Dirk Destroyer Part 25 Chapter 11 Annex Part 2

If you’re just joining, this is a serialization of the satire novella Dirk Destroyer’s Less Destructive Brother. Dirk Destroyer is the third book in the Genre Series, the first two being Trouble in Taos,

and Volition Man.

And you’re also joining in the middle of a chapter. Elmer, (Dirk’s less destructive brother,) while trapped in a cave guarded by sheep has blown it with the delightful though confusing Ono. In searching for a solution to his dilemma in the school of amazing stuff, he has encountered a spigot spewing small sausages.

A considerable number of presumably non-excrement flavored little smoky sausages had by this time poured from the spigot, without a single one landing in the bucket directly below.

Could this be the answer to my problem? I imagined myself approaching Ono.

“Hi Ono, I still haven’t figured out how we can get out of this mess, but would you like a sausage? It doesn’t appear to be at all excrement flavored.”

I was reasonably confident that this was not the answer to my problem. It was however, something edible and edible would be appreciated by the non-dirt-sucking members of my traveling party. I opened my fanny pack and saw that it was almost completely full of cigars. Ordinarily, that would be a good thing, but in the present situation, I required a conveyance other than my hands. I pulled out a handful of cigars and put them on a nearby shelf, then stuffed my fanny pack with as many sausages as would fit.

I reversed the knob, and the sausages ceased to flow from the spigot, the last one finally falling in the bucket.

Realizing that the bucket would make a more convenient conveyance, I tried filling it with sausages, but in spite of my efforts and the spaciousness of the bucket, only the one remained inside. I decided I would use the bucket as a scoop, but I couldn’t budge it.

“Are these the actions of a desperately insecure man?” I asked myself. “No, they are not.” I forgot about the bucket, and the cigars left on the shelf, closed my eyes and blundered forward.

After marking a number of counters, tables, and lunch trays with my blood and other seeping bio-fluids, I blundered out of the cafeteria and ran blindly into unknown zones of fewer obstacles. My progress was stopped by a shin-high obstacle that was less painful than the many others I had encountered. My momentum projected me downwards onto an unexpectedly soft surface.

I opened my eyes. I was face-down on a cot. There was a second cot across the room, and a scalpel along with a plentiful supply of cotton balls on a wheeled table. I was either in the school’s nurse’s office, or its taxidermy lab.

There were several dials, knobs and levers about, but none of them seemed to be labeled. One dial caught my eye. It was more elevated than the others and it was encased in glass and metal.

“That will be impossible to open,” I said to myself. I braced my feet against the wall, grabbed the case, and pulled for all I was worth.

“I guess not,” I said as the case opened easily and my momentum crashed me headfirst onto the floor.

Like all the other dials in the room, the encased one was unlabeled, but the case, said to me – in a voice that sounded like my old next door neighbor growing up, ‘don’t turn this dial. This sucker is really dangerous. Just stay away.’

Or maybe I hallucinated that.

Above the dial was a cartoon drawn with the skill and precision usually found among middle-schoolers suffering from illness and bored out of their minds. The cartoon depicted a person, or a person-shaped cloud. Inside the chest of the person, or the stuff of the cloud, was a heart shape, broken in two.

Was that me? Was I a heartbroken cloud? Who could tell, but I was desperately insecure, so I turned the dial.

I was back in the entryway. This was unexpected. What just happened? What did the dial do? What were the implications of me turning it? How many questions in a row could I ask of an empty entryway?

Four, apparently.

I now perceived the second great flaw of my earlier close-my-eyes-and-run-into-everything-search-technique.

I had no idea where I had been. But couldn’t I just follow the trail of blood I’d left behind as I stumbled through the school? I inspected my body

I was unmarked. My clothes were not torn either.

I could see the cafeteria from where I was, so I entered and looked for my trail of blood on counters and tables.

