Taz...

Last night, my good friend J..., who's also the co-owner of an Irish bar I sometimes frequent, starts buying the whole table Jagerbombs, one after the other, and then when happy hour ends, he dumps me on these three Studs Turkel (Turds Stuckel) characters I don't know from Adam (or Eve), and disappears. Then the napoleonic generalissimo comes forth. He of the angry aging face on which has migrated two thirdrate pieces of struggling mustachio, and his shirt decorated with flying marlins and thrust open to the sternum as to expose the four gold chains nestled comfortably in his silvery chest hair, his jeans being these loosefitting preshrunk Wranglers, and he's wearing steeltipped cowboy boots, the kind you find at that one boot depot off Yeehaw Junction, back behind the stand where they sell plastic alligators and bags of grapefruit and oranges.

At any rate, he befriends me, which is only natural, since I attract almost nothing but his kind. e.g. mutinous bottom-dwellers looking for someone who will listen. I will always listen. At first anyway. It went something like this:

"Hey buddy... c'mon over with us...
we're all friendly at this bar, ya see...
we're like family here...

What do I do? I move dirt for a living.
I'm a heavy equipment operator.
Dozers, rollers, backhoes...

Hey, buy this guy a beer!...

I was running Cats when they were still green.

I AM reality!... What's your name again?...

I'll drink anyone here under the table...
I'll drink YOU under the table...
Do you like stone crab?
I get the best stone crab known to man...

Oh yeah, that's my wife right there.
Look how pretty she is...
I got a pretty wife.
She's the first woman I've ever had who's free.
All the others I had to buy.
Know what I mean?...
You don't?
Think about
it.

Suicide? I never thought about suicide. This is the real shit right HERE baby! HAHAHA!

...and then I grabbed him by the shorthairs and jammed my .380 in his goddamned frog face and said "Don't you ever take a KNIFE to a GUNFIGHT!"...

But we're all family here...

Call me Taz... Pleasure to meet you.

Hey, tonight I'm going to go home and fuck my wife, then I'm gonna meet this guy for a load of stone
crab at three in the
morning... I'm meeting him down at the docks when he comes in with his shipment. He's my connection...

LOOK into MY EYES when I'm talking to you!

What's so funny?

I call everyone who's younger than me a punk-
ass.

Punk-ass. Punk. Ass.

I SaiD To thE GuY, DOn'T YoU EveR TaKe a KniFE To a GUNfiGht!

GET THIS GUY ANOTHER BEER!
Dontcha see? I take care of my people.

I used to smuggle dope through the blackwaters just south of the Bahamas. Back in the
70s.

Yeah I ran grass.

Hey listen, I AM THE TRUTH!

Ya always gotta be protected. That's why I never go anywhere without my .380. I keep in my
cowboy boot. Right here. Here's
where it
is.

Whaddya mean SCARED? Hell, I ain't SCARED!

I push dirt for a living. I don't got no employees. I'm self-employed.

Hey punk-ass!

GET THIS GUY ANOTHER BEER! ON ME!

Would you like
to be a part of the
FaMILy?

Huh,
wouldya
punk-ass?