PDX-MAN & LEAFY BOY

“TITS ON ICE”

Story by MC, Artwork by Ricky Sprague

PORTLAND, ORE. — It was a cheery autumn day in Portland, Oregon. Quinton Dean, award-winning local jour­nal­ist, gam­boled hap­pily through Portland’s vibrant down­town. He looked at his under-employed city and nod­ded approvingly.

“Who needs a robust econ­omy — or even a func­tion­ing one — in a city so livable?”

A rid­er­less Max Train sped by. Dean stood with pride at the train’s empty-yet-sparkling clean tran­sit nook.

“Progress,” he cooed.

Smiles rip­pled through his underpants.

Then some­thing went astir. A blonde hair fell from the sky. Somehow, it seemed…sentient…

Dean sniffed the gold strand with his news-seeking nostrils.

“Odd…there’s some­thing famil­iar about this…”

Dean’s head started to ache. He grew dizzy and con­fused; he looked at a bill­board of local insur­ance débu­tante Mariko Locke to shake him from his sud­den stu­por. Who bet­ter to pull him from the void than the Empress of Indemnity, after all?

Something strange was afoot. What, pray tell, was happening?

A clue emerged. Dean spot­ted a scruffy, panic-stricken teen run­ning through the brick bosom of Portland’s “liv­ing room,” Pioneer Square. Dean grabbed the leather-jacketed wretch and demanded to know what pained him.

“Cease, mop­pet!”

The star­tled boy came to a halt.

Dean enjoyed the author­ity he had over young men. In another life, he might’ve been a chem­istry teacher in a parochial school, mold­ing rud­der­less boys into pro­duc­tive, fit men. He shook the slob­ber­ing teen. HARD.

“What’s the mean­ing of this ker­fuf­fle? Why do you dart around so?”

“Dude,” said the young Caucasian, his dread­locks flap­ping like lus­trous cat turds. “Fucking ay! The shit’s gonna hit the fuck­ing fan, bro!”

Dean exploded. Nothing made him froth with anger like a young man sans pur­pose. He hurled the feral boy into the city’s prized Umbrella Man statue.

“Stop pant­ing like a tart in the throes of cli­max! Why do you run about like such a lum­mox? Answer me!”

A sem­blance of calm washed over the teen. The allu­sion to coitus was above his head, but Dean’s elo­quence some­how hit the right note.

“Dude, it’s totally fucked up and shit. That chick who took a shit in the Olympics or what­ever escaped from the zoo. She’s wear­ing super-skates that give her pow­ers and shit.”

Dean grew icy silent. The stam­mer­ing idiot-boy couldn’t recall the name of “that chick,” but Dean would never forget.

“Harding,” Dean said. “Tonya Harding.”

Dean stared blankly at the feral teen. More mem­o­ries came, this time like floodwaters.

In 1994, when Harding engi­neered the demise of skat­ing neme­sis Nancy Kerrigan, the ensu­ing media frenzy got the best of Dean. In an attempt to scoop the Tacoma Blowhole and get the fabled Harding story to the wire, Dean fab­ri­cated a few details about the deflow­ered skater’s per­sonal life.

It was a hor­rific lapse in judg­ment. A real boner. It cost Dean a shot at journalism’s most cov­eted award — the Lord Snowden Trinket.The Esteemed Society of Trinket Givers inves­ti­gated Dean’s news­pa­per, the Daily Error. Afterwards, they nul­li­fied Dean’s Trinket can­di­dacy with extreme prejudice.

Dean was crest­fallen. His pur­suit of the Lord Snowden Trinket was more than a labor of love. It was a spir­i­tual and voca­tional quest. Dean used to quip that he was “doing the Lord’s work,” which made his fel­low jour­nal­ists at the Daily Error chor­tle. They so loved his wordplay.

