THE COLONEL OF COLORADO

A Short Story

Of all the cities, towns, and boroughs in the state of Colorado for a colonel to see his lifelong dream come true, where better than Denver?

“Gonna kick me some butt in Denver,” the Colonel said, kicking rocks along sun-drenched Colfax Avenue. Tightening the belt holding up his well-worn pair of army-fatigue pants, he recalled the advice given to him a year earlier by some tattooed guy in Greeley along the lines of, “Denver’s a real-life metropolis, Mr. Colonel, sir. Plenty of competition, which I know is what you’re lookin’ for. You’ll win big in Denver, ever your quest to become the Colonel of Colorado leads you down that ways.”

Strolling along the weed-infested sidewalk, his smile fading, his face reddening, the Colonel mused, “That stupid-grinnin’ weirdo with all the tats had sounded like an honest-to-goodness travel agent when he’d said all that crap ‘bout this place. Ended up havin’ to eliminate that dirt-bag. That shut him up!”

The Colonel felt grim satisfaction worm its way through his veins. His memories, like a heart, muscled the surge.

He was finally in the Mile High City, his knapsack on his back and trekking along a busy sidewalk to meet his next elimination, the man they called “Roscoe.”

The Colonel halted at the crosswalk. His head spun. His vision blurred. He looked up, and around, he squinted the afternoon sun out of his eyes. He recalled those doctors who had advised him that to see the world in this way was a symptom of PTSD; however, he saw it as a tactical advantage that helped him with his gaming, kept him sharp and on task…

He saw a field of battle, on which the chess pieces were arrayed in combat position with wave upon wave of business-attired pedestrians marching to the battlefront, some communicating into handheld devices that looked to be smartphones, but which the man in the army fatigues knew were walkie-talkies. These pedestrian foot-soldiers stood in conflict with an adversary spearheaded by a modern-day cavalry: legions of counter-advancing, fast-peddling cyclists, many wearing fanny packs around their waists and that the man in the army fatigues knew zippered over grenades and extra ammo. He noticed, too, the columns of armored vehicles—the SUVs, minivans and 18-wheelers—that motored along Colfax Avenue, and although he couldn’t say with certainty to which side these vehicles belonged, if he had to guess he would have said these were Vietcong owned and operated, judging by the Russian inscriptions on the vehicles’ flanks. They were probably Soviet T-54s.

The art of war was like the game of life, the Colonel conceded, as he breathed deep the roadside fumes. One could expect it to be neither puzzle-perfect nor altogether poetic. Still, it all seemed so chaotic, so helter-skelter, to him, as he beheld this metropolitan mayhem played out before him, his brain registering every high-heeled footfall, every business suit, every Denver Bronco cap, every…burst of machine-gun fire, every explosion, every shrapnel-torn body, and the many bloodied dead. “What the warring factions of Denver need…” the Colonel leveled his brow “…is a leader, a colonel, to help make the game simpler.”

Simpler: like lining up peasant villagers then watchin’ ‘em fall. The Colonel stretched a grin. “Simple is as simple does,” he spat. He laughed out loud.

Resuming his prowl along Colfax Avenue, every step delivering him closer to his next elimination, he noticed the “24 Hour Liquor Mart” sign splashed over one of the storefronts across the street. “Where I’ll stop over after the deed is done,” the Colonel mumbled.

The Colonel felt well indeed. Truth be told, today was the day he planned to adopt—assuming he played his pieces right—the awe-inspiring title of The Colonel of Colorado, to add to his collection of other, lesser titles: Colonel of Breckinridge, Colonel of Estes Park, Colonel of Trinidad, and Colonel of a hundred-and-one other Colorado locales.

Those words that so often he had read, in their umpteenth variation, appeared, finally, paint-brushed onto the lone window of the two-story brick eyesore situated dead ahead.

“Day Labor: Workers Needed,” the sign read.

His adrenaline surging, the Colonel hastened his pace. He crossed Colfax Avenue, ignoring, as he clapped boot-heels against pavement, the honking horns, squealing brakes, and drivers of Lexuses hollering at him to watch his “raggedy-ass step!” The Colonel had neither time nor inclination for begging anyone’s pardon. He pressed on, conquering curb to reclaim the sidewalk. Soon he was standing in front of the unadorned brick building of his dreams. Reaching for the doorknob, discovering its screws to be loose, and liking it, he broke into that trademark chant that was his fight song:

“Colonel, Colonel, bo-burnal, banana-fana, fo-furnal, fee-fi-fo furnal…Colonel!”

