It was Friday morning as the Postal Dude woke up with head pains. The only thing he could think of was venturing out to a bigger shithole than Paradise and going on a manhunt for his freedom. It seemed fair enough, given that Larry Chakawitz couldn't finish the job on the Dude. The next time the two of them would meet, the outcome would most certainly be different. Officer Warwick came up to the Dude with a set of keys as Officer Dawkins followed closely behind him. A couple of jangle sounds later, the cell door opened up.
"It's time, Mister Dude," Dawkins said as he ushered the Dude to step out of his cell.
"You ready to go on a little trip?" Warwick asked as the three men went to the evidence room. There stood two shelves on each wall, and each shelf was stacked with all sorts of incriminating evidence to be used against suspected criminals. Among the objects was the Dude's Deagle pistol with its magazine right next to it. The three of them left the station and out into the cooler, yet still blistering air. Across the station stood a single police car with the motor already running.
"Take a seat in the back. You'll get your toys back soon enough." Warwick ordered the Dude, who took a seat in the back of the police car. It felt as stiff and uncomfortable as before while the other two officers got into the front seats. Warwick took the wheel and Dawkins rode shotgun, still sporting a sour, disapproving look on his face. To Catharsis they went, leaving Paradise and taking the shoddy, dust-covered road.
"I hope you're right about him being at Catharsis. Gas doesn't cost the same these days. Neither does time." Warwick casually chatted, trying to help lighten the mood.
"I still can't believe we're doing this," Dawkins injected, moaning, "This is just beyond our protocol."
"The reason I'm in charge of this operation is because I'm the one with the good ideas. It's foolproof, don't you see? And if you just so happen to know anybody else we can use for leverage against Larry Chakawitz, then by all means speak up, boy." Warwick hushed Dawkins right then and there. The childish cop only groaned and slouched back in the chair.
"You could learn a little good conduct from him," joked the Dude, teasing Dawkins to help alleviate the stuffy cop car with the windows rolled up. To which Dawkins only replied,
"Shut up. At least I'm not a psychopath like or you Chakawitz."
"Why don't you take your own advice for once, Dawkins? This attitude of yours is starting to aggravate me. It's a great step towards having some leadership." Warwick hushed Dawkins once again, this time for good. An hour passed in nearly unbearable heat until the police car arrived in Catharsis, Arizona. One glance at the town was all it took to rub newcomers the wrong way. Warwick drove the car through the streets until the car was outside the Catharsis Police Station. The officers stepped out of the car as Dawkins handed the Dude his radio. Warwick loaded the Deagle to give it back to the Dude and opened the door for him to get out.
"This is the Devil's rectum if I ever felt it," commented the Dude upon the intense heat. It was roughly ninety-six degrees Fahrenheit outside; way hotter than Paradise.
"We'll, we're here. Let's get you acquainted with the few good folks here to help us out. If you see him, don't hesitate to eliminate him by any means necessary. Good luck, you'll need it, Dude."
The Dude pocketed his Deagle and exhaled deeply. It was time to find that backstabbing bastard and settle the score.
Warwick, Dawkins, and the Postal Dude walked into the police station, where there stood a short desk jockey with buck teeth and thick glasses hunching over papers. He looked up at the three men and straightened out his back to take care of them,
"Hello, gentlemen. Did you find one of those Ecozealots and want bring him in? What's with his head?" the Dude barely refrained from pulling out his Deagle and popping a cap in the desk jockey's ass upon hearing such a wretched voice.
"Is Lieutenant Deutschbagge present? We need to speak with him." Warwick answered as he started to grow impatient. The desk jockey nodded awkwardly in silence.
"Second floor. Your right. I'm pretty sure he's holding some sort of meeting, but I'm sure he won't mind the company." With that, the officers and the Dude went to see Lieutenant Deutschbagge on the second floor. Faint sounds of a speech could be heard in one of the offices, as Warwick knew this was where he was.
"…And that is why all of us are here today." Lieutenant Deutschbagge wrapped up his speech just as the men from Paradise stepped in. The room had a dozen Catharsis peacekeepers sitting at the table looking at a slideshow presentation as all of them looked at the unexpected guests.
"You don't look familiar. What happened to that one? You bang him up too bad from an assault charge?" Lieutenant Deutschbagge asked; the Dude getting fed up with the attention to his head wound.
