Serialization of the WACKY MISADVENTURES of WARBLE McGORKLE - CHAPTER 13 (of 70)
Warble & Mary Escape from the Police
CHAPTER 13
Warble & Mary Escape from the Police
H.R. opens the door. “Good morning, sir,” the officer greets him. “Good morning to you, officer,” H.R. replies, curious about the purpose of the visit. “What can I do for you?”
“Is that your car in the driveway--the PT Cruiser, that is?”
Warble has been listening to the conversation from around the corner. Hearing the officer's question about his car, Warble knows the gig is up. The borrowed license plate has been traced, and he and Mary are about to be arrested if he doesn't think of something pronto. He grabs a pillow from the sofa and pulls Mary close to him. He whispers in her ear, “Mary, stuff this under your blouse. You're pregnant.”
“I'm what?!” Mary asks, incredulously.
“You,” Warble says, pointing at his wife, “are pregnant.” He looks imploringly into his wife's eyes. With a little 'help' from her husband, Mary pushes the pillow up her blouse. Warble examines his handiwork. “Not bulky enough, I reckon,” Warble mutters under his breath. He turns on his heels, looking for some type of 'filler' to enhance the overall effect. In desperation, he grabs a volume from the bookshelf, Ocean Steamships. “There, perfect; let's go,” he says to Mary, pushing her ahead of him toward the front door.
After determining that H.R. Brooks is not, indeed, the registered owner of the car in question, the officer asks if the owner of the vehicle is currently within the residence. The McGorkles rush toward the door at that very moment. Warble practically shoves Mary right into the officer and yells: “Orifice! Orifice! My wife is pregnant! She's about to give birth! We need an escort to the hospital right away!”
H.R. takes a step backwards and stares at his house guests, mouth agape. While he and the officer exchange quizzical glances, Warble presses his mouth against Mary's ear. “Come on, start moaning pitifully, Mary,” he says under his breath.
Mary lets out a moan which makes up for in effort what it lacks in believability. Frantic now, Warble yanks open the door and half pulls, half carries Mary outside. “Orifice, please! There's no time to lose! The doctor said that it is imperative that my wife make it to the delivery ward as soon as the contractions start--and they have.”
Warble finishes his sentence looking over his shoulder at the officer and his old friend H.R. as he shoves Mary into the back seat of their car. As the officer seems unconvinced of the urgency of the situation, Warble pulls out all the stops.
“Orifice, if you don't escort us to the hospital right now, I'm going to sue the city, the police department, and you personally.”
The officer shakes his head and starts walking toward his vehicle. “All right, sir, but afterwards we have another matter to discuss.”
“No problem, orifice. Don't worry about that. It's all a big misunderstanding, I'm sure. Probably a case of mistaken identity or finders keepers or whatever.”
“We'll see,” the officer responds. “All right, follow me,” he says, as he gets into his patrol car.
Warble waves good-bye to H.R., who is standing on his lawn, simultaneously shaking and scratching his head. At the bottom of the driveway Warble slams on the brakes, leaps out of the car and flings open the back door. He reaches under his wife's blouse and removes the pillow and the Ocean Steamships book and tosses them, one after another, onto the lawn with a “frisbee” wrist motion. “Gotta go, H.R. Thanks for everything. I'll explain some day. Watch for me on Colbert.”
With that, Warble screeches out of the driveway and follows his escort for a couple of turns until he sees the sign for the expressway leading out of town. He turns down a side street to 'ditch the fuzz' and is on the road to freedom before the policeman realizes what has happened.
“Ha ha! So long, copper,” Warble says when he gleefully discovers there are no black & white cars in his rear-view mirror as he reaches top speed on the expressway.
Mary scrambles her way (forwards) into the front seat. Warble starts singing ‘Leavin' Looz-e-anna in the Broad Daylight.’ “Maybe I should have stayed back there,” Mary mutters, gesturing toward the back seat. “Or at least we could have kept the pillow a little longer.”
“Miss Mary, that would be stealing! That was H.R.'s pillow, you know!”
“Couldn't we consider it borrowing, Colonel?”
Warble wags his finger at his wife and says in an authoritarian voice--the one he always adopts when he is quoting some well-known and well-nigh indisputable figure: “Remember what the Arabian tribal leader and wise man Sheik Spear said: Neither a borrower nor a lender be.”
“What about the license plate--and the license plate holder--that you borrowed, Colonel?” Mary inquires.
“Miss Mary, sometimes, in compromising situations, compromises must be made. You know the old adage, 'Necessity is the mother of retention.' We needed those things, so we retained them.”
“You mean you retained them, Colonel,” Mary points out.
“Yeah, but you were the lookout man…woman…belle. You, my lovely and charming wife, are in cahoots with me--you are my accomplice, my partner in crime. In a word--give or take a few--our fates are intertwingled.”
“Intertwingled?”
“Haven't you been keeping up with ‘Word Power’ in Readers Digest, Miss Mary? Intertwingled: a situation in which two people's lot in life are both intertwined and mingled with that of the other. It's sort of like symbiosis--and then again, it's not.”
“Oh, brother, now I've heard everything,” is all Mary says to that.
“Miss Mary, what is it with you and this Abraham & Sarah complex? I told you: I am not your brother, nor do you have to pretend that I am. Besides, who would believe it? We look nothing alike. I'm tall and you're short. I have short hair and you have long hair. I have a mustache and you…well, that doesn't mean anything, we still don't look alike.”
“Colonel, I have no idea what you're talking about,” Mary says flatly. She is about to ask her 'partner in crime' a question about their destination when he says: “Miss Mary, look!” and points to the city limit sign. “We are about to enter one of the most culturally significant cities in America: Baton Rouge.”
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the Wacky Misadventures of Warble McGorkle is being serialized daily here on substack during the summer of 2021 (late June to early September).
NOTE: The second volume in the trilogy is the Zany Time Travels of Warble McGorkle; the final volume, now available on Kindle Vella) is
Warble McGorkle’s Delusional Visions of Paradise.
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