Author: Bukkhead

Daily writing exercise, 750words.com

fiction by Jason Edwards

He’s sitting in a house he built himself, out of an old grain silo. It’s actually pretty boss; the problem is, he has no snacks. And he needs snacks, fucking snacks, stat.

There are no, for example, Cheetos. No Doritos. No Fritos. Is it crunchy, does it end with -tos? It’s not in his boss house. God damn it.

The first floor is nothing much to look at. A hole busted through the wall, dirt floor, lots of junk and bric-a-brack all piled up, higgledy-piggeldy. Old prams, broken chairs, stacks of lumber from the build, cans of dried paints. Obviously absent: Ho-hos, Ding-Dongs, Twinkies, anything at all made by Hostess, Little Debbie, or their ilk. But there is a staircase against the round wall, and it goes up through ceiling fifteen feet above.

Popcorn: nope. Cheezits: nope. Hardwood floors of polished mahogany: yes. Windows, triple-pain glass: yes. Gorgeous view of a stunning landscape: no. Rather mediocre view of farm building and an old tornado-wrecked house: yes. Can you eat these things? Fucking no.

On this floor there’s a largish area with rugs and couches and a television. Bookcases hide the stairs that came up. Next a few walls go up eight feet, a half-bath, as they call it, there’s a kitchen area. This is the area of doom and gloom, at least today. It has no Funyuns, no cheese cubes, no Lil’ Smokies. There’s a pantry with ingredients, but ingredients aren’t snacks. Cans of things and bags of things and boxes of things. Edible? Strictly only. Enjoyable? You kiss your mother with that mouth?

In the middle of the room, a spiral staircase that goes up to the third floor. Bedroom on one side, study-cum-office on the other, large bathroom in between. This is not an exercise in irony. There’s not going to be suddenly lots of Twizzlers and Gino’s Pizza Rolls stashed in secret nooks and crannies. The bed-side tables flanking the California King. The air-craft carrier-sized desk. The jacuzzi tub, the separate shower with room enough for five peoples. If only there were five people in it now, carrying buckets of chicken wings.

The bedroom area on one side, the office on the other, the bathroom in between along the wall, and opposite that, what could be called either a very steep set of stairs or a lazy ladder. It goes up to the fourth floor. A gym, sort of, a hobby area, sort of. Is he into small appliance repair, as a hobby? Say, vintage Easy-Bake Ovens, with fudge brownie packets to test that the repair was successful? Or perhaps old Sno-Cone Machines? For godsakes, maybe even a box full of old candy wax-lips to make the world’s first edible candle? Fuck me in the ass right now.

The gym area has a treadmill but no Gatorade Chews, a weight bench but no Power Bars, an exercise bike but no Energy Goo. There’s a sound system and a TV screen for distraction. Go ahead, turn on the TV, get distracted from the lack of bowls of salted peanuts with commercials of bowls salted peanuts.

There’s one more floor, and a proper ladder this time, and the ladder goes up to the roof. Oh don’t worry. It’s protected on all sides by a three-foot railing, so you can’t accidentally fall off from lack of energy from lack of snacks. If you ever heard a story about an amateur astronomer who keeps a decent-sized telescope in a large water-proof footlocker on top of a boss house made out of an old grain silo who also kept in the locker bags of Peanut M&Ms, you’re experiencing what we call pure mother fucking fiction. He does have the water-proof foot locker, the decent-sized telescope, and he also has mostly overcast nights and a distant but not-distant-enough small town that barfs up an unexpectedly huge amount of light pollution, and whatever the spiritual hole the universe has created to take the place of bags of Peanut M&Ms.

And that’s pretty much it. He gets up, he goes to work, he comes home, he watches TV, makes dinner, does some work in his study, goes to bed. It’s not a bad life. Except for the fact that it’s pretty much the worst life any human being in the history of human beings has ever led. For there are no snacks. There’s no punch-line to this, there’s no moral, there’s no revelation. If there were, he’d eat those instead. Instead, he just sits on the dirt floor at the bottom of his boss house made out of an old grain silo and pines and pines and pines.

