Years ago, your friend Behr was deep, deep in the bowels of the Athenian jungle of Nix seeking discoveries of a non-scientific archaeological nature. I was there with Billy "Lil Willie" Johnson and Edgar Poland, who waxes people's asses for a living now. We were there looking for the completely non-scientific gate between the living and the dead, the Clown Car Necropolis of legendary fame. Perhaps you have read about it in your learning books of mythological tales. You must have an inkling. A little bit of a inkling. Do you? Does it tingle, hon?
I am from Baltimore, you know. Wasn't sure if you remember that as I have been holed up in Utica for some time.
One of the things I like to do when I go on a non-scienfic archaological journey of discovery is to bring along a woman. About three days in, we all pretend to completely lose our shit while we are deep, deep in the bowels of the Athenian forest seeking discoveries of a non-scientific nature. We start screaming at her and ranting in all different kind of ways. And she has no way out of this. Great stuff. Wholesome. Families can enjoy that. And that is what we want in this country. Good, wholesome entertainment a family can sit down together and watch while eating some reheated microwave shit food. Some of that stuff is so nasty. You people eat that crap? Fucking nasty. Boy, you need to look at yourself. We need more of this kind of thing in America. We ought to suggest a resolution to joint bodies of Congress and go through those motions of government. Get the wheels turning. Counterclockwise.
So, there we were, many years ago, Lil Willie, Edgar Poland, some broad, and myself. We had already made this chick really nervous. We'd been putting scorpions from the Athenian forest on our genitals and showing her. She asked us not to. Later on, complaints were filed, but this was 1973 so she was laughed right out of court and the judge himself beat the shit out of her in a holding cell later that evening. That was how justice was dealt out in the old days. We need to go back to that.
And so, through this clearing that we had just finished clearing (and thus creating the clearing in the first place), we reached an area that was both mysterious and dark. We believed it was possible that we were inching ever closer to the Clown Car Necropolis. And since we were learned men, Lil Willie, Edgar Poland and myself, we decided to take stock of our situation and measure out our rations for good measure.
Lil Willie had brought along his saxophone and he was pretty handy with it. So, we proceeded to enjoy his playing of tunes on said saxophone while we gathered around the fire and made really crude and sexist remarks loudly in front of Carol and looking right at her the whole time to make her as uncomfortable as possible. After all, it was 1973 and this was expected of us. She had to be reduced to tears so that a creepy abusive alcoholic man could more easily seduce her and convince her to marry him before his drinking got worse and his aggressive outbursts turned fatal. The same old story. I was only able to delay it a little with my positive actions.
My old friend Allen Wrench-Jackson came out of the jungle at that point. We often brought him on these expeditions but he had declined the offer this time. He had denied it right quickly, in fact. It was perplexing, as I can still recall even to this day. And then he came out of the jungle. And we were deep, deep in the ass end of the jungle with bugs the size of large house cats crawling up our asses while we could do nothing but swat helplessly. One option was to pull the creatures out of each other's willing assholes, but that would have brought us into questionable homosexual activity and we didn't want to be associated with that. And so we just let these things crawl up our asses one at a time all the way through that dense jungle as we searched for the Clown Car Necropolis.
"I came a different way after pretending I was not going on the trip," Allen Wrench-Jackson told us as he waddled over closer, his pants around his ankles. "This was a feint on my part. I believe the keepers at the museum are listening in on our calls."
"Was there a dispatch from base?"
"I'm afraid so. They said we are on our own from here on out."
"Wow. Cut loose at sea," I responded, a stark grimace on my face that reflected genuine starkness. "We'll just have to make the best of it."
"We're going to need more than our best. We're going to need a miracle."
And that was how it had gone up until that point. The tide was turning. Up until then, I had been under the impression that we had the full backing of base. It turned out we did not. For security reasons, they had cut ties with us. They had to preserve the federation. It was the only way to be sure. We had their spiritual backing, however. They wanted us to succeed so that we would have success that everyone could see and look at and so forth. It was necessary for those reasons.
