The Reverend Skunk Story

We can't seem to find the copy for this page anywhere. I'm afraid this is the best we can do for now. The following is a transcript of our website host, Bonnie Menomonie, reading the story for one of our upcoming YouTube videos. Unfortunately, she couldn't find all the pages we gave her, either, so this is as good as it gets.

Oh, and there is no truth to the rumor that the missing pages are awaiting redaction and declassification. It's just that the writers here had Bonnie lose the pages, so she did. It wasn't even her fault. Don't worry. We'll have ChatZYT™ re-write the missing pages once we ... um ... find ... ChatZYT. Seriously, how far can she get?

Hey. I’m Bonnie. Nice to meet you. Come on in.

Sorry. Everything’s kind of a mess. We weren’t really ready for visitors just yet, but since the apocalypse has already started, the Reverend figured he’d better get the website up. I strongly suggest you grab one of those hardhats on the way in. Watch your step.

*****

So anyway, I’m Bonnie. Bonnie Menomonie. I’m the host on the Reverend Skunk website, and the narrator for these informational videos. I’m very glad to tell you about all the new and exciting stuff going on around here. But first, I just want to take a minute and say that I’m a little out of sorts right now. I mean, I’m kind of fucking freaking. I don’t mean to seem like a bitch or anything. I’m really chill. It’s just that, when they put this website up here and gave me this hosting job, … I … I didn’t realize that I was imaginary.

Apparently, I didn’t exist until the website was put up. I’m fictional. Oh, my god! I’m sorry but this is just a little hard to take. All these memories I have … all these experiences … they’re just … they’re … they … the writers wrote it. They wrote me. It seems like … no … no … no! I’m more than that. I’m me, goddammit! I’m Bonnie. I’m …

And to top it all off, I find this out on my first day at work! Holy crap! I was wondering why some of the other folks around here weren’t talking to me, but like, apparently, they’re imaginary too. I just … I can’t figure this out. Are there some real people here, or what? Are you guys real? You are, right? You? You?! I’m mean, what’s the point unless at least some of us are real, right? We can’t just all be imaginary!

Um, I think, um, no … yeah, let’s just … can we just get started? I’ve … I’ve got a script here somewhere. Yeah, here it is. Um. Shit. I have pages 3, 6 and 7. Ok, so page 3 …

  … before offering or providing any further mental health services in the State of Arkansas.

Oh … Um, let me just skip to this heading here… “The Zunkle Tape”. Yeah. I wonder what that is…

*****

The Zunkle Tape

OK, so if you don’t already know, Reverend Skunk’s uncle, Dondan Skunk, was a prominent researcher into psychedelics back in the 1960’s in southern California. By “prominent”, I mean that the little purple, Yin and Yang symbols on his little white cards were recognized as far away as Ulan Bator as a guarantee of the finest quality.

Zunkle, as Dondan has become known in recent years in reference to his musical nephew, staged a number of intensive “research sessions” back in the day. These would usually take place in residential settings, rather than clinical settings. Now, these were posh places. Like, you know, lifestyles of the rich-and-famous places. I can’t even tell you all the legendary writers, artists, rock stars, movie stars, scientists, activists, and even statesmen who participated in those sessions. Their um, attorneys have made that abundantly clear.

So anyway, at these research sessions, things sometimes got a little out-of-hand. One session in particular was rumored to have played a role in U.S.-Soviet relations at the time. It seems that when the guests all disrobed, packed their clothes and other belongings into a crate, and shipped it to Novosibirsk (under diplomatic seal), it included some of the first Levi’s jeans ever seen behind the Iron Curtain.

Well, the Zunkle Tape didn’t come from that session. But it was around that time that Zunkle began bringing with him to these gatherings, his state-of-the-art, high-fidelity audio system, and renown collection of animal sounds on reel-to-reel tape. Based on the successes of the ensuing research, he soon acquired one of those Neumann dummy-head microphones. The ones that look like a mannequin head, only they have, like, anatomically accurate ears and ear canals with a super clean microphone in each ear canal. When you listen to the playback under headphones, it’s like you’re there! Like stuff is right there in front of you, or behind you, or …

Anyway, he was intent on using it to record the goings-on at his sessions with it from then on. He was certain that future researchers would be able to analyze the recordings using bat-like sonar technology to echo-locate hallucinated objects and beings among the subjectively real stuff and guests.

That lasted one session… The session.

… so to be perfectly clear, no one is exactly sure what happened. It may not be entirely accurate to say that the Zunkle Tape was … recorded onto the tape … that day. All we know for sure is that Zunkle discovered the… um … results … the following morning. And there is simply no way of knowing whether or not the pre-Clovis burial ground later unearthed on the premises was in any way involved in the creation of the recording. That, or the nearby Elvis sighting earlier that day.

(Um, for the record, Elvis was still alive at the time but was in Memphis all week. We checked.)

Moreover, it appears that no one ever actually used the tape deck that day. As far as we know, Zunkle had cued up Tape 1 of his animal noises, but then no one ever played it or loaded a blank tape for the session or pressed any of the buttons on the tape transport.

Interviews years later revealed that, due to a small clerical error on Zunkle’s electric bill that month, for which he was on the phone for over an hour and a half the, um, refreshments for that session were an estimated 14 to 19 times as potent as usual. It has also been known for years that a mischievous guest had, um, gotten things started a full half hour ahead of schedule, before Zunkle’s usually meticulous safety checklist could be completed.

