Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number One Hundred And Nine, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.
The topic this week was selected by Thomas, who is going for broke with Jimmy Buffet.
The excellent theme music is by Guy David
VOTING
Go ahead and listen to them and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):
STEVEN THE NUCLEAR MAN
The rain patters cold on my shoulders, the post hole digger, the body
of the bird wrapped gently in a Sponge Bob pillowcase. Sarah’s soft
sobs are muffled by Martha’s torso, my daughter’s arms tightly
wrapped around her mother.
I am finishing when Sarah touches me, the last clod softly packed down
with my booted foot.
“Daddy, is Heaven something like Margaritaville?”
I look at Martha; her look away and the mention of Bob’s favorite song
says more than a strange man’s jeans in the wash.
“No,” I say, crying with her as Martha goes inside, “It’s nothing like that.”
TOM
The skin burned like hell. It filled the arm from the elbow to the shoulder. The salt shaker, the blender, the parrot, the stupid grinning face of Jimmy Buffet. Of course it was a beauty, a Caribbean Cute, how it got there he hadn”t a clue. He had been upending 151s with a guy name Raoul in a drive by the docks in Trinidad. The last thing he remembered was the tail end of a Bembe this girl name horse with those vacant eyes. Some say that woman”s to blame, but he knew its his own dam fault. Fuckn “. Zombies.
SPACE TURTLE
The sun shone from the sky onto the hardened face of a pirate. The pirate stared across the horizon as he reminisced the pirates life that had been for him as he stood on the bow of his ship, The Jimmy. The ship was buffeted by the crashing of his ship’s wake into the wake of his sister ship, The Jolly Mon, who sailed along beside, sea spray sparkling into the air. Their goal was a salty piece of land they would call home. The pirate captain was looking to make this his last voyage, for he was fifty.
THOMAS
Leaving the banana republics, A son of a sailor, needed a drink. The Tiki Bar was open, so he ordered a volcano. At the bar was a smart woman, in a real short skirt.
He asked the barman, “Who’s the blond?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care.” he said.
“Fine.”
Smoothing his pencil thin mustache, he sidled over, boat drink in hand and said, “My lovely lady, why don’t we get drunk and screw?”
In a baritone voice she said, “Honey, I’ll take you on a trip around the sun.”
The barman snickered.
Breathe in, breathe out: move on.
CALEB
Hello?
Mr. James Buffet?
Yeah that”s me man come on in, want a beer?
Its time
Aw c”mon!
Its time!
I got all the money in the world, can”t we make another deal?
No! Even in hell we aren”t that cruel. Come with me.
Okay
Step into the limo sir.
Aw hey! It”s Michael Jackson! How you doin, boy?
Hello James, about as well as you I suppose, when Britney wakes up, say hello to her too.
Hey driver? Is this the reason musicians always seem to die in threes?
Kind of but it applies to you three as well.
MIKE
The cutter Jimmy Buffet cruised the warm Caribbean waters, her radar turning ceaselessly. Until a few years ago, the area had been filled with wealthy tourists lazily cruising among the small islands that dotted the area. Rumors of raiders, though, launching deadly attacks under the cover of island music – broadcast from the ship’s speakers, of all things – had caused that major revenue stream to all but dry up.
“Skipper!” came the cry from the bridge. “Radar return two miles to the northwest. Looks like a 35 footer.”
“Come about – close from astern,” the captain called, reaching for a calypso CD.
ANIMA
Imagine 4 college girls in a Ford Fiesta, escaping a midwestern March.
Destination: Key West. A Jimmy Buffet cassette loops over and over.
Packing list: flip flops, bathing suit, dress. Check. Battery operated blender and tequila. Check and double check.
No one has money. Meals are bar snacks and the charity of frat boys. Everything that can be charged to Daddy’s gas card, is. We sleep on the beach while we tan.
Tami goes missing She reappears at dawn, with a new tattoo, a boys address crumpled in her hand.
Parrots cackle as we head north, nursing well earned hangovers.
MISFITINA
Thin eggshell stripes framed the cool hell. Dry blonde hair was caught in
the hinge of a bright blue beach chair, and the glaze of mid-day reassured
him of absence, detachment. His phantom hands were sticky from sugar,
Cuervo, and blood. It didn’t breathe, and the silence compounded into a
chorus, damning, damning… yet *Margaritaville* was thunderous above them,
on the boardwalk. And fuck if he wouldn’t love a cheeseburger, grazing in
the sand with the Master of Parrots. As the body and the tide rudely
obscured the circus scents, this anthem of regret, apathy, oblivion, served
as *Amazing Grace*..
