<Rivers> That's very specific - what does A have to say about all this??? A where are you? Are you doing a Car 54?

<Rob> He lit out of here about an hour ago with half a bottle of red and two or three Tio Pepe's on board. Probably passed out on that big leather couch. He got pretty tired laughing up the plot for the biggest QuesT episode of all time - The Pie Fight at the Angels' Arms.

<Alan> Whoa. Holy crap! I have no idea where Rob is going with the Buck Coffin sub-plot, but I have a feeling it’s going to end up in the White House war room just like the ‘shot gun golf’ episode last year. And meanwhile, Blueberry’s going to have to make some choices, cause for one thing Ladanian is going to be suspicious, and for another that banana boat is mere hours away from its next port of call, the Bay Area.

Meanwhile, the coincidental homage to TPB is pretty amazing, when you think about it.

The following is a complete re-write of the latest episode. It must be read from beginning to end to appreciate the redesign. It’s like a ’57 Chevy compared to a ’56: longer, lower, wider, with more chrome along the sides and an even more powerful V8. In fact, I’m noticing these episodes becoming longer and longer generally. I’m beginning to suspect a new phase of Extended Dementia.

Finally, for you lurkers who may not be aware of the origins of this episode, we all owe a hearty danke sehr to Barb who provided the inspiration for it. Hip Hip!, and Virgil ON!!

The Pie Hole Flap

The insurance adjuster cautiously approached the front door of The Angels’ Arms. The parking lot was full of tractor-trailers. They were all white, and had generators running. Thick rubber cables were laid out from the trailers to the front door. People were milling around looking busy.

At the doorway the cables stopped. The insurance adjuster stepped inside. The room was packed. A guy he’d never seen before was standing in the middle of the floor with a handi-cam fussing and telling people what to do. The people were arranging tables and chairs just so, and tinkering with a sound boom like the one seen occasionally on reality tv shows like Trailer Park Boys. A woman with what appeared to be pastry flour in her hair was applying pancake makeup to two of the actors from the little theatre troupe. The regulars were fanned out around the group in the center of the room. They were either holding down tables or just standing watching.

A banquet table loaded with pies stood between the crowd and the bar. There were more pies than the insurance adjuster had ever seen before in his life. Fruit pies, cream pies, nut pies, sugar pies, pies from the French tradition, German tradition, local tradition, all kinds of pies. They had upper crust, no crust, glazed crust, and, noticeably to the trained eye, meringue on top. A side table was neatly set with dainty sandwiches made mostly out of cucumber and cut in delicate shapes and sizes. Another side table featured elegant little Austrian style pastries heaped with thick whorls of schlagge. There was a small circular table decorated with a fortress style construction made of petit fours. The piece de resistance stood against the back wall…a dining table taken from a monastery in the south of France, literally groaning under the weight of a giant ice sculpture of Niagara Falls (the bigger, Canadian falls), backlit by a string of pink accent lights from IKEA (pink accent lights PUSSIELIKK), on either side of which were arrayed healthy food choices consisting of fresh fruits and salads and varieties of cottage cheese. Each table had a small sign indicating where the food was from. The signs said, “Lovingly and specially prepared at the Pie Hole Bakery.”

The insurance adjuster stepped up to the bar. “What’s going on here?”

The bartender nodded toward the group of strangers who’d taken over the center of the room. “Some kind of film crew. They’re not from around here. They’re from the Bay Area. They showed up just after that Richard Florida guy stood on the coal docks and proclaimed the Bay Area was the next home of the Creative Class. This is the first film crew to set up shop in what used to be a basket warehouse. The economic development types call it an ‘incubator’. Now it’s full of indie filmmakers and music video types. This crew’s made a big name for themselves. They call themselves Pie Hole Productions.”

“Oh”, said the insurance adjuster. “Big name doing what?”

“Pet food commercials mainly. Then they branched out into training videos for the Bay Area Kennel Club. Made a piss-pot full of money with videos about housebreaking spaniels and Dalmatians. Sell them over the internet to places like Belarus.”

“Oh”, said the insurance adjuster. “What are they doing here?”

“It’s a fund-raiser for a movie they’re making. It’s set in The Angels’ Arms. Apparently some kind of psychodrama or melodrama or something like that.”

“That’s strange,” said the insurance adjuster.

“You got that right,” said the bartender. “There hasn’t been any mellow drama in this town for a long long time.” He poured the insurance adjuster a Seagram’s and Seven.

Lil came along and sat down beside the insurance adjuster. She was dressed in a peasant blouse with a long skirt and snakeskin boots. The insurance adjuster couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“So what’s this movie about?” she asked.

