SERIALIZATION OF “the Zany Time Travels of Warble McGorkle” – Chapter 52 of 61
Warble Recommends Intolerance to the Pilgrims And Prepares to Go to Jerusalem
Chapter 52
Warble Recommends Intolerance to the Pilgrims And Prepares to Go to Jerusalem
It takes lots of time, money, and manpower (Warble saves on all three by hiring Mexicans, who work fast and cheap) to build the ponds, canals, and reservoirs to create the “Dam Nation.” After a mere eight years, the project is finally complete. Warble and company do not stick around to see it all through, though. Warble leaves the oversight to others, delegating the details to a team of managers comprised of Roger Wilco, Jimmy Crack Corn, Everdood Watt, and Crystal Sporidian, as well as a group of civil engineers which include Monty Pharaoh, Eddy Boyle, Tonya Tunnabrix, and Nate R. Haight (a former vacuum salesman who left his previous stock-in-trade because he was slowly but surely beginning to bear a striking resemblance to the household appliances he sold, leading to the well-known metaphorical phrase--which he came to despise--that “Nate R. Haight's a vacuum”).
“Get ready for buckled black boots, buckled hats, muskets with flared barrels, and enough turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie to choke a horse!” Warble beams, thinking he will simultaneously pleasantly surprise and enlighten his crew as to their next assignment, which they had better opt to accept if they know what's good for them, employment-wise.
“Why?” Albert wonders.
“'Why?' Isn't it obvious, Albert?” Warble replies, disappointed. “We are going to Plymouth, Massachusetts, circa 1620: We're going to see the Pilgrims walk off the gangplank onto Plymouth Rock and set to work on their Thanksgiving preparations.”
And so it goes. Sort of, anyway. They do go to Plymouth, and it is 1620.
Warble cuts quite a figure in his “drugstore pilgrim” duds. As he mounts the pulpit at the colonist's meeting, held in the visitors' “honor” as a sort of inquest, Warble waves for silence. Out of curiosity, mainly, a hush does fall over the assembled colonists.
“Friends, Pilgrims, Founding Fathers, lend me your ears,” Warble begins. “I have been sent from on high, and from a time postdating this one, to help you institute a foundation for the future that will be even better than the one you would have laid without my able and priceless assistance.”
Miles Standish grabs his blunderbuss, and is about to raise it to his chin, when John Carver waves him off. “Let's just let him talk,” Carver whispers to the soldier. “Methinks he is just a bit addled in the head; perhaps I can foist off my governorship of the plantation on him—sanity has never been a requirement for public office, after all.”
Warble continues. “This is what must be, m'lords: There will be only one religion allowed in this land.”
“Hear, hear!” many from the crowd concur; others look around nervously, frowning.
“This religion consists of the following dogma, rules to be followed by all, and whose transgressors will be punished by fates worse than death:
1. No fun, no pleasure of any kind, is allowed. In other words, to put it pithily: 'If it feels good, don't do it'
2. For those who break that first law (and everyone will, for it'd be more likely to catch a weasel asleep than not to, and those of us in on the ground floor can freely flaunt it, as it won't apply to us—just so long as we give the appearance of following it), they can buy their way out of the terrible punishments they deserve by paying us a dispensation fee. Really, of course, we don't want their money, but this is a service to them because they get twice the pleasure out of their iniquities this way: first, the pleasure of the sin itself; second, the feeling of euphoria and indescribable relief once they buy their way out of the punishment. We are their benefactors!
“But that's a rotten and hypocritical scam!” John Howland (one of the pilgrims) accuses Warble. “It's a pyramid scheme!”
“No backtalk from the peanut gallery!” Warble roars. “And so what if it is, anyway: the wise and mighty Egyptians of old used them, and so will the Masons, so why not us? In fact, if you'll just take a close look at some legal tender, you'll see those pyramids proudly displayed thereupon. So, obviously, pyramids and their schemes have been sanctioned by the government and are, by extrapolatory deduction and curved space reasoning, a downright good idea.
