MY 20 FAVORITE WRITERS #11-20

            Okay, here we go…

20) Joseph J. Ellis

            The Professor of History at Mount Holyoke College is the perfect jumping-off point for anyone who would like to better acquaint themselves with the founding of the United States. Ellis uses scrupulous attention to detail and a strict adherence to certifiable evidence as he chronicles the most important and most criminally mythologized chapter of American history. He educates, he enlightens, but above all Ellis understands that history is a story and is meant be told – and examined – with the infectious gusto of a born raconteur.

            Start with: American Creation, 2007

            Then try: Founding Brothers, 2000

19) Cornell Woolrich

            Just read a bit about his tragic, claustrophobic life, and you’ll never have trouble understanding how Woolrich cemented his reputation as a paragon of hard-boiled fiction. His prose is every bit razor-sharp and haunting as you would want in noir literature. But what separates Woolrich from the rest of the pack is his empathy with evil. He appreciates where our intrinsic wickedness stems from and brings the reader perilously close to the heart of the flame. It’s almost mind-boggling that Hollywood has chosen to plunder his works over and over again. But good look finding his books – most of them are out of print.

            Start with: I Married a Dead Man, 1948

            Then try: Rendezvous in Black, 1948

18) Haruki Murakami

            There’s a reason he has such a large and passionate following here in America. Murakami reflects an Eastern point of view refracted through a prism of Western storytelling. He embodies the best that the Baby Boomers bring to their art: a pronounced streak of empathy and humanism and a keen awareness of the history of media on the culture at large. In one mad, seamless patchwork of genres and styles after another, Murakami personifies the potential of contemporary pop art and storytelling prowess so assured, it crosses all human boundaries and touches anyone and everyone.

            Start with: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, 2006

            Then try; Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, 1985

17) Kurt Busiek

            Don’t let your prejudices poison you against the possibility that a guy who writes comics can craft rich, moving stories with startlingly nuanced characters. Over his thirty-year career of writing for every company, large and small, in the comic book industry, Busiek has written some of the definitive stories of the icons of the medium. But his crowning achievement is his own title, Astro City. In a world where superheroes are commonplace and often mundane as baristas and mailmen, Busiek weaves an ingenious tapestry of tales about super-humans – with the emphasis being on human.

            Start with: Astro City – Life in the City, 1997

            Then try; Astro City – Confession, 1998

16) Neil Gaiman

            Speaking of comic book writers, here’s one of the best in their long, glorious history. But make no mistake, Neil Gaiman has proven himself equally masterful at writing scintillating, unique novels, short stories, and poetry. After all these years, however, The Sandman remains the greatest testament to his ability. Through the overarching mythology, the larger storylines, and the standalone issues; Gaiman provides us with an (pun alert!) endless and endlessly entertaining collection about the importance of change and an infectious celebration of the joy of stories and storytelling.

            Start with: The Sandman – Fables and Reflections, 1993

            Then try: The Sandman – Season of Mists, 1991

15) Jim Thompson

            It’s fitting that he admired Dostoevsky. Amongst the writers of dark, deep hard-boiled fiction, Jim Thompson went the darkest and deepest. Pick up one of his books and you’ll soon find yourself trapped in a labyrinth where the walls are made of the ugliest, basest aspects of the human condition. Continue through the maze and you’ll find at its center what could very well be the fundamental source of man’s imperfections. It also doesn’t hurt that he populates his books with fascinating characters, dialogue fired from a Howitzer, and stories so tightly constructed they’re likely to choke you. Need more proof? Kubrick hired him to write two of his best movies: The Killing and Paths of Glory.

            Start with: Pop. 1280, 1964

            Then try: The Killer Inside Me, 1952

14) Arthur C. Clarke

            And here’s another writer Kubrick regarded highly enough to collaborate with. Clarke is the perfect example of the science fiction writer who places equal emphasis on the science and the fiction. He never sublimates the craft of writing to the cosmetics of aliens and spaceships. He is a grade-A storyteller who uses his very formidable talents to intelligently pontificate on the ramifications of extraterrestrial contact on the evolution of the human race. That Clarke is able to successfully dramatize its absolute beneficence is indicative of his unique point of view and his standing as one of the giants of the sci-fi genre.

            Start with: Childhood’s End, 1953

            Then try: Imperial Earth, 1975

13) Philip Roth

            Honestly, there are a few examples in Roth’s bibliography where he forgot to tell a story, where he overwrote and neglected his job. But over the course of a fifty-plus year career in which you average a novel every eighteen months –  a career, by the way, in which you’ve won practically every major writing award a writer can win (often more than once), it’s bound to happen. But pick up one of Roth’s books at random and you’re likely to find yourself ensconced in a story populated by wonderfully complicated people, stunning insights into what it means to be American, and some of the most beautifully wrought prose you’ll ever read.

            Start with: Portnoy’s Complaint, 1969

            Then try: The Plot Against America, 2004

12) Sherman Alexie

            You’ll be hard-pressed to find a more harrowing representation of the plight of the Americanized alien than in the pages of a story by Sherman Alexie. The Spokane/Coeur d’Alene writer has written a handful of novels, but he is, in my opinion, the best writer of short stories working today. His collections contain a wide array of parables; some moving, some terrifying, and some funny. But all of them are stories of people trapped in a world dedicated to their gradual, agonizing annihilation, stories that are far from fictitious to American Indians like Alexie.

            Start with: The Toughest Indian in the World, 2000

            Then try: The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, 1993

11) Philip K. Dick

            I want my PKD! Not surprisingly, his popularity crested with the rise of the counterculture movement. He was equally critical of and sympathetic to recreational drug use. He filtered the growing concerns of the modern world through the lens of science fiction and, through it, saw the future. Possessing a seemingly boundless imagination, Dick crafted one startlingly original tale after another in which, as we often do, he tried to not only answer the question, “Why are we here?” but the further question, “Are we even here to begin with?”

            Start with: Ubik, 1969

            Then try: Counter-Clock World, 1967

NOT A REVIEW OF "RUBICON" BY TOM HOLLAND

            Rubicon, written by historian and novelist Tom Holland, recounts the events of the last century of the Roman Republic, illustrating the mercurial and violent transition from a republic to an empire. Holland deftly navigates the intricacies of the historical record as he passionately dramatizes the key events of the period: the tribunates of the Gracchi brothers, the tug of war between Marius and Sulla, and the arcs of the First and Second Triumvirates. He creates vivid, fully humanized personifications of the players in this seminal human drama, from the big names of Sulla, Cicero, and Caesar to the tertiary characters of Caelius and Domitius Ahenobarbus. Holland writes with a novelist’s ear, constructing impassioned, imaginatively-worded sentences from a specific point of view. He knows what story he’s telling and does so with a scholar’s focus and storyteller’s energy. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more enjoyable historical read.

