The Nose Candy Thieves from Toothless Creek

Sometime in late May CEO Lawrence Cassidy was walking back from El Sapo’s when he ran into some terrifying rednecks. This type of incident was always just a matter of time because, like all savvy drug dealers, El Sapo lived in a crime ridden horror show. Cassidy was too wasted to remember that when you buy drugs, you’re often running huge risks each and every time. Our favourite CEO presumed that because he was on good terms with the mighty El Sapo nothing could possibly go wrong.

So one day he was taking his usual route back to Give Me Head HQ, cutting through an alleyway only to suddenly find a gun pressed to his forehead.

Cassidy put his hands up to surrender and looked at the man pointing the gun (who he soon learned was called Rusty Matthews). Rusty looked like a small town redneck who had lost his way to the tin can shooting range some thousand miles away.

Cassidy immediately noticed that Rusty looked like he injected anabolic steroids into his eyeballs. Even more terrifying than that, he was standing among three other rednecks who looked almost identical to Rusty except for one of them who looked like a geriatric wearing an adult nappy.

“We want all ya paper,” Rusty said with a Southern drawl.

“I ain’t carrying any paper,” Cassidy said as he held out his backpack. “But you can take this which is chockful of the finest pharmaceutical delicacies known to man. It’s worth a small fortune. In fact credit where it’s due, buddy, you picked the best day to take a shine to me because it’s the weekend whch means it’s double fun over at Give Me Head HQ. You’ll find huge quantities of snow, weed, LSD, some shit I can’t even pronounce the name of and a box of heavy sleeping pills that would put a rhino on heat to bed.”

“Bullshit,” another redneck said. “We done talking here. Pass us the nose candy and paper over sharpish, you new wave dancing yuppy hotshot, or Rusty here will shoot you into hell and then we take the paper anyways.”

“Honestly,” Cassidy said. “I promise you there’s no paper. It’s now in the pockets of El Sapo if you happen to know that fella.”

“We know Sapo very well,” the old looking guy said. “We occasionally sell him some homegrown Ozarks weed at a fair price.”

“Great! So we all have something in common. We all trade with the mighty Mexican El Sapo. It’s such a small world, right? I mean that makes us family in my eyes. Man, you fellas are rock and roll. So here’s the Silicon snow as I call it because, no offence, but nose candy sounds like something you’d read on a tin of biscuits.”

“Just shut the fuck up,” the old looking fella said. “You’re like a fucking robot on speed and you’re really testing our patience.”

“My sincere apologies.”

“Listen up, hotshot,” Rusty said a tiny bit friendlier. “We still need something from ya.”

“I mean you can have this Pasha de Cartier,” Cassidy said as he slipped it off his wrist and passed it to Rusty. “It’ll buy you a fucking mansion in the deep South.”

Rusty held the watch up to the sun and squinted one eye. “You think I’m some dumb redneck doormat, hotshot?”

“Not at all. I actually think you’re all fantastic despite this uncomfortable situation.”

“This watch is faker than Phyllis Diller’s titties,” Rusty went on. “We sold a hundred of these round here just a year back.”

“Then you might as well keep it. Can I go now?’

“Last chance, hotshot. Paper or certain death.”

Cassidy thought for a moment and something silly clicked. In a sensible world it was a terrible idea, but his arse was on the line and he was already incapable of rational decision making.

“I can give you the opportunity of a lifetime. Would you like to feature in a TV series that’s set to be the biggest of all time? And I mean fucking huge. I’m talking Beverly Hills Cop huge. Imagine Dynasty but with futuristic pirates.”

Rusty lowered the gun and the clan looked at each other a little surprised by the proposition.

“How much paper you paying us?” Rusty said.

“Fifty dollars each.”

The gun rose up to his face again. “Then why the fuck’d we agree to them terms, hotshot?”

“I’ll also give you shares worth one million US dollars. You’ll be able to sell them just as soon as it hits the screens later this year.”

“And if it don’t?”

“It will definitely hit the screens,” Cassidy said. “I’ve already sold the rights to a prime time network and have several more begging us for it. We’re just finishing the shooting now and we have a part you’ll be perfect for.”

Of course, that first statement about selling the rights was a lie and there was barely a grain of truth in the second statement. The team had hardly shot anything at that point in time and the snippets they had shot were a higgledy piggledy mess. It was the Jackson Pollock of TV shows.

“Fuck it,” Rusty said “Sounds like some good fun.”

“Wait just a minute,” the old looking fella said. “There’s four of us right here and I sure as fuck want my name in lights too.”