“Get this,” said the bartender. “The director’s just laid it out for me.”

“It opens with three kids playing in a sandbox. Two boys and a girl. The boys have their Tonka toys; they’re pushing dirt around for a road project. The little girl has Malibu Beach Barbie under a sun umbrella studying for her LSAT’s. The boys get into a pissing match cause one of them has just bulldozed the other one’s castle cause it was built too close to the road. The two little guys soak each other; the little girl doesn’t bat an eye.”

“Jesus Christ”, said the insurance adjuster.

“Hold on”, said the bartender. “It gets worse.”

“There’s a quick cut to ten years into the future. Three teenagers, two guys and a girl, are talking in front of a high school. One of the guys is in a wheelchair.”

“I think I can see where this is going”, said Lil.

“But he’s holding a football. He and the other guy were in a motorcycle accident. The accident was caused by the other guy’s recklessness. As a result he’s been deprived of a place on the football team. The team has just won the championship.”

“I knew it”, said Lil.

At that exact moment Thing jumped up on a stool at the end of the bar. He was wearing a Hawaian shirt, chino’s, and a battered pair of Birkenstocks. His sunglasses were propped on top of his head, and he was wearing a gold chain-link bracelet on his left wrist. He’d clearly been out in the sun most of the afternoon. His forearms were slightly tanned, and paler skin showed under the bracelet.

The bartender set him up with his usual. Thing slurped the banana daiquiri, and up-ended the aguardente. The bartender casually slid a plate of the cucumber sandwiches in front of him.

Thing picked up one of the sandwiches – this one was cleverly sculpted in the shape of a spade from a deck of playing cards – and sniffed it quizzically. Then, in an uncharacteristically clumsy move, he lowered it to his mouth. As he did, a chilled slice of cucumber squirted out of the sandwich and into the deep cleavage of Samantha Whales.

Samantha screamed at the shock of chilled cucumber on exposed flesh. As fate would have it, she was in mid-stroke of a deft slice into a chocolate meringue pie. She immediately lost control of the knife. It left her hand, shot into the air, and began flipping end-over-end high across the pub. It seemed to be in the air for an eternity before smashing through the front window.

“Nice catch”, said the bartender as Samantha retrieved the cucumber from her décolletage. Samantha glowered at him.

“That Samantha really can wail”, thought the insurance adjuster.

“Wicked throw”, the bartender added, glancing toward the broken window. Samantha glowered again. “That knife was coated in meringue. Too bad to lose it like that.”

“I’ll show you some meringue”, said Samantha.

“I think I’d like that,” said the bartender. He winked.

Samantha reached behind her for the nearest lemon meringue pie. Most everyone in the room knew what was going to happen next.

In a desperate pre-emptive move Thing grabbed a banana cream pie off the banquet table, tucked it under his arm like a pigskin in the Grey Cup, and sprinted for the Exit door. He straight-armed Junior Mennon midway across the room. Junior’s tremendous girth was propelled backward toward the table. He landed backside first in a seven-layer amaretto torte. The torte slopped on impact into the rather expensive but stylishly casual shirt of the movie director.

At that point all hell broke loose.

The room dissembled into a blur of flying pie filling, whipped cream, and custard. The ceilingfans contributed to the brouhaha by a factor of at least ten. In no time the ceiling fixtures were dripping strawberries and blueberries in orange cream, butterscotch pudding, brandy custard sauce, and chocolate praline mousse. The patrons were spattered with great blotches of orange chocolate refrigerator cake, apple cranberry crisp with warm toffee sauce, vanilla apricot tart, almond sour cream cheese cake, wild huckleberry shortcake, Ginger Zabaglione, and berry mint trifle. The film crew was coated in a soggy mess of French lemon tart, saffron vanilla poached apples, peach sour cream pie, Orange Tuiles, and miniature Peach Charlottes. The movie director was trying to mop himself up with an orange-scented sponge cake.

