Uncle Louis IV

“The man there met The Grandfather, The Alphatoy, who first whispered to men to swim, to seek Him, though they knew naught." — Inflatext 1:4



Rain hailed; tides battled; storm clouds lightened then crackled; a storm the likes of none the man had ever seen “in his own forty-two” had taken the Pacific. He snatched the pair of binoculars from the side of his banana-yellow poncho, hunched over the windshield, then looked out to sea. All darkness and chaos. Under the crashing of waves the dolphin kept telling him, Clefkee, hurry! This is crazy! It’s . . . it’s! . . . nevermind what it is—come see it yourself!

“I can’t see period,” he muttered.

Putting the pair back in his poncho he lounged back in the driver’s then laid his hands over the console pianist style. Cranked the lever, pushed the pedal, jerked the wheel. The motorboat sputtered with a kick on recoil then went sailing off, dodging and weaving about the rolls of tide. Thunder flashed once. He slowed the boat to a standstill, where Pygmy’s echolocation was nearest. Stood up. Bent over the railing. Thought to the dolphin, Here I am, Pygmy. Come up.

No response.

“Pygmy. I am above you,” he said gently.

Pygmy—a pink dolphin pool toy—splashed out from the sea. She did an airbound trick then flopped into the passenger’s, hee-hawing for breath. Clefkee the man gasped!—one single huuuuuh meaning “oh no!”—and covered his mouth with his palms. He tackled the dolphin. Started strangling it/noodling his arms whilst blowing air into her blowhole.

“I learned from a lifeguard twelve years ago!” he yelled.

The dolphin shot him backward with a burst of the blowhole. “Get a h-hold of yourself, dude!”

He lay mumbling, wet, slung over his own seat now. “Pygmy? A-are you?—you look smaller, for some reason.” She seemed to have shrunken a few sizes. A small child could ride her, but not Clefkee.

“In the water, there’s!—”

Her head he cradled in his arms. Rattled it madly. “There’s what? I MUST KNOW! Tell me immediately! Oh, poor niece! Don’t die!”

“I’m not dying,” she said plainly. “I was just gonna say, there’s—”

Before she could finish, an inflatable croc about the length of a great white bubbled up to the surface by the boat. The croc held a croc and man to his chest. All of them looked legitly dead. Then the croc relinquished a rumbly sigh, baring his choppers. Scratched his belly. Limbs stretched in all directions in an eyes-shut yawn, little shivers running across his stomach. The kid awoke with an exclamation as he tumbled from the croc. The croc woke to catch him (the man too!) just in time.

“Hey guys!” Pygmy said.

“A crocodile, a child, and a nudist.” Clefkee’s gaze leapt from one to another with elevating disapproval. “Pygmy, where did you find this strange group? You three. Are you the reason my Pygmy has become small?”

“We owe her one.” The croc chuckled. He was out of breath. “We’d’ve sunk if it weren’t for her.”

A soft hiss of air from his backside.

“Pygmy, what was the favor you did this strange croc?”

“Neat! We’re not dead after all,” the nudist said, spitting a font of seawater.

“His name’s Uncle Louis,” growled the child. “I’m Morris. My dad’s name is dad. So stop calling us strange, please!”

“The croc’s got a pretty bad wound, Uncle,” Pygmy told Clefkee. “I gave him air. I’m sorry. I just wanted to help.”

“Really!” said Clefkee. “I’m just giving you a hard time, boys. Allow me to introduce us. This here is Pygmy. My name is Clefkee, but you can call me Clef. Might I ask what you’re doing out here in the middle of the ocean in the middle of a storm?”

Morris sat up and began to speak, recounting his and the croc’s adventures at Tom Landry’s Swim Place and Toys“R”Us and the oil tanker: “—and then Uncle Louis’ wings glowed green. He was like a croco-dragon fusion. Then the sailors shot a missile at us. So then Uncle Louis was hurt. He got a big hole in his back . . . it’s still there. Then we fell into the ocean. But we had oxygen because—”

“You’re against the Inflatext Definers, ‘ay?”

“Are we?”

“You are then! You’re an Inflatext Defiler!”

Kid and croc exchanged glances. Can’t tell if he made that up on the fly or not, said the croc.

We’re a part of something big now, Uncle! I wonder if we’ll get membership badges.

“Uncle” Clefkee explained that the Inflatext Definers were those who interpreted the Word of The Inflatext but “rewrote it first”: Men weren’t ever dolphins, they’d say (it was illogical); the first man didn’t meet The Alphatoy, for The Alphatoy was created by man, they’d say (The Alphatoy existing before being created by a man was also illogical); magic didn’t exist, because magic was unpredictable—again, without much logic, rationality.

