Cheap Coyote Tricks      by Greg Keeler         Page 27                

 
An Intellectual Friendship

When the doorbell rang
in Crow's house, it played
the first fourteen notes of
The Battle Hymn of the Republic.
Upon ringing it, Coyote, who wasn't
very good at recognizing tunes,
thought it was the theme song
from The Beverly Hillbillies.
So as he entered and Crow 
greeted him, Coyote was singing,
"and up from the ground 
came a bubblin' crude--oil that is."
"No, no," laughed Crow. "That's
The Battle Hymn of the Republic."
"Quite right," said Coyote, pleased
with Crow's sardonic thoughts
on patriotism, oil, war and religion.
After that, the two of them became
good friends because of their
close intellectual bonds.

  
June Bug's Tropical Business Vacation

Because they had all filed
their income tax returns
at the last minute, Carp ,
Penguin, and June Bug all
stumbled into one another
at night outside of the 
post office. Carp and Penguin
had secretly cheated on their
declared income and resented
it when June Bug bragged about
declaring every penny he earned
but writing it all off as business
expenses. "Declare this!" said
Penguin, flipping on a bug zapper
in front of the post office.
Immediately, June Bug buzzed
toward the zapper, officiously
scribbling on a little pad.
Seconds later, among a few 
scattered ashes, Penguin found
a charred slip of paper with
this jotted on it:
tropical business vacation.


Shredded Clam Gothic

Thunder pealed and rain slashed
against the battlements of the old
Howard Johnson's as Coyote sat
huddled in a garret writing his
masterpiece by the dim glow of
a hurricane lamp. Beneath him,
up from the ancient vaults, came
a hideous soft thumping. In horror,
Coyote looked to the door just
in time to see Bunny appear in
a mist of fetid vapor. "Sorry,"
said Bunny. "They're out of burgers,
so I got shredded clams."
"Yeh, great, clams, great,"
mumbled Coyote, impatient to
finish his spine-tingling conclusion.
"I just...." said Bunny.
"Shhhhhhhh," said Coyote.
After that, Coyote had plenty of
peace and quiet, but found it rather
difficult to write with hot
shredded clams dripping from
his head to the keyboard
of his Mac Classic.
Stewards of the Land

With blistered hands, Coyote 
breathed a sigh of relief and let
the hammer and chisel fall
to the ground beside him.
Though this part of the project had
taken most of his life, he knew that
not a moment had been wasted,
for above him, hewn into the
mountainside, was the likeness
of a huge television screen.
A half century later, Coyote's 
children breathed a sigh of relief
and let their chisels fall to
the ground beside them, for they had 
finally finished the project. They 
had hewn a picture of how the
mountain originally looked 
onto the face of the television screen.

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