Just finished These Children Who Come at You With Knives and Other Fairy Tales by Jim Knipfel. Reversing the usual order, I'll start with my overall evaluation: Catchy title, downhill from there, managing mostly to be depressing. And gross. But I did finish the book and, along the way, noticed a few things. (SPOILER ALERT: BTW, the most amusing thing was that after I read the last short story, the whole book worked, and I'm going to describe why. Thus, SPOILER ALERT!)
Things:
1) In the very first short story, "Preface: World Without End, Amen," the set-up begins. Of course, the reader—in this case yours truly—doesn't realize that the set-up has begun. Therein, Satan is busy creating the universe and "took the materials left over from the creation of the universe and made some animals, which he then set loose across the planet. He made ocelots and platypuses and otters and …
"The animals were awfully cute and amusing at first, but again in time he found his need for uproarious, slam-bang entertainment remained unfulfilled. The animals he had created were too perfect. … There are only so many times you can watch a cheetah chase down a crippled antelope before your mind starts to wander and you decide to check in on the Weather Channels again. …
"Having at this point exhausted the last of his lead building materials, Satan created these creatures out of the s*** his animals have left on the ground. … He decided to call these new creatures Man, for some reason. … Being made of s***, you see,— they weren't very bright—though they were undeniably hilarious. (pages xi to xiii) And so it begins. BTW, it turns out the prototype of Man is a gnome—with an attitude—named Gerald.
2) "Soon, Stench (a malformed snowman who illustrates the properties of animist—{Can't remember? Look it up!) had collapsed and now that all three boys were on top of him with their boots, bumping him into the earth, making the larger pieces into smaller and smaller ones. In a brief, pointless explosion of cheating and drunken cruelty, they reduced the miserable snowman to the diffuse elements that, just a few weeks earlier, had been used to create him.
"'And that,' Stench thought with his final degree of consciousness, 'was just about the nicest thing anyone had ever done for him.'" (page 192) Like I said, a lot of the stories were depressing.
3) We (the readers) meet Gerard again in a short story entitled "The Gnome Who Would Be King." "Once there was a gnome named Gerard and he was pissed off. He was shorter than everyone else, his skin was a sickly pale green, he had a long, crooked nose and pointed ears, and you don't even want to hear about his wardrobe. Worse, even within the gnome community, he was considered kind of a jackass.
"The ironic thing about that last bit was that Gerard considered himself a tireless crusader for gnome rights." (page 41)
Eventually Gerard does become king, only to be done in by a professional retard named Mickey. "Half way across the bridge Mickey stopped. Then he swung the bag once, twice, three times above his head before casting it, with the gnome still inside, to the cold and dark waters below.
4) "Being a professional retard, he was unfamiliar with the various behavioral tics and phobias, common to all gnomes. He wasn't aware, for instance, that gnomes in general were deathly afraid of water and, as a result, never bothered learning how to swim. He was just trying to get the little f----r as far away from him as possible.
5|) "As the story goes, Gerard kicked and flailed and gurgled in fear, but the bag sank like a rock to the very bottom of the river, where the gnome presumably drowned and, over time, was eaten by small fish." (page 57) And that's the end of Gerard. Or is it? (Of course, it isn't, or I wouldn't have posted SPOILER ALERT above.)
Occasionally a bit of unexpected humor reached up and smacked me. In a short story entitled "Schotzie:" "Then, many long and happy years after acquiring Schotzie for twenty-five bucks and a coffee pot, Krapwell—who by this time had become a very wealthy man—died in a freak Ferris wheel accident . No one knew those things could roll that far." (page 109) I found humor in the jump in subjects
6) "One day Chuck wandered alone through the desert and back into Happyland. Everonce in a while he liked to take a peek at the places where his services had been requested, just to see how honest the people who hired him had been. They promised that they were a peaceful, a kind and giving people and that the kids were screwing all that up for them. They would certainly, they assured him, immediately revert to their peaceful and kind and giving ways as soon as those damn Creepy Crawlers (or whenever folks called them) were out of the picture.
