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FBI agents assigned to the ricin case in Mississippi may wind up in need of psychological counseling. There’s good reason, too. The investigation into who sent letters tainted with ricin to President Barack Obama and U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker from Mississippi could become an episode on “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.”
Looking at the two men who have been investigated, there is on the one hand Paul Kevin Curtis and on the other hand Everett Dutschke. Pauly, as we would call Curtis in these parts, is an Elvis impersonator. Wouldn’t you think by now that America would have reached its quota of Elvis impersonators? Charges were dropped against Pauly after no evidence could be found.
But Pauly gave a sterling defense of himself when he said, “I thought they said rice and I said, ‘I don’t even eat rice.’” (It might have been at this point that the FBI considered calling this the Uncle Ben case.) The Elvis impersonator is rumored to have told the FBI that he is “All Shook Up” about being accused of this dastardly deed. Pauly also is rumored to have claimed that at the time of the ricin incidents, he was holed up in the “Heartbreak Hotel” in Corinth, Miss. That’s when the ricin hit the fan for the FBI. Pauly, dressed in a black suit with a red shirt, a tie I once wore in high school and sunglasses, proceeded to blame his long-time adversary, Dutschke, for doing the deed. Apparently his white jumpsuit was at the dry cleaners.
Dutschke, who surely would be known as “Dutch” if he ever came East, is a former Mississippi state representative candidate. I keep wondering how he ever lost that race. Dutch and Pauly notably have been feuding longer than the Hatfields and McCoys, only they never made cable television, but you can be sure that there is currently a reality series in the works. I think the only thing holding up the series is the producers are trying to figure out whether Kendra Wilkinson is available to play the love interest.
Some folks around these parts think the feud might have originated when Dutch’s father became a member of Jerry Lee Lewis’ band. Dutch may be harboring a grudge that Lewis and not Elvis should’ve wound up living in Gracie Mansion with Priscilla. Life can be unfair that way. Dutch also is a martial arts instructor who, according to an April 23 article in the Washington Post, previously was convicted of indecent exposure. He also, according to the same published report, was released on bail on two counts of child molestation. I’m not certain from the newspaper account whether he ran for state office in Mississippi before or after he got caught exposing himself.
According to Dutch, his last contact with Pauly was in 2010 when he threatened to sue Pauly for claiming that he — Dutch — was a member of Mensa, a group for folks with high IQs. So far as I know, Dutch believes that’s one of the worst things you could call somebody. He took considerable offense and thought only the courts could erase that kind of slander. I’m pretty sure the one charge you can clear Dutch of quickly is that he is a member of Mensa. In fact, I have a notion that both Dutch and Pauly are big fans of “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” because they find it so challenging.
I’m not saying the FBI is at a dead end, but the closest they have come to any evidence at all in the case was a box of Uncle Ben’s rice rumored to have been found in Pauly’s pantry, which explains why Pauly was so sure that the agents were looking for rice. Both Pauly and Dutch have vehemently denied any knowledge of ricin or where the president of the United States lives or how he got elected in the first place.
I feel sorry for the FBI because they came out of the Boston Marathon bombing looking pretty good and it had been a long time since they looked good. Things pretty much began to go downhill for the FBI when its director at the time, L. Patrick Gray, thought it was his job during the Watergate investigation to destroy documents. A lot of us thought it couldn’t get much worse for what we used to call “the G-Men.” But then after J. Edgar Hoover passed, it was discovered that he liked to get dressed up in crinolines and open-toed wedgies, and that pretty much was all it wrote until the tragedy in Boston recently came along.
During the anthrax scare, I was working for the government. I was secretly scared to open any mail I received at my office so I’d pretend I had a paper cut and asked my secretary to open it. All these years I’ve laid awake at night ashamed of my behavior, but now I sleep well because I realize that with the ricin scare, I’d do the same thing all over again. I’m only kidding. My secretary was so tough I’d get her coffee and ask “cream and sugar?”
Knowing how they like their fried food in Mississippi, in addition to fried pickles and fried green tomatoes, we may wind up with fried ricin on the menu at Big Bob’s Back Porch.
Contact the South Philly Review at editor@southphillyreview.com.
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