"She-Ra and the power of the Nutlog!"

Urban fable of when some of the Masters of the Universe have to get day jobs.

“The Power of She-Ra
and the Nutlog”




A short fable
by Mark Whittaker





For Sherra “She Ra” Stuart




   






   
   


   
Jim walked into the coffee shop and sat down. He chose this time a rather large booth in the back, one of those ten plus customer deals. The place itself was relatively empty let for some lonely travelers sitting at the counter and a family with wiggling kids across the room near the front door. Sitting in the back in a huge setting next to the window was what he needed most. And, luckily, he found it.

    Jim’s day wasn’t going as planned. It even started off kind of bad. He woke up to discover that he was out of coffee so he made a pot from leftover grounds from the day before. He kept pouring and pouring the coffee through the machine to try and get it to resemble an actual dark brown color. It took a while but he managed to get it to a half way decent taste and hue but then the cable was out and he couldn’t watch his favorite morning program, Wake Up Tucson!, with that perky co-host Angie Landry, a crush he had developed when he first moved to Tucson three years back. She had it all, this lady; blue eyes, blonde hair, perfect teeth and nice b***s as much as he could ascertain through the loud blazers they make her wear. There was a week that the Wake Up Tucson! team went to Palm Springs and she wore a tight tee shirt once so...perhaps he is correct about her endowments.
    After a rather disappointing morning, Jim went off to work only to discover that his desk had been moved to the back and now he had to sit parallel to Amy Jacobson, the rather tubby and loud accounting assistant that he loathed ever since the company’s picnic last year. She wore a horrid muumuu and a dying flower in her stringy hair and then proceeded to get massively drunk on cheap white wine and would let out this yelping laugh every time the VP of accounts payable, Edwin Sternn, another loathsome character who hides behind Where’s Waldo goggles and thinks corduroy knickers are the way to go and impress the ladies, would tell a tasteless and poorly delivered joke.
    “Well look who it is!” Amy shouted when he approached his new area workspace. “Have a seat stranger. Tell me what you’ve been up to hon.”
    Hon. Jim also despised anyone that made short words even shorter. So he took his seat of shame and sat silently hating his job until the five o’ clock hour struck.

    But at least his favorite hangout, The Cluck & Saucer, was devoid of too many people so he relished in the fact that he could sit and enjoy a leisurely supper as he attempted to finish the last Harry Potter book.
    “Um...,” came a ladies voice from a slight distance. Jim ignored it as he was attempting to assemble the words together and make him care that the teenage wizards were about to graduate next year from Hogwarts. Jim usually got himself into messes like this. He thought for sure he would hate the HBO series Sex In The City but when he came down with a rather nasty head cold a few months back, he accidently stumbled upon the first episode and had to go out and rent ALL of the DVD’s in order to get on with his life. Recently, on a date, he was talked into seeing the latest Harry Potter film and then had to go out and read the first book. Now he’s stuck. Even though the latest offering kind of annoys him, he can’t let up now. If he did, he wouldn’t sleep at night.
    “Um. Excuse me!”
    It was the lady’s voice again. This time he looked up from the antics of Ron and Hermione and caught a glimpse of who was speaking.
    “You, uh...can’t sit there.”
    It was a middle aged woman, attractive with a tough look about her. She appeared to be in shape and wore her long dark blonde hair in a tight ponytail. She was behind the counter and wore an apron. Jim then assumed that she was a new hire since he had never seen her before.
    “Are...,” Jim said as he looked around him, “are you talking to me?”
    “Yes mister DeNiro, I’m talkin’ to you!”
    Jim was thrown for a moment by her audacity and rough tone. He sat upright and furrowed his brow at her.
    “Excuse me?”
    “You heard me didn’t you? You can’t sit there.”
    Jim let out a slight laugh. “Well...why can’t I sit here?”
    The lady moved from behind the counter and walked to a table in front of him. She laid a menu on it and stood straight and firm with arms crossed.
    “I can get at least six or seven people in that booth sir. If I’m lucky a family of ten will come by, squeeze in and then I can automatically add a fifteen percent tip on just because they are a party of eight...or more.”
    When Jim heard this he couldn’t decide if he hated this woman or actually liked her. The usual dolts that worked at the Cluck & Saucer were characters of typical coffee shop waitresses. You had either the aging mom type that called you vicious names like “Hon” or “Sweetie” or you had the young and the clueless, the ugly stepchildren of other homely coffee shop waitresses that usually dropped out of high school because of a pregnancy or bad grades or were working their way through community college. This lady was up-front, decently good looking and could be funny through her venom.
    “Well,” he started and began to giggle, “you see, I’m a regular here and, uh, well...I kinda had a bad day.”
    The waitress looked at him, unwavering. He arms still crossed and now her eyebrows came together in a mild frown.
    “That’s great that you’re a regular. Hi, I’m She...” The waitress suddenly stopped herself and wore a quick look of worry. “I’m...Sheila!”
    Jim couldn’t make out what just happened. He told her his name and shut his book closed.   
    “Hi Jim. Look...you understand, right, that the way I make money is on tips, right?”
    Jim nodded. “Right.”
    “Well, if you sit at a booth in my section that can hold a large party and if a large party happens to come in and sit in my section...where do you suppose I might seat them?”
    Sheila slowly approached Jim’s table and by her last word she was at the edge. Jim smiled curiously.
    “I, uh...don’t really know. I guess you could, like, put those two tables together and, um...”
    Sheila slammed her hands down on the table making the sugar and ketchup rattle a bit. She looked at Jim right in the eyes. It was then, he noticed, that she had the most intense blue eyes. It was then that his crush had been moved from TV personality Angie Landry to new Cluck & Saucer waitress Sheila.
    “Just. Move.”
    Her tone was a mixture of annoyance and slight jibbing. The hand slam was a little startling but after a moment of looking into those eyes of hers and watching her walk away back to the counter he moved to the smaller table with the menu on it.
   
