Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20A | 20B | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25-26 | 27 | 28-29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35-36 | 37 | 38A | 38B | 38C | 38D | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42-43 | 44-45 | 46 | 47 | 48-49A | 49B
PART II
ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS
50
MARINA FRIED UP Trey’s daily pound of bacon, in a frenzy this afternoon trying to get her wifely duties done so he could get out the door on time after they’d spent the morning in bed snuggling and talking. She didn’t know how she felt about the intimate contact because she’d had few hugs in her life, most of them from Dot or Sister Albright, and being that close to another human who wanted to touch her was uncomfortable. She was also still a little dazed by his revelations, his total trust in her, and morals he seemed to reserve for people he felt deserved them. This man, Marina’s husband, was the same man who’d courted her, but he was more. He was deeper, which she would never have known if he didn’t want to confide in her. She was very touched by that.
He wanted a nice little family like the one he’d grown up in and he didn’t want to do it inside the Machine. He couldn’t do it inside the Machine. Nobody could, he’d explained. Mobsters fought over power and money. They were constantly looking over their shoulders. They couldn’t trust anybody. They liked being rich and flaunting it, which caught the wrong people’s attention. They liked gambling and often weren’t very good at it. They weren’t careful about their bookkeeping so the government got them for tax evasion. They were gambling that they wouldn’t serve time. But if they didn’t, they still ended up getting killed. Being a mobster was a way of life for them, and they only wanted more power and more money.
Trey didn’t.
He wanted to be Sydney Carton.
“The noble lout.” She smiled a little upon hearing the stairs squeak under his feet.
“I can’t be takin’ Sundays off no more, even though I got assistant managers,” he said from behind her.
“People really go to speakeasies on Sunday?”
“Twenty-four hours a day, every day.”
“You’re not open twenty-four hours.”
“No. At first, it was because I never trusted anybody else to do my job, and I have to sleep. Now I just don’t want to stay open ’round the clock because I need peace to clean and restock. So, since Tuesdays are slow and that’s also Dot’s church’s activity night, I can take you to that if you want or we can go to Fairyland—”
She gasped and whirled to see him fixing his cuffs. “Fairyland?”
He grinned at her. “You’re stuck with me now, so ’at means you’re stuck with all the things you wanted to do when we were courtin’—courteeeng—but your daddy wouldn’t let you.”
“Oh, Trey,” she breathed, so delighted she didn’t know what to do except stand there and quiver like a happy puppy.
“I know I’ve been neglecting you,” he murmured, crossing the room to give her a big hug. “I’m havin’ to work harder and worry more than I did before I owned the place.”
She pulled away from him to look in his eyes. She loved his eyes, if she were truthful with herself. They could be blue as ice or blue as a hot summer sky, or both at the same time. “Why?”
“’Cuz Lazia wants it an’ Boss Tom ain’t gonna get between me and Lazia now that he’s got what he wanted, which was your daddy run out of his situation by his congregation.”
Marina couldn’t fathom the notion that she could become a widow before she could vote.
“Other thing I gotta tell you ’cuz I need your help with that too, is where I stash my third set o’ books—”
Her brow wrinkled. “Third set?”
“I gave one set o’ numbers to Boss Tom, a copy of which I keep for myself, which is in a safe deposit box because I don’t need it no more. Second set I hand over’t Treasury so they can’t accuse me of evadin’ taxes, ’cuz that’s how they getcha.”
“You’re getting lazy again.”
He flushed a little, looked up at the ceiling, and took a deep breath. “Third set is not doctored at all. They’re for me. I just don’t have a place I feel like I can keep them safe, but I must have them handy, too.”
When a hot pop of bacon grease hit her, she whirled back to the stove and hurried to get the bacon out. “Wouldn’t it be more prudent not to tell me that one?”
“Sugar, I wouldn’t have married anybody I couldn’t trust with the location of my books.”
She bit her lip.
“Now, something else is on my mind. I know that little brat Dot’s going to be digging into your head, making you think I’m up to no good—which I am, but not in the way she thinks. I’d appreciate it if you’d ignore all her yips and yaps. Her daddy knows my business and trusts me, so she’s got no call to question my intentions toward you.”
“He told her,” she offered hesitantly, “he’d done worse things than you probably, and if she didn’t want to think of him as a bad man, she should mind her own business about you.”
“I don’t fault her,” Trey replied. “She was brought up right and I can respect a cat who spawns kids like Dot. I don’t have to like her to know she’ll be a fine woman someday. Right now she’s just a spoiled, sheltered little rich girl, and Albright lets her be that way because that’s what rich, respectable men do, raise privileged little princesses and protect them from cats like me. It’s proof he arrived.”
“Just like me,” she whispered.
