BILLY'S GOT ISSUES
By Cameron Ashley

They say Billy's got issues.

They say some shit about a moral compass that points neither here nor there but somewhere in-between. They say shit like disorder and complex and longer words, the kind of words that when you break them down into beats and sound them out it takes a good deal of time.

Billy's issues be fucked, far as I'm concerned. He shouldn't have done what he did. Couple nights back, Billy's wonky-ass moral compass pointed him in the direction of my farm. He took three of my best mohair goats and drug them behind his pick-up until they were just a hairy red stripe running down the dirt road. He didn't come say sorry, hell, he didn't even own up to it when The Man With The Badge went to talk to him.

The Man With The Badge is Billy's cousin. Billy slides once more.

Not good enough.

Tonight I sit in the dark outside Billy's place and I wait for his fat momma to waddle on out and have a smoke on the porch. I attach one end of the chain to the back of my truck. I attach the other to a thick, studded dog collar I got. I turn on my flashlight and take my length of lead pipe and I walk down his long pebbly drive and I say hi to his fat momma on the porch and then I do the world a favor while I'm there and then I say hi to Billy and take him out for a moonlit drive to his cousin's.

The Man With The Badge looks saggy and old without his shirt on. I make sure he wears his badge though, just so he knows that I know that he's The Man.

I dunk his head in the bucket full of goat I scraped off the road and left out in the sun for a day or so.

I tell him:

Billy ain't the only one got issues.
Cameron Ashley makes things up and writes them down with varying degrees of success.

7 comments:

Henry said...

Good Flash!!

Anonymous said...

Excellent flash.
Billy's issues, The Badge's issues, the mc's issues--the whole vigilante, eye-for-an-eye mentality propels the emotions and actions to one hell of an appropriate and satisfactory conclusion. Pass me a beer and tell me another. --Wanda

Jimmy Callaway said...

Fuckin A, man! A swift kick in the nuts, what every flash-fiction oughtta be. Seriously, I am well fucking impressed. Crank some more of these out, dude. Like, yesterday.

Anonymous said...

Cheers for the kind words. Plenty of things in the works & upcoming. I'll be back here before you know it. Thanks so much -- Cam

Paul D Brazill said...

Aaah, this is brilliant. You're good at this.

Josh Converse said...

Great flash, bro.

Little Reb said...

I like goats and I like this story.