"Be Prepared"

For Daniel B. O'Shea's Tornado Relief Flash Challenge-

"Some day a real rain will come and wash the scum off of the streets."

-Travis Bickle, "Taxi Driver"

After women, booze that isn’t made with something that should never be fermented in the first place, and meat that you don’t have to guess what species it came from, I miss the rain the most. During my last stint, the warden had three successful escapes happen during the rain, so he wouldn’t permit us to go out in the exercise yard in anything stronger than a mist.

Getting back to Travis, this just goes to show how crazy Travis really is. The rain won't kill the rats because you know they can swim out of anything, nor would it affect the rest of us that God and everyone else has been trying to drown since the day we were born. And to think that I've been waiting four years to see that movie...actually, three years and ten months with good behavior. Fuck "Star Wars," this was all I heard about in the joint, and this? This was just a let-down.

I just had to walk out on a showing of “Raging Bull” right now, because the last thing I want to do is spend my second day out of the joint with some asshole exactly like the ones I was in lock-up with. The certifiables crazies that have no "off-switch," you know. You let that animal mentality stay with you for too long and you can't adjust back into society, and getting back into society is just what I want to do this time around.

I’m happy to walk in the rain again, and the touch of a woman will happen as soon as I can get twenty-five bucks together. I want to be able to sleep in, to eat when I want to eat, and to take a bath instead of a shower. The pisser of it all is that I know that it's not a question of if I'm going back to prison, but when. I’ve spent more time in state-run institutions than I have as a free individual, so I know my die is cast. Go straight to jail, do not pass Go and do not collect $200.

I can’t hold a normal conversation with anyone, but I know how to use the fewest words necessary to put the fear of God in them for the rest of their lives. I don’t know which fork or spoon to use at a dinner, but if it came down to it, I could take someone out but permanently, with either utensil in seconds. I wouldn’t know the path of the straight and narrow if it ran right over me, yet I know opportunity way before it even gets up to the porch and puts its knuckles to the door.

Take that brand-new 1981 Buick Regal across the street. It has a broken-out window just behind the driver’s side and it’s been idling there for about two minutes. Even though the windows are pretty fogged-over, I can tell the driver is fidgety. If there is anything I’ve learned from my short stint in the Boy Scouts, it’s how to cuss, how to smoke, and to “Be Prepared.”

Like when I cut through a high school track meet the other day, and helped myself to a spare starter’s pistol when everyone’s eyes were fixated on a heated race. And I always wear a hooded sweatshirt because carrying around a ski mask when you have a record, is just begging for the cops to frame you for the one thing you didn’t do. Now, the fact that no one has left that bank for the last two minutes, coupled with the Buick, tells me that opportunity is about to kick in the door like a cop with two alimonies and a warrant, and I’m going to be the one to capitalize right here on someone else’s hard work and planning.

It’s a damn shame though; they ran a trailer for “Raging Bull” just before “Taxi Driver” and it seems like that’s going to be my kind of movie. It’s a pity because I doubt I can stay out of the joint until December.

The End

Daniel B. O'Shea threw down the flash fiction gauntlet and asked us to come up with a story that centered around rain, and that came under 1,000 words. The beauty of it is that for every story written, he will donate $5 to the Red Cross to help those that were devastated by the recent tornadoes.

Daniel O'Shea's Flash Fiction Challenge: "The Original Rainmaker"

Daniel O'Shea has a flash fiction challenge and he said, "Is it flash fiction time again? Yes, says I, so I’m throwing down the gauntlet. And would you look at that, almost Ash Wednesday. In this lovely Puritanical Republic of ours, the ancestral home of Jimmy Swaggert, the Bakers and buggered altar boys (well, OK, maybe we can’t take credit for inventing that last one, though they damn near perfected it out Boston way, I’m told, and, damn it, televangelism? We OWN that) it seems your local house of worship is the perfect setting for a little malfeasance.

You with me? 1000 words max, set wherever good folk hit their knees. Let’s say March 1. If you’re game, lemme know and I’ll add your name to the dishonor roll."

Here is "The Original Rainmaker," and it's a sequel of sorts to "A Sheep In Wolf's Clothing."


Madison, Brandi, Candi and Taylor sit at the bar, happily counting their money and gleefully bumping shoulders. Some NBA player from a European country they’ve never heard of just came by and spread his wealth in here, one of the few strip clubs in West Fayetteville, Arkansas. No one knows just why he chose to spend his cash at this particular establishment, as his accent was nearly indecipherable to everyone. The bartender understood the word “vodka” and the girls understood Washington, Lincoln, Jackson and Franklin.

