Who Stoled Mah Monkey?!

Featuring: John Clower, Paul LeMaire, Candice Miles, Genevieve Plangman Regenold, RJ Regenold, and Betsy Whitmark
Written: May-September, 2005

Background: This bizarre story stems from several conversations Paul had with Candice and Betsy via AOL Instant Messenger on the night of May 11, following game two of the Western conference semi-finals. Go Mavs! Anyway, he was telling me about this odd plot with alligators and monkeys and hot pants. And since it was really out there, I decided to turn his macchiatto-induced fantacy into a novella.

Note: Metairie is an actual town in Louisiana which is a suburb of the Greater New Orleans Metropolitan area.
Zydeco is a blend of French and Caribbean music from Southern Louisiana that usually features a guitar, accordeon, and a washboard.
Boudin is a link sausage stuffed with any number of seafoods, rices, and spices.
Boudreaux means "butter" in French.
Shah is the Cajun slang term for endearment.
A shoepick is a common fresh-water fish found in southern lakes and swamps.
Maque choux is one of many fine Cajun soup-related dishes, consisting primarily of corn, bell peppers, tomatoes, and onions. It is usually seasoned with salt or some other form of pepper and often is swimming in a creamy, butteresque sauce.
Couche couche is a sort of Cajun oatmeal, usually made with cornmeal and sugar.
A beignet is a square doughnut with no hole and a whole lot of powdered sugar!
Jambalaya is a Creole delicacy consisting of rice mixed with any number of seafoods and seasonings.
Cayenne pepper is a spice that is often used in Cajun dishes. It is also the capital of French Ghiana. And who says you can't learn anything by reading my stories?
Andouille is a spicy, pork sausage used in Cajun cooking.
Tassos are a sort of spicy Cajun bacon.
Gumbo is a southern stew which, like jambalaya, can contain any number of ingredients. But to truly be a real southern gumbo, it must have okra as its staple.
A scalawag was a white southerner who belonged to the Republican Party and assisted the northerners during Reconstruction from 1865 to 1877.
Huey Long was a corrupt Democrat who was governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1932 and state Senator from 1932 until his assassination in 1935. He was the last major presidential hopeful for the Populist Party that emerged in the 1890's.
Jethro Tull is a group, founded by Ian Anderson in Blackpool, England. They've had somewhere in the way of thirty members over the past forty years. Jethro Tull was also an agriculturist who invented the seed drill.
The supper of leftover pizza and queso was actually what I had for breakfast on Saturday, May 21, 2005 during my first two-week bout of running on New Zealand time over the summer.
Shiners refer to several varieties of fresh-water fish, in addition to being a Texas beer.
RJ in fact stands for Ronald Joseph, hence Ronnie Joe.
Regenold bares a striking resemblance to oregano. And since this was Louisiana after all, I replaced the 'o' with an 'aux', thereby Frenchifying it to 'oreganaux'.
When I began this story, it was revealed that RJ and Genevieve had set a tentative wedding date of May 26, 2006. And indeed, they were officially engaged on June 16th and married on December 17. With their eldest child at the age of six, this would ideally wink wink place the story roughly in the year 2013.
Bayou Bonfouca is a bayou northeast of Lake Pontchartrain.
Pat Buchanan is an outspoken conservative author, columnist, and commentator who ran for president in 2000 as the Reform Party candidate. He is also one of the founding editors of The American Conservative magazine.
In fact, I did watch a History Channel documentary on the history of brick manufacturing one Saturday afternoon. I was extremely bored.
"ihre Kirche" is German for "her church."
Vermilion Bay is a body of water in southwest Louisiana that empties into the Gulf of Mexico.
Lake Pontchartrain is a lake in Southeast Louisiana that borders New Orleans on the north.
Poboy is both Cajun slang for a "poor boy," as well as a Louisianian sub sandwich.
Calcasieu is both a parish and a river in West-central Louisiana.
Paul and Candice began dating on June 11. But by the time I'd started this story, I already knew Candice had fallen for the Cajun sensation. So writing the subplot likewise wasn't too difficult. Unfortunately, Paul and Candice broke up on July 17, forcing me to write a second subplot involving the lumberjack and the Irish Cajun. A similar Paulesque development took place while I was writing The Cruise.
Franz Joseph Haydn was a 19th century classical composer whose 1797 composition Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser was later used for the Austrian and German national anthems.
Schlitterbahn is a waterpark in New Braunfels, Texas, home of the annual Wurstfest!
New Iberia is a city in Louisiana with an approximate population of 33,000, located in southeastern Louisiana, and incidentally is home to the annual Sugar Cane Festival!
The brier patch is a reference to the home of Br'er Rabbit, an old Cajun folk hero, representative of slaves during the 19th century. Oddly enough, Teddy Roosevelt's Uncle Robert was the first to publish a story about said bunny.
"Le Rue de Chateau" roughly translates to "Castle Street."
A grenadier is a member of the British Grenadier Guards, who serve as the first regiment of the royal household infantry. With that sterile definition aside, my familiarity with the term is simply derived from a piece I performed in the legendary Calhoun Middle School Seventh Grade Orchestra of 1997-1998 known as "British Grenadiers. D G, D G, A B, C B A, B C D, G, A B G F-sharp G.
For some reason, Paul is hooked on chi tea. So that's where that reference stems from.
"Sac-au-Lait" translates to "bag of milk," but it is also a Cajun folk group whose music is composed in the old style of Cajun music, whatever that is.
"Le Sein" translates to "the breast." Heh heh heh.
"Le Chateau du Foie" translates to "The Castle of Liver."
Most will recognize cafe au lait as the French translation of coffee milk. But since Paul poured two cups of sugar into his, it became cafe au lait du sucre or "coffee with milk of sugar."
Much thanks to my brother Stephen for the computer jargon regarding the bits and the bytes.
"Anorak" is a French heavy coat.
The actual French word for "harvest" is "moisson," but saying "l'harvest" just sounded cooler!
"Enfer" is French for Hell.
The "I like you tiny man" was a reference to a Johnny Bravo cartoon involving the lumberjack olympics.
Hurricane Katrina devistated the New Orleans metropolotan area, as well as much of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama when it came onshore on August 29, 2005, my twenty-first birthday. Oddly enough, this was the day before I finished the story. So I decided to pay my respects to the hundreds dead and hundreds of billions in damages by bringing this storm back a second time. Though the storm names cycle every six years. So technically, had Katrina not been as catastrophic a system as it was, the name could have been used again, putting this story in either 2011 or 2017.
Tom DeLay served as the Majority Leader in the U.S. House of Representatives until his indictment on September 28, 2005.
Note the obvious reference to Edgar Alan Poe's The Raven as I get up to open the door.
This is the first story to feature Candice Miles, Genevieve Plangman Regenold, and Betsy Whitmark.

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