Billy Luck: Episode 18 – ACK-CENTUATE ALL THE POSITIVE (Forget the Rest!)

Street Sense Staff

A bleary-eyed Billy Luck rubbed his slightly reddened orbs, as “Breezin'” by George Benson blared out Skipper’s
dashboard radio out of the big Electra. Skipper, her hair blowing in the morning updraft from beneath her lavender-mesh
very stylish headscarf, looked admiringly on her new friend. “You seemed to recognize that scary little KNIFE-THROWER,
Billy! Is he some friend of yours– I mean he was thowing blades mighty close to us!!”

“Yes, Skipper, that’s Ferret, we work side by side at the erotic book and magazine shop under where Elaine
was living. Yeh, he was tossin’ ’em mighty wild, and—”

“My God,” she exclaimed. “Perhaps it’s time we found you a more respectable line of work, mmm, Far removed
from “Mister Apache?–”

Billy hung his head, ashamed, as he mumbled, “His crusty ol’ Dad calls him Apache. Guess that’s an improve-
ment over “Ferret!” He blinked, glared sharply at Skipper. “So now where are we going?”

Skipper gunned the engine up Eleventh, and right on New York Avenue. A pair of rag-pickers, a man and a
woman in matching ripped safari jackets, rolled out of the wake of her big green machine. “Funny. A lil’ bird told
me to check on your flakey Reverend buddy…”

Outside the Mission Of Last Resort, three DC blue-and-whites were astride the cracked sidewalk;
out front of the splayed vehicles, Macedonia sparred with a local TV news crew and Sergeant Phil Carlisle.
Macedonia brayed shamelessly, “Oh, Ossifer, It were hooriferous, Our Dear Rev came within one inch of havin’ his
HEAD chopped off!”

Skipper elbowed her sweet way into camera range, and spat out to Carlisle, “This is plum foolishness,
Phil! I’ve heard quite enough. Can’t your boys even protect one dear Skid Row padre- especially this man, who
clearly cares so for his poor benighted FLOCK?”

Marty Chauld, an anchor for the local affiliate, quickly grabbed the mike to inform viewers, sotto voce,
that “This glamorous blonde wife, Skipper, of the ‘outspoken’ Senator hastings Marsh (“R-Tennessee”), has taken
it upon herself to speak up for endangered residents of DC’s ‘Tenderloin…”

Back in the well-upholstered study of his cushy Cleveland Park manse with the caped green roof, Marsh
dropped his brandy and his kerchief full of ‘blow,’ and stamped up angrily out of his Strat-o-Lounger. “Dammit all,
Wanda, get lost!!” He flung a Florsheim loafer at the television screen, causing the box to short out. “Go, girl,
I have IMPORTANT CALLS to make!” As wanda clattered a hasty retreat out of the house, Marsh growled,
bit his lower lip, and dialed frantically. “Hullo…Yeah, Harris? Look, boy. I got a tail for you t’ make…
That’s right, how’dja guess. Luck, that little turkey. BILLY LUCK- Find him, and this time, no mistakes!!
Skipper and Billy huddled briefly with Reverend rand and Macedonia, and as they left the mission,
Skipper was determined, barring nothing else– “Billy it’s time I introduced you to my husband, the lees than distinguished
United States Senator, Hastings Eldon Marsh!” Billy gulped, looked around nowhere in particular, and mopped his
brow vigorously with a handful of tissues from the Buick Electra’s glove box. (To be continued)

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