Guns ‘R’ Us - 1.1. - Intro

Chapter 1
Part 1

Welcome. I give you my latest work. It’s supposed to be a comedy about not so distant future, said future being filled with humour and violence in stead of just violence. I really appreciate all comments. Enjoy.

A white male wearing shades and holding a cigar in his silver cyberarm exposed by a missing sleeve was sitting in a dark room filled with boxes and crates. Few sunbeams made it through the draperies. The man occupied a chair most likely designed by H.R. Giger. He wore a hat from the previous century styled as if it had been made in the mid twenties. The screen of his computer was turned off and he sat with boots next to it following the tobacco clouds with a relaxed gaze.
The phone rang.
- Fuck – he muttered and pulled the hat onto the shades letting the phone finally get fed up with trying.
It was silent for a while and then it rang again.
- Motha...
He picked up the receiver in such a way that it would knew he wasn’t pleased.
- Guns ‘R’ Us, Clyde speaking, how may I be of service? – he sounded very kind and professional.
- It’s Malcolm. – replied an Afro-Caribbean voice. The owner must have had dreadlocks.
- Oh, it’s you. – Clyde suddenly sounded bored. – How’s the shop?
- The shop’s doin’ not so well, that’s how it is!
- ‘Cause?
- Damn man, shouldn’t you be havin’ a video footage there in your lair? And shouldn’t you be...
Clyde glanced at the black screen on his desk.
- I was in the shitter. So what’s up? – he then switched his screen on.
He saw a shop with shelves filled with pistols, SMG’s, rifles grenades and other manifestations of the Vietnamese flora. The man he was speaking to was indeed a black person wearing dreadlocks and also a shirt with a label ‘Cambodia is a place on Earth’. The man was looking at him with ‘You damn fool’-expression written on his face. He was standing behind bullet-proof glass. On the other side of said glass were two police officers looking a bit frightened. There was a machinegun turret placed above them in a slot in the wall.
- Hey, why you’s got policemen there and why are they shitting their pants?
Malcolm replied with a facepalm.
- I said I was in the shitter, talk to me.
- Fuckin’ two hours?
- Joe’s Chillidogs. – Clyde grinned but no one could see that he did.
- ...
- C’mon.
Suddenly one of the officers faced the camera Malcolm was speaking to.
- You there! Call the...
- Don’t make me gas you! – grunted Malcolm.
- You all gonna get canned for this! – the policeman yelled as if he was saying ‘I’m telling teacher’ and then he took a step back.
Meanwhile Clyde was enjoying his cigar.
- C’mon Malcolm, tell uncle Clyde what happened.
- You’re the worst damn secretary ever! – Malcolm replied and went to the storage room.
Seeing this as an opportunity the policemen hurried to the front door and started yanking and kicking it but it wouldn’t budge. Nobody ever left the shop without paying.
- I’m no secretary. I’m an interpersonal affairs agent.
- Sure you are! Name-wise you are a whore not a secretary, that’s for sure. – said Malcolm returning with a gun in his hand.
He lifted it up to the camera and then threw it carelessly on his counter.
- Huh. Are we playing charades? – Clyde asked – You locked up two cops in the shop ‘cause... um, gun?
- The gun’s been sold, Clyde. – Malcolm bit his lip and sat down on a metal chair.
- So why is it here, then? I sense a plot twist!
- And a plot twist there is indeed, Nigga. The noble purchaser has been so kind as to fetch-it-back.
- Because?
- Because, as he was so kind as to utter... – while speaking Malcolm used to spit on the floor from time to time – the goods have not met his high requirements in the quality department. ‘So, what were his requirements?’, you might ask.
Clyde nodded even though there wasn’t anyone who could see that he agreed.
- Well – Malcolm continued – ‘the gun doesn’t do enough damage’, the purchaser gracefully declared in his frankness.
- This – Clyde almost touched the screen with his forehead to see better – modified Magnum adjusted for the purposes of ammo that can be witnessed on the front cover of diaries from Hiroshima didn’t do enough damage?
- So he speaketh.
The secretary grinned.
- And so I enquired: ‘What did young master purchaser tried to annihilate?’ and you know what he replied? ‘A cow’! ‘A cow’, he says!
The policemen must have had already heard the story because they looked a bit bored with their backs against the wall.
- So, then what?
- Then? Then I say: ‘If the noble applicant failed to vaporise a cow by means of the presented artefact then the noble applicant failed at aiming’. But he replies: ‘I hit it, alright and as a matter of fact I did kill it... But the splatter was not like the one on the commercial.’
- Hah. Wait, what? What fuckin’ commercial?
- Yeah, that’s what I said but later I checked the web and it turns out we do have a new commercial. A one where a redneck shoots some cattle with our guns and the cattle start to imitate ink spots one by one.
- Oooooh! – Clyde suddenly remembered something.
- Wha’?
- I was goin’ to tell you. We did make new commercials! That’s why now we add a paint brush to every gun sold, so...
- I can fuckin’ figure out the rest! – Malcolm interrupted with irritation in his voice – But by the way... I didn’t get no brushes.
- Yeah, ‘cause I didn’t send you any yet.
- ...
Clyde lit another cigar.
- Right, so tell me what’s this story got to do with those two cops there?
- Well, so I say that if the customer is not pleased then the customer is our master and commander and he can feel free to get his money back and go buy some crap they sell at the newsstand that also makes ink spots... from it’s wielder at most times, that is but costs quarter the price. So got his money back, he did. Then he fucked off. An hour later these two – he pointed at the policemen – come by and say they would like to take a look at my Magnums. So I thought they needed something bigger than what the force has to offer, fine by me. And suddenly this one here one the left – detective Monk – says that the given gun is the same one that was used to kill the mayors son some one and a half hour ago.
- Right. So they didn’t care much for the story?
Malcolm shook his head. The officers shook their heads as well.
- Ok, but that wasn’t so bad. You could’ve testified, you know cooperate... Show them some legal permits and papers and such...
- For fucks sake, Clyde. – Malcolm sighed. – Are you new to this business? How the fuck are any of my permits or papers or anything legal?
- Oh, yeah, right. Well, worry not. I’m callin’ the boss. I’ll ask what now.
- Just hurry the fuck up. I recon somebody at some point, like after a cigarette and a coffee will look for these two.
- Sure thing. Callin’ right now.
Clyde got up and yawned. He then looked at his new cigar. He scratched his chin and then turned the microphone off.
- Coffee first though.