Mescaline Frank

6:28 AM (5 hours ago)

James,

Lynn said you'd headed back east and are probably busy. I hope folks are treating you right out there and that you're doing well.

Between some of the things you've said and written lately, I've had another idea for a short story start brewing; this time you and Mescaline Frank stumbling upon a ghost, a demon, and a small pack of zombies against the backdrop of the "Shamdemic." I read your interviews with him in your Mescaline Frank book, and was wondering if you could describe him. How does he look, fight, etc.? It was easy to imagine Big Ron as a brawler, but MS seemed like he could be anywhere in the spectrum. In a pinch, would he pull a blade or go fists and hands?

Thanks again for letting me play in your sandbox. Keep giving em hell.

-Sam

Sam, Mescaline Franklin's appearance will be sent to you in an email.

He is dark-haired and regarded as handsome by women.

Emotionally he is a combination of fanatical loyalty, frenzied inquisitiveness and seething hostility. He would be the perfect bodyguard for Julius Caesar or Mussilini.

Skill sets includes mental mapping—dude does not get lost—better than normal driving, catch wrestling, knife fighting and urban scouting. He did fight off two larger, younger savages with his fists recently—takes a got shot. In a Howardesque setting he would be perfect as Brule the Spear Warrior, companion of Kull.

PS: I was looking for machete drills on youtube and saw this guy. I laughed out loud. Guy's ambling around all sloppy at 3:30 w/a bottle of booze made me think of your descriptions of Baltimore, and it occurred to me we need to kickstart a fancy National Geographic-esque documentary with you as star; following you around the mean streets of Baltimore and all that:

Sam, I do have a pith helmet now, a gift from back east, what to wear when I explore the belly of the beast. The big problem with machete fighting against bantus is the inability for many of the lesser versions to notice and therefore be kept at bay by feinting. Benny Leonard complained of this famously. Stupid fighters with blades are really hard to deal with, unless shields or other non-edged weapons are involved paired in the off hand, with the complexity this generates befuddling to the small mind.

The machete works good for beating with the flat in a short slap and for cutting the weapon hand. For an off hand weapon I recommend an umbrella or a jackets, or other garment, ideally a pair of jeans or other heavy weave or seamed canvas, leather or cotton article. Back in Bantuistan, this was typically a leopard skin or cattle hide.

We can expect between 2 million and 200 million Bantus being shipped and flown to North America over the next 50 years. So in the time of your scions, the Eastern and Southern U.S. will be teeming with Bantu tribesmen partial to the machete. So these skills should be learned. A Bat, by and by, works very well against a machete as the rotation is quicker about the wrist. I am banking on only 20 million coming to the U.S. with 100 to 200 million colonizing Europe.