Tijuana Donkey Showdown Read online

  PRAISE FOR TIJUANA DONKEY SHOWDOWN

  “Like Lansdale on meth, or ‘80s action-movie icon Shane Black on crack, I have yet to read anything by Howe that didn’t have me laughing so hard I wondered more than once if I might have sprained something vital inside of me. He’s done it again with Tijuana Donkey Showdown. The only thing I hate about this guy’s books is the fact that, as soon as I finish one, there’s not another I can start right away. Dammit.”

  —James Newman, author of Ugly As Sin, Odd Man Out, and Animosity

  “Adam Howe has oodles of insane talent. Tijuana Donkey Showdown reads like the script of the greatest B-movie ever, written by the unholy offspring of Joe R. Lansdale and Jeff Strand, and directed by Uwe Boll. Howe is a purveyor of beautiful, ridiculous violence, and I hope the misadventures of Reggie Levine continue for a long time.”

  —Pete Kahle, award-winning author of The Specimen

  “Adam Howe’s latest offering rips along at the speed of sound, delivering action-packed thrills, uncountable surprises—both light and dark—and edgy, trademark humor, all of it rendered in such vivid prose it practically shimmers on the page. Another winner from an emerging master.”

  —Sean Costello, author of Squall and Finders Keepers

  “Adam Howe is one of the funniest, sickest, most insane writers working today. The man has no filter!”

  —Jeff Strand, author of Dead Clown Barbeque

  "Adam Howe sports neither Burt Reynolds' mustache or Steven Seagal's ponytail. He's a beat poet of lowbrow Americana, but also a British dude. And just when you think there couldn't possibly be any more surprises, he drops another book to show you how wrong you are. One of the absolute best writers working today."

  —Adam Cesare, The Con Season and Tribesmen

  "Adam Howe's Tijuana Donkey Showdown is funny and vicious, a lunatic noir carnival ride that gleefully drags you through the muck and will make you thank him for it. Fans of Mickey Spillane and L. A. Morse will rejoice and demand more of Howe's scoundrel antihero Reggie Levine. How a Brit has any business writing down and dirty Americana this well is a mystery to me, but he's got the goods and the goods are goddamned hilarious."

  —Ed Kurtz, author of The Rib From Which I Remake the World

  "Adam Howe's work forces you to laugh and cringe the way you could previously only do while watching a one-armed drunk trying to juggle revved-up chainsaws, and Tijuana Donkey Showdown is his best book yet. Fast, filthy, the violent literary equivalent of a Nic Cage lovechild who grew up watching 80s action movies in the back of a stinky roadside attraction."

  —Gabino Iglesias, author of Zero Saints

  "Adam Howe is a fearless writer with an unfettered imagination, and with Tijuana Donkey Showdown, he takes the reader on a ride that starts fast and crazy and only revs up from there. He's lurid and elegant, trashy and witty, a literary provocateur who disturbs and entertains in equal measure."

  —Scott Adlerberg, author of Graveyard Love

  "Adam Howe is probably the best writer I've discovered in years, and I do nothing with my spare time but read and write, which should tell you something. Tijuana Donkey Showdown is not only his funniest work to date. It might also be his best."

  —Joseph Hirsch, author of Kentucky Bestiary and Flash Blood

  OTHER WORKS BY ADAM HOWE

  Die Dog or Eat the Hatchet

  Includes the Novellas:

  Damn Dirty Apes

  Die Dog or Eat the Hatchet

  Gator Bait

  Black Cat Mojo

  Includes the Novellas:

  Of Badgers & Porn Dwarfs

  Jesus in a Dog’s Ass

  Frank, The Snake, & The Snake

  Plus Bonus Short:

  The Mad Butcher of Plainfield’s Chariot of Death

  Read the first Reggie Levine misadventure, Damn Dirty Apes, in the Die Dog or Eat the Hatchet collection, available at Amazon and other online retailers.

