Glendale Cantina, Marijuana Merchant Roast Beef Enthusiast
Glendale Cantina was visited at his emporium by a traveling salesman sporting a Jelly Roll hairdo and a rather flamboyant pair of winklepickers. He had come hawking papier-mâché sculptures of horses with mermaid’s tails.
“See here,” said Cantina after the man, who identified himself only by the name of “Sneed,” had made his pitch. “I appreciate the opportunity, but I’m afraid that, in something of the manner of a dog chasing a car under the mistaken impression that it’s a potentially savory piece of prey, you’re barking up the wrong metaphorical tree. This isn’t an art gallery – it’s a cannabis dispensary!”
“But that’s exactly my point,” said Sneed. “Only someone buzzed up on the devil’s lettuce could take a shine to a monstrosity such as this. Yet, once they do, they’re liable to find it utterly mesmerizing, and the next thing you know, you’ll have a lucrative sale on your hands. Believe me, I travel the country four seasons out of the year selling these abominations, and to a person, my most loyal clients all work in the cannabis sector.”
“I see your point,” conceded Cantina. “The only problem is that for the price you’ve named, I only have enough money to afford a single sculpture.”
“That’s no problem at all! At the 500% suggested retail markup, once you sell that single sculpture, you’ll have enough to buy five more, and that’s when the cash will really start rolling in. Soon, you’ll be as rich as a truffle-stuffed bonbon.”
“That does sound pretty sweet,” conceded Cantina. “I suppose I’ll have to give it a try.”
Forthwith, the wholesale transaction was completed, and the satisfied salesman departed in his maroon DeSoto Firesweep with the ragtop down. Cantina, meanwhile, hung the papier-mâché horse-mermaid from a hook in the ceiling intended for potted plants and then, while he waited for his first customers of the day to arrive, sampled some of the new products that had just come in on the overnight express from his top Central Asian supplier, the Old Kandahar Toker Brokers. Before long, he was as high as a kite at the beach on the Fourth of July, and that was when the sculpture really caught his eye.
“Woah,” he said to himself, regarding it. “It’s a horse, but at the same time it’s a mermaid. It’s almost as if I had a mermaid’s tail, but at the same time, I was a horse instead of a man, which would be amazing because I could gallop down the beach with my mane flowing in the breeze and then, when I’d worked up a nice horse sweat (assuming I didn’t suffer from anhidrosis), plunge into the sea and paddle all the way down to the bottom. Just think of the creatures I might meet there. A giant siphonophore, for example, or maybe even one of those adorable flapjack octopi.”
Momentarily, the bell hanging from the top of the door jangled and in ambled Veranda Smithereens, the retired Kiwanis Club boxer.
“Top of the morning to you,” Cantina greeted him.
Smithereens tipped his cap. “I’m here so early because my puncher’s elbow is all flared up, and as you know, nothing eases the pain like a few huffs and puffs from the old hot stick.”
“I’ve got great news, in that case,” came Cantina’s reply. “A hot-off-the-presses strain of Himalayan Super Boof just arrived as part of my latest shipment from the Toker Brokers, and I have a feeling it’s going to do wonders for that tender hinge of yours.”
“I thought Super Boof was mainly used for inducing sexual arousal.”
“Normally that would be true, but this Himalayan strain hits different. Moreover, the first dose is on me. After all, once you see what sweet relief it supplies, I have no doubt you’ll be hooked.”
“That’s why I like to do business with you, Glendale,” said Smithereens. “You’re not just some sleazy drug dealer who tries to create dependencies in your customers and then exploit them. To the contrary, you’re an honest merchant, and a mensch.”
At that, they blazed up a big fat spliff packed tight with the aforementioned Super Boof and passed it back and forth a few times.
“Hey,” said Smithereens, coughing out a cloud of blue-green smoke. “What’s that crazy thing hanging over there by the window?”
“Oh, that,” said Cantina. “Some sculpture I bought this morning from a traveling salesman with a Jelly Roll hairdo and a pair of winklepickers pointy enough to poke a hole in a car tire.”
“Interesting,” said Smithereens. “I can’t help but notice that it’s a horse, but at the same time, it’s also a mermaid.”
“You’ve got that right, bub.”
“Nevertheless,” continued Smithereens, “the more I gaze at it, the more I feel like it’s not just a horse that’s also a mermaid. It’s also an approach to living. In other words, why does a horse just have to be a horse when there’s so much out there in the universe, such as the ocean. What I’m trying to say is, we’re all like that horse deep inside. We go about our days and nights trotting over dry land and munching on hay, yet if only we turned around to look at our own behinds, we’d realize we were mermaids, too, to whom all the wonders of the sea are as ripe for the picking as a purple plum.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” said Cantina. “I acquired the thing on a whim, but once I got to really looking at it, I could see that there was more to it than the mere combination of a horse’s head with a mermaid’s rear end. One way to put is that there’s life, and then there’s life, and that sculpture – that’s life.”
“How much do you want for it?” said Smithereens.
“Come again?”
“I want to buy it,” said Smithereens. “What’s the price?”
“Oh – I certainly appreciate the interest, old boy, but for all the reasons you yourself have just alluded to, I’m afraid I’ve gotten a bit attached to having it here with me in the shop.”
“I’ll give you ten thousand dollars.”
“That’s a lot of green, brother, but you can’t put a price on the things we’ve just been talking about. Life being the big one. Also, flapjack octopi, although I’m not sure we talked specifically about those.”
“Twenty thousand,” said Smithereens.
Cantina shook his head. “I’ll sell you a cartload of kush any day of the week, champ, but the mermaid-horse is off limits.”
“How about this?” said Smithereens. “I’ve got a very large truck full of roast beef parked right outside, and if you give me that sculpture, I’ll let you have every last slice.”
“Every last slice?”
“Right down to the crumbs from their crusty little edges.”
Cantina thought it over for a moment.
“All right,” he said, then. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”
As you can probably tell, Glendale Cantina absolutely adored roast beef. Unfortunately, he was also a bit like a fish when it came to the meaty delicacy, and afforded access to what was for all intents and purposes an unlimited quantity of it, promptly ate himself to death.
Horror Sleaze Trash 