the green lion man: the return of dragonsnort

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The Green Lion Man: The Return of Dragonsnort

by Devon Pitlor

I. At the annual cryptozoologists' convention, Eric Palobay takes the podium

Brooke Nescott, her son Jared at her side, sat behind her domestic partner Eric Palobay inthe over-crowded auditorium. An entire veiled world of strange scientists,

cryptozoologists as they are generally known in the practice of a pseudoscience, watched

and listened as Palobay, a noted entomologist, pulled a preserved specimen from a jar of

alcohol. The specimen was about as long as two Polish sausages articulated end to end

and had probably far more than one hundred jointed and spurred legs as well as a pair of

bulging purple and aqueous eyes which were still inexplicably glaring. Palobay held the

dead specimen up to the gasping crowd. No one had ever seen anything like it before. “It

doesn’t have a name,” he said, “and it really doesn’t exist any more than the other non-

creatures we discuss here. Yet here it is. I’ll probably name it after myself.” He unfoldedand deployed the pickled creature the length of a small table on the stage in front of him

and reached back to Brooke for his presentation paper: why, by whom and where the

specimen had been found and so forth. Brooke eyed him with some admiration, the

admiration she had always harbored for this man who had become everything short of her

legal husband.

Then without warning, the creature, still damp with the alcohol preservative, began to

squirm on the table. It stood up on its countless legs and shook itself like a wet dog. Its

purple eye globes spun in all directions, and suddenly a pair of leathery-looking yet

sickeningly gauzy wings sprouted from its sides. With a scratching grate across the tabletop and a little leap it flung itself into the air and began flying around the auditorium.



The audience gasped, and many ducked their heads as the creature swooped down uponthem. Its circling became closer and closer to both Eric Palobay and the terrified

audience. A pair of grinding mandibles were now visible in its insectine face, and it

buzzed menacingly, soaring in loops over the entire meeting. Then all at once a tall man

covered with vividly traced tattoos and pierced nearly everywhere with bright metallic

studs stood up, grabbed a nearby briefcase, and swatted the thing out of the air to the

floor, whereupon he firmly stomped it in two with the grinding crunch of a studded boot.

Brooke caught her breath and, like the others, gazed in horror at the writhing crypto-

insect’s last moments, but it was the slayer rather than the dying bug who most arrested

her attention.

She tapped Eric Palobay on the shoulder and whispered “It’s Dragonsnort! He’s come

back.”

II. Jared Nescott’s school assignment

Jared Nescott, the precocious offspring of Brooke Nescott and the long-missing

Dragonsnort, had been very much occupied in his room using his computer and reading

some books he had checked out of the library. This was unusual for Jared, who being veryadvanced in school, generally finished his fifth grade homework quickly and made a point

of playing outside with his friends until called in for dinner. But on that day in December

of the dreary year 2010, Jared was very much preoccupied by a research project that had

been assigned by his teacher. Mrs. Umberly had challenged the class to research some of

the great unsolved murders, crimes and disappearances of all times, things like the horrid

1957 mystery of the Boy in the Box, the vanishment of the first American child Virginia

Dare and the still unexplained murder of Swedish prime minister Olaf Palme in 1986. All

of these enigmas would, of course, require a book in themselves, and far too much had

been written on each of them. Jared became temporarily fascinated with the unsolved

Zodiac Murderer of 1968-69 and his cryptic code, but later his attention was drawn to thedisappearance of bandmaster Glenn Miller over the English Channel in 1944. In all



subjects, Jared had found too much information and too many conflicting details. Theresearch, as it were, had been done multiple times in the past and nothing conclusive had

ever been discovered. Unlike the other students who had simply accepted Mrs. Umberly's

assignment as such and were preparing a report, mostly Internet based, on the known

details, Jared had a genuine desire to contribute something new. Unsolved mysteries

bothered Jared, who had been of a curious nature about nearly everything all his short

life.

Looking over a pile of notated filing cards on the Jimmy Hoffa case of 1975, Jared grew at

once frustrated and tossed everything that he had finished so far on each of the cases into

the trash and erased the document file on his laptop.

Then he thought for a moment and grabbed a legal pad and walked pointedly into the

kitchen where his mother sat drinking a glass of red wine waiting for Eric to get back

from the university and eat dinner. Since their union over three months ago, Eric had,

with Jared's unconditional approval, moved into Brooke's house, and Brooke, perennially

bored by her career as a lab histotechnologist, had resigned from the medical center, taken

a considerable pay cut and gone to work at Central State University as Eric's assistant in

the Department of Entomology of which Eric was chairman. At times she even managed

to slip away from her desk, go into Eric's research lab and help with the examination of insect specimens. For all the world, her close companionship with Eric Palobay seemed to

be nearly flawless.

Jared stared at his mother for a minute then in his usual mature way asked her if he could

"interview" her.

Brooke was, as always, slightly amused at her gifted son's manner of requesting a serious

conversation and politely agreed to an interview "after a hug and a kiss," which Jared

obliged her with.

"So how are the unsolved murders and disappearances going?" inquired Brooke.



"Horrible," said Jared. "That's why I want to interview you. I'm fed up with all this

Internet information. That is all the kids are using these days. Everyone has a PC at

home or a laptop or both. I can't find a thing that hasn't been discussed and raked over a

million times before. I want to do forensic research. That means I want to explore people

and places in person myself."

"I know what it means. I can also see where you are going with this. I've been waiting for

the day...."

"My father," began Jared, "just up and vanishes four years ago in a missing Cessna overthe Spanish coast, and there is no record that he was even on the plane. Everything you

have told me about him could be written on one side of one sheet of paper."

