VIII: The Cantina
The shifty and eccentric Johnny Go and his beautiful and psychotic sidekick Dixie Doublestacks were cruising through the outer reaches of the galaxy in their shiny silver spaceship that looked like a wing of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. The ship was on autopilot, and so they both lounged in their captain’s chairs, feet on the dashboard, and an array of snacks and sandwiches on a table wedged between them. Behind Johnny’s chair was a keg, and they were both drinking beer out of children’s costume firemen helmets and refilling them as needed.
Johnny wore a Han Solo-like outfit, but had on a Planet Hollywood Toledo t-shirt under his vest. Dixie wore a pair of 1930s era beach pajamas and a black cordobes hat with large pink flowers affixed to the brim, and a band made of teeth. She hummed softly to herself as they flew through space. They were relaxed and satisfied, and didn't have a care in the world. They were on vacation.
The spaceship’s onboard video communication system chimed, and Dixie and Johnny looked at it with something almost like interest. Neither moved to answer it, though. It chimed again. And again. And again. Finally, Johnny sighed.
“Fine,” he said, sitting up and putting his feet on the floor. “I’ll answer it. I don’t know what part of ‘Do Not Disturb’ you people can’t understand.” Dixie reached for a bocadillo and took a large bite.
“Ifs flike peeble fink we’re not biffy,” she said, with her mouth full of sandwich. The communication system chimed again, and Johnny pressed the answer button. The screen lit up. While an image wasn’t immediately visible, a voice could be heard clearly.
“Mister Go? Mister Go, can you hear me?”
“Oh for fuckssake, Doris. What do you want?”
“Mister Go, Ms. Doublestacks. I have a call from Ms. Milano for you. I’m awful sorry about the picture. I’ll work on it whiles I connect you to Ms. Milano.”
“Shut the fuck up, Doris!” Dixie yelled. A moment later, an image started to appear on the screen, and Chichay Milano’s voice could be heard clearly over the system.
“Hey guys, everything ok out there?” Chichay asked. The picture became sharper and she was now totally visible on the screen. She smiled and waved. Dixie and Johnny waved back.
“Fine out here. Space weather’s great, as usual. We stopped at Gamma lhaonobab and got a bunch of those weird candies that taste like glue.” Dixie held up the bag.
“Nice, well glad you’re having a good time on this little bender, and nice to see you’re kinda sober right now.”
“Well, it’s morning, Chichay. Give us some credit,” Johnny said, reaching back for the hose to the keg and topping off his and Dixie’s helmets.
“Wait, is it?” Dixie asked.
“What, morning?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, I don’t know, actually. It’s kinda hard to tell in space, huh?” Johnny looked confused.
“We should probably pound these, then, just in case it’s actually afternoon,” Dixie said, lifting her beer helmet. “We might need to catch up.” They both chugged their full helmets, then immediately refilled them. Chichay looked on in disgusted amusement and then sighed.
“Hey, I hate to be a bonerkill here, you guys, but there was a reason I called.” Both Dixie and Johnny chugged another helmet each, then belched in unison. They looked at the screen and Chichay continued.
“You really need to pay the Trout Mob the money you owe them. They’ve been around town every day this week looking for you. They’re pissed, and they’re sitting in the parking lot of the restaurant, scaring the customers.”
“Can’t you take care of them for us?” Johnny asked.
“Yeah, can’t you use your Very Particular Skills?”
“Look, even my skills, which are impressive, are not enough to take out all of organized crime, which is what you’re gonna need to do if you want to put this issue to rest without just paying them the damn money you owe.”
“Ok then we’ll get Sweaty to time travel back to, like, the first time we met the mob and he can remind us not to steal from them.”
“Or sleep with their women,” Dixie added.
“Oh no! Sweaty is not putting himself through anymore intentional time travel for you two. The accidental time travel he does is hard enough on him. Besides, it won’t work. You guys have to stop relying on other people to bail you out of these messes.”
“But-”
“Pay the Mob or I’m telling them how to find you.”
“Yeah, but-”
“PAY THE MOB!” She clicked off. Johnny put his feet back up on the dash.
“I knew we shouldn’t have answered,” he said. “I mean, she’s right, but did she really have to call us in the middle of our vacation?”
“Seriously. So, what do you want to do?”
“Well, how much money do we even owe them?” Johnny asked, reaching for a bag of ham flavored potato chips and cramming a handful into his mouth.
“At this point it’s kinda hard to figure it out. I mean, it’s a lot of different monies from a lot of different countries and planets. We need a system to just make it one amount.”
“Ok, pour us another round and let’s think.”
Fifteen minutes later they were both passed out at the helm of their ship, which was fortunately still on auto pilot.
