Seeking Bobby's Advice; Flash Fiction Friday #37

***Author's Note*** The three people in the following story are composites of people I have known. This author doesn't encourage the behavior they are engaged in, but he is not so naive that he doesn't know that this sort of thing goes on. This tale was inspired by a comment that our good Cormac wrote some time ago and his starter sentence brought it to mind.

"As with juggling, the key to life is to keep the procession moving steady and don't look down," Bobby said before he licked the paper and wound the joint he was rolling into a neat cylinder that could have passed for a store-bought cigarette. Bobby often made these kind of sage pronouncements, and out of anyone else they would have sounded like complete bullshit, but not Bobby. He had a slow, easy way of talking that made every word he said sound like it came from Buddha himself. “The bong is in the coffee table where it always is,” he motioned with a nod of his head as his hands were full with the makings of another joint.

I got the old Blue Bomber out and took a pinch from the loose weed that he was rolling his joints from. I packed a small one and took a hit before continuing, “I just don’t get her man. She used to be this super-cool, laid-back chic who didn’t get uptight about nothin’. Now the slightest little thing and she just goes ape-shit. I just want to know what happened to that girl. What happened to the Jackie who could just roll with the flow?” I exhaled into the rays of sunlight that were creeping in through the blinds just so I could watch the smoke roll into itself before being caught in the fan.

Bobby sat back in his frumpy, worn-out easy chair and glanced at his twelve inch black and white TV that was hooked up to the camera on his driveway. “Crap. Carl’s here,” he said as the El Camino filled the screen.

“Should I go?” I asked.

“Naw man. Don’t go. He’ll be gone in a few minutes, but if I’m here by myself, that sonofabitch will stay for hours. Stick around, we haven’t finished our conversation yet.” Bobby reassured me.

Have you ever known someone who could blow into a room like there was a hurricane behind them where ever they went? Carl was like that. He threw open the door, strolled in, and without a greeting, flopped on the sofa beside me. He wore a stupid grin that was punctuated by his missing teeth. “What’s up Bobby? What are you and Pete talking about?” Carl feigned interest as he helped himself to the weed on the table. Bobby grimaced as Carl licked his lips wetly before he hit the bong.

“We were just talking about a personal problem of Pete’s,” Bobby said as he traded the finished joint for another rolling paper.

“What? Jackie startin’ ta get real pregnant and give you shit? That’s the way Yolonda tried ta play me and I just told her straight up to fuck off. This bull ain’t gonna change for no heifer, that’s for damn sure. I don’t care how well she goes down!” Carl tapped his thumb against his chest as if he thought he was quite a catch for all womenkind. He helped himself to another bong. “What’s with all the joints Bobby?” Carl eyed the neat stack of doobies.

“Cheryl and I are going to a concert tonight and I wanted to take some with me.”

“Who ya goin’ ta see? I hear Tom Petty is in town,” Carl said.

“Wagner,” Bobby said flatly.

“Are they new? I ain’t heard them on the radio.” Carl scrunched up his eyebrows as he thought.

“No, ‘they’ ain’t new. Wagner was a composer,” Bobby shook his head.

“He do anything I’d have heard of?”

“Yeah, music for a Bugs Bunny cartoon.”

“Shit, I seen all of them. Hey Bob, ol’ buddy,” Carl’s tone changed to one used by car salesmen everywhere, “you wouldn’t happen to have a dime bag you could part with would you? Me an’ Frank are goin’ ta take the four wheelers out to Buckeye Lake and I wanted some for the trip.”

Bobby fished around in the coffee table and pulled out a rolled up baggie and put it on the table in front of him. Carl’s hand snaked out and pocketed it before you could blink. “You don’t mind if I get this one on spot do you?” he said as if this was a complete afterthought.

“You cheese-dicked idiot! In the eight years that you have known me, have I ever spotted you a sack? Ever?” Bobby’s face flushed red enough to match his eyes, “No, never. What gives you the gonads to ask now?!?”

“Well, I uh-“

“Don’t tell me you ‘thought’ Carl, because you don’t think. You don’t think any more often than I spot you a sack!” Bobby huffed and sat back again, “You take that sack and weasel on out of here and if you don’t have the cash on Monday, don’t you ever come back again!” Wordlessly, Carl slunk out of the room like a scolded child. Bobby followed his progress to the Camino on the TV to assure himself that he was truly gone. “I know full well that he won’t have the money on Monday, but it will be worth the sixty bucks just to have that bonehead out of my hair for good. Good riddance. I wish I’d have thought of it eight years ago.”

Bobby took a deep breath and tried to clear the air of the annoyance that had just breezed through. “Now where were we? Oh yes, Jackie. Now Pete, as much as I hate to admit it, there is a slim grain of truth in what Carl said. Jackie is getting along in her pregnancy and her hormones are in a cocktail shaker. You have followed the most basic command of nature. You have survived to adulthood and you have reproduced. The bit that you are getting hung up on is the fact that Jackie is changing and she expects you to change as well. You can’t be out smokin’ dope and blowing your money on beer and Taco Bell at 3 am. In her eyes, you need to be a good provider for the family you’ve started and she ain’t seeing that.” I raised my finger to object but Bobby dismissed me, “A couple of overtime shifts at the factory now and then isn’t gonna do it. Now be a man and act like one. Go home to your pretty wife and quit hangin’ out with your dope smokin’ buddies. They are a bad influence,” he said as a smile broke through his long gray beard. “Besides, I gotta get cleaned up for my date with my wife!”

