The Rug Weekly

America’s Only Paper That Knows When to Duck

October, 1951 (Somewhere Between Betrayal & Heartache)

"November"                            Price: Higher Than Yesterday               

 This bloody thing was supposed to come out two weeks ago. Then somebody started another fucking war. Again. I've stopped asking why.                                                      

MOBSTER WORLD BURNS

 A Week of Bloodshed Leaves the American Underworld in Ruins   
By Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski   
East meets West in a devastating coast-to-coast war. Godfathers fall, entire families disappear, and what's left of the American Mafia is barely recognisable. 

Well, hell. Leave the newspaper office unattended for a little while and apparently the whole goddamn country decides to shoot itself to pieces.

The bad blood between the East and West Coasts had been brewing for a while. Then somebody started shooting, and for the better part of a week the whole country seemed to join in. Some of the biggest names in organised crime ended up dead. By the time anyone had worked out what the hell was happening, most of them were too busy trying to stay alive to care who'd started it.

I've heard a few people talking about how peaceful things were before the shooting started. Not sure the people who got purged, bloodlined, or found themselves on a hitlist without even belonging to a family would agree with that assessment.

But I suppose peace looks pretty good when you're the one deciding who gets to enjoy it.

So Anyway, Everyone Started Shooting

The West struck fast, catching much of the East completely off guard.

New York was among the first to feel it. Former crew leader Richard-Harrow was one of the opening casualties, followed by his own leader, Norella. The Brooklyn Godfather's death was big news, or at least it would have been if half the country hadn't started dropping dead around the same time.

Chicago fared little better. Solene, Michael, and Godfather Matty were swept away in the opening assault, leaving what remained of their organisations scrambling for direction. Imagine waking up, checking your messages, and discovering the people running your city had all been shot. Not exactly a great start to the day.

Detroit lost Godfather Reggie and God, while Philadelphia was practically wiped off the map. BigHurt, Bruiser, and TheTripleDeuce were among its biggest casualties, the latter two having held the rank of Godfather. Philly had some serious muscle before all this kicked off. Didn't do them much good in the end.

Breezy joined the growing list of fallen Dons. Over in Los Angeles, Godfather Rouge was gone, along with Cleocatra and Bobby_Tweaks. Elsewhere, names like Tangerine, Crimzon, and WinstonChurchill kept appearing in the obituaries.

And those were just some of the bigger names. Plenty of others went down whose stories probably won't get told.

I had the casualty reports spread across my desk at one point. Couldn't find the bottom of the pile. Thought I'd misplaced a few sheets, but no, there were just that many bloody names.

You'd have thought the opening assault would have been enough killing for one week.

Apparently not.

Three Guys Who Refused to Die

The West probably figured this would be over pretty quickly. Problem was, those three weren't going anywhere just yet, and they still had plenty of people willing to fight alongside them.

The surviving families started getting themselves organised. In Detroit, Soseki and xLadyfighterx stepped up. Over in Las Vegas, LonelyWolf and KingsleyShacklebolt were defending their turf. New York had Odin, while Los Angeles looked towards Thalia and Archy.

Chicago, meanwhile, was having a particularly shitty time of it.

After losing its leadership in the opening attacks, the city tried putting itself back together. Twice, in fact. Imagine trying to rebuild your house while somebody's still throwing bricks through the windows. That's roughly where Chicago found itself.

And Chicago wasn't exactly in great shape before all this started either. Anyone pretending the city's troubles began last Sunday has a pretty short memory. There'd been plenty of bloodshed here long before the West came knocking, and the business that brought Matt and Solene to Chicago in the first place hasn't suddenly stopped being part of our history.

Some folks seem to have forgotten all that.

Must be nice having a memory that works only when it's convenient.

Still, there wasn't much time to argue over the past. People who probably wouldn't have given each other the time of day a week earlier were suddenly fighting together. I saw some strange partnerships come out of that war. Fellas who'd spent weeks looking sideways at each other were now trusting one another with their lives.

Funny what happens when you've got somebody trying to put a bullet in your head.

Didn't mean everyone was going to make it, though.

Archy fell. LonelyWolf too. Eventually xLadyfighterx would join them.