***
An hour later, Dixie and Johnny woke up, still sitting in their captains chairs. They looked around, disoriented.
“What were we doing?” Johnny asked.
“I don’t know. I think we were trying to figure something out because we got drunk pretty fast.”
“Sounds about right.” He looked out the front window of the ship, but then noticed a blinking light on the dashboard. “Huh, what’s that light?” Dixie leaned forward and pressed it. A message popped up on the communication screen.
PAY THE MOB!
“Oh, right.” Dixie said. “We need to figure out how much we owe.” She took the paper from one of the sandwiches and smoothed it out across her lap. It had grease stains all over, but using a piece of alien candy, she got to work listing out all their debts.
“There’s the pizza rolls,” she said, “the Mercedes that we stole.”
“The one dude’s daughter,” Johnny added.
“What do you think that’s worth?”
“Personally, I think it’s worth nothing because she definitely wasn’t a virgin before she jumped into that orgy with us, but fine, call it fifty.”
“Earth money, or Toag Tuoq Cods?”
“Oh, Cods, because we did that orgy on Toag Tuoq. So that’s, what, twenty five thousand U.S. Earth dollars?”
“Yeah, it's in the ballpark anyway. Then there was also that time we went to their poker night, I owed eighty one hundred from that. What about you?”
“One oh five.” Johnny chewed another handful of chips.
“Then when we lost control of the car in New York and crashed into their flower shop.” Dixie laughed.
“I wonder if that one guy ever regained consciousness?” Johnny asked.
“Hopefully, otherwise I think we’d be on the hook for more than sixty three thousand.”
“Let’s not bring it up, then,” Johnny said. The accounting went on for another hour. Once they had a complete list, they got to work converting all the debt into one single currency. Finally, Dixie held up the paper.
“Ok, so if we don’t include the burned drapery, which is still technically usable, we owe the Trout Mob $4,410,118.20 in U.S. Earth dollars ,” she said.
“Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
“How much do we have?” Johnny asked.
“I have thirty seven Euros, and sixty thousand lhaonobabian Kroos, which is basically like saying you have a wad of toilet paper.”
“Yeah, worthless. I have about a hundred U.S. dollars, plus six Euros and some change.” They looked at each other.
“Anything else?” Dixie asked.
“Well, this ship.”
“Yeah! That’ll get us a couple hundred thousand. I really don’t want to mortgage the ranch if we can help it.”
“Agreed. I’d be willing to part with the onion farm, though.”
“What’s that get us?”
“Five hundred thousand, probably.”
“Is that all?”
“Dix, it’s in Kansas.”
“Right.”
“But if we did sell it, we could probably get extra if we include these couple of goths who always seem to be hanging around. I’m sure no one’ll miss ‘em.”
“Ok,” Dixie said, jotting that down.
“So what are we short?” Johnny asked.
“Uh… over three million.” They both sighed.
“All right then, I guess there’s only one thing left to do,” Johnny said, wearily, “Let’s aim this ship at the nearest casino and get ourselves outta debt.”
***
In a desolate outpost town on a desolate outpost planet in a part of the galaxy where only the most hardened scumbags and freaky prostitutes dared to call home, Dixie and Johnny’s spaceship clattered through a small village in the dark. No other beings were out, no other craft were traveling the roads. They rounded the bend and saw up ahead the flickering neon light of their destination, a sprawling roadside bar that catered to those passing through. It wasn’t a reputable joint, but it was a place that knew its purpose, and served its purpose well. You could get anything you needed here.
Dixie and Johnny piloted the ship into a parking space in front, bumping the building as they pulled in. Before getting out of the ship, they each pounded another helmet-full of beer and stuffed a handful of candy in their mouths. They headed toward the door, the sign reading The Cantina cast a pink glow over them as they crossed the threshold to financial security and freedom from Mob reprisal.
The inside of the bar looked more or less exactly like the Mos Eisley Cantina from Star Wars. So sue us. The bar was loud and filled to capacity with a staggering array of beings, all walks of life from all corners of the galaxy were there. It was a true crossroads.
Once inside, the two headed straight to the bar. They had just sat down and ordered their Pangalactic Gargle Blasters when a horrible wail began from the stage behind them.
"Jesus crust punk Christ, what the hell is that?"
"It sounds like a terrier with a urinary tract infection," Dixie said, turning around. Across the room was a Jar Jar Binks-looking creature on the stage, acting as the frontman for the band. The racket seemed to be coming entirely from him and his key-tar.
Without hesitation, Dixie got up from her bar stool, strode over to the stage, and yanked the key-tar from his hands. She proceeded to beat him with it until he was an unconscious heap on the floor, then returned to her seat. The patrons of the Cantina watched, then turned back to whatever it was they were doing.