Reaffirming that his knapsack was still hung off his shoulder with a quick tug of its strap, he pushed open the front door then walked inside.

Nice, the Colonel thought, as he scoured a look around. Spartan, sure, and smells like fat-man armpit, but aren’t all day-labor agencies pretty much hellholes in need of a wrecking ball? At least the walls had paint on them to cover over the black mold stains. He coursed a path across the dusty cement floor then stepped to the reception counter.

The dispatcher on the other side of the sliding-glass window appeared too absorbed in George Clooney to notice. Finally, she pressed a button on her remote control and the screen went soundless. “Want on the list?” she asked through the glass.

“Name’s Lou. Tenant,” the man in the army-fatigued-pants said. “‘Course I wants on the list. What’d’ya think I come here for, the damned scenery!”

A hobo, standing off to the side, cleared his chest of some of its phlegm. “Yous, uh, a lieutenant, Mister?”

The Colonel’s lip twitched. “I am,” he said, not venturing to look over lest he be belted by Bacardi breath. “You and your friends though’ll be wantin’ to call me Colonel.” His eyes grew large. “That’s not a suggestion, soldier. That’s an order!”

The hobo turned all sunshine as the light of understanding hit him. He stepped backward in fear, in deference, in wonder, to give the Colonel the wide berth the Colonel deserved.

The dispatcher droned, “You’re gonna have to fill out an application, then, Mr. Tenant, seein’ how you’re new here.” She passed over pen and paper.

The Colonel accepted the standard-issue items. He proceeded to fill out the application. Day labor agencies, he reminded himself as he scrawled profanities and random, bastardized philosophical and religious maxims in the entries on the form, almost never checked work references. They were ex-con friendly. Above all, they hardly raised an eyebrow, let alone a ruckus, at certain clients who had once shot, in cold blood, countless hundreds of innocent people.

The dispatcher noticed that Mr. Tenant’s ID was as fake as a peel-on tattoo. She didn’t care. “We offer bag lunches,” she said, “to those lucky enough to get out on a ticket.”

The Colonel had come for one reason and one reason only, and it wasn’t to work. “Ham?” he asked, merely for conversation’s sake.

“Nah,” the dispatcher answered, taking a drag from her cigarette. “Just the usual bologna.”

The Colonel handed over the completed application. As soon as the dispatcher reached for it, he snatched it back. He fixed his gaze upon the dispatcher. His eyeballs swam in their sockets; his eyelids blinked frenetically. His eyes went into a full stare mode.

The dispatcher drew back, her own eyes widening. Her cheek twitched, as the Colonel hardened his googly-eyed stare. He reminded himself that twitchy cheeks were muscle spasms triggered by stress hormones, which was to suggest that this ol’ gal was prolly stressing out, which was to suggest she would give him the information he needed.

The dispatcher said, a bit breathlessly, “Are you gonna keep starin’ at me all crazy like that or are you gonna give me your application?”

Her voice is still working, though, the Colonel thought, and with no tonal aberration. Her focus is on the application, not on her fear of the psycho stare. That means she’s in control. It means she’s friggin’ task oriented, and so probably won’t break the rules about client confidentiality by giving me my intel as a way to get me to leave. Damn!

The Colonel looked down at her keyboard. He smiled. Anyway, her finger’s missing its ring but still has the imprint of a ring on it, and a girly with a lonely heart is a girly open to adventure, and who might be impressed upon. He flitted a look at the TV screen. Also, she’s watching Georgy Clooney, which likely is putting her neurotransmitters into an excitable and highly suggestible state.

The Colonel returned his face to its everyday pose, his eyeballs relaxed. He shifted from one foot to the other. “I’m lookin’ for someone,” he said, in his best attempt at sounding pedestrian. “My next challenger, if you know what I mean.” The Colonel winked. “His name is Roscoe. You think Roscoe might show up today? Interested parties wanna know, please.”

