Matt R
That's #1 Member to you. :)
- Joined
- Jan 5, 2001
- Messages
- 5,988
So I’m cruisin’ the boulevard having finished my afternoon hitch with the Dykes on Bikes, Washington D.C. contingent and I’m looking up into the night sky. Way up, just to the left of the cupola of the Post Office Pavilion is this really bright star, which I reject immediately since no star is that bright and I’m watching this thing and it seems like, you know, like it’s pulsing and as I watch, it expands and gets lots brighter and then winks out. I’m like, whoah, I just saw a supernova. I am seriously cool and I’m looking around to see if anyone is looking at me since one of my favorite things is to, you know, have people looking at me without actually saying, "Hey! Look at me!" Noone was.
"****. Losers don’t even know when to look. No wonder I’m cool, I know when to look."
I guess I should explain the Dykes on Bikes gig. I got no wheels, they do, they give me rides. Some of those gals are seriously butch but since I am too we get along pretty good.
So I’m cruisin’ the boulevard, "cruising" in this instance means "walking" of course since I already told you people I got no wheels, and I’ve just seen the first Supernova explosion of my life and probably the last for that matter cause it’s like, you know, a one per customer sort of thing. It’s not like you go out the door in the evening and you’re like, "Back in an hour honey, gonna try to catch one of these supernova’s tonight. Kay?"
It isn’t a regular thing if you take my meaning. So I’m cruisin’ the boulevard, got my "seriously cool" engaged and I’m sloping down the sidewalk and there’s this huge black dot on everything I’m looking at compliments of the supernova I just had tattooed onto my retna’s and I’m passing this alley when I hear,
"Psssst. Hey buddy. Com’ere."
And I look toward the alley and I can see a pair of black Converse Allstars which are being shaded by an olive green WWII surplus trenchcoat and above the collar of the trenchcoat is a black spot (compliments of my first supernova) wearing a pearl gray fedora with a red feather in the side.
"Do I know you?" I said trying to see through the black spot.
"Is that you Neal? It is. It is you." the fedora said.
"It is?" I asked carefully.
"Of course it’s you, don’t you know me?" the fedora said suspiciously.
"I thought we were talking about me, we’ll get to you," I replied still trying to pierce the black spot.
"Always the kidder," the fedora guffawed slapping me on the shoulder.
"Don’t touch me," I explained.
"Hey, I got some peep’s I want you to meet," the fedora’s hand grasped me above the elbow and began guiding me into the alley.
"You’re touching me, don’t do that. Who are you? What’s a peep?" I said evenly.
"Who am I? What’s wrong with you?" the fedora was more suspicious now.
"Well, I’m having a little trouble..." I stammered.
"Ain’t you always," the fedora stated flatly.
"Look," I said stiffly, "one of us knows who I am and one of us knows who you are and neither one of them is me."
"What?" the fedora grasped my elbow again.
"You’re touching me, don’t do that." I said.
"Oh. That’s what I thought you said," fedora was again guiding me down the alley.
There was a courtyard at the end of the alley formed on three sides buy tall brick walls and it was dark. There was a trash can in the center with a fire burning briskly and an assortment of humanity in various stages of recline around it.
Shadows danced off the walls and it gave me the creeps even with the black spot blotting out most of it. The spot that had been lasered to my retna’s was beginning to fade and I could make out the assorted mismatched clothing of the bag people and I noted that near the wall next to me was a row of shopping carts that had been parked nose in like a parking lot. The carts were piled high with trash bags filled with God knows what.
Fedora grabbed my elbow again and stopped me just inside the light from the trashcan.
"Stop touching me," I growled.
"I’d like you to meet a very good friend of mine. This is Neal." Fedora said with a flourish to the detritus around the can.
"Who are you?" I asked Fedora.
1. "So, tell us a little bit about yourself, for the few of us who don't already know," Fedora said while picking something gooey from the sole of his right Allstar and bouncing on his left for balance.
"HA!" I shouted having gotten a glimpse of him through my supernova imprint for the first time. "I was right! I’ve never seen you before in my life! How do you know my name and who are you people? I’m not telling you anything."
"We’ve got pizza," Fedora purred.
"You do?"
"With pepperoni," he purred again.
"Really?"
"And beer," he whispered.
"Beer? You have beer too?" I felt my resolve evolving.
"Ahem," I cleared my perfectly clear throat, "I saw a star blow up tonight."
"Look," Fedora croaked in my ear, "we don’t want the minute by minute of your life. How about the short version?"
"Who are you and how do you know my name?" I asked narrowing my eyes for emphasis.
He turned toward me with his face inches away from my own. I could see him clearly for the first time although he still had the black halo of my supernova around him. He was kinda short and the trenchcoat made him look shorter. Black spiky hair stuck out from under the Fedora and shaded his eyes until what I saw were the beady eyes of a mouse looking back at me.
"You gonna tell us about yourself or cut bait?" he said and smiled exposing some really white badly jumbled teeth that looked like they were climbing over one another to escape. He twitched his nose and I could see a huge knot in the middle of the bridge where it had been broken repeatedly.
"TC Williams High School (remember the Titans), Navy Vet, College Grad, Own a printing company, live in the Hunt Country of Virginia with my wife and dogs," I blurted.
"There, now was that so hard?" Fedora asked.
"Uh, you said something about Pizza and beer," I said hopefully.
