Henrietta Johnson and the Three Bears

Henrietta Johnson and the Three Bears
(Copyright Theodore Holden, 1990s)

Once upon a time, not terribly long ago in fact, near one of the nation's larger cities, there was a "modern" zoo, of the sort which people had begun to call a "natural habitat" zoo. And, at this zoo, working as an animal keeper and veterinarian's assistant, there was a young girl named Henrietta "Goldilocks" Johnson; she had acquired the nickname because of her affinity for bears, and because she fed them and they followed her around. Henrietta Johnson was eighteen years old, about five feet ten inches tall, had an angel's face with skin about the color you would get mixing milk and Hershey's chocolate six to one, and had a body capable of stopping diesel locomotives in their tracks. Most people have to work at inciting a riot; Henrietta could incite riots just walking down the sidewalk.

The princes of the city began to notice that something was fundamentally out of balance in the city's economy and in their normal flow of revenues, that big games, rock concerts, big fights, major drug deals, disco parlor happenings, and other kinds of ordinary fund-raising events were going largely unattended and that large crowds of people, many of the sort which normally attended activities such as those mentioned, were increasingly in evidence at the city zoo for some reason. The princes of the city were concerned with this phenomenon, since there was no real way for them to raise money at the city zoo.

The problem was soon under discussion at a late night meeting of the city's secondary Chamber of Commerce, the one whose activities you don't normally read about in the business section of the daily newspaper. "We've got to get that Henrietta Johnson married and out of circulation" said Big Jake Wilson, the chairman of the board.

"It aint like there aint a couple thousand guys out there tryin day an night, Jake..." replied Dan the Dude Danford, one of the city's disco kingpins. "Got any ideas?"

"They aint been tryin hard enough." continued Jake. Jake turned his gaze to Ricardo (Rick the Rooster) Rincenti, connoisseur of women and prototype American Gigolo, every woman's dream. Rick looked the part of a youthful middle-eastern potentate, with an olive complexion, wavy hair, a Roman nose, and a $700 suit. For pure libidinal bang for the buck, so to speak, Rick was said to have no peer. "You ever been married, Rick?" he asked.

"Oh no, now wait a minute here fellas..." Rick replied, but all eyes were on him and he knew it was too late; the only way out of this one would have been not to have shown up for the meeting. It was decided right then and there that Rick and Henrietta were to be married after a whirlwind courtship of two weeks.

Henrietta, however, had numerous sources of information of her own; in this case, the pigeons who had watched the chamber of commerce meeting from the 35'th floor window-sill. Henrietta wasn't really ready to get married just yet, and she had the chamber figured as a gang of turkeys. And, when Rick the Rooster showed up in his red Ferarri Testarosa three nights later in an Yves St. Laurent suit, flowers in hand, she was ready.

Rick the Rooster always came prepared. Aside from the $700 suit, he always packed, ported, and sported the latest in Italian hosiery, French cologne, gold and silver jewelry, Western birth-control technology and, of course, his rabbits foot. Rick never went anywhere without his rabbits foot, figuring it brought him luck and kept evil spirits away. In fact, Rick's reputation for being superstitious preceeded him somewhat and, knowing of this, Henrietta had prepared her little cottage especially for him that night.

"Won't you come in?" she asked. Rick entered the little cottage, halfway stumbling over the step down from the doorway because of the poor lighting, mostly beeswax candles. He began to notice a rather astonishing collection of mystic symbols, Tarot cards, iron pentangles, shrunken heads, and like parephenalia spread out over small tables and other surfaces and hung about from the ceiling, the skylight, and numerous nooks and crannies in the eerie dwelling. In one corner was an ancient spinning wheel, at least two hundred years old. There was a frightening wolf's head mounted on a plaque on the wall over the small chimney and, on the opposite wall where Rick might have figured a telivision or at least SOMETHING from the 20'th century to have been, a large poster of Lon Chaney in his Wolf-Man alter ego and the insignia "Walk Like a Man, Kill Like a Wolf!" in Gothic calligraphy. Several posters depicting scenes from Cecil B. DeMill renditions of ancient Babylon hung about on other walls.

Rick supressed a shudder. "Man!, nobody said anything about this chick being into the occult!" he thought to himself. "You much into werewolves?" he asked.

"Oh, not me." the girl replied. "I just stay here during summers while I'm not in school. The cottage and most of the stuff belongs to the old dude who runs the zoo, any rate, I don't have the nerve to try to redecorate it. You look a little nervous... say, could you use a drink or something?"

"Don't mind if I do..." Rick replied, "You got any wine cooler or a malt lager around?"

"That kind of stuff is for yuppies!" Henrietta replied. "Where my people come from, the folks take their drinking more seriously than that!"

Henrietta disappeared into the kitchen and returned with two tall glasses of planters punch. "Only problem is..." she continued, "most of the guys from the islands my parents came from can't really handle the stuff. They end up breaking up all the furniture and trying to beat up everybody they come across. Anybody I marry has GOT to be able to hold his liquor!"

"I aint ever had any problems in THAT department!" replied Rick, quaffing the glass, and beginning to get a first good look at Henrietta after getting over his initial reaction to the cottage.

