To my regular readers: There is no moral in this story. No, seriously, there isn’t. I wrote this for fun.
Josh was unemployed and sick of being broke, so he knocked on the ratty door marked “Bail Bonds.”
“Have you ever shot anyone?” asked Mr. Roger Telinsen, gnawing on his fat cigar.
“No,” Josh said.
“Knocked ’em out?”
“Nope.”
And on when Mr. Telinsen with a list of things that Josh had never done.
Mr. Telinsen finally asked, “How do you feel about making money,” and Josh allow that he was particularly anxious to do so.
Mr. Telinsen growled and handed Josh a government form. “Fill this out.”
Josh filled it out and Mr. Telinsen handed him a file. There was a photo of a grizzly young man with a scar across his left cheek. Inside the file was a list of items that Telinsen bail bonds recommended: Mace, a handgun, handcuffs, a shotgun, a taser, and a few other things. There was also a list of contacts, phone number, known whereabouts, and what the grizzled young man with the beard had done.
Josh put the gear on his credit card. The $50,000 he would make from bringing in… he looked at the name under the photo… Reginald Dan McAllister… would pay off that debt.
So he made the phone calls and traced the calls and went at it with gusto and had a few late nights with binoculars outside of Reginald Dan McAllister’s known hangouts. About three weeks to the day, at 3:47 PM, Josh found the man with the scar on his cheek in an alley outside of Ted’s bar and Grill. Reginald Dan McAllister had shaved off his beard. Josh pulled his gun before Reginald Dan could pull his.
“Reginald Dan McAllister,” Josh said, “you’re coming in.”
And Reginald Dan McAllister whined and hemmed and hawed and complained and cried about how he couldn’t go to trial because how in tarnation could Josh ever take away man’s freedom for a measly however much they were paying him? Josh’s eyes were steely until that last argument. He hesitated.
Josh groaned. He gave in. He put the gun down and Reginald Dan McAllister breathed a sigh of relief. Then Reginald Dan McAllister jumped Josh and went for his gun when Josh turned his back. Now Josh been working out some, but Reginald Dan McAllister was desperate. They fought in that alleyway for a good five minutes. Blood and teeth went flying places, but in the end, Josh got Reginald down handcuffed to the steel pole he’d had installed in the back seat of his car.
Reginald Dan was silent. Josh wiped the blood off of his face as he drove the 10 miles toward Telinsen bail bonds. He thought about $50,000 and how much he could use the money and his credit card bill that was coming due in a week. And then he put himself and Reginald Dan McAllister’s shoes and imagined how long he would be in jail maybe if he really did all those things in his file. He tried to block out the claustrophobia he felt from imagining Reginald Dan McAllister in an 8 x 8 cell. McAllister was not a small man.
Just rolled his eyes and shook his head and pulled over the car.
“What are we–-“started Reginald Dan McAllister.
“Shut up,” Josh said, and unlocked Reginald Dan’s handcuffs.” Now get the hell out.”
Reginald Dan McAllister didn’t hesitate. In two seconds he was out of the car, in 30 he was out of sight, and 60 Josh had started thinking about how he was going to pay off all this credit card debt.
About David M Schell
I am a doubter and a believer. I have a Master's in Divinity from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, but because faith grows and changes, I don't necessarily stand by everything I've ever written, so if you see something troubling further back, please ask! Read More.
