Otis cruised around town in his shitty white Chevy van, tapping his fingers along the steering wheel in an off-tempo way with the classic rock being blasted through the tinny speakers. To know Otis was easy: He was the human equivalent of a losing scratch-off ticket littered in the gutter. Late forties, heavyset after years of fast food slop, balding. There was mustard on the front of his shirt (which declared he’d participated in a destruction derby back in ‘95), and a French fry stuck in his wiry beard. This piece of trash had never held a job for more than two weeks and spent most of life in the county jail or prison.
“Jesus smoked, Nugget, you ready to hit some shit!?” He called to the occupant of the passenger seat. Nugget being his fluffy. It was kind of odd to see someone like him with a fluffy, at least in a position of a beloved pet. Nugget was a brown stallion, plain as plain could be, but obviously well taken care of. “Yis daddeh! Nugget su gud at wewkies!” The fluffy said confidently, staring up ahead at their destination. A gas station at three AM. No cars, out on some back country townline, easy pickings as far as these things went. Letting the van amble on into the parking lot, Otis let the engine idle as he exited the vehicle. Opening the passenger door, he’d scoop Nugget up and keep him lovingly under one arm.
Inside the gas station was what to be expected. A middle-aged woman with stringy hair and bags under her eyes. Coolers filled with overpriced soda and beer, the same tired old racks of snack cakes and beef sticks. As soon as the clerk saw Otis with Nugget in tow, she spoke up:
“Sir? Hey, we don’t allow shi….those in there.” Otis looked to Nugget, his little dude, and set him down on the counter. A 9mm which was just as apt to blow up in his face as actually harm her was whipped out from the waistband of his filthy jeans and shoved in her face.
“Show some respect! This is Nugget, my best buddy. And if you so much as twitch, he’ll holler and I’ll…blow your tits off or something.” Nugget had started to munch on a pile of change in the take-a-penny container, spitting them out. “Nu gud tasties…” He whined. Otis peeled the wrapper off a Twinkie and shoved it toward the stallion, making his way over to the beer section after telling his robbery victim to fill a sack with cash.
“Nyu mummah? Yew wike daddeh?” Nugget asked with a shine in his eyes. As good of a friend as he was, he was a fluffy at the end of the day and kind of a dumbass. The woman had filled up a plastic sack with cash and now regarded her watchman. Who could be scared of this? It was just some fluffy with artificial cream and yellow crumbs all over it’s face.
“Your daddy’s no good. Don’t you want to be a nice fluffy?” She asked, hand reaching down slowly beneath the register. Nugget gave several happy wags of his tail. “Daddeh gud! Nuggy gud! Haf gud nummies and drinksies!” He said, though he had caught on by now. The brown fluffy might have been slow but he took his job as watcher very seriously.
“SCREEEEEEEEE! DADDEH! MEANIE MUMMAH BAD!” He let out a piercing scream, and Otis was back up front in moments. A case of beer under one arm, the Saturday night special clutched in his other hand. The gas station attendee had come up with a shotgun, though the robber was quicker to pull a trigger. With several cracks of shots being fired, he would only manage to hit her once. It was enough. A round had caught her in the cheek, drilled through her jaw, and plowed through the back of her neck in a spray of blood. She went down, the shotgun with her. “Good one, Nugs!” Otis brayed, scooping up the fluff was who relegated to sobs of ‘suu scawy!’ and trembling. Swiping a roll of lotto tickets and keeping them clenched between his teeth, he would take all the ill-gotten loot and his precious fluff back out into the night.
There were sirens in the distance. Throwing all the shit into the van, Otis would take the utmost care with his fluff. “Don’t worry, bad mummah ‘aint gun hurt you no more, good buddy.” After the fluff was safely buckled in, he would tear ass out of the parking lot.
Wonder what’ll happen to Nugget