AUTHOR'S NOTE: Well, this story has reached its end. You've heard the full story of Ralph and Melissa, and now they are wed. But before I can officially declare it a 100% completed fanfic, I feel I need to write this epilogue where I tie up some events leading up to the show (and some frame events for next year's big fanfic-a pseudo-sequel, if you will!) And at the very end, after the "The End", I will be giving out my special thanks-those of you who reviewed this fanfic, you know who you are! Also, my shoutouts-to anyone and anything I think needs one. (Some of these will be…amusing, to say the least…)
Anyways, here we go…
Legal Disclaimer and Crap: I do not own the rights to the Raccoons…pah! Last time I have to type that in this fanfic, altogether! Huzzay!
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Epilogue (What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been)
The events of my wedding reception were as you'd expect. Bert, Mike, and everyone else openly congratulated the newlyweds and wished us the best of luck in our new union. Dad managed to, as you'd expect, make an absolute ass out of himself (as if that was anything new!) He managed to get drunk off of the champagne and proceeded to dance on top of the table. So typical of my dad…
The next day, Melissa and I left for a couple of days on top of Mt. Vulcan for our honeymoon. I still remember it like it was yesterday. I remember her carrying her all the way up the mountain. Sitting beside a fire together. And…well…I don't think you need to know anything else about what happened, as I don't think it would be professional or polite of me to go into detail there (besides, I know Melissa would get upset if I spoke about our private moments in any detail!) I will say this, though: those were two days I'll never forget in my life, heh heh…
Soon, Melissa and I settled down together in the Raccoondominium. For about another month or so, Bert would be co-habiting with us, but it wouldn't be much longer-Bert and I were due to graduate next month, and Bert was already preparing to leave for the city with his band. Melissa and I were looking forward to it in some ways and in some ways we were not. On the one hand, Bert being gone would leave us to have our private time uninterrupted by him (I still do remember the handful of times Bert had walked in on Melissa and I making out when we were supposed to be studying together while we were still boyfriend and girlfriend; heaven forbid if he walked in on us while we were having a romantic encounter between the bed sheets!). But on the other hand, both of us did fear what could happen to Bert in the city. The music industry could totally corrupt him; we both were aware that they could mold him and break him until he became a puppet of the industry and did exactly as they told him to. Though knowing Bert, he didn't like to follow orders given to him, so he would probably try to resist their attempts to mold him and make him sell his soul. But how long could he possibly do that before the chance for stardom became too strong a temptation to resist selling his soul?
Soon enough, Bert and I were graduating college together. It was a big proud moment for me-I was very proud to have been able to stick with my educational path the whole way through. Bert was just extremely glad that he didn't ever have to listen to an "ancient" classical composition ever again!
Just a couple weeks after he graduated, Bert was already leaving for the city. We were already prepared for him to move out, but still, it was sad to see him go. Bert did promise he would write us every couple of weeks and occasionally phone us from time to time. He also told us that his band would without a doubt be THE band of 1985, and he told us to be on the lookout for my royalties from co-writing most of the material for the debut album, music videos, big concert tours with big-name groups, and his most ambitious plan-a future TV special featuring him, Woodchuck Berry, and Jimmy Crane, the "world's three greatest guitarists," playing a mind numbing jam session of the ages. Melissa and I could not help but laugh at that; it was very unlikely Bert's heroes would take enough of an interest in his music that they would want to play alongside him. Still, it was a nice dream to have, I suppose. Melissa and I both bade him farewell and gave him our best wishes as he left.
In the meantime as time passed, Dad suddenly quit his job at Mr. Willow's store, and suddenly out of the blue developed a bizarre interest in hidden treasure. All he could talk about was "hidden treasure this, hidden treasure that"! He kept trying to get Melissa and I involved in his scheme to find treasure and become wealthy; I still will not forget the one night Dad came barging in to the Raccoondominium uninvited to tell us he knew where to find hidden treasure while Melissa and I were…preoccupied. That had to be one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. But on the other hand, Dad seemed to be genuinely interested in this new hobby; he was actually frequently borrowing maps and books from the museum. This was very impressive for him, considering he was…well, semi-literate. It looked like maybe his life finally had a direction, a purpose. He managed to rope his friends Henry and Peter, as well as his new friend, an aardvark named Eric (a distant uncle of Sophia's), into helping him discover treasure. And together they actually managed to discover some. Although, Dad's treasure hunting attempts put him directly into conflict with Cyril Sneer; Cyril began plotting to stop my father and take his accumulated treasure for himself to add to his own wealth. Against all odds, Dad was able to stay one step ahead of him…until the summer of 1985.