"Less than that," said Brooke staring blankly out the kitchen window. "I was raised not

to ask many questions or get too curious. I've told you that your grandfather was some

kind of secret Army operative. He never told my mother or me much of anything, and we

knew better than to ask. That is how I was with your father. I know a lot more about Eric

than I ever did about Dragonsnort because so much about Eric involved saving your life."

"I know. I know. But nothing adds up. Let me summarize what you have told me. You

were feeling lonely one day and dropped into some kid's funeral, and there was

Dragonsnort, all full of tattoos and piercings, just as I myself remember him."

"You were only five."

"But I remember. Let me go on. You fell in love with him on a dock somewhere right

around the same time as the Twin Towers attack. He moved in here like Eric has, and I

came along shortly after. You never knew---or asked---his real name. His friends, who

were all band members, just called him Dragonsnort, and you were happy with that. Youhad no idea where he came from or exactly why he was so attracted to you."



"I was pretty then, and I was in love with him. He made me happy. He was strong and

protective and interesting. Just like Eric."

"You are still pretty. And you seem to be just as happy with Eric."

"I am, but let me say this: Eric told me from the start that he would gladly step aside if

your father ever came back. There were a lot of questions about his disappearance. I

don't want to lose Eric, but I miss your father. I have enough love in me for those two

guys to live with both of them if they wanted and you approved."

"I would approve if it made you happy."

"Well, your father doesn't appear to be coming back. I guess that is what you want to

research."

"You told me that the official story of the plane's disappearance did not contain any

strange names, anyone who was not in his band, and there was no one called Dragonsnort.

Now that would have stood out in the media, Mom. Imagine being married to someone

called Dragonsnort."

"We were never married. Your birth certificate does not list his name. I was just another

one of the millions of single mothers...."

"Yet he was my father. You say I look and act like him. Is there anything else you can tell

me to help me research...."

"No," said Brooke firmly, standing up and stirring the contents of bubbling stew on the

burner. "Your notebook will just have to remain empty. You'd better go back to the Boy

in the Box. That happened in Philadelphia, you know. Eric needs to drive up there nextweek for a convention. I need to go as well. We could find some free time and explore..."



"A case that was closed in 1957? No way. That was fifty-three years ago. Let me ask you

a couple more questions: Did my father leave any possessions or clothes behind? He

played in that band, Death's Messengers. He could not have made much money with it.

You told me they were very small time and local and that they got a gig now and then in

Spain, but that was no big deal. Where did they get the money for the plane? How did my

father support us?"

"All good questions, come to think of it," said Brooke softening in tone. Then she went on

to explain that one of the band members, now reported as officially dead, came from a

rich family and the plane had been his. Then she said that Dragonsnort had alwayscarried a little cash in his pocket and had always helped her with the mortgage, food and

bills, but not all that much. Further, he had left absolutely nothing behind. "He used to

disappear for days at a time and come back dressed in other clothes. He didn't own

anything that I can remember, not even his own drums. I guess that was part of his

charm."

"Maybe he had a wife and another family somewhere. Maybe kids."

"Maybe so. But I don't think so. He was just mysterious. As I once told you, he claimedto see the dead, like my parents, and he told me true stuff about them. I honestly think he

was in love with me and me alone, and, by the way, he positively adored you. As I said, I

was raised not to ask questions. He made me happy and that was that."

Jared frowned at his mother and slammed his pencil down hard on the legal pad.

"So case closed," he sneered. "That is all there is to it? I'll just go outside and play and

put together some crap about the Black Dahlia for Mrs. Umberly. And then I'll be as

uncurious as you have always been and just go on the rest of my life wondering about my

father." Jared got up and walked briskly out of the room. Brooke pursed her lips andwatched him leave. There were no secrets between mother and son, and she hated that she



was unable to tell him more. Her own sense of incuriosity had not served her well in thiscase. Then she remembered something.

But Eric came home and told her some news about the cryptozoology convention the

coming week in Philadelphia, and that made her forget what she had started to remember.

She made a mental note to get to it later. Eric had a new species to display, an

undiscovered species. She would see it in his laboratory the next day at work. For a time

Jared's issue was dismissed. Eric was always fascinating. One of his rural country

bumpkin scouts out somewhere in the sticks had found a new---and seemingly

frightening---insect.

At dinner, Jared ate morosely. He showed little interest in what Eric was talking about

and avoided his mother's glance. Brooke was angry with herself. She had made a child

and lived six years with a man she had scarcely known. A kind of buried guilt surfaced in

her. Somehow she had cheated her son. She needed to do something about that.

III. Brooke Nescott remembers something

The first thing Brooke did was explain the whole dilemma to Eric. Eric, as usual, was

sympathetic and listened intently. "The kid is totally right," he said at length. "He shouldknow about his father, and so should you. I love you, but I am still willing to step aside or

share you if..."

"Stop. He's not coming back. He died in that plane crash."

"They never found any wreckage or bodies."

"And his name was not on the missing list."

Brooke stood up suddenly and snapped her fingers. She swung around and stared out intothe yard where she had played as a child. Then she banged her palm on the counter by



the sink. "Of course," she said, still staring out the window, Braden Bassroot. He was inthe band. His name wasn't on the missing report either. Wanna know why?"

"Why?"

"Because he had the flu and never went on that gig to Spain. He stayed right here in

Aristock, and for all I know, he is still here. I never tried to find him. All those piercer

guys were secretive as hell. But I knew them all slightly. I knew Braden. I even think he

was in a few classes with me at Central State, maybe not. But if I could find him..."

"Then take tomorrow off and look," said Eric firmly. Eric always had a direct solution toany problem. "You can see my new creepy-crawly the next day. It's pretty sickening

anyway."

