The Short Stories of Tom Bentley
The Nudie Colony
....© by Tom Bentley
People all over town emerged from the long cold winter. It was spring.
"Did you see Lilly Cook's granddaughter?" asked Mrs. Perkins. "Seen her in the five and Dime for the first time since Halloween. Huge! Biggest toddler I ever saw and spoiled as anything..."
"I hear Mrs. Jenkin's old Pekinese made it through another winter. Must be twenty if it's a day", said Mrs. Baker.
"She was screaming blue murder", continued Mrs. Perkins. "Her grandma had to buy her a little doll so she'd shut up. Tiniest doll I ever saw!"
"If that dog ever passes on, the old lady will be soon to follow I tell ya. Last time I heard that little fellah bark was sometime in the forties."
"Can't wait 'till winter", sneered Mr. Switzer, the undertaker, when he saw Mrs. Jenkins and her ancient Pekinese alive in all their springtime arrogance as they walked past his front yard. "No peeing on my fence!" he snapped.
Johnny told his grandfather he thought it wasn't fair to have to go to school in spring. Bill Coutts agreed and told him to stop going until the fall. Whenever the grade one teacher from the Biggar Comprehensive School came to the front door to discuss this arrangement, the old man told her to piss off.
Johnny spent the next two months following his blind grandfather and his wheelbarrow around the town listening to stories about the four horsemen from the Book of Revelations, some great leader arising from the East, Armageddon, photosynthesis, the teachings of some dead guy called Trotsky, and tried to grasp the concepts of space, infinity, stocks, bonds, and why Mrs. Potts was a first-rate bitch. He also learned the value of work and how to plant potatoes.
Before the townspeople knew it, spring turned into summer and the dry cracked earth swallowed all hope of strawberry shortcake picnics by gentle flowing streams. Crocuses gave way to thistles, and gophers fought with mosquitoes for the right to inhabit paradise.
Still, they beat back the sun and claimed what was rightfully theirs. Hockey gave way to baseball, and indoor canasta to wiener roasts. On graduation night, there were so many scandals in local farmer's hay lofts the swimming pool had to be opened a week early to wash away the sins.
Lilly Cook's huge granddaughter spent three days in bed after she ate half of Lilly's newly seeded lawn.
Finally school was out and Johnny's friends were free to join him.
"Okay, I'm your best friend this summer right?"
"Nope. He's my best friend."
"Okay. He can be your best friend and you can be my best friend."
"Okay. But nobody's going to play with Paul, right?"
"Right. Paul's nobody's best friend."
"Okay Paul?"
"Okay."
"See ya Paul!"
The boys heard stories of gangs - motorcycle boys with tattoos who rode into town in the middle of the night and beat up old-timers on the street. But they were the Daytime Gang. They fought to keep the town safe from the Germans, Commies, and the voodoo pygmy queen.
"You're dead."
"Missed by a long shot."
"Got you in the eye. Twice. Once with my machine gun and then with my machete. Right through your eye-hole."
"Did not!"
"Did so dirty German pig-snot."
"Did not!"
"Did!"
"I'm not playing."
"Wanna go swimming?"
"No. I'm not playing any more. I'm going home."
"Wanna dig a hole to China?"
"No. And I'm not your best friend."
"Wanna play war? You can be the German!"
"Okay."
"Bang you're dead! Right through the eye-hole ass-hole."
It wasn't long before the town began to wither in the sun. Mrs. Jenkin's little Pekinese panted its way from water bowl to water bowl and Mrs. Perkins had to confine her gossiping to the cool shade of her neighbour's kitchens.
One Saturday afternoon, Paul came racing down the street and right over to Billy Baker's wood pile where the gang was playing Pygmy Invasion From Outer Space. They were torturing Danny's little brother who always got to be the voodoo pygmy queen.
"Hey Johnny. Your grandpa's a nudie colony!"
"Get out of Billy's yard stupid gob face. This is private property."
"Johnny's grandpa's a what?"
"A nudie! A nudie!"
"What's a nudie?", asked Danny's little brother, trying to pull the slivers out from under his fingernails.
"Naked. He's bare-assed naked!"
"Is not. My grandpa's downtown with his wheelbarrow making money."
"Nudie bum! Nudie bum!"
"Shut up! Shut up you commie dink!"
