HauntedMTL Original – Just for Laughs – Liam Moran
“Just for Laughs” by Liam Moran
I swear when I told Pretty-boy Pete this, he nearly lost his shit.
My dad’s all stern—he’s got those frown lines pronounced so you know he’s serious—and he says to me, “What happened to you? You were at the top of your class in high school. You were always on honor roll. You were always on the dean’s list. And now here you are, drinking, drugging, driving drunk. What happened to your brain?”
I smile—I can’t help but smile—and I say, “It drowned in bourbon.” And I just laugh my ass off. My dad keeps trying to lecture me and I just laugh louder and louder.
So when I tell my buddy Pete this—I always do—he busts a big old gut and he says, “Ain’t that a fuckin’ hoot.”
That’s what it was—our catch phrase. Any time we found something entertaining, the phrase ‘Ain’t that a fuckin’ hoot’ was sure to follow. It had such a dirty twang to it. It sounded like one of those phrases that some greaseball says in some old-time seventies or eighties movie. So it just kind of stuck. You know those little inside jokes among friends. Try to explain it to someone else, and people will look at you all mouth agape and stupid; but say it to your best buddy, well, you two will be rolling on the floor.
You see, we were able to see what nobody else could see. Pete ain’t too bright, but he at least accepted this truth: the world’s a fucking joke. Nothing more. It’s just a joke, and if you’re not laughing, then why the hell even come to the comedy club. You stop laughing for more than a day: well, you oughta end it right there. Slit your wrists and exit stage right.
You see, Pretty-boy Pete got his nickname for his looks, if you’re too stupid to figure that out on your own. He ain’t got a lot upstairs, but his looks were enough to get his dick wet. And that’s where he got his laughs. Find one slut, do what you need, then move onto the next. I swear, he went through more cases of chlamydia than one of those sniveling twerps with bad allergies goes through tissues. He used to have the nickname ‘Penicillin Pete’ for a while, but he didn’t like it. So I had my laughs and then backed off.
See, I wasn’t so lucky. Sure, I wasn’t fuck-ugly or anything, but I had to work for it. I’ve had a couple of fine pieces of tail, but I really had to work the game. It’s hard, but a little manipulation goes a long way.
So another night I come home so shitfaced that I bump into my pop’s car. Rich schmuck paid for a brand new one, so you bet your ass he’s fuming. He’s shouting at me, “What the hell is wrong with you?! Are you fucking dense?!” It took all I could muster to stifle my laughter.
So then he calms down, and begins his old lecture again. “What happened to you?” He’s all nauseatingly sincere about it too. I can’t decide whether I should bust a gut or spew. “You were at the top of your class in high school…” You know where this is going. He must have given me this speech about a hundred times, so I zone out until it’s my turn. Then he says my cue, “What happened to your brain?”
“It got lost on its last acid trip,” I belt out and roar another round of laughter. Man, I had a new response for every time.
Then he starts slapping me, but I can’t help it. I can’t stop laughing. And his feeble attempt to stop me only adds to the hilarity.
I tell Pretty-boy Pete that one and he laughs so hard, the bourbon shoots straight out of his nose. Then he says, “Ain’t that a fuckin’ hoot.” And we laugh some more.
I’m twenty-four and I see what nobody else sees. Everyone’s breaking their backs trying to put food on the table. Dipshits who forgot to wear a rubber have children to feed. Everyone’s wasting their time working and growing up, when they miss out on the fun. Meanwhile, I’m cruising down the road with a bottle in my hand laughing my ass off.
So this one time I’m in the car with Pete. He’s got one spliff in his mouth and one tucked behind his ear, and he’s taking huge rips off it. The road’s hard to see with the smoke accumulating on the dashboard. So I roll down the window, take a swig of Jim Beam, and press down on the pedal.
“Hey,” I say to Pete, “hold this and give me a hit.” I hand him the bottle and he gives me the joint.
I take a good long rip. Then I take another. Then another.
“Quit fuckin’ hoggin’ it,” Pete complains.
“You got one tucked behind your ear,” I tell him.
“Yeah, but it’s my weed,” he says.
“Oh, who gives a shit?” I say.
“Give it, man,” he says.
