Tragically Fine

James Tronk: Fist of the Ape (part I)

Posted by Kyle Jacobson , Saturday, July 31, 2010 11:11 PM

I am tied to a tree surrounded by men, who I'm not quite sure are men, but more of an undiscovered species of half man, half beast. They had hair covering most of their faces, and deep, heavy wrinkles protruding from every wrinkle-able part of their large and bulbous faces. The thing that disturbs me the most are their bodies, they're normal. They don't look extra-strong, fast or exercised in any way. More like high school chess team bodies. However, if appearances meant anything in this place, I sure wouldn't be tied to this tree. I mean, I'm a tough guy but, they're much stronger, impossibly strong.

      Had I known that becoming one of the greatest ecologist-interns that the colorado forest service has seen in the past several years, I would have become a lawyer like my Mom pressured me to become ever since before birth. And if it wasn't for my complete inability to care for the justice system, I probably would have. Now, I feel that since I am strapped to this large and in-charge aspen tree I must tell you that I am not a very good story teller, so if you are going to blame anyone for the lack of scintillating content in this literary piece, blame me, the protagonist, James Tronk, and not the probably brilliant genius writer/blogger who is sharing my story with you.
      We'll have to start two days ago.
July 29th: I woke up to the sound of hundreds of gun shots and even more tire screeches. Normally, I would have cared, but last night had really taken me out. It had been a long night at the lab researching the highly toxic, color inverting mushrooms I recently discovered with "Chex," my new partner. I live in a small town with a population of sixty, named Dottville, it is located three-point-six-plus-or-minus-point-one miles north of Denver. It is not normal for one in such a small town to hear gun shots and tire screeches. I did not notice. I just went to work.
      Work seemed normal, but didn't everything this morning? Cheryl greeted me like she normally does, "..." She said nothing. I walked by, made a face at her, and kept walking. She still remained silent. I am not thoroughly unconvinced that she is a robot or some other soulless object. That is to be determined at a much later date. My office seemed messier than I remember leaving it, the trashcan was dumped over, the blinds had bite marks in them, my Gladiator movie poster still crumbling with embers. I remembered none of this. I even tried imagining myself remembering what happened. Nothing. There was a badly written note that said "The Coons Wer Here." Right next to that note there was a letter, my next assignment. My boss refused to mix work with direct confrontation. He only wrote in letters and this letter stated: Armillariella X: Mysterious fungi in Stockholm. Flight 342 9:00 AM. Contact: Isaac Apple; New Partner: Isaac Apple. If there is something that I hate more than observing mushrooms, I really wish someone would tell me and I'm not sure why. 


      The flight was boring, the in-flight move was worse. They played "Troll 2" three times, in four different languages. The food was good though. Especially before they told me what it was. I blew it off as though I had eaten it many times on my many adventures. I kept my cool. Then rushed to the bathroom to avoid a scene. On the bright side, the bathroom was more spacey than the airline seats and suited me just fine for the next three hours in which I was a resident on the ivory throne. All-in-all we landed and I was luckily only in a few pieces. I saw Isaac walking to where my torso lied when he yelled, "pull yourself together, we've got work to do." I responded accordingly. We muscled our way through security after emptying our entire set of  thirty two bags only to prove to ourselves that we are working light and we couldn't help but think that we might not be able to do all that we had come to do. The real problem we were facing is putting all of these bags in our Geo Metro. 
You would think that with the governmental funding that we should be able to at least have a car with more storage space. I think working seat belts might be in the interest of some as well. But my say in the forest service doesn't hold any weight. I don't even have as much a say as Mr. Coffee does when he stops working. Then people drop everything they're doing just to succumb to his technical problems.   
"Isaac, Could you change the station, I'm not such a fan of soundtracks of small cats being bludgeoned into singing badly written songs."
"This is Journey you stupid intern!" He said Antarctically cold-like.
"And...." I always was good at causing people to hate. Not so much me, but just hate. This was going to be a great trip.
               Stay tuned for next Sumptuous Saturday where we find out how much Isaac really loves his mother and how James handles being an intern caught on fire.
                                                                        Reasonably,
                                                                                        Kyle