Walt vs the Space Flunkies
Glen Solosky
Copyright 2013 Glen Solosky
If you’d like to read more works by Glen Solosky including his debut novel, The Abominable Sruvius, visit https://www.sruvius.com
Copyright ©2013 by Glen Solosky
All Rights Reserved.
No Part of this publication may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.
Hi, I’m Glen Solosky.
Thank you for buying one of my books! I hope you enjoy it.
I’d love to hear from you! Please drop me a line at
[email protected] Tell me what you like about the book, what you don’t like, anything at all. I personally respond to all my emails.
Dear Whoever You Is:
I am sending this story to your self-publishing company on account the other publishers I sent it to wrote back saying not to write to them no more. One even threttened me with legal actshun.
The following story is entirely true exept for the parts I made up. If anybody what reads it desides to make a movie out of it, I would be happy to play the part of me becuz there is a strong resembalance. I never did no acting before, but you will find that even tho I don’t know nothing, I am quick to learn.
Sincerely,
Walt Pennewag
Walt vs the Space Flunkies
(as told by Walt hisself)
It was a Saturday nite, and me, Ledo and Arlin had a friendly card game going at my place. Naturally, I was winning.
All a sudden, Ledo jumped up and yelled, “Fat Wote, yo is a cheatin skonk!” Like usual, he had a cigrette hanging out his mouth. His long, greasy yellow hair was hanging down in his eyes, which is probly why they is always squinty. I was trying to ignore him so’s not to aggervate the sitchuation, but it was getting hard to do becuz of the way he was carrying on like a baby and sticking his skinny finger in my face. Ledo is the most fightiest, beligerint person I know. And he aint too bright, neither.
“Oh, here we go,” I said, “Ever time we play cards, you get all mad just becuz I’ze winning a little. Jeez, Ledo, I can’t help it I’ze a better card player than you is.”
“Yo is cheatin!” He was sticking out his jaw (what’s a couple sizes too big for the rest of his skinny head), and the way he was yelling and carrying on, I was thinking his head was gonna explode. He turned to Arlin. “Ahlin, whatchoo tink? Aint he cheatin?”
“Well, I aint seen him do it, but I gotta say he been winning all nite,” Arlin said in that annoying voice of his, real soft and slow, like he’s talking at a funeral or something. “Fellers, why don’t we just take a break for a little bit?” Then he started dishing stew outa a huge five-gallon tin pot. “Care fer some groundhog stew, Ledo? Might calm yer nerves.”
“Aint hungry,” Ledo said, never taking his squinty eyes off me. “Sumpthin done turned my stomach.”
“Me neither,” I said, staring right back. “Might as well put the lid back on the pot, Arlin.”
Our eyeballs was locked in a standoff. Arlin looked at us for a while, like he was expecting one of us to give in. Finally he gave up and said, “Well, if you fellers don’t mind, I think I’ll have one more bowl.”
Ledo’s eyes got even squintier. I was about to pop him in the nose, when all a sudden there was a loud noise behind me. The door came bashing in and I jumped outa the way just in time so it didn’t hit me. I turned around and there in the doorway was sheriff Haas and his dimwit deputy.
I was pipin’ mad. “You trying to give me heart failure?” He didn’t say nothing, he just walked in like he owns the place. It’s hard to tell what he’s looking at becuz he’s always wearing them dark sunglasses, even at nite. “Why you bustin my door in? I didn’t get around to fixing it since the last time you done that.”
He walked up to the table and grabbed a fistful of money. “What do we have here, Fat Walt? Illegal gambling? I doubt that would sit well with your parole officer.” Haas tucked his rifle under his arm. He ruffled the money, and I noticed my weffare check was in the pile. I could tell he was smiling cuz that black catapiller he calls a mustash was turned up at the corners. He said, “Looks like I’m just gonna hafta hold this as evidence.”
“Aw, c’mon, Sheriff,” I said, “at least lemme keep my weffare check.”
“Should’ve thought of that before you laid it on the table.”
That’s when I noticed his watch.
