Pickles

From the moment Vince Vaquero steps off the Cascades 513 train (Seattle to Portland), the sky’s imprudence; as careless as a wet dog, begins untiringly shaking itself dry, and thus soaking the city below. Vince “The Cowboy” exits the station he pauses a moment (another passenger bumps him) and glares at his analog watch: 12:13.

“Four hours” he says out loud.

Out the station and down the slippery promenade, mindful of the protruding bow windows (he’s had some seldom run-ins with fire boxes, hydrants, telephone poles, curbs, garbage cans, and the occasional banana peel) he tromps along though the tumbling droplets that bounce off the brim of his high top Stetson his black leather duster reaches for the puddles below. His bulky hand leaps out from his dank black sleeve and into a slung carryall. It forages for a moment then emerges with the confident pickle he’d been saving for just such a rainy day. The crisp exclusive cry of Vince’s first bit slathers a wet grin across his face and he thinks of the soggy walk ahead. For this wet Cowboy is on his way to perform the pitiless ways of his pelf. But first, he’ll stop off to manage a couple of errands: mainly lunch.

Elsewhere, a pair of glistening lovers, still flowering, lie in their salty bog giggling and noshing on a titillating menu of lip, neck, and nipple flesh; the cooling of their post coital engine. Low rumbles from the storming sky outside mock the buzzing bumblebee resting full atop her Portland rose. “Crack!” The sky breaks. Then, “splash!” The whistle of her cell phone bumps the bull’s eye, dumping their still melting motor into the dunking pool below. She scrambles to silence the rather delightful ring tone leaving his crystallized walrus to the chilling air of their love garden.

“It’s Charlie.” she relays to her nude, shinny lover.

He reaches for the now vibrating phone. They gently kiss as she carefully lays back down avoiding the soggy spot on the bedding below.

“Charlie.” tells the naked voice.

“Winston, I’ve been calling your mobile for two hours, you won’t pick up! I had to get in touch so I phoned Katherine and now you’ve answered.” Charlie is a Brit and the bartender at the Rusty Nail; an English Pub.

“Charlie calm down. Has Man United lost?”
“No! And don’t be cheeky. Vincent is here, in the city. Now put on your trousers and get down here! By the way United won two-nil. Rooney bagged a brace.”

“He’s a regular George Best isn’t he?”

“Come on!” Charlie hung up the bar phone and averted his attention to the tele. The Champions League standings proudly displayed his team, United, atop.

Winston returned to his lover’s erect nipples and kissed her neck until they both fell into a quiet and perfect afternoon nap.

The quivering bloodshot eyes of the hung-over cashier shy away as the sobbing Cowboy calmly stares at the daily specials. Intently combing over the various sandwich combinations, he flicks up the last bite of pickle like an M&M and masterfully snatches it between his upper and lower incisors. “Snap!” A tiny splash of briny saliva lands square between the now throbbing, once baby blues of the on-looking cashier.

“The chicken salad is good today.” The sloppy cashier offered as to say other days it tastes like panther piss. He wipes his brow.

Just then, the crackling familiar voice of Texan troubadour Townes Van Zandt moseyed through the dusty speaker wires and out into the moist air of the little cafe. Gulping down the half chewed pickle chunk, Vince’s attention darts to the top of the noisy beverage cooler where an old faithful radio speaker breathes out what could be its last ditty: Pancho and Lefty.

V. Vaquero is the youngest of three brothers: L.Vaquero; the second youngest, and J. Vaquero; the eldest. They are the pride and pang of P.Vaqureo and his wife R. Vaquero, but everyone calls her Ruby V. Now Vinny wasn’t dubbed Vincent ‘The Cowboy’ Vaquero for his resilience and steadfast personality, although he’d had both. And it’s not because his last name translates to cattle-tender in Castellano. No, that’s mere coincidence…or is it the forecasting universe at work? At any rate, there’s an old cowboy aphorism that warns, ’sometimes you get and sometimes you get got’. As for Vince, well, he learned at an early age how to get something out of gettin’ got.

You see, Vinny’s nickname was given to him by Molly Hastings, a fourteen year old premature debutante whose aristocratic cattle farming family moved into town to set up some newly located killing floors and make an honest buck. At least a bloody one, as Charlie might say. Vincent, then known by most as Vinny, took a liking to little miss Molly and her thousand fortunes. After some charm and some bullshit, which Molly was a custom to (the bull shit that is), she and Vinny were smitten. One afternoon, in the den – as Molly’s mother would call it – of the Vaquero compound, she and Vin were mashing their faces together like the virgins they were. Pausing for an ear nibble, Vinny whispers a slyly teenage suggestion.

“We ought to go to my bedroom.”

She obliged. Up the stairs, they fell into the bed and resumed their aimless slobber session. An unknown version of Pancho and Lefty played low in the sun filled room, and while Vinny pondered his partiality to the original, Molly opened her eyes to examine what she’d just uncovered and was holding in her silver dressed hand.

