….When they reached the crime scene it was quiet, almost too quiet. The lunch rush was already over but a handful of drive-thru customers still trickled in with efficient regularity. The drivers made their orders at the black box and looked down at their wallets while they proceeded to the first window where they paid. They continued to the next window looking straight ahead or at other people in the car. No one looked through their passenger sides at the now vacant pedestal that had once proudly raised America’s #1 iconic clown for the edification of all who drove on Commercial Distr. Rd. or got off the highway at exit 9. The absence of his idolatrous splendor loomed larger than Ronald’s eight-foot tribute ever had. Thru drivers, one by one, parked momentarily after the second window and ceremonially pawed through their bags of lickety-split lunch handling each individually wrapped item like beads on a rosary and, one by one, they each took a single ritualistic fry between their teeth before they hastened on their ways cowering a little from the intimidated reverence that was imposed on them as they passed under the stark lack of Ronald McDonald’s commercial radiance.
~The customers inside were deliberately casual, like they had stumbled into a den of sleeping lions or a bad neighborhood. The subdued consumers unwrapped their various McMenu-items in preparation for the consummate act that brought consumer and consumptable together in their common ultimate purpose; consumption, which the McConnoisseurs executed without savor and exited casting their gazes so uniformly downward that four of them in a row pushed repeatedly on the door-handle inscribed ‘Pull.’
“I need to speak with whoever’s in charge.” Zipper demanded as, with great effort, he swung the door almost completely open.....

….“No worries, my righthand henchman, I have just what your mom recommended.” He handed over the chz brgs. “The cool thing about your power is we never know what will happen. One of these days you’ll get heatvision or turn into a dinosaur when you smell some meteor mold or something. It’d be awesome if it happened from eating chz brgs.” Itchy and feverish as he was, Contagion did like chz brgs and heatvision sounded useful, though he didn’t know how he would keep his identity a secret if he was a dinosaur. “You power up. I’ll scout around on my own for a while.”
~Contagion sat on the pedestal and recharged. While he did, the pang of Ronald’s capture was eased for those who passed by. The selfish, conditioned hunger that RM”s loss revealed within them identified with that sickly, blighted child wrapped in a worn blanket, shoveling handfuls of 69ct chz brg into his mouth like he was mining for his promised super-powers in chz brg mountain. Recognizing something they feared in themselves externally manifested, they could disdain it. Thus Contagion served as both redeemer and martyr to anyone driving on Commercial Distr. Rd or getting off the highway at exit 9. Sitting in the place of the departed parts-is-parts prankster, he ate six and a half severely damaged chz brgs without anything to wash them down and he strew the colorful wrappers on the breeze where they hung like prayer flags before they fell gently to the small patch of lawn between the front-lot and Commercial Distr. Rd.
~Searching the ground about the missing statue in increasingly wider circles Zip picked up litter piece by piece to examine and then returned it to the ground. Except for one piece, which he examined a little longer before he stuffed it in his utility belt and sought insight by a different method. “You there, sir,” Zipper accosted the first person he saw in the parking-lot. “Where were you two nights ago?”
“Excuse me,” The man was dressed for work and obviously in a hurry. “Where are your parents?”
“Just answer the question, bub.” Zipper pressed his fists into his hips sternly and spread his stance expectantly akimbo.
“Listen kid, I don’t have time to play a game with you right now.”
“Game? I know your game, fiendish go fish. Like the card game except the cards are your insidious plans, and the fish are the innocent lives that you put at risk.” The busy man shook his head and walked off without comment, but Zipper shouted after him, “Let all of your felonious friends know that there’s a new player in town and he’s brought a new deck of fish, because
mischief you may be planning is sure to fail
Zipper will zip, zip, zip and ship you off to jail.” Having passed on his warning to the enemies of fair play, Zipper held out his cape with both arms and zoomed around to the rear of Mickey D’s, where they hid the dumpsters.
~As he approached the back-corner he heard voices and zoomed to a stop….

© DCSmith 2004

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