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Funny Stories by Dick Oakes, Jr.
Dick Oakes, Jr.
It was evening. Some guy pressed a booklet into my hand. “This booklet is your assurance of quality, comfort, safety, cleanliness and friendly hospitality,” he said. I asked him what the hell it was to him, anyway– he tried to answer but then he vomited in his mouth a little and lurked off.
It was a side-stapled guide from the Lankville Motel Association. There was a little sign on the front with their name on it. Above, it said, “Look for Our Sign”. I skimmed through it but I didn’t figure on it mattering none.
I wandered around the spent downtown area for awhile but there was nothing going on. Then, I headed for the outskirts. After a mile or so, I saw the place up on the left.
I walked into the office. Bunch of lobby furniture done up in pea greens, saffron and flowers. There was an old paunchy man with glasses behind the counter. I couldn’t figure on any of it. I lit a cigarette and tossed the match into an ashtray.
“Those ashtrays have the name of our establishment printed on them,” the man said. “It says “El Patio Motel”, did you notice?”
I coughed. It started to rain heavily. The old guy wasn’t noticing it. The rain was slamming against the front doors now but he kept his eye on the ashtray. I heard a loud boom from upstairs somewhere. None of it was figuring right but I rented a room anyway.
It was done up in pinks and oranges. There were more ashtrays– too many ashtrays, all with “El Patio Motel” printed on them. Then I noticed everything had “El Patio Motel” printed on it– the guy had really gone to town. The trashcans, the complimentary soaps, the chairs, the carpet, all had it.
I pulled the shades and got undressed. I could see the little town down the ways, twinkling sickly, like the embers of a campfire in need of being stamped out. I heard the boom again, upstairs again but I didn’t mind it none. Then, a knock came.
It was the paunchy guy. “Need any ashtrays?” he asked. He had a whole stack of them in his hand. “I think I’ll be alright,” I said. I held the door against my unclothed frame. “Well, if you need any, you can use the service telephone there on the desk. It has our name printed on it. Just dial the number seven. That’s printed on there too.” He went away.
I put the television on. There was static, then some organ music, then a picture. It was a feed of the front desk. Nobody was there and then the paunchy guy was there, organizing some hand towels. It went on like that. I couldn’t make sense of none of it. I tried some other stations but it was all the same, all just the front desk.
I got in bed and slid some lurid pamphlets purchased earlier in the day out of a brown paper bag. After awhile, I put the TV back on. I couldn’t figure on why.
This is how you picked it, Oakes, I said to myself.
The night passed.
An Interview with Royer’s Van Mechanic
By Dick Oakes, Jr.
The Lankville Daily News is pleased to present an exclusive interview with business magnate Ric Royer’s van mechanic, Frank Williamsons.
Frank Williamsons: “I don’t know how they’re still driving the damn thing”.
DO: Tell us about the condition of the van.
FW: It’s not good. The first time I checked the viscosity of the…
DO(interrupting): That’s boring. Move forward please.
FW: Anyways, I get instructions once every couple of days by phone. Mr. Royer’s voice is always distant– I think he takes great pains to stand really far away from the receiver.
DO: What were some of your recent instructions?
FW: Remove all the oil. Don’t put any new oil in. Then, a few days later, he wanted all the anti-freeze removed. Then, he wanted the tires partially deflated. I don’t know how the hell they’re still driving the damn thing.
DO: What else?
FW: He asked to have the speedometer removed and replaced with a picture of a cat.
DO: What about the lights?
FW: Oh, he had a bunch of extra colored lights put in all over the place. Senseless really. They don’t do nothing. I just don’t see how they’re still driving the damn thing.
Oakes could think of no further questions and a light breeze picked up and pleasantly kissed the faces of all involved.
Royer Purchases Van
By Dick Oakes, Jr.
LANKVILLE ACTION NEWS: YES!
Incarcerated Lankville business magnate Ric Royer has purchased a van, sources are now reporting.
“It’s from 1999,” stated the executive, who was interviewed in the game room of the Foontz-Flonnaise Home of Abundant Senselessness. “It has seats. Some of the seats fold downward so that one might imagine a bed. There is a TV set. It’s glorious.”
Royer then paused to thrust forward a Lingus Net sack. He was repelled by a fellow inmate.
“He is a skilled opponent. The best I’ve faced thus far,” noted the executive.
Royer then produced several photos of his new acquisition.
Royer’s new van that has everyone talking.
“You’ll note that the TV set plays films. The blue and white colors of the exterior are bold but rational. There are little spaces where you can put your legs. There is a plastic box where diverse items can be deposited. They thought of everything, really.”
