Wrongfully Accused Villains Association

I walked into the hamburger joint not knowing what to expect.  I normally didn’t go into an interview blind. The guy called me out of nowhere, he had some juicy information for me. His name was Taylor, Joe Taylor. He said he what he was going to tell me would alter life as we knew it.  At the burger joint, I looked around confused, and then I saw him. The stockades gave it away. I knew that the guy in the wood and shackles had to be my guy. It was just my luck. I almost turned around and walked out. Too late, he saw me, and waved me over. He was trying to eat a hamburger, but with his hands in stockades, well, it wasn’t an easy task, and it wasn’t very pretty either. I slid into the booth and dover right into the interview.

“So, Mr. Taylor, can you tell me why you wanted to do this interview?”

“Call me Joe.”

“Okay, Joe then, tell me why did you want me to interview you?”

“Cause I’m tired of the whole thing see. And my group, WAVA, isn’t getting any recognition on account of that wolf.”

“Wolf? I’m sorry, but you lost me back at WAVA.”

“Yeah, you know the one, the wolf, the one I’m talking about. He “allegedly” ate the three little pigs. He claims to be “innocent.” Joe attempted to make air quotes. “I’ve seen all his books. But he’s a mastermind, I tell ya. He’s the one behind it all.”

At this point, I thought Mr. Taylor…. Err… Joe might be more than a little crazy, but I figured I would see where he was going.

“So what’s WAVA?” I asked him, hoping to distract him from the whole wolf thing.

“WAVA, the Wrongfully Accused Villains Association. We’re all the bad guys you read about, but we never did anything wrong see. The wolf, now he’s a bad seed, but he has a really good publicist. He’s free now. I hear he’s trying to do the late-night talk show circuit. He’s going to get away with eating those three oinkers. I bet you didn’t know this. He’s the same wolf that tried to eat the little girl in red and her grandma too. You didn’t know it was the same guy did ya?”

“No, I had no idea. So, umm, you say that you are a villain, but I don’t remember seeing you before.”

“Course you don’t, no one does. Would you mind?” He nodded toward a napkin. I obliged and wiped his face. I had hope it would make him a little neater – it didn’t.

“Straw?” he said and nodded toward his drink. I held his straw for him. Being in stockades really does make life difficult. He looked at my gratefully.

“Joe, you were saying, you are a villain?”

“Right. You don’t remember me, no one ever remembers me. That’s cause I never had a name, but I was painted evil all the same. I was the bad character, the evil doer, the criminal, the scoundrel, the rogue…” His voice got increasingly bitter with each word.

“Joe, it’s okay calm down, put the thesaurus away.” I felt bad for this guy, but it didn’t stop me from clocking the exits just in case.

“I was the tailor for the emperor. You remember, don’t ya? I made all his new clothes. But not the final ones. It didn’t go the way they said it did. Oh sure, I wound up in trouble, but I swear it wasn’t me. IT WAS THE WOLF,” he enunciated each word of that last sentence, his voice raising the whole time.

I glanced around me to see if anyone was paying attention. Everyone was staring back at us, but then I was eating lunch with a guy whose hands and head were enclosed in a big wooden slab. If he turned too fast, he could knock over have the restaurant.

“Joe, how exactly did the wolf do anything?”

“Well, what you didn’t know is that the emperor let all the power go to his head – as most of them do. We were at a party that he threw in his honor. I was showing him some new designs. He said to me, ‘You know what Joe? I don’t like all these fancy clothes. It’s hot. They’re itchy. I am the emperor. If I want to go around naked, I should be able to.’ I told him it was a bad idea. His career would be over. He would be arrested. But the wolf… the wolf told him he was right. He told him to go ahead and do it. The wolf knew as well as I did that this was a horribly bad idea, but he just kept playing to the emperor’s ego. Just kept egging him on.”

“Ooookay,” I said, I still wasn’t sure if this guy was telling the truth. “So how did they wind up pinning this all on you?”

