Hey! I haven’t done a free one in a while but since I have a plethora, a seething mass, a roiling shitload of new free subscribers, I thought I’d treat you to a few full stories. But grab the full subscription. I swear on a stack of Tom Robbins and Elmore Leonard novels that it’s worth the 7.50 a month.
The rock had to come. It was heavy, so heavy Chuck, Chuckles, Grandpa Cee was having a hard time trying to carry it anymore.
The rock was said to resemble a comic strip character, a character no one but Chuck seemed to remember.
The SlimWell had to come too, 32 ounce cylindrical cartons of a diet protein powder that had been pulled from the shelves for containing too much of a chemical that was supposed to cause cancer.
Freeda saw the report on Channel 6, and ran to the pantry.
Grandpa Cee came in from the garage when she was pouring the powder down the drain and had a fit like someone gave away his favorite lawn edger to Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Made Freeda feel so guilty she drove around for Grandpa Cee and found a bunch of canisters that hadn’t been pulled from the shelves.
Every carton of SlimWell they loaded into boxes was expired by over a year, because Chuck, Chuckles, Grandpa Cee only mixed up a half ounce a day in his chocolate milk and Captain Morgan’s.
But he had to have it. Every day.
JonEtta had even found some SlimWell on eBay, the strawberry flavor, the one Chuckles hated, but she promised him he wouldn’t taste it in his chocolate milk and Captain Morgan’s, and she was right.
The trailer was loaded with a lifetime of crap accumulated by Chuck, as he was known to his 1st Battalion 5th Infantry buddies at Camp Hovey South Korea, Chuckles as he was known to the young bucks who had adopted the bar at the Eagles Lodge and to JonEtta, who wasn’t much older than the young bucks but married Chuckles on his 80th birthday anyway, and Grandpa Cee, as he was known to Freeda and a smattering of grandkids from two brief marriages and three flings.
The rock had to ride up front with Grandpa Cee, at his feet, JonEtta would be in back with their cat, Mugwump, and Freeda would drive down to Gibsonton, Florida, from McBain, Michigan.
Chuck, Chuckles, Grandpa Cee was getting to where it was hard for him to walk, even after the VA had treated him to two knee replacements, and he had a plan.
Lester Villegas, his old Army buddy, had a circus cannon down in Gibsonton.
Freeda looked at the SlimWell label, tried to figure out which ones of the chemicals was the one that caused the cancer. She couldn’t pronounce most of the ingredients, had never heard of them.
She wondered if she could buy all the other chemicals and make Grandpa Cee his Slimwell powder, just except for the one that was bad.
When he couldn’t walk anymore, Grandpa Cee was gonna give Lester Villegas 500 bucks to shoot him and his favorite rock out of the circus cannon.
It would be accidental death, and JonEtta would get his insurance money.
Lester told Chuck a bunch of times that the cannon shot probably wouldn’t kill him.
Chuck told Lester he’d be holding onto his favorite rock, and if the cannon shot didn’t do the trick, Lester could just bash his head with the rock.
JonEtta didn’t think Chuckles would go through with it, the thought of it made her sad, and she always quietly hoped that the SlimWell would give Chuckles cancer, and they’d both have money when they sued the company.
Freeda started the truck and realized that it would probably be easier for her to learn the formula for SlimWell than it was gonna be to back the trailer down the long, winding driveway.
***
If you could write this as an opera, might I suggest the working title of Kevorkian's Cannon.
OMG where do these characters come from? Love them all!❤️