0 comments/ 20908 views/ 0 favorites Dillinger & Holmes By: hedoman The following was intended to be a part of “Angel Lost in the Dark – Chapter 7” but when it was finished I found it didn’t really work. Rather than throw it away entirely I decided to post it as a separate story. Angel (an amateur model) is telling Tom (an amateur photographer) the story as they sit around the kitchen table drinking wine. As you can tell from this excerpt the alcohol is starting to have its effect. ----------------------------------------------- John Dillinger was shot by FBI agents and outside the Biograph theatre in Chicago on July 22, 1934. He was rushed to the hospital but it was too late. He had already kicked the bucket. His body was subsequently taken to the Cook County Morgue where numerous photographs of the body were taken. Whispered comments from unnamed doctors and newspaper photographers began to circulate that there was something ‘strange’ about the body, but the general public had no way of knowing what the whispering was about until the photographs were published the next day. Some looked at the photos and said “No way, Jose!” but others looked at them and gasped either from fear or from jealously or from shame. There, on the front pages of the newspaper, was a photo of John Dillinger’s body laid out on a steel table covered only by a bed sheet, and the bed sheet appeared to be sticking upwards at exactly that point on his body where his dick would be! Had this event happened in 1990, there would never have been the controversy – we are more lax when it comes to reporting news, to reporting rumors, and most importantly, to use the banner “SHOCKING PHOTOS INSIDE!!!!!’ to sell newspapers. In 1934, however, the word ‘dick’ couldn’t be used in newspapers. Any photo of a dick, even one hidden beneath a bed sheet would be considered pornography, whether it was alive or dead at the time. Even doctors who examined the corpse weren’t required to view that portion of the body. As a result of this moral difference between the eras, a huge (pardon the pun) part of history simply vanished. Or did it? When I was in college I took a course in Dickology (A study of the historical and cultural importance of the human dick and its influence on the study of ethics, morality, and the motion picture industry) and I was amazed at how far our society has changed. The Professor who taught the course was Dick Johnson, MD (which stood for Master of Dickology) and in one of his lectures he mentioned that it was well known that John Dillinger had the largest dick ever recorded. When I questioned him about it after class he informed me that after Dillinger’s death his dick had been cut off, pickled in formaldehyde, and sent to The Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. for study. There, he said, they not only studied it, but they weighed it, measured it, experimented with it, tested it and played games with it. After every study had been studied, every weight and been weighed, every measurement been measured, every experiment had been experimented, every test had been tested, and every conceivable game had been played (including a famous hide-and-go-seek game where they hid it so well that they almost lost it), they placed it in a small alcove in the Museum and Natural History and put it on display so the general public could Oooohhh! and Ahhhhh! over it. I immediately asked him if it was still there, and when he told me it was I got really excited. Being a somewhat feisty college girl I’d already seen some pretty big ones but how would they compare with Dillinger’s? I promised myself then and there that during the summer I would take a pilgrimage to the nation’s capital and see with my own eyes just how big it really was. I suppose I could have gone during the upcoming Spring Break, which was only three weeks away, but who wants to go to Washington DC when they could go to Palm Springs or to Miami Beach? By going to either one of them I might luck out and find another ‘big’ one to add to my collection of comparisons. In May I started making my plans. The first thing I did was to send for some brochures that were printed by the Smithsonian. When they arrived in the mail I immediately tore into them. Strange, I thought when I read through the first one and saw no reference to the display. Certainly a relic as important as Dillinger’s dick would be one of their major attractions, but none of the other brochures mentioned it either. The next day I called the Smithsonian and talked to the Assistant Secretary of the Assistant Curator of the Second Floor of the Museum of Natural History. After introducing myself as a serious student who was writing a paper on Dillinger’s dick for my Dickology class I told her I was taking a trip in early July and wanted to know where the dick was located. “You aren’t by any chance of student of Dick Johnson, are you?” she asked, and when I told her I was she laughed. “He’s a nut. We’ve told him over and over again that it’s not here, but he won’t believe us. Save your money and don’t come. Believe us, it’s not here.” As you can well imagine I was flabbergasted. Professor Johnson had seemed so sure. Was he mistaken, or was he a nut like she said? I started looking through all the books that the University library had concerning the Smithsonian, the study of Dickology, and I even read a biography of Dillinger. . The only reference I could find was in a book entitled “Debunking Dillinger’s Dong – A Phallic Fallacy” written Dr. Harry Thickfinger who I was a Professor of Dickology at NYU. I remembered Professor Johnson had once referred to him in class as “a quack who doesn’t know his weenie from a hole in the ground.” As I read Dr. Thickfinger’s book I came to the inescapable conclusion that the “quack” wasn’t Dr. Thickfinger, it was Professor Johnson. “Professor” Johnson had been expelled from college in his sophomore year school for his bizarre beliefs and he hade never gotten around to enrolling in any other. Besides Dillinger’s dick he believed in the Abominable Snowman, the Loch Ness Monster, flying saucers, and the theory that women’s orgasms could be triggered by tickling their feet with goose feathers. He had absolutely no letters to put after his name and it remains a mystery to me why the school hired him to be a professor. After studying all of the photographs I could find of Dillinger’s autopsy through a magnifying glass, I had to agree with the majority of serious scholars. It had only been an optical illusion created by the fold in the sheet that covered him and nothing more. The only proponents of the “Big Dick” theory that I knew were Professor “the quack” Johnson and Art Bell, the on again-off again radio host of Coast to Coast. I immediately began to wonder about Bell’s theory that Judge Crater, Amelia Earhart, Glenn Miller, Jimmy Hoffa, and all the airman and airplanes that disappeared in the Bermuda triangle were all abducted by a race of moon men who live in Xiloland, a city on the back side of the moon as well. . ********** Three years after leaving college I was reading a copy of the National Enquirer while standing in line at the DMV, and while skimming through one of the columns my eyes came upon the following: “Little Dickie DILLINGER, nephew of the INFAMOUS bank robber John DILLINGER, was CONVICTED last Thursday for stealing a phone book from the Turtleturd Public Library. He was found ‘NOT GUILTY on the more serious charges of making CRUDE, OBSCENE, NASTY, PERVERTED, GROSS and DISGUSTING phone calls, soliciting money under false pretenses, SEXUAL harassment of the employees of a utility, CORRUPTING the morals of MINORS, defaming the City if SAN FRANCISCO, and ILLEGALLY disguising his voice with the intent of avoiding identification. A Sentencing hearing is set for next week.. BIG DICK is still MISSING!” I didn’t quite understand the whole thing but it made me think. Was the rumor of Dillinger’s dick just another urban legend, or had Professor Johnson been right all along? I quickly looked at my watch and realized that it was almost eleven AM. My driver’s license had expired at 10:42. Knowing that it was now against the law for me to drive, I left my car in their parking lot and ran all the way home and began writing a letter to the National Enquirer requesting further information. I could go to the DMV the next day and drive home legally after renewing my license. “I read your recent announcement of Little Dickie Dillinger being convicted,” I wrote, “and was wondering if the Big Dick you referred to in the last sentence was the legendary missing appendage of John Dillinger. While I was in college I took a course in Dickology and after considerable investigation I concluded that it was only a myth. If you can shed any light on this I would be appreciative.” A week past before I received a response. It was from Lulu Luckless, a staff writer for the National Enquirer. It was a lengthy letter – a good ten pages – and all the really important things were highlighted for me with yellow marking drawn over the words. She had also included a list of people I could contact if I needed more information, two hand written maps so I wouldn’t get lost if I ever wanted to visit Knucklenutt, a place I’d never heard of before, and a photograph of Little Dickie Dillinger and his lawyer. Before reading the letter I immediately wrote a ‘thank you’ note to Lulu telling her how nice it was to receive her letter and praising her for choosing the Enquirer as a place to work. The Enquirer, I told her, was my favorite newspaper and I had read a lot of other news stories they had run that the other papers had missed completely. “Your paper was the only one that dared to publish the photograph the astronauts took of Xiloland, the city on the back side of the moon that Art Bell discovered,” I wrote. “If I hadn’t seen that photograph with my own eyes I would not have become a believer.” ********** (Text of Lulu Loveless’s Letter 8/04/93) Dear Angel, After Dillinger’s death in 1934, the coroner amputated his dick and put it in a bottle of formaldehyde. Eventually it ended up at the Smithsonian Institute where it was displayed in a small alcove in the Museum of Natural History. The alcove was in the Hall of Penises, where by its very definition it should have been, but visitors to the museum complained anyway. You mustn’t forget that this was 1934, only nine years after the Scope’s Trial, and despite Darrow’s eloquent defense many still believed that Scopes was a heathen