Author Archive for M. Toole

Ropas Sucias

Deer Signs Stupid

Reasoning not because deer don’t read but because signs in English not Venison, a rare and ancient tongue not related to any other language than Ibioux . Even the elk, and especially the moose have no idea what the deer are saying either.

Mandate – what Donald of Orange will find out he does not have.

JC: Julius Caesar — Named as one of the the great fornicators of antiquity by historians, a plateau he inhabited until that bloody day in the Roman Senate.

The Denver Post: Awarded again for micro-coverage of the Denver Broncos and Adams County shootings.

Before we press on into the foggy leeway freeway that is called reality let us reflect for a moment on the two Giant Questions that no one has successfully undressed. Where did we come here from? Where do we go after this? Everyone from astro-biologists to strip mall preachers will present their side of this, the big story…

Genocide spelled backwards is ediconeg but in life’s unforgiving mirror it’s still GENOCIDE.

LIAR”S POKER

Polly Shell’s peekaboo pump hung for dear life on satin tapping toes keeping time to Miles Davis. Senses perched, peering from her loft office onto Market in the old warehouse turned bistro and baseball barrio, she sighed. She dangled her two pretty legs, assets often more valuable than four years of college in this hardtack profession.

     Scanning the files newly strewn across the floor she daydreamed.

     “Look at that…the Louise DeHaviland murder from 2001 and the abduction of Sara Inkworme up in Cheyenne. That was a strange one. That cowboy couldn’t have been more than 14. Both incidents remain unsolved. No criminals brought to justice like they’d have you believe on television.

     “Wow! There’s a quagmire of major proportion…the Jack Jameson murder. Talk was he wanted out but there was no getting out. Gangland stuff in the Rockies! No indictments at all. Pretty slick.”

     The voice of her secretary buzzed her back to the present.

     “You’re eleven o’clock, a Mr. Callow is here,” she said. “He reeks of cologne and he looks a little rough at the edges. Should I send him in or send him home with tips on personal hygiene?”

     Suddenly Polly Shell remembered the rude little man who had continually interrupted her investigation a few nights before.

     “Oh nuts” she thought. “I thought when I told him to call the office he would get the brush off. I guess I was too subtle.”

     “Yes, send him in,” she snapped, thinking she’d make quick work of the intrusion. She opened her desk drawer and checked her 45. Her secretary opened the door and escorted a wrinkled, yellowish, dwarf-like creature into Polly’s office. He was squat, small-boned and looked like he’d spent the night in a cave. His skin was blue-white like he had never seen the sun. He shook her hand without making eye contact.

     “Hello Miss Shell. I’m Leche Callow. You may remember me from Brennan’s. He flashed a seesaw smile, exposing a rung of jagged teeth that resembled the Sneffels Range or better a batch of half-broken yellow-green bottles from a carnival shooting gallery.

     Wondering what this repulsive little man could want she pretended not to know him.

     “I bought you a drink at  Brennan’s last Friday,” he pressed.

     “Oh, yes of course and thank you Mr…

     “Callow, Leche Callow Miss.”

     She looked at him waiting for him to state his business but he was busy eyeballing her from head to toe. His eyes then stuck on her cleavage. Even after all of her encounters with creeps in this shamus racquet this little man made her feel uncomfortable.

     “What can I do for you Mr Callow?” she asked finally.

     He continued to gaze, now stuck on her legs.

     Oh, sorry Miss Shell. I had hoped to talk to you about some urgent business, some information that might be of great interest to you in your capacity.”

     Callow had no idea where to take the dialogue. He had no information or good reason to be in her office unless infatuation served as the key. Yes, he had the hots and hoped that this face to face might help his chances of bedding this beauty. A constant flow of bad whiskey and cigars had clouded his lowlife judgment. He was delusional. His breath smelled bad.

     Dropping his eyes to the floor Leche Callow landed on the Jameson file, now resting on top of the others. He latched on to his only course of action.