Their people kept fighting.

Oh Look, More Chaos

And then Oynx showed up.

Nobody had asked for another complication, but there he was. I'd have liked five quiet minutes to work out what was happening. Apparently that was too much to ask.

By this point, keeping track of who was alive, who was dead, and who was shooting at whom was becoming a full-time occupation. I've got the paperwork all over my desk. Half of it's covered in coffee stains and the rest smells suspiciously of vodka.

The death notices kept coming. Unicron, DuchessDingleberry, who'd turned on Las Vegas, and plenty of other familiar names joined the list. Dons, trusted hands, ordinary mobsters. Rank didn't seem to count for much when the bullets started flying.

Octavius finally fell on October 19th.

Klein followed on October 21st.

That left Azien.

And the bastard was still going.

Then the Mayor decided enough was enough and started restricting travel for crew leaders and their right hands.

No more freely jumping between cities. People suddenly found themselves stuck where they were, and plans that had seemed perfectly reasonable an hour earlier were going straight out the window.

I suppose somebody at City Hall figured grounding half the Mafia might calm things down.

Didn't quite work out that way.

The shooting continued, more names appeared in the obituaries, and even those getting the upper hand were paying a hell of a price for it.

The Ref Pulls the Plug

Eventually, just one of the three remained.

Azien.

After days of fighting, the whole thing came to an end in a way I don't think anyone was expecting. No grand final shootout, no last desperate stand. The administration stepped in and removed Azien from the streets.

A DD. Just like that.

I'm sure people will be debating that decision for a long time. Probably still arguing about it when the next lot of us are dead and buried.

I haven't got much to add. I was there for the fighting. I saw what people put themselves through, trying to protect their own, watching friends disappear and wondering whether they'd be next. However you feel about the way it finished, none of that suddenly stops having happened.

A lot of people didn't make it. The ones who did mostly looked like they needed a nap.

Who's Buying the Next Round?

The finger-pointing started almost immediately. Who started what, who should've done more, who betrayed whom. You know how it goes. Everyone's got their own version, and everybody seems convinced theirs is the one worth listening to.

I wouldn't go calling the streets peaceful just yet, either.

The last of Azien's pro'ers have now been taken out, finally putting an end to that particular headache. The Mayor's eased some of the restrictions too, though not completely. City Hall is still keeping an eye on things.

At least people can start thinking about rebuilding without wondering who's going to be shooting at them before breakfast.

Pencil note: Well, that aged like milk.

Chicago's picking up what's left of its leadership. Detroit's doing much the same. New York, Philadelphia, Las Vegas, Los Angeles... everybody's got work to do, whether they particularly fancy it or not.

There are plenty of grudges left behind, too. You don't wipe out that many families without somebody remembering who pulled the trigger. I've heard enough talk on the streets to know the arguments are far from settled. Some people are trying to move on. Others have apparently decided that moving on means finding a new gun.

A week ago, America was full of powerful families, big ambitions, and men who thought they were untouchable.

By the time the fighting ended, just six crews were left standing.

Six. Across the whole goddamn country.

Since then, we've managed to get that number back up to twelve. New crews are finding their feet, people are getting organised, and the country is beginning to look a little less like a graveyard.

Another pencil note: Twelve crews as of October 25th. Somebody count again. I'm not doing it.

There's still a hell of a lot of empty chairs out there. No shortage of people interested in sitting in them, from what I can tell.

I'd like to think the survivors can put all this behind them. A bit of peace would be nice. Let everyone rebuild and find something better to do with their evenings than shoot each other.

Wouldn't that be something?

Or maybe next week I'll be writing another one of these bloody things.

I'd really rather not.

Anyway, welcome back to The Rug Weekly. Keep your heads down, your drinks close, and for Christ's sake, somebody get me a fresh rug.

FOR FUCK'S SAKE. ANOTHER WAR.

MOBSTER WORLD BURNS... AGAIN!

Five More Days of Killing. An Alliance Turns on Itself, and The Dude's Newspaper Misses Another Deadline.

LATE-BREAKING ADDITION — NOVEMBER

Well, shit.

