By Shawn Bakken, Staff Reporter
It seemed like just another ordinary day at Neverland, Michael Jackson’s ranch and amusement park. After cruising around on the quarter-mile go-kart track for twenty minutes, Jackson was walking toward the Ferris wheel until Bryce Handle, one of the bodyguards hovering around the grounds on a regular basis, said something quietly to another guard and turned to go into the main building. Jackson immediately attacked the 4-year veteran of his staff, leaving several scratches across Handle’s cheek. Shortly thereafter, Handle received a memo on official Disney stationary informing him of the immediate termination of his position in Jackson’s Magical Kingdom. In response, Handle is suing Jackson for $100 million.
Handle explained the occurrence in this manner: “I don’t know what his problem was. I mean, there was nothing going on, Mikey was doing what he normally does after getting up out of that oxygenated chamber in the morning. I really had to take a whiz and told the guy next to me I was going in real quick, I’d be right back out. I turned my back and then Mikey jumped me, started screeching and clawing at me. It was nuts, man. I could understand if I had just kicked Mr. Bungles [a monkey living on the estate] in the head or something, but I didn’t do a goddamn thing.
“The guys eventually dragged him off my back and brought him back to the chamber to help get his breath back, ’cause he was looking a lot paler than usual. Almost looked like he was glowing before they turned the hall light on. Anyway, later on, I was feeding his snake when some little fairy dude with these freaky wings and sparkle dust spread all over his body bounced up and handed me a little note. I opened it up and it had a drawing of Mickey Mouse saying, ‘You’re fired. Get the hell off my property and stay away from my special friends,’ whatever that means. I didn’t do a damn thing to deserve this and I want some justice. I swear to God, you give a guy a plastic crown, he thinks he’s running the world. Then Mr. Bungles spit on me when I left. It just ain’t right.”
Jackson had his own side to the story, insisting that Handle “got what he deserved. Anyone who threatens to sneak behind my back and make a move on my special friends doesn’t deserve to work for me, let alone live in a paradise like Neverland. I’d do it all over again, except next time I wouldn’t try to claw him so much: I think I broke a nail.”
Jackson’s lawyers have also insisted that he had just cause to terminate Handle’s position, though the sensitive nature of the case caused them to insist that they could not inform me of anything without signing a form with several pages of small print. Some of these terms included forfeiting a first-born son to Jackson’s estate and agreeing to wear a Nutcracker outfit when coming within 200 yards of Neverland. This reporter then offered the lawyers a “pretty please with a cherry on top,” at which they caved in. They explained that Handle had informed the other guard that he was “going to the little boy’s room,” an area in which no personnel are allowed, since Jackson doesn’t want anyone to scare his “special friends.” One lawyer added, “They have very delicate constitutions.”
When informed that “the little boy’s room” is a slang term referring to the bathroom, Jackson looked puzzled but declined to comment.