  About Damn Dirty Apes

  Washed-up prizefighter Reggie Levine is eking a living as a strip club bouncer when he’s offered an unlikely shot at redemption. The Bigelow Skunk Ape—a mythical creature said to haunt the local woods—has kidnapped the high school football mascot, Boogaloo Baboon. Now it’s up to Reggie to lead a misfit posse including a plucky stripper, the town drunk, and legend-in-his-own-mind skunk ape hunter Jameson T. Salisbury. Their mission: Slay the beast and rescue their friend. But not everything is as it seems, and as our heroes venture deeper into the heart of darkness, they will discover worse things waiting in the woods than just the Bigelow Skunk Ape. The story the Society for the Preservation of the North American Skunk Ape tried to ban; Damn Dirty Apes mixes Roadhouse with Jaws with Sons of Anarchy, to create a rollicking romp of 80s-style action/adventure, creature horror and pitch-black comedy.

  First Comet Press Edition, December 2016

  Tijuana Donkey Showdown copyright © 2016 by Adam Howe

  All Rights Reserved.

  “Clean-up On Aisle 3” was first published in Thuglit 19 (August 2015)

  Cover and poster art by Mike Tenebrae tenebraestudios.net

  This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Print ISBN 13: 978-1-936964-03-1

  Visit Comet Press on the web at:

  www.cometpress.us

  facebook.com/cometpress

  twitter.com/cometpress

  CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER FOR MONTHLY GIVEAWAYS

  AUTHOR'S DISCLAIMER

  * * *

  While writing this book, I discovered I was going to be a father for the first time. (My daughter, Georgia Mae Howe, was born on the 24th July 2016.) On learning the news, chief among the whirlwind of emotions I felt was abject shame, and stark terror that my child might one day read the filth I write.

  My first impulse was to destroy the manuscript, much as Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson threw her husband’s first draft of Jekyll & Hyde into the fire.

  Sadly, I was already under contract to Comet Press to deliver the book. On the advice of my lawyer, who has yet to forgive me for the controversy caused by my previous novella, Damn Dirty Apes, and the ensuing legal battle with the Society for the Preservation of the North American Skunk Ape, I honored the contract with grudging good grace.

  The contract expires in four years, after which I intend to withdraw the book from publication; I only pray my daughter will not have learned to read by then, and will make every effort to stunt her development to ensure that this doesn’t happen.

  I hereby renounce this work, and would urge you not read it. Tijuana Donkey Showdown will be the last of my peculiar brand of gutter pulp. I will henceforth write only literary works, navel-gazing fluff detailing the valiant first-world travails of a thirty-something Caucasian male writer, and new father, as he struggles to maintain the perfect work/life balance without sacrificing his artistic integrity, and his responsibilities as a scribe for the common man.

  So, I hope you enjoyed the degeneracy while it lasted, folks. There will be no more porn dwarfs, or diarrheic Jack Russell terriers; no more man-eating giant snakes, gators, or oversexed orangutans; no more scenes involving deranged rednecks fisting victims with disembodied limbs, or torture-by-rat.

  It’s over …

  I’m just fucking around.

  The ki
d changes nothing.

  I hope you dig Tijuana Donkey Showdown; I had a lotta fun writing it.

  Depending on the reader response, I may write a third Reggie Levine misadventure. Given the hell I put the poor bastard through, I don’t think he could feasibly survive beyond three stories. I’ve got a killer set-up for a third book, but it’s all for shit if no one wants to read it, so drop me a line and let me know at Facebook, Goodreads, and Twitter @Adam_G_Howe …

  Although, hell, I might write it anyway, just to spite ya’ll.

  And please take the time to leave an Amazon review, ideally full of gushing praise, but I’ll settle for rabid hate. Amazon reviews are about the best gift you can give an indie writer, and help us more than you probably realize.

  Until next time …

  Farewell and adieu,

  Adam Howe

  CONTENTS

  FOREWORD

  BY JAMES NEWMAN

  TIJUANA DONKEY SHOWDOWN

  STORY NOTES

  BONUS STORY:

  CLEAN-UP ON AISLE 3

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  FOREWORD BY JAMES NEWMAN

  * * *

  I really want to hate Adam Howe.

