Stuffed Animals, part 1

"Watch out! Guy's got a dead animal." Someone yelled at me outside Union Hall, in Park Slope, in Brooklyn, Friday night. I explained to the gentleman that my short, fat, gay, Indian friend, (and not Indian like that, you son of a bitch, he's from New Mexico and building an adobe house with his husband), was not any sort of dead animal. The gentleman replied by pointing at a man pushing a large wooden box on a furniture dolly into the bar. Taxidermy box. I knew this had to be the place.


I was there for an event given by The Secret Science Club called Carnivorous Nights. Darren Lunde of the Museum of Natural History would be speaking and then judging, along with a distinguished panel, contestants's taxidermy. We were early and I found two armchairs next to a fireplace on the main floor and sent my short, fat, gay, Indian companion to the bar to get us started on some whiskey. Directly after he left, a waitress asked if I wanted anything. Whiskey, I said, and maybe some food.

A little later, with now four generous pours of Elijah Craig in deep glasses, my companion and I watched an older gentleman and a younger woman sit across from us at the fireplace on a red couch. A coffee table seperated us in this bookshelved niche. They ordered beer and sliders from the waitress and talked quitely. Halfway through their meal the young woman got up. She never came back. I blinked my eyes and the man was gone as well. One slider left half-eaten. Beer almost full. A group of Cougars on the prowl asked if they could sit down. My companion began to reply that it looked as though the couple was coming back. "Nix," I said, "have a seat. They're gone." And the Brooklyn Instigation Society was born. We would spend the rest of the night trying to start trouble wherever we could. I wanted that old man to come back and have some altercation with these Cougars about his stolen seat. "What if they had a knife fight, " my companion asked. "That would be awesome," I said. The old man and his young lady never reappeared.

A steady stream of bowties and courduroy jackets with leather elbow patches had long been passing. They all wore sneakers with their get-ups, as they all were Secret Scientists. I knew it was almost showtime and I sent my companion downstairs to find us some seats. When he came back to tell me the room was full to capacity I knew I had to find out what the hell was going on myself.

The room was indeed full to capacity and there was a line up the stairs of people waiting vainly to get in. We were too late.

(Will our heroes ever get to see some taxidermy? Will the Cougars pounce? Will there be any knife fights? Tune in to read the exciting conclusion of Carnivorous Nights!)