It was a brisk February afternoon in Jackelstown, Pennsylvania. Brisk meaning kinda cold. Kinda cold meaning cold as Antarctica in December. Papa Crenshaw stepped out of his limousine and out onto the pavement, still strewn with snow that plowers missed in their haste. Walking, aided by his trusted cane, from the limo to the airport entrance was devastating to Crenshaw's chest, ears and feet but once he entered terminal 137, he was his warm, 85 year old self once again. The hot cocoa he got from the small kiosk near the entrance helped, as did the steamy reunion kiss from his 29 year old wife, Mama Crenshaw. He couldn't help noting she was sucking her favorite flavor of Jolly Rancher... watermelon.
"Miss me?" she teased.
They'd been apart for three weeks. He'd been writing his memoirs during that time. It was a dusty old tome he'd been trying to finish for a several years that had accumulated more dust than words. She told him she was visiting her mother in a quiet little town called Perkins where the sun always shines and the kids always do what they're told. He missed her terribly. They lived relatively alone, besides the maid and cook staff. Only his little Yorkie Snarf kept him company while he fiddled with his typewriter.
Their love was a strange kind of love. They had many differences but in the ten years they had been together, Crenshaw was the happiest he'd ever been in his long life. Three weeks was torture and he wasn't going to let her out of his sight for the rest of his days, a feat he would manage to accomplish easily, as it turned out.
"Of course, I missed you, darling. But not too much," he teased right back.
"Well, I'm famished. Let's get something to eat."
Papa took out his cell phone. "I'll have Georgia prepare us a nice lunch for when we return home--"
"Actually, I've already arranged "a nice lunch.""
Surprisingly, Mama Crenshaw, Tammy at home, had ordered a bit of a feast. The airport's little restaurant "Manuella's" served them a wonderful lunch of spaghetti and garlic bread. Papa happened to be in the mood for a glass of milk so he ordered one. Chocolate milk, as a matter of fact. Tammy engaged him in a game of footsy and he obliged. This was why he loved her so much, she was one of the things that kept him young. He felt like he was still in high school, although in his day there were no black women allowed at Crownville High.
He hadn't eaten so much in one sitting since his younger days. He hoped to get home soon and sit with Tammy in front of the fireplace and pass out in her lap. He began to stand up but Mama motioned him to sit back down, apparently they weren't finished at "Manuella's."
Moments later, after Tammy clapped her hands high in the air, a short chef came out of the back room with a large cake. It was comical to say the least. He played it up as if he might trip and drop the thing but Mama and Papa knew it was an act. This cake maker was a performer as well as a master baker, so skilled you might think he made a deal with the devil or something.
The Crenshaws laughed together for the last time and ate themselves some cake. It was delicious, of course. White cake with vanilla frosting, laced with a crimson icing. Crenshaw ate four pieces, the greedy fool! But, this cake was just that good, you see.
Afterwards, she got him his cane and overcoat and they made their way to the exit where the limo would be waiting to take them back to Casa del Crenshaw. The old man wondered if Gerald, the driver, was worried about what was taking so long or if he was in on the surprise lunch. The lovers held hands and Tammy hummed the tune that was playing on the radio the day they met, Mr. Sandman.
Out of no where, a man dressed in all black came running at them, swinging a knife in the air fanatically. He plunged it deep into Crenshaw's throat and left it there, blood as red as crimson icing came spewing forth. He took out another knife quick as a wisp and tried jamming it into Tammy's chest. But, what the attacker didn't know was that Tammy Crenshaw, formerly Tammy Jackson, was proficient in ninjitsu. She had actually just acquired her last master-class training lesson from her old wise sensei, Master Kill. That's actually where she had been when she told Papa she was in Perkins. She attempted to counter his clumsy lunge with the ancient Dragon Shadow Jawsmasher technique taught to her only hours ago, right before she boarded her plane. It was successful and broke the attacker's lower jaw right off his face. Blood oozed down from the cavity and mixed with that of Crenshaws, which was already pooled at their feet.
Later on, it was assumed that the attacker was after Crenshaw's cane. It was actually a magical staff that could heal any injury and sustain vitality but Tammy didn't find that out before Papa Crenshaw was dead. It was too late for her husband but not for the attacker. He was grown a new mouth with the staff but preferred not to talk or eat afterwards and starved to suicide. He never even spoke to tell anyone why he preferred not to eat or talk so that remains a mystery...
