The Fuckno Wars Chapter 1 Part 1

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We held no weapons in our hands.  We followed no moral cause. We had the ethics of a thief among thieves. In this rock-bottom hole of our lives, we had one saving grace: we three were connected by our loyalty to each other. 

Perhaps that meant something.

Never Know Why by The Muggs

THE FUCKNO WARS

CHAPTER ONE

PART ONE

We sat on the tailgate of the tiny pickup truck, each with a bottle of red wine in hand.  We could just about see each other’s face under the starlight.  I felt the hot puttering of the tail pipe near my pant leg.  It had been a bitch to get it started, pushing it down the road over and over again.

Lion Man said, “We should make a toast.  Something that means something.”

No One said, “I got something my dad used to say each and every time he cracked open a bottle from his wine cellar…”

We other two waited for him to say it.  And waited.  Then I said, “OK, what did he say?”

No One said, “Lang may your lum reek.”

Lion Man said, “Long may my lump reek?  You don’t smell like a flower either, dude.”

No One said, “It’s Scottish Gaelic for ‘Long may your chimney smoke.’”  His lower lip quivered.  He was pissed off.

I punched the Lion Man in the arm.  I said, “Raise your bottle up and let’s toast to our fucking chimneys.  Long may they smoke.”

Lion Man laughed and said, “I’m gonna get my chimney smoked by a bitch come morning, mutha fuckas.”

We drank.

Daylight was ten thousand miles away while the Earth spins, a thousand miles per hour.  We had some work to do in the night.  We would soon travel from one scene of devastation to another.  The stately ranch behind us had been burned to the ground, and the mansion ahead had gotten an enema.  We sat and chugged our wine, laughing and joking and fucking with each other, trying to get No One riled up again.  We were getting our courage up for the task we faced.

In a bit, I slid off the tailgate from between the other two and flung my empty bottle off into the fig tree orchard across the road.  A girl I once knew would have gotten angry at me for littering like that, but she wasn’t there.  She wasn’t anywhere anymore.  I pushed her away from my mind.  Now she was nowhere.

“All right boys,” I said, “Let’s get this shit started.”  I climbed in behind the steering wheel.

Lion Man hopped down and threw his bottle off into the dark.  “Shotgun!”

No One hopped off the tailgate and the truck rose up.  He said, “What?  You got a sh—“

Lion Man cut him off, “Nope.  I got the door.  You be sitting bitch.”  He held the door open like a gentleman does for a lady.

No One frowned and got in, and the truck groaned and sank down a couple of inches.  He slid across the seat.  He sighed and pulled his meaty thigh up over the stick shift.  His wine bottle clinked against it.  He looked over at me and said, “Don’t grab the wrong stick.  I ain’t got no underwear on.”

I chuckled.  “Don’t get your hopes up, man.  Just watch out if we hit a bump.  You might land on a new addiction for you.”

Joey squeezed in and tried to close the door.  “Hey!  You ladies better exhale or something, or find me some rope to tie this door.  Scootch over big boy.”

No One pulled his thighs together and pressed me against my own door.  Lion Man got the door closed, and then everyone relaxed.  He said, “Ooof!  You fuckers are crushing me here!”

I said, “Hold on, we only have a few miles to go.  You two sure make a purty couple.”

We headed off to the intersection a mile away with the headlamps off, and over the mountain tops to the left, a red slit glinted and sneered at us.  The moon looked like she was hung over, pissed off at “who be making all of this fucking noise out here?”


Soon she would be a full red moon, blood red.

I could see the road ahead in the starlight, and it was a straight shot.  Across from the mountains, on the right side of the road, the far off crown of night light pollution from the ugly king of the desert rose above the fig trees as we drove forth.

If we just kept driving straight for a good twenty miles, we could sneak past the huge city.  We could avoid its ugliness and find ourselves in a nice town that had turned its back on its foul tempered neighbor.  We could find good honest work in the fields, or at a burger joint, or doing yard work for the wealthy residents that filled that little city’s pockets with hope.

Yeah.

Right.

We would never choose the easy way out.   Ever.  

Fuck.

At the rusty stop sign I flicked the headlamps on. I turned right, onto the tar, and we headed south.  The mansion awaited our visit, in a few miles.  My stomach quivered.  I grabbed No One’s bottle from him and took a long haul from it.  His bottle was still quite full.  Dude didn’t have much of a taste for wine I supposed.  I took another long haul and handed it back to him, but the Lion Man grabbed it. 