It took him years to bat­tle through the shame; ages to reestab­lish him­self as a sage chron­i­cler of the human con­di­tion. It was a bleak time. Dean suc­cumbed to car own­er­ship and glut­to­nous meals with exces­sive food mileage. His flow­ing brown hair fell out until all that remained was a shiny bulb of remorse. He bal­looned to 155 pounds. At rock bot­tom, friends found Dean naked in the base­ment of a Southeast Portland sex-magic bistro. He was slathered in a mys­te­ri­ous cocoon-type mate­r­ial, face down and posi­tioned spread-eagle over a life-sized photo of swash­buck­ling tree sit­ter Tre Arrow.

Remarkably, there was a sil­ver lin­ing in this sludge. One day that story will be told. Today though, was all about ACTION.

“Harding. I haven’t heard that name in many years,” said Dean. “But if my waifish infor­mant is refer­ring to her inde­struc­tible skate blades, we could be deal­ing with a major envi­ron­men­tal hazard.

“Bike paths are hang­ing in the bal­ance. There is no time to daw­dle. As always, inter­ven­tion by a gov­ern­ing author­ity or prop­erly cer­ti­fied pub­lic entity is the answer.”

Dean erupted into a sprint. As he raced down the city’s pedestrian-friendly streets, some­thing incred­i­ble hap­pened. The middle-aged reporter trans­formed into a much younger man — a brightly cos­tumed super-hero wear­ing 100% recy­cled poly­ester cycling shorts. The event unfolded with such alacrity that an untrained eye might miss the rapidly mov­ing thicket-clump run­ning par­al­lel to Dean.

Thicket-clump? No. That was Leafy Boy, human-plant mutate and loyal side­kick to Portland’s great­est hero…

…pdX-Man!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Portland’s dreamy mayor, Sam Adams, instantly spot­ted the blight-fighting duo:

“Unmitigated Ass-Whistles of Vivacity!” he squealed. “It’s pdX-Man and Leafy Boy!!!!”

pdX-Man swooped down to greet the telegenic mayor on his gleam­ing Cycle of Rectitude, the most tech­no­log­i­cally advanced and eco-friendly bike on Earth. The cycle could fly, and its very pres­ence mit­i­gated green­house gas emis­sions by 3,000%. Most incred­i­bly, it seemed to respond to pdX-Man’s thoughts.

pdX-Man parked the high-tech steed and knelt before Adams.

“Good after­noon your exalt­ed­ness,” said pdX-Man. “Perhaps you’ve heard. Trouble is com­ing this way.”

“Yes,” said the openly awe­some mayor. “The attrac­tive scriven­ers at Fops & Dandies Magazine tell me Tonya Harding is on a destruc­tive ram­page. Should I evac­u­ate the city?”

“No,” said pdX-Man. “It would be unwise to lather our comely and fit towns­folk into a panic. Leave the hulk­ing brute to Leafy Boy and me. I WILL NOT stand idly by while she intro­duces blight to America’s Most Livable City.”

“Aces!” he chirped. “I knew I could count on you, old friend!”

The mayor, who bikes to work and hates plas­tic bags, scur­ried back to his bur­row beneath City Hall.

pdX-Man’s pres­ence, as always, elec­tri­fied onlookers.

“Omigod…pdX-Man is such a dream­boat hunk!” shrieked a Portland State University coed, ample cleav­age pour­ing from her Joe Biden: Delaware Destroyer T-shirt. “His words dis­solve in my mouth like lozenges.”

“Yeah,” said her ema­ci­ated boyfriend, whose tight pants and tiny accou­ter­ments sug­gested Jockey Chic. “They soothe and stuff…I wish my car­bon foot­print was as small as his.”

Leafy Boy, mute since a tragic com­bine acci­dent in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin 20 years ago, threw a con­cerned glance toward pdX-Man. His Douglas Firs and Knobcone Pines grew erect. Nervous ten­drils bloomed from his spindle-holes. pdX-Man looked at his trusted companion’s stereo­scopic eyes and nodded.