Daily writing exercise, 750words.com

fiction by Jason Edwards

I’ve got the days chores done, so I should be able to get to bed early tonight. Good thing, too, as I’m exhausted. I made the beds, which I thought was going to be easy, but I had to go to three different lumber yards to get the right wood, and the stain at the hardware store was more expensive than I anticipated. And since disasters come in threes: Gloria insisted on 300 count sheets, but my sewing machine could only manage 150, so I had to get a new one. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy with the new one, and I’ll be able to do some things with pants I wasn’t able to do before, I’m just saying, it added to the stress. I suppose I should be thankful I have someone like Gloria in my life, to drive me towards successes like these. She calls herself “your own personal Lady Macbeth, but without all those murders.” She’s a peach.

I made lunch, which isn’t really a chore, except it is when the carrots weren’t the right size and I had to grow new ones. An otherwise good salad can be ruined by wrong-sized carrots, and it’s not just Gloria who says that. Other people do too, I’m sure. Still, it’s not every day that you are required to grow an entire season’s worth of carrots in just a few hours, which I guess is why I can’t call it a chore– chores are daily, aren’t they. The good news is I managed such a great crop that we have appropriately sized carrots for several meals to come, and that’s thanks also to the refrigerator I built. Ever smelt aluminum? I don’t recommend it, as a hobby.

But if you’re going to do something, do it right, I say. I washed the dishes, using good old elbow grease and a sponge this time. No power-washer for me. And I can really tell the difference too. Whereas before, when I used the power-washer, the radio signals we were getting from Cygnus-11 were kind of fuzzy. The computer I was using could see through the fuzz (programmed it myself) but I wondered how many picojoules of electricity I could save if it didn’t have to run those algorithms. picojoules add up when you spend most of your free time strapped to bar running circles to power a generator.

So, got the dishes washed, the signal is crystal clear now, and as we suspected (well, as Gloria suspected, since she’s the smart one, and I’m just grateful that she takes the time to explain things to me– the way she holds the knife helps) the patterns coming from C11 are not random, not if you solve for gravitational waves to the 12th decimal. I admit it, I was stopping at 10, and my excuse, that I had 40 acres to plow by hand was a lame one. Like it takes any mental effort to plow! Two birds, Gloria always says, and she’s right. See the result! At the 12th decimal place the pattern emerges, and so all that’s left is to put together a faster-than-light engine to get there before next Sunday and see who’s talking.

And here’s why I’m going to need to get to bed a bit early tonight. Technically, the laws of physics don’t allow for faster than light travel. Or, as Gloria puts it, the laws of physics don’t allow for faster than light travel yet. It’s really a simple matter of discovering new laws or, basically, new physics. Which is what I’ll be doing all day tomorrow.

Gloria’s a card. I promised I would do exactly that, “work on it all day” and she said “when you find the new laws, you can make it so you only worked on it for a few minutes, can’t you?” I laughed, and she did too. She’s such a good sport. I know she doesn’t like it, much, the idea of a project getting done in only a few minutes. I can see where she’s coming from. Sure, one can “buy” a bed, one can “buy” sheets, one can “read” SETI’s latest findings based out of their own arrays scattered around the world… but easy come, easy go, as they say. If you don’t work for something, does it have any value?

Actually, I’m going to let you in on a little secret– I’ve already worked out the equations, and I can, in fact, manipulate time sufficient to make any project as short as I like. Or as long. Which is why being with Gloria feels like eternity. ‘Cause it is!