and that Darwin was the reincarnation of the Devil. There had always been complaints from those who objected to a Hall of Penises in the first place, but when the Dillinger display made its debut the number of complaints multiplied. It was one thing to display animal dicks, but a human wasn’t an animal. To mix human dicks alongside monkey dicks, petrified dinosaur dicks, teeny weenie insect dicks that had to viewed through microscopes like spiders, ants, fleas and the rest, was in very poor taste, if not outright sacrilegious. The dick of a HUMAN should NEVER be displayed in the same hall as an animal. If Dillinger’s dick was to be displayed at all, they argued, they should have their own HALL At first the complaints were ignored by the Board of Directors. If visitors were offended by the display then they could simply ignore the Hall in it’s entirely, or better yet, just close their eyes when passing the small alcove. The complainers weren’t satisfied with these suggestions, and as the complaints increased the resolve of the Board of Board of Director began to dissolve. It ended in September of 1935 when the offensive piece of meat was removed from the alcove. It was replaced with a run-of-the mill donkey dick which was slightly longer and thicker than Dillinger’s, but close enough so that the visitors were at least reminded of what had been there first. The following day a staff writer for the Washington Post wrote “It was the Museum’s way of saying “Fuck You!” in a way that would offend only those who recognized the hidden humor that the donkey dick display represented.” Since it made no sense to build a completely new ‘hall’ for one dick, so the Museum removed the bottle altogether and it ended up in the basement filed away in a metal cabinet with a simple notation that read ‘Dick – Dillinger – 1934’. It remained accessible for serious study and research, but all who wanted to see it had to be approved by the Board. Over time the number of requests to examine the dick decreased and eventually people began to forget it all together. The last person to apply for approval was in 1971 and from then on the bottle simply rested in the dankness of the basement and collected dust. In 1988, however, all that changed. In 1988 John Holmes (AKA Johnny Wadd) died in Los Angeles of AIDS. It was an altogether fitting way for him to shuffle off to Buffalo, if you’ll excuse my poor attempt at humor. He was the first porno star to appear in 2000 movies (Ron Jeremy holds the record now with somewhere in the vicinity of 25,000 or so) and it was rumored that he’d had sexual relations with over 20,000 women and perhaps 500 men in course of his career. He had also been involved in the Wonderland murders some years before and although he confessed to being ‘involved’ there was no substantial evidence to charge him with anything. In addition to everything else he was an addict with immense appetites, his drugs of choice being alcohol, heroin, cocaine, amphetamines, ecstasy, peyote, LSD, hashish, marijuana, absinthe, aspirins, and Pepsi Cola. He was also believed by many to be the first man to discover that licking toads could get a person high, although no one could explain the circumstances on how he discovered it. He was 44 years of age when he died and everyone was surprised he was that young. His main claim to fame, however, was the size of his dick. It was so big that it required a yardstick rather than a common ruler to measure it. I interviewed Bartholomew Tightbottom, the Director of the Board of Trustees of the Smithsonian, and he told me that he had been watching a re-run of ‘The Beverly Hillbillies” when his screen suddenly went blank and he heard the words “We interrupt this re-run to bring you the following Special News Announcement. Benjamin Casey, head of the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, California has just announced that John Holmes, infamous pornographic movie actor, well known drug addict, suspect in the Wonderland murders, and titular head of the Penis Giganticus Society, bit the dust at 9:15 this evening. The cause of death has yet to be announced so expect another Special News Announcement momentarily. We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.” Bartholomew yelped out loud and then began calling the other members of the Board. He had seen almost all of the John Holmes’ films and knew that his dick was longer, thicker and more aesthetically pleasing to the eye that Dillinger’s. If the news announcement was correct and John Holmes really had assumed room temperature then it was important to get the ball rolling as soon as possible. The Smithsonian Institute just HAD to obtain it for their collection! Dillinger’s dick was beginning to show signs of wear and tear from all the study that had been done on it, and over the years the formaldehyde had wrinkled it severely as well as turning it a sickly shade of gray. Obtaining Holmes’ dick could open the way for a new exhibit now that society was more open minded and salacious than before. Perhaps they could even put it in the same alcove that had once held Dillinger’s and get rid of that hideous donkey thing! All the members of the Board had been contacted by the time the next news break occurred. Although there was still no ‘official’ cause of death announced a survey of newscasters across the nation had been conducted and everyone seemed to agree that it would either be from AIDS or Cirrhosis of the Liver. Cirrhosis of the liver was ahead in the poll since it had been learned Holmes had just recently been released from the prestigious W. C. Fields Detoxification Center in Buffalo. It wasn’t until 7 o’clock the next morning when the news finally reported that Holmes had died from having accidentally swallowed a toothpick which had, ironically, pricked his intestine. A drunk at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas had bet a dollar on the toothpick at odds of five million to one and walked away stone cold sober with his check. Unfortunately he started drinking again to celebrate his good luck and bet it all on the USC/UCLA football game. The odds were even money and he lost it all. Go figure. By the time the drunk had become an ex-millionaire the Board of Trustees had drawn up and filed a petition with the State of California for the right to have Holmes’ dick amputated and sent to them before burial. They argued that they were the largest museum complex in the United States and had already proven their responsibility in dick handling. Holmes would no longer need it, they wrote, either for professional or recreational reasons, and no one would be harmed since he was already beyond pain. If anyone had any objections – a wife, a girl friend, a co-star, a family member – the Smithsonian would gladly ship them Dillinger’s dick. “No one’s likely to know the difference so what’s the harm?” they wrote in their summation. Two days later the State of California approved the petition and Bartholomew himself flew to California to retrieve the Smithsonian’s newest acquisition. To give the pickled dick to a descendent of Dillinger was the most logical way to get rid of it, but they immediately found it was nearly impossible to accomplish: Dillinger had never married and there was simply no record of his having sired children. They searched the history books for girlfriends, mistresses, known prostitutes and found nothing. Broadening their search they zeroed in on the lives of the wives, girlfriends, and mistresses of his friends, his neighbors, his enemies and his cronies. Nothing yielded the information they were looking for. They were prepared to do one more search, one that encompassed all women between the ages of twelve and eighty that had ever lived in an area within a fifty mile radius of his known whereabouts from childhood to the day he was killed, but it was shelved when one of the assistant tour guides at the Museum of Aviation made an off-the wall comment to his Supervisor that perhaps Dillinger’s dick might not have worked. The Smithsonian’s Directors met to discuss the matter and concluded that the assistant tour guide may have been on to something. If the dick was broken it was of no use to anyone, and even if it wasn’t it was too late for it too produce the offspring they were searching for. The next best thing to do, they concluded, was to donate it to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints in Salt Lake City. The CJCLDS (AKA the Mormons) had perhaps the world’s largest genealogical data base as well as a collection of mementoes, photographs, and personal items of as many families as their warehouses could hold and, like the Smithsonian, the Mormon Church had petitioned the California Court for Holmes’ dick. Despite their son’s sordid life style, the Holmes’ family were all members in good standing in the Mormon church with a pedigree that could be traced all the way back to the early 1900’s when Mormonism was still considered a cult. His dick, the church said, would bring closure to the Holmes family and prove once and for all that the church was now a main stream religion. It would also be kind of neat just to have. Unfortunately for the Mormons their petition for the dick arrived in Sacramento five minutes after Bartholomew’s airplane had taken off on it’s journey back to Washington D.C. Dillinger & Holmes When the Smithsonian’s Board of Directors learned about the Mormon’s tardy petition, they immediately made a phone call and offered them the Dillinger dick as a consolation prize. To their total chagrin the Mormon’s turned it down. “It’s not that we wanted ‘a’ dick,” a high mucky-muck in the church told him, “We wanted THAT dick. You can fool some of the people all of the time, and you can fool all of the people some of time, but it would be hard to fool the Holmes family. They own the entire collection of their son’s movies and watch them over and over again. You think we can fool them into believing that Dillinger’s dinky dong belonged to THEIR son?” In the long run, however, everything turned out right. Three days after they had declined the Dillinger dick the high mucky-muck sent the Smithsonian a letter, “With our huge database of names and lineages we can supply you with the name of Richard Dillinger that lives in Knucklenutt, Alabama. He was the grandson of Walter Dillinger (deceased), who was John’s younger brother. There are other Dillinger’s out there but he’s the only one we can verify as actually being related to John. A lot of the