Andy Kaufman Creeping through the Trees is a story collected in [[Swift To Chase (Book)]]. The story features recurring character (and usually villain) [[Julie Vellum]], who hires a class mate to do a [Tony Clifton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Clifton) (an [Andy Kaufman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Kaufman) character) impersonation for her terminally ill father. ### __Time, Place & Events__ The story takes place in the autumn of 1998, during senior year of high school in Anchorage (or the not-far-off town of Girdwood) in [[Alaska]]. Julie hires a fellow student (and massive weirdo) called [[J|Steely J]] to impersonate Tony Clifton for her ill father. Steely J mentions that he sometimes gets visited by the actor Andy Kaufman (who died more than ten years earlier): “Stifle yourself and listen. There’s an entry with a roster in the black almanac, but I haven’t read it, and maybe it’s a lie. I knew one unlucky kid who claimed visitations from Peter Lorre. Makes my blood run cold and mine is bad enough. Sometimes I see Andy Kaufman creeping through the trees outside our house. He shows himself when something awful is on the way.” (Swift to Chase, p. ) The above mentioned 'black almanac' may be [[The Black Guide]], which is referred to as a _"Farmers’ Almanacs for pagans"_ in the story [[Mysterium Tremendum]] as well. Someone, perhaps not Steely J himself, visits Julie's house dressed as Tony Clifton. He completely misbehaves, angers Julie's parents and gets kicked out by Julie after she finds him drinking out of their toilet on all-fours. Afterwards, Julie pays Steely J a visit with her boyfriend Rocky Eklund and friend Mike Zant to get their money back. Steely J lives in a remote and worn down house. Rocky and Mike enter the house to mess up Steely J, while Julie stays behind in the car. After a while, she enters the house as well and finds [[Old Leech]]'s symbol carved into the door: the [[Ouroboros]]. "Steely J carved something, maybe a crescent moon, into the wooden door panel." (Swift to Chase, p. ) Julie enters the house's basement and finds a weird and terrifying scene: IV bags with blood and plasma on the shelves, her boyfriend Rocky zoned out and chuckling, squatting in an inflatable pool with a leech hanging from his body. Steely J sitting on a chair, covered in leeches and drinking blood from an IV bag. Their friend Mike lying on the floor. And Andy Kaufman (not even dressed as Tony Clifton but just as regular Andy Kaufman himself?) working the leeches and IV bags. There's more Ouroboros symbols as well, painted on the walls. The story ends as Julie's contemplating running away, but we don't know if she manages to escape unscathed. She does survive the scene though, as we know from [[Termination Dust]] that she's gonna make it to about seventy years old. Perhaps this story ends with Julie getting recruited into all the dark shit we see her later taking part in. She's horrified by scene at the end of Andy Kaufman Creeping through the Trees least, so we know she's not part of any occult stuff yet during the events of this story. --- ### __Characters__ Recurring character [[Jessica Mace]] and her cousin Liz Lochinvar are mentioned in the story. We learn that Julie's mother Jackie has a massive vendetta against [[Lucius Lochinvar]], Jessica's mother. She imprints a terrible hate for Jessica in her own daughter on her first day of high school, starting a lifelong conflict between the two. The origins of this conflict are probably described in the story [[Tomahawk Park Survivors Raffle]]. The recurring character [[Tooms|Zane Tooms]] is first mentioned in this story as one of the rich kids Steely J is friends with. [[Elmer]], the main protagonist of [[the worms crawl in,]], with whom Julie had a short fling in junior year, is mentioned briefly in the story. It's mentioned that Jessica Mace got mad at Julie for breaking Elmer's heart. The characters Indra Norse, Dee Dee Andersen ([[Delia]]) and Liz Lochinvar from the story [[Don't Make Me Assume My Ultimate Form]] are briefly mentioned in the story. --- ### __Dead Celebrities__ The [[Children of Old Leech]] (probably, right?) taking the forms of dead celebrities is also one of the main themes of the [[Antiquity]] tale [[The One We Tell Bad Children]]. Another occurrence of a dead celebrity making a sudden appearance comes to mind as well: the Deputy in [[Termination Dust]] meets the deceased Michael Jackson, but this seems more like a figment of his imagination and not quite the same thing as Andy Kaufman here. Although the fact that the Deputy's brother starts seeing Michael Jackson as soon as the Deputy dies does point towards something weird, I don't think MJ in Termination Dust is a disguised alien. But still, they seem like somewhat similar ideas so I gotta point 'em out. In the story Termination Dust, a man named Tyson Langtree is overheard talking about Andy Kaufman as well, moments before being killed by the [[Eagle Talon Ripper]]: "“I tell you, man. Andy Kaufman is alive, man. He’s alive, bigger than shit, and cuttin’ throats (...)” This was overheard at the packed Caribou Creek Tavern on a Friday night about thirty seconds before bartender Lonnie DeForrest tossed his sorry ass out onto a snowbank. (...) Everybody knows Andy Kaufman is crazy as a motherfucker." (Swift to Chase, p. ) It could be that posing as Andy Kaufman is just the 'shape of preference' of the Alaskan branch of Old Leech, just like the appearance of [[Black Bill]] in [[Ransom Hollow]]. #Story #Swift