Lemme tell you something about the sheriff’s watch. Everbody in the county heard the story behind it. I don’t know the exact details, but it goes something like this:
A few years ago, a gambler from Memphis came driving thru the county. I guess he was taking a shortcut or something. He was all decked out in gold rings, spensive watch, and a fancy car, which he happened to drive thru Haas’s speed trap. Next thing he knows he’s headed back the way he came but without the ten-thousand dollar gold watch.
So I pointed at the watch and said, “Yeah, you gonna hold the money just like you done held that Memphis boy’s watch.”
The sheriff just stared at me thru them sunglasses, and real slow, he said, “You watch your mouth, boy.”
I was about to pop him in the nose when I noticed a green light coming thru the window. It got bright real fast. Me and the sheriff turned just in time to see a blinding streak come falling out of the sky and disapear below the trees behind my trailer. Thru the trees I saw a bright flash of light, and I heard a thud. Then the green streak faded away.
The dimwit deputy stared for a while with his mouth hanging open, then he said, “What was that, Sheriff?”
“Don’t know. Looks like it fell back by the old quarry.”
“Think we should call it in?”
The sheriff looked at the trees, thinking. “Maybe so. Could start a fire.”
So while the deputy was messing with his radio, Ledo whispered to me, “Hey, Fat Wote, that were what yo call a meeti-ore.”
“Yeah? Wassat?”
“Some kinda rock what falls from outa space. Fella in Pugston county found one on his farm. Sole it to some city fella what give ’im fo’ hunnit dollahs!”
“Huh? Really?”
Arlin said, “They is rare to find, Walt.”
I kinda think the sheriff was lissning in, becuz he turned to the deputy and said, “On second thought, forget about that call. It’s pretty wet down in that quarry. No sense troubling the fire crews when we could probably handle this ourselves. At least let’s have a look. Fat Walt, you got any shovels?”
The quarry’s about a half mile behind my trailer. It been about fifty years or so since they worked it—limestone, I think it was. Anyway, there aint no roads back there no more, just an old hunting trail. The sheriff grabbed a couple flashlights outa his car, I got my shovels, and we set off thru the woods.
Them woods is really dark at nite, and the sheriff was walking ahead of me with the flashlight, so I couldn’t hardly see nothing. Ever time I tripped over a rock, Ledo would laff at me, “Haw! Lookit Fat Wote!” I was trying to keep my eyes on the path best I could so’s not to trip, and my head hit something soft. Next thing I knew there was buzzing all around. It was a hornet nest. They were stinging me everwhere and I lit outa there so fast I tripped right onto a skonk!
Stupid Ledo again: “Lookit Fat Wote! Haw haw!”
The sheriff shined his light on me. “Quit playing around, Walt. You’re hindering this investigation.”
I was about to hinder his investigation right in the nose when we came to the edge of the quarry. The moonlight was a lot brighter now that we was outta them woods.
“Waste o’ ti
me,” said Ledo. “Aint nothin’ down there.”
Sheriff Haas said, “It’s hard to tell; the fog’s too thick. Even so, I can see some kinda light at the bottom. Could be a fire.”
“Aint no fire. It’s green. You ever seen green fire? That must be swamp gas.”
“Just the same, we better check it out.”
I said, “There aint no way I’m going down into that quarry with my bad back. The sides is too steep.”
But the sheriff can be very convincing, ’specially when he got a gun.
I aint a good climer, and I’ll admit I put on a few pounds, but I climed down anyhow. Stupid Ledo don’t make things no better by laffing all the time. It took a while for me to get to the bottom while everbody else was waiting. I fell the last few feet and landed right in the mud. It’s swampy down there, and the muck stinks like rotten eggs.
Ledo said, “Hey, Fat Wote, you is all covered wit’ gunk! Watchoo tryin’ to do, smell better? Haw!”
I stood up and looked around, and I gotta say, the sheriff had a point; even thru the fog, I could see there was some kinda green light down there, off in the distance. We headed toward it, sloshing thru the muck. The skeeters was driving me nuts.
As we got closer to the light, I started to see something that didn’t make no sense. You ever see a pot-belly stove? It was kinda shaped like that, but bigger than a house. It was all rusty and covered with soot, and there were big ol’ I-beams and pipes and all kinda rusty