The place and time: Rico Soiree’s penthouse above the Silver School of English in Kyiv, just after midnight
Soiree, dressed in a black smoking jacket with a padded pink lapel, is puffing away on a Tiparillo. His companion for the evening is Josh Davies, who is wearing stiff dark-blue overalls and a Donkeys Abroad beach visor and chewing snuff. The two men are engaged in what appears to be a game of five-card stud for unspecified stakes.
Soiree: Your deal, Davies.
Davies: (shuffling cards) Always in a hurry, aren’t we Rico? You need to take it easy, smell the flowers in life.
Soiree: Right now all I can smell is that cheap snuff you keep shoving into your jowls.
Davies: (cracks a rare smirk while deftly dealing out the cards) Wouldn’t be your cigar that’s got those nostril hairs in a tangle, now, would it?
Enter: Zippy Zamazda dressed as a waiter
Zippy: Can I bring you another drink, Mr. Soiree, sir?
Soiree: (not even looking up) Yes, Skippy, another Scotch would be fine… and a can of Coors for Mr. Davies while you’re at it.
Zippy: Very good, sir. (exits wiggling his large ass)
Davies: (holding cards close, just below his glasses) Where did you find the help?
Soiree: Picked him up at a Saint Valentine’s Day photo shoot – don’t you read Kyiv Unedited, Davies?
Davies: (still holding cards tight) Seems to me that I’ve come across it on the Internet once or twice… Bet’s on you, Soiree.
Soiree: (singing) Seems I’ve got something sweet… and neat… and you might have to paaaaay!
Davies: Put your money where your mouth is, spaghetti bender.
Soiree: I’ll do one better, and put two shipments of extra-strength erection agent on these cards, shitkicker!!! (throws down three kings)
Davies: (still holding cards tight) Ahem.
In walks Zamazda, slightly surprised at his boss’s raised tone and use of profanity.
Zippy: Um… I couldn’t find any ice, Mr. Soiree. That freezer is awfully packed with…
Soiree: (irritated) …with what needs to be in there, my boy, with what needs to be in there. Now why don’t you prance back to the kitchen and dig up some see-through cubes so that I don’t have to drink my Scotch warm, ok, Pissy?
Zippy: (quietly offended) Yeah, uh… sure… I heard ya.
Davies: (having deftly snatched the Coors off the tray follows Zippy into the kitchen with his eyes) Is, er, fat ass, ahem, knowledgeable about our mutual commercial enterprise?
Soiree: Naw. He thinks Viagra is an English course developed in Hong Kong.
Davies: (carefully pasting a full house onto the table) And I think you’re gonna have to throw in a crate of 500 mg Rooster pills to cover this one…
Soiree: Shit! You ol’ pecker wood. Where the hell did you pull those out of… And by the way, I thought the Rooster pills only came in 250 mg doses?
Davies: And I thought New Jersey was a stink tank for holding illegal guineas, har, har har.
Soiree: (dumbfounded) No, it’s a state on the East Coast. I used to work for the school board…
Zippy: (re-enters grimacing with disgust) I found a pair of woman’s panties in the ice box, Mr. Soiree.
Soiree: (eyebrows arched) Now that will be enough of that tomfoolery, Zippy! Go back into that kitchen and bring me some ice!
Zippy: But, Mr. … Ouch!
Soiree whacks Zamazda several times across the behind with a leather paddle he’s pulled out from under the cushion of the chair he’s sitting on, scowling all the while like an irate schoolmarm, while the former Kyiv Poster editor turned personal servant scurries back into the kitchen clutching his rear.
Soiree: (catching his breath as he gets back in his chair) I don’t suffer insolence, Josh, as you may have already surmised from our limited commercial partnership.
Davies: (in aside to readers) Especially when there’s a fat ass to wallop on hand – hee, hee, hee…
Soiree: What’s that, Davies?
Davies: (smiling) I say, let’s deal another hand.
Soiree: (shuffling the deck afresh) I must say that Zippy has been somewhat of a mixed blessing. He interviewed well, and I was, of course, only flattered at how well our group photo with the ladies turned out in that recent edition of What’s Off.
Soiree starts dealing cards, absentmindedly, while Davies gropes for joker he’d stuck in his undershorts at the start of the evening so as to have something to cut up a fresh mouthful of snuff with.
Soiree: And certainly I understand that his rural background – that is, being a newcomer to Kyiv, from wherever it was on that yellow brick road that he began his journey…
Davies: (picking his teeth) As a zebra, no less.
Soiree: But there’s something that I just cannot fathom in the boy’s nature… it’s as if I get this feeling that if some thoroughly unscrupulous furry creature were to come along with the suggestion that he displace me at the Silver School of English, or wherever, by some devious means, he wouldn’t think twice about doing so…
Davies: (looking at cards) To hell with that English school of yours, Soiree. We’ve got bigger fish to fry… speaking of which: I’ve got a wing-dinger in my pocket that says you can’t beat four of a kind, garlic breath.
Soiree: (paying attention to his hand and looking serious again) Oh yeah. Well, I’ll stake my half of our Dnieper transport vessel that you’re talking through the wrinkles on that saggy ass of yours…
Davies: (pulls Ferret Light, in a peaked Tyrolean hat and all, out of his overall pocket with two fingers) What have you got to match this?
Ferret Light: Hey, what are you doing? Heh, heh, you can’t use me like a poker chip!
Suddenly out of the kitchen rushes Zippy Zamazda with a meat tenderizer, snatches Ferret Light from out of Davies’s fingers, slaps him on the table and starts pulverizing him with the blunt instrument while the two seasoned poker players look on in horror.
Back at home in his kitchen, holding his head between his hands while slumped over a chair, Zamazda is berated by his wife.
Wife: I don’t understand. We went to all that trouble getting dressed up on Saint Valentine’s Day. You managed to get into that photo, which luckily got published in the very next issue… got the job… and (sob, sob), now you’ve been fired for murdering The Ferret (sob, sob).
Zippy: Ferret Light.
Wife: How could you?! – boo-hoo-hoo!
Filed by Dirk Dickerson (somewhat jumping the gun), April 4, 2013