Dillinger’s changed their name after John had become famous. Just like you didn’t see anybody with the surname of Hitler after WWII you didn’t see many Dillinger’s around during the mid 1930’s either. To complicate matters even further, once John had been shot down and the rumor about the size of his dick began to circulate, a lot of NON-Dillinger’s had THEIR names changed TO Dillinger. We have no proof whether it did or did not do any of them any good, but most of them thought that it would make it easier for them to get laid. “It was awfully hard for us to tell who was who when we began creating our file on Dillinger’s,” the mucky-muck continued. “Some of the ones who were weren’t, and some of the ones who weren’t were, and to muddy the waters even more, enough time had past that some of the second generation were’s (the son’s and daughters of the were’s who became weren’ts) had forgotten they really were were’s, and the newer were’s, the one’s who had been weren’ts, weren’t about to confess that they were really weren’t were’s for fear that people would think they had small penises. By the time we came along and tried to make sense of it all it was a holy mess. We know of at least four amateur genealogists that committed suicide prior to our taking on the task.” Once the verification that Richard really was a second generation nephew of John Dillinger had been completed the Smithsonian’s typed up a short letter of explanation and made arrangements with UPS to ship the dick to Richard. The day it was shipped they all celebrated. The whole thing was now out of sight and out of mind. For all they knew – or cared – a UPS employee could take it home with him and feed it to his dog. They had tried to do the best they could do, and if that wasn’t enough then screw it! Bartholomew Tightbottom filled me in on the Mormon Church involvement in all this so I can’t verify that part of it’s true, but as far as the dick itself is concerned I can assure you it’s true. In the first place my husband, Dick Johnson, was a security guard at the Smithsonian Institute during the mid forties and he was responsible for escorting qualified researchers to and from the file cabinet that housed the bottle that contained Dillinger’s dick and he was required to stay with them during their experiments or measurements. With the exception of John Dillinger himself, my husband was more familiar with the dick than any one else on the planet. He left the employment of the Smithsonian in 1949 when he enrolled in college, and he is now one of the most respected Dickologists in the world. Richard Dillinger was always called Dickie by everyone who knew him, and once he’d had received his uncle’s dick they began referring to him as “Little” Dickie. During the four days I was in Turtleturd County to cover Little Dickie’s trial (Richard’s) I interviewed not only him but many other Turdturtles, which is what they call themselves, and ALL 17 of the residents of Knucklenutt. Everyone I interviewed had seen “Big” Dickie many, many times since Little Dickie had it prominently displayed right next to the cash register in his store. There is no question in my mind whatsoever that Big Dickie was in fact the same dickie (Ooops, I mean the same dick) that had been in the Smithsonian since many of the people I talked to even remember the original label that was on the bottle as well as the new label which mentioned the Smithsonian.. So, Angel, does that answer your questions? The museum did have the appendage but they don’t have it any more. They sent it to Richard Dillinger in Knucklenutt, Alabama. Richard kept it for some time, but being the Knucklenutt he is, he lost it. No one knows where it is now. If I can be of further assistance, please be sure to contact me. Sincerely, Lulu Loveless, Staff Writer of the National Enquire ********** Text of my letter to Lulu Loveless (8-11-93) Dear Lulu. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Unfortunately, though, it brings up more questions than it answered. I read your article about “Little Dickie” Dillinger being arrested for stealing a phone book, and that “Big Dick” was still missing. Has it ever been found?. Why was Dickie arrested? Why did Dickie steal a phone book, of all things? Aren’t phone books free? I assume that “Big Dick” refers to Dillinger’s dick, but what has that got to do with “Little Dickie” being convicted of stealing a phone book? I thought phone books were free. I know that you have better things to do than to write a long letter to a ditzy chick like me, but being an ardent student of Dickology I just have to know the rest. Thank you in advance, Angel Schnauttwaffle P.S. I took a class in Dickology from Professor Richard Johnson. He was a truly great man. Is this your husband????? ********** Text of Lulu Loveless’ letter (8/21/93) Dear Angel, I take mouse in hand to write you a follow up to my first letter. Yes, Professor Johnson is my husband. We met in 1984 when I contacted him in regards to a gossip piece I was writing about John Holmes. We were married six month’s later in a beautiful ceremony at the Chapel of the Wildwoods on the strip in Vegas. Despite the difference in our ages (I’m 45 years of age and Dick turned 85 June of this year) we still have “whoopee” every four or five weeks. I guess a lot about Dickology pays off in the long run, right? Ha Ha Ha. I asked Richard the other night if he remembered you from class and unfortunately he didn’t. The only ‘Angel’ that he could remember was, in his words, a foul mouthed girl who didn’t believe a word he said. At 85 it’s a wonder that he can remember anyone, much less one of his students, but perhaps if you sent a photograph it would jog his memory. Anyway, enough of this chit-chat. Let’s get around to facts, shall we? Richard Dillinger (AKA Dickie) was born in 1945 and he moved to Knucklenutt with his father Hiram in 1948. When Hiram died from ringworm in 1967 Dickie inherited the business that his father had built up. It was a fairly large building that served as the gas station/market/general store/barber shop/bar/fix-it-up shop and post office for the citizens of Knucklenutt. It was located on secondary road off of the county highway that led to the Interstate some thirty miles away, which was the perfect location for a multi-business establishment like his to flourish. He was the only employee, of course, which made some days a little more hectic than others, but all in all he seemed to manage them all OK. Although there weren’t there weren’t any ponds in the area, Dickie could be best described as an average sized frog in a small pond. He was the typical Knucklenutter, which meant that questions about the world outside Knucklenutt rarely crossed his mind. With the exception of Christmas and Halloween the only holiday they knew about was Sadie Hawkins Day and that was more than enough for them. On the day the dick was delivered, however, Dickie’s life changed forever. His first thought after opening the package was ‘Who in the world would send me a bottle with a dick in it?” but after reading the enclosed letter from the Smithsonian he was confused. He vaguely remembered his daddy saying something about an uncle that was the ‘black sheep in the family’ but Dickie had thought that meant they were somehow related to darkies. If that was true then why was the dick in the bottle white? Dickie put the ‘Closed until later’ sign in the window and hurried over to Charlie’s house with the bottle tucked under his arm. Everyone in Knucklenutt knew that Charlie was the smartest damn man in the Turtleturd County – not only had he graduated from school but had also taken a few college classes! - if anybody could make sense of all this it’d be Charlie. Charlie was asleep in his rocking chair when Dickie walked in, but once he was awake he put on his reading glasses and read the note. “Well I’ll be darned,” he said. “I knew you was a Dillinger but I never knew you was related to the bank robber. Dickie, your pappy’s pappy was the brother of the most famous gangsters that ever gangstered. Not only was he famous but it looks like his dick was famous too. That thing that you got in the bottle is a part of your great-uncle’ and was sent to you by the Smithsonian Institute which is a real famous museum. It’s so famous that it’s right next door to the president’s house. Dickie thanked Charlie for the information and then proudly walked back to the store with the bottle tucked under his arm again. He set it on the counter next to Tic Tac display and wrote a small note that said ‘John Dillinger’s dick - Pleeze don’t touch!’ As word of the pickled dick spread to towns as far away as Tickleberry Springs and Bumpbottom Hollow Dickie’s business picked up, and before long not only was he the richest man in Knucklenutt but the most famous as well. At one point there was even talk of changing the name of the town from Knucklenutt to Pickledick’s Corner, but all name changes had to approved by the County Commissioner (according to Charlie) and no one in Knucklenutt (including Charlie himself) knew where to get in touch with him. The result was that Knucklenutt stayed Knucklenutt and life went on. The only thing that really changed was that people started to call Dickie ‘Little Dickie’ so they could distinguish whether a person was referring to the owner of the store or the display that was on the counter. Some years later, I think it was in 1994, someone swiped the shrine of ‘Big Dick’ right from under Little Dickie’s nose. The day had been a slow one and Little Dickie had fallen asleep on the chair behind the counter. His friend Elmer was in charge of making contact with the police in Turtleturd Creek whenever a crime was committed in Knucklenutt and within two hours the police car arrived. Little Dickie recognized the officer as Maynard Scrubbs who had responded to both of the calls that Elmer had made that summer. The first had been back in May when Lulu Mae Tinkle had called to complain that someone was outside the outhouse while she was taking her evening poop, and the second time was when Zeke Wattelman accidentally blew up his yard when he poured gasoline down a couple of gopher holes and then tossed in a match. As far as Little Dickie knew Maynard’s record was 50/50 since they had found three dead gophers in the collapsed gopher tunnels but never caught the pervert that had literally scared the shit out of Lulu Mae. Little Dickie answered all the questions Maynard asked him, and when the questioning finally ended