Living the Good Life

As I approached the entrance to the town next to the Brahmin pens, I saw one of the trappers eyeballing me. The trappers acted as something of a town police or militia to control who or what entered the town during the snowy months.

I walked up to the man leaning against the wall and he said, "Hey Sean" with a frown on his face.

I smiled and said that I would like to enter the town. He sighed, "You know you can't squat here; I don't care how cold it is…"

Before he could say anything else, I smiled and handed him 5 of the dead men's "caps" saying I'd like to do some trading and even buy him a drink. The trapper looked at the caps puzzled for a minute, then shrugged, pocketed them, and grinned saying, "So it seems."

He gave a motion for me to follow him. I walked with the trapper through the downtown taking in the community I'd only been inside a couple times before. We walked past a few buildings and around the big vacant farming plot in the center of the community. Some of the people who recognized me, shot funny looks. The trapper led me into the bar called of course, "The Golden Gecko" and some of the people in there again gave me funny looks. I pulled up a stool and the trapper sat next to me.

The bartender asked me, "How did you get in here Sean? This isn't free drink night… Not that we'd ever do that."

I whispered to the man that I "stumbled upon some cash" and slipped the man 6 caps for two drinks. The drinks came and I tried to chat up my escort into town, but he was less than interested. He promptly drank his drink, thanked me, and left. Alone at the bar and feeling somewhat down at the lack of company, I ordered three more drinks. The semi-watered down drinks came and before the sun disappeared I had ordered two shots of the local "Klamath Bob's Moonshine" and three more beers.

People started seeing the amount of drinks I was ordering and began being really friendly with me. I was pretty drunk, and after I ordered a gecko steak, I bought the whole bar a round. My world started to spin, and people gave me a cheers as I was chatted up by more of the local trappers or townsfolk. I don't remember too much of what happened or even what I said to everyone I talked to, but I vaguely remember stumbling across the town at midnight to crash at the local hotel called "Buckner House."

I woke up on a somewhat clean bed in a dingy prewar room with the light of day coming through the window. My head pounded as I took a quick inventory of my things. I spent over a 100 caps at the bar and the musty little hotel. Luckily, nobody robbed me while I was drunk, so I was able to account for all of my things. I left the room with all of my possessions and walked down the hall to the main room where the owners sat idly by. The owners sat around, a few townsfolk quietly ate their grub, and a large mentally challenged man in overalls stood in the corner "Mooing" like a brahmin.

When I approached the woman named, "Maida?" I think? She looked up, promptly asked if I threw up in the room, and I said "No."

She raised an eyebrow and rudely asked, "What do you want? I already deal with one damned tribal, don't really wanna deal with another."

I disregarded the remark, said I wanted to do some trading, and she said rudely again that I didn't have anything she wanted. I asked if she was interested in guns and she raised the eyebrow again. I opened up my bag and she grew a look of shock when she glanced inside. I pulled out one of the shotguns and asked how much she'd give me for it. I placed it on the table, and she inspected it. She looked astonished at the nearly pristine weapon as she performed a brief functions check and ran her finger inside the barrels to check for residue.

Her finger came out clean and she said, "I don't have enough for how much this is worth, but tell you what? I'll give you 300 caps and free lodging for a week." I gladly took the offer.

I went back to the room to find a tribal man with no shirt, and dark brown leather pants sweeping. The guy had tattoos all over his very muscular body and a large bone piercing through his nose. His black hair was knotted on the top of his head and he gave me a mean but innocent frown upon seeing me.

I asked what he was doing, and he walked right by me saying, "Sulik come back later!"

I spent most of the day in the room celebrating and throwing my caps into the air full of glee. When I gathered up all my wealth from around the room, I went back to Maida to buy several bottles of water. After chugging water and passing out, it was evening again, and I left the Buckner House to go and get plastered again.

