Ink fight at the CPAC Corral

The Bloggers didn't get to town but a few times a year. Most days they spent out on the range roping rogue main stream media types and just looking out after the wandering herd. They tended toward the independent type, loners mostly, like disenchanted drifters that appear to feel at home anywhere and nowhere at the same time. They were a strange breed to say the least.

With colorful names like Ace, Cranky, Pres and Bear, they didn't quite fit in with the town folk - probably best that the two didn't mix as much as they might. But then there was always jamboree. A few times a year bloggers and town types from far and wide would gather in one place, one town; Lord knows you never knew what to expect when that happened. And that's pretty much the whys and wherefores of what led to the Ink Fight at the CPAC Corral.

Dover was a blogger, a Red-Stater like many, but he was far from the orneriest of the bunch that had made it into town that fateful day. Maybe that was a good thing, who knows. But his little morning run-in with one of the townsfolk set the stage for the carnage to follow. He had mostly been minding his own business that morning, kicking around the stalls reserved for bloggers. They weren't the fancy-Dan uptown type stalls the townsfolk used, but they served. Bloggers were accustomed to getting by with very little, often for very long periods of time.

Dover, he was making small talk, hanging out with some other bloggers, that sort of thing - his prize Laptop, Sugar Bee, by his side. Staying close to your lap top was a part of an unwritten creed that guided a blogger's life. They had rules just like everybody else, you just weren't likely to know them if you weren't really a blogger. Anyway, that's when the fracas got started. All Dover did was take a short stroll without ol' Sugar Bee in stride.

John Fund was a townie of the first order - an uptown banker-type, big money man by trade. He had a big house up on Wall Street, far from the dusty side trails and back roads that bloggers were prone to prowl. Some say it was fate that first brought them together that day in the corral - others said it was just the inevitable.

Without so much as a by your leave, a fare thee well, or a "sure is a nice Lap top you got there stranger," Fund took the reigns of Dover's little Sugar Bee and headed out toward the Internet. Maybe he just needed to touch base with a couple folk, or simply pick up the mail: no one really knew for sure. Ol' Dover didn't quite know what to do in the face of such a bold discourtesy. He was a man of the range, used to working under a special creed - a man always paid another man respect out on the big ride, and that sure enough included respecting another man's Lap Top; else ways he ran the risk of incurring the kind of wrath that only Hell or a rabid pack of bloggers could make you pay. Apparently that didn't much matter to the city-fied Fund. Least he didn't let on if it did.

Why should he care? He knew he just about owned CPAC city, as much as any one man can own a town like that. Hell, the place was full of big town types that seemed to swagger with that holier than thou stride that came with fame and a basically small fortune. But ol' Dover, despite his independent ways and means, had come out of a good family from down Tulsa way and his Mama hadn't brought him up to scrap at the drop of a hat for every no good reason. I suppose you could say he was a mannered one for a blogger. He let the slight pass and walked over to the Cafeteria Cat-house and Saloon to wash the trail dust out of his mouth with a Snapple.

Fausta ran the Cafeteria. She was an uptown girl with a taste for the low life and when her daddy passed and left her a fair wad of dough she had bought up one of the local saloons. Her girls, Beth, Cass and Michele, just to name a few, each brought their own distinctive flavor to the seedy bar on the south side of town that was always the most welcoming to a blogger passing through.

Beth was the wildest of the bunch, always up for a good time in a private room - and quite a time it could be, too! Cass, well, she was just plain hard to figure. Some said she was married to a soldier, others said she was an English teacher out of Kalamazoo fallen on hard times, no one knew for sure. And Michele, well, who could say. Was she French? Some pop tart out of New Orleans? Or just a feisty American girl with an occasional mouth for a good cuss and a sometimes too soft place in her heart for a lonesome blogger. Whatever they were, they made a visit to the Cafeteria worth the while, that's for sure.

Dover walked into the Cafeteria and met up with some friends. Kevin, Wes and Coxie were bloggers - rough men dedicated to a lonely creed and while they could get along with the townsfolk as well as the best of 'em, when it came right down to it, maybe they just didn't have all that much use for them, neither. They'd been popping back Snapples and caffeinated coffee most of the morning and it wasn't too hard to imagine them spoiling for a fight. They took note of Dover's tale of his minor kerfuffle with Fund and the three men went back to drinking.

The double deuce brothers, Jeff and Jeff were running a little poker game over in the corner. The game was more full of snarky and smart ass comments and witty repartee at the expense of whoever or whatever came their way than it was full with gambling. Most didn't seem to mind as it was just their way of dispensing wisdom, some protean, some disposable, I suppose. That's pretty much how it went on just about every dimly lit night at the Cafeteria Cat-house and Saloon.

