With Sugar on Top: The Chicago Confectioner

He knew he wasn’t at home even before he opened his eyes. It was the feel of the bed, coarse, not like the billowy satins back in Chicago.

Things were different here. Things were rougher, less refined.

Instead of waking up with comfort and a clean conscience on Michigan Avenue next to the Chicago River, the Confectioner cracked open a dry eye in a dingy hovel on a dirt and horse shit thoroughfare next to a creek that was drier than a nun on Sunday morning.

His head felt like every bit of yeast that had ever leavened his dough had crept up through his nose and took up residence inside his brain, feeding and burping gas, causing his sweetbreads to rise and press against his skull, pounding and pulsing, slapping outward with a predictable pulse that shot a wince so wan through that one eye that only Wild Bill Hickok could pick it up across a game of stud.

He sat up, stomach bubbling, and grabbed the privy, spewing last night’s fatback and moonshine into the putrid pot. The stench alone would have cleaned him out, whiskey or no.

The orders. The goddamned orders.

Fourteen turnovers, a black forest cake, six cannolies, eight loaves of sourdough, a whole tin’s worth of strawberry thumbprints, some communion wafers for the Reverend. Three dozen goddamned chocolate chip cookies.

All this for Phineas T. Moneystacker, Rotator Cuff’s Mayor, Dignitary-in-Chief, Inspector and Postmaster General, Chairman of the League of Concerned Rotator Cuffians, and President of the Sweettooth Society, a group of well-to-do residents of this dusty outpost who imported sugar and butter by the peck. The Confectioner had been around the block and his reputation preceded him. Not a man in God’s Country could knead with his intensity, dust a crepe with his dexterity, whip a meringue with his vigor. Nobody could replicate his maddening madelines, his paradoxical pralines. Imitated, but never copied, revered and feared, the Chicago Confectioner once fed Queen Victoria so much flan that her gut cracked her most expensive whalebone corset.

Moneystacker needed to have him in Rotator Cuff. Roughnecks in Saloons up and down the Pecos whispered about how Moneystacker’s gang worked triple time, robbing every stage they could set their bloodshot eyes on, amassing a small fortune to lure the Confectioner out of his Michigan Avenue manse and into the rough promise of the Badlands. And he did bake.

He baked so much and with such fury that a small settlement of dentists set up camp a few miles around the bend. They called it Cavity Bottom. Otis McMuffin even stocked molar yankers in his hardware shop, and everyone stopped calling Jimmy Denton by his Christian name and started calling him Jimmy Dentures on account of how many teeth he lost to the Confectioner’s treacle.

But like the sun, glory fades. Except it doesn’t rise so regularly. A predilection for games of chance, ladies of ill repute, brown liquor and bubble baths all conspired to put him in this godforsaken shack, penniless with a hangover and a laundry list of delectables for dilettantes.

The Confectioner swung over to the coffee pot and poured a stale mugful. Resisting the urge to Irish it up, he chugged the swill.

Then came a peeling guffaw.

Rogers.

The Porridge Boys must be back, and that means they’re looking for their loot. And that means they’re looking for the Baker’s Dozen.

That means they’re looking for the Confectioner.

He set down his swill and stuck two fingers in the lard bucket, slicking back the fur that sat on his brow like two caterpillars, and wiping the rest on his ever synched apron. He grabbed his Baretta, a gift from the doge of Fettucini and set out toward that ringing belly laugh.

…..Stay tuned for more adventures of the Bakers Dozen!

By Norm deGuerre

Wherein: Jelly Roll Rogers Has a Laugh

The Porridge Boys were tough. There were nine of them, all brothers, led by a gritty sharpshooter named Ponk. Townspeople would call him Paunch behind his back (and his formidable belly), but jibing didn’t ease their fear.

It was said that the Porridge Boys could stand open-eyed in a Montana sandstorm. It was said they could snatch a rattler’s tail clean off before the snake could flick its tongue even once. It was said the Porridge Boys drank formaldehyde INSTEAD of moonshine.

