Chapter 2: Family Matters
Having stopped by a hot dog vendor to get directions for the designated meeting point, Artie pumped his way towards Hymen Avenue as fast as his newly-acquired bicycle could take him, like he was in a race against time.
"I oughta' be after what those Redcoat pricks did to me back there," he thought as he tried keeping in sync with the flow of traffic while pedaling down the designated bike lane, or the faded line that could have constituted the said lane, while frantically checking all of the street signs when given time. Aside from the name of the street, he was specifically instructed by his cousin to meet him at a place called 'The Little Black Book.'
Yet he had to wonder why Gino would want him to come to a part of town like this, probably the roughest neighborhood he had been in so far. The entire area was populated by ramshackle buildings covered in graffiti with their windows either barred or boarded up, wrecked cars littering the streets, more than one trashcan fire surrounded by a bunch of homeless drunks and more of those Redcoat punks waltzing around with their heads held up high like they owned the place.
"Jesus Christ Gino, I thought you had better taste than this!" he pondered to himself as he watched a man in a police officer's uniform being led into a back alley by a heavily made up middle-aged woman. "Man, I thought even the police would have more sense than to come to a shithole like this! There's gotta be a place you can score fresher pussy than here…and I'm not talking about the kind that was fresh back when the Dead Sea was still alive. If not then I might have to think about turning gay. Sheesh!"
All he knew right now was that he wanted to get off the streets as soon as possible before he could have a repeat of earlier today. They had taken his money, his watch and even his clothes, who knew what they would try taking next if presented the opportunity. The thought of that left Artie pumping until his legs were burning to the point he expected his skin to peel away.
"Bingo!" his mind shouted as he looked up to see the sign for Hymen Avenue and waited for a rusted old Walton pickup truck to pass before taking a left-hand turn.
Hymen Avenue appeared to be one of the more upscale streets in the dangerous Camden Heights neighborhood, but not by much. It was filled with low-rent strip clubs, adult bookstores, hole in the wall bars, rundown apartment complexes, an ethnic grocery store, a hardware store, a Swigger's liquor store, the burnt out remnants of a record store and a Pawn-o-Rama before he finally found the place he was looking for.
"So this is it, huh?" Artie asked himself quietly and scratched his head.
A weathered wooden sign hanging from a rusty hook indicated he was standing outside The Little Black Book, which turned out to be a small building painted an awful reddish-brown shade as opposed to what its name implied, most of the faded paint peeling away by this point.
Once again he had to ask himself why Gino would ask to meet him here of all places, a place that looked like it was about to collapse at any second and had a paint job that would make a blind person cry.
"Being the owner of an upscale nightclub, maybe he wanted to meet up at someplace where nobody would expect him to set foot in for privacy's sake," Artie thought to himself as he set the bike aside and approached a heavily dented, rusted metal door covered by faded posters advertising long ago events.
Pushing the door open a bell rang above to announce his presence to any other inhabitants, before falling and landing atop his head.
"Ow!" Artie grunted aloud, rubbing his sore noggin and finally getting a look at his surroundings, as well as the rancid stench of a place that likely hadn't been cleaned in over a century.
The bar itself was one small dimly-lit room that appeared much smaller than what it really was. Numerous signs advertising more than one brand of beer flickered on and off, along with all sorts of old athletic and band posters covered every available inch of wall available. Weathered old booths lined the western wall and seated in one of them was a couple that appeared to be on the verge of intercourse right then and there, something that left Artie wanting to scream at them to get a room like any sane individual would.
Aside from that spectacle, there were the typical outdated arcade games, a couple pinball machines, dartboards, a video poker machine, cigarette dispensing machine and two pool tables. An old-fashioned jukebox currently played "Some Kind of Wonderful" by Grand Funk Railroad, but Artie could still faintly hear the sounds of vomiting coming from the men's restroom.
Aside from the couple in the booth and the person in the men's room, the only other patrons present were a trucker sitting at the bar who had long since passed out, a short guy playing (or at least trying to play) darts and a middle-aged man involved in a screaming match on the payphone with what was presumably his wife.
