After staying
up late last night dancing to Flip Cassidy, and my boyfriend getting
hit on by a barely legal girl, we hit the hot springs, just before
the sun rose. We picked up Kevin, the same man that had introduced
me to dealing poker at the Oasis the day before. He offered me a
joint in gratitude of the ride. When we all were settled in the hot
spring Kevin went to telling the best of the best stories from his
life. One such story goes as follows:
In a state I will keep secret for
purposes of protecting the guilty, our main character Kevin was told
to go so see Johnny, the head of a local mafia bar. Upon entering
the bar he noticed two guys leave their watered down whiskeys and
conversation with the bartender to confront him, the stranger in the
bar. As soon as they were up and yelling, two other men came from
the other side of the bar and formed a circle around the adolescent.
Kevin, seventeen years old at the time and quite aware of his
surroundings, knew that if he held his ground, these very
intimidating individuals would stop and he'd get by to see Johnny.
After being
threatened with getting beat up and killed, Johnny entered from a
back room. “What do you want kid?” he said matter of factly.
“I'm here to see you Johnny. I was told you wanted to see me.”
Johnny made a big uproar, swore at him then went in the back room,
slammed the door and disappeared. Three minutes later he reappeared
with these instructions. He said “go to the bar across town. Ask
for the owner and demand him to give you his name. Once he gives you
his name, he will give you a package. Take the package to the bar
across the street from his bar. Tell him Johnny sent you and then
you will come back here and tell me how it went.” “Ok,” Kevin
said.
And that's what he did. He went to the
first bar where he was confronted harshly and threatened by acts of
violence. He yelled for the owner and when he appeared, Kevin said
“What is your name?” after quite the commotion, the man gave him
his name along with a package. The package was about the size of the
bible, wrapped in brown paper with no writing or anything affixed to
it. With the package in hand, Kevin did as Johnny said and dropped
it at a biker gang owned bar after being threatened as he had been
before. In the end he walked back into Johnny's bar, and Johnny
asked him “how did it go?” “Fine”, Kevin replied,
nonchalantly. To which Johnny asked “did you open the package?”
“No”, he said. “Why not?” asked Johnny. Thinking Johnny
would expect him to say 'because you told me not to' Kevin instead
replied “deniability is the only thing I've got going for me,
Johnny.”
After Kevin was done with his long yet
very engaging story, I sat and wondered what was in that package. We
three, Miles, Kevin, and myself sat in silence for a few moments
taking in the magnitude of his tale when abruptly, an old frail man, with one eye struggled, while fully clothed, to shimmy down the clay
wall of the hot spring right next to me. “Ahh” he said as he
released all tension. Miles, noticing the man was fully dressed,
questioned him “Wow, that's brave to get in with all your clothes
on,” considering the cold temperature outside the springs, to which
the man replied “oh it's ok. I have chronic diarrhea and I just
had an accident.” The three of us exited the water promptly. What
a way to start almost new year.
On a brighter note, whoever guesses
what beverage is in Miles' right hand, will receive a free Slab city
sticker. Good luck and happy New Year!