Dead is Dead by Mort U. Arry

                              

Yes dead is dead unless you want it to be something else, but it will cost you. 

 

 ---Al Most, Attorney at Law, and other stuff

 

Just because a man has been shot and stabbed it don’t mean a crime was committed.  Most likely it was a shaving accident while deer hunting.

 

---Sheriff Tally Hoe

 

The devil works in mysterious ways.  Can I get an Amen and another slice of that peach pie?

 

---The Reverend Sally Forth, Preacher at the Eve Was Right Church of the Garden.

 

The people deserve to know the truth, I guess.  Maybe not.  We’re still discussing it.  And what is the truth, really?

 

---TV talking head Alice Fair, The Mourning Hour

 

AnD sO It BeGaN

 

It was early evening when a figure moved through the shadows of the frigid night, one foot at a time, although he preferred hopping on one leg in time to the music that played loudly in his head that would fit perfectly into a 7 ½ sized hat, if he had been wearing a hat. Instead, he wore an XL black panty hose, with only one eye-hole, a trick he’d learned riding with The Overripe Persimmon Motorcycle Club, when Rocky “Big Eyes” Rhode caught a bumble bee in the eye and needed a flat heat screwdriver to dig it out. Afterwards he was just known as Rocky.

 

But, back to the avenger:  Perhaps he should have cut one leg off the pantyhose to keep from tripping.  He was not a quick learner and still limped from the second and third times.

 

Under his arm was a Salver model 14mQ, loaded with a full clip of 7.66 millimeter, highly polished brass cartridges with steel piercing bullets, made especially for him by the little known Happy As a Fragrant Clown Gun Shop and Ice Cream Parlor in South Philly.  The gun was so accurate he could correct a squirrel’s astigmatism at a hundred yards,  but it was another learning process. A few squirrels mistook headlights for sunrise.  Some of their friends stood on street corners, cups in their tiny claws, waiting for nut donations.

 

The target, Wiber Willright had a titanium plate in his head from a previous attempt on his life.  The first assassin tried to do the job with fossilized deer antlers, mounted on the hood of a black and red 1954 Chevy.  The killer didn’t survive the Chevy blowing a rod that pierced his heart.  With the new assassin there would be no mistakes. He was a professional and knew to keep things simple, mostly.  You find, you kill, you get paid; you spend your money on expensive whiskey and cheap women, or that was the plan.  So far he’d found no cheap women and he took this job because he was also running short of whisky.

 

Willright, lived on Casanova Avenue in a heavily gated community, if you could call one house and sheep farms a community.  The gate was so heavy it took two men and a harnessed donkey to drag it open.  The donkey would rather have been frolicking with a very cute filly in the back forty, but no one had asked him. Sadly, frolicking was still a distant dream.

 

Willwright had not previously had a heart condition, but after the near miss, his heart pounded every time the gate creaked open, or he saw deer antlers, or the donkey brayed.  Nor was he fond of 1954 Chevys.  These days, he mostly sat in his massively fortified home, in front of the TV, on a couch once owned by Roy Roger’s horse, Trigger, doing obscene crossword puzzles, asking himself questions, such as what rhymes with snore and banal pecks?

 

Not short of ideas and possibilities, his assassin reached the gate and paused to change into this boots with the soles sewed on backwards,  so trackers would only know where he’d been, made for him in London in a shop with a sign on the front that said, NO soul resides in this establishment and that means you, you soulless heathen!

 

Using an old trick he’d learned in survival camp, after he’d been lost for several days, he whistled.  Loudly.  The donkey stampeded.  The men’s attention was on the animal that had mistook the whistle for someone calling the frolicking filly.  Raging hormones pulled the gate open by several feet.

 

The assassin saw his chance, managing to slip through and stumble into the bushes unnoticed.

 

He quickly and almost silently cocked his Salver model 14mQ, especially designed with a soundlessly clicking clicker.  It was then he discovered he’d left the 14 bullet clip on his dining room table, along with his see through socks.  

 

Damn, the boots hurt his feet, chaffed his calves, making him say very naughty things. He regretted not paying the extra $600 for the double padded cheetah skin bouncy heels.  Fortunately, he had sprung for the sparking electric laces and internal, automatic athletes foot sprayer.. 

 

With no squirrel piercing ammo, he would have to improvise.  He tapped the side pocket of his French commando, 1959 Rothschild wine and Brie scented pants. Fortunately, he had brought his self guided Lightening Tomahawk; built in a tiny New Mexico pueblo by who else! Tommy Hawk, the noted rifle stock manipulator and gun sight schemer, known for once selling a gun sight to a blind fortune hunter.

 

As he approached the house, two robotic pit bulls growled and ran metallically toward him.  His electric bootlaces quickly shorted their circuits. They barked no longer, but began to moo and mow the lawn.  