“A cow!?!” she said laughingly. “You’ve got a cow stuffed animal under your pillow!” She raised the toy taxiderm idol of Vince’s still salad days and rudely teased.

“Why, you’re just a boy that’s all, you’re just a boy with a silly cow stuffed animal, a silly little cow-boy.”

“Molly, no! It’s not mine! It’s L’s! Don’t go.” Poor Vincent tried to cover up.

“Good bye you silly little cow-boy.”  She swung open the door and disappeared down the hall.

Just so happens that Vincent’s older brothers were of the spying stripe, as most siblings are. Once Molly was clean out of sight, they spiritedly emerged stomping and chanting “Silly little Cowboy, Silly little Cowboy!” It was this adolescent misfire that birthed Vincent “The Cowboy” Vaquero’s silly sounding moniker. Initially, of course, Vince shunned his new and embarrassing middle name, but as time went on, and time always goes on, he began to bare proclivity for it. He began to re-invent himself around it. He began to approximate towards it. He vowed not to squat on the spurs of the past, but to mount the horse he was given and ride it. And so over the years old boy Vincent turned into something out of a Louis L’Amour novel: a chaps wearing, bronco busting, tobacco chewing, steel brandishing, pickle eating Cowboy. A man born into the wrong century, as some would put it. But what they didn’t know was that it was little Molly Hastings who bore the Cowboy in Vincent Vaquero.

Climbing out of her sexy siesta, Katherine’s dream world came barreling into her physical, earthly world. (With coffee and volcanoes and hookahs and truffles and rain, yes, still rain, and penises) For Katherine had been dreaming that she’d just hauled out her last cigarette. As the softness of her mellow hand lightly wrapped around what she thought was an empty pack of Camels she awoke to find that she was, in fact, squeezing Winston’s fleshy masculinity. Winston jerked awake from his thwarted slumber and noticing his captured penis said,

“Well, that’s an inviting alarm clock.”

Katherine released his protruding plonker and the two fondlers began to laugh at the kinky mishap. After a shared and equally kinky shower, as Winston and Katherine were getting dressed she inquired about the pre-nap phone call.

“What did Charlie want? Something about Vincent?”

“Oh! I’ve got to get down to the pub and see about that,” replied the flighty Winston.

Over the Broadway Bridge, or depending on where you’re coming from, the Steel or Burnside, our nostalgic Cowboy sits solo and skims through this month’s Mercury. After a long quandary (‘pickle’ as Vince would call it) over what to order he settles for the daily soup special: Smoked Steelhead, Coliflor Bisque, and a Olympia, “It’s in the Water.”

Sorry to interrupt, but the writer would like to make a brief comment on the finer points of a lunch selection. So maestro, enlighten us.

Thank you narrator. Question. Why is it that ordering Soup so often gets misconstrued as settling for Soup, as if to diminish the importance and integrity of such an almighty and antiquated allotment? The Department of Archaic Knowledge, the DAK, tells us that Soup dates back to 6000 B.C. About 5078 years before Jesus Christ enjoyed his first bowl of Ebrea. In 16th century France, Soup, or Potage as it were, sold by street hawkers called Restaurer’s. No doubt this Soup slanging nomenclature spurred our obvious adaptation to the contemporary and ubiquitous word, Restaurant. Thanks Soup! Furthermore, as any chef or cuisinier will tell you, Soup is one of the most layered and triumphant achievements know to the culinary world. From Minestrone to Miso, Phở to Borsch, Callaloo to Clam Chowder (New England or Manhattan), Soup is on the global stage and singing it’s heart out. It gives identity and nourishment to all who ’settle’ for it. Oh brothy goodness! Oh velvety allure! Your textural complexities and gastronomical gusto coo my needing soul. But let’s face it, who gives a rat’s ass about the soul of a writer or the ‘Soul of a Chef’ (by Michael Ruhlman), and who on god’s green earth will stand up and order with confidence? I’LL HAVE THE VICHYSSOISE! EXTRA TRUFFLE OIL! Who, but Vincent Vaquero. Okay narrator, that’s all.
Thank you writer. Your insight is edifyingly sublime and duly noted. However, Vincent’s ‘Potage’, as it were, has been getting a bit tepid due to our hiatus. So why don’t we return to the table and check in.

Mercury headlines read: ‘How to Get Parental Approval of Your Stripper Girlfriend.’ A poignant article for a city so rich in the ways of the nudist trade.

“Neanderthals!”  Vincent quietly fussed. Referring to the droves of pathetic men who frequent these “houses of ill repute”, as he’d refer to them. He’d never seen the allure, nor subscribed to the attendance of such places. Broodingly he slurps his luke-warm soup and happily turns the page. An advert for Union Jacks fouls the following spread. Enough. Folding shut the menial Mercury he slides back from the table and approaches the counter.

“Pickle spear please.” A monotone request.

Wordless, the recovering barista dips a pair of tongs into the sixth pan under the register and dutifully takes the Cowboy’s order.