            So why don’t I like it?

            Holland is writing history, not historical fiction. But, as a historian, he makes several intellectual leaps that, coming from a historian, I find unforgivable. Holland’s thesis is that the Republic was a state of freedom and inherently good, while the Empire was a state of slavery and inherently bad. That assessment is a miscarriage of scholarship. From its inception the laws of the Roman Republic were heavily slanted in favor of the patrician elite at the expense of the plebeian majority of the population. Yes, they had elections for a representative government. But Holland ignores the fact that Julius Caesar did not invent bribery. If he had done his job as a scholar, he would have noted that one of the reasons Caesar was so hated by his fellow patricians was his arrogant and unapologetic flaunting of his bribery when it should have remained on the down low. And if the Empire is inherently bad, then how does he reconcile that with the re-establishment of the rule of law and economic stability of Vespasian? Or the even-handed, fair-minded governance of Trajan? Holland also takes the primary sources at face value without considering the fact that the historians of ancient Rome were culled from the ranks of the nobility and often did not represent the feelings and opinions of the general populace. His failure to do so results in highly dubious motivations being attributed to figures they may not apply to.

            Holland commits these crimes against historical reportage in the pursuit of securing a contemporary moral conviction against an ancient people with mores and a collection of values that are completely incompatible with ours. It’s a galling mistake to apply our morality to a people who are as alien to us as visitors from another planet. But that’s what Holland does. In doing so he crafts a marvelously involving narrative that falters under the weight of close scholarly scrutiny.

AN OBJECT LESSON IN COCKBLOCKING YOURSELF

            All names have been changed to protect the innocent. It’s not their fault I couldn’t close the deal.

            Over the years I’ve had my share of romantic entanglements. Some of those entanglements have given rise to a decent story or two, and someday those stories may inspire me to put pen to paper and share them with you. But the best stories – the funniest, the most entertaining – are about the missed opportunities. And those are legion! Let me share with you one of my favorite missed opportunities. Come with me, if you will. Let me be your sherpa up Blue Balls Mountain. Watch and learn how a certified Grand Master cockblocks himself.

            When I was sixteen I somehow found myself ensconced within that strange, mercurial clique known as The Popular Kids, which always struck me as a misnomer since the majority of kids outside that clique hated the lot of them. I’m still not sure how I ended up within their circle, and I’m mystified by how long I stayed in it. Their initial appeal was certainly obvious. The boys were confident, the girls were pretty, and they always had a lot of fun. I would sit with the guys at their table in the cafeteria. I would listen to them castigate one another in the most infectiously deplorable terms, impugn each other’s manhood, ridicule the income of another’s parents. The girls would sit two tables back and the boys would try to catch a peek up their skirts from the reflection in their watches. The girls would come up to me at my locker and lean against my neighbor’s with the most comely posture. They would laugh at my uninspired, spineless attempts at humor with enthusiastic sincerity. When one of them would ask me to drive them home after school, I would readily agree. Once in the car, focusing on the music selection was all I could do to prevent myself from pitching a painfully obvious tent from behind the wheel.

The irony was that I had gravitated to them in the hope of gaining some self-confidence. Oh, they like me and they’re cool, so I must be cool. I was part of their crew for a year, and for that whole year I wore my paranoia like a Castilian panoply. I expected to be found out at any moment, to be exposed as a fraud and a thief. I was like a low-level wiseguy who had betrayed the family and now, surrounded by them all, didn’t know if he was going to be kissed or killed. I expected Jason Barracus to turn into Robert De Niro and send me down an alley to pick up some dresses. Did I ever make a move on one of the girls? No way. How much did I contribute to the boys’ back-and-forth? Take your hand and touch the tip of your index finger to the tip of your thumb. That much.

One night I attended a party at Mark Maloney’s house set deep in the Byzantine arbor of Medford. I was at a disadvantage before I had even arrived. I knew kids would be drinking with a capital “D,” but my father was driving me and he would be picking me up at the end of the night. You see, my testicles had yet to descend and I did not want to be on the receiving end of his wrath when he picked up his inebriated son. So, upon arrival, I promptly grabbed a Budweiser, cracked it open, and proceeded to nurse that bastard for the better part of four hours.

I made two observations over the course of those four hours. One, lukewarm Bud tastes like Satan’s piss. Two, I had no business being there. There were boys holding themselves upside-down over a keg of beer and they had hoses in their mouths. Greg Bateman was sitting on the edge of a pool table and Tori Moore was sitting next to him and she was smiling at him and laughing and hanging on his every word and he was talking to her like a big jerk. There were three girls huddled in a corner of the basement sharing a marijuana joint and they were giggling in a crazy creepy way and it smelled weird. Jason Barracus was sitting on some milk crates with a case of beer at his feet and he was drinking one and everyone was sitting around him and Bobbi May kept sitting on Jason’s lap until he grabbed her privates and she would hop off and laugh and walk away, then she would come back and sit on his lap again and laugh and spill her beer on herself and laugh again and then Jason would grab her again and…

WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING HERE!?!

After a while, I had taken enough laps around the basement to wear a groove into the floor. Just as I had to come to the conclusion that there was nothing for me at this party, Leigh Mara wobbled up to me.

Leigh Mara was tall and thin, possessed an acerbic sense of humor and a body made to turn priests off kids. She was one of those girls every boy wanted – you know the ones. I was certainly no exception. We had been friendly up to that point, hung out within the company of others a few times. I had always been respectful and gentlemanly toward her in the hope that, Maybe she’ll see I’m a nice guy and she’ll like me. Granted I had applied my modus operandi to every girl I had hoped to attract, but that didn’t make it any less sincere. Or anemic.

And now, on this night, for whatever reason, Leigh Mara, her most recent beer clutched in one hand, stumbled to within six inches of me. Her taut upper body, all the more enticing with the Nineties midriff, waved like a drunken flag. Her hair danced as her head loped from side to side. Her lips thinned to an out-of-focus smile. She leaned into my face and implored, “Tony, hook up with me.”

Just so we’re all clear, I’ll reiterate that in more prosaic terminology: Leigh Mara invited me to make out with her.

Many of you reading this may never have had the pleasure of experiencing the phenomenon of a beautiful woman unambiguously hitting on you. I assure you, I understand. You hear in your head the airy refrain of, “If only…” as if tragically intoned by a Gregorian choir. A wistful sigh is escaping your body. If you tried, you could even squeeze out a tear or two. I’ve been there, folks. But on this night, the dream came true. The opportunity to live out my own little PG-13 Penthouse Letter opened her arms to me. All I had to do was reach out and embrace her.

Of course I didn’t.

