The Ballad of Bonaduke—
Episode 23: Grift or Die
DETAILS: Series: The Ballad of Bonaduke, #23 Format: Kindle Vella Story Read Date: May 25, 2023
I was reminded of the one time my father took me to a natural park…We had been walking for nearly 20 minutes in silence before we heard it shuffle through the underbrush ahead. A bear. Larger than life than [sic] and certainly bigger than any TV picture could have prepared me for. There was a switch in my head that knew immediately how dangerous it was.
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.
What’s Grift or Die About?
Er. Whoops. Yeah, he’s out of the police station, seeming free and clear. But he doesn’t have any of his possessions. No jacket, no keys, a wet shirt, and…it’s cold and rainy. Also, he has nowhere to go with the police crackdown on places that the homeless usually go to tonight. Nor can he remember where the apartment Alan and Om were in is. He has one idea but who knows if it’ll work.
So, what did I think about Grift or Die?
Okay, not a lot happens in this episode. But it’s the way that things don’t happen that saves it. The next episode is set up well here, and it kept the reader’s attention.
If it’d gone on longer and got to something beyond where it ended, I might have been happier (and have had something to say), but it wasn’t and I don’t.
