Maladie

“It’s either heads or tails, mister…. Heads we fight… tails… well, I guess it’s yer lucky day. Whatever you call don’t matter none to me, coz, if we draw, you die…”

Chance Petersen was an ornery, two-faced, back-shooting son-of-a-bitch that wasn’t happy until he picked at least one fight with someone before supper time. The misfortune today, just happened to fall upon the head of a lonely drifter who wandered dry and thirsty into the aptly named, The Last Drink Saloon, in a temporary makeshift railroad town in Arizona called Canyon Diablo – a fading relic that once bustled with robust life… and premature death.

“I don’t want no trouble,” the drifter expressed his almost-rehearsed response. “I’m just passing through.”

“You looked at me funny. I don’t take to being looked at funny, like.”

“It don’t mean nuthin… Since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, my face has always been pullin’ this way n’ that…”

If the drifter was hoping for any sign of understanding, it was compulsorily quashed when another facial jerk scrunched his eyes into narrow slits, forcing his tongue to portrude past his lips, pointing directly at Petersen.

“Darn it, mister! If you ain’t the strangest hombre I ever saw. Now call, coz I ain’t in no mood for forgiveness for these faces you’re shootin’ at me.”

Standing with his back to the bar and facing Petersen, the drifter’s eyes darted left then shifted right, his peripheral vision noticing a widening gap between him and the other customers - who until recently, had been grouped over the large, varnished oak top bar, in drunken converse.

“I-I mean no insult, sir.” The drifter attempted an apology. “I-I-I just can’t help it.”

No sooner had the words sprung from his lips, when a sudden uncontrollable urge overtook him, sending him into a vocal convulsion that materialised an action and cry, no-one watching on, expected.

“FUCK-A-DOODLE-DOO!”

The rasping, deep, and loud vocalisation immediately silenced the saloon patrons. Even the inebriated piano player halted his rambling rendition of Oh-Susanna, fearfully ducking for cover under the keyboard.

Shaken by the outburst, Henry - the bartender - dropped the whiskey glass he was vigorously spit-polishing – ignoring the shattering sound that followed.

“Maybe you should leave the man alone, Chance,” Henry offered a way out. “He ain’t right in his head.”

“I ain’t flipped ma coin yet, Henry…”

“Yeah, but he’s not all there… You best git, stranger. We don’t wanna catch what you’re airin’.”

“Hold yer horses!” Petersen protested. “No dod-gasted, face-pullin’ dude is gonna get away with lookin’ at me like that.”

Before Henry could try to reason further with the slighted gunslinger, a tiny projectile whizzed past his ear and embedded itself in the stuffed buffalo head, mounted on the wall above and behind him.

“I just unshucked ma gun. Don’t make me aim it next time… I’m gonna flip my coin… I need to flip ma coin!” Petersen assertively announced.

Swallowing hard, Henry’s worried brow let slip a small bead of sweat that ran down his forehead, stinging his eye as it made contact. The reactive facial twitch seen by most of the saloon patrons, caused a momentary murmur of concern. Ignorant whispers of “madness” and “contagious” unsettled the lookers-on, causing several to decide drinking was over for them for the day. Rushing past Petersen and out into the street in panic, they garrulously created one hell of a hullaballoo when a passing wagons’ horses was abruptly halted from progressing – the female driver berating them for not looking where they were going.

“I’m okay!” Henry shouted. “It’s just some dirt in my sweat that got in my eye.”

“FUCK YER EYE!” The drifter yelled once more without effective resistance, before regaining control. “No! Sorry! When I get nervous, I tend to shout exclamations of extreme peculiarity. Ever since a boy, I’ve had this uncontrollable urge, but trying to prevent it just seems to make it worse. As a boy, the preacher back home told my momma in no uncertain terms, to lock me in the cellar come the day of the Lord, to avoid the shame of bringing me to prayers. To him, I was the devil reincarnate… He even performed a ritual of exorcism on me – in the attempt to rid me of evil spirits. But I assure you that I harbour no foulness of spirit, nor am I of unsound mind. It’s just an affliction I gotta live with that people unsympathetically take the most outraged offence at. So, I drift from town to town, running from sumthin’ I innocently know nuthin’ about - that chases me like the Devil’s blown a sharp wind up my ass.”