    “Would you like something to drink?” Sheila said in a very nice voice. Now she was back into the “may I help you” mode and the cord had been cut, suddenly, from their little moment.
    Jim approached the table and became even more confused by the sweet and normal voice Sheila laid out. She even turned around and wore a believable smile on her pretty face. Jim put the book down on the table and uttered, “Uh...water...is good for now.”
    Sheila turned around and grabbed a pitcher of ice cold water and poured some into a large red plastic glass.
    “And a lemonade,” he added.
    “Alrighty!”
    After slowly sitting down and adjusting himself on the wooden captains chair with a padded seat that had been ripped at one point but now wore a patch that almost matched the bright red vinyl, Jim looked around the restaurant to see if anyone had taken notice of the exchange between him and Sheila. The family was haggling with each other as to who gets to change junior before they head out and the two remaining men at the far end of the counter sipped coffee and read the sports page. Muzak creaked dully out of old speakers hidden in the ceiling. He wasn’t sure, but it sounded like a frightening version of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” but he wasn’t too sure.
    Sheila came over with the water and lemonade (in a clear plastic glass) and set them down.
    “First day huh?”, Jim said looking up and smiling.
    “Gee. How can you tell?”, Sheila quipped rather smartly.
    “Because, um...I haven’t seen you here yet.”
    Sheila looked down at Jim as a scientist might view a new species of insect.
    “You’re quick...Jim was it?”
    “Yes. Hi. I’m Jim.”
    Sheila nodded as if that scientist realized that the insect was mentally challenged with googly eyes to boot.    
    “Well, ‘Jim’, you said you had a bad day. What was it work?”
    Jim sighed a little and looked away. “Yep.”
    “So, what are you? A college professor or surgeon...?”
    Jim looked back at Sheila who was waiting for him to come back with a smart remark. Jim just laughed.
    “Ah, no. Nothing so remarkable. I’m a copy editor over at The Weekly.”
    Sheila nodded in approval. “That’s cool,” she said. “Beats workin’ at the old Cluck and Saucer.”
    “I guess.”
    “So...what happened?”
    Sheila actually seemed to be interested in Jim’s day and dilemma. He was a bit taken back by her gesture and he really just came here to read and eat the memory of having to sit next to Amy, and the possibility of that occurring daily, away before going home, having a few beers, watching some VH1 (his new obsession: “Celebreality”), emailing friends and falling asleep with his book resting on his chest as it has been since he started the crack-like series.
    “Oh, uh...it’s nothing. Just...nothing.”
    Sheila shrugged. “Okay.” She was about to leave but then stopped. “Do you know what you want or do you...?”
    Jim was still trying to get the grim image of Amy and her foul, guttural laugh out of his head when he realized what Sheila had just asked.
    “Huh? Oh. I’ll have the club sandwich, rye bread, no mayo, curly fries and a side salad with ranch dressing on the side.”
    Sheila got out her pad and wrote it all down. “Sounds like a ‘I’ll-have-the-usual’ to me. Am I right?”
    Jim let out a laugh that was half impressed and half embarrassed. “You got it.”
    “Right.” She finished writing and looked back at Jim. “Okay. Comin’ up.”
    Sheila dashed away toward the window with the spinning tray, stuck the order on it, spun it towards the cook, Bentley, an ancient and half blind black guy who was always a mystery to Jim even as long as he has been coming here. Bentley never spoke and was always here. Always.
    “Order up!”