Enjoy your week
Doc

Moonshine and GetkristiLove

In history's checkered past, it has been suggested that the moon makes people do strange things. Most of these tales involved werewolves and psychotics sacrificing virgins or children to demons in exchange for power or wealth. I don't know much of anything along these lines, but I do know from personal experience that a full moon does tend to influence even "regular" people, myself included. My brother, Bill the cop, has often told tales of people who don't normally act up getting in trouble with the law when the moon is full. The moon is responsible for our tides because of it's gravity, so why shouldn't people be affected as well?

When I purchased my canoe and decided to make a grand trip of it, I must admit that I was under the influence of the moon. I did something that was totally out of charactor for me. I spent money I didn't have on a goofy dream that I'd harbored for some time and I put a plan into action, both of which are counter to my nature.

I was surprised at myself, and for some odd reason, at the support that I got. After all, what I was planning to do was silly. It was silly in the same way as wearing a grass skirt to a job interview. Unless you were trying out for a hula dancing position, there was no good reason to do it, but I did it anyway, and people I only know from reading their blog backed me up to the Nth degree.

For this, I am truly thankful.

Skyler's Dad, Some Guy, Sisters #1 & #2, and BSUWG all egged me on with well wishes and taunts about it ending in misery much like the movie "Deliverence", but the one comment that sealed the deal more than any other came from GetkristiLove.

I reproduce it here in it's entirety.

"First, thanks for your kind words on my blog. Second, this is not madness at all... well except that you spelled kerflooey correctly without knowing it. The rest sounds totally sane and quite doable to me. And just so you know I'm serious, I won't make a joke about looking for beaver in the Ohio valley, or make any squealing pig jokes.

A dream such as this is the perfect reason to embark upon it if you ask me. Because it's about the journey, not the destination, no matter where you end up or how long it takes.

My hat's off to you Doc, I hope you get to go."

Those words will hang with me for a long, long time. After all, it isn't often in everday life that someone reassures you that you aren't mad.

Should time and tide allow and I do write a book about my journey, let me reassure all of you that you will all be included in the dedication, but Flannery's name will head the list, as who would let their husband venture off like this?

Doc

The Scariest Movie I Ever Saw

Even though the film is twenty-six years old, I still find it frightening, more than any horror or suspense movie I have ever seen. It made a strong impression on me at the time and may have warped me to some extent. While the threat from the Russians is all but forgotten, what makes it even scarier today is to think that some terrorist could somehow get ahold of a bomb of this magnitude. When communist Russia collapsed, they had one hundred and thirty-two "suitcase bombs" that a single person could detonate and produce a smaller version of this kind of explosion. After they had put together a new government, they started taking stock and found that none of these "suitcase bombs" that they could account for. They were never found.

So if you can watch the six minute clip below and not cringe or shudder just a little bit, you are a stronger person than I am.

Sure makes you glad that those fine folks at FEMA are on the ball and are ready for when bad stuff happens don't it.

Go hug a loved one,
Doc

Only The Royal Society Would Be Interested In Transvestite Lizard Sex

Published this week in the journal, "Proceedings of the Royal Society" was an article on South African Augarabies flat lizards and how immature males would disguise themselves as females so they could hang with the chicks and not get their ass beat by older males. The Associated Press qouted Jonathan Webb, a researcher for the University of Sydney, as saying, "Males are fooled by looks, but not by scent," and one lick would give the imposters away, as these lizards smell with their tongues, so the tranvestites must become agile.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for science and learning about the world around us, but don't you think this is a little weird? Not the lizards. As a devout coward, I would wear a nun's habit and hobble along with a walker to save myself from an ass beating. That makes perfect sense to me. No, to me the weird part is that someone is learning this for their job.

Imagine poor Mr. Webb at a cocktail party that is just packed full of his wife's coworkers, and while she is away in the bathroom, her Boss asks him what he does for a living. Mr. Webb would be hard pressed to come up with a simple answer, other than to say he was doing research with the University.

"So what are you studying Jon?" the Boss asks.

Jon casually takes a long pull at his gin and tonic and looks him in the eye.

"I'm studying the sex life of transvestite South African lizards and how they protect themselves from getting their ass beat," he says with an easy grin. By now, he has this line down pat as he gets asked this alot. The Boss chuckles predictably, as they always do.

"Really?" he stammers out as he nudges the guy next to him.

"Yes, and my studies are going to be published in The Proceedings of the Royal Society. The Queen herself expressed some interest in my work."

"Oh?" the Boss continues to chuckle.

"Yeah. I mentioned your name when I signed her copy and she said you were a prick, and if you didn't keep your filthy hands off of my wife, she would send MI6 to put you in a shallow hole," his voice is soft but with an unmistakeable edge. "Did you want to talk about science, or were you just making conversation?" he wears a smile that would frighten convicts.

The Boss turns pale and waves at a nonexistent friend across the room, then hurries away.

Forgive me, I've been reading some of Cormac's crime fiction and getting my news from Yahoo.

Stay warm,
Doc