Have Spacecat, Will Travel: And Other Tails by John Hartness (top ebook reader .TXT) 📕

14

Death of a Small-Town Sports Hero

The middle-aged high school football hero

stood on the fifty-yard line and looked around

at the wreckage of his adulthood

scattered in the laurel wreaths of his youth

as trophies and whiskey bottles and wedding rings

glinted in the grass while the dew

slowly soaked the cuffs

of his bulging size 48 elastic waistband slacks

and ruined his expensive Italian shoes.

He stood there swaying to the deafening chants

of the nubile cheerleaders that still sucked his dick

on the hood of his dad’s Chevy behind the field house

in the shards of his bourbon-hued memories.

The golden boy turned used-car-huckster

with bad knees and failed hair replacement

sat down in the middle of the field,

wrapped his arms around the broken pieces

of the state MVP trophy,

that plastic and lead painted pinnacle of his life

and kissed goodnight to the Saturday Night

Special.

15

Walk the Dinosaur

A Bubba the Monster Hunter Short Story

I stepped off the airplane and wobbled a little, but I didn’t fall down. I also didn’t drop to my knees and kiss the tarmac, although I can’t say the thought didn’t cross my mind. I stood there for a minute, blinking against the bright sun pounding through my sunglasses, and waited for my stomach to settle.

“Rough flight?” asked the man sitting on the tailgate of a rust-and-blue GMC pickup truck, maybe a ‘70 or so model.

“What makes you say that?” I asked. I was pretty proud of myself for not puking, but I did want to know if I was particularly green.

“I’ve seen a lot of people fly into here, and I never seen Randell puke before.” He pointed off behind me, and I turned. The pilot was bent over by the front of the plane, revisiting the pizza he’d put down in Atlanta just before we took off.

“Yeah, there was a little thunder boomer a ways back,” I said. “The landing wasn’t the smoothest thing I’ve ever seen, either.”

“Well, you know what they say about landings,” the man said. I took a better look at him, now that the horizon had stopped swaying. He was a tall fella, big, rangy, John Wayne-looking dude with deep valleys around his eyes from squinting into the sun for years and years. His skin had that rough, reddish tone that comes from a lot of wind and sun, and his hands were big and looked solid. He wore a faded chambray work shirt, sleeves rolled up to show some cheap homemade, or maybe prison tattoos, and his jeans were also faded and worn thin at the knees. He wore a battered brown cowboy boot on his right foot and a blue walking cast on his left.

“I reckon you’re Tyson,” I said, walking over and shaking hands with the injured Hunter.

“What gave it away? My rugged good looks, devastating smile, or the footwear?”

“Might have something to do with you being the only person anywhere around this shitheap airport not wearing coveralls and driving a fuel truck.” I swept the area with my gaze, but the little four-seater plane I’d arrived in was the only thing that looked like it had moved any time recently.

“You okay over there, Randell?” Tyson hollered.

“Kiss my ass, you old gimpy bastard!” the pilot yelled back.

“He’s fine,” Tyson said. “Get your crap and let’s roll. I’ll fill you in while we drive.”

I walked over to the side of the plane and opened the back door. I grabbed a small backpack with my clothes in it and two duffels full of weapons. I tossed the duffels in the back of the pickup, pitched my backpack on top of them, and then reached into the cockpit to grab Bertha from where she hung on the back of my seat. I slipped the shoulder rig on and fastened it to my belt, checking to make sure the Desert Eagle was snapped in and secure. I did not want any fifty-caliber surprises coming at me if I had to move fast.

“Thanks for the ride, Randell,” I said, waving to the pilot. “Sorry about your shoes.” He looked down at the vomit on his right foot and set off into a fresh tirade. I laughed under my breath and walked over to the truck.

I pulled out my phone and turned it on, then pressed the button to wake up the Bluetooth transmitter in my earbud. “Skeeter, you there?”

“Yeah, I’m here, Bubba. How was your flight?”

“Shitty. Dumbass Randell drove us right through that thunderstorm you warned him about. Some crap about not wanting to add any more time onto the journey.”

“That dipshit,” Skeeter’s shrill voiced laughed in my ear. “How many times did you throw up?”

“None, thank you very damn much,” I replied. “I drank a bottle of Pepto in the airport before we left Atlanta. I won’t poop for a week, but I didn’t paint the inside of the plane, either.”

“I reckon we can call that a win. You met up with Tyson yet?”

“Yeah, just got into his truck.”

“Put me on speaker, then.” I pulled out my phone, and Tyson pointed to a mount set into the dash. I slid my phone into it and pressed a button on the screen.

“Alright, Skeeter, you’re on speaker.”

“Hey, Tyson,” my technical expert and best friend since middle school said. “Pleased to kinda meet you.”

“Pleasure’s all mine,” Tyson said.

Skeeter continued. “I’ve got our giant friend here wired up to a satellite phone connection, and I pretty much don’t ever break it, unless I need to sleep or he feels the need to go to a strip club, which happens way more often than I like. So if you need anything researched or the big guns called in, y’all just let me know.”

Tyson chuckled and looked over at me. “You’re saying you’ve got some bigger guns than this giant?”

Skeeter’s shrill laugh about made my ears bleed. “No, but I’ve got a few that bring even bigger guns. Anyway, if you need anything, I’m never further away than Bubba’s Bluetooth. You need me, just holler.”

“Will do,” Tyson said.

“I’m gonna go back to watching Hap &