The dispatcher hesitated. From personal experience, she knew it was best not to divulge information about clients, and especially when the interested party looked as Frankenstein as this one did. “Roscoe? What—you a friend of his or something? You don’t look like no friend of Roscoe’s. You don’t look like no friend of nobody’s!”

The man in the army fatigues stood his ground.

The dispatcher looked him up and down. Finally, she smiled. “You’re probably as batty as my cat, Loki, when he hops in the back seat of my Chevy, but at least you know how to say please and got arms that look like they can work hard labor, which can’t be said for most of the guttersnipes in this joint.” She sighed. “Roscoe, sure—he usually stops by for his paycheck at four. Pull up a chair, why don’t you, and pop a squat in our roach-free waiting area. Can’t promise you’ll get out on a ticket, though.” The dispatcher, seizing the remote, returned to her movie.

The Colonel clicked his heels and did an about-face. With amusement, he scanned the day hall area. All the while his thoughts kept tab: this is confirmation. My sources, then, had been correct. Four o’clock…he gets here. That’s when it all goes down.

Here. Regiment Headquarters…or what the locals and lower rank-and-file referred to as “Hideaway Hall,” so called for its strategic location nestled deep inside the Da Lat highlands, well out of reach of Soviet sighter-scopes and wholly secure from Vietcong raids.

The chairs, the Colonel noticed, as he continued to scan the premises, were aligned in neat, straight rows. They appeared to be of cheap polyethylene construction, hardly befitting the well-toned posterior of a Colonel. Yet, since sitting down was how the fated deed was to be done, the Colonel supposed he should try and find one. There, third-row-from-the-back, not two paces away from that MP with the M16 slung over his shoulder, standing guard in front of General Waukenhoff’s office.

The Colonel walked over and sat down. He unslung his knapsack, lowering it down onto the cement floor. A plume of dust kicked up in protest.

“Patience,” he reassured the knapsack, petting it. “Just ten minutes to go then you can come out and play!”

His bloodshot eyes resuming their scan, he noticed the individual seated to his left was a gangly, weather-beaten, scarecrow of a man who looked to be all sticks and wire beneath his holey tee-shirt. His callused fingers kept so true to their task of folding homemade cigarettes the man failed to notice his new neighbor and the snide looks he kept stealing over. Cigarettes, although desirable otherwise, did not interest the Colonel at this particular moment in time which was seven minutes ‘til impact.

He turned to survey the three-dozen-or-so worthless artifacts who filled the day hall with their stink, smoke, and small-minded chatter, and who would soon bear witness to the fated elimination of the Colonel’s next victim.

The Colonel quavered. But where to after that? East coast? West Coast? California, maybe? Worry ‘bout that afterward, he assured himself.

The Colonel continued to survey: the usual entourage of bums, prostitutes, drug addicts, vagabonds, and gangsters, he noted. None too bright looking. Good-sized crowd though, he had to admit. The Colonel was quick to remind himself that he was the away team.

“Cigarette?” the individual to the Colonel’s left blurted, offering one of his fold-jobs.

The Colonel denounced Scarecrow and his filthy-fingered offering with muttered profanity. This was business, not a social call.

Scarecrow was deaf in one ear and mistook the profanities for compliments on his product. “Ah, thank ya,” he said, gushing. “Yes, I do roll ‘em up tight and clean, don’t I? Never buy packs, always fold ‘em up myself.” He offered a sample. “Want one? Don’t know ya, but I can tell right proper you’re a brother.”

This word: brother. It brought back memories of the war. The Colonel pushed the invasive, blood-curdling images from his mind. Death, dying, and people clambering for others to die. Inwardly, the Colonel wanted to scream.

And so he did, with all that was in him.

The peanut gallery of crusty, curiosity-stricken faces that turned to look were met with the newcomer’s middle finger and promises to make “…each and every one of yous suffer, should even one of you’s try to come to the rescue of that lil’ retard!” The Colonel sneered. “Now turn around!”

They did. Each returned to his or her checkers game, newspaper, cigarette, nap, crossword puzzle…

The Colonel felt better. He always did after screaming. And drinking. And winning. Which was often.

No. It was always.

