CAST:
Boss Lard (BL)
Wild Bill Publowsky (WBP)
Receptionist/Secretary (R)
R: (speaking over the intercom) He’s here.
BL: Ok, let him in… that is, don’t see him in, just point the way to my office and let him get there on his own.
R: As you say, Boss.
A buzzer goes off, followed by the sound of the opening of a large metal door. Resounding thumps, one after the other, can be heard along the long corridor leading to Boss Lard’s corner office.
BL: (loosening his tie) Son of a bitch has a presence about him.
The door to Lard’s office swings open but just halfway, admitting only the shadow of the bulky mass that stands on the other side.
BL: (eyes round, small and fixed on the door) Gulp…
The door swings fully open and bangs against the wall, revealing a large rotund figure in a broad-brimmed floppy hat, a tight-fitting paisley vest with at least one button missing, and baggy Cossack-style pants that hug the ankles tightly just above the combat boots. The face is deep red with rough-hewn, clown-like features; the eyes smiling but haughty, the breath noxious and foul, the…
WBP: Zeeeerp!
BL: (lowers his eyes in disbelief and then annoyance to watch as his imposing guest tries to fan the fart smell from his pants) Damn you, Publowsky! We don’t have air conditioning in here!!!
WBP: (shamefaced and flustered) My stomach has always been overly sensitive to artificial additives commonly found in…
BL: (holding his nose) Whew, doggy! (gets on the intercom) Irina, bring in some air freshener, on the double!
R: Yes, Boss.
WBP: (having regained some of his former composure) As I was saying, even as a boy, my intestinal tract would invariably respond unfavorably to…
BL: (leaning back in his chair) Wild Bill, isn’t it?
WBP: Actually, William, but my friends call me Bill, unless they’re Ukrainian, in which case I become Vasyl.
BL: (eyes narrowing – possibly due to the air freshener being generously released into the confines of his office by a sour-faced receptionist) You don’t look very wild to me, son.
WBP: I’m not, actually. I just needed a job in between trying court cases for the expatriate community in Kyiv and giving highbrow lectures on 20th century metaphors.
BL: I was told you can catch me a Ferret.
WBP: I do that, too, but it’s more of a hobby, although one that I am quite passionate about.
BL: (pleasantly vexed) Boy, I’m not about to pay good money for you to pursue some boyhood pastime. I wanna see that critter caught, skinned and hung up on my wall. Do I make myself clear?
WBP: Yes, perfectly clear. And I can assure you that I am up to the task at hand. You may not be aware of the fact that I too have a personal grudge against The Ferret and am no less determined to see his hide stretched across a trophy case. At the moment, I…
BL: Your personal vendettas don’t interest…
WBP: Please don’t interrupt, Mr. Lard.
BL: That’s Boss.
WBP: Very well, Boss. As I was saying, I am currently in the process of pinpointing the exact whereabouts of The Ferret by tracking his lies using a new and sophisticated technology that I personally developed called Echo Deception Interception. It works like this. As soon as The Ferret tells a lie – and he tells a whole lot of them – the timbre of his voice changes slightly. In fact, this happens with everyone who lies. But in the case of The Ferret, he lies so much that he creates a kind of special sound field around himself that can be located within 10 meters and tracked from across the city. The only reason I don’t already have him in my clutches is that since he’s been fired (he says he quit, which is just another lie, of course) from the Kyiv Poster, his average lie production has dropped by almost 25 percent, making it a little more difficult to zoom in on him.
BL: (wide-eyed and smiling) Well I’ll be the son of a bucktoothed beaver… Need any PR support to protect your intellectual property rights for this thing?
WBP: No, thank you. So you see, Boss Lard, it’s all just a matter of time before I deliver The Ferret to you on a plate…
BL: (still wide-eyed, but no longer smiling) Can your, uh, whatchamacallit, by any chance hone in on simple bullshit, too – say of the kind, er, used by PR professionals and Washington insiders…?
WBP: No worries there, Boss. I have no intention of commercially developing this technology, much less publishing its scientific basis for free. My only purpose in developing it was to apprehend The Ferret, who as you may know has done great damage to my personal and professional reputation…
BL: Not only yours, son…
WBP: Yes, indeed. It all started when I left a promising career at a Kyiv-based law firm to try my hand at what seemed like a noble profession: an entry-level editing position at the Kyiv Poster. Little did I know at the time that The Ferret, who was calling the shots even then, would set about not only to fire me but to brand me a drunk and a swine.
BL: Yes, it seems I’ve heard of this…
WBP: Don’t interrupt me, please. Since then – that is, when I was fired – I have strangely found myself living up to this character assassination, drinking ever more heavily, ending up unemployed, homeless, or at least sleeping on the floor at friends’ flats, and finally, finally, becoming a characterization of myself in a warped Internet comic strip produced by two no less depraved if not insane Kyiv expatriates intent on exploiting what they presumably perceive as some humorous element in my appearance and/or manner.
BL: (begins nervously pushing the intercom button on his desk) I see, son.
WBP: So now – buuurp! – you could say that I really AM a swine.
Publowsky pulls what looks like a large hamburger in greasy wax paper from his Cossack pants and starts shoving it into his face, with much of the contents crumbling from his mouth onto the floor in front of Lard’s desk.
BL: (grimacing in disgust, but still pressing the intercom button ever more desperately) You know, we have an office kitchen, where the employees like to make themselves snacks… you are more than welcome to finish your…
Lard is interrupted by the entrance of the secretary, this time carrying a broom and dust pan, but who is quickly swept off her feet and into the ravenous embrace of Publowsky, who begins tongue-kissing her on the spot while the hamburger or what’s left of it bulges from behind one of his cheeks.
BL: Boy…?
WBP: (coming up for air and looking wild-eyed) Would you mind giving us a little privacy for a few minutes…
He goes back to kissing and then comes up for air again to grope toward a marketing sample of premium vodka that Lard has on his desk.
BL: (shouting into the intercom) Hey, damn it, anyone, can you hear me?! Send in one of the drivers! Call the police! For the love of Graceland – I think he’s going to swallow her!!!
TO BE CONTINUED
Filed by Dirk Dickerson, March 10, 2013