A Fake Biography
As a departure from my typical blog entry style, I have been compelled to write a different kind of piece. Instead of the first person narrative I usually employ with an occasional dialogue to mix it up, today’s writing will be different. Call it a need to break my mold or to avoid scorn for accidently writing a piece deemed overly political, I don’t care. The point is, this will be different.
About a month ago, maybe two, my artsy-fartsy cousin Paul (whom I have admiration for) started posting pictures of himself and an unknown woman. I am pleased that my cousin posts pictures and interesting images from his life on the other side of the country in either Vermont or New Hampshire or one of those “Maple Syrup Belt” states. But after repeated attempts to inquire about the nature of the relationship of this unknown woman, there had been nary a peep. I very impolitely teased my cousin and asked for more details of this relationship, threatening that if more pictures appeared of this woman without details, I would be forced to take matters into my own hands. After two clicks worth of digging, I learned that her name was Alison Logan. I have decided that this detail will be the only verifiable fact in what will be the story that I will “fill in” for the rest of our family. For if Paul cannot do Ms. Logan the courtesy of informing his family of his goings on (and she does appear to have it goin’ on. I had better, and did, recognize), it would therefore unofficially fall on the shoulders of the eldest cousin to assure the remaining family a backstory. Although completely untrue, this new backstory would help us to answer any “uncomfortable questions” the family may be confronted with in our individual social circles.
Therefore, I present the family, and the internet with:
The Extremely Unofficial and Blatantly Incorrect Biography of Alison Logan
On the afternoon of April 15th, 1983, Hyrum Logan raced his wife of 16 hours to the nearest medical clinic in a wheelbarrow. He had traded two blank cassette tapes, a very nice Waterford pen, half a shoeshine kit and three Australian dollars in order to acquire the makeshift person-mover from a 10-year-old Nigerian refugee (The barter was not the refugee’s first rodeo). Hyrum had only two questions on his mind at that moment: Was his wife, Gerta, about to give birth in a hand cart dating back to ancient Greece; and if she did, what was the likelihood of this revised birth plan upsetting and ruining the elaborate stack of 5 years worth of back tax forms balanced on Gerta’s jostled baby bump? Hyrum needed to get the forms postmarked by close of post office business in less than 70 minutes or else a mandatory 7 year prison sentence would be handed down the next morning.
Noticing his wife in distress and realizing he had pushed his wife, over six miles in 85 degree Cleveland heat, Hyrum ducked into a 7-11 to try and talk the clerk into a couple free Slurpee’s. After several intense minutes of negotiation, Hyrum emerged from the convenience store with a single 16 oz. grape Slurpee and two straws (minus Hyrum’s shoes and a lock of Hyrum’s hair). Upon leaving the store Hyrum witnessed his baby daughter being pulled out the top of his wife’s belly and immediately swaddled in 1978 and 1980’s 1040 tax form schedules (as well as several dozen 1099-MISC forms and about thirty feet of uncarboned receipt tape.
A common Cleveland street magician had noticed that Gerta had gone into “distress or shock or something”, and did the only thing he could think of doing, which was an emergency Ceasarean section he had seen Ed Begley Jr. perform only the night before on St. Elsewhere. The healthy baby girl was unharmed, however Gerta only lived a few moments more because a major medical procedure was just performed on her by a person with a live bird up their sleeve.
Knowing that he would be sent to jail the next day for failing to file 5 years of taxes in a responsible, timely manner, Hyrum decided to give his lovely new baby every advantage at his immediate disposal and named his baby girl “Alison” knowing that people with names that begin with the letter “A” typically get to go first most of the time in group oriented activities.
Facing the bitter irony that if Alison had just been born by December 31st, Hyrum may have had the proof of the child deduction he had claimed illegally and avoided the slammer, he tried to find the safest place for his new daughter now cradled in his arms.
As Hyrum began to weep for the future of his tiny baby daughter, a man rolled down a window from a procession of limousines that sat behind Hyrum in a traffic jam. The man in the stretched Cadillac beckoned Hyrum to bring the baby closer. The man told Hyrum that he was Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, spiritual Zen priest of India and that he could not help but notice that Hyrum looked to be at the end of his rope (my words, not Rajneesh’s). The Zen priest smiled at Hyrum and produced a brushed stainless steel case, that once opened, revealed tens of thousands of dollars. Hyrum was speechless. The Zen priest then explained that with all of the wealth and riches he had, he could give the baby a good home and that Hyrum should hand the baby to the woman in the limousine two cars ahead of his, and then rolled his window up.
Hyrum, looking into Alison’s eyes, promised her he would find her someday. The new father made the third hardest decision of his life and gave his baby to the nice lady in the number six limousine. And that is how Alison Logan’s life began.
Alison was given a very active early childhood. She excelled at her studies and learned to speak Urdu, English, French and Russian (just in case). Her servants were her parents, teaching their values and culture all the while refining her for life as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s daughter, but by age nine, she devised a plan to escape the compound she had grown up in and “see the world”.
Alison had slowly been skimming money from her adoptive father’s religious empire for years and had collected nearly $16 million without being detected. She put the money into a secret bank account and walked out the front door of the compound and into the world.