"Nudie bum. Nudie bum! Nudie Nudie..."
"Little commie dink-head! Little commie dink-head!"
"Mrs. Perkins called my mum and her and some of the neighbours got in Sam Hodgenson's new Chev to go look."
"Where? Where'd they go?" demanded Danny.
"The Finlayson farm."
Danny told them to shut up. He had to think for a second.
"Let's go", commanded Danny.
"It's over three miles."
"Go!"
Danny and his gang tore down the street out of town. "Johnny's grandpa's ass is bare! Johnny's grandpa's ass is bare!"
Johnny went home and sat under the caragana bushes.
Bill Coutts took pride in maintaining a healthy old age. He was blind - he didn't want any other inconveniences. Every morning after his exercises, he pulled out his large cardboard box and swallowed an endless supply of vitamins, minerals, dried herbs, liquid elixirs and all forms of healthy supplements. On Sundays he'd gag down raw liver to make sure he didn't go bald. And at least three times a year, once the prairie wheat had grown up to his chest, he'd find his way out to some farmer's field and take off all his clothes. He'd alternate between lying down and exercising in the sun, letting the hot rays fill him with the vitamin D goodness his body needed to store for the long winter ahead.
This year Biggar hadn't seen any rain since well before the May twenty-fourth weekend. Instead of growing up past his chest, the wheat stalks barely made it to his knees.
Bending and stretching his mammoth body in homage to the sun, the old man waved his tightly knotted six foot frame across the horizon, silencing even the meadowlarks in its magnificence. The full length of the white beard trailed a second behind the twirls and round-about-rhythm of his slow side-to-side swings. His huge arms and hands moved through the thick air as if conducting the music of the fields. When he ran on the spot, slapping his knees high up to the palms of his hands, jack rabbits sprayed a circular fountain of panic and ran for their lives.
Edna Finlayson had just stepped off her back porch to dig up some beets when she saw the gruesome sight off in the left corner of her south quarter. At first she couldn't believe her eyes, but when the colossal figure turned around and the bobbly-bobblies below the giant's waist bobbled in her direction she almost passed out. Her husband wasn't home so she stumbled back into her kitchen and picked up the telephone. Sandra MacIntosh, the Biggar operator, tried to calm her down and refused to hang up until the dear old farm woman poured herself a stiff shot of whisky. Sandra couldn't get through to the R.C.M.P. - the line was busy for almost an hour. In the meantime she notified most of her friends, just in case the Mounted Police were unavailable and she had to organize a posse.
Sally Lafferty stood between the dozen odd cars parked on the side of the road. "My Goodness, what's he going to do next?" she said to her sister Shirley from Moose Jaw. "It's almost indecent."
"I just hope he doesn't get a sunburn." replied Shirley.
"What's he up to? Martial Arts?" said the Baily twins at the same time. Sam and Orvil Baily always said everything at the same time.
His poor wife, thought Mrs. Baker. Poor dear suffering Flo.
Bill Coutts stood upright, pulling his right foot to rest above his left knee. He held his arms out wide and was entirely motionless except for his head, which slowly rotated from the right to the left as he counted to one hundred. He had a particular fondness for this exercise. As well as being good for developing balance, it made him feel as if he were flying again like he did when he was a child.
Winging horizontal, the old man soared high into the eye of the sun.
"Who does he think he is, Jesus Christ on the cross?" asked Mrs. Perkins.
"No - it's more like a scarecrow. I think he thinks he's a scarecrow," said Mrs. Baker.
"Well either way - it's time for the old folk's home," responded Mrs. Perkins.
"I still think the poor old codger's going to get a terrible sunburn," worried Shirley.
"This is getting scary." decided the responsible Sam Hodgenson. "I'm going back to the car for my twenty-two."
Freda McConnell bent down to her sweet little daughter Marigold and told her to pull her skirt down from up over her eyes or they were going straight home this instant.
Just then a police cruiser, siren howling, screeched to the side of the road, spinning around two and a half times before landing in the ditch, its rear view mirror knocking the twenty-two out of Sam Hodgenson's hand which shot a bullet into a cloud of dust.
There was bedlam. Nobody could see who was shot until the dust settled at their feet and one unfortunate gopher was found lying by the side of the road with a bullet through its heart. Little Marigold screamed and pulled her skirt back up over her head. Constable Schumacher called for immediate calm and took charge.