“I know, ol’ boy. I sense it too.”

“BLARRGHGH!!” cried an unholy voice from afar.

THEN!

Broken shards of col­ored vinyl blasted through the store­front of an indie record shop. Ironically mus­tached baris­tas and Young Creatives filled the streets, attempt­ing to scream in fear, but years of sar­donic, blank expres­sions had left their buc­ci­na­tor mus­cles impo­tent. The best they could do was a timid, ovu­lar paean to Edvard Munch.

Something wicked this way had come.

pdX-Man and Leafy Boy perched them­selves atop the Benson Hotel. pdX-Man fon­dled his doo­dle, as he so often did. Leafy Boy hopped into the Cycle of Rectitude’s back seat.

KA-BOOM!

Harding blasted through a 6^th Avenue ter­ra­cotta build­ing. Mouth afoam with zoo gruel, she raged toward Pioneer Square. In her wake lay an Oregon Trail of ter­ri­fy­ing destruc­tion — crushed food carts, twisted light-rail tracks and frag­ments of the city’s Portlandia statue. Its enor­mous tri­dent sailed into the back­side of the Daily Error build­ing on Broadway.

Dean assessed the situation.

He under­stood that Harding was more force majeure than ill-spirited crim­i­nal these days. The girl who once deflo­rated Nancy Kerrigan was for­ever gone, replaced by a soul­less mon­stros­ity. Years ago, a hor­rific indus­trial acci­dent at Franz Bakery left Harding a mind­less, slob­ber­ing she-hulk. The mys­te­ri­ous acci­dent imbued her with super­hu­man strength and speed. And some­how, it forged adaman­tium ice skates to her feet.

Curiously, no one knows how or why. Details from the fate­ful night are scarce. All any­one knows is that Harding emerged from a vat of scald­ing bread dough with noth­ing but chaos and blight on her mind.

Back-story was for strag­glers and slug­gards, though. Now was a time for ACTION.

The heroes took flight above Harding. pdX-Man pulled a num­ber of Frisbee-type discs from his “Green Belt.” These “Personal Growth Boundaries” — or PGBs — “zone in” vil­lains to pre­vent acts of sprawl, low-aesthetic value or blight.

pdX-Man tossed one at Harding.

Direct hit!

A PGB force-field encap­su­lated the snarling yeast-eaglet. Harding smashed fruit­lessly at the bubble’s inde­struc­tible walls. pdX-Man and Leafy Boy flew down to claim their beefy con­quest. They grinned with slightly con­tained pride. Some Farm-to-Table Freshness gur­gled up from Leafy Boy’s fundillo pit.

“All in a day’s work,” said pdX-Man, view­ing Harding through the translu­cent green wall of the PGB field.

He and Leafy Boy gath­ered hemp rope to tie down their quarry.

BUT…

pdX-Man’s dread­locked infor­mant, one Gander Poltroon, shouted to the hero from afar.

“Bro! What the fuck is she doing? She looks all fucked up and shit!”

The lummox-boy was right. Harding was afroth with preter­nat­ural rage. Her dewlap turned blood-red. Her Jim Dog quiv­ered, and her head twisted ’round like some myth­i­cal demon.

Suddenly, she stopped smash­ing her gloved fists against the rock-hard walls of the PGB field.

She grew silent…motionless…and low­ered her mas­sive head. Slowly, her golden hair, knot­ted up in thongs ala a cat o’ nine tails, started whip­ping about, emit­ting infra­sonic noises that ren­dered pedes­tri­ans queasy.

Then…

SPRACK!!!!

Harding’s “cat” smashed through the PGB field — much to pdX-Man’s aston­ish­ment. It seized the earth-friendly hero by his throat and tossed him through the walls of a No. 9 bus. In mere sec­onds, pdX-Man had gone from vic­to­ri­ous hero to…a sham­bling pile of gouged appendages — noble flesh smeared against the back­drop of infra­struc­tural par­adise. He lay uncon­scious in a pile of blood-stained chop­per bicy­cles.