He polished it off and handed it back to the big guy.  No One put it up to his mouth and tilted back a bit, and then wiped his mouth and forced a burp.

Lion Man squeezed forward and turned to look the big guy in the face. He said, “Who you kidding?”

No One shrugged, and when he did, his arm rose my arm up and we swung left.  When that happened, he and Lion Man smacked their foreheads together and then we were heading for the ditch.  I swung us back to the tar and then the big guy fell against me.

“Jeebus in a chicken basket!  Sit the fuck still!”  I gripped the wheel and locked my elbows. 

“Mr. Will, I’m sorry.”  He looked like he was going to cry.

Lion Man rubbed his face.  “Dude, you gave me a fucking concussion with your big ole melon head!”

We were like the fucking Three Stooges, for chrissakes.  The crown of lights over the orange tree orchards to the left grew brighter.  My stomach didn’t quiver anymore.  Nothing like a good shot of freshly brewed adrenaline from a near crash to wake you the fuck up. 

We hit another intersection, and I turned left.  We drove in silence.  No one wanted to play any music on the radio, I guess.  I think it might have been something else.  Even though the windows were open and the desert air cooled us, the atmosphere in the truck’s cab was thick with trepidation. And then we were at the next intersection.  I swung us right.  Now we were on the route that led directly down to the mansion.  Along this path, we passed shiny pieces of metal on the sides of the road here and there.  It looked like a swath of destruction through a car parts store or something.

As we neared the mansion, something caught my eye on the sun bleached tar. There was a long pair of black marks on the road, like voids under the light of the headlamps.  I slowed to a stop and backed up so I could view them from the headlamps.  I opened the door and got out.  The other two exhaled in relief.  No One leaned away from the Lion Man, but he was busy getting out.

He said, “Piss stop!”  He took a few steps and just stood there and relieved himself.

I walked over to those odd marks on the tar.  I was drawn to them.  I could not say why.  I knelt and touched the nearest one.  They were two long lines, a vehicle’s width apart.  My fingers went down deep into the black mark.  Something had dug out a pair of trenches in the old crumbly tar.  In the dark shadow of their long trench, I swear I could feel long claw marks. 

I stood up and looked around to see where the asphalt had gone.  There were chunks of it scattered all about the sides of the road.  A lone mailbox stood there like a sentry, with a big dent in its head.  The door to it hung down like the tongue of a dog. 

It had been smashed by a chunk of the torn out tar.

A vehicle with great power had done this.

I felt my stomach quiver again.  There were forces at work about which I had no clue.  But the hairs on the back of my neck stood right the fuck up.  My instinct told me to hop back in the truck, turn it around, and then head for the hills.  Head for the mountains.  Head for the next state.  Don’t look back.

Of course, you know, we would never take the easy way out. 

I wiped my hand on my jeans, brushing off the remnants of a wounded desert road, and I headed back to the little pickup truck.  I climbed in, pushed No One over, and closed the door. 

The little Lion Man said, “Fuck that.  Bitch, time for you to ride in the back.” 

The wine was fully with him now.  No One slid over and out, saying nothing.  The truck’s suspension rose up.  Lion Man climbed in and slammed the door shut. 

He said to me, “Drive!  Quick before he gets in back!”  He laughed at his own joke.

Then the truck’s springs creaked and lowered as the big guy climbed in the back.  I put her in gear, and we crept down the country lane. As we neared the entrance of the long driveway to the mansion, we saw lights from where it stood off yonder.  Of course there would be lights.  What had we been thinking?  Of course the place would be guarded.  There were many expensive things, most of them reparable, other ones destroyed, but all owned by very wealthy folks.

As we passed the entrance, I looked down the long lane and saw a car parked across its way.  Most likely there was someone sitting inside it smoking a cigarette with the radio on.  There was no way I would stop now, let alone driving down there to say hi to him.  Who knew if he’d recognize any of us?

Lion Man must have read my mind, because he said, “Just keep going!  Fuck this shit.” 

No One knocked on the rear window of the truck cab and pointed back.  Then he scrambled up and stuck his head in the driver’s side window.  He said, “Mr. Will!  You just passed it!  It’s back there!”

I turned to him and said, “No.  I know it’s back there.  We won’t be driving down that lane.”

No One frowned.  He sat back down in the truck’s bed.

