CHAPTER 8

Mother of God. I somehow thought if anyone could survive falling from the roof of a castle, it would be Gaston! But when me and the boys came to help him, he was… well…

I kind of wish I'd just let him turn into a flower in front of a mirror. It would have been more dignified.

I mean, really! I thought he'd break his leg or something. I was not expecting this. Apparently, if you hit water from a great enough height (says Limey Bastard) the force is equivalent to striking pavement. Gaston fell from twenty stories, then into a chasm a quarter mile deep. When someone who's roughly the size of a barge does that, the result is… you know what a paella looks like?

Django lets us borrow that coffin he hauls around to transport Gaston back home. What's left of him.

It's when I'm wrestling one of his eyes out of a turtle's mouth that it really hits me, and the boo-hoo-hooing starts.

The funeral is a couple days later. The whole town turns out. He's got six craps-shooting pall-bearers and the chorus girls sing him a song. We keep the casket closed, because me and my cousins didn't do a very good job putting Gaston back together. I never was able to get his eye out of that turtle's mouth, so we had to put the turtle in the coffin with him. I didn't want anyone to know about that, but you can hear it crawling around in there. Gaston would have been so disappointed: I think he wanted his body stuffed and put up in the tavern with the trophies.

The priest begins the elegy, speaking in solemn tones:

"No one slogged like Gaston, being top dog like Gaston, in a limelight that no one could hog like Gaston; and no other had ego more captivating. My, what a guy, Gaston. Amen."

"Amen," we all somberly echo.

Then in the middle of the service, who of all people shows up?

I can't believe she had the nerve. Belle comes in, all dressed in black silk. On her arm is this six and a half foot strawberry blond himbo who is wearing a cape that had to have cost more than would keep a family in comfort for a month.

"We owe him something," I hear the himbo whisper like a guy who is used to screaming everything at the top of his lungs. "You said it yourself, you wouldn't have broken the curse in time if he hadn't done it…"

Everyone's staring at them because they arrived late, but they take seats in the back and keep quiet by making out with each other until the service is concluded and the traditional honorary funeral games begin. See, in our town, we have a tradition that goes back to Ancient Greece, of having wrestling matches and boxing after all the funerals. Game time is on: the priest rips off his cassock and his Monsignor Murder outfit is underneath. The Sausage comes leaping out of the pews and the altar boys scurry to clear away the Paschal candle.

Then the Gautier girls remember the whole reason that this funeral is even taking place is because Belle turned down Gaston's proposal, so they begin attacking her. There's a pretty solid catfight going on back there; Belle calls for help and the himbo kind of follows them around looking puzzled for what to do, like he wants to defend her but everyone knows it's not polite for a man to beat up three girls with rickets.

Then my mom bolts over to me in fury and screams, "Robert, you idiot! You were supposed to look after Gaston and make sure he didn't get himself into anymore trouble!" And she starts beating me with a statue of St. Mungo.

And everyone else in the room has fights of their own to pick — my cousins all hate each other, Thom, Dic and Stanley have an ongoing feud with Pierre, Paul and Jacques about naming rights, Limey Bastard is kicking the vintner in the balls. It's the funeral Gaston would have wanted! I hope he's watching, wherever he is!

The next thing I remember it's a couple days later and I'm waking up at home. I'm in bed, clean, partially undressed, and tucked in. I can't figure how I did that by myself. Usually in a drunken blackout I just crap my pants while singing Au clair de la lune for macaroni.

Then I hear someone else in the house. My first thought is — Gaston? But that's impossible. Besides, it's the wrong kind of tromp-tromp-tromp. It's more like a cow. I try to think if a cow could have gotten in.

But then, what I see is even better than a cow.

She comes into the doorway, all four feet of her. Legs thick as ham hocks, just how I like them. Blonde hair tightly curled, big brown eyes like chocolate truffle you'd never want to eat because it has a really gross filling like coconut.

"Isabelle?" I ask, almost tearing up. "Is that really you?"

"LeGume!" she answers happily. "Yes — I found you passed out in the cemetery holding a turtle. No one was helping you, so I decided… well, if I can't, who can?" She comes and sits on the foot of the bed. "Of course I heard about Gaston. I was at the funeral, but your mom had punched you out before I got to give my condolences. I know you two were very, very close. You must be very upset!"

I really do feel incredibly bad about Gaston. But could have done anything else? Stopping him from falling in love with Belle is about all that could have changed things; and my recollection is that he wasn't interested in my feedback.

But seeing Isabelle makes me forget all that. It's like my heart's beating again for the first time in years.

