For those readers who are taking up the story at this point, we should explain that the saga began when the Freaks discovered valuable treasure on the bottom of this blue sea. This made the Jerks very jealous. So they hired a monster called the Beatnik with eyes on its belly to cruise the blue sea and seek more treasure which the Jerks wanted for themselves. This made the Freaks very angry and they threatened to send navy frogmen to kill the Beatnik if it wandered into Freak territorial waters.
Relations between the two countries were further complicated by the fact that the Jerks had invaded and occupied a large part of the island of Cirrhosis which has a large Freak population and only a small Jerk population. This invasion had greatly angered the Knights of Thermopylae on the other side of the Atlantic and they persuaded their Congress to inflict on the Jerks a terrible curse invented by Jimmy Durante and called the Umbriago. This curse meant that the Jerks could not receive any more arms shipments from the United States to invade more Freak islands. So, in retaliation, the Jerks closed down American bases in their country from which prurient old U.S. Army generals could look through powerful telescopes and watch lecherous old Russian Army generals making hay in the Georgian wheat fields with nubile Circassian maidens.
A few months ago, Caramel Cream, the handsome, bushy-browed premier of the Freaks, had agreed to hold a summit meeting with the Jerk premier, Itchy Feet. In our last installment, we reported that the meeting would take place on Mount Ararat, but the venue had to be changed to Montreux at the last minute after the narrow mountain road to the top of the mountain became a gooey mess following a collision between two trucks, the first carrying two tons of rice pudding for the Jerk troops on the border and the second carrying condemned peanut butter from the closed-down American observation post.
At Montreux, the meeting between the two premiers went as well as it could in an atmosphere of extreme calm, broken only now and then by the splintering crash of a Louis XV commode or a Hepplewhite chair as photographers scrambled to catch photogenic aspects of Caramel Cream’s noble profile or Itchy Feet’s saturnine smile. The outcome of this summit was that both Premiers decided not to do anything to exacerbate relations between the two countries and to share the expenses of the sizable bill presented to them by the irate manager of the Montreux Palace Hotel.
Meanwhile, back in Washington, the military industrial establishment was bringing increasing pressure on the President and on Congress to lift the curse of the Umbriago on arms shipments to the Jerks. Harvest time was approaching and if the Jerks did not allow the American bases to reopen soon, the seasonal frolics in the Georgian wheat fields would be lost to the West forever. So, in spite of the protests of the Knights of Thermopylae, Congress finally lifted the curse of the Umbriago and placated the Freaks by promising to film the entire harvest in colour and let them in on the sneak preview at the Pentagon.
The summer went by smoothly with nothing more than an earthquake in Salonica and a few shoot-outs between Jerk students and police to mar the general tranquility. The Beatnik remained in its lair and, with nothing to occupy them at sea level, the Freaks and the Jerks started talking about the air space above the sea. They finally decided there was plenty of it for all concerned and that no shortage would occur for one side if the other side indulged in more intensive deep-breathing exercises than usual.
On the home front, Caramel Cream’s economists warned him that the Freaks had too much money to play around with and that treasury funds were running low. Caramel Cream consulted his newly-appointed financial wizard, the Great Cannelloni, and asked him what he should do.
“There is only one solution to this problem,” the Great Cannelloni said. “Take the money away from the people and put it in the treasury. By doing so, you kill two birds with one stone. You curb inflation and you have enough money to finish Widening Syngrou Avenue.”
“But I said I wouldn’t be putting on more taxes this year,” Caramel Cream protested.
The Great Cannelloni shrugged. “You can say the money is needed to repair the damage caused by the Salonica earthquake,” he suggested.
“Will they swallow that?”
“With a pinch of salt, they will, I’m sure.”
“Okay, go ahead. What will you put the taxes on?”
“Oh, the usual. Gasoline, cars, extra tax on income. I’ve also got a lulu of a plan to curb tax evasion.”
“You have? What’s that?”
“I’ve worked out a scale by which a person’s income is assessed by the size of car he owns, the rent he pays, the number of domestics he employs, and whether he owns a country house or a pleasure craft. Also, if he buys any property costing more than the sum of his annual income, that amount will be added to his taxable income. We’ll rake in billions this way,” the Great Cannelloni gloated.
“That’s all very well,” Caramel Cream said, “but d’you realize it’s going to cost our party a helluva lot of votes at the next election?”
“Not so,” the Great Cannelloni replied. “With all this money you’ll be able to wipe out the farmers’ debts once more, so you’ll have them on your side and whatever you lose in the way of doctors, lawyers, rich men, and thieves you’ll make up by packing the civil service with several thousand more employees who know they’ll lose their jobs if our party is not reelected. Neat?”
“Very neat,” Caramel Cream admitted, “but somehow or other I’ve got a gut feeling we’re going to reap a whirlwind.”
“That’s all right,” the Great Cannelloni said, “we’ll slap on another tax for whirlwind damage.”
