March 3, 2028 10:03 AM 

Garrett Valdison is on vacation in New York City. Last night he had female adventure in Times Square, but today is strolling through an amusement park. It’s cool and sunny. The trees are just starting to leaf out. Young couples are strolling with dogs. Garrett must walk carefully around a filthy red-faced wino lying in a puddle of his own urine.

Now he comes to a grim, gray, steep-roofed two-story structure, with a Gothic script sign reading, “Funhaus.” A young man with terminal acne, dressed in shorts, suspenders, long stockings, and a cheap-looking Tyrolean hat, is busy scrambling up and down the roof ridge to create a madhouse atmosphere.

A middle aged couple from Des Moines, Iowa is watching this. The man says to his wife, 

“I think like we are going to see some very sorry sights here today.”

She looks wholesomely sympathetic. and replies

“There but for God…”

A teenage boy, made up to look like a hooded corpse, comes out the front door and begins to beckon seductively for people to enter. Garrett pays his three dollars and goes inside.

 

The vestibule is lighted in green and purple with a big retarded looking vampire head. Garrett has doubts about the coolness of this place, but this initial impression changes when he enters a door to the left.

At the end of a long spider-webbed hallway he is confronted by three screaming skeletons with long daggers, but escapes. Then around the next corner, a huge masked headman with a big bloody axe takes a swing at him. Garrett dodges this, and does a Wasuki Block saying "Hia Pucha Tingia!" The headman belches and growls "Bah, Vandermitten!" Garrett chuckles and moves on.

As he passes through the last of the rotting corpses, one of whom looks exactly like a nasty uncle from his youth, Garrett smirks,

“Well, hello there! Splendid seeing you again. You look exactly as I always tried to picture you…” he says guffawing sarcastically.

Beyond a small field of headstones ahead, Garrett sees a blonde woman with a retro hairdo freely freaking in front of some very traditional mirrors of distortion.

The woman sees him coming, smiles, seems satisfied, and exists. Now Garrett stops to look at himself. He has always considered this kind of thing to be very corny, but it actually turns out to be fun. He backs up and his cranium swells to hydrocephalic magnificence, while his legs shrivel to tiny pins. He moves forward and his head becomes pointed with eyes like basketballs and legs like giant beer barrels, but its all still himself… fascinating.

He could do this all day, but now looks annoyed as a group of loud Negrps, raging against their own subsidized non-viability, are finishing up with the corpses behind him.

“Hey Nigga, that one looks like my punk-ass landlord. Faggot won’t give me extension on the rent. I tried to explain that my check got delayed, because my parole hearing was postponed. Motherfucker tells me he’s running a business not a philanthropy”

Another replies,

“Sho’ would like to see gravestones like this fo’ all dem white men as far as eyes can see.”

Garrett decides to come back another day so he can enjoy the mirrors in peace, and steps outside. A very serious looking young white man in a dark blue suit, leaning against a tree, now approaches, showing a badge.

"Hello Mr. Valdison. I'm Special Agent Coluvis of the FBI. I wonder if you have any information as to the current whereabouts of Richard Bateman."

"Colooovis, huh?" smirks Garrett.

Coluvis grins. "Yah" he says with mock embarrassment as if used to this reaction.

Garrett replies to the question,

"Old Hang ‘em High Bateman, the Provincetown Executioner..., haven’t followed it. Not quite my cup o’ tea. Maybe he'll hire on here as a sideshow attraction celebrating obesity…good cover."

Coluvis laughs, then looks serious,

"Like many of the more thoughtful FBI people these days, I am a committed Libertarian, and lately have followed your career a bit in my spare time. I like it when people actually do things to make a difference. Do you think that maybe we might help each other on cases sometimes?"

"Yes, I started thinking that myself the minute you said Libertarian"

They shake hands and exchange cards.