American Idol: The Lost Episode (HILLBILLY STORIES)

Hello, my name is Cleetus. I live on my grandpappy's ostrich farm. Or, at least, I used to. Those were happier times. Plowing the fields, milking the ostriches, plowing the milk ostriches. Those were good times. Until one fateful day.

There was a scream! I ran inside the silo, but it was too late. Grandpappy was dead. Highly realistic gore had spilled everywhere. A trickle of blood had even spilled onto a note. Could this have been grandpappy's last wish? Disheveled and disoriented, I picked up the note, but tripped over a shovel that we used for dishoveling ostrich dung. I was in horrifying pain! It was all useless now. I would never be able to read the note. Because I didn't know how to read, but also, I lost my hold on the note when I fell, and I couldn't get back up. I had broken my arms and legs in my downfall to the ground.

Three weeks had passed and I was starving to death. Things smelled really bad in there, and you can imagine why. That's when I realized that I could move around by crawling on my belly, like the wily snake. I did just that, and other than the intense hunger pangs and the dryness in my throat from lack of liquid refreshment, I felt optimistic for the first time in weeks. I crawled toward the note. The blood had now dried. I prayed to Jesus for the miracle of being able to read in American English.

But then--there was a scream! Another? ... Already? Well, it had been three weeks (I could tell from the sun rising and setting out the window 21 times while I was living on the ground). I crawled on my belly as fast as I could, but then I--I felt a sharp and excruciating pain, right in my belly. Oh, a stumbling block! But was this not only fitting, as I had regressed to the form of a lowly serpent in my pursuit of personal knowledge? That's what I got for asking questions...

I looked down at the makeshift ground weapon that had singed my groin and loins. It was some sort of plastic contraption, rectangularly shaped, with a tape-like inside. I reckoned that it was some sort of government tracking device. However, seven and a half minutes later, it finally dawned on me: this was one of them newfangled VHS tapes! Not being fond of the liberal media, I attempted to grab the tape before recalling that my arms were now as unworkable as an inner city welfare mom. Having no choice but to eat of the apple, I examined the tape. I recognized the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic characters from my days at the local seminary studying double predestination penetration or whatsitnow. I also shed a tear at what I saw on the other end of the labeling sticker of the thing. An American flag. Why, gee golly whillikers...

Suddenly, my brain stuff lit up and I had a brilliant idea. "Help!!", I screamed. It must have been a few minutes, but my ostrich call turned true! Sweet Bessy the Ostrich stormed right on in, picked me up on her beak, lifted me onto her back, and rode me to safety. She also swallowed the VHS tape in one gulp. It was what it was.

I looked at my hands. There were five fingers on each hand. 1... 2... 21. No, that's not right. What's that word--triune? Well, father, son, and Casper the ghost! It was 1, 2, and 3! I had only been in the silo for 3 days! But I was ressurected now.

Bessy dropped me outside the front door, which lead right up to the kitchen area. Not knowin' what else to do, I crawled in through the catflap.

Right there, in the kitchen, was grandmammy.

"Where ya been, Cleetus?", she howled. "Yer breakfast from three days ago is getting cold." I looked at the kitchen table. A pile of pancakes covered in flies, maggots, and A1 steak sauce sat in front of my usual seat.

"Grandmammy, it's, uh, grandpap..."

"Grandpappy's been dead for five years, Cleetus", Grandmammy said in disappoinment. "Now hurry up and eat yet starches. It's packed full of fly protein, too."

I threw up. Then I remembered...

Now, for those of you who don't have amnesia, I really don't recommend it. It makes you forget a lot of things, like your name, your favorite television program, and knowing what you did last Summer. As it turned out, I forgot all about grandpappy's sordid past, because I just couldn't take it anymore. One day, I had moved out of town, far away from the ostrich ranch, in search of something far greater than I could ever imagine. Then I realized that there was no god and I moved back home and spent my lonely days sitting on the couch playing with myself and ingesting market pantry baked cheese squares snack crackers and 2-liters of strawberry diet dr. pepper.

