Game of Chance – The Conclusion

by | Feb 9, 2021 | Fiction | 125 comments

Russ grabs a lemon filled doughnut and a cup of coffee and sits down at the kitchen table, waiting for Floyd to explain the nature of the visit.

Floyd goes over the details, filling in the part where he gets to do the hiring. He tells Russ that he wants him to be the number two man at the store and help him with the design and the security. Russ is hesitant, not wanting to work for his long time friend but also interested in the challenge and being in on the ground floor of a new venture. Floyd reminds Russ that it will be an open carry position and that sells Russ.

Floyd talks to Tony about his ideas and Tony agrees that they are reasonable and sound and Floyd starts working at the pawnshop, learning the rules, regulations and laws governing the buying and selling of used goods and in particular those concerning firearms. He disagrees personally with some of the rules but realizes that the long nose of the government is always looking over the shoulder of everyone and Tony is the final decision maker in store related activities.

A few weeks later construction starts on the new strip center and Russ starts his apprenticeship at the pawnshop while Floyd sidewalk superintends the progress being made on Tony’s property. As the construction seemingly slows towards the end a meeting is held with Tony, Russ and Floyd. Floyd outlines his plan for security.

Initially there will be 6 store fronts, my idea is to put a security monitoring system in all the stores, a system that each store monitors the others, with a color code. For example, the gun store will be blue, if there is a problem with us, we push the button, the other 5 stores are alerted and call 911 and go into lockdown themselves. The liquor store may be red, if they have a problem they push the button and the rest of us are alerted, ready to do what we can. How’s that sound?”

Russ seems to like the idea, watching each other’s back. Tony is hesitant but when Floyd tells him the pawnshop will also be included he signs off on the idea and gives Floyd the go ahead to work out the details with the security company.

Floyd explains his ideas for internal security with the guns being around the walls and locked with both a trigger lock and chained together, requiring employee assistance. General merchandise will be displayed on the floor level. In addition the open carry will hopefully act as a deterrent.

Finally, the Grand Opening Day arrives, with a lot of advertising hoopla. There are a fair number of shoppers waiting for the ribbon to be cut and two police cars to direct traffic. As it turns out the police are unnecessary as crowd control isn’t a problem, parking is plentiful and folks are well behaved. The shooters and hunters are a happy crowd and it’s early so everyone is still sober. Old friends are shaking hands, retelling hunting stories and happy that they have a new place to shop. The day passes quickly and sales are being made. The technology is working, Tony is smiling as he greets customers, many that were not pawnshop people and he is enjoying hearing the compliments.

There had been rumors of protests by some groups but only rumors, nothing ever materialized.

The next day the mayor came in to pay her customary welcome to a new business. As she walked in, Floyd said, “Well, well, well, if it isn’t Magical Millie, the Magnificent Miracle Maker Mayor! What brings you into our little retail establishment?”

Mayor Millie looked at Floyd. “Well, Floyd, I see you got your lazy ass away from the kitchen table and decided to do something productive for a change.” With that, they both laughed and hugged one another. “You know, Floyd, you are still the same guy from high school, a little fatter, it’s true, but still full of BS. Actually, I’m here on personal business. As you probably know, I’m not running again for mayor. I need more time in my own life. I want to buy a handgun and learn to shoot, for fun and just in case, you know. With you here and the store, I’m hoping for some advice and maybe some shooting lessons, if you ever have the time.”

Well, you’re in luck, Ms Mayor, we’ll take a look at the handguns and by the weekend we can go out to Grandpa’s farm and see how well you can shoot. Deal?”

Mayor Millie and Floyd found something they both thought would work, did the paperwork and Floyd told Millie to come back on Saturday and everything should be ready. As the mayor left she hollered over her shoulder, “I take back what I said about you being a little fatter, you’re actually a lot fatter,” and with that she ran out of the door.

Russ came in to work and Floyd told him the Millie story, they each told the other their own high school Millie story (that they already knew) but the years have a way of tempering life.