I blow out a cloud and concede, “Fine, you fucking fiend,” then I hand him back the joint.
We drive a bit longer and I feel the cold wind whip my sweaty scalp. The pot blows in my face as if Pretty-boy Pete is trying to tempt me with it. Fucking asshole. I take another swig of bourbon.
“Say, know what we should do?” I say to Pete.
“What?” he says.
“Let’s go fuck up Ron’s car,” I say.
You see, Ron’s this asshole we used to know. He always used to pick fights with me for no reason at all. He just had some grudge against me. I don’t know why he singled me out, but I ain’t somebody who forgives easy.
“Ron?” Pete asks and I nod. “Why Ron? I haven’t heard from him in years.”
“You got something better to do?” I raise an eyebrow.
He shrugs and says, “Whatever.”
He didn’t seem too enthusiastic at first, but the moment we took the baseball bats out of the trunk, he looked like a kid in a candy shop. We fucked that car up: broke his tail lights, busted his hood, shattered his windows; ain’t nothing in that piece of shit mobile was untouched.
We start driving back fast, fleeing the scene, just cracking up. “Ain’t that a fuckin’ hoot,” Pete says, and we laugh some more. We haven’t laughed that hard in a long time. So then the laughter dies down, and Pete says, “You sure that was Ron’s car?”
I look at him, then start to grin, then we both start laughing louder than ever. Was it? I thought it was. But I haven’t seen or heard from him in almost five years, so maybe he moved. God damn. Ain’t that a fuckin’ hoot.
So we’re feeling that nice crossfaded buzz—just cruising with the pedal down—and damned if we didn’t finish that entire fucking bottle of Jim Beam. We must have also killed an eighth of bud too. We’re all numb and tingly and warm and fuzzy and not entirely sure if we’ve pissed ourselves or not. But one thing was for sure: we were laughing our asses off. That’s the way we were: always laughing.
So then my song comes on: it’s “Blinded by the Light”. God, I love that song.
So I turn to Pete and I say, “Roll another joint; this is my smoking song.”
“We’re out of bud,” he says.
“What do you mean we’re out of bud?” I ask.
“I mean just what I said,” he says. “We smoked damn-near an eighth.”
“Well give me a cigarette,” I say. “I need to smoke something.”
So he hands me a cigarette, and—you’re gonna love this—I’m so fucked up I light the filter. What a fuckin’ riot.
So I get another one and succeed this time. I tell you, lighting a smoke while driving when you’re seeing double is no small feat. So I spark the square and keep driving with my eyelids at half-mast.
Right when we get to my favorite part of the song, it happens. Right after Paul Jones tells his momma where the fun is for the last time, and Manfred Mann starts his iconic keyboard solo, our car comes to a violent halt.
We smash right into another car; I have no idea how many miles per hour we were going. Pete wasn’t wearing a seatbelt—I told you he ain’t got a lot upstairs—and he goes flying right through the windshield. Can you imagine that? Just broke through the glass headfirst and flew through the air.
The airbag explodes in my face, and the car crumples and shatters my leg in three places, and the empty bourbon bottle shatters and imbeds itself all throughout my busted up leg. I mean, what are the fucking chances, right?
So when I finally am able to drag myself out of the car, I see Pete lying twenty feet in front of the car dead as a fucking doorknob. I walk up to him, crying my eyes out, dragging my bum leg, and he smells rank. And—get this—he literally shit himself. I’m not making this stuff up! A complete bowel discharge! I’m screaming in tears. I’m devastated. My only friend is lying there stone-dead. I mean, what are the chances?
So now I’m sitting in a courtroom before a judge. I’m facing vehicular manslaughter, reckless endangerment, driving under the influence, and the prosecutor is pushing for life. You see, the car that I crashed into was carrying a husband and wife and their only son. The mother is still in a coma, the father only suffered a few broken bones, and their son died in the accident.
And—this is the real kicker—they were celebrating their son making honor roll again. Get a load of that! He was honor role, dean’s list, top of his class, just like I used to be. What are the fucking chances?
My mother is clinging to my father, and in both of their eyes it’s Niagara Falls. They’re sobbing and holding each other for support. My only real friend is now being turned into soil by hungry worms.
