That Dark, Sweet Taste E-Book

Jacob Wilhelm

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

THAT DARK SWEET TASTE

Careful about what other people promise you.

It’s nearly Summer of 1975 and Pacini’s workpal Gus Butler is taking him to his hometown so they get some deep sea fishing accomplished.

Sounds groovy. Ain’t groovy, though. Pacini ends up stranded in the charming burg of Butler, Florida with a bunch of religious zealot types, a big bully, and (he can’t help but notice) no fishing. There’s a pretty woman, though. Nice.

There’s also Pacini’s lifelong problem to deal with. That’s Pacini himself. He digs bullying other people, he grooves on tormenting Gus Butler, and he’s not any more charming whilst killing time in this backwards, too damn religious burg.

He really should wok on his attitude.

Leseprobe

Jacob Wilhelm

That Dark, Sweet Taste

BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

Title

THAT DARK, SWEET TASTE

by

Jake Wilhelm

FRONT MATTER

COPYRIGHT

Title: That Dark, Sweet Taste

Author: Jake Wilhelm

Cover design: Jake Wilhelm

(c) Jake Wilhelm 2017/EP Dowd Enterprises. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in shape or form by any means, electronic, mechanical, copying, recording, or otherwise without prior written permission.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book is dedicated to my father, for his inspiration and support

THAT DARK, SWEET TASTE

All during the trip to Florida, that new John Denver song ‘Thank God I’m a Country Boy’ must’ve been on the radio at least twice a minute. Now, in this scroungy country store off the side of a grim road, the song was yee-hawing its way through the store’s scratchy little radio. The tune had recently irritated its way onto the Hot 100 and it promised to bug Pacini many more times this vacation.

“Thank God-" sang along the clerk in a voice that should never sing.

“Watch this,” Pacini said, pointing at the ancient Olds sedan at the gas pumps. Butler was seated stiff behind the wheel, stick up his ass even in the sagging seat. While Pacini had said ‘hurray, it’s a holiday’ and wore a turquoise sport shirt and white bell bottoms and generally had a fun look going on, Butler was in his usual gear – black slacks, white shirt, cheap black tie and even cheaper thick black plastic glasses strapped to his pale, boney head.

John Denver ceased singing. An overly enthused (or aptly bribed) disc jockey proclaimed, “That was the latest smash hit from John Denver. It promises to be your official soundtrack for the Summer of 1975!”

Swell.

Butler turned in his seat, glaring at Pacini.

“I’m watching,” said the clerk instead of singing. A couple of local yokels Pacini had let in on the joke moved towards the door, grinning in anticipation. Pacini led them all outside, across the creaking porch and onto the hard packed dirt yard. A dog joined them, sniffing Pacini in curiosity then begging for something out of the bag Pacini carried. Pacini had to kick the dog twice before it got the message to buzz off. Butler saw this and frowned.

Then he had to turn to face the big busted babe Pacini had a couple words with a few minutes ago, along with the slippage of a ten dollar bill. She strutted her stuff to the driver’s door, winked at Pacini and company before bending down to chat with Butler.

Too far away to hear all the words she said and he said. That made the joke even better. Suddenly, the girl stepped back fast and Butler howled out, “How dare you! Oh, how dare you! Police! Police! Hussy! Hussy!” Butler was a bright vivid strong red, veins jamming out of his neck. “Get out of here! Oh, get out of here!”

By now, everyone was laughing and the dog was barking. Butler waved his hands around, “I can’t believe a woman would, could, how dare you! Where’s the police I want the police!”

“Holy shit, that’s one uptight dude!” allowed the clerk.

“Jesus cracker,” snorted one of the local yokels before suddenly bursting into screeching laughter all over again.

Butler glared.

Eventually, the fun was over and Pacini and Butler were once again back on the road. Pacini sipped a cold Fanta and watched the scenery go by. It went slow when Butler drove. Yeah, plenty of time to catch the sights with that granny behind the wheel. Just as well. The engine was making a funny scratching sound. Probably shouldn’t have driven the jalopy across five states to get here. Oh well. Pacini was planning to get a new car soon anyhow.

“That was you, wasn’t it?” asked Butler.

“That was me, what?” “The girl.”

“Oh yeah. Guilty,” Pacini snickered.

“I’m not a fan of your little jokes.”

“If you didn’t freak out so well, I wouldn’t bother doing them, now would I?”

The guy was a real hoot. Butler was his right hand man at the job; he and Pacini oversaw the fifteen guys that kept the Hassel Building spotless. Back when Butler started, everyone knew what kind of guy he was. A total prude freak that carried a little Bible in his hip pocket, carried it there when he wasn’t busy reading it, normally reading it to explain why some dude had done something wrong and was going to hell – here it is right here, fella, says you’re going to hell. Never seemed to be anything in there about how a guy was going to heaven, go figure.

Once upon a time, Pacini found a box of old rubbers and every night, he’d squirt some liquid soap into them and leave them lying around one of the bathrooms Butler cleaned. Shit! The poor bastard was convinced the head was being used for sex and he would scream and yell about how certain folks were going to hell - he got so worked up, he even went to management about it and there was talk (from him, of course) that security guards should be placed in each bathroom to make sure this sinful sinning stopped. Management laughed their butts off about that, you bet.

Little jokes. Yeah. Butler was a real hoot. It was getting hard to invent new ways to torment the dude, but great ideas flashed across the TV screen all the time. There you’d be, thinking there’d be no more ways to fool around with the guy, but there’d come a groovy idea to stick it to the guy. Such as, try this one on for size - pay that pretty gal ten bucks to walk up and ask Butler if he wanted a blow job.

“Your ways are catching up to you,” Butler said. “You are not a nice man and you will pay.”

Oh, don’t drag out the Bible again.

“No more God talk, please!” insisted Pacini.

“There’s a need for God, and you’re an example why.” Butler turned, glared and said, “Those who hate you will be clothed with shame, and the tent of the wicked will be no more.”