The weekend came and Floyd and Millie the Mayor went to the farm, Millie was a good student and afterwards Millie told Floyd she would need additional help and Floyd agreed. They decided more practice was in order and would try for the following weekend.

Things seemed to work well, the gun store was moving the merchandise, Tony was sending over more guns from his stock, people were bringing in guns to sell.

Both Floyd and Russ had learned the paper trail, new gun orders hadn’t started flowing yet but promises were made and everything was going reasonably smoothly.

Floyd looked forward to weekends, giving Millie her lessons and a little alone time with her. The work schedule had cut down on doughnut consumption and he was losing a little weight, enough that Millie had noticed and made a joking comment about his pants falling off.

Saturday morning, early and quiet in the gun store when the alarm system started flashing, a problem at the liquor store three stores away! Quickly, Floyd headed out the door, pulling his Smith out of the holster as he ran to see what the problem was. He looked through the window, “SHIT!”, a robbery in progress, reacting without thinking, he ran into the liquor store, ordered the perp to get his hands up and out of his pockets.

The police sirens could be heard, the alarm system had worked as it was intended. Two police cars stopped in the parking lot, four officers got out, guns drawn.

Floyd marched the would-be robber out with his hands up.

Drop your gun! Drop your gun! Hands up!” Shouts coming from everywhere.

Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! “Drop the gun, Asshole!”

Floyd crumpled to the ground, blood pouring out.

The robber said, “Goddamn, I’m glad you guys got here in time, he was taking me hostage.” He ran to the car where his associate was waiting and left, while the police were on their radios calling for an ambulance.

Just then the mayor showed up for her weekly lesson and ran through the gathering crowd. She saw the body, “Oh my god, you’ve killed my Floyd!”

About The Author

Fourscore

Fourscore

125 Comments

  1. DEG

    Shit. I was not expecting this ending.

    • egould310

      Very reminiscent of “Night of the Living Dead”.

    • Trigger Hippie

      To be honest, I was thinking to myself “This is all too good to be true. Something terrible may happen”.

      To be fair, I wasn’t quite expecting that.

      Well done, 4×20!

  2. kinnath

    Floyd, Floyd, Floyd.

  3. Tundra

    Dammit.

  4. Tundra

    Nice job, Fourscore. A fictional nutpunch is an impressive feat.

  5. westernsloper

    Damn man. That was not necessary.

  6. westernsloper

    They burn the city next right?

  7. westernsloper

    Take over the police station?

    • Tundra

      Please. They designate Floyd as a Domestic Terrorist and give the fucking cops medals. The citizens walk meekly away, muttering “muh Constitution”.

  8. Fourscore

    A story of life, optimism, disappointment, happiness, sadness and the finale. In between we muddle through as best we can.

    • Old Man With Candy

      My goodness.

    • westernsloper

      *deletes comment

    • Tundra

      You are my hero.

      Thanks Fourscore.

    • westernsloper

      You could have at least worked a wood chipper into this. This story is falling off the vine ripe for a wood chipper incident.

    • kinnath

      Life.

      • Tundra

        Excellent.

      • Timeloose

        Great!! I haven’t heard this for a real long time.

      • DrOtto

        Just listened to this pulling into the driveway after work today. It got turned way up.

  9. zwak

    Oh. Well.

  10. The Gunslinger

    Did not see that coming. Good job Fourscore.

  11. Tulip

    Not what I expected. Thanks for the series.

  12. Old Man With Candy

    And the inevitable happy ending: no charges, procedures were followed, officer safety.

    • commodious spittoon

      no charges

      Something tells me the security arrangement will get Tony cited for something, maybe even prosecuted, probably lose his business license, or at the very least, insurance for the strip mall.

  13. pistoffnick

    Not how I wanted it to end.

    I demand my money back!

    *seriously, good job, Fourscore.

  14. westernsloper

    Thanks 4×20. Loved the series and the ending nut punch. That is indeed life. Time to make dinner so I can go work my mundane but necessary life tomorrow. Adios all.

  15. The Other Kevin

    Well done, even the ending. I like how the title applies to the whole thing.