The city gasped — each and every res­i­dent — en masse.

Leafy Boy exploded into a rage — his plant parts rock­eted from every ori­fice. The hum­ble sidekick’s con­sid­er­able pow­ers were unleashed for all to see. Trees tele­ki­net­i­cally ripped from their roots and launched about. Vines became fear­some ten­ta­cles. A giant algae cloud burst from Leafy Boy’s Smart Pants. Its con­cus­sive force rained hell upon Harding. The porky she-cow screamed as though a bomb had gone off in her moist aperture.

“BLARGGHH!!!!!”

Fierce winds blew. Leafy Boy was the eye of an herba­ceous hur­ri­cane. Downtown Portland turned into green Hell.

!!BLARGH.…GLERGHH…SCHLUBB!!

With heart­break in his tur­reted eyes, Leafy Boy sprinted toward Harding. She reciprocated.

The two col­lided and…

…fell to the ground, with nary a “Glerghh” or “Schlubb.”

The feroc­ity of their clash had splat­tered Leafy Boy’s Bleeding Hearts all about. His Lady Ferns dis­col­ored a 5^th Avenue pedes­trian refuge, and his queer sneeze­wort lay motion­less in a steam­ing pile of hatred and frustration.

Harding, too, was the worse. Leafy Boy’s thorny cock­le­burs had left her dehy­drated, weak and nau­seous. In the end, she was sim­ply no match for the frothy lit­tle fellow’s inva­sive, sticky weeds.

An ani­mal con­trol unit arrived, sirens blar­ing.  Its shock troops rid­dled Harding’s back-fat with tran­quil­izer darts. The sub­dued and vom­it­ing crea­ture was air-lifted back to her hold­ing tank at the zoo. Peace had been restored to America’s Most Livable City.

But at what price?

Slowly…and per­haps miraculously…pdX-Man rose from a blood­ied pile of ironic bikes. An enthu­si­as­tic crowd cir­cled the woozy hero to shower him with praise. Nearby, Leafy Boy — a fast, resilient healer — was regen­er­at­ing his minia­ture cab­bage fields at a good pace. Soon he was delight­ing the crowd with joy­ous tum­bling stunts. At the crowd’s insis­tence, he emit­ted Farm-to-Table Freshness for a coun­try mile. Shoppers roared their approval. Fans blasted air horns. Pedestrians erupted into an impromptu “wave.”

HIP-HIP HOO-RAH! HIP-HIP HOO-RAY!

Once again, all was right in the ver­dant maw of Portland.

“One at time,” pdX-Man told his autograph-seeking fans. “I’ve got time for you all, but please be orderly!”

The love fest per­sisted for nearly 30 min­utes, until an angry voice from the crowd interrupted.

“Where’s Leafy Boy’s adop­tion papers, SHIT-FOR-BRAINS?! HA-HA! Tell us about your fuck­ing NAMBLA project, SHIT-FOR-BRAINS!!!! HA-HA-HA!!!”

A gap-toothed, barrel-chested man forced his way to the front of the crowd. Panhandlers caked in dried urine looked con­temp­tu­ously at the bold new arrival. Then, an activist hand­ing out pam­phlets enti­tled “Capitalism?! More like CRAPitalism!!!!” yelled:

“Holy fuck­ing Bob Barr! I think I’m gonna fuck­ing puke! It’s ‘lib­er­tar­ian’ can­di­date for con­gress and anarcho-capitalist Ed ‘Crazy Legs’ Peckerwood!!!!”

“DAMN STRAIGHT, BOY!”

