Capelobo
absurdist fantasy from Jon Wesick
It’s still November, and that means election season in the USofA! Surely none of you are sick of politics yet, right? Right??
Well, either way, you can find something to enjoy in this silly political satire, and hit us up in the comments: are you pro-Saltcedar or pro-Kudzu?
And for Thanksgiving this year, don’t forget to be grateful that, whether your guy or girl won or lost, the “vote for me” and “I approve this message” ads are over. 🙏
Content warning: Sexual situations, drug use, and political situational comedy
Capelobo
by Jon Wesick
“What are these?” Brandi held up the plastic bag of orange tablets.
“Advance payment for your services.” Congressman Earl Saltcedar rested his beefy hand on her fishnet stockings as he steered his Dodge Challenger out of the parking garage and onto 14th Street. He’d dropped acid on entering the gentlemen’s club. Halfway through Brandi’s lap dance, the voice of Zaatar the Sand Witch replaced Van Halen on the speaker.
“She’s the one, Earl Saltcedar. She’s the one with whom you’ll father a race of heroes who will slay the reptile overlords.”
Brandi had refused his advances until he promised her a tour of the Rayburn House Office Building. What better place was there to conceive heroic sons than on the desk once used by Newt Gingrich? He’d give them fitting names like Legal Pad, Stapler, and Blotter.
When Saltcedar passed a Chinese restaurant, a stooped waitress glared at him through its plate-glass window. It was weird. Her complexion seemed somehow green. Eddie Money was singing about having two chickens to paralyze on the radio. Saltcedar glanced at Brandi. One of her braids had turned into a tentacle that writhed with the song. He removed his hand from her knee. He was sure messed up, too messed up to get out of the car. Yeah, he’d be safe as long as he stayed in the car. All he had to do was keep it together until he got to the office building. When did elephant grass start growing out of the cracks in the sidewalks and when did the city fathers replace the boxelders with giant ferns? He steered between the legs of a brontosaurus in an ostrich-feather jacket who winked at him.
Saltcedar glanced in the rearview mirror and saw a giant escargot powered by an 8.4-Liter V10 engine hot on his tail. Of course the lizard people wouldn’t give up so easily. Struggling with feet that had grown webs like a cartoon penguin’s, he downshifted into third, pushed the gas pedal to the floor, and turned left at the three-story piggy bank. Saltcedar shifted into overdrive on the straightaway and glanced at the speedometer, but all he saw was the queen from Sleepy Beauty asking who was the fairest of them all. He looked up in time to see a leprechaun leading a dozen baby dodo birds across the street. Saltcedar swerved and plowed into an amanita muscaria the size of a fire hydrant. The airbag exploded like a pie to the face in a Three Stooges episode. Once it deflated, a pterodactyl in a police uniform tapped on his window.
***
“Cops found LSD in Miss Simpson’s purse so your story that she slipped you drugs in order to rob you checks out,” Saltcedar’s uncle said. Graying hair curled over the tips of Robert Connor’s ears and his face was as chubby as the belly under his sweater and sport jacket. “Legally, you’re in the clear but it’s another story with the voters.”
“It’ll blow over like last time.” Saltcedar reached for the bottle of Irish whiskey on Uncle Bob’s desk. “I’ll attend a few prayer breakfasts, get my picture taken with some preacher, and sponsor a bill increasing penalties for drug use.”
“Your polling’s in the toilet. The big donors are pulling out.” Uncle Bob handed Saltcedar a document. “Have you seen your reelection campaign funds?”
“My God!” Saltcedar downed his glass of regret and poured another. “What do we do?”
“Put you someplace where we control the narrative and change the conversation.” Uncle Bob paced around his office.
“Sounds like a plan,” Saltcedar said.
“In Brazil, there’s a legend.” Uncle Bob sat behind his desk. “Rumor has it, the capelobo has the body of a man and the head of an anteater. It drinks human blood and the only way to kill it is to shoot it in the navel. I propose that you lead an expedition up the Amazon River to find a capelobo and destroy it.”
“Do people actually believe this nonsense?”
“Never underestimate the stupidity of the American voter.”
***
Saltcedar poured a healthy slug of cachaca into a glass and squeezed in lime juice to make a cocktail called a caipirinha. He wanted something stronger but had left his pharmaceuticals behind because taking them across borders was risky. His room at the Hotel Manaus wasn’t bad. The air conditioner kept the heat and humidity at bay, and the cable TV showed plenty of Brazilian women in bikinis.
A public relations specialist would film him by a riverboat in a few days, he’d hang out at the hotel for two weeks, and then they’d pay a villager to say he saved them from the monster. When he returned to the States, he’d be a hero, but he was bored.
