Time: Thursday, 19 August
Place: The Fiendish Glow
Follows: You Won't Shine if you Don't Glow, Experience is a Terrible Thing to Waste
All characters, living and fictional, used with permission.
Parodies to "Three Blind Mice" belong to The Fiendish Glow.
Parody to "Who Threw the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy's Chowder" belongs to The Fiendish Glow. The original song appears either to be generic "Irish Traditional", or for its license to be managed outside of the United States: Brenda can't find it at all in the ASCAP database, and it comes up with three different sets of writers and three different publishers in the BMI database.
Ghillie brogues probably belong to one of the Glow Worms and should be returned because they're expensive.
Three drunk Celts
Three drunk Celts
See how they roar
See how they roar
They drank so much booze that they lost all their sense
And made so much noise that the staff took offense
They had to chase rats to prove their penitence
Three drunk Celts
Three drunk Celts.
[The Fiendish Glow, Thursday Morning, 19 August, 1130 Eastern Daylight Time]
"Aaarrgh," Chris moaned. "Me achin' head," he complained, stumbling to the bathroom.
"You shouldn't've had that much scotch last night," Pen chuckled.
"Me woman goes out t' dinner wi' another man two weeks b'fore oor weddin', an' ye tell me not tae go an a bender?"
"She got home well before midnight, Chris -- which you'd've known if you weren't already drunk under the table, along with Father Andrew and Liam..." Brenda chided. Talk about turning over a new leaf, she muttered to herself, remembering the Bridget Hellman incident. We'll see how long that lasts... Nevertheless, she'd give him the respect accorded any of Father Andrew's friends -- at least until he once again proved himself unworthy of that respect.
"Don't bore me wi' th' details," he said. "She left me for that Nuncompoop o' hers. What does she see in him, anyway?"
"Ear candy, love," MacHeather said, emerging from her room long enough to grab the woad mixture sitting on the kitchen table and kiss her fiance quickly on the cheek.
"You're the one she's promised to spend the rest of her life with," Brenda added.
"Aye, but I caen't help bu' wonder if she'll leave me to follow tha' Nuncompoopies o' hers i' he calls again."
"Chris," Pen said, breaking the proscenium once again, "this is fiction. We are fans of a TV show that was cancelled three years ago, and this 'War' is a fictional Color War that takes place in an alternate-universe Toronto that doesn't really exist. Got it?"
"Yes, but as long as I'm playing in that fictional Toronto... I aught t' be playin' by the rewles, lass," he responded, pushing the loose proscenium planks back into place and nailing them tightly shut.
"Aarrrgghhh!! Me achin' 'aid!" he cried at the sound of the hammer falling onto the planks.
"A bit o' quiet, if you please!" Father Andrew's head poked out of one of the spare rooms. "Matins, lauds, primes, an' terces caen only get you so faer o' the moarnin after..."
"Especially when it's been -- what, forty years? since your last 'night before'?" Pen chuckled quietly.
"Aboat thaet, lass -- aboat thaet."
"Well, we'll say a prayer for you and your aching head," she smiled as he disappeared back into his prayers.
"Looks like the faether'll also be lookin' for the 'air o' the' dog," Chris acknowledged.
"Yeah," Brenda frowned. "Meaning O'Neal won't be all that far behind him..." She paused, lost in thought for a moment, then directed her next remarks to Pen. "I'm thinking that after the ruckus they caused at the Glow last night, we need to put all three of 'em on rat patrol as penance."
"Rat patrol?" Chris asked, worried.
Pen fingered her chin a moment, then broke out an evil smile. "After that scene?! Most definitely!"
"Rat patrol?" Chris asked, a bit louder.
"You see that outside?" Pen asked, dragging Chris to the window overlooking the dumpster. Several rats waddled in and out of the covered green metal bin. Others all but dragged themselves on the ground. Still others were running full-tilt into wheels, walls, and metal sheets. "We're trying to get rid of them.You will help."
"I-I-i will?" he asked, incredulous.
"Yup," Brenda agreed. "You, Father Andrew, and Liam O'Neal will help the boys set up the traps and eradicate the pests before they infest the Glow itself."