“They had to blame somebody, The emperor went around town the next day with no clothes on, as naked as the day he was born, if you believe it. Everyone was shocked. Mothers covered their children’s eyes. Men covered their wives’ eyes. There were riots. People questioned his sanity. They called for his crown to be taken away. He needed a story and quick. The wolf, he was always a fast one, he told the emperor to blame it all on me. Told him to tell everyone that I sold him “invisible clothes.” Made it look like I duped him. I went to jail and the emperor went on ruling, wearing clothes of course.”

This all sounded a little incredible and I wasn’t sure if I could believe him or not.  Joe must’ve seen the doubt on my face.

“Come on, I’ll get you some interviews with some more WAVA members. Maybe then you’ll believe me.”

“There are more of you? Are you trying to tell me that all the evil villains over time are innocent?”

“Of course, did you I think I made a club of just me? Oh well, they aren’t all innocent. Ya know that guy that spun the straw into gold and tried to take the princess’ baby?”

“You mean Rumple….”

“SHHHHHH! The wolf has people everywhere! Yeah, that guy. Now HE was not a nice guy. He was guilty. But there are others who weren’t. We have our own Facebook page – private of course.”

Facebook? This is the 22^nd century, and yet, here I sit talking to a guy in stockades. The guys down at the paper would never believe this one. I motioned to the waitress for the check. I picked up the tab, I didn’t know if Joe had any money, and I wasn’t about to get his wallet for him.

Joe and I walked a few blocks down to an old, abandoned factory.  It was in bad shape.

“We meet here cause the wolf doesn’t like to come to this part of town, now that he’s rich and famous. Let’s see whose around today.”

I followed him in after he looked around to make sure no one had followed us.  As soon as I walked in the door, I screamed. Joe just stared at me. In the corner of the factory were two of the biggest legs I ever saw.

“He gets that a lot. Come on,” Joe said, “I’ll introduce you.”

I followed Joe up one flight of stairs after another. I saw nothing but pants until the fifth floor. There was a stomach and a massive plate of food being held by two very large hands. On the tenth floor, I met the head that belonged to the body.

“This is Steve. He’s a little shy. Say Hi Steve. It’s okay, she’s cool.”

“Hi,” said Steve and he blushed, his cheeks turning bright red. “She’s pretty.”

It was my turn to blush.

“Steve, tell the nice lady your story. Tell her how you are part of WAVA..”

“Umm okay. I was sitting in my castle, eating some chicken. It was really good chicken. I had this great big place to live, on account of, I’m so big.” He laughed, a deep loud laugh.

I nodded, encouraging him to go on.

“So, I was sitting there eating my really good chicken, yummy.” Steve stared into the distance. Joe snapped his fingers. “Right, so I noticed this pretty plant that had never been there before. I looked at the plant and then I touched it. I just wanted to feel the pretty leaves. Then I heard a scream, so I left the plant along and went back to my really good chicken. When I was done eating, I took a nap. I love naps.”

Steve stopped telling his story and fell fast asleep. I looked at Joe for help.

“This happens a lot, every time he gets to the nap part in the story.” Joe nudged Steve with his stockade boards and Steve woke up. He stared at me for a minute as if he had never seen me before. He look frightened.

“Steve, you were telling me about the plant in your castle?”

“Oh right. I woke up and saw this guy climbing up the plant and right away, I knew he cut himself when I shook the plant. I felt bad. I was just reading a book about poetry that morning. I thought I would try some for my company. I never got any visitors before. Everyone is always so scared of me. I wanted to seem smart so I sad, “Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum…” Steve sniffled a little and started crying, gigantic tears ran down his face.

I walked over and touched his shoulder, or what I could reach of it and patted him gently. “It’s okay Steve, go on, I know what you said.”

“I just wanted to tell him, the he was hurt, that’s all.  But he wasn’t nice. He came up to rob me.  He wanted to steal my goose and all my shiny, pretty gold. I told him to go away. I didn’t want to hurt him. He wouldn’t leave. I reached over and picked him up and put him all the way down at the bottom of that plant, all the way to the ground. He didn’t get anything. And he was mad at me.”  Tears continued to run down Steve’s face, creating a small lake on the floor. Joe shook his head and motioned for me to follow him back downstairs.

