SERIALIZATION OF “the Zany Time Travels of Warble McGorkle” – Chapter 51 of 61
Warble Plans to Dam the Entire Nation and Gets Chewing Gum Stuck to His Lip
Chapter (not Area) 51
Warble Plans to Dam the Entire Nation and Gets Chewing Gum Stuck to His Lip
“Dam Nation!” Warble cries out like an alarm clock that had gone off without being set as he and his entourage arrive at their destination near the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. He is standing on the hood, or cowling, of the Arodnap again, arms spread heaven-ward.
“Warble! This is a family book! The author promised there would be no profanity contained within its pages!” Mary gasps.
“Profanity?! We're not in Babylon, Mary, so there's no need for you to babble on like that. I was merely exulting in the prospect—nay, certainty—that we are about to 'cut the ribbon' or 'christen the ship,' so to speak, on our great engineering project: the damming of America! We will be so far ahead of the curve in the community of nations when it comes to the impounding of waters that our national nickname will become “the Dam Nation”! What glory! Oh, for joy! What cause for rejoicing! This calls for a benediction!”
Warble leaps off the Arodnap and hurls himself on the ground with an overly and overtly flamboyant display of euphoria, akin to the storied irrational exuberance of yesteryear, kissing “terra firma” (with eyes closed) first here, then there. Without being aware of just where and what he is smooching, Warble accidentally kisses a piece of pre-masticated and subsequently discarded chewing gum (discarded presumably after it had lost at least most, if not all, of its flavor), and comes up with it stuck to and hanging from his lower lip.
Mary has not been paying any attention to Warble, and so did not see his mishap. Warble is also, as yet, unaware of it. Mary is looking out at the Mighty Mississippi, as it rolls its mile-wide tide along. Warble approaches her stealthily from behind, grabs her gently by the waist, spins her around, and declares:
“Mary! Give me a kiss, as a token of your love and devotion, as a symbolic gesture depicting pictorially your common cause with me in helping this nation along to its manifest destiny of ultimate water control!”
Mary sees the previously-owned and chewed gum hanging from Warble's lower lip, and backs away in disgust. “Warble, I'm not going to do anything of the kind. I don't know where your lip has been!” Mary refuses, revolted.
Warble is dumbfounded, consternation written (figuratively, not literally) all over his face. He reaches up, examining his lip with his fingers. “Oh, gross!” he yells out, peeling off the pre-chewed gum glob. “Juicyfruit! I hate Juicyfruit!”
Ward tiptoes up to the Arodnap and downloads Jimmy Buffett's Greatest Hits. For one thing, the sight of the Mississippi River puts him in the mood for sailing and drinking.
The other reason Buffett had entered Robespierre's consciousness is left as an exercise for the reader.
Soundtrack note: If you're just a reader, don't cheat and read this—this is meant solely for the soundtrack engineer: Spin a little “Grapefruit-Juicy Fruit” by Jimmy Buffett at this point in the proceedings.
Soundtrack note addendum: If you are not the soundtrack engineer, and you were honest enough not to read the private note to him or her above, I'll reward you by giving you a hint--I'll give you the name of the song in Piglatin: “Rapefruit-Gay Uicyfruit-Jay” by Immy-Jay Uffett-Bay.
Warble climbs a knoll overlooking the River, strikes a dramatic pose—head tilted skyward, left elbow akimbo—and proclaims: “Oyez! Oyez! Hear ye! Hear ye! Huddle up, maties!”
Warble's wife and employees saunter up to him, and wait, in an attitude of resigned anticipation.
“Again, you all are fortunate to be here at the time and at the site of the beginning of an engineering and economic marvel. All credit and thanks to me, of course,” Warble intones, smiling to beat the band.
“Enough of that, you old contortionist, get to the point!” Jacques demands.
“Did you call me an extortionist, LaRue?” Warble asks, rage rising in his voice.
“No—contortionist, you old coot. You keep patting yourself on the back. Just tell us what you intend to do,” Jacques demands.
“Hmpphh!” Warble grunts disapprovingly. “Some people have no respect. Or, more likely, extreme jealousy is behind your feigned lack of respect and profound appreciation. Well, I can at least understand why you would be jealous of me, LaRue, but try to be satisfied with being allowed to bask in the radiant glow of my presence and of being privileged to have some part--however minuscule and unimportant it may be!--in the outworking of my purpose.”
Jacques rolls his eyes. Warble goes on. “We are going to dam every river with enough flow to rightly be called a river. Starting here, where the Mississippi and the Missouri meet and meld and morph into one, we will impound these waters for the use of all America. Up till now, these waters have gone to waste, dumping out into the Gulf of Mexico. Why, after all, should we allow the Mexicans to have our rightful water supply?”