Royer deflected questions about the van’s reliability.
“I specifically instructed my handlers not to open the hood. I don’t want to know anything at all about the hood. And I don’t want anyone else to know.”
The executive suddenly wandered off and the interview was ended prematurely.
Dick Oakes: Night Detective
Dick Oakes: Night Detective
AN ONGOING SERIES FOR FANS OF ROUSING, HARDBOILED YARNS
I was standing in a Pots Barn when the call came and boy was I glad of it. It had been an hour since I walked in the place, just intending to pick out a holiday wreath. The next thing I knew, some clerk was going on about boxwood cone trees, decorative rattan sleighs and lush magnolia and bright berries. I couldn’t make any of it out.
It was Bingaman. “Some sort of orgiastic youth affair in one of the warehouses. We got a kid dead and nobody is talking,” he said.
“Yeah, well, I’ll lean on ’em. Just let me see what the deal is with these succulent pinecone wreaths and then…”
“Dick, you better get down there right now. Forget about the wreath.”
It was in the old Lankville shipbuilding district. Grim, windowless warehouses– dark to the street. I finally found the soiree around back, towards the river. Must have been a hundred of ’em in there– a band was still onstage but there was total silence.
The kid was college-aged– lying in a pool of blood. He’d been dead about an hour and it was a slug that had caught him.
I looked up and noticed something funny then. I approached the stage.
“You guys were playing when this happened?”
HO Scale model of the murder site. Perfect for vintage train layouts. Contact Dick Oakes, Lankville Police West, 5-3822.
The frontman nodded. He couldn’t look at me though.
“How come none of your instruments are plugged in?”
He looked down in horror.
Bingaman came down and we leaned on a bunch of ’em. It was a lovesick, tortured boyfriend deal. Maybe the boyfriend had something on his ex, maybe he didn’t. Maybe he came there to reveal it and maybe somebody had shot him. And it all came back on a girl that had been onstage earlier. Everybody gave us the same address and description. It was candy.
“You wanna’ handle this, Oakes?” Bingaman asked. “Seems like your area of expertise.”
I nodded.
“I gotta’ get back to the station. Move some of those trays around.”
Him and those trays. I couldn’t figure on any of it.
It was a 5-floor walkup downtown. None of the buzzers were marked. I leaned on all of ’em. They said I would be able to tell by her voice.
It was number four. “I’ll come to the lobby,” she said. She had a voice alright. A voice that took your knees out. The lock buzzed.
The lobby was a poorly-lit, fetid place with an old vending machine that dispensed cartons of milk. Someone had ordered a pizza recently, eaten half of it and then crushed the rest into the carpet. Decorative ham circulars and public-service challenge warnings littered every corner.
I could hear her heels clicking on the stairs. It was a dangerous sound, I knew it. And then she stopped at the base like a girl making her entrance at a ball. And it was a grand one.
C’mon Oakes, a voice said but I elected to ignore it.
I don’t think I need to tell you that she was selling it everywhere.
I don’t think I need to tell you that she was selling it everywhere. Her eyes were large, dark and self-possessed and she had cascading, meticulously-coiffed hair that seemed to never quit. She was the kind of girl that could go from good to bad in a minute, and back to good again. A sort of quick-change artist. And right now, she was as good as a cooling pie off a windowsill in the Lankville countryside.
“Mr. Oakes,” she started. “If this is about that unfortunate incident down at the warehouse…” She stopped, waiting for me to pick it up.
“Why’d you bolt?” I had to burn a cigarette. A sign said no smoking but I figured, if they were allowing pizzas to be crushed into the carpet, they probably weren’t sticklers on a little ash.
“The victim, Talbot, I knew him…we were good friends. I couldn’t bear it…” I could see she was thinking about whether to turn on the waterworks.
“How’d you know him?”
“He had a very nice video camera and fashioned himself a bit of a director. We made movies. He liked to make movies about those creatures…you know…that are half-woman, half-fish.”
I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about but I played along. “You acted in some of these half woman, half-fish movies, then?” I was trying to figure out if there was a blue angle or not.
“It didn’t require much acting. I just laid on a rock by the old truck bridge. Talbot had rigged up a little fin for my legs.”
“Skip it. Let’s get to the murder. Who plugged him?”
“Jimmy Berries. That’s Talbot’s brother.”
Berries. The name rang a bell. And not because of the Pots Barn either. There had been a Talbot Berries that had run deliveries for a pizza joint. He had been shot by some bigwig Lankville business man. They had covered the whole thing up. I looked down at the pizza crushed into the carpet again. She saw me. And that’s when it broke down.