"Ashes to ashes... dust to dust..."
Tammy was willed Crenshaw's memoir manuscript after the burial. Reading it, she discovered a vague outline of his life as a pirate treasure hunter. With a special UV light, like on CSI, she discovered a hidden map on the last page that lead to Crenshaw's room of treasure and magical artifacts. One night, when all the cooks and maids had been sent home, with Snarf trailing on her heals, she followed it to a secret passage under his tulip garden, just outside the mansion. It lead into a sub-basement and there she discovered, among many other wonderful a magical phoenix feather, with the power to revive people. She also found a magic earring but her ears weren't pierced. So, she got one done at the mall and used the staff to heal her ear around the stub really fast. She then took out the stub and put in the magic earring and it gave her the power to dig up Crenshaw's dead body with her bare hands. She revived him with the feather after doing so and they both revealed their secret lives to each other, his as a pirate and hers as a ninja. Now, finally honest for the first time, they decided to renew their vows in the very same airport that the attacker originally killed Crenshaw in and they had more of that awesome cake at "Manuella's" but the crimson icing reminded Tammy of all the blood so they had another cake with just vanilla frosting and it was just as delicious, although Crenshaw made sure to keep moderation in mind this time.
You may also be interested to know that Crenshaw went to Hell when he died because of all the innocents he slaughtered when collecting his hoard of treasure. During the time he was dead, Satan taunted him because, to his pirate buddies, Crenshaw was always boasting about how he was never going to die. This was after he found the staff which happened early in his journeys, you see. Because he wracked up so many deaths, Satan had always wished Crenshaw would forget to take his cane with him so he could be killed because Satan loves it when murderers finally die and join him in Hell, it's like a holiday for him. When Satan saw how jacked up Crenshaw got on the cake, he knew it was his chance to strike.
He made a soul deal with a bum named Anthony Schlockmiester, Poor Tony as his slightly richer bum friends called him. Satan convinced Poor Tony that he was already on his shit list because he was an avid masturbator. "So," Satan explained. "You're already going to Hell, Anthony. If you do this task for me, I can have your soul placed in the good part of Hell, with me and all my hot devil chick sluts."
Poor Tony didn't realize that there is no good part of Hell and that all the fallen angels were technically genderless so he agreed to attack Crenshaw with these special devil knives that take no skill to use effectively, "Unless you're fighting a master ninja or something..." Satan snickered.
Since he's a master of deception, Satan failed to mention Tammy's skill. He figured this was his best shot to kill Crenshaw. One of his science demons calculated it as a 47% success rate, but whatever... Satan also lied about the masturbation thing. You only go to Hell if you masturbate while thinking of the same sex, which Tony did once but god only gets pissed if you make a habit out of it.
Satan left Tony, after giving him the knives and outfitting him in those sweet, black, Matrix clothes I mentioned earlier, with these words: "After your task is done, speak to no one and eat no food. Once you die, that's when you get the devil chick sluts..."
Sluts... sluts... sluts....
So, I guess that's the reason he preferred no to eat or talk... Mystery solved on that one.
Oh, and was Satan pissed when Crenshaw disappeared right in the middle of feeding him his own dick for the tenth time that day? Hells yeah. Crenshaw could feel the transubstantiation taking place and thought, Good girl.
He spit his dick in Satan's face and said as he faded back to reality: "Later, bitch. Suck on it."
Crenshaw spent the rest of his days as a born-again Christian. He realized that no matter how hard he tried, he'd never manage to stay alive forever. He wasn't sure if he wanted to...
Once Tammy turned about 85, they both stopped using the cane to stay young. She died in a sky car accident later that year. Her vision was getting bad and she accidentally crashed her sky car into a billboard and fell out the driver's side door, falling thirty feet to her death.
Crenshaw died five hard years later in an experimental teleportation accident. I'll spare you the details.
Papa was surprised to find out purgatory is real. He had to spend seven hundred years there, atoning for the deaths he caused before his epiphany. He spent most of his time there reading literature, something he never got around to doing during his life and regretted it.
So, seven hundred years later, Mama and Papa were reunited in Heaven and sent funny emails to Satan almost every day, like Photoshop images Tammy made of a monkey with Satan's face saying "That's you, right there."
Eventually Jesus caught wind and told the two crazy love birds to give Satan a break, "He's in Hell and that's hard enough..."