Refried Beans and the Schnarley Code of Honor
Chuck Schnarley was a desperate, broken man. Anyone traversing through Winnemucca, Nevada could hear Chuck’s desperate howls echoing across the vast expanse of the Nevada desert. His lamentations were as constant as the calls of the coyotes and the hoots of the Western Screech owls. Well, that’s not the total truth. Chuck managed to take short breaks from weeping by watching old episodes of Duck Dynasty while huffing and getting high from a whipped cream canister.
Hey you, Sister Bertha Better-than-Thou, I see your scornful scowl. Enough with the self-righteousness! I mean, who among us hasn’t self-medicated with nitrous oxide from a pressurized canister, and binge-watched crappy TV shows after suffering the loss of the love of their life? Be better! Excuse my little outburst; now let’s turn our attention back to Chuck, shall we?
A cactus wren perched atop Chuck’s satellite dish serenaded him nonstop with a lovely song, offering hope and comfort in the midst of Chuck’s unending grief. But he responded to this bird’s soothing soliloquy by grabbing his .22 shotgun and aiming it straight at the bird’s head.
“Shut the hell up already! You sound like a damn car that won’t start!” Chuck was a terrible shot; he missed the bird entirely, mortally wounding his satellite dish instead. He sank to his knees, clutching the fragments of metal to his chest, sobbing, “No more Below Deck! My God, no more Tiger King reruns! How will I survive the loss of My Fifty Day Fiancée? My life is over, it’s seriously over!”
Chuck took a deep breath, a desperate attempt to soothe himself. He plopped down into his pink Princess Barbie Dreamhouse rocking chair. Please, no judgment. Chuck won that chair fair and square. That five-year-old brat at the thrift store put up quite a fight, but for two bucks it was worth the tussle. Being a small man, he could fit into it quite nicely. Only 5’4”, but big where it counts… in his heart, ya nasties! Get your minds out of that sewer!
Chuck slinked deeper into his rocking chair, his eyes becoming misty. “Why did you have to leave, LaWanna? And why the hell couldn’t you tell me to my face that you were running off with another man, someone with the IQ of a turnip!”
LaWanna was a cruel coward, making her intentions known with a brusque note taped to the bathroom mirror. “Goodbye, Turkey. Your gravy days are over. My attorney will be in touch. P.S. I’m taking the good toilet paper. Hope your ass gets chapped real good!”
LaWanna, who was not particularly adept at the spoken or the written word, had been listening to a slew of Jerry Reed music at the time of the breakup. So it was perfectly logical for her to plagiarize her “Dear John” letter from the lyrics of Jerry Reed’s, She Got the Goldmine I Got the Shaft.
Recalling this slight unleashed a righteous fury, catapulting Chuck right out of his Barbie rocking chair. And with both fists pumped high in the air, he shrieked, “Right on, Jerry Reed! I got the royal shaft shoved right up my…”
“Wooo! Wooo!” Oh my, what an inopportune time for a train to blow its whistle. The world may never know precisely where this royal shaft was shoved!
Chuck flopped back down into his chair, clutching his chest. It felt like it was ripped out, marinated in bitter tears, slow-roasted over a hickory barbecue pit and basted with rat piss.
But if losing LaWanna wasn’t heartbreaking enough, Chuck now had a broken relationship with his sister Noreen. All because Chuck vehemently refused to allow his sister to renege on a family promise, no matter how much she wept and begged. Chuck’s dogged refusal stemmed from his unwavering principles. To violate the Schnarley code of ethics—etched deeply into his very DNA like a birthmark or a hairy mole that couldn’t be removed, was unthinkable.
His late Uncle Barney had always been Chuck’s role model and hero. On a dare, this brave soul consumed a sandwich made with three-month expired mayonnaise and moldy bologna. But a promise was a promise. Sure, Uncle Barney ended up losing a kidney, part of his liver, and had to endure a painful bowel resection after eating the rancid concoction, but that was integrity. That was the Schnarley way.
For fifteen years, Noreen had made a pledge to Chuck that he would have the distinct honor of naming her firstborn. Her only requirements were that the first and middle name had to be biblical. Noreen was a fine, upstanding Christian woman, much like their dear mother, Darlene.
