Run Billy Boy Run, Book Two: Flying High

By Neil Ackerman

Filled with a host of off-beat and often humorus characters, Run Billy Boy Run, Book Two: Flying High, introduces the "unheros" Vernon Pickle and Oscar Pum. The misfits become involved in a shady but "surething" enterprise that goes decidedly wrong and puts them in the sights of a Mexican crime boss. Later they are chased into the Grand Canyon by a deranged killer. While there, they meet up with members of a "new-age" boating party who, thinking Pickle and Pum's appearance fulfills a prophesy, offers them a ride -- a ride which falls far short of expectations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Neil Ackerman
• Release date: Sep 20, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301367771

Neil Ackerman

A former geology instructor, Neil Ackerman has been writing fiction centered on the Grand Canyon since 2002. An avid hiker, runner, and artist, he splits his time between Centralia, Illinois, and Big Bear Lake, California.Neil is married to Pam, and they have one son Hunter who is front man for the blues/rock band Hunter and the Dirty Jacks which is based in Los Angeles.You can e-mail Neil at: [e-mail]

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Run Billy Boy Run

Book Two: Flying High

By Neil Ackerman

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Copyright 2013

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Adult Reading Material

Author’s Note:

Run Billy Boy Run is divided into four books:

Book One: A Job for a Specialist.

Book Two: Flying High.

Book Three: The Confluence of Disorder.

Book Four: Billy Boy.

Filled with a host of offbeat characters Book Two introduces two unheroes Vernon Pickle and Oscar Pum. The misfits enter the Grand Canyon not by choice but are chased into the canyon by a deranged murderer. While there Oscar meets a beautiful vision.

CHAPTER 1: VERNON PICKLE

Vernon Pickle turned twenty-two on the sixteenth of April, 2002, and used the occasion to rob a liquor store called the Palace of Poison in his hometown of Prescott, Arizona. It was his first robbery and earned him a dubious distinction.

Brandishing a starter’s pistol he contorted his unusual face (his nose was too large and his ears protruded too far) into a menacing snarl and pushed through the door of the liquor store on North Montezuma Street, a questionable part of town where people of pedigree were seldom seen.

A menacing snarl was a stretch for Vernon. He had practiced in the mirror with less than convincing results. The clerk initially feared that the young man erratically waving a gun in the air was about to be sick, and he hurriedly removed from the counter an open jar of Beef Stixs.

On Vernon’s first attempt to speak his head jerked and his mouth opened, but he was only able to extend his tongue ejecting an undecipherable noise in the process. The gesture reminded the clerk of a cat expelling a hairball, except the man with the gun displayed far less grace and sophistication.

A rattled Vernon Pickle tried to collect himself: Voice, have to work on voice; stay focused; BE DECISIVE, EYE CONTACT, FIRM VOICE. To Vernon Pickle these were the three critical elements of a successful holdup . . . and a gun . . . or something that would reasonably pass for a gun. This much he had gleaned from a web site entitled Armed Robbery for Idiots.

Struggling to regain control, he closed his eyes, pressed a skinny finger to his temple, and repeated the mantra in his head, BE DECISIVE, EYE CONTACT, FIRM VOICE. Finally Vernon blurted out, Gim’me da cash!

The first sounds out of Vernon’s mouth, the unintelligible sounds, only reinforced in the mind of the clerk that the young man was, indeed, about to vomit. But when Vernon provided clarification about wanting cash only, the clerk seemed thankful to learn that the impending transaction was merely financial and nothing more. Raising his hands shoulder high he asked respectfully, Pardon me, Sir, but . . . ah . . . plastic okay?

Vernon cleared his throat, riveted his eyes onto those of the clerk, and demanded coldly and without hesitation, Okay! BE DECISIVE, EYE CONTACT, FIRM VOICE.

When the clerk handed him a plastic bag full of money, Vernon Pickle thought: This is too easy. Why did I wait so long to get started?

Hu . . . hu . . . hold on, Vernon stuttered and scanned the shelves behind the counter. And a bottle of Scotch.

Can’t, the clerk said calmly but emphatically while lowering his arms a bit.

What?

You’re obviously not twenty-one.

Vernon seemed to forget about the startering pistol, which he now held limply in his hand. I am too!

No, you’re not, the clerk shook his head and folded his arms across his chest.

Vernon stammered making no reply. Decisive contact, be voice, firm eye. He repeated the mantra in his head, but this time the words seemed to twist and turn and collide with one another much like the bumper cars at the Yavapai County Fair.

The clerk had sized up the tongue-tied robber as essentially harmless when he noticed the red plug that sealed the gun’s barrel. Having been an assistant track coach, he was familiar with the starting pistol’s common safety feature Look Buddy, I’ve been cited twice this month for sellin’ liquor to a minor. One more time, I lose my license, permanent.