“No. Your mama already raised a privileged princess and tried to protect her. She wasn’t going to raise another and she was thinking about her future. Really smart, if you ask me, but I knew she was. That’s where you get it.” It sounded like a compliment, but Marina didn’t want to have that woman’s blood running through her veins. “But your daddy is no Albright so she didn’t have any support.” His finger ran down the long scabs on her arm. “You still picking at these?” Trey asked softly, caressing the longest one.
“I … they itch,” she said, flushing with embarrassment. “I can’t help it.” They did, in fact, begin itching right that second, but Trey captured her fingers when she would have scratched.
“We’re gonna have a talk about your mama and what she did to you.”
“I don’t want to,” she blurted. “I don’t want to think about that day.”
“Have it your way, then.”
“You promise?”
“I promise I will not ask you to tell me what happened. All I need to know is what the Albrights told me.”
Marina sighed, half in relief, half in irritation that they’d blabbed. “There’s a lot you aren’t saying. You’re planning something because you wouldn’t have wanted to talk about it otherwise because you’re telling me so much.”
“Goddamn, Marina,” he said with that tone of rich approval she was beginning to crave. If that was what getting pregnant by a mob boss was going to get her, then maybe … Maybe she’d take it. “Of course I’m planning something. I’m not going to let my wife and the mother of my baby get the tar beat out of her for something she didn’t do.”
“But it was me. I—”
“That wasn’t you,” he barked. “It was too much sweet tea working on a lightweight who sleepwalks. And I don’t want to have another fight about that because I’m enjoying the day. And as soon as breakfast is done, we’re going to the pictures.”
* * *
Trey did go to work that evening after all, but only because he wanted to escape her after having taken her to her first movie: The Cocoanuts. Marina was spellbound by it. She could see pictures on screen the way she saw them in her head. It was a funny movie and had dancing but—
“Say, Sugar,” Trey said as they walked to the car after, Marina still dazed from the wonder of it. “You didn’t laugh. You can pick the next one. I thought you’d like it.”
“Oh, Trey,” she breathed, looking up into his handsome face. He smiled. “I did. So much, you can’t imagine. It—”
Trey had opened the driver door to slide in, but stopped when Marina stood there. “What?”
“You’re supposed to open my door for me,” she said softly, casting a glance toward the back of the car.
He flushed beet red and scrambled to do so, but caught his toe in the running board and landed splat on the ground. A couple of people around them laughed, but Marina didn’t. She crouched beside him to shield him from any more onlookers.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Not your doin’, Sugga,” he croaked, getting to his feet. Marina arose with him and hesitantly brushed the dirt and gravel off his chest, leaving his pants to himself. He joked, “See what happens when I’m not thinkin’?” His voice was thin, though, his face still red, and she didn’t dare correct his diction. He wouldn’t look at her. “’Mon now, let’s get you home.” He led her around the car and grandly opened the door for her. “Just remembered somethin’ I need to do at the speak. Prolly won’t be home till my usual time.”
Marina gave him a small comforting smile and murmured, “Thank you,” when he closed the door. They didn’t speak on the way home. He gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were white. He was overly gallant in opening her door, escorting her to the back porch door and opening it and ushering her in.
“I need to run,” he said with forced cheer in the middle-class diction she was used to. He dropped a kiss on her forehead. “We’ll go to Fairyland Tuesday.”
“All right,” she murmured and watched him dart out the door.
50
If you don’t want to wait 2 years to get to the end, you can buy it here.
Donations can be made here, if you so desire.
I’m confused why he wanted to “escape her” after the movie.
He was embarrassed. First he forgot to open her door for her and then he tripped.
OK. I guess I did get it.
“Trey did go to work that evening after all, but only because he wanted to escape her after having taken her to her first movie…” made me think he’d already decided to escape before all that happened.
Trey was trippin’
Oh, maybe it was the obvious. I figured there was a twist and turn.
Marina needs to learn to cook bacon in the oven. Neater AND safer!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z45-FQsTzWo
No. Just…no. Also, not in an un-air conditioned house in the middle of a Missouri summer.
So, just lay the bacon in a skillet and let the house heat cook it?
Sun oven outside.
Looks cool, but wow. You can buy a real oven for the money they want for one of those things.
Make your own.
Absolutely. There’s lots of plans out there. Which makes the $500 price tag even more shocking. But, more power to ’em. Lot’s of people would rather buy than make.
I’m very sad that Jaboody Dubs hasn’t done a dub of this one.
Just give ‘im a package of jerky and he can eat it in the car.
And better results.
…
A daily pound?!
Giggity
Everyone must be at a party or something. My invite probably got lost in the mail.
