A Glibertarians Exclusive – The Deal, Part I
April 1937 – McAlester, Oklahoma
Ad Wolgast stood at the gate. He was wearing a new cheap blue suit, new yellow leather shoes and a new white straw fedora. The sun was hot; it had been a warm spring. He was a tall, thin man, with black hair and black eyes, legacy of his Choctaw mother, and a long-jawed, equine face, courtesy of his Scots-Irish-German father.
In front of him, Assistant Warden Mike Baker was running through his release checklist. “All right. Adolphe James Wolgast. Have you had your personal effects returned to you?”
“Yes,” Ad replied. He could feel the sweat on his forehead already soaking the band in his new hat. He held up his cheap cardboard suitcase and rattled it. “Got all my stuff.”
“I see you have your new clothes, too. Good.” The assistant warden checked another box on the paper attached to his clipboard. “Did you collect your back pay from the prison garage?”
“All six bucks of it,” Ad agreed.
“All right. Dukes, open the gate. Baker looked at Ad, evidently wondering if he was worth a word or two. He must have passed the test because the officer went on. “Got any prospects of a job?”
“My Pa is still farming down around Sallisaw. Might could head that way.” He intended something else altogether, but the terms of his parole said he couldn’t leave Oklahoma, so he wasn’t about to admit that.
“All right. Just remember, any time before you step into the grave, you can change your own path. Remember that. And try not to end up in one of them Hoovervilles.”
“I will. Thanks.”
“Well, Ad, good luck. Hope to never see you again.”
They shook hands. “Same,” Ad said. The gate swung open, and Adolphe James Wolgast walked out of the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, a free man. The last six years had been like a drunkard’s walk through a bewildering, dark place, but at least now he was free – free at last. At least, he told himself, I learned a thing or two from it. Roughly a third of McAlester’s prison population consisted of hardened repeat offenders, and Ad rarely passed up a chance to listen to the hardcases talk; he learned a lot that way.
Ad walked east on Stonewall Avenue. The highway was about half a mile east. There was a service station, Jet’s Service, on the highway. Ad headed that way. That was where Penny was to pick him up.
Ad had known Penny Fredricks for three years before he landed in McAlester on an armed robbery charge in 1931. He knew that ‘Penny Fredricks’ wasn’t her real name but had no idea what her real name was. He suspected that she had chosen the first name due to her hair, as bright as a new copper penny, but he didn’t know. All he knew was that she had been driving the car when Ad went into that high-interest bank west of Oklahoma City, and that she had fled when the deal went south – and he couldn’t blame her. He would have done the same. Neither of them was averse to suddenly growing feathers if a job went south.
Now he was paroled. In his last letter to Penny, he had told her when he was getting out. She wrote back, saying where she’d meet him. He wondered if she would show.
The new shoes pinched. Ad stopped, sat on the curb, and removed the stiff new shoes. He took off the cheap cotton socks they had issued him and stuffed them in his jacket pocket. Then, he picked up the suitcase holding his few personal effects – two shirts, a pair of dungarees, and a battered pair of boots, a pocketknife, and a Ronson lighter – in one hand. With his shoes in the other hand, he walked on. He grunted the relief of the air on his bare feet, hardened by a youth on the farm.
I’m sure as hell not going back to that. Six years in the can, and not one letter from anyone back home. Pa was so Goddamn mad when I got sent up for that stupid high-interest bank, said never to come back, so reckon I won’t.
Then, he was there, at the service station. A yellow Ford convertible sat to the side of the lonely building made of used pine planks. Ad saw the shining red hair, tied back with a bottle-green cloth.
He walked over to the car. “Hey, Penny.”
“Hey, yourself. How you doing?”
Ad climbed into the Ford. Penny leaned over and held her face up for a kiss, so Ad obliged, kissing her long and hard. “Better now,” he managed when he had to stop to take a breath.