Daily writing exercise, 750words.com

fiction by Jason Edwards

The puissant knight on his mighty steed. Charges down the hill. At the ogre. The vile ogre. The evil, vile ogre. The real, live, evil, vile, ogre. The ogre that lives, does evils, is vile’s beast of burden, never listens to Elvis, rips veils from maidens, is named Silev. Silev the evil, vile, live, veil-snatching Elvis-hating ogre. At the bottom of the hill. Down which hill the puissant knight charges. On his mighty steed. His steed is a charger, and the knight is a charger, and the steed is mighty, puissant as well. A different kind of puissance. Whereas the knight’s puissance is in the manner of arms and war and saving maidens from ogres, the steed’s puissance is the manner of charging, mightily, down hills, at ogres, with knights astride. Knight with lances. That gleam. In the sun! This steed, with this knight. This knight, with this lance. This lance, with his shiny point gleaming in the rising summer sun. As down the hill they go. Charging. At the ogre. Who was probably, at the moment, not listening to Elvis. Perhaps one of those boy bands. One Directions. This Ogre, sitting at a small table with a maiden fair, listening to One Directions on his iPod Nano. A very small table. The maiden fair, dressed in a gown of gossamer and moonlight. Somehow. In the rising morning sun. The ogre and the maiden. Sitting. Sipping tea. A morning tea, like English Breakfast. Also on the table, breakfast. A rasher of. A scramble of. A toasted. In a glass, Ovaltine. In another glass, Tang. In another glass, a good breakfast drinking chocolate. Something from Spain. Something Spanish. Imported. For this hill is not in Spain. Nay. This knight is not of that land they call Espania. Nay. Nor this maiden fair. The ogre? Who knows. Who knows where evil, vile, etc ogres come from. From where they hail. Maybe Hell. Maybe he’ll hail hell when he hears the puissant knight astride his mighty steed charging down the hill. For now, all he hears is One Directions. Nor does he see the knight. The mighty knight. And his puissant steed. All he sees is the maiden fair, the blush of her cheek, the rosy blush on her breast ‘neath her gown of gossamer and moonlight. For that is all he can see. For the maiden-fair is not exactly the most diminutive specimen in the world. She is not exactly the wee-est lass upon the land. She’s not the smallest gal in the shoppe. She’s actually quite large. In a word, mighty. In two words, very substantial. In four words, a whole lotta woman, right there. She also hates Elvis, but for different reason from the (evil, recall) ogre. For whereas the (vile, to be sure) ogre hates Elvis for reasons sartorial, the maiden fair, gargantuan and practically nude here at the hill-bottom breakfast table, wolfing down bacon n eggs n toast n tea n ‘tine n tang, hates Elvis for reasons conspiratorial. For whereas the ogre hates Elvis and prefers One Directions for the cut of their jibs, the maiden-fair who grows ever larger by the moment is of the theory that Elvis faked the moon landing. If you were to, say, charge down a hill of outrage upon a mighty steed of logic wielding a rather phallic lance of evidence at this maiden fair, making sure in advance that she was not only willing but eager, for it would never do to save from ogres maidens who, in this day in age, are perfectly able to “save” themselves, whatever the hell that means, thank you very much, without express written consent, and only after a period of reflection, mediation, contemplation, and concentration on that classic Zen Koan: “What Does Evil Love.” And who’s to say that, having pierced the maiden-head of her conspiracy theories that you won’t have impregnated her with, one the one hand, the truth, but on the other hand, a babe that bears half her originally-hating Elvis DNA? Such an innocent “bae” as they say would grow up, verily, conflicted. Given to conflict. To, say, fighting. To, say, battles. To which it would become, let us say, accustomed. And acclimated. And skilled at. Knowledgable of. Prepared for. Armed to enage. With, say, a lance. And a horse. And what is a lance, and a horse, without a hill, and an ogre. And what is an ogre, without evil. And what is evil, without Elvis and One Directions, a kind of breakfast. Of Champions!

Daily writing exercise, 750words.com

fiction by Jason Edwards

Meth for Moms is a new initiative in Seattle for single mothers dealing with overwhelming fatigue. By providing these ladies with a clean, consistent, and cheap source of methamphetamines, the city is providing for their increased productivity, as well as supplementing the meager income of area dentists.

MfM is the mastermind of Dr. Alfonse Snaps, who was the driving force behind the very successful Young Pimps program, a jobs-training course that quickly paid for itself after only three months in operation. After handing the reins over to a dedicated group of Hell’s Angels’ administrative volunteers, Dr. Snaps rounded up funding for this new initiative and was given the green light by City Hall last week.

New mothers, either abandoned by their children’s father, recently widowed, or not aware of who the father may be, can apply for a Meth grant through the city, and once a clear need is established, can receive coupons and buy-one-get-one vouchers redeemable at any one of over a dozen meth labs within the greater Seattle metropolitan area. Dr. Snaps has also solicited the assistance of pharmaceutical delivery teams from Juarez, Mexico, to facilitate the delivery, distribution, and receipt collections for the initiative.

