Pistol Fanny's Hank & Delilah
Read Pistol Fanny's Hank & Delilah Online
Authors: Annie Rose Welch
Tags: #romance, #Mystery/Thriller
Copyright © 2015 by
Annie Rose Welch
Cover Designer: Sarah Hansen,
Okay Creations.
Editor: Alisa Carter
Interior Designer: Jovana Shirley,
Unforeseen Editing
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or byany means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
For the Freud’s of the world… Here’s to the good guys.
The light of the righteous shines brightly, but the lamp of the wicked is snuffed out.
PROVERBS 13
“Aim at the high mark and you will hit it. No, not the first time, not the second time and maybe not the third. But keep on aiming and keep on shooting for only practice will make you perfect. Finally you'll hit the bull's-eye of success.”
ANNIE OAKLEY
“If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.”
KATHARINE HEPBURN
“Give a girl the right shoes, and she can conquer the world.”
MARILYN MONROE
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
MARK TWAIN
The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride.
ECCLESIASTES 7:8
“I ain’t afraid to love a man. I ain’t afraid to shoot him, either!”
ANNIE OAKLEY
Murder in the Sixth Grade
Hank Huckleberry
I
wanted to rob a bank. And not just for any ole reason either. For the sweetest reason of all:
the ladies
. Those hot young women who even at the tender age of twelve smelled delicious. I wanted all that green dough piled high and surrounding me. I was also in love with two girls. Who were both into the dough, only wanting to date the boys who had enough money to take them roller-skating
and
buy them nachos.
My older brother, Randy, he was a real ladies’ man. He dated every day of the week, and when I asked him how to get a girl to kiss me, all he had said was, “Toots, show ’em the green and you’ll have them eating out the palm of your hand. Girls, no matter what age they are, love the green. It’s their favorite color, man.”
All I had to offer was a little jingle in my pocket. Jingle that my stepfather made me work for. Girls like Leslie and Cassie didn’t want pocket change, they wanted the real deal. The kind you flash, the kind that pays for nachos and ice cream, and if you’re right on the money, enough to pay for a ton of games in the arcade. Hell, I would’ve thrown in one of those rainbow bracelets just for the fun of it, just so they’d call me Big Poppa.
How do people rob banks, anyway? Especially when you’re only twelve and the whole town knows who you are because your left eye droops so low sometimes the teacher accuses you of being half asleep.
“
Hank Rivers, are you sleeping again?”
“No, ma’am, I just have a lazy eye…” Again.
Still, I had to try to think of something.
“I want to rob a bank,” I said to my friends, who were walking beside me. We were walking home from school on a hot, Tupelo, Mississippi Friday. Even though it was October, the air smelled of sweet honey and the air oozed humidity. “But I have to figure out how to do it without getting caught. I have a tell.” I pointed to my eye.
“You’re a special kind-a stupid, you know that? Rob a bank! Come on, Toots! Do you really want to spend the rest of your life in jail? Or worse, be sent to the electric chair because you can’t afford to buy those girls some nachos? You’re only asking for trouble,” Dylan Surr Cotton said.
Dylan Surr Cotton was aspiring to be sheriff one day, and although he was all for the law, he was all for breaking the rules too. He felt if you broke the rules, became one of them, once you were the man they couldn’t fool you. He was betting on being the greatest sheriff Tupelo had ever seen.
“Son, if you’re going to play the game, you gotta learn how to play it right, and robbing a bank ain’t no way to play.” He was also going through
The Gambler
stage.
“I don’t-I don’t know what you s-see in them anyway. Leslie stinks like f-fish sticks, and Cassie picks her n-nose. I saw her w-wiping the b-booga’ just the other d-day under her d-desk. When I tol-tol-told her I saw, she-she told me to m-m-min’ my own beeswax. Li-li-like I haven’t heard tha-tha-that one be-be-before,” Tommy Beeswaxes said.
Tommy was “bless his heart” special, as my mother, June-bug, had always called people who were less fortunate in life. Tommy had a speech impediment and usually stuttered and said things twice, but if the situation was extremely upsetting or exciting for him, he sometimes repeated himself three times. Although he couldn’t seem to help it, he was always getting into trouble at school. He sometimes wrote the same way he talked.