Deeply touched by this tremendous honor, Chuck scoured the Bible for the most significant names, delving into the original Hebrew meaning. He consulted ancient Aramaic texts, debated etymology with a bewildered group of Hasidic scholars, and even attempted to learn Sumerian cuneiform just in case. He searched for years, endless consultations with pastors and rabbis, until he found the perfect combination.
Three months ago, Chuck’s nephew was born, a perfect twenty-one inches long and eight pounds nine ounces. With his thick crop of raven-black hair and full lips, he was a truly beautiful baby. The whole Schnarley clan gathered around Noreen’s hospital bed, the smell of Lysol and the sweet scent of new life filling the room. Their hearts collectively pounded awaiting the infant’s christening. Noreen gently handed her newborn to Chuck, a raspy sob escaping her lips.
In that moment, Chuck felt a surge of biblical gravitas that nearly buckled his knees. This wasn’t just a baby; this was his burning bush moment, his Red Sea parting. He, Chuck Schnarley, was the Moses of the Schnarley clan, divinely appointed to lead this new generation with a name that would echo through the ages. The weight of this solemn and sacred occasion weighed heavily on Chuck. He stood tall, shoulders back, head held high. All the other Schnarleys held their breath, so quiet one could almost hear the steps of an ant creeping across the floor.
Tears flowed heavy and profuse as Noreen asked with the softest of whispers, “What’s his name, Chuck?”
Chuck bent down and embraced Noreen, his eyes welling up with tears. His voice trembled like the engine of his brother’s El Camino as he answered, “His name is Moses Methuselah.”
Noreen, sounding as if she was choking on a chicken wing, gasped loudly. Eyes bulging, she shouted, “You had one job to do, Chuck… just name the damn kid and somehow you managed to screw that up!”
Chuck patted Noreen’s arm in assurance. “You can always shorten the names in an effort to modernize them a bit.”
Noreen was an angry camel, spittle flying with every word. “Oh… let’s see how that works, Chuck. The shortened version of Moses Methuselah would be Mo Meth! Mo Meth! That really sets a child up for success, doesn’t it, Chuck?!”
Noreen’s shrieks, a combination of high-pitched wails and guttural growls, reverberated through the hospital. One might have mistaken them for the demons Jesus cast into the pigs. Chuck, in an ill attempt at humor, chuckled, “Is there a priest in the house? Because it looks like someone is in dire need of an exorcism.”
That statement dumped gallons of petrol on an already out-of-control fire. Tempers flared, F-Bombs detonating left and right. Security was called and threatened them with arrest. But sweet Baby Mo Meth, slumbered peacefully through it all.
As if his troubles with Noreen weren’t enough, Chuck was soon confronted with an even more shocking revelation. His seventy-five-year-old grandmother, Sis (a tough old broad with a penchant for chain smoking and dirty jokes), had been moonlighting as a stripper at a local club, The Fox Den, or affectionately known by the community as “Herpes Haven,” or, my personal favorite, “Club Chlamydia.” Chuck had discovered this sickening reality purely by accident.
Chuck strolled into the strip joint without a care in the world. He grinned, thinking, “I bet they hired some strippers from Reno. That’s where all the hotties hail from.” Chuck ordered a whiskey neat from Sampson, the burly bartender who ushered him to a front-row seat. Here Chuck settled in, panting with excited anticipation, imagining a menagerie of beautiful women paraded before him like a smorgasbord. His feet hit the floor and stayed there, immovable, stuck in a puddle of sticky goo. Chuck shuddered, “This damn well better be hair gel. And only hair gel.”
He nervously scanned the joint. It was dingy and dirty, a real dive. Completely empty except for two people: a rotund man clad in a stained Kiss Me I’m Irish t-shirt, who smelled like he’d been marinated in bratwurst and onions. He was trying to win his date, a seven-foot redhead squeezed into a butt-skimming gold lamé tube dress, a stuffed bear from one of those stupid crane game machines. The tall redhead, noticing Chuck’s stares, shouted with a deep, sonorous voice, “You’re in for a real treat, honey! A real treat!” Her Irish date grinned a toothless smile, “It gets less awful the more you drink.”
