Author Archive for M. Toole
Plot to Assassinate Teocalli Foiled
(Crested Butte) A diabolical plot to rub out populist 13,208-foot Teocalli Mountain has been thwarted by undercover agents here. The agents, operating as is the custom from their warm beds, arrested several Freedonian terrorists and recovered a large cache of single-bolt air rifles and a wheelbarrow full of contraband explosives stashed in a false wall at the Talk of the Town Tavern on Elk Avenue. The bar, long a hotbed of socialization, was not charged in the indictment, although authorities admitted the owner of the janitorial service that discovered the stash looked like an anarchist they once saw on television many years ago.
“We cannot expect people operating a bar that is painted purple to know who has access to exterior wall space,” said a local marshal to federal investigators. “How can I charge them as an accessory to anything! There is no conspiracy here! Now leave me alone or I’ll have your hybrid assault vehicle towed to Wyoming!”
A safe but shaken Teocalli remains in stable, but guarded condition at Maroon Bells Snowmass Wilderness Clinic and is expected to be released later today.
“It is difficult to imagine anyone so twisted that they would attempt to assassinate a 13,000-foot mountain,” said the marshal. “Usually they go for the 14ers.”
Incidents like this one have a strong precedent in Crested Butte, however, as kidnappers grabbed Snodgrass Mountain at Gunsight Point in 1954 and Rosebud Gulch terrorists attempted to drown Matchless Mountain in Taylor Reservoir some five years later.
Perhaps the most disruptive act of coercion took place in the mid-Seventies when the Amax Mining Company attempted to shanghai the seductive, yet illusive Red Lady. A happy ending ensued as members of the High Country Citizens Alliance swat team stormed the Amax redoubt from their stronghold to the north and freed the Lady. In the face of stiff resistance, not to mention the plummeting price of molybdenum, the mineral pirates retreated to their fortified desks in New York City.
– Princess Irm Peawit
The Poker Game From Hell
The following was whispered to me in perfect pentameter by a large black bear that I met in the alley one winter night behind Duckett’s Market in Ouray. Why the bear chose to share the story is still not clear.
Jimmy John Card and pal, Chip McCann
sat at Callahan’s table, dealing out bum hands.
The green felt was honored, a tenderfoot from France
Who brandished fine cutlery and a gun in his pants.
Through shuffles and side bets throats cleared, poker stares
Drinks all around and in the fourth chair a bear.
That was me…the fourth player disguised in a cloak
though my hairy exterior, suspect when I spoke.
But first human misgivings about cheats and bold liars
were confirmed by my chip stack and their gold dust desires.
It started out friendly as the cards came around
and the chatter subsided as the wagers laid down.
It was Card with three aces and the Frenchman with four
that started the ruckus, accusations and more.
Then a blessed distraction of dance hall girl charm
kept the well armed bartender from sounding alarm.
The Frenchman collected while Card bit his lip
and the lady departed with a drink and a tip.
Let Charley sit in, squawked an anxious McCann
Five’s a crowd said the others, poker faces in hand.
I grabbed the deck quickly, calm invited, cards shuffled
crisply, dealing them out, smoothing feathers just ruffled.
This time it was Card who raised up the bets
at each turn he went higher, it was he and I left.
What ya gonna do, bear? chided Card through his cigar
I’m staying I growled. Let’s see the last card.
I couldn’t believe it—Lady Luck’s hand of fate
with the nine of spades down I had pulled a small straight.
You’re cheatin screamed Card, when he saw all the spades.
I stared back at his pistol and death’s felt masquerade.
Now hold on a minute! checked McCann with a stare
This bear here is honest his spades fair and square.
And Card was placated though the loss was a jolt
and under the table he fingered his Colt.
Again cards were delivered and the bets were laid down
Plastic angels with wishes, nothing showin’ but frowns.
The pot’s right, and healthy, let the winner surmise
all the players were drooling at the sight of the prize.
I’ll raise ten said the Frenchman and have no regrets
Hold your horses said Card, the pot’s not quite yours yet.
Card’s hand was one color all diamonds in fact
The Frenchman held three queens, backed up by two jacks.
When the cards hit the table it was Card that first drew
his silver revolver provoking the coup
and McCann pulled his rifle out from under his seat
and fired close range then made a retreat
The bullets dropped Card who had time to react
and his effort on target hit McCann in the back.
The Frenchman then gazed at Gehenna’s plastic treasure
as a bullet tore through him then one more for good measure.
It ain’t me that shot Frenchy, was the bartender’s finger
that pulled the slick trigger—no reason to linger.