Lion Man shook his head.  He said, “We don’t have any time to come back another night.”

I looked over at him.  “Hah?”

He kept shaking his head.  “It has to be tonight.  We have no choice.  When morning comes, we have to face a lot of things.  A lot of things.  We have a fucking lot of things to explain to folks.  One of them is the owner of this stolen truck.  I got it from the hospital parking lot.”

Huh.  He was right. 

“What are you thinking?” I said, but I already knew.

He said, “We gonna park this old crate and leave her running with the lights off.  She’s our escape, our only one.  I got her filled up with fuel.  We gonna go and see what we can find out about those bastards.”

He was right.  And that sucked.  We would not take the easy way out.

Fuck.

I said, “OK, well.  So find us a place to hide her!”

It wouldn’t be wise to pass by that lane again, I just knew.  We came upon a power station, and he pointed at it.  He said, “Let’s put her in there!  It’ll be easy to find.”

He was right, it would be easy to find.

I slowed and turned in, and looked around.  A single streetlamp shined from a pole near the driveway, but it was dark near the structure.  I did a three point turn and backed the truck beside it, in the shadow of the trees.  I put my hand to the ignition to turn the engine off out of habit, but there were no keys.

Joey punched my arm.  He said, “What the fuck are you doing?”

I grinned.  “Just wanted to see if it’s really stolen.”  But I almost had shit my pants at my stupidity.

No One hopped out and the truck squeaked a sigh of relief and rose back up a few inches. He came over to the driver’s window and leaned down.  He said, “I knew you guys wouldn’t give up.”

I got out and closed the door.  I said, “What do you mean?”

No One wiped his eyes and said, “I saw her standing… I mean, I just had an idea that you would pull in here.”

Hah?  Dude was blabbering like an idiot.  I shrugged.  “We got some sneaking to do.  How good are you at sneaking around, quietly?”

 

He smiled.  He said, “I do it all the time.  I sneak all kinds of things.  I can steal good too.”

I chuckled.  “We won’t be stealing.  Just don’t make any noise.  Try to remember where this truck is parked.  Any one of us may have to drive it, but we won’t be leaving anyone else behind.  You got that?”

Lion Man came around to our side and said, “Yeah, boy, don’t be running off without us.  Weeee-ill’s right.  Leave no man behind.”

No One said to us, “Mr. Will and Joseph, I promise to you both that I won’t leave anyone behind.”

That being said, we went into the shadow behind the power station and I looked up.  The transmission lines on the huge metal tower stretched off for miles towards the crown of light of the megalopolis of Fuckno.

These thick transmission lines also ran in the opposite direction, to some off-skirt communities on this side of Fuckno.  Little towns and cities always sprouted up around huge cities.  Or perhaps they existed all the while and had  become encroached upon by the urban sprawl of one of their neighbors.  It would be the one in betwixt them all, in the middle, that got the most trade from them all, and so it grew and grew.

Now, barbed wire had taken over the free reign of cattle drives and such in the early days of the wild west, but thankfully, no one used it much anymore except for secure locations like businesses at risk of pilfering from the inside and burglary from the out.  Instead of barbed wire, now there were electrical fences for cattle, or else homesteaders had built simple but strong wooden fences.

I hoped for the latter, obviously.

We crept along behind the power station, under the light of the stars.  In the desert at night, the stars touch the ground on the horizon.  It is a big sky. We could make out the black shape of the mountain range, beyond the direction of the mansion.  The sliver of the red moon would be our guide as we went in that direction, but what would guide us back to the little truck?  I turned back and saw the streetlight near the entrance to the power station.  I memorized how it looked.  It is always a good idea to do such a thing.  Your environment looks different coming back from the other direction.  Always turn back and take a mental snapshot.  It may help you. 

We came upon the first fence when I smacked into it and fell over it.  I lied in the dirt, rubbing my thighs.  I had two charley horses now.  Lion Man began to laugh but he shut up.  No One reached down and pulled me up, even though I wasn’t yet done squirming about in silent pain. 

He said, “You OK, Mr. Will?”

I said, “Yeah, thanks.  But keep your voice down.”  I grimaced and rubbed my thighs, and then we went on.  I said, “Can you see the lights over there?  We have to head down further this way, so we can get to the rear of that place.”

The other two followed me as I hobbled along, and then No One said, “Mr. Will, how about a piggy back ride?”