An ad came on the television. He grabbed the remote and turned up the volume. Even though it was in Portuguese, he understood that the Psychedelic Thunder Muffins would be playing that night at the municipal park.
***
Sky San Pedro held his electric guitar in front of the amp and let it feedback for minutes before the Thunder Muffins broke into “Driving a Hack While Smoking Crack.” The lead singer had the body of someone who subsisted on frozen dinners and corn chips. His band was playing in an open-air pavilion sheltered under a tile roof. Saltcedar didn’t find anything psychedelic about their blend of folk rock and heavy metal but he’d come to score. In the meantime, he began dancing like an unbalanced washing machine on the wooden floor while getting dirty looks from the people he bumped.
The locals wore shorts and T-shirts due to the heat, but Saltcedar had overdressed in khakis and a gringo vest. Women wore bikini tops, Brazil being too conservative for them to go topless even at a Thunder Muffins concert. Hold on! One removed her top and flung it into the rafters. After some dancing, she approached a man in a leather jacket standing at the back of the pavilion and left with something in her hand. Saltcedar watched others do the same and then, seeking a little chemical enhancement, approached.
“Got something to make the music more transcendental?”
The dealer replied in Portuguese.
“No hablo Portuguese!” Saltcedar held out a hundred-dollar bill, a language everyone understood.
The dealer exchanged it for a plastic bag containing a dozen pink tablets, each stamped with the impression of a dolphin. Saltcedar had no idea what they were, swallowed three, and hummed the theme from Flipper. He suffered through a dozen indistinguishable songs and a drum solo that lasted longer than the Pleistocene. The pills weren’t working, so he swallowed another. Halfway through a thirty-minute instrumental, he noticed pairs of yellow eyes staring from the darkness beyond the pavilion. Time to dance.
Saltcedar muscled his way to the mosh pit and busted out some moves that resembled Saturday Night Fever with Tourette’s. The topless woman was not impressed. Neither was her boyfriend, so Saltcedar busted a move which resembled Enter the Dragon with no martial arts experience, and woke up from a concussion on the grass outside the pavilion. A middle-C whine replaced the poison-dart frogs singing Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” to the distant drone of the band. An anopheles mosquito in a bikini approached.
“Great show, huh?” The mosquito rubbed her hands against her proboscis.
“They don’t know how to party,” Saltcedar replied.
“How do you want to party?” the mosquito asked.
“With that topless woman.” Saltcedar pointed.
“I can make you happier than her?” The mosquito waved her antennae. “I know a place where we can be alone.”
“Promise you won’t bite me? I’d hate to get malaria.”
“We’ll use protection.” She led him to a five-story wedding cake frosted with turquoise icing.
The green-skinned Chinese waitress sat behind the welcome desk in the lobby. Saltcedar paid for a room and followed the mosquito’s swaying hips up the stairs, being careful not to let the starfish on the steps grab his ankles. The mosquito unlocked a door and ushered Saltcedar into a room containing a TV, desk, and lily pad with two pillows.
“Take off your clothes, and I’ll be back in a minute.” She stepped into the bathroom.
Saltcedar left his shirt and pants on the chair. He’d never had sex with an insect before and wondered if their anatomy would be compatible. The lily pad that he reclined on pitched and swayed like a rowboat in a Category Five hurricane. A half-dozen animals burst through the door.
“Give me your wallet!” A capybara pulled Saltcedar off the lily pad and back-hoofed him.
A toucan tapped a baseball bat against his palm and a sloth flashed a butterfly knife. Saltcedar took one look at the tapir’s AK-47 and reached for his wallet. An anaconda grabbed him from behind and a spider monkey sunk his paw into Saltcedar’s gut. He collapsed to the carpet. After a thorough beating, the attackers tossed Saltcedar out the window. A rotting cassava the size of a dumpster broke his fall.
***
“I promise the American voters that the crooked elites will not intimidate me.” Saltcedar looked at the sea of reporters from CNN, MSNBC, and FOX News assembled on the dock. “The thugs who attacked me last night showed that they’re afraid. They’re afraid for good reason because I never back down. I’m going to discover the truth about the capelobo no matter what.”
Uncle Bob wiped his face with a handkerchief. Despite his outrage at Saltcedar’s shenanigans, he couldn’t help grinning at the old Saltcedar magic. The team of reporters camped out by the hotel meant that the congressman would really have to go through with his expedition. That would be his problem because Uncle Bob was flying back to DC.
“Aren’t you worried about your safety?” the CNN reporter asked.
Page Moonby, the publicist, took over and machine-gunned word salad at the reporters.
