THE
EXPLOITS
OF THE ULTRA-HARRIERS
Tony marries a porn queenJoe buys a baseball team
Chapter 44
tJoe was an Arch-Harrier for a year or so in Atlanta,
2And then he sold his Silver Ghost and moved north,
3And pronounced himself a depraved sinner,
4uWho had suddenly seen the light,
5vThanks to the personal intervention of Jesus Christ in his life,
6Which is why he felt compelled to use his bonus and the money from the Silver Ghost to buy a television station,
7And start a TV ministry.
8The thing that was truly different and exciting about Joe’s TV ministry was that he wanted to bring Jesus Christ to wold people,
9Who were going to die soon,
10And should be trying pretty hard to get into heaven,
11Which is why the only diseases he would cure on the air were old people’s diseases,
12Like arthritis,
13And high blood pressure,
14And heart problems,
15So that all the old people he had cured knew they would live a lot longer,
16Which meant that it would probably be a long long time before their new wills would give Joe the money he needed to keep on with his holy work,
17Which is why they were willing to trade their social security checks for Bibles printed in big type,
18With Joe’s picture on the cover,
19Until the day of the scandal,
20When Joe got arrested for extortion,
21Because some rich old lady complained about his evangelical zeal,
22And got a lot of sympathy in the press by going on talk shows with her right arm in a cast,
23Even though it was only a severe sprain,
24Which would have finished Joe off for good,
25If it hadn’t been for the movie aIra made about his career,
26Which turned out to be such a big hit that Joe still had something left even after he paid off the old lady,
27Enough, in fact, to buy a professional bbaseball team,
28And so he did.
29Joe had a terrific time running the baseball team for several years,
30cAnd even used to call his manager from the owner’s box to change the lineup,
31dUntil the day all the black and Hispanic players complained to the press about how racist Joe was,
32And so Joe sold the baseball team and bought a ehockey team instead,
33Which didn’t have any black or Hispanic players,
34fOr any Jews either,
35And won the Stanley Cup,
36Or made it to the finals, anyway.
✦ · · ✦ · · ✦
Chapter 44 / 53