<Rob> Meanwhile in the parking lot: Thing shot past the splintered door of The Angels' Arms, cleaverly avoiding a collision with the insurance adjuster. As he flew through the doorway a thought balloon popped, complete with musical notes, "Have gun will travel reads the card of a man . . ." At first he appeared doomed to crash into the film crew's tractor trailers as he knee-hopped through the masses of cables in the parking lot. and made a hard left to avoid a man everyone knew to be dreaming of becoming mayor of VirgilON. The dreamer screamed and dodged the pie-weilding juggernaught. For a fleeting moment Thing acquired the look of an olympic speed skater in a tight turn but as he leaned left and raised his right arm clutching the pie for balance he also had the amazing air of Emit Smith breaching an opening in the defensive line in a goal line stand. Then he saw a very familiar car - a powder blue 64 poncho, ragtop down. It was Meech's old buddy Bill. Thing streaked toward the car and was amazed at what he saw. Thing was a great athlete, for a monkey, and he knew it. He knew the shot he simply had to make. Blueberry Hill was sitting in the front seat beside Bill. Ladanian was in the back in a sort of wrestling match with Commander Buck Coffin of the US Coast Guard. The seat covers and sun visors were all snakeskin. The visors were oversized and had the destincitive look of goalie pads by Pop Kenneski. "Thing, I've got Blueberry and that American kidnapper" Bill yelled but it appeared Commander Buck was anything but under control. Blueberry stood up, leaned over a snakeskin goalie pad and swooned as she recognized Thing. The great ape raised his massive right arm and fired the banana cream pie as hard as he could at Commander Buck. His aim was a tad high to the right outside but Blueberry ducked and Commander Buck ducked too. Just at that point the dreamer politician stood up behind the poncho, where he'd ducked for cover. The banana cream pie hit him full in the face with a horrendous whump. Immediately a thought balloon popped over Thing, complete with musical notes, "Oh oh yes I'm the great pretender, doowah doowah". The dreamer mayor was so shocked by the event that he fainted dead away and slumped over the trunk of the powder blue poncho. Thing trotted over and gave Blueberry a big hug, to the dismay of Ladanian Hill. "My hero" swooned Blueberry as she licked some banana cream pie filling off Thing's right ear. An empty thought balloon popped over Thing's head and Bill filled in the possibilities - quite racy. Thing reached over to Bill's snakeskin goalie pad sun visor and pulled out a large carving knife imbedded in the pad to the hilt. It was covered in meringue and Thing immediately licked it clean. He had strange tastes, for a monkey. "I give up I give" up groaned Commander Buck under the weight of Ladanian who was standing with both cowboy boots on the soldier's chest. "OK" said Bill, "will you help us in The Angels' Arms?" "Not a problem at all, just get this lunkhead off of me" groaned Commander Buck. At that point the entire group, except the dreamer mayor, headed into The Angels' Arms. Pie filling was spilling out the doorway in an oozing mass almost a foot deep. The scene that greeted them inside was something taken directly from a horror movie or maybe a creative episode of the Trailer Park Boys.

Once inside, Ladanian and Blueberry Hill took the opportunity to do some rollicking and rolling, as was their custom in the privacy of their own home, in an erotic mixture of mango, kiwi, and papaya slices suspended in a blend of crème brulee, orange flan, and blackberry sorbet.

Billy Hillyard and Reingold Krauthammer were standing on a table dueling and poking each other mercilessly with marsala almond biscotti.

The bartender rescued a plate of chocolate banana cupcakes and an entire key lime chiffon pie for Thing. He continued describing the movie to the regulars at the bar as if nothing was happening. Well-thrown volleys of pumpkin cheese tartlets with butter pecans frequently interrupted his recitation of the plot line.

“Fast forward another ten years into the future. The girl is married and living happily in the suburbs. She’s carrying a plate of hors d’oeuvres from M&M Meats toward the barbecue on the back deck. Unknown to her, the tunnel boring machine that’s making the tunnel for the new hydro-electric plant below the Falls goes out of control, chews its way to the surface and right through her back deck, taking out her husband, the two kids, and the Doberman with it.”

Effie Bottom’s son Seer upended a deep-dish plum pie over Revan O’Donnell’s head, then folded the foil plate over his shaved skull. He was trying as best he could to protect himself and his irreplaceable third eye from what he believed to be the biggest hole in the Universe ever.

The actors from the little theatre troupe had moved downstage and were practicing lines while gorging themselves on fruitcake and strawberry cassis soufflé.

“Turns out the husband’s got no insurance, so she’s gotta sue this mega-giant construction company with nothing but her Martha Stewart autobiography to inspire her wardrobe choices, and some bitter memories to drive her on.”

The Permit Lady and her husband had taken shelter under a table, and were treating themselves to bowls of chantilly and rice pudding with cranberries. Flash bulbs were popping from the Brownie Hawkeye as fast as strobe lights.

Jaak Mennon had taken a position at one end of the bar and was overhanding alternating volleys of white chocolate raspberry tarts and Meringue Torte with hazelnuts and chocolate. Jebediah Mennon, who’d pitched in the Grapefruit League as a young athlete, was hurling great slabs of Lady Baltimore cake with a vicious sidearm.

