PARKENSTEIN!

Monkton, MD, 20 October, 20__

My Dearest Sister,

And so it was that I made the acquaintance of Robert Parkenstein on my stop in Maryland. He was washed up on shore, but, then, I was later to learn that he had been washed up for a very long time, a victim of his nefarious scheme to defy Creation and play God himself. And as we were marooned in the God-forsaken shithole that is Monkton, my ship awaiting better weather, the storm blowing harder than a Michelle Bachman speech, I heard the horrifying and sad story that is Parkenstein’s. We had long hours to talk, and I came to feel sorry for him, though it was simple hubris that destroyed him. That and his mortuarial creation. I will tell his story in his words as I remember them, though his breath was most foul, smelling of hedonism and Gruner Veltliner, and it was hard to be in a small room with him as he had the figure and charm of a beanbag chair.

I became fascinated with power, Parkenstein told me, and the more power I accumulated, the more I felt this feverish desire to transfer it to another being, to give power to a cipher of my own creation. The thought obsessed me. Yes, I had created monsters before, horrible monsters—Turleystein and Rollandstein and that hideous Kranklstein—but they had life before I gave them power. I wanted to start from scratch. I wanted to give life and power. And I believed I could do it. There was nothing I couldn’t do, aside from duplicate my scores in a blind setting.

I set about obtaining parts for my creation. I thought it would be difficult, this assembling a windbag, this scavenging for a bag for my douche, but it wasn’t. There was Craigslist. “Man seeking body parts,” read my ad, “won’t pay an arm and a leg.” In less than a day I was overwhelmed with offers. A man in Napa Valley offered me the head of his late father, but he wanted 100 points in exchange, and I don’t trade points for money, I trade them for integrity. But I had mountains of body parts to choose from, and I selected carefully and, I believed, wisely.

I worked day and night, removing the parts from my freezer as I needed them, at one point mistaking a fish stick for a penis. I was so crazed I forgot to change it. It was only later, when it was alive, that I noticed him sticking packets of tartar sauce from H. Salt down his pants hoping to attract someone horny and hungry, and let the chips fall where they may. Time was of the essence, for as the parts thawed, my house began to smell like corruption. Little did I know…

Parkenstein toasts his Creation--the HORROR!!

Finally, he was assembled. I beheld my creation. To me, he was beautiful. Perfect for the life and power I intended to bestow upon him. He was bulky, I confess, a nod to my own physique, a visual clue that the good life is about overindulgence, and, more importantly, the unquenchable need to talk about it, to rub it in the faces of my followers, to write endlessly of gluttony and debauchery with the eloquence to make it seem desirable and admirable in a world of starving people, and people who would sell body parts to a madman for a pittance just to buy a bottle of one of my Best Buys Under $20. I’d used the arms and hands of a maitre-d’ to give him the natural gift of taking handouts and bribes. I’d found the brain, only slightly used, of a fellow hedonist who’d gone insane, and I took it, leaving him still functioning, yet no one could tell his skull was empty because it had always appeared that way, and never more so than recently. So with my creation’s head full of Suckling, I had to find the right nose. The nose, the most important part of my monster, the part that would define him. I had to carefully pick my nose. Hell, I thought, I know how to do that, I was once an attorney.

And so it was that I gave him the nose of a Bassett Hound. It just made sense. His nose would be sensitive, powerful, and forever in my butt, where there’s plenty of room for everyone. I was ready to give him life.


To be continued...