A Unicorn named Stephanie

Author’s Note: In the interests of transitioning from one over the top sci-fi oriented piece to something totally uncrazy that I will put up tomorrow, here is this piece I wrote a year ago about a unicorn. I think my idea was this would be kind of like a profile on “This American Life” only featuring someone who was bat-shit insane… but I may be giving myself too much credit.

When most people look at my friend Stephanie the Unicorn, they’re a bit puzzled.

“BC… I don’t know if you know this, but that’s not a unicorn. In fact, I’m about 99% sure that that’s Bruce Campbell.”

“Bruce Campbell from the ‘Army of Darkness?’”

“Yeah, that guy.”

“Damn… she was supposed to look like David Hasselhoff.”

You see, like all unicorns Stephanie wears a disguise. Stephanie is a unicorn disguised as David Hasselhoff, but due to a lack of skill in disguise-making, looks exactly like Bruce Campbell’s character Ash from the “Evil Dead” trilogy.

While chugging back a beer held in one of her hoofs (or what some would mistakenly call her hands) Stephanie often talks to me about how she is misunderstood by society.

“I don’t get people, BC. They don’t understand what it’s like to be David Hasselhoff born inside of a unicorn’s body. But still they judge me. Who the hell are they to tell me I’m Bruce Campbell? I may have been born Stephanie the Unicorn, but deep in here,” at this Stephanie pounds one of her hooves against her chest, “I know I was meant to be David Hasselhoff.”

Unable to get a passport because of her refusal to accept any other identity than that of her idol’s Stephanie dreams of one day going to Germany.

“I’m big over there. You think I’m big here? Well, wooooah boy, you should see how I work it in Germany. Those people LOVE me. I’m in parades all the time, races, you  name it.” Then Stephanie pulls secretively forward, snorting and tossing her head from side to side, and whispers “And they love it when I sing.”

Stephanie and I often go to bars together because she is severely depressed, and self-medicates with vodka. She needs someone to watch over her. Once, walking the beach after a night of drunken revelry, Stephanie came across a young woman drowning in the ocean. Stephanie jumped into the water after running in slow-motion, then attempted to rescue the poor girl. It was a disaster. Unable to move her arms and legs in a manner natural to a human being, Stephanie had instead tried to swim in an equestrian manner, and almost drowned herself. The young girl was less lucky. Stephanie was devestated.

Now she spends most of her time in AA meetings, moving her forelock out of her face, and saying “I’m David Hasselhoff and I’m an alcoholic.” No one has told her to go to these meetings. She simply does so because she gets to say “I’m David Hasselhoff” to a large group of people. We all pray for her.