He regarded Penny. She was clearly a few years older, but still looked good; green eyes, that copper-colored mop of curly hair, the scattering of freckles on her nose, the green blouse unbuttoned down far enough to show the soft inner curves of her breasts. She wore men’s denim dungarees over black sling-pumps; she always did have a flair for the unconventional.
“You look great,” Ad said. “Even greater, being that I spent a year staring at that last damn stir-bug of a cellmate I had. Fella named Joad, was in for bustin’ a guy on the head with a shovel. Tells the story about ever’ ten minutes. Ugly son of a bitch.”
“Well,” Penny said, “you sure got something better to look at now.” Self-confidence was never an issue for her. “So, ready to take a trip?”
“Where to?”
“North.”
“Got something in mind?”
“You might say that.” She started the Ford up and pulled out onto the highway, headed north.
They stopped for the night in a cheap roadside motel just west of Kansas City, registering as Mr. and Mrs. Albert Sydney Johnston. The clerk scowled when he read the registry, but Penny handed over cash to cover the room along with a little extra for his silence, and so he said nothing.
“Want to get something to eat?” Ad asked as they walked over to the Ford to get his suitcase and Penny’s travel bag. There was what looked to be a cheap greasy spoon across the road.
“Not unless you’re starving.” They had stopped for a bowl of soup and a sandwich at a diner a couple of hours before. Penny put her arm around Ad’s waist. “It’s been a long time, honey.”
“It has at that.” He draped a long arm around Penny’s shoulder and grinned.
Ad awoke sometime after midnight. He sat up. In the faint light shining in the window from the bare bulb outside the door, he could see Penny, sprawled naked across the bed, a satisfied smile on her sleeping face. Good to know I’ve still got it, I guess.
Penny had brought with her a small, flat bottle of whiskey. Ad, knowing he wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep, got up. He picked up the bottle, pulled the cork, and took a long pull. “Damn,” he muttered. “Can sure tell that’s factory liquor. It tastes good.”
He looked around. Penny was sleeping soundly, and he didn’t want to wake her. He pulled on his dungarees, picked up a pack of cigarettes and his lighter, and went outside. There was an old bus bench set outside the door. Ad sat down, lit a cigarette, and pondered what was likely to happen next.
If Grandma was still around, if she knew what I’ve been up to, what I’m about to get up to, man alive, she’d be a-prayin’ over me like to beat the band. She’d be figuring on getting Jesus hovering over me like a big raincloud, try to keep me outta trouble. Well, Jesus ain’t never done nothing for me, not so I could tell.
Hell, Penny ain’t even told me what she’s got in mind yet. I’m sure it’s some of the same sorta job that landed me in McAlester. Guess I’ll find out tomorrow. Or the day after. Seems like it’s always another tomorrow bringing another load of trouble. Reckon it’ll be that way until I die.
Ad’s cigarette had burned down to a stub. He shook another out of the pack, lit it from the coal of the old one, and flipped the butt into the parking lot.
Back with Penny, anyway, he thought. We always did get on real well, even if she does have an eye for trouble. But then, I’m no different.
Guess I’ll stick with her again in this job. See what kind of a deal it ends up being.
***
In the still of the night, in the world’s ancient light
Where wisdom grows up in strife
My bewildered brain, tolls in vain
Through the darkness on the pathways of life
Each invisible prayer is like a cloud in the air
Tomorrow keeps turning around
We live and we die, we know not why
But I’ll be with you when the deal goes down
See Bob Dylan’s original video, featuring a young and rather delectable Scarlett Johannsen, here.
I can’t understand it, but I suppose there’s enough evidence that many people think like this.
Tee Hee.
Something you’re not telling us?
Six years in the local jail waiting for trial.
It’s a sci fi story. He doesn’t know he’s been in a time warp yet, but the vixen might…
I’m actually a little embarrassed. That’s a pretty obvious continuity error. Maybe the Edit Fairy can change that year to 1931?
*YOU ARE BLESSED BY THE EDIT FAIRY*
I want you to write the other reality too!