”The song, “ Pour Some Sugar on Me” blared through the space, Chuck’s pulse rising exponentially with every beat. But once the spotlight flared, Chuck’s excitement curdled into a cold, guttural dread. His eyes, which had been so eager for “hotties from Reno,” now betrayed him with the horrifying vision of Sis, his seventy-five-year-old grandmother, in a sequined thong and her pasties. Oh, those pasties. They did not look straight ahead. No, those pasties stared straight down at the floor, her pendulous breasts swaying back and forth, back and forth. Acid, thick and profuse, crept up Chuck’s throat. And he tried, oh how he tried to look away, but the sight of her 36 XL breasts (that’s extra long in case you were wondering) hypnotized him, his eyes tracking every single, solitary, sickening tit-swing.
She slithered toward him on the floor, her liver-spotted hands clawing in the air. “Grandma, it’s me. It’s Chuck!” But Sis could neither see nor hear Chuck’s frantic cries. She had forgotten her hearing aid that night, and cataracts made it difficult for her to see in the dark. She writhed and slithered, like a geriatric cobra, licking her lips seductively. Chuck’s body and eyes were paralyzed; he couldn’t move or avert his gaze. But the fatal blow to Chuck’s stomach arrived when Sis performed a downward-facing pretzel dog, carnivorously staring right into his eyes. The contents of the Chinese buffet, where Chuck ate earlier, erupted out of his mouth like Mount Vesuvius, coating everything and anyone within a ten-foot radius. To this day, Chuck is reduced to a quivering puddle of sobbing jelly if he even hears the opening bars of the song that dares not speak its name.
Trying to obliterate the visual trauma of his barely dressed grandmother gyrating and contorting her leathery body into unseemly positions from his brain, Chuck rocked faster in his chair, repeating over and over, “Happy thoughts, think on happy thoughts. Like the time you owned a successful restaurant.” Chuck was speaking of the Chuck Wagon, an all-you-could-eat buffet for the low, low price of only $9.99.
His customer base was predominantly the elderly, as it’s a well-known fact that one’s sense of taste is usually the first sense to go in aging adults. Lack of impulse control typically followed. His clientele was quite cantankerous. On more than one occasion, Chuck’s brother Sid had to break out the mace and blast a spray right into the faces of rioting octogenarians. Imagine flying canes and dentures, even a few broken hips. Nothing could get these sassy seniors into a fighting mood quicker than running out of banana pudding.
Fortunately, many of Chuck’s clients were quite wealthy, especially Bea Minsky. She was the eighty-seven-year-old owner and founder of Aunt Bea’s Flooring Emporium, estimated value: forty million dollars. Bea was a former beauty queen, always sporting a full face of makeup, with the shape of her eyebrows in continual flux. Usually alternating between the “horizontal woolly worm” or the “shocked Spock.”
She was a regular at the Chuck Wagon and the most generous tipper, giving at least 5%. This beautiful elderly woman would later be Chuck’s wife, the two separated in age by only fifty-five years.
As Chuck continued rocking, reminiscing on happier times, he had an epiphany. Had he not hired his ne’er-do-well younger brother Sid to be a cook at the restaurant, he would have never married Bea. Would never have experienced a life of opulence for two glorious years. Actually living the dream of being a sea captain, tooling around in Bea’s houseboat, The Coupon Clipper. He even bought a ridiculous captain’s hat, complete with a fake parrot that squawked pre-recorded phrases like, “Ships Ahoy, Matey.” Granted, what Sid did was against all bounds of human decency. However, Chuck knew he owed Sid a debt, not of gratitude for his unconventional ingredient choices when cooking, but gratitude for inadvertently launching Chuck into the gilded cage of marital bliss.
Three months after opening its doors, Chuck extended an invitation to Lloyd Layman, the redoubtable food critic of their local newspaper: The Winnemucca Web, to experience a free meal at the Chuck Wagon. Lloyd, a five-hundred-pound malcontent shut-in, enthusiastically accepted the invitation to stuff his face with gratis grub. He waddled in on Fiesta Night. Burritos, tacos, fajitas, and Sid’s specialty, refried beans, were on the menu.
