Jim, Rod and Butch worked so hard - they were all determined to make a success of things! Nothing was going to keep them back or hold them down, not even the law!
Damn with the law and all that nonsense!
They would break it a thousand times if it meant making money!
In five weeks Jim's new business venture had produced nine barrels of G-Juice.
So far Butch had managed to sell three of them, and then the trio drank the rest.
In all that time they had accrued a profit of fifty pounds.
Butch was quite happy with it, being the simple lad that he was money was money, but Rod who understood the value of such things far better understood that his ten thousand pound investment wasn't working at as well as he'd liked.
he still hadn't quite his job yet, and he was sitting in the corner of the room, hugging his knees to his chest, and was sobbing. He was drinking too much and was growing steadfastly depressed because of it.
'I can't believe it!' he said through his tears. 'I am sixty and I have lost all of my money!'
'I told you before there is a silver lining to being sixty,' Jim replied. 'You might only have ten years left to live, and then you get your ticket-out of this mess people call life.'
'Wait a minute I am twenty!' Butch spoke up.
Jim heard this and shut the young man down immediately:
'If you are then I feel sorry for you!' he said. 'Now be quite Butch and don't say anything like that again! I am trying to cheer Rod up here! I don't want him thinking he is wasting his money, and he is no good to us crying like a child. He has been like this all day. We need to get him out of this state, and unhelpful comments from you are not helping!'
Butch heard this, and promptly apologised.
'It's different for you two,' said Rod from his corner. 'You've got nothing to lose! My on the other hand? This is my life!'
'I am not giving up yet on this business,' Jim replied. 'Look! We have made profit. It's fifty pounds, I know, but at least we have made money. We know for certain that there are people out there who want our product and are willing to part with their hard earned cash. That's a good thing. Look Rod stop wasting your tears like that. It isn't helping. We can only do this with a sober and steady mind. Here, have a glass of G-Juice. It will warm your soul and cheer you up. Now listen, all business go through hard times. You have to spend money to make money. You win you lose, you lose and win. That is the territory that we are in. Your money is safe, Rod. Look at me and Butch. We are hard working serious men. We are going to do everything in our power to earn your money back!'
Rod continued to cry as if he hadn't heard a word JIm had said. 'It's not enough,' he said. 'I need assurances! I was a fool to give strangers my money! I like G-Juice. I believed in it! That's why I handed my money over. But now the real world has kicked in, and I cannot cope with it. I know I have lost everything. I just want to cry! Cry forever!'
Jim was totally unsympathetic.
'What are you crying about?' he said. 'You live in the largest house in town. You must have loads of money stored away with such privilege? So cut the tears you entitled idiot!'
'My father spent all the money the family had. That ten thousand I gave you was from my personal savings. If this business doesn't work then I go down hardcore. I can see a confused look on your face, Jim, so please let me elucidate: If this business fails then I will go from living in the largest house in town to the smallest box in the streets. Does that make more sense to you now? Do you finally appreciate the full uggliness of my present situation. Have I opened your eyes to the reality that is my life right now?'
Rod was acting out of order. This was not like him. Jim put it down to the drink. After Rod had gone to bed Jim pulled Butch aside and said, 'The man is drunk! Let him sleep it off. We need to get Rod back on our side if this business is going to work, and it IS going to work. Once he is sober again we will brew more G-Juice and you will sell as much of it as you can in the streets. What we need now are glass bottles. Hundreds of them. Then we can sell the stuff on mass.'
'Sure thing,' Butch replied. 'I don't know where we are going to get glass bottles from. There is not much business for that kind of thing around here.'
'Then we will find someone who knows someone who can get is glass bottles,' Jim replied. 'Speak around Butch. You know Fenwick and its denizens better than I. You know all the hidey holes of this place, you know all the characters. There must be someone out there who can help us do this.'
'I will get out now and look about,' Butch replied.
Good Butch! Everyone could rely on Butch!
Especially when they had no choice...
Butch returned later that evening. He looked very happy about something and couldn't wait to speak to Jim:
'I have got good news and bad news,' he started. 'Good news is I have found somebody who will help us in our business! Don't ask how - I just got talking to a few folks I know, and then I met someone who knew somebody who was best friends with the guy who runs the pub down the road. The same guy runs a hotel as well as a few other businesses. I have him a sample of the old G-Juice and he liked it and said he would be willing to sell it for us for cut in the profits!'