"Did I?" Fedora smiled.
"You said you had pizza..." I growled, "and beer."
"Well, yeah, we did, but I see that Dave has just finished ‘em both up while you were hemmin’ and hawin’..."
"Dave?" I asked, "Dave who?
“Just some guy. Thinks he’s Napoleon.”
“Wanna buy a watch?” the Dave person asked, “Say, you seen Josephine?”
“Leave me alone you geek,” I said in my most friendly manner.
The Dave guy reminded me of a shorter, fatter, balder, stupider version of Judd Nelson.
I retrieved my three finger cigar case from the inside pocket of my denim Dykes jacket and extract a Hemingway Classic Maduro, clipped it, sparked it and began working up a nice cloud of blue smoke around my head.
2: Cigars are such an individual choice, as far as flavors, sizes and smoking styles. What, if any, knowledge do you think you can gain by reading the reviews posted on the forums?
“You’re not really gonna smoke that are you?” Fedora asked.
“I am smoking it,” I said.
“Well, it’s been my experience that those Hemi Maddies is nastier than Cooter Brown,” Fedora said authoritatively.
“Piss of hatboy. I like ‘em,” I said around the side of my cigar, “You’re an idiot. Who is Cooter Brown?”
“I am not an idiot,” Fedora blustered, “well, mostly anyway.”
“Ah,” I said.
“My daddy there’s my daddy he’s my daddy you my daddy it’s my daddy dadda dadda dadda dadda dadda...” screamed a small person wearing an incredibly oversized cable knit sweater who had leapt to his feet and started toward me. His voice was piercingly screechy and my ears folded into a cringe.
“Uh,” I said.
A window rattled open far above us and a female voice screamed, “Will you shut that moron up? Some of us are trying to have sex up here!”
“I’ll kill you,” cable knit guy screamed and after much scrambling in the huge sweater he found his hand, snatched up a 2x4 and drawing back his tiny arm to throw it, beaned himself squarely in the forehead and fell over.
“That’s Scotty, thinks everybody is his daddy. Does that a dozen times a day. I think he buys those amazingly big sweaters for cushion,” Fedora explained.
I leaned toward the motionless Scotty figure and could see angry red welts crisscrossing his forehead.
“Not terribly coordinated, is he?” I asked.
“Smart either,” Fedora agreed.
3: Is it wrong to tell a friend to get his own cigar, even when you brought extras?
“Ya got another stogie with ya buddy?” Fedora asked.
“Ayuh,” I opined.
“Well?” Fedora queried.
“Well what?” I raised my eyebrows.
“Can I have one?” Fedora whined.
“Thought you didn’t like ‘em,” I said.
“Well, maybe I was thinking of a different cigar,” he said hopefully.
“You wouldn’t want one of these,” I said grinning, “all I have are different cigars.”
“What?” he asked.
“And I don’t have anymore now. They’ve gone since you asked.”
“That’s a lie,” he growled.
“Too bad about the pizza and beer,” I said.
“Well damn, if we had eggs we could have ham and eggs!” Fedora shouted.
“If we had ham,” I said calmly.
His mousy eyes bulged and his face went deeply red, lines creased his forehead and the pressure behind his lips overcame the barricade and spittle flew and dribbled as the steam escaped.
“You,” he said evenly, “are not nice.”
“Maybe not but I got this cigar and it’s pretty good,” I said and stoked up a good cloud of fragrant blue smoke.
“HA!,” Fedora said and it sounded for all the world like the quavering air escaping from a balloon.
4: Scale of one to ten, ten being the best, how do you rate the overall knowledge a newbie can gain here on Cigar Pass?
“Ya know, Fedora, I knew this feller once had the biggest feet I ever saw. Lord he was proud of those feet and I’ll admit I admired hell out of them myself. I mean, they was impressive feet. He used to wear highwater pants so’s everybody could see his feet. And boots, my Lord, they looked like they’d once been luggage, great big things with buckles and straps and all sorts of hoohaw all over ‘em... zippers and the like, you know the type. And he never had to step down from a curb but sort of ramped his way into the street. Anyways, one day we was cruisin’ the railroad tracks and I’m hoppin’ from one cross tie to the next while he’s just bridgin’ ‘em all the way down road bed and never missed a stride and I’m about wore out and he’s just breezin’ along. We came to this tunnel that we had to pass through and it’s tolerably long and we look behind us and way back down behind us and don’t see anything coming and slide on into the tunnel and about halfway through here comes a freighter just a barrelin’ along and we are fair trapped there and the best hope we got is to squeeze up to the wall and hope they’s enough room between us and the train and we’re straining and squeezin’ and then the trains blastin’ by and our backs is tight up against the concrete and then it’s gone. And I hear this soft low whistle like from out of a tea kettle about to scream and I look over. There stands my buddy, sweat pourin’ down his face, spit leakin’ from the corner of his mouth and the strange, low whistle a breezin’ through his nose. I look down and there are his feet, ramped up onto the track and stopping uncomfortably quick where his toes used to be. On the other side of the rail is his toes still in the fronts of his boots only not connected no more. Right then, Fedora, I decided that a man could admire a thing all he wanted, folks could tell about a thing right along, but great big feet is overrated in my opinion.
“Hhhhuh gak meenlphhht.” Fedora said.
“I agree,” I agreed, “entirely.”
“Heeemlee.”
“Just so, a ten with consideration.”