The place was packed, and everyone was in high spirits, except for Chuck and Sid. The two of them had a vicious fight earlier in the day over Sid’s demand that he be allowed to take the night off so he could attend What the Truck?, Winnemucca’s biannual monster truck rally. They almost came to blows until Chuck threatened to expose that Sid had stolen their neighbors’ pet groundhog, Rocky. This loving, cuddly creature became Sid’s de facto emotional support animal and potential source of protein should the economy worsen. Sid’s jaw clenched as he sneered, “Fine. But I’m warning you, it might taste like shit.” Chuck gave a wry smile in return. “That’s nothing new, Sid. All your stuff tastes like shit.”
Chuck scurried around filling empty beverage glasses, while Sid glowered in the kitchen. Despite the palpable tension between these two titans of culinary delight, the restaurant buzzed with laughter and raucous camaraderie. Lloyd adored the beans, his quadruple chin(s) wobbling as he gripped Chuck’s arm and said, “These beans are simply fantabulous! I can’t quite place the seasoning, but it’s heady and earthy, quite delectable. I’m on my fifth bowl already! My compliments to the chef.”
Chuck’s heart swelled with pride, realizing that he was an entrepreneur. Heck, I might even be able to franchise this thing. I can see it now, a Chuck Wagon in every town.
But Chuck’s fantasy of obtaining cheap food nirvana would soon come to collapsing ruin. Within six hours, over thirty people would be hospitalized with severe food poisoning. Bea Minsky and Lloyd Layman were among the victims. The ensuing investigation discovered that the source of the foodborne illness was the beans, of which Sid was in charge. Lab tests revealed that these refried beans were full of the dangerous E. Coli bacteria.
The police strongly suspected that Sid had, ahem, placed something awful in the beans. However, without any cameras in the kitchen, police could offer no proof that he committed a crime. Subsequently, all charges were dropped, but the damage was already done. The fallout from the food poisoning scandal was devastating. Sid fled to Wyoming with Rocky to escape further scrutiny. The Chuck Wagon shuttered its doors, and Chuck’s reputation was in tatters. Lloyd wrote a scathing review from his hospital bed, giving Chuck’s former restaurant the unfortunate moniker, The Upchuck Wagon. And as a final kick to Chuck’s dignity, Lloyd penned that eating at the Chuck Wagon was “a most shitty experience.”
And poor Chuck was riddled with guilt, so intense that he visited Bea every day of her six-week hospital stay. They played Canasta, watched old Perry Mason reruns, and sang every song recorded by The Inkspots. They’d share a Jell-O cup, bodies pressed together, gazing into each other’s eyes. During this magical time, Bea fell deeply in love with Chuck, and he in turn fell deeply in love with Bea’s money. The two married rather quickly after Bea proclaimed, “No nookie until you make an honest woman of me.” Chuck swallowed hard; he had hoped, really hoped, that his could be a “nookie-less marriage,” but old Bea was hornier than a twelve-point buck. However, the allure of spending Bea’s vast fortune weighed heavier than his repulsion over “putting out.”
They married at the courthouse after Bea’s release from the hospital. Chuck had sweat buckets the whole time imagining his wedding night as described by Bea, “an evening of unleashed lust and passion with a side of leather chaps, thong underpants and flavored body paint.” His face blanched, and he threw up a bit in his mouth when Bea whispered, “I bought some earplugs for you. I’m a real screamer, like a cougar in heat. Rawr!”
Sis served as their witness. She was honored to be included and doubly honored that Chuck had taken her advice to heart. She continually told Chuck, “Chucky, when you’re young, marry someone old, rich, and sick. But when you’re old, marry someone young, good-looking, and stupid. That way they’re too dumb to take all your moola from the first marriage. Hell, I’m on my fifth marriage. He’s thirty-four, drop-dead gorgeous, and dumb as a bag of rocks.”
