A tail.
A goddamn tail.
I had been so worried about the horns that I hadn’t noticed the appearance of the tail.
Go figure.
* * *
No, I didn’t have many friends in those days. Truth is, I don’t have many friends now. In fact, I might even have more enemies than friends.
It’s the way of superheroes.
Anyway, with the appearance of the horns and tail, I called the only person I could think of: a fellow rodeo clown named Gerald. He and I had worked many years together. We weren’t actually friends, but we had shared a beer or two. Now, thirty minutes later and sporting a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon under one arm, Gerald, sans the clown make-up, appeared at my door.
And nearly dropped the Pabst Blue Ribbon.
Nearly. It would take a lot more than horns and a tail to make Gerald lose his grip on his beer.
Instead, he cowboyed-up through the shock and was soon sitting across from me in the living room. My ass was still sore from the new tail and, quite frankly, I wasn’t sure exactly how to sit with it, so I stood and paced. Gerald kept drinking until the shock wore off.
“Jesus,” he said again, for perhaps the tenth time.
“Yup.”
He motioned to my horns. “Those things real?”
I lowered my head, gave him a good look.
“They look real,” he said and drank a lot more beer. “You have anything to say about all of this?”
“Damn strange,” I said.
Gerald nodded. “Yup.”
It went on like this for another ten minutes as he examined my tail, running his hands along it, getting dangerously close to my backside.
“I don’t feel right looking too closely,” he said.
“Jesus, it’s just a tail, Gerald,” I snapped.
“Yeah, but it’s attached to your ass. Your shockingly hairy ass.”
I shook my head and continued pacing, my tail whipping about the small apartment. Once or twice the furry end smacked Gerald in the head. He said “hey” but kept on drinking.
“Well, it stands to reason...” Gerald finally said, after perhaps his eighth beer.
“What stands to reason?” I asked.
I had been pacing and panicking and wishing like hell I would wake up from whatever nightmare I was in the middle of. No such luck.
“Well, the bull that was about to hit you done disappeared.”
“What do you mean disappeared?” This, of course, was the first I’d heard of it.
“Well, most people were scattering for cover and not too many saw what I saw.”
“What did you see, Gerald?”