Suspicious White Powder
Turns Out to Be Cocaine
Authorities relieved to see massive shipment of illegal narcotics 
BY WALLACE E. WATERMELON El Squatro, CA

JUNIOR BACON for the commune The police, in too big a goddamn hurry to wait for the photographer to get there

A truck laden with hundreds of packages of a mysterious white powder attempted to cross the border here today, drawing scrutiny from the Border Patrol and local law enforcement officers concerned that it could be just the latest in a series of terrorist attacks involving Anthrax. After closer investigation, a spokesman revealed, with some relief, that the substance turned out to be simply 94% pure Colombian cocaine.

“We were awful worried at first,” said Sheriff Fluff Drivel of nearby Littlehead City. “These days everyone’s on edge whenever they see white powder. Hell, my wife refuses to bake anything that involves using flour right now.”

Drivel’s partner, Officer Roy Dither, added, “I was the one to investigate the powder itself. You remember that TV show, I think it was ‘Banacek’ or maybe it was ‘Mannix,’ that one back in the ‘70s? Anyway, it was just like that episode of ‘The Streets of San Francisco,’ where they caught that guy with the big bag of white powder, and George Peppard or Karl Malden or whoever stuck his finger in the bag, right up to his knuckle, and then tasted the powder and said ‘Pure horse.’ Well, I just went ahead and scooped up a big handful of the powder in question, and I was all ready to say that, to say ‘Pure horse,’ but before I could, my mouth had got all numb and everything, and then I was thinking about how my neighbor used to have horses when I was a kid, and he used to race them, and I used to see him giving them some white powder before the races, and that got me to thinking, well, maybe it was something else. Then I remembered how these ants used to be all over the stable where he kept the horses, these really interesting little black ants, you know, and they would just all follow each other in a big long line up the wall, and I always wondered what made them do that, and then-”

Sheriff Drivel then gently interrupted his partner with a friendly, two-handed smack to the side of the head with his baton. Officer Dither reeled off, twitching spasmodically, his arms flailing and blood streaming from his nose and ear, while Sheriff Drivel continued.

“To make a long story short, we had the powder analyzed, and it turned out that it wasn’t Anthrax at all. It also wasn’t ‘pure horse,’” he snorted, casting a glance at his still-convulsing partner. “All it turned out to be was your plain old garden-variety cocaine, so we sent these jokers on their merry way. I can tell you, we were awfully glad to find out it wasn’t Anthrax, though. We hate that kind of music down here.”

Look for Wallace Watermelon’s award-winning volume of poetry, “Reflections on a Gift of Chutney Pickle from Myself, Since You Heartless, Soulless Bastards Never Give Me Anything,” as soon as he finishes writing it, and it gets published and wins some awards.