 

One window was open.  Unfortunately it was the window to the sixteen car garage.  Then his luck changed.  Willwright appeared at the window near the eight-foot high custom made sixteen pane beveled front door. The killer had seen doors like this, made by Johnny Appleseed’s great grandfather, the apple tree slayer.

 

The quiet avenger threw the hatchet-tomahawk, which went through the window, but bounced off the titanium plate in Willwright’s  head.  Blood streamed down his shirt and he rushed upstairs to change and desperately search for his Ranger Rough Rider flintlock buffalo long rifle, purchased at a cigar store in northern Maine and kept in a locked gun case, inside a locked gun cabinet, in the locked safe room in the basement.  He could only find two keys!  Where the hell had he put the key to the save room?  Then he remembered it was in the Trust and Hope Savings Bank, in a safety deposit box, only available on Tuesday and Thursdays from 9 to 9.15 a.m.  “Well, darn it,” he said.

 

By this time, the avenger had made it through the broken window, using his 4 gauge, stainless steel, handmade window smasher and bottle opener. He quickly retrieved his Tomahawk and began climbing the stairs.

 

Willwright stood on the top step looking, bewitched, bothered and bewildered. This time the Tomahawk found a perfect resting place in Willwright’s chest.  Dang, he thought, as life ebbed; he should have remembered to put on his Kevlar vest when he was changing into a clean shirt.

 

By the time the time delayed house alarm went off and the cops responded, the avenger was long gone. 

 

Sheriff Tally Hoe and his team of detectives saw this for what it was.  Obviously, Mr. Willwright had heard his dogs mooing and gone to an upstairs window to investigate, carrying his high tech hatchet, then had a heart attack and tumbled down the stairs.  The Sheriff reasoned that since Willwright was hunting for a possible intruder, “We’ll call this one a hunting accident.”

 

Alice Fair of The Mourning Hour wanted to know, “What about the broken window?”

 

“No idea.  Windows break all the time.”

 

Al Most, Attorney at Law and stuff, asked if Willwright had an attorney.

 

Nobody knew, but Mr. Most thought he might be able to find a distant cousin and help him settle the estate, or join a profitable business venture, turning used inner-tubes into horse condoms.

 

The Reverend Sally Forth described Willwright’s passing as an act of providence, adding that Willwright never gave a cent to her church, refused to give her another piece of peach pie, and got what he deserved.  After several snifters of medicinal brandy, she dropped to her arthritic knees and recanted, ready to do the Christian thing and forgive all number of sins done by people she didn’t know and had never met, but leaving out several of her parishioners.

 

The avenger?  No one knows for sure, but a man, wearing a size 7 ½ hat and carrying what appeared to be a new, custom made hatchet, stopped at the Come And Get Me Wholesale No Tell Gun Shop to buy several boxes of dark, XL panty hose that were on sale, with no questions asked. Limit four.

* Yes, this is satire, a take off on thrillers.  If you know any of these people, don't tell me.  I don't want to know.*

 

 

Harold Judy Good

Harold sat at a table for two in the bright Florida sun.  At least he sat there for a while before his thinking cap overheated, a black ball cap.  The front read, Love to Hate in red letters. Flashes of sun blocked out the keyboard.  The back of the hat read, also in red letters, You’re My Dream Bitch.  He found this persuasively obnoxious, and a clever disguise.

Once back in the shadows of a large, green canvas awning, he began to type again, a novel of love and deception.  The working title was Hurt So Good.  

 

Harold rather fancied his name de plume, Judy Good.  Hard to believe a bachelor, using a woman’s name could sell books, but he already had half a dozen on the shelves, and just knew Hurt So Good would be his best.  Couldn’t miss.  His technique was to write whatever came into his mind and tickled his fingers.  Afterwards, he could make any necessary changes. 

 

His first romantic novel, Countess Jupiter Is Not Pregnant, did very well, as did the follow up, Oh Yes She Is. However the third part of the trilogy, The Count Has His Doubts, slacked a bit, with several wives writing that he/she had ruined their marriages.

 

But, this next one would be super. Hurt, as he called it, began on the Italian Riviera, with a fisherman’s daughter falling into a net, half drowning before a fabulously good looking millionaire dove off the deck of his passing yacht and saved her.

 

He was the third multimillionaire to dive to her rescue.  Matter of fact, her father had given up fishing completely and was satisfied with just netting.  He spoke perfect English, but broken Italian worked better, especially if the yacht flew an American or British flag.

 

“Help-O!  Help-O!  Mia Butiful dog-ter is she to drown-O!”

 

Adolfo Gleason had waited years for a chance like this; in fact he had tossed many a maiden into the briny just for practice. “Scream louder!” His hands cups as a megaphone.  “Duck your damn head a couple of times!”

 

The last one, Gloria Morning, a Bulgarian stripper, actually could not swim and when she yelled and went under, coming up and sloppily paddling like a terrified house cat, the screams were real.

 

“One of the best!” was Adolfo’s comment, “Really great thrashing,” he said with a glamorous show of perfect, glistening white teeth.