I said, “No, dude.  Not now.  Besides, I don’t think I can lift you up, much less carry you.”

No One put his thick hand on my shoulder and said, “I can carry you on my back, just tell me where to go, and I’ll go there.”

Great.  I had a strong horse now.

We soon found ourselves at the rear fence when No One smashed through it and we both fell.  He rubbed his thighs, and began to cry.  It hurt, I guess.

I wiped the clumps of earth from my face and spit out dirt.  I looked over to the lights that indicated the mansion.

They were pretty close to us.  We had traversed the long back yard of someone’s home at a diagonal direction and made good time.  But the big guy was crying now.  Damn.

Then he shut the fuck up.  He looked over to another area and pointed.  He said, “She’s standing over there.  I can see her.  We should go that way.”

 Hah?  I looked over at the Lion Man, and he shrugged.  But No One was heading off, paying no mind to us anymore.  So we followed him.  Lion Man tugged on my shirt and he whispered, “Did he take a bump to the noggin on a rock or something?”

I whispered back, “I dunno.  But let’s see where he’s headed.  Can’t really stop him, ya know?"

We reached the edge of the mansion’s rear spread and No One kept wiping his eyes.  He said, “She ain’t here no more!”  Then he began to cry again.  He looked around, and then he said, “Oh, she’s over there now.”

He climbed over the wire fence and sparks sizzled under his thick hands.  He paid it no mind.  I pulled Lion Man close up to me and said, “What the fuck is going on here?”

He said, “I think he done lost his mind.  He’s following a phantom or someshit.”

I thought about that.  Maybe he was seeing a ghost.  He saw her when he was crying.  What the fuck?  Who was she?  Why was he following her?  Well, we had no choice but to follow him.  There was only one thing.  I don’t know about you, but I’m not especially fond of getting zapped by electricity.  Dude had just climbed over one and got zapped, but he was probably out his mind now; hopefully it was temporary.

Lion man took his leather jacket off and draped it over the wire.  He said, “After you.”  He indicated his leather.  Huh.  Always mind your leather, I guess.  It could help you.  So I went over the fence, and beneath his jacket, I could feel a tickle of sorts, all crackling there and then I smelled his leather getting sizzled.  It was not an unpleasant scent.

He came over and grabbed his jacket off the fence and shook it out.  He put it on.  Then he said, “Now where did that big bastard go?”

We looked about, and we could not see him.  I saw that we had crossed over into the back spread of the mansion behind a horse stable.  There were horses inside, I could see by the weak light of a filament bulb.  I said, “Joseph, we can’t spook these animals, or they’ll wake up the whole neighborhood.”

He nodded and pulled me along to the side, away, and then he whispered, “I see him.  He’s talking to someone!  Fucking asshole!  He’s given us away!  Let’s get the fuck out of here!”

He dragged me back to the direction from which we had come, but I grabbed his arm and yanked him back to a standstill.  I said in his ear, “Wait.  I have a feeling about this.”

We stood and watched, and then No One turned around, and he looked back at us.  How the hell could he see us?  He swung his arm at us in a beckoning manner.  Well, there you go.  I guess we were in. So we crept up to him, careful not to spook the horses in the stable.

No One said, “She says the Purple Robes are inside, and they know we are close, but they don’t know where we are exactly.  So what do we do now?”

Lion Man grabbed my arm.  He said, I don’t know what the fuck is going on here.  I don’t like it one bit.  It’s time to fucking bail, Weeeee-ill.”

I shrugged him off of me.  I turned back to No One and said, “Who said this to you?”

The big guy shrugged and pointed right in front of him.  “She did.”

Yeah, maybe it was time to bail?

God Help You.

God Help Us All.

---willies out.

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Weekend At Willies The Fuckno Wars Prelude

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One More Drink For The Road, by Leslie West

When your guiding star disappears from the night sky, then you have no direction.

You are on a small canoe alone in the middle of the sea.

Do you give up?

Or do you put on your poker face, and consider the next push of your oar?

What do you do?  Where will you go from here?

Perhaps you will go looking for the devil.

Perhaps you will decide that you have nothing left to lose, even if you have everything to lose, including your life, and the lives of two young sisters and their

My

Our

Mother...

You see,

I went to look for the devil.  

I wasn’t in my right mind.  

You understand.

The beginning of the Fuckno Wars will commence this Saturday.

Perhaps you might care to join in the melee?

