Running With Scissors

That's About the Last Mayor Character of the Story

Historians often argue that alcohol makes everything better. From the farthest reach of the Horsehead Nebulax to the smallest corner of the Sol System, every achievement for the betterment of society has had at least a bottle of fermented spirits and a sharp mind to make even the most stupid of ideas possible.

Alexander the Great conquered most of the known world fueled only by wine and a desire to put his name in random cities to confuse tourists and cartographers alike.

Y'rth'kol the Gorgalin sailed the Seven Systems in search of the best Margarita Recipe, inadvertently creating a trade route between the Allidon System and the Calamari Empire. Earth's, he said in his memoirs, had the second-best Margarita recipe, but sadly, it lacked pain secretions from a Calamari infant to give it the right punch.

Sociologists, in their infinite quest to throw Historians under the bus, would argue that alcohol makes everything worse.

They would often cite that Alexander's conquest created a crime-riddled, fragile kingdom that regressed to more animalistic warfare as a response to its conquest, and that the Calamari people didn't quite approve of their children being tortured for Margarita-related reasons, triggering a pan-galactic war that affected billions of lives.

After all, statistically speaking, the most popular last words are "hold my beer."

Even so, Sociologists and Historians have conceded a few points to each other, mostly in the interest of not stabbing each other in the back during parties.

Sociologist conceded that some good might come from alcohol, citing that the Founding Fathers wrote the Declaration of Independence while blind drunk. Historians, on the other hand, have conceded that alcohol might play a foul hand in some affairs, citing examples like the Communist revolution, or if a one-eyed man with no hair, seven fingers and scars on his head suddenly appears in front of you for a job interview.

Peter Katz didn't care enough about sociology or history to know what to do when a one-eyed man with no hair, seven fingers and scars on his head suddenly appeared in from of him. So he invited him in for a drink.

They sat on the same booth as before, with Peter and James Truman-Conelly on one side and the man on the other. They ordered a round of beers except the man, who ordered a bottle of Grappa and a syringe to inject it directly into his veins.

"Well," said James Truman-Conelly as he nursed a beer, "let's begin. Can you please tell us your name?"

The man tapped his vein and gave himself a shot of Grappa. His body shuddered and shivered, making him howl like a wolf. Every dog in a square mile began to howl alongside him.

"The name of Massimo am Massimo Forcibi, also known as the Sudden Death, also known as Johnny the Wrench, also known as the Breaker of Dawn in World of Warcraft. You call Massimo if want," said the man with a thick accent that fell somewhere between Italian and Russian.

Massimo was, to use the clinical term, a shit-show. He didn't have hair, or eyebrows, or even eye-lashes—not that he needed that many since he only had one green eye, with a scar running through where the other eye should be. Scars ran through his bald skull and disappeared down the collar of his shirt.

He only had three fingers on his left hand and missed a thumb off his right hand. For some reason, he smelled like overripe tomatoes.

Peter's gut told him not to trust such man, but there was something about his perfectly white smile and the affable, sing-song way he talked. Something charming. He was not the best judge of character.

"Before we go any further," said Peter, "we wanna ask you a few questions."

"Massimo love the question!" said Massimo. "Question make the advance of plot and provide backstory, yes?"