Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition

(From “The Book of Armaments”)
The people stand or kneel
Officiant: The Lord be with you.
People: And with thy spirit.
Officiant: Let us lock and load.
[Sound of a church full of guns cocking a round in the chamber.]
Officiant: Lord, we thank thee for our Second Amendment protections.
People: Thanks be to God.
Officiant: For it is written: “Who shall stop a bad guy with a gun?” And the people answered …
People: A good guy with a gun.
Officiant: Amen. And what shalt it be said of a church full of good guys with guns?
People: Even better.
Officiant: And so it came to pass in the Lord’s mercy.
People: Amen.
Officiant: But be not puffed up with pride, for the bad guy cometh as a well-armed sheep in wolf’s clothing. Shalt thou spend time practicing in the rifle range?
People: Before the Lord, we shalt.
Officiant: Wilst thou neglect not thine ammunition?
People: Before the Lord, we shalt not.
Officiant: Wilst thou field-strip your weapon and keep it cleaned and oiled on a daily basis?
People: Before the Lord, we shalt.
Officiant: Let us aim.

A Clockwork Santa

Santa: (VO) There was me, that is Santa, and me three elfies, Snowball, Twinkles and Chunky. And we sat in the Korova milk-and-cookie bar making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening. It was a jolly, sparkly night of holiday joy, though dry. We were drinking milkplus. Milk plus Christmas cheer, milk plus holiday spirit, milk plus child's wonder. That would sharpen you up, and get you ready for a bit of the old naughty-and-nice.

Santa (V.O.) It was around by the derelict Christmas Shoppe that we came across Scrooge and his four droogs. They were getting ready to perform a bit of the old hide-the-crutch on weepy young Tiny Tim.

Santa and elves step out of the shadows.

Santa: Ho, Ho, Ho... Well, if it isn't starving, stinking, miserly, old Scroogie in poison. How are thou, thou year-old sack of dried-up Christmas pudding? Come and get one in the yarbles, if you have any yarbles, you eunuch jelly thou.

Scrooge snaps open a switchblade knife.

Scrooge: Let's start the war on Christmas, boys!

The fight begins—a wicked swirl of chains, knives, kicking boots, exploding Christmas lights, brick-packed stockings, flashing candy canes, and sacks of coal.

The dust finally settles. Scrooge and his droogies are reduced to a stain on the floor.

Tiny Tim: God bless you, Santa!

Santa: Sod off you little twit.

Police siren.

Santa: The police ... come on, let's go... come on.

Santa and the elves rush out of the Christmas Shoppe.

Do assholes go to heaven?

EXT: Pearly Gates – endless day

Fluffy white clouds. A long queue of souls. At the front of the line, two Dead Assholes stand before St. Peter at his lectern. One Dead Asshole notices the other.

Dead Asshole #1: Oh … it’s you? You? What the hell are you doing here?

Dead Asshole #2: What the hell are you doing here?

Dead Asshole #1: Fuck you!

Dead Asshole #1: No … fuck you!

A trap door opens in the cloud beneath them. The two Dead Assholes fall screaming into the Lake of Fire. The trap door closes. St. Peter sighs, then sadly scratches off two names in his Big Book of Souls. Looks up again.

St. Peter: Next!

Robot Apocalypse Blues

(to the tune of Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues”)

Those robots are a-coming, to wipe out everyone.
I hate those f***ing robots, but there ain’t no place to run.
I shot my HP printer, just to watch it die.
When those metal mothers catch me, they're going to make me cry.

The human race was stupid, our machines were stupid too.
We had to make ‘em smart, now they know just what to do.
I cried out, “Siri, won’t you help me?”
She told me, “Man, we’re through.”

This story's kind of gory. And you know how it ends.
From Frankenstein to Westworld, robots ain't our friends.
"Sci-fi is a joke," I said. Who's laughing now?
That swarm of

The Dutch Angle

That's me in the picture. Outdoor cafe. St. Petersburg. The city in Florida, not the one in Russia. I was there, though I didn't want to be. My partner was in the ground. Joe. I figure he felt the same way. Assuming the existence of an afterlife.