I had left my sweet, North Dakota home behind in search of something far greater. I mean, I already said that, but shut up already and let me tell you about it. As someone who always believed in the kindness of strangers, I thumbed my way all up that old dirt road and took some joy rides from some rather unusual types. A fella with strapped-on el nerdo glasses, a man who babbled about an equinious future, a fella with orange hair who always kept a spare bottle of tea in his trunk. It was a long, long road ahead, but I made it in time to communist capital U.S.A.: Los Angeles, California. I packed my usual: sawed-off shotgun, copy of Men's Fitness, a fanny-pack full of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches without the crusts. Played 'eye spy with my little eye' to pass the time. That, and I looked forward to the rest stops. Without the sweet, sweet smell of gasoline, I'd probably cut off my nose to spite my face. And, y'know. Highly realistic gore would spill everywhere. Hyuck!

I called in advance on a payphone. They knew I was coming when I arrived. "Let me escort you to your room, you little b****.", a man in a condescending British accent suggested. I was starstruck: he was exactly how I always imagined him. Simon Cowell! He made you feel like you had no pals, and man oh man did it make me smile hepatitis: normally you'd smack such an unkindly feller on the cheek, but instead, I puckered up and gave him a peck (please don't suggest anything about me based on that). After being jumped on and touched inappropriately by several security guards, pleasantries were over, and I was escorted to my hotel room. Now, I'll admit that that was when things got more than a little... weird. There wasn't a typical wooden hotel room door, but rather, bars that stretched up and down, and they locked me in. I asked if they had accidentally put me in a wrong room, but they told me that they'd never been more righter in all their life. Seemed a little suspicious, but I was ready for some shuteye. I dozed off like a $5 prostitute in need of a new medium.

What I didn't expect. ...Well... ...let me just say that I didn't expect what happened next.

When I woke up, I was surrounded with what I assumed was exploded tomato sauce... but after sticking a finger on the hard cement floor and licking it up, I realized that it was definitely not of the Heinz variety. Blood! In my hotel room? "Somebody call for an ambulance!", I screamed. But there was nobody. I yelled again, disturbed and frantic for answers, but there was no callback. What made matters even weirder was that my door had been unlocked, and swung open.

Now, listen: I always depended on the kindness of strangers, but this was more than a little strange. I nibbled on a pb&j wedge for a bit before heading off downstairs. To my delight, I saw that the other rooms looked just like mine, so there was no way that they made a mistake about my reservation. But where did all the people go...?

That was when I smacked myself on the head so hard that I wished I had a hard head. The American Idol television program: of course! They were filming it right now! I had to hurry up and make it down to the studio before I missed out on my audition, and opportunity for fame and fortune.

I must have made a few wrong turns not long after that, because I didn't notice a single television camera. I did notice some surveillance cameras, which made me believe that I may have wandered into one of them newfangled urbane shopping store districts, like they had combined a hotel and a mall or somethin' of that nature, but nope. At this point I stopped thinking too much about all of the blood on the ground, because it had become a common occurrence so I had been desensitized to it. Maybe that was what they did out in Los Angeles, and I should learn to be more accepting of their culture, even if I personally did not want to participate in it. I realized that I had been put in striped Yankees clothes sometime when I must not have been paying attention, so I took 'em off and continued buck naked for a little while before picking a fancy pair of jeans-styled overalls off of a corpse. It wasn't like he was gonna miss it anyway, so I figured, hey, why not? A little hospitality couldn't hurt the dead.

I must have walked several miles in that hotel room without seeing a single person. I felt tired again, and I was hungry. I was a diabetic, and I was out of medical peanut butter and jelly crustless sandwiches. I figured maybe if I looked around I'd find the hotel kitchen and make some of my own up, but I wandered into a bathroom at some point instead. After taking a drink from the brown water oozing out from the sink's bottom pipes, I felt refreshed and went back out into the hallway, when I finally found... a strange light. And out in the distance... a figure! Of a man!

"Excuuuuse me!", I called out. The man seemed happy to see me. "Tickets?", he offered. "I... uh...". I stuck my hands in my overalls. Well, s***. Pardon my French, I know I have no excuse for cussin', but I had left my audition tickets in my blazer! "Ya can look up my name, right?". "Sure thing, Bub.", the gentleman barked back with a Simon scowl. I felt right at home, at that point. "Mr. Cleetus...", he said with a pregnant pause. "No, I can't say I see a Mr. Cleetus deWingdings McGillicutty here. Are you sure you weren't looking for another restaurant?".