No blood, mucus, or personal slime. I went into the kitchen. There was no pile of smoky, non-excrement flavored sausages on the floor, though there was still one in the bucket. My cigars, however, were on the shelf.

Had the custodian cleaned the kitchen already? If so, he was one efficient custodian. What did I expect in the school of amazing stuff? I reached into the bucket for the remaining sausage. It was a more painful experience than I anticipated from a nearly empty bucket. In spite of my hand visibly grasping the sausage, the sausage didn’t move as I pulled it out.

In my hand was a fish stick. Maybe it was chicken; I didn’t check. I threw it at a corner of the kitchen, but it disappeared in mid-air.

This was just too complicated for me to figure out, so I tried to think of the explanation that suited my purposes the best.

Then I gave up – no explanation that suited me best came to mind.

I stumbled with my eyes open, but still bouncing off counters, tables, walls and doorways until I found myself back in the nurse’s office. I looked at the dial and the broken heart cartoon. What does the guy with the broken heart want the most?

A second chance. If this was the dial of second chances, it could take me back in time. I could say something else to Ono – something more optimistic with maybe the cadence of a calypso beat.

Well, maybe not the calypso beat, but I could definitely handle the situation better if I had a second chance.

I decided to test my theory. I turned the dial about half as far as I had the first time.

My eyes were closed and I was falling. Thankfully, it was onto the nurse’s cot.

I stood up and planted my feet shoulder length apart. I raised my hands into the air and shouted out into the ether. “Do you see this all you desperately insecure guys who’ve blown it with the women they desire? Do you see this dial? Here it is: the dial of second chances and it’s not in the custodian closet like we all figured it to be, but right here – where people go for healing. Your second chance is right here in the nurse’s office!!”

I shouted the last couple lines so loud that I could see the exclamation points hanging in the air.

Then I just felt kind of stupid. Who did I think I was talking to?

I turned the dial in what I hoped was the right amount, and as luck would have it, I found myself at the beginning of the increasingly interminable chapter 11.

I feel like I should make an exclamation like, “what an unexpected turn of events!” As I wrote this story, that seems a bit ingenuous. Instead I’ll say – please buy Trouble in Taos and Volition Man, and visit this page next week to see what becomes of Elmer’s redux.

And now, for no particular reason, this is a sampling of the finest comedy available a hundred years ago.

 Dirk Destroyer Part 11 Chapter 5 Part 2

This is the middle of a chapter that is about a quarter of the way through a novel that became obsolete before it could be published because Donald Trump is not mentioned.

For those of you still reading - my apologies.

“You’ve heard of Jonma.” said Akwar, somewhere between a question and a statement.

“Necromancy,” I said. “You find a Same, and the Same channels the thoughts of a dead person. But the Same retains his or her personality and thoughts; you’re never really sure when a Same is telling the truth. Even if you’ve dug up old Uriculous from his hellish vapors, that’s a pretty unreliable way of running your ministry. That’s why people don’t use Jonma much anymore.”

“That would be true,” said Akwar, who was suddenly no longer behind me, but standing in front of a door at the end of the hall, “if we used a Same.” She opened the door into a laboratory. Wires, tubes, and busy photons festooned the lab-like furnishings. Facing the door was a round-faced little man with a blank expression. Three clear tubes sprang out of his largely bald head. Each tube had a different color liquid running through it, blue and red liquids flowed in, brown sludgy liquid flowed out.

Suddenly, the face animated. The unfamiliar features took on a familiar expression. I shook my head in unbelief. “You found a Claim?” I asked.

“That’s right,” said Akwar. “Meet our Jonma Claim, but you may call him Director of MOIST, High Priest of the Thirty-Seven Really Good Ideas, Uriculous the Great!”

“Hello Elmer,” said Jonma Claim with just a hint of a lisp. “I’m happy you’ll be here for the end.”

“The end of what?” I asked, stupidly.