And so after Jared went to school the next day, Brooke took out an old phone book and

attempted to find Braden Bassroot. "With a stupid name like that, I should be able to

located him easily," she said to herself. "But no one is listed in the phone book anymore

with all these cell phones." Unsuccessful with the phone book, Brooke went online and

searched under Bassroot/Aristock/Pennsylvania. Her search immediately turned up a B.

Bassroot Music Shop on Cassiopeia Street in the university section. It had to be Braden.Throwing on an old pair of jeans and a sweat shirt, she jumped in her Honda Accord and

drove off to the College Town section of Aristock. Cassiopeia Street was a little winding,

narrow lane off from the side of Greenbank Park. It was easy to miss, but Brooke, having

lived her entire life in Aristock, knew the area well. The music shop was in a shabby row

of run down stores which also housed a methadone clinic and a magic trick shop. A large

sign hung on the door. "No rentals...No exchanges." It was signed by "Owner, B.

Bassroot"

IV. Braden Bassroot

Braden Bassroot's music shop was total cataclysm of instruments and electronic



amplification equipment thrown here and there in confusing and disorganized piles. Aheavy layer of dust and graying grime coated nearly everything, punctuated only by the

occasional paw print of an invisible cat. The front shades were pulled down so as to admit

very little sunlight, and Braden, who favored a vague vampirish style of dress and

behavior, would later claim that he liked it that way. "I sleep in an old coffin in the back

gallery," he tossed out casually as he showed Brooke around.

Oh my god, not another wannabe vampire, Brooke thought to herself. When will these

guys ever grow up?

Yes, Braden remembered her....somewhat. She had been with "What's his name." Thatwas back when the band was still alive and playing. Times had changed since then. The

missing plane had taken everyone out---except Braden himself, who had been fortunate to

have been ill, and "What's his name." Was Braden pretending or had he actually

forgotten Dragonsnort? No, it turned out that he had not. "Yes, Dragonsnort," he said

finally. "Your boyfriend. I remember. Fun guy. Everyone liked him. He had a way of

making people feel better."

"He wasn't on the plane?" gasped Brooke, her heart rising in her chest.

"Nope. It was that tree thing."

"Tree thing?" Brooke had no time for guessing games. If Dragonsnort had not been on

the plane, then he had lied to her. He had abandoned both her and Jared. That was

serious. "He said he was going on that gig to Spain."

"He was. But the tree thing came up first."

Braden was about to add more when a skeletal, long-haired boy came into the shop

looking for a cheap guitar. Braden hustled off to help him, digging through cartons of what looked like salvage guitars of all sorts, blowing accumulated filth off of everything.



It was as if he had not had a sale or even a customer in months. Finally, the kid decided tobuy nothing and left. Braden returned to the little table where he had seated Brooke.

Brooke noted that he was wearing a black cape. Stupid vampire, she thought again. Why

do I have to deal with these misfits?

"You were saying about Dragonsnort?"

"Look, lady, we didn't ask him any questions. He just appeared one day out of nowhere.

He didn't have a single tattoo or stud on his body. He was good at the drums and

substituted for a guy named Orm. One day Orm up and triple dosed himself on crank

and, well, you don't need to hear about that. Anyway, your Dragonsnort took his place.By that time, he had talked a friend of ours who owned a piercing and tattoo parlor into

fronting him some of his best art. All those big pictures he wore, he got them in the space

of a few days sitting. Same with the rings and studs. All at once. I don't know how he

stood the pain, but he said he needed to look the part. We were all kind of odd. None of

us hung much together after the gigs. We took our share and left. We'd practice now and

then, but I don't think any of us knew where the others lived. We kept it that way."

Brooke glanced at the dim lit shop once again. She examined Braden more carefully. Not

only was he wearing a ridiculous black cape, but he was balding on the crown of his head,and his pudgy stomach was pushed out like a captive pillow from his beltline. His hands

were round and soft with the nails bitten down to the quick. His own piercings were

starting to get moldy with flakes of the uncleaned skin which covered them. He had,

characteristically, colored his eyebrows jet black and teased them into upward points, as

well as joined them over the bridge of his overlarge and red-pimpled nose. Brooke

attempted to change the subject to put him more at ease.

"So you're into being a vampire, then?" she began. "Aren't you a little old for that? I

mean you must be at least forty."

"Forty-two."



"Okay, no matter. I see you like this lifestyle. Who am I to criticize your choices? What

was it you were saying about the 'tree thing' and Dragonsnort?

"I wasn't saying anything," said Braden, adjusting a dirty metal collar he wore around his

plump neck. "Nothing at all except that it was what kept Dragonsnort from going with

the guys to Spain. And I haven't seen him since then, if that is what you are wondering."

"I was wondering more about the 'tree thing.'

"Why should I bother to tell you about that...unless...."

"Unless what?"

Braden stroked his dyed beard and gave Brooke a look that was both patently faux-

malicious and humorously lecherous.

"Unless you let me take a tiny phial of your blood. My instruments are clean. There they

are in alcohol." He pointed to a small glass bottle and tiny razor knife which was

immersed in a jar of fluid. "You won't get any disease. I collect people's blood. It is justwhat I do. I don't drink it or anything. I just keep it. It won't hurt to poke your finger

and squeeze out a few drops into that little bottle. If you let me do that, I'll tell you about

the tree. If not, then goodbye."

Brooke consented with some reluctance to giving Braden a sample of her blood, which he

corked preciously in his phial and placed in a grubby cabinet hanging from the wall. As

he was putting a bandaid over the tiny incision he had cut, he leered once again at her and

said "Now what was it you wanted to know?" Brooke noted that the flabby, balding

vampire had what appeared to be an erection showing through his pants. "You get off on

this, don't you?" she said.