“A quarter.” he bids.

Vince makes the exchange and exits into the patently poor, battleship gray Portland winter. As a parade of bicycles roll by, Vincent rifles though his attaché for an important cocktail napkin. A newly acquired pickle, some cash, a spur, one key appropriately attached to a miniature horseshoe, coinage, train ticket stub, old pack of salt used as a canker sore antidote, and finally, the napkin. Stuffing it into his mighty palm he frees his fingers enough to fish around the lobster pool of loose change for a sacrificial quarter, his eyes never leaving sea level. Blocks and blocks, he hopelessly scans the street for a phone booth, the reality of their near extinction never bridging a thought in his head. Glancing down an alley Vincent thought he’d spied Superman getting changed behind a dumpster.

“I may have to go to jail just for the free phone call.” he mused.

But the joshing Vincent is closer to the clink than he might think. You see, his current line of work is far from that of the white-collar variety: as you may have forebode, he’d never really fancied the hue of proletariat blue. Here’s a grocery list of his vast vocations: bad guy, badman, bandit, bandito, charlatan, crook, desperado, drifter, duce, gunslinger, highwayman, hoodlum, hooligan, outcast, outlaw, pirate, pariah, racketeer, robber, rogue, scofflaw, shylock, and wrong number. Oh yeah, and Cowboy. An important note of interest: of all the ‘a-moral’ deeds and doings of Vince’s past, he has never once been a finger or a smear. He’s never sold down the river nor spilled the beans. He hasn’t squawked, squealed, snitched or blown any whistles. He hates rats, weasels, snakes, grass, stools, and pigeons. He’s not sold out and no one could ever call him Benedict Arnold. Let’s just say you’d sooner catch god masturbating than Vince playing Judas.

With such a high fidelity for fraudulence, Vincent rightfully expects nothing but utter professionalism from his clients and colleagues. Case in point: he once walked on a commission in Reno that would’ve given him a retirement purse. You see, Vincent has zero patience for objectifying the opposite gender. So when he saw his commissioner’s champagne Cadillac spilt and bubbling over two spaces in front of ‘Shooters Saloon’, a local nudie dive, he decided to pop in and say hello. It didn’t take long to find his juiced employer. He’d been hitting the bottle like a sailor on leave and now in all his slovenly offensive glory was climbing up on the stage for an unsolicited dance. As the stark naked and confused pole-jockey grabbed for her belongings, Mr. Dizzy managed to get a hand on the trailing end of her brazier and began a totally superfluous match of tug o’ war. Uncouth. Vince’s money-man was hastily, helplessly, and deservingly mauled by security and hauled off into a private lap room. As they dragged his kicking body past the statuesque Cowboy, he cried.

“Hey Vinny boy! That’s Vincent Vaquero, he’ll beat yo’ ass if you don’t lemmie go. Tell em’ Vince! Tell em’ who I am.”

The two bouncers held a moment and dog eyed Vince. Knowing that silence is sometimes the best answer, Vince stood, still as granite.

“Vince! Tell em’ Hit em’! Do somethin’! I know you got a gun on you! Fuckin’ use it, I’m payin’ you man!”
After hearing the loaded word about a gun, the two bouncers released the hounds in their eyes and stepped back to burp up a butterfly.

“At ease boys, at ease.” cautioned the quiet Cowboy. He openly thumbed into his duster and withdrew a wad of cash as thick as a dictionary.

“Vaquero! What the fuck are you doing?” his soon enough bruised boss angrily parlayed.

“You’re in a hole man. You need to put down that shovel and stop your digging.” Vincent prophetically tongued.

After a brief visual vie of contention, the righteous thud of Vincent’s paycheck blinked the silence and smiled on the muscle of a bouncer’s job description.

So, you see how the sinews of Vince’s moral character are uncompromised by the temptations of treasure, the come-on of quan, the draw of a dollar, the bang of a buck; an economically ethical criminal whose fees are fair. This job, however, is a stag mission that won’t bring home any bacon or win any bread. An assignment, no a favor, for an old friend: Winston.

“NO SCOUSERS ALLOWED” warned the adorning placard outside the Rusty Nail. A Scouser, for those who haven’t the Queens English is a chap from Liverpool, just as Geordies are from Newcastle, Cockneys: East London, and Brummies: Birmingham. So rooted is his malcontent for the Liverpool footballers, Charlie even hates the Beatles, and is often heard regurgitating the same joke to nearly every bloke on a bar stool.

“What would be necessary to reunite the Beatles? A gun and two bullets.”

You see, Charlie a Manc as it were, is a full-blooded Englishman, born proudly in Manchester. So proud in fact, you might think he’d actually had a choice. As if he’d walked away from drunkards’ fisticuffs, which he never did, or he’d clairvoyantly forecasted the winning lotto numbers, which he tries every time the jackpot exceeds two million. He says it’s not worth it otherwise.

“Still puffin’ those Vagina Slimes mate?” teases Winston, who likes to exercise his British verbiage.