I blew my caps at the bar for four nights in a row, repeating the same thing as the first night, occasionally stopping by the Dunton Brothers' place for a snack of jerky. Whenever I entered the Golden Gecko, the trappers happily shouted, "HEY! IT'S SEAN!" hoping to get a free drink from me. Each night in the bar, I'd spend between, 50 to 100 caps. Each morning I'd wake up with the same pounding headache and spend the day resting up until the next night. Life was good in that week, but it was about to get really bad.

On that fourth night in the Golden Gecko, I got really friendly with a local trader named Vic in my drunken state and bought the man several drinks. He told me about all the places he'd been, saying he had a family in some place called "Vault City" and that he just got back from a tribal village called "Arroyo" to the west. He gave me a blue canteen with a yellow 13 on it and I promptly had the bartender fill it with beer.

It was really easy to make friends when you're throwing cash around, but something about Vic stuck with me. The guy loved to rattle on, and even mentioned that I was "Decent for a tribal." I told him I wasn't a tribal, and he went on about some bonehead tribal that broke a bunch of shit at Buckner House looking for him while he was out of town a few weeks back. Vic said that he avoided the place like the plague since Maida was keeping the violent tribal around to pay for the damages.

I asked more about where he trades since he was constantly out and about. He said that when he wasn't selling shiny gizmos to tribals out west, he did some trading with the slavers from a place called, "The Den." When he mentioned the slavers, he brought up some crazy story about watching a slaver raid on a tribal village with green and red fire guns and what not. I concluded that he was rambling by that point, but he mentioned that he had a visit to The Den coming up in a few days. Eventually, the trader stumbled off when I lost interest in his stories and I stopped buying him drinks.

So, I sat there at the bar getting evermore blasted. I don't remember too many details from those nights, but I vaguely remember Vic getting into a fight with two large men with face tattoos on one of the last nights. I just remember a fist fight, a few broken tables, and waking up in my bed with a bruised arm and yet another headache. I'm still not sure what exactly happened.

It was Saturday morning after a full work week off from my usual shit life and I felt a little tired of getting drunk. So, I decided to take the day slow. I had to buy more water and spent the day recovering again, but when the sun was setting I felt the urgent need to clean up. I started to smell like a glass of moonshine mixed with BO.

I remembered walking past a place called, "Bathhouse" on my way to the Golden Gecko all those evenings and felt like a good bath was the best way to take the night easy. So, on Saturday evening I strolled on over to the Bathhouse to enter a dimly lit room with red curtains and a larger woman sitting on a big cushioned chair. She wore a pink prewar dress and had her hair done up all fancy despite the dirt smudges on her face.

She gave me a weird looking grin and said, "Hey Sean, looking to spend some of them old caps at Big Nose Sally's Bathhouse? I could definitely use them for that shipment of empties I got!"

It was then that I noticed her big nose that seemed to take up half of her face. I awkwardly smiled and said, "Sure, I'm starting to smell like a distillery. I could use a good bath."

She looked puzzled, and said, "Well, despite what the sign says, this isn't really a place to get clean, so much as a place to Get Dirty..."

At that, she gave a wink, and asked, "You looking to pay for a 'bath?'"

I noticed her air quotes around the word, "bath" but said, "Sure, why not!?"

She shouted, "GIRLS!" and three semi attractive women in skimpy sort of outfits came out the door, along with, Vic!?

Just as I thought that Vic the Trader was an option!? He hung his head low, walked past me, said, "Hey bud" and left the building.

When I turned back, another woman entered the room with long blonde hair and a beautiful dirt speckled face. I won't go into details, but I preferred the last woman to enter, and gave the Miss Big Nose 65 caps for a "Bath." However, when I chose the obvious beautiful blonde by the name of Jenny, I had to get legitimately cleaned up by a large muscular woman with more of a mustache than I had named Gurda. After getting cleaned by the large woman, I got to spend some time with the lovely Jenny, but left the place feeling dirtier than when I entered.