“Now hear this, guttersnipes one and all!” Everyone rubbernecked. The television in the staff room was no longer blaring, which meant the dispatcher had an announcement to make. “Cyril Perkins!” the shrill voice of the dispatcher echoed to the ends of the day hall. “Dishwashin’ job, west-side, five-hour ticket. Cyril Perkins!”

A derelict, recognizably un-showered youth in the second row who sported dreadlocks and a marijuana-leaf imprint on the front of his tee-shirt, and who was evidently Cyril Perkins, stood on cue. He hastened to the front counter. There he was handed a work ticket and a bag lunch.

The Colonel scowled. “Nourishing bologna sandwiches you’re givin’…” he said, shaking his head, “to some peace-lovin’ hippie and his pet fleas?”

Head still careering with displeasure, the Colonel was able to relax himself into a pseudo-meditative state with hopes to regain the focus that this long-haired lollipop and his pet fleas had stolen from him, and in preparation for those prime-time moments which were to come. He closed his eyes, drew a breath then let it out, long and slow.

But then…

“You look awfully familiar,” Scarecrow said, peering in. “Do I know you from somewhere, brother?”

The Colonel didn’t answer. He stayed fused in to his private-moment reflection even though these words had been spoken directly at his face from not three feet away.

Scarecrow cleared his throat. “Hello there, fella…” He grinned. “My name is—

The Colonel flung his eyes open. “Can it, Scarecrow. Something historic’s about to happen, and I need time and space to think!”

Popularity, fame, and an adoring public, were burdens the Colonel was forever forced to endure as a result of his larger-than-life exploits, his hundreds of “eliminations.” However, attending to the whims of his public was not something the Colonel would ever let get in the way of business, and especially not with less than five minutes ‘til impact.

“Away!” the Colonel shooed his arm at the other man. “No autographs, please!”

Slumping resignedly into his polyethylene roost, Scarecrow, with a sigh, skidded a cigarette under his lip. Soon afterwards he rose from his seat. “Gonna get me a drink of water.”

Ever so gently, the Colonel placed his knapsack atop the vacated chair.

The dust-layered clock on the wall read 3:58. Two minutes ‘til impact. Feeling the energies of anticipation crackle through his nerves and tendons like electric sparks, the Colonel all of a sudden wanted to…

Offer up a chant.

He sang, “Colonel, Colonel, bo-burnal, banana-fana, fo-furnal, fee-fi-fo—”

“Dude—" a young voice at great peril to its young owner said from somewhere nearby, “like the army outfit!”

The Colonel swiveled his neck to level his sights upon the sorry fool who had dared interrupt the banana song.

With the exception of the bovine stare, the Colonel could see, in every other sweat-shined feature on the tattooed young face, the reflection of his one and only, all-consuming, past, present and future dream. The face was that of a youngster, a kid, as he had been back when had shot up all of those unarmed, bleeding, screaming, pathetic, cone-headed villagers. Fearless, and with a steady arm, the kid held out a cigarette.

The Colonel accepted the cigarette. “I’m lookin’ for someone, bro. Name’s Roscoe. You know anyone ‘round here by that name?”

“Roscoe Jarvis, you mean?”

“Could be. I’ll know him when I see him.”

The kid grinned. “’Course Roscoe Jarvis is hella weird looking.” The kid blinked into the distance, his grin broadening. “Hey, what do you know, there he is…”

The Colonel followed the kid’s gaze to the reception counter.

“Hmm,” the Colonel mused as he sized up the odd couple who had just walked in, and were now signing in at the reception counter and schmoozing it up with the dispatcher. Correction: it was a chaperone of sorts who did all the schmoozing and signing—his fleshy right arm wrought so pale and plumpish as to look like an oversized bratwurst. The Colonel tried to see beyond the bratwurst arm—but couldn’t. So, he tried to hear beyond it through the clamor of the day hall. He honed in on the voice resounding from up front, which sounded like it might belong to the Munchkin Mayor from the Wizard of Oz.

“Ha! ‘Course you can inhale ground cumin,” the voice of the Munchkin Mayor exclaimed. “Can inhale most anything ‘cept your own finger!”

It’s him, the Colonel confirmed. And he’s talking to the wall.