    Jim went back to his book. Sheila was off filling up salt and pepper shakers and never once glanced up at him. He occasionally peered up from the whimsy of words to check her out. The more he watched her the more he liked her. He wasn’t too sure why but there was also something slightly familiar about her. Perhaps he had seen her at the grocery store or maybe she used to work at another restaurant that he had been to but made no notice to the waitstaff, which was usually the case. If he wasn’t with a friend or on a date he always had some sort of book with him. Jim couldn’t fathom sitting in a restaurant or café or whatever without some kind of activity to do while alone. He always felt kind of sorry for those who went to restaurants alone and just sat there, staring out or fiddling with their napkin. What were they thinking, he thought, and what the heck are they looking at? And if Jim forgot a book he would buy a paper or pick up the latest issue of The Weekly just to see his name in print and decide to do the happy hour at Jack’s Shanty or catch some unknown punk bands over at The Mill. Either way, each time he looked up at Sheila he could not get the notion that he had seen or met her before.
    That’s when the front entrance opened with a familiar “ding dong” and a large man stepped in.
    The guy must have been at least six and a half feet tall, if not taller. He wore a dark blue sweatshirt with the hood pulled up over his head, which was bald as far as Jim could tell. He wore black cargo pants and boots that were scuffed and dirty. The man looked menacing as he slowly glided through the place and sat down at the booth that Jim had just been kicked out of earlier.
    The man had an intense yet very calm expression on his clean shaven face, as if he knew something we all didn’t. His skin was pale and he sat there, motionless, waiting for Sheila or somebody to come by and help him. The family had left, one man remained at the counter, and the Muzak droned on with a sugary version of “Copacabana.”
    Eventually Sheila emerged from the back and the hard plastic double doors swung behind her.
    “Hey. You!,” she said addressing the man. “You can’t...”
    And then she stopped. Jim watched her face turn from anger to silent shock. Sheila stood there, silent, looking at the hooded man in the big booth. The man grinned a bit and right then and there Jim became a little nervous. With that grin, the hooded man looked sinister and the fact that Sheila stood there like a statue made the moment all the more creepy.
    “Hello,” said the man in a deep yet screechy voice. “It’s been a long time.”
    Sheila closed her mouth which was hanging open and composed herself. “Yes. It has. What...”
    “You know why I’m here,” the man said. His voice was shrill under the bass tone and his face was twisted with that glare and grin of his. Jim was officially freaking out now.
    Sheila crossed her arms again. She put that tough exterior back on and looked back at the man knowingly.
    “Oh yeah?”, she said. “And what do you think you’re going to do about it?”
    Jim moved his half hidden gaze from Sheila to the man.
    The man grinned even larger. “You know what I am prepared to do my love,” he said. “And this time you wont have your...’companion’...to help you.”
    Sheila smirked. “Is that so? Well, for your information I don’t need his help anymore. No. I don’t. Because I figured out how to do it and become.”
    The man then let out a vile shriek of a laugh and stood up. “You have no idea, my sweet, the power behind it. And...you never will!”
    They stood there sizing each other up, both with cocky grins on their faces. Right then the “ding” from the kitchen broke the air and Jim saw his prize up on the window’s shelf. His club sandwich, fries and salad. His stomach grumbled both from hunger and fear.
    Sheila, not averting her gaze from the man, walked over to the window, grabbed the plate and salad bowl, walked over to Jim’s table and sat the food down.
    “Enjoy,” Sheila said under her breath.
    Jim looked at the plates of goodness and cleared his throat. Trying his best to be silent and unobtrusive, he said: “Say, Sheila, is there, um...is there anything I can do?”
    Sheila, still focused on the man, who had sat back down and wearing a new look of intensity, nodded.
    “There is actually,” she said. “I want you to do me a favor.”
    Jim moved his gaze up from his food and to Sheila’s eyes. “Um...what?”, he asked.
    Sheila slowly backed up and walked behind the counter. She bent down, fuddled with something and stood back up holding a small, elongated box. She walked back over to Jim’s table and sat the box down.
    “I want you to hold onto this for me,” she said.
    The box was decorated with old fashioned stickers from farms and butchers, or at least they were designed to look as such. On the slide top were the words “Smokey Stogie’s Good Time Meats & Things”, which swooped as if they were waving in a banner or something.
    “You fool,” the man said. “Do you honestly think you can hide it in a small box like that?” He then laughed his shrill laugh again. Jim wasn’t too sure but he almost preferred Amy’s horrible giggle to this guy’s.
    Sheila looked down at Jim.
    “Open it,” she said.
    Jim looked back down at the box and became immensely curious as to what lay inside. He then thought it was much more than a stack of jerky sticks or cured ham bits. What were the “things” that the box claimed to offer? Jim wondered.
    “Don’t do it boy,” said the man. “Once you open that box...you can never go back!”
    At that moment Jim decided that this was the strangest day he had ever experienced. First the coffee debacle at home, then the cable TV, then the sitting next to Amy Jacobson, then...this. He became both scared and intrigued at to the contents of the box once the creepy guy said that he can ‘never go back’. To what? Farmer John? Is Smokey Stogie that much more tasty and delectable? Jim wondered.
    “Better in his hands than yours,” Sheila said. “Open it Jim.”
    Sheila’s voice had become quite stern and Jim wasn’t too sure as to what to do.
    “Wh...what is this?”, Jim said. “I mean...what’s going on?”
    “You’ll see,” Sheila said with a smirk, her eyes bulls-eyed on the man. “Open the box.”
    With that Jim couldn’t take it anymore. He slid the top of the box open to reveal its secret.
    “It’s....it’s”, Jim said struggling for the right words. “It’s a...”
    “Yep,” said Sheila. “That’s right.”
    “It’s a nutlog!”  

