The Minotauress

The blonde handed him the box, which the Writer took after a quick visual surveillance of the large and mostly visible breasts buoyed up in a lacy brassiere. Then he frowned uncomprehending as he turned the long box around in his hands. NOT AVAILABLE IN STORES! it claimed. The top read WONKO KITCHEN PRODUCTS: THERM-O-FRESH FOOD SAVING SYSTEM! It was one of those kitchen gadgets for keeping leftovers fresh for longer.

In the Writer's head he made a rare departure from his avoidance of profanity: Why the fuck are two backwoods hookers fighting over THIS? though he didn't feel inclined to ask. 'Flipping a coin seems the most fair manner by which to solve your discrepancy, hmm?'

Both girls begrudgingly nodded.

The Writer produced a quarter. 'You call it,' he said to the blonde and flipped.

'Heads!' the blonde snapped.

'Aw, you poop-eater, Stacy,' sniped the brunette when the Writer caught the coin and showed heads. She thumped off to another room.

The blonde had won the box. 'Thanks!'

The Writer figured it out: She must have children, and wants to stretch her food budget by saving leftovers.

'So what'cha write about, Mr. Writer?' she asked in a bouncy enthusiasm.

The Writer tried not to groan. 'Fluctuations of the human condition in an ever-evolving—or de- volving age. I symbolize the tenets of post-Sartrean existentialism in the lives of characters in fiction.'

She looked crosseyed at him. 'Is that, like, havin' folks in a story that's made up do real things like what folks in real life experience?'

'Well, actually, yes.'

'Aw, cool! So if'n ever ya wanna fuck me 'cos ya got someone in a story fuckin' an' you cain't remember what that's like, just you knock on my door. And all I'se'll charge ya is ten bucks!'

The Writer was flabbergasted. 'Uh, well, I just might do that if I need to reflect that aspect of the human condition in my work.'

'Good! ‘Bye!' but, of course, she pronounced ‘bye as 'baa!'

Depressed now, the Writer left the house and proceeded at once to the Crossroads, to drink with the gusto of Hemingway...

(III)

Needless to say, McKully rehired Balls and Dicky, upped their twenty-five-gallon runs to a hundred, and quadrupled their pay—and with the jaded event came the actualization—the epiphany—that would forge the true meaning of their destinies. They ran liquor for another man, as well, a man named Clyde Nale. What they each earned on a weekly basis was a fair shake of money, solid remuneration for two young dropouts in an economically wasted town. Balls and Dicky, hence, were a unique pair in Luntville: they were successful.

But Balls, since the genesis of his epiphany, wasn't satisfied with one-dimensional success...

That night, the El Camino cruised smoothly down dark, winding roads. They'd just finished dropping off a load of moonshine in Whitesburg, Kentucky, and now it was time to relax. Each had a beer between their legs and a smile on their face.

'Dang good day, Dicky,' Balls remarked, his long hair billowing in the breeze from the open window.

'That it was, Balls,' Dicky replied.

Balls went to wipe a booger when Dicky wasn't looking, but after doing so his fingers touched a small pile of odd plastic strips under the ‘Mino's seat. The hail? 'Hey, Dicky? What're these here funny thangs?' and then he held one up. 'Come ta think of it, they look familiar... '

'Huh?' Dicky replied, squinting over.

'Oh, I know what these are,' Balls finally said. 'They're Flex-Cuffs, ain't they?'

'Oh, yeah... '

Balls nodded in the moonlight as the stars streamed by the open window. 'The bulls used these things on us whenever they'd transport convicts to another block.' Next, Balls' lips pursed. 'But, Dicky... What'choo need Flex- Cuffs fer?'

'Aw, see, my Uncle Marty works the state penn, he brings home boxes of 'em. It's always good ta have some in the car in case ya need ta pole-tie a deer. It's the fastest way ta truss 'em up if'n you're out poachin'.'

Balls thought about that and found the idea to be quite innovative. But then, in a mental jag, it wasn't a deer he saw pole-tied in his mind's eye, it was a naked woman. Or better yet, Flex-Cuff her wrists'n hook 'em over a broken branch-end stickin' out of a tree. Then git ta workin' on her nice'n slow with the manual drill, right in the breadbasket...

Dicky was chuckling. 'Shee-it, my Uncle Marty's got it made workin' up at that place.'

'The state slam?'

'Aw, yeah, man. Decent pay and benner-fits, plus he's kin git a blowjob anytime he wants and alls it costs is a quarter.'

Balls thought about that, eyes thinned. 'Oh, you mean from the female cons on the women's block.'

Dicky paused for a number of moments, then blurted. 'A'course! What'cha think I meant? From dudes? Shee-it.'

Balls wondered but dismissed it. Suddenly he was thinking what it would be like to stick a spoon down a woman's throat in order to make her vomit while simultaneously engaged in the act of intercourse...

'But'cha knows what?' Dicky blathered. 'I was thinkin'. Since we'se been runnin' ‘shine? I'll'se bet we make more scratch than dang near anyone in all'a Luntville.'

In Balls' mind, he was now making the woman drown in the vomit... 'Huh? Oh, yeah, Dicky, I'll bet we do, buts ya know we'se'll be makin' even more real soon. You ain't fergot 'bout Crafter's house, now have ya?'

Dicky thought behind the wheel. 'Aw, yeah. That fella on Governor's Bridge Road.'

'Right. And it ain't but a couple'a days ‘fore he goes to Spain.'