“Hey mister,” a silky voice crooned from beyond the fire, “Wanna see my breasts?”
:Uh no, no, thank you but no,” I said thinking that seeing one of this persons personal equipment would be a defining blow to what little sanity remained to me. As it was, my “seriously cool” was chuggin’ along on one cylinder and spouting black smoke like a tire fire.
“Want me to talk dirty to you?” silky was closer now and coming around the trashcan fire.
“No thanks, I’ve got some.”
“Got some what?” silky asked seductively.
“Uh, dirty talk. I keep it for emergencies.”
“What?” silky croaked.
“Yeah, I know, you’ll just have to get over it,” I said evenly.
“Then here are my breasts!” silky shouted and jumped into the light in front of me and tearing open her Harley Davidson jacket.
She grinned, and wasn’t bad looking for a whack job, and raised her eyebrows. I looked down at her breasts which after some examination weren’t at all the monsters I had imagined.
“I thought they’d be bigger,” I said slowly.
“Eeeeeeeeee MoGod!” she screeched and ran down the alley.
“Who are you?” I asked grabbing Fedora by the collar.
“Himmmmplllt mentin,” he gargled.
“Oh great, I go hang with the Dykes, cruise the boulevard tunin’ up my seriously cool, see a supernova explode all over the place and wind up with a bunch of considerably disturbed, nanoboys with a flaked out chick that thinks her tits are a free pass to big daddy. I gotta check my karma cause sunthin’ is seriously humped somewhere.”
5: When you and Leebo get together, who usually pops first?
“Stagger Lee bone up on yer horn pal cause you always blow first.”
“What?” Fedora squeeked.
“Oh, yer back now. Have a nice time in yer happy place? Just remembering a song I heard once.”
“Stagger Lee?”
“That’s the one.”
“Are you him?”
“Oh My God, you really are a simpleton.” I said.
“I am not a simpleton. I walked down here today and saved $1.85 by not taking the bus. How’s that for being smart?” Fedora roared.
“Ahem,” I said in disappointment.
“Well?” Fedora roared again.
“Um... look, tomorrow when you decide to come down here, don’t take a Taxi and you can save fifteen bucks and try to act like you got some smart.”
I started back down the alley with an assortment of wheezes, groans, squeaks and whistles saying goodbye.
So I’m back out on the boulevard, got my overhauled seriously cool engaged, and I’m slopin’ along thinking about my recent brush with the fame of seeing a supernova explode in on itself and how the whole thing being made to seem mean and small by a throng of cretins worshiping a burning trashcan in an alley. Wankers like that just get they heads wrapped around important stuff like me and my life. Like I give two craps.
The light on “M” Street gives me the come on and I’m drifting across the street when this Vespa scooter starts beepin’ it’s gay assed horn, “Meeeeep meeeep” and zips right past me and through a red light.
“Seventy Five!” the moron yells and goes buzzin’ up the street.
“Stupid Fuggin’ Guy,” I mutter and step onto the curb.
About halfway down the block when I’m tryin’ out this new hitch in my seriously cool when I hear this very female giggle. I look up and there is one of those old buildings with the super recessed entryway, you know the kind they go like 25 feet in a little tunnel and there is the entrance door. Anyway, I here this giggle and I slope on over and it’s pretty dark in there so I slope a little slower and then I seem ‘em.
There’s this old guy, gotta be a thousand years old, has a face like an albino prune and he’s lookin’ at me and grinnin’ like an idiot showing me a mouthful of teeth that look like yellow tombstones. He’s leaned back in a recliner which is to the right of the entry door and has this twenty sunthin’ skank across his legs and she’s rolling up to the arms of the chair then back down to his knees. When she rolls down to his knees, I swear, that old mans legs bend in a dangerous and unnatural way and I can hear ‘em pop and then back up she rolls.
“What in THE hell are you doin’?” I asked.
“Me or her?” the old man’s voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard.
“Both of you. For Christ sake. What is wrong with you?” I am curious and confused at this point.
The girl stops and I can see her face for the first time. She has gorgeous deep black hair but the gorgeousness stops there. Each part of her face looks like it came from two different people. One eye is bigger than the other, her nose was slender at the top but ended plump and bulbous, her top lip was thin and colorless while the bottom resembled a fat earthworm squirmin’ to get off the hook. I took a step back.
“I’m a virgin,” she says all seductive.
“I’m sorry,” says I.
“No really, I am a virgin,” she continues.
“I am not at all surprised,” says I.
“Hey...” says she pokin’ out that earthworm lip of hers all hurt and shizz.
I’m feelin’ bad now and trying to think of sunthin’ soothing to say and, “Well, least you ain’t no whore,” I say and grin.
“I bet nobody likes you,” says she.
“Some of us are blessed that way lady. Mind tellin’ me what in THE hell you’re doin?”
“Oh... yeah... well... Cooter here said I should be down in Miami rolling cigars on my thighs and selling them to the suckers. And I was saying as how I didn’t know cigars from shinola and he was showing me.”
“Uh huh,” I said contemplating what she’d said, “that’s about the stupidest thing I’ve heard today... and believe me I’ve heard some pretty stupid things in the last few hours.”
“You gonna have to leave now,” the old man said raising one of the biggest handguns I have ever seen and pointing it at me, “quick”.
“Uh yeah, gotta go. Ya’ll enjoy yourselves.”