“The end,” said the Jonma, but before he could complete his sentence his face spasmed. A second expression, you might see on a frequently angry person of low intellect momentarily took over the visage.

“Too shmuch money in shpoliticsch!” he sputtered, throwing a gob of spittle onto Lustavious’ bandage. “No sHouse or Shenate member can do sche right shing with sho musch temptaschion!”

“One moment,” said Akwar, adjusting tubes. “Even a Claim sometimes fights back.”

Claims were people of sub-human intelligence. I wasn’t surprised that the Claim said something political; that’s where they were most often found.

Uriculous’ expression reclaimed Jonma Claim, though his eyes looked a little wild, like he’d just been thrown from horse he’d been told was safe and now found himself back in the saddle.

“Don’t think my little… interruptions are going to save you and your Brother, Elmer,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of time to realize my mistake. Now I have a chance to remove the Destroyer curse forever, and in Light Bringer Lustavious Brachenhun, I have just the tool to do it.”

Brachenhun smiled his wide smile. Some people enjoy being called a tool.

“The problem all along,” said Jonma Claim, “was you.”

“Me? I don’t make any trouble.”

“You bring your brother back,” Uriculous’ host sputtered, reliably finding Lustavious’ bandage once again.

“I don’t do a thing!” I protested. “I have no idea how Light Bringers send Dirk into oblivion, or how he comes back. Most of the time I don’t even know he’s back until I run into another Light Bringer.”

“That’s true,” said Jonma Claim. “You are stupid…” Again the Jonma Claim’s face sputtered and spasmed. “Schtupid, I say! I hardly knew Charles Keeting! We shared an elevator once – that’sch it! I didn’t take any money! I didn’t fall into temptation!” This was followed by a screeching caterwaul punctuated by intermittent hisses. It sounded like two cats were fighting inside the Jonma Claim. Akwar was busy working tubes. Lustavious was trying to remove spittle from his bandage using glass cleaner and a rag.

Jonma Claims are, by definition, among the stupidest humanoids that walk upright. There was only one reason that Uriculous’ ghost was having trouble controlling his Jonma Claim – it was that he wasn’t too bright either.

This came as no shock to me. I knew Uriculous Wisehind. Dirk used to torment the man mercilessly, and Uriculous’ only response was the use of governmental power. When people are too stupid to think for themselves, they gravitate to large punitive collectives like government to make them feel smart and relevant. Maybe Akwar and Lustavious were those kind of people as well, because I was the only person in that room that seemed to be comfortable with the empirical evidence that Uriculous the Great was actually Uriculous the Dim.

Who else would retranslate a whimsical “don’t bugger the sheep,” into a planet ruining, “don’t bug the sheep?”

“The transplant is incomplete,” said the restored Uriculous as if he knew what I was thinking. “Millennia of death spread my consciousness across the planet. Soon, I will be complete, and in complete control of this body. Then I will go with you and the Light Bringer’s party myself and make certain that this time – not only will Dirk Destroyer be cast into oblivion for all time… but you will be as well!”

Maybe I was as dim as Uriculous, but I hadn’t seen it coming. All this time doing everything I could to stay out of trouble and now I was to be cursed with eternal oblivion?

And what about Dirk? If I was the reason he was able to return from his torment, was it fair to take that away? Dirk wasn’t a bad guy. He was kind of fun. Sure, he didn’t have a lot of respect for Uriculous and others who abused power, but that didn’t seem to be a crime worthy of eternal oblivion.

Oh no, trouble for our protagonist! ‘Oh no,’ said my publisher, ‘it took you this long to create trouble for your protagonist!’ So much of life is perspective. What’s that? You don’t see it that way?

Now that we’ve introduced our first true character-caricature of an active politician, they’ll start coming faster. If you’re having trouble identifying these ne’er-do-wells, you can email me at gfreads@yahoo.com, or you can start a group to read the excerpts together and discuss it among yourselves.

Then your friends can buy Trouble in Taos link and Volition Man link.

