Jack and the Beanstalk, Revisited

It goes without saying that I was wronged. Any court would agree
(any court, that is, that isn't populated by your average hillbilly off
the streets who thinks OJ Simpson is a fancy name for a vodka tonic).
How could a jury not put itself in my position, a man who was invaded
in his own home, taken clear advantage of, and left for dead by the
side of the road? If there were any justice, a certain boy named Jack
would be sitting here with a cast on his arm and some pretty nasty
contusions about his head and neck. And a bruised thigh; let's not
forget that.

My name is Bill, and I am not an alcoholic. I am, however, a giant,
which amounts to the same thing only without the sympathy. All I get is
the initial look of shock, followed by a great deal of screaming. It
grates on one's nerves after awhile. What bliss it must be to walk up
behind somebody and not have him turn, shout something obscene, and
promptly faint. What bliss to be so innocuous.

Jack, of course, did not faint, but what can you expect? Fainting
involves an overload of the central nervous system, a system that Jack
shares with such delightful substrata as the common housefly and
grasshoppers. No, like a giant tree roach Jack jumped and flipped his
way out of my grasp, a feat made particularly easy by the slimy coating
he must surely been developing over the course of weeks.

The life of a giant is nothing special. Think bigger plates, or large
bars of soap. Clothing can be a problem but there are some fabulous
tailors in Singapore who can take a bolt of muslin and make the most
amazing tunics. The shipping costs can kill you but the reinforced
stitching in the elbows is definitely worth it.

Incidentally, Jack's sense of fashion was somewhere between slug and
troll, and that might be an insult to trolls, some of whom are very
nice people. Trolls may dress in the fashion of yesterday but they
certainly have a leg up on Jack, who resembled - wait, he still does! -
some sort of suited ape in a tie. I can't stress this enough - it's
simply awful.

I'm not the only giant, of course, though there are few of us, a fact
any simpleton with a modicum of ecological knowledge can explain. My
mother left me her house, whereas my father gave me my bone structure
and my sense of humor. Naturally my parents did not live together. The
cohabitation of humans is still something that makes no sense to me. To
purposely place oneself in danger on a daily basis seems
so...alien.

I'm not married, by the way. Oh, I've dated here and there, but the
commute across the clouds is taxing (much like walking on wet sand,
clouds can give you shin splints and, of course, heat rashes if you're
not quick to dry off after a walk). I did fancy -- well, still do -- a
giantess named Sarah, but she's busy taking care of her dying mother, a
wrinkled and bitter old princess from the Russian airways who insists
on a virgin with every meal. How she can tell the difference is beyond
me. I've seen the woman eat and you couldn't tell the difference,
either, the way she shovels all the loose ends in at once and picks her
teeth with whatever bone shard happens to be available. Disgusting
habit, but what can you expect from royalty? They have a long history
of believing themselves a godsend, and what's good enough for God must
be good enough for them.

But enough about putrid old princesses and me. All I know is that a
beanstalk brought a nightmare named Jack into my life, and I haven't
been the same since. I could smell the stinky, unkempt thing when he
arrived, of course, but I was curious to see what he would do. It's not
every day that a free meal shows up on your doorstep, though really I
prefer the hunt and all it has to offer: the chase, the capture, the
simply delightful squeals of terror. But while Jack's smell did include
the prerequisite fear, that fear soon became nervousness, then
curiosity, and then plain old greed. That's right, greed. The little
shit eyed my things like he'd hit the lottery, and finally decided on
the grand prize, my gold egg-laying goose. I worked hard to get that
goose, even traded my grandfather's flying carpet to seal the deal, and
no meandering, beanstalk-climbing midget was going to make off with
her.

So I followed Jack (after, of course, a lengthy and somewhat
disappointing chase), right to the beanstalk, and he cut me down in
mid-climb. Have you ever fallen? Without a net or a cloud to lessen the
impact? It hurts, damn it. It really hurts. It might, as in my case,
even knock you unconscious, making you fair game for the oohs and
ahhs of uneducated rubes who think it's funny to poke you in the ribs
with their twig-like fingers. But, oh, just roll over and squash a few
and those fingers become pitchforks and torches. Bastards. And just try
fighting back and...well, you'll hear things even a divorcee wouldn't
say to her two-timing husband. Again, it's just awful.

The best defense is a good offense, I say, and I'm planning my attack
even as we speak. For weeks I've been re-routing my plumbing to a cloud
just over Jack's house. In true human fashion Jack has shown no
creativity, using his newfound wealth from my illicitly plucked goose
to add a couple of wings to the squalid hovel he calls home. When the
time is right I'm yanking that cloud right out from under what can only
be called an impressive pile of justice and letting it rain, rain,
rain.

He can't get back up here, of course, if my little spurt of vengeance
makes him angry. He'll have to wait until whenever it is that he
manages to buy another handful of magic beans, and I can personally
guarantee that won't be for a long, long time. But that mother of his,
she's a pistol. I can see her showing up at my doorstep any minute now,
shaking her finger and scolding anything that moves. And I hope she
does, because there's a certain Russian princess who's pretty much
hungry all the time.