Him. Proposed victim #452. A five-foot-tall hunchback named Roscoe Jarvis with the words “Lakewood Elementary School” striped across his shirt, and who exhibited that telltale mangy, yellow-eyed, demented look of decades sleeping in the shade of a Chinese restaurant dumpster.

Hunchbacked? Demented looking? Sporting a tee-shirt-and-bibbed-overall ensemble that no doubt once belonged to a nine-year-old and purchased at the Salvation Army? Even so, this twerp was supposedly a genius. Hmm, might this lil’ one, the Colonel wondered, prove as difficult an elimination as that pimp over in Aurora, the bag lady down in The Springs, the coke dealer down in Pueblo? The answer: Probably even more so. But, no matter.

The Colonel stood to his feet.

He hollered, “Hey, Roscoe Jarvis! IT’S SHOWTIME!”

As if someone had pressed a pause button, all of the audio in the day hall went silent instantly. Three dozen sets of eyes divided glances between Roscoe and the newcomer.

A fight.

A FIGHT!

But Roscoe just kept right on talking to his wall.

“Roscoe’s not allowed to talk to strangers, Mister,” the kid craned his neck to advise. “If you wanna get in touch with him, the best way—” he nodded toward the front “—would be to first speak with his chaperone. See that guy over there, that big, round, doughy-lookin’—”

“HEY, DOUGHBOY!”

The chaperon up at the counter winced, and hard.

“That’s right, I’m talkin’ to you! Tell Munchkin Land over there he’s being paged!”

However, the chaperone was hardly the type to engage scary-looking strangers.

Finally, after repeated catcalls and a litany of animal noises volleyed in his direction by the stranger, the chaperone turned, and in a lecturing voice answered, “Dinner at the Maple Street Mission begins at four-thirty, fyi. It’s Spaghetti-O night, and Roscoe will be needing to take his meds before havin’ his Spaghetti-Os. We get our checks, then we scat so we can make it in time for Spaghetti-Os. Spaghetti-Os are Roscoe’s favorite!”

“Yeah,” a craggily voice added, “if I don’t take my medication by four-thirty I’ll keel over like a little penguin—one high on craaaaack. It’ll be my poison hemlock moment, ala Socrates. Then, instead of a band of demons like in that movie Ghost, little toga men with names like Sextus will rush forth to escort me to my new underworld love domicile. Oh home, home! A home at last! Hee hee ha ha haaa!”

The Colonel said, “I have a proposition to make, Doughboy!”

But the chaperone wasn’t interested in propositions, rather in the forthcoming checks. He turned his back on what looked, and smelled, like trouble.

“Hey, STUPID!” The whole place went quiet. The little man himself stood with wide eyes. “That goes for the lil’ hunchback, too. Moreover the lil’ hunchback!”

A bearded man of considerable brawniness, seated by the main entrance, and who looked to be a member of the Disciples biker gang judging by the tattoo on his thick forearm that stated as much, stood to his feet. In a baritone tenor as imposing as the flourishing physicality of the man himself, the beard man bellowed, “Call him weird, call him crazy, but don’t you ever—ever—call Roscoe Jarvis stupid!”

The Colonel puffed his chest. “I’ll call him whatever I damn well please!” he fired back, then adding, in a dampened tone, “…says the soon-to-be Colonel of Colorado; and yours truly.”

The day hall erupted in response: “It’s the Colonel, the Colonel. He’s here!” With each patting themselves on the back for their own outrageously good fortune, the collective mass of loiterers—no longer patting, but pushing, pushing for front row—re-positioned their chairs into a makeshift semicircle around this man who claimed to be the one-and-only Colonel.

“Ah, so they’ve heard of me,” the Colonel sang, unzipping his knapsack and manhandling out its much-to-be-feared contents.

“Who is it, Colonel? Which one of us is gonna get it?”

He leveled his middle finger into a pointing gesture. “The lil’ hunchback. Munchkin Land. Him!”

No less than twenty sets of arms reached to lay hold upon Roscoe Jarvis, and delivered him up to the Colonel.

Who, as always, first went the way of politeness: “Listen, ward of Doughboy. There’s no escapin’ me, okay? No doubt you’ll be causing yourself a world of hurt if you decide not to cooperate. Understood?” The congregated masses waited in breathless silence for the reply.