Restaurant? "I'm lookin' for the American Idol'' audition, kind sir.", I bounced back. He feigned amusement'' at my answer. He chortled. "I'm looking for a reason to believe in a kind and loving creator, but you can't always get what you want." "But if you try sometimes, you can get what you need!", I protested.

Look. Listen. Really. I'm not kidding. Really. What happened next, like, I wouldn't blame you if you didn't believe me, but it did happen. The security man... exploded. Blood, gore, fragments of bone, and strawberry alarm clocks flew everywhere while I screamed my lungs out in protest. "Come in!", a voice responded. Well, good thing that my distress didn't last very long, because I could feel a vein begin to snap out of my forehead. The voice sounded very familiar. The padlock opened and I waltzed right on in, humming "Walking on Sunshine" to myself like I had just won the lottery because the previous champion didn't bother calling in to claim their prize.

"Hi, I'm Paula Abdul.", said Paula Abdul. Well, this was already a good sign! I looked around and saw the kindly grimaces and winces of an audience that had just witnessed a horrible rendition of a popular song and were told not to hold it back for ratings purposes. "I must be dreaming! But this is real! All of it! It's really... real!". I squealed in delight. My vacation had not been in vain after all! Grandpappy and grandmammy would be so pleased. "It looks like you made it past the waiting line in record time", a darker gentleman you likely know as Randy Jackson commented. "I can only imagine how great your performance is about to be. I'm really excited. But aren't all of us, here?" The audience cheered. Oh, BOY!

At that moment, it was like time froze. It may have lasted forever, for all I knew, but the lights were shinin' bright on me. Could the reason that mommy and daddy conceived before moving off to Africa and joining the peace corp finally be coming to fruition? Was this why god had made me those very 25 years ago? I grabbed the mic. I sweat really hard. I felt a lump form in my throat. I was... full of stage fright.

"Oh, go f*** a duck, Michigan J. Frog". Simon let out a sarcastic remark. f*** face. The audience hissed and hollered in acceptance of his witty depiction of my nervous slip-up. "I... I'm going to sing you a song.", I added. "Good. Because I'm going to sing you your last rights if you don't stop being a little b****." More hooting, more hollering. I felt like I had made a wrong turn around Albuquerque. Maybe I wasn't cut out for the pop singer kind of lifestyle after all.

"Hey, man, I believe in you.", Randy added. "Besides, we have nothing else to do. I'm in here for murder." Uh... what? "I stole diamonds.", Paula added. The f***? ...I tilted my head, like a little dog trying to understand what their masters and mistresses were trying to say. "Oh, hey, wait a minute! You're trying to motivate me!". I felt a sudden surge in confidence, and my vocal chords had instantly prepared themselves without me needing to perform any warm-up exercises. It was like everything was finally starting to go my way, for once in my life! I puckered my lips--this time, not to kiss Simon physical, but with notes of irresistible melody. I lifted my microphone. It was time. My time. My time to walk... on the sun.

If it hadn't been for Cotton-Eye Joe I'd been married a long time ago Where did you come from, where did you go? Where did you come from, Cotton-Eye Joe?

If it hadn't been for Cotton-Eye Joe I'd been married a long time ago Where did you come from, where did you go? Where did you come from, Cotton-Eye Joe?

If it hadn't been for Cotton-Eye Joe I'd been married a long time ago Where did you come from, where did you go? Where did you come from, Cotton-Eye Joe?

If it hadn't been for Cotton-Eye Joe I'd been married a long time ago Where did you come from, where did you go? Where did you come from, Cotton-Eye Joe?

He came to town like a midwinter storm He rode through the fields, so handsome and strong His eyes was his tools and his smile was his gun But all he had come for was having some fun

I could hear the audience boo, and this time, hiss in disapproval. This was... not going the way I had dreamed of it so long ago. I stopped singing. I took a gulp. A Big Gulp. I could see the looks of disapproval in the judges' eyes. Either I could change my song now, or I could...

I could LOSE! On American IDOL!

