ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Eddie the lion tamer and his sister Barbara Ann slid carefully along the putrid sandwichboard dividing them from reality and what they thought was where it was all at. Young folks these days have that problem. Once I heard about a boy of twelve, a young tow-headed tike off the Mississippi I believe, thought the reason for his unhappiness was his old man whipping his ass all the days and nights of smoldering river heat mugginess, and later at law school he discovered it was just his way and he was very poor and do you know that that youth, that American boy, grew up to be the greatest president our country has ever had? Abe Lincoln ! ! !

"Abe, Abe, please come quick and take this cork outta my ass," says the librarian where Abe walked 30 kilometers a day for Hardy Boy mysteries where they have boats, motorcycles, great haunts and whose father was master detective - all in America! Anyway, young Abe walks up to whispy gray librarian & says in low voice, "How'd you get the cork in your ass, Miss Mildred?" thinking about law & order, about slaves and cotton.

"Well," says Miss Mildred, "it was like this. Old Ed the janitor was over this morning for a little tea and Wonderbread - you know how he digs it, and so we were talking about little Patsy Walker that five-year-old took on a herd of nitty gritties ha ha ha ha ha ha - oops, Abe, forgive me I was saying about Ed, well he ups and says, 'Hey look out Miss Mildred there's a dime on the floor!' And I say where & bend down to look for Roosevelt on oak and smultch! ! I'll be damned if that S. O. B. don't pop the cork off the thermos jug and cram it up my old overdue asshole! That was last Tuesday, Abe, and here it is Saturday and I still ain't been able to get it out!"

"Bend over carefully," advises Abe.

"Well..." she say bending down hiking skirts above head.

"My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!'' say Abe reaching for the cork.

FLOOM!!!

Cork races at super cosmos speed through flotsam and spaceness hits old farmer out in field thinking about riggers & taxation killed instant, on to lovers abed & through them outside hitting O'Kief's little dog Spot and over fence just pass Mrs. Wigg's ear looking up from garden and thinking it was bee & not know how lucky she is, on & on over the land of the free and the home of the brave!

EL CORK KILLS CINCO HOMBRES. SENOR ABE LINCOLN HELD, say headlines as far away as Spain.

"But I didn't do it," insists the defendant confronting the judge with his hands cuffed behind him & surrounded by 27 cops in blue all making snide remarks and poking him with their nightsticks.

"Ahem erp burp," says the judge in New York Yankee uniform, "please Mr. Lincoln if you will, this is a court of law and order and peaceful tranquillity; not a, er, soapbox for your backwoods ramblings!"

"But your honor I implore you to check the facts!"

"Listen, Bub, I have all the facts I need! You pulled that cork from that old dame's a-hole and five citizens were killed." (Cops all mutter in agreement and bat the defendant around.) "Those are the facts as they stand in this here court house of change and new ideas. So you're guilty!" Judge gets up from bench & picks up baseball bat. "Louisville Slugger," he says fondly, looking out to centerfield stands and pointing. "Now tell me about the time you beat up that guy I remember reading about in my old history book."

"Judge!!!"

"Silencio!" And then in aside to cops, "I know a little Spanish too, you can write that down in your Dick Tracy crime stopper books if you want. Now, Abe, tell me why you did it. Tell me what motivated this grave crime." Sits folds hands before him. "Tell me in detail, er, what Miss Mildred's, er, posterior de facto looked like as you reached for the missile in question."

"This is blasphemy...."

"Blasphemy it may be but still I want to know about these things! I'm a judge you forget and am able to exercise broad ranges of questions in order to get at the ultimate innocence or guilt of you. Now, what her A-hole look like, Abe?"

"Hey," says a cheery cop probably Irish, "A-hole Abe. That can be his name."

Pound pound pound

"Order, order, I'll have order in this courtroom," says judge.

"Miss Mildred's, um, anus looked like a dark peach pit!"

"A peach pit?!?!?" says judge folding up in laughter as cops do likewise. "A dark peach pit; court stenographer, did you get that did you write that down?"

Bespectacled stenographer nods and disappears instantly out of frame.

Yellow gas seeps in beneath great doors of courtroom.

"Order in the courtroom," implores the judge, "the judge is eating beans; Hitler's in the bathtub shooting submarines!"

The gas fills the room entering nostrils and eyes & filling the corners of great hall of justice.

"Cough, Cough. . .where's Sal Maglie?" inquires the judge looking toward third base for the signal. "But more important, where's Abe Lincoln??"

"Oh, my god!" say the cops writhing on the floor with nightsticks up their asses. "He's escaped! ! !"

Abraham Lincoln was born in the wilderness of Kentucky on February 12, 1809 in a dark one room log cabin his father built. He walked four miles to school every day in snow three feet deep. Abraham Lincoln worked at many jobs to earn a living and to pay for books so that he could study law, an uncontrolled passion with him. He was a clerk in a county store, a rail splitter, and a farmer, as well as a worker on a river boat. Later, he served the state of Illinois in several offices and in 1860 was elected President of the United States.