High Steaks: A Bjorn Trilogeé Adventure

Chapter 1: Bjorn

It was the kind of town Bruce Springsteen would write a song about if he was from New England and suffered from depression. Just a few towns over from the middle of nowhere in upper state Maine was the small mining town of South Cott, founded 1814. A place where nothing of any importance has ever happened, except for that one time Al Roker's car broke down and needed a tow. That was about 15 years ago and still remains one of the more interesting topics of conversation.

Downtown, on for what passes as the 'main street', is a small local bar where many of the miners get a cheap drink after work. In the dirt parking lot amongst the collection of Pick-Up Trucks (sporting various degrees of decrepitude) was one brand new high performance European motorcycle. It had the license plate "kickass1". To its owners endless annoyance his cousin managed to get the first "kickass" plate, leaving him with this slightly less magnificent option. Though he would admit, to himself at least, that on occasion his cousin could be moderately more kick ass than himself ... depending on the day and if he had a better night's sleep.

The owner of the motorcycle sat in the bar nursing his favorite brand of scotch, 'cheap'. He sat there for hours not saying a word to anyone. The Bartender considered asking him if he was the famous actor Matt Damon because the man was a spitting image. But he thought better of it, thinking to himself "what are the chances of Matt Damon sitting here in this hole in the wall bar, in this hole in the wall town, all by himself, literally sitting next to a hole the wall".

The bar was your standard corner establishment. Wood paneling, tacky lighting, dart board, smells like ass.

The Bartender was a large heavy set man whose hair was so greasy that it looked like he combed it with a slice of pizza. Despite his appearance he was a bit of a celebrity gossip junkie, a predilection he blamed on his wife even though they've been divorced for several years ... it's a hard habit to break.

The stranger just sat there, drinking his scotch and occasionally looking up at the TV to watch the final two minutes of the Celtics game. A final two minutes that has now taken over a half an hour to complete. He was wearing a well tailored Harris Tweed Jacket. Admittedly it was well tailored for a man a foot taller and an extra 100 pounds, but the overall quality of the jacket couldn't be denied.

It was getting late and a few locals began to filter into the barroom. One of these men was a professional trapper that lived in a rustic cabin just outside of town. The people around the city knew him as Simon Piltdown. He kept to himself mostly and would only come into town on occasion for a drink or to sell a recent kill. Simon had a large beard and looked like the type of guy who would live in a forest and write a manifesto.

He ordered an Appletini and two Scotch Eggs.

The Matt Damon looking stranger gave an almost imperceptible twitch as he heard the man's gruff voice. He spun around out of his stool, slowly reached into his jacket and removed his special secret agent officially licensed top secret gun. What was so special about this gun? Well it looked exactly like a Northern Speckled Trout for one thing. Even the most well trained ichthyologist wouldn't even be able to tell the difference. The only problem with the disguised gun was that he was so far from the closest body of fresh water that the fish seemed embarrassingly out of place, in retrospect he should have gone with the Automatic Salmon.

"Sorry to bother everyone," he said out loud to the few people in the bar. "I am here on official Federal business, the man you know as Simon is actually Salt Peters O'Naj, wanted for crimes against the United States of America."

The locals seemed more confused than anything else. Salt Peters didn't bother trying to escape. He knew it was impossible. He gave a look of mild annoyance. "Well let's get this over with. I don't think the Celtics are going to win tonight anyways."