The Bialy Pimps by Johnny B. Truant Read Free Book Online

ridiculous? countered the voice of God, which sounded at least mildly perturbed.
    No, no. Of course not.
    Captain Dipshit considered. There was a guy he saw on High over and over – the one who wore huge stereophonic headphones and cut-off leather gloves and power-strutted down the street while singing classic rock at the top of his lungs. That was always here, near Bingham’s. The little man with the red beard was always around Bingham’s; he’d never seen him farther than across the street. He’d seen the Bingham’s manager spring through the front door once and chase a guy with a pipe. He’d seen an elegantly dressed but very dirty woman doing a sinuous dance in front of one of the Bingham’s mirrors, her front smeared with what had to be dried blood. You’d think the employees would intervene in such a gross incident and kick the woman out, but they didn’t. He remembered their indifference quite clearly. They’d sat in the back reading magazines and had ignored it all, as if it were going to stop on its own.
    All of it here .
    A guy had broken one of the mirrors with an ashtray and nobody had blinked until he was gone. The staffers sometimes walked right out front, right onto the sidewalk, and hit bagels across the street with a bat.  
    It all happened right here, at or very near Bingham’s, and the world didn’t notice or care. It was as if Captain Dipshit were the only one who was seeing any of it. And, really, maybe he was. Or maybe others were seeing it but were ignoring it. Maybe it was just apathy. That plus a bit of coincidence seemed more likely than the notion that Bingham’s was some kind of a vortex of evil. Occam’s shaver and all of that.
    Maybe it’s just apathy and coincidence, he said to God.
    Maybe you should stop second-guessing me, God retorted. I caused a forty-day flood, you know. I could fuck you up right now if I wanted to.
    Sorry, sorry. You’re right.
    By the way, God added , that dwarf just de-pantsed you.
    Captain Dipshit reached down, pulled his pants back up, and – quietly, so God wouldn’t hear – considered the possibility. Could God’s voice be right? Could this little part of town be a kind of vortex of oddity and... wrongness, like an Indian burial ground? He didn’t know any Indian people except his neighbor Misha Patel, but he made a mental note to ask her how the burial ground thing worked. You never know.
    Here now, with his hand on the door, the notion troubled him. If Bingham’s were, in fact, a den of evil, then he should probably stop eating here.  
    Meh , said God. Evil or not, I’m hungry.
    How can you be hungry? thought Captain Dipshit.
    I mean, you’re hungry, said God, who seemed suddenly flustered.
    Little John was tapping him on the backs of his legs, asking just what the fuck was in his fucking ears and if he was a fucking idiotic fucking fuck.
    And besides , God said , if you don’t go in, that smelly little guy is just going to keep following you down the street.  
    Well, that was true.
    But you’ll stay with me? the Captain pleaded. Give me resistance to evil? Maybe give me the strength of twenty men or the power to strike down sinners with bolts of righteousness?  
    No, I have to go cause an earthquake in San Francisco. I heard there’s a gay guy living there and you know how I feel about that bullshit.  
    And with that, he was gone.  
    Captain Dipshit took a deep breath, crossed himself, and opened the door. As he did, his left leg became heavy. Little John had wrapped around it in a bear hug and Captain Dipshit, resolutely ignoring the odd and potentially evil situation, began dragging him like Jacob Marley’s chains.  
    “Oh, good!” said Little John. “I own this place too.”  
    Mike, known at Bingham’s as “the new stoic asshole employee with the baseball cap,” was behind the counter. He looked over at the new customers as they struggled through the door. Stoically. Assholishly. While wearing his baseball cap.  
    He