“Good call,” Johnny said. They clinked glasses, then sipped their drinks.
“It’s not the best PGB I’ve had, but the price is right. So where do you think the gambling tables are?” They both swiveled their bar stools around to look out over the whole room.
“My guess is back behind that curtain to the right of the stage,” Johnny said. “See, there’s a big lumpy looking security guy standing guard.” They sipped their drinks and kept watching the room. Johnny’s attention was drawn to a group entering the Cantina through the front door. He gasped when he saw a disgusting lizard creature come in.
“Oh no. It’s Stephanie. Don’t make eye contact!” he said. Dixie turned.
“Ew God, Johnny, you didn’t.”
“Look, I know. But she was just so desperate! You know how that gets me going!” Stephanie and her group made their way toward the stage and sat down. A tall humanoid man took the seat next to Stephanie and held her hand.
“Actually, I banged that skinny guy she’s with, so I guess I shouldn’t judge.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, it was at a bar a few years ago. I mostly did it because I could, you know?” Dixie sipped her drink.
“I feel that. See that next table? I banged that chick in the purple dress at a daycare fundraiser.”
“What were you doing at a daycare fundraiser?”
“Trolling for tail. Also, the food was ok.” As they talked, a group of workers came and dragged the key-tar player’s body off of the stage. He was alive, but just barely. The rest of the band started playing, and sounded much more palatable.
“Ugh,” Dixie said, “Khando Khabo.”
“Talking to that middle booth?”
“Yeah. I mean don’t get me wrong, it was good, but not worth the amount of whining I had to endure afterward.”
“That the guy who kept calling the Hoboken HQ?”
“Uh huh.” Dixie screwed up her face and deepened her voice. “Yixie, ah jus’ soght ‘e had som ding.”
“Loser,” Johnny said, shaking his head. He looked up. “Speaking of losers.”
“The twins!”
“You know, not only are they arguably the worst sexual encounter I’ve ever had, they literally never use the twin thing to their advantage. Think of how much better our cons would be if we were twins! What a fucking waste.”
“I’m just stunned that the worst sex you’ve ever had was a threesome with twins. They really are pathetic. Go join a convent, prudes!”
“Hey, is that Harold?” Johnny pointed to a heavy set alien with a glittery beard that he obviously spent far too much time on, who was deep in conversation with a small pixie.
“Yep. That poor pixie. He’s probably running through a list of obscure bands and belittling her for not having heard of them.” Dixie put on her ‘impressions of an insufferable man’ face again. “You haven’t heard the Meek Sins?! I can’t BELIEVE you haven’t heard the Meek Sins! They’re AMAZING! You know, you really need to get into more obscure music. Keep an eye on her, if she looks distressed, I’ll be more than happy to go over there and stab that fucker.” She sighed, then turned back to the bar and signaled for another round. Johnny continued to scan the room.
“There’s Anastasia. I gave her the old ground n’ pound in the back of her star cruiser last year.”
“Oh right, and then she gave you the cruiser.”
“That was the goal. I crashed it in Knuyanam a week later.” He stopped suddenly when he spotted what might have been the most beautiful creature in the room. Or the galaxy.
“Yikes, that’s Tan, isn’t it?”
“It sure is.” They both stared hard at the enigma of a being that had just crossed the main floor of the bar and greeted a group of creatures milling around near the back. Dixie and Johnny drooled into their drinks.
“It’s rare that a creature can be that good looking and give the best Dusty Potluck I’ve ever had.”
“They did that move on you, too, eh?”
“It was like seeing god.” They continued to stare, as if in a trance, as the creature Tan took the hand of a small, shapely blue skinned woman and led her out of the bar. Once they left, the spell was broken and Dixie and Johnny snapped back to reality.
“Ok, you ready to do this?” He asked Dixie, shaking his head.
“Yeah, let’s go.” They stood up, downed the rest of the drinks, and made their way across the Cantina toward the side door leading to the gambling area.
“You know, this place really seems to be a who’s who of our sexual conquests,” Dixie said as they walked.
“I know,” Johnny said, “It’s kinda weird. On the other hand, we could murder more than half the patrons in here." They weaved through the tables and Johnny nodded to someone as they passed the table.
“Hi Calvin, good to see you. Look, I have to run but I’ll stop by on my way back, ok?” Johnny waved as they hurried away. “Dix, do me a favor?”
“Sure.”
“Try to keep me on task, here. I need all my concentration to win this money, but the sheer amount of desperation in this place could be my undoing.”
“I’ll do my best, but honestly there’s a lot of creatures here who are just begging to be dominated by me.” They reached the doorway to the gambling room and, after a quick bribe to the door guard, pulled back the curtain and went inside.