Johnny sat under the low prickly limbs of the caragana bush. Don't even have a real tree to sit under, he moaned. Nothing works. My father's dead, my mother lives on boats somewhere, my granny's a fat fortune teller, and now my grandpa's a nudie colony. Nothing works. Even my turtle's dead as a door nail.
Two years earlier, Johnny's grandmother bought him a little turtle from the Five and Dime. He called him Lucky. When he put the turtle on the kitchen floor, it would waddle across the linoleum and get lost under the fridge. Wherever he put it in the house, that turtle would find the kitchen and get lost again under the fridge. In November, Johnny took the turtle outside to see if it could still find its way back to the fridge. Instead, Lucky the Turtle crawled under the nearest snow bank and froze to death.
Johnny sat, squashed into the ground by the caragana, and cried for Lucky.
Constable Schumacher cautiously negotiated his way through the wheat field trying not to alarm the blind old bugger, who was holding out his naked arms as if waiting for some extraterrestrial Martian to fly him off on a space ship. Or the first prehistoric crane, thought Schumacher, waiting for the fish to put their new gill-lungs to the test and slide out of the slimy marsh onto a wheat field.
Alister Schumacher was from Victoria and Biggar was his first posting as a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He hated the prairies.
The Officer summoned his stability and stood a full ten feet away from Bill Coutts, careful not to scare him. He'd hate to see the old bugger flailing blindly though the wheat stocks and end up scratched and starkers calling for mercy as he crawled through the spectators at the side of the road.
"Mr. Coutts. It's Constable Schumacher from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police."
Bill was just finishing the last sequence of his balancing exercise, his left foot now above his right knee.
"Eighty-two..eighty-three..eighty-four..eighty-five.."
"We got something here to discuss, Mr. Coutts."
"Eighty-nine..ninety..ninety-one..ninety-two.."
"Am I coming in, Mr. Coutts?"
"Ninety-five..ninety-six.."
"Do you read me you stupid old fart!"
"One hundred and I'm reading ya fine Mr. Schumacher."
Bill plunged his left foot firmly back onto familiar soil, and squared off his illegal nakedness directly towards the constable, as if in defiance of everything the law held sacred.
"Is there something I can to do assist ya, Mr. Schumacher? Are ya lost?"
The constable stared into the wheelbarrow which was resting at the midway point between himself and the offender. He was astonished at how neatly the old man folded his clothes, every article laying perfectly on top of another. The overalls on the bottom, followed by the shirt, undershirt, underwear, and crowned by the parallel curves of two uncreased socks, holding their place like boomerangs ready to be packed into a suitcase heading for Australia. The big boots stared at the constable in perfect alignment from the front of the barrow. Such care, thought the constable. Such symmetry.
"Are ya wantin' me to give you a lift back to town in my wheelbarrow, sergeant?"
"I'm a constable Mr. Coutts, and it's rather the reverse. We've had a complaint. You see it's highly illegal to walk around naked exposing yourself to everyone in town."
"But I'm not in town. I'm mindin' my own business out here in God's pasture."
"I'm afraid its Mr. Finlayson's pasture, Bill, and the town seems to have come to you. So the fact that you're engaging in the act of indecent exposure on private land, inciting an angry mob at the side of a major highway, gives me no choice but to have to place you under arrest."
"You sergeant, are an idiot."
"I'm not an idiot you old felon, I'm a constable", replied Schumacher, taking two cautious baby steps forward.
"You stop right there Mr. R.C.M.P. - or I'll ram my wheelbarrow right into your kneecaps."
"Do you need any reinforcements over there?" yelled the Baily twins.
"I'm adding that to the list of charges, Mr. Coutts - threatening an officer in the line of duty. You got no choice man. You put your clothes on this instant and march into that police cruiser. I'll guide you by the arm."
Bill Coutts was terrified of new fandangled automobiles and had never set foot in one of the contraptions in his life. He sure as hell wasn't going to step into one now!
"I'd hate to have to bring out the handcuffs", warned Schumacher, chancing another baby step towards the culprit.
Bill took two giant steps towards the officer and grabbed the handles of the wheelbarrow, yanking them up to his waist. He clenched his teeth and leaned towards his adversary.
