Uncle Moe and the Martha’s Vineyard Frackers

By James D. Loy

Moe Thibault is a lovable octogenarian who sometimes thinks he’s Jacques Clouseau and who’s convinced he once had an identical twin. While living out his widower’s retirement in upstate New York, Moe is sent an obituary from Martha’s Vineyard with a photo of his apparent Doppelganger, a man named Leroi Uxem. Could this have been his long-lost brother? However, the appearance of energy prospectors intent on setting up a fracking operation offers a threat to the Vineyard. As a Senior Richter Minister of the Church of Seismology, Moe considers fracking to be a sin against the Earth and God – a deity who Moe believes is called Yolanda. Accordingly, he begins a campaign to stop the frackers before they can make a shambles of the island. His associates include Mike Uxem and his wife Nicki, Moe’s niece Velma Trailer, Artie Wetzo (a pal of Leroi’s), and Larry Hitch, Moe’s former business associate and the owner of a sex-obsessed monkey. Can they foil the frackers? Will Yolanda kick butt and take names like she did at Pompeii two millennia ago? If you like irreverent stories with zany characters, Uncle Moe and the Martha’s Vineyard Frackers just might be for you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AbsolutelyAmazingEbooks.com
• Release date: Jul 18, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311506214

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Uncle Moe

and the

Martha’s Vineyard

Frackers

James D. Loy

THE NEW ATLANTIAN LIBRARY

is an imprint of

ABSOLUTELY AMAZING eBOOKS

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Uncle Moe and the Martha’s Vineyard Frackers copyright © 2014 by James D. Loy. Electronic compilation/ paperback edition copyright © 2014 by Whiz Bang LLC.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. While the author has made every effort to provide accurate information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their contents.

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Acknowledgements

This book is the sequel to Fish Food, my first contribution to absurd fiction (formally, the genre ridiculus litterae) which, probably in a moment of extreme weakness, Absolutely Amazing eBooks published in 2013. The subsequent writing of Uncle Moe and the Martha’s Vineyard Frackers was due in no small part to the encouragement of friends and relatives, and to recklessly positive online reviews of Fish Food by Karen R., SKW, Dorothy F., and Nancy L. No doubt after reading the present book, all of those persons will say, Well, I’ve certainly learned my lesson and end their careers as reviewers forthwith.

As in Fish Food, I have poked fun pretty freely at people, institutions, and ideas. I’ve tried to conceal the identities of my victims, but sometimes the veils are rather thin and I apologize in advance if I’ve offended anyone. It is my opinion that a thick skin and a good sense of humor are essential qualities in this world.

Additionally, for the second time I have shamelessly ripped off my pals and former University of Rhode Island colleagues as regards their personality traits, anecdotes, and favorite jokes. To all those people, I say please forgive me and be assured that I’m not getting rich using your material.

Finally, one corporation and two special people deserve individual thanks for helping to make this book possible. First, I wish to acknowledge permission to use the following lyrics:

God’s Gonna Get’cha For That. Words and Music by Ervel Edward Collins.

Copyright © 1975 SONGS OF UNIVERSAL, INC. and HERMITAGE MUSIC

PUBLISHING CO. Copyright Renewed. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation.

Second, my sincere thanks go to Joy Franklin for her excellent proofing and copy-editing of the manuscript. As much as I’d like to pin any remaining errors on Joy, I suppose I’d better own up to them myself. And last but not least, I wish to thank my wife, Kent M. Loy, for putting up with my monopolization of the kitchen table while writing. Sorry, honey, but the light’s really good there.