I've just finished reading the last article back.

That bit about rebuilding and everyone finding something better to do with their evenings? Forget it. Cross it out. In fact, I already have. Used a whole pencil doing it.

I hadn't even managed to get the bloody newspaper printed before the country went up in smoke again.

Two weeks, man. That's roughly how long the peace lasted.

I've had sandwiches last longer than some of these agreements.

Here We Fucking Go Again!

It seems the trouble started brewing in New York.

Odin says word reached him that Las Vegas, Detroit, and Philadelphia were preparing to remove New York. The attack was supposedly planned for Friday morning, November 6th. He'd also noticed several prominent figures disappearing from their usual cities and turning up around Las Vegas.

Now, I wasn't sitting in any of those meetings. Haven't seen the minutes, either, although I'd love to know who gets the job of writing those things down.

According to Odin, he had enough information to believe the threat was real. He contacted @ChaosBringerUnicron in Chicago and Thalia in Los Angeles, and both agreed to stand with New York.

A plan was made. They weren't going to wait for somebody to come knocking.

Those accused of planning the attack have their own views about the circumstances, naturally. The arguments over who was plotting what started almost as quickly as the gunfire and haven't entirely stopped.

By November 6th, though, it hardly mattered who was telling the better story. People were dying in every direction.

Friends Yesterday, Enemies Today

Here's the part I still can't quite get over.

Some of these people had been standing on the same side just a fortnight earlier.

Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles were now fighting together against families in Detroit, Las Vegas, and Philadelphia. Men who'd helped one another through October were checking their guns before going after each other in November.

In Chicago, @TheDude, @ChaosBringerUnicron, Zephyr, and Gable were caught up in another effort to keep the city and its people standing.

Los Angeles had Thalia, Caligo, Craven, and @RoyKhan. Over in New York, @Odin and @TNT were involved alongside the dragons, with Paarthurnax among their number.

Detroit had Soseki, zDiamonDz, Striphe, and @MichaelMyers. Las Vegas counted KingsleyShacklebolt, Levon, TextBasedMafiaRPGMan, and SlugFingers among its prominent figures, while Philadelphia had Nevaa.

@MichaelMyers, incidentally, ended up being rather important to how this whole thing unfolded. There's an entire article about him further along. I've already had to move it twice because somebody keeps adding to the argument.

Anyway, November 6th.

That was when everything properly went to hell.

The Bodies Start Piling Up

Levon was gone early. So was TextBasedMafiaRPGMan. Two enormous names out of Las Vegas, and the fighting had barely got going.

Detroit lost zDiamonDz and Striphe the same day.

I remember hearing about Striphe. Then another death came through. And another. At some point I stopped trying to work out which city was getting the worst of it.

Los Angeles was in trouble. Craven fell, followed by Caligo, leaving a lot of frightened people wondering who was supposed to be looking after them now.

Back in Chicago, members of Zephyr's organisation were being picked off. Some of these people had only just settled into their new homes after October's mess.

We'd barely finished putting things back where they belonged.

Then came November 7th.

Thalia was dead.

I'd got used to hearing her name whenever somebody was talking about Los Angeles. One of the people who'd stood up when everything was falling apart. And now, just like that, another obituary.

Gable went down that day as well. We'd recently been arranging his own crew setup, sorting out the usual business of getting someone established without half the country mistakenly shooting at him during the transition.

Now he was gone.

His last recorded location was Las Vegas, but plenty of us in Chicago knew exactly who we'd lost.

Jago died on November 6th. Gabriella followed later that evening. RAVAZIEL was killed in the early hours of November 7th, and TonyTheTailor that morning.

Those names might not mean much to everyone reading this, but they do to me.

Jago had been trying to convince me he needed a bowling lane with nobody next to it. Said he liked having room to spread his wings. Gabriella was busy discussing embroidered shoes and whether she could get an accountant involved.

There was some business about Jago's wife not knowing where he was, too. I never did get to the bottom of that.

They're not around to finish those conversations now.

And Tony...

Well, I've still got his welcome-back article sitting in a drawer. You'll find what's left of it towards the back of this edition.

