Hey all, welcome to our first writing prompt for 2021 and we are starting the year off with a bang. We have a quote from Joe Lansdale and I can't wait to see where it goes. Feel free to drop in and share some words. We're happy to have you.
So here's this week's prompt:
Hallowed be thy name, oh lord-- and shotgun do your stuff.
“…on a steel horse I RIDE. I’m wanted. Wanted. Dead or alive.”
Bon Jovi abruptly cuts out. Jimmy and Hank scramble for the first seat in the single folding chair. The chair’s feet screech across the Jimmy’s garage floor. After a slight scuffle, Hank’s ass finds the chair first.
“Goddammit, Leon,” Jimmy says. “How many times I got to tell you, you can’t stop at the natural breaks in the song. You gotta stop all random like.”
“But if you don’t know when I’m gonna stop,” Leon says, “isn’t it random for you anyhow?”
“That don’t make a goddamn lick of sense.” Jimmy wipes his palms across his Carhartt pants. “Hank git up. We gotta go agains.”
“Agains? What for?”
“I’m gonna win this thing and I can’t win if I don’t practice. Now get up. Ya hear?”
Hank stands up and rubs a hand across the bruise forming on his backside from the last hour of two-man-musical-chairs.
Jimmy checks his phone. “Alright. The event starts in twenty minutes. We got five more minutes to practice. Leon, music.”
Leon spins a 14 millimeter crescent wrench around his finger like a six shooter.
“Is this really worth it? Just for a cake from a church fundraiser? You can go on down the store and buy you a cake an’ I reckon it’d be a whole lot easier on Hank’s backside.”
“It ain’t just some grocery store cake.” Jimmy shoves his finger in Leon’s face.
The wrench slips from Leon’s finger, comes to a rest next to the cracked tire of Hank’s piece of shit Nova. Leon supposes “Hank’s” was a bit of an unnecessary qualifier, though, as all Novas are pieces of shit.
“It is Miss Marble’s One and Only Southern Delight Red Velvet Slice of Heaven. It’s a goddamn modern marvel, right up there next ta Elvis’ pompadour and every motor vehicle Shelby ever laid hands on. That dessert is worth every damn second of training. Now quit yer bitchin’ and hit the music.”
Leon sighs and digs out his phone again. He queues up Spotify and hits play.
Oh, and I ride
Oh, and I'm a cowboy, on a steel horse I ride
I'm wanted dead or alive
Leon cuts the music. Hank drops straight into the chair, sending Jimmy skidding onto his ass.
Jimmy kicks the back tire of the Nova. Old dirt and rust fall to the garage floor.
“Hey, listen,” Leon says. “How about we just not worry about it. Alright? I know Miss Marble all right. I’m betting I could talk her into baking you one of them cakes for your birthday.”
“In six months? Fuck that.” Jimmy stands up and storms across the garage.
“What you doing?” Hank says, trying to peak around the lift at Jimmy.
“Saying a little prayer about winning me some cake.”
Leon laughs and slaps his leg. “You done praying for a cake? How’s that prayer go? Thy cake done come, Jim’s will be done, he’ll have his cake, and eat it too?”
Jimmy walks back to the garage door, holding his daddy’s Mossberg 500. He pumps a round into the chamber. “It goes: Hallowed by thy name, oh lord, and shotgun do your stuff. Imma get me that cake.”
"Please, Dolores, you ain't got to do th-thi-." Bile and vomit choked his words, keeping them trapped in his liar's mouth.
"Hmmm hmm you never know, dear," Dolly shoved her favorite handkerchief into his mouth. Mama had embroidered little bluebells on it and gifted it to Dolly whe she married Jimmy. It was the happiest day Dolly could recollect.
"Ohh how much I love you," she secured the handkerchief with the stocking he had ripped off her before violating her for the last time.
Prester John preached that a wife should obey and submit to her husband, always. He said it was the closest a woman, in her inferiority, could get to God.
"Mmm mmm ahhh." He flopped onto his belly, and scooted towards the cabin door. The stained and torn foot of her stocking flapped around his head with each jerk of his over indulged body.
Many a night Jimmy and Prester John shared a quart or two of Jimmy's homebrew. Many a night Jimmy and Prester John took their turns at her after too much of the shine. The prester assured her that she was submitting her body for the Lord's work. Problem was, she wasn't submitting anything and no amount of tears or pleading stopped it. From either of them.
Dolly thought that marrying Jimmy was a better alternative than sharing a two room shack with her parents and three sisters, even if Jimmy smelled like manure and was missing most of his teeth. The Lord teaches you not to judge one another. Prester John liked to tell the younguns that. And besides Jimmy was a devout man, always had been since she could remember. She figured young love must have blinded her to the mean streak in him.
There was nothing that hid the same streak in Prester John. He wore it like a second skin.
Dolly shut the front door and lowered the bar down just before he could wiggle out to the front porch.
"Come on now, that ain't no way to be. We ain't done yet." She pulled Jimmy's shotgun down from above the door frame.
"..ahh mmmm aa." Teardrops streaked down his dirt smeared face and mixed with the vomit clinging to his chin. He continued to scream his rage behind the handkerchief at her audacity.
Since becoming Missus Jimmy Dodgen, Dolly had learned a lot more about God and his teachings from Jimmy.
Jimmy learned from Prester John. He learned a lot from him. Through every slap and humiliation she learned what it meant to have the fear of God in her heart.
No matter now. She snugged the butt of the shotgun against her shoulder, pointed the barrel at his sweat soaked head. Hellfire burned behind his eyes, wide and angry to the end. "Well Prester John, hallowed be thy name, o Lord, and shotgun do your stuff."
Well, I started something when the post went up and then the week went to hell in a hand basket and I never made it back to it. Posting the first “line” anyway and perhaps someday I’ll make it back to it.
Down here, down here the gun was your lord and saviour. The giver and taker of life, love, and liberty. Down here you paid homage to the gun and whoever did hold her high upon your head.