Googie, The Sheriff and The Dirty Half-Dozen [An Egg Western]

It were damn hotter’n hell that day, and somethin’ unpalatable was brewin’ on the streets of Griddle. The tiny frontier hamlet in Chalaza Co., weren’t no more’n a clutch of ramshackle dwellings and establishments in the junction of two coffee-coloured rivers.  The streams blended into one below the town and ran, slow as melted butter, across the wide tableland and off into the sink.

                  The sun, raw above the crusty earth, was bakin’ the main strip of Griddle like toast beneath a grill. And before that day was done many good souls would get roasted - and all on account of that once pure, innocent dish, young Googie Pavlova.

                  Googie was the perfect well-rounded package, not a blemish. But her papa, Eaton, had way too much on his plate and her mama, Molly, coddled her something shameful. I swear they just spoiled their little Googie rotten. As time went by, why Googie became a real handful, stirrin’ up trouble and runnin’ wild. Pretty soon that once sweet Googie just could not get enough free range.

                  Well, it was the evening of that fateful day when the trouble spread like a wildfire. Bald Bob Florentine, that hard-boiled poacher from the other side of the pan (and leader of The Dirty Half Dozen) got fried at Foo-Yung’s and tried to get fresh with young Googie. Now Googie was a sucker for the smooth and slippery. She took one look at Bald Bob’s impressive pate and she done flipped. Her eyes glazed over and she went all runny.

                  To complicate things, she’d been currying favour for a time with the local sheriff, Herb O’Regano, the undisputed crack-shot-law of Griddle. He was an old hand at the sheriffin’ game. He’d been through some snags and scrapes in his time, been whipped some, but never beaten. But now Googie had him sautéed, soufle’d and basted, and when he saw Googie ‘playin’ winkums’ with Bald Bob, why he just lost his lid! So Bald Bob was now in hot water.

                  “I shoulda grilled Bald Bob Florentine over that fire at the Steakhouse last spring”, growled the sheriff. “I’ve already put two of the Half Dozen pack in the cooler, and now I’ll eat him, and the rest, for breakfast.”

                  But the Half Dozen (aka the Albumen) wouldn’t fold easy. No sir, they were not lean, but they sure were mean. Take, for one, big Hash Skillet who was in the cage for years - assault and battery (suspended). If he weren’t doin’ hard labour he was confined to his own cell. In the end, as they all do, he cracked. They say the yolk he bore was just too darn heavy.

                  Then “The Saint”, Luke Benedict, who’d sided with old Coll Esterol in the Easter uprising, he got roasted for breakin’ and enterin’.

                  And Basil ‘Three-Minute’ McMuffin, ‘The Scotch Woodcock’ they called him, why he and young Lorraine Quiche were pretty thick back then. But their relationship curdled the night he got pickled (again) at One-eyed Jack’s. She was all tarted up for ‘Three Minute’ but their tryst soured when she heard he was two-timing. Naturally Lorraine got all steamed up, “O’m-a-lettin’ you go this time Basil!”, she tossed after him. Deep down inside she knew he was just plain yella, but against her better judgement, she would always have a soft spot for Basil.

                  Last but not least, the Devilish Timbale Twins, Frittata & Loco Moco, double trouble. Always masked, never mixed. After they took out the mint in Carbonara, especially since their little brother Migas cashed in his chips, these two rascals couldn’t be separated with a spatula.

                  So, after simmering for what seemed like a thousand years, the battle between Sheriff Herb O’Regano and Bald Bob Florentine’s Dirty Half-dozen finally broke out with a vengeance. And the crackle and spit of gunfire reverberated all over town.

                  The sheriff, sandwiched between One-eyed Jack’s Over-Easy Tavern and the Sunnyside Saloon, traded shots with the Dirty Half-dozen, holed up in Shelly Gritt’s Pancake Parlor. With all the scrappin’ & scramblin’ & shots a-sizzling every which way, why it sounded worse than a leaden-legged lizard let loose in a lolly-loaded larder.

                  When the smoke finally lifted, most of the Half Dozen were cooked. Hash Skillet had been sliced and diced, the Timbale Twins shirred, and divinity had called for the ‘Saint’, Luke Benedict. And Bad Basil, well… his time too, was finally up.

                  The only ones still upright were Bald Bob Florentine and Sheriff Herb O’Regano. They’d emptied all their shells but were still at each other with the blades. The sheriff ‘d been peppered by pellets but he had grit. Bald Bob was stuffed, but cocky. He knew he was the keenest knife in the fork, and sure enuogh it weren’t long before he’d made a meal of the Sheriff. Suddenly it was all over for Sheriff Herb, and you could hear Bald Bob callin’ fer seconds.

                  After the battle Bald Bob tried to whisk young Googie away but she gave him the chop. It was clear to her that Bob weren’t worth his salt, no-how. So Bob quickly hatched an escape plan and lit out on his trusty Pinto, Beans.

                  And how did it all pan out for those left over? Well Lorraine and Shelly staked out a claim for their own fertile spread they called “Huevos Rancheros”. And after some time, Googie left the paster she’d been seein’ and joined them. The three were never happier, even than in their salad days. They were in the fields from the crack of dawn to the setting of the sun. Evenings they sang their songs and danced the meringue under the rising moon.

© Owen Smith 1996