Farce Wars

[T-Bone]

The following is a satire about a cult-like organization and is humorously submitted as a

Forrest Gump meets Star Wars meets cult kind of a thing…

Farce Wars

Episode I: The Patriarch

…A long time ago at a multi-level marketing kingdom in a galaxy far, far away…all was peaceful. Wars did not exist in this harmonious kingdom. People from all walks of life peacefully co-existed – lawyers with janitors, carpenters with surgeons, women with dogs. The cohesive element that made life in this kingdom really gel was the Farce. The Farce was an amazing power discovered by Lord Fodda Innawort one snowy day while pumping gas at a remote weigh station.

Back then, he was only a level 2 manservant, with no title of distinction save “Wort” – the shortened version of his surname that co-workers called him after they found a makeshift still in his locker. Name-calling didn’t phase young Wort one bit. It may have been out of spite that he began marketing his special brew – which he would proclaim as “from the best damn brewery in town.” Perhaps it was simply that folks couldn’t make out what he was saying in his typical drunken slur – but that feisty bootleg came to be known as Drambui.

The day he achieved lordship was while re-fueling a transporter before it was driven onto the weigh station’s scales. The driver, a burly young man himself, looking down from the cab quipped “You gonna tell the weigh master to knock off some for all that gas yah puttin’ in there? Wort, you guys got some racket – why didn’t yah put the pumps after the scales? Geeez!” Something came over Wort. There was a gleam in his one good eye. “Yes, Mister Gearhead – I will make it so,” Wort replied. To which Mister Gearhead snapped back “Yeah, right…” and went back to reading a dog-eared copy of “How to be a fiend and ruin people.”

Wort went over to the weigh master’s booth as he pulled out the hip flask of his signature moonshine. “Here yah go, Wally,” handing the flask to him. “Ain’t got my wallet on me, Wort,” Wally said as he jotted down the tags and specs of Mr. Gearhead’s rig creeping up to the scales. “Aw shoot, Wally – it’s on me!” Wally was so tickled he got anything free from Wort that he maintained a tight grip on the flask – first a short nip, then another…time seemed to slow down…and so did his reaction-time. He dropped the flask onto the console, its contents spilling into the main control switches and field-effect-transistors. Sparks and smoke spewed out.

“Crap, Wort – it’s dead. Yah know what it costs to get one of these babies fixed?!” Wort’s plan was only to distract Wally from noting the scale readout – but this worked out even better. “No big deal, Wally – I’ll take care of it.” Wort ripped the weight ticket out of Wally’s scale readout pad, puffed up his chest, muttered something that sounded like “I and me Fodda have won” or “I and me Fodda are one.” It was hard to understand him with that drunken slur. “Here you go, Mr. Gearhead,” as he handed the ticket to him. “Very funny, Wort. I know I got sumpin’ like 175,000 pounds after my last vendor pick up. Yah got me here at 20,000. Ol’ Wally been nippin’ at your hooch, eh? Now get me a real weight ticket so I can pay the damn road tax and blow this joint.” Wort looked over at the road tax booth – a government owned cubicle that sat like a greenback-guzzling sentinel near the far end of the lot.

Wally and Wort watched the transporter pull out from the road tax booth and crawl slowly onto the main-transporter-way. Wort’s head was awash in dreams of riches, glory and power. He had discovered something…or maybe it discovered him…He always believed labels were important – and obviously, the turn of today’s events called for something just short of ineffable. His thoughts convulsed in a delusionary reverie, “It was such a simple trick – and yet effective – what power – this…this…Farce…I will be lord of all I ‘weigh’ …” His convoluted daydream was interrupted by Wally’s voice, “This worked out pretty good - tell me again what you said to him, Wort.” Wort turned to him, and squinting at the gas pump where it all began answered, “I merely said there’s a problem with the scale calibration system and any donation on his part would surely offset errors that may occur – possibly in his favor…and in a manner of good faith asked him what weight he originally intended to transport.” Wort’s moment of fortuitous inspiration blossomed into a solid business plan – the co-conspirators even changed the name of the remote weigh station to The Weigh Intentional.