One day while out searching for treasure, Dad was seriously injured out in the wilderness. To this day, I am still not exactly sure what happened to him, but the accident ended up leaving Dad paralyzed from the waist down. Dad instantly became depressed realizing he would never walk again and instantly began taking up his old eating habits despite warnings from Dr. Canard to lax on the unhealthy food. Sure enough, Dad's health has rapidly faded over the years. Ever since his accident, he's had another three heart attacks, and has indeed developed diabetes as I feared he would, forcing him to take insulin shots every day. To top it all off, he is beginning to grow…senile, and has already forgotten most things from his life. As such, he needs someone to look after him frequently, and oddly enough, that person has usually been for the past two years, much to her chagrin, Nicole. Nicole especially dislikes having to "babysit" Dad considering she can hardly stand him. Still, Dad's in good hands, but Dr. Canard hasn't given him much longer to live. He says Dad has at most maybe another five years left, the amount of unhealthy food he's eaten throughout his life span has proven to be his undoing. It's sad, but not too unexpected. I didn't really expect him to live to seventy-five. But enough about my father…
In the meantime of all this, over the course of the next year or so after Bert left, we did hear back from him occasionally. Bert's letters painted a very confusing portrait of his life in Vancouver. They were often very vague and not revealing very much, usually just that all was well. Bert also appeared to be having problems with the Flying Aces recording their debut album; he kept telling us issues would delay the release of the album. First it was the fact that some of the tracks were not produced well enough and needed to be re-done. Then it was the fact that the producers accidentally wiped the masters for the album while mixing it and that they would have to start fresh again in recording. Next it was the fact that they needed to do some re-takes as the producers were unsatisfied with the finishing product. I was beginning to wonder if Bert had failed royally at his audition or something and was lying to try to cover up the fact he was struggling. But I decided that Bert was most likely telling the truth…
Along the way, suddenly I found myself abruptly unemployed. Mr. Lassater suddenly revealed he was short on cash and not a very good businessman; he declared bankruptcy out of the blue and Lassater's closed down. It was soon demolished when no one would buy the Café. It was sad to lose my job, but Melissa was able to help me keep my spirits up. After all, I was still trying to apply for a newspaper somewhere, anywhere nearby. I was still getting nothing but rejection letters, but we both figured sooner or later one of these would be accepting my offer.
Around this point, Bert suddenly stopped writing and calling us. It seemed so strange. Maybe this was a sign Bert and the Flying Aces actually finally had gotten their debut album accepted and were on tour? We didn't have any way of knowing for sure, so we figured we'd wait until we heard from him again. But nothing came from him, which made us feel worried that he might have forgotten about us.
Then came that one day just a few weeks before Christmas. I can still remember it-it was a snowy Saturday morning. Melissa and I were sleeping together in our bed, cuddled together to keep warm. It was certainly quite cozy. All of a sudden, a loud and frantic sounding knock came at the front door, jarring the two of us awake.
"Oh, good grief…" I groaned. "Who could that possibly me?"
"I don't know, honey," Melissa yawned. "Sure is rude to come knocking at this early hour of the morning."
"Can you get that?" I asked her. "I'm not sure I'm in the mood right now…"
"Alright, Ralph. I'll go see who it is." Melissa got up from my bed-side and shuffled downstairs to greet the mystery person at the door. I got up and followed her downstairs.
Much to our surprise, it was…
"Bert?" Melissa gasped. Both of us were shocked. "What are you doing here?"
"Aren't you supposed to be in the city, working on your music?" I asked aloud.
Bert looked absolutely horrible. He looked famished, his sweater was badly torn…basically, he looked like a vagrant, a hobo, if you will.
"I-I-I've never been more glad to see you guys…" Bert weakly exclaimed to us.
"Bert, what happened?" Melissa asked. "Why did you come here? Why are you in such bad shape?"