I’m here, but I am going to Zoom in a moment. I just can’t find my PC camera. It’s not a party unless people can see the ol’ googly eyes.
On Zoom. Mike join? Mojeaux?
I’ll try to later
I am sad. Would love to meet you.
Same, buddy. One day I’ll get on there before the early crowd signs off.
Can’t. Working.
I’m going to skip zoom tonight. I want to be up early tomorrow for the gym and to get some other stuff done before an event.
I looked up Fairyland and got the right one in Kansas.
https://kchistory.org/image/fairyland-park
https://aahtkc.org/fairyland-park
It was not in Kansas.
Neither are we…not anymore.
I woke up grouchy, watched the news, read the links and such here….holy fuck. We are definitely not in Kasas anymore.
And the cops shot Toto.
To be fair, “Africa” is a crime against humanity.
Such racism I can’t even.
Thanks Moj, Fairyland had a different connotation when I was a kid
I miss all the old amusement parks that are mostly gone. My hometown has one left that has somehow survived.
Watching the US Open. Are we really pretending the Russian dude isn’t?
Yup. Been that way the whole time.
Same applies to Belarus, just ask Aryna Sabalenka tomorrow.
PS. I will never forgive Medvedev for the hissy fit he pulled at the U.S. Open a few years ago. Tennis is very personality-driven – well, he’s an asshole and I refuse to watch him.
Not that Disney will let me.
Mrs F and I have 2 joint checking accounts, she manages one and I do the other. We never discuss finances. Only time I even see her business is at tax time, she never asks about the account I keep, We file electronically and any over/under comes out of my account. Works for us.
“Only time I even see her business is at tax time,”
Sounds lonely…
Every good gangster needs a moll.
We’ve had joint accounts since we’ve been married. Her income goes into common checking and she generally buys what she wants (“You’re not going to like this receipt).
The bills get paid, she gets to (generally) buy what she wants and every so often I get to buy a gun. It all works out.
The wife has a checking account, I have a checking acount and there is a joint checking account. I also have a business checking acount. There are also savings for each of those accounts, plus a few others. Keeps us out of each others hair, the bills paid, and the future secure.
ditto
“Just remembered somethin’ I need to do at the speak. Prolly won’t be home till my usual time.”
Foreshadowing?
No, he just needs an excuse to get away and be embarrassed elsewhere.
The day my great, great grandfather learned his only daughter was pregnant out of wedlock he sat on the end of his porch and cried all day with his head in his hands, The next morning he told my gg grandmother he was going to buy feed for cattle. He mounted up, rode away and was never seen again by anyone.
I have heard 100 stories like that. People running from their past used to be more common than it is now. It was a different time and I wasn’t there so I am not qualified to judge.
One of those hundred stories was a man that came to Alexandria alone and worked on Inglewood plantation. Several years later he must have felt guilty for something….despite his being well liked in his new community….he wrote a letter home. 3 months later while he was riding into town on some errand a shotgun blast from the roadside bushes knocked him off of his saddle. No one ever knew what or why or who did it. I suppose he had run away from his former life for any of a zillion reasons but it finally caught up with him. Huh….I suspect Mojeaux could spin quite a tale from that premise.
That reminds me…Mojeaux…did you ever use the tale of my grandfather’s childhood adventure with the bobcat in the suitcase?
I would love it if that were immortalized in a yarn that would preserve it forever. Write it down and it would be yours forever. It is too good to let it die with me.
My great grand father, living in Canada at the time, went to town to buy a shovel. Never came back
did you ever use the tale of my grandfather’s childhood adventure with the bobcat in the suitcase?
I’m intrigued…
It’s a buddy comedy with a mix of Old Yeller.
Catch me when I am not so tired Slumbrew and I will be happy to retell it.
Will do.
Re: your great grandfather – was it the shame of having his daughter pregnant out of wedlock that drove him to flee?
My paternal grandmother was of unknown parentage – well, my great grandmother knew, but she wasn’t saying – so I’m always intrigued by such stories.
I took note of it and put it in my snippets file. 🙂
Tomorrow is the chili pepper festival.
Chili or chile? There is a difference.
/pedant
Chile
Chile
Chili
Chili
Chili 😁
🤢
🤢 ← This. JFC.
Chili
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsKNaQuuL1g
The Wicked Witch of Santa Fe is above the Constitution.
https://www.krqe.com/news/new-mexico/gov-lujan-grisham-suspends-open-concealed-carry-in-bernalillo-county/
Dammit!
Wow. So much stupid and evil to unpack there. Plus Harris-esque speaking ability, assuming that’s an accurate quote.
I’ve never seen them admit this before. And yet they still do it. Guessing a one-party jurisdiction?
Wow. Nor have I seen them openly admit that ‘common sense’ gun control is bullshit. I suppose there is a silver lining to having morons in office.
