“Confessions on the Deathbed… or How I Got Framed for the Great Butter Incident of 1998”

“Confessions on the Deathbed… or How I Got Framed for the Great Butter Incident of 1998” By Edward J McCoul

The call came at 3 a.m., because, of course, it did. Nothing good ever happens at 3 a.m., least of all a call from your cousin Margie.

“Earl’s dying,” Margie sniffled through the phone. “He’s got something he needs to confess. You better get down here, Quinn.”

I groaned, rolling out of bed. Earl was my cousin Margie’s husband, a man of questionable hobbies (ferret racing, anyone?) and even more questionable hygiene. If he was confessing something, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. But Margie had a way of guilting you into things, so an hour later, I found myself at the hospital, sleep-deprived and clutching a bag of gas station donuts.

“Finally!” Margie hissed as I walked in. “He’s been holding on just to talk to you. Said it couldn’t wait!”

Earl was propped up in bed, looking more like a deflated bagpipe than a man on his deathbed. His skin was pale, his eyes sunken, and his hair looked like it had been styled by a weed whacker. But there was something oddly urgent in the way he waved me over.

“Quinn,” he croaked, voice raspier than a sandpaper symphony, “I gotta tell you… I committed a crime. A terrible, terrible crime.”

Margie sobbed into a tissue like she was auditioning for a soap opera. I raised an eyebrow. “Earl, I’m pretty sure the statute of limitations is up for anything you’ve done.”

“No,” he wheezed, clutching my wrist with surprising strength. “This is bad, Quinn. Real bad. And it involves you.”

Now he had my attention. “Me?”

He nodded weakly, his voice barely above a whisper. “1998. The butter.”

My stomach dropped. Not the butter. Anything but the butter.

“Wait,” I said, my brain catching up. “You were behind the butter incident?”

Earl nodded again, tears glistening in his eyes. Margie gasped dramatically, like she’d just learned he’d been moonlighting as an international jewel thief.

I sank into the chair beside the bed, my mind racing back to the fateful summer of 1998.

The Butter Incident of 1998 was the stuff of legend in our small town. It started innocently enough at the annual Misfit Acres County Fair. I was 15 at the time, a gawky teenager with braces, and my one job was to guard the centerpiece of the fair: a life-sized butter sculpture of Elvis Presley.

The butter Elvis was a masterpiece. Sculpted by the local dairy queen (not the franchise—the actual queen of dairy, Betsy Lou), it was 400 pounds of pure butter perfection, complete with a sequined butter jumpsuit. People came from miles around to see it, snapping photos and gawking at the buttery brilliance.

But on the third night of the fair, disaster struck. I arrived at my post to find Elvis… decapitated. His butter head was missing, his torso smeared like someone had used it for toast. It was a crime so heinous, so dairy-defying, that the entire town went into an uproar.

And who got blamed? Me.

“Quinn was supposed to be guarding it!” old Mr. Jenkins hollered.

“Where were you when the butter was butchered?” Betsy Lou demanded, her butter-churning arm trembling with rage.

No one believed me when I said I’d only left for five minutes to grab a corn dog. For years, I’d been haunted by the accusation, unable to clear my name.

And now, here was Earl, confessing on his deathbed.

“You’re telling me,” I said slowly, “that you stole Elvis’s butter head?”

He nodded, looking almost proud of himself. “I didn’t mean to! It was… an accident.”

Margie burst into fresh tears. “Why, Earl? Why would you do such a thing?”

Earl took a labored breath. “I’d had a few beers… and a few funnel cakes. The butter Elvis looked so real, I thought it was a carnival prize. I tried to pick it up to take home, but it was slippery! I dropped it, and… and…” His voice cracked. “The head popped off!”

I stared at him, my jaw hanging open. “You’re telling me you accidentally decapitated Elvis because you were drunk on funnel cakes?”

“I panicked,” he admitted. “So, I stuffed the butter head in a cooler and buried it in my backyard.”

Margie shrieked, clutching her chest. “You mean to tell me we’ve been hosting butter Elvis’s head at every barbecue for the last 25 years?!”

Earl nodded miserably. “That’s why the grass never grows there.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or punch him in his butter-smuggling face. “Do you have any idea what I went through? They called me ‘Butter Thief’ for years! I had to eat lunch in the janitor’s closet because everyone threw toast at me!”

Earl wheezed a laugh. “I didn’t think it’d get so bad. I thought… maybe they’d forget.”

“Forget?” I sputtered. “They turned it into a theme for the next fair! They made a butter sculpture of me behind bars!”

Margie, still crying, turned on me. “Why didn’t you ever tell me, Quinn?”

“Tell you what?” I snapped. “That I didn’t steal the butter? I tried! But no one believed me!”

“Well,” Margie sniffed, “at least the truth is out now.”

Earl coughed weakly, drawing our attention back to him. “Quinn,” he said, his voice barely audible, “I know I’ve done you wrong. But… I need you to do something for me.”

I crossed my arms. “After all this? Not a chance.”

“Please,” he begged, tears streaming down his face. “When I’m gone… bury me next to the butter head. I think… I think Elvis would’ve wanted it that way.”

Margie burst into fresh sobs, clutching Earl’s hand. “Of course, honey. Anything for you.”

“Not anything,” I muttered, but Margie shot me a glare that said I’d better keep my mouth shut.

Earl passed away a few hours later, leaving behind a legacy of ferret races, questionable barbecue grass patches, and, of course, the Butter Incident. True to his wishes, we exhumed the butter head from its backyard grave and buried it alongside him.

The funeral was a small, bizarre affair. Margie insisted on playing “Can’t Help Falling in Love” on a kazoo, and the butter head melted halfway through the eulogy, leaving a greasy stain on the coffin.

But despite the absurdity, I couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of closure. For the first time in decades, the Butter Incident was no longer hanging over my head.

And as I stood by Earl’s grave, watching the last of the butter seep into the soil, I couldn’t help but laugh.