Key West author Reef Perkins shares more of his hilarious book,

Screwed, Blu’d

and Tattooed

by

Reef Perkins

***Key West***

(part two)

(Click here for previous chapter)

It took Pepto a couple days to track Ferling Bagwidth down. He had a connection in the Miami sewer department. A guy who knew his shit. The connection gave Pepto the name of a guy in the Key West sewer department. “He knows his shit,” the friend covertly advised.

Pepto met his source behind an old septic tank on Stink Bug Alley. A crisp twenty dollar bill appeared and Lenny “Honker” Sawyer provided information that led to Bagwidth.

“Old man Bagwidth lives down to Dung Beetle Lane, over to the cemetery. He’s freaking nuts with that Pogo stick and shit,” Honker advised.

Pepto knew that this guy “Bagwhatever” must be an asshole if he was into Pogo sticks. He looked again at the hood of his stolen Camaro and decided to leave a note on one of Bagwidth’s neighbors’ doors saying, “Any persona who wanting to keel Senor Bagwater-you calling me. I paying plenty big monies.” He wrote the Organic Fruits Motel’s phone booth number and signed the note, El Gran Frijole.

Pepto walked up Dung Beetle lane and saw a house with no front door. He walked up the steps and yelled into the house, “Hola!”

Fakyah got up and yawned. In front of her stood a fat Latin dude with small feet and a big diamond ring, “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Fuck Ya!” she said, covertly eyeballing the ring. Her mouth remained open. Pepto liked her spirit.

“Fakyah?” he repeated. It sounded exotic and faraway.

“You bet.”

Pepto never had an A-rab before. “Si…let’s do eet!”

Ten minutes later, Pepto left the house. He was stunned after a thorough and hearty pummeling. He remembered to breathe, but forgot to take the note or check his ring finger.

When Pepto departed, Blu and Bagwidth were taking a whiz in the bushes nearby. Pepto passed without noticing them. Suddenly Pepto stopped, he stared at his left hand, “Conjo! My reeeng! My reeeng!” He was afraid to go back. She’d almost killed him without using her hands just a few minutes ago. Still, Pepto continued to vent on his way down the lane. “My reeng, my reeng.”

Blu and Bagwidth came home to find Fakyah squatting on the kitchen sink washing her private parts with a coconut soap infused loofa sponge and the rinse hose. It was on pulse. She stared at a new ring on her thumb.

Blu got an uncalled-for boner. He bent over, awkwardly, and picked up a piece of paper lying on the floor. Blu looked up. Fakyah looked down.

“Oh, ah, that Cuban guy must have dropped that when he came, I mean stopped, over, to check the, ah, junction box, ah…” Fakyah mumbled to a stop. She quickly changed frequencies and went to work with the loofa. Blu quickly figured out what happened and was a tad pissed-off. Fakyah noticed his moodlyness and poked at Blu’s trouser tent with a wet spatula. He forgave her and thought of the elderly Tinkerbelle, who probably hadn’t forgiven him for stealing her car. It was good to be the first to forgive.

Blu took Bagwidth aside, “Hey Uncle Bag look at this, man! This guy Pepto wants to take out a hit on your ass.”

Bagwidth looked at the note. “… a hit on my ass? Hot damn, that must be the fucking fuck-wad in the Camaro. He looked awful sensitive to me, on the way by.”

Blu’s mind began to turn.

“It says monies, and I need monies,” Blu looked sideways at his uncle.

“Whoa!! Now hold on there, young fella! I ain’t sure this is the best time for that thought. Look, I got monies too and I’m gonna get plenty more monies once that danged stick sells. How about this…ah… you take the contract on my ass… git some money up front and then don’t kill me and we’ll split it?”

“Well… I like it… but I see one problem…when Pepto finds out what I did I guess he’ll want to kill me too,” said Blu.

“Good point.”

“Well, there’s more than one way to grip a bowling ball!” Blu liked that one. He wasn’t sure it was right, but he liked it. “How about I agree to kill you, get his monies, then you pay me with his monies, to kill him. Problem solved!”

