Short Story 11 1/2

Short Story Part 11 1/2
Note: You’ll soon see that part twelve has been pushed back to make way for the eleventh and a half and just so’s you know; the entire piece is just about finished and thanks for your patience, I’m not sure that this (the story) will ever make it anywhere near physical print, so we’re kind of like a small and intimate band of secret sharers…ain’t we. Or am I the only one that’s engrossed in this tale?
And by the way, I am aware that the short story has not only grown longer, but to be a viable contender for the consideration of being a piece of stand-up literature it needs to be fleshed out even more with the descriptions of silly stuff like “the evening breezes caressing the tree-ses and the moonlight on her Sonata adhering to her martini glass menagerie as the luscious autumn leaves of red and gold drifted by my window on a summerset maughn” type of flushables that, to my mind only gets away from a good story with useless crap that I don’t want to know about and contributes nothing but more pages to read before getting back to the meat of the matter. This type of filler is essential to most readers and all editors, critics and Clint Eastwood or Robert Redford who might want to make it into a film. It might seem like the first drafts of the story are more like journalism because, frankly, they are. Cheers.
“Ah, his eyes how they twinkled, his dimples so merry, his cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry…” Ah, shut up and give me the toys already!
Needless to say I’ll have to add that stuff prior to completion; however, not at this point. You’re lucky; you’re getting it straight from the horse’s typewriter (before we put the lipstick on the pig).
So; to make a short story longer, I just wanted to share some insight into Pearl’s thinking process and the mechanics of her Machiavellian mentality. On the night before the heist, as we were gathered around the dinner table having a last supper which spotlighted (yet again) Hinch’s phenomenal culinary skills, (menu to follow) Pearl chose that time to give us a pep talk. Incidentally, Hinch is working on a cookbook from this experience, start to finish, including the recipes he has stolen from The Three Greasy Bastards and it’s called “Crooked Caper Cooking OR Giving the Bird the Finger”.
Anyway, be that as it may, as we’re all sitting around the table for possibly the last time, Pearl, (whose hand was lightly draped around Sylvinia’s small but perfect bottom) as was her wont, came directly to the point:
“Okay, listen up.” She said as she poured herself three fingers of Red Eye into a dirty glass (definitely a ‘Pearl touch’) “I’ve been watching you guys over the last couple of weeks and how you’re adapting to this, uh, enterprise. I’ve noticed that while you are all into this thing you’re not all into this thing if you get my drift; so, I’m gonna tell you a little story.
“After Petey went into the Marines and left home I set fire to it and ran off with some meth-making hard riding bikers. Oh, and since you’re thinking the worst; no, nobody was home and no-one got hurt. I was just, let us say, burning my bridges behind me. I had been working the corner down by Bonart playground for a couple of years selling what I had previously given away and had gotten chummy with a group called The White Werewolves. We hung out, partied and dealt crank and concern to the local citizenry. They stayed by an abandoned laundry and dry cleaning plant and nobody but nobody fucked with them. When summer started to get repressively oppressive and they decided to cruise to the hills of East Texas, I grabbed a rider’s crotch and was invited to join them; and I did. Well, we were some sight. What started as a dozen and a half riders from New Orleans got bigger and bigger until we were sixty or eighty strong coming across the plains, burning rubber by day and Acapulco gold by night; and oh, oh, oh, ohhhhh, we had a TIME!!!. I could tell you stories, but that’s not what this is about.
“We blew through Texas and into New Mexico to a small town named Ruidoso where we camped in the hills around Eagle Creek and there I met the mean-est, badass-est, most low down tough-as-nails, evil mother of all mothers; his name was ‘Ol’ Greasy’, and he had a camp up the mountain. He shared a cabin with his old lady, ‘Big Mamma’, who had ridden with The Evil Inlaws until she met him; and they held court, settled disputes and performed biker marriages and baptisms; and sometimes funerals, there in the hills. Big Mamma was also a midwife and all around lady healer; Ol’ Greasy was a bone setter, tooth puller and Cracker Jack tattoo artist. Every time a new chick came into the fold and made the trip west she was set up to meet Mamma and get wised up; sometimes that meant an obligatory roll in the blankets with Ol’ Greasy. When a new dude came west he was usually gone over by Ol’ Greasy and a couple of ‘Chiefs’ which meant some kind of ritual ass whuppin’. In the hills, it is what it is.
Anyway, seein’s how I was young and smart as well as cute, Mamma and Greasy decided to take me in as a live-in house girl and wound up teaching me a thing or two about being bad as well as evil. I’ll never forget the time they sat me down and explained the concept of being bad. And this is what they told me:
“The difference between good and bad is that bad kicks a lot more ass” was how Ol’ Greasy started before Mamma interrupted. Mamma had been to school and had even taught some; in fact, she was some kind of a philosophizer and I appreciated that.
“Listen Honey” she told me after sending Greasy out to fetch some PBRs and reefer, “there are forces of good and evil and they are constantly at odds with each other. The bullshit occurs when you’re told at an impressionable age that good will triumph over evil; the fact is that it never has, never is and never will. Evil has been kicking the shit out of good since the beginning of time. Now, there’s something that you need to learn whether you chose one side or the other; and that is that there is a third force at work on this plane and it is called ennui. You see as different as good and evil are, they have one thing in common and that is that they are forces of energy that are constantly on the move, strong, active, and sometimes things get rough, down and dirty but the main thing is that things happen around them! The force of ennui, on the other hand, is inactive and puny and sits on the sidelines and waits and prays and trusts that things will turn out in their favor; this includes folks that we know who are wishers, dreamers, hopers and those who have faith. They’re losers, and get this straight; the meek shall never inherit the Earth.
“The people who get things done, the people who make things happen, the people who shake things up; these are the people who will, after the dust settles, inherit the whole shebang. The main difference between good and evil is that evil pays better and is ultimately more satisfying. Evil takes what it wants because it wants it and good wants to make things fair and right. Right? What’s right is that you are able to eat, sleep and enjoy your life doing whatever makes you happy and fuck everyone else. You got me?”
“She then instructed me to go to the sweat lodge and mull it over and to decide what I wanted to be in this life as if I already did not know and just as Ol’ Grease was coming back in”.
“You chicks been have a good jaw?” He asked
“Yeah, Grease, I been schoolin’ her”.
“Whadja learn, Littlebit?”
“Just like you said, Grease, bad kicks ass.”
“That’s my girl…,have a beer.”
“Amen” concluded Pearl with her bit of wisdom, or so we thought.
Pearl pushed back her chair from the table and wound up for the moral to the tale. “Kids,” she said, “what we’re about to do is wrong on every level; selfish, illegal, immoral and downright unchristian. We’re going to bullshit the bullshitters, snow the snowmen and pull wool over the eyes of the shepherds. BUT! It’s gonna be fun; it’s gonna be dangerous and it’s gonna PAY! We may not get away with it but it’s a damn sight better than sitting on our asses waiting to get the winning lottery number without it being fixed for OUR benefit!
“Now, let’s have some great food, some fine booze, get to bed early, maybe share some body fluids and wake up tomorrow ready to KICK ASS!!” So we did, or at least tried to.