Directing Pulp Fiction

A few years ago, my good friend and noted author Jess Nevins -- one of the world's foremost authorities on pulp fiction, the genre, not the movie -- published a few of his favorite vintage pulp magazine covers in his journal, some of the "adventure" variety. These appear to your left.


The general consensus amongst his friends was that you shouldn't probably ever actually read the stories inside, because you just know they can't live up to the promise of their wonderfully lurid headlines. So I mentioned that it would be much better if all these headlines applied to the same story.

And Jess, God love him, dared me to write it.

That I did.

---

I was hitchhiking through Africa when a guy picked me up in his car. "What's your name?" I said, trying to be polite. "Jesse James," he replied. "You know there's an outlaw by --" I began, but he cut me off. "Yeah, yeah, I know, I've heard all the jokes." "Well, I was just trying to be polite," I responded, getting pretty riled up. There's no need to be rude, even if you're doing someone a favor. I hate being cut off in conversation! 


Before you know it, there I was, having a heated argument over manners with a complete stranger. So heated, in fact, that neither of us saw the ibex carcass in the road. 


The car flew up and over it, landing a few yards away, and immediately caught fire, due to all the gas cans he carried in the back. (Gas is a valuable commodity in the Serengeti.) I thought I'd burn up right there, but just then I thought of my girlfriend back home. She had amazing legs. American legs. No way I was gonna never see American girls' legs again. I determined then and there to live. 


Just then, I actually saw a pair of legs before me, just on the other side of the fire. I grabbed them and pulled myself out of the conflagration. She was gorgeous, a Latina. I didn't believe in love at first sight, but here it was: I'd found love through the fire. 


"How can I ever repay you?" I stammered gratefully. 


She smiled. "You're a US citizen, I can see that by the flag on your backpack. Obama must have won."


"Yes, he did, but what..." 


"Marry me. Then I will be a US citizen. I know a justice of the peace who lives just around the corner."


I didn't have the heart to tell her that the marriage had to be performed in the US for that to work. Besides, I was in love! 


The justice of the peace was a rather rude old man who lived on his own nature preserve. In the middle of my extensive post-nuptial remarks, which I had written myself and carried around in my back pocket for years, he suddenly interrupted. "God, you're long-winded," he huffed. "She must be marrying you for citizenship or something." Rude! In a white-hot rage, I grabbed a shotgun from his bedroom and shot him dead. 


The shot, unfortunately, riled up many of his animal friends, who had grown quite fond of the old asshole, as he'd saved them all from poachers. Suddenly, wild animals hunted me! I looked around for my wife, but opportunistic poachers had already grabbed her and used her as tiger bait. (Turns out she was a Cuban, and tigers love the taste of Cubans. Go figure.) I managed to calm the animals down by taking over their preserve and agreeing to marry their leader -- a gorilla. 


I lived with that beautiful, sexy gorilla for six heavenly months. Trouble was brewing, however. The relatives of my beloved departed wife, all bandits from her native Cuba, had heard the news and were tracking me down. They tortured me for several months, mainly by showing me pictures of my gorilla mating with other animals on the preserve. Then they stole the animals and burned down the camp, which left the staff and I stranded with no way to feed ourselves. So we cooked the cook, who was the rudest of the bunch. I ate human flesh. It wasn't bad! 


Eventually, I made my way to the coast, where I was captured and enslaved by a lonely pirate captain.


"You don't have a weird famous name or anything, do you?," I inquired. 


"No," he laughed insanely, "but they do call me the 'Sea Devil'."


"Do you always use finger quotes like that," I asked, nettled. 


"Do you always pop off that rudely to strangers?"


I had to admit, I liked his style. "What's this?" I asked, seeing he'd placed a pipe in my hand. "It's Polar Ice," he cackled. "Shit will send you over the moon." I lit the pipe and inhaled deeply. Turned out to be an understatement. 


Then we had several adventures!