David Ohle - The Pisstown Chaos

"I've never mated before."

"Don't worry. She'll tell you what to do when the time comes. Go, get in line."

A server brought the Jake as a queue of young male shiftees formed at the edge of the platform.

Grandee finished off his Jake in two swift gulps as the nude Doolittle girl was lifted to the platform and placed on a pandiculating appliance. "The show's about to start. Pedal harder. Keep the lights bright."

At that moment, a squad of Guards entered The Bones Jangle and put a halt to everything. "Stop pedaling and remain in your seats!" The clatter of the pedal chains diminished, Mr. Bones Jangle ceased his dance and the room darkened. One of the Guards removed his tunic and covered the Doolittle girl with it. "We'll be taking names now," he said. "You'll all be going to work on the Reverend's imp farm for a while."

"Just when I had a going thing happening here," Grandee sighed.

"I do like the out-of-doors," Roe said.

Lift is cheap in Pisstown' Heritage Area, when a secondstage stinker named Hot Rod Lush packs a triple threat. It is a place where kinsmen murder kinsmen, robbers murder merchants, wives murder husbands, husbands slay wives, cousins murder cousins, sons kill fathers, sweethearts erase sweethearts and friends, friends. The great variety of homicides in that part of the city has provoked the Reverend and his Guards, but not soon enough to stop Hot Rod Lush. He and his brother, Calvin Lush, argued over their younger brother being arrested for unlawful sexual congress with a young male stinker. One said he believed he was guilty the other said no. This produced a snappy death in blazing gunsmoke from an antique.38 caliber pistol Boom! Hot Rod in his furj, had gone to Calvins Q ped and gotten the weapon. He'd swept it in front of Calvin's face and said, "What the hell did you say? I'll mow you down, " and poured a bullet into Calvin's head Another life was gone from the Heritage Area, another sad funeral arranged

Muffy Brown, a twenty-three year old stinker, has spent the last nine years blowing herself up. In that time she has used more than a van load of dynamite to send herself whirling through over eight hundred explosions Muffy is the feature attraction of the Reverend Hookers Stunt Shows which travels city to city and town to town. Twice each performing 4 she puts what's left of her life on the line with nine sticks of dynamite. She sits in yoga fashion, her head tucked between her legs, in the center of a three-sided tin-covered capsule. The countdown begins. At zero, she lights the main fist with a match. Then, a terrific explosion sends her flying out of the capsule. For fifteen minutes following the explosion, Muffy writhes on the ground not knowing where she is. The explosion has knocked the air out of her lungs and like a drowning person, she must be forced to breathe again. Three men are assigned to see that she is revived.

A man was saved from a chilly drowning yesterday by the Reverend's brother, Wallace `Buddy" Hooker, who has volunteered for duty with the life-saving crew organized by the Health Department at the Disinfecting Station at 10 and Flum. As chief frogman of the crew Buddy was there on the dock about six o'clock in his rubber frog feet and bathing suit, when he saw a man floating down the Canal like a log and calling for help. Buddy dove into the disinfected downstream water and swam out to the man, who threw his arms around Buddy's neck and gave him a hard battle. The man, attempting to escape from Permanganate Island had floated across the Straits, a distance of sixty miles, then swam into the mouth of the backward flowing National Canal another five miles before being snatched out of the rushing current and swiftly returned to the Purple Isle.

Buoyed by all the publicity, Wallace has put his energies and his brother's influence into organizing Frogmen for Hooker, already boasting ten thousand members and growing. Those joiningget a miniature pair of frog feet for attaching to a key chain, to wear in a lapel, or hang in a window as a lucky charm. In addition they get a free copy of the Reverend's Field Guide.

Unable to find employment after his release from Permanganate Islam a Pisstown stinker, whose identity is unknown, wandered aimlessly from one place to another, blown about like a leaf in the wind. Having landed in Witchy Toe one cold day he was taken into custody and placed in the lockup where he had access to the stove. That night he heated the poker red hot, placed the end against the wall and threw himself against the point. The instrument plowed its way into his abdomen, searing the parts entered. Another wayfarer occupying the cell with him was asleep when the drastic action took place, so it is not known how long the stinker survived

A strange creature of the deep beached itself on Square Isla nd a little over a year ago. Nearly seven feet long with a high, flattened body tall fins, a three-tentacled mouth encircled with sharp teeth and a 'chopped-off' appearance, the specimen has been called a hagfish. Held in captivity for study it has demonstrated the ability to breathe through its eyes, see through its skin and tie itself into knots. It can live without food for more than a year and when it is afraid it hides in a globule of jelly-like material secreted into the surrounding water. The creature has five hearts, each beating in a different rhythm, and each controlling separately the head tail tentacles, muscles and liver. Fearing there may be more of these things in the waters around the Island authorities have urged people not to wade in the shallows, where one of them may be watching for feet, or to dawdle long enough for a bite to be taken and blood sucked from a tender calf or ankle.

It was little reported in the press, but Reverend Hooker rrcently had a narrow escape from death. The well-known aviator, Peter Knabenshue, nearly took off the Reverends head when the screws of his orbigator suddenly spiraled downward in the vortex ofa whirling wind As Knabenshue lost control of the aircraft, it took a dangerous tilt to one side and swooped over the crowd plucking off the Reverend's hat.

William Parker Yockey adolescent Hookerite leader, was out campaigning for the Reverend yesterday He told an audience at Pisstown, `As the Reverend has said many times, the shifting policies are intended to stimulate business and at the same time achieve long-term prosperity focal and personal Its a beautiful concept. You may be moved down the street or across the Bum Bay Straits. Think of it also as a cure for boredom, a way to perk up the citizenry a way to give the people new energies, new jobs, new children and spouses. Sure, some will win, some will lose. YouV have upand down-shifts, you71 have side-shifts too. And in five years, another round of shifting will come along. "

He was asked how long it would be befog someone tampers with the process and arranges self-advantageous shiftings? Yockeys answer: "The tide ofsocial change will rise so rapidly that such persons will drown, their voices hushed "

And what does side-shifting entail? Yockey says, "These individuals may find themselves in a kind of social limbo for a while, out of the game as it were. They may undergo long periods of waiting, but isn't waiting good for the soul? Isn't it what life is all about?"

And with all the intermixing that comes along with the shiftings, he was asked, "What about the spread of parasites?" Yockey had a ready answer for that, too: "It will serve to weaken the parasites by spreading them thinly. "

At home again and in charge of the family estate, Ophelia was in a funk much of the time. There were hundreds of things to do. Caring for the kitchen drain alone was a timeconsuming occupation. A drain could kill, she knew, and so treated it with respect. She washed it with scalding water and lye soap, poured cupfuls of caustic soda down it every day and at night treated it with chloride of lime. None of this, however, reduced the strength of the cadaverous stink that persisted in rising from it, along with the sound of digging.