The Elephant Tree - Part 11

the story..our subversive heroes (the elephant, the donkey and the naive undertaker) are meeting with a farmer trying to talk him into hiding the elephant and the donkey from the politicians...

the writer,Stumpy and the photog, Ichaposi are hot on their trail in order to write a "Pulitzer" prize winning story....

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Ichaposi had already found an opening in the back of the barn and was taking thousand s of pictures.  His camera was streaming photos through satellite to the paper that paid him with copies going to “The Sleaze Revue”.

He called the writer to report that he had found the elephant, the donkey and politician and to see how the story was coming.  After all, he now had vested interest in the story because he was getting half of the Pulitzer money. The writer told him to go do something to himself but he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do because the writer’s words were garbled and then the phone went dead.

He called again to ask the writer what he had said.

“We've been fired, you idiot. Fired!  F-I-R-E-D!!  There’s not going to be a Pulitzer.  That fat slob fired us.”

“Why?”

“Something about the story being too big and we would just screw it up.”

Ichaposi was too stunned to talk.  Fired?  Why?  He understood that he wasn't the smartest rock in the pile but he wasn't totally stupid either.  Too Big!  Just how big was it?  He called his connection at The "Sleaze Revue” and asked him to nose around.

The pictures coming into the Revue weren't creating any great interest. Nobody had even bothered to ask why or what about them.  But then one of the editors received the phone call from Ichaposi.  He listened to what ‘Possi’ had to say and told him that he would get back to him.

He went to the streaming room and looked at the photos.  He told the photo department to put a lid on them and not tell anyone that they had them.  Then he went to the top sleaze.

The two men in the photo department immediately started shopping the photos to every sleaze paper in US and Europe.

“What’s up?” The Editor of the paper mumbled through a jelly doughnut.

“I’m not sure, but something is going on.  The big boys just dumped Stumpy and Ichaposi on that stupid elephant story.  They said it was too big for them.”

 The Sleaze Editor's eyebrows rose.  He walked across the room and looked out the window of his fifteenth story office.  He was looking at the top floor of the sixty story building near the river.  His mind was calculating.   What kind of story would be too big?  What is too big?  That elephant and donkey story was just a fun fluke.  He was sure someone had played a pretty clever trick on the titans of the newspaper and TV world.  An elephant that climbed trees?...Hogwash!  But what was so big? And what did it have to do with the elephant or the donkey or maybe even both?  And wasn't there some kind of politician involved.  Maybe there was some political hanky-panky going on?  Maybe a scandal they wanted to get at first and keep hidden until they had all the juicy details?

He suddenly turned and punched his intercom.

“Get me that mole we planted over at the Post.”

Within five minutes he was informed that something really big was going on.  Someone was out to assassinate the President.   The CIA, the FBI, the White House and both political parties were looking for the elephant, the donkey and the politician. Plus, a real strong rumor was going around that the subversive bastards were on someone's hit list.

He pondered.  Why those three?  They couldn't be that dangerous.  Maybe, just maybe, the Post people were trying to make him look like a fool because he hadn't fallen for the elephant in the tree scenario.

All the big papers and those assholes at the TV networks had really fallen for the scam.  First an elephant, a donkey and a politician were pulling some kind of political stunt.  He had heard all sorts of thoughts and rumors about what they were up to.  The one he really liked was posed by a panel of talking heads on TV.  He liked to call them ‘Pinheads’.  They never had the least clue as what was really going on but they could talk, debate and argue for hours and the American public would sit with their fat butts on the edge of their overpriced sofas and easy chairs lapping up every word.  Forty-nine percent believed every word and forty-nine percent said it was all a bunch of bull shit...no matter what politcal B.S. they were spinning.

The other two percent were the ones that bought his brand of breaking news.  They didn't believe anything but dirt or conspiracy theories.

The one theory the "Pinheads" had offered that really tweaked his interest was that they were forming a third political party that was united and could and would work together in the best interests of the people and the future of America. 

However, he couldn't figure any smut angles with the story and then the elephant, the donkey and the politician had just disappeared.  He lost interest.  But now they had resurfaced but they had not resurfaced as a political party. They had resurfaced as subversives out to kill the president.

He smiled.  They really could be forming a third political party and the other two parties had banned together to smash them.  He really had to admire the devious bastards that ran the two major parties.  He wished he could have thought of calling the elephant, the donkey and the politician traitors, subversives and terrorists out to kill the president.  They had no idea how dirty the game of politics really was.  Their party was finished before it even got off the ground.

But he didn't think of that angle and the sixty-story jerks were way ahead of him.

He punched the intercom.

“I want a conference call with that funny little writer and the weird camera guy that have been covering the elephant story!”

Within fifteen minutes he had his conference call.

“Were you really canned? 

“Do you know where the nasty little group of subversives is?”

“Have you told anyone else where they are?”

“Excellent!  Now, this is what I want you to do.”

“Money?  Pulitzer?  Money is not a problem.  If you guys play along with the Revue, you can have all the money you need.”

“One hundred thousand each plus expenses?

“Sure...why not?”


“Yes, if the damned story wins the Pulitzer you get the credit.”

“Now the first thing I want you do is hide the elephant, the donkey and the politician.”

“Why wouldn't they want to hide?”

“I don’t care.  Pay them whatever you have to but hide them and don’t tell me or anyone else where they are until I call you.”

“Who else is looking for them?  Just the FBI, the CIA, the White House, the Pentagon and every news media in the entire world”


"…and…tell them that it is in their best interests to hide because there are snipers on the way to blow there fat asses to hell."

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