“We’re overwhelmed at the moment,” Dr. Snaps has said “not just by the demand for quality meth, but frankly, also by the outpouring of support. After we got started with the Juarez PDs, no less than five other groups came forward with offers to participate–some even providing their own arms and militia attachments.”

Although it is still in infancy, MfM has seen very positive feedback from neighborhood and community leaders. Gerald Atrix, a small restaurant owner in Fremont, has opened up his dining floor as a clinic on Wednesdays, where new moms can consult with meth advisors for up to 90 minutes, with purchase of an entree and beverage.

The impact on other businesses has been positive as well. A new provision in the state income tax codes allows dentists to write-off any patient who’s dental work qualifies as a methamphetamine or other stimulant related health deficiency. (Unfortunately, the state has closed the loopholes that allowed for decay from sugary drinks to qualify under the so-called “caffeine schedule,” so MfM, for these dentists, couldn’t have come at a better time.)

Dr. Snaps claims that Meth for Moms, with dedicated volunteers, can more or less run itself. And then he’s on to other things: plans are being drawn up for a Boy Scout merit badge focusing on Heroin Dealing, as well as his pet project, a foundation that pairs rabid polecats and elderly nursing home patients.

“That one can’t seem to get off the ground, however,” Dr. Snaps admits. “You’d think there’d be more polecats with rabies, but so far we’ve had to settle for colicky baby ocelots and the occasional very angry raccoon.”

Still, Dr. Snaps will most likely persevere. Coming from a long line of altruistic philanthropists, Alfonse is following in the footsteps of several generations of Snaps. His father started a service in 1930s Germany that allowed young service men to collect books of daguerreotypes, photos of young Jewish girls, to select possible future brides. “It’s been likened to a kind of Fascist Facebook,” the modern Snaps explains, “But a sort of Nazi Tinder would be a more appropriate analogy.”

Before that, his great grandfather was a pioneering voice in the anti-pasteurization movement. “Today you’ve got anti-vaxxers, popular among some of the richest people in Silicon Valley. And back in the late 19th century, the right to diphtheria, tuberculosis, even scarlet fever was one enjoyed by the cream of society’s elite. Lord Aferty Snaps ensured that so long as you had a decent inheritance and little real education, you were safe to deny basic science and have access to brucellosis.”

There’s even a story told at family gatherings that Anciene Sol’nap, a Sumerian at the time of Hammurabi, was chief constable in the king’s horse manure kitchens.  “It’s an old story, and most likely apocryphal,” Dr. Snaps explains, “We do know that royalty and aristocracy alike worshiped equine dung, and used it as a medium of exchange in harems, seraglios, houses of ill repute, and churches. What’s not known, of course, is if the horse manure kitchens were indeed run by a constable, or were part of the religious wing of the military branches.”

A subtle distinction, but the Snaps family crest reads, simply, “Selibasiius, Sidharm, Sancipazi,” which, according to the family bible, comes for a long dead language, and means, roughly, “Service But Never Servitude.”

Sumerian soldiers were, of course, slaves.

Daily writing exercise, 750words.com

fiction by Jason Edwards

Turn the corner off of Zunder Strasse onto Pfennig and you may be blinded by the white walls of the Z’at Ki Dak, an edifice that has been in place and maintained for centuries. The legend goes that Kind Gellen, king of the Ground People, suspicious that the Arachnid Armies would invade that summer, consulted with his wizard, Eld the Root. The wizard prophesied a long drought, by which the king deduced many hot, sunny days. Knowing that the Orcs were underground dwellers with large eyes, and that they’d be riding spider-mounts, beasts with hundreds of eyes, the king had the wall built and painted white to reflect bright sunlight at any advancing armies.

The story explains how a spy had infiltrated Kind Gellen’s retinue, and reported back to General Anathemus, leader of the Arachnid. Anethemus decided to stage a night raid– and on the very night the Orcs descended on Castle Hilo, a torrential rain flooded the plains, effectively killing the entire army. Not a single Ground People soldier was lost in the fight.