"Yes. I do. It is really all I need. No female would ever give me a second look. So I getblood. It is like sex to me."

"The tree," snapped Brooke annoyed at herself for giving such an oily freak a part of her

essence.

"Okay. Dragonsnort, your boy, was obsessed with it. Do you remember Barisco

Industries? No, of course you don't. Or maybe you do. They were all over the news for a

while because they were going to come here and build a factory and produce farm

equipment. The factory was going to be their world-wide headquarters and employ over a

thousand workers locally. The town bid on it and all that. They even gave them a taxbreak and about sixty acres of free land. A developer, whose name escapes me, followed

up and started building a subdivision a little ways outside of town. You can still find it

now. A few houses are partly finished and a lot of foundations are still in the ground. But

it all went sour. An Italian city overbid Aristock, and Barisco scampered away in the

night, leaving all the big plans behind. Companies are like that. Anyway, the subdivision

was going to be called Ashwood, and the fences and signs are still up out there but covered

with vines and what not."

"I think I remember the commotion about that. New families moving in to work in thefactory. The abandoned subdivision."

"Dragonsnort had a huge connection with that subdivision. It was on some county land

that Aristock willingly conceded to the developers. The developers, like all of their ilk,

just wanted to barge in and level everything, like all the trees. For builders, trees just get

in the way. Right from the start some of us had seen your Dragonsnort going in and out of

the little woods that they eventually destroyed. Why? No one knows. He may have lived

in the woods for all we knew. But he was concerned about this one tree. It was on the

state registry too. A huge ash. A circumference of nearly thirty feet. Bigger than any tree

you have ever seen, right smack dab in the middle of their proposed subdivision.Dragonsnort was desperately behind a movement to save the tree. He had found some



others too, people I could never identify, that felt the way he did. The tree was moreimportant than the subdivision. No way. No tree, no matter how big, is ever going to stop

a builder. But Dragonsnort was there with his cronies all the time defending it."

"He never mentioned a tree to me."

"Nor to us in the band either. We just did a little spy work because he was up to missing

some pretty important gigs in the end."

"So what happened?"

"The tree would have gone down, and it would have made national news because of its

enormous size if the project had not been suspended. In fact, they brought in a huge

bulldozer and tore off a big chunk of it along with some roots before they were finished.

That was around the time your Dragonsnort disappeared. The tree was mortally

wounded. Now today most of it has sprouted back, and the dead part is recovering, they

say. I know someone who hunts rabbits in that area. He says the tree is uber-weird, like

something out of a fairy tale, all tangled roots and branches drooping and dropping all

over the place. It is like a plant you can get lost in. But one thing for sure, it scares the

hell out of anyone who goes there. The ancient tree that couldn't be killed."

Brooke was growing tired of listening to Braden huff and puff about a tree. Here was this

"vampire" with a moribund pseudo-music store and a phial of her blood at the threshold

of a spooky story that she really didn't want to hear. Showing her boredom, she rolled her

eyes and said "Ghosts I suppose. Indian ghosts or whatever. Dragonsnort was a ghost, I

guess."

"Nope. I don't know about Dragonsnort, but what haunted that tree was not a ghost. It

was a cryptid ."

The word cryptid made Brooke at once sit up and take a keener notice. She had only



heard the word once before in her life, and that was from Eric when discussing hisinvolvement with the cryptozoological society of which he was a charter member. Animals

of a strange nature out of time and place and totally unknown to science. Cryptids. Like

vaps, essentially. Only vaps were real, and Eric because of his lifelong involvement with

them was interested in other cryptid species that would, perhaps, turn out to be real. In

fact, that was the whole purpose of the society. Strange creatures had been reported

nearly everywhere since the dawn of time, and many eventually became factual. At least

that is what Eric maintained.

"So we have a local monster then?" said Brooke, her eyes widening to emphasize the

question.

"Some of the construction workers on that old site thought so," continued Braden. "The

Green Lion Man. A gangling biped covered with thin brownish-green hair, having a mane

and the snout of something that looked ferociously feline, like a tiger, lion, or along those

lines. It also had a long tail and could leap into the recesses and branches of that tree.

The developers denied all the sightings reported by their workers, but still a few stragglers

kept the story alive. The Green Lion Man of Aristock. Big, agile and dangerous. Make of

it what you will. By now they have managed to kill the story off, and the property is so

overgrown that few go there. But some people have still seen..."

"The Green Lion Man of the gigantic ash tree."

"It was called the "Tree of Life" by some," mused Braden, once again taking out and

examining his phial of Brooke's blood. He stood up, pulled at his pointed little goatee, and

said "Well, that's it. Thanks for your blood. That is all I have to say." He continued to

look at the bottle of blood, and Brooke once again remarked the obvious erection visible in

his almost occluded crotch. He walked her to the door and made a spooky hiss with his

lips.

Stupid vampire, thought Brooke. I need to stop getting information from weirdos.



On the street outside of Braden's shop Brooke wondered what her next move would be.

But before she reached her car, she realized that it would be to tell both Eric and Jared

about her outing and then to visit the overgrown and abandoned subdivision with its

putative cryptid. That alone would be enough to entice them both.

V. Eric and Jared hear about the Green Lion Man

Jared had brought his notepad to the table still trying to gather information on what had

become his report on his baffling, missing-person father, Dragonsnort.

Eric had a photograph of his latest cryptid in which he showed great pride. He was

slightly put off that Jared was not as interested in the huge insect as he was in his mother's

account of her meeting with Braden Bassroot. "I have a real cryptid in my lab preserved

in solution, and you two are talking about a big tree and a lion man that lives in it. Oh

well, I suppose you won't want to see my creature tomorrow, either of you."