***
Dixie and Johnny entered the gaming room and went directly to the cage to buy chips with what little cash they had. Fortunately, the Cantina took all forms of currency from all nations and planets. They also had a very sophisticated system to appraise the value of items that patrons might want to wager. The two sidled up to the cage and pushed their collective pile of rumpled notes, coins, and shells across the counter, through the opening in the cage, toward the cashier.
“Any preferences in denominations?” the cashier asked.
“An even split should be fine,” Johnny replied. They looked around the room.
“So what’ve we got on tonight?”
“Well, for poker we have Hobo's Wild, Eight Arm Grope 'Em, High/Low Mosey, and Fuck the Queen. Other card games on tonight are Womp Rat Screw, Pinochle, Asshole Rummy, and Blackjack. In the back room we have Battle Craps, but the buy in tonight is five thousand.”
“Is there a Kemps table tonight?” Dixie asked.
“Nah. We had one earlier, but then a group of Montevidan telepaths came in and we had to shut it down.” The clerk finished calculating the amount and then started stacking chips on the counter. They were getting a lot, so the exchange rate must have been in their favor.
“Ok,” the clerk said, sliding the chips through the opening, “here are your chips. Cash out with me when you’re ready to leave. No recording devices, no eating blockfish at the tables - you want that, you have to go back out to the bar - buy in is non-negotiable, we don’t do loans without collateral, and if you want to fuck someone to settle a debt, that’s on you, but you can’t do it at, on, or under the tables and our security personnel are not responsible for making sure you get your money. Also, Blackjack tonight is single deck, but it’s a Schrodinger’s Deck. Best of luck.” Dixie and Johnny nodded, gathered their chips, and stepped out into the gaming floor.
Immediately they were immersed in a blast of noise, with voices calling out bets and taunting opponents, the clink of chips, and the slamming of fists into tables. Above this general din, they heard the unmistakable sounds of a fight, and looked over at the Pinochle table in time to see a man and a woman square off. The man wound up his arm, aiming to punch the woman in the face, when a security guard stepped in to break them up. Dixie and Johnny decided then that pinochle would not be their game that night and instead made their way to the poker area. They took seats at two different mid-stakes tables, with their backs to one another, put down their chips, and were dealt in.
Fifteen Minutes Later…
Johnny folded. He placed his cards on the table, leaned back in his chair, and called softly over his shoulder to Dixie.
“I'm out fifty grand. How are you doing?” he asked.
“I have two hundred fifty left,” she replied, sorting through her small remaining pile of chips.
“You think you can quick try to win your next hand so I can pay this dealer? He's starting to look impatient.” Dixie nodded and tossed in her remaining chips.
Five minutes later...
Dixie folded, and with that, was also out fifty thousand. She quickly looked around to ensure no one was watching and then took out her pearl handled shiv. With a studied quickness, she quietly slipped it into the ribs of the guy next to her. He died instantly. Once he did, she took his wallet, which she passed over her shoulder to Johnny, and slid his body under the poker table.
“Dix, there's like five hundred grand in here” Johnny whispered.
“Yeah I know, this guy’s been on a real hot streak over here. Just give me fifty k back, pay your guy, and we'll split the rest.” The dealer looked quizzically from her to the empty seat beside her. She shrugged. “And I definitely need to move to another table.”
Johnny paid the dealer at his table and excused himself. He and Dixie made their way across the room to another table.
“How’d you get that money?” Johnny asked.
“I shived the guy next to me.”
“Who was the guy? Did you ever…?”
“Oh yeah, ages ago.”
New York City, five years earlier…
Dixie is dressed to the nines and sitting in a posh Wall Street bar, sipping a martini. An ok looking finance bro sits down next to her and attempts to turn on the charm. At first she is unimpressed. Later, he takes out his wallet and she gets an idea.
Back at the guy’s place, a sterile and typically male condo, the kind most often found belonging to a guy who isn't used to having money, Dixie lays in bed with the man and waits for him to fall asleep. He’s helped along by something she slipped into his drink. Once he’s out, she slips out of the bed and, taking his keys, leaves the condo.
She takes the keys to an all night locksmith and has a copy made, then returns to the apartment where she puts the keys back where she found them and leaves a note thanking him for a good time. She signs the note “Mary Jane Kelly” and adds a fake phone number. The number belongs to a nearby sushi bar.
Two days later, in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon, Dixie arrives back at the man’s home with a rented moving truck. While he’s at work, she uses the spare key to take every single item out of the condo.
The man falls on hard times after that, and turns to gambling.
Meanwhile…
Dixie and Johnny moved on to two other poker tables. As they were about to sit down, they spotted a rumpled looking clown making his way to another table nearby. He and Johnny locked eyes over the heads of the players.
Somewhere in the Midwest, five years earlier...
