VEN (San Francisco) — In a most unusual and entirely unexpected shall we say occurrence, a package was left at the front door of VEN headquarters on Telegraph Hill late Wednesday evening by a tall disheveled maskless and we believe unvaccinated man in threadbare Edwardian dress, who — noticeably limping and clutching what looked like a dead rat in his right hand which to our horror he appeared to be gnawing on — quickly disappeared into the foggy mist of Pioneer Park without a trace.

As we watched the security cam footage over and over again, we began to wonder — as incredible as it might seem, could this strange unnatural creature of the night, this sewer rat-eating man besmeared in rodent blood — be none other than our governor, Gavin Newsome!?

“My God!” VEN‘s Senior Paranormal Consultant Abraham Van Helsing cried out. “Look! The box, it’s filled with love letters! From Nancy Pelosi! To Anton LeVay!”

We turned and to our surprise Van Helsing was holding up a packet of thirty or more yellowed letters. There were dozens of these packets in the box, some tied together with frayed black ribbons and others secured with twine.

Van Helsing dumped the box out onto the floor, and to our amazement, aside from what must have been several hundreds of letters — some still cloyingly scented with Jean Nate perfume and amorously embellished with what looked to be faded red-pink Clairol lipstick blots — there was an autographed Life Magazine cover of Charlie Manson (Hey Little Nance, Never learn not to love! Charlie), a soiled polka dot dress, candid photographs of Sirhan Sirhan at a stable or horse farm, and a legal notepad on which was written over and over again in a woman’s hand RFK MUST DIE! RFK MUST DIE! PAY TO THE ORDER OF NANCY PELOSI SHIRONDA P! PAY TO THE ORDER OF SHIRONDA P!

We all looked at each other dumbfounded.

“As impossible as it seems,” Van Helsing began. Do you think . . . . ”

But before he could finish, there was a sudden loud knocking on the door and an angry muffled voice from what we soon learned was a triple-masked partially dyslexic Turkish ballot harvester demanding to be let in!

And then — to our astonishment — on this most fantastic and disquieting of San Francisco nights, things took yet another almost unbelievable turn!

— END OF PART ONE —