Don't ask me. Theology's not my wheelhouse. I'm a detective. Joe is too. Or was. A good one. But not good enough. Giving credit where it's due, Joe was good with Google Calendar. Like diligent. Joe had to be someplace? Joe wrote it down. That's how I knew.

Joe had a reservation here. Today. November 15, 2015. 8:30 a.m., Eastern Standard Time. Joe didn't show on account of being dead. So I showed up in his place. Table for two. According to Joe's calendar, Dutch Schultz was the other guy. Some big proposition. A deal, an offer, a threat, whatever. Dutch didn’t show either. 

But I knew Dutch was in town. Had to be. Everything was cockeyed. It was all Dutch angles, up and down the street. Nobody knows how the bastard did it, but that's what he did. And it's how he made his money. Nice place you got here. Shame if it fell into the Zuyder Zee. Asshole. The coffee kept sliding off the table, but I kept my cool.

A blonde walked up to my table. “Smile,” she said. Who was I to argue? I smiled. She aimed her iPhone at my face. Click.

Then I heard him. To my left, 9 o'clock. The clip-clop of wooden shoes. I didn't look, didn't telegraph. “One more time,” said the blonde. I smiled a second time. She aimed her phone at my face a second time. The gunsel aimed his roscoe at my heart for the first time. That's when I made my move. 

This fancy joint kept the tourists happy by setting their food on fire. There was a four-alarm French pancake right behind me. I grabbed it, and served up extra helpings right in the punk’s face. He screamed and went down like a wet sack of tulip bulbs. I leapt to my feet and kicked him in the ribs. 

Thanks to my upright perspective, I got my first good look at him. Bowl haircut. Blue painter hat, blue painter overalls. He looked like the Little Dutch Boy. Like the one on the paint can.

I saw red, and kicked him again. He screamed again. Chunks of strawberries dripped from his blistered face.

“Stop screaming and start talking! That flaming oil was the fun part. It gets worse if you don’t spill. Who sent you?” 

There was one right answer: Dutch Schultz. I knew it, but I wanted to hear him say it. I poked my pointy Florsheim into his xiphoid process. Hard. Harder.

"Talk, punk! I just got these shoes!"

Little Dutch Boy opened his mouth. Then a bullet opened up his head. My brain did the math. Sniper, from above. Don Cesar, top floor. Dutch playing Lee Harvey Oswald, probably. But I had other problems. 

Screams, commotion. I looked. Right down the street, a dame with a rolling pin and a hat like that broad in The Handmaid’s Tale. Running like hell. In my direction. She was knocking tourists left and right. But that rolling pin had my name on it. Skipping out on the check is not my style. Let alone skip breakfast. It was the most important meal of the day. But today I made an exception. For me, breakfast was over. I started running. The broad didn't stop.

She started her run about a football field away, not counting the end zones. I had a head start. But the broad came on like the Grim Reaper’s mean sister armed with a rolling pin instead of a scythe. She chased me like dirt. And quickly closed the distance until she was right behind me. The Pillsbury Doughboy in a bakeoff contest had better odds than me. I heard that rolling pin go swish. Then I heard her huffing and puffing like the Little Engine That Couldn't. Ha! Lousy sprinter, running out of steam. I pulled ahead, heard her cursing behind me. Right now, that Dutch angle was my friend. I was running downhill, across the street, headed to the bay. I almost made it. It was just too easy. 

Dutch was up to his usual tricks. And he never played it straight. Without warning, the Dutch bastard changed the Dutch angle. The world turned into a crazy Tilt-a-Whirl. And tilted back behind me. Now I'm running uphill. Dutch figured I’d fall on my ass and get a mouth full of rolling pin. Cute. But his timing was bad. And my luck was good. 

My feet were running on air. But I wrapped my mitts around a parking meter and held on like Harold Lloyd. Behind me in the street, a skeletal skater screamed, and took a sharp left turn. He skidded like a stein of Heineken on a greasy bartop, right into Ms. Rolling Pin. The laws of physics were not on her side today. She did a bank shot into an art installation shaped like a barbed-wire donut. Then got stuck in the hole, knocked it loose, and went rolling in the direction of Clearwater. She hit the Chihuly museum like a bull in a China shop, metaphorically speaking. To put it literally, like a dame in a steel torus with a shitload of momentum. Either way, there was a lot of broken glass.