And then—get this—the judge, he leans over and asks me, “What happened to your brain?”
Now ain’t that a fuckin’ hoot.
Liam Moran has been published in Coffin Bell Journal and Ripples in Space and his novels, ‘Saving Fiction’ and ‘Love is Delusional’, are available on Amazon. Originally from Levittown, New York, he now resides in the suburbs of Chicago. He invites fans to follow him on his Facebook page @LiamMoranAuthor or on his website at amazon.com/author/liammoran.
What if ours weren’t the only reality? What if the past paths converged, if those moments that led to our current circumstances got tangled together with their alternates and we found ourselves caught up in the threads?
Marla returned home after the funeral and wake. She drew the key in the lock and opened the door slowly, the looming dread of coming back to an empty house finally sinking in. Everyone else had gone home with their loved ones. They had all said, “goodbye,” and moved along.
Her daughter Misty and son-in-law Joel had caught a flight to Springfield so he could be at work the next day for the big meeting. Her brother Darcy was on his way back to Montreal. Emmett and Ruth were at home next door, probably washing dishes from the big meal they had helped to provide afterward, seeing as their kitchen light was on. Marla remembered there being food but couldn’t recall what exactly as she hadn’t felt like eating. Sandwiches probably… she’d have to thank them later.
Marla had felt supported up until she turned the key in the lock after the services, but then the realization sank deep in her throat like acid reflux, hanging heavy on her heart – everyone else had other lives to return to except for her. She sighed and stepped through the threshold onto the outdated beige linoleum tile and the braided rag rug that stretched across it. She closed the door behind herself and sighed again. She wiped her shoes reflexively on the mat before just kicking them off to land in a haphazard heap in the entryway.
The still silence of the house enveloped her, its oppressive emptiness palpable – she could feel it on her skin, taste it on her tongue. It was bitter. She sighed and walked purposefully to the living room, the large rust-orange sofa waiting to greet her. She flopped into its empty embrace, dropping her purse at her side as she did so.
A familiar, husky voice greeted her from deeper within the large, empty house. “Where have you been?”
Marla looked up and glanced around. Her husband Frank was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, drying a bowl. Marla gasped, her hand shooting to her mouth. Her clutched appendage took on a life of its own, slowly relinquishing itself of her gaping jaw and extending a first finger to point at the specter.
“Frank?” she spoke hesitantly.
“Yeah,” the man replied, holding the now-dry bowl nestled in the faded blue-and-white-checkered kitchen towel in both hands. “Who else would you expect?”
“But you’re dead,” Marla spat, the words falling limply from her mouth of their own accord.
The 66-year old man looked around confusedly and turned to face Marla, his silver hair sparkling in the light from the kitchen, illuminated from behind like a halo. “What are you talking about? I’m just here washing up after lunch. You were gone so I made myself some soup. Where have you been?”
“No, I just got home from your funeral,” Marla spoke quietly. “You are dead. After the boating accident… You drowned. I went along to the hospital – they pronounced you dead on arrival.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Frank said. “What boating accident?”
“The sailboat… You were going to take me out,” Marla coughed, her brown eyes glossed over with tears.
“We don’t own a sailboat,” Frank said bluntly. “Sure, I’d thought about it – it seems like a cool retirement hobby – but it’s just too expensive. We’ve talked about this, we can’t afford it.”
Marla glanced out the bay window towards the driveway where the small sailboat sat on its trailer, its orange hull reminiscent of the Florida citrus industry, and also of the life jacket Frank should have been wearing when he’d been pulled under. Marla cringed and turned back toward the kitchen. She sighed and spoke again, “But the boat’s out front. The guys at the marina helped to bring it back… after you… drowned.”
Frank had retreated to the kitchen to put away the bowl. Marla followed. She stood in the doorway and studied the man intently. He was unmistakably her husband, there was no denying it even despite her having just witnessed his waxen lifeless body in the coffin at the wake before the burial, though this Frank was a slight bit more overweight than she remembered.
“Well, that’s not possible. Because I’m still here,” Frank grumbled. He turned to face her, his blue eyes edged with worry. “There now, it was probably just a dream. You knew I wanted a boat and your anxiety just formulated the worst-case scenario…”
“See for yourself,” Marla said, her voice lilting with every syllable.
