The Brilliantly Rainbowed Adventure

        There were two sets of showers in the camp, so we all cleaned up in the showers to the north of the stage area while Corporal O'Flappowitz took Stink down to the southern complex. Our pal Chadwick notified the authorities about Frogstick's disappearance right away and had somebody round up supplies for tomorrow's trek.
        By now, word had circulated among the glitzy crowd that Mr. Muse himself was at the campgrounds, so when we exited the shower building in our clean duds we were met by a crowd of your basic confirmed Thespians. One of them stepped forward and cleared his throat.
        "We heard about why you're here, and would like to dedicate tonight's performance to your missing companion, sir," he said respectfully. "Thank you, my friends," Billy intoned grandly. He also made a lot of other sounds with his mouth, some of which made sense.
        Shortly thereafter we were escorted to a luxury skybox for the night's performance. This amphitheater was not only big; it was slick. They even had toilets and running water up there in those skyboxes, and if there were any cockroaches there, they were ashamed to show their faces in such classy environs.
        The play that we saw that night was Billy's first comedy, the famous tragi-philosophical-romantic-hohoho masterpiece, "Taking On Airs." I found the night's entertainment especially interesting because of the presence of one of my childhood heroes, who was slated to play the part of a worldly wizened fool named Winston.
        Yes, folks, the actor to whom I'm referring is none other than the fabulously gifted and exceedingly famous legendary Redneck star, Runnan Gittit. Of course, with his worldwide fame, he had been hired to serve as the big name-recognition artist to help draw folks to the evening's festivities.
        Runnan Gittit had long been earning bundles of filthy green paper by portraying those same old racist stereotypes that biege men from the south are supposed to typify. He was lazy, dumb, slovenly, a fair guitar picker, and a middlin' humorist. He was given to uttering such things as, "well, fry my fritters, if it isn't cousin Zeke," or "you ain't just whistlin' Dixie, pard." But my favorite routine was when he acted frightened in a library on campus. Runnan Gittit, like his many fans, gave new meaning to the term, "Red Head."
        Runnan Gittit, the first Redneck star to earn more than one million Moon Pies in a single year, was a credit to his species.
        That night, delivering the introductory oration composed by our pal Billy, the gifted actor showed the entire audience that beige is beautiful. The crowd of big shots gave him a standing ovation when he left, but whether it was offered in gratitude or relief, I'll never know.
        I reckon that you all have seen some of your basic highbrow theatrical productions, but for the benefit of you ignorant lunkheads that have been spared this treat, I would like to describe the shenanigans in this masterpiece, which was staged like a 17th century British play.
        It all started with Runnan Gittit coming out and talking to us, just as if we were normal. He cut up a bit like the idiot that he is, and made us laugh until we liked it. Then these-here schmoes in shiny leotards pranced out and talked like Billy does, all fancy and poetical-like. You couldn't half-tell whether they were speaking American or foreign, it was so profound. I think that they were talking about the play-within-a-play-within-a-narrative-within-a-novel, or something like that. At least that's what Egghead said.
        Well sir, pretty soon a woman came out and hit one of these talking baboons in the face with a frying pan. Down he goes like a rock. And then what happens? They all make amends. It turns out that she meant to hit the other fella, who she's married to.
        The fiance of the one she hit is watching it all from afar, and she gets jealous because she thinks he should have been hit by her own skillet, and not by some other woman's.
        Straightaway they all went to see her papa, the judge, who sat out on the balcony up there in the back of this stage. He tells them that he is tired, and then I'll be dogged if he didn't fall off of that balcony, right onto the floor!
        They all made a big to-do over it; they stuck him in a room to heal; then Runnan Gittit comes on and makes some clever jokes with the fianceee, who by now is mooning over her beau, who she ought to have brained herself, instead of letting a stranger do it. She sings a song to her reflection in the frying pan, and a dog comes out and bites her.
        Runnan Gittit proposes that they should put on a play, and she decides to do it, but first they have to get actors. Well, lookee here, right away some dogs come prancing out on the stage on their hind legs, turning in circles as they make their entrance in a line, single file, yapping the whole time. They were poodles, I think, little runty beasts that probably slobbered and had bad breath. Runnan Gittit and the fianceee staged their play using the dogs, who could all write and speak English, so the script was no problem. It was a team effort. The dogs and the fiancee and Runnan all sat down and contributed a scene to the play, after they had decided upon a plot, and then they staged it.