The saloon crowd ducked down so the spittoons confide
while I grabbed up the money and made haste for outside
Swiping the pot was not much of a chore
the tin-horn bartender shaking, while he cleaned up the floor.
Three dead men were the bounty, their souls with Old Scratch
and a black bear with money makes quite a nice catch.
I took every penny and bought drinks for my friends
who couldn’t believe I had come to such ends.
Now my fortunate windfall is down to one stack
and I’m hoping that devil don’t want his money back.
– Melvin Toole
MEXICO BUYS AMTRAK
(Puerto Escondido) The Mexican government has announced the purchase of Amtrak effective May 1. The deal was consummated sometime early this morning when nobody was awake yet. Negotiations have been going on since the weekend regarding the transfer of the railroad.
“The North American Free Trade Agreement has paved the way for this and other acquisitions by our neighbors to the south,” said an Obama Administration spokesperson.
The new owners of Amtrak have promised to fire most employees of the railroad and clean the bathrooms at least once a month. The train attendants are being released due to a pattern of rudeness, and the question of filthy bathrooms is being undressed due to basic interstate health codes.
“I remember when taking the train was a wonderful experience,” said Olivia Heartburne of Helper, Utah. “Now, due in part to a bad attitude displayed by Amtrak employees and absolutely no adherence to timetables, it is barely a step up from the bus.”
Depending on the general reception of its initial programs Mexitrak may invest millions in revamping abandoned railroad lines and laying track in remote regions from Maine to California.
“Someday I will be able to visit my boyfriend Willy all the way over in Colona without so much as hitchin’ up the Clydesdales,” added Heartburne. “Won’t that be something!”
Editor’s Note: The once popular practice of tying innocent maidens to railroad tracks prior to the arrival of the charging freight train has severely diminished around these parts since the Denver-Rio Grande pulled most of its tracks out of the Uncompahgre Valley in 1975. Classical villains and sunny day wretches, often dressed in black, enjoyed this recreational outlet and usually were successful in exhorting funds from worried relatives or favors from frightened fillies. Others did it just for the pure joy of it all. It is this group that we will examine in our next segment of Rocky Mountain Mammaries located somewhere in this paper.
-Uncle Pahgre
Cruel and Unusual Punishment
Part II
As our reader may recall: In the January 4 posting Ma MacElliot was thrown in jail after an indictment for her sixth DUI. In addition to the inconvenience of the slammer, Ma is now forced to deal with a troupe of bothersome, deadweights trying to better their haut monde standing by living in her dilapidated trailer and feeding her cats (creatures which she does not quarter there, nor tolerate on the premises). Now the pests have taken to visiting her behind bars further invading her privacy.
The next morning the visits continued. Apparently Thursday was Visitor’s Day too. A tearful, hunched over figure in black emerged from the shadows of the minimum security visiting station. It was Ma’s grandmother. She was crying.
“Oh hello Margaret, what is it this time? Loose a tooth? Break a nail? Accidently drop a faulty nuclear device on Grand Junction?”
“Hello, Ma. I can barely stand to see you like this. I heard what happened and just wanted to visit you. Is there anything you need?”
“Fewer visits would be nice. I have had most of my kin here already asking for favors. What do you want?”
“Want? Oh please my dear. I don’t want anything. I just hoped to….”
“Hoped to feed my cats, water my plants, drive my car around?” said Ma.
“Well, the place is empty for four months and I am tired of the shelter,”
was her frustrated response.
“No, mom. My trailer ain’t much but at least it’s standing. What about the doublewide I gave you in 2006? How about the money that was supposed to pay your electric bill last fall? As long as you like Polish vodka more than American heat I will refrain from investing in your comforts.”
“Well you insolent, unappreciative daughter….just like your father, no respect for the woman who brought you up in this cold world. I must have been insane to come here. You’ll see me no more!”
“Good. I just got rid of my lazy husband and now you all have descended on me. OK, you win…I have $47 in an STP can on the porch shelf. Take it all, unless Merle snatched it on his way out the door. I don’t have anything but that lousy, old trailer house and the clothes on my back. Do you want those too?
A prison guard approached Ma’s cell and told her she would be receiving a call from her son, Blacky, the next day. He wanted to talk about what she would be doing with her trailer for the next four months. He was the worst of all of the MacElliots.
“I thought he was doing time on an honor farm in California,” she muttered back.
She remembered when they had stayed with her, not all at once, but a few at a time, eating her food, drinking her beer, using her toilet paper, sleeping on her furniture. If even one of them had offered to pay me back…or even taken out the trash it would be different.
