The Ballad of Bonaduke—
Episode 5: Hair of the Dog
DETAILS: Series: The Ballad of Bonaduke, #4 Format: Kindle Vella Story Read Date: October 13, 2022
Only my experience waking from numerous drunken nights told me to keep quiet until I could sort out where I was. It also told me that the pain I was feeling was not from booze. It had started at the back of my head, and was already making its way down through my bones, joints, and muscles. Even my belly button hurt like hell. Each sensation fought like a bitch to complain the most. I felt like I was hit by a truck.
No.
It was a blue Prius.
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.
What’s Hair of the Dog About?
Bonaduke wakes up in pain, as you’re wont to do when hit by a car. Even by a Prius. He’s disoriented and hungover and it takes him a little while to piece together what had happened to him and how he may have arrived…wherever he is. That part’s unclear, he’s getting something delivered by an IV, he’s on something cold, metal, and too short to be a hospital bed (or anywhere else to hold an adult). There are a couple of people having a conversation nearby about him. Bonaduke doesn’t understand exactly what they’re saying or have any idea who they are.
Determined to confront them and get out of answers, he swings his “half-numb legs” off the bed and the episode ends.
So, what did I think about Hair of the Dog?
I’ll have to see what happens in Episode 6. I don’t have enough to really say—I think the direction this is going, though. Hopefully, Eposide 6 will be like 4, and give me something to chew on.
I think it’s clear at this point that the Kindle Vella format is really not my cup of tea. But I’m going to stick with this particular story, I just can’t see myself trying another.