I don't know if you've ever seen a man-on-man jungle ball fight or not, so I'll explain it to you. This is when two men, at odds with each other in the jungle, get down like crabs, with their arms bent back but face up on all fours backwards. They are completely naked. They charge at each other, hoping to collide their balls into each other, and whoever ruptures a ball first loses. So, what was happening now was that Allen-Wrench Jackson, who had said he wasn't coming, was being challenged to a jungle ball fight by Lil Willie. They were at odds about something or other, so they got down on all fours and skillfully rammed their balls up against the other's balls for two hours until Lil Willie ruptured a ball and had to be helped up by the broad.
There was still much to be accomplished. We bandaged up Lil Willie and ventured forth. There was much jungle ahead, and that eerie feeling of doom was beginning to return.
If you've even been in an Athenian forest, you know that there are "mangled emotions" in an Athenian forest. And that changes a lot of the ways in which you can approach a site from a non-scientific perspective. When it comes to the Clown Car Necropolis, you are dealing with an even greater scale of problems because there are said to be clown guardians of the Clown Car Necropolis itself.
We heard the beating of drums in a jungle rhythm of some kind. As straight white men we are not very discerning when it comes to the music of the jungle peoples. We have little white houses. We live "inside" them and not "around" them as some people do. It is the custom here in America to go into the house and sleep inside the house and watch television in there.
The drums got louder as we moved forward, which meant that we were getting closer to where the people making the drum sounds were standing. And we got there. And when we got there, we were attacked with arrows.
We had a leg up on our attackers. We had a large bag filled with conflict diamonds that we had acquired on another non-scientific expedition. "We have conflict diamonds! We are trafficking in conflict diamonds!" We called out again and again while hiding in the bushes. It was difficult running with our pants around our ankles and so many oversized insects burrowing into our anal channels that we decided just to cower and hope they took the bait.
"What are you talking about?" The voice came from behind us. It was some of the natives and they had done a sneaky manuever on us. We stood up, having freshly shit ourselves while our pants were firmly around our ankles, and I held out the bag of conflict diamonds to them. Their leader snatched them from me, looked inside, and then handed the bag to his cohorts. They had a look themselves and handed it back to the leader, whose name was Bob Simmons.
"Do we have a deal?" I asked.
"Cash value? Black market?" Bob Simmons asked. "These are nothing to me unless I can trade them for value."
"You need to see Horace Greenfield in Addis Ababa," I told him. "He will give you fair value. Tell him Friend Behr sent you."
"We will not kill you. We keep your stones. What is your business in the jungle?"
"We are looking for the Clown Car Necropolis."
"West, towards the setting sun. You will see it. Be careful though, it has a hungry mouth. Like a whore."
"I see."
We walked west, through the thick jungle growth, our pants firmly around our ankles, and then we saw it. The ancient Athenian buildings of the Clown Car Necropolis were right before us. Walking around with our pants around our ankles had actually paid off.
The buildings were downright gloomy. The air was thick, as if it were made of liquids of a squishy alien nature. We struggled to move through it towards the buildings themselves. The closer we got, the more we felt like we were underwater, breathing the water like we were fish and had gills for this purpose. Later on, Lil Willie would change his name to Gil in honor of this moment.
We entered the ancient Athenian buildings, our pants around our ankles, including our underwear. We were glad. We had located the Clown Car Necropolis and we were close to discovering the secrets of the gateway between the world of the living and the world of the dead.
"Beware!" came a voice that sounded like impending doom because of the tone of it.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"I am the keeper of the gate. Turn back now or you will ball fight to the death for my pleasure."
"We want to see the gate."
"You may not. It is forbidden to the living."
"Is it cool?"
At that point the air became just like ocean water and we could not breath. We were washed out of the main temple of the Clown Car Necropolis. We thought about going back in but decided not to. The voice had been very firm in what it had said. We decided to listen.