THE TRUE MEANING OF TERROR
By Buckshot
The roar of the explosion rocked the Rat Hole Bar and Grill, shaking the walls, and eliciting a fine mist of accumulated dust loose from the ceiling, along with a pair of Lizard Lips Louise’s panties that had stuck to the roof several months ago. Tanker cursed, wiping off the remains of his pickled pig’s foot that had slipped from his startled fingers and onto the floor. He had just raised the unsanitary morsel to his lips when the front door flew open, and H.L. “Hardluck” Harding ran into the room.
“Tanker!… Hey, Tank!” he screamed. Check it out, man!”
“Check what out, damnit?” he mumbled around the chewy pickled pork.
“Some sumbitch just blew up the Krispy Kreme donut shop!”
Hardluck pointed toward the door, and Tanker slid his 350 pound bulk off the stool and followed, a look of disbelief on his face. “Who the hell would do a miserable thing like that, Hardluck?” he queried, swallowing noisily.
It was a car bomb, I guess. Some asshole’s Toyota blew up in the parking lot. Probably tryin’ to blow up some cops, there’s usually plenty around there!”
Tanker shook his massive, shaggy head. “Nope. Not since they got robbed twice in a week.” He paused to wash the pig’s foot down with half a mug of beer. “Now the cops hang out at the barbershop where it’s safer.”
“Maybe they didn’t know that,” Hardluck said, shrugging impassively. “I was just ridin’ by right after it happened.”
Tanker peered out the door into the gloom. “Anybody hurt?”
“I don’t think so, but everything for half a block’s covered with that sticky sugar shit they dip the donuts in. I think Freddy, the night guy was in the back with his girlfriend. They were in the parkin’ lot covered with frosting, an’ she was tryin’ to pull her pants up, but they were stuck to her legs. That gal’s got an ass on her, lemme tell ya!”
“Son of a bitch!” Tanker spat. “That was one of my favorite places around here. Now what the hell am I gonna do for breakfast?”
“Maybe ya could go over to the barbershop with the cops? “
Tanker slapped Hardluck playfully on the shoulder, nearly knocking him off his feet. “Aw, what the hell. Sit down an’ have a beer, Hardluck. We’ll worry about breakfast when the time comes.”
The wail of approaching sirens echoed down the street, and Tanker set his empty mug down on the bar to join Hardluck at the door. “Only took ‘em half an hour. Not bad time from the barbershop. It’s nearly three blocks away.”
The back door flew open with a crash, and Tony, the bartender nearly dropped the bottle of Jack Daniels he had been watering down while nobody was looking. “What’n hell do you think you’re doin’, pal?” he yelled.
Tanker and Hardluck turned, staring down the barrel of a nickel plated revolver clutched in the hand of a very confused looking man. His swarthy complexion and dark eyes made him hard to see in the gloom of the burned out light at the rear of the room, but his voice was low and dangerous. “I deed a begehul” he said, motioning with the barrel of the pistol.
Tanker looked at the bartender. “Whad he say, Tony?”
“Shit, I don’t know,” Tony stammered, his eyes on the gun. “But whatever it was, I think he means it!”
Tanker walked up to the gunman, stopping almost within reach. “What did ya just say, buddy?”
The swarthy man shook his head and repeated, “I deed a begehul!” His accent hindering the conversation seemed to irritate him further.
“You ain’t from around here, are ya?” Tanker asked, his fingers twitching near the gun, almost ready to make his move.
The squeaking hinges on the front door made everyone turn toward the interruption at once.
“You fellas seen anybody strange come in here?” The first police officer asked. They had stopped just inside the door to let their eyes adjust to the gloom.
Tanker felt the barrel of the pistol press into his back.
“Officer,” he said, wincing as the cold steel dug between his ribs, “does this look like a place where you’d find anyone strange?” Tanker punctuated the question with a loud, juicy fart.
“Uh… No, I guess it doesn’t at that.” The officer spun on his heel, and as he did, his foot hit the greasy spot left by Tanker’s pig’s foot and sent him sprawling face first to the sticky, littered floor. Without delay, he picked himself up and made a hasty exit, followed by his partner.