he was surprised that there wasn’t anything that that they could do. Had Little Dickie been awake while the robbery was committed he would probably know whoever did it, but by being asleep there was no one he accuse. Maynard sympathized with Little Dickie’s predicament, but he couldn’t just go around arresting everyone that MIGHT have stole it, could he? The best thing for Dickie to do, Maynard said, was to keep his ears and eyes open all the time. If he were to overhear someone bragging about a pickled dick he should have Elmer call him immediately. There weren’t all that many pickled dicks in the county – five or six at the most – and odds were strong that if any new one turned up it would probably turn out to be Big Dick. He should also call immediately if he saw someone walking by with his dick sticking out of his pants. When Little Dickie asked what that had to do with them finding his great uncles dick, Maynard answered that if a guy’s got the nerve to walk around town with his dick sticking out the front of his pants he’s probably the same kind of guy that would have the nerve to terrify Lulu Mae while she was sitting in the outhouse, and any guy who would get a kick out of hearing Lulu dump her load would be the kind of guy that would steal a pickled dick. It made sense to Little Dickie so he began doing what Maynard asked even before he’d left. He no longer looked eye to eye at the men he saw when he walked into town or when they came by to buy gas or groceries or have their cars fixed or toasters cleaned. His habit of always looking at their zippers began to annoy some of his customers and it wasn’t long before his business started to fall off. Even some of his closest friends began avoiding him. Even Maynard himself avoided Little Dickie when he was summoned to Knucklenutt on November 1st to investigate the strange case of the artificially soap flavored M & M’s that appeared in many of the Halloweener’s buckets.Most everybody realized that looking at a man’s zipper it wasn’t a ‘sexual’ thing with Little Dickie but it discomforted them nonetheless. At Christmas time Dickie only got two presents and three Christmas cards in return for his nine presents and twenty seven cards. After the lopsided difference of gifts and cards given opposed to the gifts and cards received, Little Dickie changed his habits and stopped looking at men’s zippers. He made a New Year’s Resolution that he would find other ways to get his treasured display back. He offered a fifty dollar reward (a huge sum by Knucklenutt standards) for “information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for stealing my dick” but no one came forth with information. He also made an appearance on “Unsolved Mysteries” but since the network refused to let him use the word ‘dick’ none of the viewers could understand what he was missing. Despite his earlier resolve it seemed that everything he did was in vein.(sic) Once the good citizens of Knucklenutt realized that he was no longer staring at their zippers his businesses began to rebound. The sale of gas and groceries went up as well as his bar business. There was laughter in the bar again and it seemed that that everyone who had a toaster was bringing it in for its annual tune up. The only part of his enterprises that didn’t show a return to its pre-zipper staring level was the barber shop. The only explanation he could think of that would cause this anomaly was that they couldn’t see where his eyes were while he cut their hair. It was almost the end of spring (June 27th to be exact) when the idea first crossed his mind. An out-of-state car had driven up to the gas pump and honked its horn, and when little Dickie went to fill the tank he noticed a sticker on the back bumper that read “Where the hell is Skanky Mountain?” Dickie knew exactly where it was, so when he was finished filling the tank and began washing the windshield he said “You go down to the end of this here road and then turn left. Drive up that road until you come to come to Homer’s pig farm and then turn right. Follow that road for about two miles and you’ll see the sign. Look to your left and you’ll see it.” The response he received for his instructions was “Huh?” “That’s where Skanky Mountain is,” Little Dickie replied. “I seen you sticker.” “Oh, that,” the driver said. “We just bought it up the road a ways where we stopped for lunch. Now that we’re in hillbilly country we decided to blend in. What’s at Skanky Mountain, anyway?” “Ain’t nothin’ at Skanky Mountain.. It’s just a big ol’ hill covered with weeds. There’s a tree on top of it, though.” “Sounds charming,” the driver’s wife said. Little Dickie thought she sounded bored and tired.. As they drove off Little Dickie went back inside and put the gas money in the cash register. The very moment that the cash register opened with a “Ka-CHING” sound, Little Dickie’s minds “Ka-CHINGed” as well. Five days later Little Dickie was the proud owner of 20,000 bumper stickers that read “Where’s my Dick?” in large letters. Below the message, in smaller letters, it said ‘Contact Dickie Dillinger, Knucklenutt, Alabama’ and below that “555-9003’. The morning after receiving the shipment, he set up a display for his bumper stickers in the empty space next to the Tic Tac display. After opening the door for business he sat back and waited for the first customer to walk into the store. Purchased in bulk, the cost of each bumper sticker came out to less than ten cents a piece. If he sold all 20,000 at one dollar each he would be in a position where he absolutely could not lose; if he found Big Dick he would be invest the profits in mullet futures, and if he didn’t find Big Dick he would have the resources to offer a big hairy reward for its return. He couldn’t lose. Because Knucklenutt was very small community sales were at first slow. Two days passed before Homer Goofus, a friend of Little Dickie’s who knew the whole story of the missing dick, bought the first one. “You don’t even own a car,” Little Dickie pointed out after taking Homer’s dollar bill and putting it in the cash register. By the end of the end of the week he had sold two more. Little Dickie was beginning to get worried. “You’re a real dumb shit,” Calvin Clitbonker said as he bought third and last of the three stickers. “You only got 19,997 more to go before you run out, you know. Don’t you think its time to order more so you can avoid an out-of-stock condition?” Little Dickie didn’t say anything to him, not even a “thank you for buying my stupid bumper sticker.” Deep in his gut Little Dickie was afraid that he might have ordered a few too many. As word spread of his new display, business picked up dramatically. He had sold twenty by the end of the week. Nearly all the people in Knucklenutt had bought one, and some had even bought two or three, the ‘extras’ being for friends out of state. “It’s not everyday you see a bumper sticker that says “Where’s my Dick?” you know,” Otis Spewworthy said as he purchased four of them. By month’s end Little Dickey had sold a total of sixty three, The next month he sold only thirty seven, and the month after that only twenty. Little Dickey punched in the numbers on his calculator and was absolutely shocked when then answer came back that with the rate sales were going he would sell his last bumper sticker on April 23, 2046. If he were to take into consideration the dramatic decline in sales in the last two months it didn’t look good for his meeting that deadline. His first thought was to purchase some bumper stickers to drum up interest in the “Where’s my Dick?” bumper stickers but even he wasn’t dumb enough to consider that option for long. Besides, he didn’t have enough money to buy more bumper stickers until he sold the bumper stickers he had, and once he’d done that he wouldn’t have the need to order the new ones. The only answer that made sense was the one that he finally put into operation. That night, under cover of darkness, Little Dickie slipped out of his house and walked the deserted streets of Knucklenutt ripping off every bumper sticker he could find. Logic told him that if they had liked it enough to buy in the first place, they would certainly want to replace it now that it was gone. By the end of the week sales had, as predicted, increased, but there was so much talk of ‘tar and feathering’ the culprit that Little Dickie put an end to his nightly exercise. The following week sales took another nose dive and Little Dickie only sold four. Dillinger & Holmes In August, during the Annual Turtleturd County Fair, Little Dickey expected bumper sticker sales to spike dramatically. Since the fair grounds were held in the meadow behind Jeb Dullard’s barn, and since Jeb Dullard’s barn was only two miles up the road from Knucklenutt, the two week period of the fair inundated Knucklenutt by visitors from as far away as Mud puddle Point. To the residents of Knucklenutt, the County Fair was right up there with New York’s Time Square on New Years Eve, New Orleans’s during Mardi Gras, Daytona Beach during bike week, Panama City Beach during Spring Break, and Las Vegas during Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Even Ida Mae Thumpthingle, owner of Knucklenutt’s only cot-and-breakfast establishment, was able to scoop up money by increasing her rates from the two dollars per night she usually charged to ten and still fill all five of her cots. Little Dickey, knowing from past experience just how many people would be visiting Knucklenutt, had enough foresight to set up additional displays of the bumper sticker’s in the bar, the barbershop, the fix-it shop, and the post office sections of his store. Unfortunately he didn’t take into account that five displays were four to many for him to keep an eye on. The first week he chalked up an amazing 343 bumper stickers sold, which was offset by 2, 415 that were stolen. To add injury to insult, Homer Hump had set up a display at the fairgrounds selling bumper stickers that read “It’s in your pants, stupid.” By the time the fair ended Dickie was down by 4,000 bumper stickers. Three days after the fair had ended life had more or less returned to normal in Knucklenutt. Little Dickie had taken down the four additional displays and had gotten back to his habit of taking naps on his stool during the slow times during the day. It was during one of these naps that Zeke Wattlebun walked in to pick up a supply of pouch tobacco. In a loud voice he said. “Hey! They found BIG Dick!” Little Dickie opened his eyes, and