     “It’s about the Jack Jameson case,” he said. “I know who killed him and did away with the body. If my sources prove true I may even be able to pinpoint the whereabouts of dumping.

     Polly looked right through Leche Callow not knowing where all of this gandering might take her.

     “Interesting?” she flinched, trying not to display her growing disdain for Callow.

     Do you? you loathsome little rodent, she thought to herself.

     “That case has been closed for almost a year,” she frowned, brushing him off again. “I doubt whether your information would bring it back to life.”

     “But I knew Jack Jameson and I know…

     “You knew Jack Jameson?” interrupted Polly now slightly more interested.

     “Well, not as a friend per say. None of us really knew each other. It was better that way in the business at hand. Nobody knew anymore than was necessary to conclude business. It was clear enough that they wanted to be rid of him because he wanted to quit the business and he knew every contact, every drop point, every route, every face…”

     “And what was that business? Mr Callow, if I might ask,” said Polly now growing anxious to get the little creep out of her office.

     “I’d rather not say although I have paid my debt to society for those transgressions and am no longer on parole,” said Callow, his swampy, minikin eyes drifting back to her topography, making her quite uncomfortable again.

     “Creep,” she thought as his gaze once again fell to the Jameson file in the pile on the floor.

     “We would, of course, have to go to the police with your story, if it can be verified. Can it be verified, Mr Callow?

     “With a few days I can put all the pieces of the puzzle together for you,” he said buying time. “Right now some of the details are sketchy. As you yourself said the case has been dormant for almost a year.”

     “I see. Let me consider al of this and call you.”

     “OK, said Callow a bit disappointed that she hadn’t taken more of his bait. “You can leave me a message at Brennan’s.”

* * *

     The email was unnerving on the heels of yesterday’s testimony. It said simply that the authorities were reopening the Jack Jameson case. Apparently the foolish rantings of an elderly convict were not those of an madman after all. Had his chatter led the harvest of a bound body buried near of one of the many Buffalo Bill landmarks in the foothills. 

     She read; The hoards of tourists visiting Bill’s graves, souvenir shops and playhouses over the summer reportedly squeezed the rocky soil forcing the stiff upward, exhuming it from its poorly concealed, shallow grave. It was then run over by a near-blind RVver and nibbled at by magpies before police and coroner arrived with coffee and pastries.

     She called a friend that she had once worked with in homicide. He verified that new evidence had emerged and that the cops had already dredged the lake netting a few trout and two more bodies, believed to be cement workers due to their odd and cumbersome footwear.  From early indications the primary victim had been executed and buried last year before the freeze. He would let her know more.

     “Too much,” she said to herself as she got off the phone. “Could that little creep really be legitimate?” After pondering her options she realized she had but one and called Callow at Brennan’s. They agreed to meet that afternoon.

     

Here

Two hours later she picked her way out of the bright sun into a dark tavern, trying to make out the shiftless figures humping the bar. It was 98 degrees out in the high desert day and the air conditioner was humming right along with Callow’s mouth. She then focused on her target sitting at the mahogany trough. He had seen her first, his catty peepers having adapted to the stale, dim light.

     “Hi ya sweetie,” he blasted in a loud voice that drown out the jukebox momentarily. “What are you drinking?”

     “Just coffee,” she whispered trying to tone him down and avoid further attention.

     One coffee!” he solicited. “You’re looking good,” he said shooting a shot of brown liquid and making a face. “Glad you could come,” he piped so the other boozers could hear him. “It’s about time this place exhibited some class.”

     “Is this a good place to talk?” she asked. “Is it private?”

     He stole a furtive glance and motioned for her to sit on the next stool watching her do so with great interest.

     “You want to get private, heh?” he asked loudly. “Intimate?”

     She quickly changed gears and sat down at the bar, the idea of sharing a booth suddenly making her sick.