Five Days of Hell

Saturday turned into Sunday. Then Monday.

People were exhausted. Nobody seemed to be sleeping much, and every few hours there'd be another rumour that this person was dead or that family had finally been finished off.

Half the time you had to check the obituaries just to work out whether somebody was telling the truth.

On November 9th, Soseki fired on Paarthurnax.

And that shot cost the Detroit Godfather his life.

Paarthurnax knew what he was doing. He sacrificed himself, allowing Soseki to take that shot, and in doing so brought down one of the most powerful men on the opposing side.

Both names appeared in the obituaries that evening.

I heard what had happened and had to read the report twice. One dragon giving up his own life to take Soseki with him. Hell of a thing, man.

Alduin had already fallen, along with so many of the others. I used to complain about the damn dragons flying around and getting into my bowling alley. Feathers everywhere, somebody knocking over a drinks table, the usual nonsense.

Funny. Haven't heard much from them lately.

I don't particularly like how quiet it is.

The fighting carried on into November 10th. KingsleyShacklebolt finally fell in Las Vegas, followed by Nevaa and SuperStrongWayne. SlugFingers died that morning too.

By then, much of the opposition had been wiped out.

Five days.

I remember somebody saying it was finally over. Can't recall who. I think I was halfway through a drink and didn't particularly feel like believing them.

The 1% Gods Have Left the Building

During all this, a rather muscular fellow calling himself SuperStrongWayne had been keeping the streets entertained.

Wayne believed the whole war was being overseen by something called the 1% Gods.

Apparently these fellas were making all the decisions. Who'd live, who'd die, who was going to get shot next. A divine arrangement of some sort.

I don't know, man. I've had some strange conversations in my time, but this was a new one.

Wayne even started taking bets. He had a little list of people the gods might be coming for.

Soseki. Odin. Kingsley. Nevaa. TNT.

And me.

Now, I've never been much of a gambling man. Not when it comes to my own life, anyway. But I certainly gave Wayne's gods a few opportunities to collect.

There was an awful lot of shooting, some of it rather closer to me than I'd have liked, and a fair amount of time spent making sure the next bullet wasn't going to be the last one.

Wayne wrote a whole scene about MommyGardevoir shooting a hole through my bowling shoe. Even involved a sporting-goods shop in Hollywood.

I'd have preferred he left the shoe out of it. Good pair of shoes, those.

In the end, though, the great 1% Gods collected Wayne instead.

I was still breathing when the dust settled.

He wasn't.

I suppose that settles the bet, although I've no idea where I'm supposed to collect my winnings.

Anyway, Wayne. Hope they've got some heavy things for you to lift wherever you ended up.

So Who Actually Won?

Chicago survived.

New York's still there, and @RoyKhan helped hold together what remained of Los Angeles after its leadership suffered those terrible losses.

@ChaosBringerUnicron has already spoken about the war and the people who fought through it. He's thanked @Odin and @TNT for standing with Chicago and remembered Thalia, Paarthurnax, Alduin, and the many others who didn't make it.

I read his words.

Didn't have much to disagree with.

I've seen a lot of these people at their worst over the last month. Tired, frightened, angry, sometimes saying things they probably wished they hadn't. Some barely knew which way was up by the end of it.

But I also saw people stick around when they could've taken the easy way out. People who knew their friends were in trouble and decided they weren't leaving them.

I'd stand alongside those fellas again. Even knowing how much shit came with it.

We've all got our versions of why this happened. There'll be threads about it for weeks. Somebody will write another great long speech explaining why everybody else was wrong, and the next bloke will come along with an even longer one.

Meanwhile, we've got cities to put back together.

Again.

Chicago's taken a hell of a beating lately. Somebody ought to start charging admission every time an army turns up to shoot the place to pieces.

I'd like a few quiet nights behind the bar now. Maybe watch somebody knock down ten wooden pins instead of another crew.

I haven't even got this paper out yet, and I'm already wondering what'll happen before the ink dries.

No. Fuck it. I'm not writing another prediction.

The war is over. The people who survived deserve a drink.

That's all I'm prepared to put in print.

The Dude is still breathing, still abiding and Not taking anymore bets.