Behind a tent at a low budget circus, the clown gives Johnny Go a hand job while holding a gun to his head. Johnny looks both disgusted and bored, but the clown has the weapon and the upper hand.
Meanwhile…
In the next instant, the clown took off across the gaming floor, dodging players, tables, and staff as he headed back toward the main bar area of the Cantina. Johnny took off after him. Surprisingly few patrons turned to watch.
The clown neared the door and collided violently with a waitress carrying a full tray of drinks, and they both hit the ground. Alcohol and shattered glass rained down on them. The clown shook it off, leapt to his feet, and kept going. The waitress looked dazed and hoped her pay wouldn't be docked to cover the broken glassware.
The clown crossed over into the bar area and aimed diagonally for the doors, planning to jump over any tables and chairs in his way. Johnny kept following, but hadn’t closed much of the distance. The clown chanced a look back over his shoulder to see where Johnny was, and in that short moment when he wasn’t paying attention, he tripped over the long legs of a praying mantis-looking creature sitting in a low, lounge style chair. He fell forward, landing face first on the cocktail table, catching the glass corner of the table top in his forehead. Blood pooled over the edge of the table. The clown died instantly with his eyes wide open.
Johnny skidded to a stop, dusted off his hands as if he’d done something, and headed back to the gaming room.
***
They sat, again, with their backs to one another, and anted up. After receiving his cards and inspecting them, Johnny looked around the table and studied his opponents. An attractive, brainy looking woman sat across from. She made eye contact and smiled.
“Well, if it isn’t my old friend with the vulgar name,” she said lightly. The man sitting next to her looked over curiously.
“Vulgar name?” he asked. Johnny reached out his hand across the table to shake.
“Rex Vulva’s the name, prison erotica's the game!” As Johnny said this, the man’s face twisted into a look of disgust and he took back his hand and wiped it on his pants.
“Uh, nice to meet you, Rex. How do you know Katrina?” he asked.
“Oh, we go way back,” Johnny replied. Katrina looked slightly uncomfortable.
“Rex has, um, helped me in the lab,” she said.
“Is that right?”
“Oh, yeah,” Johnny said. “I’m always up to help test the equipment.”
A nearby planet, six months earlier...
Johnny and Katrina are making out hot and heavy in her lab when he pushes her up against a prototype for a matter transporter. Johnny’s flailing arm knocks into the power button, and the machine activates. In a bright flash, both he and Katrina are sucked in in a shower of sparks and smoke.
When the smoke clears, Katrina is transported to the other side safely in one piece. Johnny, on the other hand, is split in two, with his top half in Katrina’s lab and his bottom half embedded in the wall of another lab two blocks away. After locating the rest of him, Katrina proposes that they bring the matter transporter to him to try to fuse his two sides back together.
Johnny Go proposes something else entirely, and Katrina spends the rest of the day enjoying Johnny’s better half.
Meanwhile…
Johnny bet his last five hundred and lost miserably. Katrina, on the other hand, appeared to have as much of a knack for poker as she did for fucking, and was up by close to a million, which had driven most of the other players from the table. She seemed to be enjoying seeing Johnny lose.
“I guess you just aren’t cut out for this, are you Rex?” she asked. Johnny scowled, and reached behind him, tapping Dixie on the shoulder. She passed him her pearl handled shiv as Katrina turned to her friend.
“This table seems to be a bit dead now. Quantus, be a dear and head out to the bar and order me a blockfish sandwich. I’ll be along in a minute.” The man obediently got up and left. Katrina signaled to the dealer that she would like to trade up on her chips, and he went off to exchange them for larger denominations. Johnny slid around to Katrina’s side of the table and put his arm around her.
“So Quantus, huh? Seems a little bland. He let you experiment on him, or is that not his thing?”
“Rex, you aren’t the only person who enjoys spending time in the lab. And you certainly aren’t the only person who’s good at it. Besides, you just lost literally all your money to me, so I-”
She didn’t finish because Johnny had stuck her with the shiv and slid her body under the table. He took her purse, pulled out all the money in there, and then signaled for the waitress to bring him another drink. Then he sat patiently and waited for the dealer to return.
When the dealer returned with a small stack of large denomination chips, he looked around for Katrina.
“She went out to get a blockfish sandwich,” Johnny told him. “She asked me to wait here for you and then bring her chips out to her.” Johnny held out his hand and the dealer reluctantly gave him the chips. Johnny got up, grabbed Dixie by the arm and the two walked across the room to another table. They passed Quantus on the way.
“Katrina left, man,” Johnny told him.
“What?”
“She said you just weren’t what she was looking for in a humanoid man. I guess after getting it on with me, everyone else just seems mediocre, you know?” Laughing, he and Dixie disappeared across the room and left the dejected Quantus standing alone in the middle of the gaming floor.
