Toscotti's War

The formal hostilities with the Deity commenced on

Thursday, October 7, 1965 at 2:45 p.m. Central Standard

Time. Such a date deserves proper historical notation.

From the official transcript:

Chesterfield, Randall William. The Fourth. Warrant Officer One, RA 36801629. DOB: March 19, 1946.

Distinguishing characteristics? Just one. Feed me regularly, or I’ll start to turn green. I need plenty of water, too. Light’s necessary, but I’ll get exceptionally horny if I’m left out in the sun too long…

…I know that you don’t actually plan to let me go and to get all those charges dropped once you’ve finished questioning me. Let’s see, that’d include illegal trespass, theft of government property, destruction of government property, assault—though, in all fairness, it was Tony, not me, that kicked the cop in the balls—resisting arrest, grand theft auto, interstate flight to avoid apprehension, possession of a forged passport, falsifying official documents, and smuggling an unauthorized, unidentified biological organism into the country.

I’d have to plead not guilty to that last one. Tony had already shipped the samples to Carbondale before I flew down to Tierra del Fuego to pick him up.

Well, maybe I’m wrong.

Is it smuggling to sneak an American back into the United States? After all, he wasn’t wanted then. In fact, he wasn’t even legally alive.

All the same, I swear I had no idea at the time that he was carrying the virus in his bloodstream.