First cousin Sal moved in for a few days back in 1988 and it was 1989 before I could pry him out of the place. Thanks to my good biker buddies, the Lil’ Sons of Bitches, over in Cortez, he won’t be coming around again.
Then it was an in-law, Little Eva and her seven or eight kids, none of whom are potty trained. I’ve had whiners and wannabees, bullies and bullshitters, muscleheads and moochers, thieves and gladhanders…and all from one family!
“They can’t be after my paltry Social Security check, can they?” she pondered. “Fortunately most of them have yet to figure out where that money comes from and none know quite how to go about cashing something like a check.”
“You gotta work some to get the check when you get older,” Ma tried to explain to Eva. “And you have never worked so chances are you won’t be getting a check.”
Then the second wave hit. Unbeknown to Ma the brood, with legal and extended bloodlines, had stuck around for scene two. The visits increased and length and intensity. Her sister complained about her cousin. Her aunt could not stand her brother-in-law. Her son had flattened his uncle’s nose. There was nothing to eat. They were cutting off the power on Tuesday.
They had yet to cross the threshold to her tin palace but they were camped all around it. They were perched, waiting for her to blink. Waiting for her to cave-in to their demands. She would not.
One thing about sitting around a jail cell all day is that it makes one stubborn. It also gives one a lot of time to think things through. Aunt Cecile has rented a studio apartment in town so as to be close for visits. Uncle Al has hooked up a shower in the barn. Eva had registered her seven or eight monsters in the local school.
“I had my ducks in a row, damn it,” mused Ma.
The next afternoon Ma recounted her family trials with her prison counselor, Samuel Dulles Sharpe, who offered a supportive ear. He was so tired of But I’m innocent hard luck stories told in the bowls of another failed institution. He was so bored. This woman sitting across from him was an imbecile. She saw the world in black and white and he desperately needed diversion. He decided to encourage her, willing to clean up the mess afterwards. Besides, he would be retiring in eight months and he began to see that a stirring of this particular pot would be a fitting farewell to the prison hierarchy.
Sharpe smiled and told her that since she had only violated a state law she was sent to a state lockup and that since she was considered low security risk she had ended up here. He said that she would have committed a more serious offense she would be in the cat bird’s seat, and doing her time in maximum security, much nicer digs than the county jail.
She listened without a word.
“Or if you had really done it up and committed a federal offense, like, say, advocating the violent overthrow of the United States government, you’d be sitting in a bright, new cell. Clean sheets and a view! Watched over by G-men who would monitor you for terrorist leanings and anarchist tendencies.
“You’re stock would skyrocket if you were a federal prisoner,” said Sharpe muffling a smile, who had grown cynical after 30 years in the system. He saw no rehabilitation or much attempt at helping the convicts prepare to reenter society.
He laughed out loud.
This whole façade is just a holding tank where petty criminals make all the right connections so as to learn the tools of the trade and prosper later when they rejoin the real world, he thought.
“Or you could bribe and guard, or plan an escape…or maybe tie a bed sheet out your window,” he whispered to Ma, his puffy, red eyes darting back and forth in silly apprehension of snoops and eavesdroppers.
Further obsessed with her immediate enigma, Ma meekly asked about the food at the federal joint and wondered if her family members could ever find her in one of those bright, new cells.
He laughed again.
After Ma asked enough legal questions to pass the Bar the session came to a close. Ma had learned three things:
First, if she had committed a felony she’d have done more time but maybe in a max security facility that severely limited visits, maybe even solitary confinement if she earned it. Second, if she had violated a federal law she would be going to a shiny federal prison somewhere between Homestead and Nome where they’d never find her. Third: It wasn’t too late to secure a little peace – Advocate the violent overthrow of the US government? That doesn’t seem too far-fetched.
Sharpe, now enjoying his bit of system sabotage, accompanied Ma to the prison library where she consumed everything she could about political subversion, bomb building, militant history, civil disobedience, Lenin, Trotsky, Huxley, Mencken, Orwell, Pearse, Einstein and Darwin. She had never been motivated to read anything but supermarket tabloids and lottery tickets before but now she was on the verge of dismantling her previous existence and embracing a new life as a political extremist! She now had a purpose. It felt good.
To be continued on February 4 posting
Snowboarder Collides with Blimp
(Crested Butte) An insurgent snowboarder sustained slight injuries today after crashing into the famous Goodyear Blimp high above town.
According to unreliable but amusing ski patrol sources the snowboarder lost control while “negotiating the totally hairy Macadamian Grunge Spinal Sequence at about 3 in the afternoon”. Missing his reentry coordinates by inches due to early ice buildup, the shredder was hurled through immediate space, slamming hard into the right side of the blimp.