Croc and kid nodded as Vernon played with the seaweed concealing his ding-a-ling.

“The problem isn’t the logic,” Clefkee went on. “The problem is too much of the logic. What happens when a man lives thinking half of everything is illusory? Then couldn’t the illusion theoretically have just as chance enough to be real? No. Both are real. There’s some things without a formula to measure them, boys. Let me tell you, boys: The Definers aren’t ‘defining’ because they aren’t reading. They denied the possibilities within The Inflatext until The Inflatext was finally done away with, and interpreted as they’d please it, from calculations and equations. You two, on the other hand, are plain malleable. You can’t go putting on dragon wings and breathing flame anytime you please, Louis. What The Alphatoy wanted for men was a discipline: a balance of logic and magic, in harmony.”

“The Alphatoy sounds nice,” the boy said abruptly, “but Uncle Louis needs help right away. We need to to fix him.”

“QUIET, BOY.” Clefkee gritted his teeth. Eyed him sternly. “My niece saved you. Is this your gratitude? Does your old man let you interrupt him the same way?”

Vernon bit his lip.

Let’s see what the man is getting at, the croc thought.

“You are Defilers,” Clefkee stated.

Bending over, Clefkee reached beneath his seat. He pulled from it a rocket launcher then put the launcher on the seat then returned to rummaging. Fished out a kid-size cannon.

“You and I, boys,” Clefkee continued, heaving the cannon into the passenger’s as Pygmy leapt to his head, “are to be headed toward Inflatext Isle. Before a land mass formed there, it was the place where the first man first met The Alphatoy. Those Definers have desecrated it. The Definers”—meaning the sailors and soldiers and scuba-divers, the commander and Magistar—“will die, I’ll have it. We will read men The Inflatext, as it is written, without bias. We will kill Magistar Dacorda!

“You may be bummed to hear I’ve no weapon for you, Vernon the Nudist. But this cannon is for your son. He is too young to man it; so he will kid it. A-ha! Ha-ha! As for I—I will man the rocket launcher. Here is why we use the practical man-made weapons rather than dragon breath and dragon wings: Logical men take no suspicion in practical shit. Thus this will make our docking the Isle much more an ease.”

“Kid” the cannon. Still can’t believe he said that. The croc rolled his eyes.

Uncle Louis. Should we go with him?

Mm.

Will you be okay?

Here’s the deal, the croc said. We’ll follow the guy to Inflatext Isle. Pay the Definers a visit. Seeing they put this hole in my back, they’ll know how to fix it.



“Can’t say I’m real happy about you kidding a cannon.” Vernon sighed. “But you are a kid. I did similar things when I was a youngster. I often wish I could kid cannons, as you do. But I’m past the age. You take what you can from these shenanigans while you still can, kiddo. Just play safely.”

Kid and Vernon sailed the croc alongside the motorboat through rain. Claps of thunder. Torrents of tide. Whips of howling wind. As night dawned they stumbled upon a miniature isle of a single palm, to camp on. Though Clefkee and Pygmy slept atop of each other in the driver’s, the croc took to the beach. The kid and Vernon appointed his belly a mattress, and some palm leaves their blankets. The dark came, went. Then came sunrise, and the sea was calm, and some seagulls glided the clear sky above.

Clefkee awoke. Sat up. “We slept in,” he mumbled, checking his wristwatch.

Pygmy stirred.

“We slept in, I say!”

Pygmy grunted, blinking an eye at the sun. “Jeeeez. It’s nine o’ clock, Unc. We’re not even in. We’re outside.”

“Destiny can wait no longer!”

He roused the three “boys”—his groggy dolphin always a few hops behind him (her tailfins were her feet). Eventually all of them stood stretching off sleep. Vernon, the kid, the croc yawned. The croc chomped chops. He blinked twice. Looked around. He saw he’d shrunken another size during their sleep, dismayed, a ten foot croc not even twice the height of the humans, now. Panic arose.

“You’ll be okay, Uncle,” Morris assured him. “If we don’t find a way to fix you soon you can always eat my dad.”

“Gee.” The croc smiled weakly. “Thanks Morris. I needed your permission. By the way, you offer your dad but not the guy?”

“If you eat the guy, how will we get to the island?”

Louis pfft-ed. “Making your father proud as always.”

(“Yes?” Vernon called distantly.)

“Shut up. You ate mum.”

“Shut up. I saved you.”

(“What about his father?”)

“You’re right, Uncle. . . . I love you. Love-uh-love-uh-love!” He chest-bumped the croc.