What? You thought I didn’t like money?

And now, a political spot from Mr. Bean.

Poopie Political Poopieheads!

It has come to this...

You see, I wrote a political satire novella for my genre series. I wrote it in 2013, and polished it up nicely last year, ready for a launch for the holidays - I even listed it as published in a collection of short stories I wrote.

The nabobs at Go Figure Reads dragged their heels (drugged the heels? drugs that heal? eels on drugs?)

and now, close to a year later, it's still not anywhere near publication.

The thing about political satire is that it's a lot like guacamole; it doesn't get better when it sits around. The politicians have been doing their utmost to satirize themselves over the last year, and a few of my key figures have become less relevant.

I blame congress.

(That's always a safe bet.)

The upshot is that the earning prospect for stale satire is no longer worth the eleven dollars and twenty-three cents that Go Figure Reads spends prepping a story for e-book.

Poop!

I've come to two conclusions.

One: I'm staying out of politics. They not only rot, but their stories rot, and that just... rots!

Two: I'm far too lazy to let all the work I put in this story languish on the Island of misfit novellas, so... I'm going to bore you with it. This should effectively cut my loyal readership down to Uncle Humbolt, who has nothing else to do with his time for the remainder of his sentence in the home for the criminally tedious.

But, in an effort to inconvenience one or two other readers, I will alternate between the serialization of my irrelevant novella, and my ordinary irrelevancies.

What does that mean?

I'm not sure, but I think it means you'll find excerpts from the satire on Fridays and on Tuesdays you'll see stuff about penguins wearing party hats and crap like that.

So, starting on Friday and for several tedious Fridays to come, look for a complete unproofed (but not unpoopie) serialization of... Dirk Destroyer's Less Destructive Brother, Book Three in Cataclismically Unprofitable Genre Series - The Political Satire!

Oh, and sorry in advance.

As a matter of fact, I feel so bad about it, that I'll make the first two books in the series Trouble in Taos Trouble inTaos, and Volition man Volition Man free for e-book download on Amazon September 30th and October 1rst.

What do you mean that makes it worse?

And now for a completely unrelated video.

To Russia with Love

Kac va pazhivaiitya?

That’s the only Russian phrase I know, and I’m betting that if a true Russian speaker heard me saying it – he’d say I really don’t know that phrase either.

What’s it mean?

What? I have to know what I’m saying? I usually don’t what I’m saying when I’m speaking English; why should Russian be any different?

The reason for this display of Eurasian erudition (You like that phrase? I got it from Stanley McFarland.) is that for some reason nobody here can figure out, Just Plain Stupid has become (at least temporarily,) popular in Russia. It’s almost enough to make me move. Do they make a borscht Pop Tart?

So at the risk of losing audience (which I do with just about every post,) I thought I might explore possible reasons this blog is getting attention from the land of Czars, Commissars, and Vodka bars.

1) The winters are long. I know it’s not a reason that makes any sense, but any time I hear anything about Russia, I hear that the winters are long.

Why did the Russians beat Napoleon? The winters are long. Why do the Russians wear fur hats? The winters are long. Why do the Russians like potato products? The winters are long. Why did the Russians elect Boris Yeltzin? The winters are long. I figure Just Plain Stupid must fit in with the whole long winter thing.

2) It takes people’s minds off of… best not to go there. Let’s face it, I don’t know a thing about what people in Russia want to get their minds off of . I don’t even know what I’m trying to get my mind off of. I used to know, but I forget what it was, so that must mean this blog is good for that – or that I have a poor attention span.

What number are we up to? Oh yeah -

3) Kremlin domes. (The domes have a point – so there’s no reason I need one.)

4) The ghost of Feodor Dostoyevsky endorsed the reading of Just Plain Stupid as a way of sharing the suffering of that guy in Crime and Punishment who killed his landlady.

5) I have never ONCE made fun of people dancing while sitting down… until now.

