[Chimp!] [Rants!] [Murder!]
Who is Dick Burns?
My first fateful encounter with the enigmatic William Garner occurred on a bright
summer's day in 1989. Working as an editorial assistant at the Naval Historical Center
in Washington, D.C., we had just published an exhaustive work on the history of the
Office of Naval Intelligence. After my usual lunchtime constitutional through the
Navy Yard grounds, I returned to my office to find a weatherbeaten package on my
desk. Roughly the size of a shoebox, the container was covered in an evil-smelling,
soiled burlap and was stamped with faded cancellation marks from Bangkok, Thailand,
Borneo and Jersey City. Before I could open the unusual package, the phone rang.
A grizzled, hacking voice greeted me on the other end. He said his name was William
Garner. He sounded as if he'd been gargling with carpet tacks. Mr. Garner apologized
for the smell of the package and asked if I had a chance to read his manuscript.
Confused, I told him that I had received his delivery but hadn't the chance to open
it. Mr. Garner explained that he had recently finished the naval intelligence volume
and was duly impressed with my editorial abilities. Specifically, as he put it, my
adeptness at "peeling away the bullshit layer by layer and showing those intel
skulks what-for." He then elaborated on how he had come to author a series of
brief vignettes based on his career as a naval intelligence operative, private investigator,
and hired gun for the New Orleans Mafia. However, he was in dire need of an editor
familiar with the vernacular of the intelligence community as well as a working knowledge
of classical Greek mythology, 1970's-era pornography and the literature of the Old
South. Were I to polish his manuscripts, he would offer me twenty percent of the
domestic sales receipts and the same for overseas residuals. Being young, foolish,
and eager to pad-out my resumé, I hastily accepted his offer. Even if these
stories were vapid hackwork, judging by what passes for popular literature these
days, surely some idiots would be willing to part with a few dollars for a handful
of cheap laughs.
I asked Mr. Garner how I was to get in contact with him. Mysteriously, he told me
not to worry, he would be in touch with me. He had to leave the country for six months,
but when he returned from Tangiers he would give me a call. He expected to see these
stories published by then. He wished me a hearty bon chance and hung up. Little did
I know that was the last I would ever hear from him.
I set about my task quickly. Tearing open the package, I found the manuscripts to
five short stories, two incomplete novels, a book of very bad poetry, and several
pathetic attempts at song writing. All of the work was meticulously typed on onion
skin with various cryptic notations made in what looked like blood on the margin.
I was disheartened. I began to think that this was some sort of practical joke being
played on me by my coworkers. But as I read the stories, I was hypnotized by the
action, sex, gratuitous violence and poetic justice as meted out by the main character,
Dick Burns: Hardcore Detective.
A mutant hybrid of Dirty Harry, Ren Höek, and Jean Baudrillard, Dick Burns is
a wisecracking, gun-toting, booze-swilling idiot savant with a big gun come to stomp
out the scourge of political correctness, bigotry, and wanton consumerism. Ever the
ladies' man, Dick Burns feels just at home slugging a mysterious blonde in the gut
as he does playing a game of mudsports with the kids. His nightmarish, gut-wrenching
demimonde is littered with unemployed KGB operatives, triple- and quadruple agents,
mammoth-breasted porn queens and serial killing circus freaks: the flotsam of postmodern
America. To make sense of Burns's environment, one must begin to think like a paranoid
schizophrenic. Or at least read like one.
Like his creator, Dick Burns is a former 33° Freemason and counterintelligence
operative, ousted from the Office of Naval Intelligence for vague reasons. Rumors
abound that he refused to participate in the CIA-sponsored slaying of JFK. After
a brief acting stint as a "second banana" in pornographic films, he gains
employment with the Dobbs Private Investigation Company, where he makes extensive
use of his contacts in the murky waters of organized crime, international espionage,
and smutpeddling. With his secretary Marge and the nameless "Boss," Dick
Burns hops from bar to boudoir to butcher's shop in one fell swoop, taking out the
enemies of liberty with guns blazing like some avenging angel on amphetamines. Always
ready with a snappy put-down, he never hesitates to cut his antagonists down to size.
No-one escapes the Dickmeister's critical eye: religious fundamentalists ("double-dipped
Baptists born-again one time too many"), intellectuals ("if you're so smart,
why can't you get laid?"), conservatives ("Jerry Ford? Yeah, I fucked him.")
No one escapes the acid wit and itchy trigger finger of Dick Burns.
Inspired by the scope and depth of Mr. Garner's creation, I immediately took the
stories to my friend Ray Cohn, assistant editor of Washingtonian magazine, who, upon
reading them, had to be hospitalized due to severe intestinal strain caused by excessive
laughter. He promised to send the manuscripts to his publishing associates in New
York for immediate consideration as soon as he got better. Upon publication, the
first volume of the unfinished Murder Boy shot up the New York Times bestseller list
where it remained for over three months, edging out such heavy hitters as Michael
Crichton's Paleolithic Carnival, Sue Grafton's "S" Is For Stupid Concept,
John Grisham's Bones of Contention, and Robert Fulgham's It Sucked When I Finished
Writing It.
The public greeted Murder Boy with a mixture of enthusiasm tempered with revulsion.
Obviously, Dick Burns spoke to a generation grown tired of stories with pat endings,
beautifully crafted characters, and flawless structure. The "Generation W"
readership that flocked to Garner's stories were sick of being pigeonholed by Madison
Avenue and arrogantly proclaimed their refusal to conform to market demographics
and consume "product." To them, Dick Burns was the guy in the porkpie hat
and seersucker slacks they wished their dad had been. More importantly, he represented
all that was still pure in this dismal world: a gun, a bottle, and a burning cigarette
in the neck.
Six months after publication, I still had no contact from the author. Perhaps he
met his fate climbing through the steaming jungles of Sumatra or crossing the burning
wastes of the Gobi Desert in search of enlightenment, the man on the grassy knoll,
or the perfect martini. Whether because of shame or death, not another word was heard
from the mysterious William Garner.
These are the original Minit-Murders® as published in Nickel Detective, The
Black Fist, Half-Baked Stories, and Juggs, representing the total of William
Garner's known work. Hopefully with this release, a generation that missed out on
the blood, the sodomy, and the gin soaked philosophizing of the World's Most Violent
Detective will have a chance to see what all the fuss was about.
A. Joseph Stribling
August 1993
The Dick Burns Homepage
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