 

Over supper, he suggested Gloria try it again in the blackness of night.  
Against vicious protestations to the contrary, mostly in rapid fire Bulgarian, including an un-translated, “I will strike significant damage to your particulars”, he tossed her overboard. This time the show was really terrific, including the struggle on deck. So terrific in fact, he paid for her year’s stay in a psychiatric hospital, so afraid of water she couldn’t wash her hands without paddling the air and wetting herself.  Doctor Leroy Felter found it amusing and loved to see her do her hippy-hop dance in the hot tub, held down by four very masculine nurses. Then, when unannounced, he joined her, well, it was a real show.

 

One night she escaped, but she didn’t get far.  After changing her pronoun, she forgot to change her given name. She booked a room at the Motel de Jour or de Hour, awaking and screaming loud enough to wake the owner, in the middle of a rain storm.  He plodded through the downpour and seeing the crazy woman on her hands and knees, ripping up carpet with her teeth, he called the police.

 

Dr. Felter welcomed her back with a broad smile and his pet name for her, Hot Tubby, and a smiling shriek of “Take Tubby to the Hot Tubby!”

 

A year later, when she turned catatonic, he pronounced her cured.  She no longer feared water, or conversation, or deodorant, or playing I’ve got a secret. She also found a fondness for bondage, and laboratory animals, and humming the Bulgarian Love Chant.

 

Judy Good (Harold) turned the page and wrote on at a fevered pace. Time to go back to Adolfo and his newly found fisherman’s beautiful daughter, whose name was Triumphina.   She had large….let’s see, he thought.  What the hell should be large that wasn’t a cliché?  Large hair?  No, too Texas.  Must be Italian.  Large spaghetti pots!  Readers might see that as a euphemism, but it was good, and he’d save it for later.  Ah, big nostrils!  Huge nostrils!  Nostrils you could put your fist in!  Maybe that was overdoing it, but at least sizeable nostrils.  Also a large smile!  He’d run with that.  A smile so large lobsters thought it was a trap!  Wolves ran in fear.  Let’s give her a snicker, too.  Let her snicker every time she smiled, which made her sound like she had a serious sinus problem, but after all, she’d almost drowned so many times, she probably had an Ear, Nose and Throat doc on call.

 

Ah, but her father was certainly fond of Adolfo.  Much better than the last one, Francis of Assisi, whom he had taken to calling Ass-i After being poked in the eye when Ass-i genuflected.   But, Ass-i was rich.  Very rich.  Paid off well when Triumphina reported she was with child.  Not a huge lie because although she wasn’t p.g.,  she did have two kids.

 

But, Adolfo!  What a catch.  Rich as a Cardinal, and with a huge yacht which Triumhina’s father liked to gape at out of his one good eye. Adolfo could be the end all and be all and a clear frontrunner on the trail to riches.

 

How to end this enticing tail?  Judy Good pondered it, then smiled.

 

Trumphina’s father did not bother to tell her that this was the last inning and they were so far ahead Babe Ruth and the entire 1927 Yankees could never catch up.

 

It was the dark of night and he didn’t notice much of anything, but gasped when he got to the fishing boat and saw his daughter jump over the side, into the net!  Who let the net out? Woof Woof, Woof Woof. Why did she jump now? 

 

He climbed on deck and raced to the stern.  He’d seen Triumphina jump, but why didn’t she come back up? Her super large nostrils didn’t even blow large bubbles. A hole in the net told the story.  He looked again and the two cement blocks that usually held the folded net in place were also missing.  Plus, a bit of rope lay near where the net should be.

 

Then a solid board caught him in the back of the head and he also fell overboard and through the net.

 

Adolfo stepped out of the shadows, moved closer and looked down at the water.  No bubbles, although there was the chance the fisherman’s body would eventually rise. 

 

Of no concern. He’d be on his yacht, half a mile from the dock, and on his way within a couple of hours. No one knew him or about his connections to anyone here.  He smiled.

 

Ah, home at last.  The spaciousness was calming.  And alone was even better. Adolfo started to call Stevenson to get his ass in there and fix him a perfect Manhattan, and perhaps a few crackers the cook had conjured up, along with a plate of oil cured olives and slices of aged Manchego.  He’d forgotten he’d given the crew the evening off.  Just as well; if they were questioned, they couldn’t say when he had gone or where he had gone, of when he returned.

 

Ah, yes, a drink.  He poured whiskey over ice and listened to it crackle.  Then he heard a noise, just a slight creaking.  He went back to sipping.  Got to be the boat.  It did shake a little bit.  Not enough to spill his drink.  Took a lot to shake this big bitch of a boat significantly. 

 

Then he heard another noise.  A small boat tapped and scraped against the yacht.  Must be the crew.

 

She stood with a gun in her hand, a small black automatic. Gloria Hot Tubby.

 

“Don’t do it,” he said solemnly, but the ice in his glass did shake a little.