“Let’s Dewar!” Bagwidth said, with some relief. He poured them each a glass of his favorite scotch.

Killing was new to Blu. The only thing he had ever tried to kill was time, and he was already in jail when he did it.

All Blu had to do was make the hit without getting caught, but he worried. His time in jail had scarred him. He promised himself he would never go back to the Big House.

Blu laid awake and put ideas together like pieces of a shattered mirror. He would use his own life experience. But Blu had a bad memory and little experience. He fell asleep thinking about the two buzzards that hadn’t been as lucky as he.

The next morning, Blu headed for a phone booth. I guess the first thing to do is set up a meet, he thought.

Fakyah walked him to the corner, pivoted and told Blu she was going into town to pawn the ring. She’d been a little pissy since eating those fermented tadpoles. Maybe she felt bad about what happened with Pepto.

“You know, Blu, when I was young I got into the habit of eating and I was hoping you had the same habit,” she said and jumped into an empty seat on a passing Conch Train.

Although they had not yet found time or circumstance for a physical encounter, Blu was feeling some likings for Fak. He didn’t want to lose her and anyway, it was a nice ring.

“I…eeeeeehh.” Blu exhaled silently and watched Fakyah disappear in traffic.

For some reason, Blu felt responsible for Fakyah and redoubled his thinking efforts. He went to a phone booth near the Spooner Wharf and discreetly slipped inside. He thumbed a few coins into the slot, shifted onto his left foot and inadvertently crushed a large palmetto bug with his flip flop. Blu dialed the number with a bony forefinger. It was the number that would change his life.

Busy.

Blu tried again. After twenty rings, “Si?”

Unfortunately, when Pepto answered, Blu was bent over, balancing on one foot trying to scrape the quarter-pound bug off his flip-flop. He saw the words Fuk Yoo written upside down in red lipstick on a panel near the floor. He dropped the receiver he’d been holding between his neck and shoulder. It swung down on its cord, bounced off the glass and hit Blu in the front teeth. “I’m going to kill every one of you fuckers!” Blu screamed at the offending bug. He quickly recovered his composure and grabbed the dangling receiver.

Pepto overheard everything and liked this guy’s style.

“Si?” Pepto said again.

‘Yo man it’s me, the guy who wants to take out Old Bagwater. I’m a pro and can gitt’er done. My name’s Yellow.” Blu knew better than to give his real name, or mention Fakyah.

“Jello?”

“No, listen man, I’m not hungry and I can hear you good. What kind of monies are we talking about, Seen-your Pepto?”

“Monies?”

“You know, to knock off Bagwater.”

“Oh conjo! You finding dee note, man. Is berry good for me. Eet was making me to have nervousnesses. Maybe you finding beeg ring too? Sí? No?”

“Let’s talk monies, like how much?” asked Blu.

“Jel-low?”

“I can hear you man, go ahead…”

“I’m thinking like four-hundred beans for taking out the Bag,” Pepto piped.

That’s not a lot of money for not doing anything Blu thought, understanding full well that two negatives can, in certain cases, make a positive. And, it was money. But what if he had to pay income tax on it someday? Blu knew he could outsmart this crook, “Four hundred fifty plus tax that makes it four hundred eighty three dollars and seventy five cents. Half now and half when it’s done,” Blu knew how to bargain.

“Half of four hundred eighty-three dollars and seventy five centavos eez … ah … ah … that’s mucho beans for one bullet. You gonna use a gun right?”

“Sure and a calculator and it ain’t a lot for a pro job, neither.” Blu tried to sound backwoods dumb. He succeeded and was excited by his accomplishment.

“You take food stamps?”

“Cash … and change.”

“Then we got deal?” Pepto felt somewhat relieved that things had been so easy.

“Deal. Meet me at the Red Squid in one hour. Bring the cash … and change; I’ll be wearing a Frog Breath T-shirt. Do you need a receipt?”

“No, but, to make meetings of crime in El Calamari Roja? Maybe eez not so good to do, No, sí … eh?”

