The Ballad of Bonaduke—
Episode 25: Nothing
DETAILS: Series: The Ballad of Bonaduke, #25 Format: Kindle Vella Story Read Date: June 15, 2023
My grift had brought me here. Call it luck, call it destiny, hell call it bad stuff I was done running away. Done hiding. Done. I clenched my jaw and pulled open the disabled sliding door that I somehow knew would be unlocked.
The Story So Far…
A drunken Michael Bonaduke decides to use a grift (with maybe some sort of magic/magic-like “help”) to win on a scratch-off lottery ticket so he has money to buy more to drink. He pulls off whatever he did, gets his money and some booze and stumbles off into the darkness to drink himself into oblivion so he can start again the next day. He’s hit by dark memories (probably what’s driving him to the drinking) of fire, pleading, and screaming. There’s going to be a price to pay for his grift, and he’s trying to be ready.
Before then, he gets himself drunk and we get some of his tragic backstory. As he ponders this, he decides to use some of his ill-gotten-gains to buy more booze and walks into a liquor store robbery. He foils it in some sort of magical fashion, gets some more to drink, and heads off to the park to drink until he’s arrested (probably for the failed robbery). At least that’s his plan, but it gets interrupted by being hit by a car. He wakes up on some sort of short, metal bed and is unsure what’s going on. It turns out that some group is subjecting him to a test—if he passes, everything will be explained to him (and hopefully the reader, too). He passes—and is brought somewhere for answers, or maybe training, or maybe another test. Time will tell (or things are going to get really annoying). Answers aren’t quick to come—but the mysteries and questions keep piling up.
Things get hairy and Bonaduke leaves and finds himself back in the neighborhood he started from. Taking refuge in a homeless encampment, Bonaduke has to make some decisions. He starts to get his thoughts in order when the police begin a raid at the camp. During the raid, he’s apprehended by…well, we need to find out. But first, the interrogation kicks off—Bonaduke tries to work his grift to get him out, and while that effort starts off promisingly…it didn’t quite go the way he’d intended. He finds himself by a group of squatters who seem to have strapped a woman to a chair for reasons that can’t be good.
What’s Nothing About?
Before he can register what he’s doing, Bonaduke races to the woman to try to free her. There’s some commotion from the rest of the squatters and one—presumably a leader of some sort—moves to intervene.
A physical altercation ensues and Bonaduke finds a way to use his grift to help himself and…
I don’t know, we’ll see how badly this goes for him* in the next episode.
* Or how well, I should say—he’s due, right?
So, what did I think about Nothing?
Oh ho! This was good—plenty of action, a little exploration of Bonaduke’s abilities, and the kind of cliffhanger ending that leaves you in anticipation (rather than an eye-roll because it’s clearly manipulative (although the point of a cliffhanger is to manipulate, you know what I mean)).
Bonus points for the rather realistic self-injury resulting from a thrown punch.
No complaints from me on this one. I’m eager for the next episode.
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