6) The sound of my blog being read aloud makes potatoes grow .0032% faster (though with more eyes for some reason.)

7) I faithfully (and uselessly) leave two spaces at the end of each sentence! Of course Blogger auto-corrects most of them, and I don’t even know if Russians like that – but I thought I’d mention it.

8) Word got out that people in France were reading it.

9) The Orthodox church has not yet condemned this blog. (Or heard of it.)

10) The people of Russia miss the comic stylings of… what’s his face – you know that Russian comedian guy that used to say, “what a country!” all the time. Just Plain Stupid makes as little sense as that guy used to.

So – to the people of Russia, here’s a BIG THANK YOU for wasting your time reading my blog posts.

Now go waste your money buying my books,Trouble in Taos and Volition Man

Here's an old routine of Whats-his-face.

Chapter 6 Trouble in Taos Part 4 The Nuggets Fly

Here’s part four of chapter six of Trouble in Taos. This is a longer post because this is the action part of chapter. I once heard someone refer to the action part of the chapter as the nugget. Well, with Slimy, the action part is where people begin to lose their nuggets. If you want to see more nuggets fly, you can get this story on Amazon.

Slimy was good at diggin’ and good at killin’, but I never heard anyone say that he was good at anything else. So I didn’t hold out much hope that he was good at hiding. I didn’t hear gunshots right away, but I figured I would soon. Slimy could hardly miss with those shotguns, but unless his targets stayed in a tight group, I didn’t figure slimy had a chance of killin’ all four.

There was nothing I could do, and the piece of lumber in my hand was pathetic, but still I didn’t drop it as I followed the bad guys into Saint Frank’s.

Saint Frank’s was the biggest building in town unless you count the Pueblo. Unlike the Pueblo, which was a warren of Indian coves, Saint Frank’s was pretty much one large room. I didn’t see anywhere where Slimy might hide, but I also didn’t see Slimy, just Father Julio and the four men standing in front of Rutherford James’s casket.

“I am sorry, my sons,” said Father Julio, “but the viewing will not be until tonight.”

The casket was closed, though it had been open before. I could think of only one reason Father Julio was trying to keep those four fellers from opening the casket.

Now, Slimy would never have thought to hide in a casket, but Father Julio was a different type. Priests lived uncommon long for unarmed men wanderin’ in a land where bullets flew like horseflies. Might be the Lord protected them, but I was betting a clever thought or two had something to do with it.

“We’re here now, Padre,” said the ugly one, “so the viewing is now.”

Father Julio might be a clever enough fella, but his cunning, wit, or divine inspiration failed him under the pressure. He just stood in front of four armed men twice his size and said in a cracked voice, “I forbid it.”

I can’t blame Father Julio for losing his nerve. After all, he wasn’t much bigger than me, and that’s not big at all. I think he was trying to use the “they believe you when you’re angry” trick I thought I had invented a few minutes before. It didn’t seem to be working for him. Forbid’s not a great word to use with the “they believe you when you’re angry” trick.

When you tell four men, particularly four large men with guns, that you forbid something, unless you have five bigger men with bigger guns backing you up, the only likely effect is that they will want to do the very thing you forbid. They’ll probably want to do that thing even more than before, ’cause nobody wants a scrawny priest telling them what to do.

I know that’s true, ’cause Estevo told me so, and he was a good Catholic. He said it’s even truer of Catholics and nine-year-old boys than other folk, but the Catholics put up with it. 

 Religion, according to Estevo, is all about earning credit for doing things you don’t want do, and not doing things you do want to do. Obeying a scrawny priest you could knock over with one inebriated breath is a good way to get credits, even more if he shouts, “I forbid.” Estevo wasn’t too sure what the credits were for, except maybe heaven, which sounds like a place where nobody does anything they want to do.

Unless they like to play the harp.