“Like most of these gold seekers in here,” explained Henry. “Seeing the Elephant is more of a condition than a purpose, and… you sir, are certainly a curious oddity in this here… circus of human waste.”

“GREAT SHITS!” Escaped the irrepressible cry from the drifter.

Henry felt a compelling need to try to understand the drifter’s plight, but watching Chance Petersen re-holster his pistol in preparation for the inevitable fight, he knew compassion began and ended on his side of the bar.

Balancing the coin on top of his right thumb, Petersen poised himself in anticipation of the impending throw-down.

“I’m-a flippin,” he determinedly announced.

“I’m unarmed, sir. Surely, you wuh-wouldn’t shoot an unarmed muh-man… would you!?”

“Henry, give him yer pistol,” demanded Petersen.

With trepidation, Henry produced his Colt pistol from a concealed location under the bar and placed it on the shiny oak top.

“You don’t have to do this, mister,” Henry advised. “But there’s a good shake, he’ll shoot you the moment that coin lands on heads.”

“…What about tails?” The drifter’s nervous question enquired.

Henry’s solemn reply sank the drifter’s heart.

“I ain’t never seen it land on tails.”

With the nervousness of a drunk trying to dry out, the drifter bravely picked up Henry’s pistol, then let his arm drop to his side in readiness for what carnage lay next.

“On heads, we draw,” instructed Petersen – a wry, knowing smile creeping across his mouth.

“What if it’s tails?”

Petersen sneered, “…It never is…”

“fuh-FUCK!” The drifter exclaimed – this time completely voluntary.

In an upward motion, Petersen jerked his right hand, followed by his thumb flipping the coin high into the air. All eyes watched in concentrated anticipation as the coin rose and reached maximum velocity. Then, slowing as its arc changed speed, it began to tumble downwards. The only pair of eyes not watching were the squinted-closed eyes of the drifter quietly praying for a miracle. As coincidence would have it, that unexpected miracle came in the form of a shot ringing out, sending a bullet spiralling through the stale saloon air, piercing the middle of the coin, making it bounce off a wooden beam that changed its direction towards a daintily gloved hand that deftly caught it in mid-air. All inquisitive eyes in the crowded saloon changed their focus toward the female figure standing silhouetted against the open portal of the saloon – one side of her long-tailed, leather coat neatly tucked behind an empty gun holster. This timely intervention was from none other than Wynonna Ryder, the floundering town’s appointed librarian and no stranger to firefights.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” she greeted the stunned onlookers. “I do hope that I’m interrupting.”

“SAVED MY COCK!” Escaped another involuntary vocal despatch.

“I assure you, mister, that you bear that accolade by sending those men fleeing from this piss-stinking establishment. I almost ran them over as I trotted by with my library wagon… After explaining their wild haste to me, I was intrigued as to your malaise, so I quickly grabbed this here medical journal from one of my latest library additions, called Archives of Neurology. For those that are wondering – an’ I don’t believe there are many of you - among other things, Neurology is the diagnosis and treatment of conditions and diseases involving the brain…”

“Hold yer falutin tongue,” Petersen rudely barged in. “You interrupted ma coin flip, an’ I need to flip ma coin!”

Simply ignoring him, Wynonna incensed him further with an unsolicited lecture about the recently read article.

“Translated into English, this journal I’m holding up for you to see, contains an article published within from a French gentlemen named, Gilles de la Tourette. He describes in plain speak - a familiar condition to our ridiculed friend here. A Maladie des tics, is the Paris, France description – or Tics Disease to all you… fragrant drabbles in here.”

“You mean, he got this from being bitten by a tick?” Petersen ignorantly enquired.

“No, you sour-tempered cretin. A Tic – correctly spelled, TIC - is a spontaneous facial or bodily movement. A result of a neurological condition.”

“But… he’s got some kind of foul-mouthed disease too,” Petersen pointed out.