“Why not?” you’re screaming. Because this is how sixteen year-old Tony Petracci’s mind processed this information: I know what’s going to happen. I’ll say yes and go to take her hand and lead her to someplace private. She’ll pull away, start laughing like a hyena, and go tell everybody, “He actually thought he could hook up with me!” The house will fill with malevolent snickering. People will approach me under a pretense of sympathy and turn it into backhanded mockery. I’ll become the Punchline That Wouldn’t Die.

Hey, how many of you understood at sixteen that no one is paying attention to you?

I politely said with utmost compassion, “You’re drunk, Leigh. You don’t want to do that.” She staggered off, but five minutes later she shambled up to me again. “Toooooonyyyyyyy, hook up with meeeeeeee!” She literally begged me. And I refused again!

She didn’t try a third time.

In retrospect it’s not surprising that, within a few months of this incident, a Tony-is-gay rumor started swirling about the school.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t believe that my life would have been totally different had I hooked up with Leigh Mara. This isn’t Mr. Destiny. I look at this bit of self-mortification as little more than an entertaining story about a missed opportunity. But it was a missed opportunity of my own creation, and it makes me consider the scores of other people who have allowed their own heads to get in the way of achieving some modicum of happiness, however fleeting and shallow it may be. So many of those people are quality human beings whose negative self-images, from wherever they may spring, prevent them from fulfilling their potential. The greater irony is that so many success stories who think highly of themselves are irredeemable wastes of oxygen who contribute nothing of value to the world.

Christ! No wonder people thought I was gay.

WRATH OF THE TODDLER (pt. 6)

           The Monopoly Mobile sped through the tunnel of reflective metal and rivers of light. The tunnel wound around deposits of shale and coiled upward in a wide helix through layers of stratum. From behind the wheel Dubious Lee cursed himself for opting for the winding road rather than the more timely lift. The Monopoly Mobile exploded through the doors of an abandoned warehouse (obviously) and raced to meet Simple Country Lawyer. Dubious Lee braked with a sudden squeal and jumped out the car at Twelfth & Hamilton.

            Simple Country Lawyer stood over the limp and twisted body of the Toddler. The boy’s head had been replaced with a steaming mound of gray-green necrotic tissue. The corpse twitched slightly as the Lawyer said, “You disappoint me, Lee. Being as economically minded as you are, I’d have figured you for the vehicular-lift sort.”

            “Silence! I’m finishing this!”

            “Shucks, son. That there’s easier than a post pattern in a – ”

            “FUCK FOOTBALL!!!”

            Simple Country Lawyer’s arrogantly gregarious smile disappeared. “I beg your pardon, but I believe you just uttered fighting words at me.”

            “Indeed they are. NOW!!!”

            Three streaks of light burst from the Monopoly Mobile and landed as Dubious Lee called the roll.

            “Metalhead!” Guitar strings crackling with electricity snaked from her fingertips and waves of distortion snarled from her feet.

            “Titmouse!” His mutated member grew several feet and gnashed its sharp bucked teeth with a furious hiss.

            “Alfobet Soope!” He danced an endzone celebration with increasing speed, then halted with a sudden prominence of energy.

            Dubious Lee stood before his team, lapping at the fountain of anticipatory delight, savoring his nemesis’s impending defeat, bathing in his own venom. “Lawyer,” he called, “I’ll say this but once: this – ends – now!”

            “Reckon I agree with you, Lee.” Simple Country Lawyer let fly a loud puncturing whistle. Four shapes suddenly fell from the sky. They landed behind Simple Country Lawyer and rose to their feet as their leader and benefactor introduced them.

            “Meet Bloody Belle – spoiled Georgia Peach turned cannibalistic ninja.”

            Clad in her crimson shozoku and twirling her kama, Bloody Belle said, “I’ll never go hungry again.”

            “Big Block –  left for dead in a Nascar crash, now a cybernetic killing machine that runs nines.”

            Big Block’s chest-set cylinders raced as he balled up his iron fists and his mullet pulsed with violent energy.

            “Boo Bradley – poltergeist and former Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan.”

            Craning the long neck of the bone-white marble dragon he now possessed, Boo Bradley cried, “Wight Power!”

            “And finally, Boy.”

            The slump-shouldered middle-aged black man said, “I’m the custodian.”

            The two lines of superpowered assholes stared at one another coldly. Dubious Lee’s eyes darted from Simple Country Lawyer to one or another of his lackeys and back again. He knew the planarian had outmaneuvered him once again. He resigned himself to the inevitable just as the Lawyer said, “You know something else, Lee? Of the two of us, whose team is more alliterative?”

            Dubious Lee and Simple Country Lawyer screamed at the same time: “DESTROY THEM!!!”

            The battle hadn’t lasted long. Alfobet Soope had immediately charged Boo Bradley, who quickly clasped the wide receiver in his marble jaws and tore him in half. Titmouse had launched his retractable rat-penis at Bloody Belle. She had caught it in her mouth, eaten her way down the shaft to the mammary molester and promptly cleaved him in twain. Metalhead had whipped her finger-strings at Big Block like lariats, but the iron goliath caught them, extended his mullet into a mane and launched from it a wide blast of power, reducing Metalhead to a molten lump.

            Big Block and Bloody Belle held the defeated Dubious Lee at his arms, binding his arms behind his back, slumped to his knees amid the human flotsam spackled across the intersection.

            Only his petrified rage prevented Dubious Lee from collapsing into tears. He would never acquiesce to living in a world that loved and embraced the treacherous parasite that was Simple Country Lawyer. He would never stop hating him, never stop trying to purge the earth of its cancer. He lifted his head as the single-celled advocate approached him. His eyes screamed hosannas of hate, and the Lawyer, meeting his eyes, actually froze. Dubious Lee spoke through clenched teeth, “Do not believe this is over, Simple Country Lawyer. You may have won today, but one tomorrow you will meet the very same justice you have long inveigled. You will watch everything you have stolen fall through your fingers like the finest sands. Your influence will count for naught. Your power will dissipate. You will be left impotent and despised. And as you fall to your knees, as supplicated as I am now, a shadow will cross your face. You will raise your head, lift your eyes, and see me. And finally you will meet your end, lost in the dyspathetic clutches of Dubious Lee.”

            Simple Country Lawyer regarded his enemy silently.

            “No I won’t.”

            Simple Country Lawyer shot Dubious Lee in the head.

            “Boy!”

            Boy grumbled as he withdrew his retractable tachyon-powered mop and set to work. 