“Hasta linguini,” Blu said, also relieved that things had been so easy. Blu needed transportation. He walked back to the Spooner Wharf and stood out front. Within minutes a likely candidate rode past on a bike. Blu jumped out and screamed, “Hey dirt bag, that’s MY bike!” The frightened shruburbian dropped the bike and ran into bushes. Blu smiled and peddled home with a warm, felonious, wind at his back.

Blu decided to his change his appearance for the gig, in case things went south. Wait a minute; things can’t go any farther south than Key West. Anyway, he needed a good disguise and it had to work. He found some of Fakyah’s pubic hairs in an ash tray. Methodically, he glued them to his chin and upper lip. He put a couple in each ear and nostril just to be safe. Blu got some residue from his bong and did his eyes. A final wrapping of a polyester sarong and fake coconut tits should do the trick. He’d look like a local.

At 4:00 p.m. Blu arrived at the Red Squid, a subtropical titty-bar just off Grovelers Lane at four o’clock. He spotted a red Camaro, fitting Uncle Bag’s description, in the parking lot. A dent in the hood and a set of golf clubs in the back confirmed his suspicion.

Blu opened the outer door and entered a cubic space that was, “Dark as a well-digger’s ass.” (Blu was glad he wasn’t the one who confirmed this time-honored analogy.) The sudden daylight had the effect of a large flashbulb going off. Panicked faces were frozen in a pure white and heavenly light. The local politicos didn’t perceive the light as heavenly and frantically covered their well-known faces and or crotches. Everyone saw dancing white spots and quick decisions, for which Key West politicians are known, were made. The door hissed shut. Two dimly lit arrow signs flashed. SQUIDS flashed in red and pointed left, the other flashed GEEZER’S, in white, and pointed back toward the front door. Blu did not consider himself a geezer and slipped into the smunky room. The awe-inspiring vinyl-scented booths smelled like the long dead love doll. A vaporous tincture of chlorine, cum, money and rum was the night’s perfume. He sidled over to a dark curtained corner and plopped down in a booth to wait. It felt lumpy but soft.

“CONJO!” bellowed a fat Latin man, quickly zipping his fly. “Mang, you crazy? What kind of bitch are you?”

Blu was startled, but quickly recognized Pepto’s voice.

“Chill out, its how I work,” Blu said, still sitting in Pepto’s lap.

“Oh, OK… Jew Jello?”

“OK, enough with the greetings. I’m a Lutheran. Where’s El Dinero, los monies?

“Dinero?”

“Sí, el dinero for making bang-bang on Bagwater, amigo!”

Pepto didn’t feel comfortable, “Conjo!” he mumbled and pushed Blu off his lap. A fat envelope slipped out of his guayubera. “Make eet queeek!” he said too loudly.

The local crotch watchers turned toward them like sharks to a wounded Hawaiian. The envelope dropped to the floor and four hundred-dollar bills fell out between Pepto’s legs. Blu bent over to grab the bills. One of the dancers noticed. Exotic dancers can see money like a moth can see a flame. She shook her head sadly as Blu walked toward the exit. Was the well-formed female ass losing value, like the dollar?

Blu walked into his uncle’s house to find Fakyah sitting in a yellow plastic kayak, a bag of groceries between her legs. “Look, Blu, we got food, an’ I got my own bed.”

Blu grabbed a fresh Twinkie, “Where’s the paddle?”

“What paddle?” she said.

It just didn’t seem right anymore. He got a meek boner, but the bloom was off on the rose. Blu shook his head and walked away to think and nap. He napped.

Blu snapped awake with a full understanding of the situation and what to do about it. He didn’t know how he knew, but he knew he knew. “He knew, he knew, he knew,” Blu said the words again, thirty-nine times to be exact. He carefully pronounced the K each time. The clock was ticking.

Blu quickly figured that Fakyah intended to pork the Cuban again, for purely gastronomical reasons, of course.

Let’s play this one first, Blu thought. He began feeding Fakyah false information. He knew she would pass it on to Pepto.

“Fakyah, I, ah, took me a job to pop that Cuban guy who wrote the note. So I need to catch him in a crowded place, a place where there are lots of people.”