The owner Lamont Hubble, trudges wearily out of his office. Business has been down lately, after the initial upswing that followed after this place was robbed. With the novelty of the crime forgotten and the economy being what it is, Lamont is worried that he might have to start watering down his drinks, and it’s not the beauty of his girls or the club’s atmosphere that make the customers choose the Candy Shack over all the other places.

“It was Windowpania,” squeaks Candi.

“It’s Lithuvia,” affirms Taylor, who actually knows a thing or two about accounting because she took a class in it. She still doesn’t geography from her brown eye.

“Who cares what country he’s from? The boy is rich and clueless,” Madison chortles. “I never followed basketball before, but you best be sure that I’ll make sure to watch all of his games, I’ll be looking him up. Nobody told him that when you make it rain, that you’re supposed to use only singles.”

“Making it rain” is when one showers strippers with one dollar bills. Lamont pours a drink and allows himself a smile. “I was the original rainmaker, ya know?”

“Oh, c’mon, Lamont,” says Brandi. “How are you gonna lay claim to that?”

“You best believe that as sure as the four pounds of saline on your chest, that I was the first to make it rain.”

After several moments of silence, the surgically-altered beauties lean forward…with the botox in their faces making them look more serious than they are. Lamont takes a deep breath and tells them his tale.

“I was twelve in 1978, when we moved to Elmwood, Louisiana. My father was a sergeant in the Army and he was transferred to Fort Polk. I was an average kid, average height, was average at sports, and I should’ve fit in, but I didn’t. Hell, I even had a twang, just like everybody else, but I was the only new kid.

“This gangly kid that was a whole head taller than the rest of the class decided I was the one that came up with the nickname ‘Mantis’ for him. Apparently everyone had been calling him that since the spring before, but this was his chosen excuse to pick on me. He told me he was going to kick my ass at lunch time, and every lunch time thereafter, until Christmas vacation.”

“He couldn’t have stood a chance,” squeals Candi, “I’ve seen you threw out all three hundred pounds of R.J. out on his ear.”

“Well, I was different back then and I had to man up…and man up real fast. I asked for permission to go to the bathroom. I went out the classroom door, then out the school’s front door and I kept on going. I wandered around Elmwood aimlessly, trying to figure out just how I could get my father to put me in another school.

“A lit cigarette went right past my feet, and I looked to see a Catholic priest exhaling smoke on the side steps of a church. Father Fidel was his name and he said, ‘what are you doing cutting school, young man?’ as he took a sip out of his flask.”

“I knew that he was a holy man, but that’s about I knew about Catholics. I told him about my situation and he gave me some advice. He said, ‘tell Mantis that you’ll fight him after school in at 20 Henderson Street, and make sure to say in front of at least four people.’ Then he gave me a ten dollar bill.”

“That wouldn’t be the first time a so-called holy man approached a kid with some money,” sneers Brandi.

“No, it wasn’t like that at all, though he did whisper the rest in my ear and that part made me uncomfortable, until I realized that he being what he was, didn’t want any of his parishioners to hear that.

“I ran out after school, and I got to 20 Henderson Street about five minutes ahead of everybody else, which was perfect. I put that ten dollar bill down, got what I needed and there was about fifty kids waiting for me when I got outside, along with Mantis. He was pacing back and forth like a tiger at the zoo, winding himself up to break out.”

“He waved those long arms of his and said, ‘are you ready to get your ass kicked?’ I told him that he had that all backwards and that he would have to go to the doctor’s, to have his head removed out of his own ass. I ducked under his first punch and I gave him an uppercut, with fist holding a roll of quarters. He flew backwards in an explosion of coins and by the time he hit the ground, three kids were already scrambling for the money.”

“Mantis was woozy and tried to get up, but he was knocked back down by the swarm for the money. He was elbowed, kicked and even punched during the scuffle. When it was over, Mantis was colder than a mackerel, and there were quarters everywhere. I was top dog, and everybody was rich.”

“’Rich?’ You can’t buy anything for a quarter!” jeers Taylor.

“Well, candy bars only cost fifteen cents back then, so that bought me a lot of friends. Father Fidel went through the exact same situation and someone gave him a five, so he used nickels. Well…maybe was he was the original rainmaker.”

The End