Dreamland

Bar Room Bowling With Nixon

I'm a regular at a local tavern, and I'm the champ of the bowling machine. (Not video, it's one of the old fashioned ones where you slide a metal disk down the lane to knock down the plastic pins.) Nobody there can beat me on most nights.

Johnny, the owner/bartender of the place is a medium, he channels the spirits of dead people (like that John Edward guy on TV). I'm at the tavern bowling for beers with some of my buddies when Johnnie goes into a trance. When he snaps out of it he says "I've just been in contact with Richard Nixon, he's in Hell!"

A few of us laugh at this. "No, seriously!" he says. "Former President Nixon is in Hell, and he's one of Satan's good buddies!"

I do a cheesy Nixon impersonation, shaking my head and saying "I an not a crook!" which gets a few laughs.

"Go ahead and laugh now, but you'd better get serious soon enough" Johnny says to me. "Because this concerns you!"

"Waddya mean?" I ask him.

"Not many people know this, but Nixon was an excellent bar bowler. He even had a bowling machine set up in one of the White House offices. Rumor has it he was there bowling and drinking with a few trusted friends one night when they cooked up that whole Watergate thing."

"So, what's it to me?" I ask.

"Well, Nixon wants to bowl against the best player around, and he thinks it's you. And as coincidence would have it, Satan also wants your soul. It seems you've been reincarnated more than a few times, you'e an "old soul". Satan has tried to get you more than once, without success, and it kinda pisses him off. So the deal is, you bowl Nixon. If he wins, Satan gets your soul."

"What's in it for me if I win?"

"The usual: money, women, power, whatever you want." he says.

"I'm not gonna take that bet," I say. "The bastard'll probably cheat and I'll lose anyways!"

"Well here's the kicker: You know all the terrorist shit that's been happening lately? Satan says he'll see to it that it gets even worse if you don't take the bet. If you do take the bet, he'll back off, no more wars or attack for the next five years, regardless of if you win or lose."

"How do I know he's not lying?"

"You don't, but if you refuse I bet for sure we'll see something at least as bad as 9-11 from him!"

"Come on man, you gotta at least try!" one of my buddies at the bar says.

"OK!" I agree. "Johnnie, pour me another draft, and it better be on the house. And tell Nixon to give me some time to bowl a few practice frames before he materializes, or whatever he's gonna do."

Jeez, who woulda thunk it? The fate of the free world is in my hands, and it's riding on a game of bar room bowling with Nixon.