Little Town of Ireland, Part I

Storyteller: Once upon a time in turn of the century Ireland.
Dan: You mean ancient Egypt.
Storyteller: No, I mean Ireland.
Erik: Ancient Ireland!
Mel: Were there Mummies?
Dan: Yeah King Tut bitches!
Erik: Woooo!
Storyteller: Do you guys want me to read this story or not?
Erik/Mel/Dan: Fine.
Storyteller: Once upon a time in Turn of the Century Ireland, Bad Things happened.
Erik/Mel/Dan: Ooooo, Bad Things.
Storyteller: Yes, so the population packed up their potatoes and took to the seas on little rafts, made of rock walls and wool. After braving many months on the Atlantic, where they lost many brethren and sisteren, they found purchase in the New World! Our story begins on a dock in Ellis Island…
Mel: Wait, I thought our story already began in Ireland with the Bad Things.
Erik/Dan: Oooo, The Bad Things.
Storyteller: No, that was just the foreword. Off the life raft stepped a group of young twenty-somethings who had met on the voyage and now had formed a tight knit circle of friendship, full of love, support, the occasional bit of drama and plenty of clever punchlines.
Mel: Just like Friends!
Storyteller: Right. Anyway, their names were Dannyboy Macaran.
Dan: Woah, he and I have the same initials! Dan Maccarone – Dannyboy Macaran.
Storyteller: Right and he looked a lot like you. Joining Dannyboy was the lovely Maggie Delaney.
Mel: Woah we have the same initials! MD!
Storyteller: Right and she looked a lot like you. Also with them was Everhard Boyd.
Erik: Woah, did you just call me Everhard Boy?
Storyteller: No, it’s not you, these are fictional characters. Besides it’s Boyd, with a D, but he did look a lot like you. And finally joining the trio was You…
Mel: Who?
Storyteller: You.
Mel: Me?
Storyteller: No, it’s a second person character. It’s supposed to represent the reader.
Dan: Oh, so it’s you?
Storyteller: No not me, you.
Erik: Dan?
Dan: What?
Storyteller: No, look this is a Choose Your Own adventure story. And the pattern of those is that the reader plays a character in the story who has to make choices, and it’s told in the second person, so that the character is referred to as you. Understand?
Erik/Mel/Dan: Ahhhhhhh.
Storyteller: You don’t understand do you?
Erik/Mel/Dan: No.
Storyteller: Alright, forget the fourth character. We’ll just go with the three. Our three characters were immediately greeted by a weaslish man who introduced himself as Stu Luthinski. His Irish accent was terrible, as he was from Poland, but he told them that he was a seller of sensuality and invited Maggie to come work in his house of ill repute. Dannnyboy and Everhard were beside themselves, as they were both in love with her.
Dan: Well they aren’t going to let her go, are they?
Mel: Let her go? She’s her own woman, she can do whatever she wants.
Storyteller: And so she did, for Stu Luthinski bartered and bargained, until it was agreed that Maggie would receive 17%.
Dan: 17% of what?
Storyteller: Exactly.
Erik: What a whore!
Storyteller: And a whore she became and she and her new Master Luthinski left the boys to themselves and the pouring rain.
Dan: When did it start raining?
Storyteller: It had never stopped.
Erik/Dan: Oh.
Erik: When do I get to choose my own adventure?
Storyteller: Okay, here is your first one.
- Do you (A) want Dannyboy and Everhard to track Maggie down, and take her back from her certain life of diseases and knife scars?
- Do you (B) want Dannyboy and Everhard to go to a pub and get drunk on Budweiser?
- Or do (C) Dannyboy and Everhard to join a college football team and achieve their dreams of playing in front of millions of people in Pasedena, California at the Rose Bowl?
Erik: Ooooo, the Rose Bowl!
Storytellerturns the page): Sorry Erik, that one’s a dead end. Turns out they both go on to be huge disappointments in the NFL and die in a bunk crack deal after testing positive for steroids.
Dan: Well then, I want to follow Mel.
Storyteller: (turns the page) Actually Dan, in that one, they both step off the curb and are immediatelty attacked and killed by a pack of angry villagers, who mistake Dannyboy for a large monster, constructed by a mad scientist in his own image, leading to moral questions about god complexes and mob mentalities and whether or not it is actually man who is the monster. It’s just one page long. I think we should go with the second choice.
Feeling rejected, Dannyboy and Everhard decided to drown their sorrows in a few pints of Budweiser at the local tavern, where they met the head of the toughest gang in town, the Mertzionis. His name was Big Joe. Big Joe Mertzioni (SKP reacts) Three comedic performers were entertaining him and his gang in the corner as Dannyboy and Everhard entered. Each time the performers said a punch line, Big Joe laughed with joy and shot another patron of the bar.
Mel: Weeeee!
Storyteller: Big Joe invited them over to watch the show and, over several drinks, Big Joe explained to them the ins-and-outs of running a successful gang and a burgeoning comedy venue. The boys agreed to join Big Joe’s gang, and then watched the trio of funny men putting forth their “sketches.” They watched with equal horror as Big Joe, became offended by a sketch about totem poles and shot all three of the performers dead. Upon seeing this, the two boys leapt from their barstools and did what anyone in their situation would have done:
Mel: They killed Big Joe and took over his gang, making it a much more warm and fuzzy gang that solved its problems with hugs?
Storyteller: No.
Erik: They jumped up on stage, and began performing the two man show that both had talked about doing for years but were always too lazy and scared to actually try?
Storyteller: No.
Dan: They drank more beers and tried to use alcohol to forget what they had just seen.
Storyteller: No. They joined a wagon train and set out towards California to find some gold!
Dan/Erik/Mel: (“duh why didn’t I think of that”) Ohhhhhh.
Storyteller: Upon reaching the middle of the country, the wagon train, broke an axle, ran out of food and everyone died of dysentery. Fortunately, the two boys had been left behind one day while hunting, and were now trekking across the desert on foot. After several days of intense heat and near dehydration, the boys came to huge Canyon.
Erik/Dan/Mel: The Grand Canyon!
Storyteller: Right and it had a sparkling body of water snaking through it. It was a marvelous and majestic sight the boys had ever seen. So with a deep sigh and a tear in their eyes, they both turned to each other and pronounced: That’s the…
ALL: “CLEANEST RIVER IN AMERICA!”
To be continued in Little Town of Ireland, Part II.