“And I'm sure you will all agree with me that we will be better off in the long run if we suppress—nip in the butt, to put it plainly—all other religions.”
Warble turns to his traveling companions/employees, and addresses them, in particular, on the subject: “You know what it would be like if it was 'every man for himself' and they could all choose their own way of worshiping. Take Ty Conestoga, for instance, who coaches Little League over in Ixonia in our time period. He belongs to a religion called “The Church of Later Days, Dudes.” They believe their holiest writings were given them by Frank Sinatra. Then two angelic twins named Macaroni and Moron interpreted that lounge lizard's prose. “And we can't have that; it's just too weird.
“And then there's that religion Martin Luther started by opening a can of worms at a Revival Meeting (he was on a diet, and worms were the only things he was allowed to eat).
Although not intending to wake snakes [editors note: 'wake snakes' means 'cause a ruckus'], and enjoying the meeting immensely (he wanted to be a preacher himself), Luther was ordered to leave, as some of the ladies there were squeamish, and didn't want to share their pews with the creepy crawly critters. Luther staunchly refused to vacate the premises, though, and ended up boxing the circuit rider's ears—as I'm sure you all remember.
“Well, that poor ol' itinerant revivalist was catawamptiously chawed up by the time ol' Marty got through with him. He was cut in about 95 places or so, and he was kicked in a couple more. And you'd better believe, they sung a different kind of revival song when the preacher hit the floor--because they weren't especially fond of the gospel tune he always had them sing, anyway, and Luther taught them one more to their liking. If memory serves, it was Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
Soundtrack Note: “You Don't Mess Around with Jim” by Jim Croce plays at this point, followed, of course, by Bobby Horton's version of “Battle Hymn of the Republic”
Warble's employees look at one another, confused, and shrug their shoulders. They have no idea where Warble intends to end up with this seemingly nonsequitorial tangent he has flown off on. Warble is not to be stopped just yet, though. Turning his attention back to the crowd as a whole, and now addressing the Pilgrims specifically, he goes on:
“And I'm sure you realize just how busy I am, since I am omniscient and have the answer to all of mankind's problems. So, I trust you can carry out this assignment yourself—instituting one religion, legislating full compliance from all on pain of punishments worse than death, and guaranteeing freedom of worship in this one religion.”
Not too surprisingly, the Pilgrims (and the Strangers, who would later form the nucleus of Merle Haggard's band) think Warble is mad. Superstitious and backward as they are, they are afraid to come near him, as they fear that whatever malady he is suffering from might be “catching.” Warble interprets the looks on their faces as deep respect and profound devotion to his stated cause, and concludes that his plan is safe in their hands.
Soundtrack Note: “Rainbow Stew” by Merle Haggard and the Strangers should be playing around in here somewhere. Let it play until the final note
“On that note, we will take our leave, and leave you to this important work,” Warble says, bowing to the pilgrims. “We will now go on another journey to a land far away and to a time even further in the past, to prepare things for this sole allowable framework of worship.”
This is the first Warble's crew has heard of their next assignment, and they wonder what he's got up his sleeve this time, where Warble's whim will drag them in his wake.
Warble jolts them out of their reverie before they have much time to dwell on it: “Let's go, gang! Off to our next adventure!”
Warble dashes through the crowd. Miles Standish had planned on arresting Warble and throwing him in the stockade on short rations, but Warble slips through the assembled throng before Standish even realizes he has vacated the pulpit.
“Hurry, people! We've got to get away before Our Founding Fathers and Mothers try to detain us! They'll probably want me to teach them how to rob graves, steal corn, make treaties they don't intend to keep, poison the Indians, and all kinds of other useful and practical skills.
“History tells us, though, that they will soon figure these things out for themselves, so I don't want to waste my time on that.”
Warble leads the way out of the plantation to the forest beyond, where the Arodnap lays hidden. As the crazy eight (nine, if you count Taterskin in that 'august' group) clamber aboard once more, Warble brings up the GPS/CPS.
Location: Jerusalem
Date: March 4th, 29 C.E.
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^
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: