Clyde the Dancing Turtle

Clyde. A Short Story
Chapter 1
Ladies Love Lyle

Once upon a time there was a town called Winchestertonfieldville, known to townies as The Chest. And in this town there was a Toy Factory, one of the employees there went by the name of Lyle Ovary and this employee was unlike and of the other mindless workers. He had style, he was high class, the ladies swooned for him and he had moves that nobody had ever seen before. Lyle was a funky doctor and nobody could step to him on the dance floor. The only reason he worked at the factory was so he could earn the money to buy the snazzy threads he wore out to his dance-offs. He made costumes out of the most ridiculous patterns. You could catch Lyle in a top hat, striped cape and tap shoes and there was no doubt that he’d look better than you. He had a signature carnation that he attached to whatever he was wearing, Lyle believed that by always having something living and fragrant on him he would be able to seduce his dance-off opponents into a trancelike state and then he would take over with his suave boogie. People came from miles away to catch Lyle destroying his rivals on the floor; they had to see for themselves the smoke that rose from the soles of his shoes when he danced. Always a confident dancer Lyle never got nervous about losing. The ladies were powerless to his smarmy come-ons and it is common knowledge that 75% of the children born in the year 1999 were from his seed. Lyle woke up everyday of the week and went off to his job at the factory and at night he went to dance competitions and wooed the people that came to see him. Lyle’s costumes got more and more ridiculous as time went on. One day he made a costume of freshly sliced ham that was sown onto his suspenders and thick pleather pants. There was a busload of woman stopping through The Chest on their way to a beauty pageant and he wanted to impregnate as many as he could so he felt he needed to step up his game to get these woman into his clutches. Because they weren’t local they didn’t know the legend of Lyle yet so he had to make an impression first. Lyle had an idea for some new dancing shoes. He went out to the woods and he shot a grizzly bear and took it to his neighbor who was an amateur taxidermist. His neighbor skinned the bear’s legs and fancied Lyle a pair of bearskin boots. The only problem was they didn’t have enough time to let the blood dry on the inside of them because the competition was just hours away so Lyle would just have to grin and bear it. Lyle danced his ass of that night and everyone raved about his stylish boots, he was invited onto the bus with the beauty pageant contestants where he got the woman on there to partake in his perverse sexual fetishes. When Lyle got home that night he felt on top of the world, he removed his garments and sat down to take off his new boots. It was then that he made the grim discovery that the blood from the bearskin had been absorbed into his skin while he was sweating on the dance floor. He had a horrid rash and bubbles of skin were popping on his legs. Lyle rushed to see the town doctor where test results showed that the Bear that Lyle killed and skinned was infected was a deadly form of Syphilis and Lyle had contracted it. It turned out Lyle wasn’t the only one sleeping with all the woman in The Chest. The doctor told Lyle he had two months to live and he would have to stop dancing during that time. Lyle was devastated. He wallowed in his misery for the first few weeks but then he had a revelation. He would teach his moves on the dance floor and in the bedroom to someone and that person could carry out his legacy. Lyle thought long and hard about who was worthy enough to carry this important job. All of the town’s kids were already carrying his DNA but he knew they would eventually die of some form of Sexually Transmitted Disease someday too, so he thought of the next best thing. Something immortal, something incapable of catching disease. A toy. He spent his days manufacturing toys and he knew the brought joy to people young and old. He knew the ins and outs of the toy making industry if he could just program one to be exactly like him then it would carry on in his place. The next day he carefully studied all the dancing turtles as they went by on the conveyor belt and he went for the one he felt a connection to the most. He spent his last few weeks with this turtle as he tampered with the wiring in it making him charming, sexy and arrogant instead of cute, cuddly and fun. He showed him his dance moves and the turtle picked them up very quickly. Lyle was very sick by this point but he managed to crawl to the factory one last time and place a carnation on his Dancing Turtle protégé. Thats when it came to life and Lyle died there on the floor of the factory.


Chapter 2
I Will Call Him Clyde

In a little town of Quincy a far, far distance from The Chest there was a delivery made to a store called Wal-Mart right in time for Christmas. A shipment of 100 dancing turtles was delivered and the turtles were removed from their boxes and placed on the shelves. Right around that time some socially prominent residents of Quincy known as Maggots were invited to a charity event at a VFW. It was an unlikely thing for the Maggots to do on a weekend night, donating their time, good looks, wit and sex appeal for charity, but it was at the request of their Maggot friend Nicole that they attend. They were promised free food and cheap beer as long as they brought along a five-dollar gift to be donated for children on Christmas. So the Maggots all borrowed five dollars from a family member or Non-Maggot friend and headed out to the stores to grab a gift off the shelf on their way to the free food and cheap beer. Two Maggots in particular named Beakey, and T decided that they needed to get stoned to endure the arduous task of going to a store and buying a toy. They wandered around the Wal-Mart discussing how ridiculously stoned they were when Beakey saw the Dancing Turtle display. He grabbed one off the shelf while exclaiming “Yes, that’s it!” From there T picked out some bumming Barbie and they headed to the register. While they were in line they ran into Quincy’s best looking couple and fellow Maggots Shawn and Liz. They all talked and compared toys and it was decided that the dancing turtle was the coolest of the toys and it was then that Beakey proclaimed, “I will call him Clyde”. They all parted ways with plans to meet up at the VFW. When everyone got to the charity event there were designated buckets for the toys to be dropped in, but Beakey saw the reaction Clyde was getting for his moves and he knew it had potential to upstage everyone on the dance floor and steal all the women from their men. That night Clyde stole the hearts of everyone at the party, young and old. DJ Dow, the bartender, the old veterans, Beakey’s kids, Paul and Stina, Heather Means, and all the other maggots could feel the spirit of Lyle that night, and Lyle Ovary was looking down from his own Boogie Heaven and he was proud at what he had created. Beakey walked out of that VFW Hall that night, the rpoud owner and friend of a Dancing Turtle named Clyde.