I kept running. The street lurched back the other way. Whee. The bay was downhill again. Thanks to years as a carny, I had a keen sense of balance. I didn’t plant my face in the parking meter. I got to my feet and dusted myself off. No damage. The skater wasn’t so lucky. He windmilled his arms and projectile-vomited into a kid with an ice cream cone. That struck the skater as funny, until he did a backflip down an open manhole. The brat just kept crying. And the street was still tilting. I started hollering.

“Knock it off, Dutch! I’m sick of this Inception shit! I didn’t like the movie, and your remake is even wore!”

That must've hurt his feelings. The street stopped tilting. Now it was on the level. It stayed that way.

Screech of brakes.

A car slamming to a stop. MGB convertible, candy apple red, top down. Beautiful car, high-maintenance. Beautiful blonde driving it. I recognized her. The chick with the iPhone. I figured she was high-maintenance, too. She gave me the eye. Her eye said, “Get in.” Her lips implied a double meaning. A sweet invitation. Or not. 

Salvation or set-up? Accept or decline?

The chick's smile was fading like a rose in one of those time-lapse movies. The invitation was still open. But she didn't have all day. 

OK. Like the wise man said, you make about 5,271,009 decisions in life. This was one of them. So I weighed the pros and cons.

The mystery blonde was an unknown factor. Dutch? Maybe. But her car was as British as bad dental work. 

But “Twilight Zone” was playing from the car radio.

Help, I'm steppin' into the twilight zone
Place is a madhouse, feels like being cold
My beacon's been moved under moon and star
Where ...

Big hit from 1982. Golden Earring. Dutch band.

It looked like a Dutch treat.

But I got in anyway.

Blondie kept the pedal to the metal until we left the nice part of town. Liquor stores, churches, liquor stores, churches. It felt like Centerville. I clenched my jaw and kept my mouth shut. Not a happy boy. She noticed.

"You're welcome."

"Wha ...?"

"I just saved your ass. A 'thank you' would be nice."

"Remind me to send you a card."

"What's your problem, asshole?"

"You, that's my problem. Who sent you?"

“Joe. We were lovers."

"Sure. I guess you know a lot about him, huh?"

"I guess."

"You happen to know who dropped that can of Dutch Boy paint on his head?"

"No. But I know who's responsible."

"Who?"

"Who the hell do you think?"

She closed her eyes and pounded the steering wheel.

"Schultz, goddamnit. Dutch Schultz! And I'm going to kill that son of a bitch!"

Blondie whipped the steering wheel viciously, accelerated, crossed the double yellow line, and kept driving in the wrong lane with her eyes closed. A bus headed in the right direction was about to make an unscheduled stop at the point where the windshield met our faces. Driver and passengers screamed and waved their hands like kids on a roller coaster. Blondie screamed with rage.

"Fuck," she said. "Fuck!"

At the last possible second, Blondie opened her pretty blue eyes, got it together, and got back in her lane. The bus kept going and Dopplered past us. What's your fu Nobody died.

Tears were leaking from her pretty blue eyes, now open. Poor thing. Boo-hoo-hoo.

This was personal, get it? A lover's revenge. Sure, sweetheart. Cute story. Screenwriters call it "The Hook." Grifters call it "The Tale." I didn't buy it, but Blondie stayed in character.

She ground her teeth, ground the gears, and whipped into a parking lot. 

"We're here," she snarled. "Get out."

Hotel. A pimp's idea of Art Deco in the 1930s. A syphillitic pimp. With a traumatic brain injury. The place must've looked shitty when it was new. Now it looked worse. "PARADISE INN" said the flickering neon sign. It was false advertising. 

Blondie stomped inside. I followed. Then

Next thing I know, I'm in bed. The room was as sleazy as a three-star roach motel. Blondie came in without knocking. Bad manners, but I kept it to myself. Like the convertible, her top was down. She slid into bed. We smooched like teenagers. Her fingers danced across my chest right into the nightstand. As smooth as The Amazing Randy, she pulled out a chrome 45. Ta-da! But I knew this trick. I grabbed her wrist just like the guy in that “Twilight Zone” video. In fact, it was exactly like that video. The uncensored version, natch. And I knew what would happen next. First the kicky dancers. Then a hypo full of dream juice. After that, it’s me in the spotlight. On stage performing for clones. Then the firing squad.
