"Of course, I do," smiled Brooke. "I'll be in to work as usual in the morning. You can

show me then. And Jared will want to drop by after school. Won't you Jared?"

Jared signaled yes with a nod and drew a pensive look across his face. He was about to

say something when Brooke stopped putting down dinner dishes and stared at Eric.

"How on Earth did you make time to find this bug? You've had your classes every day

this week, and you have scarcely left the office."

"My little secret until tomorrow," said Eric with a grin.

Brooke knew better than to ask. Between the three of them, there were no secrets, andEric was sure to tell her how he got the unknown bug in his own time.



set eyes on. She was about six feet tall and leggy. Her legs were long and had a kind of springiness to them that almost suggested that her knees bent backwards. Her ankles

seemed to be loaded with springs, and her gait was more like that of a large hare than a

person. She sprang around the office like an entrapped and nervous untamed animal.

Eric smiled and explained to both Jared and Brooke that Katie "lived outdoors" and was

not used to being cooped up inside a room for long. Katie, panting almost like a dog,

confirmed this as she jumped from one side of Eric's office to another, her eyes darting

from Jared to Brooke to Eric and back again. In her own way, Katie was almost

laughable. Her long black to silver hair was pulled tightly back into a kind of super-

twisted pony tail, and the weathered skin of her face mirrored the countenance of

someone who did indeed spend most of their time outdoors. Her arms were long, danglyand active. They seemed to want to touch and feel everything at once. Like her knees, her

elbows seemed flexible enough to bend backwards. In all, her arms were like rubbery

tentacles, and as she dashed around the office, she chanced at once to snatch a whole

orange from a fruit bowl on Eric's desk. This she bit in two, swallowing whole first one

half then another, peel and all. Then her eyes raced around the corners of the room where

at once she spied a large, black beetle attempting to hide itself in a crevasse. She was on it

in a flash. Smashing the beetle between her coarse palms, she licked it clean away with a

few passes of her lashing tongue. "Katie is overactive and eats all the time," explained

Eric. "It's her metabolism."

"Is Katie going to eat us?" asked Jared.

"Not today," laughed Eric. "You see Katie is a true outdoorswoman. She lives in the bush

wherever she can. She survives beautifully. Other people talk about doing it but Katie

actually does."

Brooke noted that Katie did indeed have a sort of acrid redolence that wafted about her

whenever she came close enough to be smelled. Dressed in a one piece khaki jumpsuit and

flimsy leather sandals caked with layers of dirt, she definitely broadcasted the outdoors. Itwas as if she had just recently rolled in the carcass of a dead animal to conceal her scent.



Brooke raised her eyebrows at Eric questioningly. Eric pointed toward the middle of

Katie's back. Sure enough, there was an almost invisible hump. Katie was lanky enough

to conceal her vap well, but it was still quite evidently a bump. "How old?" Brooke

whispered to Eric, but Katie overheard it, and immediately crouched down on her butt

and heels in a corner of the room.

"Old enough to remember when Aristock, damn this place, only had two stoplights...or

was it three?" she said in a rasping tremolo. "I need to get out of this town and back into

the woods. Cities make me sick."

Eric held up the glass jar with the new cryptid insect specimen folded over in it. The evil

looking bug, although presumed dead and preserved in the alcohol, glared out through the

glass side of the jar with a continued malevolence. "Katie has found me a lot of strange

critters like this one over the years. She is loosely on the university payroll. We don't ask

her where she spent last night or where she gets clean clothes, but no one, and I mean no

one, knows these woods around Aristock better than Katie. She ranges for miles and miles

into the foothills as well, don't you Katie?"

Katie, still looking around for a meal, nodded yes with her head. Jared, still a bitfrightened by her savage demeanor, recoiled slightly backward as her feral glance met his

eyes. "Don't worry. I'm not going to eat you, boy. Did you like the bug?"

Jared weakly smiled and said he did. He had never seen anything like it before.

"Neither has anyone else," said Katie. "But there are a few of out there if you know

where to look. They won't bother you if you don't bother them."

Eric set the insect in its jar back into the cabinet and closed the door. "Katie had two of

them for me last week," he began, "but unfortunately she ate one before she managed tobring it in. I'm sure this one will create quite a commotion at the conference." Then he



tossed Katie a wrapped sandwich from his desk drawer. She devoured it in several bitesand appeared to be looking around for more to eat---bugs or whatever.

Brooke, growing bolder, looked at Katie for a long minute and finally smiled. "I like

you," she said. "You are....well, cool."

Then Jared moved a little closer and agreed with a grin that Katie was "cool."

"What do you know about the big ash tree in Ashwood Subdivision? The Tree of Life?"

"It's magical," snapped Katie without reflection. Her eyes rolled in intense spirals in herhead. "It is huge and its roots go down to the center of the earth. You can get lost in its

branches. It is full of magic and souls too. It is the resting place for many souls. A tree

that big has a life of its own. A brain. A will. Organs in its body."

Then she spit out a piece of sandwich wrapper on the floor and added "They tried to kill it

once, but it came back. They will try again. It will always come back."

Brooke pressed on, feeling much more comfortable with Katie. She asked about the

Green Lion Man, expecting to hear the legend in full as a true woods-dwelling believerwould tell it, but Katie once again sprang to her feet and flashed her teeth at Brooke and

Jared. "The Green Lion Man!" she rasped. "He's out there too. He tried to save the tree.

Maybe he did. Maybe he didn't. He's there. Do you want to meet him?"

