STIMES'S PUZZLE
A starry sky lingered when Stimes arrived on the scene. The air was thick when he stepped out of the Caddie and looked at the body. He'd been there before and this rap looked no different. Hell, Stimes thought to himself, might as well put that rookie, what's his name, on the case. He walked toward the body to take a good look as he always did. It was important to look at the face. The expression before death. The history within that expression, the lies and the truth; the untold stories. Stimso looked for those clues.
Generally, Stimes found nothing tangible. He always found pieces. Pieces of a fucked-up puzzle, he liked to say. Nearing retirement, he realised, in spite of the enormous amount of a pieces he had collected, he would never finish the puzzle. He was beginning to humbly accept his final call to duty, and lay down his arms.
The guys on the crew watched him approach the body. Stimes felt their pitiful fucking eyes on him. Fuck em fuck em fuck em, he thought. Go out in style my friend he said to himself. Stimes bent before the body. He wiped his eyes. Was he capable? There was, nevertheless, something intriguing about this particular set-up. He liked to think so in any case. He examined futher the victim. The body had been shot in the temple, a suicide, but there was no gun. Looking closely he all of a sudden saw the letters scratched out on the cheek: AA. Stimes staggered backward. Something clearly was too personal about the matter.
His mind flashed back to his childhood days.
YOUR AA CALENDAR
Stimso's Day was Sunday, February 13th and Jorge Suarez was born and died on Monday the 14th, the same day that Wee-Wee burned to the waterline.
Upcoming dates for March include . . . CONTINUED
FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE TUB
The League of Gnomes
The League was founded in 1943 in New York City and had spread to Philadelphia, Boston, Richmond and Washington, D.C. by 1945. Each city consisted of a "Grotto" comprised of anywhere between three (the minimum) and 13 (the maximum). Grottos weren't independent and answered to the authority of the New York Grotto.
By 1947 Grottos existed in Lebanon, London, Toulouse, Paris, Milan, Naples, Madrid, Bucharest and Cairo.
Grotto activity was limited during the Second World War but from 1950 to 1970 the League of Gnomes' growth remained steady. A series of highly publicised altercations with the The League of Men with Fancy Gloves caused them to cease their public activity in early 1971. Although they are known to have Grottos in nearly every major city in the world, their current membership and raison d'être remains . . . CONTINUED
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