The girl giggled again, “Come on Psy, take that gun and put it away and roll me some more.”
There was a clatter as I reached the street and the girl squealed sounding like a greased pig.
6: Cigars rolled on the thighs of virgins or the ones rolled by some old man with dirty hands?
For the record I decide to leave the virgins rolled by dirty handed old men alone.
So I’m cruisin’ the boulevard again, chuggin’ on me Hemi, got my seriously shaken cool engaged and a subtle roar is coming up behind me and it’s growing less subtle by the second when suddenly, okay it wasn’t so sudden but you really should consider my state of mind at this moment, Bad Berty skids up next to me on her chopped up Harley Davidson. Berty slides up her visor.
7: Smoking and driving, do they go hand in hand for you?
“Whataya doin’ Harry?”
“I asked you not to call me that Bert.”
“Piss off,” she says with a smile, “where ya goin’?”
“Dunno, just cruisin’ the boulevard,” I say looking at my terribly abused sneakers.
“Wanna ride?” says she.
“Where to?” says I.
“Dunno, but if yer comin’ ya gotta butt the smoke,” says she.
“Ah Bert, you know I always smoke when I drive,” I say.
“You ain’t drivin’,” says she, “I am.”
“Ah,” says I deeply contemplative, “think I’ll pass Bert, I really don’t know where I’m going and I don’t want to get there too fast. I’ll see ya this weekend at the Dykes on Bikes Clam/Taco Dinner Benefit for the Homely.”
“Yer choice Harry, fugg off then.”
And she was gone in an oily cloud that brought tears to my eyes, “bakatya Berty, you bitch!” I yelled after her.
8: Is price an option or do you buy what you like and live with it?
“Bitch?” said a voice behind me.
I turned and saw half a fellow on a furniture dolly with his hands in heavy gloves maneuvering himself on the sidewalk.
“Did you just call me a bitch,” I asked ready to stomp this impertinent no legs, crippled guy into a wet spot and walk it dry. What? I figure I can take him, okay?
“You called Berty a bitch... and I love her,” he said and crashed his dolly into my shin.
“Ouch, you little...” I began.
“Free Berty! Free Berty! Free Berty!” he started shouting with tears streaking his filthy cheaks.
He snatched off his watch cap and wiped his face with it.
“Want to buy a box of cigars?” he said, now fully recovered from his angst.
“What?” I said firmly.
“Cigars you idiot, what you are smoking.”
“You have a box of Classic Maduro’s?” I asked incredulous.
“Not yet,” he said, “but I know the owner of that shop over there,” he nods to a cigar shop, “and he gives me a lot better prices than anyone else on account of me being short.”
“You are not short,” I say, “You have no legs.”
“Bastard,” he spat at me and crashed the dolly into my other shin.
“Ouch, son of a bitch.” says I.
“You say that again and I’ll kill you,” says he.
“How much for the cigars?” I ask.
“Ten bucks,” he says with a sly smile.
“Ten dollars?” I say, “for three hundred bucks worth of cigars? You are not only... ah... short, you are crazy too.”
“You want ‘em or not?” he asks.
“Well yeah,” I say, “but you don’t get the money till I get the cigars.”
“Deal,” he says and propels himself along the sidewalk and into the store.
A minute later out he rolls with a box of Classic Maddies on his lap and scrapes to a stop in front of me. I hand him the $10 and he hands me the cigars. I look at the box and it is definitely the real thing.
“You might want to get out of here,” he says real quiet like.
“What?”
“I said, you might want to leave now,” he says a little louder.
A small Indian man came rushing out of the cigar store and zeroed in on the dolly dude and then me.
“You must stop. You must stop,” the Indian man said in that odd Indian way where they end their sentences higher like a question. “You have stolen bread from the mouth of my wife!” he yells.
“I don’t even know your wife Burny, you poot,” dolly dude says and then is racing away down the sidewalk a blur of hands and palms.
“Stop. Thief!” Indian Burny is running toward me and rather than argue the fact that I just paid for these stogies I decide to flee.
So I fled. And now I’m running down the boulevard without my seriously cool engaged and missing it terribly and there’s this 5 foot nothin’ Indian dwarf chasing me and hollering things in Sanscrit or some **** and I’m leavin’ him behind in a hurry and I take the next side street and when I race around the corner I am suddenly airborne and then landing heavily on my chest and face and the box of Classic Maduro’s goes sliding along the sidewalk right into the waiting hands of the dolly dude.
9: Anymore knowledge you'd like to pour out to our masses here at Cigar Pass?
“Wanna buy a box of cigars?” he asks smiling.
“Fumpleetmmmfff,” says I with conviction.
“Yeah, you’d just waste them anyway like you did that one,” he says and points to the mangled remnants of my fine Classic Maddie which has been crushed in my hand.
He palmed his way down the sidewalk away from me.
I gather myself together trying not to miss any pieces as I get to my feet. I discover that my seriously cool has been badly damaged and won’t be ready for at least a week. My vision seems to be impaired again and I’m seeing this bright flash right in the middle of everything and so I’m limping down the boulevard with my seriously cool clanking along somewhere behind me and there is blood dripping from my chin and...
"Psssst. Hey buddy. Com’ere."
And I look toward the alley and I can see a pair of black Converse Allstars which are being shaded by an olive green WWII surplus trenchcoat and above the collar of the trenchcoat is a bright spot (compliments of my first sidewalk header) wearing a pearl gray fedora with a red feather in the side.