once they had focused on Zeke’s homely face he rubbed his eyes and said, “Say what?” “I said, “I don’t know how much you paid to get these doodads printed up,’ and then you woke up,” Zeke said, “but since you was asleep when I said it, maybe I ought’a start again so’s you hear the whole thing all in one whack. I don’t know how much you paid to get these doodads printed up, but it seems to me that you’d get better sales out of ‘em if you advertised. Mind if I open a Billy Beer?” “Go ahead, and while you’re at it pop me one too. I have a feelin’ that you’re goin’ to give me some advice and I take better advice if I have a beer.” After opening the two beers Zeke continued. “Make up flyers and stuff them in everybody’s mail slot. Call people on the phone and tell ‘em you got ‘Where’s my Dick?’ bumper sticker’s for sale. Things like that. Oh, and you shouldn’t that be selling them for a dollar, either. To make ‘em sell better you gotta have a 9 as the last number. If you reduce it to 99 cents or goose it up to $1.99 they’ll sell better.” “How’s your lawn coming along, Zeke?” asked Little Dickie sarcastically. “Oh, it’s doing OK,” Zeke answered as he took a swig of beer from his bottle. “By Spring it should be all healed if’n the gophers don’t come back.” Sarcasm apparently didn’t work on someone with low I.Q. like Zeke, Little Dickie realized. They talked some more about this and that, and when Zeke finished off his beer his waved at Little Dickie and headed home. After he’d left Little Dickie added 99 cents to the price of his bumper stickers, and within an hour he had sold two. Within an hour he had sold two. That night while he was watching midget wrestling on channel 10 out of Birmingham, Little Dickie began thinking about some of the other advice that Zeke had given him. Before getting into bed he’d decided to visit the Knucklenutt Public Library and use their phone book to get numbers to call. Between customers he could easily call twenty to thirty people a day and although it wasn’t a lot it sure beat sitting on his chair and waiting for someone to stop in. After everything I’ve told you about Knucklenutt you probably have a fairly good picture in your mind of the library. They had 14 books –three of them by Dr. Seuss, three by Steven King, the obligatory dictionary, a one volume condensation of the Encyclopedia Britannica, a book on hunting, a book on fishing, the Holy Bible and “Gone with the Wind” by Scarlett O’Hara. They also had three phone books, each for a different county. Unfortunately for Little Dickie, the phone books were in the reference section and Marion, the librarian, wouldn’t let him check them out. Not losing his resolve, Little Dickey asked Marion, the librarian, for a pencil and a piece of paper which she reluctantly gave to him. For the next twenty minutes Little Dickie diligently wrote down the names and numbers of the first thirty listing in the book for Turtleturd County and when he was through he thanked Marion, the librarian, and whistled all the way back to his store. The first listing was AAA Farm Tools. Undaunted, Little Dickey dialed the number. “Yes, May I please speak to Mr. Tools,” he asked the girl who answered the phone. The girl laughed and told him that there was no Mr. Tools. Embarrassed by his mistake he quickly hung up the phone. He didn’t make another phone call for thirty minutes. The next entry he had on his list was AAA, which was the Automobile Association of America in Bubblebutt Hollow and he had to figure out to make the call without embarrassing himself again. He was afraid of calling and he was afraid to skip it as well. It was 9:30 in the morning and he’d only copied down thirty numbers. At this rate he’d either run out of numbers to call or he would have to return to the library again. When his dimness finally unclouded he realized that it really didn’t matter WHO answered the phone, did it? You could never tell who might have the information he needed, and as long as they had eyes that could see and ears that could hear they could help him look and listen. He dialed the number and when he heard a female voice say “Good Morning! This is the Automobile Association of America, Bubblebutt Branch. May I help you?” he immediately began talking. “Yes, my name is Little Dickie Dillinger. About six months ago I lost my dick and I was wondering if perhaps you know anything about it.” “Excuse me?” “I said, ‘I lost a dick last year and I’m trying to find it. I thought perhaps someone you know may have found it.” “May I have your Membership Number?” she intoned. “Uhh…I’m not a member.” “Would you like to be one? It only takes a few minutes to fill in an application. I can take your information over the phone and you can verify it when you come in to pay for the service. May I have your name, sir? “My name is Little Dickie Dillinger. I thought I’d already mentioned that.” “Oh, that’s right, you did. OK, so it’s D-I-L-L-I-N-G-E-R as the last name. First name is L-I-T-T-L-E. Do you spell your middle name D-I-C-K-Y or do you spell it D-I-C-K-I-E?” In the background Little Dickie could here the clicking of keys on a keyboard. “It’s D-I-C-K-I-E, but it really doesn’t matter, does it? My first name is Dickie and Little is only what people call me. Why do you have to have all this information?” “We do everything backwards here, that why. Dillinger, your last name, is always placed first in our alphabetical files because last names are less common than first names. Can you imagine how hard it would be to pull up a file if it was filed under first names? We got more Elmer’s and Goober’s and Rufus’s than you can shake a stick at. Now, are you male or female?” “Male, of course. Do I SOUND like a female?” “No, Sir, you don’t, but when you said you didn’t have a dick it just made me wonder.” “I didn’t say I didn’t HAVE a dick. I said I LOST a dick.” “Well, if you lost a dick you wouldn’t have one, would you?” “I didn’t lose MY dick, I lost BIG dick.” “Well, you don’t have to lose your temper, Mr. Littledick. We at the AAA are very open minded when it comes to penile enhancement and replacement surgery. We even have customers who have had sex change operations.” “I don’t WANT to have a sex change operation. I just want to find Big Dick.” “Well for that you would have to contact a hospital. We at AAA are dedicated to helping you get to where you’re going, but we can’t ‘sell you the car’, if you get my drift.” “STOP! You haven’t heard a word I’ve said.” “I certainly have. I’ve listened to everything you’ve said, and if you yell at me one more time I’m going to call my supervisor.” “I’m sorry, but damn it you’re driving me nuts.” “Now you’re talking about your NUTS? FRANK! FRANK! I GOTTA ANUTHER FUCKIN’ PREVERT ON THE LINE!” Little Dickie hung up the phone and began to quiver. How was he to ever find Big Dick if no one would co-operate with him. He looked at the remaining numbers twenty-eight numbers and all but one were businesses. He picked up the phone and tenuously dialed the number. He found himself talking to Antonio Ababacaderio, a Sicilian who had immigrated to the United States in 1969. He had been an assassin in Palermo, taking orders directly for Vito “the Vulture’ Vasconinininini, but when Vito had order him to assassinate an assassin called Antonio Ababacaderio, Antonio decided it might be time for a change of scenery. Within a week he had made his way to America, the land of opportunity and anonymity. Finding no listing for assassins in the New York Times Help Wanted pages, and fearing that Vito ‘the Vulture’ had alerted American Mafia Society, Inc. to be on the look out for him he set his sights a little lower and opened a shoe shine stand in Harlem. “It was the wronga business in the wronga side of town,” he told Little Dickie, “Anda I wasn’ta the righta kinda color for a the job” He made his way Birmingham the next week only to find the same kind of competition so he folded up his shoe shine kit and headed southwest. He eventually made it to Stinky Hollow, a relatively nice hollow as hollows go if you could tolerate the stink, and he made the decision to stay. “Nobody herea wants me toa whacka nobody, and I canta doa mucha shoe shinin’ herea causea nobody seems to weara the shoes,” he told Little Dickie, “Buta the towna Stinky Hollow hasa beena very, very kinda to me.” Little Dickie listened patiently while Antonio told his amazing story, and when he was finished Little Dickie bridged the gap and began telling him about the missing dick. Antonio began by listening to Little Dickie as patiently as Little Dickie had listened to him, but when Little Dickie mentioned the lost dick Antonio shouted ‘I don’ta knowa nothin’ about no missing dicks! I assassinateda people and nota no dicks!” and then he hung up. It would have been easy for Little Dickie to give up at this point, and had he known how it would all turn out he would have, but Little Dickie wasn’t a quitter and he continued to stumble along in hopes of finding his granduncles’ dick. Every morning before opening his store he would go to the library and copy down anywhere from thirty to fifty names and phone numbers, depending on how energetic he felt on that particular morning. The days turned in to weeks and the weeks turned into months and on Nov. 27th, 1992, a year and three months after beginning, he had reached the last name in the last of the three phone books in the Knucklenutt library. It was now time to do the arithmetic. Not counting the business numbers (many of them called and many them not) he had begun with Aaron Abbram in the Turtleturd phone book and finished with Vladimir Zypthero and had made an astronomical number of 42,914 calls (not counting the number of calls made to numbers he wasn’t able to reach on the first try). He had categorized each call at its completion and now that the calling was completed he began adding up the results. It was not a spectacular success. A full 52% were either numbers that had been disconnected for some reason or another, or numbers that had been called over and over again and never reached because they were a) always busy or b) never answered. As for the 48%, 19% thought he was making an obscene phone call and kept him on the line for what seemed like forever, 11% threatened him with bodily injury, 7% were as sweet as sweet could be and tried to talk him into joining their weekly Prayer Meetings, 4 % thought he was going to go to hell and tried to talk him into joining their weekly prayer meetings, and 3% seemed overly eager