Raven the Little Rascal

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Someone help us!

Giddap!

- It's the fourth oor, upstairs.

- Yes, sir.

Come on.

No!

Not my daughter! Mercy!

Give us room.

Stay there. Come on.

Not her!

- Break it down.

- Yes, sir.

Baltimore Police!

Give me some light.

Oh, no.

- It's empty.

- That's impossible.

We heard a door lock.

Damn it, the window!

It's nailed shut.

Dear God.

Phylum Chordata...

Subphylum Vertebrata.

With kittens...

The ways of God in nature,

as in providence, are not our ways.

Lovely to see you all again.

Hello, Reagan. Did you miss me?

I'm naturally delighted

to be back in Baltimore,

but in all honesty

I'm feeling a bit under the weather.

However, it has been said that

what brandy cannot cure has no cure.

So what say you to a snifter

for an old, ailing friend?

I'm sorry. What?

Nothing.

I can assume, then,

that you're out of brandy?

- We've got many bottles back there.

- So it's a question of finances.

I don't mean to shock you, Poe,

but we haven't seen you in a while.

Last time you were here,

well, things got rather ugly.

Been back in town only a few days

to find quite shockingly,

I seem to have exhausted

any sort of credit I once had.

Fine, fine. If it's money you want...

Try not to sh*t yourself.

That's real.

Spot these sailors a round, too,

on me.

Christ, man, now what?

That'll just about

cover the last tab.

Are you really gonna be this cruel?

The "Patriot" is publishing a review

tomorrow. Ill be ush by dawn.

If the paper publishes

anything you write,

you come back tomorrow,

I'll buy you the shot.

Tomorrow?

Tomorrow I might be dead.

Or you might be.

- I'll risk it.

- How's this?

I get a drink for any man here

who recognizes me

or one of my poems.

Better get to the door

before I split your head open.

My head is already split open,

you overgrown mouth-breather.

So show me some respect

or I'll give you a personal tour.

I'm an internationally lauded poet.

That's why you've got no money.

- I am Poe.

- That's what I said.

Not poor, mouth-breather! Poe!

Poe! Edgar Allan Poe!

Does it ring a bell?!

No.

A drink to any man in this room

who can finish this line!

"Quoth the Raven..."

- Piss off!

- By IP Daley!

"Quoth the Raven"!

- "Nevermore!"

- Hah! Hah!

It is a very favourite poem.

Hive la France!

Slobs!

Philistines!

You wouldn't recognise

an authentic American literary voice

if it hissed in one ear

and slithered out the other.

We know it hurts to pick

your teeth up with broke fingers.

Is that your imagination's limit,

you mental oyster?

I can conjure a multitude

of more exquisite torments.

Your eyeballs dissolving

in a teaspoon of lye!

Your tongue torn from your throat

with a blacksmith's tongs!

An enema of boiling tar!

A testicle impaled on a kebab skewer!

Get out, you sh*t!

Slowly. Here.

Put her down.

She's just a girl.

What kind of monster would do this?

Katherine LaForte, 36.

Her daughter Anna, 12.

She was strangled.

She's so young.

He was a large man.

By the extent of his grip, over eight

inches from thumb to forefinger.

You agree someone

locked the door from the inside?

Absolutely. We heard the door lock

as we arrived.

And by the time you broke down

the door, the murderer was gone.

Not a trace.

The window was closed

when you came into the room?

Not just closed, nailed shut.

Tell me, how does such a large man

escape so quickly

from a room in which the door

has been locked from the inside...

and the window nailed shut?

I'm not sure, but the mayor

wants results this time, Inspector.

Question the neighbours.

I want a list of all the men

who visited these premises.

Yes, sir.

A lock... triggered by a spring.

But the nail had...

Cut, mid-shaft.

I checked the window ten times

and never found a spring.

I wouldn't have found it either

except...

What is it?

This crime is familiar to me.

Giddap!

Whoa!

Not again, Mr. Poe.

Christ.

Good morning, Percy.

Contrary to precedent, Captain

Hamilton, I've no intention...

..of asking for money.

What do you want, Poe?

I've come back to town

for your daughter.

- Over my dead body.

- Is that an option?

Poe, please.

You know I find you as revolting

as some of your stupid stories.

Some, but not all.

You look lovely today.

Get out, Poe,

before I shoot you where you sit.

And risk splattering blood and brains

over your daughter's fine silk dress?

- Out.

- Is an invitation...

...to the costume ball

out of the question?

- Father, don't.

- Sorry, Charles.

- See you at the track.

- See you, Edgar.

Giddap!

Another abject humiliation.

Please! Mercy!

I have children!

Why are you doing this? Why?!

I'm only a critic!

Aaaaarghhh!

Good morning. "Baltimore Patriot."

Mr. Poe! Your clothes.

Just beating the mudslingers to it.

Fortitude, Ivan, fortitude.

I'm afraid you might need

more than this, Mr. Poe.

- Why?

- It's a crime, a terrible crime.

Out with it, man. What is it?

Did that marsupial of an editor

dare to change my review again?

I told him not to touch it.

I told him, Mr. Poe.

Where's my review? Where is it?

What has he done?

He said there was no more room

in the layout.

No more room? No more room?

Pray tell, what fine twat

did he deem more worthy?

Longfellow!

Longfellow?!

Longfellow!

Where is it?

- Where is what?

- The trash bin.

That is where all this brain-sucking,

soul-warping fish wrap should be put!

That's lovely, Eddy.

A real show of adjectival fireworks

from the great Poe himself.

Not only do you refuse

to print my review of Longfellow,

but you run

his third-rate poem instead!

- People like Longfellow.

- Editors like you tell them to.

Have you no soul, Henry?

Does the artistic enrichment

of your readers mean nothing to you?

Artistic enrichment?

You've got some gall, barging

into my office and lecturing me

when ail you do

is criticize others' work!

Not true. Not true at all.

You called Emerson

a "sad, festering literary whore".

Because he is precisely that.

Is honesty now a vice, or do you

prefer that jaded hack, Griswold,

fawning over some steaming mound

of hackneyed tripe?

- Doesn't think much of YOUR stuff.

- He's an intellectual nonentity.

He's a buffoon, which is probably why

he's so at home here with you.

Aw, you're out of control.

I'm broke.

Then try writing

another "Tell-Tale Heart".

People love blood. They love death.

If I couldn't churn out a "Tell-Tale

Heart" or a "Pit and the Pendulum,

I'd indenture

my very soul to the devil.

You've got to publish my review.

I'm desperate.

I need stories. Gripping stories.

I've got nothing left.

I've used up all my tricks.

Try laying off the liquor and

tinctures. it's rotting your brain.

I only drink occasionally,

to be social,

to alleviate my shyness.

And the tinctures

are purely therapeutic.

A slight palliative against the chill

of an orphan's despair.

- Write me something I can sell.

- You're a real bastard, Henry.

Why are you doing this?!

Why?!

What have I done?!

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