“Jesus, mate! You nearly fucked my cardiac.” Chirps the thin Brit from behind the bar, ducking to avoid Winston’s words.

“I just read a bit about some ‘Acoustic Startle Reflex’, ASR, that these bloody scientists, whoever they are, are researching. Their report warned of some impaired nervous system effects. You know, when you think you’re alone, tending to your business and you get a tap on the shoulder: your heart loses time for a measure or two. In short, what they’ve said, is that too many of those types of moments can cause serious health issues. So mate, do us a favor and stay off the bloody diving board.”
Sure as shit, tucked in Charlie’s arrogant and ironic lips bounced a lengthy Virginia Slim. The Rusty Nail is one of the few remaining public houses that embrace the ashtray atmosphere that notoriously fucks people’s cardiacs.

“I’ll take a pint of bitter when you’ve got a moment.” ordered Winston, emptying his pockets on the brass bar between him and Charlie’s red jumper.

“When I’ve got a moment. Does it look like I’m pressed for time mate, like I’m on the double? You know business has been milk and water around here.”

“Maybe if you weren’t so bloody charming Charlie, the public might patronize. And for Christ sake, if you dumped that swollen pool table and got a real spread with the right amount of balls, you’d have a better following.”

“Piss off! It’s called Snooker and you simple minded Americans are just too deft in the ways of immediate gain to accrue any satisfaction from the hard fought battle that Snooker derives. Toss pots! The whole lot of ya!”

Heretofore, no one has ever actually finished a match at the Rusty Nail as it takes a dog’s age to crown a victor among Snooker amateurs. That, and the average happy hourer is simply not schooled in the ways of this British/Commonwealth/Chinese cue sport and sees nothing more than a joke of behemoth billiards for blokes.

At any rate…

Charlie continued. “Listen Winston, you’re not in my bar (it wasn’t his bar) to share your prerogative and be antagonistic. You’re here because Vincent is here.”

“I know that, I’m meeting him here at quarter past, I was wondering why you seemed so…”

“Quarter past!?! Here!?!” (Obviously Charlie didn’t get the memorandum) “In my bar!” (It wasn’t his bar) “Your old syndicator of sin, the old sun of Katherine, the…”

“Katherine was never his planet and I thought you knew that we’d separated the gold from the gravel, buried the hatchet.”

“After pulling it from his chest man. ” detested Charlie.

“Listen Charles, Vince and I are at ease. He’s just come in to do me a solid and that’s it. Nothing of the quid pro quo variety, just a friendly favor.”

“I should say he owes you a favor or two. What happened between the three of you was not an easy pill to swallow for the old boy. Like putting down whole one of those ridiculous pickles he’s always packing.”

“I told you Charlie, everything is as it should be. Now, how about that pint.”

As the perceptive reader on the qui vive might be presuming, there had indeed been a bit of a juggling act amidst our cast. A pickle. Here’s the short shtick: Vince and Winston were thick as thieves. Vince and Katherine were like two peas (in a pod). Katherine and Winston were unfaithfully smitten. Vince was crushed. Katherine was in love. Winston was in love too. That’s how they were and that’s how it went.

Here’s the long shtick: Label reads: “A taste born of hoary nights, when lonely men struggled to keep their fires lit and cabins warm, boldly flavorful yet surprisingly smooth, there is no spirit like Yukon Jack.” This black sheep Canadian Whiskey was, and I do say was, the horrid favorite of our very own Winston Thomas Baebyrne. Somewhat of a black sheep himself, Winston grew up in the gentry town of Weston, Massachusetts where no one really struggled to keep their fire lit or their cabin warm. Even during those inconsolably graceful New England winters when Winston would pass out pants down, ass up over the fainting couch. Truth be told, cabins were as queer as booze in Weston, heretofore a dry town. No, mansions ruled this tiny plateau. The old school homes of this whistle stop suburb held wealth and privilege: political fodder…to be cont…Pickles

From the moment Vince Vaquero steps off the Cascades 513 train (Seattle to Portland) the sky’s imprudence; as careless as a wet dog, begins untiringly shaking itself dry, soaking the city below. Vince “The Cowboy” exits the station he pauses a moment (another passenger bumps him) and glares at his analog watch: 12:13.
“Four hours” he says out loud.
Out the station and down the slippery promenade, mindful of the protruding bow windows (he’s had some seldom run-ins with fire boxes, hydrants, telephone poles, curbs, garbage cans, and the occasional banana peel) he tromps along though the tumbling droplets that bounce off the brim of his high top Stetson: his black leather duster reaches for the puddles below. Vince’s hand, like an anvil, falls through his matching leather carryall and irons about in search of his strangely orthodox and always confident pickle. Steps still sure, plans still concrete, he snaps into it with grand pleasure. The crisp exclusive cry of his salty cuke slathers a wet grin across his face and a whet thigh-slapper to his soul. A chomp like that can really get behind the soggy walk ahead, if you know what I mean. For this wet and satisfied Cowboy is on his way to perform the pitiless ways of his pelf. But first, he’ll stop off to manage a couple of errands: namely, lunch.