"You must be Lieutenant Deutschbagge. I am Paradise police officer Randall Warwick, and this is Troy Dawkins. The one with the bandage only refers to himself "Dude" I think. We're here on some pretty urgent matters concerning Catharsis."
Lieutenant Deutschbagge put his hands on his hips and tilted his head in curiosity. He would've dismissed the Dude right away, but he knew better than that in the presence of two other officers.
"And what matters are we discussing here?" Lieutenant Deutschbagge asked, feeling somewhat worried about what Warwick and Dawkins had to say.
"We came here to find a proud, too proud, advocate of the Second Amendment by the name of Larry Chakawitz. He didn't finish the job on me, but the police here want to finish the job on him. Then we can all go home and scratch ourselves with a nice beer in our hand on a job well done." The Dude summarized the situation at hand, and the other police offers started to look and whisper at each other.
"Larry Chakawitz? You mean, the Larry Chakawitz that's waging his own war on the homeless?" Lieutenant Deutschbagge asked to make sure. All three of the Paradise men nodded.
"The Dude here says he's in your town, trying to hire another henchman do start shooting up a bunch of people with atrociously low finances and a bad rap sheet concerning narcotics," Dawkins added to the conversation, "we came here to ask for your help. Well, can you?"
"I'm not sure my new recruits are ready for a manhunt like this…"
"Just fetch the less recently broken in ones instead. These newcomers could probably learn a lot from this operation. You and your men do know how to deal with a manhunt, or am I sadly mistaken?" Warwick crossed his arms and was starting to get fed up with the lieutenant's hesitation. Lieutenant Deutschbagge closed his eyes tightly and clenched his fist before giving his response,
"We'll help," clearly he wasn't bringing his A-game today, whether he was a coward or he didn't want to risk some of his finest men dying today, "Go on ahead without us. We'll make up for the lost time while you three can get a head start looking for him."
Warwick smiled at Deutschbagge's cooperation. He and Dawkins turned around and walked out of the conference room with the Dude. The Dude's gut feeling told him that Deustchbagge wouldn't be pitching in to help the three of them find Larry Chakawitz until he was already found and subdued, or escaped. Knuckles and neck cracked, the Dude stepped out of the station and back to the unbearably hot and arid air.
"Looks like it's just us for now. We should split up. If you pick up something suspicious, tell it to us with your radio. That includes you, Mister "Dude." I'll take the left side and Warwick can take the right side. Looks like you're stuck with the middle path. Remember to look everywhere for that rat!" Dawkins ordered as he and Warwick darted off opposite directions, leaving to the Dude to himself.
"I guess I better get started. Hey, at least I get to see the sites this place has to offer! All none of them." cracked the Dude as he started to walk down the street in search of Larry Chakawitz.
Not even a minute on his route, the Postal Dude got sidetracked by a porn shop, aptly named Porn World. The girls on the outside looked erotic enough, and maybe Chakawitz would be inside to make things easier for him.
"I would just use a computer, but sometimes you gotta make do with what life gives you."
The Dude entered Porn World and was bathed in a soft magenta light, similar to those at seedy clubs. The walls were lined with an arcade cabinet called Porn Fighter that only existed to squeeze more revenue towards this establishment. Across from the arcades was the counter were horny customers would pay for their goods and get out to "use" them. At the counter stood the cashier and owner of Porn World, Raul Chomo. That was his real name, but it wasn't known by the Dude, as the nametag on his shirt simply read, "Ron J." He also sported a stereotypical porn mustache and a red baseball cap with the letter "C" in the middle.
"Hey there," the Dude tried to act friendly just for one bit in hopes of finding out where Larry Chakawitz was, "this sounds silly to ask, but did a short, pudgy, bald guy run in here at all?"
"Yeah, a couple did, but you gotta be more specific. He wear anything in particular?"
"Uh, I think a type of hunting jacket. Was colored yellow but was mostly gray. I think he was missing a few teeth. His name was Larry Chakawitz." Raul Chomo gave the Dude a suspicious look.
"Nope, sorry bub. But if you got some time to spare, you could help me clean up this place. Lotta people been leaving trash behind, and I sure as hell ain't gonna pick up after them. I'll pay ya, though."