    “Dear god boy!,” shouted the creepy man. “It’s even more serious than I thought.” The man then stood up and headed toward Jim, stopping a few steps away as if to keep his distance. He held a bony hand up, like a shield. “Give it to me boy. You have no...”
    “Don’t do it Jim!”, screamed Sheila. “This...’thing’...will only use it for evil!”
    “But...,” Jim started looking back into the box. “It’s...a nutlog.”
    “Oh no,” assured Sheila. “It’s much more than that. It is the key.”
    Jim began to laugh a bit. “But...”
    “She Ra, you fool!,” touted the creepy man. “Give it to me and all will be correct with the land you have forsaken!”
    It was then that Jim looked up from the savory nutlog contained in the pine box and realized where he had seen Sheila before. Of course! It was her, She Ra, the princess of power. He had her action figure doll along with He Man and Skeletor when he was a little boy and even had a poster hanging on his bedroom wall with her image.
    Jim glanced up at Sheila (now She Ra) and felt his eyes bug and mouth fall open like a cod caught in a net.
    “That’s it!”, Jim yelled. “You’re... Wait a minute. You’re just a cartoon and plastic doll. How...?”
    “No time to explain now Jim,” She Ra said. “Now you must wield the weapon and rid the world of this...this vile creature.”
    Jim looked over at the creepy man and gave him a second looking over. “Skeletor?”, he asked under breath smeared with excitement and disbelief. “Is...?”
    Suddenly the creepy man threw off his blue hood and glared down at Jim. He let out a piercing laugh that sent the man sitting at the counter to get up and inquire, “what’ this all about?”
    The man / Skeletor looked over at the inquisitive customer and reached back into his black pants. He then produced a large staff with a rams head at the top and pointed it at the guy.
    “Back mere mortal! Or I will be forced to incinerate you with the powers of darkness!”
    “What are you?,” asked the guy. “Some kinda queer?”
    A crack of lightning shot from the staff hitting the guy which created a blinding light. After a spell the light faded to reveal a pile of dust with a John Deere hat sitting on top. Skeletor laughed.
    “Ha ha!,” he squealed. “I haven’t done that in so long! I feel...better.”
    “You sinister piece of filth,” She Ra growled. “Go back to the castle and leave me alone!”
    Jim looked up and darted his attention between the two. “Castle Grayskull?”, he inquired with a childlike grin. “This is awesome. This day was a piece of absolute suck but now! Now...”
    “Silence simple bipedal mammal,” jutted Skeletor. “You have no right...”
    “Wait,” Jim said cocking his head a bit. “But you stand on two legs.”
    “I said SILENCE!”
    She Ra grabbed the nutlog from the box, nabbed Jim by the back of his collar, hoisted him up to his feet and jammed the cylindrical deli item in his right hand. She then swung him around and started him deep in his eyes. Her glare represented the definition of intensity.
    “Jim. You have to use this. I can’t. I am not of this world.”
    “I know,” said Jim. “You’re from Eteria. I know! Had all the figures and comics and watched the...”
    “JIM!”, she gritted through her teeth. “Point the nutlog at Skeletor and send him back to the depths of space!”
    Jim looked in her eyes and was stricken with the idea that this was all a hidden camera joke or that the florescent lights and Amy’s banal banter had caused some sort of hallucinatory effect. He maneuvered his neck to see his once childhood toy and now arch foe. And he didn’t even know why this guy was his foe. And how was he to use the nutlog in defense of his life and the safety of all on the planet?
    “I... I don’t get it,” stuttered Jim. Skeletor was holding his staff at Jim but appeared to be unable to use it. Was it the nutlog? Jim hoped that it was and went under the assumption that it was.
    “Fool! Mortal fool,” hissed Skeletor. “You don’t have the brainpower or the courage to defeat me. You will give up and slowly wither away in your pathetic excuse for an existence. Puny Earth creature! Go back to your television and alcohol and life wasting employment as you...”
    Those words caused Jim to see red. He freed himself from the hard clutch of She Ra, aimed the nutlog at Skeletor and screamed “Shut up you! You were cool as a toy but now you’re just an a*****e.”
    “Feel the power of the nutlog,” She Ra insisted. “He is powerless against it.”
    “Ha ha!,” laughed Skeletor. “You think I am afraid of a...of a...”
    It was then that the nutlog began to glow a mysterious green. It vibrated in Jim’s hand and something in his guts told him to shoot that thing like it was a gun of power. Jim aimed the nutlog right between Skeletor’s eyes.
    “No! No...don’t do that boy. You have no idea...”
    “Ah can it you dope. The Masters Of The Universe movie sucked anyway!”
    “I know,” Skeletor admitted. “Frank Langella was very miscast as me.”
    With that, Jim felt the power of the nutlog and shot for a blasting death ray of green light. It hit Skeletor point blank which sent him screaming as the green light surrounded him and slowly disintegrated his image. Soon the scream of Skeletor faded and his Earthbound reflection vanished. All that was left was his staff of evil and his boots, which smouldered in the aftermath.