Bert just simply muttered, "…Johnny the Fox…Jimmy the Weed…Emmaretta…Telegram Sam…D-d-d-damper D-d-d-d-dan…"
Melissa and I had no idea what he could be talking about. It seemed he might be delirious. We decided to let Bert in to get some warmth and hopefully to find out more when he got a little bit of rest. We couldn't help but let him in-he looked so sad, sorry, cold, and miserable that we pitied him greatly, even though we had absolutely no idea what had happened to him.
After a while, we were able to speak to Bert in more detail.
"You guys don't know what I went through to get here," he glanced to me, "I had to follow the railway line home. I must have walked about two hundred miles and rode a train another fifty…"
Melissa looked taken aback. "Bert, you followed the railway line to get here? How long did it take you to get from there to here?"
Bert thought for a minute. "About three months…" he said, lowly.
"Bert, please, do tell us, what happened to your band?" I asked him.
Bert looked sad . "We, uh, we didn't get the contract Ralph. They liked our sound, but they didn't like my voice. Said I didn't have a good enough voice…I don't know what went wrong from there, but then Don and Donny kicked me out of the band. My own band…"
"You poor thing," Melissa said, sympathetically. "Not very nice of them."
"No, it wasn't," Bert sighed. "I had such a horrible time in the city, I got booted out of my apartment, I lost almost everything but my most prized possessions. So I decided to come back home to the Forest. I thought perhaps you two would be able to help me. I don't have anywhere else to turn to…"
Melissa and I looked at each other, unsure of what to say.
Bert started sobbing and started pleading with us in the most desperate tone of voice I'd ever heard.
"Please, please, Ralph, Melissa! Please! Take me in with you, allow me to stay here with you! Please don't turn me away, I've got nowhere else to go…Please, let me stay here! I'll be good, I promise you guys! Please, just let me stay!"
Melissa and I both felt very sorry for Bert. He hadn't gone into much detail about what had happened to him in Vancouver, but whatever had happened had definitely broken poor Bert. He was so desperate for us to help him…
Melissa put a paw on Bert's shoulder while he continued to sob. "Bert, we'll be glad to take you in for a while."
"Sure," I added. "You can stay here until you can get back on your feet again. We'll be here for you, Bert, you don't have to worry about us turning our backs on you. You're our friend, now and always." I hoped that would cheer him up-personally, I realized this move would sacrifice mine and Melissa's private time together greatly, but, Bert's security felt more important right now. We couldn't just let our old dear friend suffer miserably alone.
Bert's face perked up. Instantly he scooped us up in his arms and hugged us as tight as he possibly could. "Thanks, guys…" an appreciative Bert spoke to us, still sounding a bit sad. "I promise I'll be the best houseguest ever!"
We agreed to let Bert move back into his old bedroom. Bert would be able to stay here, but in order for him to stay long term, we determined that he would have to pull his own weight and help us around the house with our chores. No way we were about to have him bum off of us. We were surprised when Bert actually did help out around the house, it seemed like he was determined to stay.
Not long after we met Schaeffer and Sophia Tutu for the first time as Cyril decided our forest was too unsightly and attempted to destroy it by placing a giant hockey rink over where our beautiful lake was. Luckily we (and a re-energized Bert) were able to defeat Cyril's bears at hockey (despite Bert injuring himself) and we saved the Forest. This led to a string of encounters with Cyril.
At last, in late spring of '86, my dream looked like it came true…I finally got accepted to work for a paper out in Victoria. Melissa and I immediately planned to move, as we had if I did get accepted to work for a paper in another town. However, we both admittedly forgot about Bert-at this stage, I'm not sure he would have been able to last without us. Bert tried his hardest to stop us from leaving by pretending to be deathly ill, but he was…far from convincing, I'll say. Needless to say, Melissa and I were within just a few days of packing up and leaving for Victoria when Melissa uncovered through her photography Cyril attempting to use this opportunity to create giant condominiums all over the forest. We quickly got into action and created a one-off paper warning everybody about Cyril's plot and before we knew it, his plan had been squashed. Melissa, I, and everybody else had really enjoyed working on this paper together, as such, we decided to make it a weekly thing and I declined the offer to move away to Victoria. And that's how the Standard was born.
