Igor on the 4:10 to Cold Spring 10/25/11

The train is very dark today. A nice contrast to the usual high voltage lighting we’re accustomed to. It’s a lot easier on the nerves. Soothing, in fact. Except that one of the electric doors at the end of the car is not working properly. It slides open on its own at the slightest shudder or turn of the train. Staying open for a few moments of contemplation, then closing. Only to go through the same routine a few minutes later.

Combin that with the low lighting, and it gives the car a haunted train feel.

“Next stop, Transylvania!”

I can’t, for the moment, remember which character came from Transylvania. Frankenstein or Dracula? I’m thinking the former. Though, in the old movies, I believe Universal Studios used the same location for both movies.

I don’t have a laptop so I can’t Google this indispensable piece of information. Strange the things we sometimes deem important.

This trivial thought will now bug me until I get to work and get my hands on a computer. Not poverty, war or the current presidential campaign. But monster movies.

Occupy Wall Street, a protest that started out with good intentions - getting the country to get its head out of its ass and take a good look around to what’s being done with our money and the people who are doing it.

I’m as guilty as the next guy of having my big Irish head (as most who know me call it) buried in the ground worrying about monster movies. I’m not as stoic as all that, but I think you know of what I speak.

The protest has now turned into a run-of-the-mill media celebrity-of-the-day campaign.

“Hey, look! It’s millionaire music mogul and Hollywood guy hobnobbing with the common folk.

Although the common folk ain’t too common anymore. Unless you want to count the thieves, gropers and Nazi nuts ranting against anything not white and ugly like them into the fray of common folk.

They sure do have an interesting mix. Hippie, artsy, chic, unemployed, homeless, rich, not so rich and I’m not rich and never wanted to be rich just wanted a fair shake for all my hard work types. That would be me.

That was the whole idea behind the protest in the first place. It should have been called the Hey! Remember Us? campaign. But the points getting lost.

Frankenstein! Definitely Frankenstein. Dracula was in Romania. I think. Boy, do I feel a whole lot better. but somehow empty.

I’ve tried writing an Igor and the creature story for Halloween, but have had no luck. Most people already have an idea of the characters in their heads, which makes them easier to write. I just can’t seem to get a grasp on the easy part.

All you have to do is put Igor and the creature in familiar surroundings like a shopping mall or a dentist’s office and the affects can be pretty funny. Because we all know these characters are ill equipped to deal with any of these things.

Their world is the graveyard and laboratory.

The coffin on the overhead luggage rack was making the other passengers nervous. It rattled at every turn and shudder of the speeding train.

“There, there, dear boy” said Igor. “He is gone, but not forgotten. He will live to see another day.”

The creature seemed unconcerned, concentrating instead on his box of Fruit Loops.

“Not like orange ones!” said the creature.

“Just skip over the orange ones then,” said Igor.
“We have a long trip ahead of us, save some for the trip back.”

“Not come back,” said the creature. “Miss Mon Mon.”

Mon Mon was the creatures name for Monsignor Montgomery who had blessed the creature on his return from the dead and who now resides in the coffin above.

After the blessing the pastor was excommunicated from the church and befriended by Igor and the creature.

“Don’t talk like that,” said Igor. “Of course you're coming back. And we’ll be taking Mon Mon with us.”

The creature raised his arms into the air, embracing the coffin through the bars of the luggage rack.

“No! Not now, dear boy,” said Igor. “We bring Mon Mon home to his family for his burial, as previously arranged. Then, in the dead of night, we will dig our friend out of the ground and into our loving arms. Once home we find Mon Mon a proper brain and viola! It’ll be like old times again. Only with a different brain.

“Mon Mon didn’t have much use for his old brain,” continued Igor. “Not after that fall from the cliff.”

“Sorry,” said the creature.

“Oh, it wasn’t entirely your fault, dear boy,” said Igor. “ His shoe laces were untied.”

Igor, the monsignor and the creature were on a walking tour of the UK when the monsignor wanted a better look at what he thought was a rare species of bird hovering below the White Cliffs of Dover.

As the creature held him by his ankles, the monsignor was heard to say, “Steady now, old friend. Steady. Just a few inches morrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre!”

The creature held the empty shoes aloft and had a long peek inside, as if the monsignor had somehow managed to fall up into his own shoes.

“Mon Mon?” said the creature into one of the shoes. “Where Mon Mon?”

When Igor returned from making his water, he inquired as to the whereabouts of their dear friend. The creature gave Igor a sheepish look and took a long peek over the cliffs.

“Mon Mon forget shoes!” the creature yelled down. “Mon Mon catch!”

“Oh, dear,” said Igor. And that was all he ever said on the subject.

As the train barreled through a long dark tunnel, Igor and the creature fell off to sleep. Happy in the knowledge that they would soon be having a glorious weekend of burying, then exhuming, their dear old friend.

“Life is good”, said a sleeping Igor.

“Good!” echoed the dozing creature.

“Bloody hell! It’s dark in here!” screamed the monsignor. “Hey! Where the hell am I? Help!”

Simple man. Simple story.

Have a good night, all.

The worst thing about writing on the train? I get to go home and type it all out.