“He’s going to be pissed.”

“Not for long.”

As Blu predicted, Pepto showed up on Dung Beetle Lane a few days later. Fakyah took another ring off him then told him about Blu. It’s for Blu’s own good, she explained to herself. She didn’t want Blu to go away. She had some likings for him, too.

Blu lurked in the bushes and thought he heard several muffled queefs. He waited until the kayak stopped squeaking. Finally, Pepto slipped out the doorway, like a wet fish from a plastic bag, and headed down Dung Beetle Lane.

Blu went in the house and grabbed a Key Deer beer. He walked over and handed Fakyah a pass, purchased with Bagwidth’s money, for a round of golf at the Key West Golf Hole Course and Mosquito Boutique. The ticket was for the last nine holes and dated for the coming Wednesday.

“Hey, Fak, I found this golf ticket out on the street, why don’t you go play golf, I’m going to take a few days off and go walk about.”

“Walk about what?”

“Just things.”

“Okay. I’m hungry.”

Blu knew Fakyah had a conscience and would give the golf pass to Pepto to make herself feel better about the rings.

With the plan initiated, Blu headed for Stark Island.

The old Furlane was still mushed into the mangroves and Blu set about making an FOB (forward operating base.) During the next three nights he scavenged the Key West Golf Hole Club fairways for golf balls, but only the old ones. The Golf Hole Club was a well-manicured swamp and formal burial ground for old golf balls. “The old ones are slow and easily hunted,” his mom used to say about her ex-husbands. And, anyway, the new ones wouldn’t work; they had to be the old kind, made out of rubber bands. Working day and night he unstrung the geriatric balls. In the mangroves near the Ford, he stretched the wrinkled rubber back and forth between two Gumbo Limbo trees. The sling was over forty feet long. The Fairlane was ass out twenty feet back in the mangroves and centered on the sling.

Later, Blu rifled through the dumpsters behind the jail and found an old body bag the tag read – B. FARTO. The bag was stuffed with Cuban coffee sacks, a short red cocktail dress and six pairs of red socks, made into hand puppets.

Blu fashioned the top portion of the body bag into a hat to keep the mosquitoes off his head. The bottom portion was secured to the elongated rubber band with a pair of pretty nice Nike shoe laces he borrowed from a sleeping pilgrim.

Up before Wednesday’s dawn, Blu had one last mission to complete. He needed ammo, one round. The tropic sun came up like an old lava lamp glob as Blu searched the lonely dump, hoping for an easy pick. He looked for his old landing groove in the dirt. The painful furrow was gone, but the memory remained.

Time was running out. He settled for the freshest dead buzzard he could find. “This one’s still got some good rigger-mortis,” Blu mumbled as he departed the base of Mount Trashmore. He dragged the buzzard downhill and named it Three, since the numbers One and Two had been retired.

The plan was beginning to take shape. Blu knew Pepto could not resist a free golf pass and would feel safe on the golf course. “No crowds,” Fakyah would remind him.

Blu also knew Pepto would sport his gold jewelry to impress the beer girl. She would counsel him, “Gee, Senor, the weight of all that gold could affect your swing, I will hold it for you, if you like.” There could be an unexpected bonus in my future, Blu conjured and calculated that Pepto would tee-up on Hole 16 about eight-thirty Wednesday morning. He was excited. It’s always exciting when you don’t know if you’re going to screw up or not.

Blu rigged a piece of hemp line and a scavenged come-along to the rear bumper of the Ford. Three was rigged in the body bag. “Just like David and Goliath, an’ sorta like Robin Hood…” Blu laughed and envisioned Robin Hood running through Nottingham Forest with dead buzzards sticking out of his quiver.

Who would ever know; who would ever figure it out? The perfect crime! “Blu, you good, you just plain good, man,” he mumbled and swatted a skeeter.

“Just bad luck,” some pundits would say. “Maybe it was them thermals,” those without knowledge would quip and not recognize they were accidently right, for once in their life.

At zero-eight-thirty Pepto teed up on Hole 16, just as Blu calculated.

