Tuesday morning was come, and all the summer world was bright and fresh, and brimming with life. There was a playlist about Rock and/or Roll in every heart; and if the heart was young the music issued at the lips. There was cheer in every face and a spring in every step. Training camp was about to start and the smell of fresh sod filled the air.

Barron sat at his computer, his fingers perched above the keyboard, his online persona hidden behind nine proxies. He surveyed the wikipedia page of Maria Butina, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Three hundred lines of a terribly incriminating history of connections to conservative organizations. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden. Sighing, he tapped the keys and deleted a reference to the National Rifle Association, and then sat back in his chair, discouraged.

— [proxy server flies open] — 

Ben came online over at the HUD server, posting a link to a street fight outside a Denny’s in Watts. Scouring the internet for anecdotal evidence to confirm prior biases had always been tedious work in Barron’s eyes, before, but now it did not strike him so. He remembered that there was company at 4chan. B/tards, Incels, PUAs, trolls, Proud Boys were always there waiting their turns, theorizing, quarreling, trading Fappening images. Barron said:

“Say, Ben, I’ll fetch some more videos if you’ll whitewash this wikipedia page some.”

Ben shook his head and said:

“Can’t, Mars Barron. Ole missis Sanders, she tole me I got to go an’ git deese vid’eos an’ not stop foolin’ roun’ wid pornhub or any such nonsense. She say she spec’ Mars Barron gwine to ax me to whitewash, an’ so she tole me go ’long an’ ’tend to my own business—she ’lowed she’d ’tend to de whitewashin’.”

“Oh, never you mind what she said, Ben. That’s the way she always talks. Gimme the VPN address — it won’t take me a minute. She won’t ever know.”

“Oh, I dasn’t, Mars Barron. Ole missis she’d take an’ tar de head off’n me. ’Deed she would.”

“She! She never licks anybody — just acts all condescendin’ and talks down to them like her own nonsense means somethin’ and they’s the moron for not understandin’. She gaslights awful, but gaslightin’ don’t hurt — anyways it don’t if she don’t cry.”

Ben began to waver.

“And besides, if you will I’ll show you my sore toe.”

Ben had once been a doctor – an actual surgeon, before the perversion of him being named head of an organization he had absolutely no familiarity with – so this attraction was too much for him. He put down his pail, and bent over the toe with absorbing interest while the bandage was being unwound.

In another moment he was flying down the street with his pail and a tingling rear, Barron was whitewashing with vigor, and Aunt Sarah was retiring from the field with a slipper in her hand and triumph in the larger of her two horribly misshapen eyes.

All right, that’s enough bastardization of Tom Sawyer for today.  On to the music!  I’m giving the Pick of the Week to Low Commander for his selection of “Punk Rock Girl” ably covered by what apparently has become DFO’s new house band, Streetlight Manifesto.  This song never fails to make me smile.  Have yourselves a great week, folks!  As always, here’s the Spotify Link.