A story from the Shadow Elm Memoir.
I’ve been a newshound for most of my professional career. Except for one short period, in between writing gigs, I worked a temporary office job doing data entry for some nameless national pharmacy. I’m relatively sure the only reason they hired me was because I could type and could start as soon as possible at the time. I based this reasoning on the only two questions the manager asked me during a five-minute interview. (Can you type and start right away?) That interview still makes me grin. This job was very mundane and unrewarding. We sometimes have to take such jobs to pay rent and other bills, and luckily, mine was only half full of misery.
The hours for this job were eight to five, with a thirty-minute lunch and two fifteen-minute breaks in the morning and afternoon. These three gaps in the data entry were, of course, the best part of the work day for us data enterers or whatever our titles were. Most of my former coworkers escaped to the smoking section to huff down their long, skinny cigarettes. I believe they either smoked Virginia Slims or Montclairs. That’s not very important information for this story, but it’s one of the most vivid things I remember during this time.
It took approximately twenty minutes to get to the office in the morning and thirty-five minutes to return to my apartment. Five o’clock traffic in this part of Charlotte was a dreadful nightmare, and somehow, my unfaithful Honda always made it back from Point B to Point A. Maybe those extra lucky rabbit feet did work. I believe three rabbit feet hung from my rearview mirror. The morning commute wasn’t nearly as bad as the drive home because the morning local Charlotte radio shows were excellent and entertaining.
One of the Top 40 station’s morning programs did this to catch a cheater segment. Listeners wrote to the show because they believed their boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse, or whoever was cheating. They joined the radio station on a call with the alleged cheater if chosen. They were supposed to remain quiet while the radio station enticed them with a romantic trip for two or a free flower delivery in hopes they would name the person they were cheating on the person with. These traps typically worked, where the cheater admitted to their cheating and then got confronted for their cheating on the radio.
Some of these “to catch a cheater” segments were more entertaining than others. Sometimes, you laughed, but mostly, you wanted karma to catch up with the cheater. Occasionally, it turned out that the alleged cheater wasn’t actually cheating and that they were running around to plan a secret party for their girlfriend, boyfriend, or spouse. Those outcomes happened about one percent of the time.
Then, during one morning drive, it happened—something that I never imagined could occur. I knew the alleged cheater. I listened closely, and something like this played out.
The radio dialed the number. The phone rang. The alleged cheater picked up the call on the fourth ring. He answered, “This is Hercules, son of Zeus. If you’re looking for a climb to Mount Olympus or a lunch date, I’m your demigod.”
“I’m your demigod.” That line made me hoot with laughter. I spit crappy coffee all over the inside of my car and windshield. What the hell? That was not Hercules. What are you doing, Claudio? (Pronounced like rodeo) He was cheating and impersonating. More accurately, he is a male escort pretending to be his more famous demigod half-brother.
Yes, I know what you are thinking. Who is Claudio? Who am I writing about? Is this person the real thing or some false demigod? Let me assure you that he is half-god flesh. He does exist outside the one Greek myth he appeared in. He is the son of Zeus (the Greek god of the sky and thunder and king of all the other gods on Mount Olympus). His “creation” wasn’t quite the family scandal that Hercules was. You know the one story where Zeus came to earth one night and disguised himself as Alceme’s (Hercules’ mortal mom) husband and then…well, you know. I don’t need to finish that sentence.
As expected, his girlfriend was infuriated and enraged by this. I believe her name was Sabrina or something. She wrote to the radio for help, and they facilitated getting the truth. She shredded him up and down, sideways, and from here to eternity. He got everything he deserved on that phone call. I bet all his crap was on the lawn when he got home.
She never called him Claudio or Hercules on the radio, but by Grover or something else, it got censored because there was a lot of swearing and cursing on the radio that morning. I shrieked with laughter when Sabrina called him Grover. I apologize to anyone named Grover for what I’m about to say if it is even offendable. Grover is the name of the little blue monster from Sesame Street, not the name of an almost god. Claudio could’ve chosen any alias but instead decided to go with a muppet. Now, that was hysterically funny.
Knowing Grover or Claudio all this time, you would’ve thought his pops was Hermes, the divine trickster, with all the mischief he gets into. He has always been a troublesome big bugger. So that “to catch a cheater” situation was no surprise. He was the friend you worried about getting into a bar fight and leaving your girlfriend alone around. He was a crap friend, as I think about it.
I always suspected that his behavior was to get attention from his father and siblings. He had deep-rooted father issues and claimed to hate him. I probably would if my dad were the almighty Zeus, and I had over a hundred siblings fighting for his attention, but I’m not a psychologist.
The first time I met Claudio was a bizarre series of events. I was on a camping trip with friends at Lake Norman State Park, about 40 minutes north of Charlotte, a few years before the Demigod gigolo appeared on the radio.
This camping trip took place over a spring weekend. I remember how fresh and revived Lake Norman forest looked from a harsh winter. We drove up late Friday afternoon and would’ve left earlier, but I had a hard magazine deadline to meet. There were five of us spread across two campsites. The two couples were in their tents, and I was in mine. I was the fifth wheel that weekend.
We made this same trip the previous fall, so setting up was easier this time. None of us were experienced campers, but we better grasped the setup this time. Afterward, we ate sandwiches and drank cocktails under the moon until we passed out.