“It’s real big, Mr. Oakes. The connections in all this. Bigger than any of us.”
I knew it. And I knew then that she was innocent.
To be continued
Funny Stories by Dick Oakes, Jr.
Dick Oakes, Jr.
Ended up at the Kent Motel in the middle of the night. Some glitzy city on the western coast of Lankville. The office door was locked so I went through the courtyard and snooped around. There was a pool there– somebody had left a couple of moist towels on the concrete and a little satchel of fried chicken on a table with some daisies around it. I nabbed the chicken– wolfed it down in the darkness behind an ice machine.
After that, I spotted a fat guy sitting in an arm chair with a little dog. He was stroking its head and looking off towards the west. There was no sense to any of it.
I approached him. “You wanna’ quit fooling with that dog for a bit and rent me a room?”
“The only room left is on the top floor. Way back there on the left. Overlooking the street and the illuminated sign. We haven’t got around to putting curtains up.” His voice was effeminate. “By the way, by removing that chicken from those surrounding daisies, you’ve ruined someone’s tableau.”
I couldn’t figure on any of it. “Just rent me the room would you?”
He took forever to get out of the chair and then made a big pretense of laying some padding out on a chaise-lounge for the dog. I’ve never seen shit like this I thought to myself but I decided to let it go. I followed him to the office.
It was a spare place with bright overhead flourescents. Gave me a sudden bitch of a headache. I gave him my last two twenties and got only a couple of bucks in return.
“Everything’s higher in this town, idn’t it,” I said.
“In microeconomics, supply and demand is an economic model of price determination in a given market,” he started. He pulled out a little chart.
“Skip it. Just give me the god damn key would you?”
He handed it over.
It was a carpeted room with a couple of double beds draped in salmon-colored rib cord cotton bedspreads and a little TV on a desk. I threw up suddenly into a blue plastic trash can that had a flower with a smiley face. Fucking hell, Oakes, I thought to myself. I couldn’t keep it up– I knew it. I crawled to the bed and slept for I don’t know how long.
When I woke up, it was way after noon. There were a couple of guys standing in the doorway and the little manager was standing behind them stroking that damn dog. I sat up.
“Well..?” I said.
“You better come down with us,” one of the guys said. I couldn’t figure him on a cop but this town seemed to have it all wrong anyway.
“He ate chicken that didn’t belong to him,” the manager said quietly.
“And ruined someone’s tableau,” the other guy added. “We’ll take it from here.”
They let me get dressed and walk down the stairs on my own. The sun was blinding.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Outside of town,” one guy said. “There’s a little abandoned place, used to be a pancake house. They got tall bushes out front that obscures the view to the street.”
“What’s gonna’ happen there?”
“We’ll beat the hell out of you. Then bring you back.”
There was nothing I could say. We got back by nightfall.
Funny Stories by Dick Oakes, Jr.
By Dick Oakes, Jr.
Senior Staff Writer
Dick Oakes, Jr.
They gave me twenty bucks and dropped me off downtown. “Walk four blocks that way and you’ll come to the Scenic Motel. They got a room for you there,” the bus driver said. I stood there in the blinding sun. “Go on, fuck off Oakes!” the bus driver yelled out, just as he closed the double doors. He pulled off in an engine burst of cloud and smoke.
I walked down to the Scenic. There was nothing but closed storefronts and a couple of pool halls open. I didn’t want trouble like that, like before out in the Plains, so I kept to my destination.
The office was air-conditioned. The owner was a barrel-chested little guy with glasses. He wore a white collared shirt that was covered in sweat stains.
“So, how you figure on this place being scenic?” I asked.
“Look out back,” he said. He took a big bite out of a slice of watermelon. Beyond the brown curtains I could see to the backyard. There was a gigantic pile of dirt there. I lifted my shoulders slightly.
“Take it or leave it, buddy,” he said. “I ain’t running no god damn motherfucking piece of shit country club for assholes if you know what I’m talking about.”
I signed the book under a fake name and took the key.
It was Room Number 21, up on the second deck beyond a grove of dead trees. Bed with a red comforter, couple of chairs, a shower– it was nothing fancy. There was one of those cross-stitched things that some women make. It was hanging on the wall in a half-busted frame. It said, BE CAREFUL BECAUSE GOD WATCHES OVER THIS ROOM AND THE THINGS THAT HAPPEN IN IT ALL THE TIME, EVEN AT NIGHT. He ain’t gonna’ be happy about what I’m gonna’ do then I thought. Truthfully though, I had no idea what was next in this fuck-all town.
