see inline images here, and I haven't found any. Are there any rules of the road I'm missing?
 

The Count

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They're not well advertised. If you want to post pics, you have to either resize them for your avatar or put them on an image hosting site and then plug in the links to them there in your individual posts.
 

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Here's part 2 of this series. Hope you enjoy...

*****


Boxcar Gonzo


by Kim McFarland


*****

The alarm buzzed softly. The boy opened his eyes to darkness and squinted at the clock. 3:00 AM. He pressed the button on the top of the clock to shut the alarm off.

Tired as he was, he got out of bed without hesitation. He was already in his clothes. He had been thinking about this for weeks, and several days ago he had decided that tonight would be the night.

He unzipped his backpack and took out his schoolbooks. He would have had to turn them in soon anyway, he knew. He had been in more schools than grades, he had been moved around so much.

He opened drawers and took out clothing. Jeans, shirts, an extra pair of shoes - all the sturdiest stuff he had, except for what he was already wearing. These he put into large ziploc bags, then pressed them flat before sealing them. That made it easier to store them in his backpack, and would keep them dry.

He left behind the nicer, newer clothes. He never lacked for new clothes. Every family bought him things they thought he would like to wear. It always started out like that. They really did mean to be kind, he knew. But somehow...

He chopped the thought off and stuck several pairs of socks in the sides of his backpack. That filled up most of the extra space. There was only a little bit at the top, and the small outside pockets. There were other things he would have liked to take, but they were too large or heavy and would slow him down. So, he only put a harmonica in the outside pocket. Atop the plastic sacks holding his clothes he placed a small stuffed bird. He paused briefly, then closed the zipper, shutting it safely away.

He put on a denim jacket, slung the backpack over his shoulder, and walked quietly out of his room and down the short hall. Nobody else in the house was awake. He took the ring of keys from the hook beside the door, let himself out, locked the door again, then pushed the keys back in through the mail slot.

*

It was late spring. Insects buzzed to each other in the warm night. Maybe small animals moved in the grass beside the road; if they did, he didn't notice them. He had too much on his mind.

He didn’t like to think about how many families he had lived with in the last six years. He had been found, an unidentified child, at a farm. Nobody had claimed him, nobody had been able to find out who he was or where he had come from. Even he himself did not know; he had been healing from a concussion and broken bones when he had come to within a henhouse, and he had no memories of his own past. The chickens had found him after a storm and taken him in. They had been kind creatures, with no expectations of him except that he survive, and did not care what he was. They had warmed him and fed him, treating him with the same care they showed their own chicks, just because.

But then he had been found, and anyone could see that the small, blue-furred, hook-nosed creature was not a chicken. He had been designated a Monster. He was sure he wasn’t, because he looked like none of the other Monsters he had seen, but he had no better idea what to call himself. He had wanted to go back to the farm after he healed, but the farm’s owners didn't want a foundling, and the chickens weren't in charge. Instead, he had been placed with a foster family of "his own kind"—Monsters—to take care of him until his real family was found.

That had been six years ago. He now knew that had no real family. Nobody had claimed him, either as their born or adopted child, and nobody would. He was too strange to fit in anywhere for long. He didn't think like other people. He was scrawny and weird-looking. He no longer tried to warm to people who, he had come to understand, would eventually send him away. And so, without unkind words he would be taken back, then placed in another home. Over and over.

He saw it coming this time. Just recently they had become a little too self-conscious around him, holding something back. They would not tell him they were sending him back; that would be cruel. Much better to spare him the anticipation, they had thought, and of course save themselves guilt. He could not face the prospect of being shuffled around yet again, and had decided this time to take control of his life.

His feet took him to a set of train tracks. He followed them up to the train yard. As he had expected, there was a train on the tracks now. It had dozens of freight cars, mainly coal-filled hopper cars, tankers, and boxcars already loaded up. He found an unlocked boxcar and climbed in. He was small, and could hide in places that a human could not fit into. Plus, his dark fur and clothes would merge with the shadows inside.

He climbed up on a platform of wooden crates that reached nearly to the ceiling. From there he could not see the open doors, which meant that nobody would see him from the outside. Good enough. He set his backpack in the corner and leaned back against it. Soon, despite the hard crate and musty smell, he fell asleep.