“Bugger of Matty ya homo,” I say pleasantly.
“He knows me!” Matty shouts.
But I’m already headed away down the boulevard and I know right then that I will never, and I mean never, buy another box of $10 premium cigars from a guy on a furniture dolly on the sidewalk at night in Washington DC.
"****. Losers don’t even know when to look. No wonder I’m cool, I know when to look."
I guess I should explain the Dykes on Bikes gig. I got no wheels, they do, they give me rides. Some of those gals are seriously butch but since I am too we get along pretty good.
So I’m cruisin’ the boulevard, "cruising" in this instance means "walking" of course since I already told you people I got no wheels, and I’ve just seen the first Supernova explosion of my life and probably the last for that matter cause it’s like, you know, a one per customer sort of thing. It’s not like you go out the door in the evening and you’re like, "Back in an hour honey, gonna try to catch one of these supernova’s tonight. Kay?"
It isn’t a regular thing if you take my meaning. So I’m cruisin’ the boulevard, got my "seriously cool" engaged and I’m sloping down the sidewalk and there’s this huge black dot on everything I’m looking at compliments of the supernova I just had tattooed onto my retna’s and I’m passing this alley when I hear,
"Psssst. Hey buddy. Com’ere."
And I look toward the alley and I can see a pair of black Converse Allstars which are being shaded by an olive green WWII surplus trenchcoat and above the collar of the trenchcoat is a black spot (compliments of my first supernova) wearing a pearl gray fedora with a red feather in the side.
"Do I know you?" I said trying to see through the black spot.
"Is that you Neal? It is. It is you." the fedora said.
"It is?" I asked carefully.
"Of course it’s you, don’t you know me?" the fedora said suspiciously.
"I thought we were talking about me, we’ll get to you," I replied still trying to pierce the black spot.
"Always the kidder," the fedora guffawed slapping me on the shoulder.
"Don’t touch me," I explained.
"Hey, I got some peep’s I want you to meet," the fedora’s hand grasped me above the elbow and began guiding me into the alley.
"You’re touching me, don’t do that. Who are you? What’s a peep?" I said evenly.
"Who am I? What’s wrong with you?" the fedora was more suspicious now.
"Well, I’m having a little trouble..." I stammered.
"Ain’t you always," the fedora stated flatly.
"Look," I said stiffly, "one of us knows who I am and one of us knows who you are and neither one of them is me."
"What?" the fedora grasped my elbow again.
"You’re touching me, don’t do that." I said.
"Oh. That’s what I thought you said," fedora was again guiding me down the alley.
There was a courtyard at the end of the alley formed on three sides buy tall brick walls and it was dark. There was a trash can in the center with a fire burning briskly and an assortment of humanity in various stages of recline around it.
Shadows danced off the walls and it gave me the creeps even with the black spot blotting out most of it. The spot that had been lasered to my retna’s was beginning to fade and I could make out the assorted mismatched clothing of the bag people and I noted that near the wall next to me was a row of shopping carts that had been parked nose in like a parking lot. The carts were piled high with trash bags filled with God knows what.
Fedora grabbed my elbow again and stopped me just inside the light from the trashcan.
"Stop touching me," I growled.
"I’d like you to meet a very good friend of mine. This is Neal." Fedora said with a flourish to the detritus around the can.
"Who are you?" I asked Fedora.
1. "So, tell us a little bit about yourself, for the few of us who don't already know," Fedora said while picking something gooey from the sole of his right Allstar and bouncing on his left for balance.
"HA!" I shouted having gotten a glimpse of him through my supernova imprint for the first time. "I was right! I’ve never seen you before in my life! How do you know my name and who are you people? I’m not telling you anything."
"We’ve got pizza," Fedora purred.
"You do?"
"With pepperoni," he purred again.
"Really?"
"And beer," he whispered.
"Beer? You have beer too?" I felt my resolve evolving.
"Ahem," I cleared my perfectly clear throat, "I saw a star blow up tonight."
"Look," Fedora croaked in my ear, "we don’t want the minute by minute of your life. How about the short version?"
"Who are you and how do you know my name?" I asked narrowing my eyes for emphasis.
He turned toward me with his face inches away from my own. I could see him clearly for the first time although he still had the black halo of my supernova around him. He was kinda short and the trenchcoat made him look shorter. Black spiky hair stuck out from under the Fedora and shaded his eyes until what I saw were the beady eyes of a mouse looking back at me.
"You gonna tell us about yourself or cut bait?" he said and smiled exposing some really white badly jumbled teeth that looked like they were climbing over one another to escape. He twitched his nose and I could see a huge knot in the middle of the bridge where it had been broken repeatedly.
"TC Williams High School (remember the Titans), Navy Vet, College Grad, Own a printing company, live in the Hunt Country of Virginia with my wife and dogs," I blurted.
"There, now was that so hard?" Fedora asked.
"Uh, you said something about Pizza and beer," I said hopefully.
"Did I?" Fedora smiled.
"You said you had pizza..." I growled, "and beer."
"Well, yeah, we did, but I see that Dave has just finished ‘em both up while you were hemmin’ and hawin’..."
"Dave?" I asked, "Dave who?
“Just some guy. Thinks he’s Napoleon.”
“Wanna buy a watch?” the Dave person asked, “Say, you seen Josephine?”
