Philbis Duckworth and the Mutilated Cows

Philbis Duckworth and the Mutilated Milk Cows

Gross sales declined for seven straight months. Magnum Turbo-charged Vacuum Cleaners felt the crunch of a full-blown recession, and the introduction of a free set of Jack Soo Oriental Knives with each purchase did little to stimulate sales.

On a personal level, March had been my best sales month of the seven I had been employed there, and I finally surpassed the minimum wage for the first time. My next goal would be the poverty level. Needless to say, I was evaluating my future with Magnum, but prospects were few.

Since autumn, our region had dropped to dead last in sales for the Garden State. Businesses are like football teams in that you can’t fire all the players, so you fire the coach. Consequently, Jeeter Howard, our regional sales manager, felt the axe's blade.

Enter Philbis Duckworth, Howard’s replacement. Duckworth stood 6’4”, but looked even larger because of his great bulk. He was a powerful, bear of a man in his early fifties. He had yellowy gray hair that he pulled back and rubber banded in a ponytail. Doughy jowls drooped from his cheekbones, and black dot eyes burned deep inside the sockets.

He had one white polyester suit that he accented with a Western Bolo string tie, and scuffed white patent leather shoes with big gold buckles. The underside of the jacket forearms was grimy, and the seat of the trousers was shiny from wear.

Duckworth was even more overbearing than his predecessor. He added verbal bullying and physical intimidation to Howard’s high pressure, carrot on a stick tactics.

Duckworth constantly berated the sales staff and endlessly boasted of his record setting sales in Pocahontas County, West Virginia. During his staff meetings, he reached the fevered pitch of a televangelist. Froth foamed from his scaly lips. He preceded every mention of person, place, or thing with “that damn sum-of-a-bitchin’…”

Though he was hated by one and all at our office, sales slowly began to climb.

His obnoxiousness attained new heights when he hung a life size portrait of himself in the lobby at Magnum. It had the subtle quality of velvet, roadside vendor art. Though he was clearly younger in the portrait, he wore the same white suit. With his head cocked and his curled lip, the portrait seemed to stare the viewer down.

The door-to-door sale of vacuum cleaners has been known to breed some strange and twisted men, but Duckworth was the alpha loony.

We all resented the portrait’s presence, and it wasn’t long before someone took action. Three days after its intrusion, someone carefully etched and blackened the numbers “666” across his forehead in the portrait. Knowing Duckworth’s volatile personality, I expected an immediate explosion, but oddly, he said nothing, and the portrait remained in its place.

A few days later, the hair had been blackened and an Adolph Hitler mustache was added below the upturned nostrils. As you might imagine, the portrait was the red-hot gossip topic, and wild speculation enlivened our drab lives.

The next day, a pointy satanic goatee, and Elvis Presley sideburns were added. The feelings it inspired went beyond that of ordinary graffiti. The portrait was imposing in its original state, but now it was evil.

Another week passed, and the portrait remained in the lobby without further alterations. We sort of got used to it. Sort of.

It so happened that I had an office day on the day of reckoning. I had spent the morning running through the phone book, trying to schedule presentations to pathetic housewives. By early afternoon, with close to nothing accomplished, I moved to the lobby, where I tried a few moves on Ethel, the buxom receptionist. While out there, Lester, the liver spotted, stork legged mailman delivered a package, and upon noticing the portrait, made this seemingly uninteresting remark:

“Gee, this guy looks familiar.”

He backed toward the exit, looking more pale and shaken than usual, but Lester was a rabbit of a man.

Since I had other things on my mind, I gave it no thought. Thirty minutes later, while I discreetly stroked Ethel’s thigh beneath her desk, Lester reentered in a bustle, leading three of Camden’s finest through the double doors.

Lester pointed back and forth between the portrait on our wall, and a photo held by the police sergeant.

At the sergeant’s request, Ethel summoned Duckworth to the lobby. Upon seeing the policemen, Duckworth charged like a lumbering professional wrestler. He cross body blocked the sergeant into a wall, taking his wind, and sending his policeman’s cap flying.

The other two officers sprung into action, walloping Duckworth with billy clubs. Finally, the sergeant recovered enough to pepper spray Duckworth’s eyes, and they gained the upper hand, but it wasn’t easy. Duckworth never stopped cursing, kicking, and spitting, even after they cuffed him. In back and forth surges, he was shoved and pulled through the open door, and out of our lives forever.

It wasn’t until the next day, when the media got a hold of the story, that we began to understand what had happened. It turned out that Lester, an avid fan of “America’s Most Wanted,” recognized Duckworth’s portrait from a recent segment.

The alterations to the portrait made Duckworth, who’s birth name was Aloysius Funk, look exactly as he had when he wrestled under the name of Precious Percival Pennypacker in the Shenandoah Valley Wrestling Federation in West Virginia during the early seventies.

After the failure of his wrestling career, he lived a queer and nomadic existence of dark, dark secrets. It seems Funk cut a bizarre trail of crime across the most rural counties of that state. Among the accusations were illegally operating tent revivals while impersonating a minister , taking indecent liberties with farm animals, the mutilation of farm animals, and in three separate incidents, the murder of two farmers and a farm wife who had the misfortune of catching him in the act of his grotesque handiwork with hogs, sheep, and cows.

In the same way that scandals involving Pee Wee Herman, Tonya Harding, and Joey Buttafuoco choke-held the nation’s attention, Funk went through the media wringer for well over a month. Slack jawed yokels claiming to know Funk in West Virginia appeared on “Geraldo,” “Sally Jesse Raphael,” and were even quoted in “Time” and “Newsweek.” ABC made the story into a movie of the week, starring the great Slim Pickens as Funk. From “TV Guide,” I learned that it was top rated in its time slot.

It was never determined who actually altered the portrait. ABC told it with Funk changing it so he would be caught and punished. He supposedly needed to relieve his guilt. I tend to doubt this. Funk did not seem to be a man burdened by guilt. Softer emotions were not a part of his make up.

Later that year, a follow-up story appeared in the Camden World Guardian. Funk mutilated three of the Vineland Correctional Institute's finest milking cows while on a therapeutic work assignment at the prison dairy. I guess they were trying to cure him.