Jim couldn't believe it!
'You're fine man Butch!' said Jim. 'I think you might have very well just saved us from going under!'
'Slow down!' Butch returned. 'Now this is where the bad news kicks in! I told him that you were a major producer of ales. It was the only why I could get him to listen to me and sample our product. Now he wants to meet you at the Short Tailed Fox tomorrow, and that's not all! he wants to see our profit margins!'
Rod started to have a panic attack when he heard this - it took both Jim and Butch working together to restrain the poor man. Once Rod had calmed down and drank a glass of water, they sat the quivering man on a sofa and began to think about how they were going to do deal with the current problem.
'It's fine,' said Jim. 'We want to see G-Juice. We need to sell it if we are going to survive. We were always going to have a business meeting with somebody at some stage. And here we are, about to do what we were always destined to do! It's not a problem! This meeting is an opportunity! I am actually excited about it. So, what's the name of the man I am going to meet?'
Butch said the man was called Tony King.
'Very well. Then I will meet with Mr King tomorrow and I will sort this out!' said Jim.
'Have you ever been in a business meeting before?' said Rod.
Jim shrugged and then said that he hadn't.
Not ever.
'Well what great start,' Rod replied. 'Not that it matters, I am sure Mr King was be impressed when he sees that we have made a grand total of fifty pounds in the last three months. Maybe you should tell him that we are also ten grand in debt! Sweeten the deal, yes! That will be the icing on the cake that!'
'O stop being so negative you silly wet floppy excuse for a man!' Jim snapped. 'I can do this! All I need is my wits, and a posh suit...'
'We can't afford fish and chips for one let alone a posh suit!' said Rod.
He was right.
They only had ten pounds in their coffers:
'Do you know how expensive those things are?' Rod continued.
'Don't worry about the suit!' Butch spoke up. 'I know a good place down town where I can steal one from. I will get my hands on it by the morning, Jim, you can rely on me to do that no problem! Stealing suits is like stealing apples! You just got to keep a club around in case the farmer catches you, in this case it will be a tailor, but farmers and tailors are all the same underneath, especially after you have battened them over the head once or twice.'
'Thank you Butch, I know I can rely on you to get us through these dark times,' Jim replied.
Jim was very grateful to Butch at that moment. The man had done a lot of good work! He had landed a fine profitable business deal, and a fancy suit all in one day!
Butch admitted that he couldn't read or write and had never tried so right then as far as Jim was concerned, he was the very definition of an illiterate genius!
'Right let's get to work!' said Jim.
'What about the fifty pounds?' said Rod. 'Are you forget the very real fact that we aren't making any money right now?'
'I have got a solution to that,' Jim replied. 'I need to be left alone now. All will be revealed in the morning! Stop worrying Rod for goodness sake! I have a plan and it is a good one, you will see. When this is over, we can wave goodbye to the debt. And better than that, we will be swimming up to our necks in dough. Trust me on this, Rod. This is a turning point for our business. We are going to win this!'
Rod was so tired and stressed that he gave up on everything and slumped off to his miserable bed so he could sleep in it miserably.
When they were alone Butch started to speak:
'Okay Jim! So what are you going to do when you meet that guy tomorrow?'
'I am going to lie,' the said man replied.
Butch heard his and was confused. Jim understood that Butch was confused after surveying his complex expression, and so he decided to elucidate, and give his friend some idea of his design:
'I am older than you Butch,' Jim started. 'I am not trying to sound like an elitist when I say this, but I know the world better than you. I know it so well because I have lived in it longer. I am older than you right? So I know things better. And I know that things don't ever get better, accept our chances of dying. But the one thing I have learned in all my days is that lies win. There is an old saying that is BEYOND true and it is this: fake it till you make it. And there you can see the seeds of my plan! Everything in life is all make believe. Everything that we do is literally nothing in the end. The words that we speak are nothing more than just a bunch of fancy sounds strung together to appear nice. That's what life is all about, Butch. Do you hear me? It's all just make-believe. It's really nothing more than that. And all we have to do is make those who don't believe, believe in us. That's the trick! And I am going to pull it off tomorrow. You will see...'
(Remember! All spelling errors and grammatical mistakes are intentional - the author 😆)
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