“It’s been said that the Porridge Boys drink formaldehyde instead of moonshine,” said Mincemeat Max from his position on the floor. “Do you reckon that’s true?”

“No,” said Jelly Roll Rogers.

He squinted his eye. The sun, slanting in from high overhead, was glancing off one of the Porridge Boys’ belts. Jelly Roll looked closer at the belt. He could see that new notches had been bored in it. Either the wearer had lost weight or…

“Hello, boys,” said Jelly Roll as he sauntered out of the hotel, casually brushing dirt off his pants. “I see you’re one shorrrrt this afternoon. Now why would that be?”

“For one thing, we’s here for our haul,” said a voice from the Porridge crowd.

“What haul would that be?” Jelly Roll asked, careful to hock his oily glob without moving his eyes from the mass of glinting holsters in front of him.

“The loot you and the rest of the Bakers Dozen took from us down in Deadwood. That was our legal property and we’re prepared to go to the law to get it back.

“Cain’t be legal if you’re the ones who stole it,” muttered Mincemeat from behind Jelly Rolly’s right shoulder.

“You shut up, you mangy stick insect,” said the Porridge Boy with the belt. Jelly Roll raised his eyebrows — he wasn’t sure if it was the natural history knowledge or the aggression, but this behavior was not what he expected from a Porridge Boy, other than Ponk.

“You never did say where Ponk rrrran off to,” Jell Roll said coolly.

“Well,” stammered the other man, “that’s part and partially why we’re here.” There was a pause and some uncomfortable resetting of hats on heads and clinking of spurs in the dirt. “Ponk’s gone to Oregon. He said he wants to grow vegetables.”

Jelly Roll Rogers couldn’t believe his ears. “Vegetables?!”

“Organic only,” the man mumbled.

All the way across town, at least three false fronts over, The Chicago Confectioner heard Jelly Roll Rogers’ distinct laugh and wondered what all the fuss was about. He put down his black coffee, slicked his finger through a can of lard by the door, smoothing his dark eyebrows into place as he set off to find out the news.

…..Stay tuned for more adventures of the Bakers Dozen!

By Acacia Jones

The Return of the Porridge Boys, Part II

Jelly Roll Rogers lay on his stomach, peering through a small hole in the wall. He could see the dusty sunlight, smell Mincemeat Max’s stale breath whistling next to him, feel the cool engraved barrel of his Colt against the side of his nose.

“The Pooridge Boys ez back for their haul, eh, Mincemeat?”

“I reckon they arrrre,” said Max. He’d spent his boyhood riding the tides of the Baltic Sea with some loot-lusting pirates and could never break the habit of drawing out his r’s.

“Well, they’re just standing there, hanging at Salty’s Saloon, waiting fer us. They don’t know we’re in here, so I sez we jest sit tight and wait for sundown. You know, to let the ladies and chirruns leave town, eh Mincemeat?”

Jelly Roll grinned a crooked grin and rolled onto his stomach. He folded his arms across his chest and propped his head against the wall. Mincemeat shifted so he was more comfortable, but kept his eyes closely trained on the Pooridge Boys, who were indeed lounging outside Salty’s Saloon. He felt a line of sweat slip down the back of his neck.

Jelly Roll found a shard of wood on the floor and began to pick his teeth with it. The splinter proved useful, so he attempted to clean under his fingernails. The dirt was darker and thicker than he’d expected, so he brought his fingers close to his watery eyes, to better examine the foul-smelling remnants of the past. The greasy, moist finger-dirt proved a fertile ground. Jelly Roll’s eyebrows rose when he dug particularly deep under his pinkie and discovered a seed sprouting. He maneuvered the dirt out and examined the tiny, white shoot.

“Wharrrrr you doing over there, Jelly Roll?”

“I got some dang plants growing in my ex-trem-i-teeeez.” Jelly Roll swept a hand across his pants and the fingernail debris scattered across the floor. The slim white sprout, almost translucent, fell next to him and he spat, covering it in thick, black chaw.