“You’ll all get your name in lights. Even you. Gramps.”

“Fuck you, hotshot. I’m not even the oldest here.”

As much as Cassidy desperately wanted to know how that was even possible (as do we), unfortunately he didn’t want to risk his life asking. Instead he mumbled, “Let’s go turn you all into Hollywood icons.”

Shooting Rednecks isn’t as Fun as it Sounds

When Cassidy returned to Give Me Head HQ with four other reprobates all walking in single file, he shouted over to Ryba, “Find me anyone who can begin filming immediately. And we need a wrestling ring. Plus you need to do a party run immediately.”

“Man, dude, you know how much El Sapo terrifies the sh–“

“Shut your fucking pipe, Ryba, this is an emergency situation.”

“Right away, Cassidy.”

By this point the five men were huddled inside Cassidy’s office. He’d already considered alerting the cops, but there was no chance. Imagine it:

Operator, after leaving the drug den of a Mexican cartel member who had just sold me a thousand dollars’ worth of thoroughly illegal narcotics, these four rednecks mugged me for them while pointing a gun at my face. It was terrifying! Please recover my thoroughly illegal narcotics and see that justice is served.

Absolutely no fucking chance.

---

After a couple of tense hours, Cassidy got the call that the cameramen Gary Fletcher and Hamish Stroud had managed to find a wrestling ring. It belonged to one of those small time extreme wrestling companies where at least one wrestler a week gets carted out on a stretcher after an accident with a chainsaw. But at least the rental costs were low.

Right away Cassidy sorted some transport and, in what felt like a lifetime, they finally arrived at an empty warehouse which looked like it had been turned into a creepy sex party dungeon.

“Right then,” Cassidy said to the tiny team in front of him which included the rednecks. “So I was on my way back to the office when I bumped into these happy-go-lucky fellas. We got talking about this and that. Turns out that this one right here has been battling some kinda wasting disease called… Melting Syndrome.” Cassidy turned to the old looking fella. “Would you like to explain it or…?”

“Fuck you, hotshot.”

Cassidy looked around at the rest of the team. “It’s perfectly understandable that he doesn’t want to spend another second talking about the very thing that’s slowly killing him.”

“Can we just get on with it?” Rusty said. “Before I remove your voice box with my knuckleduster.”

“Yes, let’s.”

Cassidy secretly told the cameramen to “dress them up like a gaggle of cunts”, film them in the wrestling ring, take some promo shots and drive them the hell out of there.

In the meantime Cassidy returned to Give Me Head HQ. After blowing a few lines of coke from an emergency stash, he asked Ryba to type up some bullshit shares contract that, in his words, “reads like it was carved in stone by a Neanderthal trying to express his feelings”.

Later in the day Cassidy returned to the warehouse. He found Gramps knocked out in the ring, another nursing a broken collarbone and the other two chatting to each other like nothing had ever happened. All of them were splattered with blood.

When Rusty clocked Cassidy he said, ‘Hotshot! How the hell are you?”

“Very well thanks. You?”

“I’ve never felt so alive, man!”

“We got a bit carried away when your boys started filming,” another said. “I think I’m going to pursue a new career in kicking ass.”

Cassidy looked over to Gary and Hamish who were packing up their camera equipment.

Gary shrugged his shoulders. “They certainly went beyond the call of duty.”

“That’s some splendid news,” Cassidy said. “Okay, so you all just need to sign some paperwork.”

“None of us know how pens work.”

“I suppose it doesn’t  really matter. I just need your names.”

“Rusty, Rocky, Randy and Rodney.”

“And here’s your payment as promised,” Rusty said while handing Rusty an envelope. “God bless America.”

---

After the rednecks had left the building, Cassidy closed his eyes. He made a sigh of relief last for an eternity as he stared into a void and thought about how he’d literally dodged a bullet. “Maybe I should’ve let him shoot,” he whispered.

“Those dudes were insane,” Gary shouted over to Cassidy.

“Don’t I know it,” Cassidy said as he returned to planet Earth. “I’m just glad to see their asses out of my life.”

“We heard you gave them shares.”

“Keep this on the down low, but those creatures ain’t getting a dime from me. That paperwork doesn’t mean shit.”

“What if they come back?”

“You kidding me? Those motherfuckers will be dead in the next six months and we’ll be partying in Saint-Tropez. Anyway, huge thanks for sorting this out. Come by the office later and I’ll have a doggy bag waiting for you both.”

“Thanks, boss.”

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