SERIALIZATION OF “the Zany Time Travels of Warble McGorkle” – Chapter 23 of 61
Warble Conspires to Pawn Texas Off on Mexico
Chapter 23
Warble Conspires to Pawn Texas off on Mexico
Warble is as pleased as a dog with two tails and a silver collar with the way things have gone so far, and is champing at the bit to get on with his further plans.
“Now, gang, we’re going to undo all those disasters that would’ve never had to happen had that old rapscallion Washington not cheated us all out of our PPAs, an inalienable right guaranteed to us in the Constitution.
“Remember how Mexico slyly worked it out that we got saddled with Texas? We’re going to go back to the Alamo and make sure the Texicans win.”
“Finally, you’re making sense, Warble! Now we can see old glory waving victoriously over the Alamo after all. We will wrangle victory from the jaws of defeat,” Jacques enthuses.
Soundtrack note: What do you think of Merle Haggard’s “Okie from Muskogee” here?
“Now LaRue, don’t get carried away. We only want to win the battle of the Alamo so that we can lose the subsequent battle at San Jacinto and trick the Mexicans into keeping that god-forsaken territory. The loss at the Alamo will be a Pyrrhic one for the bean-eaters. They will at first think their loss at the Alamo is a great victory, forcing us to keep Texas, but really, they will get so riled up over the ignominy of getting their fannies whipped that they will lose their heads and win at San Jacinto, even if it does mean they will have to take back the Lone Star Beer state, the bane of North America.”
“What in the world are you talking about, Warble?” Mary asks, brow furrowed.
“I told you already, Mary—whoever wins the Alamo fight lights a fire under the losers, who then go out and win the next battle, the one at San Jacinto, for the gipper, and then they get saddled with having to keep Texas.”
Warble’s entourage look at one another and shrug. They don’t follow his logic, but he is paying their salary (or, in the case of Comfy and Albert, buying their product), so they clamber back aboard the Arodnap.
“Alright, here we go,” Warble says, as he deftly spins the globe until the Lone Star State is front and center. He presses the globe with his thumb, and a large hologram of Texas appears in front of his face. He locates San Antonio, and presses that. After typing in the date March 5th, 1836, he finally presses the Start button and away they fly, at mach pi.
In what seems like “no time flat” they are at the site of the Alamo. But they must also go back in time, and the prototype of the Arodnap does not allow traveling through space and time simultaneously—instead, it first takes you through space, after which you go back in time. Receding in time is not as fast as traveling through space.
After Comfy rather sheepishly explains this temporary drawback of the Arodnap, Warble expounds on the subject. “You see, folks, instead of traveling at the speed of pie (which is the speed it takes an average sized family of 3.14 souls to eat a fruit pie), going back in time we will travel only at the speed of Methuselah. It’s still pretty fast, but nothing like the speed of pie.”
As it seemed that no time at all had elapsed from the time Warble pushed the Start button until they arrived in San Antonio, Ward doesn’t understand how even the hungriest of pie lovers could have even gotten his fork into a piece in that time frame. But he lets that go. He has bigger fish to fry: “Warble, just what is the speed of Methuselah? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“Elementary, my dear Robespierre. Methuselah was the oldest man who ever lived. He reached nigh a thousand years before he finally gave up the ghost and croaked. Now I’m sure you’ve noticed how the older you get, the faster time flies. For example, when you’re a kid, a year takes forever. When you’re 50, it goes by pretty dad-blamed fast. Well, imagine what it’s like when you’re as old as Methuselah—time fairly zips by! In fact, as we’ve been discussing the matter, we’ve been zipping back through time, and—voila! Here we are: in the year of our Lord eighteen and thirty-six.”
And so it is. As the group of time and space travelers emerge from their experimental craft and approach the Alamo, they spot the team of stout defenders standing at the ramparts. Warble yells a “howdy-do” to them and says he has a message for them from Sam Houston.
“How do we know you’re not a bunch of Mexicans?” somebody challenges, yelling out from the battlements. Warble can’t tell if it’s William Travis, Davy Crockett, or maybe even Jim Bowie—although he assumes Bowie is probably already on his sickbed.
“Do I talk like a Mexican? Do I look like a Mexican? Am I wearing a sombrero, a pancho, a bandoleer, or a Wal*Mart associate name tag? Of course I’m no Mexican, you sunburned, coonskin-capped varmint! Let us in, I’ve got an idea that is guaranteed to save your bacon.”
The assemblage of strangers don’t appear to be likely saviors to the hard-bitten (they got that way from eating lots of hard tack) guardians of the Alamo. Travis and Crockett (it was Crockett who had yelled out to Warble) confer briefly.
“I never saw such a bunch of citified, flabby, parlor-bred would-be saviors in all my born days,” Travis comments.
“I agree that they don’t look like much in the way of reinforcements, but the other side of that coin is that if they are agents of Santa Anna, it won’t take much to subdue them,” Crockett replies. “I say let them in, and see what they’ve got to say. It should at least be a diversion for the men, and relieve some of the stress—in other words, a morale-booster.”
Travis yells out to the group below to come on up. To Travis and Crockett’s amazement, the group of strangers immediately disappear over a hill, then reappear above them a scant few seconds later, hovering over the Alamo in the Arodnap.
“What in blue blazes is that contraption?” Travis yells, looking up in astonishment.
“Beats me, Will,” replies Crockett, who is pulling on his beard and staring up at the Arodnap in wonder.
Warble presses the “Land” button, and the Arodnap gradually settles down on the middle of the Alamo’s roof. Comfy, salesman that he is, tries to explain it all to the stalwarts, but Warble butts in, literally shoving him aside, and waxes practically poetic about his ‘little beauty.’
To make a long story short, though (who wants to hear Warble brag about his possessions -- and besides, we already know what the Arodnap is and what it can do), in short order the Arodnap is secreted away in an interior room for safe keeping, and Warble meets with the Texas “power trio” (Travis, Crockett, and Bowie) in a back room where Bowie is lying on a cot.
Soundtrack note: “Beer Drinkers and Dallas Raisers” by Z.Z. Top
Warble wants to explain to them his idea for defeating the marauding Mexicans, who are bound to go on an all-out offensive at any time.
“What’s yer idea, McDorkle?” Bowie wheezes out, from his cot.
“McGorkle, boy, McGorkle,” Warble corrects. “Now here’s what’s going to save all you Texicans from ignominious defeat: ....no, on second thought, I think I’ll make it a surprise. It’ll be easier to show you how to win the day than to explain it to you—since you’re probably none too bright, anyway. After all, who would want to be a Texican?!?”
With a parting glance of disdain cast at Bowie--who Warble considers to be too weak to follow him outside--Warble turns on his heels and returns to the Alamo’s rooftop fortress.
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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/evil twin, here: