The Four Muskateers

Serge Kliponovitch recently escaped after three years in an East European asylum for the criminally insane. He isn't smart enough to have engineered it himself. There was an explosion that broke down some walls, so he simply ran with the others.

How Serge got to America, or more to the point, why he was even considered for citizenship, is anybody's guess. He lives on public benefits in a small subsidized house on a side street. He has put a sign in his kitchen window, "Halloween is the Only Law Here!" Nobody is sure whether this a statement about his personal values or a sarcastic observation about his new country, or possibly just the neighborhood.

The street gets lots of foot traffic because of nearby churches, schools, and other municipal enterprises. There are dense bushes in front of Serge's house near the sidewalk. This is a perfect hiding place for an insane man who spends all his spare time in leopard-skin underpants, waiting for anybody who comes along, daydreaming about coming right out after them, cruelly pinching with both hands, screeching like an enraged eagle. He imagines the look of shock and terror in their faces. These ideas give Serge almost immeasurable satisfaction. He is a very sick and alienated man. This is why we must call him the "Weirdo".

The Weirdo's unusual appearance and furtive belligerent demeanor are, of course, for naming purposes, sufficient unto themselves. Some even say that he's a "queer" but nobody has come forth to corroborate this, which is understandable since his former address is such a very long way from here. The psychological pressure building in the Weirdo's brain is nearing volcanic intensity. When will he finally blow his cool and totally disgrace himself? The neighborhood kids have given him a compound moniker, and love to sing:

"He's the "Halloween-Weirdo-Queer.

Normal men and women don't

want that kind around here."

There is another pathetic character out and about these days and most call him the Bicycle Pig. He is an intelligent man and used to work in computers for the federal government. Somehow he sustained brain damage and now lives in a tall upscale federal apartment house.

The Bicycle Pig cultivates an image of almost biblical humility, but just beneath this phony veneer is one of the narrowest, most bigoted people on earth, self-absorbed to the point of near catatonia. He has a strange preference for the lower elements in society. Some say that he has a tattoo on his chest depicting a tribesman sucking a cow's anal orifice to relieve the animal's constipation, but who has seen it, or would want to? At the bus stop he says "Good Morning!" to every third world gutter crawler who passes, while snubbing the productive, clean living people of the neighborhood. This is probably some kind of fallout from his government job training.

Every day the Bicycle Pig takes his brightly pained bicycle and rides the city bus up to the top of the highest hill in town. Then with his big sow belly and backpack he gets on the bicycle and comes slowly down the hill enjoying the scenery as he goes. What is in the backpack and where he goes for the rest of the day nobody has figured out. Some say there is a shoeshine kit in the pack, others say it is ladies clothing

There is also in the neighborhood a very resourceful chap named Jake Povitch who is fastidious in his practice of Libertarian principles and who has absolutely no tolerance for those who are not. He is a very tough man and knows how to fight in many styles. He has had several unpleasant conversations with the Bicycle Pig, and now whenever he sees the fat boy approaching, calls out "Here come's ole Sow Belly."

Jake likes good classic machinery and drives a restored 1962 300SL Gullwing Mercedes. It is more than just a classic. The degree of performance enhancing modifications Jake has put into this car would render it racetrack worthy in any country on earth, even Italy.

Jake has an eighteen year old sister who lives nearby. Recently he has become distressed to learn that a big dumb man named Lemuel Hoskins has begun to harass her sexually. She keeps saying "No", but the fellow just won't hear it.

In the neighborhood there is also a curvaceous little blonde policewoman named Susan Lauder who walks a daily beat. Susan is attracted to men in the normal way, but due to an violently abusive former husband, doesn't trust men at all. She is currently a practicing lesbian and lives quietly with her girlfriend.

Jake, who lives near Susan, desires her almost beyond the point of obsession. He has made a great many overtures, but has met with no success. He can't even get a smile out of her.

Susan likes kids well enough, but she tries to discourage any unnecessary familiarity that might render her job more complicated than it otherwise has to be, and so she cultivates a brusque formal military bearing. For this reason the kids have given her a special name too, and love to sing:

"Boss Officer Sue!

She's a soldier straight and true.

A real fine friend to me and you.

Boss Officer Sue!"

Whenever the Weirdo is outside working in his garden and sees Susan coming, he ducks out of sight. She has noticed this, and suspects that all is not right with this man, but in checking up on him, found that he has not broken any laws, so what can she do?

There's another real character in the neighborhood. He calls himself Jeremy Deerfield. He was sired by an alcoholic Norwegian Merchant Marine man with an African whore during a three day drunken stupor in Capetown. How and why he could have ended up in America living on benefits is also anybody's guess. Are those assholes in Washington deliberately trying to destroy America or are they just moral morons? Probably both,

Jeremy lives in a subsidized apartment house on the ground floor. Although confined to a wheelchair, most days manages to get out around the neighborhood. He has a funny way of laughing, as though he were trying to hold in a big toke of really high quality grass. It isn't clear whether this a respiratory necessity or just a lonely man's attempt to suggest backstory.

In any case, Jeremy is aggressively proud of his heritage and tries very hard to live up to it. For some reason nobody understands, Jeremy thinks that he knows everything, and that nobody else knows anything. This condition is even more debilitating than his physical handicap, because he feels called upon to correct almost every nuance of everybody's conversation and behavior. For this reason alone, nobody likes him. This has given rise to many things:

Adults ask,

"If a person is alone in a forest and speaks aloud, but

Jeremy is not there to hear them, are they still wrong?

The neighborhood kids have given Jeremy a special name too and love to sing:

"The Sidewalk Superintendent always knows what's right.

He's on the job each day and every night.

The Sidewalk Superintendent always does what's best.

He's really just so much smarter than the rest."

Jeremy loves to get drunk and intimidate people by yelling at them. One day just after Christmas he sat out front of his apartment house roaring profanities, threats, and insults at everyone walking or driving past. This went on for close to ninety minutes until two police cruisers converged on him from different directions with sirens screaming. They must have really chewed him out, because for for the rest of the day Jeremy was quiet.

Around the apartment house, Jeremy has become adept at subtle slanders, but on the bus he's a holy terror. He likes to single out a small shy child and bellow, "Hi there! How are yooou today?" When the kid looks afraid and doesn't answer, Jeremy continues "What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?" When the kid really looks terrified, Jeremy says "I'm going to make you cry today! What do you think about that?" The kids do cry sometimes. The slave-religion mothers can only muster enough courage and self-esteem to look embarrassed, and the humble drivers, afraid fir their jobs, never want to cause an unpleasant incident with "the poor insane man in the wheelchair".

Recently Jeremy was asked to leave a nearby restaurant for feeling up his waitress, and has had several unpleasant run-ins with both the Weirdo and the Bicycle Pig. To make his prospects even worse, he has gotten himself on the bad side of Jake Povitch who also greatly despises the Weirdo and, as we have seen, the Bicycle Pig, but lately most especially, Jeremy.

For the Weirdo, Jake says he would love to see "four men with batons strip him naked and club the grunt right out of him on public television!" When he talks this way, his friends just say "Jeese, Jake!"

For the Bicycle Pig, Jake thrills to yet another hypothetical impossibility. An amphitheater with hundreds of spectators. The Bicycle Pig unclothed with hands cuffed behind him, and a foot of chain between ankle cuffs. Enter, one large, angry, goose. Geese, as we know, are extremely bossy and go right after human testicles. This is where the word "goosing" comes from. "Think of how the Bicycle Pig would cry out!" says Jake. To this, his friends reply, "Yah, cool, but what about the Golden Rule, Jake?"

