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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Elvis Impersonator,Karate Instructor,Fridge Full of Severed Heads,& the Plot 2 Kill Pres.Obama
Remember that crazy story about the dude in Mississippi who mailed ricin to Obama and then tried to frame some other dude in mississippi for the crime? Well, as Wells Tower discovered when he traveled to Tupelo and started poking around, the story is a thousand times crazier than you thought.
Spend a week or two in Tupelo, Mississippi, and you begin to wonder if the air down here perhaps contains an element that causes dreams to ignite and burn hotter and stranger than elsewhere in the world. What are the dreams that catch fire in this town? They are dreams of rock n roll; of valor, metamorphosis, and ruination; sex and betrayal; of the government and shadowy forces; of the grand dream, American. The ether here is surely spiked with something. How else do we explain the dream of the poor hillbilly born in a shotgun shack in east Tupelo, who invented rock n roll and changed the world and died on the toilet at the age of 42? How else to understand a man like Kevin Curtis, one of northeastern Mississippis preeminent Elvis impersonators, whose life was nearly ruined by the sight of a severed head on a refrigerator shelf? How else to make sense of the story you are about to hear, the tale of Mr. Curtis and Everett Dutschke, two men who might have shared a lovely friendship but instead had a weird feud that ended in the attempted poisoning of the president of the United States?
Theirs is a story of human dismemberment and righteous causes, of martial arts and murder intrigues, sexual perversity, political conviction, and resentments dearly held. What lies behind Mr. Curtis and Mr. Dutschkes spectacular collision? A lot of odd and complicated things. But in the simplest sense, perhaps its that these gentlemen simply had too many dreams in common, and in their particular America, there are only so many dreams to go around.
The feud makes history in the third week of April 2013. Spring has broken brightly, gently, but Kevin Curtis is lately being haunted by dark fancies and dreams. Kevin is sure someone is watching him. For the past few days, every time he looks in his rearview, he sees some guy in sunglasses tailing him in a Crown Victoria or an SUV. And is it just Kevin, or is that the chuddering of chopper blades high in the air above his home?
Curtis, 46, lives alone with his dog, Moo Cow, a Holstein-spotted ChihuahuaJack Russell mix. Tonight, Wednesday, April 17, he and the dog are due at Kevins ex-wife Lauras house for dinner with the kids. Out on his street, something weird is in the air. Kevins neighbors are the kind of people who tend to hide out in their houses, but tonight theyre out on their lawns, pacing like ants. He waves at a few of them, and they look at him queerly, like maybe they want to wave back but theyre afraid something bad might happen if they do.
<snip>
It gets crazier and crazier: http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201310/paul-kevin-curtis-elvis-impersonator-ricin-assassinations#ixzz2gOTltCqG
Only in Mississippi or many other small Southern towns where the heat melts brains.
At least Moo Cow is ok.
snagglepuss
(12,704 posts)msanthrope
(37,549 posts)raccoon
(31,110 posts)Are_grits_groceries
(17,111 posts)Hiassen doesn't make up as much stuff in his novels as people think. He just reads the papers especially from small towns.
LiberalArkie
(15,715 posts)Are_grits_groceries
(17,111 posts)Most can generally escape having kudzu in their back yards.
Fire ants may be part of it though.
Shrike47
(6,913 posts)These guys are great!
xfundy
(5,105 posts)Amazing how there are so many different worlds in the USA.
Hydra
(14,459 posts)Best. Story. Evah!~
I want to know what was up about the body parts. Sounds like whoever was doing what on that got away scott free.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,311 posts)surrealAmerican
(11,360 posts)I would hardly be living up to my user name if I didn't.
... stranger than fiction, for sure ....