The Book of Counted Sorrows

I need a massage.

7

Bruno Kronk, Masseur Extraordinaire and Monkey Mechanic.

Bruno Kronk’s mother was the best friend of my second cousin twice removed. Please understand: The cousin was twice removed, not Bruno’s mother, and as far as that goes, the cousin was brought back twice, as well, after being removed, although by a majority vote of the family, she was removed yet a third time and never brought back again.

Bruno’s mother, Brunetta, was an attractive but hulking woman, who drew whistles from lumberjacks, though they were as likely to be whistles of respect as whistles of romantic intention. She could bench-press a 400-pound Sumo wrestler, whether he wanted to be bench-pressed or not, and as a consequence, she was not welcome in Japan. As far as lumberjacks went, she could bench-press them, as well, two at a time, even while eating a breakfast of buckwheat cakes in garlic syrup, and she could fell a mighty redwood with her breath.

Brunetta left home at the age of seventeen with twelve dollars and a suitcase full of shoes, determined to see the world, every remote nook and crevice of it, but she returned at eighteen, barefoot and six months pregnant. Trailing behind her was Babe the Blue Ox, bigger than a house and bluer than one of the sleazy sex-and-science magazines for which Addison Heffalope, the doomed poet, wrote erotic doggerel. Brunetta’s mother, Brunhilde, was certain that the father of the unborn child must be the owner of Babe: Paul Bunyan, the legendary giant lumberjack and American folk hero, who was also an infamous womanizer. (Do you want to see my Douglas fir, baby? How about a little log-rolling contest, sweetie? Believe me, this is a side of Bunyan that you don’t want to explore.) Brunetta’s father, Brunplotz, whose friends affectionately called him Plotzie, would have traced Bunyan down and either killed him or done something unimaginablv more brutal; however, Brunetta managed to persuade him that she had not been impregnated by the giant lumberjack but by Big Foot. Because Big Foot is mysterious in the extreme, as elusive as a ghost, and most likely mythical, Plotzie reluctantly conceded that a quest for revenge would be futile. Thus he resigned himself to living with the shame of his precious daughter’s dishonor. Tree months thereafter, the family was left without vengeance but with little Bruno and a lifetime supply of blue sausages.

Thirty-two years later, Bruno came to work on the Koontz estate as our Masseur Extraordinaire and Monkey Mechanic. His massages are so aggressive that they are not merely relaxing but nearly fatal. If you have ever received a rigorous traditional Japanese massage, which is arguably the most forceful massage in the world, then you might be able to understand the power of Bruno’s treatments if you can imagine a Japanese massage performed by a tribe of methamphetamine-crazed gorillas wielding baseball bats and lug wrenches while driven into a frenzy by samba music played at full volume on 40,000-amp speakers. Bliss. As deeply relaxing as a massage by Bruno can be, the restful effect is further enhanced on those occasions when a short-term coma and hospitalization follow.

You have no doubt noticed that I’ve left you alone here in my handsomely padded and tufted study for a mere twenty-one minutes and nine seconds, which is not nearly long enough for a complete massage, and being observant, you will have further noted that I have returned not in a coma, nor even disoriented, but only in a wheelchair and with a dreamy expression on my face. This is because my massage was interrupted by Mrs. Scuttlesby, who rushed to the massage theater to alert Bruno that a repair emergency had arisen regarding the robotic monkeys.

Although I myself possess no other talent or skill besides a certain humble gift for writing fiction, we are fortunate that this world harbors some exceptional human beings who can do two – or even more than two – things with equal ability. Albert Einstein was not only the greatest physicist who ever lived, but also the highest-scoring professional basketball player of his time. General Douglas MacArthur, brilliant commander of our Pacific forces in World War II, also had a profitable and acclaimed career as a stand-up comic in the Catskills and later in Las Vegas, under the name Shecky MacArthur, and in addition, he wrote best-selling romance novels under a name that I am sworn never to reveal, under penalty of instant spleen removal by descendants of the general. Likewise, our highly esteemed Bruno Kronk not only gives the most strenuous and most exquisitely debilitating massages on the North American continent, but he also is to robotic-monkey repair what Jackie Chan is to martial-arts movies.

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