I don’t much get religion, but I get what Estevo said about Catholics not wanting to obey scrawny priests. I’m not so sure what the bit about nine-year-old boys was about. It’s been a long time since I was nine, and I never raised any boys of my own.

So Father Julio tried to set his feet, but as I mentioned before, he wasn’t a very big man, and the fellers he was trying to block were pretty good sized. The padre kept his body stiff, but the four men moved him aside like you might a sticky door.

The casket was standing about a foot off the floor on a stand. I’m not sure where that stand came from – I didn’t make it; maybe all the churches have ’em – they’re just high enough so that the edge of the coffin stood at belt height. That is, belt height for me or maybe Father Julio, but considerably shorter than belt-high for these four monsters.

All four men reached down to lift the lid off the casket, and so when they saw Slimy lying there on top of Rutherford James, their hands were full of casket lid instead of something more useful for the situation, like a 45.

I still don’t know what I was doin’, but that’s the moment I decided to charge those bruisers, yellin’ and wavin’ my stick. I might have hit one too. I’d like to think I did, but it probably didn’t make much difference.

They weren’t so gentle with me as they’d been with Father Julio. The biggest one hit me in the chest with his elbow and knocked me back onto my ass.

The goon saved my life.

While the four men were either pushin’ Father Julio, throwing the casket lid, or elbowin’ me out of the way, Slimy was reaching for his shotguns.

I don’t know if Slimy aimed at each individual and unloaded four quick shots, or if he just held his guns apart and fired a single spread. Saint Frank’s has a high hard roof. It’s a precious loud place for gunfire. It sounded like Slimy was firin’ cannons instead of scatterguns.

From my perspective, one moment there were four tall men and one short man standing over a casket, and then the next moment they were all the same height, but only Father Julio still had his head. I sat there on the floor holding my ears, waiting for the boom to stop bouncing off those hard church walls.

When I sat back up, it looked like everyone was dead. The casket was blown back off the stand. Slimy and Rutherford were tangled together behind it. Father Julio was covered in blood from the neck up.

Costner's been in some good movies - but Silvarado is the only one where I liked him.

Chapter 6 Trouble in Taos Part 3 Bragging to Bad Guys

This is Part three. If you’re wondering what it’s part three of, then maybe you should stop here and read parts one and two. Or better yet, go to Amazon, buy my story and then buy copies for everyone you know, and half the people you’ve forgotten. It’s coming holiday time, and won’t you feel better making sure a starving writer gets Pop Tarts in his stocking?

Anyway – here’s part three.

If you were looking to spy on anythin’ in Taos, the steeple of Saint Frank’s was the best place to be. Even today it’s the tallest spot in town, and it sits like a mule in the middle of the main road. It sits so stubborn that the road has to split go around it. Even from where we were workin’ I could see all the way down the road to where it became more trail than street.

It was when I saw them four fellas comin’ into town and heading right into the Rosa Linda that it all came together for me. These men were not casual, mid-day drinkers, and Estevo, who knew damn well who killed Rutherford James, was not the type to heroically keep his mouth shut.

I looked over at Slimy with my good eye, and he of course was diggin’ and talkin’ to my bad eye. “So that musta been Raisin, ’cause she was the bitch that whelped Tunny. So it was Tunny that barked, ’cause Raisin was dead by then, when her leg swelled up so bad…”

“Slimy!”

“That barkin’ was so loud that Momma woked up, and Momma never woked much when she was drinkin”.

“Slimy!”

Slimy looked surprised. I don’t know if he was surprised to be looking at my good eye, which he rarely saw, or he was surprised that I interrupted one of his stories, which I had never done before.

“Slimy, you have to go hide.”

“Hide?”

“There’s four men comin’ to kill ya.”

Slimy didn’t say anything. He balanced his chin on the end of his shovel and took it all in. Slimy was accustomed to violence, but advanced warning was new to him. So was running and hiding.

“Go hide in the church,” I said.

“Where do I hide in thar?”