***
Dixie and Johnny took seats at the bar in the gaming area of the Cantina. Johnny stacked his chips on the bar and counted, then moved on to the wad of cash he’s taken from Katrina.
“Ok, looks like we have about one point two here. That’d be just under a million in USD. What do you have?”
“Uh, two five hundred chips and about forty in cash. I didn’t have a good hand at that last table.”
“Well, I didn’t either. I was a mil in the hole before I stabbed Doctor Katrina.”
“The podiatrist?”
“No, the nuclear physicist. Real uppity, all acting like she’s too good for me because she’s good at poker. She wasn’t too good to ride my bottom half when I was stuck in the wall at her lab.”
“I’m gonna need the whole story when we get outta here,” Dixie said. “But I think we need to win a few more hands.”
“You’re right. Here, take half of her chips and let’s get back at it.” He turned to the bar. “Barkeep! Two more PGBs!”
***
Back at the tables, Dixie had just lost most of the chips she’d gotten to a David Attenborough-looking guy. As he slid the contents of the pot toward himself, he started talking about his time on earth, researching gorillas.
“They really are the most magnificent creatures,” he said. “You just know that they understand you. That they’re looking for a way to communicate. You know that they understand our human emotions. Joy, sadness, love. Even lust.” He looked at Dixie with raised eyebrows.
Africa, several years earlier...
Dixie Doublestacks makes her way through the forest wearing revealing safari attire, and with a huge backpack on her back. She trails a family of silverback gorillas. Also trailing the gorillas is a group of scientists and a nature documentary crew. They have built a number of blinds in the bush to hide them from the gorillas while they film. Dixie camps nearby, watching both the comings and goings of the gorillas, and the crew.
After a few days and nights, she decides to make her move. Once the sun sets, she opens her pack and takes out a lifelike gorilla suit. She puts it on and creeps over to the tent of the head researcher. She wakes him, and spends just enough time interacting with him to get him interested, before disappearing into the jungle. She returns again the next night and he’s waiting for her.
He approaches and they sit together, shyly at first, with the researcher not wanting to get too close. By the third night, he is caressing her gently, and by the fourth night, he makes his move.
Despite his grunts and her decidedly un-animalistic moans, the crew never discovers the researcher’s nighttime copulation with the gorilla, and somehow the researcher never discovers that the gorilla isn’t a gorilla.
Her work finished, Dixie returns to civilization. The researcher never truly recovers.
Meanwhile…
“You know,” Dixie told the man, “I’d love to hear more about your research. Would you like to take a break from the tables? We could go to the bar and you could tell me all about it over a drink.” The man nodded and stood up from the table, took her hand and helped her to her feet.
Dixie led the man along the outer wall of the gaming floor toward the bar. As they passed a small alcove, she pulled him in. He looked surprised, but ultimately turned on, and he took her roughly in his arms. As he leaned down to kiss her, she stuck the shiv into his heart. He didn’t have time to register the betrayal before the life left him.
Holding him up with one hand, Dixie opened a small storage closet with the other, and shoved his body inside. Curiously, there was another body in there already. Dixie took the old man’s wallet, watch, and pinky ring, then closed the door and returned to the gaming floor to look for Johnny.
***
Dixie slid into the open seat next to Johnny at one of the poker tables. The dealer indicated that they were in the middle of play and that he could deal her in on the next hand. She nodded.
“Uh, did you put a body in that janitor’s closet over there?” she whispered.
“Yeah,” he answered, tossing another chip into the pile, “that last High/Low Mosey table I was at, turns out I boned the guy and his wife when I was at this resort on Kepler-16b. She recognized me, but he didn’t. I acted like I needed to use the bathroom and she followed me, so I shived her there with a knife I took from the bar. He came looking for her, so I got him in the hallway and stuffed him in the closet.”
“How much did you get from them?” Dixie asked.
“Combined, two mil, but I came back to the table and lost half of that. Then I came to this table and now I’m down to five hundred.” The player across from them laid his cards on the table. Johnny sighed and folded, and the other player pulled the whole pot to himself. “Make that under a hundred.”
***
The two gamblers walked across the room again, looking for another table to play.
“I kinda can’t believe we’re doing so badly today,” Johnny said.
“I know. I always assumed I was really good at poker, but I can’t catch a break.”
“We need to start legit winning, because we’re running out of tables to stuff the bodies under.”
“Should we try another card game?” Dixie asked.
“How about Asshole Rummy? Usually only college kids play that. If we buy enough drinks, they won’t be able to be good at it.” They made their way to the Asshole Rummy table.
The game was basically a cross between Asshole, the popular college drinking game, and Rummy, which was a game Dixie and Johnny had heard of, but had never actually played. They had no idea what they were doing, but they pulled up chairs anyway.