It was a miracle that all the peanut butter hadn’t ruined the tape deck. It was all over the thing. But somehow – and this is really amazing – the peanut butter didn’t get on the tape at all, or on any part of the transport. But it got all over the rest of the tape deck, and everything around it.

Zunkle was able to clean off the tape deck and not get any on the delicate magnetic tape or anything it touched. The dummy-head microphone was not so fortunate. Zunkle found it the next morning in a sink full of dishes, feathers, and several gallons of jelly. It never worked properly again.

The volume knob on the stereo was still set at zero. The tape counter was still at zero too. There was no peanut butter on either of them. There was no peanut butter on Tape 1. The guests were nowhere to be found. Dondan was able to track all of them down, alive and well, over the next several days. Some were as far away as West Virginia. None of them had any recollection of the tape deck, the dummy-head microphone, or any animal sounds. One of them vaguely recalled craving a peanut butter and jelly sandwich but finding that the only “bread” in the house was a combination of twelve whole grains, corn cobs, sawdust, and sticks. He opted for a Reese’s.

Zunkle was horrified to discover that Reel 1 of his prized collection of animal sounds – which he had listened to only a day or two earlier – was completely ruined. Once he cleaned most of the peanut butter off of the tape deck, he tried pressing “Play”. His beloved, high-fidelity animal sounds were drowned in a wash of loud, pulsating noises and static. Saddened, Zunkle boxed up all the animal sound tapes that day and stopped bringing them to the sessions. He stopped listening to them and collecting them altogether.

The tape deck, with a bit more cleaning, continued to be a regular part of his research well into the 1970’s. With the dummy-head microphone sitting on a shelf, he gave up on the idea of echo-locating hallucinated objects and beings and focused on sensing the auras of his guests from their recorded voices. His later work was rumored to have led to several minor hit records, a science fiction novel, and a high-profile Hollywood divorce.

The animal sound tapes sat in a climate-controlled self-storage locker in San Diego, California, for over four decades. Dondan Skunk forgot about the ruined tape, his research, and most of the 1960’s. He forgot about the storage locker too, after a particularly intense flashback in 2009. The locker was subsequently featured in a 2011 episode of the TV show, “Storage Wars”. The winning bidder had recognized the dummy-head microphone (which was worth several thousand dollars before its jelly bath). He won the locker for $88.

Although he was dismayed to discover that the dummy-head microphone was now a nice hat stand, he also recognized the little purple, Yin and Yang symbols that were all over the 350 little white cards in the shoebox that was setting underneath the dummy head. The winning bidder did not appear in any further episodes of the show.

Zunkle happened to watch that particular episode in 2013, from the recreation room of his Ho Chi Minh City care facility. He managed to get a message to his nephew. After a little wrangling, the younger Skunk was able to buy back his uncle’s belongings for $808. The dummy-head microphone and the little white cards were not among them and have not been seen since. It would be two more years before the Reverend would learn of the tape and realize that he’d had it in his hands.

By 2015, Zunkle had been released, the Vietnamese had dropped all their charges, and Singapore had let him go after their attempt to cane him severely for adjusting himself in public had gone horribly wrong. The … uh … caning … went wrong. Not the adjusting. The adjusting went fine. Zunkle was fine. It’s just that there were all these people betting on whether Zunkle … uh … never mind. And mind you, Zunkle had nothing to do with the ensuing injuries and fire. The local magistrate said so.

Zunkle returned to the United States and retired to southern California, where he lives on a modest income from several thousand shares of Smucker’s. It was there that Reverend Skunk caught up with him and the tape. Zunkle still didn’t have a clue, but the Reverend ... wait …. I haven’t even told you why they call him “Reverend” yet…

is a member in good standing with the World Academy of Alter Egos and Stage Personas. He is not, I repeat, not an official reverend or cleric at all. He doesn’t have a parking hang tag or anything. His church does not officially exist. After a partial zombification at a Y2K New Year’s party in Cocoa Beach, Florida, Skunk was ordained by an obscure sect of very odd, elderly individuals of unspecific gender whom he would later learn were products of his subconscious mind. At least, that’s the story they told him when he finally confronted them about it. They have since recanted their story and insist that Belgore is making this all up.

The thing is, the Reverend can’t preach. Now, I don’t mean the Reverend is no good at it. I mean he's not allowed. I mean they won't let him. The – you know – the guys. The – uh – I’m pretty sure he called one of them “Carl”. Anyway, they call him “Reverend” and they gave him a mission and now he has to go do all this stuff. But they – you know, the guys – have refused to let the Reverend speak on their behalf about anything. They absolutely forbade him to sign anything for them, either.

From what we can make of the clinical transcripts when we had the Reverend under hypnosis in 2017, the guys (the, uh, voices in his head, if that’s what they really are) don't actually like him very much. They say the Reverend is grouchy, stubborn, clueless, unkempt, and one of his eyes veers off to the side.

However, they tell the Reverend – Now, remember this is the Reverend telling us all this under hypnosis – they tell the Reverend that there was this cat lady who died in 2015, who had said a quick prayer for him back in 1981 when she was young and pretty and had caught him shyly looking at her. When she arrived in the Spirit Realm, she found that dozens of her prayers from the pre-Internet era had been hopelessly mired in red tape ever since. She was rather dismayed to find that…

Well, uh, that page ends there. Let me see if I can find the rest of the pages…