 

She motioned toward the stairs that led to the deck and pointed to a rope.

 

The police ruled it an accident.  Obviously the man had started the boat, caught his foot in a rope and fallen overboard.  The boat was anchored and must have churned in tight circles for an hour or more before someone reported it. Simple. Death by drowning.

 

Dr. Felter sat quietly in his office.  Evening had come, the patients were off to bed, the nurses, except for the ones on the wards sat quietly reading, or sipping coffee.  And then he heard a noise…

 

Judy Good (Harold) reread the skeleton sketch of his story.  And with a few changes, it could be really good.

There were no giant holes, just character nudges.  Toss in some real romance, and a castle or two in Ireland or Scotland.   He could sub a castle for the fishing boat and toss a wedding in there and the mandatory breakup.  Then, right before the wedding, when the bride found who she was really in love with….  A Lard reclaiming lost lands. He’d keep the Adolfo name…Yes, an Italian Lard by marriage, living in Scotland. Some scoundrel and scandal never hurt.   But, where would he put the yacht/castle?

 

No real beauties, but that could be overcome. Christ, get rid of the big nostrils and add some bosoms worthy of a salacious mention….Dr Felter would have to go….no, wait a sec, he could be a knight with a large…. ah dungeon…lots of room for whips and chains and swordfights in the stone corridors.  Suppose Dr Felter’s name was Sir Buford Longshanks.

 

He could do this!  The story almost wrote itself!

 

He signed and turned his hat around.  The waitress walked over and slapped him hard enough to give him a concussion.  “Naughty, naughty lad,” she snarled. “Your hat is an affront to womanhood!”

 

“Would you like to be in a book?  I can fit you right in.”

 

 

 

Marginal Tower Football

 

Marginal Tower

 

Marginal Tower was a small town…make that a tiny town on the outskirts of nowhere.  Even so, it had a football team that hadn’t won a game in years.

 

No one remembers how Marginal Tower got its name.  

 

The same with the town’s school.  Some say it was a French schoolteacher who named it, but he wrote the name in French and a poor translation, combined with spelling errors came out:  School for Witless Flesh Eaters.  

 

Time moved on and the name of the school changed from here to there, like the roving arrow on a Weegie Board.  At present it was called Marginal Tower High School. 

 

The football team was first called The Warriors, but a one eighth member of a long forgotten Native American tribe was upset.  Fourteen law firms vied to be the savor of this vile transgression and the name was changed to The Fighting Cats, until PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, went to court with the argument that when football teams lost, the phrase was: they had been beaten.  Fighting Cats who were beaten just didn’t fit well with the PETA advocates.  To no avail, the town sought support of another PETA group: People Eating Tasty Animals.  In the end, the county couldn’t afford a court battle.  The name was changed to the Rickshaws, which lasted until a young female Chinese student at Uptown Tech University, who was studying the ancient Egyptian use of chalk, with a minor in Egyptian worship of sand dollars, decided Rickshaws was a misappropriation of Chinese culture.

 

This time the county voted on a name change.  The biggest vote getter, Dead Fucking Rats, was overruled by the school board.  The second in line, Mouseketeers, was vetoed by the Disney Company.  TV stations balked at The Walking Dead, even if the football team fit the description.

 

But, America was changing.  The team now had a black quarterback and an Asian tight end.  Yes, even with squawks from the homosexual community, the team still used that description.  The center position was filled by a native American of the Arapahoe tribe.

 

The name changed to the Horse Loving Chopstick Tomahawks and in deference to others in the community, the school colors were changed to black and pink, with the school song sung with a lisp.

 

The football coach was dismissed for uttering, “Thank god they didn’t beat us by more!”  This was considered prayer on school property. 

 

The position was soon filled by a rather large woman, Matilda Blattsworthy, who had once played Parcheesi.  She lost her position after a domestic argument with her wife that led to an hour-long discharge of munitions, including flamethrowers and grenades and the governor calling out the National Guard.  Charges were soon dismissed when Matilda agree to attend anger management classes at the Army’s artillery range, and with the judge’s decree, “Let’s just let bygones be bygones.”

 

However complains from her neighbors led to anonymous threats of death by liposuction.  

 

Matilda sued the school board on grounds that all events happened off school property and after school hours.  She was awarded $250,000 and given the position of guidance counselor.  As a result of the cash award, the football team had no money for helmets, which meant they played much more carefully, but still lost.

 

The Marginals became the team’s unofficial name, which angered some psychologists, who preferred, Logicians Without Portfolio.

Unexpected Visitors

 

Unexpected Visitors

 

The email was succinct.  “We are coming a little south of you to visit our grandchildren, and were wondering if we might stop in for a couple of days to see how you’re doing.  Should be there tomorrow morning.”