     “With legs like yours you should never have to buy a drink…”

     She almost puked. Leche Callow was bad enough but some of the other mutants that bellied up at Brennan’s were even worse. One round-headed chubby chucklehead sang to himself, another worn woman fondled her rocks glass, wrapped in a frazzled bar napkin. Leaned against the wall was a stooped figure in a cheap checkered sports coat who hid his face in his Denver Bears’ cap, smiling and listening intently to a host of mindless confabulation, painfully short on repartee.

     “Bartender get everybody one!” screamed Callow drawing attention to his congenial juxtaposition with this lovely female. “Even Leper down there,” he squawked gesturing toward the checkered hump in earshot at the end of the bar.

     “You got any money, Callow?” was the response.

     Leche Callow pulled out a twenty-dollar bill, snapped it fondly and told the bartender to keep the change. He then turned to Shell with the amps of alcohol engaged.

     “Jack Jameson,” he smiled, “was killed by the local drug cartel. He had been in bed with the gangsters for decades and had decided he had had enough. He also had overdue gambling debts. I heard him talking to one of the bosses a few days before he disappeared. It wasn’t friendly.”

     “So the mob had a motive for killing him. He owed them money and he knew too much,” she ventured. “So many wrinkles on the boom-boom trail.”

     She could hardly believe she was in this ratty bar talking to this pathetic little twit as he wormed his way closer to her. She feigned interest not sure what to believe but unwilling to ignore this possible lead. Was it all coincidental that the case popped open right after Leche Callow’s claims? He could actually know something, she winced. He’s such a wretched little pigeon but I am not in the business of cavorting with choirboys.

     “Exactly,” he nodded. “And I know who pulled the trigger and where the deed went down,” lied Callow. “The shooter was from right here in town which seemed odd since they usually brought someone in from Phoenix or Kansas City to do the dirty work.”

     “Are you willing to talk to the police?” she pressed him.

     “I don’t like police. You can do my talking for me. I have names. People like Sam Moonsie and Peg-leg O’Sullivan,” he name dropped far too loudly, claiming he had met the two in jail.

     The conversations at the bar had already returned to the weather, the Broncos and the government with everyone talking at once in slurred monotone…all except for the lump under the Bear’s cap who just listened as Callow’s afternoon lies got bigger and bigger.

* * *

     “This Callow is talking to the cops. Says he knows who killed that Jameson fellow,” said the checkered jacket hump named Raffini, running to the mob which had already gotten wind of the recovered body and the new status of the investigation. He had hoped to earn a few dollars for his information.

     The cartel had wondered what loose ends might be dragging and had already flexed some muscle on the street.

     “He mentioned Sam Moonsie and Peg-leg O’Sullivan and said he knew who ordered the killing. ‘Said he knew Jameson from the I-70 operation. He was talking to some knockout babe in the bar who didn’t look like she belonged with him.”

     “We should done him years ago but nobody thought he was worth a bullet,” said one bow-tied boss in red suspenders . “Tell me, Raffini, where can I find the little stoolie? Where does he hang out these days? Maybe it’s time we shut the door on Callow and his big mouth.”

* * *

     The phone rang heavy on Sunday morning Polly Shell’s apartment. It was her friend in homicide who told her about Callow. He had been run over in the alley behind Brennan’s. Patrons said he had been in the company of two large men who bought him drinks then sat in a booth with him while he drank them. All seemed cordial enough but something just wasn’t kosher.

     The barflies told the police they then saw another man follow Callow out the back door of the tavern into the pitch black night. Then they heard a tires squealing and a loud thump. It had been Peg-leg O’Sullivan behind the wheel. One of the patrons identified him from a police photo. Another claims he saw the hit and run and watched Callow’s listless body fly up in the air and come crashing down. He said he then saw O’Sullivan jump into a car with Callow’s booze benefactors and speed away.b

     O’Sullivan was arrested the next day and after hours of interrogation he fingered the boss in the red suspenders and several other hoodlums associated with the murder of Leche Callow and Jack Jameson. He confessed that he had been the killer, had helped dump Jameson’s body and led the cops to the original murder weapon that he had chucked down a mineshaft at Idaho Springs.