Elsewhere, a pair of glistening lovers, still flowering, lie in their salty bog giggling and noshing on a titillating menu of lip, neck, and nipple flesh; the cooling of their post coital engine. Low rumbles from the storming sky outside mock the buzzing bumblebee resting full atop her Portland rose. “Crack!” The sky breaks. Then, “ a wheeee whee “>whee “>whee “>whee “>whee “>whee “>whee whee whee, a whee whee whee…” The charming whistle of her cell phone bumps the bull’s eye, dumping their still melting motor into the allegorical dunking pool below. She nudely scrambles to silence the rather delightful ring tone leaving his crystallized walrus to the chilling air of their love garden.
“It’s Charlie.” she relays to her birth naked, shiningly lover.
He reaches for the now vibrating phone. They gently kiss as she carefully lays back down avoiding the soggy spot on the bedding below.
“Charlie.” tells the naked voice.
“Winston, I’ve been calling your mobile for two hours, you won’t pick up! I had to get in touch so I phoned Katherine and now you’ve answered.” Charlie is a Brit and the bartender at the Rusty Nail: an English Pub.
“Charlie calm down. Has Man United lost?”
“No! And don’t be cheeky. Vincent is here, in the city. Now put on your trousers and get down here! By the way United won, two-nil. Rooney bagged a brace.”
“He’s a regular George Best isn’t he?”
“Come on!” Charlie hung up the bar phone and averted his attention to the tele. The Champions League standings proudly displayed his team, United, atop.
Winston returned to his lover’s erect nipples and kissed her neck until they both fell into a quiet and perfectly neglectful afternoon nap.

Inside the “Crust and All Café” a pair of quivering bloodshot eyes belonging to a hung-over cashier named… well, that’s not of dire importance so why don’t you decide on a name. Not to say your decisions aren’t important, just to give you a little authorship on the matter. It’ll be kind of like one of those choose your own adventure books. Good, got a name? Okay, so, , the cock-eyed and crapulous sandwich boy who thinks he’s about to get held up with an Elephant gun coyly distracts himself while the unintentionally imposing Cowboy stares down the daily specials. After a brief deliberation over ham or turkey he flicks up the last bite of pickle like an M&M, as to indicate decision. Like a tooth trained Olympian, he masterfully snatches the somersaulting wedge between his upper and lower incisors. Randall, or Andrew, or whatever you named him, gridlocked in awe and a tiny splash of briny saliva lands squarely between his baby blues.
“The chicken salad is good today.” Offered what’s his face, as to say other days it tastes like panther piss. He wipes his brow.
Just then, the crackling familiar voice of Texan troubadour Townes Van Zandt moseyed through the dusty speaker wires and out into the moist air of the little cafe. Gulping down the half chewed pickle chunk, Vince’s attention darts to the top of the noisy beverage cooler where an old faithful radio speaker breathes out what could be its last ditty: Pancho and Lefty.

V. Vaquero is the youngest of three brothers: L.Vaquero; the second youngest, and J. Vaquero; the eldest. They are the pride and pang of P.Vaqureo and his wife R. Vaquero, but everyone calls her Ruby V. Now Vinny wasn’t dubbed Vincent ‘The Cowboy’ Vaquero for his resilience and steadfast personality, although he’d had both. And it’s not because his last name translates to cattle-tender in Castellano. No, that’s mere coincidence…or is it the forecasting universe at work? At any rate, there’s an old cowboy aphorism that warns, ’sometimes you get and sometimes you get got’. As for Vince, well, he learned at an early age how to get something out of gettin’ got.
You see, Vinny’s nickname was given to him by Molly Hastings, a fourteen year old premature debutante whose aristocratic cattle farming family moved into town to set up some newly located killing floors and make an honest buck. At least a bloody one, as Charlie might say. Vincent, then known by most as Vinny, took a liking to little miss Molly and her thousand fortunes. After some charm and some bullshit, which Molly was accustom to (the bull shit that is), she and Vinny were smitten. One afternoon, in the den – as Molly’s mother would call it – of the Vaquero compound, she and Vin were mashing their faces together like the virgins they were. Pausing for an ear nibble, Vinny whispered a slyly teenage suggestion.
“We ought to go to my bedroom.”
She obliged. Up the stairs, they fell into bed and resumed their aimless slobber session. A covered version of Pancho and Lefty played low in the sun filled room, and while Vinny pondered his partiality to the original Molly opened her eyes to examine what she’d just uncovered and was holding in her silver dressed hand.
“A cow!?!” she said laughingly. “You’ve got a cow stuffed animal under your pillow!” She raised the brown, flimsy idol of Vince’s salad days and teased, and teased.
“Why, you’re just a boy that’s all, you’re just a boy with a silly cow stuffed animal, a silly little cow-boy.”
“Molly, no! It’s not mine! It’s L’s! Don’t go.” Poor Vincent tried to cover up.
“Good bye you silly little cow-boy.” She swung open the door and disappeared down the hall.
Just so happens that Vincent’s older brothers were of the spying stripe, as most siblings are. Once Molly was clean out of sight, they spiritedly emerged stomping and chanting “Silly little Cowboy, Silly little Cowboy!” It was this adolescent misfire that birthed Vincent “The Cowboy” Vaquero’s silly sounding moniker. Initially, of course, Vince shunned his new and embarrassing middle name, but as time went on, and time always goes on, he began to bare proclivity for it. He began to re-invent himself around it. He began to approximate towards it. He vowed not to squat on the spurs of the past, but to mount the horse he was given and ride it. And so over the years old boy Vincent turned into something out of a Louis L’Amour novel: a chaps wearing, bronco busting, tobacco chewing, steel brandishing, pickle eating Cowboy. A man born into the wrong century, as some would put it. But what they didn’t know was that it was little Molly Hastings who bore the Cowboy in Vincent Vaquero.