It doesn’t need to be something impossible like time travel. The government could have wiped six years of his memories to cover up that he was a super-assassin fighting communists in South America.
Thank you, O Mighty Edit Fairy.
Things were more efficient back then.
Numbers are hard!
Six years for a bank robbery? Change it to 12 and it makes more sense.
White privilege.
Could also be that the robbery was in 1925 and he wasn’t caught until a few years later.
Sounded like he got nicked at the robbery.
Maybe he had one of those fancy Speedy Trials like those 06 Jan people?
What a dope. You don’t need a crystal ball to see that he is gonna take another fall.
Thanks, Animal!
You don’t need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. oh, wrong song
First squared is still First.
Think about it.
It’s also one to the second power. So first depends on second, like ugliness depends on beauty?
Put a dunce cap on and go sit in the corner pondering your errors. Repent before The Great Firstening for your own sake.
After The Firstening, you are going to end up on the Tree Of Woe with the other unbelievers.
“unbelievers”
At least Revelations gives clues as to when great things are going to happen. Do you even eschatology, Bro’?
OT:
Pray for nukes.
I hate myself for clicking that. 🙁
Fortunately, I haven’t covered myself in disgusting tatts.
Dude….
Oh man!
Look again.
…looks like a lady?
Reverse polarity
Lady looks like a Dude.
God doesn’t exist. This is proof, otherwise we would have been smited by now. Or Covid was just a shot across the bow.
Pride Flag Switches To Infrared Spectrum After Running Out Of Visible Colors
Fun Fact:
I really like zippos. They have a great combination of functionality, uniqueness, and style. They make some real great looking ones these days.
https://www.zippo.com/collections/zippo-asmr-collection
I carry one with the Scottish flag. It’s cool.
I’ve got one with an eagle globe n anchor fresco type emblem. Using the zippo is one of the things I miss most about smoking. Though I went ahead and got the plasma insert thingee just cuz it’s cool.
https://www.amazon.com/Zippo-65828-Lighter-Insert-Arc/dp/B07XTTB4C9/ref=asc_df_B07XTTB4C9/?
Neat-O!
I need a good, reliable long-neck lighter to get a patio burner going. Any suggestions?
https://www.zippo.com/collections/utility
I’ve used the out of stock black one for lighting my grill for several years now. Standard butane refill.
Awesome. Thanks.
Ordered a couple of flex XL lighters.
They stopped for the night in a cheap roadside motel just west of Kansas City
Pretty good distance for one day on 1930s roads.
registering as Mr. and Mrs. Albert Sydney Johnston. The clerk scowled when he read the registry
I don’t suppose there were many fans of the general up in Bloody Kansas. Lots more if they had headed to Dallas or thereabouts. Nice touch.
OT: Religious exemption request submitted. They gave me a little text box to fill out, so I went with the abortion argument to lead off. I have 75 pages of additional arguments if need be.
The fight is not over. I’m having to do this because the company is trying to get us back in office some portion of the time, and the in-office vaccine requirements haven’t been adjusted in 6 months or more.
Meanwhile when not subject to NYC’s crazy regs JPMorgan doesn’t want its talent to walk.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/14/jpmorgan-rolls-back-covid-precautions-as-us-cases-drop.html
megacorp just announce no masking, no proof of vaccination, no test results required to enter the door.
Our company is more concerned about returning remote workers to the office than COVID now.
Same. They are trying to put that genie back in the bottle.
Funny enough it’s us older folk that are back. The younger people want nothing to do with it.
My expectation is my company is going either come down hard and force people back or they will relent and let them work wherever they want. But this middle ground we are in now isn’t going last.
I have no idea what the mix is. What’s been ridiculous for a long time is that a huge chunk have been essentially remote beforehand, but they show up to a local to them office. And senior execs have been hostile to WFH for a while(*) but supposedly had a come to Jesus moment during COVID. Now I think that was lying bullshit and they never really were happy with not having the desks filled with drones.