Schumacher thought he could hear a low growl coming from the old codger's throat and when the wheels of the barrow began to slowly rotate in his direction, he proclaimed his final warning much louder than he intended.
"YOU ARE UNDER ARREST YOU GODDAMN LOONY-BIN NAKED SASKATCHEWAN TRESPASSING SON OF A BITCH!"
"SHOOT THE BASTARD!" screamed the grade one teacher from the Biggar Comprehensive School.
The wheelbarrow began to gather speed.
Like a bull fighter knowing his time was up, Schumacher turned on the spot and started to run towards the road. He could feel the horn of the beast ready to gore open the yellow streak running up and down his Saskatchewan-hating back.
"HOORAY!" cheered little Marigold, flapping her skirt up and down as she leaped by the side of the dead gopher.
Ripping through the small stalks of wheat, the wheelbarrow bumped its way into high gear, pulling the alarmed Mr. Coutts behind the enormous force of its intention - the equally alarmed Constable yelling out for calm as the gawking mass lifted off the earth and began to glide like a vision towards him.
The crowd stood transfixed in unified awe - blood pumping wildly through their crazed and collective veins. Sun-scorched and splendid, they soared high above the prairie flatness of their everyday lives. The thrill of the chase. The promise of blood. Socks, underwear, overalls scattering haphazard in panoramic splendour. Ah - summertime on the prairies.
Schumacher picked up pace. The wheelbarrow picked up pace. Closer and closer - the scalding breath of the bull searing hot on his chicken-heart trail.
Just then Paul, Billy, Danny and his little brother streaked up the ditch towards the excitement.
"NUDIE BUM! NUDIE BUM! NUDIE NUDIE NUDIE BUM!"
To hell with this, decided the Baily twins, it's time for reinforcements. Orvil hurled his body toward the boys, who were headed for a head on collision with the wheelbarrow, and Sam dive-bombed the constable, who was about to meet his cruiser.
The Baily twins always performed important functions at the same time including eating, yawning, scratching and praying.
Paul landed on Billy who landed on Danny who landed on his little brother. Schumacher landed on the dead gopher. And the wheelbarrow slipped up the middle and smashed out the cruiser's left headlight.
Stunned silence overcame the appreciative audience. Eric Meisner, the bingo caller, had to stop himself from clapping and shouting for an encore.
The dust settled.
Alister Schumacher lay on his back in the gravel, arms outstretched, slowly rotating his head to check if his neck was broken. He counted to ten. The onlookers had the sensitivity to leave him alone - they could all laugh later at home.
The crowd acted responsibly, ensuring that nobody had any serious injury beyond sunstroke. Sally Lafferty's sister Shirley from Moose Jaw had been hit in the head by a flying boot but it just seemed to have made her a bit goofy.
There was a feeling of contentment. Nobody could have asked for more. The boys thought the whole thing had been a miracle and couldn't wait until the circus came to town in four weeks.
Bill Coutts stood unscathed and alone at the side of the road.
Finally, like a Phoenix rising from the dust, Constable Schumacher found his last remaining thread of dignity and once again took full control of the situation.
"I want everyone out of here within two seconds flat or you'll all be arrested for interfering with the enforcement of justice at the scene of a crime. That means you too, Orvil and Sampson, once you get my car out of the ditch."
Alone on the highway, Bill Coutts and his captor negotiated the fine details of how they were going to proceed into town. Bill was adamant in his refusal to wear the mountie's spare dress uniform and poor Mr. Schumacher once again had to enter the dreaded Finlayson south quarter to search behind every pathetic little shoot of wheat until he located the old bugger's entire wardrobe.
Siren shrieking in police escort splendour, the cruiser stormed a full two miles an hour through the loose gravel towards Biggar. Precisely twenty feet ahead, walking tall, was a fully-clad blind man, his large soft mass of shocking white hair glimmering proud in the late afternoon sun. And commanding the procession up front was the leader of the band, the wheelbarrow, plodding towards the certainty of justice.
Johnny sat exposed under the stripped caragana bush.
He'd pulled off each of the long thin yellow pods and piled them in front of him. Then he carefully finger-nailed an incision down the inside belly of each pod, ramming the tiny seeds with his flesh thumb through the little yellow houses and out the other side. He didn't care that his hands were sore from the prickles when he yanked off the leaves. They weren't even real leaves anyway, he thought. They were tiny "pretend" leaves. Johnny had shoved his hands into the centre of the bush and whipped them back up the stems without letting go. Then whenever he felt like it he broke a branch.