It will be quite a long read, as we begin,

And it will be hard to take all in.

It you choose.

God Help You.

God Help Us All.

---willies out.

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Weekend At Willies Walkin Killings Pt 15 No One Was A Punk Now

People C’mon, by Delta Spirit.

Tellesco looked at his afghan that his grammy had knitted for him.  He liked to snuggle with it in bed.  It was comforting.  Now it was folded and wrapped about his waist, to hide his man junk.   Tellesco wore a kilt.

He regarded the charred leather jacket slung over an old wooden clothes hanger in the window, to catch the blackened desert night breeze, to dry it out.

Someone had washed it off in the algae-ridden pool, intending to drown it.  That would be me.

You know, leather takes a long time to dry.  Tellesco would have to wear it, as we made our plans on how to visit the scene of the destruction of a mansion.  There were answers we required.

But Tellesco was nekkid, wearing only a knitted bed cover afghan, and that simply would not do.

The thing about a dried-out leather jacket buried in the baking sun of desert silt, once it has become soaked, is that it will tighten up as it dries.  If you happen to be wearing such a sad garment, well, once it becomes dry, it may become quite brittle.

Leather needs to be cleaned with saddle soap, and then lovingly adorned with oily protectants. Always mind your leather. Never let mud dry on it.

He tugged and pulled the leather on, and it stretched over his powerful forearms and his huge biceps and triceps.

It would have been funny if he said, “Fat Man in a little coat,” but he was not fat, and Chris Farley was still in grade school at that time.

Tellesco had been building up muscle mass for football, along with his buddy Sean, although Sean had been in the Hostibal due to a figging Jeep crash.

The jacket stretched.  He tried to zip it up, but the leather was cold, and it had no give.

He looked pretty fucking ridiculous.

Joey and I hid our grins by turning around, back towards the oil lamp on the counter.  Joey snickered and stifled a laugh, and he said, “Ahem.  We need to drive down this way, from the offskirts where we are.”

He drew his finger down the grout line of the tile on the counter’s surface, from the salt shaker that indicated our present location.

He dragged his finger off to a new point, and then took a left.  Then he dragged his finger along the grout line and swung his finger to the right, and went to the pepper shaker.  He said, “This is where Minacca’s mansion is.”

Minacca's mansion.  Huh.

I shook my head.  “We need to stop before that.  We can't be all driving up to the front door and announcing our arrival.  We will have to do some walking.”

Joey’s eyebrows rose.  He said, “How the hell we gonna do that?”

I said, “I have done it before.  I know where we can park your vehicle and get out from there.  It will all be good.”

Joey said, “Well, ok.  That would be better.  That truck prolly been reported stolen by now.”

Huh.

Tellesco came up behind us and said, “I look ridiculous.  Don’t lie to me.”

Joey could not turn around.  He would laugh if he did.

But I was good at hiding my emotions.  I had a poker face.  I turned and faced Tellesco.  I did not lie to him.  I said, “Tellesco, you look like a Scottish punker from the burning depths of Hell.”

Tellesco frowned.  He said, “I do not want to look like a Scottish punker from the depths of Hell, Mr. Will.  I want to look like Tellesco.”

Joey laughed out loud.  Fucker couldn’t help himself.

Tellesco's bottom lip began to quiver.   Dayam.

I said, “Tellesco, you need to be protected from folks being able to recognize you.”

Tellesco stuffed his trembling lip between his teeth.  Then he inhaled deep.  He said, “Then you should call me ‘Know One.’  That's my name now.”  He wiped his eyes.

I said, “Hah?  No One?”

He nodded.  “Yup.  Because I Know about a Scottish punker.  He was my Grampy.  He’s dead now.”

I shrugged.  I said, “Ok, we’ll call you No One from now on.  It’ll protect you.”

Tellesco was now called No One.  He had named himself.  Finally, he was standing up for himself.  He was showing his mettle.  You know, there is a reason that I include these links.  It is all intertwined, and it may help elucidate you as we go along, my friend, if you check them out.

Tellesco smiled.  He said, “My Grampy would like that.  His wife, my Grandma, well, she knitted this afghan for me when I was a baby.  But my Grampy died before I was born.  I wish I had actually met him.  He came from a long line of Scots.  My great great grampy was a preacher.  He died in a gunfight, and so he went to Hell, from killing folks in his rage.  He was trying to save his stolen horse from a barn fire, and he got shot in the eye. They called him a rustler.”

