Da Gunman and Da Gimp

Copyright Valentine's Day 2007

It was during the Winter of 1951 in our Illinois farm house, a day
after my 21st birthdayt when My Step Dad, as big and mean as a dairy bull, smashed into my bedroom and shouted, 'Get Out! You fed potatoes to Bossy and she got one stuck in her throat and choked, and it was you what done it. Get Out! Go to Chicago and be that ghostwriter fella or whatever it was you was talking about wanting to be. Just never come back! Ya hear! Never come back!'

My Ma was crying as I gathered my few things in a flour sack. As I was walking out the door she said, 'Try not to be a bum, Jimmy! Once a bum, always a bum. Try to get a job.!'

So I got to Chicago and walked the cold streets for two days trying to find some kind of job but there wasn't any. Everybody else had the same idea, so on the third night I seen a big shot looking guy smoking a cigar get out of his cadillac. I walked up to him and tried my favorite Humphrey Bogart line on him. 'Say fella, could you stake a fellow American to a meal?'

He looked me up and down with a look of scorn and then with a mischievous smile he said, 'Yah sure, come on up. I got something you can do.'

so we rode the elevator one floor up to his swank apartment and when he closed the door he pulled a gun and said, 'O.k. you stupid little jackass take off your clothes and put on that gimp suit before I pistol whip your ass.'

What could I do? He looked crazy. I got into the horrible black spandex looking thing that covered my whole body with just four holes, two for my eyes, one for my mouth, and one in the posterior for his shameful addictive fetish. He strapped a rubber rubber ball into my mouth, knocked me over the sofa and used me shamefully.

When he was done he said, 'Look what you've made me do! Now I'm going to take you out into the alley and smash your brains out! You'll be just another dead wino who got drunk, passed out and froze to death after falling against a brick!'

Then I heard another voice behind him say ' Ed you stink weed snitch!', and then I heard three sort of muffled bangs.

I just managed to get out of the way when the perv fell beside me. The gunman was aiming the thing he had in a pillow at me now and he must have thought it strange to see me jumping up and down, flailing my arms like a chicken shaking my head back and forth.

He walked over and ripped the hood off my head and the ball out of my mouth and said 'Why You're just a punk kid! What's your name?'

'Jimmy Turkal', I said.

'No' he said. 'Are you Studs Terkel's kid?'

' No. I don't know him' I said.

'Get out of that monkey suit and put your clothes on and be quick about it.' he barked.

I did and he said, 'Go get his wallet, and roll your fingers firmly on both sides of it, take the money out and then bring the money to me. Throw the billfold on the floor.'

I did, shaking badly, and brought him the money on my knees, holding out the cash in a supplicating way.

'Get up and try to be a man for Christ's sake' he barked.He took the cash and said 'You know what this makes you Jimmy? An accessory to murder and robbery. If you try to finger me I'll give them your name Turkal and they'll match your finger prints with the ones on that billfold and you'll get the chair, understood?' Then he gave me four 100 dollar bills and five twenties and said 'Get out. Go out the back way.'

I came out of the alley badly shaken and saw a chili joint across the street. I had two bowls of chili then found a fairly nice hotel with a bar in it. I rented a room for two nights, went into the bar and had a couple shots of old rocking chair whiskey, went to bed and slept arount the clock.

After five years of surviving as best I could I finally got lucky. Knowing I could never face the world in the eye again, being damaged property, I seriously pursued being a ghost writer. What respectable person wants to talk to an ex-gimp?, I had become a ghost writer for a guy who would eventually become one of America's most well known famous authors. No one would know they were not his books. They were all mine.

On the day in question he had received an advance of 25,000 dollars against future royalties on one of his books, my book. 'Just keep writing kid and we'll live a good life. I know people. I've got connections. Just keep writing like you are.'

I dressed in my best clothes and went to a nice lounge. I sit down and was drinking a whiskey when a nice looking babe halfway down the bar smiled at me. I looked away ashamed. What girl wants to know a guy who was a gimp for a killer named Eddie Rackhaus.

Then there he was, the devil himself. the guy who had wasted Rackhaus that night. He had sat down next to the babe. I know God probably made the world the way it is to keep us from getting bored but this was too much. He saw me looking at him with horror on my face. I slid off the stool, backed up three steps ,lost my balance and fell back into a table scattering glasses and silverware. I got up and ran full blast toward the door. I made one mistake. I forgot the door was closed. I woke up 20 minutes later having nearly broken my nose, my eyes swelling shut.

The hotel doctor the lounge belonged to said 'You going to be all right?'

'I just want to go home', I said.

'Well' he said. 'If you have any touble just walk down to Chicago Memorial and give them this card.' He put the card in my shirt pocket.

I finally got up and walked toward the door when the bartender said, 'Hey kid.' Johnny Valatina left a note for you in your coat pocket. Said it would cheer you up.'

I went to my apartment, sat down, and read the note. 'You were the gimp that night, weren't you? Don't worry! He had it coming. The cops are glad he's dead. I know you're too yellow to squeal. That's good! Have a drink on me.' In the note was a hundred dollar bill.

I took two aspiring and drank the last swallow from the bottle of Sunny Brook I had, and that was the last alcohol I ever drank. Not only because I had heard that alcohol kills brain cells and I needed all I had, but because I had heard about the great Hurricane that destroyed Galveston, Tx. in 1900.

In 1900, there were 500 bars and saloons in Galveston, Tx. There were alot of whore houses too. In September of that year, the worst Hurricane in history demolished Galviston claiming an estimated 8 to 12 thousand lives. They found 6,000 bodies and burned them in piles. The Funeral stench was smelled 100 miles out to sea.

It was not limited solely to trailer park, tornado bait, white trash either. The city was full of Blacks, Jews, and every other nationality, and they all got along well together.

Shortly after recuperating I started writing my magnum opus entittled 'The Sedentary Insensate', a book about a crippled guy on Welfare who wrote short stories and novels for 40 years and never got anything published. He finally commits suicide by jumping in front of a bus. He didn't realize that drinking a gallon of wine everyday was no good for his creativity.

My book, his book, sold 50,000,000 copies and was translated into 40 languages because It made its readers feel such pity and compassion for the crippled guy that they were grateful for all the simple things in their own lives.

Now I am an old ghost writer with 5 million dollars in the bank.

I went home once about 20 years ago. My step dad and mom were dead. I found an old lady who said she had been a nurse in the old folks home when ma died. She said the last thing my ma whispered before she died was 'Jimmy.' That's me.


Looking back on my life and all the things that have happened to me,seemingly out of my control, I certainly would not want to have a lasting influence on anyone's philosophy or life. I write solely for peoples' entertainment as a passing fancy, to hopefully brighten their day.
( I am at a loss as to explain why I am the way I am or why my life is like it is. It seems almost like something or someone else is in control of it. I only know I would not change it for anyone or anything in a million years! )



By mystic drifter