WARNING: This article contains profanity, substance abuse, politically incorrect passages, and poor grammar. If you are offended by such things, feel free to click that little “x” in the upper right corner of your screen.
March 3, 1970 – Arcola, Saskatchewan
Shorty Saunders was a legend in Arcola. He wasn’t a leading citizen, a war hero, an athlete, or anything like that; in fact, he was a bit of an asshole.
Shorty started his day around 11:00am when Ted opened the bar. He would have a couple of draft beer for breakfast; maybe some fries and gravy for lunch – if Dusty forced him to. By mid-afternoon he was drinking hard liquor and annoying anybody within earshot. Shorty never worked that anybody knew of and, beyond being spectacularly irritating, he wasn’t remarkable in any way you might notice.
Shorty stood about pump-handle high, although that didn’t account for his nickname. His eyes were rheumy, his breath stunk, and his jokes weren’t funny. Not the usual stuff of legends.
Shorty’s real name was Marvin, but nobody had called him that since March 3, 1970.
Legend has it, Marvin and a bunch of regulars were playing poker in Ted’s back room that day. There was a raging blizzard outside so nobody was eager to go home. Ted had the heat cranked up, the whiskey was flowing and, for a while at least, the cards were falling in Marvin’s favour.
As the evening wore on and the horizon in the whisky bottle settled below the star on the label, Marvin’s luck started to run dry.
The drunker he got, the harder he bet….the harder he bet, the more he lost…..the more he lost, the drunker he got….the drunker he got, the more he bet ….. and so on, and so on, until Marvin was bust.
“You cheatn’ cocksuckers got all my money”. Marvin slapped his final hand face down and swilled the last inch of Five Star from his grimy glass.
“Ted, spot me a twenty ‘til Friday?”
“Sorry Marvin, you still haven’t paid back the last loan”.
Marvin filled his glass again and watched as the rest of them played a round without him.
“Why’nt we have a little contest?” Marvin slurred.
“What kinda’ contest?” Andy asked, always the competitor.
“Lesssee who’s got the longest pecker”.
Laughter was immediate and deafening. Gordy bellowed and slapped his knee, Andy guffawed, and Ted doubled up, snorted, and almost lost his whisky in a fit of laughter-induced coughing.
“Jesus Christ Saunders!” Ted said, “you get squirrelier every fuckin’ day”.
“I’m serious!” “Everybody throw in twenty bucks and the wiener takes all!”
Andy blew a mouthful of whiskey on the card table, tears streaming down his face. “Saunders, I am going to take that bet – even though you don’t have the twenty to work with”.
You wouldn’t think there was enough alcohol to induce grown men to engage in a pre-pubescent pecker check, but Five Star Whisky is a marvellous elixir – it has the ability to annihilate brain cells and induce reprehensible behaviour at an astonishing rate. Marvin and his cronies had seen the bottom of three bottles.
The fable gets a little fuzzy at this point. Nobody ever said who the runners-up were but Marvin (forever after known as Shorty) stood up, placed his manhood on the poker table and lined 11 quarters up beside it.
A Legend is Born!
This is one in a series of stories entitled Tales from Dead Ted’s, a chronicle of fictional events with just a kernel of truth in each. The events may have occurred in and around Arcola in the 1960s and 1970s. Click on the link below for more stories about growing up on the Canadian prairie.
wellwaterblog.ca – tales from dead ted’s
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