I took a nap and then went back down to the office. “Tell me about a place to eat,” I said. The guy looked up from his paperwork. “They got two places. One of ’em is fancy. Like the kind of place you’d take a woman as a precursor. Got wood paneling, got them hooked rugs on the floor. I get the feeling though that that ain’t the kind of place a guy like you would have the slightest interest in.”
I figured on him being right but I didn’t say anything.
“Well, about four blocks beyond that, they got one of those Boffo Periods night clubs. I’d stay outta’ that place though. Sure, you can eat a hot sandwich while looking at tits and ass but there’s a price you gotta’ pay for that shit.”
I nodded.
“Looks like you’re fucked buddy. It’ll have to be the machine out back.”
He gave me some change.
I got a candy bar and a danish out of the machine and sat in a rusted folding chair. The sun was going down a little and the giant pile of dirt was in full shade. You couldn’t hear a sound, nothing except a slight wind that cooled nothing. I studied a map the guy gave me. Nearest bus station was 25 miles. 25 mile walk through dirt and sand. I couldn’t think of anything else to do, so I bit into the danish. It tasted like dirt. I tossed it at the pile.
I went back up to my room. There was a note there from some official. They had a job for me at the bus station– the position requires squatting beneath benches to retrieve trash and removal of errant bodily fluids. There is no getting around this requirement. I tore it up.
Then I started walking.
ACCOMMODATIONS
When staying in the Area Beyond the Outlands, pick the Murray. Friendly, creative staff, delightful beds, curtains. Phone Far Outlands 5-6712.
LANKVILLE DAILY NEWS: IN BOOK FORM!
The book is gone. It will never return. We hear stories but they are likely false. We live in the woods now. We make fire with a lighter that we found in the street. It was crushed by a truck but, somehow, perhaps through some intervention that is beyond us, it still works. We are waiting. We are waiting.
Original Pondicherry Association News promotional advertisement (2009)
TONIGHT ON TV! RICHARD AND THE POSTMAN REUNION SPECIAL!
The Hit program from the 1970's returns to Lankville TV tonight on LBC!
ADULT ADVERTISEMENT
Women all over Lankville are just sitting at mammoth computers waiting to hear from men like you! Just insert a floppy disk, write a (non-sexual) message and let the sparks fly! (Computer not included).
ADVERTISEMENT
A Vitiello Decorative Ham makes a great gift. Show that you care today.
BANDED DUFFELS ON PALLETS
Assorted colors. Whatever you want to do, man. Call Lankville Falls, 3247.
BRIAN SCHROPP IN THE LANKVILLE DAILY NEWS
The most important cuisine articles ever written.
CANDY
Jipps Co. Full Service Candy Counter! Our alert girls will push gummy drops into special paper sheaths, engage in restrained pleasantries and explain chocholate-to-nougat ratios. Call Central Lankville 3614.
CAT PHOTO
In compliance with Lankville subsection 11:16-4.
CHAMBERS CO. HAND DRILLS: When Electricity is Not an Option
When electricity is not an option consider the Chambers Company hand crank drills. Perfect for use in tight spaces, on distant islands or for drilling holes in fences to see TITS. Call 4-2309.
EMPLOYMENT
Big Ed's BBQ Shack is looking for a part-time waitress. Someone who doesn't nose around and ask a lot of difficult questions. Call Lankville Rougher Area, 5-2100.
EMPLOYMENT
Nuts, Ah! is looking for an experienced nut-handler. Experience with bagging nuts also important. If you break the nut sack, the nuts will drop onto the floor. Come in person for application to Twin Removed Pines Mall. NO CALLS.
FOX FOR PARTIES
Hire the Poetry Fox for Your Child's Next Party. Reasonable rates. Writes poems, dances, will not stand for any shenanigans. Call South Lankville 2009.
The funny stories of Dick Oakes, Jr. have thrilled millions. Look for them today in The Lankville Daily News!
GELSINGER’S ALLURE CLUB
Topless, bottomless wonderland. Mysterious back rooms. Carpeted entirely in astroturf. NO CALLS.
GREBOV BROTHERS TELESCOPE COMPANY
The Grebov Brothers are Lankville's finest purveyor of telescopes for astronomy enthusiasts. Substantial 4.5" apertures and fast f/4 focal ratios provide bright, detailed views of solar system targets like the Moon and planets, as well as wide-field celestial objects like nebulas and star clusters but also TITS.
GUMP PENETRATES
Only in The Lankville Daily News
HADBAWNIK HAUNTED STAIRCASE COMPANY
The Hadbawnik Company is Lankville's #1 installer of haunted, brush-littered staircases. Friendly non-foreign staff! Call Western (Outer) Lankville, 2154 or 2198 today.