They’ve also been pissing off those who have been working in person/office all along with the attention and bending over backwards to those remote workers.
* they have a similar belief that everyone should be a salesman, because all of them no matter their function area, is a salesman to get to senior ranks and think everyone should be too. I would imagine they would get huffy about suggesting billing reps or account managers should be technical experts of the products/services we sell in addition to their hired for job duties.
Megacorp has embraced remote working. Thousands of offices used by engineering and administrative folks are being repurposed. Apparently, this must be helping the bottom line.
They’ve done that too. If you’re only in 2 or 3 days a week, you don’t need an assigned
deskwork surface. You can just set up wherever.I think the at least 2 or 3 days is to keep people from stealth relocating somewhere else and not informing HR (and triggering a possible locality pay adjustment, or at least for future raises) or working remotely on vacations without coding PTO.
Yeah, I think that’s how it will go. Some companies, like yours, will try to keep going with it in order to cut costs. Others will resist, and try to get back to normal. If the companies that embrace remote working as a way to cut expenses show results on the bottom line, the resistant companies will quickly follow suit.
To whom it may concern
For the love of Benji, please stop strip-mining my childhood culture for cynical cash-grabs masquerading as revisionist fantasy.
https://youtu.be/8Ol1B3w7NtU
Skinsuit the old punk to be about how distrust in the government was bad…be like the new punk which tells us that government is good.
STEVE SMITH 2 LOCAL
“The Impresario of Lower Broad”
https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/pithinthewind/on-people-like-steve-smith-steering-the-future-of-nashville/article_4f342806-b375-11ec-8d89-b366714278d6.html
FTA: The thing is, I actually do think that Steve Smith is smart and insightful. Not the smartest or most insightful man in town, but clearly he knows how to do what he does well.
The author sounds like a miserable cunte.
It is the Nashville Scene, after all. Woke as hell.
This is the hold music I’m listening to
https://youtu.be/wiqBlKnb91A
Great choice!
I’ll return the favor.
https://youtu.be/Vpnks5FZvJM
Fox viewers transformed after watching CNN for 30 days, report finds
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now am found
Was blind but now I see…
What about the CNN viewers paid to watch Fox news for 30 days?
As if any good CNN viewer would ever accept filthy lucre to cavort with the Enemy!
After Stanley Milgram’s experiments such a study would no longer pass ethical review.
Kind of dumb to test it only one way. And we don’t really know how much effect getting paid itself had on the changing attitudes. It could be very significant.
That’s because that wasn’t the point of the “study”. The real point was to be able to point and say “Look how stupid Fox News viewers are!”
Well, look at it from the academic point of view. If a study is only covered by conservative outlets, did it really happen?
They are pretty dumb, they will even believe what CNN says. (CNN viewers of course being the stupidest of the lot)
Dumber than MSNBC viewers?
Subornation works. We humans are not the independent freethinkers that many of us would like to be.
Propaganda and repeated exposure works. Someone did polling and found that people vastly overestimated people who died or were hospitalized from COVID. The same with trans issues, recently they did polling where people vastly overestimated how many people are trans or LGBTQ.
What? You mean 20% didn’t die and you had a 1 in 2 chance of getting hospitalized?
Just tell me what the current thing is.
I mean, doesn’t that have the implications that it is just as much propaganda as the other team? Plus..pay me and I will say what you want.
Humans tend to respond to the last anecdote they heard.
Just stepped out of my fargin’ all day meeting and wanted to let you know I will be out of pocket when my post goes up later today. It will be in the dim mists of history before I can look at the comments, but y’all have fun!
Good luck!
We’re all counting on you?
https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/5-gun-rights-orgs-ask-pa-house-speaker-to-investigate-crimes-committed-by-ag-shapiros-office-and-documented-by-nbc-news/
They did lock up Kathleen…
*crosses fingers*
Most interesting to me is who did not sign the letter.
Kim Stolfer?
NRA