The airship was present in local skies to monitor weather patterns, validate USFS drone use and to support law enforcement in its attempts to arrest everyone. Until this morning it had been disguised as a large prune so as not to alarm the local, mega-superstitious tribes that reside here in smoky river redoubts and burgeoning lice cave bivouacs.
“The blimp is fine and the kid would have been OK too if he hadn’t insisted on returning to earth,” snickered a patrolman below the scene. “Gravity can be nasty business.”
The snowboarder, here on vacation from Gunnison, called it his best day ever on the mountain. Still unidentified, he had cut afternoon classes at Western and hitched to the Butte.
“They don’t teach you about these kinds of experiences in physics class,” said the snowboarder.
According to spatial experts the chances of the wreck were all but mathematically impossible.
This episode marks yet another bizarre accident on the slopes this year. Why just last week second gnome owner and Oklahoma skier, Jimmy Jeff Gland ran head-on into a cow elk on East River Lift. Both survived despite a childish fistfight that broke out between macho lift operators and a herd of irritated bull elk that had arrived on the scene. Back in December Bebel Mateus, an attractive, exotic dancer/skier from Rio, was reportedly snatched from the Paradise Headwall (just as the lifts closed for the day) by dark, murky beings thought to be aliens from another galaxy or something.
– Fred Zeppelin
Aliens to gain legal status through jury duty
(El Lay) Immigrants of various genres can gain quick citizenship by performing jury duty according to the department of Naturalization and Meltdown officials here. The alpha program has been approved by the Congress, after a slight filibuster by House GOP stalwarts, and signed into law by the President so as to avoid a shutdown of the legal system.
“The Congress was anxious to get on with vacation and Barack, caught off guard by the non-partisan action, signed it as part of a compromise aimed at implementing a host of future free trade fantasies generated from White House.
Proponents of the action say that most Americans would rather take a beating than sit on a jury. The new arrangement not only fills this void but allows aliens a new path to citizenship and a chance to gain respect in their new country.
Critics insist it is just another way to avoid the responsibilities of Democracy.
“It’s like buying your way out of military service or sending someone else to the ballot box to do one’s bidding,” said a representative from Louisiana who voted against the measure.
Sponsors of the legislation say that the access to legal codes and procedures helps new arrivals assimilate faster. They agree that language barriers would have to be overcome and a redefining of what constitutes a peer group might need revamping. For the first few months sign language will be implemented, then translators next to the court reporters.
“The immigrant seeks acceptance,” said one senator that favors the changes. “We feel that the presence of warm bodies in the jury is better than no jury at all. At least it looks better than empty seats. Let’s face the facts for a change. Do we want a jury of malcontents playing with their cell phones or a jury of frightened immigrants intent on making it in a new culture?”
The senator went on to say that she favors trading deadbeat Americans for motivated immigrants any day of the week.
“Many Americans have lost sight of what made the country in the first place. They think they are owed something for nothing,” she explained. “I assure you,” she smiled, “immigrants do not fall into this category. The continued rise in no-shows has the legal community baffled. Despite threats of fines and even jail time many of us see jury duty as inconvenience rather than a right and responsibility. If you were on trial wouldn’t you want a jury of attentive and motivated peers?” she asked.
Often prospective jurors see a loss of income this justice for all business. Although employees are generally compensated the self-employed are not. Contrary to most current theories the unemployed often see jury duty as a chance to get out and do something. They see the stipend as a way to buy lunch for the day. It appears to boil down to a lackl
uster populace shirking its duty while new arrivals are anxious to prove their worth.
Meanwhile critics, who offer no other viable solution to the void, continue to paint a picture of ethnic and cultural chaos if aliens are brought into the courtroom at this capacity. They fear that the definitions applied here might invite participation by far more exotic and bizarre aliens from other planets, stars and galaxies yet to be discovered.
“Imagine a jury made up of people from Mexico and Mars!” said a representative from Arizona, knuckles one with the pavement. “We don’t like it. We prefer to ignore the problems and embrace fairy tale endings on social issues.”
One particularly vocal senator slammed the negative impacts of floundering while the system caves in from its own imbalances.
“I’ve seen every episode of Star Trek 15 times and have read the Martian Chronicles twice,” he said. “My brother was involved in the Apollo Mission from the outset and my dad was big into telescopes and experimental kites back in the Fifties. We should begin looking at all these alien types as resources and not threats. I myself have had numerous brushes with astral travel so don’t get cosmic with me in this chamber!”
– Sergio Jingles
