Highberger Says Boog
In the divine justice system the people through the looking glass are represented by two separate but equally important groups: the Red Army who support Commissar Alice, and the White Army who oppose her. These are their stories.
It was Birthday, 35 April, I was working the day watch out of long division. My partner is North. The boss is Bruce Springsteen.
We’d gotten a call from a gentleman who witnessed the light of Christ, and in his cool demeanor I detected a note of reticence.
“It’s nothing,” he said. “Merely a case of dropsy. I drank it last night. I shouldn’t have had the whole case, I know, but…”
“It’s nothing,” I said. “Only I thought that case was closed.”
“It was re-opened,” he said. “There was new evidence.”
“Evidence of what?” I asked. “Evidence of tampering, or evidence that Brinxo shines are the shiniest shines in all of Shinola?”
“Shinola,” he agreed. “I can’t believe I’m still in Shinola.”
“You’ll be in deep shinola if you don’t get cracking,” I told him. “There are pictures of your wife on the web. She’s riding the information superhighway like it was a hobby horse.”
“I never married,” he retorted, which was news to me. “But if I had, I wouldn’t have married a woman of letters. And if I did marry a woman of letters, I wouldn’t have married a woman of letters whose letters were K and W. And if I did marry a woman of letters whose letters were K and W, I still wouldn’t have married you. Bitch.”
“Cunt,” I countered, raising the stakes.
He saw my raise and anted.
I met his ante and raised.
He parried my raise and riposted.
I blocked his riposte and bet the farm.
He folded, and showed me his hand.
“You’ve got a long life-line,” I told him. “But not long enough.” And then I pulled the trigger.
Victory fish never tasted this sweet.