CRAIG
Come Monday I”ll be heading to paradise for a cheese burger.
You may think me crazy for traveling for a hunk of cow but I”m here to
tell you it”s all about location.
Now I wouldn”t ever go to North Dakota for a Margaretta even if Jimmy
Buffet stirred and shook it just for me.
I would on the other hand travel to Cuba to find the trail of the pencil
thin mustache.
So if this story has got you feeling blue then jump right up on the
coconut telegraph and send me a dot and a couple of dashes
ELISSON
Seven-year-old Evan”s face glowed with happiness. This was the best
birthday party ever!
All his friends were there, having the time of their lives. Mom and Dad
were enjoying the party as well, pounding down Margaritas with the other
grownups while the kids played party games and wolfed custom-made ice
cream sundaes.
Yes, ice cream sundaes. This place not only provided the ice cream, hot
fudge, caramel and butterscotch sauces, maraschino cherries, whipped
cream, and chopped nuts; there was row after row of multicolored
sprinkles to choose from.
Screw Chucky Cheese, thought Evan. Jimmy Buffett”s Jimmy Buffet was
waaaay better.
ALMO
The woman at the end of the bar had too much makeup and too little idea how
to use it. Her smile was lopsided, as if she couldn’t make the full effort.
Her top had been tight once. It was too tight now.
A lesser known Jimmy Buffett ballad floated through the tired little bar.
The stool beside her was open and I sat there. I bought two drinks. When she
started to talk I handed her one. When she tried to speak again, I lifted
my glass in silent toast and she drank.
We both looked down. Mom smiled.
TERRY TEE
It’s been two weeks since I retired from my job of thirty-five years and in thirty-five years some things change, but then again, some things don’t.
As an example, I’ve been going to Jimmy’s barber shop for the last twenty-five years and no other barber has touched my hair in all that time. One thing Jimmy does is ask me each time how I want it cut. Oh sure, each year there’s a little less to cut on top, but he still asks, “How do you want the top Terry?”
Now I say, “Well, Jimmy, buff-it to a high sheen.”
DAPHNE
He took me to Paris, not in France but One Particular Harbor this 40 year old pirate knew. When we docked, the Last Mango Bar was selling Boat Drinks but we wanted Cheeseburgers and headed to the Paradise Grill that our friend with the Pencil Thin Mustache owned. We ate, drank and joked about Growing Older but Not Up and laughed at how We Are the People Our Parents Warned Us About. When we left for the night I look down and picked up a salt shaker turn to the bar and yelled “Hey Jimmy, were you looking for this?”
LAIEANNA
For years, Jimmy Peterson spent every day eating at his favorite Chinese buffet. A conveyor belt of wait staff brought plate after plate to his table which was not typical service at a serve yourself restaurant, except 862 pounds Jimmy hadn’t left his bench in two years. Still, he served a purpose, greeting other customers with praise and jokes, using his size, about the great food. Nights he slept stationary like his days. Before closing, the owner would throw a hat on Jimmy’s head and a blanket over his massive body with the words “Security Guard” stitched across the fabric.
GUY DAVID
It was a buffet. Zelda neatly put the cutlery on the table, her finest china. Jimmy, her husband, watched in horror, mixed with strange fascination. He knew they would have to leave soon, but Zelda was treating her guests to the best of standards. She always liked things perfect that way.
The guests started trickling in. They sat at the table and gobbled all the food greedily. What started out as order ended up as chaos. Zelda didn’t mind though. As Jimmy reluctantly went to pack the suitcases, the guests dropped one by one as the poison gobbled their system.
PLANET Z
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s that people take things too far.
I know these Jimmy Buffet fans who run this bar. Nothing but Margaritas and the noisiest blenders in the world.
Which, is a good thing. You see, these folks go overboard with the term “parrothead” by putting an actual parrot head in each pitcher of margaritas.
Rows and rows of cages filled with the damn birds are stacked in the basement of the bar.
They could use parakeets. They’re cheaper, tastes just like parrot.
Nope.
I stick to bottled beer. And fried parrot fingers.
Delicious!