~

Road’s Cannon

a short novel

by

Clyde Collins

alias

Cloyd Campfire, Davy Crockett Reincarnated,

Elvis Bojangles, Spitball Fury, Frank Freedom

 and Rawclyde!

 ~ 1973 ~

~

dedicated

with affection

to

~ Glidia ~

Acknowledgments to Joseph Fuentes, Carlos Pacheco, Bob Carr, who coped with these fantasies, cheered them on.

note:

It would generate appropriate asthetic wonderment up and down your spine if you could find and listen to the original soundtrack recording album by Ennio Morricone, from the movie, A Fistful Of Dollars, while reading this tale.  C.C.

~

Road

     The young pale dude awkwardly approached the cigar stand in the Sheriff of Nottingham department store.

     It was in New Orleens, Louisiana.

     He gingerly picked up a package of his second favorite brand of cigars ~ a long thin kind ~ and approached the counter.

     “Can I help you?” asked the pretty young lady behind the counter.  She was black and smiling.

     White teeth.  Obviously the best teeth in the city ~ a real compliment between her fat choice lips of grand smiling and total seduction.  The top three buttons of her real woman blouse were unbuttoned ~ and her real woman breasts of black burned a hole thru the young pale dude’s head.  She was magic.

     “Yeah, I need a woman like you,” he ventured ~ nervously.

     “What else do you need?” she asked ~ her big brown eyes crammed full of exciting history ~ history of the most colorful kind.

     “Matches.”

     She tossed a book of matches onto the counter.  He picked them up ~ began to walk away.

     “Aren’t you going to pay for the cigars?” she asked.

     “No money,” he said, kept walking.

     “Hey!  Come back here!”

     He did.

     “Who do you think you are?”

     He shrugged ~ started to open the pack.

     “What’s your name?”

     “Road.”

     “Road?”

     “Yeah.  Road.”

     “Road who?”

     “Just Road.”  It wasn’t easy meeting her eyes.  She knew life ~ loved life ~ obviously could fight with life a gleam in her eye ~ and obviously won it all the time.  A woman who was life ~ right before his very eyes!  It had been a long time since he’d talked to a woman, or seen one.  And the legs beneath her mini-skirt could melt the horn on a rhino’s snout, fry King Kong’s hot dog, and serve pancakes with thick syrup all at once ~

     It was also summer time.  Hot.  And in New Orleens ~ sticky.

     “Are you serious?” she challenged, heaving herself tall ~ fierce ~ absolutely beautiful and with poetry.

     “No,” he said.

     “What’s your real name?  Hey!  Come back here!”

     He ran out the door.

For two fantastic long years he’d planned that moment ~ and a lady like that black-girl woman made it a damn good meal that needed no dessert.

     An hour later in a New Orleens graveyard, he sat on the grassy ground, his back against a dead business man’s tomb.  He slapped an occasional mesquito and smoked a cigar.

     This cigar was a masterpiece!

     It was also dessert ~ whether the meal of department store robbery needed one or not.

     “Gurr,” growled his belly ~ a belly hungry for belly food ~ but he gave no damn.  This kind of fasting for him was easy ~ and holy.

Ding Dong

     The lawyer was kicking back on the couch with a glass of bourbon and seven-up (on the rocks) in his hand and a Playboy magazine in his lap.  He was trying to relax in his apartment after a fruitless day at the office.  All he ever seemed to get in his office was more poor than he was the day before.  It made him nervous.

     The door bell rang.

     He ignored it.  He always ignored it unless he was expecting somebody ~ and he was expecting nobody.  He sipped his drink, flipped a page of the magazine.

     The door bell rang again.

     The lawyer ~ a little man with a pretty good build going pudgy ~ was already keyed up.  With the second ring of the door bell he got more keyed up.

     The door bell rang a third time.

     The lawyer got up off the couch ~ turned his color television on ~ sat back down ~ irritated irritated irritated.  And sipped his drink.

     The phone rang.

     He cursed magnificently for such a little straight man ~ got up off the couch again ~ and answered the phone.

     A client.

     The door bell kept ringing.

     The TV was on too loud.

     The client was a stupid old lady who knew absolutely nothing and needed her lawyer every minute of every day ~ for all the people she was constantly legally greedily trying to rob.

     And she loved to talk.  The lawyer obliged ~ and listened to all the noises of his life ~ and wished he hadn’t left his drink in the living room.

     Whoever was ringing the door bell was now trying to open the door.  The door was locked ~ but still the little lawyer’s big frown chiseled itself into a silent sneer that twitch a twitch twitched ~ and his face reddened.

     The air conditioner was on ~ and the lawyer was getting poorer every minute as he listened to the old lady client whirl like a brainless top.

     “Yes, yes, yes,” he moaned politely into the receiver.  “Yes, Mrs. Potter.”

     The front door crashed open, the lawyer dropped the phone’s receiver, and there stood that pale and wicked ass-hole, Road.

Bourban

     “I’ve come for my truck,” Road said to the lawyer, who wasn’t at all happy about the smashed in front door, but was happy about seeing this pale young dude out of prison.  And the lawyer didn’t know whether to curse the door or cheer the visitor.

     “About time,” said the little lawyer ~ and he laughed.

     Road laughed too ~ and spied a bottle of bourbon on the drainboard in the kitchen.

     The lawyer followed Road’s eyes.  “Knock yourself out,” he said.

     And Road did.

Cheers!

I wanna be a holy outlaw

I wanna be a holy outlaw

I wanna be

I wanna be

I wanna be be be

a holy outlaw.

I’m gonna be a holy outlaw

I’m gonna be a holy outlaw

I’m gonna be

I’m gonna be

I’m gonna be be be

a holy outlaw.

I am a holy outlaw.

Yahoo!