The Men On the Chessboard

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Art Kumbalek

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh man manischewitz what a world, ain’a? Listen, I’ve got me a bad case of deep-dark despair but good what with Aaron Rodgers’ cracked clavicle and the Packers dropping one to the Chi-focking-cago Bears at Lambeau for christ sakes. So you betcha, I’m in no shape to pony up an essay for you’s, what the fock.

But as the people’s spokesperson, I feel obligated to fill this page with something or another, so I’m on my way over by the Uptowner tavern/charm school to see if any of the fellas would like to fill in for me. Tag along if you’d like, but I got to warn you that labor negotiations can be mighty tedious and technical with this crowd. Hey, you buy the first round so let’s get going.

Little Jimmy Iodine: I was reading about all this research on brain concussions, and it made me wonder if they still had Jeffrey Dahmer’s brain in a jar somewheres ’cause they wanted to use it for science.

Emil: Science?

Herbie: What do you mean, “science?” What the hell you think they’re going to use it for, a Caesar salad?

Ray: What’re they going to learn from Dahmer’s brain; how to bullshit cops?

Ernie: Good one, Ray.

Little Jimmy Iodine: Hey, Artie! Over here. Put a load on your keister.

Art: Hey gents, what do you hear, what do you know. Any you guys want to write my essay for me this week? I can’t pay you’s anything, but it’d be good exposure.

Emil: What the hell are these scientists going to find out all the time keeping these guys’ brains around for, ain’a? It’s not like these focking things can talk. The scientific rule is you got to have a body, otherwise the brain won’t work.

Herbie: And having a body is no guarantee that the brain will work, as you focking prove every goddamn time you open your mouth.

Emil: Fock you.

Little Jimmy: Scientists have to study exposed brains ’cause if the brain’s still in a guy’s head who’s alive, all you could come up with is that some guy could be acting like a focking nut but you wouldn’t technically know why his brain was telling him to act like a focking nut. See? Like it was only recently they discovered that ladies’ brains work differently than men’s do.

Ernie: Who the hell didn’t know that? Must’ve been the bachelor scientists come up with that brainstorm.

Julius: Fock exposure. Write your own damn essay Artie, you cheap shit.

Herbie: You’re telling me it’s some kind of brain chemical why the wife can’t focking parallel park the focking car to save her life, and not ’cause she wants to drive me focking nuts?

Emil: If you ask me, it’s focking dangerous to the public welfare to have these brains in jars laying around. What the hell, these scientists never heard of Franken-focking-stein? Yeah, a lot of people think it’s only a movie but I tell you, with the goddamn technology these days, who’s to say there’s not some nut scientist out there who’s only one brain short of creating his own personal guy? They are besmirching with disaster to us all, I swear.

Ernie: Emil, if anybody’s one brain short—it’s you, you focking nitwit. They don’t have to dick around with making up a being out of used parts like they had to in the olden days. Now they can do it with those genes in some kind of fancy pressurized tube, I shit you not.

Little Jimmy: They say they haven’t perfected the cloning yet, but I bet you a buck-two eighty they can do it. There’s a lot of stuff they never tell us. Like that time aliens from space landed in New Mexico.

Herbie: That’s a load of crap. How come these so-called aliens always crash-land in a desert or some focking hillbilly bayou? How come they never go down Fifth focking Avenue in the middle of rush hour? I’ll tell you why. There are no aliens from space. The only aliens they got in New focking Mexico are the ones who crossed over the illegal border.

Julius: A lot of Mexicans say that whole Southwest was stolen by the United States gringo, that it used to be Mexico and they want it back.

Art: Que de la fock. About the essay, guys?

Ray: Yeah, that’s just what focking Mexico needs, more cactus land with no water on it.

Little Jimmy: And what about all the senior citizens who moved there to retire? They’re too old to start learning a whole new language like Spanish, ain’a?

Julius: Correctamundo. They might be able to pick up a language that you don’t have to say so fast but cripes, can you imagine some old American codger trying to talk Spanish with a mouth full of false teeth? He’d choke on his choppers faster than you can say “Chinga tu madre.”

(It’s getting late and I know you got to go, but thanks for letting us bend your ear, ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.)