Knowing he was practically invisible to everybody else and feeling thankful for it, Artie made his way over to the bar and plopped down on one of the stools. Behind the bar stood a young man who looked to be barely out of his teens with short dyed blood red hair that was shaved on the sides, wearing a black t-shirt and a pair of camouflage pants. At the moment he stood with his back to everyone else and his arms crossed in front of him, paying close attention to a small TV set hanging above the bottle racks.
The current scene showed a Hispanic woman in a beige suit standing before a police barricade, where one officer fought to contain an overzealous photographer and then a woman who ran up and attempted to snap a few pictures with her camera phone. Behind them, a crew of firefighters had their hoses out and were spraying down a still smoldering van that had been reduced to a charred hunk of twisted metal, while two paramedics could be seen loading a covered body into the back of an ambulance.
"This is Cora Ricardo reporting live from the scene of yet another brutal gang-related massacre that took place in the early noon hours of today over on Chesterfield Avenue in what appeared to be another skirmish between the Redcoats and Aces street gangs, which at this point is confirmed to have seventeen casualties, most of them civilians.
"This is just the latest in a series of increasingly violent battles between the two warring factions, the most recent being two nights ago in the Camden Heights district, which resulted in nine casualties."
The woman spoke in the somber tone that was expected of such an occasion, only to be cut off by an angry voice in the background.
"Yeah, I'll tell you people what you need to be doing!" shouted an angry middle-aged man running into view, "The fucking R.C.P.D. needs to be getting off their fucking asses and doing something about those Redcoat pricks! Those fuckers run roughshod around here like they fucking own the place! If the coppers would stop getting their dicks sucked by the disease-ridden skanks around here then maybe we'd be getting somewhere!"
Two officers ran over to subdue the man as he attempted to wrest the microphone away from the reporter, grabbing both of his arms and trying to pull him away, but the belligerent man struggled mercilessly. It finally ended with one of the cops being forced to withdraw his pepper spray and blasting it in the man's face, just as the other withdrew his stun gun and zapped him to the ground, only to follow up with repeated strikes from their nightsticks.
The scene switched over to the RCNN-13 newsroom where two anchors sat behind their desks.
"And in other news-" a blond-haired man spoke, only to stop a second later and tap his earpiece, "Wait a minute; I'm receiving word of a late breaking event occurring live over at Churchill International Airport. We are now going live to Chet Nelson, our very own eye in the sky."
Another scene of chaos appeared on the small screen before him, a bird's eye view of the Churchill International Airport, the very airport he had touched down in upon his arrival in the city.
Several pillars of thick black smoke rose from the middle of the airport's runway, which had now become a mass of overturned airliners, baggage trucks and other fragments of twisted metal destruction. The faint glow of flames could still be seen at the base of the initial explosion, nearly extinguished now thanks to the efforts of the firefighters below. Police helicopters circled overhead and several ambulances were parked alongside the fire engines, a line of black body bags seen near one of the water tankers.
"Tom, I'm reporting live where a series of massive explosions have just occurred within the grounds of Churchill International Airport, disrupting any flights in and out of Rushmore City. According to eyewitness accounts an oil tanker came to a complete halt beneath a line of planes and exploded into one massive fireball. At this point there is no word on the exact number of casualties available and no word on if this was just an accident or a deliberate terrorist action.
"Until then the Federal Investigation Bureau and the National Office of Security Enforcement have stepped in and are investigating the matter. Until then, the airport has been placed under lockdown and there will be no flights until the green light has been given. Back to you Tom and Adele!"
The newscasters were shown again, both displaying different reactions.
"Looks like this incident will spell major trouble for Rushmore City, possibly leaving us isolated from the rest of the state," the male newscaster spoke.
"Good, then that means we're going to be free from all the wetbacks and drug-addled whores the Colombian Cartel imports here!" the female reporter triumphantly proclaimed, "Ha ha! That means my marriage is saved!"
"Now Adele, remember you can't say stuff like that on the air. You're going to get us in trouble again!" her male colleague said grabbing her by the shoulder.
"Ha! You can't bow down to those limp dicked P.C. pansies forever!" the female reporter shot back.
"But your gardener, your nanny and your maid are all Colombian!" the male anchor continued.