Blu squatted in the bushes and watched.

Pepto stood, legs apart, at least at the ankles, swinging his fat butt back and forth like a three hundred pound Muscovite duck.

“Like that’s gonna save him.” Blu mumbled and cranked back on the giant rubber band. It was now or never, the final countdown. Earlier that morning, Blu packed Three, ass-first, into the body bag and now, at the final moment and full tension, Blu stepped in front of the launch module to re-check Three’s aerodynamics. Blu did not notice a large iguana chewing on the oily, but tasty, hemp restraining cord.

Blu stepped back to admire his work and began to initiate the launch sequence in his mind.

Pepto tee’d up.

The iguana took its final bite.

Blu was airborne. He was out in front with the buzzard an uncomfortably close second. Nose and beak they flew across College Road. Blu tried to outthink the dead buzzard and grabbed Pepto by the alligator emblem on his golf shirt on the way past. They tumbled to the ground. The buzzard sailed harmlessly overhead and embedded, beak first, in a stunted Malayan palm. Pepto rolled over and dug a Whopper-sized divot out of his mouth. Two golfers, waiting for the tee, dialed 911 and ran toward them to help.

“I’ve never seen anything quite like it,” one white-haired duffer said to the newspaper photographer who showed up a few minutes later.

“That guy,” the other duffer pointed at Blu with his putter, “came out of nowhere and saved the gentleman in front of us. Quite remarkable!”

“I not finding my balls,” Pepto said weakly, tripping on the divot left by Blu’s ass.

Blu came out of his velocity-induced haze in time to hear someone say to Scooter O’Neal, the crime scene photographer, “That man’s a hero!” O’Neal pulled Blu’s wallet out and looked at his ID. “This man’s name is Blu Yunger.”

Blu passed out as the flash went off.

“That won’t work, sweetie,” Scooter said to Scoop O’Haskins, the local paramedic and crime reporter. Scoop and Scooter eyeballed the scene. “Needs more light, some sun. Be a bunny and turn him around, twist his head up more,” Scooter ordered. Scoop grabbed Blu’s ankles and spun him around. He cocked Blu’s tousled head and set it on a red ladies’ tee marker made out of a painted coconut. “Needs more character Pooky, more feeel …” Scooter said, checking his own hair in the view finder then focusing the camera on Blu’s inert body. “Oh my, let’s see; let’s put some dirty dirt on that cut near his left eye, smear it…smear it…OH, my! Yes! and push his tongue in, Bunny Butt… that will help balance the shot … just love the red hair, it brings out the blood … yes, oh yes.”

“Just hold your pooter, Scooter!” said Scoop, who worked part time at the Ate-O-One bar. With a certain Irish charm Scoop O’Haskins pulled out his industrial make-up kit and quickly made Blu look good, too good. Blu awoke to see his distorted face in a close-up lens and heard Scooter O’Neal say, “Hold that look! Oh! It’s good, it’s Good, hold, hold, hold…” the flash went off just as Blu coughed up some turf and ruined the shot. “Leave me the fuck alone!”

“Well…” huffed Scooter, “You Big Strapper, you. YOU could have been someone, someone …big, really big.”

“Yeah, someone really big, Mister BLU Yunger,” echoed O’Haskins.

Pepto was both puzzled and concerned by the attention focused on this guy named Blu Yunger. He watched as Three lost rigor and, beak still embedded, folded down alongside the coconut trunk like a piece of wet macramé. “I having deeze feeling too…” he mumbled.

There was something familiar about the guy who saved him, but Pepto couldn’t put his finger on it. Then, in an epiphanic moment, Pepto recognized Yellow. Blu was Yellow. Pepto knew that blue and yellow mixed together made green and that’s what he was truly after, some green! Some big green. He admired Blu’s-Yellow’s style and, as a professional courtesy, refrained from asking why Senor Bagwidth was still alive. It was time to form an alliance. With Blu’s fame, Pepto’s brain, Fakyah’s ass and Bagwater’s … ah … anyway, he could gain control of this dumb little island and make some real green.