The Man Behind The Mask

MichaelMyers, a Leaked War, and One Hell of an Argument
By Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski
Some say he saved New York. Others reckon he sold his own family. Everybody seems to have an opinion.

@MichaelMyers is alive.

That, apparently, is enough to piss off half the country.

I've been reading the arguments about him for the better part of an evening. Started with one thread, ended up in another, and somewhere in between I found myself wondering why the hell I was still awake.

There's a bottle on my desk. It's getting rather low.

Anyway, Michael.

The man in the hockey mask.

From what I've been able to piece together, Michael was trusted with information about a planned attack on New York. He was a Don under Soseki, and the allegations are that he took what he'd learned and passed it to Odin's side.

An interesting decision when the people you're warning are the same people your Godfather supposedly intends to kill.

Now, I wasn't in the room. Michael hasn't come into my office to explain himself, and I doubt he's going to start just because I've asked nicely.

But plenty of people have been happy to explain it for him.

So Who Told Who?

There's been a lot of talk about honour.

@Grin26 has been particularly vocal. He reckons Michael broke the trust placed in him by his Godfather, betrayed the family he'd sworn loyalty to, and then made matters worse by keeping himself safe while his own people were killed.

The allegation is that Michael was protected, stayed on the opposite coast, and didn't join the fighting.

Now, if that's how it happened, I can understand why his former associates might be a little upset.

I mean, imagine joining a crew and discovering your boss has arranged his own protection while you're still standing outside wondering why everybody's shooting at you.

It's not exactly the sort of thing you'd put on a recruitment poster.

Grin's been calling Michael a bitch, amongst other things. The argument has grown to the point where various people are now debating the fundamental meaning of Mafia loyalty.

Good luck to them.

I still can't get my lot to agree on who keeps leaving beer bottles in the bowling shoes.

The Bit Everyone Keeps Arguing About

Here's what bothers me about the whole affair.

People keep talking about betrayal as though it's something only one person in this war could possibly have committed.

We've just had two wars, man. Half the alliances have changed, people have turned on people they were drinking with a fortnight earlier, and now we're arguing over which particular betrayal was the most dishonourable.

I understand the oath business. You join a family, you make promises, you don't go around sharing its secrets with the opposition. That's generally how these things are supposed to work.

But what if your Godfather is planning to wipe out people who helped keep you alive in the previous war?

That's where @Lissa, @Engel, and others have been coming from. They say Michael saw what was about to happen and chose not to go along with it.

Thulsa has asked whether doing what you believe is right ought to count for something, even when it clashes with the old rules.

I can see why that argument appeals to people.

Doesn't answer the question about Michael's crew, though.

That's the bit his critics keep coming back to, and it's not an unreasonable thing to ask. If he believed New York was worth saving, why not stand with them? Why not try to protect the people who'd been following him?

Maybe there's more to it. There usually is.

I'd quite like to hear Michael's explanation rather than another three pages of somebody explaining what they think he was thinking.

Recruitment May Be a Problem

The really unfortunate part for Michael is that his name is now attached to this business whether he likes it or not.

He could spend the next month doing perfectly respectable Mafia things. Open a business. Recruit a few people. Help somebody move a suspiciously heavy crate into a warehouse.

Somebody's still going to bring up the war.

I can already hear it.

"Michael, can we trust you with this?"

And there'll be an awkward silence.

Perhaps he genuinely thought he was preventing another disaster. Perhaps he was looking after himself. I've seen people survive wars by making clever decisions, and I've seen other people survive because they were simply standing somewhere nobody thought to shoot.

Can't always tell the difference from the obituaries.

One thing I do find rather funny is that some of the people now furious about somebody leaking a planned attack would've probably been delighted if the information had come the other way.

That's Mafia politics for you.

Anyway, Michael, you're still here, which is more than can be said for plenty of the people involved.

I'm not going to pretend I know exactly what went through your head.

But if you're looking to recruit a few new faces, here's a suggestion.

Maybe hold off on the big speech about trust and loyalty.

At least until everybody's finished arguing.

And get that mask cleaned. It's been a rough couple of weeks.