“Leave me alone you geek,” I said in my most friendly manner.
The Dave guy reminded me of a shorter, fatter, balder, stupider version of Judd Nelson.
I retrieved my three finger cigar case from the inside pocket of my denim Dykes jacket and extract a Hemingway Classic Maduro, clipped it, sparked it and began working up a nice cloud of blue smoke around my head.
2: Cigars are such an individual choice, as far as flavors, sizes and smoking styles. What, if any, knowledge do you think you can gain by reading the reviews posted on the forums?
“You’re not really gonna smoke that are you?” Fedora asked.
“I am smoking it,” I said.
“Well, it’s been my experience that those Hemi Maddies is nastier than Cooter Brown,” Fedora said authoritatively.
“Piss of hatboy. I like ‘em,” I said around the side of my cigar, “You’re an idiot. Who is Cooter Brown?”
“I am not an idiot,” Fedora blustered, “well, mostly anyway.”
“Ah,” I said.
“My daddy there’s my daddy he’s my daddy you my daddy it’s my daddy dadda dadda dadda dadda dadda...” screamed a small person wearing an incredibly oversized cable knit sweater who had leapt to his feet and started toward me. His voice was piercingly screechy and my ears folded into a cringe.
“Uh,” I said.
A window rattled open far above us and a female voice screamed, “Will you shut that moron up? Some of us are trying to have sex up here!”
“I’ll kill you,” cable knit guy screamed and after much scrambling in the huge sweater he found his hand, snatched up a 2x4 and drawing back his tiny arm to throw it, beaned himself squarely in the forehead and fell over.
“That’s Scotty, thinks everybody is his daddy. Does that a dozen times a day. I think he buys those amazingly big sweaters for cushion,” Fedora explained.
I leaned toward the motionless Scotty figure and could see angry red welts crisscrossing his forehead.
“Not terribly coordinated, is he?” I asked.
“Smart either,” Fedora agreed.
3: Is it wrong to tell a friend to get his own cigar, even when you brought extras?
“Ya got another stogie with ya buddy?” Fedora asked.
“Ayuh,” I opined.
“Well?” Fedora queried.
“Well what?” I raised my eyebrows.
“Can I have one?” Fedora whined.
“Thought you didn’t like ‘em,” I said.
“Well, maybe I was thinking of a different cigar,” he said hopefully.
“You wouldn’t want one of these,” I said grinning, “all I have are different cigars.”
“What?” he asked.
“And I don’t have anymore now. They’ve gone since you asked.”
“That’s a lie,” he growled.
“Too bad about the pizza and beer,” I said.
“Well damn, if we had eggs we could have ham and eggs!” Fedora shouted.
“If we had ham,” I said calmly.
His mousy eyes bulged and his face went deeply red, lines creased his forehead and the pressure behind his lips overcame the barricade and spittle flew and dribbled as the steam escaped.
“You,” he said evenly, “are not nice.”
“Maybe not but I got this cigar and it’s pretty good,” I said and stoked up a good cloud of fragrant blue smoke.
“HA!,” Fedora said and it sounded for all the world like the quavering air escaping from a balloon.
4: Scale of one to ten, ten being the best, how do you rate the overall knowledge a newbie can gain here on Cigar Pass?
“Ya know, Fedora, I knew this feller once had the biggest feet I ever saw. Lord he was proud of those feet and I’ll admit I admired hell out of them myself. I mean, they was impressive feet. He used to wear highwater pants so’s everybody could see his feet. And boots, my Lord, they looked like they’d once been luggage, great big things with buckles and straps and all sorts of hoohaw all over ‘em... zippers and the like, you know the type. And he never had to step down from a curb but sort of ramped his way into the street. Anyways, one day we was cruisin’ the railroad tracks and I’m hoppin’ from one cross tie to the next while he’s just bridgin’ ‘em all the way down road bed and never missed a stride and I’m about wore out and he’s just breezin’ along. We came to this tunnel that we had to pass through and it’s tolerably long and we look behind us and way back down behind us and don’t see anything coming and slide on into the tunnel and about halfway through here comes a freighter just a barrelin’ along and we are fair trapped there and the best hope we got is to squeeze up to the wall and hope they’s enough room between us and the train and we’re straining and squeezin’ and then the trains blastin’ by and our backs is tight up against the concrete and then it’s gone. And I hear this soft low whistle like from out of a tea kettle about to scream and I look over. There stands my buddy, sweat pourin’ down his face, spit leakin’ from the corner of his mouth and the strange, low whistle a breezin’ through his nose. I look down and there are his feet, ramped up onto the track and stopping uncomfortably quick where his toes used to be. On the other side of the rail is his toes still in the fronts of his boots only not connected no more. Right then, Fedora, I decided that a man could admire a thing all he wanted, folks could tell about a thing right along, but great big feet is overrated in my opinion.
“Hhhhuh gak meenlphhht.” Fedora said.
“I agree,” I agreed, “entirely.”
“Heeemlee.”
“Just so, a ten with consideration.”
“Hey mister,” a silky voice crooned from beyond the fire, “Wanna see my breasts?”
:Uh no, no, thank you but no,” I said thinking that seeing one of this persons personal equipment would be a defining blow to what little sanity remained to me. As it was, my “seriously cool” was chuggin’ along on one cylinder and spouting black smoke like a tire fire.