Pepto gave Blu a ride home from the golf course and avoided looking at the dimple in the hood. They arrived at Bagwidth’s to find Beth asleep in the kayak. Ferling was on the porch watering his herbs and, after uncomfortable introductions, veiled threats, a pooling of weapons and apologies for previous relationships and misunderstandings, it was decided by Blu, Bagwidth and Pepto that “Team Fakyah” would be formed to run “Miss Fakyah” for Mayor of Key West. Someone should tell her, they all agreed, and waited for her to wake up. She smiled coyly when informed.

Maybe “It” just started, Blu thought the next day when he saw his inked face on the front page of the daily newspaper, the Mullet Wrapper. His eyes looked like Elizabeth Taylor’s and his cheeks looked red even in black and white. The word HERO was smeared across the front page in big black type face. “Local indigent saves fat dude on golf hole.” “Dead buzzard sent to Miami for questioning.” “Meet ‘Buzzard Boy’ at Flaming Maggie’s bookstore this Wednesday.”

They put the plan in motion.

≈≈≈

Determined to win the mayoral election for Fakyah and coasting on his new-found notoriety, Blu took Fakyah to all the self help gatherings and AA meetings in town. Among others, they attended the Adult Children of Old Boozers, Overeaters Synonymous, Free Prostate screenings, the Stop Smoking or I’ll Kick Your Ass martial arts center and support group, the Mean People Against Chickens Society and the Sex, Love and Oyster Eater Addicts Anonymous. There were a lot of groups. In fact, their members made up the city’s largest voting bloc. She also made a clandestine appearance amongst a small group of very nervous people who gathered in an undisclosed location to admit a dirty little secret-they all lived in Key West and, none of them were writing a book! Fakyah thought it was sad.

Blu also took Fakyah up US Highway 1 as far as Big Copout Key. She always drew a crowd and looked good during her appearances. Blu bought her a portable 100 psi air compressor to use on stage and fashioned a custom air -nozzle out of a Budweiser beer can. He covered the can with a coolie cup to prevent injury. Fakyah just loved it. Everywhere she went her breasts bubbered and crowds swarmed chanting, “FAKYAH! FAKYAH! GOOOOO-FAKYAH !”

Fakyah never spoke a word. It was better that way. But she had style and made Bagwidth, Blu and Pepto carry her around the campaign trail in her kayak. The locals loved it. Campaign signs, printed in large blue Lucida Face font on re-cycled condom boxes appeared all around town, “Fakyah-It’s time for a Strange!”

November came quickly. Winter was on the way and the temperature dropped one degree. Fakyah was tied in the polls.

The Mullet Wrapper’s “Condensed Polls” showed –

In favor of Fakyah -1%

Opposed to Fakyah-1%

Undecided-98%

It was going to be close.

Hurricane season was almost over when the first tropical depression was spotted, low crawling across the Atlantic. It slowly gained strength and was named Areola.

≈≈≈

“We’ve got to move forward, we vote on November sixth,” Bagwidth said during their first campaign meeting.

“Where is that?” Fakyah asked.

“What?”

“Forward.”

“You know, forward, like when you say something that sounds good, like…let’s move forward on this issue.”

“I can’t say all that shit.”

“Well you got to if you want to be a politician.”

“Oh fuck. What if I don’t? What kind of party are we anyway?” Fakyah squawked like a parrot.

“There are only two parties I know of,” said Blu, “smokers and non-smokers.” They quickly formed a quorum and fired off a bone.

On November third, tropical storm Areola breasted the Windward Islands and bore down on Key West with a vengeance. She grew larger and formed a perfect pink circle with a dark red eye on the NOAA color radar and, at one point, was classified as a 44 double-D storm. The image was eventually taken off the air by a federally mandated porn filter, but it was too late for some local weathophiles who were subsequently arrested for whacking-off every time the wind exceeded 25 knots, or the wet bulb dip … never mind.

