Selling it (Continued)

"Um... Joe."

"Okay, Umjoe-'

'Uh, Juh..Joe.'

Okay, Jill. I'm not gonna lie to you. You do know that my merchandise is highly illegal and any sort of run in with Police,' I said the word, spitting the Po with a capital spit,' will result in you getting an automatic date with Big Shiny Jim back in the ol' downtown slammer. And I most definitely am not talking about the 'holding-hands-movie-dinner-first base-second base-third base-i think-we-have-a-connection' type of date, if you know what I mean.'

I take a sip of my coffee and stare at his face. I can see he was contemplating the situation. He stared at the table and chewed on his lip.

'Why's he called Big Shiny Jim?'

'He's a pole shiner.'

'His job is a pole shiner?'

'Not if the pole is his and the thing that makes it shine is some poor bastards butthole.'

'Oh.'

'These thing's make you do crazy things, man. I'm not kidding you. You ever heard the story of The Flying Dutchman?'

'Isn't that the Pirate movie w-'

'No its not some fucked up Pirate movie, son! I'm talking about the legend of The Flying Dutchman!' He gave an extremely confused stare. I sighed.

'Okay, so I guess you were busy playing World of Warcrap or whatever. The Flying Dutchman is, was, this guy who got so fucked up, so high, he stole a vehicle, gave the Police the most fucked up chase the state, no, the world has ever known.'

'So why's he called the Flying Dutchman?'

'Well, firstly, he's British. Secondly, well... lets just say the car chase between him and Five-Oh didn't exactly end the way the coppers wanted it to end. The devastation the guy caused was real epic and the way the cops handled the chase wasn't really the best in the world either. 4 of their cars got totalled. Public property was fucked up so bad, the mayor actually cried. Nobody got hurt though.'

'What? But you said that-'

'I know what I said, monkeyboy! Yes, the whole place was smashed up. Only because the bastard somehow got his hands on a fuckin' TANK! I'm not kidding, an actual World War fuck knows, tank! Turns out, the Flying Dutchman was a janitor at some army base that held a few of those machines for some parade. Anyways, God knows how or why he snapped, but all the cops know is, somehow he managed to steal the keys to one of the tanks in there. Here's the funny part. Somehow in his state of near euphoric highness, he'd gone an' managed to actually start the engine, learn to steer and drive the fucking thing!'

I paused, took a sip of my now cold coffee.

'Shi..it...'

'Shit indeed, sonny jim. Shit indeed. He crashed through the wall, ran over the gate and just started plowing ahead towards the city. Now the cops, dumb as you might expect, were kinda confused as to how they'd handle the situation. Long story short, like I said, after plowing through 4 police cruisers, hydrants, bus stops, lawns, 5 shops and other shit, the police managed to stop him by... well... not doing anything much.

'How..?'

'He drove off a bridge and into the river. Now you might think a tank is all muscle with no speed but you're wrong. It's quite fast. So the Flying Dutchman thought that, hey, he's got some speed. Why not try and jump the bridge. Incidentally, the cops'd radioed the bridge keeper so he had to raise bridge to stop the tank from crossing on to the other side. Anyways, dude thinks he's Peter Pan or something and steps on the gas full steam ahead. The tank climbs up the first half of the bridge at whatever breakneck speed, leaps over and hangs up in the air for a microsecond, and totally misses the touchdown on the other half. Poor bastard fell about a hundred feet into the drink.'

'Waitaminit... you said nobody got hurt?'

'He didn't! An hour later, police found him on the shore, laughing his ass off. He'd gone crazy as a batter. Or hatter. Whatever. The long arm of law charged him with driving a tank recklessly without a license and causing widespread damage and finally, locked him up in the crazy house. Open shut case.'

Joe sighed, looked at me in an indifferent look and said, 'Look, thats a crazy story an' all, but I don't want any trouble, alright? Just sell me some and I'll be on my way.'

The waitress, who was walking past our table saw my cup was empty and went on over to fill my cup.

'More coffee-' she said, 'Officer...?' Ah, my cover as drug dealer has been blown by a lady carrying a pot of coffee. I smile inwardly. I don't really care.

'Thanks, but no thanks, Ma'am. Maybe some for my young friend here. He looks a bit pale.'

Kids these days, I thought to myself. Personally, I blame Ashton Kutcher. That fuck.