“Just find someplace.”

Slimy didn’t move at first. He just stood there in his ditch and stared at me. Finally he dropped his shovel.

“Alright,” he said, and he climbed out of his ditch and went into the church.

I don’t know if Estevo was holding out or the men were having a beer, but they didn’t come out of the Rosa Linda for nearly an hour. It had me hopin’ I was wrong about ’em, or about Estevo.

I wasn’t. They came straight over to Saint Frank’s. Estevo knew Slimy and me had a job there.

Now, in all these western novels, and I guess this is one too, but I’m hopin’ it’s a bit more truthful than the others…

Where was I?

Oh yeah.

In all those other western novels, the bad guys are always big bruisers. I’d like to tell you that these fellers were little guys, or even just middlin’, ’cause as you might have picked up, I kinda like to be different.

But these guys were monsters. The smallest was half a head taller than me, and he was a fair bit smaller than the ugly one that did all the talkin’.

Maybe if you’re an Indian agent and you plan on selling guns and booze to Indians, you hire the biggest fellers you can find to stand with you.

Anyway, the particularly big and ugly one says to me, “Hey Cock-eyed, are you Beach?”

“Nah,” I said, “the name’s Bego. Beach digs the holes, I build the latrines.”

“Ain’t that somethin’ to brag on,” said the ugly one. The other fellers laughed. I guess I woulda laughed, too, if it weren’t me that just bragged about building outhouses.

“So where’s Beach, Shitbox Man?”

“I dunno. He ain’t in his ditch.”

“I can see that. Where’d he go?”

“Hell,” I said, because I was mad and wanted to hit someone, but these fellers were much too big to mess with, “I told you I don’t know!”

I learned something about lying that day. I’m sure that Father Gonzalez wouldn’t approve me passing it on, and if there are any children reading this, you need to skip over the next couple of lines.

This is what I learned. People don’t believe you when you’re tryin’ to convince ’em, but they will believe you if you sound mad.

The four men stared at me. I did my best to stay mad, because that was just about the scariest moment in my life to that point.

“Yeah, alright, Cross-eye,” said the ugly one. I wanted to shout that I was cock-eyed and not cross-eyed, but it sounded too much like my brag about building shit boxes instead of digging them, so I just spit and picked up a scrap of lumber.

The ugly one laughed. “Well boys,” he said, “we better be movin’ on before our little shit-house builder takes to us with his stick.”

They all laughed, but they also left, so I felt a little better. Maybe I scared them some – well, it was a nice thought, anyway.

But I didn’t feel so good when I saw them go into the church.

Love this movie - Little Big Man

Chapter 6 Trouble in Taos Part 2 Spotting Trouble

This is part 2 of… Well, read the title. If you want part 1 here’s the link. You don’t really need it because it’s nothing but nonsense about global warming and aero planes. If you want to buy the book – please do. link

It was hot, but not as hot as it is now. Slimy and me was working together for the first time. As a matter of fact we were at church, but we was workin’, not going there for preaching.

There was a different padre at Saint Frank’s then, Father Julio. I’m not partial to religious men, but Father Julio wasn’t too bad. He was the first living client I had in Taos.

You see, Father Julio admired the coffin I made for Rutherford James and asked me if I’d be insulted workin’ on a couple nice outhouses for behind the church. He had this idea that men and women shouldn’t use the same shitter, so he wanted one for each. He thought I should carve Jesus on the men’s door and Mary on the women’s.

I told him that I didn’t much know what they looked like, so maybe I should carve a devil for the men and an angel for the women.

We finally decided to put hombres and mujeres in fancy letters. I guess Father Julio didn’t much care for devils.

Well, Father Julio wanted a whole new set up, so he hired Slimy to dig two new pits, and while Slimy was diggin’, I was banging together the planks for the walls and frame (I already had the doors done).

