72nd and Powell, 10/31/2020, 11:55 P.M., In Front of the Mexican 7-11

Karen fumed on one hand and got drunk on the other, almost through that second bottle of cheap wine, as her boon companions tossed a round of quarters while costumed and mostly gender miss-identified people paraded in and out of the 7-11. She wondered if they would ever avenge her on the tweaker, or would she have to go over there herself and break this bottle over his grease-matted and once blonde hair...

…

The Fateful Toss

Mescaline was up, standing behind the pitch line and tossing his quarters, one, a long toss, two, a short toss and then, a roller that found it’s way down over the curb to the street and into the storm drain. Here she was, standing in a state of civic violation and all these fools cared about was the tragedy of the missed toss and that the big ape was once again going to win all the quarters.

Then her shoulder was knowingly bumped by the skinny old mixed-race runt named Jack and he piped up in a gravelly drawl, “Now, y’all, back in the day I tossed quarters with a nigga named Flood, up from Baltimore, and he told me that back in the old-ass day, when a quarter went into a storm drain, they’d lower a skinny kid down in it to retrieve the quarters and then those quarters gathered would be his stake in the game and he would graduate to adulthood in the eyes of the pitchers in this way. They called dat shit The Well of Chumps—some being bitten by rats and what not down in the sewer. Well, what I’m getting’ at is that the skinny on dis block is dat tweaker ‘bout ta fire up ‘is meth pipe on da median—watch j-all say—fo’ Miss Karen en all?”

…

Rat Fishing

With that sage recommendation, Yeti Waters grinned all around, “Fuck yeah,” and Pete seconded the notion with, “You know it,” and all eyes came to rest on the straight-edge beer worshipper named Mescaline, who shrugged his broad shoulders and grunted, “Why not,” as he threw back the camo-poncho and unhooked a hay-hook attached to a coil of nylon cord from his belt, and unhooked a second one and handed it to Yeti Waters.

The tweaker was squatting in the median, about to start sucking on the meth pipe, still nodding from the heroin as he fired up his resurrection device.

The man named Mescaline stepped up to the edge of the curb above the sewer grate, began to twirl the hay hook in one hand, holding the coil of chord in the other and then let loose, as if lassoing some feral ape.

“You got da ankle, Bro!” yelled Pete, as the tweaker straightened up and began trying to kick the iron hook and loop of cord from his foot. Mescaline handed the coil of rope to Pete and said, “Don’t yank till I’ve got the other hook in,” took the other hook and cord from the big ape and made a whipping toss across the two lanes, the hook sailing over a blue Dodge Charger as it sped by, and striking the tweaker in the neck,.

“Pull,” commanded the sombrero-wearing psychopath with the tool belt, as he too yanked and the iron hook lodged under the tweaker’s arm pit.

“Yes,” Karen heard a crazy drunk woman snarl, as she raised her left fist and reversed the grip on her wine bottle, staining her Aunt Hellen’s bathrobe with red wine.

But the important thing was that the jerking, writhing and arching tweaker was being dragged by the Hawaiian and the frightening New York thug down off the median and into the street.

Karen stood two lanes from justice!

The big man was swigging whiskey and pumping his fist under the midnight moon, “Fuck yeah!”

Then, as Karen’s lust for vengeance mounted, she saw to her horror that she was about to be robbed, for a car was roaring down the street, straddling the center line, about to grease the tweaker before he was brought before her court of irate opinion.

…

Mista Camoonity Evolvement

On roared a 2020, Audie Q-3 SUV, gleaming white in the moonlit night.

“Wait, is that a 2020 Audie?” Karen mused out loud.

Old Jack, who seemed the only one of the four who paid her any attention, answered, “All I know is ids about to be painted red!”

And the vehicle, with two occupants, a well-dressed white male driver in his late 30s and an ugly, slut in the passenger seat, screeched to a halt just in time, turning almost sideways across both lanes. The ugly slut was snorting white powder off the dashboard and the man was already getting out and yelling, “What the hell—leave that bum alone, this is Rose City, not fucking Wyoming!”

Karen’s head began to spin for numerous reasons, and then her rage built even more as old Jack objected, as the two young men redoubled their efforts to reel in the hooked tweaker, “Oh, we gotz Mista’ Camoonity Evolvement up in hea’!”

The younger men were just hauling the tweaker in like so much fish-catch as the big ape man stepped off the curb and put out his hands, saying, “Sir, this is community policing here. Just get back in your vehicle…”

But then, as Karen’s ears began to ring with a building rage, the big man—who sounded very reasonable now—was cut-off by the shrill screams of some psycho-bitch wielding a wine bottle, “Bill! Bill!!”

“Karen,” spoke the man in the suit, “Look, I can explain. My business trip ended early and this young lady was hitch-hiking…”

“Young lady,” quipped old Jack, dat bitch is a dude—look at dat Adam’s apple!”

The tranny hooker, white powder all over its nose, was then looking wide-eyed at Karen as it tried to run away in its high heels and Karen threw her wine bottle right into Bill’s pleading mouth and ruined a decade of dentistry…

…

It turned out that the tweaker did not fit into the sewer grate and they never retrieved the lost quarter.

Yeti Waters and the others got Bill back behind the wheel of his car, Mystery Meat Pete lifting his wallet and I-phone in the process, while Silver Back Jack did his best to restrain Karen long enough for the tranny and the husband to make their escape…

…

The rest of the story write’s itself as the moon reached noon high in the clear night sky.

…

All events described above actually happened on Halloween night in Portland, Oregon. The only character actually present was Mexican Mike, who is innocent of all charges real, denied, imagined or implied.