LUDIC LOG

(excerpted from the 1997 documentary 'The Rise and Fall of the Suburban Reich')

ANNOUNCER: By 1986, Hifner had shown his true colors. His earliest allies, the Beavertown Shop 'n' Go, stood fully betrayed, with the SweetyMart now underselling them in auto parts (some smuggled from Hooper's AutoMall), counter impulse items, and, of course, candy. His alliance with the Campfire Girls had also collapsed when he realized he could undercut their cookie sales with off-brands at the SweetyMart, driving the once-proud girls' club to the brink of financial ruin. Even the community business leaders who once praised him found the words turning to ash in their moths as chaos broke out everywhere.

(title card: JOSHUA MELLINGER, FORMER COMPTROLLER OF SOUTHWEST PLATTEVILLE CORNERS)

"By 1987, Hifner had gone completely insane. We couldn't beleive it. In a way, we blamed ourselves."

"How was that?"

"Well, for example, I would say to my wife, 'honey, I kind of blame myself for this'."

"No, I mean why did you blame yourself?"

"Oh. When the economy whas so strong, we all latched on to some of the glory, you know, by associating ourselves with the success of northwest Platteville Corners. Little did we know how seriously Hifner took this idea."

In 1988, Hifner announced that historically, southwest Platteville Corners was a part of northwest Platteville Corners, and incorporated it immediately within his "Greater Platteville Co-Prosperity Sphere". When he tried to do the same to northeast Platteville Corners -- claiming that the water line should be drawn along that line of pomegranate trees, not over by the big stone fence next to the Korean War memorial, the first fighting broke out. Eggings, T-Ps, drive-by car revvings and bloodcurdling cries of "you suck" became a nightly occurence.

(title card: SGT. KERRY FRANKLIN, FORMER SHERIFF'S DEPUTY, YUTTLE COUNTY)

"Hifner's military maneuvering allowed him the distraction he needed to put his ruthless plan to eradicate teenage hooliganism into effect. No one wanted to seem unpatriotic by criticizing extreme measures in a time of crisis. So, first you saw the propaganda; then restrictions -- we all remember the 'No teenagers served from 9AM to 3PM' signs that were up everywhere -- and registration, where you got a special sticker on your license if you were under 25; then, the curfews, and finally the camps."

(title card: BURT MORLON, LOCAL PUNK)

"Sure, I can remember the curfew. No one can forget a thing like that."

"Can you talk about them?"

"It's hard, man. Those were bad times. Some of us barely made it."

"Please try."

"Well, he and his goon squad imposed this stupid curfew."

"When was it?"

"Like, May of '89."

"No, when was the curfew?"

"Eight o'clock. I mean, really. Eight o'clock, dude. I mean, we couldn't even stay at the Dairy Queen until closing time. It was really bogus."

But the final horror was the detention centers. With what many historians claim was the all-too-willing aid of the local population, teens -- problem students, troublemakers, and just good kids alike -- were forced into detention rooms for hours at a time after being accused and found guilty without trial of even the slightest infractions of classroom rules. In the nightmarish conditions of these "camps", juveniles could not talk, chew gum, read anything other than schoolbooks, or use portable electronics of any kind. They were often packed in to the detention centers like sardines, with 40 to 45 students occupying a space meant for only 35. The dentention process -- which had no appeal and which continued at the whim of the "monitors" -- could last up to three hours; some students didn't get home from school until after 7PM, making even more of a mockery of the 8PM curfew.

However, the extreme, even barbaric measures had a genuine upside: by their desperate finality, they signaled the end of an increasingly barbaric and dying regime. The war was going badly; a judge ruled that the old stone fence really was the water line boundary, and the Shop 'n' Go was making headway by offering a Wednesday 2-for-1 deal on all milk, eggs and dairy. There was a big article in the city paper about the curfews, and Hifner's right-hand man Roy Hooper had gotten hit by a car backing into the repair bay at the AutoMall and broken his foot. The damage was done, and the Boosti empire came crashing to its knees at last; but victory came at a huge and bloody cost to the lives and psyches of all who lived in northwest Platteville Corners.

The teens of the subdivision never recovered. Precious few remain in the park which once blared popular hits by the Jets and Don Henley; those few that survived the horror now identify themselves as adults and prefer not to speak of those dark days. Many went on to attend community college in the city, and describe their former home as "totally sucky" -- a psychic scar that may never heal.

Hifner's henchmen met their fates, as well. Joe Gumble escaped Platteville Corners just before the judge's tribunal ruled the Boosti land grab illegal; he is rumored to be living on his family farm near Ames, Iowa. Henry Gulden took a bath in the real estate bust of the early 1990s and relocated to Boca Raton, Florida, where he sells prefab condominiums to retirees -- finally and grimly realizing his wish to live in a world free of teenagers. Rudy Festus was imprisoned in 1992 for peddling Boosti paraphenalia in the classified ads of a pederast trade publication. Henry Hooper never fully recovered from his run-over foot, and retired in 1990. He has not fully escaped justicel he is the frequent victim of attacks by vengeful teens, who have brought the monster some measure of revenge by bending his car antenna and calling him "Old Man Hooper" on an almost weekly basis. Dr. Karl Mondural's license to practice medicine was revoked in 1993 when it was discovered that it was granted in the fictional state of "Alberta". He was facing jail time for fraud and malpractice when the Butcher of Briar Drive cheated justice by pointing out that Alberta was in fact a real place, a province of Canada. He was nonetheless turned over to the Immigration and Naturalization Service and deported back to Canada on charges of having once maybe accidentally cut off a guy's toe.

And what of the twisted maniac behind all these years of destruction and unrelenting evil? What of Arthur Hifner himself? The judges were not lenient. They placed the blame for the land grab squarely on him; there were even allegations of pricefixing in the Shop 'n' Go auto parts scandal. He was dismissed as city manager by the town council, and there was every reason to believe he would see some hard prison time, or at least a small fine and probation. But on the day of his trial, he vanished, leaving a note in his home confessing to having embezzled from the town's municipal bond scheme and warning people not to look for him in St. Kitts.

Could it be that this man, this devil in human shape, the most evil person northwest Platteville Corners had ever produced, had managed to escape the iron hand of temporal justice? Could it be possible that a man some consider worse than Dracula could simply fly to the tropics with over $1,100 of the town he nearly destroyed? We asked a guy running the Sno-Cone concession in St. Kitts who answered to Hifner's general description, but he said he didn't know, and that it wasn't him but it was some other guy who wasn't around. And so the world waits, in fear, in trepidation, in angst, in wonderment and uncertainty: how did it happen? Could it happen again? And could the monster return?

The world may never know.