Climbing out of her sexy siesta, Katherine’s dream world came barreling into her physical, earthly world. (With coffee and volcanoes and hookahs and truffles and rain, yes, still rain, and penises) For Katherine had been dreaming that she’d just hauled out her last cigarette. In her mooning, her mellow hand lightly wrapped around what she thought was an empty pack of Camels, but when she awoke she was, in fact, squeezing Winston’s fleshy and stiffening masculinity. Winston, thwarted, jerked awake and noticing his captured penis said,
“Well, that’s an inviting alarm clock.”
Katherine released the protruding plonker and the two fondlers began to laugh at the kinky mishap. After a shared and equally kinky shower, as Winston and Katherine were getting dressed she inquired about the pre-nap phone call.
“What did Charlie want? Something about Vincent?”
“Oh! I’ve got to get down to the pub and see about that. Probably just a misunderstanding, you know Charlie, he’s a bit capricious and all to often a bit uninformed.”
“Yeah, that’s not the best combination, is it?”

Over the Broadway Bridge, or depending on where you’re coming from, the Steel or Burnside, our nostalgic Cowboy sits solo and skims through this month’s Mercury. After a long quandary (‘pickle’ as Vince would call it) over what to order he settled for the daily soup special: Smoked Steelhead, Coliflor Bisque, and a Olympia, “It’s in the Water.”
Sorry to interrupt, but the writer would like to make a brief comment on the finer points of a lunch selection. So maestro, enlighten us.
Thank you narrator. Question. Why is it that ordering Soup so often gets misconstrued as settling for Soup, as if to diminish the importance and integrity of such an almighty and antiquated allotment? The Department of Archaic Knowledge, the DAK, tells us that Soup dates back to 6000 B.C. About 5078 years before Jesus Christ enjoyed his first bowl of Ebrea. In 16th century France, Soup, or Potage as it were, was sold by street hawkers called Restaurer’s. No doubt this Soup slanging nomenclature spurred our obvious adaptation to the contemporary and ubiquitous word, Restaurant. Thanks Soup! Furthermore, as any chef or cuisinier will tell you, Soup is one of the most layered and triumphant achievements know to the culinary world. From Minestrone to Miso, Phở to Borsch, Callaloo to Clam Chowder (New England or Manhattan), Soup is on the global stage and singing it’s heart out. It gives identity and nourishment to all who ’settle’ for it. Oh brothy goodness! Oh velvety allure! Your textural complexities and gastronomical gusto coo my needing soul. But let’s face it, who gives a rat’s ass about the soul of a writer or the ‘Soul of a Chef’ (by Michael Ruhlman), and who on god’s green earth will stand up and order with confidence? I’LL HAVE THE VICHYSSOISE! EXTRA TRUFFLE OIL! Who, but Vincent Vaquero. Okay narrator, that’s all.
Thank you writer. Your insight is edifyingly sublime and duly noted. However, Vincent’s ‘Potage’, as it were, has been getting a bit tepid due to our hiatus. So why don’t we return to the table and check in.
Mercury headlines read: ‘How to Get Parental Approval of Your Stripper Girlfriend’ A poignant article for a city so rich in the ways of the nudist trade.
“Neanderthals!” Vincent quietly fussed. Referring to the droves of stiff-necked, bloodless men who frequent these “houses of ill repute”, as he’d refer to them. He’d never seen the allure nor subscribed to the attendance of such places. Broodingly, he slurps his lukewarm soup and unhappily turns the page. An advert for Union Jacks fouls the following spread. Enough. Folding shut the menial paper that “…isn’t fit to wrap fish in” he slides back from the table and approaches the counter.
“Pickle spear please.” A monotone request.
Wordless, the recovering barista dips a pair of tongs into the sixth pan under the register and dutifully takes the Cowboy’s order.
“A quarter.” he bids.