I said, “Then you should know that the knitted thing you wear will also protect you, made by your grammy.  You will be quite powerful.”

Anything to stop him from crying. Jeez.

Joey snickered again, and he moved the salt and pepper shakers around, trying to look busy or some shit.

Tellesco said in a solemn voice, “I will be Know One from now on.”

We did not know that Tellesco already had some sort of power.  He didn’t know it either.  He just knew that when he had tears in his eyes, he could see his ghost girlfriend.

He also didn’t know that he would be able to see Walkins when his eyes were wet with tears.

He had saved me many times before from drowning in the desert.  He would save me again, when it came time to fight the Walkins.

He would save most of we punks.  You see, he was like that.


He was a bit of a savior, I guess.

We just didn’t know it yet.

Yet, we would all find out about his ability very soon.


Dude couldn't help but cry at the drop of a purple robe.

We were going off to the mansion.



But, do you know,

"Know One" would see Glinty McFlintlock again.

Tellesco/ No One said, "Mr. Will, thank you for letting me have a new name that will protect me."

I said, “Ya know, Tellesco, I’m sorry to say this, but I don’t even know your last name.  What is your full name, dude?  It's kinda important before we head off into this new thing."

Tellesco stood up straight and proud, wearing his afghan kilt and his torched, wet leather jacket that looked like it had been through the fires of Hell, and he said, “My forefathers hailed from the McFlintlock clan of Scotland."






He said, "I am Tellesco McFlintlock.”

He said, "We were once kings."

Oh.

Fuck.

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Weekend At Willies Walkin Killings Pt 14 Drown In The Desert

I Know What I Am, by Band Of Skulls

I wandered around outside in the night, lost in the black emptiness of eternity.

The oil lamp flickering through the busted-out kitchen window was my only beacon. 

This stumbling about took a while, and there is nothing I can tell you about it, because it would cheapen it to use mere words.  Sorry about that, my friend.  Ya know.

Something in the desert dust grabbed my foot and I fell to the ground.  I rolled over and dug mud from my eyes. Somehow, the desert dust had become wet on my face.

In my fury, I grabbed it and tugged and tugged.  I wanted to kill this thing that had brought me down.  Everything was all fucked up.

I had lost my Star.  I kept telling myself that it wasn’t true.

This thing buried in the desert had brought me down to the ground, and I fucking hated it.

I pulled and pulled, from each of the four directions, circling about it, and it began to release.

It came up, and I ran towards the cottage with it, hollering at the top of my lungs in my rage.

I headed to the pool.

I was going to baptize the fucking thing by drowning it.

The thing was, it belonged to someone who had drowned in the desert.  I just didn’t know it yet.

It belonged to one of the kids at the explosions of the ranch, when Fat Jerry had destroyed that place.  The young man had pulled it off because it was on fire, and he ran off into the night, and the police found him half buried face down in the silt of the desert dust, drowned in a flood from an arroyo.

An arroyo is a desert river that only appears when there is a heavy rain, and you can indeed drown in the desert, if it courses over you while you are in a panicked state in the blackness of night. An Arroyo river is water filled with liquid sand.  How horrible, to die in such a manner.

You may not find your way back to where you should be.

Then again, odd things were beginning to happen in the high desert river valley.

The door opened and Joey and Tellesco ran out when they heard me screaming so loud it hurt my throat.

Joey spotted me with his flashlight and shined it on me as I ran towards the pool.

I misjudged my speed and destination. I went into the pool with the fucking thing I’d dug out of the desert.  I didn’t care.  I wrestled with the thing under the surface of the water, and it was now quite heavy.  

An angel at the bottom of the sea would welcome it and show it to hell.  I wasn't in my right mind.

Just as I ran out of air, a pair of strong hands grabbed me by my leather and pulled me up, and pushed me to the edge of the pool.

Tellesco had saved me.

How many times had Tellesco saved me? 

He stood on the roof of the drowned hearse with which I’d tried to drown us both, and he pushed me up onto the concrete.

I coughed out water and algae, and Joey yanked the sodden thing I’d dug out of the desert from my grasping hands.

He shined his flashlight on it.

He said, “Leather.  Always mind your leather.”

It was a leather jacket.

It was a leather jacket that belonged to someone who had died at Tellesco’s home.

It seemed fitting that Tellesco should wear it.  Hell, he didn't have anything else to wear but that knitted afghan.