WRATH OF THE TODDLER (pt. 5)

            The air over downtown Madsen, New Jersey buzzed with calamity. The intersection of Twelfth Street and Hamilton Avenue shook under the panicked stampede of civilians. People of every make and model surged every which way, filling the urban corridor with echoing screams. Businessmen body-checked fathers into mothers. Parents wielded their children like war hammers, clubbing strangers out of their way. Neurotics curled into fetal shells and were kicked down the street like black and blue tumbleweeds. Drunken pugilists put up their dukes and wanted at ‘em. Closet cases screamed their long-hidden sexual predilections into the sky. The socially awkward grabbed random women and tried to have sex with them. A bearded lunatic brandishing a placard adorned with Bible verses rushed into the crowd and shouted apocalyptic predictions. He was quickly trampled. Tires screeched and brakes whined as cars slammed into skyscrapers, collapsed into twisted heaps of metal, and launched fleeing pedestrians into the air. Street lamps toppled to the ground. Garbage cans soared through panes of glass. A spell of bedlam had descended over the street.

            At the storm’s eye was the Toddler, his lollipop held aloft, openly inquiring how many licks it would take to reach the center.

            Half a mile beneath the street Dubious Lee, flanked by his villainous coterie, reveled in the disaster unfurling on his massive view-screen. Titmouse, Metalhead, and Alfobet Soope stood behind the ringleader, periodically glancing at the view-screen, engaged in their ongoing debate of the utmost importance: “Some guy took a picture of it in 1986. You can see it has dark hair,” said Metalhead.

            “Look, man,” countered Alfobet Soope, “I know ‘bout yetis and I know ‘bout evolution. Yeti’s not gonna survive in the snow ‘less it got a pelt for camouflage.”

            “There’s photographic evidence!”

            “Fuck outta here! Those pics are doctored. Every artist’s rendition shows it with white fur.”

            “You’re both way off,” argued Titmouse. “It’s all about Mothman!”

            Dubious Lee ignored the ridiculous badinage; he watched the anarchic carnage unspool. He stood like personified marble, unflinching and unperturbed. He waited patiently for the arrival of his bete noire, the single-celled shyster who cured the disease that never existed. Leland DuBois had done nothing originally startling. He hadn’t committed a single atrocity countless others hadn’t as well. His sin had been arrogance, making little effort to hide his professional transgressions. He knew that. He had made himself an obvious target. Simple Country Lawyer had been merely the first to hit the bullseye. And now he was a hero? Dubious Lee would not abide the duplicitous irony of it all. His lips curled with epicurean anticipation.

            Twelfth & Hamilton was littered with debris and bodies. The only sign of life stood at its center. The Toddler’s cherubic face was a beacon of innocence without expectation. He waited for the arrival of his victim.

            “You best have one whopper of a explanation of this hullabaloo here,” came a voice from behind the Toddler.

            “He’s here!” hissed Dubious Lee, his mouth jerked into a carnivorous rictus.

            The Toddler beamed ravenously as he turned to face the litigious planarian. “Why?”

            “‘Cause if you’re missing one,” said Simple Country Lawyer, “you’re in more trouble than a head coach in Oakland.”

            “Why?”

            Dubious Lee clenched his fists greedily. “Yes, answer him, Lawyer! Talk your way out of this!”

            The Lawyer stood silent, regarding the inquisitive little child of the corn like a suddenly manifested sty. His argumentative hackles were rising with each repeated syllable from the Toddler’s mouth. He could feel himself being drawn by the Toddler’s psionic tractor beam, inching toward his semantic web.

            He cocked his head (or whatever you would call it) to one side, folded his hands (or whatever they were) together and calmly said, “Well, that there question’s got more moving parts than a Rube Goldberg cotton gin. What you’re asking begs the further inquiry of where do our values come from at all,”

            Dubious Lee jerked back. “What is he doing?”

            Simple Country Lawyer continued, “Some have argued that our values – morality, ethics, what have you – are merely our more highly developed human minds’ attempt to rationalize the irrational instincts of the vestigial lower brains from whence we arose.”

            “What is he doing?!” cried Dubious Lee.

            “I think he’s being a lawyer,” said Metalhead.

            “Impossible! You can’t be a lawyer with a toddler, let alone that one!”

            “Apparently he can,” said Titmouse.

            Simple Country Lawyer continued, “‘Course that all begs the question: is evolution real. Now, granted, the theory’s got holes to fit a bobcat’s litter. But that don’t mean it’s not so.”

            “Why?”

            “Keep it to yourself, son,” he answered dismissively. “But if it ain’t so, does the answer reside in the unprovable ether of an omnipotent super-whoever, pulling and yanking all our strings like a puppeteer on draft day? If fatalism is the answer, then the identity of that deity becomes the question. Which faith is the correct one? Or perhaps none of them are, and we all are blind birds flying through a hurricane.”

            The Toddler’s lip quivered nervously. “W-Why?”

            “Never interrupt a planarian pontificating, boy.”

            Alfobet Soope said to his grimacing leader, “Man, y’all fucked up.”

            “This is horseshit!” bellowed Dubious Lee and turned on his heel. “To the Monopoly Mobile – NOW!!!”

WRATH OF THE TODDLER (pt. 4)

            The Honorable Moses Olpian cleaned his glasses as he addressed the prosecuting attorney. “Your next witness?”

            The Assistant District Attorney, a tall wispy man, stood with pedagogical poise and said, “No more witnesses at this time, Your Honor. Prosecution reserves the right to call rebuttal witnesses should the need arise.”

            “Thank you, Mr. Waterston.” Judge Olpian turned to the opposite side of the bench. “Call your first witness, Mr. Lawyer.”

            Behind the defense table sat Jeffrey Three-Kinds-of-Cheese Dibble. The pepper-nosed toe-headed young man sat hunched over the table, wringing his hands under his ashen face. On trial for First-Degree Murder, he watched with glassy heavy-lidded eyes as his attorney, a simple country lawyer, rose calmly from his chair. Ensconced in a sharp bone-white Tom Wolfe, the six-foot tall planarian addressed the court. “Y’Honor, the Defense calls the Contrarian to the stand.”

            The doors to the courtroom swung inward with a flourish of cinematic contrivance. The Contrarian made his way down the aisle, his two jaws pugnaciously thrust forward. One jaw belonged to the head of Aziz al-Ibrahin, the other to the head of Shecky Rapaport.

            Waterston leapt out of his chair, nearly knocking it to the ground. “Objection!”

            “Now let me guess here, Y’Honor,” Simple Country Lawyer interjected. Stepping forward (or whatever worm-like single-celled organisms did when they ambulated) he said, “Mr. Waterston here intends to cite Branscum vs. Kundulini and argue against multiple sentiences taking the stand simultaneous-like. Am I right, Mr. Waterston? Is that the nub?”

            “Actually I was going to cite Paskind vs. Opperman, Your Honor, but Branscum works too.”

            “Well then, Y’Honor, I’d like to gently remind Mr. Waterston that in Weintraub vs. Florida the Appellate Court rules multiple sentiences admissible when sharing a corporeal form.”

            Waterston turned to Olpian. “Your Honor, Weintraub specifically applies to cases of shared possession of a single body. The Contrarian is two individual heads surgically grafted onto one body.”