Warble demands, shaking his right fist in the air. “This is OUR water. No Mexicans need apply for it! I am tired of us Americans making those Mexicans rich by wasting our water on them. We will dam it right here, and keep all the water for ourselves.”
“What do you mean 'making those Mexicans rich,' Warble?” Mullah asks. “I thought they were rather a poor nation, actually.”
“Well, you've obviously never seen Mexico City, Gitani, you old flibbertigibbet, you. If you had, you would know how polluted it is. And how does a city get polluted? By people manufacturing a lot of goods, and making a lot of money thereby.
“Oh, yes, they're rich all right! And they've been running their industries—their textile mills and Corona breweries and taco factories and so on—with OUR water. We've been subsidizing them, so to speak. They've been taking the bread right out of our mouths!
“Butt, no more! This has got to stop, and it WILL stop, once we dam up our waters, starting right here, where the 'Mighty Mississip' and the 'Big Muddy' meet, the Father of Waters and the Mother of All Waters. Oh yes, that mother is really going to get pregnant now, and send her children all across the land—New Mexico will look like New Hampshire! Arizona like Oregon! Utah like Florida! Texas like--well, forget Texas, as Mexico owns it now.”
“You think this dam will supply water for all those places?” Mary asks.
“Remember, Mary, this is just the first of many. We're going to build dams everywhere. In every place where water currently (no pun intended) flows out of our hallowed land and into some also-ran country (like Mexico or Canada) we will arrest, impound, and dam it. In fact, that will be our motto: 'Dam it!' We'll make t-shirts emblazoned with that slogan, print it on bumper stickers, paint it on the side of barns, plaster it on billboards, etc. What a genius I am! And getting back to the Mexicans: Let them make their own water! It's not our lookout how—or even if!--they succeed in polluting their cities.”
“That sounds like quite an ambitious project,” Albert notes dryly.
“You're not just whistling Dixie cups, Albert,” Warble says. “We'll have dams up the wazoo."
Soundtrack note: “Mississippi Sheiks” by Rory Gallagher
"What's a wazoo?" Albert inquires, sorry he asked practically before he gets the words out of his mouth.
"The Wazoo is a river in Michigan,” Warble replies, thoughtfully. “Haven't you ever heard that song: 'Way down upon the Wazoo River, down Saginaw way'? And two famous expressions come from it. 'Up the Wazoo' means to travel up the Wazoo River, to the pristine Northland—stopping at the Canadian border, of course, where the landscape changes to a frozen wasteland.
“And to be 'sold down the river' means to go down the Wazoo, ultimately to be dumped into the Gulf of Mexico, from whence the Gulf Stream carries one relentlessly to the Sargasso Sea, where one is inescapably and unmercifully bitten by electric eels and their close cousins, electronic eels.”
“I thought you said the Mexicans got that water,” Mary asks for clarification, ignoring the eel part of the story completely.
“They do get most of it, Mary,” Warble says, “but they're not as efficient as us ingenious Yankees—some of it gets away from them and drifts off of its own volition on over to the Sargasso Sea.
“But not for long! Going down the Wazoo will soon lead people right to wonderful recreational opportunities right here on Lake Warble at the Consumer Warble Memorial Dam, at this historic spot on which we now stand.”
“'Lake Warble'? 'The Consumer Warble Memorial Dam'?” Mary asks.
“Sure,” Warble replies. “That is what you all are going to insist I name this initial project, isn't it? After all, Lake Warble will be a man-made lake, and what man will have made it?
“But getting back to the entomological lesson regarding the Wazoo River in the Wolverine state: Going up the Wazoo is a good thing, whereas going down that river was up until now to be avoided at all costs, and by any means necessary.”
“Close, but no cigar, Warble—a Wazoo is actually a musical instrument,” Jacques jokes. “It's used mostly in classical music, like the solo in Del Shannon's hit song from the Renaissance period, “Runaway”.”
“If that were true I would agree with you, LaRue—that instrument should be dammed. But it's not true. Where do you get such hare-brained ideas, anyway?”
Soundtrack note: Start playing “Runaway” by Del Shannon (real name Charles Westover) earlier, so that the kazoo solo (actually, it's a Musitron solo) kicks in just as Jacques mentions it. Or just confuse everyone by playing the version by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes (which has a guitar solo). Do you think we could get some crooner such as Michael Bublé, Marshall Mathers III, Justin Bieber, or Donnie Wahlberg to record a version of “Swanee River” (actually, the name of the song is “Old Folks at Home,” written by Stephen Foster) as “Wazoo River”?
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^
Blackbird Crow Raven’s “the Zany Time Travels of Warble McGorkle” is being serialized in this space each Sunday and Thursday; it is also available in its entirety from here.
You can listen to the recording of this excerpt, by the author’s alter ego, here.