“Jesus Christ”, said the insurance adjuster again. “This screenplay isn’t even believable. Everybody’s got insurance.”

“Whatever”, continued the bartender, “She needs a job. That’s how she meets up again with the two boys. They’ve grown up too, and own The Angels’ Arms. They’ve reconciled after the motorcycle accident.”

Meanwhile, the crust was crumbling as it should into tiny crumbs. The crumbs joined the sawdust in seeping through the floorboards into the basement spa. Big Jake Mennon was in for his weekly Hands-On Full-Body treatment. He wanted one of the (unregistered) massage therapists to lick some Graham Cracker crumbs off his chest and navel, but she refused. “I may work cheap”, she said, “But I don’t do nothing dirty.”

“They give her a job as a server on the afternoon shift”, continued the bartender. The narrative was becoming harder to maintain in the melee. “The tips suck, but the three of them become romantically involved. They believe they can live happily ever after. But tragedy is about to strike”

“I don’t think I can stand to hear what happens next”, said Lil.

The Board of Trade, meanwhile, had fallen out of love with the film crew. Originally they thought it was very creative, and would have lots of spin-offs and tourism benefits, and be good for business. But suddenly and without warning they decided they didn’t want to back a loser. They turned on the film director. A barrage of cream puffs thrown in unison and in anger slammed into the side of his head. The impact knocked him senseless. The entire senior management team from the village administration had to form a human shield and escort him to safety in the parking lot.

The bartender watched them charge by. “All the creativity of this generation has gone into personalized license plates. What we need in this town is some old-fashioned piquant social commentary like Honore de Balzac or Ambrose Bierce or that Brit cartoonist Giles.”

“Pointed but affectionate commentary”, said the insurance adjuster.

“Rilly”, said the bartender.

The Village Council, who had been alternately stuffing their faces and whipping pear and ginger cobbler at anyone who moved, spotted the Village Clerk hiding behind the Canadian Falls ice sculpture. They ordered him to come out. When he did they pumped a shotgun blast of Queen Anne cherry tarts that lifted the Clerk’s toupe right off his head and glued it to the wall.

Eventually the pie flap blew itself out. The combatants were exhausted. Ladanian and Blueberry lay panting and giggling in the middle of the floor. Lil and Samantha, who had been watching calmly from the bar, finished off a bowl of chocolate covered raspberries.

Samantha, in her capacity as Acting Emergency Measures Coordinator, called in the Volunteer Fire Fighters. The VFF, all 84 of them ready to a man to deal with the emergency, arrived at just about the right time. Showing their neat and tidy side they managed to clean up the pub in a matter of minutes. Then they lined everyone up outside in the parking lot and hosed them down. Samantha declined as all her clothes went to the dry-cleaner. The insurance adjuster planted his eyes firmly on Lil’s blouse as the cold water washed over her torso. C Mai Lai stood the VFF to a free round of Carlings. Someone threw a coin in the juke, Roy Orbison hit the turntable, and everyone started dancing. The pub returned to normal.

By the end of the evening the film crew had collected $3.85 toward the movie. It turned out the only piece of pie anyone actually paid for was the slice of chocolate meringue pie that Samantha was slicing before fate so impudently intervened. However, the truck and equipment rentals that helped stage the event had set the crew back $14,419.12, net of the grant they got from the Bay Area Film Development Fund, plus the cost of the Pie Hole Bakery food.

When he left, the insurance adjuster found Thing sitting on a sidewalk bench. He was finishing off the banana cream pie. He’d picked up the knife that had crashed through the pub window. After its long and graceful trajectory across the room and through the window it had fetched up in the shrubbery under the window, and was now lying in the empty pie plate, wiped clean of meringue. [see also the snakeskin goalie pad version of the story in the inset above].

“Good night”, said the insurance adjuster. Thing flashed him the V for Victory, his fingers tipped in meringue that shone a luminous white in the light of a very full moon.

Samantha, Lil, and the bartender came out last.

“There are no melodramas in Virgil ON”, said Lil. “That screenplay is todely bogus. Let’s go home and get some sleep. We’ve got a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”

“Doing what?”, asked Samantha.

“We’re going to take a trip to the Bay Area. I’ve got some ‘home movies’ from my spa. I’m going to have them made into a full-length feature. And I’ve got an idea for a documentary about your experiences selling trucks and vans.”

“Now that’s the kind of movie I’d go see”, said the bartender. “Something authentic that tells the true story of Virgil ON.”

A thought bubble appeared above Thing’s head. The thought bubble said, “Amen to that.”