Johnny heard the cars down at the end of Second Avenue coming back from the highway. He had just enough time to break a couple more branches before bolting through the front screen door and into his room at the back of the house.
He jumped onto the bed and looked out the window onto the junk pile in the back yard and thought about how the Daytime Gang was laughing at him and his grandfather. And how everyone in town had seen his grandpa's thing and that he'd have to stay in his room forever. And he couldn't even shut the door. It wasn't even his room. It was his grandpa's room. And his grandpa's bed. And he was looking at his grandpa's junk. And nothing was fair.
He hated the summertime. Maybe Armageddon will come tonight, he hoped. And the horses can trample Danny on the head. I hate Danny. He's a dink. I hate Paul too. I hope the fire burns their clothes off and they have to go to school forever - naked.
Nothing is fair.
Johnny thought about his dead father. He hoped maybe his father wasn't really dead and when he saw the news on television about his grandpa being a naked nudist he'd decide to come home and rescue him. But then he worried that maybe he never really did have a father. And that maybe these people weren't really his family.
That would be a relief, he decided. Maybe I was just planted here by a spaceship to spy on them. My mother only comes to see me once a year. Most real mothers come more than once a year. And most real grandmothers don't tell the futures of people. Maybe none of them are real. Maybe they're Martians. Or maybe they're real and I'm a Martian. Or an alien. Maybe I'm an alien!
Johnny's grandmother stood in the doorway.
"You're gonna have to sleep alone tonight honey. Your grandpa's in jail. Supper's in about fifteen minutes. Then I'm going to Bingo."
She looked weird, he thought.
Constable Schumacher told Bill Coutts he'd be free to go as soon the Justice of the Peace showed up from Rosetown. The Justice of the Peace from Biggar was bowling in Saskatoon. According to his lonely wife, Mr. Robertson was always "bowling in Saskatoon".
The police officer preferred staying with his prisoner to going home anyway. He dreaded meeting anyone on the street. And somehow he felt a strange kinship developing with the old guy. Perhaps because they were both laughing stocks. It almost felt as if they were partners in the crime. Anyway, he sort of admired the old fellah's confidence. Or stupidity. Whatever, he admired something.
"You're not a very good cop, ya know", said Bill.
"I know", responded Schumacher.
"So why do something you're bad at?"
"Shut up you bastard or I'll call Rosetown and tell him not to come."
The constable sat down and began to enter the details of the arrest into a proper file. He was shaking. After snapping the lead on five pencils and cursing a blue streak because he could never find his goddamn pencil sharpener, he got up.
Bill Coutts asked the question again.
"Because I'm a goddamn chicken-livered coward", yelled Schumacher.
"Liver's good for you", replied Bill.
"Because I'm scared I might be no good!"
"You're already no good."
"Because I want to be a poet."
"Ya mean you want to write poetry. Like Tennyson and Yeats and Garcia Lorca?"
"Yah. Yah. Like that. How'd you know about those fellahs?"
"Just like anybody else would know about those fellahs. Ya read 'em. I wasn't born blind."
"Well anyway - I want to be a poet. So why don't you have a good laugh. It's your turn."
"Who the hell cares who laughs, you ignorant young whippersnapper. Ya gonna spend the rest of your life afraid of being different?"
"I'm not listening."
"You ever hear about that mother who was at the parade watching her son in the marchin' band?"
"No. And I'm not listening."
"Look at that, she said proud as a peacock to the woman standing next to her. Every single boy in that band is marching out of step except my son."
"Piss off Coutts."
"Good for that boy I say. And good for the woman for supporting her son. Although it's none of her business. None of anybody's goddamn business how ya march. As long as ya march to your own drum beat." "I said I wasn't listening. I'm going for coffee at the Chinese."
"Careful ya don't run into anyone sergeant. It's Bingo night. Someone might start laughing."
"I'm going for coffee."
"Do not go gentle into that good night..."
"Shut your gob you old..."
"This is the way the world ends.. this is the way the world ends.. this is the way the world ends.. not with a bang but a whimper."
"I'm leaving..."
"There was a old gal from Brazil.. With a bosom as big as a hill.."
