Free Jungle Rules by Charles W. Henderson

plane and checking in today,” O’Connor said. “Take that guy at supply who issued us our helmets, flak jackets, and other duce gear, or even the guy at the armory that gave us our .45s. Somebody should have spanked their mamas! I doubt looks had really that much influence on the jury. They see ugly daily.”
    “Au contraire,” Carter said. “There is ugly, which I agree is quite common. Then there is repulsive. Lance Corporal Zelinski stands about five feet, ten inches tall and weighs all of 135 pounds at best. He has very dark eyes that are quite large and bug out. His brows are black as coal. His skin is a translucent pasty gray, and the tissue surrounding his eyes looks fragile and bruised, but it’s not. That’s just the color. Gray circles around very large brown eyes overhung with thick, black brows.”
    “Sounds beautiful so far,” O’Connor said and mimicked gagging, putting his finger down his throat. “He might look more natural with a hooded black cape and a scythe. Now that I think about it, I’ll bet that was his sister I took on a blind date once, just after I enrolled at Columbia. The dark circles and thick eyebrows bring back those old freshman nightmares. She originally came from Hell’s Kitchen. I think she kills ducks for a living nowadays, out on Long Island.”
    “Very possibly his sister,” Carter said, offering a cheesy grin. “Zelinski happens to come from Hell’s Kitchen in New York.”
    “No shit?” O’Connor said, dropping his head back and letting out a laugh, and then looking back at Carter. “Doesn’t sound very Irish, though.”
    “No, I think Raymond is Polish,” Carter said, still showing his yellow teeth. “He has a very strong New York brogue, though, a voice that sounds like Muggs McGinnis from the Bowery Boys.”
    “Oh, good, I like that,” O’Connor said, propping himself back on his elbows. “Them and The Three Stooges were my favorites.”
    “That was The East Side Kids , though,” Kirkwood said, looking at Carter and then at O’Connor. “Leo Gorcey played Muggs in The East Side Kids movies. In The Bowery Boys he portrayed Terrence Aloysius ‘Slip’ Mahoney. Huntz Hall had the roll of Horace Debussy Jones, better known as ‘Sach.’ They’re some of my favorites, too, but for that era of comedies, I always liked Abbott and Costello best.”
    “What about The Dead End Kids ?” O’Connor asked, looking at Kirkwood. “Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall played in those too, right?”
    “Yeah,” Kirkwood said, “ The Dead End Kids were the first movies with Huntz Hall and Leo Gorcey, in the late 1930s, then came The East Side Kids in the early 40s, and then The Bowery Boys later in the 40s and through most of the 50s. Same bunch, just different names. Gorcey’s father, Bernard, played Louie Dumbroski, the old man with Louie’s Sweet Shop, and Leo’s younger brother, David Gorcey, played Chuck.”
    “Carter, the man is a walking encyclopedia,” O’Connor said, pointing his thumb at Kirkwood. “Hell of a library between his ears. He can tell you anything about anything, and right down to the gnat’s ass, too.”
    “At any rate, gentlemen,” Carter interjected, standing up from his bunk and starting to pace, as though he now addressed a jury, “getting back to the subject: Zelinski, with his voice like Leo Gorcey, not only has these horrid eyes, but his hair is jet-black, well oiled, and combed straight back from his high-pitched forehead, like Dracula. The poor boy has thick blue lips and a nose that is at least four inches from its tip to his face. Beneath that prominent schnozzola, hugging his top lip and in the center making right-angle turns upward to each nostril, almost like it was drawn on with an eyebrow pencil, he has this sharply edged snit of a mustache, also very black and vividly contrasting his pale skin. If that’s not pathetic enough, his shoulders slope forward from a pronounced stooped back, slumping so badly that he looks like