The Episodes of Sparky & Banes

Sparky is a former scab pro-wrestling referee—who is unaware of this fact—with a unique sense of fashion (based loosely on his real world counterpart who really is a pro-wrestling referee).  Banes is a washed-up and depressed drunken gambler with a speech impediment and is very aware of this (based loosely on his real world counterpart who really is washed up and depressed).  They're two of a kind, working on a full house, just looking for a good time.  Like birds of a feather they stick together, and this is their story:

SPARKY AND BANES:  Episode 2 - “Joe, Joe.” – 5/11/03

It was a cold night, the kind of night that gives you the chills even when it's cold.  I had just stepped outside of a local hot spot known in town as 'The Western'.  I wasn't looking for trouble, but I was ready for anything, and trouble would always be ready for me.

Somewhere, out there, beyond the...something or other, a man was sitting at his cluttered desk typing with only the monitor of his computer as his source of light.  The bright glow pierced his blood shot eyes, and he, of course, used whatever came to mind.

His eyes were bloodshot, the kind of bloodshot like a dead man, bleeding on the side of the street in the morning, like he had been shot.

The man wasn't a writer, but like any aspiring dreamer, he had to try a little of everything.

He looked at me under the brim of his hat.  I looked at him under mine.  We stared at each other.  He started to say something but stopped.  He looked at me under the brim of his hat.  I looked at him under mine...

It's funny how some people will try to do things they aren't particularly good at, just for the sake of doing them.  This was no exception.

"You looking at me?" I asked briskly, squinting my eyes, looking at the man under the brim of my hat.  It was a good hat, an expensive hat, the kind of hat that you spend a lot of money on.  I could tell from the other guy's hat that he wasn't nearly so classy as I was, but God was I classy.  I was the kind of classy that makes an entrance at a blue collar, bow-tie event.  I was the kind of classy that would step up to the stool and say, 'bartender, give me a drink, and put it on my tab,' and I'd pay for it, because I was the kind of classy that if I didn't pay for it in the cold, hard cash that I'd earned on a cold, hard day's work, I'd pay for it in blood, and that didn't mean it would be my blood either because while I may have been classy, damn I was a tough guy.  I was the kind of tough that...

Writing is a beautiful thing if you can even come close to doing it right.  You don't need a huge vocabulary or even anything resembling perfect grammar, just words in your head, and the willpower to put them down on paper.  No one else needs to read them even though there are surely those that would want to.  People like to know what other people are thinking.  They also like to hear what they themselves were thinking yesterday, or the week before last, or ten years ago, because people forget-

-and like to remember.  I'd never forget a face like that.  She was the pretty face you meet when you come in from the rain.

'The pretty face you meet when you come in from the rain'?  What the hell does that mean?  What goes through a person's head is the most interesting thing of all because, well, that's where interest starts: in the head.  Seeing it slip down the arm and out the fingers into words is something else very interesting entirely.

It's okay to cry in the insecure hours of the night, when all you can do is stare out the window as the rain comes in sideways and blurs every light in town, from the water on the window or just in mid air, as the light flickers and goes out and there's only the bright flash to light your path from time to time, like God is saying "I'll get you home baby."

"I'll get you home baby."

I was staring out the window, and the rain was coming in sideways, and the lights were blurring, and the whole town was home, except for her.  She was out there somewhere, cold, alone in the rain.  She's a big girl.  She can take care of herself, but why was I still bothered that I wasn't out there, keeping her in check, being her big guy...

'Being her big guy'?  Of course someone would have to read this when sober in the morning, and hopefully they would have the kindness in their heart to rid the rest of the world from ever going over it…or stick with it to the end and get it published for a few bucks and sell a few dozen copies along with the other ‘big guy’ crime novels…

I couldn’t hold it any longer.  The rain was worse than ever and it didn’t look like it was going to let up.  I put on my coat and pulled the brim of my hat down over my eyes.  I opened the door and there she was.  She was soaked and dripping on my shoes.  I didn’t mind it then though.  I gave her my jacket and brought her inside.  I went back to close the door as the last man outside in the whole world was on his way home…

-

It was raining, and it was cold, and dammit, I was cold, and I was wet, and I had no place to go.  Dammit.

Every light in town was off and they wouldn’t let me in anyway.  Bastards.  Up ahead there looked like a place to rest:  a small bar on the corner—just my type of place.  I stepped inside.

“I’ll have a Jack, on the rooks (rocks),” I said, taking off my hat.

“What?” the kindly bartender replied.  I didn’t like his tone.

I pointed him in the right direction.  He looked like he could use some straightening anyhow.

“So how’s bobsnest (business)?” I asked him.  The bastard left me a drink, gave me a look, and hurried away.  I guess I just have that effect. 

I’m the intimidating sort.  This gal didn’t look intimidated though, so I approached her.

“He-“ I started to say.

She said nothing.

“Ho-“

She just stared.

“Hooch!” I said, giving her a look.  She was mine.

“What?” she finally asked.  Another sharp tone though.  Oh well, no worries, all in the game plan.

“I suppose you’d be troubled to hitch me up a kitchen table on Sunday,” I said.  Damn I’m smooth.

She appeared to have an aneurism and dry heaved on me a couple times.  I will admit I got a little liquid on number two—oh yeah—then she looked at me in shock of herself.

“I’m sorry,” she said, but didn’t look it.  I started to say something else and she ran away.

God, I’m too much man, and I said so.  “Glad I’m too far made (I’m too much man, etc.).”

That’s when I saw him at the corner of my eye.  He showed no fear.  I’ll have to admit I was petrified, but then again I’m always petrified.  I had also pissed myself but that had nothing to do with being petrified whatsoever.  I did have to meet the only man who hadn’t reviewed the pros and cons of going on with life when I had walked into the room.