Kind Gellen was pleased, but also incensed that Eld’s prediction of drought had been so wrong. Eld pointed out that while his prediction had been incorrect, it was not his decision to paint the walls white. The king decided to banish Eld, rather than have him executed for treason. When word of this edict got out, the Ground People became nervous, since the last time a King had banished his court wizard, the resulting war had led, essentially, to the spawning of the very Orcs that had menaced them ever since. However, Eld took the banishment without any argument, and left.

Soon after, Kind Gellen had a new court wizard, who was, to many people, almost indistinguishable from Eld the Root. He called himself Ban the Branch, and like Eld, derived his power through Earth magic. Everyone assumed that this was Eld himself, with nothing more than a name change, allowing the king to save face while at the same time keeping an otherwise expert councilman.

That is, until several years later, as Kind Gellen lay on his death bed, surrounded by his retinue and family, his twin sons Gehalis and Gander, his daughter O’Nelitae, and his wife Demosa of Banyon. That was the problem– Demosa had died giving birth to the twins. Ban the Branch was using earth magic to conjure her spirit, to welcome Kind Gellen into the Summer Lands, but in doing so Ban was using graveyard earth, a touch of necromancy that Eld the Root would never have used.

For it wasn’t Demosa at all, but a demi-imp from The Fifth Oval, who, in exchange for Kind Gellen’s soul, had promised to give Gehalis the heart of his brother. Of course, as a being of purest evil, he had made the same promise to Gander. Each had approached Ban individually, asking him to assist in this plan, and Ban had decided he’d let the demi-imp have all three of them, wed O’Nelitae for himself, and become the first wizard-king of the Ground People.

That’s when Eld the Root returned. The fight between Eld and Ban was epic, lasting all through the night as even Kind Gellen struggled to stay alive. For so long as the King lived, his land gave power to Eld. As the king slipped closer to death, that power shifted back to Ban. On they fought, pyro-works and freezing sheets in a maelstrom, foul beasts against noble forest creatures, each wizard conjuring up an exhausting and exhaustive array of monstrosities both savage and divine to fight the foul battle.

On the plains outside Castle Hilo they waged relentless war, and soon the land was as black as Death’s blood from the terrible magics. Ban even brought forth those dead orcs and their now skeletal spider mounts to charge at Eld’s quickly diminishing supply of Elven archers called up from the Jade Slumber. Inside the castle itself, Gehalis and Gander discovered one another’s wiles, and fell to fighting as well, all but tearing down Hilo itself as they battled, for they were at the time the two most puissant knights of the realm, and their melee did considerable damage to stone and any person accidentally caught up between them.

O’Nelitae used what medical training she’d received from the Sisters of Broken Misery, with whom she’d been raised, to keep her father alive, battling her own consciousness, for she knew how much he suffered and that releasing his soul now while Ban was fighting meant the demi-imp would not be able to claim his soul- but she also know his very life-force was what kept Eld in the fight.

The battle between the wizards reached its peak, and Ban conjured a final massive creature, a bone-dragon from the depths of the Marching Under. Dragon, Orc and Arachnid descended on Hilo and Eld’s position in front of Z’at Ki Dak– and as the sun rose over the distant horizon, the light that reflected off those piercing white walls blinded them all, burning the eyes out of Ban the Branch as he stood locked in his final power gaze.

The battle was won, the king died, and Eld fell to his knees. From a tall tower the bodies of Gehalis and Gander fell, the two still fighting even as they dropped, only to die locked in each other’s arms at the base of the white wall.

Eld recovered, and stayed on to advise O’Nelitae until her reign as queen stabilized, and then left once more, stating that he had a duty to maintain the late king’s banishment. In his honor, Z’at Ki Dak to this this day is also maintained, its walls kept an immaculate, blinding white.

Cody, Brody, Jodie, and Rajeesh Patel-Modi were trying to have surfing lesson when BLAM! Shotgun blast. They fell off their boards, into the hot Hawaii sand.

Their instructor, Armadillo, did not. He cooly turned to see Sheriff Six-Shooter standing on the boardwalk, shotgun on his shoulder, smoke oozing from the barrel. Arma just glared.