But I AM! Vernon Pickle lied about most things, but damn, this time he was telling the truth.

Arms crossed, the clerk stood his ground and denied Vernon the Scotch once again.

The man did have a point, the unfortunate robber conceded as a familiar hopelessness began to seep into his brain. All the Pickles were short and looked younger than they actually were.

But I . . .

Kid, no way you’re walking outta here with a bottle of Scotch unless you can prove you’re twenty-one.

Vernon lost his edge, and he vainly tried to regroup. Be decisive, eye contact, and what was that other thing? He thought as he reached for his wallet. Twenty-two-year-old Vernon Pickle managed a disdainful sneer and produced a disgusted Humph, when the clerk learned that he had been wrong.

The celebrant got his bottle of Scotch, and it turned out to be a memorable birthday. Later a cop arrested him in the living room of the double wide he shared with his parents. He had not seen it coming.

His mother and father were watching TV, and each took time out to call him Dumb Ass during a commercial break. As Vernon was being taken from the room in handcuffs, his mother said to the departing officer, Twenty-five years we’ve been married, and he’s all we have to show for it. She then attempted a shrug intended to portray her disgust, but in the process only managed to spill her beer.

Meanwhile his father, annoyed by the interruption, kept his eyes glued to the television and adjusted the volume upward with the remote.

* * *

Vernon Pickle turned out to be a model prisoner and came very close to passing his G.E.D. Eventually, he was placed in the correctional center’s Auto Body Repair Program and was surprised to discover that he liked working on damaged cars. He was quite good at it too. They gave him a certificate and gave him something else that he had not gotten much of in the past: praise. With credit for good behavior he was back on the street in time to celebrate his twenty-fourth birthday.

Pickle was a better person behind bars, and he claimed it was due to the fact that on the outside he was always in trouble with the ladies. Substitute the word alcohol for the word ladies and one would have been closer to the truth; in actual fact, Vernon repelled members of the opposite sex. Even with pockets stuffed with hundred-dollar bills, he would have had trouble getting laid in a whorehouse for Vernon Pickle had the uncanny ability to consistently say the wrong thing.

Just being near a woman would send his brain into a synaptic frenzy resulting in an inevitable overload. When clever conversation was called for, his mind would go blank, and the expanding pool of silence triggered panic. That is when it would happen.

Out of the blue statements like Yeh can’t really get warts from a toad were not beyond him. And once he asked a pretty brunette if she thought Andre the Giant could win in a fight with an anaconda. She looked at him blankly then shook her head in astonishment, and he misunderstood her confusion and said, Nah, me neither.

In the twenty months he’d spent in prison he had only one visitor and had received only one letter. Both the visit and the letter were from his Aunt Pauline of Payson. She was just two years older than he, so they treated each other more like cousins, and, relative or no relative, she was the only female he did not repel and who did not set off Vernon’s verbal seizures.

Most of her visit was spent comparing tattoos, and as she had far more and in far more interesting places than he, their conversation attracted the attention of several of the other prisoners who were in the visiting room that day.

Pauline’s letter came right before Christmas and included a short note and a hand-drawn card. On the card was a masturbating Santa. Until then he had not realized that his aunt was an artist.

The note began Dear Asshole, (she seldom called him Vernon but alternated between Asshole and Shit Head. These terms she considered endearments and held in reserve for those lucky enough to be members of her inner circle). The inscription read, Santa’s pretty busy here at the Pole and sure could use an extra hand. Pauline was his favorite Aunt.

After the botched holdup and while Vernon was awaiting trial, the Prescott Times-Picayune turned the hold-up at The Palace of Poison into a big deal, and, further made Pickle out to be an idiot. Unbelievable. Vernon shook his head as he read the article and looked at the accompanying photo featuring the arresting officer and the liquor store clerk, both doubled over in laughter. UN-BE-lievable.

Pickle’s reputation took another hit one month later. Someone sent the newspaper article to the Tonight Show in care of Jay Leno. Leno leaned and turned toward the band, Kevin, you know what I love?

Stupid criminals.

Vernon Pickle watched the TV in horror. UN-FUCKING-BE-lievable!

CHAPTER 2: OSCAR PUM AND THE RED DOG

After release from prison Vernon’s return to Prescott did not produce the happy reunion that he had anticipated. In fact Vernon was received with the same warmness that one normally reserves for a turd in the punch bowl.

Unlike the Payson Pickles (his father had a low opinion of the Payson branch of the Pickle tree), the Prescott Pickles were proud. They were self-righteous and unforgiving as well, and Vernon had cast a dark shadow upon their house