“Deal us in, guys!” Johnny said to the group. The dealer looked up.
“Minimum five hundred to join, last person to join is the Asshole. No teams.”
“Works for us,” Dixie said. “And I’m always happy to be the asshole.” She smiled at the table and tossed her chips down. The dealer shuffled and started dealing. One of the other players looked at Dixie.
“Do I know you from somewhere?” he asked.
“Probably not,” Dixie replied, picking up the cards as they landed in front of her.
“No, I really think I know you. Did you go to Cobb U?”
“HA!” Dixie scoffed. “You flatter me, kid.”
“Marko, doesn’t she look like that stripper that came to the house that time? The one we all took turns getting it on with in the upstairs bathroom?” Marko looked uncomfortable, and glanced from Dixie to Johnny. Johnny locked eyes with him.
“Hey, give the guy a break, huh? He doesn’t remember because he’s not into strippers.” Marko tensed. “He’s more of a bodyguard guy, right?” Johnny winked. It went right over the head of the dealer. There was an awkward silence, and then another player chimed in.
“Actually, Beav, I think you’re right. She really does look like that chick. But wasn’t that the time we had way too much to drink and when we woke up the next day, the house was robbed?”
New Hampshire, one year earlier...
An absolutely trashed college fraternity house stands on a large lawn. A beat up panel van sits in the middle of the lawn. Dixie, dressed in a sarong and nipple pasties, and Johnny, wearing a leather motorcycle get up, load stereo equipment, computers, clothes, and booze into the van.
Inside the house, every single member of the fraternity is asleep or otherwise passed out. Dixie leads a pair of goats into the house, then takes all of the frozen burritos out of the kitchen, and returns to the car. She and Johnny do a quick series of donuts on the lawn before driving off into the night.
Meanwhile…
“I don’t know, man,” Beav answered. “A lotta those nights kinda run together. Anyway, let’s go. Coby, you’re to the left of the Asshole, so your move.”
Within a few hands, Dixie and Johnny were both losing miserably. Fortunately, the amount of alcohol that they were forced to drink wasn't anywhere near what they normally consumed in a day, so they weren't actually the most drunk players at the table. When the group took a break to wait for the staff to refill the beer pitchers, Dixie turned to the guy next to her.
“Wanna know a secret?” He turned and looked at her intently. He was very drunk.
“I am that girl. From your party. What do you say you meet me in the bathroom for round two?” A dopey grin spread across his face and he nodded. Dixie got up from the table and headed to the restroom. Coby staggered to his feet and followed her. This brought forth a bunch of bro cheering from the rest of the table. When Dixie returned to the table a few minutes later, she was alone.
“Coby was feeling a little spent, so he’s going to sit this one out,” she told the group. The rest of the guys at the table high fived, and then the dealer dealt another hand.
Dixie and Johnny lost again.
***
“Man, it took ages to get rid of all those guys,” Dixie said as she and Johnny crossed the gaming floor counting their money. “We should have just killed them back when we robbed their frat house.”
“Yeah, I feel a little bad that that one guy never got the chance to live as his true, authentic self.”
“Real shame,” Dixie muttered, lovingly smoothing a stack of bills. “So what are we gonna play now? We obviously aren’t good at Asshole Rummy.”
“How ‘bout Womp Rat Screw?”
Outer Space, last year...
The commercial intergalactic flight was cruising softly through space. The passengers had finished their meal, and the inflight entertainment had just begun. The first officer stood up from his seat, stretched, and left the cockpit to use the forward, first class lavatory. He opened the door and was stunned to see a fully naked woman sitting on the edge of the wash basin.
Embarrassed, the officer was about to close the door when the woman reached out her hand and beckoned him inside. He obliged.
Meanwhile…
No sooner had Dixie and Johnny taken their seats at the Womp Rat Screw table, then Dixie realized who the pilot sitting next to her was. She immediately knifed him in a major artery and he died while sitting up in the chair. Johnny leaned over and looked.
“Dix, you should have at least waited until we tried to win. What are we going to do with his body? Everyone’s still at the table.”
“I figure we either Weekend at Bernie’s him, or we just cut to the chase and kill the rest of these shits.” Johnny thought it over for a second, then nodded, and they stood up and quietly stabbed everyone else at the table.
“We were ok to kill the rest of the people at the table, right?” Dixie asked as they walked away.
“I was definitely ok to off the chick across from me,” Johnny said. “I’m actually surprised she didn’t recognize me.”
Los Angeles, two years earlier...
In a scene reminiscent of the end of Speed, the woman from across the table, wearing an FBI uniform, rescues Johnny, pulling him from the bus just as it careens off an overpass and explodes in a ball of flames. Johnny and the woman roll away and fall into a passionate embrace.