Eric, along with a rather stunned Jared and Brooke, stammered with some surprise that

they all did.

"Then let's go," said Katie. "I hate this place. It is killing me. I need to get out."

Night was starting to cast long shadows from the university buildings into Eric's office,and he shook his head, suggesting that, as tomorrow was Saturday, they all could meet



Katie in the woods. She could introduce them to the Green Lion Man in person in plaindaylight, as it did not seem wise to go out into such a snarled wooded area at night, unless

of course one was Katie. Katie agreed, and a morning meeting was set for the next day at

sunrise near the huge tree. Eric assured Katie he could find the tree and bring Brooke

and Jared.

"Yeah, especially bring the kid," she said. "He will like meeting this guy."

Then, without preamble, Katie leaped up and climbed out onto the window ledge and

started shimmying down the side of the building. Eric called after her "Don't forget your

gun at the desk."

Brooke and Jared stared at one another in wonder. Both were thinking the same thing.

And it didn't take Eric long to catch on. Dragonsnort had been seen going in and out of

those woods surrounding the tree by his fellow band members. It was in or near the tree

that he had ultimately disappeared. Could the Green Lion Man be....?

No. That was too stupid to mention. So none of them did. They just thought about it.

After a few minutes of silence, Eric finally said "Well, let's go see the damn tree anyway.

It is probably the only living thing around that is older than me."

VII. The Green Lion Man

It was already a little past sunrise on Saturday morning when Eric Palobay drove his new

family to the end of a dusty, unpaved road that abruptly ended at the rotting wooden gates

of an abandoned community project that by now had been almost totally reclaimed by the

vines and brush. Posted signs warning away trespassers abounded everywhere, often

hanging from one nail or fallen totally to the ground. The remnants of long deserted

foundations dotted the landscape past the fence, as the trio fought their way through the

tangled thorns and into what was once designed to be a new and planned community.



On the way to Ashwood, Jared had become quite vocal, as he usually was in the morning.He scoffed out loud at the "comic book" idea of the Green Lion Man, but his voice

betrayed a certain anxiety. Brooke whispered almost to herself that Jared should be

prepared because he was probably about to meet his father. Eric grunted and said

nothing. Then Jared burst out: "I guess I will need to choose another subject for my

report. Maybe the Boy in the Box in Philly, as you suggested. No one is going to want to

hear about how a vampire musician and a rabbit woman guided us to a magical tree

where we found my father sporting a tail and a mane and living like some superhero

called the Green Lion Man. Even if it were true..."

"Which it might be," interjected Eric suddenly.

"Even if it were true, I would not tell anyone. It's bad enough having a father called

Dragonsnort."

"Be quiet," said Brooke, gazing out the side window.

When they reached the mammoth tree, Katie was already sitting on one of its hundreds of

thick upper branches. It was clear that she and the tree were not strangers. With a rapid

swing, she dropped down and landed on her sandaled feet just in front of Brooke and Eric."The Tree of Life," she said admiringly. "Take care of it, and it will take care of you. Do

you want to climb into it, Jared?"

"Later," replied Jared. "First let's go meet...."

"The Green Lion Man. Okay. Follow me."

Katie led the trio away from the sprawling tree and into a dense stand of saplings that

separated it from what were the cracked streets and driveways of what had once been

destined to be home to Aristock's new population. Jackrabbiting down one of the lanes,she darted into a ramshackle, unfinished house, one of the few intact buildings on the



property. She pushed her way past sheets of rotting plywood into a large central roomwhere boxes of clothes and rags were spread out around a decaying mattress. "One of my

many homes," she said with pride.

"The place stinks," said Jared holding his nose.

Brooke was more or less frozen with anticipation. Had Dragonsnort left her to live with

this strange savage woman in the abandoned shell of a barely finished house? Normally

unshakeable, the suspense was starting to wear on Brooke. She reached for Eric's hand

and found it. She wondered what Eric was thinking. There had been casual talk about

her "sharing" herself with Dragonsnort and Eric. Stupid stuff, she thought. Still I wasonce in love, and our son...

Her thoughts were cut short when Katie dragged a large, green-stained cardboard box

from a cluttered hallway. Katie pulled the top off the box and motioned for the three of

them to gather around. Jared gulped. Brooke squeezed Eric's hand hard enough to make

it hurt. Eric started to say "What the..."

Katie flashed a broad smile over the three of them. She looked as if she was bursting with

pride when she said "Meet the Green Lion Man." Inside the box was a moldering, mouse-brown, folded costume, a lion's head and mane, a body covered by fake hair, and yes, a

long and now almost completely threadbare tail. She grabbed the costume by the

shoulders, pulled it out of the box and shook it. Balls of decayed material sloughed off,

and the thing was covered with yellow stains and layers of dirt. " I was the Green Lion

Man," she said proudly. "I used to climb around in the tree with this on. It even got kind

of green back then. I mean stained by the leaves and all. I jumped around and dangled

down when the workers least expected it. Stupid fuckers...."

She looked at Jared and caught herself short. "I mean stupid construction workers. One

of them had already driven his backhoe into the tree and wounded it. I wanted to scarethem off for good. The costume may have done it. It is just a cheap costume, from a



costume shop."

With these words, Katie found a large black slug crawling in the material of the costume,

snatched it into her mouth and swallowed it. It was followed by a centipede that had also

had the misfortune to make the costume its home.

Brooke, Jared and Eric exchanged glances at one another for a few seconds. Finally, they

exhaled and laughed all at once. The drama and tension were lifted. There was no Green

Lion Man.

And thus no Dragonsnort.

All three of them were relieved, each for his or her separate reasons.