Peckerwood shoved the pam­phle­teer into the door zone of the near­est bike path, where he was promptly splat­tered by a fast-moving Smart Car.

pdX-Man winced. He and Peckerwood had been arch ene­mies since an emer­gency sym­po­sium a few years before enti­tled Inner City America — All That Plight & Shit. In a work­shop con­tem­plat­ing why local African Americans don’t use mass tran­sit as much as Portland whites do, pdX-Man took the ennobling posi­tion that bike own­er­ship among Portland minori­ties should be com­pul­sory and man­dated by law. In response, Peckerwood pinched a loaf on pdX-Man’s PowerPoint pre­sen­ta­tion. The ensu­ing chaos ended with Tasers and pep­per spray…a cacoph­o­nous med­ley of bro­ken limbs.

While pdX-Man was an advo­cate of human-powered trans­port, pater­nal­is­tic inter­ven­tion and traffic-calmed neigh­bor­hoods, Peckerwood was a blus­tery car­ni­val barker who pro­moted uncapped per­sonal “auton­omy,” fetishis­tic “lib­erty” and the so-called “free” mar­ket. In short, Peckerwood was the face of Gresham, a wicked ham­let out­side Portland that couldn’t rightly be called a sub­urb. More accu­rately, as pdX-Man once said:

“Gresham is a land­ing plat­form for pol­li­nat­ing, red-necked cock­roaches. Its teem­ing and bar­barous mid­dle class requires tam­ing, tax­a­tion and most of all — governance.”

Slowly, pdX-Man cir­cled his old foe, try­ing to ascer­tain what ide­o­log­i­cal desire phase Peckerwood had worked him­self into now.

“Ah Peckerwood. Masquerading as a ‘lib­er­tar­ian’ now, yes? Well, I sup­pose huck­sters like your­self have to incor­po­rate the lat­est mouth-breather trends to stay relevant.”

Peckerwood roared with fear­some laugh­ter. Then, as if to prove his new­found lib­er­tar­ian cred, he took out a replica of the Patriot Act, rolled it into a bleezy, and inhaled. Ripplets of smoky Alaskan Thunderfuck filled the air of down­town. After a brief moment of con­flict­ing emo­tions and philo­soph­i­cal paral­y­sis, the crowd of social jus­tice afi­ciona­dos and hard-left sports­wear enthu­si­asts shouted in unison:

“FUCK YEAH!!!!!”

This bizarre devel­op­ment floored pdX-Man. The good, trim peo­ple of Portland, Oregon were cheer­ing for a rapa­cious, “free-market” rube? What mad­ness. He let out a des­per­ate cry:

“Whiskey-Tango-Fuck?????”

But the P regained his com­po­sure in short order. He under­stood that Peckerwood was using “lib­er­tar­i­an­ism” to lure cen­trists to his GOP can­dy­land. While this was obvi­ous to a left­ist of pdX-Man’s extra­or­di­nary sophis­ti­ca­tion, it might not be clear to the good, trust­ing peo­ple of Portlandia.

“What a dis­gust­ing and shame­ful ploy,” said pdX-Man, mak­ing a con­certed effort to address Peckerwood and edu­cate the con­fused crowd.

“While I don’t dis­agree that the ille­gal­ity of mar­i­juana is ques­tion­able, and ripe for pos­si­ble con­sid­er­a­tion in future pol­icy debates, it nev­er­the­less fills me with RAGE to see a char­la­tan use this UNREGULATED sub­stance as a manip­u­la­tive prop to lure impres­sion­able teens, unde­cided gen­eral elec­tion vot­ers and urban-adventure enthu­si­asts into his repug­nant, right-wing den of iniquity.”

Exasperated, pdX-Man began draft­ing paper­work for a citizen’s arrest. This made Peckerwood snort and slob­ber even more. He barked at pdX-Man:

“Hey SHIT-FOR-BRAINS! Watch this!”

Peckerwood, flanked by the back­woods equiv­a­lent of two Fruit of Islam muscle-heads, inex­plic­a­bly dropped his trousers. A fan­tas­tic light show then sprung from his unmen­tion­ables, cul­mi­nat­ing in the holo­graphic for­ma­tion of George W. Bush’s giant face, which hov­ered omi­nously above the crowd. Peckerwood then acti­vated a remote con­trol, and the giant Bush-Wraith started utter­ing famed Dubya-isms.