“Want me to talk dirty to you?” silky was closer now and coming around the trashcan fire.
“No thanks, I’ve got some.”
“Got some what?” silky asked seductively.
“Uh, dirty talk. I keep it for emergencies.”
“What?” silky croaked.
“Yeah, I know, you’ll just have to get over it,” I said evenly.
“Then here are my breasts!” silky shouted and jumped into the light in front of me and tearing open her Harley Davidson jacket.
She grinned, and wasn’t bad looking for a whack job, and raised her eyebrows. I looked down at her breasts which after some examination weren’t at all the monsters I had imagined.
“I thought they’d be bigger,” I said slowly.
“Eeeeeeeeee MoGod!” she screeched and ran down the alley.
“Who are you?” I asked grabbing Fedora by the collar.
“Himmmmplllt mentin,” he gargled.
“Oh great, I go hang with the Dykes, cruise the boulevard tunin’ up my seriously cool, see a supernova explode all over the place and wind up with a bunch of considerably disturbed, nanoboys with a flaked out chick that thinks her tits are a free pass to big daddy. I gotta check my karma cause sunthin’ is seriously humped somewhere.”
5: When you and Leebo get together, who usually pops first?
“Stagger Lee bone up on yer horn pal cause you always blow first.”
“What?” Fedora squeeked.
“Oh, yer back now. Have a nice time in yer happy place? Just remembering a song I heard once.”
“Stagger Lee?”
“That’s the one.”
“Are you him?”
“Oh My God, you really are a simpleton.” I said.
“I am not a simpleton. I walked down here today and saved $1.85 by not taking the bus. How’s that for being smart?” Fedora roared.
“Ahem,” I said in disappointment.
“Well?” Fedora roared again.
“Um... look, tomorrow when you decide to come down here, don’t take a Taxi and you can save fifteen bucks and try to act like you got some smart.”
I started back down the alley with an assortment of wheezes, groans, squeaks and whistles saying goodbye.
So I’m back out on the boulevard, got my overhauled seriously cool engaged, and I’m slopin’ along thinking about my recent brush with the fame of seeing a supernova explode in on itself and how the whole thing being made to seem mean and small by a throng of cretins worshiping a burning trashcan in an alley. Wankers like that just get they heads wrapped around important stuff like me and my life. Like I give two craps.
The light on “M” Street gives me the come on and I’m drifting across the street when this Vespa scooter starts beepin’ it’s gay assed horn, “Meeeeep meeeep” and zips right past me and through a red light.
“Seventy Five!” the moron yells and goes buzzin’ up the street.
“Stupid Fuggin’ Guy,” I mutter and step onto the curb.
About halfway down the block when I’m tryin’ out this new hitch in my seriously cool when I hear this very female giggle. I look up and there is one of those old buildings with the super recessed entryway, you know the kind they go like 25 feet in a little tunnel and there is the entrance door. Anyway, I here this giggle and I slope on over and it’s pretty dark in there so I slope a little slower and then I seem ‘em.
There’s this old guy, gotta be a thousand years old, has a face like an albino prune and he’s lookin’ at me and grinnin’ like an idiot showing me a mouthful of teeth that look like yellow tombstones. He’s leaned back in a recliner which is to the right of the entry door and has this twenty sunthin’ skank across his legs and she’s rolling up to the arms of the chair then back down to his knees. When she rolls down to his knees, I swear, that old mans legs bend in a dangerous and unnatural way and I can hear ‘em pop and then back up she rolls.
“What in THE hell are you doin’?” I asked.
“Me or her?” the old man’s voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard.
“Both of you. For Christ sake. What is wrong with you?” I am curious and confused at this point.
The girl stops and I can see her face for the first time. She has gorgeous deep black hair but the gorgeousness stops there. Each part of her face looks like it came from two different people. One eye is bigger than the other, her nose was slender at the top but ended plump and bulbous, her top lip was thin and colorless while the bottom resembled a fat earthworm squirmin’ to get off the hook. I took a step back.
“I’m a virgin,” she says all seductive.
“I’m sorry,” says I.
“No really, I am a virgin,” she continues.
“I am not at all surprised,” says I.
“Hey...” says she pokin’ out that earthworm lip of hers all hurt and shizz.
I’m feelin’ bad now and trying to think of sunthin’ soothing to say and, “Well, least you ain’t no whore,” I say and grin.
“I bet nobody likes you,” says she.
“Some of us are blessed that way lady. Mind tellin’ me what in THE hell you’re doin?”
“Oh... yeah... well... Cooter here said I should be down in Miami rolling cigars on my thighs and selling them to the suckers. And I was saying as how I didn’t know cigars from shinola and he was showing me.”
“Uh huh,” I said contemplating what she’d said, “that’s about the stupidest thing I’ve heard today... and believe me I’ve heard some pretty stupid things in the last few hours.”
“You gonna have to leave now,” the old man said raising one of the biggest handguns I have ever seen and pointing it at me, “quick”.
“Uh yeah, gotta go. Ya’ll enjoy yourselves.”
The girl giggled again, “Come on Psy, take that gun and put it away and roll me some more.”
There was a clatter as I reached the street and the girl squealed sounding like a greased pig.
6: Cigars rolled on the thighs of virgins or the ones rolled by some old man with dirty hands?
For the record I decide to leave the virgins rolled by dirty handed old men alone.