Hours later, I awoke and needed to visit the bathroom. Someone was playing guitar and singing the most magnificent cover of Tom Petty’s Learning to Fly I’ve ever heard. It felt very late. A light on my watch said it was around 2:45 PM. I needed a bathroom trip, so I laced up my shoes, unzipped the tent, grabbed my flashlight, and headed up the driveway toward the park bathhouse. Afterward, I followed the sounds that could’ve been the Heartbreakers themselves. It was total euphoria.
The walk is lost from my memories of this weekend. I was buzzed, but it wasn’t from the margaritas from earlier. The music led me to the most curious and incredible campsite. It was luminous and lit like a thousand baseball diamond night lights. I didn’t need my flashlight anymore. There was so much light that I had to squint for a closer look.
What was up with those lights? Was it a UFO that needed the blinding lights for a night fly? Not even close. Sitting underneath the massive lights were a man and a woman. The man was playing the guitar effortlessly, and the woman was still singing with the highest and most romantic voice my ears had ever heard.
He was massive and muscular, with a brown beard and ponytail. He looked like one of those marble Olympian statues. He could’ve been the handsome dude from the cover of a trashy romance novel about pirates. Geez, I’m talking a lot about how much he was Men Health’s idea of the perfect male specimen.
She was one of the most beautiful women in the world. She rivaled Sharon Stone, Demi Moore, and Claudia Schiffer. She was tall with blondish hair. I would have bet all the gold in the world that she was a model.
I’ll try to explain what happened next as best I can. The branch of the tree I was leaning on snapped and made a loud cracking noise. They instantly stopped the music. They stood up and began talking among themselves. He wore a green and purple tartan patterned kilt and had a large grey tabby cat on his shoulder like a parrot. Very strange! The Kilt Cat Man rushed toward me, and then everything went dark. The next time I woke up, I was in my tent.
No one believed me at breakfast when I told the story. No one heard the music, saw the blinding light, or saw the fit blonde or her colossus boyfriend with a cat on its shoulder. They called me crazy and accused me of being on shrooms. Of course, I was still drunk but wasn’t tripping on anything. I don’t believe it was hallucinogens.
Later that day, I looked for the Kilt Cat Man’s campsite. There it was, past the bathhouse like I remembered. The blonde was humming and drinking from a stein in a rope hammock that looked floating like some magical carpet. It wasn’t tied to anything, mainly because no trees were around.
He was effortlessly curling the trunk of an enormous sweet gum tree in his kilt with the cat on his shoulder again. Judging from the size of the fallen tree, it probably would’ve taken several people to lift and move it. And then he roared what sounded like the name “Zeus” and then snapped the massive piece of wood in halves over his knees.
My thoughts at this moment were, why do I always find myself in these super situations, and I needed to get the hell out of there. I took one step back and turned around. The Kilt Cat Man was standing in front of me on the road. He and the cat on his shoulder looked at me with mad eyes.
He pointed at me and asked, “I know you. You were hanging around our camp last night? Are you spying on us?” the giant confronted me.
I mumbled something that didn’t make any sense.
“Are you some sort of weirdo or peeper?” he continued questioning me before lifting me off the ground by my tee shirt with one hand. My feet dangled. I must’ve been ten feet up in the air.
I tried to speak, but I couldn’t get any words out. All I could do was gulp and grunt. Maybe it was the fear of it all. Am I going to have to fight this guy and his cat? This horror was about to destroy me. Damn, the cat is about to kill me. What’s up with the cat?
I closed my eyes and made all types of promises and vows if I got through this unscathed. Then, the situation turned a corner.
“I am just joshing with you,” he started laughing, “I know who you are, Larry.”
This reveal was demented and mad as a hatter by a demigod in a kilt with a grey tabby cat on his shoulder. Was this some joke? I’ve never met these people before. Well, it turned out they knew me from a distance through my dancing will-of-the-wisp ex-girlfriend, Rosie, the girl from the Brown Mountain Lights.
Claudio explained that they used to hang out with Rosie before she moved to New York. She would sometimes talk about me. You know, probably about how amazing I was and how I was the best boyfriend ever. One night, they were drinking at the Elf, and Rosie showed them who I was.
During this explanation, he had me wave to his girlfriend; I was still dangling in the air, by the way. She waved back from her floating hammock. Then he carried me back to their campsite, which I guess wasn’t the most formal invitation. This is the moment I officially met Claudio and his girlfriend, Panora, at their campsite that night. I also met Roxie, the grey tabby cat who mainly slept on his shoulder.
They were a lot of fun and very hospitable. They served me ambrosia and nectar—the food and drink of the Greek gods. The nectar totaled me. I was very, very wasted. It was like I was drinking for the first time. We sang No Doubt and Weezer songs by a bright green fire that you could put your hand in without getting burnt. The fire was magic or something. At some point, Claudio may or may not have cried about Zeus that night. Ha!
When I awoke Sunday morning, I wasn’t sure if the night had even happened. It seemed like some wild and crazy dream I conjured in my sleep. I found their campsite empty. No traces of what transpired over the weekend or anyone had camped there. When Claudio and Panora showed up at the Immortal Elf a few months later, I knew it wasn’t a dream. They said that they meant to come by sooner. I cussed him for how intoxicated the nectar made me. We drank Busch Lite instead. Claudio and Panora will show up again.
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