  16. Timeloose

    The Mayor will be back and out for justice. She will loose her job as Mayor and becomes a one woman killing machine with vengeance on her mind…. unfortunately she never got any better at shooting without Floyd, so her rampage was short lived.

    • commodious spittoon

      That’s what killdozers are for.

      • db

        I told you back in Episode 2 or 3 there’d be a killdozer.

  17. mikey

    Good job Fourscore. Thx – I think.
    This is a cautionary tale of why defending “just property” with a firearm may not be such a good idea. The real dangers are the police and the legal system (don’t call it the “justice system” – justice has nothing to do with it).

    • DrOtto

      I had a constitutional law professor who said that as well as my father. That and “nobody is proven innocent, they just failed to convict you”.

      • Gustave Lytton

        The best outcome of a trial is “not guilty”, not “innocent”.

      • hayeksplosives

        In Scotland they have a third possible verdict: Not Proven.

      • straffinrun

        “That wool in my zipper could’ve come from anywhere.”

      • blackjack

        As he grins sheepishly!

      • egould310

        Ewe disgust me.

      • Chafed

        GL gets it.

  18. Timeloose

    I watched a great action movie tonight that I last saw on a plane. I wanted to watch it on a larger screen and with no plane noise.

    The first 6 minutes of the film has a great song by Jon Spencer playing during the entire scene.

    Baby Driver:

    https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6168ou

    • DrOtto

      Great movie that my wife and daughter had to drag me to. Then, Kevin Spacey got metoo’d and now the wife and daughter hate the movie. Walter Hill, one of my favorite directors had a cameo as the judge towards the end. His movie “The Driver” was an inspiration for Baby Driver due to the chase scenes.

  19. UnCivilServant

    Well, I’ve committed to cooking borsht in the near future.

    We’ll see how it turns out.

    • zwak

      Well, if it doesn’t work out, you can always say “Beets Me!”

      • db

        Nobody cares about root causes anymore.

      • rhywun

        Sigh, I was struggling with how to get that one in.

      • straffinrun

        You wouldn’t wanna rush in.

    • Playa Manhattan

      I don’t see what that has to do with this story

      • UnCivilServant

        Stew on it for a while.

      • Trigger Hippie

        Borscht is a favorite of many Russians. Russians hacked the 2016 election. Putin is Russian. Putin controls Trump. Cooking Borscht while an Employee of the State of New York marks one down as a possible Trump sympathizer. Trump sympathizers are likely to be domestic terrorists. USC is deemed by New York to be a domestic terrorist, loses his job, gets sent to Guantanamo Bay never to be seen or heard from again.

      • UnCivilServant

        That does not look like fun to make.

    • blackjack

      How hard can it be? Vodka, beets, more vodka, throw away the beets, more vodka, get in a massive fight with a polar bear, more vodka, rinse repeat.

      • egould310

        I gotta’ party with you, cowboy!

      • UnCivilServant

        There’s no vodka, and we don’t have any polar bears.

    • Akira

      I love that stuff.

      I found my recipe from some random cooking site years and years ago, so I don’t claim that it’s true to any particular national variant of the stuff, but whatever it is, it’s tasty.

      It’s basically some well-browned stew beef, mirepoix, garlic, dry dill, a can of crushed tomatoes, a whole diced red cabbage, diced potatoes, about eight peeled beets, and enough beef broth to cover. It’s lovely with a spoonful of sour cream and some extra dill sprinkled over the top (and of course some crusty dark rye bread on the side).

    • Chipwooder

      I’ve never made borscht, or even eaten it, but I do know this: Russians and Ukrainians will scream at each other over whose borscht is the real borscht.

    • blackjack

      I’ve put a lot of thought into the idea of pillow fights. This is nothing like anything I thought about. NOTHING!

      • Playa Manhattan

        Dear Penthouse Letters,

        I never wanted this to happen to me

    • rhywun

      I’m starting to wonder if Andy Kaufman really died and Mr. Hogg is the reincarnation.

      • Chafed

        You may be on to something.

    • Playa Manhattan

      And a $200 budget for its logo

      • Chipwooder

        That was the best part. Nothing screams “well thought-out, competently run business” like urgently searching on Twitter for someone who can design your logo in the next two hours for the princely sum of $200.

