catfish 17

  I don't know why Beagles thinks that wages are growing more than a few percentage points while the moneybags of the very very rich are soaring higher than the high sierras. 

This was my initial disagreement with Beagles, and I still see nothing that says otherwise.  

I never said anything about women.  And I see nothing to disabuse me of my findings in the google search is black unemployment growing.

I'd suggest wiki if Beagles is interested in learning more about Sinclair Broadcasting.  But as I said just because somebody is a lying liar does not mean everything they say is false, it just means you should apply more than average scrutiny to it.  Gannet is a big operation but I think they are fairly middle of the road.

But enough of this head-banging.  A little disappointed that I didn't get the lit crit that I was asking (begging) for but I will continue.  At this point the story gets a little darker, but there is some humor.

About a half hour into practice Ted and Ron showed up, just in from the big job. Ted took up at second base and Ron, smacking his glove, sauntered right up behind me. "So how's it going?" he wanted to know, and I didn't want to say too much to him, not after Tammy had showed up last week with that black eye. He had rather shrugged it off, slipped on the stairs, and landed smack on the doorknob, those sloe gin fizzes, he mused.  He shook his head like what can you do, and she, a quick glance at him, shrugged apologetically, sorry to have caused a fuss. 

Itch was outraged. "That fucking son of a bitch. That Goddamn hillbilly," he hissed at me when I passed him coming out of the john. "Well," I answered, not really wanting to get into it.  I didn't like that shiner, but maybe none of my business, and she was a little lush.  It was possible that she stumbled.  And I didn't like that hillbilly crack.  

"You fuckers," he answered passing into the pisser, slamming the door behind him. Well shit, I kind of knew he was right. That Ron was wrong. I'd known that right from my first day in back in Champaign, but I hadn't heard Itch saying anything about it till now, and the way he had somehow put me in the Ron category, there was no justification for that. 

And I noticed, coming back from my piss, that he didn't say a word to Ron, didn't go near the side of the bar he was sitting at, let Maggie, the other bartender, take all the orders from that side. Ron, getting sloshed, picked up on this, there was no love lost between the two anyway. Ron kind of looked down on all those college types, oh he acted friendly to them, but always with kind of an edge, which most of them never noticed, but Itch did, he kind of edged him back, in that sarcastic way of his. If you didn't know any better you'd think they were just kidding around, but it didn't take too much to see that edge. 

Anyway, Maggie had gone to the bathroom or something and Ron's glass was empty, he kind of looked at the other end of the bar where Itch was fiddling with something, and banged his glass on the bar a little too hard.  "Hey Eetch," he said, because that's the way George pronounced his name, kind of a joke between us at the bar, but no joke the way Ron said it. 

Itch looked over at him, gave him a stare, and then went back to what he was fiddling with. 

"Hey Eeeeetch," Ron repeated louder drawing out the name, "Get me another beer."  Tammy surprisingly put her hand on his arm, like to rein him in a little. It surprised him too, he shook off her hand and grabbed her by the chin, pulling her face in Itch's direction and making a point of looking at her shiner, and then looking back at Itch, "You got a problem?" And this just as the jukebox was between songs so that everybody heard it clearly and all the heads turned in their direction. 

I'd been watching all this sitting near Itch's side of the bar, still a little sore about that "You fuckers," remark, but this was just too much.  Itch put away what he was fiddling with and just stood there, really pissed but really scared too because Ron could kick his ass in a heartbeat, and that appeared to be what he was thinking of as he unhanded Tammy's chin with a bit of a jerk and stood up like he was thinking of coming behind the bar. 

Well I couldn't just sit there, but I didn't know what to do exactly. Got up and walked towards Ron, made out like I was drunker than I was, always helps.  He was moving towards where he could get behind the bar when I met him, and I fell sloppily on him.  "Like being on a desert island huh?" first words that popped into my mind, always go with your first words. 

"Huh?" Ron wanted to know, still heading towards behind the bar, he was like a ram, but I had my arms around his shoulders and stuck my foot in between his so we were all tangled up.  

"Desert island," I repeated, wondering where I was going to go with this.  "Desert island, you know with that scraggly palm tree dropping those coconuts on your head, boink boink, and water water everywhere, but not a drop to drink, and what you want is just an ice cold beer, huh?" 

"That's what I want," he said, making a move to get past me, but we were just too tangled and he was becoming a little confused. 

"Those island girls, they know how to draw a beer, they have those little pink tongues and they hold them just so, and pull down on that big tap gentle-like with that smooth move, you know what I mean," and I leered at the watchers and got a few giggles.  And just then Maggie came walking back into the bar, and I sang out, "Island girl," and got a pretty good laugh out of that, and another one when she looked around confused.

And by then the whole momentum was gone. It all worked out for everybody. Ron was settled back in his bar stool as Maggie drew his beer, still wondering what everybody found so funny. Itch didn't get his ass kicked.  Poor Tammy, well at least she wouldn't be going home with a pissed Ron, probably he wouldn't smack her this night, or maybe not so hard anyway.