Years have passed and since then, life in the forest has been up and down. George and his family moved here to the forest on a job offer from Mr. Knox in late 1990 after he and his friend Fayne had both been laid off from the Calgary steakhouse they worked at, replaced by a much younger, fresher employee. They've managed to be able to adjust to living here very well, although Lisa did need a little bit of help from Bert…I do think there is a good chance those two will get together sooner or later. I just realized if Bert and Lisa did get together and eventually got married, we really would be one big giant raccoon family…
As for Melissa's father, Mike, Mike eventually finally got over Melissa leaving his household. However, he still felt rather directionless and felt he needed something besides bartending to fill up his life. He's since found it; as of now, every weekend, Mike visits the local Evergreen Orphanage to read children's stories to the sad and lonely orphans of the Forest. Mike is quite proud of this; he feels it gives some joy into the orphans' otherwise miserable lives.
As for Arnold Layne…I never saw him again after that night he tried to grope up Melissa and I broke his nose. And honestly, I hope I never do see him again. Maybe all it took to send him packing for good was to stand up to him!
Life has been at an all-time high as of late. Melissa and I recently celebrated our eighth wedding anniversary. It's hard to believe we've been married eight years already; I really would like to hope we make it to forty-five, the number of years my parents have been married! The Standard also recently celebrated its sixth anniversary, it continues to grow and thrive every year. I'm one of the Forest's more distinguished residents, and while I do not like to brag, it certainly is an honor, I'll say that!
I look back at everything that happened to me over the past thirty years of my life. I see that I made a number of mistakes, and did some outstandingly dumb things that I do still regret doing.
But I also see I have changed so much over those years. To think that I was once just a shy, awkward kid who couldn't even approach girls at all! Those days are light years behind me now. Ever since I met Melissa, life went sharply uphill.
Looking back, it really was a long and strange trip through life. But I wouldn't change any of it for the world.
Now, I only wonder what the next fifty years'll bring me?
END CHAPTER SEVENTEEN…
AND…
FANFIC COMPLETE!
AUTHOR'S NOTE: And that's it. That's officially a wrap. Outside of my character list (EDIT: I decided against a character list ultimately, I found it too boring while trying to write...) this fanfic is officially over. My first fanfic in the books now. It was a really up and down ride, but overall, I think this is the proudest I've ever felt about anything I've ever written. (And I don't even think of myself as that good of a writer!) I really hope all you people enjoyed watching this fanfic grow and evolve over the course of a few months.
One last little bit of information before I get to the special thanks and shoutouts…the names you see Bert deliriously muttering to Ralph and Melissa? SPOILER ALERT: They are all the names of various unsavory characters Bert encounters in next year's "pseudo sequel", Bert's adventures in the city.
And now that this fanfic has wrapped up, allow me to give special thanks to the following people who reviewed, in order…
SPECIAL THANKS:
Raccoonqueen-Thank you kindly for your reviews of chapters 1 and 2, you have some fairly interesting stories. I won't lie and say I liked all of them, but you are a pretty good writer. Did I lose you at Chapter 3? I do apologize if I did.
Kobebeef-Thanks for all the support you've given me during my time writing this fanfic, without any support, I have no idea whether I'd have even finished this fanfic at all! "Secrets and Heroes" is a great piece of fanfiction (that I need to reread again once I do get the chance…) Also, I would like to personally thank you for volunteering to proofread my future endeavors on this site; since I do happen to my own worst critic, I really do appreciate it!
Nicky4-Thank you kindly for your reviews and I also must thank you personally for allowing me permission to use Delilah Blackmask and Mt. Vulcan in this fanfic. I would have given Delilah a bigger part, but well, this sort of is Ralph's story, not Bert's, heheh. I did thoroughly enjoy "Trapped on Mt. Vulcan" and "Pay the Piper", and I also got a big laugh out of your Cyril Sneer skit "Three Wishes". Classic joke!
Yuval Konsker-Thank you kindly (sorry if that sounds clichéd) for your review of Chapter 1. Really, I don't have a lot to say, other then it's nice to see someone from as far away as Israel reading my work, so that is appreciated.
Highway67-Thank you for your review-really, that's some high praise you lauded upon me! I really don't think I'm THAT great of a writer-like I said, I am my own worst critic! I'll try to take your corrections into consideration for next time-as I may or may not have said I am not really a football person, but I will try to get my football terminology better next time!