    • Chipwooder

      This is like the Fyre Festival of pillow companies

      Hehe

  20. straffinrun

    But did the cops get home safely?

    • Chafed

      They always do.

  21. straffinrun

    I’m assuming Trump is super duper impeached by now.

    • blackjack

      It’s very important to them that he not be allowed to make them look like really evil fools anymore. This seems like the best way to them. It’s kind of his last hurrah, in that respect.

    • rhywun

      No idea. If nobody here has linked to it yet, it hasn’t happened.

    • Gadfly

      He’s been impeached twice, so I guess that counts as “super duper impeached”. 44 Rs have already voted that the impeachment trial after he is out of office is unconstitutional, so a conviction is highly unlikely (they’d need 10 of those 44 to turn around and vote to convict in a trial they’ve declared void).

    • J. Frank Parnell

      So if he’s convicted, does that mean Pence takes over The Office of the Former President?

  22. hayeksplosives

    Thanks Fourscore.

    I’m not sure I take away a positive lesson from this except to enjoy the good things in life and don’t take them for granted.

    That and the government is a bad actor, no matter what the intent.

  23. Mojeaux

    Well. That went where I was not expecting it to.

    Good job, Fourscore. How do you like writing nonfiction?

  24. Brochettaward

    Crowder livestreams the impeachment farce. Just started watching it, but he’s going over the impeccable sources being used by the Democrats. They include MSNBC and ABC News articles.

    • rhywun

      Donald is like golfing in Florida or something, right? He’s not actually attending this silliness?

      • Brochettaward

        He’s sent some lawyers, but no he isn’t attending.

  25. J. Frank Parnell

    Hey, a new show for all the Glibfitters!!!

    Michelle Obama launching Netflix cooking show ‘Waffles + Mochi’

    The new Netflix series will follow puppet friends Waffles and Mochi as they leave the Land of Frozen Food and embark on “global ingredient missions” with the help of Obama and a “magical, flying shopping cart,” according to the show’s official synopsis.

    Michelle described “Waffles + Mochi” as a continuation of her efforts to promote children’s health, which began with her “Let’s Move!” initiative in 2010, Forbes reported. The campaign strove to reduce childhood obesity and foster active lifestyles.

    • Brochettaward

      How much money will Netflix dump down this before they try to quietly move on without admitting failure?

      • Gustave Lytton

        What failure? It’ll end when either they move on to other grifting or their political power evaporates.

      • Chipwooder

        Bingo. It’s just a means of buying influence.

  26. hayeksplosives

    Drugs will probably fall out of my ass, so forgive me if this is old news. I’ve been busy at work.

    (Bloomberg) — A Chinese professor’s speech boasting about Beijing’s influence over President-elect Joe Biden was removed from the country’s social media platforms after going viral in the U.S.,

    Wow. That’s pretty bad. It’s also where the reporting ends and the water-carrying by Dem media for Biden begins. The sentence above goes on to say:

    … underscoring how sensitive ties between the world’s two biggest economies are after strife under Donald Trump.

    So the chinks are pulling the strings of the donkeys, but somehow it’s Trump’s fault. Got it?

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-10/china-censors-viral-boast-of-influence-over-wall-street-biden

    • hayeksplosives

      I have to credit Tal Bachman for that link along with several others he cites in his critique of The Donald’s relative political naïveté and poor choices in staffers and other people who should have been in his corner.

      https://www.steynonline.com/11046/tal-bachman-a-quick-post-mortem

      • hayeksplosives

        Playin’ yo didgeridoo…

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Nobody but punk ass bitches be playin didgeridoos.

    • hayeksplosives

      Regarding the invention of Uzis especially, the Israelis would like a word…

      The guy might want to go easy on the drugs.

  27. Yusef drives a Kia

    Hello Glibs, coffee cups in the air!

    • straffinrun

      Mornin!

    • hayeksplosives

      Too early for coffee! Still in bed.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Work at 7, its almost 6 now, howdy HE,

      • hayeksplosives

        Howdy. I still have only one eye open and the other smushed into my pillow.