"Shit!" Artie grumbled to himself. The closing of the airport and possible blockades on the major highways meant he would be trapped in the rough and tumble city until further notice. After everything he had seen within the few moments he was here he found himself hoping this would be a simple in and out visit but now that was not to be.
The bartender jumped upon hearing Artie's voice and quickly spun around. When he saw his new customer appeared to be of no threat, his expression turned to one of bored neutrality.
"What'll it be?" he asked, his dull monotone indicating he showed little or no interest in his newest customer and wanted to get him served as soon as possible so he could return to watching the news.
"Uh, actually I'm not here for a drink-" Artie was in the middle of replying when the bartender reached beneath the counter with an unexpected lightning quick speed and pulled out a Remington 870 pump-action shotgun.
"Then what the fuck are you here for?" the bartender roared like a man possessed, his bright green eyes burning holes into Artie's soul as he shoved the gun into his face.
"Whoa there! Hey man, let's just take it easy and put the gun down! I was only looking for Gino Cappelli!" Artie shouted back waving his hands in front of him to show he was unarmed. "I was supposed to meet him here!"
"Who are you?" the bartender demanded, "You'd better not be another one of those fuckhead loan sharks!"
"Whoa, whoa Zeke put the gun down, he's cool!" a familiar voice called out from the background.
Artie looked towards the direction of the voice and his eyes widened in surprise.
"Holy shit, Gino is that you?"
"In the flesh good ol' Cousin Artie! In the flesh!" Giovanni 'Gino' Cappelli announced walking into view from a back room.
In contrast to his tall, athletic cousin, dark-haired cousin, the 40-year old Gino was short, plump and balding. At the moment he wore a cheap plaid sport coat that made him look like a used car salesman with a heavily-stained polo shirt underneath and a pair of brown dress slacks that barely covered his considerable gut.
"Cousin, it's been far too long!" Gino spoke as he walked over to give Artie a hearty embrace, "So how have you been Cuz? Did you have a safe trip in?"
"Uh, that's a story for a more private setting," Artie replied taking another look around the squalor he currently stood in. "So when do I get to see this fancy club of yours?"
Gino looked up to him in confusion, "What do you mean?"
Artie chuckled, "What I mean is when do I get to see that hip, happening nightclub you described to me in vivid detail so many times in the past? Why else would you want to meet me in a rancid shithole like this?" he said motioning to their surroundings, "Unless you just wanted to meet me someplace that's out of the way and where nobody would expect you, am I right?" he finished just as a rat scurried across the sticky tile floor.
"Uh, about that…" Gino started, looking away and tugging nervously at his collar as beads of sweat cascaded down his forehead.
The young bartender cleared his throat behind them, standing silent with his arms crossed in front of him and tapping his boot-wearing foot loudly.
"Oh where are my manners? Artie, this is Zeke Jones, one of my employees," Gino said motioning towards the younger man while looking off into a corner.
"Correction, I'm your only employee!" Zeke proclaimed, "Everybody else is too scared to work here because of those dumbass Redcoats and all those loan sharks that have been giving you trouble."
"Your employee?" Artie asked furrowing his brow towards his shorter cousin, who giggled nervously in reply.
"Um, about that like I said…" Gino trailed off, darting his eyes back and forth between both men. "Listen, why don't I explain that to you now…alone," he said motioning towards the small room he emerged from where only now Artie noticed the word 'OFFICE' in chipped, fading paint, along with some dried bloodstains from long ago.
The office was roughly the size of a broom closet, a quarters so cramped the portly Gino was barely able to get behind his cheap wooden desk and knocked over several stacks of papers and books in the process. Displayed prominently on the wall behind was a family portrait Artie had often seen growing up, one taken of him and his cousins Gino and Donnie, along with Uncle Leonardo and Aunt Sophia, when he had first gone to live with them twenty years ago. Aside from that, numerous old posters covered the ugly reddish-brown walls, much like they had in the main room. A bulb hanging from a brittle thread was the only source of light and an opened grate above showed off the rusted fan that provided ventilation, looking like it was ready to fall and slice into the owner's scalp at any given second.
"Gino, what the fuck is going on?" Artie asked his cousin as the shorter man collapsed into a swivel chair that barely supported his bulk.
