The Ballad of Bonaduke—
Episode 36: Roadside Assistance
DETAILS: Series: The Ballad of Bonaduke, #36 Format: Kindle Vella Story Read Date: September 29, 2023
A part of me, the grifter, knew it was a trick. That the face twisted in pain was a mask that was stolen from my memories…But it didn’t matter. The part of me that wished and longed to see her alive one last time won the moment he changed his face.
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.
He’s abducted by some representatives of a mysterious group who subject 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. He takes refuge in a homeless encampment shortly before a police raid. He’s apprehended and finds himself an interrogation room and shortly escapes after using his grift (but with results he didn’t quite intend). 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. He attempts to rescue her before he even realizes what he’s doing, and seems to have succeeded—well, the two of them got away from the group anyway—breathing but bruised. They make their way to a fast-food taco joint and Bonaduke really needs to refuel to keep going. He tries, but fails to get food because he keeps passing out. Thankfully, the clerk is the same guy from the liquor store and he both recognizes him and gives him first aid. The woman (Zero) wakes up and shows some abilities of her on as she helps them escape from her captors who’ve tracked her down. One thing leads to another—Zero and Bonaduke’s magics don’t mix well (at least until they understand what each other can do?), and they end up in a video-game race against the squatters in a tricked-out version of Eric (the clerk’s) car. Note, I said video-game race, not a video-game-style race. They’re actually in one. When dumped back into reality, he’s surrounded by bruised and broken bodies (of people and cars).
What’s Roadside Assistance About?
So…yeah. Bonaduke is looking at his beloved’s face. He knows it’s not her–but, oh, he wants it to be. This sets off a flashback for him (and the reader) surrounding Francine’s death.
Once he’s able to wrest his mind back to the present, Bonaduke lets his anger out–the anger about having to deal with this again, anger for his own role in her death, and anger about who knows what else. The results promise not to be pretty, but it’ll be the next episode before we know exactly what all that might be.
So, what did I think about Roadside Assistance?
We run, once again, into my biggest problem with this story. Part of it has to do with the brief episodic nature that it’s told in, and part of it is Slaywood’s style. I wonder how this would read as a novel/novella, then I’d know for sure. Frequently episodes like this one feel like a half-developed outline more than a narrative. This is seen best when Bonaduke uses his grift, but it’s also in the flashback (although I think that’s more purposeful, so I’m not complaining)–it seems to me that Slaywood is trying for the text come across as mysterious or enigmatic, but lands as abstruse, incomplete, and unclear.
That said, Slaywood’s really able to convey Bonaduke’s grief and anger here–this is the most honest emotional reaction we’ve seen from him, and the power of it clear. It’s probably the closest the reader’s really been able to come to understand Bonaduke yet.
A mixed bag, to be sure, but one that pushes the reader on to the next episode.
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