“Useless sons ‘a…” Tanker sputtered.
The gun probed his rib cage again. “I stel deed a begehul!” the voice behind him demanded.
Tanker spun to face his antagonist. “Ya’ miserable puke of a gawdamn raghead! If ya’d learn to talk American, I could get ya what ya want, an get ya the hell outa here!”
“I believe he wants a vehicle, Tanker, my friend,” said a voice from the darkness of the back booth.
“You still here, Doc?” Tanker rumbled. “I thought you’d left hours ago.”
“No, I’m afraid Mr. Daniels and I were taking a little nap.”
“The explosion didn’t wake ya up? Tanker asked, incredulous.
“No, indeed not. It was your raucous flatulence that interrupted my peaceful slumber, I’m afraid.”
“You mind me askin’ how ya know what this diaper domed son of a bitch is talkin’ about?” Tanker inquired, gesturing toward the terrorist with a massive thumb.
“Tanker, my friend,” Doc chuckled, “I’ve been a dentist for forty years.”
“Oh, then you’ve probably seen a lot of pain, too, Tanker mused.”
“Oh, indeed I have,” Doc admitted.
“Tell me, Doc, does it look anything like… THIS?” he shouted, bringing a massive knee up into the terrorist’s groin. It lifted the screaming Arab two feet off the ground, the pistol flying from his grasp as he crashed to the floor in a quivering heap.
Tanker immediately grabbed the sobbing man by the neck and lifted him up, his feet dangling a foot off the floor. “Now I gotcha, you funny lookin’ funny talkin’ camel hunchin’ son of a bitch! I’m gonna pound yer skinny ass to doll rags!”
“Allah wid sed me do padarise!” the man said through gritted teeth.
“Whad he say, Doc?” Tanker asked. He walked toward the back booth, the limp terrorist still hanging from a massive hand.
“He said Allah will send him to paradise, I believe. Their religion teaches them that if they die in a holy war, they go straight to Heaven.”
“Oh, yeah. I remember readin’ about that in a National Geographic I found in a gas station bathroom. Pretty stupid, huh? So, what should I do with him, Doc?” Tanker asked, totally confused.
Doc slid from the booth, and climbed unsteadily to his feet, wiping pretzel crumbs from the front of his dark, rumpled suit. “I think I know just the thing, Tanker.” Doc walked to the bar, where he dipped his hand into a big glass jar, extracting one of the venerable pickled pig’s feet. “I think our friend looks a bit hungry, don’t you?”
The terrorist’s eyes grew wide as Tanker took the pig’s foot, and stuffed it into the Arab’s mouth as he screamed oaths in his native language. He choked and tried to spit, but Tanker forced his jaw shut while Doc held the struggling man’s nostrils shut. Finally, he swallowed, choking for breath.
“Damn, Doc,” Tanker said, “I’ve never seen a fella with such an almighty aversion to pickled pig’s feet in my life.”
“He has good reason, Tanker. He believes that by making him eat pork, we’ve sentenced him to an eternity in Hell. They’re forbidden to touch pork.”
“Oh, they are, are they?” Tanker asked. “Hardluck! Go call Pancho an’ have him bring over the hide from one of them hogs he raises.”
Thirty minutes later, the terrorist was sewn inside the skin of a freshly slaughtered hog. He was reduced to a babbling mass of quivering flesh when the two police officers peeked cautiously in through the door. “Somebody in here call us?”
“Yep,” Tanker said, pointing to the babbling terrorist “Caught us a mad bomber, here.”
The officers stared in disgust at the bloody pig skin and its contents, but, dedicated public servants that they were, they stooped and lifted the bomber between them. “You know, sir,” the sergeant said to Tanker, “that there is a substantial reward for this man.”
Tanker and Hardluck looked at Tony and Doc and grinned. “How substantial?”
“About ten thousand dollars, I believe,” the officer said. “Just come down to the station tomorrow.”
After the officers left with the terrorist in tow, Tony poured them all another round. “Well, boys,” he said, “it looks like a ragheads to riches story to me!”
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