A Speedy Recovery Part 5 (Final)

Part 1    Part 2     Part 3    Part 4

Months went by and although business was gangbusters, Carl had a lot of questions. First, where was Dustin? Second, how did his business go from almost going under to breaking all previous sales records if basically nothing had changed? He sold his entire stock every single day since the promotional party that Dustin threw together.

One Saturday night, as Carl was sweeping up, Dustin appeared, from what seemed like out of thin air, walking from the kitchen into the dining room.

“Hey” he said, startling Carl half to death.

Carl was at a loss for words. On one hand Dustin had, for lack of a better term, pulled a Dustin. On the other hand, things were going great and quite possibly the promotional party that Dustin had produced may have played a role.

Carl sighed “Hey. Where have you been?” he asked.

“You’re never gonna believe this” Dustin answered.

“Try me”

“Well, let me show you” Dustin said, before vanishing.

Carl demonstrated his shock with a loud “Huh?”

Dustin appeared again. “Crazy isn’t it?”

“What’s going on?”

“I’m dead Carl!”

Carl just fixated on Dustin without blinking or saying a word.

“Well, I owed someone, like, a lot of money. So I decided to sell our stash to pay it off because they were going to kill me! But, the deal went bad and I got “got””

“Oh my…” Carl said, putting his hand to his mouth, “That’s why you disappeared”

“Yeah, but check this out. Apparently, on the other side, where you go when you die, you get to call up a favor. Even a scum bag like me! So, I felt bad, for like, fucking you over, so I asked to help out the shop with my favor”

“I’ll be…” Carl just stared at Dustin, even passing his hand through him.

“I know you said ‘no fuck ups’, but I made it right, didn’t I?”

They talked through the night until Dustin had to go. Carl told of the success of the shop and Dustin told what he was allowed to of the other side. Dustin also told Carl that the shop would only continue to have success if Carl personally ran it. As soon as he stopped or tried passing the shop along, the favor would not work anymore. It was part of the “Rules”. Dustin promised to visit Carl as often as he could and that made Carl very happy.

The End.

A Speedy Recovery Part 4

A Speedy Recovery Part 1

A Speedy Recovery Part 2

A Speedy Recovery Part 3

Weeks past and business boomed. The store was crowded from the time it opened until the last call. No one had seemed to be the wiser about the special ingredient.

Carl was very conscience about trying the sandwich himself. After all, he had watched the movie Scar-face and rule number one was “don’t get high on your own supply”.

Dustin was good about keeping the supply of product flowing but was a little flakey about actually coming in and working as per the agreement. Carl was okay with that as long as he had his special ingredient.

Carl didn’t worry much when three days passed and Dustin hadn’t shown up. On the fourth day, delivery day, he became rather upset when neither Dustin nor product showed up. In fact he panicked.

With the prior stress of being in the financial doldrums, mixed with the new stress of his illicit activities, he was already having small panic attacks. Now that his special ingredient, the chi of his success, dried up, he was experiencing full blown anxiety.

He needed an escape. He wanted to feel better. He wanted to at least feel different from what he felt currently. He decided to eat a sandwich to see if it would make him feel good. Thousands of local customers couldn’t be wrong, could they?

He sat down at a table with a root beer and thought to himself, here goes nothing. And that was exactly what he felt after downing half of the sub. Nothing. He thought he should eat more but he could only put down another half because he was so full.

He felt no different, except that he was stuffed. He was perplexed. The bread was made this morning. He went to the vat that held the remainder of the secret ingredient. He scraped enough to make a pretty decent sized line and laid it out on the stainless steel prep table.

He cut a third of a straw off and snorted the substance. “What the fuck?!” he yelled aloud, eyes watering. He knew nothing about drugs but was an expert in baked goods. It was nothing more than manioc flour.

“I’m gonna kill Dustin!”

 

To be continued…

 

 

 

A Speedy Recovery Part 3

A Speedy Recovery Part 1

A Speedy Recovery Part 2

A few weeks later on a Saturday afternoon, the place was packed.

“It worked! You really pulled it off. How did you get D.J. Cyanide, one of the biggest DJs around to agree to do this?” Carl asked Dustin.

“Well, I’m a fan of his and he’s a fan of a certain product. I just called in a favor” Dustin answered.

“I’ve never seen so many people here before. This is bigger than when 94.1 ZROK did a remote from here 15 years ago!”

“And everyone’s eating sandwiches!” Dustin added, rubbing his hands together in a sinister fashion.

The place remained at capacity until closing time. Dustin and Carl had to practically beg a few stragglers to leave so they could clean up and count the day’s money.

“We did well, Dustin. This is by far the most successful promotion the store has ever done” Carl said as he sorted debit receipts from credit receipts.

“This is nothing, bro. This just gave the public a taste. The real “W” will come when the people are trying to smash down the door to get more”

“Your mouth to God’s ears”

“Ha! God…I’m not sure He’s gonna be a big fan of this endeavor”

The next day Carl saw a crowd in front of the store as he pulled up. It was only 7:00am and the store wouldn’t open for another three and a half hours. He was there to make the day’s bread.

The crowd cheered as Carl stepped out of his car.

“Sandwich man!” a man in the crowd shouted.

“We’re hungry!” another voice shouted.

“Folks, we don’t open until 10:30!” Carl said “I still have to make the bread”

“I’ll take some dough raw!” a voice cried. It was followed with a salvo of “Me too!”

Carl had a sinking suspicion that he may have gotten himself in over his head.