Weekly Briefing from the North Texas Apocalypse Bunker, 10/21/22

52 and Counting Edition

Oct 21, 2022

Field Excursion to Madison, Wisconsin. GameHole Con

This briefing will have to be more brief than usual, as the Administrator and the Director of Bunker Operations find themselves in Madison, Wisconsin, the state capital and home to meat pies called pasties that are only slightly smaller than the hubcap on a Chrystler LeBaron. This field excursion was made in anticipation of the Administrator’s looming birthday, whereupon he will be 53 years old. And so, he wondered aloud, what better place to celebrate what can only be described as middle age than a gaming convention filled with man-children, throwing dice onto a table and describing what happens next?

Lest you find that funny, I want to assure you that, far from being an outlier here, I found more people who could pass for my stunt double in either television or film, than I’ve ever seen before gathered in one place. And get this: we are not—by far—the oldest people here. So, take that, Sarcastic Sally.

I said I would be brief.

A full report of GameHole Con may well find itself entered into the Bunker Archives at the website. For now, this tidbit will suffice as proof-of-life.

It was decided that we would make the drive because a round trip ticket to Wisconsin and back was going to run $1,700 dollars and even then, the flight stood a good chance of getting canceled, due to understaffing and scaling back flights. Driving, with the Specter (a Prius), even factoring in the extra days on the road and hotels, was going to be much cheaper. And so, into the car we piled.

I no longer fear distances, nor the Seat-of-your-Pants method of celestial navigation, thanks to the aversion therapy I underwent this past Summer with Bunker Ops and her family. I had more of an advantage this time: I knew where we were going, and we weren’t going to be stopping at every pothole-by-the-road tourist trap, poring over postcards and wondering whether or not to buy the snowglobe. Which is how we found ourselves in Uranus, with a very nice lady asking us if she could pack our fudge. But I digress. And anyway, before that, I made a discovery.

Field Report: Springfield, Mo

Location: The Drunken Monkey Bar and Grill

I found this place by typing “Food near Me” into my phone. When the name popped up, I knew—I knew, that this was providence, throwing me a lifeline. How could we not go there for dinner?

Driving up, I was a bit put off by the neighborhood; it was after sundown and we were tired, and the GPS brought us to a place that was clearly a bar. “It says ‘and grill,’” Janice pointed out. As if that excused the place’s size. But that Drunken Monkey sign was huge, and they were clearly capitalizing on it, so in we went.

It was a bar, and a neighborhood bar, at that. I won’t say the record scratched when we walked in, but suddenly, the only sound you could hear was the late 90’s era gangster rap playing on the juke box. They had TVs on, but they were watching Stephen King’s IT on them, sound off, captions on. Conversation slowly resumed and we walked up to the bar.

We were greeted by Kenzie, the bartender, who gave us menus and told us to sit anywhere. That there were only two tables that could have seated large parties of 8 was beside the point; we had our choice. The menu was nothing fancy: burgers, baskets of fries, some barbecue, you know. Bar food.

Everyone at the bar had stopped looking at us now and went back to busting each other’s balls, a local pastime in Springfield. These folks were on the Olympic team. Quite without meaning to, I found myself in conversation with the loudest person in the bar. He was the guy sitting on the end of the bar, closest to our table. And he had to swivel to speak to me, so this was intentional. I had no idea how drunk he was, but I gave him three chances to break off the chatter, in case he could somehow mind read that I didn’t want to talk, and I was just smiling at him to be polite. No such luck. So, here we go, swapping stories, and I found out everything there was to know about the Drunken Monkey.

Redneck Rick told me everything: About Big Dick and Little Dick, on account of their both named Richard, and one of them’s bigger than the other’n. I learned how long Rick’s been driving a truck (since 2002), how long he’s been coming here, to this bar, right here, (2002), and how he got the name Redneck Rick (it’s just what they started calling him, on account’a him being a truck driver’n all that). We got Kenzie’s story (hey, she’s from Texas, too, y’all! So’s Little Dick! HEY! LITTLE DICK! THEY’RE FROM TEXAS, MAN!

In between all of this, the woman with the poodle in her arms dropped him off on the floor, whereupon they put on quite a show, with the dog dancing on his hind legs for bits of barbecue brisket. He rolled over, spoke, danced, jumped, and sat. I was half expecting him to hand-roll a cigarette.

The dog’s name was Gus. He has a TickTock.

Our food showed up, and it was ridiculous: amble, substantial, and really good. Janice got a pulled pork sandwich that looked like a debris pile. She took off the bun, ate until she got the meat-sweats, and there was still enough pulled pork left for a sandwich, maybe two. And it was some of the best pork I’d ever eaten, too. Rick confided in us that, if we hadn’t ordered the pulled pork sandwich, he was going to give us a bite of his, because it’s so good, you just gotta try it.

We talked to everyone at the bar, including Little Dick, who came over and wanted to know where we were from so he could tell us where he was from. I asked him what brought him out to Springfield. He hesitated and then answered: “My wife died of cancer, and I had to leave town because everything was a memory there, you know? I had friends out here and they let me come out, took care of me, and got me on my feet again.”

I don’t know what caused him to share, but I related my own story and we just nodded for a second or two, suddenly bound a lot closer by our mutual tragedies. Then we talked about how cities change, and everyone who shows up is greeted by old timers who can’t wait to tell you how bad it is now, but how it USED to be popping.

Despite all of the shit-talking, everyone who left got a hug and a kiss from someone at the bar. “See you tomorrow,” they all said. When we paid our check, Kenzie said “Hope to see y’all again, sometime.”

“We’d like that,” I told her. And that was the end of Day 1.