It
was midnight when I got the call.
Gin
drunk and covered in shadows,
Mary
Anne O'Shanter spewed the fix.
Her
husband, the Fat Man, and Fontaine
were
pulling out.
No
deal.
I
rolled a cigarette,
forgetting
about the one I left lingering.
Set up,
I
inferred.
What
I needed was a shovel, some suspenders, a can of soup,
chewing
gum, a gallon of gas, and a Halloween mask.
It
didn't add up.
The
kidnapped McLean baby,
the
stolen .455 Webley-Fosbery,
the
midget named Carlos.
A
piece of the puzzle was missing.
I
knew I was close,
but
what did the dude rancher with the gold teeth mean when he said 'I was born
ready'?
Why
did the flashlight salesman take all the Gideon Bibles out of the Wagon Wheel Motel
and flee for Arizona?
Why
would Mrs. Baker lie about her uncle's shoes?
I
was like a hawk hovering over dozens of squirming bald pink baby rats,
I
was ready to kill, to feast, to have seconds and thirds.
Problem
was,
I
didn't have any talons.
Bloody Sam
Scorpions
eaten
alive by fire ants
and
freeze frames of ass-kickers.
The
gloomy 1850s desert pisses yellow mustard
onto
the 5-o-clock shadows of Slim, Buck,Tex, and Nobody.
Bloody
Sam
sweats
tequila through his bandana
like
some fictional character,
clasping
his gut wound
in
slow motion,
and
falling off of his horse.
Ross Peterson is a freelance writer from Missoula, Montana who strives for a hard-boiled, bizarre world with his poetry; he also writes genre movie reviews for both
VHSCollector.com and Splatter-Shack.com. He's pretty awesome.
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