FURIOUS GEORGE

Short fiction // A Kentucky-fried tale from just outside Nawlins.

Back out on the bayou we had a lotta interesting guys, guys known for all things and for having all manners of proclivities. We took all kinds so long as you could wrangle gator, or failin’ that, cook a mean crawdad. We had our ex-cons, our loons, moons, it’erants, transients, vagabonds, those of honorable character and ill-repute, but the man who stood out to me, to us all, was a fella we got to callin’ Furious George.

Now it weren’t his Christian name, but it might well have been, there ain’t a word in your dictionary that fit him any otherwise. Not that he was an angry man, no sir, that’d be some misnomering. We called him that on account of his zeal for life, for he had love for even the tiniest of poppy seeds. And that meant a lot now, ‘cause Furious George, boy, the sight of him, taller than the Appalachians, and damn near wider then ‘em, too. Had the shoulders they’d put on marble statues, the ones you’d see placed up for appraisal down in Lafayette Square. Big like Atlas, and where it counted too, if the lady folk of the lagoon were to be believed. Hell! Ya didn’t even need to hear ‘em say it, ya could hear ‘em live it! Him taking a girl to the circus, usually Busy Abby. Made ya one to make your popcorn, if ya know what I’m sayin’. But I de-gress, that’s beyond the story, and unbecoming of me to talk of such chicanery.

Anyhow, the thing that really stuck out ‘bout ol’ Furious George was that he had a real imperviousness, there ain’t no malady that ever bedraggle him. Never got sick, never got hurt. He’d take a bite from one of them swamp lizards and they’d chip they fucking tooth. And I ‘member readin’ once a gator bite had twice as much force as a Tyson punch. Bet George could take old Iron Mike himself, if he didn’t hate fightin’. As I said, he was more the lovin’ type. But of all his feats, one stuck out as being real extraordinary. When ol’ Andrew hit the swamp back in ‘92, it was a doozy. It was mass destruction, the type of biblical that’d make the pharaoh shit himself. Trees ripped from the root, cars flyin’ without a Doc Brown. Not a soul in sight, ‘cept for one man. Couldn’t believe my eyes. Right in the middle of it all, Furious George, sitting outside in the torrent, eatin’ a sammich! We told the bastard get inside but he didn’t listen. Never did, was always a hard ‘rassle. We were yellin’ and yellin’, really urgin’, and then but you know it, a bolt come from up ‘bove, strike him right ‘tween the eyes. Oh was it terrible. Thought he was a goner for sure. But when it was over and the thunder’d clapped, there was George, still there, still eatin’ his chicken mayo. Couldn’t believe it. Some ‘round got to thinkin’ he came from Bethle’m. I understood why. He was a soldier, a damn soldier. Nothing could get him. Nothing could.

Well ‘till crack anyway. Survived lightning, didn’t survive crack. Crazy fucker.