            “Mr. Waterston’s acumen of precedent is more impressive than a catfish with a football; certainly, Y’Honor. But I seem to recall a certain case addressing just this type of razzmatazz. Monahan vs. Snacks I believe it was.”

            “Your Honor, Monahan was a civil suit. This is a criminal trial. It has no bearing on this case.”

            No one in the courtroom noticed Simple Country Lawyer’s eyes victoriously narrow. “Well I may just have to reconsider the praise I’ve heaped here upon the Assistant District Attorney. Surely you remember, Mr. Waterston, Monahan vs. Snack’s journey to the highest court in the land? Why, it was Rancid Bevallaqua himself who authored the opinion. Therein the Chief Justice established that no witness could be prohibited from testifying based on a pre-existing medical condition for which the witness in question is not responsible. The Contrarian’s current bi-cephalic state constitutes a pre-existing medical condition; I believe you will agree. And even a concussed simpleton knows it was the nefarious Doctor Ratline who amalgamated Messers Rapaport and al-Ibrahin into one The Contrarian. Y’Honor, if this here poor dual-headed abomination doesn’t fall under the precedent of Monahan, then I’ll be a chickenhawk with a empty backfield.”

            “Your Honor, this is a mockery of judicial protocol.”

            Judge Olpian nodded. “I agree,” he said. “But it carries weight in the eyes of the law. Objection overruled. You may take the stand, Mr. Contrarian.”

            Waterston clenched his teeth and returned to his seat as the Contrarian crossed the well and stepped into the witness box. A court officer stood before him and presented the Bible. “Place your left hand on the Bible please,” instructed the officer.

            Everyone in the courtroom leaned toward the stand, straining to hear the muted exchange between the Contrarian’s two heads. “Just do it already.”

            “It’s not the Quran.”

            “It doesn’t matter.”

            “It does!”

            “Jesus! Stop being so hidebound.”

            “I am not swearing on that book.”

            “I’ll swear. You just have to touch it.”

            “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

            Judge Olpian brought down his gavel with a reverberant bang. “Mr. Contrarian!”

            The Jewish head turned to the judge. “Sorry, Your Honor.” It turned to its Muslim counterpart and whispered harshly, “Do it!” The Muslim head sighed and looked away with a twisted mask of revulsion. The Contrarian, his left hand on the Bible, took the oath.

            Simple Country Lawyer took to his feet. “Mr. Contrarian, what is your full name?”

            “Isaac She – ”

            “He was talking to me.”

            “No he wasn’t. And we agreed I would do the talking.”

            “Yes he was and we never agreed to such a thing.”

            “Fine. We’ll take turns.”

            “Fine. Go.”

            “Isaac.”

            “Aziz.”

            “Shepshul.”

            “Al.”

            “Shecky.”

            “Ibrahin.”

            “Rapaport.”

            Simple Country Lawyer smiled. “Very good.” Now, speaking to the Mooslim head of y’all, where were you at sundown on the twenty-second of March?”

            “I was in my apartment.”

            “And what were you engaged in at that point?” Simple Country Lawyer continued.

            “Well half of me was dutifully praying to Mecca, while the other half of me was masturbating to Roadhouse.”

            Simple Country Lawyer continued, “When you pray to Mecca from inside your apartment, where exactly do you pray?”

            “Whenever possible I pray eastward from the center of my living room.”

            The defense planarian asked, “And is that the spot from which you prayed at sundown on the twenty-second of March?”

            “Yes. We have a sixty-three inch LCD screen in there, so everybody was happy.”

            Shecky's head cut in, “Okay. You don’t have to keep harping on it.”

            “The Jew eats pork!”

            “I’m Reform! We don’t care about that!”

            Simple Country Lawyer plunged ahead. “Leaving aside the more erotic endowments of the Kelly Lynch oeuvre,” he said, “is there a window in that there room standing between you and Mecca?”

            “Yes.”

            “And when you look out the window,” Lawyer continued, “what do you see?”

            “The office building for Activists & Jugglers Notary.”

            Simple Country Lawyer turned to address the jury. “The same building where the murder was committed.” Turning back to the witness, he said, “Now… what floor of the Notary does that window parallel?”

            Rapaport’s head lulled with disinterest to the side while al-Ibrahin’s head said, “It’s actually just between the sixth and seventh floors.”

            Turning once again to the jury the defense attorney repeated, “Between the sixth and seventh floors,” laying it on thick as biscuits and gravy. “Now, Mr. Contrarian, could you please tell the court what you witnessed at sundown on the twenty-second of March?”

            “I was praying with my eyes closed, reciting the Maghrib. As soon as I finished, I opened my eyes and saw a golf club slash the air in the office across the street from my apartment. I got up, ignoring his pleas to let him finish, went to my window, looked down into the office, and saw the defendant standing over a broken putter covered in blood and the body of the murder victim.”

            The jury and those in the gallery gasped audibly. “I sure do love when they do that,” Simple Country Lawyer said to no one in particular. He then addressed the Contrarian’s Jewish head and asked, “Do you agree with that testimony, Mr. Contrarian?”

            “No I emphatically do not!”

            The courtroom gasped again and Simple Country Lawyer shuddered with a delighted squeal. “With what in particular do you disagree?”

            “First of all, I was watching Warm Summer Rain. Kelly Lynch only gets naked once in Roadhouse. Second, it was just a flash of light we saw.”

            Al-Ibrahim's head contradicted, “You were pre-occupied. How do you know?”

            “It’s called peripheral vision. And I was finished by that point – I just needed to clean up. And when we got to the window, it wasn’t the defendant we saw. It was some guy who looked like Shia LaBouef.”
            "He did not."

            “He does look like Shia LaBouef!”

            “No he doesn’t. He looks like Dave Eggers.”

            “Are you blind?”

            The two heads were now turned to directly face one another. “And it wasn’t a golf club. It was one of those metal braces you screw into your wall when you’re putting up cheap shelves.”

            “Those metal braces don’t have putter heads on them.”

            “It wasn’t a putter!”

            “Yes it was!”

            The Contrarian’s hands tried to grab each other while his two heads lunged at one another, each trying to sink their teeth into the other’s face. Waterston jumped up. “Your Honor, the witness has just contradicted himself. He should be excused and his testimony stricken.”

            Simple Country Lawyer stepped forward proudly, grinning from would-be ear to would-be ear. “Y’Honor, I’ll be hogtied to Barry Sanders if McKay vs. Sturgeon doesn’t explicitly state when a witness allowed under Monahan vs. Snacks contradicts himself on the stand and the discrepancy in his testimony is caused directly by said witness’s multiple sentiences, a mistrial must be declared.”

            The courtroom was nonplussed by the sudden spring of the trap. Waterston’s eyes widened in furious anxiety. “Your Honor, you can’t allow this!”