Tellesco would have to wear a knitted skirt around his bottom half, and a leather jacket with charred spots here and there, and a cloth flag that had been sewn onto the back, but it was all burned away.

He looked like a Scottish punk, with his kilt and leather.


He was barefoot.


We didn't quite know what to make of his new look, but neither Joey nor I laughed at him.


At least, on the outside.



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Weekend At Willies Walkin Killings Pt. 13 Requiem For A Friend

Bryan wanted his first taste of freedom outside of his tomb to be the best ever.  He would have it.  Gawdamn it he would.

Now, he had seen the ads for Fucky Chucky’s on the television while he was all locked up in prison for having been found guilty of “Depraved Vandalism” upon a poor Messican family’s Once Lovingly Adorned Home.

He served his time, and he was clean.  He was squeaky clean.  He was so clean that his butt cheeks squeaked with each step he took towards the bus stop to head north to the best burger joint evah.

He was still a virgin back there, in his butt cheeks.  He had spent his time building up muscle mass, because that is what prison time is for, isn’t it?  He had fought off possible butt-violators and put them in the prison infirmary.

He had joined no gangs inside, but instead of going it alone, he had made friends.  That is another chapter, a side sort of thing that I will tell you someday, because he had a hell of a tale to tell.  He had become a bit of a guide to others.  That bit matters in this arming of the sides for the start of the Fuckno War we are nearing.

SIDE NOTE

There is something else you should know, my friend.   I cannot tell you the Pt. 11 of these Walkin Killings series until after I tell you the part where I learned about the Death of Katheena in the Hostibal. 

The Pt. 11 is about Joey driving north to Tellesco’s burned-out ranch, when he began to absorb the fact that his best friend, a chick called “Katheena” had died.  He was blamed for it.   It’s pretty rough.

You see, I was about to find out from him about it, and it would not be fair to subject you to this thing twice, from his shit and then my own.  So there is only one, but it matters in this series, as character motivation for what occurs next, and the evil path we would choose.

+   +   +       +   +   +

So here we go, to see Bryan enjoy some solid sustenance; his first bite of freedom.  He deserved it, right?  The only thing that Fuckno ever had to offer was its sunshine.  And even that was something to which it had no contribution.  It is actually one of the dirtiest, smoggiest places to live in sunny Califucknia.

What Makes A Good Man, by The Heavy

The city bus pulled up to the curb in front of a burger restaurant in the offskirts of  Fuckno.  The place was called Fucky Chucky’s.   It had the best burgers you could buy, back in the eighties.  There was a salad bar meant for toppings.  There was a cauldron of hot cheese sauce.  You get the idea.

Big Bryan stepped down and out into the sunshine.  He smiled.  The cool air from the nearby town of Clovis smelled like fresh-cut grass.  He breathed in deep down to the bottom of his lungs.  Now he truly felt free.  He vowed that he would someday leave Fuckno, once and for good.  

Cash money in his pocket, a bag of his worldly possessions on his back, and the whole deep, wide future in front of him.

He didn’t care that no one had come to meet him upon his release.  He was a bigger man than that.  He knew that something had happened.  He had seen it on the news, and he had a clue.

Before he would dive into the mess, he would take care of himself.  Always fill up on a good meal before you have to do some heavy lifting.

That is what a good man does.


He gets ready to help you out.

A good man will not let you down.

THE LION MAN 

TALKS

Joey shined his flashlight light into our faces and said, “What the hell you been doing, Weeee-ill?” 

I said, “Joseph!  How’s Katheena?  Boy do have we a tale to tell you!  But how’s she doing?”

Tellesco brought out an oil lamp from the pantry, and he set it on the counter.  He lit it.  The remnant of the sun cast its red ember light across the face of black eternity overhead.  Out here, in the north-west off-skirts of Fuckno, there was little light pollution.  Soon, the stars and galaxies would be displaying their slow waltz across the face of the desert night sky.

Joey nodded at Tellesco.  “Why you wearing that poncho, dude?”

Tellesco frowned and opened it up.  “I ain’t got no clothes.”

Joey put his hands up and said, “Whoa dude!  Don’t be showing me your junk!  What the fuck?”

I said, “You must be hungry.  Do you want something to eat?  We got cans of beans.”