 

Clora and Alfred Wiggins were old friends, at least friends of my former wife.  They’d been our neighbors when we lived in the part of the country where snow was thought of as so beautiful!and interminable winters a gift from the creator of all things large and small.  My wife had shared that view, until we moved to the land of sunshine and sunrises over the Atlantic.  Then she suddenly developed a keen yen for golf and an even keener yen for the golf instructor, Jack “Wizard” Campbell.  

 

Clora and Alfred still lived in the land of the eternal snowplow, and had for almost sixty years. Both are older than I, but also have personalities and dispositions that are more suited to hibernating bears than more social animals.

 

He was a retired tree surgeon and she had been president of the garden club for a short while.  Not sure what they do now.  Probably putting a keen edge on insufferability, and adding to their list of suspicions.

 

My first question I asked myself was, how long did they plan to stay and the second was why after years of silence did they want to see how I was doing?

 

But no matter the answers, I couldn’t turn them away.  I could withstand almost anything for just a couple of days.

 

They pulled into my driveway in their RV on Wednesday, with their Irish Wolf hound, Vagabond.  You only need to know a few things about Vagabond, besides his immensity.  First off, his nose is a crotch rocket. Steel cups mandatory for those things you hold dear.  He also requires four or five square meals a day, and thinks of a yard as a port-a-potty that goes where he goes.  Clora and Alfred don’t seem to mind the mounds that looked like African warrior ants built their dream castles on my lawn.  I do mind.

 

“Oh, he’s just in a new place,” Clora says.  I’d like to send him to a better place.

 

Yes, and he finds a new place every time the front door opens, if he makes it that far.  The porch and my welcome mat will do in a pinch.

 

“What do you have planned for us to do while we’re here?” asked Alfred, showing the same smile he’d use if he held a winning ticket at The Kentucky Derby.

 

I wanted to say, “Well, the first thing is a game of dog shit removal. Sorry I don’t have a shovel. You’ll have to use your hands. ”  But, I didn’t say that.  I could have said, “Let’s try your sniper skills with a game of put the dog down.”  But, I didn’t say that either.

 

I’d previously suggested they keep their mucus mutt in the RV, but Clora must have heard that suggestion before and was ready for it.  “Vagabond thinks he’s a human and I just can’t bare not to have him where we are.  He gets so lonely.”

 

Why oh why can’t he get lonely for the RV and hump the built in sofa instead of mine? 

 

I haven’t told you what Clora and Alfred look like.  Clora has short, rather unkempt gray hair, wears rimless spectacles and has a body that last exercised toward the final stages of the Civil War.  I’ve begun to think the name Clora was her mother’s little joke, short for chloroform.  Her endless opinions could make lemmings take another stab at cliff jumping.  She can begin a reasonable, if useless story about nothing and still manage to tag on a recounting of each and every cousin’s marriage, the good and bad of society and why foreigners should learn English before they dare… etc, etc, etc.  I sat quietly and was quickly striding toward dreamland when Alfred dared to disagree. “All foreigners aren’t bad.  At least some of them.”

 

Clora’s look of damnation shut him up like a well hit one iron to the forehead.

 

Alfred is not a bad guy, as tree surgeons go. He does shave and has clean fingernails, and unlike his darling wife, he is razor thin, and keeps tidy what’s left of gray, wispy hair short.  He does follow his wife into the world of rimless spectacles, last purchased at a discount during the great depression. 

 

They finally got down to brass tacks over dinner at the Golden Diner Buffet.  “It’s my darling’s favorite,” said Alfred.  “She really likes the custard pie, don’t you sweetie?”

 

Like it? This woman’s appetite could scare pastry chefs.  I’m surprised the desert server didn’t say, “Sorry ma’am, only one pie to a trough.”

 

Oh, well, I told myself, just one more day and good god almighty, free at last.

 

“If you wouldn’t mind,” Alfred begin, “and if it’s ok, our son has gotten a bad cold and we’d like to stay another few nights.  You know my Clora has a heart condition and type 2 diabetes, plus high blood pressure.  We just can’t take a chance.”

 

Damn, doctor, this sure is puzzling, especially the part about the diabetes.  Yes, why don’t we start her on two packs of Marlboros a day and keep an eye on her.

 

“Goodness, I wish I could say yes, but Local 151 Bearers of Bad News has it’s reunion tomorrow.”  Once again, I forfeited the right to sanity and didn’t say it.

 

I nodded a simple yes and even managed a smile.  Not my best smile, certainly, but weak and mournful fit the occasion. 

 

“Oh, wonderful,” Alfred said.  “Tonight we’d like to take you out to dinner at the Lickin’ Chicken.”

 

“Do they have a full service bar?”

 

“My Clora and I don’t drink.”  He gave me a pious glance.  “Our savior doesn’t approve.”

 

Lots of different thoughts on that.  Jesus didn’t turn the water into grape juice.  Would have been a different outcome, possibly involving violence. Once again I held my tongue, except to offer a suggestion.

 

“You ought to try it.  Really helps with pain and stress and boredom.”