Judge Olpian inhaled through his nose past his face as it calcified with anger. “I’ll render my ruling on this after I’ve studied the cases for myself. Mr. Lawyer, you can’t begin to comprehend how much Contempt of Court I’m going to hold you in if your reading of precedent has even the smallest loophole. We’ll reconvene tomorrow morning at ten o’ clock.”

The judge banged his gavel. Everyone stood until Olpian was out of the courtroom. Simple Country Lawyer turned to Waterston and said, “Being a lawyer’s not as easy as playing one on the TV, is it?”

Waterston opened his mouth to respond, but stopped as he heard a loud sudden sound.

Simple Country Lawyer peered down at his belt buckle. The steel pig blinked yellow and emitted an obnoxious snort of warning. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said gentlemanly. “Looks like I’m needed.”

WRATH OF THE TODDLER (pt. 3)

           With a grinding whoosh of steel air a circular hatch in the ceiling corkscrewed open. The villains craned their necks as a gauze of light fell upon them. A pair of bare feet emerged from the hole, descending to the floor. Atop the bare feet was an emaciated man suspended from a rope and hook, bound in fishing line and clad in a loincloth fashioned out of paperclips.

            The gears stopped with a angry clang. The emaciated man came to a halt a foot above the floor. Dubious Lee stood next to him and addressed his allies. “You all remember my old partner, Calvin Julius Horsefinder?”

            “I thought he was dead,” said Alfobet Soope.

            “Erroneous reportage, Alfobet Soope. No, Mr. Horsefinder has generously volunteered to vanquish your various vexations.” He turned to Horsefinder. “Isn’t that right, old friend?”

            Struggling to raise his head, eyelids fluttering over bloodshot eyes, Horsefinder croaked, “Please, Leland. Don’t.”

            “Fret not, friend. Just as I promised, once you’ve answered some very simple questions from young Master Toddler, you may go on your way.”

            The Toddler approached Calvin Julius Horsefinder and stared at him. Horsefinder looked nervously to his former partner. “Introduce yourself, Calvin,” Dubious Lee prompted. The other villains looked on.

            Horsefinder swallowed hard and looked to the Toddler standing before him, looking at the bound man with expectantly widened eyes. “Hi,” he said. “I’m Calvin Julius Horsefinder.”

            “Why?” asked the Toddler.

            Horsefinder opened his mouth to answer but found himself stymied silent. He looked to Dubious Lee, who motioned for the captive to answer. “Well, my parents named me that.”

            “Why?”

            “Because they liked the name?”

            “Why?”

            “Because… they wanted to honor their parents.”

            “Why?”

            “I-I don’t know.”

            “Why?”

            “‘Why?’ Because they never told me.”

            “Why?”

            “Leland!” cried Horsefinder. “What’s going on?”

            “Answer the question, Calvin,” Dubious Lee calmly ordered.

            Horsefinder looked back at the Toddler. “‘W-Why didn’t they tell me?’ They… they just didn’t!”

            “Why?”

            “Look, shut up, alright?”

            The color oozed out of the Toddler’s cheeks and suffused his eyes, now deep-set and wreathed in shadow. His face hardened into volcanic rock. He pursed his lips into a curl of diabolical hunger. “Why?” the Toddler repeated, his voice now a bestial growl of enmity.

            With impelled, intimidated calm Horsefinder answered, “They didn’t think it was important.”

            “Why?”

            “They didn’t think I was important.”

            “Why?”

            “They hired people to take care of me.”

            A tear spilled from Horsefinder’s eye. “What’s going on?” Alfobet Soope whispered to Dubious Lee, who advised patience with a single upraised finger.

            “Why?”

            “Because they would rather have gone to parties and buy things they never used and cheat on each other.” The floodgates swung open and the tears exploded down his swollen face.

            “Why?”

            “Because they didn’t care about anything but themselves.”

            “Why?”

            “Because they were rich and powerful and spoiled.”

            “Why?”

            “Because Dad was a corporate thief who lined his pockets with the spoils of other people’s labors.”

            Thin veins of pink shot through Horsefinder’s rivulets of tears and the clear streams soon ran red. Alfobet Soope, Metalhead and Titmouse looked to Dubious Lee. He grinned back, an insidious twinkle of knowledge in his eye.

            “Why?”

            “He was a greedy son of a bitch.”

            “Why?”

            “H-He was a sociopath.”

            “Why?”

            “I don’t know!”

            Spasmodic kernels began to percolate beneath the skin of Horsefinder’s extremities.

            “Why?”

            “Because I don’t know everything!”

            Horsefinder’s eyes grew engorged and threatened to burst from their sockets.

            “Why?”

             “Because I’m not God!”

            The rope swayed wildly as Horsefinder’s undulations increased in frequency.

            “Why?’

            “BECAUSE I’M NOT!!!”

            “Why?”

            Horsefinder’s body erupted in violent tremors. His shaking head catapulted his bloody tears into the air. His jaw flapped like a running piston but no words came forth. His mouth instead belched a long tortured squeal. Dubious Lee smiled proudly as the other villains looked on, still as statues.

            Horsefinder fell silent. His body went limp. His head slumped to his chest. Just as the others realized that Calvin Julius Horsefinder had died, gray matter seeped out of his head’s various orifices. The Toddler looked away from the hanging carcass, reached into his pocket and started playing his Nintendo DS.

            “You see?” Dubious Lee blared mirthfully. “No adult can withstand the wearisome why-age of a three-year old. But one compelling you to confess and face your most daunting demons, one possessing the power to extirpate the encephalon entirely… !”

            Metalhead stepped forward. “… I’ll fuck anything he wants me to.”

WRATH OF THE TODDLER (pt. 2)

            The villains gathered around the table displayed their collections of hunched shoulders, furrowed brows, and rolling eyes to Dubious Lee. The mastermind crossed his arms against his chest and met their impatient looks. “You disappoint me,” he gravely intoned.

            “Well, y’all gotta do better than ‘silence,’ you know what I’m saying?”

            “Yes, I do indeed know what you are saying. You all have exposed yourselves to be utterly incapable of avenging yourselves upon a mild case of mudbutt on your own.”

            Metalhead leapt out of her seat. “What about you, dick-wound? How’d the fucking take-over-the-Bar-Association-plan work out for you?”

            “Or the biscuit and gravy aphrodisiac?” added Alfobet Soope. “That was the height of glory.”

            “But united,” said Lee, “we can enlist the services of one with the power to crush Simple Country Lawyer once and for all!”