So I’m cruisin’ the boulevard again, chuggin’ on me Hemi, got my seriously shaken cool engaged and a subtle roar is coming up behind me and it’s growing less subtle by the second when suddenly, okay it wasn’t so sudden but you really should consider my state of mind at this moment, Bad Berty skids up next to me on her chopped up Harley Davidson. Berty slides up her visor.
7: Smoking and driving, do they go hand in hand for you?
“Whataya doin’ Harry?”
“I asked you not to call me that Bert.”
“Piss off,” she says with a smile, “where ya goin’?”
“Dunno, just cruisin’ the boulevard,” I say looking at my terribly abused sneakers.
“Wanna ride?” says she.
“Where to?” says I.
“Dunno, but if yer comin’ ya gotta butt the smoke,” says she.
“Ah Bert, you know I always smoke when I drive,” I say.
“You ain’t drivin’,” says she, “I am.”
“Ah,” says I deeply contemplative, “think I’ll pass Bert, I really don’t know where I’m going and I don’t want to get there too fast. I’ll see ya this weekend at the Dykes on Bikes Clam/Taco Dinner Benefit for the Homely.”
“Yer choice Harry, fugg off then.”
And she was gone in an oily cloud that brought tears to my eyes, “bakatya Berty, you bitch!” I yelled after her.
8: Is price an option or do you buy what you like and live with it?
“Bitch?” said a voice behind me.
I turned and saw half a fellow on a furniture dolly with his hands in heavy gloves maneuvering himself on the sidewalk.
“Did you just call me a bitch,” I asked ready to stomp this impertinent no legs, crippled guy into a wet spot and walk it dry. What? I figure I can take him, okay?
“You called Berty a bitch... and I love her,” he said and crashed his dolly into my shin.
“Ouch, you little...” I began.
“Free Berty! Free Berty! Free Berty!” he started shouting with tears streaking his filthy cheaks.
He snatched off his watch cap and wiped his face with it.
“Want to buy a box of cigars?” he said, now fully recovered from his angst.
“What?” I said firmly.
“Cigars you idiot, what you are smoking.”
“You have a box of Classic Maduro’s?” I asked incredulous.
“Not yet,” he said, “but I know the owner of that shop over there,” he nods to a cigar shop, “and he gives me a lot better prices than anyone else on account of me being short.”
“You are not short,” I say, “You have no legs.”
“Bastard,” he spat at me and crashed the dolly into my other shin.
“Ouch, son of a bitch.” says I.
“You say that again and I’ll kill you,” says he.
“How much for the cigars?” I ask.
“Ten bucks,” he says with a sly smile.
“Ten dollars?” I say, “for three hundred bucks worth of cigars? You are not only... ah... short, you are crazy too.”
“You want ‘em or not?” he asks.
“Well yeah,” I say, “but you don’t get the money till I get the cigars.”
“Deal,” he says and propels himself along the sidewalk and into the store.
A minute later out he rolls with a box of Classic Maddies on his lap and scrapes to a stop in front of me. I hand him the $10 and he hands me the cigars. I look at the box and it is definitely the real thing.
“You might want to get out of here,” he says real quiet like.
“What?”
“I said, you might want to leave now,” he says a little louder.
A small Indian man came rushing out of the cigar store and zeroed in on the dolly dude and then me.
“You must stop. You must stop,” the Indian man said in that odd Indian way where they end their sentences higher like a question. “You have stolen bread from the mouth of my wife!” he yells.
“I don’t even know your wife Burny, you poot,” dolly dude says and then is racing away down the sidewalk a blur of hands and palms.
“Stop. Thief!” Indian Burny is running toward me and rather than argue the fact that I just paid for these stogies I decide to flee.
So I fled. And now I’m running down the boulevard without my seriously cool engaged and missing it terribly and there’s this 5 foot nothin’ Indian dwarf chasing me and hollering things in Sanscrit or some **** and I’m leavin’ him behind in a hurry and I take the next side street and when I race around the corner I am suddenly airborne and then landing heavily on my chest and face and the box of Classic Maduro’s goes sliding along the sidewalk right into the waiting hands of the dolly dude.
9: Anymore knowledge you'd like to pour out to our masses here at Cigar Pass?
“Wanna buy a box of cigars?” he asks smiling.
“Fumpleetmmmfff,” says I with conviction.
“Yeah, you’d just waste them anyway like you did that one,” he says and points to the mangled remnants of my fine Classic Maddie which has been crushed in my hand.
He palmed his way down the sidewalk away from me.
I gather myself together trying not to miss any pieces as I get to my feet. I discover that my seriously cool has been badly damaged and won’t be ready for at least a week. My vision seems to be impaired again and I’m seeing this bright flash right in the middle of everything and so I’m limping down the boulevard with my seriously cool clanking along somewhere behind me and there is blood dripping from my chin and...
"Psssst. Hey buddy. Com’ere."
And I look toward the alley and I can see a pair of black Converse Allstars which are being shaded by an olive green WWII surplus trenchcoat and above the collar of the trenchcoat is a bright spot (compliments of my first sidewalk header) wearing a pearl gray fedora with a red feather in the side.
“Bugger of Matty ya homo,” I say pleasantly.
“He knows me!” Matty shouts.
But I’m already headed away down the boulevard and I know right then that I will never, and I mean never, buy another box of $10 premium cigars from a guy on a furniture dolly on the sidewalk at night in Washington DC.