"I haven't seen you in so long," I say. "You haven't even said hello to me on the street. What gives?"

"Well…" she seems a little uncomfortable at having to give the answer. "Gaston was always mean to me, and you were always with him. I didn't want to talk to you if he was around."

I don't blame her, and in fact I forgive her in seconds. We get talking, and it's like almost no time has passed between us apart from the four years of stuff that have happened. I tell her all about waiting on Belle's porch for three months, and the time me and Gaston had to wrestle a pack of marmots, and a newt I once saw, and the time this old beggar woman gave us a rose if we let her use the toilet at the tavern without buying anything first and afterwards she turned into an enchantress and gave everyone lap dances, and everything else that's happened!

And Isabelle takes me by the hands and tells me how she's sat pining and groaning for four years out of sheer and total loneliness, because everyone is too tall for her.

"You're the only man for me, LeGume!" she says. "The only one I can look in the eyes!"

We kiss, and everything feels good again.

…

Maybe I spoke too soon about feeling good. The truth is, I feel bad for Gaston. I think he died without ever even kissing a girl. He never found anyone to love, to need or be needed by. I mean, for all the trouble he went to over Belle, she never gave him a second glance. You couldn't possibly count that as a relationship… could you?

The day after me and Isabelle are back together, I find myself sitting at the town's only sidewalk cafe, drinking absinthe frappés with Maurice of all people. Turns out he really isn't as crazy as he seems, and he reveals that actually he always liked me and Gaston. Or maybe he just seems less crazy because of all the absinthe we are drinking, because that stuff makes you crazy.

He tells me that the beast in the castle turned out to be a handsome prince who was under a curse, and that Belle has married him and is a princess now. I think, dang, that was quick. I wonder if this prince had a wedding prepared in the front yard? But apparently, whatever went down, none of it would have been possible without Gaston.

"The beast had to break the curse before he turned twenty-one," says Maurice. "If Gaston hadn't led Belle back there on that same night, time would have run out, and he'd have been a beast forever. She had to declare her love for him, in order to break the spell, you see."

"Is that a good thing, or bad?" I ask. "You said you didn't want her to end up with the beast."

"He's a monster," says Maurice, shaking his head. "Comes slinking out, nine feet tall, gets up in my face and shrieks at me for staring at him. Throws me in a dungeon, then after keeping me up there freezing and starving for a day he barters my freedom for Belle's captivity instead. I hate to think what he did to her… but she loves him anyway. What can you do?"

"Yeah, what can you do?"

We drink to their happiness, and we drink to Gaston, and since me and Maurice are probably the shortest guys in town it doesn't take much to get us properly wasted. So we're trying to get each other home, arms around each other for support as we stagger along, both seeing green fairies flitter around us because of all that wormwood in the absinthe.

"So, Maurice," I ask him. "What did you like about Gaston, anyway?"

"He wash handshome," says a thoroughly intoxicated Maurice. "See, you marry a boorish idiot, you can teach 'em shtuff. You marry an ugly person? Nothing you can do to fix it. And I like that he wash… kind of a maddo. Made him cute, you know? Like Belle'sh mother."

"Was she a beautiful maddo?"

"Belle ish half me, sho you know her mother wash… shixty times more beautiful; and… mad enough that she was willing to go for me!"

"I guess even maddos need love," I say.

Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere I'm lifted about two feet off the ground by my collar. At first I wonder if it's some hallucination from the absinthe; but soon I'm flipped upside down so I can face the person that's got me — by the ankles, now.

"Are you Robert LeGume?" this heavy, pugnacious looking fellow asks me.

Behind me, I can hear Maurice making panicked noises and running away. "That's me," I say to the heavy pugnacious looking fellow, answering his question.

"Pierre the Punisher wants his money," he says.

"Pierre the Punisher?" I ask. "Is that another wrestler?"

"He's the baddest money-lender in Toulouse," says heavy pugnacious.

Ah! That's right! D'Arque warned about some loans he took out under my name. I never did get around to discussing that with him.

"Monsieur d'Arque actually took out the loan," I answer. "He said we'd clear it up, no trouble, and if you'll just wait a couple days…"

"The loan under your name is taken care of," says heavy pugnacious. "It's the one for Gaston LeGume that I'm here for."

"Gaston?" I ask. "But — but Gaston's dead!"

"Well, Pierre the Punisher hasn't heard anything about that," says heavy pugnacious, drawing back his fist. "So you give this message to Gaston…"

The fat, I tell you. It's my secret weapon. You don't want guys punching you in the muscles.

END.