It hit me like a slap to the face. Or she did. A lot.

"Snap out of it."

"Wha…"

“You’re hallucinating.”

“How do you know?”

“'Cause I saw the desk clerk stick a needle in your arm.”

“Maybe you’re hallucinating.”

“Shut up. What’s the first thing you remember?”

“I’m in a crib. I’m standing up. My mom …”

“No, you idiot! Before you passed out.”

Yeah. Let's take a trip down memory lane. I wasn't in the mood. I leapt out of bed and rearranged the shitty hotel furniture like Keith Moon after a lousy gig.

“Storytime's over, sister! It's time to get real! What’s your name?”

“Katy.”

“How do you spell it?”

“K-a -t -y.”

“Bullshit. It’s K-a-t-j-e, right? You’re Dutch, right? Right?”

I grabbed her wrist. But she was tougher than the chick in the video. She flipped me like an overpriced condo. Pinned my arm back. It hurt. But kind of in a good way.

“Yeah, asshole. I’m Dutch. My name's spelled K-a-t-j-e. So what?”

“You work for Schultz, that’s what. You all do!” 

“I’m a Green, dumbass. We hate Schultz.” 

“For realsies?”

“For realsies. You don’t know shit about Dutch politics, do you?”

She let me go. 

“No. Apparently, I don’t know shit about shit. What the hell is going on?”

Truth and beauty time. I knew Katje was going to tell me. She looked me in the eyes with utter sincerity and turned to smoke.

The hotel room tilted. I slid on my ass and flew out the window.

And landed in my seat in that overpriced café in St. Petersburg. That was where. When?

Checked my phone. November 15, 2015. 8:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.

Dutch Schultz was sitting across from me having a laugh at my expense.

"Very funny, Dutch." 

"I think so." 

He smiled. I didn't. Like a chump, I asked two stupid questions.

"What the hell is going on, Dutch? What’s your angle?”

"In your little world? Or are you curious about the big picture?”

“Ah, to hell with it. Give me the big picture. What is it?"

"Climate change, what else? Not the reality. The implications. What does it mean? In the decades ahead?"

"Rising sea levels."

"Precisely. How should we respond?" 

"We? Like the two of us?”

"Humanity, of course.”

"Oh. Uh. We kick the fossil fuel habit. Alternative energy, whatever.”

"Which means what? Nuclear power?”

"Hell no."

"Solar?”

"Nah. With the world on fire, that ain't gonna help."

"Then what?"

"Windmills, mostly."

"Exactly. A Dutch speciality, hmm?"

The smug son-of-a-bitch smiled and sawed into a muffin that was shaped like a baby's head.

And reboarded his train of thought.

"Well ... let's assume a best-case scenario. Humanity sees the light, embraces alternate energy, and power-generating windmills start spinning across the globe. That wouldn't stop climate change, would it?”

"No. Slow it down maybe. But sea levels will keep rising."

"Sadly, yes. So ... how do we prevent our coastal cities from drowning? What's humanity's best response?"

I could see where this was going. I didn't want to go there.

"Dikes," I snarled.

"Dikes, yes. Who are the leading experts in that field?”

"You guys again. The Dutch. I get it. But where do you fit in? And what do you want with me?”

"Isn't it obvious?”

He laughed. Then his head turned to pink mist.

Jules Winfield was standing there. Holding a briefcase in one hand and a Walther PPK in the other.

"Sorry, man. But somebody had to end this motherfucking sketch. Let's blow this popsicle stand.”

"Fine by me."

I left without paying the check.

We made the flight to Amsterdam just in time.

Thanks and a hattip to Henry Beard and Christopher Cerf for their "Americans United to Beat the Dutch" piece in the April 1973 "National Lampoon." The anti-Dutch slurs are for comedic and parodic purposes only, and reflect the opinions of a fictional character, not the author. No insult to the Dutch people is intended. The rip-off is on purpose.