Jim Loy

Hendersonville, NC

August 2014

Chapter 1

The letter lay open on the parlor floor of the Prospect Hill Inn, a modified nineteenth century farmhouse situated atop said hill near the west end of Martha’s Vineyard. Beside the letter was a photograph and beside the photograph was a tabby cat named Was-Were. The animal appeared to be studying the picture carefully and any competent felinologist would have described her expression as distinctly murderous. One of the inn’s owners, a tall, lanky man named Mike Uxem, sat nearby in stunned silence, alternately gazing through the inn’s front window at the overcast January afternoon and then down at the snapshot and note. He felt as if he had seen a ghost. After several minutes, he leaned over and retrieved the letter – rustling it in the process and causing the cat to stalk off in disgust – and then he read through it for a second time. It ran as follows:

January 21, 2012

Oswego, NY

My dear Dr. Uxem:

We have never met, but I am writing to you because I have reason to believe that one of the residents of the retirement home I manage, Heaven’s Door, might be one of your blood relatives. My name is Buddleia Martin and my facility is located in Oswego, NY, right on the edge of Lake Ontario. The resident in question is an eighty-eight-year-old man named Maurice Thibault, Moe for short. I believe the surname Thibault is rather rare where you live, but it’s quite common in Quebec, where Moe was born. Anyway, since he came to live with us about a year ago, Moe has repeatedly told me a story about having had an identical twin from whom he was separated at birth. According to him, the brothers’ Quebecois parents were too poor to raise both boys, so they put the younger twin – i.e. Moe, who was born second by about ten minutes – up for adoption and he was raised by a childless couple named Thibault. Embarrassed by their circumstances and guilty about what they had done, Moe’s biological parents then deliberately severed all contacts with the Thibaults. So complete was the separation that Moe isn’t even sure of his birth surname. In any event, as an adult, he immigrated to the little village of Mexico, New York, became a naturalized U.S. citizen, married a local girl, and cobbled together a living running a small roadside zoo and working as a semi-professional product tester (I’ll let Moe explain that, if and when you meet him). He also pastored a small local church for several years, but this brought in hardly any money. Moe and his wife, Lily, were married for fifty-five years before her death three years ago. They had no children.

So that’s the background of my letter and now I know you would like for me to come to the point. A year ago, one of Moe’s closest friends, a widower named Larry Hitch, retired to Martha’s Vineyard and now lives in the town of Chilmark. Along with last year’s Christmas card, Mr. Hitch mailed Moe the obituary reporting your uncle Leroi Uxem’s death. He did this because, as nearly as Mr. Hitch could tell from the obit photo, your late uncle was a dead ringer for Moe (sorry, that was poorly worded). We all got pretty excited after seeing the picture, since it seemed that Moe might finally be on the track of his long-lost twin. I’ve enclosed a recent photo of Moe so you can judge the resemblance for yourself.

I know it’s asking a lot, but Moe would love to meet you and see if he can’t solve the missing twin puzzle once and for all. I told him I’d travel to Martha’s Vineyard with him before heading up to Boston for a long-overdue visit with my family there. He is physically strong enough to make the trip alone, but sometimes he gets confused and thus might get into trouble on his own. Also, he has this thing about eating a poutine every day and I’ve located all the sources on the way to your house. We will, of course, respect your decision on the matter, but this would mean a lot to Moe. And who knows, you might meet an uncle you never knew you had. Please let us know if a visit is possible and if so, how best to do it. Thanks very much and we look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Buddleia Martin, Manager

Heaven’s Door Retirement Home

(Our motto: "God watches us in HD")

As he studied the photograph, Mike Uxem had no doubt whatsoever that he was looking at a kinsman. The short, stout gentleman gazing out from the picture was the spitting image of Mike’s recently deceased Uncle Leroi, who had been nibbled to death by carnivorous fish the previous summer – on Leroi’s birthday, no less. Shaking his head in amazement, Mike quoted his favorite philosopher, Lawrence Peter Berra (aka Yogi): It’s déjà vu all over again!

Hey, Nicki, Mike called toward the back of the house, come out here will you? And bring Cousin Velma with you. You two won’t believe what – or who – just came in the mail.

A few seconds later, two women came down the hall and into the inn’s parlor. One was Mike’s wife of less than a year, the former Nicki Thompson. A strikingly pretty and athletic brunette in her mid-thirties, Nicki had given up a career as a marine biologist at the Scripps Oceanographic Institute the previous September in order to become Mrs. Mike. She had been working on the inn’s tax returns when Mike called and her reading glasses were perched prettily on the end of her nose. Mike handed Nicki the letter from Oswego as she entered the room.

