Just something I wrote the other night. Not really edited, but at least I spell checked and grammar checked it. hope you like it.

Al Noble looked at the cashier, wondering if he could outrun him. Al’s draw had run out the week before, due to tipping Jasmine, his favorite dancer at Cockeyed Willies. He’d managed to stash a tallboy under his arm, and was deciding between  nachos and a hot dog to steal before he ran out the door.

A hand fell on hi shoulder, and Al turned slowly. Like his daddy, Al was small and fast, but awful in a fight. Seeing it was his Uncle Josephus, Al relaxed. Josephus had looked after Al’s family after the Landis cave in took his daddy and fourteen other men.

“Son, ripping off gas stations is no way to go through life.” Josephus took the tallboy from under Al’s arm, then lumbered up to the cashier. He was a big man, taking after Al’s Pappy rather than his MeMaw. Al had often wondered how those two fit, but they’d had ten kids, something worked.

Josephus paid for the tallboy, nachos, two hot dogs and a pint of Wild Turkey. They walked past Al’s wreck of a Subaru to Josephus’s shiny black pickup, its chrome reflecting in the lights. Josephus let him scarf food, taking a few sips off the pint. Josephus was head of the union at the local mine, the richest man Al knew. As Al finished his nachos. Josephus spoke.

“Boy, you need to stop shaming this family. By the time I was your age, I was already running shine for Lonnie Fargo between shifts at the mine. You need some ambition, some vision. And we’re going to go get it.

“Right now?” It was near midnight, and everything in this part of the Carolinas closed by dark. “Is it in a strip club?” Al had always wanted to own one of those. He’d feature Jasmine every night, maybe be a big man like his uncle.

“No, you dipshit, it ain’t in no titty bar.”  Boy had a one-track mind right through his pecker. “You know Larry Ludlow?”

Al nodded. Everyone knew Larry. His daddy had been in the same cave in, but his mom had gone nuts. Loser Larry, the town troublemaker, crazier than a preacher in a whorehouse.

“Larry’s daddy was just as crazy, or so I thought. Larry talk about the family lamp?”

Al nodded. Larry swore his family had been fine, thanks to a magic lantern lamp forged back when they were opening the mines here in the hills. Larry’s great grandpappy had formed the first union in the county but vanished out looking for gold by Albemarle.

Josephus handed Al a folder. Al looked at the contents, confused. Education had never been his strong suit. Seeing his confusion, Josephus went on.

“It’s the location of an abandoned mine tunnel. Rangers found it looking for those city folks that wandered off a month ago. I normally wouldn’t care, but some university folks got to wanting it opened. Some of my men got it open, found a body.”

Al looked at the picture in Josephus’s hand. It was a skeleton sitting in a tunnel, a lantern in its bony grip.

“Hell, Josephus, that could be anyone. ” Skeletons creeped Al out, ever since his cousin had thrown a fake one into his bed one night.

“Not according to the pow wow spell from my wife. We killed a chicken, said the right words of God, and his light shone upon that very area.”

Al snorted. Folks up this way took pow wow and sometimes hoodoo seriously. AL believed in only what he could see and touch. Unless it was Jesus because everyone knew Jesus was real.

Josephus clapped Al hard on the head. “Don’t you diss pow wow! How do you thin k I got this successful?” AL suspected it had more to do with favors and ass kissing, but kept his mouth shut.

“Tonight, we’re driving up there, and getting that lamp. I’m in over my head with some folks, and Park Rangers don’t come cheap, I need that Lantern, and you’re small enough to fit in the hole. Understand me?” Al shook his head, not wanting to get hit again.

“When I get the lamp, we’ll be shitting in tall cotton. I’ll put you on as my aide, and there’s a brand-new double wide in it as well.”

They rode up to the mine entrance, the truck’s halogens making it daytime bright. It was almost closed, except for a small hole at the top. Al climbed up Josephus’s shoulders, slithering into the hole, then falling to the ground.

Panic set in, then a flare flew through the hole, casting red everywhere.

“Hurry up and get that lantern, Al! I’ll drive you to a strip joint myself after this!” Josephus slipped the snub nose out of his belt as he waited. What was one more body here in this place?

Al looked down the tunnel, spotting the corpse. Christ, it smelled in here. After a few minutes, he spied it, the lantern now wedged under a large rock. AL pulled and pulled, the smell getting worse.

Josephus, s head snapped up, a frightening smell now coming from the hole. Josephus started to holler at Al when the world went white.

Al woke up confused. He had been pulling on the lamp when he’d felt very warm. He hoped he wasn’t getting some crud from the gas station hot dogs. One of those had killed his math teacher when he was ten. Also, why was it green in here? Then Al realized two things: he was not in the cave anymore, and he was not alone.

“Oh good, you’re awake. Your ass being dead would have complicated things.”

The voice was not as deep as Josephus and attached to a pair of shiny black shoes. Al followed those up a suit to a dark-skinned face. He was the best dressed black man he’d ever seen.