The Dude thought that cleaning up after the serviced customers of Porn World would be a quick and easy buck in the middle of his manhunt, so he agreed. Raul Chomo handed the Dude a back-mounted vacuum cleaner and showed him deeper inside the store. The hallways were littered in dozens of used, sticky tissues.
"Look at all these tissues. Suck up every last one of them and I'll pay you. When this thing gets full, just blow them out into the trash and repeat. Got it?" Raul Chomo asked the Dude, who was busy examining the nozzle of the vacuum.
"Floors and flu season are no matches for me."
"Good. Don't bother trying to talk to me until you finish up." With the matter settled, Raul Chomo went back behind the counter as the Dude started to suck up the used tissues on the floor. It was a lot more fun than it should've been as every tissue was drawn in from the suction and entered the container, with a satisfying "pop" noise. The Dude went up and down the hallway and into the empty private rooms until the vacuum was at its peak. Luckily, there was a trash can right beside him as the vacuum cleaner sucked up the final tissue. Just before he pointed the nozzle in the trash, he heard Raul Chomo yell in terror.
"Here we go again," groaned the Dude upon hearing ominous sounds not too far away from where he was. He hurried down the stairs, catching glimpses of panic customers fleeing the store and out the door. A gang of hockey moms stood at the entrance of Porn World, giving menacing gazes to the men fleeing. One middle-aged woman with glasses and a humungous nose confronted Raul Chomo, opening her equally humungous mouth and complained,
"Places like this are exactly what are wrong with this world! How could you do such a degrading and vile thing involving these women? We're not objects; shame on you!" The woman nagged and nagged, appearing to be the leader of the group. One other hockey mom saw a stray tissue wad on the floor and vomited on sight. Perhaps they were allergic, or they simply had weak gag reflexes. The Dude pitied their husbands, but got a great idea as he aimed his vacuum cleaner at the group of milfs. He puckered his lips and whistled loudly to get their attention.
"Hello, ladies! I've cooked up something special for all of you!"
The Dude reversed the suction of the vacuum cleaner and blew a sticky tissue wad at the leader milf, giving her a the surprised face of a lifetime. The tissue stuck to her shoulder, and she hesitated to pry it off. Two more were flung her way to amplify the drama. One tissue stuck to her chest as another one hit her square in the eye. Her body couldn't take the sensation of used tissues clinging to her skin as she loudly puked right on the floor.
"Hey, don't look at me like that. It's actually good for your skin. Here, have some more!"
The Dude merrily fired tissues at the group of protesting hockey milfs and nailed them in varying locations. Some tissues landed in their hair, while others stuck to their limbs like velcro. It didn't take long for all of them to get disgusted enough to abandon the protest and leave Porn World.
"That's it! I'll see you in court!" sassed the head milf as the women left Porn World. Raul Chomo wiped the sweat off his forehead and had a sigh of relief.
"Man, it's a good thing you came along. That'll teach those milfs to fuck with me!" exclaimed Raul Chomo, delighted at having the protestors leave. "Unfortunately, those bitches scared away all the customers, so I can't pay you! Tell you what; I can pay you by having you pat yourself on the back for helping me out from the bottom of your heart. And as a bonus, you can keep that piece of hardware for yourself. How does that sound?"
"Can I have free porn instead?" The Dude tried to bargain for some free porn, but Raul Chomo was a cheapskate and refused to let the Dude part ways with free porn. That's when the Dude's radio started to emit scratchy, near incomprehensible audio. He pulled out the radio and responded to the officer on the line.
"Dude, where are you? Did anything happen? Report!" Dawkins was on the other end, asking the Dude for a status report. The Dude gave a sitrep on his current being,
"Let's just say that I put a group of protesting milfs in a sticky situation, heh heh."
There was silence on the radio for an extended period of time.
"Dude, are you at Porn World? You better have a good reason to be there!" Dawkins barked at the Dude for slacking off.
"How did you know that? You frequent here?"
"Goddammit! You wanna go free or not? Start looking for Chakawitz! And if I call you again and you're still at Porn World, we'll just terminate this whole hunt and give you the punishment you deserve! You got that!?"
Dawkins was definitely not happy about the Dude's current behavior as he turned off his radio. The Dude shrugged and put it back in his pocket as he started to hand over the vacuum cleaner back to Raul Chomo. It served no useful purpose for the Dude now.