        The play was about the history of English literature. It dramatically depicted the abandonment of verity and the romancing of cacophony during the last millennium, compressing the events of one thousand years into a fifteen minute vignette.
        Runnan Gittit was Everyman, and the fiancee was Everywoman; the dogs represented centuries and literary movements and doubled as major playwrights. There was some trouble, however, from the big dog, the one that bit the fiancee in the first place; he wanted to stay behind the scenes and be the director, but there was a problem with that plan. Every time a little dog would become too successful or eloquent, the big dog would get jealous and eat it. This went unnoticed by the other dogs, because the big dog would trick the little dogs into looking the other way, so none of them saw him eat their buddies, or there would have been a panic, and they would have looked for another director besides the big dog, who was just too mean for his own good, and for theirs as well. The play finished with only the big dog and the two people left on stage, and it remained to be seen whether or not the humans would choose another director. I hoped that they would.
        The curtain fell now and the act was over. There was a break for the folks to stretch and such, and we had an opportunity to mingle if we wanted to with the Real People, so we decide to step out of our luxury digs so that we could go down and rub elbows with them. Billy stayed in the box to avoid being mobbed by frantic fans, and us bona-fide hicks walked down into the lobby of the theater to hobnob with the elite.
        Guess who I saw down there in the lobby? You guessed it! It was Mr. Chadwick, looking as slick as Grannie's patent leather shoes.
        "Hey, Mr. Chadwick," I yelled, causing heads to turn and causing Chadwick to look as if he wanted to run and hide. He must have been shy. "Good to see you again," I declared to him boldly, reaching out to shake his hand. He didn't even see the little old joy-buzzer that I had hidden in my palm. "BZZZZ..," went the buzzer as Chadwick's eyes rolled up into his head and he jerked across the floor, almost falling down from the strength of the jolt.
        "MNNGH...," opined old Chaddy as he bumped into a passing playgoer and knocked him onto the carpet with a surprise dose of the electricity that was now coursing through his body.
        "OH, HOHOHOHOHO!!!" I laughed, "YOU'RE SUCH GOOD FUN!" I shut off the buzzer and he collapsed into a chair.
        "Let's get back to the box," said Egghead, "you're dangerous, Hoot." What a card that Egghead was! We all went back to the fancy skybox to watch the rest of the play. The people in that front lobby were a little slow, and their sense of humor was atrophied, and so we split for our own pad where we could eat our Milk Duds and popcorn in privacy.
        Act Two started with a barbecue in honor of the big dog, who had been properly hung during the break for his dog-murderish ways. Then all of these folks in leotards started coming out on horses and riding around and around the big old stage. Well siree, in Act Two the fiancee's boyfriend has joined the circus, and he's riding standing up on a horse, spangling away with more glitter that a hard rock band on payday. And if that doesn't beat all, she catches him as he races by, smack-dab in the face, with a shot from that cast-iron skillet. Down he goes; they haul him off to the judge, and they all get married: the whole circus, clowns, and all, and our star-crossed lovers too.
        Well, that play was a mess, I'll tell you that; I never saw anything like it, and I hope to never again. It was exciting, but I just about had a stroke when the old judge tumbled from the balcony. The crowd loved it; they gave the actors a standing ovation, and all in all the play raised a potfull of money for several South-Central Florida charities. But I'll tell you what folks: I've heard better tales told by Billy around a campfire in the middle of Nowhere.
        It was over now and all sorts of nabobs and genuine somebodies rushed into our box to congratulate Billy while the well-washed masses outside just about threw a conniption fit over that play.
        They hollered and yelped like goodfellows, almost wearing out Runnan Gittit and the rest of the crew with curtain call after tumultuous curtain call.
        Meanwhile, in between this potfull of unwarranted accolades, some foreign-looking gent cornered Billy and invited us all to the gala reception in the big new concert hall across from the amphitheater. Of course he had to invite us Hootenannies because we were there with Billy; he was stuck with us, all right, but I could see that he wasn't too excited about the idea. He dropped several hints to us not to come; he said we would be bored, and that there wouldn't be any collards or turnips among the Hors Devours, and he also mentioned that fatback would be in short supply, and that the servant's entrance was in the back, where we would most likely be more comfortable.