VIII. At the Tree of Life

When the identity of the Green Lion Man finally ceased to be a matter of hilarity, Katie,

still bounding and jumping about from room to room in her temporary squats, suggested

in her usual rasping but quaintly enigmatic tone that they all visit the Tree of Life and see

it up close in the harsh glare of morning daylight. Brooke, Jared and Eric were eager tofollow her through the mesh of vines to the multiple base trunks of the gargantuan tree.

Arriving at the tree, the strange sylvan woman was dwarfed by the sheer size of the

magical plant. Without saying a word, she flung her agile body at least five feet into the

air and grasped onto a lower branch whence she acrobatically swung up and up again into

the seemingly endless sprouts of skyreaching branches until at length she disappeared

from sight. From far above, she called down: "Follow me if you can!"

Jared, drawn by the tree's growing magnetism, was the first to separate from his parents

and gain a footing in the enormous gouge that had been left on the tree's left side by the

earthmover which had once begun the task of destroying it. He climbed with a surprisingease, finding a footing almost at once for each upward lunge he made until he reached a



lateral branch about twenty feet in the air, a branch which seemed to hold fast to his bodyand cradle him with a sort of lulling warmth. He stretched out and attempted in vain to

locate Katie in the tangle of branches above.

Next came Brooke, and truth be told, she too was drawn into the tree by some kind of

subtle attraction. At age thirty-six, she would not usually have so readily followed her son

into a tree. But up and up she went, like Jared with a kind of effortlessness wherein the

vast branches seemed to accommodate her every step and present themselves for a safe

footing as she ascended. She became aware of a kind of animal tenderness exuded by the

tree as well, something that Jared had also immediately noticed. Its bark was soft and

almost fleshlike. Its lure was irresistible.

Eric remained for a time on the ground looking upward in a kind of wounded despair. He

realized that something larger than the desire to be playful had enticed his companions to

climb into such a huge and chaotic plant as was the ash tree. But at length, feeling the

strength in his ninety-six year old body accorded to him by the beneficial parasite vap he

had worn on his back for nearly seventy years, he too found a more than opportune

footing and climbed aloft, himself finding a comfortable branch and stretching out in the

warmth of several bars of morning sun and deciding simply to join his family in some sort

of unplanned tree sitting. From far above, the three of them once again heard Katie'sraucous voice crying downward. "It is a living being. A force. A giver of life and dreams.

A source of strength and contemplation. Stay inside it until you are refreshed and

recharged. I must go now." Then from even farther in the sky above, her voice cascaded

down in small sprinkles of disjointed sound. "Good-bye. Good luck. May your discovery

be a rewarding one." None of the three would ever see her again. Even her work for Eric

at the university was now finished, and for some reason Eric knew that.

Each in their own way, the three conjoined partners, not totally within sight of one

another, were soothed into a kind of trancelike dream. They told themselves they were

simply napping, but their naps---each one of them---was something far different. Thenaps were more like a diffusion of tension and worry, more like a draining of worldly-



induced anxiety. And each dream-trance was distinct. Each was unique to the persondreaming it.

IX. Tree dreams

Brooke was elongated on a wide spreading limb the seemed more like a pulsating mattress

than a wooden appendage. Her eyes dimmed as the tension, boredom and nagging

insecurities of her life slowly drained from her mind. The colors of her epic became

brighter, and the panorama began: At first, her drab childhood in a home with a lovesick

mother and an absentee and secretive father. Then school, sexual awakenings, college,

boyfriends, lassitude with life in general punctuated by moments of brief intensity. Thenthe courtroom-like drama with Justine and the representatives of a distant future wherein

her descendants would or would not play a deciding role, depending on her decision. Then

the marriage with Adrian Albritton, his subsequent but clearly predicted infertility, his

shrinking away into oblivion leaving her to drift for a time in a vacuum of empty

aimlessness. Finally, the not-so-chance meeting with Dragonsnort, his strength, his

vibrancy, his warmth, his protection...his son... and then his disappearance. Next, the

dream voyage in another realm with the chimera of Joel who had saved her life from the

vengeful denizens of an alternate dimension. Then came black Caprice and her son

Rialto, the threat of the huge and murderous thunderbirds and their eventual abolition.All of this to end with Jared's close call with a parasitical semi-cryptid called a vap which

would have destroyed his brain had he not been saved by the current man in her life, the

amazingly versatile, ninety-six year old Eric Palobay and the bliss she had enjoyed in the

past three months being in the aura of the man's incredible vitality and passion. All the

despondency associated with the negative aspects of her existence seemed to bleed off with

this brisk daydream of her life---and was replaced by a feeling of total serenity and peace

with a world that she had never liked, but now accepted willingly while cradled in the

boughs of an impossible tree.

Jared: Nine years old going on ten. Fatherless for five years now and curious about aman called Dragonsnort who had putatively engendered him. He saw himself developing



from early childhood onward, first at the side of the shadowy, tattooed Dragonsnort,whom he had hitherto barely remembered, then alone with his mother and finally living

with Eric. He felt the unconditional intensity of each one's love, and in his still young

heart he embraced this love with his own. A sense of knowing came over him. His father

had not abandoned him. His father was still there, somewhere. But so were his mother

and Eric, and he adored them all. Freely he bathed himself in this tenderness and saw

many more years of his manly development stretch before him. He had always been

strong and intelligent, but now he was pervaded with a kindness and an unshakeable

affection for everyone, and that would continue in his life until the day he died. He peace,

like that of his mother, became boundless and Jared was at once freed of any

apprehensions he might have for his future. The tree had given him reassurance, hopeand promise as well as an intensified devotion to the world that he was growing up into.