Which was, “Surely the gods have come down to me, to little Roscoe!” Roscoe blew his nose into his shirt. “Why, I’d be happy to sink your battleship, your Colonel-ship, and yer cruiser, and your submarine, and your—”

“Carrier,” a voice from the peanut gallery put in.

“Destroyer,” offered another.

“Yeah,” said Roscoe, offering the Colonel his hand.

The Colonel answered, “These be the only things that I shake, friend,” as he drew salt and pepper shakers out of his knapsack then the Battleship game-pads with their plastic-piece ships…submarine, destroyer, aircraft carrier, cruiser…to resounding cheers from the crowd with scattered commentaries like “Hells yeah, the Colonel’s here!” and “It’s game time, homeys!”

“After your goose is cooked…” The Colonel grinned, roguishly, showcasing the salt and pepper shakers. “I’m gonna eat it. Shall we begin?”

And so, they began their game of Battleship, and with the not to be overlooked, misinterpreted, nor understated agreement that the winner be bequeathed the most honorific title:

“Colonel of Lower Downton:
Master Over All its Lairs, Liars, and Looney-bins;
Lord Over All its Lagoons, Legumes, and Legionnaires.
Best of the Best.
I’ve Done It.
I’m Colonel!
Certified.”

The challenger granted himself the privilege of going first. He honed in on his opponent. His eyelids fluttered. He pursed his lips which his face writhed, spasmed, reddened. His eyes flew open. The enlarged, jiggling red eyes bore down on Roscoe as would a tiger readying to pounce upon prey.

Chewing his yellow fingernails, Roscoe mumbled disjointedly about 5G and how very much he enjoyed peanut butter and Fluff sandwiches.

The Colonel snorted. “I’ll turn this nutter to fluff, just you watch,” he said. “D5.”

“Wait a minute. Stop!”

Mobley Smith, the janitor, took a step forward. “What is all this Colonel nonsense?” Mobley declared. “Battleship’s a naval game. There be no colonels in the navy.” A consensus of nodding heads affirmed that this was so.

The Colonel smacked his fist into his hand. “Such things,” he said, “will not be said again.” He reared back. “GOT IT!”

Silence reigned. Everyone had gotten it. Well, most everyone.

“Give ‘im hell, Roscoe!” a voice jeered. “Beat the Colonel!”

The Colonel gasped. He wheeled his sights around the day hall. The heckler, the insurrectionist, would no doubt have to be punished, if only he could be found. The Colonel squelched the immediate urge he had to whale on someone, anyone, mercilessly, even until they acknowledged that he, and he alone, the Colonel to End All Colonels, was deserving of a statute chiseled into his likeness, buffed by the mayor himself, kissed by all citizens and…and...

Yes, a statue.

The Colonel shook off the goosebumps. “D5,” he repeated his move.

“Miss,” his opponent chirped.

And so the contest was underway—

With D7, B3, A6, H9 all misfiring, in turn.

The crowd oohed. The crowd ahhed.

However, not everyone reveled in their role as spectator. To the rear of the main action, a transient lady of indeterminate age who paid for her dope habit by way of shady dealings with the menfolk, and whom the others referred to as Miss Mess—real name ‘Melissa’, but that seemed less fitting—turned to Mobley Smith, the janitor. Just as Roscoe Jarvis scored a direct hit on the Colonel’s submarine, she asked Mobley who was in the process of attaching his mop-head to its handle, why it was this “Colonel guy” during the course of the Battleship contest kept staring “all crazy-like” at his opponent.

“He be studyin’, be dissectin’, that poor lil’ inbred,” Mobley answered, looking up from his mop-head to answer the female face with its telltale mask of rouge and wrinkle. He added, as he closed the door of the janitor’s closet, “It’s been said that men have gone blind an’ insane from that stare. They call it the Colonel’s Psych-o-stare. Yup. It’s how he always be winnin’. Never lost a single match.” Mobley slapped the soapy wetness of the mop onto a cement floor that had more crack in it than a north-side Denver neighborhood.

The far-off, warbly voice of Roscoe rang out, “E4.”

Someone announced, “He sunk the Colonel’s submarine!”

