That's where I come in, unfortunately. I'm half a triplet, if that makes any sense. My two brothers were Siamese twins, although that was long before anybody I know of ever knew anything about Siam, so, conveniently, we just called the two-headed entity that was my brothers, Steve and Bucky, "Stucky." They were joined at the hip pretty literally, though buttocks would be more precise, but since great uncle Noah didn't like that word, we just said they were joined at the hip. Anyway, we were about sixteen at the time of the deluge, so when it came time to address the manure problem, round about Day 3 of the cruise, the old man looked up and down the deck at his assorted saved kin and pointed to me and my brothers. "Let the yo-yos and Slinky take care of it. Shit happens, you know, boys. It'll put hair on your chests." That's what he called us, the yo-yos (Stucky) and Slinky (me, on account of my svelte-ness and capacity to slip into all kinds of mischief).
So it was goodbye promenade deck, hello shovel and beasts. And hello one crash course of an education in, shall we say, animalistic urges and behaviors. I know great-grandpa Adam named all the animals as best as he saw fit, but I might suggest a few more realistic monikers: giraffes=pimps; kangaroos=philanderers; penguins=thieves; and definitely, unicorns=pushers. Thanks to one Jones, the male unicorn, by Day 12 we had a menagerie of addicts on our hands. Seems that Jones, sensing something feral but economically exploitable when he and his mate Sunshine got the call to the Ark, hollowed out his horn and crammed it full of all the best narcotics in the spritely forest whence he dwelt.
Well, before you Just Say No-ers start wagging your fingers, consider for a moment being crammed in a dark ship's bottom with your spouse and couples of every species, setting sail on what was soon obvious would be no three hour cruise, all the while the mother of all deluges is battering you to and fro, bow to stern, and it's a few thousand years before Dramamine would be invented. Trust me, you'd be quickly lining up with the horses and the wombats, the eels and the muskrats, for a "little taste" of what Jones the unicorn was offering.
Stucky, being a bit paranoid (as having eyes on the front and back of your head tends to make you), freaked out about the whole thing, thinking we'd catch hell if the old man found about the literal opium (and what have you) den that was festering below decks. Unfortunately Stucky (how about this for bad luck genes) were also both bipolar, but never in synch, so whenever Steve was all manic and ready to go up on deck and inform great uncle Noah about the situation, Bucky was in a funk and didn't want to move an inch, and vice versa. Meanwhile, I had a little bit of a push-me pull-me thing going on with my conscience at the time: as brotherly loyal to Stucky as I was, I was also getting good boodle, in the form of unmarked c-notes, from Jones, who, smart uni he, knew that I was the nearest thing to a cop in the hold, and let's face it, if a dealer isn't bribing someone he feels as if he's not doing his job properly.
So blame me and my to narc or not to narc dithering on the ensuing carnage. By Day 23, with the sloths constantly on the nod, the entire phylum of apes hopelessly dependent on speedballs, and the gerbils--who would have guessed?--sucking up lines of coke like Studio 54 wannabes, Jones made the announcement that he was running low on dope and that he'd have to start drastically rationing. Such a lot of cackling, howling, screeching, and lowing you've never heard. "Look man," Jones tried to calm everybody, "I thought this was going to be like an 8-day Club Med thing. Everybody knows you never take more than three weeks supply with you in case customs busts you and tries to pin a trafficking rap on you. Now just chill out. I've been holding out on you all just in case of an emergency like this. I've got some really good hash stashed in my mane. Let's all smoke that and mellow out."
Which actually worked for about thirty-six hours until everybody started getting jittery at once. The mammals caucused in one corner, the birds chirped in whispers in another, and the insects buzzed together on the walls. God knows what was going on water-wise outside, but there in the hold the tide was definitely turning against Jones, who was still stoned out of his mind and nuzzling horns with Sunshine. Meanwhile my friends Ben and Willardwina, the rats, were squeaking in my ears, "Go tell on him, go tell on him." So I told Stucky to say a prayer for me and headed up to spill the beans to Noah.
The old man was not amused. At all. First he raised Cain with me for being my usual slinky self, then he turned what latter day scholars would have called Job-like. "Why me, Lord," he pleaded. "I never even liked recreational boating. I'm allergic to anything with four or more legs. Rain makes my joints ache (I silently tittered a bit over his unintended double entendre, still buzzing a tad from the contact high). And now this. I don't know 12-step jargon from my forebear Adam. Who do you think I am, Lord, a Dr. Phil/Dr. Doolittle Stucky yo-yo? Oy!"
It was the sudden rocking and the loud oinks that shook the old man from his lament and got us all moving hastily below. By the time we made it, Jones and Sunshine were being shared by the lip-licking lions and lambs (the first recorded drugland slaying). The male rhino, physically the biggest junkie of them all, was moaning, "Get this monkey off my back!" Indeed, a completely frazzled, detoxing chimp was jumping up and down on the rhino's back, trying to bang its head against the ceiling. Thankfully the female turkey had given birth the day before, because her mate Tom was being eaten, cold, by a pack of frenzied wolves. Stucky were driving themselves dizzy trying to turn away from the myriad scenes of horror all around them. Then suddenly the owls swooped down and placed two large vials into Noah's hands, winked widely, and swooped away again.
"What's this, o wise ones?" Noah inquired as he squinted to read the labels on the vials. "Methadone? Well, let's give it a try."
The next two weeks were pretty subdued. And then we rediscovered land, recovering all the way. I went into the caffeine and nicotine businesses, having perceived those markets would always be strong, and within a year was able to finance Stucky's separation operation. They started making bumper stickers that say "Easy Does It" and "One Day At A Time," married sisters, and now run an AA B&B.
And so, my friends, take it from a primary source: that's what became of the unicorns, and that's why Noah Webster eventually had to create a definition for the word jones.
A.A. Gray & Seven-Foot Dilly-The Old Ark's A'Moving
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