The Dude Abides, but prefers to avoid arguing in the streets

The Tailor Returns!  The Tailor's Last Fitting

More Suits, More Gulags, And One Comeback That Didn't Last Nearly Long Enough
By Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski
Originally written as a welcome-back article. Then November 7th happened.

Well, would you look at that. TonyTheTailor is back.

Editor's note: I wrote that before the war. Leaving it there.

I'd been looking forward to this one.

After all the shooting and the endless bloody arguments, I thought we could do with something lighter in the paper.

TonyTheTailor had come back.

Tony. Our very own specialist in expensive suits, Russian headwear, and threatening people with imprisonment somewhere considerably colder than Chicago.

I wasn't sure where he'd been hiding. Probably somewhere with a measuring tape and a bottle of vodka. I was going to ask, but I never got around to it.

There were more important things to sort out, apparently.

Like another fucking war.

A Man of Many Suits

Tony took his tailoring seriously.

Well, as seriously as a man could when his conversations frequently involved somebody being threatened with a gulag.

You could be enjoying a perfectly ordinary afternoon, minding your own business, and suddenly Tony would appear wanting to know your inside leg measurement.

I mean, hell, man. Buy a fella dinner first.

Still, he knew his business, or at least he talked about it with enough confidence that I wasn't going to argue.

Suits needed making. Lapels needed fixing. Somebody's trousers were always too short.

Whether the customer actually wanted any work done was sometimes beside the point.

I liked that about Tony.

Most fellas around here are interested in the biggest gun they can find or how quickly they can climb the ranks. Tony seemed genuinely concerned that we were all walking around committing crimes while looking like we'd dressed ourselves in the dark.

I was never quite sure whether he disapproved of the crimes or just the clothes.

Probably the clothes.

The Gulag Collection

Tony took his tailoring seriously.

Well, as seriously as a man could when his conversations frequently involved somebody being threatened with a gulag.

You could be enjoying a perfectly ordinary afternoon, minding your own business, and suddenly Tony would appear wanting to know your inside leg measurement.

I mean, hell, man. Buy a fella dinner first.

Still, he knew his business, or at least he talked about it with enough confidence that I wasn't going to argue.

Suits needed making. Lapels needed fixing. Somebody's trousers were always too short.

Whether the customer actually wanted any work done was sometimes beside the point.

I liked that about Tony.

Most fellas around here are interested in the biggest gun they can find or how quickly they can climb the ranks. Tony seemed genuinely concerned that we were all walking around committing crimes while looking like we'd dressed ourselves in the dark.

I was never quite sure whether he disapproved of the crimes or just the clothes.

Probably the clothes.

The Gulag Collection

Now, the gulags.

I never did understand that particular fascination.

Most people hear the words Siberian prison camp and decide they'd rather spend their holiday somewhere else.

Not Tony.

There'd be talk of Russia, followed by ushankas, followed by somebody apparently requiring transportation to a gulag.

Usually Matt, but we'll get to him.

There was also that unfortunate business involving an FBN agent and an accidental shooting. I heard bits of the story over time. Every version was slightly different, and after a while I decided I was probably better off not knowing.

Somehow it all seemed perfectly normal when Tony was involved.

I had an idea for a headline, actually.

THE TONYTHETAILOR GULAG COLLECTION

Fine Italian wool. Fur-lined hats. Free transport to Siberia with every purchase.

No refunds.

Thought he'd appreciate that.

Never got to show him.

And Then There's Matt

Ah, Matt.

Where do I even start with those two?

Tony would insist he couldn't stand the man, and Matt would generally say something equally unpleasant in return. Then you'd turn around and they'd be at it again the following day.

I'd have thought people who disliked one another that much would make an effort to avoid each other.

Apparently not.

It was always Matt this, Tony that. Somebody had said something. Somebody had taken offence. One of them had threatened to do something dreadful to the other.

And then there was the song.

A love song, if I remember correctly.

I don't know who decided that was a good idea, but I'd have paid good money to see their faces when they heard it.

Tony wasn't impressed.

Neither was Matt.

Naturally, this only made the whole thing funnier for everybody else.

I was hoping Tony's return might give us another instalment.

