making
conversation.
“Have you been
trying to kill me?” I would ask, casually. “I’m just curious. Or we could talk
about the weather, if you like. The weather’s been trying to kill me too. Is
that your doing? My name’s Frank, by the way.”
All of them denied
being the man I was looking for, but suggested it might be one of the other
members: Professor Kryptonite over there, or Colonel Awful, perhaps.
I excitedly
checked out each new lead, but kept coming up empty. Finally, when I started
being pointed back to the same people I’d already talked to, I gave it up and
started to leave.
The aged
doorkeeper helped me on with my coat and said he couldn’t help overhearing the
question I’d been asking, since I had asked it so many times and with such
growing anger, and he hoped I wouldn’t mind him taking the liberty of sticking
in his two cents, but the person I was looking for might be Overkill.
“Who?”
“Professor
Overkill.”
I looked back
into the room. “Which one is he?”
The doorman shook
his head ruefully and explained that Overkill wasn’t a member of the club. He
had been denied membership on numerous occasions.
“The members
don’t agree with his methods, sir. They feel he tends to overdo things. They
feel his work is too broad. So his many applications have been rejected.”
I asked where I
might find this Overkill, pressing some money into his aged hand to help him
remember.
“His application
forms state his residence as Revenge Island, sir,” he said, throwing the
quarter away. “That’s right out in the middle of the lake. The island that
appears to be frowning.”
I thanked him and
asked if there was a special word I had to say to get out of there. He said
there wasn’t, so I left.
I spent the next
few days trying to get to Revenge Island. It was easy to find. It was the only
angry looking island in the lake. But it was impossible to get to.
There were no
boats for hire, so I tried swimming there, but remembered after I had gone 50
feet, straight down, and had been lying face down on the bottom for awhile,
that I couldn’t swim.
My jet pack could
have gotten me to the island easily enough, of course, but I couldn’t approach
the super villain that way. It would look like The Flying Detective was coming
to get him and wring his filthy neck. That was the last thing I wanted him to
think. So that was out.
I tried
chartering a plane, but apparently the super villain was one step ahead of me.
Once the plane got up in the air, it started buffeting around violently and
then went into a dive. I worked my way forward to the cockpit. The pilot was
gone. I couldn’t figure out the controls, didn’t even know where to start, so I
went back to my seat and read a magazine until the plane crashed.
After doctors
took the casts off my legs, and worked the tubes out of my nose, and hammered
my rear end back into shape, I tried mailing myself to the island in a package.
I had a buddy who worked down at the post office help me with the operation.
But I wouldn’t pop for first class postage, so I had to go junk mail. I got to
the island before the end of the month, but they tossed me out unopened. I was
in a garbage can for almost a week before a truck picked me up.
All these
attempts were made more difficult because I had to constantly keep my eye out
for the super villain’s minions. They were still out looking for me, as
determinedly as before, but, to my relief, there had recently been a change in
tactics. Now they weren’t trying to kill me, they were just trying to capture
me. I guess once you’ve tried to kill somebody 138 times and he’s still not dead,
it’s time to try something else.
So now all the
time I was trying to find a way onto the island, I had to avoid a series of
clever Rube Goldbergian traps. Remember that game “Mouse Trap”? It’s like I was
living in one of those. The Deluxe Version. I’d start to open a door, for
example, and the minute I turned
conversation.
“Have you been
trying to kill me?” I would ask, casually. “I’m just curious. Or we could talk
about the weather, if you like. The weather’s been trying to kill me too. Is
that your doing? My name’s Frank, by the way.”
All of them denied
being the man I was looking for, but suggested it might be one of the other
members: Professor Kryptonite over there, or Colonel Awful, perhaps.
I excitedly
checked out each new lead, but kept coming up empty. Finally, when I started
being pointed back to the same people I’d already talked to, I gave it up and
started to leave.
The aged
doorkeeper helped me on with my coat and said he couldn’t help overhearing the
question I’d been asking, since I had asked it so many times and with such
growing anger, and he hoped I wouldn’t mind him taking the liberty of sticking
in his two cents, but the person I was looking for might be Overkill.
“Who?”
“Professor
Overkill.”
I looked back
into the room. “Which one is he?”
The doorman shook
his head ruefully and explained that Overkill wasn’t a member of the club. He
had been denied membership on numerous occasions.
“The members
don’t agree with his methods, sir. They feel he tends to overdo things. They
feel his work is too broad. So his many applications have been rejected.”
I asked where I
might find this Overkill, pressing some money into his aged hand to help him
remember.
“His application
forms state his residence as Revenge Island, sir,” he said, throwing the
quarter away. “That’s right out in the middle of the lake. The island that
appears to be frowning.”
I thanked him and
asked if there was a special word I had to say to get out of there. He said
there wasn’t, so I left.
I spent the next
few days trying to get to Revenge Island. It was easy to find. It was the only
angry looking island in the lake. But it was impossible to get to.
There were no
boats for hire, so I tried swimming there, but remembered after I had gone 50
feet, straight down, and had been lying face down on the bottom for awhile,
that I couldn’t swim.
My jet pack could
have gotten me to the island easily enough, of course, but I couldn’t approach
the super villain that way. It would look like The Flying Detective was coming
to get him and wring his filthy neck. That was the last thing I wanted him to
think. So that was out.
I tried
chartering a plane, but apparently the super villain was one step ahead of me.
Once the plane got up in the air, it started buffeting around violently and
then went into a dive. I worked my way forward to the cockpit. The pilot was
gone. I couldn’t figure out the controls, didn’t even know where to start, so I
went back to my seat and read a magazine until the plane crashed.
After doctors
took the casts off my legs, and worked the tubes out of my nose, and hammered
my rear end back into shape, I tried mailing myself to the island in a package.
I had a buddy who worked down at the post office help me with the operation.
But I wouldn’t pop for first class postage, so I had to go junk mail. I got to
the island before the end of the month, but they tossed me out unopened. I was
in a garbage can for almost a week before a truck picked me up.
All these
attempts were made more difficult because I had to constantly keep my eye out
for the super villain’s minions. They were still out looking for me, as
determinedly as before, but, to my relief, there had recently been a change in
tactics. Now they weren’t trying to kill me, they were just trying to capture
me. I guess once you’ve tried to kill somebody 138 times and he’s still not dead,
it’s time to try something else.
So now all the
time I was trying to find a way onto the island, I had to avoid a series of
clever Rube Goldbergian traps. Remember that game “Mouse Trap”? It’s like I was
living in one of those. The Deluxe Version. I’d start to open a door, for
example, and the minute I turned
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