The croc sighed. Smiled. Shook his head, hugged the boy to his belly, and thought, What am I gonna do with you.

The motorboat engine revved. They turned to it.

“Let’s not wait all day, shall we? Hut, hut!” Clefkee shouted. Pygmy nodded beside him.

Kid and Vernon climbed the croc’s back, as the croc took boogie-board position in the sea. Each of them got a grunt out of him; how heavy they seemed today! The boat’s engine roared alive. Clefkee had Pygmy toss the kid and Vernon their own pairs of boring grown-up clothes, then said. “Here. These are your suits-with-ties. You are a naked man, Vernon, so you need yours the most; but Morris, you look too much like a boy. With this they’ll take you rational.”

Then off they sailed. Sped. Uncle Louis kept a pacy freestyle along the boat, and Morris and Vernon put on their suits. Sea in the miles they covered, boat in the lead. Gradually, just gradually, a splotch of land misted into view: Inflatext Isle. It was beach. It was jungle. It was jungle mostly: A thicket of vibrant green, of tree and vine, a pale green river flowing through its middle, the beach a golden crust lined with beach huts. Some giant black obelisk towered from the middle of it into the heavens.

Soldiers and sailors patrolled the beach, carrying tranquilizer rifles and long metal sticks—the two basic pool toy puncturing tools. One of them spotted approachers from afar. His lifeguard whistle was raised. Blown. Other sailors snapped into alert. Plus soldiers. Soldiers and sailors filed in a line, a horizontal one of dozens. A sailor wielding a megaphone raised it to his lips. He cleared his throat. He said,

“This Isle is off-limits! It is recommended you turn back immediately. Again. It is recommended you turn back immediately,” the voice blared across the open sea.

“What was that?” Clefkee hollered.

“He said not to turn back,” hollered the croc.

They sailed close. They were in firing range. The sailor-soldiers lifted their rifles. Took aim. The megaphone sailor lowered the megaphone. He shouted to his men, “It is recommended you lower your weapons!”

“It’s recommended?”; “Sir. That’s the kid and croc!”; “We’re ordered to kill them! Sir!”

“It is recommended not to kill them!” the megaphone sailor said.

Soldier-sailors were scratching their heads. Many huh?s.

Said the megaphone sailor: “Stand down! Stand down! They wear suits-with-ties!”

“And we have a cannon and rocket launcher!” Clefkee hollered, our heroes only a dozen-or-so yards away.

Said the megaphone sailor: “They have a cannon and rocket launcher! These are practical men—stand down Alphadammit!”

“The commander said . . .”; “Sir! They’re a threat!”; “. . . we must kill the kid and croc!”

Cried the megaphone sailor: “Magistar Dacorda says it is recommended not to oppose the logical! Does Magistar Dacorda not speak the immutable truth?!”

Every Definer there broke into uproar. Meanwhile, our heroes docked on the beach. The kid and Vernon got off Uncle Louis, to help Clefkee unload the launcher and set up the cannon; Uncle Louis rushed a line of men, swatted them skyward with a whip of his tail; Pygmy flipper-slapped a sailor; the kid lit the cannon, aimed, then blam! Dozens of men received the brunt of the blast in smokes, sent scattering across all corners of the Isle like dragon balls after a wish. A second cannonball was fed to the cannon by Clef and kid. A smile crept up Vernon’s face. He wiped a tear from the corner of his eye, thinking, That’s my kiddo.

Another cannon blast! A third! Definers were blown away. The air was gunpowder-y. Live Definers rattled away with their tranquilizer rifles, aiming at Uncle Louis and Pygmy. Though the two would dodge or deflect. They’d smack weaponry down, incapacitate their foes via attack by claws, flippers, teeth, or tail, sometimes blowhole. Soon a circle of cadavers surrounded our heroes. A heavier armored breed of Definers marched in. Clef took aim with the launcher: Ker-plow! Planking himself out on the beach, with a grunt, in smoke: But a rocket streaming smoke in its wake struck, exploding upon a platoon of foes. Bodies hailed. Piled. They formed bunkers. Morris could roll the cannon behind a fresh bunker then “kid” it from there: Light a match, set another one off, repeat. Brrsh! Kercha-pwoooah! Foes depleted; foes retreated; any remaining stragglers were pounced on then pummeled by our croc and dolphin.

Clefkee stood up. Dusted himself off, saying, “Things are going weller than I expected.”

Foreshadowing.

