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J. Jonah Jerkson
Sun Sep 18, 2005 at 05:34:09 pm EDT
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The Baroness, Part 37: Tortured by Hot Gumbo
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The Baroness, Part 37
Tortured by Hot Gumbo

"The mail, Your Excellency," Franz the major-domo intoned, proffering the letters on a silver salver in the best Jeeves-and-Bertie tradition and then vanishing, closing the door silently behind him.

After opening half a dozen charitable solicitations, Elizabeth Zemo picked up a thick envelope from the University of Michigan's graduate psychology department with relief. That quickly changed to rage as she read it.

"Inadequate scholarly content? . . . Derivative? Not making adequate progress! . . . Request for extension of personal leave denied? Five years of my life starving rats for a dissertation, and now they call that 'derivative' ? Cretins! Half wits! Those professorial numbskulls couldn't recognize genius if Freud and Skinner were standing in front of them! I'll show them originality, I'll show them progress! Grr-ah-ha-ha-ha!!"'

Franz. Silicone Sally and Gunther raced up the steps to the Baroness's private sanctum. As they waited beside the door, panting from the ascent, their employer's maniacal laughter swelled, interspersed with shouts and snarls.

"What they need is a course of electroshock therapy -- bwah hah-hah-hah-hah! . . . I'll make them push little levers for their dinners! Hee, hee, hee, hee. "

"Her Excellency appears to be a bit agitated," Franz intoned.

"More like CrazySugarFreakBoy! channelling Thighmaster on meth," Sally snarked.

"Run them through a maze until they collapse from confusion! Woo-hoo! Ah-hah-hah; ah-hah-hah; ah-hah-hah!"

"Should we call Dr. Valium?" Sally asked nervously.

"It would make her angry," Gunther the chauffeur whispered.

"I'LL SHOW THEM WHAT SCHOLARLY CONTENT IS, RIGHT UP THEIR FUNDAMENTAL ORIFICES! I'LL SHOW THEM ALL!!! Bwah-hah-hah!"

"Make her angry, you say?" the imperturbable Franz murmured. The sound of a vase shattering penetrated the door, followed by more tinkles and crunches as several picture frames impacted a stone wall.

"She said, 'I'll show them all.' You know what that means," Silicone Sally worried. Gunther blanched and ran for the bomb shelter.

The following awkward pause was ended by the Baroness's next scream. "Sally! Sally! Get your sweet rubber ass up here, now!" Franz promptly evaporated.

The Flexible Felon counted to ten, then knocked on the walnut door.

"Woo-hah-hah-hah-hah!" her employer greeted her. At least she halted her arm in mid-throw, saving Sally's face from contact with a hurled and very sharp Austrian crystal cat figurine.

"What happened?" the Baroness's stretchy sidekick screamed.

"I'll get them all!! Every last one of them! Take the Picogun and tell Leo to ready the Zeppelin; we're going to Ann Arbor! Bwah-hah-hah-hah-hah!"

Fourteen hundred miles to the south, Roger Wilton was delivering the punch line of one of his best jokes. "And so the constipated Scotsman, now don't forget, this is in Scotland, said, watch out now, heh, heh, 'Hoot mon, my haggis is empty!'" He broke into riotous laughter that obscured the granite silence of Fred, Daphne and Velma. Shaggy had his usual baffled look.

"If there ever were a moment where I could break the rule about never sassing adults, this would be it," Fred moaned.

"I've never heard a worse joketeller," Daphne concurred.

"He's just trying to pass the time until the tow truck comes," Velma defended half-heartedly.

Roger had finally come down from his elation. "Hah, hah . . . oof. That was
hi-lair-ree-ous, right kids? Positively groovy, in fact. Hotter than my Nehru jacket, huh?" Roger Wilton had a craving for affirmation that was sorely unsatisfied today. "Wait, wait, I've got another one, it's even better!"

There were groans from three teen detectives. The bewildered Shaggy simply complained, “Like, you know, I don’t get it.” They were saved from further explanations by the arrival of the tow truck, which promptly recovered the Mystery Machine from the mire of Bayou LePiou.

“You’ll have to squeeze into the back of the cab,” warned the driver. “You cain’t ride in that there van while I’m a-lugging it back to the shop.”

“Driver,” Roger asked in his energetic but profoundly irritating voice, “can this little angel and I sit in the rear, by the hook?”

“The bed? S’pose so, if you don’t mind gettin yor clothes dirty and you don’t get brained by that there swivelin’ hook.”

“Super! Come, Elizabeth, let’s take a romantic ride in the open air. In . . . the bed,” he leered.

“It’s filthy! There are puddles! There’s not enough room to sit without having your back punctured by the corner of a tool box! I don’t want to get brained! And my name isn’t Elizabeth!” Daphne never seemed to have these problems, Velma thought.

“It just adds to the fun, dickie bird,” Roger replied as he attempted to vault into the rear of the tow truck. His foot slipped against the muddy fender, causing him to slam into the truck’s side and bash his chin against the top of the side wall. “Oooh, that smarts,” he mumbled, falling to the mud.