Alison’s first journey at 12-years-old took her to Switzerland, where she spent her days eating the finest chocolate and learning international banking. She was given a job as international translator and soon rose to the position of vice-director general of the World Bank of Switzerland for two years until the Prime Minister of Belgium pointed out at the U.N. that the most prestigious bank in the world was being run by a 14-year-old runaway. After being embarrassed in front of the U.N. the World Bank of Switzerland was faced with two choices, move their highly successful bank to Iran, or ask their vice-director general to produce identification that extends beyond a name written on a battered Hello Kitty backpack. Alison, fearing her adoptive father’s agents would find her and bring her back to him (he had passed away years before), disappeared from Switzerland.
The next year of Alison’s life is a complete mystery. Some claim she joined a band of African freedom fighters and lead them to victory over a cruel warlord. Others maintain that Alison ghost wrote the entire megahit album of the Swedish performing artists known as Ace of Base. Alison has not provided any clues.
Immediately upon turning 18, she surfaces in a small village in rural Hokkaido applying for the most prestigious Sumo wrestling academy in all of Japan. Alison was immediately rejected, with the master of the academy exclaiming that if he could remove the honorable Alison’s spirit and place it in the body of a bloated man, she would have become the greatest Sumo of all time. The master introduced Alison to a Samurai who shall remain nameless and Alison begins learning the art of the katana (sword). She falls in love with the beauty of the blade and its movements. She also falls in love with an extremely talented Sushi chef that urges her to bring her love for the katana into the kitchen and create amazing Sushi cuisine with him.
As with everything Alison had done, she threw herself into the craft and discipline of creating unbelievable food combinations with raw fish and other fine fresh ingredients. Her rolls became legendary, commanding $10 then $20,000 each. However, her lover found living in Alison’s shadow to be too cold to bare and sought warmth in the arms of another. The day Alison learned of this betrayal, her lover died almost instantly during the evening meal from a cut of bad blowfish. By the time police arrived on the scene and began putting ni and ni together, Allison was on the 7:40 flight from Tokyo to Boston (with layovers in Seattle, Salt Lake City, Chicago, Salt Lake City again, Atlanta and finally Houston).
She hitchhiked from Boston to Vermont, spending a month working at a zoo, feeding baby penguins the greatest raw fish they had ever had. The public record shows Alison getting drunk at a tavern in New Hampshire, killing 17 “grabby” men with a cheap knock-off Samurai sword that hung above the bar and spending a night in jail (New Hampshire/Self Defense) before ending up on public land in the forests of Vermont in a cabin constructed by her own hands.
The heartbroken Alison would only come down to town once a month to purchase supplies with money she raised making terrible balloon animals at children’s parties. Her fortune long gone as she had dropped a $19.6 million cashier’s check into the tip jar of a barista during her Atlanta layover.
The rest of her time she spent in her/the public’s cabin, writing a brilliant manifesto and learning coin tricks. It is at this time Hyrum, out of prison and employed as a Homeland Security video reviewer recognizes his little girl from several cameras in the sleepy Vermont town. Hyrum makes the trip to contact Alison in her cabin and explains about her birth and the taxes and the only choice he felt he could make for her. The meeting is… awkward. She makes him the most amazing lunch of “land Sushi” Hyrum has ever had (raw squirrel, nuts, maple syrup bound with birch tree bark), despite being made expertly, it is still “land Sushi” and pretty horrible. Alison thanks her supposed father for his time, makes him a balloon giraffe-ish type of thing and asks him to never contact her again. Alison’s depression worsened.
Paul Reynolds, a professional photographer on a routine walk in the woods of Vermont aimed his camera at what he thought was a young Bigfoot or Sasquatch. Paul admitted that at the moment he pressed the shutter for the first time, he was convinced the Bigfoot was about to charge him and wondered, as one does in the wilderness with young wild animals, where the mother Bigfoot was. He quickly picked up a large rock and readied it as the beast came at him directly out of the setting sun. Reynolds, who did not excel at baseball, threw the rock and it glanced of the humanoid’s head, knocking it to the ground. Unfortunately minutes later, the photographer’s glee of bagging one of the greatest myths in American history turned to horror as he realized he had struck a young woman (one he said was very possibly “hot” if he could imagine her with much less blood on her face) with a rock. Realizing she was stirring, Paul helped the mystery woman to his place where he nursed her wounds and cleaned her up.
The rock had effected the woman’s speech center of her brain and she could only speak Hindi to Paul. She understood his words, but could only form thoughts for Paul in her first language. She stayed at the Photographer’s place for several weeks while Paul tried to come up with a story for why he had kidnapped a Hindi-speaking woman and attempted to brain her with a rock. During this time, Paul realized that he was starting to have feelings for this woman and that she, might be having feelings for him as well.
Exactly three weeks from the night he tried to kill this mystery woman in his life, Paul Reynolds asked if the woman wanted to be more than friends. Immediately, the woman’s eyes flickered and she smiled at Paul and said, “My name is Alison Logan and I would like to be more than friends with you.” Alison’s language center was jolted back to normal by the defibrillator of love.
Ever since that fateful night, where it turns out Alison dressed up like Bigfoot to scare some park rangers away from her illegal cabin, Paul and Alison have been inseparable and prove it by posting adorable pictures of themselves on the Facebook with absolutely no explanation.
Alison’s life continues, however, this is the end of this biography.
None of this was true.
The ridiculousness of the airline layover system is pretty true, but everything else isn’t right at all, especially what I wrote about this probably delightful young lady that my cousin insists on showing off.