“According to this article, that is a vocal tic called, Coprolalia, I believe. It is not a disease, nor is it a madness…”

“I still don’t like the faces he pulled at me.”

“And why is that so offensive to a peckerwood like you?”

“We was flippin’ ma coin to decide his fate, when you stuck yer little busybody nose in.”

“Ah, yes… your coin…” Holding the drilled coin aloft for all to see, Wynonna studied each side. “It appears you are the victim of a corrupt bank teller. Or perhaps, a crooked poker shark, as from what I can see – along with anyone gifted with good eyesight - some form of manufacturing defect has mistakenly minted this coin with a head on each side.”

“NO FUCKIN’ TAILS, YOU COCKSUCKIN’ ASS!” The drifter’s now familiar outbursts no longer a novelty in the testosterone filled saloon, drew a few laughs from the crowd.

“Quieten down, you Fices.” Petersen barked. “There’s a score to settle.” Pointing an angry finger at Wynonna, he solicited the crowd for support. “This chica came in here uninvited… Who’s gonna throw her out?”

“If you’re lookin’ to scrap, I’m right here, Huckleberry… and I have my own coin we can flip. It may be somewhat unfamiliar to you, because on one side there is a head and on the other side is what we normal folk call tails. I’ll even turn around to make it easier for you. All we both have to do, is wait for the coin to hit the floor.”

Petersen arrogantly ignored the tugging on his shirt sleeve. If he had taken a moment to respond, he would have been apprised of a previous, similar situation that resulted in Wynonna dropping another loud-mouthed gunslinger who tried to shoot her in the back. For on her gun belt, her holsters were mounted on a swivel attachment, providing the ability to shoot behind her when required. In fact, the very coat tails she currently wore upon her person, still had the tell-tale bullet holes from that previous encounter.

“I don’t have all day, mister.” Wynonna scolded. “I’ve books to deliver to people too scared of encountering ruffians like you.”

Canyon Diablo was a dying town and following the railroad bridge completion over the canyon, the towns’ reason for existence quickly faded, as workers packed up to follow the rail trail west. Less people in town, meant less books being lent out from the library, and Wynonna realised only too well that was a threat to her position as town librarian. Supply and demand is always an indicator of business success, and lately, demand for library books had drastically declined. The overheads of keeping a relatively unused large building maintained, did not go unnoticed by the town council’s monthly budget meetings. The discussion of closure was on the next meeting’s agenda.

In an attempt to encourage book borrowing, Wynonna had a special library wagon commissioned to take the written word on the road to the folks that could not or would not enter the wild Arizona town. Daylight robberies, harassment of women, and falling-down drunkenness painted the town with a scarlet letter of warning, so those that could live without any of the town’s amenities stayed safely on their own homesteads. Today, was library day to those outliers, where they had an opportunity to self-educate through borrowing books, or simply to just transitorily lose themselves in tales of fantasy and romance.

Not to be deterred from her charitable task ahead, Wynonna’s patience was wearing thin. Folks expected her on this day. Her visits were welcomed as much as a popular family member would be, and she wasn’t going to disappoint them.

“Heads, we fight, tails, we don’t - and you let this stranger mosey on out of this hell hole,” Wynonna irritably instructed.

“I wanna flip the coin! I wanna flip the coin!” Petersen strangely repeated in an obsessive cadence. “I gotta flip it!”

Wynonna studied Petersen’s movements as he frustratingly demanded to be the one to toss the coin. It stirred a recollection of something else she had recently read.

“I ain’t no head doctor, mister, but I think I now know why you picked a fight with this twitchy stranger.”

With the whole saloon eagerly awaiting her summation, a pin drop onto the straw-strewn, whiskey-soaked, wooden floor, would have been a loud interruption. However, in the absence of a pin, the drunken piano player obliged by clumsily falling off his piano stool.

“Goddamit, Joseph…!” Henry disapprovingly grumbled. “Will someone please sober him up. I gotta saloon to run!”

While ironic laughter reverberated around the room and Joseph was being helped back onto his stool, Petersen scowled at Wynonna.