Frank strode into the living room and stared out the bay window. The driveway was vacant save for some bits of Spanish moss strewn over the concrete from the neighboring live oak tree. He turned towards his wife.
“But there’s no boat,” he sighed. “You must have had a bad dream. Did you fall asleep in the car in the garage again?” Concern was written all over his face, deepening every crease and wrinkle. “Is that where you were? The garage?”
Marla glanced again at the boat, plain as day, and turned to face Frank. Her voice grew stubborn. “It’s right here. How can you miss it?” she said, pointing at the orange behemoth.
“Honey, there’s nothing there,” Frank exclaimed, exasperation creeping into his voice.
Marla huffed and strode to the entryway, gathering her shoes from where they waited in their haphazard heap alongside the braided rag run on the worn linoleum floor. She marched out the door as Frank took vigil in its open frame, still staring at her. She stomped out to the boat and slapped her hand on the fiberglass surface with a resounding smack. The boat was warm to the touch, having baked in the Florida sun. She turned back towards the front door.
“See!” she bellowed.
The door stood open, empty. No one was there, watching. Marla sighed again and walked back inside. The vacant house once again enveloped her in its oppressive emptiness. Frank was nowhere to be found.
So I guess it’s goodbye for now. Feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.
Today on Nightmarish Nature we’re gonna revisit The Blob and jiggle our way to terror. Why? ‘Cause we’re just jellies – looking at those gelatinous denizens of the deep, as well as some snot-like land-bound monstrosities, and wishing we could ooze on down for some snoozy booze schmoozing action. Or something.
Honestly, I don’t know what exactly it is that jellyfish and slime molds do but whatever it is they do it well, which is why they’re still around despite being among the more ancient organism templates still in common use.
Jellyfish are on the rise.
Yeah, yeah, some species like moon jellies will hang out in huge blooms near the surface feeding, but that’s not what I meant. Jellyfish populations are up. They’re honing in on the open over-fished ocean and making themselves at home. Again.
And, although this makes the sea turtles happy since jellies are a favorite food staple of theirs, not much else is excited about the development. Except for those fish that like to hide out inside of their bells, assuming they don’t accidentally get eaten hanging out in there. But that’s a risk you gotta take when you’re trying to escape predation by surrounding yourself in a bubble of danger that itself wants to eat you. Be eaten or be eaten. Oh, wait…
So what makes jellies so scary?
Jellyfish pack some mighty venom. Despite obvious differences in mobility, they are related to anemones and corals. But not the Man o’ War which looks similar but is actually a community of microorganisms that function together as a whole, not one creature. Not that it matters when you’re on the wrong end of a nematocyst, really. Because regardless what it’s attached to, that stings.
Box jellies are among the most venomous creatures in the world and can move of their own accord rather than just drifting about like many smaller jellyfish do. And even if they aren’t deadly, the venom from many jellyfish species will cause blisters and lesions that can take a long time to heal. So even if they do resemble free-floating plastic grocery bags, you’d do best to steer clear. Because those are some dangerous curves.
But what does this have to do with slime molds?
Absolutely nothing. I honestly don’t know enough about jellyfish or slime molds to devote the whole of a Nightmarish Nature segment to either, so they had to share. Essentially, this bit is what happened when I decided to toast a bagel before coming up with something to write about and spent a tad too much time in contemplation of my breakfast. I guess we’re lucky I didn’t have any cream cheese or clotted cream…
Oh, and also thinking about gelatinous cubes and oozes in the role-playing game sense – because those sort of seem like a weird hybrid between jellies and slime molds, as does The Blob. Any of those amoeba influenced creatures are horrific by their very nature – they don’t even need to be souped up, just ask anyone who’s had dysentery.
And one of the most interesting thing about slime molds is that they can take the shortest path to food even when confronted with very complex barriers. They are maze masterminds and would give the Minotaur more than a run for his money, especially if he had or was food. They have even proven capable of determining the most efficient paths for water lines or railways in metropolitan regions, which is kind of crazy when you really think about it. Check it out in Scientific American here. So, if we assume that this is essentially the model upon which The Blob was built, then it’s kind of a miracle anything got away. And slime molds are coming under closer scrutiny and study as alternative means of creating computer components are being explored.