Now, Slimy was a peculiar character. I guess you knew that, but one way he was peculiar was the way he dressed. He wore all his clothes, all the time.

It was a hot day, and Slimy was digging a couple ditches, but he was wearing all his clothes, including that oversized duster. Ya gotta figure he was hot as hell in that damn thing, but there he was, digging ditches with his big fool coat on.

He was tellin’ me some story. I only say that because Slimy was always tellin’ me a story, but like usual I wasn’t payin’ any attention. I just kept my bad eye pointed his way as I worked, and that was good enough for him.

It was my good eye that spotted trouble.

A real thinking man might figure that one feller, especially a feller like Rutherford James, couldn’t work all by himself gettin’ all those guns and liquor to so many Indians. It just stood to reason a feller like that had people that worked for him. It also stood to reason that those people might not like a dirt-ditch-digger killin’ the Indian agent that was payin’ them so much money.

It just goes to show that no one at the Rosa Linda was a real thinking man, ’cause even Estevo didn’t think of it, or if he did, he didn’t say anything.

Might be trouble ahead for Slimy and Walter.  Maybe a number 6

TNT Chapter 6 Part One - Damn it's hot

November is frequently the busiest month of my year, so those of you paying attention (there is help available,) might have noticed that I tend to serialize that month.  This is no exception.  For the next couple weeks, I'll be giving you Chapter 6 of Trouble in Taos buy it here!  Of course I'll be giving it to you in maddeningly little bits cause... that's the way I am.

Chapter Six

Damn, it’s hot.

I know, I live in New Mexico, so I should expect it to be hot, but Taos is usually cooler than Santa Fe – sometimes downright friendly. They tell me it’s the elevation. Taos is up high, closer to God and further from hell.

So how cold is it in heaven? I may not like the heat, but I’ve got no love for freezing cold either. Some preacher would probably say it ain’t freezing, it’s just right, about as just right as just right can be.

How can something be really just right? Either it is just right, or it ain’t. Something that’s just right can’t be less than something that’s more just right.

I’m tempted to go talk to Father Gonzalez about that, but he’d probably just change the subject and talk about my sins and how I ain’t ever been to church.

But damn, it’s hot!

I don’t remember it ever being this hot before. It’s gotta be something new, somthin’ that wasn’t goin’ on before. Somethin’s causin’ it.

I blame the damn aero planes.

If ya think about it, it makes perfect sense. We ain’t supposed to be up in the air. Only birds and angels and shit are supposed to fly. We send up these god-awful planes, bigger than any bird, and probably bigger than any angel too, and stir up the cool air that’s supposed to stay still.

Lindberg crosses the Atlantic, and everybody throws a big party. Then some girl does the same thing, and now people are flying all over the place, stirrin’ up the air. They’re doing fancy tricks and givin’ people rides, and now the whole damn country’s as hot a fry pan. One feller told me we got nothing but dust from Ohio to Colorado.

Nobody blames the damn aero planes – but I do. I figured it out.

Frenchie tells me they got a picture show in Santa Fe that’s always cool inside, like watching a show in an ice box. He says he’ll take me out to see a show there some time.

I don’t care about seein’ movin’ pictures. I saw one once, and it wasn’t much, but I sure would like to see the pile of ice they use to keep a whole theater cool.

That would be somethin’.

I’d read ya more of that Slimy book, but it’s too damn hot to read, and I ain’t finished tellin’ you about what happened after Slimy shot Rutherford James. You remember that Colmes wrote how Slimy killed six men with five shots? Well, it was five men with five loads, and like I said, it happened in two parts.

Damn, I didn’t need to tell you that; you read how he killed Rutherford James, and there wasn’t more than one dead body. I shouldn’t have to tell you that the other four came later.

Some have remarked that I needent have been so violent and graphic in my little story about a gunfighter(????)  For those people, I recommend The Warrior's Way IMDb  I consider it Kate Bosworth's finest work.  Of course, she's not in this scene.