Off stood four men, above the sewer grate at the corner, not far from the glassy door, pitching quarters against the curb. Bars closed in Portland at 10:00 P.M. these tragic, Plandemic days.

Yeti Waters, looming tall and slouched in his low-Irish attitude, standing behind the pitch line but reaching so far forward that he nearly sat the quarters before the curb, grinned cat-like behind his greased mustache and beard, hulking in his Clutch T-shirt. A bottle of Southern Comfort was held in his off-hand paw as he tossed the flipping quarter soft.

Mescaline Franklin, short and wire-strong, sneered under his sombrero, over his Triad neck tattoos showing above the V-neck of his voluminous Russian Autumn camo-pattern poncho at a tweaker skulking bye with a syringe behind his ear like it was his last cigarette. A six-pack of Imperial Stout was at his desert-booted feet, four cans full, one crushed, one half full.

Silverback Jack, pale-ass negro from Camden, New Jersey, the elder statesmen of the crew, snickered as he took a swig of his 151 Monarch Rum and quipped, “Tweaker-boy has a pair of wet panties in his left hand.”

Mystery Meat Pete, drinking from a bottle of coke spiked with Silver back Jack’s gasoline rum, snorted in disgust, “Probably use them for a face mask so he can get in somewhere and shoplift. His ass knows better here.”

“That’s right!” rumbled Silver Back Jack, as Yeti Waters spun another quarter in front of the rest and scooped the treasure up into his cargo pants pocket, like that shit was not coming back—that’s how confident a quarter flipper he was.

Mexican Mike, the 7-11 overnight clerk, a hero to them all, concerned citizens that they were, then came crashing out the door of the store after some weakass skateboard whigger who was placing wheels to asphalt and speeding out of the lot, two shop-lifted Monster Energy drinks under his pink felt vest, his lime green Nikes striking loose gravel from the asphalt as he sped off, heedless of their presence, as if they were somehow his supporters, as if the weight of their indignation was naught to him...

Mescaline grinned at Silver Back Jack and asked, deadpan, “Appropriate ordinance?”

Silver Back Jack, old before his years, sneered with a husky voice made of a life of rum, “Dinna’ plate.”

With those words, as the wheels of the skateboard made their soft racket and the shoplifter, with his fitted Nike hat cocked sideways looked to jump the curb, Mescaline Franklin reached under his poncho, yanked on something and out came a heavy ceramic plate, that cheap black stuff from the dollar store, and he whipped that thing like a frisbee, and sure enough, that Weakass Skateboard Whigger went down like a clown, the dinner plate shattering against the side of his narrow head.

Mexican Mike, ran up, retrieved his energy drinks as the skateboarder crawled off and belly surfed in a daze into the street on his board, and said, “Be right out with a bottle of wine!”

And Mystery Meat Pete pumped his fist and said, “Dat’s what I’m talkin’ bout—Mescaline!”

Mescaline grinned and agreed in his New York accent, “Yeah, this is The Shit, with no pigs on the street. If only we could take a meteor hit from the Kyber Belt we could really get some good shit done.”

Yeti Waters reached into his pocket, pulled out three quarters and placed them in Mescaline’s hand and snarked, “A man can throw like that shouldn’t be out of quarters so soon. Your next toss is on me. [1]

Note 1: these reprobates play three quarters each to the round, the closest quarter taking the rest.

Sure enough, the tweaker was across the street, wearing a pair of pink panties on his face, squatting on the sidewalk and banging some heroin into his veins in front of his trash-bag tent.

“Outraged Karen at 9 on the clock,” warned Jack.

A pleasingly-shaped woman wearing her own disheveled blond hair without Koolaid dye, shuffling down 72nd, a fuzzy white bathrobe wrapped around her, men’s business shoes awkwardly clacking on the sidewalk, shrilly complained, “That tweaker reached through my window and felt me up—copped a feel while I was on my own couch! Can you believe the police won’t be ought until tomorrow afternoon?”

The woman was nearing to within reach of them, seemingly upset at them that they were not as outraged as she, “What,” she demanded shrilly, “you men are just going to stand there and do nothing?”

To Be Continued in:

The Song of Karen: Part 2 of Midnight at the Well of Chumps