Interview with Commander Gorefitz
If you like this story, you can find tons more like it here:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B09MNT6CDL
Blessings and joy, your pal, Frankie Chocolate
Interview with Commander Gorefitz
In a comfortable English Drawing Room filled with soft leather chairs and shelves of good books, bike enthusiast and cub reporter Tom McGildersleeve sat before a steaming mug of rich dark chocolate. Across from him was the legendary adventurer, raconteur, and author, Commander J. Gorefitz. Gorefitz, with rock-hard abs under a black silk shirt, a steely grin and a flowing white mane was actually 55. Most thirty-year-olds wished they looked so good. He sat perched on the ledge of yet another interview.
“Thank you for allowing me to interview you sir,” said McGildersleeve. “I’ve read many of your works and consider it an incredible honor to speak with you.”
“Tut, tut, young man. I’m a simple county boy who’s had a run of good luck.”
“Excuse me, sir, but your biography tells a different story. Parachuting behind enemy lines at twenty-three and leading a team to rescue the prime minister of Brunella. At twenty six receiving the silver, bronze and gold stars for exemplary bravery and action beyond the call of duty. Then you snagged the“Best of the Best” flap jacks award in the Pentagon’s, It’s Clobbering Time Cook off.”
“Ha, Ha. Those cakes were pretty fluffy,” replied Commander Gorefiz “But, Thomas what are those wires hanging off your neck?”
“Oh, I rode my bike over here and forgot to put away my phone earbuds. I listen to music as I ride. And these are noise cancelling ones. They block the outside sound so I can hear the music better. Would you like to try them?”
“Ha! The obituaries, or the “Irish Funny Papers” as my family calls them, are the next logical spot to see your name in print if you ride with headphones. The bike is the one spot where you need all five senses.”
“Five senses? I can’t imagine why you’d need your sense of smell when riding a bike.”
“Look over there on that shelf. Do you see that trophy?”
“Which one?”
“That big one. Bring it over here.”
“Sir, this is the trophy for winning the Tour de France. Why is it here?”
“I won it. I won the Tour and the only reason I won it was because of my nose.”
“You won the Tour de France by a nose? This I have to hear.”
“Growing up on an olive orchard and pig farm on the ragged edge of Tooksbury-on- the-Rye, it was my dream to win the Tour de France.
“Sir, they don’t grow olives in…”
“We did!” The Commander, cut him off with a glare. “I got pretty good at outrunning the neighbor’s dogs on my bike. Entered a few races, built up my endurance, and won them. What really helped were the nose exercises. My mother told me to practice by breathing deeply at the pig manure piles.”
“Pig manure?”
“Yes. She told me if could recognize that smell on the farm then no one could slip me a little when I went out into the world.”
“I think it’s usually bull…”
“We raised pigs, so it was pig manure, Tommy Buck. One day I received the unfortunate opportunity to become infinitely familiar with its delicate nuances.”
“What happened?”
“I was leaning over this massive heap for a stout whiff, when my vicious older brother London, God rest his soul, succumbed to a moment of weakness and pushed me in head first.”
“This story is beginning to stink like…”
“Quite so,” interrupted Gorefitz. “Now let’s press on. After that searing sinus misfortune, I went to the olive grove to clear my head. Few things are as soothing as the smell of olive blossoms in the fall.”
“Sir, olives bloom in the spring and…”
“The lilting fragrance, the delicate bud, the young fruit. Pig waste was my tutor, the olive branch was my savior.”
“Getting back to the race sir.”
‘Ahh, the race. My team was up against some nasty Italians with odd bulges in their racing jerseys. As you know, the race is a team sport. I had the legs and lungs, but another on our team was slated to win if our team came in first. The Italians, Yanks, and us outstripped the others and it became a three-way race with us in the back. One by one the Yanks fell out of the race.”
“Fell? You mean they quit?”
“More like ambushed. Someone was throwing horrible things in their path. One by one, we passed them groaning on the side of the mountain.”
“What was it?”
“Nails, two by fours, and a stray wolverine or two. The usual stuff for back then I suppose.”
“Sir, there are no wolverines in France.”
“Sure, not now there aren’t. Those bike wheels were pretty hard on them. With the U.S. out of the race, it was just the Italians and us. We closed the gap and were racing down the mountain just as the daylight faded.”
“It would have been suicide to continue.”
“But we did,” said the commander wistfully. “It was actually quite thrilling. The Italians were ahead—barely. Sensing we were about to outstrip them, they pulled out their last trick. Those strange bulges in their shirts were really trained blue-ringed attack octopi. They flung them at our faces.”
“Sir, I don’t think anyone could really train an octopus to…”
“The octopi attached themselves to our faces with smothering efficiency. One by one my teammates dropped out to wrestle the beasts from their heads. I alone was left to carry on.”
“Why didn’t you drop out?”
“I managed to pry the beasts up over half my mouth and nose, but that was as far as they would budge. Their bodies covered my eyes so I couldn’t see. Some of those fiendish tentacles were in my ears blocking all sounds. Several were strumming my epiglottis, so speech was out. Then those brutes stung me with their venom. I became numb and lost my sense of touch as well.”
“Octopi don’t have venom.”
“The blue ones do young Tommy rot. I was blind and deaf, with no sense of touch or taste. The only thing left was my proboscis. With only the use of my nose, lungs and the legs the good Lord gave me, I won the Tour de France”
“Sir, do you expect me to believe you were flying down a mountain, at break neck speed, at night, couldn’t see or hear anything, and you won the race? How could anyone do that?”
“A sane person would have quit. In my youth, I wasn’t afflicted with that malady. I pressed on because I was determined not to let those olive-eating rascals get the best of me. In fact, the seeds of their undoing had been there all the time. They actually defeated themselves by throwing those tentacled devils at me. You see, by blocking all my senses but that that one, they forced me to rely utterly in my sense of smell.”
“Go on sir. How did your sense of smell help you overcome?”
“The Italians reeked of olive oil. There are two odors known to the depths of my soul. Olive oil is one of them. Concentrating as never before, I blocked out the fact that I was hurtling down the mountain with no sight. Also blocked out, were the dolomite and granite walls waiting to eat me. I concentrated on the smell of olives and rode them down like the dogs they were.”
“But Commander, if you could only follow their scent, what did you do when you passed the last one?”
“Ahh, here the good Lord played a final joke on those wretches. I knew what lay at the finish line.”
“Paris?”
“Yes, of course Paris, but right next to the finish line was something that filled my heart with hope. Once passed their last man, I honed in that delicate odor and the day was mine.”
“What was at the end of the race, sir? What did you hone in on?”
“Why the pig farm at the side of the road, of course.”
“Sir, if you don’t mind me saying, this whole story reeks of pig…”
“Quite so. Now finish your cocoa, young Tom.”
The End.
If you liked this story, you can find it and others just like it here. God bless you friend. Frankie Chocolate. https://www.amazon.com/Fur-coat-die-other-stories-ebook/dp/B00H9XHTFU/ref=sr_1_1?crid=32GBONZIA4PHA&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.gmcpeICRqgAciBj0QI04ZkZ_ClXfglTusReSbyO6zGo.1dvEuqeqpJm_y1ojcJwAEwZgEGL2p8QZu385ZHm363w&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+fur+coat+to+die+for%2C+frankie+chocolate&qid=1722337498&sprefix=the+fur+coat+to+die+for%2C+frankie+chocolate%2Caps%2C90&sr=8-1