veracruz

by bofa xesjum

this is it - positively the last time i heard you the first time can you hear me now? i just woke up ah - you just woke up why do you torture me like this? you know i have no brain it’s lucky for you i have some compassion for your unfortunate condition night had fallen. the lamp burned low in the cabin. mike had been holding harry captive since they had busted out of the pen and holed up in the cabin. despite the danger that lurked everywhere, harry had wanted to make a run for it, but mike insisted on laying low. harry was getting desperate. pauline was waiting for him in thomasville, to drive him to veracruz. of all the guys he could have busted out of the pen with, mike was the worst. he had been going to go with johnny falcon - a standup guy. an unfortunate series of events had resulted in johnny’s being thrown in solitary just when everything was set up. harry had never expected such a thing. there was something about the whole thing that was screwy - that he just couldn’t understand. he had always been lucky, except when he was unlucky. mike was a dumb brute. but harry had asked him to replace johnny because he thought he could control him. right from the start harry felt something was wrong. but he still expected he could pull it off. in the first few minutes after they got over the wall he thought he was home free. and then just like that it all went wrong. he had forgotten all the stories he had heard around the campfire, all the movies he watched as a kid on late night tv. when the going gets tough, then you ain’t seen nothing yet. the boys in the back room always win. where was frank? where was the truck that was going to take them to thomasville? the night was a big blank nothing stretching as far as the eye could see. harry had never gotten a break in his life. you’re a natural - a natural loser, his daddy used to tell him, and his mama too. he quickly adjusted to his natural circumstances. except sometimes when he had a little too much to drink. sad - it was really sad. everybody said so. nothing changed as the years went by. then he met pauline. for no reason anybody could see, pauline was halfway nice to him. of all the pathetic bums in the world, pauline, who had a heart as cold as the best of them, took pity on harry. hard to figure, bur she just did. pauline worked two jobs - in dixie’s beauty salon by day, and as a waitress in big joe’s place at night. you could say she had a third job on the side - taking suckers for their hard earned money. pauline had always wanted a dog - but she was allergic to the poor beasts. harry could be likened to a sad puppy. in any event, he kindled some random spark of buried kindness in pauline. she gave him the time of day about once a week, and listened to his sad stories. but the time comes when the queen demands something of her most humble and loyal subjects - it is nature’s way. a guy named george was proving a pest to pauline. he even threatened to go to the police with a story of how she had cheated him - in a perfectly legit business proposition. it was time for harry to show a little gratitude for the nice way she treated him. it was the old story - the old army game. harry told pauline he was up for anything she wanted him to do. one dark night george got what was coming to him. pauline had an alibi as cast iron as a locked safe in the bottom of the mississippi river. harry, her knight in shining armor, did what he had to do. pauline was sincerely grateful. all he had to do was bust out of the pen and get to thomasville, and pauline would meet him and drive him to veracruz. you don’t need me to tell you how it ended. nobody ever makes it to veracruz.