“Is our chil­dren learning?”

“Nucular.”

“I’m the decider, and I decide what is best…”

“Nucular.”

“One of the great things about books is that some­times there are fan­tas­tic pictures…”

“Nucular.”

pdX-Man col­lapsed into parox­ysms and tor­tured screams. This went on for a few minutes.

But the P was made of stern stuff. He calmed his rat­tling limbs and marched toward Peckerwood, who was jovially trad­ing punches with the Fruit of Islam knockoffs.

As this repressed the­ater of psy­cho­sex­ual fisticuffs went on, pdX-Man qui­etly wrapped his legs around Peckerwood’s pudgy neck and — THWIP!!! — cat­a­pulted the vil­lain into Leafy Boy, who was furtively wait­ing in the shadows.

SPLOOP!

Leafy Boy’s super-botanical Ocean Spray wholly con­sumed Peckerwood.

After swish­ing Peckerwood around in the bac­te­r­ial stew of his innards, Leafy Boy squirted him into a nearby brick wall.

A hes­i­tant pdX-Man stood motionless.

Ordinarily, his pol­icy was to bring foes to jus­tice, and even­tu­ally, a com­pas­sion­ate form of post-trial diver­sion or com­mu­nity service.

But Peckerwood brought out the untamed, irra­tional side of pdX-Man. So instead of hand­ing Crazy Legs over to a bike-mounted cop, pdX-Man launched his neme­sis straight into the ooz­ing sludge of the Willamette River. Peckerwood, a noto­ri­ously awful swim­mer who once nearly drowned in the Sandy River, didn’t stand a chance.  The river belched sat­is­fac­to­rily as Crazy Legs sunk inside its frothy bou­quet of raw sewage.

Juego. Encima!

A parade — with march­ing bands, nude cyclists and lav­ish floats — spon­ta­neously assem­bled, and the happy peo­ple of Portland car­ried pdX-Man off to an appre­cia­tive cer­e­mony near the Harvey Scott statue on Mount Tabor. Celebratory planes puffed out such sky-written mes­sages as “IMPEACH FOX NEWS!” and “OBESITY IS A HATE CRIME!”

Traffic accu­mu­lated to such a degree that even­tu­ally, all that was vis­i­ble was a sea of ennobling bumper stick­ers — “MR. OBAMA, KEEP YOUR LAWS ON MY BODY!” …  “MY RHODESIAN RIDGEBACK IS SMARTER THAN YOUR TEA BAGGER” … “I GLAD-HANDED MAYOR SAM,” and so on.

Playful eco­tage enthu­si­asts set fire to SUVs and danced hap­pily in the flames. Local fem­i­nist punks the Banfield played an impromptu set. The girls rocked hard for their city, often turn­ing ’round in mid-song to dis­play their showy car­pets of back-hair.

Happy days were here again! Ho!

Later that night, a besot­ted pdX-Man and Leafy Boy limped home to nurse their injuries. Luckily, their secret head­quar­ters — the Fortress of Ennoblement — was located right beneath their feet, in the hefty flab-hangings of Mount Tabor. pdX-Man gained access by insert­ing his fist into the busi­ness end of Harvey Scott’s bronze like­ness and twist­ing slightly.

pdX-Man would soon don his shorty-robe and refor­est Leafy Boy’s back­side. First though, it was nec­es­sary to trans­form back into his alter-ego, Quinton Dean. This entailed a gru­el­ing, showy display.