“You don’t know me, little miss… I picked a fight, coz I wanted to…”

Taking a moment to study some of the attentive faces, Wynonna felt a dramatic need to explain her theory.

“…I recognise some of you in here from borrowing those Penny Dreadful publications we get in each month,” she stated. “…and you will have noticed that I read everything I can… The disorder that this Tourette feller is credited with defining, has many other peculiar facets to its somewhat embarrassing condition… Among them, is a strange obsessive and attention-deficient behaviour that can metamorphosise itself into a form of opposition to normal social graces.”

“Hold on, there!” Petersen interrupted. “You’re usin’ mighty big words… What does metamorph… metaphise…?”

“Metamorphosise, mister, is the act of changing from one thing to another – a bit like your ugly face turning into an uglier one come mornin.”

A barrel-belly of laughs from around the room caused a sense of embarrassment to permeate Petersen’s confused state, only incensing him further.

“Give me that coin,” he demanded. “I’m gonna flip it!”

Placing the medical journal on a table, Wynonna unflinchingly dug her fingers into her waistcoat pocket. Then, producing a coin, she proceeded to hold it aloft, between thumb and forefinger, shaking it ever-so-slightly at Petersen.

“…That was an exemplary demonstration of the accuracy of my theory… You see, your behaviour reminds me of something I read in that journal about anger and impulse management… Your streaky manner of looking blue at someone has its originations in the same family as this drifter’s awkward facial movements and outrageous outbursts… Whereas, he has accepted his condition knowing no-one else will – hence, the drifting from town to town. You sir, have not, and remain an ignorant gump of a man…”

“You mean,” Henry chided. “Chance Petersen has the same malady that the drifter has?”

“Precisely. That is why he picked the fight… Having one curiously behaved cowboy in a small town, might be looked on as normal, but two in the same saloon? Well, that’s an attention seeker and a question mark above both their heads. This coot here just didn’t want that ridicule to mar his reputation for fighting.”

“Well, I’ll be a son-of-a-gun,” Henry explaterated. “Chance is a twitcher!”

“I ain’t no twitcher!” Petersen barked back. Darting towards Wynonna, he angrily snatched the coin from her fingers. “I’m-a flippin! You best be ready for what comes next, yer nosey sonofabitch!”

Tossing the coin high into the saloon roof space, everyone in the place concentrated on its flight, then its predictable fall. The subsequent sound of the coin hitting the floor, nudged Petersen into immediately reaching for his pistol – only to freeze in place at the sound of the click of someone else’s pistol being cocked. All eyes darted toward Wynonna, calmly standing with her pistol in hand – pointing at Petersen.

“I reckin’ mister, you got two choices… One… you keep reaching for that pea shooter of yours and I plug you right where you stand… Two… you skedaddle out of here and don’t come back. No hard feelings…”

The repressed anger Petersen held back from being bested by a woman, suddenly manifested itself in one big surprising, loud vocal outburst.

“FUCK ME UP THE ASSHOLE…! GODDAMIT, SHIT, COCKSUCKER!”

The ensuing and ridiculing laughter sent Petersen hurrying toward the saloon door, only to be halted by the crack of Wynonna’s pistol discharging – the bullet slicing through Petersen’s holster, knocking his pistol to the floor. Without turning around, he started to bend and reach for the damaged gun, only to be rebuked by Wynonna.

“No, you don’t, you lunk head. I don’t want you bushwhacking me when I leave.”

More derision from the amused patrons included shouts of, “Adios” and “Don’t let the doors hit you on the way out.”

With a final outburst of “Fuck you all,” Petersen disappeared headlong through the double swinging doors.

A spontaneous outpour of appreciative pats on Wynonna’s back and shakes of her hand, brought the saloon back to life - amusingly interrupted by Petersen speeding past the saloon door, barely hanging onto his mount, as it bucked and galloped up Hell Street in panicked flight.

Watching with interest, Wynonna shouted in passing, “Look at that broomtail go! He’ll be dusted before he even reaches the edge of town.”

Those within earshot laughed, but none more so than the drifter – who, in the process of his own exit from the saloon, yelled, “Fuh… BUCKIN’ YEAH…!”