She will be challenged and shot down.
In NM the governor can arbitrarily suspend duly passed legislation? Limit that suspension of individual rights to a single county?
That seems all kinds of fucked up to me.
Does this moron think it will result in a rise or a decrease in crime. She sure is handing a lot of ammo to the pro2A crowd. What a dummy.
The results will be thrown into the gun- grabber’s faces for a million years.
Looks like she’s trying to put it through as some sort of public heath order which, as we have learned, allows the government to ignore any sort of pesky constitutional limitations.
The governor says anyone caught breaking the order will fall under a “civil violation” connected to her public health order.
Civil violation jail is much better than regular jail, no doubt.
The plague years have taught them all sorts of lessons in how to apply evil.
It’s a balm.
I’ve got to take a break from the news for a while. My blood pressure can’t stand it. See y’all in a few days.
Understandable. Enjoy the downtime.
Totally. I must be glutton for punishment.
N’joi.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReU6bqxzv-k
What’chu gonna do with all that junk?
Ugh I want a cigaret.
Someday, I will meet more of you on Zoom. Don’t be afraid of the giant, green head and googly eyes.
Piffle. I know SugarFree.
*A Straight, Single Man’s Rant About Porn*
…*hits bowl*…
For the love of Christ, why in the Marquis de Sade’s name has so many of my shamefully beloved porn sites content suddenly been flooded with tranny friendly porn suggestions despite my explicit rejection of the subject matter?…
I’m not sure what the purpose of this is, to be honest. The idea that people can be socially pressured into embracing a sexual preference (in today’s society) they can’t intrinsically get off on seems very bizarre to me…
Then again, this may just be the natural reaction to the fact that so many people now seem to have drastically swayed not only their sexual preferences but also their sexual identity for the sake of social acceptance/criticism/plot arm/that now everybody’s now considered a wanker…
Point Being: I’m a jaded, middle-aged man with little money and even fewer sexual prospects on the horizon. Don’t make me filter through video content with one out of every ten or twenty vids featuring some dude with plastic bitch tits jacking off or sucking another guy’s cock.
That’s like asking a gay gent to watch a couple of girls spend a few minutes face fucking each other with a small, flaccid dildo, then spend the rest of the video watching the director focused on that infected, ingrown hair on the feature girl’s labia that didn’t take too well to the penicillin get shocked with a cattle prod…
It’s fucking gross.
Suck the woman’s penis, bigot.
Your final paragraph was SugarFree-esque, BTW. I mean that as high praise.
Many thanks! In many ways I love Suge…but also…in many ways he ain’t got shit on Stanhope, my white trash spirit animal. Nothing against Suge…
Da fuk am I saying?…I’m supposed to be at work before 4AM tomorrow and I’m too tired to reread to see if any of this makes any goddamn sense.
Let the sleep take you, man. Sleep deprivation suuuucks.
A trannie cock is really just an outtie-vagina. Think about it, I guess.
Just think of it as an extremely large clitoris that sprays white stuff.
“Don’t make me filter through video content with one out of every ten or twenty vids featuring some dude with plastic bitch tits”
QFT
It is, and I would not put up with that shit so you shouldn’t either.
It’s part of the Marxist attempt to shove tranny everything down our throats.
Not having it.
It’s so bad now that when I see what appears to be an attractive man, I can’t be so sure about that anymore.
Suck the man’s clitoris, bigot.
Eat a bag of girl dicks.
I love this place.
😀
😂😂
They do it for the same reason YouTube keeps jamming thumbed down vids into your autoplay: They just don’t give a fuck what you think. Don’t complain too much though, they’ll debank ya.
Same with the ads of fugly disgusting chicks.
And femme boys.
I confess I’m a bit mystified by who is (allegedly) attracted to femme boys.
Girls who had a femme dad.
“Hey, kids. Where’s your father?”
Biden/Harris 2024
https://youtu.be/Y74y0MZrL4w?si=_Z7x9j8FpaYvjaoS
He’s such a badass…I swear to god, if this works we are definitely the world’s most retarded country other than Canada.
I literally thought that might be a parody.
Good times.
“Our Allies”
Bull fucking shit. Our patsies more like.
Good morning all!
And now for something completely different…
The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band
I’m Bored
The Intro and the Outro
😃
👍
suh’ fam
what’s goody yo
/hey from a shitter in terminal B @ DFW airport
✌🌄
Alas, my diner closes for a week after Track season is over, so I am reduced to lesser diners.
Make sure you tell them they’re your second choice.
Their waitresses never stop for conversation.
Maybe they’ll try harder?
Have a great day y’all!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PWGkaBQWfjo
🎶🎶