"It's the least we can do, given the disturbance we caused last night," Father Andrew said, finally emerging from his hours of prayer.
"Has anyone warrned O'Neal aboot this?" the newly-woaded MacHeather asked, adjusting her tartan toga.
"No, but I have this feeling we're just about to," said Brenda, just as the doorbell chimed. From the window, she could see a figure completely shrouded in a hooded Kinsale cloak.
"Give him inside duty," Father Andrew suggested. "I fear the hangover may be punishment eno' for him."
Pen and Brenda chuckled.
Three drunk rats
Three drunk rats
See how they weave
See how they weave
They all had too much bad alco'ol to drink
Because it hadn't been poured down the sink
Now they've all lost their sight and can no longer think
Three drunk rats
Three drunk rats.
A few hours later, just outside The Fiendish Glow.
crunch crunch
"What stinks oot here?" Chris asked, his hazard-baggied boots stepping on, over, and around several fly-ridden lumps of unidentifiable something.
"It smells like rotten meat," O'Neal suggested, trying to trace the source of the noxious fumes. "Rotten meat an' alcohol." His steps took him to the now overflowing dumpster. "I dowan remember it bein' anywhere near full whin we staerted," he commented.
"We have been throwing out garbage, bait wrappers, and trap packaging all afternoon," Father Andrew suggested. "And Miguel and Consuela have been cooking all day." He held out a piece of bait towards an oncoming rat. The rat sniffed at the bait, turned around, and made a beeline for the dumpster, trying his damnedest to get inside. "Hmm... thair must be something aboat this dumpster," the former priest observed. Stepping his way around the rodents, he grabbed a poker and carefully lifted the dumpster's lid. The stench was overpowering; he couldn't keep it open more than a couple of seconds. "Tek a look a' this," he advised the others, crossing himself.
O'Neal and Chris each stepped to the dumpster in turn, and each quickly replaced the lid and stepped back.
"Rats," said Chris, noting nothing surprising.
"Rats upon rats," O'Neal elaborated, stepping his way around the corpses on the ground.
"Drunken rats," Father Andrew suggested, watching another specimen run full tilt towards the Glow's outside wall, crushing his skull against it and falling dead a short time later. A pileup of dead rats had already formed in the same area. In the drive area, rats were waddling, weaving, and otherwise behaving abnormally. "What wud cause a rat t' get tipsy?" he wondered.
"Shoo! Shoo!" Consuela appeared at the kitchen doorway, brandishing a 10" French chef towards a trio of the four-legged creatures. Unfortunately, the rats in question seemed to have no idea where to shoo to, and ended up weaving in and out of each other and around Consuela's legs, right into the waiting paws of...
Lucius the cat.
"AArrgh, no!!!!!" Chris cried, charging towards the cook and diving between her legs just in time to save the black feline from capturing this most interesting live food. As a result, Consuela lost her balance, falling, knife first, cutting off the tails of the three weaving rats in the process.
"Ba-a-a--a-ddd Lucius," Chris chided the cat. "Didna ye ken, the rats arrre poisoned? I' ye eat 'em, they'll kill ye -- an' MacHeather would neeevvir ferrrrgive me."
"But didn't y'all and Heather teach me tuh chase rats and mahce back in Teykzas?" Lucius asked. It came out as sounding more like "Meow, meow, aww, meow, purrr, bat forepaw meow, bat forepaw in the rat's direction."
"I'm goin' t' put ye back in yer carrier fer now, little one," he said, carrying the cat inside and upstairs despite its squirming and yowling protests.
"Looks more like wood alcohol than drinkin' stuff to me," Father Andrew said, observing the rats' behavior as the two men righted the cook, who disappeared post-haste back into the kitchen. "They're blind as bats."
"But how did they get drunk on that stuff?" Liam asked.
"I'll bet it was Heather's attempt to make Atholl Brose," Brenda said, having seen and heard everything from Consuela's chase onward. "If by any chance that jar cracked, the concoction would have seeped into the food scraps and fermented them..."
"Bu' thaet wudna' poisoned the critters, though," Father Andrew asked, hopefully.