Peckerhead, a Short Story

 

 Gordon Peckerhead Wass a ruffian of the first order.  He preferred be called Slide or Mr. Slide and he's already killed three men for calling him by his last name.  His father before him had killed two and his mother one.  Calling the family fierce was like calling a Tasmanian devil irritable.

With both his parents gone to the great beyond, Mr. Slide ran the Manahoy gang in the town of Liquid Springs, not to be confused with the nearby town of Dry Gulch.

 

Dry Gulch was called by it’s native American moniker, Rushing Waters, until Slide and his gang took over the area’s water supply and community swimming pool.  Before the swimming pool had been free, but now anyone who wanted to swim paid Slide and his boys a nickel to get in and another nickel to get out, plus interest of a penny an hour.

 

Jack Spanker, Mr. Slide’s number two, also called Number Two by the townspeople, had a rough time with math and was easily confused. Youngsters often swam for an hour and exited for a penny instead of 6 cents.

 

The other members of the gang sharpened their skills by going into the desert to shoot slingshots at cougars and make a run for it.  Two members hadn’t run quite fast enough.  Cougars never tired of the game.

 

Sheriff Duewa Diddy, had only killed one man for calling him by his last name.  But, it had been a fair fight. The sheriff took the guy’s gun and gave him a running start.

 

Right now, Sheriff Diddy had a giant problem.  The town folk in Liquid Springs were starting to complain about the rising cost of hay, now that Gordon Peckerhead had cornered the hay market and burned the fields of those who complained.

 

The problem could be easily solved by buying hay from Dry Gulch, except the Dry Gulch fields had all withered and died.

 

Sammy Hoof had come up with another solution, breeding cows that ate only a quarter of the hay a normal cow ate. Sadly, they were skinny, very skinny, and only stood two feet tall.  Milk was still labeled a gallon, but only contained a cup, and a twelve-ounce steak could fit in palm of your hand.  

 

Sheriff Diddy had a solution.  The city council recertified measurements.  A cup was now officially a gallon, and six ounces of steak became twelve ounces.  A large bail of hay would now fit in a lunch pail, while ranchers were prohibited from breeding anything but short, skinny cows.

 

Even with the new measurements, it was more than the suffering citizens of Dry Gulch had.  They started moving to Liquid Springs.  Land prices in Liquid Springs shot up like English arrows at the Battle of Crécy.   Nobody was terribly happy.  Mental illness was a pandemic.

 

The city council altered the times of the day. Daylight was declared to be from two in the morning to midnight and official night shrunk to two hours.  They called it moonlight saving time. Liquor stores within a hundred mile radius gave their employees cash bonuses and threw street parties in major cities.

 

Merchants opened their doors at four in the morning, but couldn’t hire enough employees. Worst yet, customers didn’t show up. Revenue dropped into the bottom of a deep well.

 

The city council of Liquid Springs voted to raise taxes to pay for newly arrived citizens of Dry Gulch to have affordable housing.  One council member lost the will to live after being marinated in a pond.  Another quickly changed his vote, in the middle of the street with a gun to his head.

 

It was time for the citizens of the two towns to combine forces and take action.

The action came the by name of The Silver Kid, whose father had been a gunfighter, The Lead Kid.  His grandfather was The Happy Kid, the founder of Liquid Springs, which at the time was called Damp Springs.

 

The day The Silver Kid kicked the door of the saloon and strode in was the day the citizens of both towns realized they’d made the right choice.

 

The first thing The Kid noticed was cowboys going in the ladies room. He pulled out his polished steel Bowie knife and told the cowboys, all two of them, one of whom was the Sheriff, to stop bothering the ladies, or stand by to become steers, with all the rights and privileges to squat instead of squirt.

 

He didn’t have to use his knife to make some conversions, and to get the sheriff to take off his badge, toss it to The Kid and make a hasty retreat, the saloon doors swinging.

 

Next, The Kid turned and called out Peckerhead, who was sitting at a poker table with a large stack of chips in front of him.

 

“Men have died, calling me by my last name!”  Peckerhead got up and reached for his long barreled forty four.  Chips scattered.

 

“And men have died interrupting me,” The Kid said, pulling out both silver pistols and dotting the i on Peckerhead’s liver, crossing the t of his throat and turning the h for head into an H.

 

The silver pistols sparkled as they spun and were holstered in a flash.

 

Mr. Slide slid.  

 

Within the hour, gang members fled the city, and those who stayed repented of their sins at the Sin No More Church of Holy Smoke. The collection plates soon had to be carried by weightlifters and the pastor bought his wife new shoes. 

 

The two towns shared a cemetery, Chelsea Boot Meadows, featuring a state of the art Jenn-Air crematorium and bakery.  Trouble was, nobody could afford to be buried there.  And nobody wanted to buy the bread. The Silver Kid paid for one body to be camped for eternity.  Citizens put weights on the drowned council member and left him to sink in the pond.