The P knelt down; his face was solemn…his doo­dle was ten­der. A giant holo­gram of Gorgeous George mate­ri­al­ized, whis­per­ing the inspi­ra­tional words that spark the Transformation:

“You’re makin’ it come alive…”

“You’re makin’ it come alive…”

With that, pdX-Man gri­maced slightly and — FLUPP! — wisps of green smoke con­sumed him. Gone was the wiry, decep­tively strong super-hero. In his place, trem­bling on the floor, was the bald, much frailer Quinton Dean, naked as the day he was born. Leafy Boy scur­ried toward Dean and cov­ered him in a char­treuse cape. He helped his exhausted friend take a seat in the duo’s much-loved Reforesting Chair.

Then some­thing strange happened.

The Fortress’s ultra-sophisticated motion sen­sors detected a for­eign object.

“What the FERC?!” said Dean.

Leafy Boy cocked his head, pup-like.

“Is it pos­si­ble,” said Dean, “that in the after­glow of my vic­tory over Peckerwood — in which I was so eager to prove that reg­u­la­tory forces help shape and beau­tify the unkempt, weedy gar­den of his so-called ‘free mar­ket’ — that I for­got to remotely cal­i­brate the Fortress of Ennoblement’s secu­rity sys­tem? Damn it all, Leafy Boy! Damn my HUBRIS! HEE-YOO-BRUUUUSSSSS!”

Dean sped to another entrance of the grand palazzo, where he found a strange pack­age wait­ing for him.

He ripped open its manila shell and out fell a video­tape. He tossed it to Leafy Boy, who popped it into the duo’s mega-screen view­ing terminal/VCR. A dis­qui­et­ing image appeared.

It was Dean. At the height of his mis­ery — when stripped of his Snowden can­di­dacy — he sought refuge in the sor­did under­belly of “new urban” pornog­ra­phy — porn films set against the back­drop of dense city cen­ters and rede­vel­oped brown­fields. Dean appeared in one such film – Walk Walk Winker Stinker. It starred Dean and another per­son of inde­ter­mi­nate gen­der engaged in sex­ual con­gress on a Southeast Powell pedes­trian islet. Rubbing him­self amorously against his part­ner, upon a chal­leng­ing sur­face of tac­tile pave­ment, Dean soon cli­maxed. In the celes­tial end sequence, he show­ered in the sweet rain of tax­payer monies.

However, Dean’s con­science even­tu­ally got the best of him, and he bribed Filthy Fabio — the late, acclaimed direc­tor of Winker Stinker — into destroy­ing all copies of the film, just prior to its offi­cial release date.

Or so he thought.

Leafy Boy, psy­cho­log­i­cally pum­meled by the rum­pled images on-screen, burst into tears.

Dean col­lapsed to his knees — sob­bing and yelp­ing out inde­ci­pher­able gibberish.

Then sud­denly, the porn film stopped. Replacing it was a video record­ing of a strange man — a fig­ure in a dilap­i­dated radi­a­tion suit and welder’s mask. Seated in front of a low-burning fire­place, the man spoke in the same voice­box method as Stephen Hawking.

Dean stud­ied the bizarre fig­ure, look­ing for clues to indi­cate who it might be. However, the objects in the back­ground — a man­hole cover, crow­bar, paint­ing of a hunter stand­ing next to a pile of bear corpses — only made things more confusing.

Then, the strange man made an abrupt demand.

“I desire $8 mil­lion in phys­i­cal cur­rency. The mayor will arrange for your pro­cure­ment of these funds. He is the Butter and Egg Man. Make the monies avail­able at 11:58 p.m. one fort­night from now, at Mall-205, near the children’s play-area by the goose with no head. Failure to com­ply will result in the pub­lic dis­sem­i­na­tion of the film you are now viewing.”

A vale­dic­tion flashed across the screen: With Distinguished Salutations, ISID BORTZ.

“Good lord. Whatever shall I do?” said Dean.

His whim­per­ing query over­flowed into tor­tured screams.

In a ter­rar­ium down the hall, Leafy Boy buried his face in a pil­low. Nothing could muf­fle the pain he now felt. The disgrace.

TO BE CONTINUED.…

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