Mobley explained, “The Psych-o-stare, first off, is meant to psych the opponent out—”

“Me, I’d be so psyched out I’d be callin’ the popo if I looked and saw eyes bearin’ down on me like that. And I never call the popo!”

“—but also, that stare, with it, the Colonel be able to analyze the facial and, like, non-verbal cues of his opponent, and by studyin’ them with the Psych-o-stare—that’s how the Colonel wins all the matches he do.” Mobley set the mop aside. “Takes these games super serious, too. Like they’s life or death.” Mobley shrugged. “No one knows why.”

Miss Mess thanked the janitor for his time and intel with a lipsticky kiss. Deciding that she would just have to miss her five o’clock at The Sidewinder Motel, she found a chair at the back of the makeshift semicircle then sat down.

What was it that Miss Mess saw? What appeared to be Roscoe Jarvis’s complete immunity to the Psych-o-stare, his appearing to have, in fact, at his disposal, a whole arsenal of mind games and psych-outs all his own. Roscoe at one point stared up at the ceiling and recited the following:

“And now the two armies, at last, each under its own
leaders. The Trojans raised a loud din, and clamor, like a
huge flock of birds, so you may hear cranes honking…”

…and so the recital carried on for another five or six brutal minutes.

Finally, it ended.

A few in the audience applauded.

Others swore, in amazement.

“The Iliad,” the chaperone clarified in an exasperated voice. “Look, guys…the Maple Street Mission. We really gotta get back. I didn’t think this game would be lasting so long!” The whole assembly just blinked at him. “He’ll fall over dead, guys. I’m serious! C’mon, Roscoe, we gotta go.”

“I ain’t goin’.”

“We have to, Ros, or you’ll, like, die.”

But Roscoe at that moment cared not at all about any 100 mg pink tablet of Dithprinol, nor about his hemorrhaging pancreas which had every intention of bleeding him into the afterlife if he missed so much as a single dose.

Chin up, Roscoe declared, “Besides, I still got my emergency backup right here.” He patted the backside jeaned pocket of his OshKosh B’gosh overalls.

The chaperone stood blinking. Narrowing his eyes, he said, “Wait. I thought you told me that emergency pill you had wrapped up in your bubble gum fell out of your pocket on the bus-ride to Goodwill yesterday?”

Roscoe flinched. Lips pursing, face reddening, he hopped up from his seat then tore into his shirt like a wrestler. “You just wanna steal lil’ hunchback’s fun, don’t you!” His hand whipped out, obscene gesture making its afternoon debut. “Keep lil’ hunchback from doin’ something good for himself!” Roscoe flailed his arms in the air. “Oh how happy, how fulfilled, lil’ hunchback would be if only he could sink the Colonel of the Western Hemisphere’s unsinkable Titanic. He he ha ha haaaaaa!”

“That’s not it at all, and you know it.”

“Colorado,” the Colonel corrected, standing to his feet. “Soon-to-be Colonel of Colorado. I haven’t won the entire Western Hemisphere—yet. Now, as for you…” He turned to the chaperone, submerging a finger into the pincushion that was the man’s shoulder. “Guess you’re not aware your lil’ buddy here’s got stuck in his throat more than just a Greek mythology audio-book. Got secrets in there, too. Told me he’s skipped takin’ his medication before, plenty of times.”

“Roscoe, really?”

Roscoe hesitated. “Uh…yeah. I, er, skipped before and was, uh…yeah.”

“See?” The Colonel sat down. “All right. Where were we?” He stroked his chin stubble. “Ah, yes, I remember. A3. That’s my next move.”

“Miss…” Roscoe beamed.

The chaperone checked his wristwatch. He stood. “Ros, if you’re wonderin’ where I am going…” he said, heavy steps in the direction of the door. “It’s back to the mission, to get for you one of those tablets you keep sayin’ tastes like Lifesavers. Get it, Lifesavers? As in, yummy, yummy, I’m gonna live to see tomorrow?”

“Loser!” Roscoe shouted at the window and the retreating figure outside of it. He crossed his arms, planted his feet. “Ain’t nobody gonna call me stupid.”

Moments later, Roscoe Jarvis sank the Colonel’s aircraft carrier.