 

Moonlight Savings Time, however stayed on the books.  Nobody knew why and nobody wanted it.

 

The towns merged and became Liquid Gulch.

Many years later, a statue of Peckerhead stood in the town square and his time became known as a time of great prosperity.  Beside him stood a statue of a very small cow and a tiny set of scales.  Under the statue the plaque read, Mr. Gordon. Slice, Prosperity For the People. A true gentleman of the old west.

 

In that same future decade, The Silver Kid was vilified by the town council as a killer and his statue was taken down in the dead of what was left of the night.

 

A nearby town of Dusty Fields lost their water rights and soon citizens of the town began to emigrate…

PINTREST DID NOT PERMIT ME TO ADVERTISE THIS STORY AS WRITTEN.  NO SPECIFICS GIVEN, BUT I TOOK A GUESS AND HAVE CHANGED THAT PART OF THE BARROOM SCENE. 

Early Pickins

Early Pickins freely admitted his life so far had casually roamed from disaster to rut and back into the scorching flames of disaster.  His first four marriages turned out badly.

 

Corina, his first wife ran away with a hockey player. Cost Early a lot of money to pay the guy off. Corina was not an easy sell.  Cost even more for the divorce.

 

Before leaving, Corina favored Early with a son, an intense boy who grew into an intense man, graduated from law school and these days made his money working for the Santini crime family.

 

Morine came next. Said she was a native of France. She spoke heavenly accented English until the divorce trial when she confessed she was from Minnesota. 

 

Time stomped on.  Money accumulated.  Money was not Early’s problem.

 

And while he brought in the cash, he and his son grew apart, although Early picked up the bills for college and law school.  Still, they were not close, well, until Early needed something, and more often than not it was a big something.  The son, who people naturally called Lean, because he was tall and slim, unlike Early, was in his law firm for the long haul.  The Santini family was old school. No getting out and if he decided to leave, there was no place to hide.  It did have its benefits.  Their problems, and in turn his son’s problems simply disappeared.

 

Early made a third matrimonial mistake, Fay.  She took the house and all his money.  Early even sued his lawyer to try to get something, anything back, but the opposing lawyer, Lincoln McFee, came out on top, including Early paying court costs. 

 

It had been a while since Early and his son had spoken, so when the phone rang, and Lean saw the number, he was hesitant.  He had folders on this desk and unsympathetic bosses to please and everything due yesterday. 

 

“Hi Dad,” he said as pleasantly as possible.

 

“I need a favor.”

 

“Well, no crap”, Lean thought. “I know it’s not Christmas or my birthday.”

 

But what he said was, “Good to hear from you!” sounding as cheerful as a squirrel who’d made it across the road.

 

Later, Lawyer McFee lost a leg when his car was t-boned by a dump truck.  Needed a lot of dental work as well, and his damaged mind receded into childhood.  He no longer drank Manhattans, but developed a sudden fondness for chocolate milk and cookies.

 

It was right after the third marriage that Early determined to change his ways.  No longer was bra size going to be the deciding factor.

 

The fourth and worst was Caroline Wentworth. She poisoned Early, but he survived after a good old fashioned stomach pumping.  A few days later, Caroline had an unfortunate accident, when her car stalled on a train track at the exact moment the 1:15 a.m. to Pittsburgh came through.  In Early’s life, cars and ex-wives didn’t do well.

 

Still, no one could say Early Pickins didn’t keep his cheery disposition and take his misfortunes in stride.

 

Even Las Vegas couldn’t change his luck.  Ransom, his unfortunately named accountant, had a perfect system for craps.  First night, Early won three hundred bucks, which struck a match to the fuse of his enthusiasm.  The next night he won $1500.  He was primed to make a killing.  

 

The third night their hotel room was broken into and the money disappeared.  Turned out Corina had ditched the hockey player and moved to Las Vegas. Her new boyfriend, Ramone, was also close –wink-wink-  with one of the hotel maids in the same hotel Early and his accountant were staying. The maid’s name was Rosaline ‘Rosie’ Buchannan.  Rosie unexpectedly, especially for her, fell off the roof.  Then Ramone joined her in what appeared to be a lovers’ double suicide.  His last words were “I’m SORRY! I spended all tha fuckin’ money.”

 

In no time, Early started searching for the perfect woman in more high-class places. Lobbys of the best hotels in Chicago, New York, and Miami, trips to the country’s best museums and most fabulous libraries.  One night he struck gold, seated next to a lovely woman at the theater, on opening night of Love Always, in London’s west end.

 

Avril Harrison was a strict, very correct woman from Connecticut who let Early know she didn’t shop at Wal-Mart under any conditions, and made Early leave a restaurant when a patron at the adjoining table uttered ‘shit!” out loud with a touch of anger.

 

She shuddered when another woman asked if she’d read Fifty Shades of Gray.  “Such trash,” she said, “Such perversity.”