to describe their own dicks and wanted Little Dickie to describe his in return. The remaining 12 % were evenly split between those that he couldn’t categorize and those that believed him and wanted to help. From this latter group he had even found a few who were actively making calls in his behalf. (Yes, I know what you’re going to say, but blame Little Dickie, not me. He wasn’t a very good mathematician, but what do you expect from a Turdturtle?) On the morning of November 30th he walked into the library as usual, but instead of going to the reference section like he had always done he approached the main desk. Marion, the Librarian, was busy stamping the return date on “Horton Hears a Who” for Grandma Tittle who lived in the second trailer on Peepiddle Trail. She had nineteen grandkids and this was their favorite book. After Grandma left Little Dickie turned to Marion, the Librarian, and said, “I guess I won’t be in anymore. I finished the third phone book last night and you only got three.” Marion, the Librarian, looked over her wire glasses at him “You talked to everybody in all three books?” “Not all, but most. I kept trying to call all the ones that didn’t answer the first time until I realized that some never answered. I finally gave up on those.” “You must have talked to a lot of people. I’m surprised that there wasn’t more complaints than there was.” Little Dickie looked more confused than normal. “Complaints?” “Didn’t Maynard Scrubbs talk to you about that? He’s come in here three times since you first started calling people, and each time he tells me about the complaints he gets from them.” “About ME?” Little Dickie said. “I ain’t done nothin’ wrong. What’re they complaining about?” “Your telephone calls. They don’t like all the dirty talk you use when you call them. Maynard said that one woman complained that you talked like that to his twelve year old daughter. He had a hard time talking her out of going over his head and complaining to the Governor.” “Why didn’t Maynard tell me?” “Why don’t you ask Maynard?” She paused for a moment and then said, “It’s none of my business, Dickie, but you’d better be a little bit more careful. It wasn’t so bad when you was only calling the folks around here in Turtleturd County – most of them already know the story of Big Dick- but once you started calling people in Bumpbelly and Stinkwater you were bound to start getting complaints.” Little Dickie was starting to get confused again. “The farther away I get the more chance of finding it,” he finally answered. “That’s why I ordered all them bumper stickers that nobody bought. I was hoping that people would put ‘em on their cars and help me advertise. The further away a car went the more people would see the sign. The only reason I only called those three counties is ‘cause that’s all the phone books you got.” “Why don’t you drive over to the main library in Stinkwater? They got phone books from all over the world. You could probably cal all the people in China if you wanted to, providing they had telephones and they used the kind of numbers that we do.” “Now you’re telling me to keep up my calling? You just said I was getting in trouble. Wouldn’t that just get me in more trouble?” Now it was Marion, the Librarian, who began to get confused. After thinking it through for a long time she said, “Well, maybe you’re right. Maybe you SHOULD quit looking for the dang thing, but you don’t really want to, do you?” “No, Ma’am” After a long period of silence Marion, the Librarian, said “If I was you - which I ain’t, of course, - I’d keep on calling people, only I’d call folks that lived a long, LONG way away. The further away they were, the less likely they’ll be to complain since they wouldn’t know who you were or who to complain to. Half the fun of getting a dirty phone call is telling a friend about it, that just human nature. Just think of the possibilities. If you called a person and he told his friends, and then his friends told THEIR friends and their friends told THEIR friends and…..well, you never know. Maybe before too long the whole country would be on the lookout for Big Dick. Have you ever thought of offering a reward?” “If I sell all my bumper stickers I plan to, yes, but it don’t look like I’m going to sell them all. In the meantime I can’t afford a reward. The only thing I got left is my store and I don’t particularly want to give that away.” All of a sudden Marian, the Librarian, had a epiphany. “I’ve got the answer. If you want to find a dick you go to where people idolize them. I’ll bet a dollar to a gunny sack full of mullets that whoever swiped Big Dick off your counter was some city slicker who was passing through. And I’ll bet you another dollar to a twenty-pound bag of boiled peanuts that he’s got that bottle sitting on the coffee table in his front room and he’s showing it off to his friends right this very minute. And I’ll bet you another dollar to a little poke in the back room that it’s in one of four places. It’s either in San Francisco, West Lost Angeles, Fire Island, or the Vatican.” Little Dickey shocked beyond words. He had never spoken to Marion, the Librarian, before today and already she was talking to him about poking. Just the thought of poking her was enough to drive him crazy with lust. “You really think that’s where it is?” he asked after his poor heart had calmed down and his blood pressure was back to normal. “I’m certain,” said Marion, the Librarian. “Drive on over to Turtleturd and find yourself a good phone book. The best one to start with would probably be the one for San Francisco. I doubt that any one there would complain if you started talking about a dick.” She giggled a little and Little Dickey’s blood pressure went up again. When she began to realize what effect her language was having on him she scaled it back a little. She certainly didn’t mean to give him the wrong impression. “I don’t usually say words like…like ‘dick,’” she said as she blushed, “but what other word I could I use? I hope you wasn’t offended.” Little Dickie didn’t know how to respond to her apology so he simply ignored her. “Maybe I will take your advice. Maybe I’ll go tomorrow.” Little Dickie thanked Marion, the Librarian, and then made a hasty retreat. He wanted to stay and steer the conversation back to poking but he didn’t know how to get started. That night, as he lay in bed, Little Dickie thought long and hard about what she had said. He assumed that the Library in Stinkwater would have their phone books in a reference section too, and he didn’t particularly want to write down names and numbers all day only to have to make the drive again in a week or so. Stinkwater was more than 60 miles away and the tires on his car were getting bald. He made up his mind that if he couldn’t check the book our out he would steal it. The next morning, after eating his morning bowl of Fruit Loops, he put on his best pair of bib overhauls, put two dabs of Brylcreem in his hair instead of his one, filled his 1952 Ford Pickup with gas and pointed it towards the road that led to Stinkwater.. Little Dickie was not the quickest horse in the slowest race, but he still had the presence of mind to stop by the drug store in Bumpbottom Hollow to purchase a straw wig, a Bozo sized plastic nose, and one of those fake beards that you see at Halloweeen parties. He tried them on immediately, and when he saw himself in the rear view mirror he was satisfied that no one would ever recognize him. Dillinger & Holmes It was after 11 o’clock when Little Dickie arrived in Stinkwater. He had only been to Stinkwater once in his life and that had been during the time when all those missiles from Cuber had been pointed at Knucklenutt and there was a lot of talk about evacuating. His daddy apparently didn’t want to evacuate in Knucklenutt so he’d taken little Dickie to Stinkwater to evacuate there. Little Dickie remembered what Stinkwater looked like in his brain, but he saw nothing that looked familiar to him. He drove up and down the street of Stinkwater for a good twenty minutes or so before he gave up and stopped at a gas station to ask for directions. The attendant at the gas station pointed to the building across the street that had a large sign on its front yard that said “Stinkwater Public Library.” Leaving his clown suit in the car, Little Dickie opened the door of the main entrance and walked in. “Uhh….You got phone books here?” “Can I have your library card” asked the one of the three librarians who was busy at the desk, “”I have a card in Knucklenutt but I don’t have a card here,” Little Dickie stuttered, shocked at what he thought he’d seen. “In that case you need to have me print one up for you.” While she opened the drawer to pull out a form Little Dick just stood there aghast. She had what looked like a diamond stuck on her tongue! “Your name?” she asked as she laid the form on the counter and picked up a pencil. “Uh….Dickie Dillinger.” he said, trying hard too keep his eyes away from her mouth as she spoke. “Address? “Dickie’s General Store, Knucklenutt, Alabama” “Telephone number? “555-6969” “Really?” she said with a flirtatious smile as she smiled at him from behind the counter. He didn’t smile back. He was afraid that if he smiled back it would only lead to more conversation and he was in a hurry. He also didn’t want to see her tongue again. After typing up the information she handed him his card and then asked if he needed instructions on how to use the card catalogues. “No, I just want to find out where you keep the phone books?” “Oh yeah, you’re the guy that asked about those, aren’t you? They’re in the Reference Room which is down the hall and to the left.” She turned her attention away from him and went to the other side of the counter and began serving someone else. Just as I thought, Little Dickie said to himself as he opened the door to the Reference room and saw a big sign that read “Reference Material Only. No copies available for check-out.” Little Dickie found the phone books with little problem. There were a mess more than the puny collection that the Knucklenutt Library had, but it certainly wasn’t as large as Marian, the Librarian, had promised it would be. After easily finding the phone book for San Francisco he tried to find the one for China just so he could tell Marian, the Librarian, whether the Chinese book used Chinese numbers or American numbers, but apparently they didn’t have one. The only foreign phone book they had was for Hawaii, and Dickey was almost sure