Jelly Roll pulled his ten-gallon over his eyes and said, “Mincemeat, you jest keep yer peeps on them son-of-a-bitches and let me know when we’s gonna have our fun. Until then, I’m gonna say-yes-ta a siesta.”

“Alrrrrrrright, Jelly Roll, but what if the Porridge Boys try to get started before sundown?”

Jelly Roll nuzzled deeper in his hat and his voice was muffled when he said to Mincemeat Max, “Mincy, there’s two types of buzzards in these parts. Ding-dings and weenies. A ding-ding is a sharp shooter who’s afraid to get his boots dirty. A weenie’s got the dirtiest damn shoes this side of the Mississippi, but ain’t got nothing near a bullseye in him.”

“Which is the Porridge Boys?”

“They ain’t neither. They jest a bunch of tumbleweeds, passing through town and stirring ep dust,” said Jelly Roll and he began to snore.

Mincemeat Max, nervous by nature, continued to fidget as he waited, watching the menacing Porridge Boys through his hole in the wall. He was sure they were going to make a move soon, he just didn’t know when….

…..Stay tuned for more Adventures of the Baker’s Dozen!

By Acacia Jones

The Return of the Porridge Boys, Part I

One step out of the saloon, and the earth came up to meet him.

Pitching and rolling like a canoe in the Pecos, Rotator Cuff’s dusty thoroughfare — covered in horseshit and six different kids of spit — jumped up and smacked ol’ Jelly Roll Rogers in the noggin. One shot of whiskey too many or one punch in the mug too many, he was too old to tell.

Jelly Roll picked his hefty gut up off the ground and scooped up his ten-gallon, plucked off the bigger pieces of horse puckey and sat it down on his perfectly round head. He shifted his weight backwards and hucked a terrible gob of oily tobacco juice up in the air, tracing a sine curve before dropping heavy on a colony of dung beetles, coating them thick as an oil spill. He used the back of his sleeve to wipe the dribbling juice off a stubbly mouth that would chap even the loosest hussie’s lips.

There was more gold in Jelly Roll’s mouth than you could pan out of a river in the Black Hills, and he flashed it with a smile at Lucretia Leatherbottom and somehow managed at the same time to sneer at her escort Pretty Paul Pickens.

He let loose with a “Mornin’”, ruddying up little Lucretia’s face as he tipped his hat and stumbled on down to the old hotel where he could hang up his Colts.

With a rap or two at the door, sure as a bear shits in the woods, Mincemeat Max slid open a silt in the door just wide enough to accommodate his beady eyes. “Password, please, Jelly Roll.”

“Aw hell, Mincemeat. Ya see it’s me standin here. What the hell er you doin askin me the password?”

“Aint nobody ‘bove the rules, Jelly Roll. Password?”

Jelly Roll let loose another gob of spit, black as a Montana night, and between his teeth uttered, “Polecat Pie.”

The door swung open revealing Mincemeat’s meager frame. “I dunno why Stewie put you up on guard duty anyways. A strong wind blows by and I reckon you’ll blow clear to Bozeman.”

“‘S all I’m good fer,” spat Mincemeat. “That’n scrubbin the blood outta the floorboards.”

“We pull one more heist like down in Deadwood and you’ll be scrubbin more blood outta these floorboards then…” Jelly Roll didn’t even get out a whole sentence, when he heard a crack and his hat sailed clean off his head.

Mincemeat grabbed him and pulled him down, swinging the door closed. As the door swung shut he could see that it wasn’t a case of extra frisky fleas that sent Jelly Roll’s hat off his cueball head. “Damn, Jelly Roll! It’s the Porridge Boys back for their haul!”

Jelly Roll hadn’t sobered that fast since his last encounter with Frisco Fannie in Yankton. Supine, he grabbed for his silver Colts, cocked them back and, flashing his golden grin said, “Mincemeat, looks like you aint scrubbin floors no more. Pull up yer britches and grab yer guns. We’s in fer a real fight!”

…..Stay tuned for more Adventures of the Baker’s Dozen!

By Norm deGuerre