Thompson’s Theories of Diet and Health

[Thompson]

If i could get in touch with Badfellow I’d ask him for a ride


Where?

Down the road.

[Thompson]

Badfellow pulled up to Hugh’s Diner on Airline Highway. The sun was just coming up. Badfellow still could tell the difference between night and day. He smiled to himself, stuck his sunglasses on his face, and cranked the Harley up a couple of times before parking it in his usual spot. Fuck, he was hungry. He was thinking about getting the home made fried potatoes And the grits to go with the breakfast steak and eggs. You can’t get Texas toast at Hugh’s so you have to get regular toast, he remembered. Thompson looked so frail and pathetic that Badfellow knew he had to take over the leader role in the upcoming heist. He had worked with Thompson twice before on elaborate and successful robberies, and was proud of the way the Gang pulled them off, stuck together, and didn’t crybaby. He stuck a quarter in the jukebox and played that ZZ Top song about the invisible Seven Eleven and thought about his wasted fifty bucks at the eyeglass place. Hugh came out of the kitchen and told him The Gang is hanging out at the bowling alley today, Monday being their off day.

Thanks, said Badfellow.

[Thompson]

Badfellow made it to the Bowling Alley without going into a skid. There were some close calls. Moseley was behind the counter when he walked in.

I need a Charleston Chew, said Badfellow. I almost went into a skid because I can’t see worth a shit. It took fifteen minutes to locate a song on the jukebox at Hugh’s.

Good to see ya, Bad. You look healthy enough. The Gang is over on lanes 3 and 4. See ‘em? Thompson isn’t bowling because nobody picked him for the tournament.

Christ, is he still pissing in those plastic piss containers?

Yeah, but used to be he would get piss all over the place but he seems to have gotten the hang of it now. Everybody in the alley just sort of ignores it when he pisses in his plastic container.

Mose, you know the Gang is fixing to pull off a heist.

Yeah, I figured that.

We are going to need a place to hideout.

In back of the bowling machines would be good, Bad, said Mose. Nobody looks back there. Plus I could call one of you on the intercom system to handle the bowling balls that get stuck or to reset pins.

[oettinger]

In back of the bowling machines would be good

Careful there, I`m hiding my secret stash of rare half empty vodka bottles in there. Find another place

[Thompson]

Well there is the back room behind the bowling lanes that leads out to another back room, and then opens into the dark alley where the trash cans are. But somebody has to be near the intercom system if Mose should call.

[Thompson]

Hugh told his sous chef Monica to whip up twelve steak breakfasts and deliver them to Moseley at the Bowling Alley. Just do scrambled eggs, he said, but make the home style potatoes And the grits. Make sure to butter the toast, Hugh said, The Gang is hiding out behind the bowling machines and they haven’t had their breakfast.

I thought we didn’t do take out or delivery, Monica said.

We don’t, said Hugh.

Old Mose is going to pay? I think we should add a tip and delivery fee.

Good idea. Do we have any plastic forks and knives?

No. We’ve got some plastic spoons.

Okay, they can eat the steak with their hands. You read about that jewelry store robbery, huh? The Gang is just getting started. No tellin’, they might even rob this place.

Can I use your car, Hugh? Mine has a low tire.

Okay. Can you drive a stick shift?

I think so.

[oettinger]

I`m european, I`ve never driven an automatic. I wouldn`t even know how to. Is that some of this Musk shit?

[Thompson]

Moseley looked out the window and saw Hugh’s stick shift car jerk to a stop in front of the tow away zone. Hugh did a poetry reading last year at The Alley that really hit home. Mose was not a fan of poetry, or books in general, but he took a shine to this Hugh fellow. It wasn’t Hugh though, it was his sous chef AD who came in carrying twelve steak breakfasts and looking pissed off.

Hey AD, said Mose.

Hey. You owe me for these breakfasts and we’ve added on a tip and delivery fee. The delivery fee should have been doubled because I can’t drive that stick shift car of Hugh’s worth a shit and almost crashed three different times.