Take a look at this, honey, said Mike. Yogi was right, as usual. Ignoring the cryptic Yogi reference, Nicki took the letter and began to read, her eyes widening in astonishment as she progressed.

The second person to answer Mike’s summons was a buxom blonde in her seventies who, on a good day and with the aid of cowgirl boots, stood five feet tall. This was Mike’s widowed cousin Velma Trailer, until recently a resident of Dayton, Tennessee, but now the head chef at the Prospect Hill Inn. A jolly soul who, unlike Mike, never took life too seriously, Velma sported her trademark beehive hairdo and a bright yellow blouse. Her role as the head of – indeed, the entirety of – the inn’s culinary staff was revealed by her flour-covered apron.

What’s up, Mikey? asked Velma as she sidled up beside him. Don’t tell me there’s something in the mail besides bills or advertisements about this week’s grocery specials down in Menemsha.

Well, yeah, you might say there’s something better than that. Have you ever heard of a man named Maurice Thibault? He lives in upstate New York.

Thibault? said Velma, wrinkling her brow in thought. Nope. I knew a Thoreau once, a guy named Bob Thoreau. He sold tractors back in Dayton and had frisky hands in the choir’s changing room. I’ve never known anyone named Thibault though. Why do you ask?

I’ll show you, said Mike, handing Velma the photograph. Take a look at this.

Velma took the picture and as she looked at it her jaw dropped and she joined Nicki in wide-eyed astonishment. Well, I’ll be dogged, Mike! she finally managed to say. That’s Uncle Leroi if I ever saw him. Has he come back from the grave? Who sent you this picture?

Let me see! said Nicki, crowding in to take a look at the photo and simultaneously passing the letter over to Velma. "Oh my god, Mike, the letter’s right! It’s Uncle Leroi, sure enough. Look at that head of white hair and the plaid tie! This is Twilight Zone stuff. Nobody comes back from being the dinner entrée for a school of piranhas."

(For readers unfortunate enough not to have read Fish Food, the initial installment of this family saga, a few words of explanation may be helpful at this point. Like his new wife, Mike Uxem was trained as a marine biologist and when his senile Uncle Leroi moved from Tennessee in 2010 to share his nephew’s pre-Nicki bachelor pad, Mike was in the habit of keeping a tankful of red-bellied piranhas in his sunroom and feeding them frozen Cornish hens for fun – more on those fish in a moment. Leroi Uxem was unique in both dress and behavior. Regarding clothes, he favored multiple plaids to set off his snowy white hair. And if he wasn’t wearing plaids, Leroi probably had no clothes on at all, being a devoted nudist. All outfits, or non-outfits, were complemented by a hula girl tattoo on Leroi’s forearm, an acquisition dating from his Navy service during World War II. Concerning behavior, Leroi was a fierce Christian creationist and Bible-quoter; he loved fruitcake and insisted on eating at least one slice every day, preferably washing it down with something alcoholic; he put his shoes in the refrigerator at night during the summer so they would be cool in the morning; he hated small dogs and all cats – cats returned the favor, hence Was-Were’s malevolent glare after catching a glimpse of Moe Thibault’s photograph – and he had married a woman named Lily. In what was officially judged to be an accident, but was actually a case of murder perpetrated by the Prospect Hill cats, Uncle Leroi had been eaten alive by the sunroom piranhas during his eighty-eighth birthday party. Now back to the conversation about the letter from Oswego.)

Yeah, said Mike in response to Nicki’s observation. "I spotted the plaid tie and it made my stomach knot up. That, plus what it says in the letter about this Moe Thibault ‘getting confused’ occasionally and having unusual food obsessions. Do you remember those studies that claim identical twins don’t just look alike, but often act alike even if they’ve been raised separately? Well, this guy Thibault not only looks like Uncle Leroi, but he wears plaids, was married to a woman named Lily, and demands weird food once a day! Does any of that sound familiar? I think we’ve got another loony uncle on our hands. And what the heck is a poutine anyway?"

I can answer that, Mikey, believe it or not, said Velma. "Early in my marriage to old