Any hollow places in his mind were now filled with this devotion, and it was, he knew, a

love of humanity as mirrored through himself. And he became happy, secure and content

with himself, both past, present and future, because, yes, visions of a good and happy

future also flooded into his reverie leaving him with a sense of confidence in the basic

value of his birthright. It would not matter if he never found his father because there,

ensconced in the boughs of the huge tree, he knew at once that his father would always be

a part of him and present somewhere and somehow forever.

And Eric: More memories naturally than all the others. His life during the Great

Depression. His homelessness and delinquency. His ultimate involvement with

contraband traffickers which led him to a stewardship over the magnificent gastropods

which not only gave a dying man life, youth and vigor but extended one’s existence almost

indefinitely. He saw the sad parts too. The running. The hiding. The petty crimes. The

horrors he distantly knew of from the Second World War as he crouched fearfully in the

jungles of Guyana, afraid to expose his lifesaving vap to a world which would have taken

it away from him and left him to die the natural and deserved death accorded to him by

his youthful indulgences. He saw the dead girlfriends and wives come, go and fade from

his life during the long decades since his birth, wherein he had lived while others hadperished from old age, but the guilt he had always associated with his undeserved



longevity began to withdraw and evaporate, replaced by a sense of acceptance andtranquility. Like Brooke’s and Jared's, his reverie was wondrous and ardent. He became

reborn again in the limbs of the tree and felt an even greater flush of strength and purpose

course into his strong and salvaged body.

And at the end of his reverie----for all their reveries did indeed come to an end almost as

quickly as they began---he saw another reason to forgive himself for yet another crime

that he had once committed, a crime that was long forgotten and which he had never

mentioned to Brooke. A robbery. One of many. But a big one. He had done it after the

bonding with the vap, after the restoration of his youth and life, and he had done it along

with other vap people. They had had a reason. Something needed to remind Eric of thisfinal act of shame before he awoke. But he would not know what it was until several days

later. It was about a bank account. A bank account that had lain dormant gathering

interest since 1940, seventy years in the past.

Each had their awakening. Each had been invigorated and refreshed to the core of their

souls. And when at length they found the easy steps downward from the tree to the

ground at its base, each emerged as a new citizen of a refurbished world replete with the

buoyant coolness born of confidence, purpose, self-worth and meaning. They gazed

briefly into each others eyes and then back into the Tree of Life. They knew. And therewas no reason to speak of it. So they never did.

X. Conclusion: The North American Cryptozoological Yearly Convention in

Philadelphia, December 20, 2010

There was no easily found reason why the revolting insectine cryptid had come alive and

attacked the crowd after spending over two weeks in a jar filled with alcohol, but it did,

and it was not the first exotic creature to perform an unthinkable act, but now it lay

crunched and broken under the steel boot of a fearsome man covered with gruesome

tattoos and perforated by metal rings. Many in the crowd cringed in terror more at thesight of this man than at the hideous bug he had delivered them from. Furthermore, there



was no explanation why he was there among the scientists and the pseudo-scientists. He just was.

Dragonsnort, looking only slightly more haggard and older than Brooke last remembered

him, kept his foot on the fractured remains of the creature until the last of the buzzing

audience had filed past him and out into the alcove. He waited patiently for Brooke to

bring Jared from behind the platform and walk down to greet him. Likewise, he smiled

genially at Eric Palobay who arrived at his side just ahead of Brooke and her son.

"Gotta watch these damn things," Dragonsnort said in a booming yet faintly wavering

voice. "The have a nasty bite, and those claws can rip one's skin to shreds."

"I see that," said Palobay.

Brooke and Jared walked up, and Brooke put her arms around Dragonsnort's neck,

hugging and kissing him deeply. Jared followed suit. And Eric shook his hand and put a

manly arm around his shoulder.

Standing back then, Brooke noted that her formerly solid lover was hunched over to the

left side as if someone had taken a piece out of his body. His voice and eyes were bothmore strained than before. But she still realized she loved him, and she knew Eric didn't

care. She knew without asking that Jared loved and admired him too. The two looked

very much alike. Palobay gave her a pleased nod.

"Funny reunion," said Dragonsnort lighting up a cigarette outside of the exposition hall.

"I suppose you all know that I can't stay. My last stay was, I am sorry to say, too long, but

I loved you Brooke and wanted to be with my son. It was, however, over limits and it was

already starting to weaken me."

"And then they tried to kill you," chimed Jared pointing to the concave curve of his leftthigh.



"Yeah, suppose so. Maybe I was saved by the Green Lion Man, maybe not. But the

property is still valuable. Someone will come again."

"It's for sale," said Jared. "I saw a sign."

At this point Eric Palobay stepped closer and said "You need a more competent guardian

than the Green Lion Man, and I have just the caretaker for you." He put his hand on

Jared's shoulder and continued "Mr. Jared Dragonsnort Nescott."

"You won't have to take it out of the vap society's funds, I guess," said Dragonsnortpleased to examine the taut vibrancy of his healthy son.

"No. That gold bar I stole was sold and invested in 1940 when I was twenty-six. In all

those years, the account should be worth at least half a million or more by now."

Dragonsnort nodded his head in satisfaction, kissed Brooke, hugged Jared and shook

Palobay's hand again. "I need to get back now," he said. "I'm sorry it can't be longer,

but I'll be there. Take good care of me, Jared. I am your father after all, and I'll be

watching." With that he turned abruptly and walked off down the street, disappearinginto the crowd.

Two days later, Jared and Brooke Nescott became the owners of a rather large wooded lot

just outside of Aristock. Their first move was to fence it in. After all, it contained the Tree

of Life.

_____________________________

Devon Pitlor --- September, 2010

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the green lion man: the return of dragonsnort

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