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