She doesn’t realize that Johnny’s the one who put the bomb on the bus.
Meanwhile…
“Ok, cool. And I definitely nailed the guy next to me at Oktoberfest last year.”
St. Louis, eight months earlier…
Dixie is dressed in a really revealing German dirndl and is standing in line to buy a comically large bratwurst at an Oktoberfest event when a loud, very drunk woman cuts in line in front of her. Dixie shakes with rage, but with an unusual amount of self control, rather than assaulting the woman then and there, she follows her instead.
The woman gleefully runs to a somewhat attractive man, and they spend the next couple of minutes feeding each other the bratwurst. When they are done, the woman heads off to the porta-potties, and Dixie makes her move.
In no more than two minutes, she has seduced the woman’s boyfriend and lured him around behind the porta-potties, where they go at it with Dixie pressed up against the very unit that the girlfriend is using. They finish up just as the girlfriend turns the corner. She stops and stands there, stunned. Dixie thanks the man, then walks away. As she passes the girlfriend, she hands her her balled up panties and whispers, “Next time don’t cut the line, cunt.”
Meanwhile…
Dixie and Johnny walked through the gaming floor, which by now was strangely quiet. They looked around for another table to join, but found the room to be mostly empty.
“This place is kinda dead,” Dixie commented.
“Literally,” Johnny said, “We’re out of places to stuff these bodies.”
“Which might be ok because we’re running out of people to kill, too.”
“Gambling is hard work. It’s easier just to kill these people and take their money.”
“Well, there aren’t many left, and we’re outta money again, so...” They paused and surveyed the scene.
“What are you thinking?” Johnny asked. “Total teardown?”
“I don’t see how we have any other choice.”
“Can we do that, though?”
“Well, I’ve definitely banged everyone left at the bar, and all the people at that table there. I’m not sure about that other table.” Dixie pointed.
“Oh, yeah I actually nailed all of them at various points, plus the people sitting next to the stage, and,” he paused, doing a count, “all of the waitresses. What about the kitchen staff?”
“Taken care of.”
“Really?”
“I was hungry and I didn’t want to spend any of my money.”
“What about the cashier in the cage?” Johnny asked.
“Oh yeah, that’s fine. I ran out of chips earlier and figured I’d see if he’d give me more. Let’s just say he’s a consummate professional.”
“And a worthy fucking adversary. That’s it then. Let’s move.”
They made their way across the gaming floor, silently knifing everyone they passed and swiping any chips, cash, and jewelry that they had. This time they just left the bodies where they fell. When they reached the cage, they exchanged everything they had for cash.
“Looks like you had a good night after all,” the cashier said as he slid the stacks of cash across the counter to Dixie. She reached her hands through the opening in the cage and took both of the cashier’s hands in hers. She had her tiny pearl handled switchblade concealed in her left fist.
“Yep, I guess I didn’t need the chips after all, so consider that my gift to you.” He smiled and leaned closer to her.
“If you’re not busy, maybe we could meet up after my shift? I should be done in an hour.”
“I’d love to,” Dixie said, plunging the blade into his throat, “but I really have to get going.” She grabbed the money and walked away. “Nice meeting you, though!”
***
They crossed the bar, continuing their murder and robbery spree as they went, until they finally ended up in the kitchen. Looking around, Johnny grabbed a little fire breathing alien that was used in the kitchen to grill the food. It looked a bit like a giant toad, but with fire that shot out of a gland in its throat. Johnny lifted it up.
“Ok little guy, let’s finish what we started here.” Johnny squeezed the creature, sending a huge flame across the room. It set fire to the grease trap, and that soon spread throughout the kitchen.
Johnny carried the creature out to the main Cantina and used it to ignite the bar and all the seating, plus the booths, tables, and chairs throughout the room. He took care to give the dead clown an extra blast before moving on to the gaming floor. Soon, flames were consuming everything in sight. Alcohol bottles were beginning to explode, and the burning stage began to collapse in on itself. Their work complete, Dixie and Johnny headed toward the door.
Once outside, they gave the little fire breather one more squeeze and set fire to the Cantina door and the neon sign. The flames climbed the outside of the building, snaking their way onto the roof. They watched for a moment as the fire grew larger and hotter, then they put the little creature down on the ground in the parking lot and headed toward their ship, their pockets bulging with cash. They climbed into the ship, started her up, and pulled out of the parking lot, just as the flames reached the cruiser parked next to them.
***
As they roared off into the night, the little fire breathing creature sat silently in the parking lot, watching the Cantina burn. It began to cry, and as it did, small teardrops of flames rolled down its cheeks. The flames fizzled to nothing as they hit the ground.
