Charles Mercer

Tatter Taylor, Professional Visitor

 

 

Oh, hello there. You seem like a nice person, friendly and all, do you live around here?  Nice town you got here.  I wish I could tell you where I live, but I can't, nope, I can't even tell you my name. Have to keep all information about myself real hush hush; all on account of a fellow named Tatter Taylor. Ever heard of him? No? Well you can count yourself lucky. Let me tell you what happened to me one hot July afternoon.

 

Did you ever endure one of those friends who stops by to visit you for a weekend, and then sponges off you for the next six months? Or maybe a chum who eats you out of house and home? Or perhaps an overbearing buddy who tries to take over your life as well as your house? Well, Tatter Taylor was all this and more.

 

For these and other reasons my day headed downhill the moment my doorbell rang one afternoon. I answered the door and there on my front porch stood Tatter Taylor in person; big, fat, and sweaty. Sporting his usual beat-up straw hat to cover his fat, round, badly sun burned bald head, wearing his wrinkled Hawaiian shirt and carrying two huge over stuffed beaten up brown suitcases. 

 

"Happened to be in town, thought I might drop by for a short visit." Tatter said with a wide grin.  He gave me a big smile, dropped the two bulging suitcases on the porch with a dull thud, stuck out a big meaty hand and pumped my arm up and down like a jack-hammer. He winked and pushed his way past me into the living room of the house. "Whew! It’s been really hot today,” Tatter said glancing around the room like a burglar casing the joint. “You wouldn't have a soft drink lying around handy would you?"

 

Tatter made his way uninvited to the fridge, opened the door and after scanning the contents he helped himself to my last large bottle of cold soda.

 

"Hey!" I yelled, "I planned on saving that for later."

 

"Now don't get yourself all worked up over a soda." Tatter said as he drained the last of the drink and set the empty bottle back in the refrigerator while he drying his mouth with the back of a plump fist, "remember your blood pressure," he chuckled.

 

He pointed to the weathered suitcases setting on the porch next to the still open door, and said, "Be a sport and take care of those for me will you? Just set them in my room, no need to unpack them, I’ll do that a bit later after I’ve had a short nap. After all, a fellow needs his beauty sleep, right? He smiled a big fat sweaty smile and continued,” I'll try to put myself together a little snack while you're gone, you don't mind do you? I'm famished, haven't eaten since five." He nodded his head in disappointment and added sourly, “Not much to choose from is there?” He pulled out a tray of sliced ham, a whole roasted chicken, a bowl of potato salad, a plate of pork chops a pack of cheese, hotdogs and some left over apple pie. He set these on the table; “Got any ice cream for this pie?” he asked grabbing a loaf of bread from the top of the fridge and a carton of milk from a shelf. I shook my head and he sighed sadly, “No? Okay, I guess this will have to do.”

 

I glanced at my wristwatch, almost six thirty, Yep, Tatter Taylor has arrived, and needless to say, Tatter stayed, and stayed, and stayed, no matter how many times I hinted he for him leave.

 

As the days turned into weeks my food bill went through the roof, in addition, he left a mess behind him everywhere he went and never made any effort to pick up after himself. Pizza boxes and empty containers from various delivery restaurants littered the living room, the kitchen and the bedroom Tatter used. All the food charged to my name of course. Tatter’s dirty clothes lay everywhere waiting for me to pick them up and wash them.

 

He slept until noon every day and stayed up until all hours of the night watching television, or playing music, which he sang along with, loudly and off key, in addition he never seemed to stop eating.

 

I found myself on the verge of losing my self-control. Tatter is driving me out of my mind, I can’t sleep and I have constant headaches. I can’t take this abuse any longer and he already spent more than five weeks ransacking my home.

 

“This is serious,” I muttered to myself,” I need to find a way to get Tatter out of my house.”

 

In desperation, I called some of my friends and we all agreed to meet at my friend George's house later that night.

 

The topic of discussion centered on how to get Tatter to leave my house and not show up at one of theirs.

 

After a while we came up with a daring and somewhat foolhardy plan. There are two peculiar things I know  about Tatter, one, no matter what kind of mess he gets into, he always manages to come out on top, like karma or something, and two, his problem with being a chronic sleepwalker. Almost every night I find him wandering about in his sleep. Our brilliant plan will be to use this last trait to our advantage.

 

We will convince Tatter he entered a contest in his sleep, we will  arrange for him to win first prize in the fake contest.

 

The catch is, he will need to travel all the way to Los Angeles to claim his prize.

 

We would be playing a cruel joke on Tatter, but as the old saying goes, desperate times call for desperate measures.

 

Fortunately for us my friend George knew a fellow who lived in Los Angeles, and he will ask him if he would be willing to send the telegram to Tatter notifying him he won the first place prize.