For whatever reason, the Weather Channel saw a sharp uptick in male viewers as Areola approached the Keys. The “Cone of Uncertainty” had puckered to the “Nipple of- Oh, No!” Residents were asked to evacuate the island but only those who couldn’t afford to did. The voting precincts remained open since the people in charge evacuated early and forgot to cancel the election. The polling places were manned by patriotic gays, stalwart defenders of personal freedom and lubricant. They showed up in sunglasses, colorful snorkels, custom thongs and pledged to keep the booths open for the scheduled election. A young Japanese contingent, stranded on the island, promised to stand their ground on “E-rection Day,” as they pronounced it, and readied their handmade bamboo voting booths.

Areola rapidly stiffened and clutched Key West to her bosom on November 6, Election Day.

Fakyah voted for herself, grabbed her kayak and headed for higher ground. Blu stayed, until the polls closed early, after three feet of seawater rushed in and the voting machines started to float and explode. The storm passed quickly.

Only twenty-nine hand written ballots survived the electoral melee. Of those twenty-nine, eighteen were for Fakyah, five for Bum Farto and six for an unknown named Mike Sweeny. Sweeny called for a recount but was ignored. Fakyah was in. Mike Sweeny was out. Blu headed to the gala victory celebration to be held on high ground near Dog Beach. When he arrived, the beach was underwater and only a few people showed up. Unfortunately they were floaters, not voters. Fakyah was not among them.

Fakyah was gone when Blu returned to Dung Beetle Lane later that night. Her kayak was still in place, three packets of blonde hair dye laid open in the bottom. She’d left a hastily scribbled note, written in lipstick on a used Taco Bell wrapper.

“Pepto got me, I gotta eat!!! Fakyah

P.S. My real name is Beth. Really.”

The following day, the Supervisor of Elections, in an attempt to explain the low voter turnout reported, “The stray 220 Volt Alternating Current combined with floating voting booths and smelly debris may have influenced some of the electorate.” Both political parties immediately blamed the other.

The old conch house seemed unusually quiet to Blu, especially after saying Beth too many times, twenty-seven times actually. Blu wondered again about his strange ways. He said Beth slowly, seven more times. He still didn’t know why. “That’s thirty-four times I’ve said Beth. She told me her name was Fakyah?”

Blu mumbled to himself and walked into the kitchen. He rummaged through the cheese drawer in hopes of a sign. What does “Pepto got me,” mean? He was pissed at Fakyah for leaving and not telling him her name was Beth but he didn’t blame her. “That’s the kind of life we live,” he muttered. Still, she was the first woman he’d almost ever loved.

Folded neatly under the sharp, molting cheddar, he was shocked to discovered a note from his uncle.

“Deer Bl, Blu, I am gone too DC an over to the Pentagram they’s interested in “Looner-Too.” If I git rich I’ll let ya know. Ferling- soon to be rich … rich as a bitch-Bagwidth.”

Blu glanced around the old house, looked at Fakyah’s note and packed his things. He was upset and slammed the front door to punctuate his mood. He forgot there was no door and tumbled back into the house. With a deep sigh and a shake of his head, Blu dusted himself and caught a bus for Miami. Screw’em, he thought. He would return to the old ways. “I’m sick of everybody, ‘cept me.” Blu mumbled.

Ready for more?

Click here to get your own copy of Screwed, Blu’d and Tattooed [and other stories] by Reef Perkins…

About the Author

Captain Mark T. “Reef” Perkins is a marine surveyor with a colorful past. From commanding a 150-foot 300 DWT US Army diving ship off Vietnam to smuggling in the Caribbean, Reef Perkins has become a living legend. A graduate of both the US Army Engineer Officer Candidate School and the US Navy Salvage Officers School, he’s a man comfortable in or out of the water. Raised in rural Michigan, Reef now lives in Key West where he can get his feet wet. He is the author of the bestselling memoir, Sex, Salvage & Secrets.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ABSOLUTELY AMAZING eBOOKS

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Screwed, Blu’d and Tattooed copyright © 2013 by Reef Perkins. Electronic compilation/ print edition copyright © 2013 by Whiz Bang LLC.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. While the author has made every effort to provide accurate information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their contents.

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