The floor show at the Cafeteria wasn't the best in town - but it had its moments. Some traveling gal out of Duluth name of Wonkett would take to the stage every hour and shake her backside a bit, drawing a whoop and a holler out of the bloggers. Rumor was that for a shiny two bits you could take a gal like Wonkett through the backdoor and up to the second floor of the Cafeteria Saloon: but that was just so much talk. Other than that the Cafeteria was mostly a place for serious men to do some serious drinking, maybe have a serious chat and enjoy being in from the cold that could be the range.

That's pretty much how things were til Ink Fingered Bill, who ran the town's newspaper ran in out of breath and dragged along a tale with implications as long as his arm. "You guys have to get over to the stalls," he said. "That Fund fella is a riding Coxie's Laptop all around as if'n 'twere his. I swear, I never seen nothin' like it," said Bill.

Now Coxie wasn't the type to enter into some National Debate when another man took a liberty with the laptop he called Apple Grove. He set out on a collision course with Fund in the stalls where he had left his beloved Apple Grove.  He didn't know at the time that Fund wasn't waiting alone. Plenty of townies were gathered at the stalls. There was Mo Dowd, she danced back and forth between the C and the H in comely and homely like a cold front twister off a warm prairie and most didn't really know what to make of her. She ran the local high fashion clothing store, some said it was only so's she could trash the taste of her clientele. Judge Woodward was there, too.

The old Judge had distinguished himself in some far removed case that few remembered but that didn't stop folks from admiring him. And that admiration gave him access and even in a small town like CPAC, access could mean everything. Betsy was there, too. Though she was actually more blogger than town-type, someone had to teach at the school. She had settled in town after several years on the range and in her free time she ran the Whippoorwill Home for Lost and Wayward Women: blogger women, mostly. Folks said Betsy wanted to save just about every Lil' Miss what happened by.

Coxie pushed open the door of the stables as the crowd rushed in behind him and he faced down Fund, still astride the majestic Apple Grove. Coxie spit. "Taint right fer a man to jest grab up another man's laptop like that, without the askin," said Coxie. Fund just smirked with that "Get away from me, boy! You bother me" sideways smirk he always seemed to be sporting. "That right?" he questioned back as he sort of chuckled. Their eyes locked steadier than the 4:10 train outta Yuma and a hushed, crowded stable waited to see which man would make the first play.

Fund reached first for his Montblanc Citrine but the sleek implement had shifted just a bit in his shirt pocket. Bloggers didn't carry such fancy hardware and Coxie nailed Fund with his Sharpie right between the eyes though Fund, turning his head, got off with not much more than a flesh wound like a blemish above his nose. From the ground a dazed Fund cocked his Montblanc and fired a bit too carelessly into the crowd. Everyone turned just in time to see Mo Dowd go down hard, a black spine of ink trickling down over her slim sculpted Roland Mouret. Everyone gasped. Betsy bolted out the door to fetch some soda water ... but most knew it was already too late. The dress was done for. Then, before the door could even shut in walked Sheriff Reynolds.

Some said Reynolds wasn't much more than a traffic cop but he had earned his stripes around the town over the years and whenever there was trouble he was usually on it in an instant. "What seems to be the problem, " he asked no one in particular. "Nothing Sheriff," a slightly nervous Coxie replied. "Indeed," said Reynolds. "What we have here is a failure to communicate," then he was gone. The sheriff wasn't much known for the length of his speechifying.

Fund picked himself up off the floor dabbing his wound with a little spit hankie. Coxie, he grabbed up ol Apple Grove and walked out of the stable alone. And that's pretty much how it was left - nothing clear, nothing really resolved. Just another day in the life and lives of different peoples who walk a different path, though seemingly headed in the same direction. Later that night the town folk got back to their frame houses, the warmth and comfort of a warm fire and a loose deadline they could usually phone in if they wished.

The bloggers eventually all straggled out of town; they knew they couldn't dawdle. Their deadlines could be measured in a stream of never ending minutes that came and passed quicker than a country hare with a fox on his tail. One by one across the prairie, usually alone, they made their camp fires, settled in for the night, their faces illuminated by a never ending soft glow of light in front of them and the kinda dreams that only a blogger out for the big ride can really know.

Update: The National Debate has linked this post and also indicated that Fund has apologized. I think that's a very positive development and I'm glad to hear it. Unfortunately, I am not having the same experience with Wizbang as they continue the silly attacks now insulting all smaller blogs - please see here, here and at Wizbang here if you want a more serious read.

Comments

[Beth]

Link whore.

Just kidding, why the fuck didn't you send trackbacks? It's brilliant! clap clap clap

[Eric]

All those links and you want trackbacks? Sheesh, at least YOU made it into the story.

[doverspa]

Rather far from any truth, but a very very enjoyable story. And well-researched I must say with references to my home town and mama. Thanks for the laughs.

[Fausta]

Brilliant, Dan, brilliant!!

Fausta ran the Cafeteria. . .
The floor show at the Cafeteria wasn't the best in town
It's so hard to get good help these days.

[Cassandra]

You've outdone yourself again - hilarious... but 'English teacher'??? :)