“What happened? Where am I?” Al rolled over, his hip bumping into the lamp.

“What happened is that your cracker ass took a flare into an abandoned mine cave and blew his own ass and his uncle’s ass to kingdom come. Fortunately for you, you got the lamp, which meant I had to save you.” The man produced a card from inside his jacket, Al looked at it, white with a single word on it: Idris.

“What the hell kind of name is Idris?” He wondered if this guy had killed his Uncle for the lantern.

“Most popular name right now for a black man, so I’m using it. Apparently, word of the name has not reached the Opry.” Idris walked over to a pile of flesh and clothes, pointed at it. “This is what’s left of your Uncle if you want it. I wouldn’t. Asshole was going to put a bullet in you soon as you came out with the lantern.”

Recognition dawned on Al’s face as he scrambled to his feet. “Holy shit, you’re a genie!”

Idris growled. “I am a jinn, son of an ifrit, and older than your entire species. I am to those cartoon fools as you are to chimps.”

“So, what do I get for freeing you? Three wishes?” Maybe his strip club dreams would finally come true.

“No, you get two. Or I can go back in time and not save your pasty self. Now what would you like?”

Al thought for a minute. He’d get money for sure, but that wouldn’t guarantee happiness. Al thought for a second, then decided. “Take me to Cockeyed Willies.I’ll use my last two wishes there.”

“I can’t decide if you’re crazy or stupid. But at least I’ll get to see some breasts. It’s bene near a hundred years.”

In a blinding flash, they appeared in Willie’s. Al was now in clean clothes, and they were in the VIP section. A waitress strolled up and stared at Al.

“Al? What are you doing in VIP? You win the lottery?”

“Yes, he did, sweet thing”. Idris answered. “I’ll take a bottle of rum, and tip yourself twenty on top of it. You want anything, Al?”

Al scanned the club. “Is Jasmine working tonight? I don’t see her dancing.”

Sherry groaned inwardly. Al’s fondness for the girl was well known, even though she was a bitch to all the other dancers.

“She’s off tonight, but drinking at the bar. I’ll tell her to come over.”

Idris interrupted. “There’s an extra fifty in it for you if she comes. And double that if I do too.”  Sherry stared at the man. Normally that line of BS wouldn’t work, but a man in a suit in this joint meant serious cash. She almost ran to get Jasmine.

While they waited, Idris admired the girls dancing. Nothing compared to Babylon for sure, but pleasant enough. And he’d been in that lantern way too long.

Someone bumped their table, both Idris and Al looked up. Al’s face turned to pure joy when he saw who it was.

Jasmine was a tall woman, covered in tattoos. She wobbled on clear heels, a short skirt and tube top completing her ensemble. A half empty bottle of whiskey was in one hand.

“Al” she slurred. “You’ve come up in the world.” Idris frowned. He’d been around to see alcohol created, and nothing good ever came of it. Islam had been smart banning it. Idris sensed danger about this situation.

Sherry came with the rum. Jasmine grabbed it off the table and flopped down beside Al, who’d never been this close to her without a week’s pay going gone. H stared, enamored, as she chugged from the bottle.

“Praise the maker, she’s drunk.” Idris remarked. Al just laughed.

“Yeah, ain’t it great?” He turned to Jasmine. “Hey baby, guess what I can make all y our dreams come true. Not in the future, today.” Jasmine just snorted.

“How? You suddenly got a million dollars and a way out of this hellhole town?” Jasmine wondered if he’d taken up drug dealing. Guy he was with was not local, not with those shoes.

Al explained about the lantern, and Idris. Jasmine’s drunken brain decided to go along with it, see what happens. Then he got to the wish part.

“I get two wishes, baby. And I’m giving one to you.” Al looked at Idris. “I can do that, right?”

Idris was silent a moment, then nodded. “I cannot tell you how much of a bad idea this is. But if you will it, so be it.”

Al turned to Jasmine. “There you go, honey. One wish. Make a dream come true.” Al was entranced by her, his brain truck stupid with the possibilities of their life together. To his horror, she started laughing. It wasn’t a funny laugh.

“One wish? Yeah right! You walk in here with some pimp looking fuckhead and tell me my wishes can come true? How stupid do you think I am? Is the roofie in the drunk next? I wake up on some boat? If I could make a wish, I’d kill every black asshole in a fifty-mile radius like your friend here.”

Idris stared at her in horror. He could feel hi flesh starting to melt. “AL, you stupid redneck motherfucker”

Before he could get another word out, his face slid off his skull, leaving it gaping. Blood and rot smells filled the air, and as Shery came over, she saw Idris and began screaming. She’d never stop again.

Two hundred men died that day, but Al was only blamed for two. At the trial, he tried not to weep as he was sentenced to death. Jasmine was not there, having run off with a prepper she met during her talk how tour.

While they strapped him to the gurney, Al was still thinking of Jasmine. But next life, maybe he wouldn’t fall for a woman with a rebel flag tattoo across her chest. Then the guard flipped the switch, and he was gone.

J