Nikola and Prohibition

The preamble to the part of the story that people want to read
Problems have a beginning. Small problems have small beginnings. Large problems have large beginnings. Massive earth shattering problems will either have small or innocent looking beginnings. Unless you are the sixth czar of Russia, Nikola Vladimir the oppressor of kindred souls "the drinker" Medvedev, then they are large.

The part of the story that people want to read
I was going to my favorite, and strangely the only, bar in Brighton beach, New York. I had my wife's sack of potatoes so there was no chance of her following me to beat me with it. Granted, we had a sack of carrots in the laundry room but I doubt that she would notice it.

I was nearing the bar when the scent of the FBI hit my nose. You can recognize it by the scent of composting cardboard TV boxes intermingling with the scent of bed sheets washed with Oxiclean. As the bar came into view I saw multiple trucks carting off boxes labeled RESERVED FOR NIKOLA and one RESERVED FOR ALL THOSE WHO ARE NOT NIKOLA. The manager was being carried off in a paddy wagon. I ran up to him and asked him why all of the liquor was gone. He stated that he had been selling it illegally and that the nation was under prohibition. Either that or he cursed my mother’s name because I had told my police friend that he owned a great place to buy and sell liquor. I assume that it was not the latter because, as my wife puts it, I am a deluded pious fool who can't see anything out of the realm of "I'm perfect". It is clear that we have a very open relationship.

A tear entered my eye as I saw the boxes burn and get shredded repeatedly through a long line of trucks labeled shred and burn respectively. To what you may ask. I don't know or care I answer.

I rushed back home with horribly concealed rage. When I opened the door I shrieked because, sure enough, my wife had found the sack of carrots. It was over her head. She swung and I jumped under her legs knocking her off balance in the process. Between her being off balance and the momentum of that sack, she fell over the railing. It was a nine story drop into a dumpster and she hit the side first. The dumpster closed on her an rolled down the small hill into the main avenue. An FBI truck with the few unscathed boxes of Nikola's liquor crashed into the dumpster and both went careening towards the ocean.

I ran down the steps in time and got to chose what to save from the murky and possibly radioactive waters. My wife or my booze. Imagine choosing between a pony with a lair or psychological scar tissue a foot deep or a unicorn. That's how easy my choice was. I grabbed the liquor and ran off. Upon looking back I saw that I actually had had time to save both. However, I decided to keep that between the booze and I and sprinted off.

The fifty meter sprint left me winded for ten minutes. When I recovered my strength, I moved the vodka to the fermentation room. My oldest son asked me where wife was. All I said was that she was on a long vacation, a cruise around the world In fact. The vodka gave me that joke whose meaning would be known only to me. When you have drinken vodka since the day you were born you develop a special connection with all booze that doctors call "crazy".

Even after committing the most atrocious act of all time, watering down (offscreen shudder). I only had a week of alcohol. I only then realized that vodka could be home brewed with the sacks of potatoes that we had lying around for no reason. I only needed to let them ferment. I took our garbage and moved it into the room with the skylight along with the potatoes.

I consulted the redneck's guide to life almanac, moonshine edition for field notes on the subject. By buying cabbage I was able to get the first batch made by the time that my vodka ran out.

My luck ran out when I found that the skylight washer had given the police an anonymous tip that I had liquor. They came knocking on my door and went to the room with the booze. I told them that it was my wife's. They confiscated it all and I showed them where her limp body was. Only it wasn't so limp. I walked below the seawall and could not see her. All of a sudden, her hand shot up and pulled the nearest police officer under. I began running away when I saw that the rest of the police were flailing in the water. I looked and I saw a shadow swimming towards my rock. My wife leaped out of the water towards me. I jumped to the side and she hit a stair and fell back into the water.

When I got back to the apartment, I heard on the radio that I was being accused of killing five police officers. I left a note that said "the children did it" and packed the last bottle of vodka into my suitcase. I had to get back to Russia.

I drove as fast as I could and ran into a police checkpoint. I drove right into one of the cars. They began chasing me down the street. I went around a corner and sped right through a shop. I grabbed everything I could and broke through the back wall.

The police cars were gaining on me when we hit the Brooklyn bridge. I did a U turn to get away. However, one of my tires popped and found myself going towards the ocean. I was about to get out when an FBI truck hit me it spilled liquor. The liquor and I were both on the edge when I saw wife. She only had time to save one of us...

To be continued.