that they used Hawaiian numbers instead of Chinese. Once he was finished looking through the phone books he put the San Francisco Directory on the table nearest the door. “Did you find the information you were looking for?” the girl with the funny looking rock on her tongue said. “Yeah,” Little Dickie replied as he quickly headed for the door. Once he’d reached the car he got in and sat for a long time. With the exception of tearing off bumper stickers in the middle of the night this was the first “crime” that he had premeditated, unless you counted the time he had snuck into the girl’s bathroom too pee when he was in elementary school and the boy’s bathroom had been locked. Still undecided after fifteen minutes he decided to splurge. He drove around town until he found a drive-in hamburger stand and treated himself to a quarter-pounder with cheese, a medium Coca Cola, and an order of fries. When he was done, he drove back to the library and began pondering again. Finally, after a full hour of premeditation, he stuck the wig on his head, covered his face with the fake beard and the bozo nose, and stepped out of the car. As casually as he could he crossed the street and made his way to the front door. He took a few deep breaths to calm his nerves and then and slowly opened it. The librarian with the thing on her tongue was nowhere in sight – which was a good sign since she was the only one that could have possible recognized him – and all the other librarians were too busy at their desks doing what ever it was that librarians did at their desks to take notice. By the time he had reached the door that said “Reference Section” no one had ever so much as looked in his direction. All he had to do now was get the book, stuff it down the front of his overhauls and walk out as calmly as he had walked in. By the time that someone knew it was missing he would be gone. The phone book was sitting on the table in the same spot he had left it and he quickly scanned the room to see if anyone else was there. When he saw that there wasn’t he picked up the phone book and tried stuffing it inside his overhauls. Whether his overhauls were too tight or the phone book was too big, but he couldn’t make it fit. Unlike the Turtleturd phone book which was the size of a large magazine, the San Francisco phone book was the size of a large dictionary. To keep the book from sticking out of the side of his bib he would have to stuff it down further which would mean unbuttoning the two buttons that held the bib in place. He unbuttoned himself and placed the book on his stomach. He had to use his hands to button himself up again, and every time he tried gravity did its thing and the book would slide down to a more southerly position. He knew it would be painful to walk with the book THERE, so he decided to try sliding it down the back end. He had barely gotten it positioned when the door suddenly opened and the librarian with the strange tongue barged in and knocked him over. “Oh, I’m so sorry!” she said “I didn’t know that…Hey, what’s going on here? Why are you……Oh God! You…you….you….Oh, yuck!! Little Dickie forgot all about finesse. Holding the phone book under one arm and trying to keep his pants from falling down with the other he ran as quickly as he could across the main floor of the Library. “STOP THAT PERVERT!” he heard the librarian scream as she rushed after him. He was still running when he reached the front door and he put his arm out in front of him to push the door open. Unfortunately he didn’t have the time to read the little decal that was that said in big letters “PULL” Little Dickie bounded backwards and landed on his back with a big thunk that sounded worse then it really was. The phone book fell out of his unbuttoned overhauls, his bozo nose was squashed flat against his face, his fake beard was crooked, his wig had wiggled sideways, worst of all, his overhauls were down by his knees. There was pandemonium going on in the library. As Little Dickey stood up he saw all the other librarians huddling near the main desk. They were crying and shrieking and screaming “Oh goodness!” and “Oh what will happen to us?” and “Who will save us?” Little Dickey was desperate. He grabbed the phone book and stood up. When he tried to hide it he immediately realized that his hiding place was now on the floor. The scene that librarians were forced to see was of a man bending over and trying to pull up his pants while at the same time holding a fifteen pound phone book. “Oh, what will ever happen to us?” he heard a librarian say, and another said “Who will save us?” The girls with the screwed up tongue was yelling “STOP THE PERVERT! STOP THE PERVERT!” over and aver again so loudly that he could barely hear the third librarian moaning “Ooooh! Ooooh! Ooooh!” while he struggled to get decent again. Amazingly no one approached him. He had all the time in the world to straighten himself up, and when he was finished he simply ‘pulled’ the door open and walked to his car. The car was locked and the phone book was to thick to grasp in one hand so he set it on the asphalt and fished in his pocket for the key. When the door was opened he dared to look over his shoulder, and when he did he saw that no one had followed him out of the library he felt a tremendous amount of relief flow through him. “It’s over” he thought. “I did it and I for away with it. I’m safe at last, safe at last, Great God Almighty, I’s free at last!’ He got in the car, and with one eye still trained on the library he took the time to re-arrange the wig and the false mustache. He even un-squashed the fake nose and stuck it on again before turning on the ignition and putting it in drive. He looked in his rear view mirror to make sure no one was approaching and then he drove off. He drove two full blocks before he remembered the phone book was still lying in the street. In a panic he slammed on the brake, turned around and raced back to the where the car had been parked. To his amazement he found the book exactly where he had left it. No one had bothered to come out of the library to retrieve it, and for all the commotion that had occurred there just moments before people were casually walking down the street as if nothing whatsoever had ever happened. He never knew whether he had just happened to make his escape while no one was there to witness his humiliation, or whether the residents of Stinkwater had become so jaded that the site of a slightly disheveled man escaping from the public library with stolen property no longer shocked them, but the result was the same. He had committed the perfect crime. He picked up the book and then drove through the town again before getting on the road that led home He began making his calls to San Francisco that very night. He made it at 7:43 precisely and he promised himself that he was quit at 11 so as to avoid waking someone. At 8:30, while talking to his fourth contact of the evening, he found that there was two hour difference between Alabama time and California time. While Little Dickie’s clock showed 8:30, in California it was only 6:30 there. Little Dickie was thrilled beyond words. He could now make his calls up until almost two PM before he risked waking anyone up! Every night Little Dickie would leave the store at his normal time of 5 PM time and have a good seven or eight hours of calling instead of only five. Dickie was in Heaven! The nightly calls only lasted for a few weeks. Dickie had been lucky that the day he started calling was more than half way through the normal billing cycle on his telephone bill, but even so, when he saw all the charges he had made he almost cried. Everyone he’d ever known lived within a few miles away. How was he to know that calls made from Knucklenutt to San Francisco would cost money? He immediately called the phone company and tried to explain the situation. “Caveat emptor, you dumb hick,” the man in charge of long distance calling told him. “You should have known that dialing a “1” and then a three digit area code would incur additional charges. Ignorance of the law is no defense when it comes to breaking the law, and ignorance of long distance calls falls under the same thing. Just be thankful that none of your numbers started off with 1-900. If they had you’d REALLY been pissed off. You owe us the money and that’s that. End of story. Eat your heart out. Up your nose with a rubber hose. Adios amigo, arrivederci, signori, adieu monsieur, so long, sir, and goodbye, you dumb Turdturtle.” CLICK! Little Dickie’s feelings were hurt. It had been his intention to politely ask if the charges could be dropped and what he had received was, in his mind anyway, rudeness. I’ve been one of their customers for over twenty years, he thought, and since they don’t value my business perhaps I should shop around for another phone company. How was he to know that in all of Turtleturd County there was only one Telephone Company? For that matter, how was he to know about area codes? The only people he had ever known lived in Turtleturd County and he’d never had the need to call anyone else. He had just thought that the extra numbers were there because there were more people in San Francisco that in Turtleturd County and they needed them so that everybody could have their own number. As has been his daily habit ever since she had mentioned ‘poking’, Little Dickie went to see Marian, the Librarian the next morning. After discussing his problem with the phone company she suggested making ‘collect’ calls. Since Dickie didn’t know what a collect call was she had to explain it to him. “You pick the number you’re going to call but instead of dialing it you dial a ‘0” and tell her to call the number collect. They’ll ask the person who picks up the phone if he’ll accept the charges and if he does then you don’t have to pay nothin’. A lot of folks is goin’ to say ‘no’, of course, but you got so many numbers in that phone book that you’re going to find Big Dick before you run out of numbers.” “Want to bet?” Little Dickie quickly asked. He was hoping that she’d bet another poke, but it didn’t seem to work. He hung around a few more minutes before running out of things to say. “Well, I guess I’d better let you get back to your library’ing” Little Dickie said, and when Marian, the Librarian, couldn’t thing of anything to say either he left. That afternoon he made the first of his person-to-person calls. When he told the operator that he had never made a collect call before she was very helpful and the very