From nowhere the megaphone sailor leapt out! He locked a chokehold around Clefkee, and held a pool toy puncturing tool to Clefkee’s throat. Clef dropped the launcher. Morris and Uncle Louis were deer-in-headlights. Pygmy cried, “Uncle!” then sped at them. Vernon was the quickest of all; he sped with upper body bent in a bull-charge, preparing to tackle at the waist. The sailor whipped the tool across his forehead. An explosion of pain. Vernon howled, tumbled, spasmed to the beach floor.

“Dad!” Morris cried.

“It is recommended you drop your weapon and surrender, kid! Otherwise I will be forced to clonk this man on the head also.”

“Kid! You gotta drop your weapon! We gotta surrender,” Pygmy cried.

Uncle Louis, just eat him, the kid thought.

. . .

Uncle!

I owe Pygmy a favor, kid. Put your hands in the air.

You’re kidding!

Uncle Louis put his up. Gasps from the kid, Vernon, Clefkee, came all around. They, along with Pygmy, soon gave in, likewise.

Soldier-sailors surrounded the premises in clusters. Encircled them, rifles and tools in hand.

Megaphone man kicked Clefkee. Walked him. “Move it,” the man said.

They were lined up in the old-fashioned hands-up hostage style, and soldiers marched behind and beside them on a venture into the jungle. Black helmeted men swatted their way through vines, leaves. Stomped through underbrush. Vernon was crammed in the middle of them. This whole scene gave the impression of “don’t speak unless spoken to”. Yet Vernon whispered into his son-in-front-of-him’s ear, “Letting a man boss you around like that is spineless. I taught you better.”

“Dad I’m sorry.”

“Man up and fix this. You hear?”

My dad’s disappointed in me, the kid thought sadly. We can’t be spineless anymore, Uncle Louis. We have to fight back. You know we can win.

You’ll let me eat your dad, but still care about what he thinks of you? Uncle Louis smiled. We could fight back no problem. But I owe Pygmy a favor. We surrender for her.

I think if she knew we could take them—

Doesn’t matter. Inflatex 3:14.

What?!

Paying her back is priority number one.

Pool toys are weird sometimes, the boy thought to himself. For a while he’d brood about it. Then, Morris tapped a soldier’s elbow. He murmured, “Psst. Hey.”

“What do you want.”

“You should beat the dolphin.”

“What for?”

“She’s walking funny. You see that?”

The way Pygmy waddled uneasily on her tailfin was indeed peculiar. The soldier hesitated a moment, looked both ways, then ran up the line and whacked her with the tool to the dorsal.

“YEEAOW!” Pygmy leapt in pain. She fell curled to the ground, stopping up the rest of the line.

Soldiers halted. The guilty soldier smiled as if he’d been wanting to do this all day. He held the tool behind his back. Whistled, looking away.

“Pygmy!” Clefkee cried up ahead. The megaphone man led him on, unphased.

“Hey!” the croc growled. “What’s the big deal?”

“She was walking irrationally,” said the soldier.



“What did he do that for?” Pygmy murmured later on, stepping over a thorny root. “Oww.”

“You alright, fish?” the croc asked.

“Totally.”

“Doesn’t sound like it.”

“Sounds like your back hurts,” Morris said.

“It’s killing me!”

“A massage would be nice?” Morris said.

“I guess.”

“I’ll massage you,” the croc said, reaching for Pygmy’s shoulders.

“Wait,” Morris said. The croc paused. “Pygmy. Would you like a back massage?”

“Please,” Pygmy said.

Throwing a skeptical glance back at the boy, the croc then put his fingers into it. Kneaded all down the dolphin’s dorsal region. She wriggled. Spat an ecstatic shot of water from her blowhole with a moan! Pain and tension faded from her latex thanks to those claws of the croc. When the croc finished, the boy said:

“Uncle Louis! We can beat up the soldiers now.”

“Hm?”

“You did Pygmy a favor!”

“A good one,” Pygmy said. “I feel a gazillion times sweller!”

The croc nodded. “You know what, kid? You’re right.”

There were screams and flying bodies landing in front of the megaphone man, that forced him to halt, to widen eyes. Doubling back: The kid and Vernon and Pygmy rode the croc; the croc blazed through foes under claps of gunfire. Streams of needles clacked at them. But they were a blur. He hopped and struck in zig-zags, pummeling men with tail swipes. Claw strikes. A tool went flying. Struck the croc’s back. Luckily, it landed sideways. The croc gasped, clutched his chest, but kept on; the owner of that tool was pressed to the dirt before one could blink. Needles clacked continuously. But the croc snatched him up into the air . . . let him dangle, kick, cry . . . then let go. One gulp and the crackling of latex from the croc’s neck followed: The wriggling human descended the esophagus with a high-pitched whine on the way down, from his nails scraping against the latex. Sploosh. Uncle Louis hadn’t fallen on his back and rubbed his gut since yesterday; now he could. Kid, Vernon, Pygmy, they leapt off, rolling aside. Digestion commenced. Acid chugged away at noisily. The croc rocked back and forth, kneading with paws into himself! Urlgrllurrl, rooomf, mmt-mmt-mmf are approximations of those sounds the digesting gut made. Pleads, cries, jolts of movement, as the bulge of the belly softened. Roundened. Became fat.