“Can we go now?” Shaggy whined. “Screwy’s waiting for his snack at the motel.”

Baron Ottokar Attila Kublai Tamerlane Zemo was also waiting for a snack, or rather, soup, at the swamp shack of Madame Dessalines, hoodoo mistress extraordinaire, temporarily evacuated from her French Quarter townhouse.

“Madame,” he enunciated through gritted teeth, “I am honored to meet you.”

“Cut the crap, you Nazi shit. Like you wouldn’t send me to a gas chamber if you had half a chance.”

“Hmmph,” Baron Otto growled. “Nonetheless, this is your sphere of influence, and I need your assistance to find Killer Shrike’s astral spirit, which was last detected around here. All I ask of you is his astral location, and I will leave you to your cauldrons and pins.”

“And why should I give a bat’s nut for your plans, Baron?”

“Professional courtesy?”

Two minutes later, Madame Dessalines ended her laughing fit. “Courtesy? From you?” She laughed again, then composed herself. “O.K., Otto, you get one cup of this gumbo here, just for giving me the best laugh in 80 years. Just remember, you asked for it.”

“There aren’t any tomatoes in it,” Baron Otto remarked.

“That’s cuz you’re out here in the real Cajun country, man. Now eat it up, ‘fore it gets cold.”

“It loses power when it’s cold?”

“Nah, but the okra gets really slimy.”

As darkness fell over Terrebonne Parish, Velma and Roger were bouncing around in the cluttered bed of the tow truck.

“Ooof, ah, baby, baby – yipe! – Velma, sweetheart, I crave your warm, sweet – whoah! – bo—deeee!

“Get . . . ai-yi-yi . . . your — whoops! Ouch! – hands out of – oooh! . . . my pa-ah-ah-nts.”

“But baby – yi! – we were – crunch! – owww, I think I lost a kidney – meant for -- wo,wo,wo,wo – each other.”

“Ouch! That’s sweet, but – bouncety-bounce-boom! – ow, ow, ow!”

“What – yeee-ahh – happened, sweetne-ne-ne-ss?”

“Ah – uummph! – bi’ mah – yow! – tun.”

“Here, whoops!— let me give you a -- big-ig-ig -- kiss.”

“Ummph – clunch!”

“Yeeee-owwww! You bit my tongue!” Roger howled.

Baron Otto’s tongue was also in crisis from the hoodoo woman’s scorching hot gumbo. “Foul woman,” he rasped, “there’s nothing magical about that soup. It’s as mundane as the swamp that gave up its ingredients!”

“Jus’ wait, you chalk-faced refugee from the livin’, jus’ wait.”

“I’m not dead, I’m unalive – urrrk!” Baron Otto’s habitual sneer warped into a rictus of pain, while every muscle in his body tightened until it cramped. Quivering, he fell from his chair; Madame Dessalines made no move to help him.

“After Killer Shrike, are you, you racist bastard? You get to experience his whole lifetime of pain, all at once. Enjoy, shithead.”

Although the Baron was no stranger to the uses of pain for pleasure, the hoodoo gumbo was delivering a concentrated dose of Killer Shrike’s worst moments, from the pain of his initial body modifications through his repeated resurrections. As his body shuddered on the rough-hewn pine boards of the shack, his mind spun through yellow and purple hell.

The four young detectives also thought, with much less reason, that they had endured their own hell out in the murky bayou. Alighting from the tow truck’s cab, Fred, Daphne and Shaggy stumbled to their hotel rooms, hoping for long hot showers and bed rest.

Roger, though, had other ideas. “O.K, Velma, darling, are you ready to shag, huh?”

With most of her body covered with bruises from the nightmarish trip in the tow truck’s bed, Velma wasn’t in the mood for anything with Roger. But there was always the possibility that things might get better. Roger wasn’t Velma’s dream man – he was more like an irritating commercial on indefinite repeat – but there was nothing better around (or so she thought). So, she parried: “Oh, Roger, that sounds so . . . weir . . . dromantic, but I can’t. You don’t have a room, and I’m sharing with Daphne.”

“Cool! I’ve always wanted a threesome!”

“No, no, Roger, that’s not what I meant.”

“But that’s what I meant. One look at the old Roger-dodger, and she’ll be like putty in my hands. Come on, ask her for me?”

Velma thought at light speed. “It sounds so good, Roger, but confidentially, it’s her time of the month, you know?”

“Well, anytime’s my time of the month, I always say,” replied Roger with what he thought of as deep coolness.”

“No, Roger!” Velma then whispered something in his ear.

“Eww, ick, I can’t believe you said that to me!” was his reply.

“That’s right. Why don’t you ask Fred and Shaggy if you can share their room, and we can get together at breakfast tomorrow?”

“Super! But let’s get up early and you can tell me all about yourself and your secret plans, Beth.”

“No! And quit calling me Beth!”

Don’t worry, you will tell me, thought Roger Wilton, fingering the small bottle in his pocket.

Playing the part of Elizabeth Zemo

J. JONAH JERKSON
Voice of the People










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