“What the hell, dude,” said Brody. Brody had grown up in Wichita Kansas, and was a pothead from the age of thirteen. On his 29th birthday a friend had gifted him some sweet thai stick and a used copy of Point Break. Hearing him talk about that night, you’d think he was a little girl who’d been called to the nunnery at age 8 and never looked back. He gave up pot, got his Associates, got a job, and saved very penny for this trip to Maui.

“Issomeoneshootingatus?” said Jodie, who always talked like that. Jodie had a rare skin condition, such that direct sunlight turned her blood to caffeine. Not literally, but nearly. Jodie had grown up in Mesa, Arizona, an only child on account of more or less ruining her parents for more children, since she was a constant, frazzled mess. Constantly jittery, and if Antonio Dimasio is right, constantly nervous due to her brain thinking her body must know something. She’d moved to Seattle on a whim, and had been utterly calm, at peace, serene even, for the first time in her life. She’d opened a yoga studio for the homeless, and had personally rehabilitated over a dozen army vets who had previously suffered from very bad PTSD. But then she’d fallen in love with Cody, and he’d drug her ass here.

“Farm out!” said Cody, Brody’s brother. From another mother, even though they’d been raised together. Cody was the exact opposite of Brody: straight shooter, all-As, never touched drugs, Kappa Cum Laude or whatever, MBA, New York City, corporate job, wife, two little blonde girls. On more or less the day that Brody had seen Point Break for the first time, Cody had gotten fired, found out his wife had cheated on him and that the girls were not his, was arrested for drug possession, had his car stolen, and somehow pissed off a Mob Boss. On bail, the boss sent someone after him, which resulted in a very bad beating, so with what little shred of self-worth he’d had, Cody agreed to trade state’s evidence against the boss in exchange for the drug charges being dropped– oh, and it was all a set-up anyway, he’d never had drugs on him at all, he was just the victim of a bad cop looking to make collar to distract IA from some shady relationships he’d been developing in The Village. Cody had been put into Witness Protection, Seattle, specifically, where his business acumen an experience had set him up as one of the most liked and least profitable pot dealers in the state. Then he’d met Jodie, who he could not stand, but when he mentioned his half-brother was going to Maui on a vision quest or something she’d offered to pay for them to go to.

“Oh shit not again,” said Rajeesh Patel-Modi, the child of the first Indian couple to ever decide to hyphenated their offspring’s name. He was just here to learn a thing or two so he could hopefully someday impress a babe. Rajeesh was very much into babes. He had spreadsheets.

“Help you, Six?” Arma shouted. He was the very epitome of the platonic ideal of the stereotypical surfing instructor. He’s entire body was a deep golden brown, his hair was long and blonde and stringy, his face was a map of sun wrinkles, the board-shorts hang from his hips hid muscular thighs above strong calves, which themselves were dwarfed by his enormous chest, wide shoulders, and Popeye arms.

“Barbarossa’s back. Seen ‘im?” said Sheriff Six-Shooter. That was his real name. He wasn’t Native American, but through a complicated strings of marriages, divorces, adoptions, and a rat’s nest of half-finished paper-work, Sheriff Six-Shooter had grown up knowing that someday he’d wear a cowboy hat with a star on it, a handle-bar mustache, a leather vest with another star pinned to it, chaps, chinos, and boots. He hated revolvers, however, so he carried Remington Arms “Winchester” 1887. It should be noted that at the time of this story, Maui had no Sherriff, but folks put up with Six-Shooter, as all ever shot were blanks, straight up into the air, when no one was looking.

Arma just shrugged, which, owing to the size of his shoulders, was not an insubstantial movement. Sheriff Six-Shooter glared at him through the haze of the hot Hawaii sun, then turned and sauntered off.

Arma turned back to his class of surf-wannabes, and shrugged again. Then he looked at Rajeesh. “Now, what did you say?”

Writing Exercise: come up with funny pub and drink names, see what happens.

My dailypages at 750words.com

We started off at the Regis Arms, where Clarence had a Wesson’s Original and I had a Folby’s 13-Year. Clara, Mike’s sister, was there, serving instead of drinking this time, which meant she had to play nice when I smacked her on the ass. It was like hitting a velvet balloon packed very tightly with expensive cottage cheese.