“He’ll never finish the story. He gets too upset to talk about it. After he put that Jack guy back down at the bottom, Jack was angry cause he didn’t get the gold or the goose. He went to the middle of town and started yelling about it. He was all, I planted the seeds. I climbed the stalk and all I got was this measly cut on my hand. He complained to anyone who would listen. The wolf was there, of course. He told Jack to tell the sheriff that Steve tried to eat him. The whole Fee Fi Fo Fum thing, he told Jack to tell the Sherriff it was a threat.  So, Steve got arrested and became the bad guy. Jack was written up as the hero. Oh, everyone who told the story to me, I told them they had it wrong, it was Jack, but who’s gonna believe me?”

I stared at Joe. I couldn’t believe this group. They were all conspiracy junkies, I was sure of it. Just then, I heard a ding on the computer. Joe walked over and checked it out. “Oh good, Pete’s online. Message him.”

I walked over and read the ID, Hot Breath 25. I looked back at Joe, and he just nodded at the keyboard. I sat down.

“Hello, Hot Breath 25. I am a reporter, here to tell the story of the members of WAVA. Who are you?”

“Name’s Pete, Pete Dragon.”

Guess that explained his login name.

“Which dragon?” I asked trying to place him in a story.

“All the dragons, it doesn’t matter. I was the villain in a lot of stories.”

“Did the wolf get to you too?”

“Sure did. I’m in jail now, and it’s all because of him and his sick sense of humor.”

“The wolf?”

“Yeah that rotten flea bitten K-9. He sent princess after princess after princess to my door. He sent prince after prince to my door to avenge the princesses. You know what happens when I answer my door? I say hello. That’s what normal people do right? Only every time I say hello, I would barbecue another daughter of the royal family. What do you do with a barbecued princess? You eat them. I mean. I answered the door. I accidentally cooked them, and then I had to eat them. After a while, I got smart. I stopped talking when I answered the door and then the princesses just went away mad cause I was “rude.” That’s when he started sending the princes. They came to the door with their swords waving, ready to kill me. I tried to plead my case with the first few, but yep, they got barbecued. Between you and me, princesses taste better. They’re sweeter. Oops, I gotta go. We’re having gruel for dinner tonight again. Same thing every day, but I hear there is a new cook. Maybe this one will add flavor.”

The screen went blank. The little green light next to Hot Breath 25 was gone.

“So how did you find out it was the wolf?” I asked Joe. I knew he would know the answer.

“Meh, I interviewed a few princesses, traced a few phone calls. Nothing unusual.”

The craziness must have been contagious because even I was starting to believe it. I was lost in thought when the door opened with a bang. An old woman, dressed in black, walked in. She glared at me and asked if I wanted to buy an apple. I shook me head no, after all, I knew what was in those kinds of apples.

“Oh sure, I bet you think these apples are poisonous, don’t you? They all do. They’re not you know,” she screeched at me.

“Oh, um no ma’am… I… I’m just not very hungry. We had a big lunch.” I nodded to Joe, trying to include him in the conversation.

“No, my apples aren’t poisonous. I am just forced to sell apples. I must make a living somehow. My house and everything, all gone. Poof. How is an honest witch supposed to make a decent living?”

The stories ran through my head. I tried to guess, “Err… umm… Snow…”

“NO!” She yelled. “No, I told you, I’m an honest witch, not an evil witch. I am not a villain. All I did was make candy. I was good at it too. Tried to make an honest living, I did. That was until those two bratty kids came along and tried to eat my house. I shooed them away, but that wolf, he was hungry. He saw the whole thing and he ran into town accusing me of trying to eat the greedy little buggers. As if I would, kids are too fattening for me. And those little hooligans went along with it too. The sheriff locked me away. My candy business went down the tubes and the wolf ate my house. I hope he got a horrible cavity or two!”

“Now do you believe me?” Joe asked.

I shook my head yes. After all, there were too many of them weren’t there? Joe said there were more, lots more. There has to be truth behind their stories, right?

“I’m going to look into it,” I heard myself saying. “I’m going to do what I can to clear your names and I will tell your stories. It’s the least I can do. I will get justice for all of you.”

And I just did. You read it here first. And now, we must wonder, dear readers, what other evils in this world is the wolf behind?