Mer Rouge (Part 25)

Sirens wailed. Smoke from the burning barbershop towered into the sky. The priest looked to the other side of the road and saw another column of black smolder rising above the buildings. He bolted in its direction. A block and a half away, he found his beige Chrysler set ablaze. With sirens ringing nearer, the priest re-concealed the shotgun under his smock and calmly sauntered away from the fire and towards a nearby neighborhood. Down the calmly streets, children waved to him as they played in the front yard. Grandmothers smiled at him as he passed by. From a speeding pickup, one redneck heaved a carton of eggs at his back. “Fuckin Catholics!” the redneck yelled. But the priest kept his head down as he wandered down a cul-de-sac where he noticed an old 1970 AMC Gremlin. He looked around for passersby. “No one will miss this piece of shit,” he said to himself. He took the butt of the Mossberg and smashed open the driver’s side window and opened the door. He knelt down and hotwired the vehicle like it wasn’t shit. Then he cleaned up the shattered glass in the driver’s seat and sat down. When he pulled down the sun visor, the keys fell into his lap. “I guess somebody wanted this car stolen,” he said aloud. With a quarter of a tank of gas, he started down the direction of interstate 20 towards Louisiana.

But the brothers were miles ahead of him. It took them less than an hour to reach Moorhouse Parish. By that late afternoon, they took the exit off I-20 and headed north towards Oak Ridge. Near the city limits, they pulled off the empty road and climbed off the bike. A brother unsheathed a switchblade and punctured a tire and then they waited on passing vehicles. Another hour later, near dusk, a squad car rolled up. It was Oak Ridge police. The officer climbed out and adjusted his pants. “Flat tire?” he asked

“Yessir,” one brother responded politely in a faux southern affect. “Perhaps you could give us a ride into town.”

The officer nodded. “Heh. I haven’t seen one of those sidecars since Saigon.”

“Yessir. They’re not that common.”

“Where can I find myself one of those? I have a Harley just like that and I’d like to get an attachment. You know, for the wife n all.”

The brother scrambled for words. “Uh, I’m sure you can find plenty of those down in New Orleans.”

“Nar’lens?”. The officer spat. “Is that where you boys are from? Yur tags say Tennessee.”

“Right. Well uh, our family lives down that way. My brother and I are headed back to Tennessee.”

“Jeez. Yur takin the long way. Yur almost to Arkansas!” But the officer agreed and he opened the back driver’s side door. He bent down to clear out shit in the backseat and tossed it to the front. “It might not be the most comfortable ride back here, but…”

Before he could finish, a brother pulled him up, held him, and poked the switchblade into his throat. The other brother took the officer’s service revolver and checked the cylinder. “We appreciate the ride, officer,” the brother said, “but we’re looking for Deputy Fornier of Morehouse Parish Sheriff’s Department.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

Mer Rouge (Part 23)

On the city outskirts, where the cliffs drop sharply, the motorbike pulled off into a gravel pit where a shanty ice cream shack overlooked the mighty Mississippi. The brothers dismounted the bike and joined the gaggle of denizens standing in line for a tasty summer treat. When their turn arrived, the server sporting a white soda jerk hat, removed the pencil behind his ear and put it to paper. “What can I get you boys?” he asked them. But the brothers only glared at him from behind their reflective shades, their faces as unflappable as a clear midnight moon. The man nodded. “Oh okay. I’ll just get y’all a vanilla cone,” the server said. He brought them the cones, already dripping from the excessive heat, and the brothers wandered off to a lonely corner of the pit and gazed upon the wide river below with the green flats on Louisiana on the other side.

This puzzled the Priest. There was something hauntingly serene about these two men as they shared their moment of solitude. It didn’t appear that they exchanged a word. But the priest watched them from afar. He tailed them stealthily in a nondescript beige Chrysler that he stole in a parking lot in Memphis. He’d occasionally break visual contact down Highway 3 to avoid detection. Yet the priest was beside himself when he discovered the charred remains of Deputy Ricketts and his squad car. He had only been minutes behind. Now he laid low. He looked to the backseat to check on the 12 gauge Mossberg and then he reached into his cossack to check the chamber of a Smith & Wesson .38/44.

Meanwhile, the brothers took their sweet ass time munching down the cones. But when they finished, one climbed back on the bike and one into the sidecar and they roared their way on into Vicksburg. The priest trailed behind. A couple of miles later, the brothers entered the nearly deserted downtown area and the priest pulled off into an alleyway and readied his weapons. A block away, the brothers stopped by a lonely barbershop and dismounted. With a shotgun under his smock, the priest sauntered over to mainstreet and saw the deserted motorbike. Not wishing to attack them head on, he continued towards the alley behind the barbershop and picked its lock. Once inside, he held the Smith & Wesson and tiptoed his way through the back end of the shop. He could hear the brothers on the other side of the wall.

“Are you Fornier?” a voice asked.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Mer Rouge (Part 23)

The screeching cicadas pierced through the cold silence as the sweat built up on the deputy’s neck. Not a peep was uttered by the suspicious duo. Not even a slight movement. They sat there hard and still like marble statues. The deputy stepped toward the grass and spat out the last remaining hulls between his teeth. “Well boys, are you gonna show me some identification?”

