Brothers, Bourbon, and Battle Axes: A Letter, Part II - The Conclusion.

Once we had arrived in Danbury, Dan, The Squirrel, and I stopped at a diner. Being up for what felt like a century on top of the drive started to make everyone cagey, and once The Squirrel started barking orders and scathing comments, we decided an IHOP was the best place to calm our nerves before the inevitable shit-storm that was looming in our near future. Dan and I split a plate of pancakes while The Squirrel (or as I was calling him "Hunter") ate more grapefruit, imbibed more Bloody Marys, and had more bacon than John Goodman first realizing how awesome bacon is. Up until the IHOP, i wasn't sure if Dan was seeing Hunter as I was. During the drive he had somehow strayed away from every comment about Hunter I had said, but now he was staring in amazement at the furious activity happening across the table.

With a start, Hunter looked up at us, covered in the mashed bits of his gigantic breakfast. "Well?! What are we waiting for, you scum-sucking pig-fuckers?!" Hunter shouted in disgust. Dan and I nodded, flipped the table, and promptly sped-walked out of the IHOP. As per our traditional exit from any establishment.


We tip still: we aren't animals.  

We arrived at the prison in Danbury where Lauryn Hill was being held for standing up for her beliefs. Apparently while Dan and I were off planet fighting inter-dimensional beings that took the form of Oprah, the world started locking people up for childish bullshit. Surprisingly, the prison itself was completely unguarded on the outside. It was a drab, faded red brick structure, with the usual litany of towers and fences with barbed wire. The windows looked lifeless, the grass in the yard un-kept, Dan and I were starting to get a bad feeling about this. Hunter ran up my leg, arm, and rested on my shoulder again, shouting; "Get in there, you FOOLS!! We have to show these Flag Suckers a lesson!" Being pushed by Hunters incessant chatter, Dan and I stalked into the front doors, weapons at the ready.

For some reason, I feel like I am in post-apocalyptic Alabama ...    

I kicked the large double doors open in one thrust, sending one breaking off of its hinges and crashing to the checker-tiled floor with an audible thud. "Helllooo?" Dan said softly into the darkened room. "No guards, no prisoners, what gives?" I said to Dan. In that moment, The Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, John Koskinen, lept down from the second level balcony facing the front doors we had just crashed through. He fell fast, but slowed to a crawl just as he was about to hit the ground, and softly landed on both feet. "Welcome, gentlemen. I presume you are here to free Miss Hill, is that correct?" Koskinen said, his words filling the entire room and stifling all other sound into a deafening lull. Dan, Hunter, and I said nothing. Koskinen went on; "I do hate to inform you, but what will be quite impossible: She is mine to do what I will, as are the rest of you!!" We three still said nothing. We only stood there, tripping balls, holding swords out with the tips at the darkness, listening to an imaginary squirrel. Koskinen, visibly outraged at this point, folded like a cheap card table; "Ar-are you guys even listening to me?! I mean, I am a powerful demon, threatening you, and you're just ... Standing there! Why does no one take me seriously?!" 

 

Don't let the smile fool you: he is dying on the inside.  

And with that little-girl tantrum, Koskinen threw himself at Dan, Hunter, and I. I have never heard a fury like his, and to this day I shiver deep within my bones whenever I see a CNN Housing Market Report. Although his fury was mighty and Hell-bent, Koskinen was no match for our blades and guns, anointed and blessed by Josh Homme, The Devil. We somehow were able to snap out of our collective tripping experience, and at the last moment, cut down our foe. It all happened within a moment in time: blades flashing in the dark, the black and oozy blood spraying out of the Revenue Collectors body like a waves of slick oil. Once his body evaporated into the fires from whence he came, we saw a door behind the smokey pile. It was a cell, and inside of it was one Lauryn Hill. 

Seen here looking surprisingly like Oprah ...   

"Hey guys," she said to us as we approached through the smoke, "What's up?" the three of us looked at each other, then at Lauryn Hill, puzzled as all get-out. "We came to help you get out. We saw what was happening, truly an injustice and a crime in and of itself," Dan said. Just as puzzled as we were, Lauryn Hill looked at us through the barred hole in the heavy steel door and said; "What? Why would feel the need to help me? I deserve to be in here: I haven't paid taxes in years." And with that she turned around, sat back down at a desk in her cell, and continued living about her life. Without pause, Dan, Hunter, and I just shrugged and walked out of the place. We came to the conclusion on the way back home that, no matter who you are, you ... You, uhh ... Wait, that isn't right. We learned that, um ... We learned that. I guess we learned nothing, about the IRS, and about whether or not we are in fact obligated by law to pay federal taxes.

Forever Yours,

Dan Gathers