Part 1 of 1
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Tonight we find Will Coffin, urban shaman, and his associate, Bunny Davis, awaiting a disreputable delivery.
The Skinner Co. Network
145 - Coffin: Drifter, Part 1 of 1
[♪♪♪] Welcome to FlashPulp Episode 145. Tonight, we present Coughin, Drifter, Part 1 of 1. [♪♪♪] This week's episodes are brought to you by the latest pen dragon. [♪♪♪] A redneck midget with a baby and a shotgun. A farmville addict majored in psychology to make people worse. A disgruntled cosplayer with degrees in biochem English and shredding arguments. A velvet-throated herald of astrological deviants, whose grandmother offered to contact a rat from the beyond. A verbose in seep living in Japan was occasionally possessed by golem. And a single librarian with a cat named Darcy and a penchant for zombies and barbecue sandwiches. These are the unlikely writer heroines of pen dragon variety, an audio literary magazine and round table discussion podcast for genre fiction and poetry writers. Plug in your earbuds every Thursday for sage advice. I will give my sage advice to anyone that asks, and my advice is just don't suck. Ineffable eloquence. Deckway, character development, yes. And relevant examples. So you can be dream record and Raven can be reality checker, and you even rhyme now. I was gonna say, yeah, we need a theme song. Oh god, Scruffy, promise me if we ever write a graphic novel. Those are going to be our superheroes. Have you seen the penis trap? Cos that one's scary. What? Alright, if we promise not to put it in the podcast, you'll tell us about it, right? Visit pen dragon variety.com to learn more. And try not to suck. [Music] Flash pulp was an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in the modern age. Three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings. Tonight, we find Will Coffin, urban shaman, and his associate, Bunny Davis, awaiting a disreputable delivery. Coffin, Drifter, part one of one. Written by J.R.D. Skinner, art and narration by Opoponax, and audio produced by Jessica May. [Music] On the previous evening, Coffin's roommate had discovered a Western movie marathon playing on a dusty cable station, and she'd nested it in front of the television for a long vigil with her vodka bottle. Now, Bunny was eager to discuss her newfound enthusiasm. "John Wayne? I'd love John Wayne!" she reported. "Sure," replied Will, watching the street. Except for the waiting pair, the plexiglass bus stop and the darkened street beyond were empty. "Bullets? F*ck you! I'm John Wayne! I mean, true grit! Missing and high? F*ck you! I'm John Wayne!" "Uh-huh," said Coffin. "Acting? F*ck you! I'm John Wayne!" she continued, while taking a sip of whiskey. "I heard he couldn't properly ride a horse," Will replied, frowning at her upturned flask. Bunny wiped a trickle of escaped spirits from her chin. "What is this sh*t push you're gonna get here?" she asked. A friend had conveyed the tip to Coffin a few hours previous, and, despite the tardiness of its proof, he still felt confident in the lead. The old mute said our drifter would be getting off the 73, and it hasn't passed yet. It's just running late. Bunny grunted. Ever seen the shootest? Now there's a f*ckin'. She was cut short by the grinding lurch of a city bus round in the corner. The behemoth rolled to a stop. Its doors fluttering open just long enough to eject a thin man in a heavy brown sweater. Then it continued on down the road, eventually pulling to the left, an out of sight. "You the guy want this stuff?" The lanky face newcomer asked. Coffin inspected the blackened rings under his eyes, the sloppy grin, and the constant flurry that were the man's hands. "You certainly look like the guy with this stuff," he replied. "Yeah, and Jimbo," Bunny thought at first, that Will had suddenly placed a twizzler in his mouth. She realized quickly, however, there was actually an ornate carved length of red wooden tube. Coffin made a sound familiar to any school child who dabbled with spitballs. Just below Jimbo's jugular, a bright plume projected from a sharp metal base. "Whoa, where'd that f*ckin' thing come from?" asked Bunny. "The South Pacific," Will replied. He tucked away his blowpipe and motioned for the man to follow him down the sidewalk. With the stumbling gait of a pedestrian not watching their footing, the newcomer trailed the conversing pair. "I don't use it much. It leaves a mark. It doesn't work on everyone. And I'm down to seven darts. There used to be two dozen, but I've lost a few." "Lost?" "Yeah, and when I do get them back, I've got to sterilize them, which is a pain to accomplish without messing up the tail feathers." Coffin paused briefly, depositing some loose change into a newspaper vending machine and extracting a hefty sheath of weekend listings. He directed his troop onwards. "What the f*ck anyhow? What do you care about this f*ckin' bucket?" his drunken companion inquired. "Well, every now and then, someone with a little too much information needs to make some quick cash, and they end up tossing some concoction into a friendly drug dealer supply chain. Most small-time occultists are dealing in love potions, because, just like everywhere else, sex sells." Mixing the twos referred to as "drifting." Thing is, these aren't hippies hawking ditch herbs anymore. Science has come a long way, and something like, say, "Meth," layered with a supernatural compound intended to evoke passionate fixation, can be a problem. The streets were damp from an earlier shower, which had kept passersby to a minimum, but, as they turned into a shortcut which led over a closing home depot's empty parking lot, a late shopper in business attire pushed his clattering load of paint across their path, taking in bunny with her flask, and the heavy-footed shuffle of the slack-faced Jimbo, the suit's cart picked up speed. Once the interloper was out of your shot, coffin continued. It's never the people who get a little pinch here and there that are the real issue. It's the guy who's got a supply and is wandering with it. This guy isn't local; he probably came all the way up here from Texas or New Mexico. This is just another stop on the Greyhound for him. "What's with the traveling?" asked Bunny. He's got to sell to live, and, for a while, people adore him as the bringer of goods. Attention is inevitable. He charges a fair price to part with the powder of his affection, and people eventually run out of money. But they still want it. Like anyone caught up in a forbidden affair, they get crazy. And before long, he's not feeling so comfortable about sticking around, because, by then, he's also deeply involved with his stash. And he's willing to leave everything behind to keep it safe. You can get a Greyhound ticket for straight cash and no questions, so on the bus they go. Off to play King for a day in the next city, pulling from his own supply the whole time. Having reached a point of deep shadow at the edge of a strip mall construction site, we'll call the halt to the procession. He frisked the man, and taped to the flesh beneath the brown sweater. He found a thick packet wrapped in the white plastic of a grocery bag. Coffin extracted the illicit goods and cut them amongst the bright advertisements he'd retrieved earlier in the walk, ripping at the edges of the accompanying business section. He doused the wrapping from a yellow bottle, which he pulled from his pocket, then tossed the package and the remainder of the lighter fluid into a trash barrel. He chased it all with a match. When he was confident the evening's rain wouldn't hold back the flame, he again set out. Jiggling her nearly empty liquor cash, Bunny asked when they were heading home. Shortly, Will replied, with the dosages their love usually drives them to. Many die between cities, on the buses. Some outlive their supply and turn vagrant, but their mind is always gone by then, and they just mutter to themselves about their obsession until they're rounded up or die of exposure. The best we can do is send him into a 24-hour clinic to make a confession about his chemical habits, and when they can't help him in the usual manner, hope that they can get him a good psychiatrist. Means I'll be down another dart though. [Music] FlashPulp is presented by http colon slash slash Skinner dot FM. The audio and text formats of FlashPulp are released under the Canadian Creative Commons attribution non-commercial 2.5 license. [Music]