He awakened with a start when the sliding metal doors banged shut. The locks clicked. Soon a slow rumbling began. The train was on its way. He unzipped the top of his backpack and took out the stuffed doll. It was a little yellow chick, one of the few possessions he had kept with him wherever he went. It reminded him of the only time he remembered being loved. He hugged it close as the train picked up speed. He had no idea where it was bound. That was fine. As long as it took him away from the temporary homes, his life would be better.

*****

Gonzo is copyright © The Muppets Studio, LLC and is used without permission but with much respect and affection. This story is copyright © Kim McFarland (negaduck9@aol.com). Permission is given by the author to copy it for personal use only.
 

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'Nother chapter...

*****


The Busker
by Kim McFarland

It was a dark and stormy night. It had rained all day, which was not unusual in spring. Business had been good for The Cafe, a restaurant in a town so small that it could get away with a title that unimaginative. A passenger train had stopped to take on more fuel, and those passengers who did not feel like eating in the dining car had come into town for dinner.

The downside was the cleanup afterwards. There were more dishes to wash than Erma, who always closed the restaurant by herself, wanted to think about. She would be here much later than she liked. Since there were no customers at the moment she first tidied the dining area, then went to the back to get a headstart on the dishes, keeping an ear out for the entrance bell.

Some time later she noticed that it was past closing time. She looked out front. Nobody there. She was surprised. She had one regular late night customer, an odd little creature who came by for whatever was the special of the day, and paid in change. He had turned up some months ago, and worked as a busker—a street performer—in the square, playing a child-size guitar and singing. He was cute in an ugly-puppy fashion, and though his speaking voice could best be described as raspy, his singing wasn't bad. She often put a few coins in his guitar case when she passed by.

He must have stayed out of the weather today, she thought. Anyone with any sense would. With the amount of work she still had to do before leaving for the night—dishes and other cleanup—she might be here until it rained itself out. She tied the top of a full garbage bag and lifted it out of the can.

When she stepped out into the alleyway behind the cafe she saw a sudden movement by the dumpster. Something was there, and it wasn't a cat. Quickly she stepped back inside. She put down the garbage, unlocked a box on the wall, and took out a handgun. She knew how to handle the vagrants that occasionally came out of the train yard.

She opened the door again and, holding the gun at the ready, said loudly enough to be heard over the rain, "Stop what you're doing and come out where I can see you."

The figure that stepped out from behind the dumpster was smaller than she had expected. It was only the size of a child, and covered by a tentlike raincoat. It raised its hands and said, "Don't shoot me! I'll go away."

The voice was unmistakable. She lowered the gun and said, "Gonzo? What are you doing out here?"

"I couldn't play guitar in the rain, so..." his voice trailed off.

"Come inside, for crying out loud," she told him.

She led him into the kitchen. Water streamed off his raincoat onto the floor. She said, "Hang that up here," gesturing to some coathooks on the wall. Then she realized that they would be out of his reach, but he was using a broom handle in the hood to raise it onto the hook. Underneath, his clothes were dry, though his blue-furred hands and beaklike nose were wet. She locked the gun back in its box. “You weren't really going through the garbage, were you?"

"I thought you had left for the night," he said quietly.

It was hard to see his face from up above. She crouched down. He was afraid, she realized. Afraid of her? Okay, she had pulled a gun on him, but that was before she had recognized him. She said, "Calm down. I'm not going to call the police or anything over garbage, for heaven's sake. Look, if you're that hungry, I have some leftovers."

"I don't have anything to pay with," he told her, ashamed.

"Who buys leftovers? Go dry off," she told him.

He did. She thought as she put together a sandwich, how could anyone be so badly off they needed to search through garbage for food? It's not like he was a homeless beggar. He had become a regular around here; people knew who he was. It was hard not to, as he was the only Monster in town.

She brought the sandwich and some tea into the dining area. He had seated himself. His hands were still damp. Three-fingered hands. How could he do anything with only three fingers, let alone play a guitar? But he didn't seem to find it a handicap. She said, "Take your time. I'll be in the back washing up."

"Thank you," he said.

She turned back and flashed a smile. "Don't mention it."

*****

She had made a dent in the load of dishes when he brought the plate back to her. "Thanks," he told her. "Can I help out?"

