Savage Tales

abilities."
    "Apparently."
    "Keep in mind, we'll never see Mom again."
    "Oh."
    "Yeah, oh. That's what your little flirtation with stupidity cost us."
    "Wait, what? I've never flirted in my life."
    And instantly that feeling of loathing flared up and I looked about for a sharp object to get my hands on. Anything really. Anything.

OTHELLO IN AME RIKA

    The criminal underworld of Anaheim, California, was gathered in the locker room at the baseball stadium. There was Smiles Mcgee, Elmer Potatohead, Stewie Lafooie, Kimball Uberstall, Linus Abdul, Stitch Sparrow, Alan Jones, Johnny Limper, Keeeela O'Toole, and Gremlin Doyle.
    "Where's Shank?" said Gremlin.
    Shank Splinter, the leader of the pack, had yet to make an appearance. The door to the locker room opened. A largish man with Shank's frame stood there, but his face was covered with a bandana.
    "Shank?" said Smiles Mcgee.
    "It's me."
    "Why you wearing –"
    "You'll see. We have a problem in town. Have you heard of the famous reporter and world traveler Othello? Not the guy from the Shakespeare play, not that I expect you illiterate lot to understand that cultured highfalutin reference, but just understand that the Othello I speak of is German, smallish, and travels with a Chihuahua. You would never suspect that he is a menace to us. But he is. He's already sabotaged the government of an entire country formerly belonging to the Soviet Union."
    "Which country?" said Elmer Potatohead.
    "I couldn't tell you. The name was long and laborsome on the tongue. I let it go. But understand that Othello, this boy reporter, did it himself, singlehandedly, with only his Chihuahua there to help him."
    "Zoiks," said Keeeela O'Toole.
    "You can say that again," said Shank.
    "Zoiks."
    "Not only that, but this irksome lad of just twenty years went to the Congo and uncovered a white slavery ring. He stopped it, I guess. Or maybe he just reported it and let the officials take over. But he did something. He was involved. He doesn't just sit back and keep quiet. So you can see why I'm concerned. He's in Anaheim right now."
    "Here?" said Stewie Lafooie. "Heck, we can just plug him."
    "Shut up, you," said Shank. "I gives the orders around here, and if you or anyone else has a problem with that then we can take it outside."
    "I'm okay with that," said Stewie. "I was just making a suggestion based on the information at hand."
    "I know that, Stewie. I didn't mean to snap at you. I hope I didn't hurt your feelings."
    "You didn't, boss. Not much."
    "In truth, we've already got Othello. We caught him. We just have to figure out what to do with him."

    A few hours earlier a boy reporter and his dog stepped off a Greyhound bus into the midday sun of Anaheim, California. A panhandler sized the lad up and decided he wasn't worth the trouble of making words.
    "We're here, Cracker!" said Othello. "Just think! Anaheim! Home of Mickey Mouse and all he stands for."
    Cracker the Chihuahua barked. Through years of brain serums the dog's brain had engorged to fill entire apartment blocks of his tiny body, so that not only could the dog understand Othello, but he could also speak back. He did so in barks, and Othello had attuned his ear to comprehend the slightest variation in those barks. Othello was Cracker's lone interpreter.
    "I say, old sport," barked Cracker, "I can't wait to get to Disneyland and see Goofy, my friend and yours, the lone member of the dog race to achieve bipedalism and fluency in the English tongue."
    "But it's not all fun and games," said Othello. "We're here to report on the commercialism convention in the lobby of the Disneyland Hotel."
    "Thank you for that deft piece of exposition," said Cracker, "but all I really want to do now is defecate in a bush. After eight hours on a bus, can you blame me?"
    "I can't," said Othello, who couldn't blame Cracker, who could never blame Cracker, and in fact, needed to find something like a bush himself.

    A few hours later, Othello lay on a floaty rubber raft in the rat-shaped swimming pool of the Disneyland Hotel. He wore a newly purchased pair of shorts plastered with cartoon images that he'd been compelled to acquire in the hotel lobby. He had the pool largely to himself – most of the tourists were at the amusement park. Cracker lay on the nearby grass chewing a persistent flea out of his paw.
    "This the life, eh, Cracker?"
    "Indeed," cracker barked.
    In the water next to Othello the surface rippled to life and a sleek woman's upper half emerged.