Vince makes the exchange and exits into the patently poor, battleship gray Portland winter. As a parade of bicycles roll by, Vincent rifles though his attaché for an important cocktail napkin. A newly acquired pickle, some cash, a spur, one key appropriately attached to a miniature horseshoe, coinage, train ticket stub, old pack of salt used as a canker sore antidote, and finally, the napkin. Stuffing it into his mighty palm he frees his fingers enough to fish around the lobster pool of loose change for a sacrificial quarter, his eyes never leaving sea level. Blocks and blocks, he hopelessly scans the street for a phone booth, the reality of their near extinction never bridging a thought in his head. Glancing down an alley Vincent thought he’d spied Superman getting changed behind a dumpster.
“I may have to go to jail just for the free phone call.” he mused.
But the joshing Vincent is closer to the clink than he might think. You see, his current line of work is far from that of the white-collar variety: as you may have guessed, he’d never really fancied the hue of proletariat blue. Here’s a grocery list of his vast vocations: bad guy, badman, bandit, bandito, charlatan, crook, desperado, drifter, duce, gunslinger, highwayman, hoodlum, hooligan, outcast, outlaw, pirate, pariah, racketeer, robber, rogue, scofflaw, shylock, and wrong number. Oh yeah, and Cowboy. An important note of interest: of all the ‘a-moral’ deeds and doings in Vince’s past, he has never once been a finger or a smear. He’s never sold down the river nor spilled the beans. He hasn’t squawked, squealed, snitched or blown any whistles. He hates rats, weasels, snakes, grass, stools, and pigeons. He’s not sold out and no one could ever call him Benedict Arnold. Let’s just say you’d sooner catch god masturbating than Vince playing Judas.
With such a high fidelity for fraudulence, Vincent rightfully expects nothing but utter professionalism from his clients and colleagues. Case in point: he once walked on a commission in Reno that would’ve given him a retirement purse. You see Vincent has zero patience for objectifying the opposite gender. So when he saw his commissioner’s champagne Cadillac spilt and bubbling over two spaces in front of ‘Shooters Saloon’, a local nudie dive, he decided to pop in and say hello. It didn’t take long to find his juiced employer. He’d been hitting the bottle like a sailor on leave and now in all his slovenly offensive glory was climbing up on the stage for an unsolicited dance. As the stark naked, and confused pole jockey grabbed for her belongings, Mr. Dizzy managed to get a hand on the trailing end of her brazier and began a totally superfluous match of tug o’ war. Before you could say uncouth, Vince’s moneyman was hastily, helplessly, and deservingly mauled by security and hauled off into a private lap room. While they dragged his kicking body past the statuesque Cowboy, he cried.
“Hey Vinny boy! That’s Vincent Vaquero, he’ll beat yo’ ass if you don’t lemmie go. Tell em’ Vince! Tell em’ who I am.”
The two bouncers held a moment and dog eyed Vince. Knowing that silence is sometimes the best answer, Vince stood, still as granite.
“Vince! Tell em’ Hit em’! Do somethin’! I know you got a gun on you! Fuckin’ use it, I’m payin’ you man!”
After hearing the loaded word about a gun, the two bouncers released the hounds in their eyes and stepped back to burp up a butterfly.
“At ease boys, at ease.” cautioned the quiet Cowboy. He openly thumbed into his duster and withdrew a wad of cash as thick as the pope’s bible.
“Vaquero! What the fuck are you doing?” his soon to be bruised boss angrily, now more clearly parleyed.
“You’re in a hole man. You need to put down that shovel and stop your digging.” Vincent prophetically tongued.
After a brief visual vie of contention, the righteous thud of Vincent’s paycheck blinked the silence and smiled on the muscle of a bouncer’s job description.
So, you see how the sinews of Vince’s moral character are uncompromised by the temptations of treasure, the come-on of quan, the draw of a dollar, the bang of a buck; an economically ethical criminal whose fees are fair. This job, however, is a stag mission that won’t bring home any bacon or win any bread. An assignment, no a favor, for an old friend: Winston.