She couldn't see how he could help with the dishes; he'd need a stepladder to reach the sink. Plus, she didn't think it would be a good task for a furry person. He might shed. She said, "You could sweep up the floor."

"Sure," he replied.

He went to the task. She almost laughed when she saw him wrestling with a broom whose handle was twice as long as he was tall, but he did manage it. She asked, "Where did you come from?"

"Kansas," he answered.

"You don't have a Midwestern accent. Is that where your family's from?"

Long pause. "I don't know. How about you?"

"Born and raised here. I never had much urge to move around."

He nodded and swept some debris into a dustpan, then moved on to another section of the kitchen.

*****

When she had finally finished dealing with the dishes, and he had mopped the floor, she told him, "It's still raining out. I can give you a lift home."

"That's all right," he said. "I live nearby, and it's kind of hard to reach by road."

"Well, okay," she told him. "See you tomorrow, I guess."

"Yeah," he said with a small smile as he pulled on his raincoat.

“And, Gonzo—if you’re ever that hard up, don’t go into the dumpster. Dumpster diving is for bums. Just tell me and I’ll find some odd jobs for you back here.”

“All right," he answered quietly.

She turned out the lights and unlocked the front door. Gonzo’s green raincoat disappeared into the darkness within a moment. She wondered where he lived. In a small town like this, there weren't many places for an out-of-towner to stay.

*****

Gonzo ran down an unpaved driveway, staying on the granite gravel as much as possible to avoid the mud. He reached an area bordered by a chain link fence. He undid a wire fasten in one place and the fence parted, allowing him through. Once inside, he tied the fence back in place so his entrance wouldn't be noticed.

Inside was a graveyard for cars. Old vehicles, and some that were not so old, were held here for salvage or destruction. He made his way through the metal maze to the back, where the larger vehicles were.

One was a cement mixer long past any hope of salvation. Its front end had been crushed in a head-on collision with something very large and, from the look of it, immobile. The exterior was a patchwork of faded paint and rust. Cement had hardened inside the barrel, filling it a quarter of the way up. Gonzo went around to its back, pulled a ladder out from underneath the bumper, and climbed up. He pulled back the shower curtain that covered the opening, climbed in, and pulled it back into place.

He pulled off his muddy shoes and wet socks and dropped them into a plastic bag just inside the curtain, and stuffed the raincoat into another. The interior of the mixer was soft, the cement and metal lined with blankets and towels that Gonzo had bought at a secondhand shop when he had a few extra dollars. For light he had a flashlight, but he used it very sparingly, as it wore out batteries. It was a cozy nest, if small, and when it warmed up from his body heat it was comfortable. His guitar case hung from hooks he had attached to one “wall.”

He had lived in this town since early winter. It had been hard at first, not knowing anyone, trying to make enough money honestly to keep alive without risking being identified. There were times when he had thought about giving up. But something inside him refused. He would survive. He would find a way to live. He would weather whatever happened to him. Right now that meant hiding until he was eighteen, when he would be out of the reach of the foster care system. Fortunately it seemed that nobody could judge the age of a whatever-he-was on sight, but there were records on him, and he lived in dread of being found out. But nobody ran background checks on buskers.

By touch he found his stuffed chicken, the one possession he still had from his last 'home.' He lay on his side, holding it like a teddy bear, and pulled another blanket over himself. When he was just a few years older, he thought, he would start his life for real. He wasn't sure what that life would be. He would like to work on a farm that had chickens. But he also liked playing his guitar and singing for people. And, who knew, maybe there were other things he'd like to do if he tried them. He had years to decide.

*****
Gonzo is copyright © The Muppets Studio, LLC and is used without permission but with much respect and affection. This story is copyright © Kim McFarland (negaduck9@aol.com). Permission is given by the author to copy it for personal use only.
 

The Count

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You know, I liked this last installment. It reminded me of another good fanfic, Beauregard's Dark Reality series of the world where Kermit was never born, titled Visions But Only Illusions. Especially the part about Gonzo living in an old cement mixer in the abandoned car park graveyard. There are other tones of VMMC here, what with Gonzo's struggling performer background. Very nicely done, I await more to be posted. :smile:
 
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