“Damn!” the Colonel wailed, pounding his fist. Everywhere across his game-pad he saw red. Never in all his years had he faced an opponent with so many idiosyncrasies—the idiot remarks, the monkey faces, the celebrity impressions, the singing, the skewed body language: it all was so damned irregular and whizzed past him in an impossible-to-read road-map of his opponent’s next move. The Colonel delayed, cursed; he tried everything, but at the hour mark was down an inconceivable five ships to two.

However, the Colonel was hardly one to surrender to the enemy. Finally, he noticed one persistent pattern he figured might lead to a breakthrough.

The Colonel grinned. “See, how he’s leaning hisself to the side like that?” he addressed the masses, sufficiently flustered to break his own rule about sharing his secrets of the trade. “It’s both a defensive posture, grounded in the principles of what my bastard child’s science book calls entropy, and an offensive posture, what the army boys call a flanking maneuver. His pieces are all on one side of the board so he leans in the other direction to make that lil’ dwarf body of his feel uncluttered and to give, also, his left flank freedom of movement. This nutter’s left-handed, clear as day.” Sneering, the Colonel hollered, “You’re tellin’ on yourself, nut-job!” He breathed. “F1.”

“Miss,” Roscoe said.

The Colonel’s eyes bulged then narrowed. “Bullshit.” He gritted his teeth. “Now, you listen here, son—”

“Time out.” Grimacing, Roscoe rose from his seat. “Gotta go to the bathroom.” He scurried off with his hand held to his side.

Silence entered the day hall. Moments later, the dispatcher announced she had two tickets for a job at The Denver Post, assembling newspapers.

There were no takers. No one dared to leave their seat, nor move, nor light a cigarette.

All eyes stayed on the Colonel.

Whose own eyes stayed on the game-pad in front of him, the wheels of his mind spinning with thoughts of strategy. However, the Colonel could not help but grow unnerved by the presence of the many whom, out the corner of his eye, kept ogling him. From personal experience, however, he had discovered that, when cornered, it was oftentimes easiest—and less messy—to just answer whatever idiot fan-mail they had for him.

Flinging his sights up, he blurted, “All right, damn it! Ask yer twenty questions. Let’s get this over with.”

Eyes all over the day hall exchanged glances. The atmosphere of fear-filled silence gradually gave way to one of charged anticipation. If only someone dared go first.

“Er, Colonel…?” the meek petition issued forth. “Uh, hi. My name’s Jack. Jack Schmaltz? Big, big fan. Thank you for all that you’ve done.” Jake gulped. “Don’t know if you remember but…I was there that day up in Fort Collins ‘bout three months ago when you just annihilated that heroin dealer with the—”

“Your ques-tion,” the Colonel said, anger lines streaking his forehead. “What is it, please?”

“My question. Right, right. So, uh, have you really played Battleship at every day-labor place in the state of Colorado and not lost once?”

The Colonel sighed. “All ‘cept this place.”

Miss Mess arose from her seat in the back. “Hi there, Colonel,” she said. “Whassuuuup? I’m, like, your newest, biggest fan. I have a question, too.”

The Colonel twisted a devilish grin at this lipsticked cutie with the leather mini-skirt.

“So, um, I’ve been askin’ around and all my peoples be braggin’ on you. They say, too, that every time you beat everyone there is to beat in all of the labor agencies in a place like, say, Pueblo…you start callin’ yourself the Colonel of Pueblo. Beat all of the Battleshippers in Aspen—whamo, you be the Colonel of Aspen. And so, now, if you win here today, you’ll be—I get it—the Colonel of Colorado, seein’ as how you’ve bested all the best in the whole state of Colorado. Um, so where off to next, then? Nevada, maybe? I used to work Las Vegas—he he—if you’re wondering.” Miss Mess flashed a smudgy smirk. “That—that’s my question.”

The Colonel returned his gaze to his game-pad. He muttered, “Vegas. Nevada. Hmm…”

Pockets of murmur all across the day hall broke out in response to this news update: NEVADA, that’s where the Colonel will be off to next!

From behind the curtain that was the Colonel’s overhanging hair issued the words: “To win, I simply go where the losers are at.” The Colonel smiled. “Which is everywhere.”