            The wall of the conference lair was suddenly bifurcated by a blade of light. Metalhead, Titmouse, and Alfobet Soope drew back, whipping their forearms in front of their eyes. The blade fattened as the wall split in half. The light rushed in but its source was obscured. A small humanoid silhouette stood before the light’s vanishing point. The villains watched the black bulwark approach them. Its gait was an awkward staccato waddle and the mysterious form lifted its knees to a curious height. Then, just as suddenly as it appeared, the light vanished. Before the group stood a three-year-old boy with lightly tousled hair, denim overalls, and t-shirt sporting a smiling Jolly Roger.

            “My conspicuously curt colleagues,” announced Lee, “I give you… The Toddler!”

            Groans filled the room as the others flopped into their seats.

            “What?” asked Dubious Lee.

            “Are you sssshiting us? Another ringer?” asked Titmouse.

            “An actual toddler?” added Metalhead.

            “This, my friends, is different.”

            Metalhead said, “Remember L.U.C.A., the A.C.L.U.bot? The southern-fried sissy convinced him to go work for the mafia.”

            “Yessss,” concurred Titmouse. “And he convincccced the Bearded Lady that sssshe wassss a fat hairy gay man and ssssent her to a bear bar. They mauled her to death.”

            Alfobet Soope said, “Yeah, and when y’all sicced the Dali Llama on his ass, the Lawyer turned him into a suicide bomber.”

            “And now we’re going to go with some cutie-pie cum-stain?” accused Metalhead.

            “My acrimonious allies,” Dubiously Lee said suffused with pride, “the Lawyer’s power resides in his two-pronged attack of homespun charm and redneck logic.”

            “Don’t ssssay that word!” mocked Titmouse.

            “No. ‘Redneck,’ ‘hick,’ ‘hillbilly,’ ‘white trash,’ and ‘shit-kicker,’ are all acceptable terms.” Lee continued, “The Toddler possesses the ability to not only negate the Lawyer’s powers but to turn them against him.”

            Metalhead arched an eyebrow. “And he’s willing to do this?”

            “For a price, of course – one which requires all of us to meet. I will provide the three-million dollar fee. Alfobet Soope, the Toddler requires your autograph.”

            “You pay me for an autograph!” Soope responded.

            “Not this time, my atramentous abettor!”

            “Huh?”

            “And the Toddler requires the autograph etched upon a football.”

            “Fine!”

            “The Toddler also requires the football to be that which you caught to win the 1998 Championship.”

            “Bullshit! I fucked Beyonce with that ball! S’my favorite thing in the world.”

            “Don’t you have two children?” asked Titmouse.

            “Yeah.”

            Dubious Lee continued, “The Toddler also demands that it be personalized.”

            “S’not happening,” Alfobet Soope said.

            “The inscription must read, ‘Toddler, your wiener puts mine to shame – Alfobet Soope.’ ”

            “Fuck that!”

            Dubious Lee smiled. “The Toddler’s price is non-negotiable.”

            “Then we’re going to Plan-2.”

            “Titmouse,” Lee continued, “you need only entertain your own highly valued vocation.”

            “You mean I have to rape ssssomeone? Done. Who am I raping?”

            “You must violently violate the Toddler’s father.”

            “What?!” yelped Titmouse.

            “Yes. It seems the man is withholding the Toddler’s rightful inheritance as bequeathed by his grandfather. You are to rape the man into submission.”

            Titmouse whined, “But I wanna rape women.”

            “The Toddler has assured me his father possesses ample man-breasts.”

            “Tearssss and pussssssy!”

            “Furthermore, you are to despoil the man with an onion.”

            Titmouse gesticulated desperately. “Why are you lisssstening to this kid? That’ssss sssstupid. You can’t rape ssssomeone with an onion.”

            “Metalhead!” Lee turned to the steel-coated woman. “You must – ”

            “Stop!” Metalhead leaned forward with her hand help up. “Before you go any further, I’m going to tell you right now. Cut to the fucking chase and just tell me outright what debasing bullshit I have to endure to appease this little shit.”

            “You, Metalhead, must lie with a man.”

            Metalhead looked at Dubious Lee dubiously. “By, ‘lie,’ I’m assuming you mean, ‘fuck,’ right?”

            “Correct.”

            “And?”

            “That is all.”

            Metalhead’s eyes narrowed. “I just have to fuck a guy?”

            “Yes, my duplicitous darling.”

            “Any guy?”

            “Who ever you wish. The Toddler regrettably deigns that his clients conform to, as Edward Gibbon opined with antiquated aplomb, ‘an entirely correct sexuality.’ ”

            “What the hell does that mean?”

            “He doesn’t like lesbians.”

            “I’m not a lesbian!”
            Everyone’s head spun with wide eyes trained on Metalhead, “You’re not?” asked Lee.

            “What the fuck gave you that idea?”

            Lee: “Your more masculine affectations.”

            Soope: “Y’all like to say the fuck-word.”

            Titmouse: “All that crazy demeaning porn in your temp folder.”

            “I’m not gay, you fucking idiots,” reiterated Metalhead. “I’m just metal like that.”

            Dubious Lee turned to the Toddler, who motioned for Lee to bend down to his level. The Toddler whispered into Lee’s ear. “The Toddler,” Dubious Lee addressed Metalhead, “wonders if you are perchance a she-male?”

            “Tell the Toddler if I had a dick I’d be choking him with it right now.”

            Titmouse pointed a clawed finger at Dubious Lee. “All thissss rugrat hassss sssshown issss he’ssss a high-maintenancccce little turd. Why sssshould we meet hissss pricccce?”

            Before Dubious Lee could open his mouth, the Toddler tugged at the hem of Lee’s jacket / cuirass. Lee bent down and accepted the Toddler’s whispered instructions. A wicked smile crawled across his face. “An excellent question, Titmouse. The Toddler is prepared to present you with proof of his prowess in perniciousness.”

            “Y’all missed that last one,” noted Alfobet Soope.

            “Fuck you.”

NOT A REVIEW OF "AMERICAN CREATION" BY JOSEPH ELLIS

            Joseph Ellis has made a career of bringing a keen eye of dispassionate probity to the Revolutionary Generation. Wisely discarding the oft-used sobriquet, “Founding Fathers,” Ellis has repeatedly shown the Olympians of America to be extremely talented but fallible human beings whose weaknesses molded the fate of the United States as thoroughly as did their strengths. In his 2007 book American Creation, Ellis continues his winning scholarly streak with the assured hand of a born storyteller.

            As in his excellent Founding Brothers, Ellis employs an episodic approach in chronicling the foundation of the United States, examining, in turn; the debate over declaring independence, Washington’s army during the winter of 1777-78, the ratification of the Constitution, the Treaty of New York, the emergence of political parties, and the Louisiana Purchase. Ellis masterfully illustrates how the individual personalities of the players were often pitted against the political realities of an experimental nation. These men were keenly aware of how precariously the survival of the nation hung by a thread. Sometimes they sided with their principles and lost. Sometimes they embraced those political realities at the expense of their consciences. Like the best historians Ellis keeps the human drama in the forefront. You get to know Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and others as well as the historical record allows. You feel the weight on their shoulders.

