Kid Relish: The Birth of Fury

For as long as we've had ale, we've had all kinds of drunks. Some are jolly and some are sad. Some sing songs and some lecture stools. But never has there been a drunk quite as savage as my relatively trusty sidekick, Kid Relish. Now I'm Latigo Flint--I'm the quickest quickdraw the world has ever known, and I'm pretty goddamn brave if I do say so--but I've looked up from billiard tables at the sound of commotion by the bar, and have seen things that haunt me to this day.

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Kid Relish was born in silence; pulled from his expired mother's cooling womb by a softly weeping nurse. He snarled at the light, and when the nurse clutched him to her breast, he pissed on her smock and clawed at her eyes. Kid Relish had to be separated from the other newborns in the nursery. Later that night, the resident doctor gave him the name that would stick.
"I've never seen a kid truly relish an act of malice quite like this one does." The doctor commented after watching The Kid bloody the nose of his fifth nurse that hour. "Fine, no little blue hat and booties for him--I hope the little bastard freezes."

But the infant Kid Relish didn't freeze, his fury kept him warm. At the age of ten he was introduced to booze and two perfect monsters found each other.

Last night The Kid and I were drinking in a bar just outside Burbank when a man twice Kid's size made the mistake of leaning over Kid's beer to grab a handful of mini-pretzels.
"Your ears are smelly!" Kid hollered in his ear. "You have smelly ears."
Now perhaps the man was self-conscious about earwax, or maybe he just didn't like being shouted at by people shorter than him. Whatever the reason, he shoved Kid to the floor and stood over him when he should have been running.

Kid Relish got up and smiled at the man with what could only be described as joy.
"I'm going to tear out your throat with a greasy fork." Kid said. "Then dump your body in a ditch and let them blame your death on wolves."
The man laughed. "There aren't any wolves in Los Angeles."
Kid Relish solemnly pointed behind him. "Oh yeah, then what the hell is that?!"
And when the man turned to look, Kid hit him in the temple with a pipe wrench.

I intervened at that point and it's a good thing I did, 'cause The Kid was already reaching for a greasy fork.

"Latigo, there are wolves in LA." Kid Relish whispered to me later as we stood in the alley outside the bar, sharing a smoke and watching cops stop cars. "And when I stare at people they believe--why do you think they always look when I point?"

Kid took a drag off his cigarette and glanced up at me.
"Know what I'm sayin'?"
I nodded. "Yeah Kid, I do."

Then the bars closed and the Denny's filled and Clorox was poured on the places blood spilled.