        About that time Billy got a little bit ticked off, and challenged the dude to some Indian leg wrestling if he didn't like his friends, and the guy just about gave birth to a squealing worm when he heard that one; he was plumb transmorgified by his own glaring fuax pas, and he apologized something terrible, until it was downright embarrassing. Billy was appeased, and we all decided to check out the hifalutin' frolick to see if they needed us to make the party worthwhile.
        Actually, I would have just as soon stayed home, except that it was about 50 miles away in Gutchinville, Florida, and my truck was about 15 miles due south-east at our campsite. Besides, I couldn't have driven my truck home even if I was there, because I was really here, unless Egghead's Fantastic Fiction Theory was correct, in which case I was actually dancing around in the mind of a complete stranger somewhere in the real world, which this wasn't, at least not if Egghead was right, which I was afraid he was.
        I decided then and there to give up deep thinking; I wasn't geared up to do it anyway if I was just a cipher on some paper somewhere, so I swore it off altogether. Our job was to have fun, I reckoned. Let the real people think, if they wanted to, but I wasn't having any more of it. As soon as I made this resolution, I suddenly felt a million pounds lighter, and I had a strange longing for a Fizzies on the rocks with a cherry.
        So anyway, this foreign-looking dude had to pretty much abandon any hope that he had of ditching us hillbilly guitar slingers; he had made an admirable effort, but it had sort of fizzled in the breach. We all walked out of the luxury box and left the theater building, strolling down to the R. H. Snelling Foundation's fund-raising reception, which was being held at the campground's Big Hall. We had a bunch of fellow intellectual types in tow.
        "I wonder if I'll get to meet a brainy woman that I can marry," honked old Stinker. We looked at each other, full of pity for the old nose-sore.
        "Maybe so," I replied. Of course, I didn't give him the odds. He might have quit our band.
        "Foxy ladies, all in his brain," rapped Zeb, "'scuse me, while I kiss the sky." Even Egghead couldn't figure out what Zeb meant by that one. Suddenly I thought of something.
        "Hey, Egghead," I asked him, "why do you think that we Hootenannies have never had any dates?"
        "Perhaps our author has been remiss in not peopling our tale with complex, mature, four-dimensional female characters. Perhaps he or she is using your statement to foreshadow the future introduction of the same," he said solemnly. He really was gone on this Fantastic Fiction Theory.
        "But Egghead," I said, "we're not complex and mature, and we don't have any depth, so we're not four-dimensional, either."
        "In our case," he replied, "the author seems to have jumped from the third to the fifth dimensions without touching down in the fourth."
        "That doesn't solve my problem," I said. Didn't he get it? I was lonely, and his theory didn't make it any better.
        "I'm lonely," I blurted out. Then something strange happened. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, I had a feeling that I was being watched. I looked around swiftly. My colleagues and I were still walking towards the reception hall, the air was clear, and it was a beautiful autumn evening.
        All at once, for the flash of an instant, I was in another location. I was on a piece of paper; I was flat; I was ink! A huge hairy eyeball stared at me relentlessly. A giant pen came down and added to my stature by painting more of me onto the page; I tried to scream, but the only noise that came out of my mouth was like one of those New Year's Eve horns that people blow until you want to brain them.
        I looked to my side and I saw an eraser bearing down on me. With a jerk I wheeled to run, and suddenly I was back with my small group of Hootenennies and friends, strolling down a sidewalk towards a well-lit building that rang with the sounds of laughter and of human conversation. I was badly shaken.
        "Hey, Egghead," I said.
        "Hmm?"
        "Remind me not to make fun of that Fantastic Fiction Theory of yours anymore," I said. I was sweating like a pig. Egghead turned and looked at me questioningly.
        "O.K."
        "Good," I said, and let it go at that. I wondered about what had just happened. It couldn't be...could Egghead's crazy theory be right?
        "Nah," I mumbled to myself, "it must be something I ate."
        "What did you say, Hooter?" asked Billy.
        "Nothing," I replied. But I was shaken up. What was happening, I wondered? Then I remembered my promise to myself to avoid deep thought. As soon as I remembered this vow, I forgot about these things and I felt terrific! I suddenly craved a Fizzies, and my head felt as light as a helium balloon. We walked up the steps and on up to the doors of the Great Hall.
        It was time to party!