            The author comes up short only in his depiction of Thomas Jefferson. As he did in his biography of Jefferson, American Sphinx, Ellis attempts to marry the contradictory parts of Jefferson’s character, particularly in regard to Jefferson’s professed distaste for the institution of slavery and his unwillingness to seize the opportunities to do anything about it. He is just as unsuccessful as he was in the biography, and we are left with a portrait of a man who may have been nothing more than a hypocrite.

            Not withstanding Ellis's inability to reinforce Jefferson’s status as a hero while humanizing him, Ellis succeeds with honors. He is uniquely able to educate readers on the winding road that was the birth of the country. David McCullough has assumed the de facto role of America’s Historian Laureate, but Joseph Ellis’s name deserves to be spoken in the same breath.

WRATH OF THE TODDLER (pt. 1)

            Dubious Lee’s hair, black and graying at the temples, was gelled back solid. His face glowed a purchased (or, in his case, stolen) bronze. He cut a dashing, devious figure in his hand-tailored stealth-black-and-spun-gold samite Armani business armor.

            The great conference table – emblazoned with the wraith-like sigil of his initials – straddled the length of his conference lair. Dubious Lee stood at its head, hands planted on the tabletop, shoulders hunched, and addressed his guests. “Allow me to explain why I’ve summoned you here. We four, as motley a menagerie of malevolence as we may be, have one thing in common.

            “Metalhead. You were once a bountiful bouquet of beauty. The Muse of Metal from Motorhead to Ministry, you served your beloved gods with the exquisite élan of a pliant, purposeful priestess. You supplied your idols with everything from musical motivation to coital comforts… until a certain enterprising young attorney tasked with defending a paramour of yours from a possession charge threw you under the proverbial bus. Forced to flee for your freedom, you were subsequently saddled with your sad cephalic circumstances.”

            Metalhead nodded her metal head.

            “Alfobet Soope. You were a gridiron god, a paragon of pigskin poetry possessing powers unparalleled. And then you were banned from the sport, forbidden forever from practicing your precious profession. You were not guilty of employing controlled contraband or paraphernalia of a proliferated potency. You were merely utilizing your naturally bestowed abilities. Yes, grandstanding megalomaniacs are perfectly welcome in professional football… provided said egotism fails to imbue you with preternatural powers… powers that were exposed by our litigious little friend.”

            Alfobet Soope puffed up his chest, thrust out his chin with peacock pride.

            “Titmouse. It was that self-same servant of the state who convicted you in that cockamamie kangaroo court. It was he who successfully moved to incarcerate you in that godforsaken military prison. It was he who suggested subjecting you to those excruciating experiments, resulting in your tragic transmogrification from routine run-of-the-mill rapist… into Titmouse, mutated mammary molester.”

            The anthropomorphic rodent gnashed his teeth with a hiss.

            “As for myself, I was a titan, the inherent incarnation of invincible industry. My power, prestige and profit were positively perplexing. I changed the course of commerce. Why, I invented going green. I heeled my holdings with the homeless, reaped my resources with runaways, and fueled my factories with the blood of aborted babies. And our mutual friend ruined me! He is singularly responsible for the death of the legendary Leland DuBois and the birth of the dastardly Dubious Lee!

            “I have summoned you all here for one purpose…

            “To destroy Simple Country Lawyer!”

            A collective groan filled the conference lair. “We’ve been through this before, Lee,” Metalhead lamented.

            “What do you mean?”

            “I mean, this is it. Every time you call us here you give us the same limp-dick speech about, let’s kill Simple Country Lawyer – and it always gets fucked up.”

            Alfobet Soope agreed. “Yeah, y’all don’t know how to exact vengeance on a mutherfucka. Y’all gotta bide your time, you know what I’m sayin’? Lull a mutherfucka in a false sense of security. Then ya go up for the ball and here come the safety ‘cause he in a disguised zone but I figured that shit before the snap. He go up with me so I take the ball and jam the end in his throat, ‘cause there that space between the helmet and the top of the pads and I can do that ‘cause I agiler than the average mutherfucka. I take the ball in for six and run back and shit in the mutherfucka’s grill and Ima draw a flag for it, but I don’t give a fuck ‘cause Ima fuck his woman so good she throw a flag on that nigga.”

            “Are you finished?” Lee asked. “And don’t say the n-word.”

            “I am the n-word.”

            “Silence.”

            “Look, Lee,” Metalhead started, “if we’re gonna take out Simple Country Lawyer, then none of this pussyfooting pussy shit you’re all hot and bothered for. I say we go in guns blazing in a berserker fucking rage, burn him down and salt the fucking earth.”

            Dubious Lee shook his head. “The Lawyer is far too facile to fall for a hotbed of hostility.”

            “Well, your namby-pamby shit’s yet to produce any – ” Metalhead stopped as she caught Titmouse from the corner of her eye. “What the fuck are you looking at?”

            Titmouse quickly looked from her tits to her eyes. “Nothing,” he said.

            “You were staring at my tits, weren’t you?”

            "Sssso what if I wassss?”

            “I will fuck your vermin ass up!”

            Titmouse leaned forward with a happy glint in his eye. “Yessss. Anger me, bitch.”

            “Bitch, I’ll make you my bitch!”

            Dubious Lee cried, “Silence, both of you!”

            “See,” Alfobet Soope chimed in, “y’all don’t know how to run a meeting. You gotta – ”

            “Silence!”

            Alfobet Soope rolled his eyes. “Fine. What ya got planned? Giant death ray?”

            “An army of mutated something-or-other?” guessed Metalhead.

            “Turn him into a feissssty little filly with big titssss and pointy nipplessss?”

            Lee shook his head with a satisfied grin. “No, my contemptuous comrades, no. My plan is one – ”

            “Chinky nipplessss!” blurted Titmouse.

            “No – and don’t say that word?”

            “‘Nipplessss?’”

            “No. The c-word.”

            Metalhead said, “He never said ‘cunt.’”

            “‘Chink’ – and don’t say that c-word either.”

            “But I have one.”

            “No, damn you!”

            “‘Gooky’ nipplessss?” ventured Titmouse.

            “No! Just refer to them as ‘nipples.’”

            Titmouse considered this for a moment. “Oh, I ssssee – nipplessss.”

            Alfobet Soope leapt out of his seat. “Yo, if he gets to call pointy ones ‘nipples,’ I get to call the big dark ones ‘niggles.’”

            Dubious Lee slammed his fist onto the table. “No one may call them anything other than plain, simple, unadorned nipples!”

            Metalhead asked, “What if they’re pierced?”

            “SILENCE!!!”