Jake has a far more realistic scenario in mind for Jeremy. This one he never talks about. With huge delight, Jake contemplates the crunching sound that Jeremy would make if he were to be run over by a twenty ton gravel truck while crossing the street, just like a large cockroach under a hard leather boot heel on a terrazzo floor, but much louder, preceded by a piercing death scream as icing on the cake.

Jake has a friend who drives the prototype gravel truck, and is trying to figure out how to ask him about the possibility of making this dream into a reality. How should he approach the subject to make it sound just jokey and hypothetical at first? If the discussion proceeds further, how much money should he offer? Will any or all of this be taken as an insult by his friend?

Jake is also working on more realistic solutions for dealing with the Weirdo and Bicycle Pig. With the Weirdo he could do the clubbing himself without the three additional men, and no TV cameras. With the Bicycle Pig, he'll need help from a friend, maybe the guy with the truck.

The tension in the neighborhood from all this anger is getting so thick you would need a chainsaw to cut it. It seems that the Four Musketeers of Mutual Enmity described herein, are now rapidly moving towards a big ugly showdown.

Jake approaches his friend and manages to arrange the cockroach scenario for Jeremy. It turns out that the big J goes out for a soda the very same time every day, so they figure the run down for 4:02 PM. Jake decides to take care of the Bicycle Pig and the Weirdo personally earlier the same day so that the demise of Jeremy will be like a sumptuous desert after a fine meal.

In Jake's Hummer with his friend driving, they pull up along side the Bicycle Pig as he's going down his early morning hill. Jake reaches out carefully with a long dog catcher's pole and drops the loop gently over the poor man's head and pulls it snug to his neck. The Bicycle Pig nearly loses his balance, but recovers. Says Jake,

"Well now, ole Sow Belly, seems like I got you, don't it? Were gonna see just how fast you can go on that psychedelic bike of yours."

They slowly increase the speed first to twenty miles an hour, then thirty... On this long straightaway they can go really fast if necessary. At thirty five mph the horrified victim begins to howl with terror. The record for bicycle speed is way over 120 MPH, but at 43 mph the Bicycle Pig loses control, falls off the bike, and Jake gives a rebel yell, "Eeeh Hah!" As they drag the Pig down the street he leaves a wide stripe on the pavement like a melting red crayon.

Jake cuts the Pig loose, and within an hour he is walking toward the Weirdo's house with a cedar tire knocker concealed in a trumpet case. At some distance, as the approaches, he sees Susan Lauder coming the other way. As she comes to the bushes, the Weirdo suddenly comes briskly out in his underpants and grabs Susan, pulling her into the bushes. What a fine turn of events. Now Jake will be defending Susan. Two birds with one stone.

As Jake runs up, he gets out the club, goes into the bushes, and sees the Weirdo wrestling with Susan. The Weirdo jumps up and comes at him screeching like an angry eagle, pinching with both hands. Jake whacks him on one knee cap, then the other. The Weirdo goes down and then Jake goes really to town on him. He literally beats the grunt right out of him as Susan watches terrified. When Jake finishes, the Weirdo is dead.

She gets up and says, "I appreciate your saving me, but you didn't have to go on him like that once he was down. I'm going to have to arrest you!"

Jake possibly fabricates a bit, "Are you kidding? Do you know how many people this creep has killed or mangled?" She looks confused, but convinced. It's easy to believe, and probably is true. Jake grabs Susan and gives her a long passionate kiss. She struggles at first, and then goes small in his arms. Finally she says softly, "Okay, I'm not going to arrest you."

She and Jake agree on a cover story for her and make a hot date for Saturday night, Then she calls in and Jake excuses himself for "business" so he can go witness the cockroach scenario.

Jake arrives at 3:58 PM, just in time. Jeremy comes into the intersection as he always does and starts across. Here comes the truck rolling fast!

"Aye-eeeeh !" exclaims the surprised Jeremy. Crunch!

Jake beams with delight, "Another splendid day of splendid achievement!"