Let me buy you a Charleston Chew, said Mose. (Mose, even though he was ancient and hadn’t gotten it up since God knows when, got a tiny tingle down there whenever he saw AD) A Charleston Chew will calm you down. Badfellow eats Charleston Chews. He is in charge of the Gang for this go around. I like your new hairdo.

Do you have a frozen Charleston Chew? I like them frozen. I don’t have a new hairdo, I just quit brushing it. I quit brushing my teeth too. I’ve joined the anti brush movement. It’s sort of like the ‘burn your bra’ movement but we burn brushes. The Gang back there?

Yeah, that was nice of you to deliver the breakfasts. Can I get you a pair of bowling shoes?

No, I have to get back to the Diner. This breakfast here is for Thompson. It’s got two steaks and four toasts. He’s so frail and pathetic looking I added those for good measure.

Okay AD, I’ll see that he gets it.

[Thompson]

Mose took the breakfasts behind the bowling lanes to the Gang. Thompson was still asleep, or maybe just in a coma. One of his eyes was covered by an eyelid and the other one was bugged out. Mose kicked Thompson in the belly twice (hard) to make him snap out of it.

Here’s your breakfast Thompson, said Mose.

Thanks. What about the rest of the Gang?

I’ve got it covered, said Mose. AD delivered twelve breakfasts from Hugh’s Diner on Airline Highway. The steak you have to eat with your hands, but you get a plastic spoon to eat the eggs, potatoes and grits. The toast you can eat with your hands too.

Okay, I drew intercom duty, said Thompson. The rest of the Gang is in the back room. How about getting us some beer? I’m thirsty as all get out. And some bottles of hard too.

You doing another heist today, asked Mose?

I think so, said Thompson, but I’m not sure. Sometimes we will do a fake heist to confuse the law. Shit! This is a damn swell breakfast.

AD delivered them in Hugh’s stick shift car.

You got a breakfast, Mose?

No, but I had my usual bowl of chili and hot dog for breakfast so not to worry. Did you have many calls on the intercom system last night?

No, not too many. Lane 5 keeps getting balls stuck. I can’t seem to figure out why. There was a gal bowler on lane 7 who almost rolled a 300. She choked in the last frame.

Okay then, let me get these breakfasts delivered.

Thanks again, Mose, said Thompson.

[Thompson]

It was a fake heist. Alibis could be set up that way, and Badfellow didn’t want the trouble of going to Walmart and buying 12 pairs of sunglasses. The Eskimo girls might could go. They had become rather fashion conscious after Oettinger had sewed the stripper outfits, and their bodies had become hard toned by the bowling. Maybe some hats would be good. Cowboy hats? Bad would let the Girls decide. And different colored socks would throw the coppers off. Usually a gang will wear the same colored socks. Thompson always wore socks that didn’t match and that gave Bad the idea of socks. Also, while the Girls were shopping at Walmart they could pick up twelve squirt guns and plastic holsters. And bandannas . Bad instructed the Girls to only get 100% cotton bandannas, in 12 different colors if possible. Otherwise as many different colors as they could find.

We will meet back at the Alley at high noon, said Badfellow. We’ll pull off the fake heist tonight and the real one tomorrow morning, after breakfast.

[Thompson]

Thompson didn’t go with the Gang to the fake heist, he stayed home behind the bowling machines and answered the intercom calls. That damn lane 5 kept getting balls stuck. He thought maybe he should retire, that he wasn’t what he once was, that he’d lost his sprezzatura. He noticed that time slipped by on him. First is was nine o’clock, then it was eleven-forty five o’clock. He would watch a Perry Mason show on tv and even though he’d seen the episode before, he couldn’t follow the plot, couldn’t tell one character from the next, especially the women characters, they all looked the same. He was smoking a lot of cigarettes. Drinking a lot of beer. Had to carry around his plastic piss bucket wherever he went.

He called Mose on the intercom system. He said, Mose I think I’m going to retire.

Mose said, No Thompson, the bowling match isn’t over. There’s a whole ‘nother round to roll. I’ll toss you a Charleston Chew. A frozen one. Hang in there son.