"You feel like going out driving in the Ferarri?" Rick asked. "I'd thought we might just stick around awhile and get to know each other." Henrietta replied.

"You got a radio or anything to dance to?" he asked.

"Sure..." she said, suiting actions to words, and soon they were dancing to the strains of the Credence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Risin", Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs' "Hey There Little Red Ridin Hood", and other great hits of the 50's and 60's, and drinking more of the planters punch, Henrietta's mother's recipe with six different kinds of rum, coconut milk, brown sugar, guanabana juice, and eleven different herbs and spices.

Rick was starting to lose control and was more than a little bit woozy, dancing closely with Henrietta, wolfing down more of the island punch, and howling along with Sam the Sham, when of a sudden, Henrietta stopped in the middle of a twirl directly under the open skylight, looked up, and gasped "Oh my God, there's a full moon out tonight, isn't there?!"

"Seems to be..." replied Rick. "What about it?"

"Oh nothing I suppose..." replied Henrietta, "guess you only go around once... what do you say we finish that pitcher of punch and then go to bed?"

"Tremendous idea!" replied Rick.

Rick finished his fair share of the remainder of the punch and then passed out on the floor and Henrietta CARRIED him to bed and, in the morning when he woke up, next to him in bed where he might have thought Henrietta to have been, was a large grey female timber wolf with Henrietta's red ribbon around her neck and wearing Henrietta's negligee.

"Did you enjoy last night?" the wolf asked, traces of a coy smile etched across her muzzle. Rick turned ghostly pale and was gone faster than a bat out of hell, and the other princes of the city found him sitting on a park bench, shaking and mumbling to himself, a sort of a vacant stare on his face.

"I owe you one, Lola" Henrietta said to the wolf as she accompanied her back to the wolf runs.

"My pleasure..." replied the wolf, "that was the funniest thing I ever saw."

"I'm beginnin to lose my respect for this younger generation!" thundered Big Jake at the next meeting of the chamber of commerce, "Bunch of limp wicks!!" Rick the Rooster endured the humiliation without a word, figuring himself fortunate to have recovered his sanity in the few days prior to the meeting.

"You sent a boy on a man's errand..." said Calvin the Capitalist Calhoun (numbers, loan-sharking, money-laundering etc. etc.). "Hell, I'LL marry the girl."

"You're already married!" replied Jake.

"What Ethel don't know won't hurt er." responded Cal and, shortly thereafter, the meeting was adjourned.

Unfortunately, given all of the hustle and bustle of American life, it often happens that people who succeed particularly in some area of life never seem to have time for learning things the rest of us regard as normal social amenities and functionality. Cal the Capitalist had learned everything he knew about courtship and romance from watching old Mack Sennet films and, rather than spend the time or energy proposing to Henrietta himself, he dispatched an employee of his, a certain Steve "the Stooge" Stoddard, to make the necessary arrangements.

Steve the Stooge arrived at the city zoo around mid-afternoon two days later, wearing formal clothes, including a black silk hat, and mumbling "i can't believe i'm doing this... i can't believe i'm doing this..." under his breath. Steve found Henrietta simply by following the crowds and asked her for directions to her parent's dwelling, explaining that he had some business to conduct with them and, since Henrietta's real parents were on vacation back at the islands at the time and were not due back for two months, Henrietta did the next best thing and directed him to her foster family, the bears' cottage (Remember, this is a fairy tale and, in a fairy tale, a bear's natural habitat IS a cottage).

Steve knocked loudly on the door of the little cottage and, at first, there was no answer. "I have been sent to arrange a marriage between your daughter, Henrietta Johnson, and my boss, Calvin the Capitalist Calhoun..." he announced, "and empowered to inform you that, should you not agree to this marriage, my boss, Calvin the Capitalist, will foreclose the mortgage on your cottage!"

When Papa Bear heard this, he began to howl and cry: "Uuf Uuf Uuf Uuf, RHRHRHROHRHRHR!!! Capitalist forclose mortgage on bears cottage, now bears have to go live with wolves, eat wolf food stead of fish, smell BAD!!! RHRHRHRHRHROHOHRHRHR!!!"

"Calm down, big dummy!" replied Mama Bear. "Capitalist not hold mortgage on Bear's cottage. Zoo hold; must be some kind of mistake..."

And then, Mama Bear glanced out one of the side windows of the little cottage and noticed Henrietta waving to her from a distance and said "Ooooh! Understand now! Henrietta send capitalist lackey for bears to EAT!"

Steve was standing on the porch of the little cottage trembling in terror from all of the roaring and growling he had been listening to up to this point. Suddenly, the door opened and, in a trice, three sets of large brown furry forelegs and paws whisked him into the cottage, and then the door slammed shut behind him.

"Hey! I can't believe this, you're supposed to be tame bears... Hey! that's an expensive suit there watch it! You can't get away with this, my boss'll come down on you like a load-a-bricks! Hey!, Jesus Christ!! ain't ya even gonna cook me first!? No!! I didn't mean that!! Ouch!! That water's hot! Hey! don't close that lid over me!!...