"Y'know, you look a little tense Cuz, you really should take a seat," Gino sheepishly spoke, gesturing towards another flimsy chair in the corner across from him.
Artie ignored his cousin's attempt at hospitality and slapped a hand down onto his desk, "Gino, what the fuck is going on?" he repeated slowly speaking every word, wanting the acid to settle into his tone.
Gino cried out at his cousin's display of brute force and nearly fell backward, only to bang his head against the wall behind him.
"You told me you owned a nice nightclub that was the talk of the town, lived in a penthouse apartment over in Emerald Hill, had a garage full of sports cars, all sorts of women in your life and were rolling around in money…are you telling me this was one huge line of bullshit you've been feeding me all along?" Artie asked gripping the corners of the desk as his dark eyes bored holes into the older man's paper thin psyche.
"Uh…yes…everything you heard was one huge line of bullshit," Gino said looking a stack of unpaid bills in shame. "This seedy dive bar you before you is the 'nightclub' I told you about. The 'penthouse apartment' is the upstairs of this place, not to forget there's also the 'sort of apartment' in the storage room where Zeke lives, the 'garage full of sports cars' is a single car garage with an old Greenwood, and the only 'woman in my life' is Freda, the old whore who lives in the cardboard box out back. Trust me, for a quarter she can still give you the best blowjob around these parts!"
Artie shuddered in disgust and then punched the wall next to him, "Damn it! God fucking damn it! How could I be so fucking stupid enough to believe your line of bullshit?"
"Well hey; I gave you a Grade A bullshit!" Gino squeaked his protest.
"It's still bullshit plain and simple!" Artie shot back, silencing his weasel of a cousin and shook his head wildly, unable to pace within the confined space. "Goddamn it Gino, you should have told me the truth."
"But then you wouldn't have come to visit!" Gino said placing his elbows on the desk and letting his head collapse into his opened palms.
Artie sighed heavily and finally collapsed into the chair Gino had pointed out for him, "What is it? What's wrong now? It had better be pretty fucking important for you to entice my Guido ass over here."
Gino looked up and stared at him worriedly before shifting his gaze back and forth towards both walls, almost like he expected evil spirits to pop out.
"C'mon, you can tell me Cuz. I'm already here so you might as well spill it," Artie said before shifting through his thoughts and remembering what Zeke had said, "Does this have anything to do with what Zeke said about those 'loan sharks' or whatever?"
Gino nodded sheepishly and clenched his hands together tightly, "Obviously you can see that this place isn't the moneymaker you expected it to be and because of that, I haven't been able to pay up on certain things: rent, utility, alimony, hookers…"
"Bella cleaned you out that bad?" Artie asked dumbfounded.
"Uh…heh heh that's a long story for another time," Gino said rubbing the back of his neck, "but anyway, I sort of had to take out a few little loans with some guy named Johnny Sneed…okay they weren't 'little' but you get my point…"
"And just who the hell is this Johnny Sneed fellow?" Artie asked relaxing in the flimsy chair the best he could, "Is he the loan shark?"
Gino's gaze darkened and his jaw clenched shut. It took a few minutes, but he finally willed himself to speak.
"Yep, that's him alright. Johnny Sneed runs the Shyster Savings and Loan Bank, but he's really a scumbag who's practically got the entire island under his thumb. Practically everybody I know at least owes him something. Honest to God, I'd be able to cough up the money if those goddamned Redcoats weren't around to cause trouble. Christ, they're another reason I can't get any business around here!"
"I know what you're talking about. I saw firsthand what those fuckers did over on Chesterfield. I barely escaped and then ran into a few more of those bastards," Artie explained as his voice grew lower at the mention of those ruffians. "I tried to fight them off, but there were four of them. They took my money, my clothes, my cell phone and even the Crowex that Uncle Leo gave me," he said pulling back his sleeve to show his bare wrist.
"I'm surprised they spared your ass if you tried fighting back. Those guys aren't human, they're fucking animals!" Gino blurted out with a pronounced shudder, "Them and the others…"
"What others?" Artie said placing a hand on his chin. He could recall seeing the Redcoats firing at those men in the blue vests and then remembered the one who came crashing through the cab's windshield.