“It’s pretty cold,” I said.

“Yeah, it is,” he answered.  He took the bait.

“It’s f*ckin freezin’!” I added (needlessly), and sat down.  I reeled him in.  “FREEEEZ-“

“Yeah, it’s cold,” he said simply again.  He didn’t seem annoyed with me either.  It was something.

“So you drinkin’ beer?” I asked.

He shook his head but didn’t seem to question why I would ask that, so I did myself.  It took me a few minutes actually, to get the thought through my head:  ‘drink-ing-beer-are-you-am-I?’  He still looked on, very interested in me for some reason.  I stopped then and checked to see if he was a little, you know, fag, but felt comfortable enough and figured he wasn’t.  I introduced myself, “The name’s Joe.”

“Joe?” he repeated, as if questioning it…like he knew something…had there been something to know…

“Joe…Joe, Joe.”  (Very James Bond.)  You have to keep your wits in a town like this, and your identity.  I couldn’t trust anybody to know who I really was.

“BRIAN BANES!” a man—a real man—the true meaning of a man—screamed as he swung from a rafter, a dozen hortiful (horde/beautiful) women clinging to him.  He disappeared as quickly as he had come.  How very Wanell I thought, and didn’t know why.  I stopped thinking about it though and pissed myself again.

The man I was sitting with answered me with something about wanting to have my baby, or something.  I wasn’t really paying attention by then and was onto thinking about my seventh shot so I was pretty smashed.  I left him and felt his eyes following me as I went up to get my second shot—where I’d have to stop.  I’m not made of money dammit.  And that’s when I realized the bartender was gone.

After a few disagreements with the ‘PULL’ sign on the door, I made my way outside.  When the man with the clinging women had left he had gotten rid of the rain and brought the sun back as well.  I didn’t question it.  No one did I’m sure.

“Tracy (taxi)!” I summoned, but realized, from the size of town, that it would be a useless gesture. 

I saw the bikes leaning up against the wall:  mostly real nice Harleys (or, in this town, crappy, engineless rust hogs).  I knocked over (fell over on) three before finally finding the bike that fit me.  Nothing like being on two wheels out on the streets (and two more wheels in back, of the training sort).  “Ching ching!” I rang (and said out loud, obnoxiously, obviously), and started off.  Damn, was I mean.

A man tried to run me down when I came around a bend up the street a ways.  The place was out to get me I saw.  He swerved and ran into a tree, probably killing him instantly.  Get off my streets.  This isn’t (certain parts of) Europe for God’s sakes.  Have to be on your toes out on these streets.  I thought I was on my toes, but I didn’t see it coming.

All I saw was blond hair and blue dress and ribbon as my ride sped off and my groin and shins throbbed.  I had to keep going though.  I owed it to the man behind the bar.

“Let me be your hero…” a strange Asian (Hispanic) man whispered to me as he stopped alongside me in a new pickup truck.  This was a weird town (yeah, since those Asian/Hispanic are so weird).  Luckily he stopped in a place other than my ankles.  He only drove over them…twice.

I pulled myself into the passenger seat as he screamed some foreign obscenity at me as I pulled a bag of chips (Doritos) out from under me.  They were now crushed to bits.  He looked at me and then cried and went on singing.  He wasn’t half bad I guess either, but I couldn’t pay attention to him.  I had to keep my mind on the task at hand.

He somehow knew where I needed to go and dropped me off, saying something about trembling, laughing, and kissing but faded off as he drove away, and as the winged creature—beautiful, manly, tediously (Wanell) that had seemed to guide us here flew off.  The Asian (Hispanic) man promptly ran into a tree.  “The pain… Oh yeah…” were his words.  Probably his last too.

I ran up the cement path to the porch where I must have been going.  I waited in line as a man dressed as a butterfly dropped me through the porch—the only explainable way I could have gotten where I needed to go next.

This was Alice’s Wonderland for sure, just without the wonder, because, well, it was a shit hole, literally, because there was a huge sewer pipe leak, and an ugly bastard (beautiful man) friend of mine swimming in it.  I was so glad I came here.

“Where have you been Brian?  And how the hell did you find me here?” my unpleasant smelling cohort said.

“The name’s Joe, sister,” I answered, although knowing he knew better.  He gave me a gesture suggesting I should kiss his big, spring fresh ass, but then curtsied and hurried along with me.

At the end of the tunnel, that seemed more like a butt hole than a cavern, where we were, there was a light, and so the next logical step on where we should go.  At the end of the tunnel and, to make ends meet, on the way things were going we jumped on a magic carpet to our next destination:  the roof of the bar on the corner where I had started.

“Thank you for flying Wanell air,” said the carpet, ”and remember, for all your tab needs-“  The carpet interrupted itself as it sped off to another house top where a pot head, a Klan member, and an NBA analyst leaped on for a trip of their own.

Now that Sparky was with me, and that I’d realized that had been the point of the whole sidetrack, we took the stairs down a level to what would have been the second floor.  I once again saw the bartender in the form of his lower half upside-down, falling out the window in an escape.  Sparky and I followed but weren’t quite so successful in being graceful and ended up in a heap outside on the street along with the Harleys—which were also in the heap I had left them.  The man ran down the street to the door of a small hotel room where we followed.  We got to the door just as he was closing it and followed him inside.  He stopped his getaway and froze in place as we froze alongside him in awe of the scene we saw.

-

And I gave her my man passion!  I thrust it to her!  It was a kind of passion…………………………

For once the aspiring author didn’t actually trail off for the sake of my commenting and instead fell asleep on the keyboard, collapsing and knocking the normal tools of his trade—a set of juggling sticks—onto the floor.

Plug:  In Capable Hands rules! 

The End.