 

She insisted on five star hotels.  Early was intrigued.  This time he had surely found elegance and culture in a forthright woman, with an independent mind.

 

Back in Philadelphia on date number six, they sat at a lovely table in the hotel’s exquisite dining room.  The gleaming crystal of chandeliers spraying the high ceilings with sparkles of light.  The diners were attired in suitable dark suits and ties for the men, and delightfully designed gowns for the ladies. Naturally, ironed and flawless white linen graced the tables.  Full sets of silverware glimmered, along with flawless crystal glassware.

 

They ordered drinks, a fifteen year old Scotch over ice for Early and a bottle of Veuve Clicquot for Avril. 

 

The waiter who delivered the bottle of champagne wore spotlessly white gloves and presented it in a forward thrust as he announced its age.  When Avril nodded her approval, the waiter made an event of popping the cork, as if he were the doctor at a royal birthing.  He set a lightly frosted flute before her and poured a properly bubbly portion.  He was about to place it neatly in an iced silver bucket, when Avril lightly touched the cuff of his black jacket.

 

“Are you sure you won’t have a flute of champagne?” She asked, giving Early a dreamy-eyed look.   It sounded like such a polite request, that he cancelled the Scotch.

 

They dined over four exquisite courses that apparently represented every European country.  It was a guess on Early’s part.  He only recognized three or four.  They emptied the bottle of Champagne while they explored the salad, and continued with two bottles of perfect French reds for the remainder.  Afterwards, Avril downed two Manhattans in a hotel bar worthy of Cary Grant and Agent Double O Seven.   Early settled for a luscious snifter of Spanish Cardinal Mendoza brandy.

 

So expensive was the meal, that even Early, Mr. Generous, blinked.  But, what the hell.  He’d already made the assumption that dinner was as erotic as it would get with his overly civilized dining partner.  So convinced was he, he’d booked two suites.

 

Instead, when he walked her to her accommodation, she invited him in. Five minutes after the heavy door closed behind them, with the solid sound of a bank vault, she attacked him like a woman trained by Igor the lion tamer.  

 

“You going to put it to me like a real man!” She said it with a guttural rasp, as she ripped off his $200 shirt, scattering buttons across the room, then raking her nails across his chest in what felt to Early like a prelude to open heart surgery.

 

“Get off me,” were not the words that leapt into Early’s befuddled mind.   This was survival of the fittest, and right that moment he had his doubts about his chances.

 

“Do I need to take a wrench to that piece of machinery,” she screeched, grabbing a fist-full of Early’s particulars with the grip of an ape stealing a coconut.

 

“Ever seen tits like this?” she said, with a panther’s purring voice, ripping off her own blouse.

 

If he ever had seen tits like that, he wasn’t about to take a risk and say so!

 

A bold move to the door crossed his mind, like a chicken pondering the chicken or the egg and finding out it was the chicken.  Just then, she grabbed his arm, dragged him toward the bed, and shoved him with a force that left him sprawled and covering his crotch with both hands in case she had a knife.  Better to lose a finger, or maybe two.

 

She wasted no time, as if she had wasted any previously,  and rode him like Calamity Jane’s psycho sister.

 

The next morning, she asked if he would like to attend church services. And what church?, he wondered.  The church of fuck me ‘til I die?

 

She delicately placed his hundred dollar bill in the silver collection plate, squeezed only his hand, thank god, and whispered she couldn’t wait to get back to their hotel room.

 

Early could wait.  He thought of locking himself in the mens room, or taking communion until they ran out of wine. 

 

Time to call his son.  He needed another favor.  If he lived that long.  His son sighed and said he’d take care of it, but in fact, he was long past dealing with his father and his father’s self-made problems.  This would be the last time.

 

That night was better or worse than the first, depending on who was on the bottom. The woman never slept!  Early cringed when she brought out a short, stout switch. “Good dog,” she said.  Good dog? He was ready to be a simpering, little toe licking fucker if this night would just end.

 

Morning saw Early leave the room at 6 a.m., bloodshot eyes, which matched his tie.  Suit pants felt like sandpaper, making him cringe at every step.  Avril left right behind him, telling him she was going to skip breakfast and catch a cab.

 

As she walked out the lobby’s revolving door, Early made a phone call.  “Everything all set?”

 

“Yes,” said the voice he didn’t recognize.

 

Then he waited.  Nothing happened.  Avril walked across the street, got in a cab and left.

 

Something must have gone wrong.

 

He followed out the doors and hailed a handy cab.  Evidently, the cab didn’t see him.  It hadn’t moved.  He stepped off the curb and waved.  The cab came forward like a horse out of the starting gate and met Early face to face. There was in a blast of blood, and  the cab sped away.

 

The doorman told the cops it was a regular city cab, but he hadn’t noted the license plate.

 

Lean also made a phone call.  The voice on the other end only said, “You won’t get anymore phone calls.” Good thing.  His bosses were tired of picking up the check.