  It’s a good thing there are 4,000 miles between us and most of it is ocean. ‘Cause I’d like nothing more than to punch him in the face.

  Allow me to explain.

  My disdain for Adam Howe isn’t because he’s a bigger film geek than I am. I like to think I know a lot about horror/cult cinema (you don’t write a book called 666 HAIR-RAISING HORROR MOVIE TRIVIA QUESTIONS, after all, unless you know what you’re talking about). But chewing the fat with Adam for any length of time always makes me feel inadequate. Like we just whipped out our dicks to see whose was most impressive and he had five or six inches on me plus the girth to go with it. In our conversations Adam and I constantly quote lines from our favorite movies, back and forth, rapid-fire, like Quentin Tarantino hopped up on birthday cake and bathtub crank. But at some point, it never fails … there’s always a moment when our nerd-chatter comes to a screeching halt, when I’m forced to admit about some movie he just mentioned, “I, uh, can’t say I’m familiar with that one. Guess I need to look it up.”

  Adam doesn’t gloat when this happens. Much. It doesn’t chap my hide any less.

  But there’s a lot more to it than that …

  I don’t despise Adam Howe due to the fact that, even though he’s British, after reading the guy’s prose for the first time I was fully convinced that he’s Southern just like me. I was sure he lived just down the road—you know, “over yonder” by the “crick” out past what the old folks still call “colored town.” Read his work and you’ll see what I mean. At first, you’re likely to think Adam was born somewhere deep in the heart of Texas. His writing voice has a Southern drawl so thick it makes the great Joe R. Lansdale sound like he grew up on the south side of Brooklyn. It makes my own Ugly As Sin, a tale of “white trash noir” set in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, read like a cozy mystery about a Scottish sleuth sipping tea with his pinkie sticking straight up in the air.

  That ain’t fair. It ain’t fair at all that Adam writes like he was born and raised south of the Mason-Dixon line. He’s not even FROM here!

  Still, not-so-thinly-veiled xenophobia aside, that’s not why I want to hate Adam Howe.

  Hard as it might be for you to believe this, I don’t even want to inflict bodily harm upon Adam because his short story “Jumper” won a contest a few years ago, a contest judged by none other than STEPHEN KING. I can imagine his smug face (not Mr. King’s, I’ve got nothing against him, except for encouraging this asshole early on) as he boarded that plane to fly across the big pond and have dinner with a living legend. Supposedly they talked about all kinds of cool stuff, long into the night, like old friends. At one point I hear they discussed RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, one of my all-time favorite movies.

  That shit fills me with so much envy I’m worried I might break out in hives every time I think about it. So I don’t. I don’t think about it.

  But, again, Adam’s man-date with the Master of Horror isn’t the reason I want to hate him.

  No … I’ll tell you the #1 reason I want to hate this fucker.

  It’s because he’s so damn GOOD. And he just keeps getting better.

  Adam began his career as an aspiring screenwriter before turning his attention to prose (what I wouldn’t give to see THOSE movies!). To date, he has a handful of published short stories and two novella collections to his name (if you haven’t already, go buy Die Dog Or Eat the Hatchet and Black Cat Mojo as soon as you finish reading this … I promise you’ll thank me later). Now, that’s not exactly a vast body of prose, a testament to a craft honed to perfection after decades of hard work. Yet you’d think the guy’s been writing for the last 30 or 40 years. He’s got the skills of a seasoned pro, lemme tell ya.

  He makes this look EASY. His work is so confident, so tight, so … UNPUTDOWNABLE (I’m well aware that’s not a word, but leave it to some hotshot writer like Howe if he thinks he can come up with something better; I’m not even getting paid to write this shit).

  That, my friends, is the sign of an artist who’s gonna be around for a long time. He’s making his mark like a bad rash on your nether-regions after a night with a dirty woman. He’s here to stay, and good luck finding the right antibiotic to make him go away. Like I said in my blurb for the book you hold in your hands: the only thing I hate about his work is the fact that there’s not more of it out there. I finish one thing by Adam, I’m immediately ready to start another.