“You don’t ask him questions, man. You stand back and wait for results.” Moonby wore a collection of love beads and used a red bandana to restrain his stringy hair. “The man’s a genius. He expanded my mind but you lamestream media guys are stale as Thursday’s soup. When I think of soup, I think clam chowder. You got your bacon, your onions, and potatoes. Then you add chicken stock, clam juice, and clams at the end. You don’t want to overcook them, man. Did you know they can’t get clams in Europe and Australia? That’s why America is the greatest country on Earth. Thank you for your questions.”
Heads turned when Saltcedar slipped off the gangway to the riverboat and fell into the water.
He surfaced, holding a Peacock Bass. “Ha! Got you, you bastard!”
***
Saltcedar and Moonby shared a 72-foot boat, called the Rio Alucinação, with a crew of three. The mechanic they called Cozinheiro was from Sao Paulo. He was wrapped too tight for the Amazon, probably too tight for Sao Paulo. Lança was a famous surfer from south of Tierra del Fuego. To look at him, you’d think he’d never skinned and eaten an emperor penguin in his life. Then there was the Comandante. It might have been Saltcedar’s expedition but it sure as hell was Comandante’s boat.
“Up ahead, you’ll see the Meeting of the Waters where the dark water of the Rio Negro runs together with the lighter water of the Amazon.” Comandante knocked an ash off his cigar. “We’ll head east for a few klicks, enter the Amazon, and turn upriver.”
Saltcedar watched the two colors of water running parallel as the city slipped away before the boat turned. The Amazon was a muddy highway plied by riverboats hauling rubber, cacao, wood, and minerals downstream, and supplies upstream, but reality bored him so he returned to his cabin. Before mooching Moonby’s blow or raiding the medical supplies for oxy, he checked his satellite phone. Uncle Bob had sent a video. Saltcedar downloaded it to his laptop and hit play.
“Earl Saltcedar is soft on cryptids!” A clean-cut man in a utility vest stood in front of a fuzzy image of bigfoot. “While he’s on holiday in Brazil, a host of evil critters are terrifying honest, hardworking Americans. Bigfoot, Mothman, the Honey Island Swamp Monster, Loveland Frog, Chupacabra, and Michigan Dogman are destroying pets, livestock, and even children too small to defend themselves. And what does Congressman Saltcedar do about it? He puts the needs of Brazilians before those of his own constituents. When you send me to Congress, I’ll get to the bottom of the conspiracy to hide the truth. Vote Wayne Kudzu in the September 10 primary.”
***
“While my opponent spreads lies from his Falls Church mansion, I’m braving jaguars and poisonous snakes in the rainforest.” Pulse hammering from cocaine, Saltcedar gestured toward the steer they’d paid villagers to slaughter. “As you can see, the capelobo is close, but don’t believe me. Listen to a villager oppressed by this bloodthirsty predator.”
Moonby turned the video camera to a local woman who said something in Portuguese. It didn’t matter what. Saltcedar’s campaign would add suitable subtitles in post.
“I promise you this,” Saltcedar said once the camera turned back to him. “I will not rest until America wins the Global War on Cryptids. I’m Earl Saltcedar and I approve this message.”
***
“While Earl Saltcedar enjoys the tropical sun, I’m in Alaska hunting the Tizheruk with state-of-the-art sonar.” Wearing a parka over a cable-knit sweater, Wayne Kudzu stood on a fishing boat’s rocking deck. “Rest assured that as your congressman, I’ll prioritize keeping Americans safe. No sea monster’s going to snatch innocent victims off docks on my watch. I’m Wayne Kudzu and I approve this message.”
By the time Saltcedar saw the video, Kudzu’s lies were halfway around the world while truth’s hangnail caught on a sock when it was putting on its shoes. It wasn’t like Saltcedar was the paragon of veracity but come on. Who could believe this nonsense? He needed to answer Kudzu with something big.
***
“The man’s a genius. While the world’s scientists say the capelobo doesn’t exist, he homed in like a missile on a village ravaged by the beast. It’s like the elites are perpetrating some kind of coverup, man.” Moonby pointed and the camera panned to a group of Amazonian Indians holding bows. In deference to American prudery, the women wore Vote Saltcedar T-shirts instead of going topless.
“There it is!” Moonby pointed to a hairy shape dashing into the jungle.
Saltcedar racked his pump-action shotgun with a blank and gave chase. Moonby and Lança, on camera, followed. The latter kept the video rolling using shaky cam to heighten the action without letting viewers get a close look at Cozinheiro in furs and a paper-mâché skull. Saltcedar fired, racked the shotgun, and followed Cozinheiro into a clearing. Cozinheiro emitted a roar.