Henrietta walked off shaking her head and thinking "Damn!, I'm never going to be able to teach those bears any manners!"

The following Thursday evening at the Chamber of Commerce meeting, one of the larger varieties of winged denizens of the zoo (of the sort which normally eats dead things) returned the earthly remains of Steve the Stooge, mostly just some well-gnawed bones and the silk hat, through an open window of the board room.

"You know, it's a shame..." said Cal the Capitalist, a pained expression on his face, "Sometimes I wonder what's going to become of our American Free Enterprise system, I mean, it's gettin to where I can't find competent help any more!"

"We may have more of a problem here than I figured." said Big Jake, "Maybe I'd better call somebody in from Detroit and take care of this Chick!"

There were boos and hisses in the room: "Loosin yer nerve, Jake?" "C'mon, Jake, this is gettin to be a challenge!" "This was just gettin to be fun, Jake..." "Before you do that, Jake, let me take a shot at it." This last voice was that of Karl (the Kidnapper) McCormick, whose nickname was a completely adequate description of his trade.

"You gonna try to kidnap the chick and marry her?" asked Jake.

"Couldn't hurt to try..." replied Karl, "Couldn't possibly be any trickier than baggin them two DEA agents last month." And, shortly thereafter on that note, the meeting was adjourned.

Rick the Rooster left the meeting and paid a visit to his grandmother, the neighborhood palm-reader. "Grandma..." he began, "you gotta level with me, I know you've probably been hearing about the chick at the zoo and what happened the other night... are there REALLY any werewolves left in the world?"

"Not really," replied Grandma Rincenti, "but there's plenty of DUMMIES in the world who'll believe anything they hear (staring at Rick as she spoke) and the effect is just about the same."

"That chick switched a real wolf on me!?" said Rick.

"Smart girl." said Grandma Rincenti, "Smart girl, good deal brighter than those society types I keep seein you with. Kind of a shame she's gonna end up with that idiot kidnapper instead of you..."

It might have been too late for somebody driving more ordinary machinery, but Rick made it to zoo in a 160 mph hurry in the Testarossa, and noted Karl McCormick's van peeling away from in front of Henrietta's cottage. Rick dashed into Henrietta's cottage, picking up a few things he figured might be appropriate, and then stopped by the wolf runs. "Henrietta needs your help..." he explained to his erstwhile acquaintance, "and besides, how often does a wolf get to ride in a Ferarri?" The big timberwolf hopped into the passenger seat of the Ferarri, a gleefull smile on her face, and they were off.

Rick sped off to Paddy O'Shea's Tavern where he figured Karl the Kidnapper would be having a few beers and boasting with his friends before driving Henrietta (who was handcuffed and locked in the back of Karl's kidnapping van) off on their honeymoon to the No-Tell Motel on route 7. He found Karl's van out in the parking lot beside the tavern.

"I have to admire a girl who could pull off a stunt like that..." he said as he opened the rear door of the van with one of his trusty lock picks.

"MMMHHMMMHMHM" replied Henrietta; Rick removed the gag.

"You can go ahead and marry Karl if you want, but I wouldn't recommend it..." Rick continued, "he's into all kinds of weird games with whips and chains and what not...", you'd be better off with a guy like me!"

"I could almost believe that..." replied Henrietta, "if you can get me loose from some of these chains, we could at least go somewhere and talk about it." Rick undid the locks and chains. "I brought you a pair of jeans and a sweat-shirt", Rick said, "I'll need your dress for your friend in the car." Henrietta chuckled, noticing Lola as she got out of the van and, shortly, the big wolf, wearing Henrietta's dress, had taken Henrietta's place in the van.

"You know how to get back to the zoo from the No-Tell.." Rick said, for a wolf on foot it's just about five miles over the hills there, just head straight out from the motel... you don't really need to bite the guy a whole lot, just scare the holy hell out of him." Rick produced an ad poster from The American Werewolf in London, "can you make a face like that??"

"God!, that's scary!" replied Lola "I guess I could try..."

"Yeah, that's close enough!" said Rick.

Karl the Kidnapper drove off towards the No-Tell Motel, pleasantly inebriated, and switched on the car stereo in which, unbeknownst to him, Rick had placed Henrietta's Sam the Sham tape:

"Hey there Little Red Riding Hood, you sure are lookin good, you're every-thaang a big bad wolf could want... Awooooo - oooooo oooo..."

Karl joined in: "Ahhwoooooo-oooo-ooooo-oooooooooooooo...", and, at this point, he noticed a really GOOD wolf call from the rear of the van: "Ahr, Ahh roooooooooooooooooooo - oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo..."

"Whooo-eee, my, my, my!!!", Karl chuckled, " you do a really MEAN wolf imitation there little darlin, heh, heh, heh..." And then:

"Hey!! You're supposed to be GAGGED!!??"

The rest of this part of the story is, perhaps, best left to the reader's imagination.

Rick and Henrietta collected Lola and a couple of Henrietta's other pals, drove off into the sunset in the red Ferarri and, the last anybody heard, had opened their own zoo and were living happily ever after.