A wall of suffocating heat nearly vaporized me as I walked into Marshbaum's house. In the kitchen was a portable kiln spewing fiery venom that was curling the linoleum. In the den, wildly pumping a potter's wheel flinging clay all over the room, was Marshbaum.
"Got a new hobby?" I asked from a puddle of water that I assumed was what was left of my body.
"Hobby, nothing!" shouted Marshbaum over the noise. "This is my path to fame and fortune."
"Every one of your fame-and-fortune paths have ended in a cul-de-sac," I reminded him. "You scamming the public into believing that slops of glazed clay dipped into leftover house paint are the last sculpture of a dying genius?"
"They're cookie jars," said Marshbaum wounded.
"Still looks like schlock to me," I suggested.
"Work with me on this," Marshbaum commanded, "it could result in a column for you."
So I played straightman while Marshbaum threw pots together. "Who," I asked skeptically, "is going to buy ersatz cookie jars?"
"Corporations," he replied smugly.
"For gifts?"
"For receipts. Taxpayers keep their receipts in cookie jars," Marshbaum explained, "so why not corporations? It'll help them avoid paying any taxes. It's easy. It's simple. It's--"
"Probably illegal."
"It's in the Tax Code," said Marshbaum. "Individuals pay; corporations don't."
"I doubt the IRS Code says anything like that."
"There are four million words in the IRS Code," said Marshbaum. "Lower-class and middle-class Americans get a few thousand of those words. The rest of the code is a roadmap to help the wealthy and their corporations avoid paying taxes."
"The IRS encourages corporations to cheat?"
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