Sis threw rice after the marriage was finalized, and Bea celebrated by squeezing a handful of Chuck’s…well, you know. She whispered lecherously between compresses, “Chucky’s getting lucky.” Chuck’s mind raced. Maybe I can say it got shot off in the war. Or maybe I could say I took a vow of celibacy after converting to Buddhism. Or maybe I just down half a bottle of Benadryl and a fifth of whiskey and get it over with.
His immediate terror was tempered only by the ironclad certainty of the prenuptial agreement. Chuck had ensured every clause was airtight: he would receive half of Bea’s vast fortune, provided their union lasted two years and one day. But fate, it seemed, had a cruel sense of humor. Bea passed peacefully in her sleep on their second anniversary, leaving Chuck a mere twenty-four hours short of inheriting millions.
A bitter lump formed in Chuck’s throat, thinking of the injustice. The only thing he received from Bea’s estate was fifteen thousand dollars and custody of her three yapping yorkies: Winkin’, Blinkin’, and Nod. Meanwhile, Bea’s two ingrate sons inherited the bulk of her estate, including the Coupon Clipper.
Now Chuck lived in a cruddy, roach-infested fifth-wheeler along with three humping yorkies. His only means of transportation was Sid’s abandoned El Camino from when he absconded from the state.
“Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” he thought. Chuck was angry at Sid for his little bean stunt as it cost him the restaurant and his reputation. But his real ire was directed at Sis, as she was the one who introduced him to his now ex-wife. Chuck recalled their phone conversation that took place just two weeks after Bea’s death.
“Chucky, it’s been two weeks already. It’s way past time for you to get back in the saddle. I’ve got the perfect woman for you. She’s a dancer at The Fox Den. A real smart one too, she’s got a PhD in pole-itics. A genius even, her IQ is at least thirty-eight triple F.” A croaky cackle seasoned by decades of cigarette smoke erupted from Sis.
“I’m interested. What’s her name?”
“Oh Chucky, her name is a pretty one, and it describes her perfectly: LaWanna LaPlenty.”
After hearing this unique and very enticing name, Chuck was sold. He knew without seeing her that he had found his bed, I mean, soulmate. Their courtship was brief; just a mere two weeks after meeting, the two married. Whenever Chuck felt frisky, which was quite frequent, he’d say with a wink to his beautiful bride, “LaWanna wanna?”
However, after six months of wedded bliss, LaWanna didn’t want to wanna anymore. Around this time, Chuck noticed that Keevan, the beefy meter-reader with a 1970s porn-star mustache and the requisite cold sores that accompany said mustaches, had been coming around more than usual. A short time later, Chuck received the breakup note from LaWanna, followed by an apology note of sorts from Keevan. The IQ of a turnip had met the spelling skills of a second-grader, but they were still capable of heartbreak.
“Hi LaWanna and me are off to chase sunsetz and make some new mammaries Sorie for the mess we left you in but mayb you can tak comfurt in noing your bill will go down by alot since LaWanna and me won’t be taking those long hot showers Sinsearly Kevan the meader reader”
Chuck ripped the letter to shreds and set it on fire, a cathartic symbol of letting go of the past and straining toward the future. Chuck buoyed his spirits with the thought that no one could drain the Schnarley blood flowing in his veins. A surge of pride washed over him, thinking of his prominent ancestors who came before him, like the late Karl Schnarley, who invented that culinary wonder known as aerosol cheese. He too possessed the Schnarley traits of bravery and honor, enduring frequent pungent explosions and gross disfigurement in the lab. His early attempts to heat the can to peak- cheese -meltiness, culminated in the loss of his eyebrows and the tip of his nose. But the man continued undeterred with his quest to break the code of stuffing cheese into a metal pressurized container, ensuring him a legacy of innovation and perpetually cheesy breath.
As Chuck gazed out at the setting sun, a flicker of determination ignited inside him; he too could emerge from the ashes like a triumphant Phoenix… perhaps even a Phoenix with a slight E. Coli sensitivity and a lingering fear of strippers and horny old ladies. But Chuck was a Schnarley after all, a blood relative of the man who invented spray cheese for God’s sake. Failure was not an option, even if the mere mention of refried beans still caused his eyebrows to twitch.
Horror Sleaze Trash 