“BWEH-HEH-URRRRRRRRRP!” The croc belched up boots and leggings. A rifle.

Live soldiers were frozen in place holding weaponry shakily. Orders came from megaphone man; they were either ignored or impossible to carry out, now; a paralysis had overcome them. Vernon and Morris rushed them, the man slugging a soldier dead-center between the eyes, the boy kicking the shin of another. Both afflicted men howled, either doubling over or bouncing up-and-down in circles holding his knee. One fainted. Pygmy tackled the second. She had her fun playing predator, now. She downed the second with dangling legs disappearing from sight down her throat as soon as she finished a suckle. Her stomach grew massive and bulky. She fell wobbling to the ground with a thunk. Gurgling . . . urgling . . .

The kid, croc, and Vernon didn’t expect the deep-toned belch she gave (Clefkee seemed to): “BRRRRR-UMMF!”

There remained two soldiers besides mega-man. They couldn’t harm kid-or-man (it was “recommended” not to fire the rifles at humans). It was too late when they switched to tools; the croc had swiped them up and thrown them skyward. Gulp . . . gulp! he went, catching one after the other. The croc was growing . . . a second round of growls, groans, howls proceded.

“Get ‘em, boys!” Clefkee hollered.

Mega-man shooshed him. Tightened his chokehold. “It is recommended I retreat,” said he, bolting off thataways through a curtain of vines—

—to be snatched by the collar, by Vernon, on the other side. “You’re a coward,” he growled. Then, he shouted, “Morris, you and Uncle Louis do your thing.”

Gladly.

The croc came bursting through the curtain, open-jaws first. Snapping over the mega-man’s head, he took a mega-gulp. That megaphone dropped to the grass. Zoom-in closely on the phone as screams and pounding-of-fists rang out above. Camera shaking; that means there was a tussle. Sudden muffled vocals. There was a wet gulp like stretching of a balloon, then a THUD. Uncle Louis’ arm and waist filled the camera shot. Zoom-out: Uncle Louis lay belly-up in a clearing. His stomach reverberated. All our heroes stood happily beside him, now, in a group hug. They disbanded. Laughing.

“I’m proud,” Vernon said. “Proud of my boy.”

Morris laughed. He scratched his neck, rolling his eyes. “Uncle Louis did most the work, dad.”

“As much as I’m amazing, you deserve credit here, kid.” The croc belched two times, pressing his gut. “Don’t think I don’t know about the favor.”

You knew it?

Still do. You can’t hide a thing from me. Not unless I’m paying zero attention. Our mental connection runs deep.

Are you proud of me?

Let’s not get carried away.

Dolphin and croc’s stomachs settled. Relieving themselves each with one last burp, they sighed longly. “BURRRRRRRRRRRRP . . .”; “HRRR-OOMMMMMF.” Their growth spurts halted here—the croc’s at twenty foot. The dolphin’s at ten.

“Now, hey boys. Look,” Clefkee started, pointing a finger ahead, “our destination awaits us.”

Beyond the clearing a quarter mile away, encircled by the jungle lay a giant dark obelisk. It lanced from the Isle’s center to the heavens, piercing the sea of the skies without shame. This felt unethical. This felt shameful. They all looked with wonder, wow-ing. A tear ran down the dolphin and croc’s face.

“Inflatext Tower.”

* * *

Magistar Dacorda stood, hands behind his back, watching our heroes approach from a tinted obsidian window, in a room of marble floor that was empty, save for a black glass table and armchair in its center. A dark room. Faint sun. The black leviathan purred demonically at his side. His ringed finger would pat it on the head. And he would say, “Commander.”

Appearing on the side opposite side holographically, “Magistar,” the commander said.

“Clefkee’s alive.”

Commander made no reply for a long time. “How is he dangerous?”

Dacorda remained watchful, stroking the leviathan slowly, tenderly, as the heroes progressed: They climbed the up-slope before the tower; they approached the gates; they held their own against the gatekeepers; passed, triumphant; they vanished beneath the view of the window. Then, he answered,

“He knows magic is real.”

---

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