Dick Wiener Must Die: A Story Of Redemption

Prologue: THE SPARK OF DESTRUCTION

In the beginning, there was a spark. The cosmos expanded from a single, microscopic, ten billion degree point of light floating in a vast sea of darkness, containing all the matter that had ever been or would ever be, and grew into a ninety-three billion light year wide spherical universe.

Ten-point-three billion years after the first spark, a spark on a volcanic rock in a small corner of that universal sphere birthed life.

In October 1664, a spark from a pair of wooden twigs ignited a campfire inside a small hut on the banks of New Jersey's Passaic River, the first settlement within the boundaries of what would become a roguish municipality under the control of the British Empire. Then, more sparks ignited in the chilly wilderness, and a paltry cluster of ramshackle cabins housing a ragtag band of about seventy-five hearty English settlers became the town of Buttford, New Jersey.

The town quickly earned a reputation for rebellion against the expectations of the typical English-controlled settlement. Like its namesake, Lord William Butt, the short-lived Duke of Essex who died of scurvy in 1667, Buttford welcomed all manner of crook and scoundrel into its company. Its sheriff, a portly settler by the name of Johns Crotchkins—not to be confused with entrepreneur Johns Hopkins, the namesake of the Maryland university, although, full disclosure, Crotchkins did later have a less prestigious university named for him—once declared, "What happens in Buttford stays in Buttford." His pronouncement was a precursor to a more famous town's slogan. It was Buttford's Governor, Jonathan Weaselton, who took the rabble-rousing a step further when, in an effort to promote business at the local taverns, he imposed a surtax of eighteen shillings on members of the citizenry over age eleven who did not imbibe on at least five occasions per week.

A spark ignited the pyre on which the burning to death of Governor Weaselton occurred soon afterward; he was convicted on charges of witchcraft in 1679 after failing to persuade an excessively intoxicated judge to spare his life. The subsequent lack of administration in Buttford precipitated a town-wide crime and murder spree in 1679-1680, known as "The Great Bender," in which seven-eighths of all the homes in the town were razed. The fires, again, started with sparks.

Without tether to morals of decent society, the rebellious town of Buttford, New Jersey, fell into greed, crime and violence for much of the 1700s, furthering its attraction to vagabonds and vagrants across the New World. It was calculated to be the least profitable settlement in all the English colonies, far behind cities like Philadelphia and Baltimore, but also lagging lesser-known towns like Scumville and Vagrants Gulch.

However, for all its folly, Buttford, New Jersey, was resilient thanks to its hearty inhabitants. It was the sole English settlement to weather the infamous "blizzard of 1768" and the infamous "shitstorm of '69" without documenting a single fatality. This phenomenon, historians later uncovered, was due to the persistent drunkenness of the town's record keepers who, it was found, would float Buttford's dead down the Passaic River in an effort to dodge the unpleasant paperwork associated with an identifiable corpse.

Records show Buttford was deemed the "Asshole of New Jersey" where anything could and would happen, and so the English crown soon decided it was time to rid the empire of this meddlesome town. In 1770, King George III dispatched a messenger to the Spanish Court with a proposal: "Henceforth, the British Empire will bequeath ownership and control of the entire settlement of Buttford, New Jersey, and all related entities, likenesses and accounts, asking, in exchange, two bushels of apples from the Spanish Crown. What say you, Charles?" The Spanish monarch Charles III issued a four word reply: "Go f--- yourself, George."

Word of the king's treachery subsequently reached the citizens of Buttford, and six years later in the American Revolution, "Go F--- yourself, George" became the battle cry of the dozens of Buttford residents who were sober enough to take up arms against the British.