“Our next guest knows a little bit about terrorism first-hand, but not at the hands of bomb-toting Islamic extremists…”
“Instead, international public speaker and, most recently, celebrated children’s author Welsh Losser, was kidnapped outside a New Jersey 7-Eleven by a psychotic serial killer and… HIS GIRLFRIEND!”
“Good Morning, Ladies and Gentlemen, and welcome to America’s Newsroom. I’m Hal Halfbit…”
“And I’m Judy McFeign…”
“And I’m Welsh Losser, nyuh, nyuh.”
The news anchors, seated smiling on the studio couch, exchange happy glances with each other and then turn toward their guest.
“So, you got the late-night munchies and decided to sate your hunger at the local convenience store. Have I got that right, Welsh?”
“But instead of Nachos and a Slurpee, you picked up two unwanted friends – or should I say that they picked YOU up… and nearly drove you to your death off a bridge,” jumps in the lady anchor.
“You might say they tried to make me into a carry out… nyuh, nyuh.”
The anchors smile. Losser smiles, too.
“Then what happened, Welsh?”
“Yes, can you kind of walk our viewers through the harrowing events of that night?”
“Well, I can drive you through them a lot easier, nyuh, nyuh. You see, most of my ordeal was spent in the passenger seat of the crime vehicle… an older model El Dorado, I believe.”
“Weren’t you bound and gagged?”
“There were press reports of a victim found in the car’s trunk…”
“I’m too fat to tie up, and the only thing that could shut my mouth is a good meal, nyuget, nyuh, nyuh.”
The male anchor throws back his head, slaps his knee. The woman’s eyes grow large in disbelief before another smile sets in.
“So the psycho…” the anchorman looks at his notes, “one Andrew Plum … of New York… was a former colleague of yours… at, let’s see, the Kyiv Poster, in Ukraine?”
“My goodness, did he stalk you all the way from Eastern Europe?”
“Well, I’d been working as a PR executive, in addition to various speaking tours and my publishing career…”
“Yeah.” The anchorman picks up two small paperbacks from the glass coffee table in front of him and holds up the jacket covers for the television audience to see. “‘The Window Dance’… and, let’s see here … ‘Sixty Minutes to Pow’…”
“Wow!”
“You can place orders for a paperback edition online at Amazonian.com or through Pay Pal.”
“So was Plum a demented fan, you know, read one of your books and decided to meet you at any cost?”
“Or was this some kind of workplace violence?”
An unflattering photo of the assailant’s hard, bag-boiled face is shown on screen,
“Well, that car may have been his place of work, but not mine… nyuh, nyuh.”
“Were you scared, Welsh?”
“Only when I opened my eyes, nyuh, nyuh.”
All laugh.
*
“I don’t believe a word of that.”
“Neither do I.”
“That’s because you ain’t heard the whole story yet.”
An elderly gentleman in faded overalls is reclining in an easy chair in a small, modestly furnished home somewhere in rural Washington State. His face is hidden behind a copy of the latest sensation from the world of alternative children’s literature. Sitting across from him on a couch, dirty-faced and barefooted, are his grandchildren, to whom he’d just been reading from the book: “Welsh Losser and the Butt Bandits”.
“All right, go on.”
“I want a Slurpee!”
“There ain’t no Slurpees ‘round here, and there wasn’t any back then, that’s for sure.”
“Awwww.”
“Now, as I was saying. Welsh wasn’t always a hotshot PR executive, making public speeches in fancy suits in strange and exotic European capitals. No sir. He’s originally from around these parts, though, no one can say for sure, just whereabouts.
“His pappy was a seaman, and ol’ Welsh, when he was still just a youngin’, would also test hisself on the water from time to time, heading out in nothing but a pair of tight, green underpants, in a rowboat.
“Some say he was a profiteer, buying ice cream for cheap across the bay and selling it for twice as much or even more back here. Why he did all this in salad-colored unmentionables is beyond me.”
“Maybe he would pee his pants when the waves picked up and rocked the boat.”
“Maybe. Anyway, one day when he was a-rowing away across the water with a crate or two of snow cones or the like, a ship full of pirates pulls up alongside him and catches him up – boat and all – in a big, wet net, full of seaweed and shellfish.”
“Ewwwww.”
“Once up onboard, he was cut loose to the amazement of all the ship’s hands and their captain, too. Some said he was a sealion, others – a male mermaid that could grant them all a wish. But the captain knew better and decided to put Welsh to work scrubbing the deck in those tight green underpants… while the crew all availed themselves of his snow cones.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Nor is life sometimes, boys. But that’s not the point of this here story.”
“What is the point, Grandpa?”
“Just this: You see, Welsh was no fool, and he could see all those lonely seamen a-eyeing him in those undershorts.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will when you’re older. So Welsh tells ‘em, captain and all, that his folks are the biggest vendors of chilled desserts on the whole west coast, and that he’s prepared to be ransomed for a considerable sum of money.
“The pirates agree and allow Welsh to draft his own ransom note, which he then sets afloat in a bottle not far from shore.”
“Then what happened?”
“Nothing, cuz Welsh didn’t have any rich relations in the ice cream business. So they finally got sick of him and his lies and threw him overboard to the sharks and what-not.”
“Man.”
“Hey. What kind of story is that?”
“A true one… and it didn’t cost either of you or your parents a dime to buy in some highfalutin Internet bookstore.”
“Come on. Read us the real story… from the book that you’re holding in your hands.”
“Alrightee: ‘After enchanting the seafarers with his pluck, carefree wit, and promises of untold wealth for all, Welsh devised and executed a PR sensation by casting his ransom note into the sea in a bottle, which washed up on shore, the news spreading inland and eventually being picked up by the media.
“‘Sympathetic readers of subsequent press reports were moved with pity and outrage. The ransom, and much more, was raised, paying off the pirates, who released Welsh to a hero’s welcome and the beginning of a fabulous career as an overseas PR man, published author, public speaker…’”
“That’s better, Grandpa.”
“What a cool idea. I want to be a PR man when I grow up.”
“I want to be a pirate – a butt pirate. Hah-hah.”
Grandpa smiles, puts down the book.
Filed by Dirk Dickerson, May 24, 2017