"Too damn many, this island alone is a fucking zoo," Gino snorted, "Here on Lincoln you have the Redcoats, the Aces, the Hellcats, the Uptown Yardies and Cubanos Locos. Over on Washington you have the Banditelli Mafia, the High Ryderz, Russians and freaking Triads. In Jefferson Vale it's a bunch of bored rich kids called the Gold Valley Preps and some Satanists who call themselves the Brood, look like those punks you see around a Crimson Matters, and then a couple biker gangs, some right-wing survivalists over in Roosevelt Hills, the Avenging Angels, the Colombian freaking Cartel, and a couple wannabes who think they're something just because they own a gun. In other words, this place is a haven for gangs!"
"Damn, now I can see why business sucks around here," Artie scoffed, "all those gangs and that Sneed fellow."
"You're goddamned right things suck because of that Sneed fellow!" Gino shouted slapping his desk and rising to his feet, "I tell you that Johnny Sneed is a fucking snake in the grass! He'd sell his own mother for a dime! He's the biggest fucking prick known to man! He's a dickless fucking asshole! He's the lowest form of shit known to all mankind-"
The office door suddenly flew open and Artie cried out in pain as he was struck hard, finding himself sandwiched between the door and the wall.
"Now Gino is that any way to be talking about one of your oldest and dearest friends?" a slick voice called out.
Artie pushed the door aside to find a man who stood a few inches shorter than him casually taking a seat on his cousin's desk. The man had short, slicked back brown hair and a narrow face with prominent eyebrows over dark brown eyes, wearing a dark green suit, pink dress shirt, black tie and a pair of snakeskin cowboy boots.
"Why hello Johnny, it's good to see you again!" Gino laughed nervously as the beads of sweat on his forehead turned into a waterfall of perspiration. "Would you like me to get you a drink?"
"Why yes I would," Johnny Sneed said reaching over and grabbing Gino by the collar, pulling him so they were nose to nose, "A drink I like to call 'Where's my fucking money?' I believe you're now five months overdue. When are you going to pay up? Or do I have to make an example out of you like I did those chinks over at Mr. Fuk's?"
"J-J-Johnny now l-l-l-listen to m-me! I w-was g-g-g-going to p-p-pay you, but those d-d-damned Redcoats t-t-took the m-money as p-p-p-pro-protection!" Gino stammered, "I honestly had it, b-b-but they said they'd c-c-c-cut off my d-dick if I didn't hand it over!"
"And I'm gonna be the one cutting off that tiny dick of yours if you don't fucking pay up!" the loan shark roared and shoved the smaller man against the wall, sending him falling out of his chair.
"Alright, that's enough!" Artie said shrugging off the pain and getting in the suited man's face, catching him by surprise. It didn't last long as the man quickly composed himself and chuckled heartily.
"Johnny Sneed," the slimy man said offering a hand, "and just who might you be, friend?"
"What's it to you?" Artie spat venomously, getting further in the man's face.
"Whoa, whoa now Artie, just chill out," Gino said pulling himself onto his desk and looking over to his visitor, "I'm sorry about that Johnny; my cousin is a little shy around newcomers. Don't worry though; he's not like this for long. He's actually a nice guy once you get to know him better!"
"So you're the cousin Gino has told me all about," Johnny said looking over to the family photo now hanging at an awkward angle on the wall. "I must say Mr. Cappelli, it truly is an honor to finally meet you in the flesh."
"The feelings aren't mutual dipshit!" Artie growled and raised a fist to strike the loan shark, but Johnny was quicker and snapped his fingers.
Three brawny men appeared in the office doorway and stared menacingly towards Artie. Despite being six feet two inches in height, being in good physical condition and having received some training in boxing and karate, he knew these brutes could easily take him down and he backed away from the green-suited man.
"I'd learn to watch my tongue if I were you," Johnny hissed, "my friends over there don't like people disrespecting me and they won't hesitate to rip your arms off and beat you to death with them if I command it!"
Johnny then turned his attention back to Gino, "And they sure as hell won't hesitate to wreck your 'humble establishment' if I tell them to either!"
With a whistle the three hired guns sprang into action.
"No don't!" Gino screamed.
One of the thugs walked over to the passed out trucker and with little required effort, lifted the man from his seat and tossed him through one of the windows as if he were a rag doll.