Nothing changed. He looked them up and down but couldn’t make heads or tails on what they might be hiding. They didn’t seem nervous. Not even a bead of sweat was apparent under all that leather. The deputy nearly asked them to step off the bike but before he did, a rickety pickup rounded the corner and sounded the horn. “Evening deputy!” the driver shouted. It was Hopper returning to his farm. The deputy turned his back and waved before resuming his duties. And when he did, the duo was gone. Vanished. Only the bike and the puny sidecar remained.

Ricketts drew his service revolver and searched the treeline. When he came up with nothing, he charged across the road and looked there. Out of options, he returned to the squad car and radioed in. “This is Ricketts. I’m out here on Highway Three and I urgently need another deputy…”

Before he could finish the request, a gigantic fireball exploded underneath his vehicle, lifting it a foot or two in the air before crashing back down. Then, out of the shadows, the brothers reappeared and assessed the carnage. The flames flashed brilliantly through their reflective shades. Satisfied with the destruction, they boarded the bike and kickstarted the engine. But clinging on to dear life, Ricketts pushed the drivers side door off its hinges and fell face first onto the pavement with revolver still in hand. His legs were blown off below the knees, left arm mangled, and his hair and clothes were burning into black carbon. “I’ll kill you!” he screamed with his dying breath. And in his final act, he emptied the revolver in the duo’s direction. Befuddled, the brothers flattened themselves to the ground and drew their weapons. But they watched the deputy pitiably claw his way across the road before the patches of fire spread and consumed him whole in the middle of the asphalt.

The brothers stood up and straightened themselves out and they faced each other for a hot moment. One nodded and the other returned it. Then they climbed on the bike and roared on into Vicksburg.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Mer Rouge (Part 22)

The putrid and rank possum’s corpse laid on the southbound lane headed into Vicksburg. For three days it festered under the sweltering August heat, with red guts spattered on both sides of the road before spoiling and flattening into a pancake with a few scant shit flies picking at its remains. On the northbound side, Deputy Gene Ricketts rested his squad car underneath the large sweetgum lined up on the left side entrance to the old Hopper farm by the lonesome highway. With the driver’s side door open, he spat countless sunflower seed hulls into the unkempt grass while Don Williams softly played. But when the sunflower seeds couldn’t keep his mind off the spittin tobacco, he turned to the 100 proof Jack in the concealed thermos on the passenger’s side floor. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the heat ratcheted up ten degrees every hour. As the time slowly passed, the deputy would dab a rag across his forehead. Eventually, the song faded out and the radio station transitioned to the latest country hit. And as it did, the deputy looked down the road towards the north. A mile or two ahead, through the unbearable Mississippi heat and mirage waves, a small motor vehicle came barreling towards him—an easy speeding ticket, likely his only for the day. He squinted his eyes. It was a motorcycle clearly, but with something peculiar. It had a sidecar. The deputy closed the door and cut on the engine and waited for the bike to roar past him. And when it did, the siren blared and the Warren County squad car sped away from the dirt patch on the side of the road and left a cloud of red dust lingering behind.

The bike didn’t put up much of a fight. Upon noticing the deputy behind, the driver pulled over and braked. The squad car stopped two or three meters away. Deputy Ricketts climbed out, shades concealing his eyes, and he slowly sauntered towards the offending vehicle. There were two men—one on the bike and one in the side car. Neither turned around. Neither made a sound. “Well boys,” the deputy said, “that’s one helluva knucklehead ya got there. Not sure if the sidecar is street legal. But I might let it slide.”

The two men—decked out in black leather, mud washed denim, and wearing German-made half helmets—remained silent. The deputy looked at the license plate. “Ontario?” the deputy beamed. “Canadian, eh?”

They said nothing.

The deputy strolled up to the front of the bike to gander at their faces. His brow furrowed. Like him, the two men had their eyes concealed behind reflecting shades. Their faces looked cut from stone, each sporting a dark chevron mustache. If the deputy had to have guessed, he would have reckoned they were twins. “My my,” Ricketts spoke, “don’t you two make quite a pair.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

Old miss

So I was just minding my own business while loitering in the Publix parking lot when I saw a guy driving a light blue car with an Ole Miss license plate and Ole Miss bumper stickers all over the back. When he stepped out of the car, he was wearing an Ole Miss polo with an Ole Miss hat.

So I stopped the man. “Excuse me, sir, I’m confused,” I said, “where did you go to college?”

He stood there and stared blankly at me. “Ole Miss,” he finally said.

“Ole Miss? Is that a college?”

“Yes. It’s the University of Mississippi.”

“The University of Mississippi you say? Is that in Mississippi?”

“Yes.”

“That’s great! I’m a fan of bulldogs and cowbells too!”

“That’s Mississippi STATE University, sir. I went to the University of Mississippi.”

“You guys don’t have cowbells and bulldogs?”

“No. We’re the Rebels.”

“The Rebels? Like in Star Wars?”

“No.”