Well, I wasn't one to give in to temptation! I bit my upper lip. It hurt like hell and it may have even bled, but I wasn't going to let that stop me. I took my overalls off and threw them into the crowd. This time, I was serious. Serious as the Son of Sam. Serious Sam. I puckered up again, and this time, I WASN'T going to blow! I got into a fighting position, in excitement...

It's peanut butter jelly time,  Peanut butter jelly time Peanut butter jeeelllly!!! Peanut butter jeeelllly!!! Peanut butter jelly! Peanut butter jelly! Peanut butter jelly with a baseball bat! Peanut butter jelly! Peanut butter jelly! Peanut butter jelly with a baseball bat! Now, where he at Where he at Where he at Where he AT!!!

There... was a lengthy pause. It couldn't have been a pregnant pause, because it felt much longer than 9 months. I could feel... an aura of uncertainty. Was I going to get the hook? Did I grab them with a musical hook? Should I give up, go home, and watch Hook?

I felt what seemed a lot like an electrical zap. Actually, I'm pretty sure it was an electric zap, but I wasn't interested in that right now. I was interested in what the judges had thought of my performance. It was like the entire universe had frozen yet again. I glanced... stared... directly into Simon Cowell's eyes. They were beautiful. Blissful. And oh so very real. In them, I saw passion. Love. Despair. As if by telekinesis, I could see the origins of his personal wounds. I realized that, in another universe, that man could have been me, and I could have been him.

At the end of the day, we all are just one single entity. You might think of a chair as being a chair, a cloud as being a cloud, a platypus as being a platypus, and a cardboard box as being what you grew up in, but there's really much more to it than that. You see, monists are actually right, and so is the Buddha: it might seem like things are separate things, and people are all separate people, but if we were all indeed packed into one infinitely dense container as one singularity--one point of light--then doesn't that mean we all come from the same origin? Whatever we were before now, or will be after now, contains no significance. Life may not have any inherent meaning, but the important thing is what you make out of life. Obviously, you celebrate happy moments, mourn losses, laugh at funny jokes, get scared by scary stories, you know the drill--but what would we be if we had lost even one of those very emotions that make us human? Why, we would still be part of the universe! We can both observe our very human nature in our present form, and live out what we evolved to be in response to our ancestors' environments, and recognize that what we become when all is said and done is not necessarily a reason to be afraid of where we came from and where we must go. It is all self-sufficient, because we are all part of the 'self'. It isn't 'us and them'. It's us AND them--as one!

After that, Simon Cowell's head exploded. Randy started screaming, and then his did, too. Paula tried to run away, but then she fell down and drowned in a pool of her own blood. I didn't have a reaction--it was too much for me to even mourn the shocking truth.

The shocking truth that the American Idol television program had been cancelled by a mysterious force that I could never hope to understand.

Not long after that, I felt a sharp, agonizing blow to the back of my head, and I fell asleep for awhile. I'm not sure what happened, but I woke up back on the ostrich ranch. Had it all... been just a dream? I was lying in bed, when grandmammy walked in with a warm towel, and a steaming hot bowl of Campbell's chicken soup.

"You's been having that dream again, boy. I told you to lay off the sweets!". She was right--yesterday was Halloween, and in celebration of our farm, I had went out as an ostrich. My costume was very popular, and won first place at the Halloween party at Jenkins' Pumpkin Patch. It was the proudest moment of my life. I celebrated by eating my entire bag of candy overnight--including the bag itself. "Sorry, mammy. I'll be a good young'un for now on." I paused. I noticed a look of abject sadness in grandmammy's eye. "Wh--where's grandpappy, grandmammy?".

Defeated and disheveled, grandmammy handed me--you know--that rectangular, tapular contraption. A VHS tape. I took out the old bunny ears antenna TV from the closet, and watched it. And, there it was. A television news program.

"Englebert County News regrets to announce the death of Grandpappy McGillicutty, who tragically passed in an accidental shooting to his groin by his own grandson. The family were performing their own version of the popular American Idol television program when the tragedy unfolded. The following recording of the program is...".

I shut the tape off, ran downstairs, and threw it in the silo. I hoped to never see it...again.

The End