“Maybe if you’d stop letting people call you ‘Toots,’ the girls would dig you. I heard Leslie and Cassie talking about you today at lunch. They both think you were named after gas. I don’t think they even know that your real name is Hank.”
“Shut up, Curly!” We all shouted and started walking faster.
Curly Cootie was my stepbrother. He was only a month younger than me, but much smaller and shorter, with a girl’s smooth face and voice and wild, curly blond hair. Guys were always beating up on him. We let him hang out with us at school, but after the bell rang, we didn’t want him near us. But he followed me anywhere I went. June-bug got a new husband and green, and I was stuck with a damn Cootie bug.
“Stop, you guys.” There was wheezing and gasping. We all turned to look. “I can’t breathe.” Jesse Presley leaned over his legs, his book bag resting on the higher part of his back while he hyperventilated.
Jesse was the nerviest boy I ever met. He was allergic to twenty different things that one shot could supposedly cure. His mother gave us strict instructions on what we should do if he ever started turning colors—we had to call his name twice and then give him his miracle pill. Dylan tried them once and said they tasted like nothing but sugar to him.
We were also instructed that if any of the following came into contact with him, we should shoot him in the neck with a clear solution he kept in his emergency Presley pack: bees, honey, molasses, whole wheat, peanut butter, white socks, Brussels sprouts, goat, lamb, latex, or any type of alcoholic beverage. We never understood how they knew he was allergic to alcoholic beverages—he was too young to try them—but it was on the list nonetheless.
Jesse never left home without his emergency Presley pack. His most prized possession was located in the secret department, which was his “panic-attack alert system.” It was a device hooked up to the local police and fire stations. If he had an attack or was generally in trouble, we were instructed to stab him with a syringe filled with his “medicine” and then
immediately
press the button.
He passed out a lot too. For no reason sometimes. The panic system seemed like a waste to us. We never used it on him and he was always all right. So once when he was passed out on someone’s lawn, we stole his system, pressed the button, and then tied it to ole Mrs. Shuck’s dog’s neck. We heard sirens all over the place. And Jesse had no idea.
“Jesus, come on, Jesse! I want to get home and watch TV. If you pass out and make me miss my favorite show, I’m going to eat all your miracle pills,” Dylan said, throwing his book bag to the baking cement.
“I smell honey,” Jesse wheezed.
“Wait,” I said, while Jesse continued the rasping. I threw my bag down next to Dylan’s. “Ya’ll aren’t coming with me to Wild Thang?”
“Hell no,” Dylan shouted. “I’m not interested in seeing Elvis appear out of a puff of smoke just ’cause Leslie and Cassie what’s-their-names told you to do it. You’re an idiot.”
“S-smoke,” Tommy stuttered. “F-f-forget it. I heard that sh-sh-sh really works. No way, you don’t pl-play with the dead like that. It’s dis-dis-disrespectful.”
“I’ll go,” Curly said, fanning hot air toward Jesse’s face with a spiral notebook.
“Shut up, Curly,” we all yelled again.
“Ya’ll are just afraid to try a cigarette. Randy said it’s not that bad, and it’s just a couple of puffs,” I said.
Jesse got deathly quiet and stumbled back a bit. “You,” he wheezed out, “didn’t tell me that I had to smoke a cigarette! I’m allergic!” He passed out on the concrete and we knew it would be a good ten minutes before he came to again.
I unzipped his bag and pulled out his list. I plucked the paper with my pointer finger and then pointed. “It doesn’t say he’s allergic to smoke. He’s going with me. Now, are you ladies in or out?”
“I’m out.” Dylan picked up his bag and stepped over Jesse. “See you pusses later. It’s pizza night and I’m going home to watch my show.
Hasta la vista,
babies!”
Tommy looked at me with an alarmed expression. “N-n-no way! I tol-tol-told you. It’s dis-dis-disrespectful. I’d rather rob a bank with you than try that shi-shi-shit. You pl-pl-play with the d-d-dead, they ai-ai-ain’t got nothing better to do than-than-than haunt you ’cause-’cause-’cause it’s etern-etern-eternity. I’m going to hang with Dyl-Dyl-Dylan.”