Working with prompts can be fun and crazy. Especially crazy if you take a little attitude and let your mind go where it wants to. In the following short story I chose a prompt that asked to choose the first line from a paragraph in a book and end with the last line of another paragraph in a different chapter. I chose "Catch 22". The first line I selected was "Hungry Joe did have fifty missions, but they were of no help." The second line was "She took him by his ear and put him back in bed."
For those of you who are not familiar with "Catch 22", It is a book about WWII. The missions were bombing missions
I can only ask Joseph Heller's forgiveness for the latitude I have taken with his work.
Hungry Joe did have fifty Missions, but they were of no help. They didn’t help him because Missions were out of date. Hungry stocked up on Missions during the war of 1910. Every time a group of raiders captured another town, Hungry Joe purchased the mission.
After the war was over Hungry Joe planned to get rich selling Missions back to the Catholic Church. But Hungry Joe made the same mistake that a lot of collectors often do. Hungry Joe waited too long and priced them to high.
The church simply chose to build new Missions using cheap labor and supplies that were available. They redesigned the missions and installed brand new cushioned pews. The people were delighted that the church was able to outsmart the evil Hungry Joe and that their derrieres didn’t go to sleep during the services. Attendance was never better. The donation plates were filled to the top.
Hungry Joe coveted those donation plates or rather the money that was in them. He also had a lot of old Missions that were worthless. That is they were worthless unless Hungry was able to sell them.
However, selling an old mission or 50 old Missions would not be easy. Who would want them? Hungry thought about converting them to gas stations but nixed that idea when someone told him nobody had cars.
Fine, he said, I’ll turn them into car dealerships and sell the people cars. He had to nix that idea when it was brought to his attention that no one had the money to buy the cars.
Hungry stewed about his problem at the local MoonPesos’ Coffee shop. He was sipping his Peyote Latte when over the top of his cup he noticed Nurse Ducket’s figure standing at the counter. For a few minutes Hungry forgot about his problem and concentrated on the body of the beautiful Nurse Ducket.
Of course, being the lecher that Hungry was, he invited the beautiful body of Nurse Ducket to sit at his table. Nurse Ducket accepted the invitation and brought her body with her which was exactly what Hungry Joe wanted.
Hungry Joe wasn’t very good at making small talk but he was great at lechering. While he lechered Nurse Ducket’s body, he told her about his problem with the Missions and how much money he was losing.
At the mention of the Missions and the money Nurse Ducket ignored the lecherous look in Hungry Joe’s eyes and came up with an idea that made Hungry Joe also forget the lecherous look in his eyes and the lecherous desire in his body.
Nurse Ducket innocently said, “Why don’t you start a rival church?”
It was such a simple idea and Hungry Joe couldn’t figure out why he didn’t think if it first. Before Hungry Joe could figure out a way to claim it as his idea, Nurse Ducket continued with her idea.
“We could call it the ‘First United Saints and Sinners Church of the Galapagos’.”
Hungry Joe looked at her like she was crazy.
“We?...Listen baby this is my deal and what’s up with this Galapagos thing?”
Nurse Ducket was on a roll.
“We could have women priests and the best part is that we could save every last sole for only 5%. It wouldn’t matter if they were good or bad. Everyone gets saved. No one, I mean no one goes to hell. For 5% we would guarantee everyone a place in heaven. We might even put the Catholic Church out of business.”
Hungry Joe liked what he was hearing. The longer she talked the more excited he got. He couldn’t wait to get started. Sunday was just 3 days away. He had a lot of work to do. His new idea was awesome. He left Nurse Ducket at MoonPesos’.
The only thing that could change his mind about ravaging the awesome body of Nurse Duck was the awesome thought of money.
Nurse Ducket stewed and fretted as she watched Hungry Joe preparing to open his new line of churches based on the ideas he had stolen from her. He hadn’t even asked her to be a priest. Finally Nurse Ducket did the only thing a defenseless girl with an awesome body could do.
Nurse Ducket took her awesome body and walked over to Hungry Joe’s office and bonked him on the head with a frying pan. Then she called the sheriff and had him arrested for assaulting her. She explained that she had only defended herself with the frying pan.
Unfortunately for Hungry Joe, the frying pan had opened a hole in his head that needed a lot of stitches and there were no doctors available to sew him up. Fortunately for Hungry Joe, Nurse Ducket was a nurse and she volunteered to sew him back together and nurse him back to his old self.
After Nurse Ducket had Hungry Joe locked up in the city jail, Nurse Ducket took over the New Church and convinced the sheriff the lecherous Hungry Joe needed several months in jail to pay for his evil ways.
While Nurse Ducket nursed Hungry Joe back to his old self, Nurse Ducket split her time between collecting money from The Saints and Sinners at her new church and ravaging Hungry Joe’s poor defenseless body in his jail cell.
When they released Hungry Joe from jail and he found out how Nurse Ducket had taken over his churches and his money, Nurse Ducket decided that she needed hide her awesome body where Hungry Joe couldn’t find it.
Realizing that Hungry Joe had been banned from the Catholic Church, Nurse Ducket asked for and was granted sanctuary in the Catholic Church. In order to protect Nurse Ducket and the awesome body that followed Nurse Ducket around the Catholic Church hired a few of the local faithful to protect the person of one Nurse Ducket. In fact the Church hired one hundred men to protect Nurse Ducket and in return she signed over all the missions she had stolen from the now very angry Hungry Joe. However, she did keep all the money from the donation plates and all of the 5% Tithes that she had collected.
Hungry Joe thinking that right was right, went to the Catholic Church to demand his missions be returned to him but before he could present his demands the one hundred faithful beat him up and had him arrested for trespassing.
Unfortunately for Hungry Joe, the beating opened a hole in his head that needed a lot of stitches and there were no doctors available to sew him up. Fortunately for Hungry Joe, Nurse Ducket was a nurse and she volunteered to sew him back together and nurse him back to his old self.
When she entered Hungry Joe’s cell to begin her nursing duties, Hungry Joe was looking out his cell window and cursing the Catholic Church for stealing back their churches and their money.
According to Hungry Joe, the Church was stealing his property and his money. After all he had stolen the missions from the church in good faith and they, above all others, should understand and forgive.
Nurse Ducket reminded Hungry Joe that she was there to nurse him back to his old self and that when she had finished her nursing duties he could complain all he wanted to about the Catholic Church.
Hungry Joe meekly agreed to be nursed back to his old self.
She took him by his ear and put him back in bed.