"The way that concoction smelled, I'm not so sure," Brenda shook her head. Maybe it's time we ask Heather exactly what she put into that thing, she told herself.
The Fiendish Glow, Thursday, 19 August, 2000 Eastern Daylight Time
As Father Andrew suspected, it was something very close to wood alcohol that did the rats in. Anxious to get a more potent brew, the MacCousin had substituted a large bottle of Ethyl Alcohol ("rubbing alcohol") for the indicated cheap scotch.
"Heather, m'love, didna' ye read th' bottle?" Chris asked, after she admitted to the switch.
"Of course I read the bottle. It said 'Ethyl Alcohol, 70% by volume.' Tha's wun hunnerd forty proof an' wud make a wicked buzz!" she grinned.
Chris picked up the bottle and pointed to a line of small print. The words "denatured" and "not for drinking purposes" figured prominently.
"I figgered tha' was a waernin' not tae drink it straight -- nae tha' ye cuddna' mix't wi' something," the MacCousin replied.
"The reason it says 'denatured' on't is that they add in poisons so tha' ye canna drink it. Otherwise, it'd'hae tae be regulated by the liquor authorities."
"Hmm," the MacCousin mused.
"Ye ken, Lucius nearly made off wi' one of them poisoned rats... what if he'd gotten into the dumpster itself and drank the stuff?"
"Aye, and who threw it into the dumpster i' the furst place?" she asked him.
"Ssh!" Pen whispered, passing them each a drink to shut them up. "The karaoke's about to begin... and Brenda said she had something special for us tonight."
The MacCousin rolled her eyes.
"Welcome to Karaoke Night at The Fiendish Glow", the young lass at the mike announced. "Tonight we're going to start off with something... different. One of our managers has come up with some new lyrics to an old favorite. Please give a hand for Brenda!"
Polite applause greeted the heavyset woman as she stepped forward into the lighted area.
"Thank you Colleen. I think you've all been aware of the rat problem that has begun to peak throughout the city."
Some groans of assent mumbled through the crowd.
"We've been aware of it, too."
A few hushed chuckles escaped.
"We've set bait, traps, closed up holes, and so on... but today we witnessed one of the most unusual methods of rodenticide I think I've seen in my life -- death by intoxication!"
A few laughs arose from the crowd at the tables, and a few boos from the bar.
"(That's a warning to the bar rats in the corner)," she stage-whispered, eyeing Father Andrew, Kerrigan, and O'Neal trading stories.
Another chuckle emerged.
"An' for all this, we have our own MacCousin Heather t' thank. Take a bow, Heather!"
"I'm going to really get her for this!" the MacCousin said, turning red beneath her blue warpaint and plaid glow as the spotlight turned hot on her.
When the applause died, Brenda continued: "Ye're all familiar with the overalls in Mrs. Murphy's chowder, right? Well, this is a bit of a different take on it." With Colleen ready to roll the karaoke machine, Brenda gave a last check to the "official" lyrics, and found it a verse shorter than her own version.
"Ye know something? I'm not sure how long the karaoke is set for, so why don't I do this one sean nos -- without accompaniment."
A murmur ran through the crowd, not all of it pleasant.
"Sean nos?" Colleen asked. "Are ye sure?"
Brenda nodded, showing the emcee where the lengths of the two versions differed.
"It's your reputation," the redhead shrugged.
Brenda took two breaths, counted her tempo, and began to sing:
Oor MacHeather pulled a jug out, bent on making
Atholl Brose;
Everything she put in there, from oats to -- panty
hose?
The last word, spoken and paused upon, elicited some nervous laughter.
She had in mind a special brew, with lots of extra
kick --
But the spirits tha' she put i' there would make a drunkard
sick!
Oh, who threw the Atholl Brose into the ootside
dumpster?
Nobody spoke, so we looked where all the lumps were.
We had no idear 'twould be
Aught to make the rats all dee
From
Atholl Brose inside the ootside dumpster.
After the expected laughter died down, the woman continued:
Well the jar sat i' the pantry, oozing gray an'
brownish goo
'Til the Glow Worms spotted it an' wondered what tae do,
Then Heather's darlin' opened it tae poor himself a drink --
But he
nearly keel-hauled over to escape the awful stink!
