Purdyville

From The Files of Purdyville’s

I.A.L.
(Investigator at Large)

The Case of Crazy Ivan

It was going to be a tough case. I knew it from the moment they laid the folder on my desk. But I didn’t know how tough . . . if I had, I wouldn’t have taken the case.

It seemed so simple at the time. Maybe not easy, but simple. "It’s Purdyville’s chief,Crazy Ivan," they told me. (I was unaware of how literally they used this moniker.) We don’t have much info on this creature and we want you to get the scoop.

How little I knew what danger I would venture into. How little did I know what utter barbarity awaited me when I accepted the case!

A little character research, I thought. Some muckraking maybe. I had plenty of experience in that field from my days working down in D.C. Simple. Safe. (I mean, if you’ve looked into some of the Senators I have, some little chieftain from a place called Purdyville is nothing.) How wrong I was.

 

 

 

I started on my way, only to find out that Purdyville was located so far from civilization that normal forms of transportation were unusable. So I made the trek on foot . . .

 

Only to get lost in the wilderness. Fortunately, I happened upon several unwashed natives of the establishment that I was seeking. Communication was difficult, but through gestures and grunting I was able to learn the way.

          

When I reached Purdyville I was informed that their Chieftain refused to fraternize with the outside world. Instead, Crazy Ivan had given himself over to sage pondering and obscure artwork, said to be laden with secret, antisocial, meanings.

 

          

I was not put off by this recalcitrance. I had dealt with stonewalling celebrities before. I had other methods of digging up the desired information.

 

I had, unfortunately, failed to take the natives into account. Purdyville was crawling with these creatures, and they turned out to be spying blabbermouths par excellence.

          

Crazy Ivan didn’t care for my rifling through his unmentionables, and so–

    

And so I learned first hand of his legendary skill with blunt instruments.

 

A turn for the worst! But I refused to give up. What were a few lumps the size of grapefruits? Massaging my tender regions I returned to the wrathful chieftain and pleaded for an audience.

My efforts paid off when Crazy Ivan at last relented and agreed to an interview–so long as I never bothered him again. At first his mood was sour.

Then he warmed up a bit and agreed to model his tribal war gear. Little did he know I had a hidden camera secreted on my person.

It was by means of this hidden camera that I happened to capture Crazy Ivan performing one of his strange rituals. The meaning of this act confounded me.

 

The crazy chieftain even went so far as to show me his art work and writing. But his work was obscure, and possibly antisocial. It was beyond my understanding, and that was dangerous enough.

          

And so my case had reached its end. Sent to get the scoop on Crazy Ivan, I had done just that. What had I found? A wild and unwashed savage. An itinerant misanthrope. A man our civilized world could never understand. A recluse best left undisturbed.

If you meet him, you know what to do.

CASE CLOSED