From there we walked over to the Russet & Merry, where I had three bitters and a sour, while Clarence managed to make a Tiny Tim last through three repeats of “Come on Eileen” on the orchestrina. The landlord frowned at us the entire time but then when I asked for a bag of Denny’s Smash he seemed eager to sell them to me. Left them right there on the bar, I did.

Helen of Leeds was there, which is what we always called her after her dye job made that one bloke with bad acne chase her around for two weeks insisting she knew his mother. I suggested we go to the Duck’s Goiter, and Clarence explained I was thinking of the Lucky Goiter, and Helen-of set us both straight and led us to the Lucky Garter. Mine was a Champagne-on-Marbles while Clarence tried a Savoy and Seven. Helen-of asked if they carried Coke or Pepsi and when the stiff behind the rails said neither she had a Jamison in a tall glass. Cheeky.

After that, we hit several places in quick succession, tipping cabbies along the way to make sure we never had to piss in the same WC twice. The Gray Bones for a pint of Old MacMillian’s, The Chelsea Cracker for a shot of Grandmother Gilligan, and, of course, no night with Clarence and Helen-of would be complete without a stop at The Steeple and Tomato for a Flaming Cherry Cummerbund. As luck would have it, Clara, Mike’s sister, was there, drinking not serving, and when she smacked me on my ass it was like Infant’s all over again.

We snogged until Clarence got a call on his mobile from Clarissa, who said she and some mates were over at The Cooper’s Demise, so we grabbed a handy double decker and offered the driver shots of Purple Passion for most of the trip. He refused, of course, and we only stopped when he let us sniff his thermos. I’m no expert, but if his Earl Greyjoy wasn’t spiked with Little Jack’s Number Eleven, I don’t know my potables.

Clarissa’s mates were alright so we played credit-card bingo until one of them, Clayton I think, said there was a fruit machine over at Medusa’s that was usually good for a tenner. On the way there we hit The Raven and Flower, The Seven Sprinkles, Mr. Marten’s, The White Tiger (where Clarence nearly got into a knock-down with Mike’s sister Clara, who was there delivering cases of Wicked Peter, not drinking or serving) and even a quick half-glass of sherry at The Mine Diamonder, even though Helen-of’s been banned there for two years now. They didn’t even see there I don’t think.

The Mule’s Foot was closed to the public for a charity event, but Mike’s sister Clara, who was there serving canapes not drinking, snuck us out a plate of casa-queso-en-pano, which we gobbled uncontrollably until one of Clarissa’s mates, Clementine I think, pointed out that the paprika was from Madagascar, so we all spit it out. We’re not racists, for Christ’s sake.

After that Clarence dragged us up to Commodore Filbin’s where he had a Galloping Theresa while Helen-of’s was a Brutal Stone, no ice. I asked for a Teacher’s but they gave me a Philharmonic by mistake. I was going to complain but that was when Clarissa told us her mates wanted to go see Missing Chesapeake, a funk combo that were about to start playing over at The Buttered Onion. So we left before I could make my concerns known, though I was sure to leave a very fierce tip.

Of course they wanted a fiver for a cover to see the band, which goes against my principles, but Helen-of said she knew one of the roadies so we all got in through one of the side doors. I made straight for the automat because I was in desperate need of a curry, but Clarence beat me to it and got a shepherd’s stuck in the chute. He tried tilting it back and forth but then one of Clarissa’s mates, Clodagh I think, accused him of taking woman pills instead of man-roids and they started brawling. Or shagging, I couldn’t tell. Up on stage, a familiar voice started belting out an old tune about the best place to buy very expensive cottage cheese, and who was it but none other than Mike’s sister Clara, on bass guitar. Smashing.

When she was done I had that look in my eye so Clarence dragged me out and we headed towards The Jelly Tomorrow but we lost Helen-of along the way, and one by one Clarissa’s mates disappeared down alleys and up stoops to bedsits where they were squatting. Soon it was just me and by best mate once again and after a shortcut through Fitzpatrick Park we wound up in front of the Duck’s Goiter, which existed after all. That got us to laughing. It was a pretty good night.

So, listen, people will tell you that a pub crawl in Wichita, Kansas is bloody awful—but I’ve lived here my entire life, like, and I’d never leave it for anyplace else.