“I don’t understand. If it’s not against Darth Vader and the Galactic Empire, I can’t imagine what you’d be rebelling against.”

“It’s rebels from the South during the Civil War.”

“They were rebelling against slavery, right?”

“No.”

“So they were rebelling FOR slavery?”

“Look, it’s just a college mascot.”

“But that’s racist sir. You’re fucked up,” I said while wagging my finger. “You should really be ashamed of yourself…”

Finally the staff called the cops and I’m now banned from Publix for three months. Smh…I can’t believe the nerve of some people. 😔

Ranking the 50 States (Bottom 10)

Personally, I think the idea of “states” is dumb and antiquated and they should be done away with altogether. But I’m gonna rank em anyway.

Here are the bottom 10:

50. Delaware

Besides being the first state and being suspiciously corporate friendly, there is nothing noteworthy going on with Delaware. The state could disappear tomorrow and no one would miss it.

49. Maryland

I was gonna rank Maryland higher, but fuck it. Fuck their flag too. AND their crabs. Along with Delaware, Maryland should become a real state by just joining Virginia.

48. Rhode Island

Oh, you’re the smallest state? That’s cool.

47. Mississippi

Congratulations on not being at the very bottom. I know a lot of Mississippi residents get pissed when you call their state a “shithole”. But it is by every conceivable metric. And I don’t understand the point in being very active in denying that.

46. Idaho

“Woah woah woah! What did we do to rank this low?” people from Idaho are wondering. Because other than potatoes, a blue football field, and Napoleon Dynamite, your state is boring AF.

45. Florida

Florida’s got nice beaches. But that’s where it ends. The cost of living is rising, half the state is about to be underwater, and drunk driving is the leading cause of death (based on stats I will not provide). Sure, all the new housing and buildings look nice, but it only masks the lingering anger and drug abuse issues everyone is experiencing.

44. Arkansas

Hot Springs, Conway, and Fayetteville are nice. Eureka Springs might be the coolest small town in America. Those are the only nice things I have to say.

43. Michigan

There’s something about this state that makes me absolutely sick to my stomach. Seriously, I can’t think about Michigan without getting a splitting headache.

42. Wyoming

If Wyoming is so nice, why does no one live there? 🤔

41. Illinois

I hate putting Illinois down this low. People hate Chicago, but that city’s never done anything to me. Everyone I’ve met from the Land of Lincoln have been lovely. It’s the least offensive state I can think of, and that might be what’s wrong with it.

40. North Dakota

Speaking of inoffensive, there’s also North Dakota.

Brett favre: real ass dude

https://news.yahoo.com/defendant-ex-governor-ordered-payments-232005570.html

Brett Farve is perilously close to being added to my real ass dude HOF. All he has to do now is kill someone and he’s automatically in.

Last I checked, Mississippi had just under 3 million people living there. Yet somehow Farve got himself involved in one of its biggest corruption scandals.

Allegedly, he didn’t know that he received embezzled money. But something tells me that it wasn’t because no one told him. It probably didn’t occur to him that what he was doing was unethical.

Hey, we all make our mistakes. But Brett Favre has a history of making mistakes that only real ass dudes make (making ill-advised throws, sending dick pics to reporters, wearing jorts, etc.)

So keep going Brett, you’re almost there. I’m rooting for ya!

what dreams may come

I’m a hard sleeper.

Nothing can, nothing will, wake me up. Construction, gun shots, home invasions, house fires, nuclear holocausts…nothing.

So I get to have incredible dreams. Last night, for example, I dreamt that I was a football player buried deep down the depth chart. The team boarded a plane en route to a game with the pilot both coked up and drunk. The pilot thought it would be cool to do a barrel roll in a passenger plane which caused some concern. I brushed it off and took a nap. When I awoke, the plane had to make an emergency landing onto a road but ended up crashing into an apartment building. No one was killed,miraculously, and the people in the building didn’t think anything unusual about it because it was in Mississippi and apparently things like that happen all the time. Nevertheless, one player thought this was the perfect opportunity to exact revenge…for whatever reasons…on the head coach and a few other players. So it was up to me, some nobody, to save the team.

Once when that was done, I had to book a flight home but chose to fly to London, England instead. The price came to $20,000 and I didn’t have the money. Then the dream ended.

There were dreams on the periphery, one which includes me fighting a rabbit in Monument Valley and sending it to a highly mechanized version of hell.

I guess dreams are just a hodgepodge of shit stored in our heads and when we sleep, our brains randomly throw things together which we later attempt to make sense of (or in my case, project a story onto). Does it ever mean anything? Probably not.

At least not most of the time.

But I do have recurring dreams. Not dreams where the exact same things happen, but they share similar themes, people, places, etc. I suppose that there are shreds of truth in these kinds of dreams: a revelation of regret, dread, loss, and so on.

I find the subject of dreams fascinating. It reveals the chaos that exists in our own minds. Even the purest of people will experience a gruesome nightmare. Despite their outward practices in real life, even in their minds they will produce true horror. That emanates completely from them. We try to project some sense onto our dreams, but the fact is that there isn’t any whatsoever.

We do the same thing to our reality.