first call was she made was accepted. Dickie talked to a man named Francis Abaloshes and when he was done he went to the next number, Francis Abaloshes Jr.” and dialed the O. It was a different operator this time, but since he was now acquainted with the procedure he didn’t feel he needed to say anything to her other than giving her the number he was calling and saying it was ‘collect” By the end of the evening he had (or at least the Operators) had placed a whopping 226 calls and Little Dickie had talked to 31 of them. Not bad, he thought to himself. His ratio of calls to actual conversations was almost as high as it had been before and he didn’t have a sore finger like he’d sometimes had after making a lot of calls. He was, however, making a fatal mistake. Since he was now using the services of an operator, a record of his calls was being kept. His name, address, and phone number, as well as the names, addresses and phone numbers of those he contacted were all meticulously logged by the central computer of the phone company. For the first day or two there weren’t any red flags, but the operators themselves were becoming aware of his existence. Regardless of how many operators there were working on a particular night, over time they began to realize just how many calls he was really making. Soon his name began to be recognized and it wasn’t long until a few of the less scrupulous operators began listening in to his conversations. They thought it hilarious that he was actually calling in search of a missing dick. Some of these unscrupulous operators were less scrupulous than others and began to record his conversations so they could take them home to share with their husbands, their friends and their neighbors. It wasn’t long before the operators began referring to him as “Dickless Dickie” instead of Little Dickie. As with everything that builds itself up, there is an eventual force that tears it down. In this case the eventual force was the group of telephone operators. The reason they worked for the telephone was for the purpose of collecting a paycheck, nothing more, and since Dickie’s dialing mania was causing them to work harder for the same amount of money they began to boycott his calls. “I’m sorry sir, but that number is busy,’ they’d say when they heard his nasal twang asking them to place a collect call. “But you haven’t dialed it yet’ Dickie would say and they would reply, ‘Please don’t whine at me in that twangy tone of voice’ they would shout back At first Dickie didn’t know what to do, but the longer he thought about it madder he got. Eventually he got so mad at being rejected he disguised his voice and made a collect call to the head of the Department that supervised the operators. It wasn’t a particularly wise decision on his part and he couldn’t have made it at a more inopportune time. The operator who placed his call wasn’t fooled by Dickie’s disguised voice. There were some twangers that could untwang themselves when they wanted to, but Dickie wasn’t one of them. He had been a twanger all his life and his distinctive twang was noticeable even under the thick Irish brogue that he had used to avoid detection.. Not only did the operator place Little Dickie’s call, she placed it with great glee. She knew that this was going to be the very last time that she would ever have to listen to his whiny, twanging voice again as long as she lived. The day before, the head of the department had overheard one of the operators denigrate Dickie and refuse to place his call. The operator’s Supervisor had been notified and the Supervisor called her to the office. Once the operator explained what had been going on the Supervisor arranged a meeting that would be attended by all the operators. The supervisors wanted to know all the facts before making any kind of decision on the matter so she began asking the operators one by one their version of what had been happening and see if they all had experienced the same thing. It was during this meeting that one of the girls let it slip that some of them had been secretly recording Dickie’s conversations, which sent the head of the department into a tizzy fit. She demanded that one the tapes be produced so she could hear with her own ears what all the hubbub was about Seven of the twenty operators rushed to their stations and within minutes the Supervisor was presented with eighty-three cassettes containing the twangy voice of Little Dickie.. After listening to the first one she gave the girls a thirty minutes lunch break. One week earlier she had attended a company sponsored ‘Sexual Harassment’ Seminar and she was afraid that if she listen to more tapes of Dickie referring to ‘dicks’ with the girls present she might be brought up on charges of playing sexually explicit audio tapes in front of her operators. When the girls got back from lunch and the meeting had reconvened began again, she fired each and every one of the girls who had participated in the taping (punishment) and then immediately rehired them and gave them all a higher salary (reward). ‘While I don’t condone what you’ve done (punishment) I’m sure you done it for the right reasons (reward + mixed message + misinterpretation of intent + horrid English). Unfortunately for Dickie his telephone call to the Supervisor occurred only fifteen minutes after the meeting had been adjourned. To use the vernacular, Dickie’s ass was grass. The head of the department was so sorry for Dickie that he not only mowed the grass but ripped him a new asshole so the grass would never grow there again. His next step was to set up a task force that would call all the numbers that Dickie had called and apologize to them for the phone company’s involvement in Dickie’s enterprise. After the apology was made, the task force was encouraged to put pressure on the respondents into filing charges against Dickie. By the time it was over Dickie was charged with four hundred and ninety three counts of making obscene phone calls, eighteen counts of soliciting money under false circumstances (it seems that there were a few respondents, that sent Dickie money thinking he was a charity), 37 charges of corrupting the morals of minors (primarily those whose parents were rich enough to buy their sons and daughters their own phone and then have it listed in the phone book under their own name) 20 charges of grossing out the decent, hard working women operators who had to listen to his filth, one count of defaming the good name of San Francisco (which ironically caused an increase in tourism to the city), and one count of illegally disguising his voice when placing his last person-to-person call through the operators. Dillinger & Holmes Dickie couldn’t afford to hire a lawyer (and since no lawyer was going to work pro bono for someone who made telephone calls in the middle of the night to strangers he didn’t know for the purpose of convincing them to find a missing dick) so Little Dickie was forced to defend himself. Dickie had always prided himself on being smarter than the average third grader so he figured he had at least a fighting chance of winning. He’d watched enough Perry Mason re-runs to know that if he said ‘I object” and “That’s hearsay” and “Thank you, your honor,” enough times he had got a pretty good chance that someone in the audience will eventually jump out of their seat and confess to having committed the crime themselves. The trial was held in Wiggleworm, a small village that existed for the sole purpose of raising and selling wiggle worms that they sold as bait for fishermen. It was seventy five miles from Knucklenutt on the banks of Wachimatcheewillamuckmuck River. The fifteen residents who resided there were sufficiently uninformed to guarantee a fair trial. Since the jury was to be made up of only twelve people and all fifteen wanted to be on the jury the first few days were hectic. In the end a compromise was made and the jury was made up of twelve regular jurors, one Jury Foreman, and two substitutes. This letter is getting way too long so I’ll skip most of the trial, if you could really call it a trial. The only witnesses that showed up were Marian, the Librarian and the twenty operators from the phone company, their supervisor and the head of their Department. No one from San Francisco bothered to show up since there was no financial benefit to be gained and the prosecution didn’t have the money to pay their expenses. In the end Little Dickie was found NOT guilty on all charges. The rationale that the Wigglewormer’s used in reaching this decision was that there was no way he could very well search for a missing dick without telling them it was a missing dick he was searching for, could he? Once they decided that he innocent of that charge then everything else fell in place. There was no law that said one couldn’t search for stolen property, and the fact that it was a missing ‘dick’ instead of an automobile or a diamond ring or cash or anything else had no bearing on the case what so ever. Three weeks later Little Dickie went to trial in Stinkwater on the charge of stealing the phone book. Alas, poor Dickie was convicted of that charge. Thanks for being patient with what I know was a long letter. If you have any MORE questions, I promise a much shorter response. Sincerely, Lulu Loveless ********** Text of Angel’s letter of 9/1/93 Hi Lulu. It’s me again. Thank you for that extremely long letter. After reading it, however, I find there are still questions that I would like answered. Did Little Dickie ever find Big Dick? Is Dillinger’s still in the Smithsonian? Did Little Dickie ever get the chance to poke Marian, the Librarian? If the citizens of Turtleturd call themselves Turdturtles, what do the citizens of Stinkwater call themselves? What penalty did Little Dickie have to pay for stealing the phone book? Sincerely, Angel ********** Text of Lucy Loveless letter of 12/21/93 Merry Christmas and Happy New Years. 1) Big Dick is still missing 2) Dillinger’s dick is still in the Smithsonian somewhere, but no one knows exactly where. 3) Neither Little Dickie nor Marian Dillinger (nee the librarian) are the kind that kiss and tell, but I’m assuming they did since they are now married. 4) I have no f*****g idea. Call the Stinkwater Chamber of Commerce 5) The jury through the book at him. If you have any FURTHER questions please call me instead of writing. I have MOVED since your last letter. Please call me COLLECT so I will be sure to know that it is YOU when you call. Sincerely, Lucy Loveless,