Constable Schumacher slammed the front door and entered the street, barely holding back his tears.
It was the hottest night of the summer. The town was restless.
Mr. Hodgenson dreamed of his new Chevrolet overheating and running berserk all through his house. It crashed into his wife's china collection and hissed steam into his bedroom. Mrs. Perkins gave birth to new kitchen appliances which immediately melted, and the Baily twins - out for a walk in Mr. Finlayson's burning wheat field - couldn't remember who was who and ran off in opposite directions. Poor Eric Meisner had to holler all the way to Winnipeg to ask for a garden hose to replace the one Harry Jessop returned to the hardware. And Lilly Cook woke up to the pain of scalding tears after she watched her granddaughter shrink into a carton of ice cream.
Only Mr. Switzer, the undertaker, enjoyed the misty banks of slumber. He dreamt of two coffins resting on huge slabs of ice and heard a little doggy bark coming from the cold fog blanket of his pillow.
When the first ray of light hit the town, most people begged for forgiveness.
Johnny slept just fine and woke up to see his grandfather's straight legs scissoring away at the morning air above him. He hadn't heard him come in during the middle of the night. He looked over to his grandpa's grimacing red face. Too much sun, he thought.
He reviewed his plan. His granny and grandpa were on the Inside World. The Daytime Gang and the street on the Outside. They were never ever to meet. Never! The front screen door was the space machine that zapped him apart and kabbammed him back together.
Bill Coutts swung his legs over onto the floor and went for the vitamins, minerals, molasses, cod liver oil and brewers yeast he made sure his grandson downed every morning before being allowed out of bed. I love my grandpa, thought Johnny. But only on the inside of the screen.
Johnny ran over to Billy's woodpile where the gang were arguing about whether they were gonna play World War Three or Pygmy Queen Torture. Danny's little brother voted for World War Three.
"This is private property. You're not allowed", cried Paul.
"Yah - so take off or I'll call Constable Schumacher to put you in nudie jail!" hollered Danny.
"No", replied Johnny.
"Yes", demanded Danny.
"And anyways - I'm Danny's best friend!" bragged Paul.
"Give him a bloody nose", ordered Danny.
"I'm gonna give you a bloody nose", threatened Paul.
"You're a dink", yelled Johnny.
"You're a dink", yelled Paul.
"No I'm not!"
"Are so!"
"Anyways I got a secret", said Johnny as he pushed Paul into the woodpile. "A big one!"
"What is it?" asked Paul.
"I'm not telling you stupid." "Why not?"
"I'm only telling Billy and Danny."
Danny told them to shut up. He had to think for a second.
"Go home Paul", said Danny.
"Okay", said Paul.
"What's the secret?" asked Billy.
"You can't tell anyone cause I'm not supposed to tell."
"Who says?"
"The agent."
"What agent?"
"The agent."
"What's the secret?" repeated Billy.
"You can't even tell your mums okay?"
"Okay."
"My grandpa's not my real grandpa" whispered Johnny.
"He is so!"
"No he's not. And my grandma's not my real grandma."
"Is so."
"My grandma's fat and my grandpa's tall. Do I look like them?"
"No."
"Who are they then?" asked Billy.
"They're grandparents." "See!"
"But not mine."
"Who says?"
"The agent."
"What agent?"
"That woman from Vancouver."
"That's your mother."
"No she's not."
"Who are you then?"
"I'm an alien."
"What's an alien?" asked Danny's little brother.
"A Martian spy. But most of the time I don't know it because I'm programmed. Just sometimes I know. Like now. If you ask me tomorrow I'll probably say I'm not. But it's true so don't believe me if I say I'm not - okay? When I go through my front door I get zapped up with everything they need to know about earth. I get electric shocks in my brain. It hurts. And then I forget. And I'm in the spaceship having wires on my head. Only they put a body that looks like mine into the house. And that's good because they're weird in there. I don't live there. They're too weird."
"Okay. If you're an alien how come you play with us, huh?"
"Because I have to make everyone think I'm a boy. But I don't play with Paul okay."
"Okay - if you're an alien then what's your alien name?"
"My what?"
"Your name. Prove to us that you're an alien by telling us your alien name."
"Okay."
"What is it?"
"My alien name?"
"Yah. What? What?"
"It's...it's..."
"WHAT?"
"It's Lucky!"