    • Sean

      Yo

    • Gender Traitor

      Good morning, Yu! Tall….travel mug!

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Nice clear roads, a sweet commute,
        Covfefe!

      • Gender Traitor

        Cloudy here, which at least helps prevent frost on the windshield. More snow this afternoon.

    • Tundra

      Morning!

  28. Sean

    Whelp, I did not see that ending coming. ?

    • The Hyperbole

      50 bucks for that little thing? Nope is right.

      • hayeksplosives

        Ugh. So wrong.

        When the mister is grilling meat, I sometimes reflect on God’s giving of the fruits of the earth and of the domestic beasts, along with the assignment of animal husbandry duties tending to the proper care of the animals.

        The smell of a lovely steak on the grill calls to mind the sacrifice of an animal as a burnt offering to thank God. So I assume God likes the fragrance of good grilling too.

        Since Lucifer is an arrogant wanna-be and thus is poor knock-off of God, then I’m forced to conclude that 3D printed steak is only good for sacrificing to Lucifer.

        As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.

        And real steak for dinner.

      • Tundra

        These fucking frauds also have no idea how good properly managed herds are for the environment. Or maybe they do and they just don’t care.

        Either way, I’ll take a pass on frankenfood.

      • Gender Traitor

        We grilled REAL ribeyes last night. Accept no substitutes.

      • Tundra

        For people who like meat, I can highly recommend the doc Sacred Cow.

        It’s a look at regenerative ag and how industrial monocropping is the real enemy. The book is excellent, too.

        Available on Amazon.

      • limey

        Hey buddy, stop grilling that.

  29. Gender Traitor

    Ohio’s Gauleiter seems a bit disappointed that things might be getting better.

    DeWine was asked about if Ohio will reduce or eliminate certain business restrictions, including the statewide curfew, as hospitalizations continue to decrease. DeWine said the state has outlined a plan to eliminate the curfew based on hospitalizations, if the state remains below 2,500 hospitalizations for seven days, a benchmark the state has already reached. DeWine said he was concerned with variants of the virus that exist and how that could change how the state’s pandemic fight looks like in the coming weeks. While indicating the plan in place DeWine did not confirm further curfew rollbacks will be coming.

    • hayeksplosives

      Don’t take away my power!!!

  30. Gender Traitor

    Can’t say we didn’t see it coming. One of the most recognizable brands in U.S. history is getting memory-holed.

    • Tundra

      It’s garbage anyway.

      • UnCivilServant

        That’s not the point.

      • Tundra

        Sure it is. Quit supporting these garbage companies and their garbage products.

        They are ostensibly still businesses after all. No revenue, no wokeness.

      • UnCivilServant

        Your inital remark reads to me as “it doesn’t matter because I don’t buy it, so I’m not concerned about the capitulation.” This may not have been your intended message, but it’s the one I recieved.

        And I can’t stop buying a product I never bought. However, silence is still acquiescence, as it helps disguise the market signals, allowing the professional bullshitters in the companies to blame anything but the ideology.

      • Sean

        A quick scan of PepsiCo Wiki page tells me I’m not supporting them under any of their various brands.

    • Fourscore

      She was my favorite aunt, growing up. So many memories that are being lost. Next will be chocolate cake and we’ll be stuck with Aunt Jane’s White Cake mix or some such thing.

    • Muzzled Woodchipper

      How woke of them. From Wikipedia:

      Descendants of Aunt Jemima models Lillian Richard and Anna Short Harrington objected to the change. Vera Harris, a family historian for Richard’s family, said “I wish we would take a breath and not just get rid of everything. Because good or bad, it is our history.”[32] Harrington’s great-grandson Larnell Evans said “This is an injustice for me and my family. This is part of my history.”

  31. Cy

    This one time… at Brownie camp.

  32. Festus

    Dead late but just needed to add my kudos to the pile. Nice one, 4×20! It was a fine ride but that rock slide at the bottom put a damper on things. I thought Millie might be a plant at first.