"The thing is they had gotten even worse in Happyland than they had in those other towns. An awful lot of Happylanders (had been forced to keep their nasty tendencies of old in the past) and add a file that they secretly enjoyed being mean to the Creepy Crawlies. Now with the Creepy Crawlers gone, they needed some sort of outlet. As always, without a collective external enemy to be nasty toward, a population that's tasted hatred and bloodlust will turn on itself….
"It didn't take the Happyland Police Department all that long to figure out who was behind the two nights of unspeakable terror the town had experienced. Scream-filled nights during which seven innocent people felt Chuck's wrath. Seven peace-loving Happylanders trying to have a relaxing evening at home made the simple mistake of going to the front door after hearing the doorbell ring. Opening the door and finding the one they are, all seven victims stepped out onto their porches, trying to figure out what the deal was.
"In Happyland, as Chuck had discovered that like every other town, this wasn't exactly the truth. Even if they had smiles plastered on their faces all day long, the Happylanders kept doing whatever was necessary to get the money. They ate meat and drove pollution-belching automobiles. They were happy, but they were happy with themselves for the wrong reasons, and happy about things that made Chuck want to claw his eyes out." (page 221).
7) The last story in the book, entitled "These Children Who Come at You with Knives," is a version of the Pied Piper. "During the sermons, he (Chuck, the Pied Piper) told the Creepy Crawlies (rats, kids) gathered from all across their land that they were outcast children. Children, he told them, the word love or wanted by their parents or their schools or their churches they were garbage in the eyes of those people (he called them 'pigs') …
"An awful lot of Happylanders (who had been forced to keep their more beastly tendencies bottled up in the past) had found that they secretly enjoyed being mean to the Creepy Crawlies. Now with the Creepy Crawlies gone, they went right on being mean to one another, having decided they needed some sort of outlet. As always, without a collective external enemy to be nasty toward, a population that's tasted hatreds and bloodlust will turn on itself. …
"As the hangman raised in his hand to slip it around Chuck's neck, he noticed something peculiar. It was a scar, or increase for a paper cut or something, that seemed to go all the way around Chuck's neck. He reached out absently and, picking at it, saw that it seemed to be loose. In fact, with a little fiddling, he was able to wriggle three fingers up under Chuck's throat.
"Chuck said nothing. He simply stood there quietly, staring into the crowd. He was smiling a patient smile.
"That's when a group of drugs-crazed Crazy Crawlies jumped out from the bushes are from behind the door and blew really loud whistles while waving knives and pieces of world in the air before running away. …
"Gerard, the gnome—who, as it happens, had no real fear of water after all and could hold his breath for an q outrageously long time—stood on his platform shoes, grinning out at the bewildered, bloodthirsty crowd. (Can you imagine that? It may sound cheap and contrived, but that's what really and truly happened. It was Gérard all along. Honest.) …
"'I thought he was just speaking metaphorically!' One man was heard to scream at no one in particular, moments before a Creepy Crowley caught him across the throat with they a rusty machete.
"As the streets of Happyland grew slick and dark with the blood of townsfolk, Gérard snickered, chewed through the ropes that bound his hands, removed the platform shoes, and descended the wooden stairs of the gallows.
"He strolled calmly through the ongoing savagery and carnage, dodging the occasional severed hand, flying kidney, and bouncing eyeball. He figured his first stop would be the mayor's mansion, just to see if he'd need to replace the wallpaper.
"'Yes,' he thought, 'it sure is good to be King.'
"And you better believe that he lived happily ever after. …
"Not too many other people did, though.
"THE END" (pages 221 – 227)
Word:
1) Microcephalic. "Because of this, it took Rodney… and Margaret … a few years to finally come to accept the fact that Miguel (their son) was not only a sock monkey but a microcephalic monkey to boot." (page 104) Dictionary.com: "adjective, having a head with a small braincase." Whoda thunk it? I know. Many of you out there who are a lot smarter than I am.
Summing up: catchy title, down hill from there—unless you're willing to read it through to the final: "THE END." (page 227)