 

"What do you think Tatter is likely to do when he finds out the contest is a fake?" asked George.

 

With a sly smile I answered, "I guess he'll be pretty mad, but what can he do, he will be in Los Angeles and far away from us. I will be rid of him at last! Hopefully he’ll be so upset he won’t ever want to visit here again.”

 

The next day, around noon when Tatter finally got up out of his bed and made his way through the growing pile of debris between his room and the kitchen, I said to him, "Tatter, I saw the contest entry form you filled out last night and so I went ahead and mailed the entry in for you."

 

Tatter scratched his head with a chubby forefinger and yawned. "Contest, what contest?”

 

"I don't know, you left the form lying here on the table, all filled out, I figured you wanted to enter, I put the paper in an envelope, put a stamp on  it and sent in to the contest headquarters."

 

Tatter regarded me through half opened sleep filled eyes and said, "I don't remember joining any contest, what is the contest for?"

 

"Wow,” I said with fake surprise, “you must have been sleepwalking again, and filled the entry form out in your sleep; anyway the contest is for a one week all-expense paid vacation to Hawaii. I thought you wanted to enter so I mailed the entry in, sorry I guess I should have asked you first, but you were asleep and I didn’t want to wake you."

 

Tatter shrugged his meaty shoulders and downed the last of a liter of milk, wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his candy-striped terrycloth bathrobe. He smiled in my direction and stated, "Don't worry your head about it none, no harm done, hey, I might even win the thing."

 

Grudgingly I endured another week of Tatter's abuse waiting for the day the telegram would arrive.

 

Sure enough, right on time as we planned, one week later Tatter got the notification from the fake contest headquarters.

 

‘To Mr. Tatter Taylor’, the notice read, ‘We are very excited to inform you that you are the grand prize winner of an all-expense paid vacation for one to the island paradise of Hawaii. Please come as soon as possible to the address below and claim your prize. Offer expires in thirty days. I am looking forward to meeting you on your arrival here.” It was signed by the head travel agent in an un-readable scribbled handwriting.

 

George's friend included the name of a local travel agency in Los Angeles as the place to claim the prize. Tatter, short on cash, begged me to let him borrow enough to buy a one way plane ticket to Los Angeles. He promised profusely he would pay me back. Of course I gave the money to him, all the while complaining about the hardship it will cause me to be lending him this much money. I needed to make a small fuss otherwise Tatter might think something was up.

 

So it cost me a little dough, but it will be well worth the cash to be shed of Tatter.

 

The next afternoon, Tatter, his suitcases and I, called a taxi and headed for the local airport at the edge of town.

 

I didn't breathe a sigh of relief until I saw his plane lift off and disappear into the distant clouds on their way to California.

 

I called my friend George and said, "We did it, he's on the plane and gone, and I owe all of the thanks to you."

 

George said, "Yeah, but if he comes back here all mad and stuff looking to get revenge on someone I'm putting all the blame on you." 

 

Almost a week went by without a word from Tatter; I felt bad about stranding him in Los Angeles, but he deserved it after the way he abused me while he was here.  Eventually I got a letter from him in the mail.

 

I opened the communication nervously, wondering what he would say about the terrible prank we played on him.

 

Inside the envelope I found a picture of Tatter, standing on a white sand beach between two beautiful Hawaiian girls. He had his arms around them and a big smile on his fat face.

 

He wrote on the back of the photo,” having lots of fun here in Hawaii, it turned out to be a strange story though, I went to the travel agency and they didn't know anything about me winning any contest! The travel agent there told me they weren’t even holding a contest.

 

While I was standing outside the place trying to figure out what I should do next, I thought,” there must be some mistake,” so I turned around and  walked back in, and would you believe my luck? The second time I entered the agency, I was their one millionth customer, and as such, I won … a two week all-expense paid vacation to Hawaii!

 

So here I am, fun in the sun, swimming all day, luaus all night, beautiful girls and party, party, party, but don't worry old buddy, my dearest friend, I won't forget about you, why I wouldn’t be here enjoying all this if it hadn’t been for you. I'll come back and visit you again next year.

 

Oh, and I think I left a pair of socks under the bed, be a pal, wash them and send them to me will you? Thanks.” The letter ended with, “your friend, Tatter Taylor”.

 

I thought to myself, I don't believe how things turned out, he's done it again, fell into a mess and came out on top! Only one thing left for me to do, sell the house and move away, Far away.

 

I won’t tell anyone where I'm going and I’ll leave no forwarding address, I may even need to change my name.

 

This may seem a little drastic to you, but, that’s because you’ve never been visited by Tatter Taylor!

 

 

 

Charles Mercer writes from Washington state.