The other two nameless goons wasted no time in grabbing the couple from the booth and tossing them to the floor before they went to work overturning tables and chairs, smashing lighting fixtures, tossing barstools against the bottle racks (forcing Zeke to take cover behind the counter with his hands over his head), overturning pool tables and smashing arcade games. One of the thugs entered the men's room and practically flung the drunken patron across the room, sending him skidding across the slippery floor and right through the front door.
In the end it looked as if a miniature cyclone had torn a path of destruction through the establishment, leaving Artie, Gino and Zeke to stare silently in disbelief.
Johnny cackled insanely at the dirty deed committed by his henchmen, "You see Gino my friend, this is what happens when you don't pay up! Let this be a lesson because next time I won't be as generous!" The four men disappeared through the front door and the squeal of tires signaled their exit.
"Oh god," Gino groaned before his legs turned to rubber and he found himself collapsing backward, only to be caught by his cousin. Zeke rushed out from behind the counter to help Artie drag the suffering proprietor over to the nearest booth.
"I take it you see those clowns around quite a bit, huh?" Artie grunted under the weight of his cousin's bulbous frame before finally easing him into the booth.
"You don't know the half of it," Zeke sighed, "usually they're kind enough to order a drink before they start smashing everything in sight."
"Well you weren't too shy about pulling that shotgun of yours on me, why not him?" Artie asked eying the shotgun resting on the countertop.
Zeke waited until they were far enough from Gino's earshot before speaking, "Are you fucking kidding me? That guy belongs to the Banditellis, the most powerful gang in all of Rushmore City! If I put a hole in his face they'd be all over me like the plague! Not only that they'd probably torch this place to the ground along with the rest of Hymen Avenue!"
"Well somebody's gotta do something about that cocksucker," Artie spoke looking back to his cousin, "Somebody's gotta show him he can't just go pushing around whomever he pleases, especially if it's a Cappelli involved."
"Good luck, you'd need an entire fucking army for that," Zeke said shaking his head.
An electronic ringing distracted the two men from their conversation and they looked over to see Gino stirring awake, reaching lazily into his pocket as he somehow managed to pull the phone out right away and placed it to his ear.
"Hello there, Gino Cappelli, your official purveyor of pleasure speaking…" the portly man slurred as if he were answering the phone from his bed. A second later, the man's eyes shot wide open.
"Wait Donnie slow down!" he shouted, "You're where? Because you did what? Oh goddamn it Donnie, you and your fucking binge drinking and a dick that never rests!" Gino shouted to his unseen caller, "No I can't help you out…because that dick faced piece of shit Johnny Sneed was over here again! Okay, okay calm down, Artie can help you out!"
Artie's head perked up at the mention of his name and he looked over to Zeke, "Looks like Donnie's gotten himself into trouble again," he said referring to his other cousin.
"Yes, Artie's in town. I'm sure he'd love to see you again. Okay, I'll send him right over," Gino said snapping his phone shut, resisting the urge to throw it against the nearest wall.
"Donnie?" Artie asked.
"Donnie got himself into another drunken brawl over yet another woman and he's in the clink," Gino sighed rubbing his tired face with both hands. "He's gonna need somebody to pick his sorry ass up over at the station house in Victor and I told him you'd do it Artie."
"Hot damn, that's like the tenth woman this week. I wouldn't be surprised if the S.T.D.'s were fighting for supremacy already," Zeke chuckled.
Artie shot him a disarming glare and then returned his attention to Gino, "Fine, I'll do it!"
"That a boy!" Gino said reaching into his pocket and tossing a set of keys to Artie, "Those are the keys to my Greenwood in the garage out back. He'll probably want you to drop him off at his place," the elder Cappelli cousin explained before reaching into his other pocket, "and before I forget, here's a cell phone you can keep. It's got my number in it already!"
"Alright, I'll see to it that he gets back safe and sound," Artie said offering a final wave before disappearing through the bar's front door.
"Things are already going from bad to worse," Artie told himself as he looked over to see the drunken trucker still lying on the sidewalk, rolling around as if he were still in bed, ignorant of all the sounds around him. Meanwhile, the drunk from the men's room had already risen back to his feet and was shuffling back towards the bar letting out a zombie-like moan as he made his way inside.