“NO SCOUSERS ALLOWED” warned the adorning placard outside the Rusty Nail. A Scouser, for those of us on this side of the pond, is a chap from Liverpool, just as Geordies are from Newcastle, Cockneys: East London, and Brummies: Birmingham. So rooted is his malcontent for the Liverpool footballers, Charlie even hates the Beatles, and is often heard regurgitating the same joke to nearly every bloke on a bar stool.
“What would be necessary to reunite the Beatles? A gun and two bullets.”
You see, Charlie a Manc as it were, is a full-blooded Englishman, born proudly in the second city of the United Kingdom, Manchester. So proud in fact, you might think he’d actually had a choice. As if he’d walked away from drunkards’ fisticuffs, which he never did, or he’d clairvoyantly forecasted the winning lotto numbers, which he tries every time the jackpot exceeds two million. He says it’s not worth it otherwise.
Strangely however, Manchester is not the second largest city in size or population. So why is it the quote ‘Unofficial’ second city and who decides such things? It must be either some tight pants BBC journalist or the Queen, or maybe it’s the cultural and historical poundage of the place, which put it ahead of Birmingham, who’d traditionally been hailed as the second city. In any case, this minor digression offers and opportunity for the loyally vigilant reader who hangs on every word with weathered eyes opened to recall a aforementioned point and learn something forever: What do you call someone who lives in Birmingham?
If you guessed, or knew the answer was Brummies, turn to page 888 for your prize. I’m sure the Brummies are bitter about all this, being pegged down to third city, if there is such a thing. Seems to be the way of the British to hold grudges and rivalries; hence Charlie’s placard. “NO SCOUSERS ALLOWED”
“Still puffin’ those Vagina Slimes mate?” teases Winston, who likes to exercise his British verbiage.
“Jesus, mate! You nearly fucked my cardiac.” Chirps the thin Brit from behind the bar, in a duck to avoid Winston’s words.
“I just read a bit about some ‘Acoustic Startle Reflex’, ASR, that these bloody scientists, whoever they are, are researching. Their report warned of some impaired nervous system effects. You know, when you think you’re alone, tending to your business and you get a tap on the shoulder: your heart loses time for a measure or two. In short, what they’ve said, is that too many of those types of moments can cause serious health issues. So mate, do us a favor and stay off the bloody diving board.”
Sure as shit, tucked in Charlie’s arrogant and ironic lips bounced a lengthy Virginia Slim. The Rusty Nail is one of the few remaining public houses that embrace the ashtray atmosphere that notoriously fucks people’s cardiacs.
“I’ll take a pint of bitter when you’ve got a moment.” ordered Winston, emptying his pockets on the brass bar between him and Charlie’s red jumper.
“When I’ve got a moment. Does it look like I’m pressed for time mate, like I’m on the double? You know business has been milk and water around here.”
“Maybe if you weren’t so bloody charming Charlie, the public might patronize. And for Christ sake, if you dumped that swollen pool table and got a real spread with the right amount of balls, you’d have a better following.”
“Piss off! It’s called Snooker and you simple minded Americans are just too deft in the ways of immediate gain to accrue any satisfaction from the hard fought battle that Snooker derives. Toss pots! The whole lot of ya!”
Heretofore, no one has ever actually finished a game of Snooker at the Rusty Nail as it takes a dog’s age to crown a victor among amateurs. That, and the average happy hourer is simply not schooled in the ways of this British/Commonwealth/Chinese cue sport and sees nothing more than a joke of behemoth billiards for blokes.
At any rate…
Charlie continued. “Listen Winston, you’re not in my bar (it wasn’t his bar) to share your prerogative and be antagonistic. You’re here because Vincent is here.”
“I know that, I’m meeting him here at quarter past, I was wondering why you seemed so…”
“Quarter past!?! Here!?!” (Obviously Charlie didn’t get the memorandum) “In my bar!” (It wasn’t his bar) “Your old syndicator of sin, the old sun of Katherine, the…”
“Katherine was never his planet and I thought you knew that we’d separated the gold from the gravel, buried the hatchet.”
“After pulling it from his chest man.” detested Charlie.
“Listen Charles, Vince and I are at ease. He’s just come in to do me a solid and that’s it. Nothing of the quid pro quo variety, just a friendly favor.”
“I should say he owes you a favor or two. What happened between the three of you was not an easy pill to swallow for the old boy. Like putting down whole one of those ridiculous pickles he’s always packing.”
“I told you Charlie, everything is as it should be. Now, how about that pint.”
As the perceptive reader might be presuming, there had indeed been a bit of a juggling act amidst our cast. A pickle. Here’s the short shtick: Vince and Winston were thick as thieves. Vince and Katherine were like two peas (in a pod). Katherine and Winston were unfaithfully smitten. Vince was crushed. Katherine was in love. Winston was in love too. That’s how they were and that’s how it went

Here’s the long shtick: Label reads: “A taste born of hoary nights, when lonely men struggled to keep their fires lit and cabins warm, boldly flavorful yet surprisingly smooth, there is no spirit like Yukon Jack.” This black sheep Canadian Whiskey was, and I do say was, the horrid favorite of our very own Winston Thomas Baebyrne. Somewhat of a black sheep himself, Winston grew up in the gentry town of Weston, Massachusetts. A place where, even during those inconsolably graceful New England winters, no one really struggled to keep their fires lit or their cabins warm. But, to be historically accurate, cabins were as queer as booze in Weston, heretofore a dry town: dry from drink yes, but wet with wealth. The old school homes of this whistle stop suburb held property, privilege and first string phyla: political fodder for sure. But as it stood, the BaeByrnes were as interested in politics as a priest is a porno.
“Don’t vote, it only encourages them, those snarky bastards who confuse power with greatness, those bloated plutocratic kingpins most of whom couldn’t lead a monkey to a banana raffle. I’d vote, I’d vote based on which side of the bread my butter is on, but the fact is, I’m full.” -Mrs. BaeByrne.

To Be Continued…