HADBAWNIK HAUNTED BRUSH PILES!
The Hadbawnik Haunted Staircase Company is now offering haunted brush piles for use on your staircase. Create eerie, supernal ambiance. Allow the brush to blow haphazardly in the wind, creates fear, foreboding. Call our friendly staff of white people at Western Lankville, 2154. Brush piles may contain other forms of yard debris.
HEY! WANT A MONKEY?
Hey! Want a live little monkey? They do cute things like climb into pumpkins. Call "The Captain"- Central Lankville Hills, 5264.
HOME DUMP Your Neighborhood Hardware Store 16 Lankville Locations!
Weekly Special: Primitive Forged Hooks. Buy 4, Get a Can of Paint. Or Maybe Not. You'll Just Have to Find Out.
INFLAMED BY STARS AND BLOOD
Lankville's Premier Science Fiction and Horror Magazine Now Appearing in The Lankville Daily News!
JOHNNY PADRES, OPTICIAN
Lankville has been relying on Dr. Johnny Padres for their optical needs since 1973. We offer a full service family eye care center and provide examinations for glasses and contacts and have a large display of designer, traditional and innovative eyewear for both regular prescription eyeglasses and sunglasses all of which will enable you to see TITS better. Call Lankville Business 2618-2.
LIFE LESSONS FUNERAL HOME
Life Lessons Funeral Home has been helping Lankville with dead people since 1932. Contact Eddie or Stummins, Lankville Business, 5-2161.
LOOK AT THESE BEAUTIES!
Really some of our best ever! Have you ever seen anything like it? Call Kelly (male) at Lankville Sound 2615.
MISSING
Missing: adult penguin. Christ, I just let him out in the yard for one minute and now he's gone. Responds to the name "Richard". Call Lankville Eastern Outlands, 5-6213.
NOW PLAYING!
The Unhinged: A New Film by Tom "Vapor" Rayford. Crisp Street Cinema, Eastern Lankville
PINEAPPLE CITY: A New Way of Being
Pineapple City is a new way of being, feeling and having your shirt off. Located in the distant, barren Lankville Pines, Pineapple City is now accepting applications for sheds. Call PINES, 2-5771.
THE PUZZLER
In the pie chart above, what segment represents a certain specific strata of the general population?
REAL ESTATE
Little shed for sale. With door, mailbox, dirt plot. Site of multiple murders but don't worry, they happened around back. To inquire, come to the shed. Go around back.
REAL ESTATE
Four acre lot in Eastern Lankville Cove Area. Price reduced! Site of a fireworks display in which several people fell out of their lawnchairs and died. Locals believe it haunted but that's crap. Call Cove 2751.
THE RECKONER EXACTRA 2.0 : A Danny Madison Product
It's Your Time: CALCULATE
SARAH SAMWAYS: CONTRIBUTING FEMALE
Exclusively in the Lankville Daily News (and some other papers).
SPEAKING ENGAGEMENT
Robin Brox will sit around and get progressively more intoxicated while listening to this other broad natter on about something. LANKVILLE REGIONAL AUDITORIUM, August 4, 11PM.
SPEAKING ENGAGEMENT CANCELED
The Dr. M. Chambers speech and candy-making event has been canceled again following Dr. Chambers' sudden collapse into some baskets. New date TBA
TRAVEL TIPS by Randy Hammers
The Kum Back Inn in the Lankville Desert Area has long been serving road-weary travelers. They feature a restaurant (with cocktails) and two spacious conference rooms. The Kum Back boasts 65 units-- each including window dressing, some chairs and a larger chair (seats two smallish children), a bed with orange comforter, a plastic trash can, clever paintings, and a windowless door. TV also available in 17 (sometimes 19) rooms. Most of the rooms are air-conditioned. Oscillating fans available upon request. Illuminated carports will protect your vehicle from the vicious sudden dust storms that often overtake the Desert Area and the wild thieves that occasionally parade across the landscape like some unmentionable horror. Call now at TU-0780 and ask for Bud or Karen (married).
UTILITY YARD SHEDS
The Lowinger Brothers offer great utility yard sheds at low prices. This one is haunted. Call Lankville Port Area 1072.
VACATION PACKAGES!
Spectacular vacations in campers by little mountains. Your cares will melt away but you will have to be careful of that shack (pictured). A lunatic lives there. Call Mercantile District 2711.
WRESTLING TONIGHT!
8PM, Southern Lankville Man-Arena. Featuring Ric "Wild Boy" Tipps (green trunks).
ZACH KEEBAUGH INVESTIGATIONS
Only in The Lankville Daily News
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LETTER SACK