    “It looks like we nailed the bad guys,” said the voice on the other end of the phone. Your conversation with Callow was the catalyst. We found your name and address scrawled on a pad in Peg-leg’s pocket. I’m afraid you were next. These scumbags were dialed in all right.”

     “Too bad about that little fella though,” said the detective “He may have been a lying punk but he turned out to be Jack Jameson’s best friend in the end. – Kevin Haley

Archaeologists Stumble Onto Ruins of Ancient Kegger

(Godin Tepe) Archaeologists digging around the Zagros Mountains in Western Iran have unearthed the remains of a Sumerian kegger probably held millenniums ago. Sumerian art has long depicted people standing around a large vessel, drinking something out of it, with long straws. Up till now archaeologists, headquartered at Texas A & M and Baylor universities believed the liquid substance was either iced tea or Dr. Pepper.

These same researchers were shocked to find that ancient Sumerians were drinking a fermented beverage back in 3500 BC while they, the modern scholars, are unable to procure anything stronger than mineral water in their own counties.

Beer, wine and spirits are also illegal in present day Iran, another progressive redoubt, and site of the discovery.

The archaeologists made no mention of evidence that the ancient Sumerians drank concoctions such as Crown Royal and Coke or Jim Beam and 7-Up, two drinks popular in wetter locales in the evolved Lone Star state.

“As one might imagine the clearing where the kegger was held was quite trashed and the smell from certain residues was overwhelming after almost 4000 years,” said Sibyl Marmotbreath, Director of the Zagros Mountain Excavation.

“There were chairs and tables knocked over and a few plants upturned. One fellow appears to have gone off and left his britches behind. It’s a good thing these party animals hadn’t discovered tobacco yet or the place would have had to be immediately sealed back up.”

Marmotbreath went on to explain that the incredible morning stink associated with reckless beer drinking the night before is due to stale beer in part, but more so to cigarette butts lingering in ashtrays and often to body odor exaggerated by the ingestion of large quantities of alcohol.

An organic chemist at the Van Brewski Museum in Milwaukee, Marmotbreath earned her graduate degree in Yeast Management from the University of Augsburg in 1967. Her doctoral thesis examined related social phenomenon such as pickled eggs, brand loyalty and 3.2 beer.

After scrutinizing the recently unearthed artifacts it seems clear that the Sumerians were big boozers/party animals in the classic sense, according to Marmotbreath who contends that the ancient complex, and literate society of prospering city states emerged as part of a ploy to score large stores of malt, hops and barley from more temperate cultures nearby.

“In short, the Sumerians didn’t mind traveling great distances just to have a few beers,” laughed Marmotbreath, who concluded that the entire discovery had left her and her colleagues quite parched.

   -Kashmir Horseshoe

FEDS BAN STOOGES FILMS ON MILITARY BASES

(Fort Carson, CO) The United States government, reportedly located somewhere in North America, has banned the showing of all Three Stooges films from its environs. The action comes on the heels of violence associated with the trio and a concern for the continuation of strict military discipline.

According to commanders here, the use of pliers on noses, the pulling of hair, indiscriminate slapping and the volatile old poke in the eye trick have become serious problems of epic proportion.

“We want to nip this one in the bud before we end up apologizing to Congress on the subject of collateral damage again,” whooped and shuffled one master sergeant. “Personally I’ll miss all the shenanigans,” he explained, biting down lightly on the ear of an unruly airman before smacking him upside the head with a framing hammer.

While banned on military installations, the Stooges films are still legal on civilian turf. Already several off-base clubs have opened up featuring Larry, Curly and Moe along with the other more traditional barracks entertainment.

“It’s a regular renaissance of stupidity,” beamed the sergeant, rivaled only by American foreign policy since World War II.”