"You didna?" Heather asked Chris.
"Aye," he told her. "'Twas right strong, that stuff!"
Who spilled the Atholl Brose into the ootside
dumpster,
Nobody spoke so we looked at all the clumps there.
We
had no idear the goo
Wud smell worse than leather glue
From th'
Atholl Brose inside the ootside dumpster.
A bunch of groans elicited from the crowd at the bad puns and worse rhymes.
"Ye think the story's finished?" she asked them.
"Yeah!" it said.
"Well, we're just about half-way point."
"Aawwww..."
Brenda crouched down and asked the crowd conspiratorially, "Well, do you want to know what happened to that goo?"
"Noooooooo...."
"Well, you're gonna hear it anyway," she said, standing up and preparing to sing again.
Then Chris he brought the jar outside tae throo into
the trash
All the lights were darkened and we heard an awful crash!
The stench wa' something awful as it seeped the garbage o'er
Yet the
rodents must've liked it 'cos they came there by the score!
"By the score?" she asked rhetorically. "By the gross! By the gross and the gross-out. By the scads and scads. By morning, the dumpster was overflowing with rats!" she said, embellishing the story.
Well,
Who spilled the Atholl Brose into the
ootside dumpster?
Nobody spoke, and we barely saw those clumps stir
Fer the rodents acted drunk
An' smelled worse than fresh-sprayed
skunk
From th' Atholl Brose inside the ootside dumpster.
"OOoohhh, I'm really going to get her for this!" MacHeather cried, looking for where she had placed her lance.
"Hush, lass," her fiancé said. "We all knae ye canna cook. Dinna worry aboot it. Besides," he winked, "after a' that rat removin' stuff, we need tae laugh aboot it."
MacHeather fumed silently as her fellow Glow Worm continued...
"This is the last verse," the woman announced, to the cheers of the crowd. "But it's a bit of a serious verse."
The crowd booed.
"It's got a moral to it."
Father Andrew perked up in the corner.
"And a bit of a recipe."
The audience booed.
"Well, let's get it over with, shall we?"
The audience went silent.
"Okay, now, here it goes...
The moral of the story is, if you'd drink Atholl
Brose
Watch oot tae see that it's no' made from worn-out ghillie
brogues!
Ken clear denatured alcohol the recipe will botch,
Just
keep it plain and simple -- honey, water, oats, and scotch!
"That's the recipe bit," she told the crowd. "And cream, of course, if you like it that way. Fresh cream. Not denatured cream. None of that past-the-expiration-date stuff." She paused and asked, "anybody want to sing along?"
A few timid souls took her up on the offer, as they concluded:
Who spilled the Atholl Brose into the ootside
dumpster?
Nobody spoke, and we barely saw the clumps stir
For
'twas poisoned, so you see
And it made the rodents dee
An'
there's no more rats inside the ootside dumpster!
Atholl Brose is an alcoholic drink made by fermenting the water drained from making oatcakes with honey, scotch, and often cream. There are several recipes for the concoction floating around the Web; just look up "Atholl Brose" and "recipes" in your favorite search engine.
ASCAP and BMI are the two main US clearinghouses for researching the license-holders for musical composition and performance, and for licensing the performance of that music. The author and siteowner references these databases both in order to give proper attribution for the music mentioned in Fiendish Glow stories and to credit the writers and composers of the original songs which are parodied in Fiendish Glow stories and in the Keltic KaraokeTM database.
Ghillie brogues are "traditional" hard-soled Scottish lace-up shoes. They're kind of like oxfords except that they don't have a tongue, and the laces are long enough to lace around your ankles as well.
Bridget Hellman was the rookie chomped on by Jack the Ripper in "Bad Blood". In the episode tag, while Nick tries to convince Lacroix that Liam's changed his ways and doesn't need to be killed, Liam is sitting in the cemetery with a crossbow aimed at Bridget's grave. As she rises from the grave, he trains the weapon on her. We are left to presume that he fires and kills her permanently.
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NEXT STORY: GETTING BACK
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