"I come here and I find myself caught in the crossfire of a gang battle and then I get robbed of everything except my underwear. Not only that, I'm trapped in a gang-infested shithole thanks to some raghead assholes.
"As if that's not bad enough, I have one cousin who's a two-bit liar and could find himself sleeping with the fishes within a matter of days if he can't cough up God knows how much cash for that Sneed prick and then I've got another who is nothing more than an alcoholic womanizer.
"Oh yeah, it's just GREAT to be Artie Cappelli right now," he thought to himself making his way around the bar and to the back alley, where he found the aforementioned garage and the dirty, rusted Greenwood resting inside.
"C'mon Artie, you've survived worse in the past," he whispered to himself, "You've gotta at least get yourself out of this mess alive."
"Hey there sonny…" a grating, high-pitched squawk came from behind him followed by a harsh coughing fit, "…ya' wanna good time?" it choked out again before nearly hacking up a lung.
"What the fuck?" Artie blurted out as he whirled around and soon found himself wishing he hadn't.
Standing before him was a woman who could have been no older than her forties, yet she already had wrinkles upon wrinkles, a tangled mop of gray hair and a mouth full of chipped yellow teeth. The ratty old clothes she wore looked like patchwork, as if somebody had blown up a bunch of hobos and sewn them all together to create her.
"Fucking sick!" Artie screamed as she attempted to put her arm around him and threw himself backwards to create some space between the two of them. The 'woman's' stench alone made his stomach nearly do a triple somersault, especially after a glass prosthesis fell out of her left eye socket.
"Yer quite the feisty one…" she gagged, "…ready to fuck when ya' haven't even paid yet!" she spoke in that aged, grating tone that sounded like nails on a chalkboard, or like the Nasty Necromancer of the North from 'Warlock of Woz.'
"No way, get away from me you freak!" Artie shouted, not even bothering to shove her away and instead leaping to the side as she lunged for him. With the abomination down for the count, he bolted for the Greenwood and threw himself inside, switching on the car and then turning the radio's volume all the way up as the air filled with the upbeat techno sounds of Techno Playground FM.
Shifting the car into reverse he slammed the gas pedal down, not caring if he ran the old whore over on the way out.
"Okay, so my day has officially gotten even worse than before!" Artie told himself as he gripped the wheel with white knuckle fury and peeled out of the alley onto a busy street, cutting off a '92 Karin Futo as he sped away, "Christ, I can't believe Gino would ever allow something like that within a one-hundred foot radius of him. Breaking up with Bella must have had that much of a traumatizing effect on him. He's probably got freaking Hepatitis and God knows what else by now!"
Taking a sharp right turn onto another street he nearly clipped a taxi, wanting to get this over with as soon as possible so he could get himself a few hours of well-deserved rest.
"Maybe Gino's lying to me again. That Freda bitch has to be the reason business sucks…God, I shouldn't even be saying 'suck' when thinking about that…thing."
Author's Note: And so ends another installment of "Rushmore City" a.k.a. "the new and improved version of Capitol City!"
Okay so onto the random shit, I know how Afro Spirit likes to base some of his O.C.'s off of actual actors and if I had to physically base Johnny Sneed off of anybody, I would say he looks like Walton Goggins, the guy who played Stans, the death row inmate from "Predators." Zeke Jones I would say looks like Anton Yelchin, but with a punk-inspired hairstyle. Gino I would say is supposed to look like Doc McGhee, the manager of KISS, Motley Crue and Bon Jovi, who has been featured on "Gene Simmons' Family Jewels." Old Freda is supposed to look like Carol Kane during her portrayal of Valerie in "The Princess Bride."
Onto the parodies, Crimson Matters is a spoof of Hot Topic, the Nasty Necromancer of the North is a parody of the Wicked Witch of the West and the Warlock of Woz is a spoof of "The Wizard of Oz."
I also wanted to give a special thanks to Afro Spirit and Native Gunz for providing the first two reviews!
Well that's it for now on my part so until then read and review or else Old Freda is coming to get you!
This is Metal Harbinger saying SPREAD THE SICKNESS, ONE MIND AT A TIME! \m/