 -Small Mouth Bess

CLASSIC CARTOONS FEATURING BRUTAL DECAPITATION

1. Sylvestor and Tweety Pie in “The Guillotine”

2. Betty Boop in “Bloody Mary”

3. Woody Woodpecker in “Genghis Khan on the Block”

4. Daffy Duck in “Dissected Duckling”

5. Tom & Jerry in “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre”

     -source Heads Have Rolled by Melvin Toole,

      Carnage Brothers, Boston.

McDonald To Visit Rain Forest

(Montrose) Burger clown, Ronald McDonald, announced today that he would go to the Amazon in an attempt to reassure consumers that the fast food industry is concerned about the disappearing rain forest there.

     In town for the gala Walrose Days Ceremonies, commemorating the transformation of productive farmland to a fast food gauntlet of mass merchandising temples, McDonald thanked fat county and city administrators for making it all possible.

     “We couldn’t have done it without you,” he smiled. “What was once depressed farm country is now alive with the familiar signs of the 21st Century. This is the culture that we export to other countries throughout the world.”

     McDonald then outlined his visit the Amazon saying that his main concern is to educate.

     “There has been a lot of criticism aimed at the fast food industry due to clearing of the land for pasture,” said McDonald. “So the peasants of South America want to run cattle on what was once worthless jungle. What does that have to do with us?”

     Scientists say that if the continued clearing of the rain forest does not stop at once it will disappear by 2035. With it go a multitude of plant and animal species, potential cures for disease and maybe a solution to the further deterioration of the ozone.

     “We can open up a few more drive-throughs along the Amazon River so that loggers and burn crews could have a place to stop for lunch. Is that so bad?” he asked.

     A spokesman for the clown refused to elaborate on rumors that fast food giants have been experimenting with synthetic food substitutes in Third World countries in response to the spread of foot and mouth disease and the possibility of another potato blight.

     McDonald’s plan shows some big cajones considering death of chicken magnate, Colonel Sanders at the hands of Putumayoc cannibals in 1982. Violence toward pizza delivery personnel, semis hauling “fresh” chemical breads and talking chihuahuas has been on the rise since that time too.

     And now the U.S. Embassy has issued a restricted travel advisory following the kidnappings of the Burger King and Wendy by Colombian guerrillas last month. It is hoped that the two are currently being held somewhere in the jungle. Corporate executives have as yet refused to respond to ransom demands despite the regular arrival of fingers and toes, allegedly belonging to the captives, at corporate headquarters in the U.S.

     Rumors that the fast food corporations were busy raising an army (dubbed Ronnie’s Freedom Fighters Brigade) to stage a Grenada-like rescue attempt were denied at all levels over the weekend. Desperate pleas that McDonald “lose the nose and hair” and travel incognito have been ignored.

     While in South America, McDonald will present a series of pyramid/nutrition seminars aimed at recruiting indigenous peoples into McDonalds management training programs worldwide. – Manco Copac    

Over-grazing by tourists threatens quality of life

     If bomb-wielding anarchists get their way it could be mandatory for out-of-state tourists to possess visas and pass basic intelligence tests as effort to jury visitors in 2027 gets lift in Colorado House.

     Other subjects undressed in this week’s forum include proposals to limit credit card use by rewarding tourists for using cash, road blocks and detours and municipal user fees not exceeding 25% of expenditures.

     “We want to attract the right kind of visitors. We don’t call them tourists, a term with bad associations that we deem offensive. If the current traffic continues we will have nothing to offer the thinking traveler and our home will become a wasteland for everyone.

     In a what is seen as a particularly desperate move, one elected official suggested offering all expense paid trips to Disneyland for those who cooperate with the new limitations while waiting for their invitations to Colorado.

     “We don’t want to kill the golden goose, we just want to limit the size of the eggs she lays,” said one rational voice.

“We’re in this world as tenants. The only thing we take with us is our good deeds.”  – Yiddish saying