Jellies are the Wave of the Future.
We are learning that there may be a myriad of uses for jellyfish from foodstuffs to cosmetic products as we rethink how we interact with them. They are even proving useful in cleaning up plastic pollution. I don’t know how I feel about the foodstuff angle for all that they’ve been a part of various recipes for a long time. From what I’ve seen of the jellyfish cookbook recipes, they just don’t look that appealing. But then again I hate boba with a passion, so I’m probably not the best candidate to consider the possibility.
So it seems that jellies are kind of the wave of the future as we find that they can help solve our problems. That’s pretty impressive for some brainless millions of years old critter condiments. Past – present – perpetuity! Who knows what else we’d have found if evolution hadn’t cleaned out the fridge every so often?
Feel free to check out more Nightmarish Nature here.
Continuing our junkyard dawg werewolf story from the previous St. Patrick’s Days… though technically he’s more of a wolfwere but wolfwhatever. Anyway, here are Part 1 from 2022, Part 2 from 2023 and Part 3 from 2024 if you want to catch up.
Yeah I don’t know how you managed to find me after all this time. We haven’t been the easiest to track down, Monty and I, and we like it that way. Though actually, you’ve managed to find me every St. Patrick’s Day since 2022 despite me being someplace else every single time. It’s a little disconcerting, like I’m starting to wonder if I was microchipped way back in the day in 2021 when I was out lollygagging around and blacked out behind that taco hut…
Anyway as I’d mentioned before, that Scratchers was a winner. And I’d already moved in with Monty come last St. Patrick’s Day. Hell, he’d already begun the process of cashing in the Scratchers, and what a process that was. It made my head spin, like too many squirrels chirping at you from three different trees at once. We did get the money eventually though.
Since I saw you last, we were kicked out of Monty’s crap apartment and had gone to live with his parents while we sorted things out. Thank goodness that was short-lived; his mother is a nosy one for sure, and Monty didn’t want to let on he was sitting on a gold mine as he knew they’d want a cut even though they had it made already. She did make a mean brisket though, and it sure beat living with Sal. Just sayin.
Anyway, we finally got a better beater car and headed west. I was livin’ the dream. We were seeing the country, driving out along old Route 66, for the most part. At least until our car broke down just outside of Roswell near the mountains and we decided to just shack it up there. (Boy, Monty sure can pick ‘em. It’s like he has radar for bad cars. Calling them lemons would be generous. At least it’s not high maintenance women who won’t toss you table scraps or let you up on the sofa.)
We found ourselves the perfect little cabin in the woods. And it turns out we were in the heart of Bigfoot Country, depending on who you ask. I wouldn’t know, I’ve never seen one. But it seems that Monty was all into all of those supernatural things: aliens, Bigfoot, even werewolves. And finding out his instincts on me were legit only added fuel to that fire. So now he sees himself as some sort of paranormal investigator.
Whatever. I keep telling him this werewolf gig isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be, and it doesn’t work like in the movies. I wasn’t bitten, and I generally don’t bite unless provoked. He says technically I’m a wolfwere, to which I just reply “Where?” and smile. Whatever. It’s the little things I guess. I just wish everything didn’t come out as a bark most of the time, though Monty’s gotten pretty good at interpreting… As long as he doesn’t get the government involved, and considering his take on the government himself that would seem to be a long stretch. We both prefer the down low.
So here we are, still livin’ the dream. There aren’t all that many rabbits out here but it’s quiet and the locals don’t seem to notice me all that much. And Monty can run around and make like he’s gonna have some kind of sighting of Bigfoot or aliens or the like. As long as the pantry’s stocked it’s no hair off my back. Sure, there are scads of tourists, but they can be fun to mess around with, especially at that time of the month if I happen to catch them out and about.
Speaking of tourists, I even ran into that misspent youth from way back in 2021 at the convenience store; I spotted him at the Quickie Mart along the highway here. I guess he and his girlfriend were apparently on walkabout (or car-about) perhaps making their way to California or something. He even bought me another cookie. Small world. But we all knew that already…
If you enjoyed this werewolf wolfwere wolfwhatever saga, feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.