An Investigation of Chicago
By Luigifan1
Dedicated to Mike Mollinari
Foreword by the Author
Hello! I bet some of you may be wondering what happened to that Shylock interview I put up earlier. Well, if you must know, I deleted it because it revealed a bit too much personal information, and I would rather not have my house invaded by pedophiles. (Hey, there are some real freaks out there!)
Anyways, this is another little story I wrote as a school assignment… except that this one is actually a story. It's set during the Prohibition era, specifically a few years before the downfall of Al Capone. In case you don't know, I'm referring to the period when Eliot Ness and his Untouchables were snooping around Chicago, breaking into breweries and shutting them down, or otherwise causing trouble for Al Capone, his goons, and his illegal alcohol empire. Ness and his men were pretty much the only law enforcement officials [outside of the IRS who were trying to bring Al Capone to justice and put an end to the crime lord's reign of terror. Although most of the people (and all of the events) in this story are fictional, Eliot Ness and Al Capone really did exist. But you all knew that already, right? Right?
As for all the odd slang words… I mentioned that this was a school assignment, right? The gist of the assignment was to write a short story about a night on the town in Chicago during the Prohibition era, using at least 10 slang words from that time period. Since many of you probably don't know what these slang words mean, I'll try to provide a list of them with their real meanings right here, in order of their appearance:
Main Drag -- Main street
All wet -- Describes an erroneous idea or individual
Darb -- An excellent person
Big cheese -- A very important person; someone of high standing
Bump off -- To kill, especially in a planned hit
Drugstore cowboy -- A guy who constantly tries to pick up girls… not always successfully.
Keen -- Used to describe something that is in a good state, or prudent
Copacetic -- Ok, all right. (Although, I used it in a bit of a different sense than that… wink, wink.)
Dogs -- Feet (Seriously.)
Flapper -- A highly independent woman, eager to make her own living. Tends to wear flashy clothing, considered revealing and indecent by the standards of that time period (although their outfits were fairly modest compared to the sort that some women wear today… I'm sure that you all know what I mean.)
Spill the beans -- Reveal a secret
Whacked -- Killed – the typical context of this word heavily implies that mafia goons are responsible for said murder.
Dumb dora -- A person of low intelligence (This is just a retroactive assumption. When I tried to look it up on Urban Dictionary, I ended up finding nothing but a bunch of innuendos involving Dora the Explorer.)
Hotsy-totsy -- Appealing, cool, tight
Jake -- All right, fine, okay
Skip town -- Leaving a town to avoid trouble.
Cat's meow -- Excellent; hip; pleasurable
Anyways, I actually wrote far more than was expected of me, but my teacher was quite pleased with the results… he actually wanted to share it with the rest of the school!!! So, this story's dedicated to my U.S. History 2 teacher, who gave me this assignment in the first place.
Even though this was written for school, I couldn't resist throwing in references to some other things I enjoy. For example, the leader of the Untouchables is named Eliot Ness… as a result, I couldn't resist the urge to throw in a few references to Earthbound. (The protagonist of that game is named Ness by default, so it wasn't much of a stretch.) Try to find them if you can! I also couldn't resist the urge to throw in a few references to my main stories. In fact, those of you who've been reading Furry Fiasco should recognize the "Dawn" surname… and no, it's not a coincidence!!! Anyways, I should probably stop rambling now and present the story. Enjoy!
From the Heroes' League founder,
Luigifan1