Joey said, “Weeee-ill.  You making a crack at a poor Messican?  You calling me a beaner!”   He chuckled at his own joke.  Then he said, “Hold on.  I stopped at a little place and got some stock for myself.  Be right back.”

Tellesco said, “I’m sorry about that Mr. Will.  I didn’t mean to show off my junk.”

I said, “Don’t worry about that.  I just wonder where the hell he spent last night and today.  I wonder how he knew to find us here?”

Tellesco shrugged.

We watched Joey’s flashlight bob along the backyard, past the swimming pool, and then further off, past Tellesco’s destroyed ranch.  That thing had once been almost half a city block long, and skinny.  To air out a ranch in the desert, it is necessary to build a ranch in such a manner.  It affords the air to blow across, and through the open windows on each side.

There had once been a wine cellar dug out of the desert hand pan, and that was now filled with the fallen down debris of the burnt timbers.  It had also held the bones of a young fellow named Tommy Hewitt. God rest his soul.

He would be back.  

Shake A Bone, by Son Of Dave

Joey returned with two bags.  One had food, and the other held bottles of wine.  The Little Lion Man loved wine. 

We arranged the food on the counter.  Joey opened a bottle with a cheap cork screw with the price sticker still on the handle.  He had bought only reds, and these are best tasted when not refrigerated, which worked out well in this pool house/guest cottage.

He had bought hard salami, which needs no refrigeration, and also bags of chips and almonds and cans of potted meat and such.

Amen/tahoo.   Food.

He'd also bought some ointment and Band Aids for his cuts.  These he gave to Tellesco for his foot.

We took swigs from the wine bottle each in turn, and we ate well.   We ate like desert kings, from the perspective of prairie travelers on the Conestoga trails of a century ago.

The food tasted pretty fucking good, after canned beans.

Joey guzzled the end of the first bottle and got another one going.  While he did, he said, “I spent the last twenty four hours hiding.  But I got all this shit from a place that don’t have some poor bastard watching the television all the time.”

I said, “Why you been hiding?  What did you do?”

Joey set the opened bottle of Trebbiano on the counter his shoulders slumped.  He was silent for a few minutes.  What the hell?

The arm of his leather jacket went up to his face with his back to me, and he coughed.  He set the cork in his other hand down on the counter and he breathed in deep.

Then he turned around.

He whispered, “Weeee-ill. You better sit down.”   He motioned to the counter on the other side of the sink.  “I’ll catch you if you fall.”

What the hell did he mean by that?   I shrugged.  “Joseph, why you all pale now?  You look like you just seen a ghost!”

Tellesco backed away from us and turned and went into the bedroom.  He was giving us some private time.  Hell, did he know something as well?  How would he know anything?  Who would have told him?

Joey shrugged.  He said, “She didn’t make it.”

I said, “Joseph, I told you to take her directly there.  What you talking about?  Did you leave her at a bus stop?”

His eyes clamped shut.  His arm went back up to his eyes.  He said, “I brought her to the medical center as fast as I could drive.  They took her in.  They took her right away.  Then I passed out.”

I smiled.  “Good.  Whew!  Thank you for getting her there. I was all worried about her lungs full of mud from her car crash in the rain. Thank Gawd she coughed it out on my back when I carried her out of there---  Joseph, why you crying?”

He couldn’t say anything at all.    His shoulders began to heave, and then he began to make some strange whimpering noises, and then he was fucking crying like a fucking baby.

I felt shivers in my chest.  What the fuck was going on?  Why was he bawling like a brat?

I felt my legs get weak in the knees.  Why was Joey crying?

“JOSEPH!  WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO KATHEENA?”

He could not say a thing.   He bit his lip and came forth and grabbed me by my arms and he looked up into my face and he shook his head back and forth while he looked right straight up into my eyes.

He shook his head over and over again, tears streaming down his fucking cheeks.

My knees began to crumple, but I stood back up.  I shrugged his hands off me and stepped back.  I said, “You better tell me that Katheena is OK.  You better fucking tell me here and now that she is going to make it.  Don’t fuck around, Joseph.  Don’t fuck with me.  I will fucking break your spine over my knee for fucking with me like this you little bastard!”

The Little Lion Man coughed and wiped his eyes off with the arm of his leather jacket.

He said, “Weeeee-ill.”  

He just stood there.

“She didn’t make it.”

He shook his head again, looking into my eyes.

“Katheena is dead.  She didn't make it.”

God Help You.

God Help Us All.

---willies out.

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