Then a creature with an anteater’s head emerged from the bushes, opened its mouth, and extended its barbed tongue fifteen feet. The tip penetrated Cozinheiro’s chest and he fell to the rainforest floor. Saltcedar and the others skidded to a stop. Moonby and Lança turned and ran while Saltcedar stood in shock, trying to understand what he’d just seen. Signals bounced around his drug-addled brain as if his amygdala and prefrontal cortex were bumpers in a pinball machine. The flashing lights spelled, “Oh shit!” and he fled.
As the hooves pounding behind him got closer, Saltcedar realized a real capelobo had murdered Cozinheiro and was after him. He mumbled prayers to God, Vishnu, Buddha, Ahura Mazda, Zeus, and any other deities he could think of. Then, he tripped over a root and plowed face first into the rainforest floor.
Saltcedar scrambled to his feet, but a twisted ankle couldn’t bear his weight. Smelling of rotten meat, the capelobo moved closer. Saltcedar gripped the shotgun like a baseball bat for a last-ditch defense. When all seemed lost, a seven-foot creature resembling a hairy man emerged from the bushes and pounced on the capelobo. The latter tried to turn and bite, but Saltcedar’s savior had gotten behind it and used its massive hands to squeeze the capelobo’s windpipe. In a matter of seconds, the fight was over.
“My dear boy,” Saltcedar’s savior asked in an Oxbridge accent that sounded like James Mason’s, “are you all right?”
“Who are you?”
“My friends call me Blinky. I’m a mapinguary. We’re the capelobo’s sworn enemies. It’s a good thing I came by when I did. Let’s get you home and take a look at that ankle.”
Blinky scooped Saltcedar up and set off. Branches whipped past the congressman’s face as his benefactor sprinted a dizzying array of jungle paths. After a half hour, they arrived at a clearing that contained the mapinguary’s hut. It was a small structure with a grass roof that rested on a raised, wooden platform. A diesel generator hummed nearby and a cable ran up the bark of a Brazil nut tree to a satellite dish sticking above the canopy. Blinky took Saltcedar inside, moved a copy of The Golden Bough off a cot, and set the congressman down to examine his ankle.
“Nothing’s broken.” The mapinguary took an icepack from the refrigerator and wrapped it around Saltcedar’s ankle. “Probably a sprain. Stay off your feet and keep icing it for twenty-four hours.”
“Refrigerator? Satellite dish? Where did you get all this tech?” Saltcedar asked.
“I extract DMT from yage and trade with the locals.” Blinky loaded a pipe. “Want some?”
“Hell yeah!”
Any doubts Saltcedar had about his benefactor vanished after his first toke. On the inhale, he was sitting on a cot in a hut. On exhale, he saw the green-skinned, Chinese waitress motioning him to inhale a heroic dose. The walls grew transparent and he saw dozens of frogs and lizards watching him from its wooden frame. He realized the lizard people weren’t his enemies but were Earth’s protectors. Then, he was the rainforest. Green chlorophyl ran through his veins as he inhaled carbon dioxide and exhaled the oxygen that supports life. The distinction between subject and object dissolved and all humanity’s categories became meaningless. Libraries caught chicken pox and methane sambaed with Euclidean geometry. Space and time divided into atoms of pure consciousness, each carrying the tiny saws and hammers they used to construct reality. Seeing where Einstein and quantum physics had gone wrong, Saltcedar burst into giggles. It all made so much sense. He wanted to write down his insight, but couldn’t reach for pen and paper.
Saltcedar woke up naked on the riverbank. All the metaphysics and philosophy had evaporated like gasoline on a summer sidewalk. He only remembered his mission, to design cars that run on high-fructose corn syrup. Even though he had no engineering knowledge, he was sure to succeed. How hard could it be?
***
“After going missing in the Amazon rainforest for two weeks, Congressman Earl Saltcedar reappeared wearing only a loin cloth. The congressman told reporters he was retiring from politics but gave no indication of his future plans. I’m Julie Kanazawa for CNN.”
“We used dipropyltryptamine—it’s like DMT on steroids.” Uncle Bob turned off the TV and set down the remote. “The nomination’s yours although I still feel a little guilty.”
“Like you said, the man was a liability. I don’t have to tell you what it means if the other party takes control of Congress. It means medical bills won’t bankrupt working families and they could afford to send their children to college. Neither of us want that.” Wayne Kudzu handed Uncle Bob an envelope of cash. “Here’s the final payment for the actors and a little left over for you. Feel better, now?”
Meet the Author:
Jon Wesick is a regional editor of the San Diego Poetry Annual. He’s published hundreds of poems and stories in small-press journals. His most recent books are The Shaman in the Library and The Prague Deception.
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Great political commentary. Were you channeling Hunter S. Thompson?