    She Ra let out a breath of relief. Jim held the nutlog tight in his hands as he lowered it to see what he had done. It was true, Skeletor was eviscerated, sent back to the outer reaches of space never to return, never to bug his again or his enjoyment of a club sandwich.
    “Wow,” said Jim. “That was...”
    Suddenly Jim was spun around. She Ra gazed into his eyes and held a quivering smile on her face.
    “That was...amazing!”, she said. She Ra then thrusted Jim into her and she laid a long and loving kiss on him. After a moment or two, the heavy plastic doors swung open. It was Bentley. He stood there in his dirty cook clothes wiping his hands with a greasy towel.
    “Hey. She Ra,” he said with a deep and commanding voice. “Is he gone?”
    She Ra broke the kiss off and turned to Bentley. She walked over to him and hugged him.
    “Yes dear. Freedom has once again been restored to Earth and to Castle Grayskull.”
    Jim’s mouth gaped open again and his eyes became as wide as plates.
    “He Man?”, she shouted. “Is...is that you?”
    Bentley walked over to Jim and but a meaty hand on his shoulder.
    “No Jim,” he said. “I am Man At Arms. He Man is working the haunted house ride at Funland. He gets off in an hour. We’re going out for root beer floats after. Wanna come?”
    Jim was so overcome with disbelief and confusion that all he could say is, “Oh hell yeah!” Man At Arms smiled wide and went back to the kitchen.
    She Ra came back over and looked at Jim lovingly.
    “Oh, by the way,” she said, “the sandwich and lemonade are on us!”
    Jim slowly let out a befuddled smile. “Th...thanks,” he said. “I’ll uh...I’ll get the floats then.”
    She Ra giggled a bit and went behind the counter.
    Jim sat back down and returned to his sandwich. He took a bite and it tasted like a warm piece of heaven. The lemonade was sweet and cold. He looked at his book and decided that Harry Potter had nothing on this and his life, so he just started at the nutlog and wondered.
    “Say, Sheila...I mean, She Ra!”
    “Yes?”, said She Ra as she began to fill salt shakers.
    “I don’t get it,” Jim inquired. “Wh...why a nutlog? And...why are you guys all in disguise? And...why here?”
    She Ra stopped what she was doing and placed her hands on the counter.
    “It will all be explained,” she said gently, “after a while in the root beer floats.”
    She went back to filling the salt shakers and Jim just sat there. He decided that some things were better left unexplained, especially when he has to return to work the next day and sit next to Amy. He’d bring the nutlog, he decided, and use its power for good.

    Over the crackling speakers, Muzak played a disco version of STYX’s “Lady”.









The End











© 2006, Hindu Squirrel Ent.