  And that’s why I wanna grab Adam Howe by the throat and give him an old-fashioned ass-whoopin’, Southern-style. Show that Limey bastard how we do it over here in ‘Murica. I wanna do it in front of his wife and kid. And when I’m done knocking his dick in the dirt I want to spit that PERFECT one-liner in his face just to add insult to injury, a line from some kick-ass cult flick Adam has never seen and he never will ‘cause—haha—it’s banned in his country. Or something.

  My guess is, after reading Tijuana Donkey Showdown, you’ll feel the same way. Especially if you’re a writer too. ‘Cause like I said … it ain’t fair that he’s so good.

  I guess that’s enough ranting for now. I’m past my allotted word count and I’ve got work to do …

  Oh, I didn’t mention that I’m collaborating on a novel with one of my favorite writers?

  I won’t tell you who it is. But you know what they say: If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

  The face-punching will have to wait, I suppose. At least until we are done.

  James Newman

  October 12, 2016

  TIJUANA DONKEY SHOWDOWN

  “When people tell me something’s over the top, I say, ‘Well, you tell me where the top is, and I’ll tell you whether I’m over it.’”

  —Nicolas Cage

  “If I appeal to anyone, I hope it’s the man who picks up the garbage.”

  —Lee Marvin

  “This is a respectable gentlemen’s club, not some damn Tijuana donkey show!”

  —Walton Wiley, proprietor of The Henhouse, Damn Dirty Apes

  ONE

  FOR A GREAT BUICK

  CALL 555-7617

  1.

  * * *

  I first met Harry Muffet in the men’s room at The Henhouse, Walt Wiley’s titty tonk in Bigelow town, where some fella, looked like an Orc from a Lord of the Rings movie, only not as pretty, was using Harry’s head as a toilet plunger.

  The Orc had Harry by the ankles, dunking him headfirst into the crapper like he was dipping a donut in his morning cup of Joe. He dragged Harry’s head from the bowl and granted him a gulp of air to prolong his misery. The Orc clearly hadn’t done him the courtesy of flushing the commode. Harry’s face was freckled with the previous occupant’s leavings, maybe the Orc’s, in which case this was a premeditated deal. Filth was spewing up over the rim of the bowl, spre
ading across the cracked tile floor of the men’s room. I shook my head and sighed, not needing three guesses to know who’d be cleaning up the mess. This was already shaping up to be a regular rare morning.

  The men’s room door clattered shut behind me. The Orc’s head cranked around, and he glared at me, a tree stump of a man with a patchy red beard, like even his facial fuzz wanted off his ugly mug. He wore a sweat-stained shirt with a trucking company logo on the back, and his name was stitched across the breast, maybe so he wouldn’t forget it. That name was OTIS. Well, of course it was. In my experience, you can’t reason with an Otis. They’re ornery as hell.

  I stayed standing where I was at the entrance to the john, my new copy of Ring magazine tucked under my arm, and last night’s microwave burrito, which had seemed like a swell idea at the time, bolting through my bowels like a fugitive fleeing for the border. I fidgeted from foot to foot. “You fellas gonna be long?” Because the men’s room at The Henhouse had just the one commode, not counting the sink, although on rowdy weekends, a lot of fellas did count it.

  Harry came up for air and spluttered, “The hell you think’s going on here?”

  “I wouldn’t want to jump to conclusions.”

  “Do I look like a willing participant in this?”

  On consideration, I had to admit he didn’t.

  “And you work here, right?”

  I glanced down at the black tee shirt I was wearing. STAFF was printed across the chest, except most of the ‘A’ had rubbed off in the wash, so it looked more like it read STIFF. My boss, Walt Wiley (for my sins, he was also my best friend) thought that was hysterical and refused to spring for a new shirt.

  I looked back at Harry and nodded reluctantly.

  “So do something!”