[Thompson]

There were to be three simultaneous heists, all pulled off at the same time. The two pawn shops and the Penny Arcade. It was lucky that the pawn shops were only two blocks apart because Badfellow could use Thompson as a diversion sitting on the middle curb blowing his harmonica and looking pathetic. Brother Can You Spare a Dime, he would play on the harmonica. All the loose hound dogs would come sniffing around him with their ears up and their tails a waggin’.

Oettinger would be in charge of the Penny Arcade. Besides Big Nate, he had the biggest muscles. It was going to be a coin heist at the Arcade, and the amount of coins was nothing to sneeze at. But they were heavy heisting.

Badfellow would come into the first pawn shop and aim his squirt gun at the pawn broker and say, Get down on the floor. At the same time Nausea would go into the second pawn shop, take aim, and say, Get down on the floor.

Then the Eskimo girls would enter. Oh, it was something to see when they made an entrance. They didn’t have squirt guns, they had big motherfucking assault rifles they carried on their shoulders. They all had different colored socks on and wore cowboy hats, with those strings
that tie under the neck so they won’t fall off.

[Thompson]

The First National Bank and Trust over on State Street was not going to be a piece of cake. Bad would need all twelve of the Gang for this caper and he had worked out a timetable with diagrams and each member’s role mapped out. He handed everybody their role, along with a Charleston Chew, and a bandanna. If all went well the Gang would split up and head for separate hills. Except for Thompson who had to sit by the intercom system behind the bowling lanes. He gave his Charleston Chew to Mose because he was sick of Charleston Chews . He could feel his teeth getting fucked up, and that’s all he needed on top of his other health issues. His role in the bank heist was key though. He would be the first member to enter the bank, walking with his cane like he always does, and make out a deposit slip at the table that has all the slips. His handwriting was so unreadable that he would cause a snag in the teller line. Then, when he had to do another deposit slip he would pretend to drop his cane and fall down. He looked so pathetic that the security guard would come over to try and help him get back up. That was the cue. All the customers and bank employees were watching and thinking, ‘Good Lord, please don’t let me wind up like that guy.’

And then the rest of the Gang would spring into action.

[Thompson]

It all went as planned. Badfellow did a great job. The police never did come to the Alley to question Thompson. They did come to bowl a few rounds. Thompson would take the Airline Highway bus as the sun came up over to Hugh’s Diner and play the jukebox. He was hooked on the steak breakfast and had to admit to himself that he liked the way Monica moved. Sort of mesmerized him. She came to work at 6, and Thompson would get there about 5:45 to watch her saunter and strut into the kitchen and toss her backpack behind the counter. Cigarette dangling. Smoking was allowed in the kitchen but not the dining room. Hugh would come out and mumble a few words while bussing the tables. It was a very homey atmosphere. Then Thompson would take the bus back to the Alley and go sit behind the machines. He bought a portable tv with his share of the heists and tuned in to Perry Mason, which ran ‘till noon. Moseley would call him on the intercom to see how he was doing, and shoot the shit for ten minutes or so.

[Thompson]

He emptied his plastic piss bucket down the sewer in the back alley. It always smelled sorta like hard boiled eggs. He kept tall sixes of Budweiser that he would constantly be swallowing to wash down his nips of vodka. Budweiser had hands down the most carbonation of any beer, domestic or imported. He was used to drinking it room temperature but it was better cold. He would sneak out of the back room in the middle of the night and fill his six pack styrofoam cooler with ice from behind the bar so his morning beers would be cold. The carbonation is what pushes the alcohol to the blood stream, which is where you want it. He also kept some food in the back room. A few tins of sardines and Saltine crackers, just in case there was a good late movie on the tv. The grey alley cat, the one he often saw when he went back there to empty his bucket, was missing an ear and most of her tail. Thompson wondered if she would like a tin of sardines, so he invited her inside to watch Perry Mason with him. He opened a tin, and put it on the floor. He didn’t have a plate. To his surprise she walked in, sniffed the sardines, made some kind of cat noise, and got her whiskers dipped in olive oil as she dug in. He left her alone and got another ball unstuck from lane 5. When he returned she was watching Perry Mason, and licking the sardine juice off her face. He opened his beer cooler and tilted it down so she could drink melted ice if she wanted. Matilda seemed a good name. He would call her Matilda.