SpiralFracture/Spiral-Frax-Thank you for your reviews; I think you are dead on the money about Queen as well-I'd personally take their first two albums over the rest of their output! (Tried to be your son and daughter rolled into one…) I do apologize for the length of some of my chapters, heheh-perhaps that's something I need to work on for next time! I'm really surprised I got the characterizations mostly spot-on, too-I came in expecting I would at some point utterly massacre the characterization. I guess I did pretty alright! Thank you.
And now that my special thanks are out of the way, allow me to give some shoutouts to things I see fit to earning one…
SHOUTOUTS:
First of all, Mom and Dad-For without whom, I obviously wouldn't be here to write this fanfic. For raising me and guiding me through my teenage years, I do really appreciate it. There's a .0001 percent chance you'll ever read this, but should the off-hand chance arrive and you DO end up reading this at some point, I want you both to know I really appreciate everything you've done for me…and I hope you don't think I'm too much of a psycho writing a story for a children's cartoon!
Kevin Gillis-For creating the Raccoons, of course. (Without him, there'd be no characters for me to write about and this story would not even exist, you know…)
Anonymous Youtube Friend-For introducing me to this show back in March. S/he noticed my taste in cartoons and recommended this one from his/her childhood. Not in a "watch this or I will kick your ass" manner, in a friendly and polite way. Thanks to this user, I actually ended up really liking this show. Before I found this show, I had the Smurfs pegged as the best '80s cartoon! I would have given their name, but I messaged them and they preferred to remain anonymous, so, your wishes have been respected.
Matt Groening-For creating the Simpsons, my all-time favorite TV show, I have been watching it since I was 3 years old. Congratulations on getting ready to surpass the 500 episode mark, although honestly I think the show is in decline and perhaps should have ended with the Movie.
The Guess Who, Blue Oyster Cult, Deep Purple, Rainbow, Jeff Beck Group, Led Zeppelin, Queen, Journey, The Moody Blues, The Faces, Thin Lizzy-For performing the songs featured in this fanfic.
NASCAR-For having been my favorite childhood sport since I was three.
Jeff Gordon-For having been my all-time favorite race car driver of any era and any series; since I was a little kid. Funny story-Bert's interest in vintage Indy racer Tom Sneva is partially based on my own childhood…obsession with Gordon. Seriously, to this day my room is like a mini-shrine to him, I have so much rare Gordon memorabilia I don't know what to do with it now. I think I had problems when I was a kid, hehehh…
Sixties4ever13-For having an awesome Youtube channel that featured great well-known and obscure music from the early '60s to the early '70s. Sadly, his channel was just recently suspended by the copyright police-may his channel rest in peace!
RakyMaky-For having another awesome Youtube channel-he has many great artists uploaded on there. Zeppelin, Sabbath, Genesis, Yes, Chicago, Deep Purple…and he even has the Monty Python and the Holy Grail movie uploaded on there too! Now that's a great channel in my opinion. His channel's actually been suspended in the past, but, he got it back…quite impressive!
HeavyIronMetalMaiden-For having, in my opinion, the current best Youtube music channel. Despite his name, he's literally uploaded just about everything you could possibly think of (really) only slowed down somewhat to try to defeat the copyright police. May his channel never fall.
Tvspnd1228-For having a large collection of motorsports videos, it was thanks to him I was able to watch the 1981 Indy 500!
ShakespeareHemmingway-For having the most ridiculous stories on this particular site, stories featuring Garfield (the comic strip cat) basically being like Chuck Norris and being the ultimate man and beating bad guy ass and getting lots of women. Seriously, how can I not guffaw with laughter reading "stories" containing gems such as "All of a sudden there was huge boom heard and all looked to the wall. There was hole that was CAT shaped but could only be made by MAN. Out of it they saw mystery figure full of muscle and manhood. Thunder crashed with lightning and rockin heavy metal music with awesome riffs played as the figure entered room with style" and "'It is being true you have killed me before but Odie has brought me back from abyss of death and gave me new life and made me new cat. I am not man you once knew I am become Cyber Nermal X!'" Seriously, if you do want a really cheap laugh, do go look this guy up. You will not regret it. We're not all above reading pieces of garbage, are we?
And last but not least…
To all of my readers, and my reviewers, an extra big shoutout goes to you, without whom this fanfic would not be possible. I mean, what would I possibly do with this if it was only for my personal use?