Maybe they'd finally make up. Maybe they'd threaten each other again. Maybe Matt would end up wearing an ushanka in Siberia while Tony insisted it was all a terrible misunderstanding.

I'd have read that.

Hell, I'd have written it.

The Comeback That Never Was

November 7th, 2026.

Just after ten in the morning.

That's what the obituary says.

TonyTheTailor was dead.

I found his name among the others while going through the casualty reports. I'd already been looking at them for hours, checking which names needed adding to the war story.

Had to read that one twice.

The welcome-back article was sitting there, more or less finished.

I'd written the bits about the suits, the gulags, Matt, the bloody hats. All the usual Tony nonsense. I was going to give it another read, maybe change a line or two, and send it off with the rest of the paper.

Didn't get the chance.

You get used to seeing names disappear around here. People die, their relatives turn up, the streets carry on. It's how this business works.

But Tony had only just come back.

I suppose that's the part that bothers me.

We'd had the return. I thought there'd be time for the stories that came afterwards.

There wasn't.

I keep looking at that ridiculous headline about the gulag collection. It's not even particularly funny now. Still, I don't want to throw it away.

Tony would've probably found something wrong with the tailoring terminology anyway.

And Matt? Well, I'm sure he's got something to say. He usually does when Tony's involved.

I won't try to speak for him.

I'll just say the streets are going to be a bit quieter without those two arguing across them.

Which is odd, because quiet is something I've been asking for a lot lately.

Didn't mean this sort.

Anyway, Tony.

I was going to welcome you back.

Instead, I'm sitting here with a White Russian and an unfinished newspaper.

Here's to the suits, the ushankas, the gulags, and every stupid argument you managed to get yourself into.

I hope wherever you've ended up they've got a decent tailor.

Although knowing you, you've probably already taken over the place.

Rest easy, pal.

I genuinely thought we'd get another few stories out of you.

The welcome-back piece is going in the drawer.

The Dude Abides but try tailoring my cardigan and I’ll bite.

THE FINAL WORD

A Final Word Before Somebody Starts Shooting Again

Right.

I think that's everything.

Although I'm almost afraid to check the obituaries again.

When I decided to bring The Rug Weekly back, I pictured the usual newspaper business. A few stories about the cities, some gossip, maybe the odd scandal. I thought we'd have a bit of fun with it.

Instead I've spent two weeks trying to write about wars that keep changing before I can finish typing.

The original edition was ready in October. Then November happened, so I crossed bits out, moved the date, and started again.

Tony's article was meant to be a welcome-back story.

I still haven't decided what to do with the original proof. It's sitting under the typewriter, along with a pile of other things I haven't had much interest in dealing with lately.

The country's rebuilding again. You can see it in the new crews and the people trying to find somewhere to belong. I've got a few things to sort out myself around the bowling alley, and I could do with getting back to something resembling a normal routine.

There's a broken window that's been waiting for attention for far too long. And somebody's left a pair of bowling shoes behind the bar. They might be Jago's. I'll have to check.

Anyway.

To the people who made it through, I'm glad you're still here.

To those we lost, well...

First round's on me.

Now, if anybody's planning another war, I'd appreciate it if you could hold off until this issue's actually been printed.

I've already changed the fucking date twice.

The Dude abides.

Be nice if the fucking peace could do the same.

— Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski

Editor-in-Chief, The Rug Weekly

Glitter Watch

Because apparently there wasn't enough bloody glitter in this newspaper.

A complaint has reached the editorial desk from @Engel, descendant of the late Thalia, that The Rug Weekly hasn't given sufficient attention to the nation's glitter situation.

Fair point, I suppose.

Thalia left their mark on these shores, and apparently some of that mark is still stuck in the carpet.

I've vacuumed the bowling alley three times, man. THREE.

Anyway, in honour of Thalia, the Glitter Watch will now be monitoring suspicious sparkles across America.

Current glitter levels: Dangerously low.

Editor's note: @Engel, if you send any more glitter to my office, I'm charging you for a new fucking rug.

— TheDude, reluctantly appointed Chief Glitter Correspondent

RIP Sweets