Twenty dollars didn’t go far at Clayt’s anymore even if Critter was just drinking beer. After banging down seven shot and beer boilermakers he had to close his clutch-side eye on the way home to keep the lights from oncoming vehicles from blinding him and sending his trusty old rat bike flying into a tree, fence, telephone pole, deer, ditch, ambulance, pedestrian, state police SUV, Mack truck or other obstacle that might stop him from enjoying the ride.

A psychiatrist could easily diagnose Critter as impetuous. He once explained to his common law wife KandIi (who spelled her name with two i’s, the first one a capital I and next one a lower case I both to be changed to a capital Y after the divorce) that he suffered from “impulsions.” She wrote the word in her diary and later told her lawyer the word sounded like a cross between “impulsive:” and “convulsion.”

“Just sounds nuts to me,” said the lawyer.

Heading home after spending all 19 smackers including a dollar tip, Critter didn’t have enough money left to buy a take-out-take-home Clayt’s Famous Sledgehammer Smash Burger that Clayt personally prepared by smashing the ground beef with a sledgehammer before grilling it with a blowtorch (YouTube videos available) Clayt wore on his back in a harness like the World War II flamethrowers he saw on the black and white old movie channel. Clayt named the burger after the sledgehammer on the patch on the back of the colors the Duncannon Crushers Motorcycle Club wore on their blue denim cuts.

Regular meals stopped dead for Critter when the old lady left with his favorite pet snake Slim Jim, ending Critter’s meal ticket for good, including meat loaf dinners with BBQ sauce and bacon strips on top. After tiring of cooking canned soups and frying tuna with hard boiled eggs, he also stopped making bagged pot pie squares he boiled and ate with ketchup. Now Critter pretty much subsisted on Clayt’s Famous Sledgehammer Smash Burgers.

As drunk as he was, though, just thinking about food made him all the hungrier. Opening and closing the cupboard he opened and closed the refrigerator door. Now he opened the freezer and stood staring at two thick frost-caked lumps wrapped in aluminum foil.

Two gutted aluminum foil-wrapped trout with heads attached that a kindly Christian neighbor dropped off glistened like icy diamonds on an Arctic glacier. It would take hours to thaw the frozen fish so Critter dialed the oven up to 500 and tossed the two rock-solid fish bricks on the rack tin foil and all. Fifteen minutes to a half hour ought to do the trick, he figured.

Critter hadn’t made it through the first five minutes of Shark Week on TV before he fell asleep. The smoke alarm woke him. When he got to the kitchen, flames were shooting out both sides and the top of the oven door. Grabbing the small red fire extinguisher covered with dust and hanging on the apartment wall, he ripped open the oven door, pulled the pin on the extinguisher and squeezed the trigger. Thick white foamy chemical concentrate exploded in a blinding cloud of frothy suds, the fumes of which almost took Critter’s breath away. Flames flickered and fought back. Critter fired again.

Misty white spray drifted toward the ceiling as Critter, breathing heavily, stood on shaky bow legs and stared into the oven. Incinerated foil gave new meaning to the words blackened fish. Critter’s dulled brain couldn’t stop his stomach from growling in anticipation.

Reaching into the oven with both hands he grabbed both scorched silver packets and threw them on the kitchen counter. Carefully tearing open both packs he used his fingernails to scrape away the chalky retardant created long ago in a faraway science lab. Using his thumb and forefinger he picked apart the trout’s belly and retrieved a nice chunk of meat near a glassy eyeball that dangled from a thin string of skin and scales. Closing his own eyeballs he slowly slid some supper into his mouth, cautiously chewed and swallowed with a wince.

Two seconds later he spit out a bone and dug out another hunk of fish.

Then he got a fork.

OK, so it wasn’t Long John Silver’s.

But Critter’s survival skills ought to show his old lady and anybody else who doubted his tenacity and ability to survive as a swinging single and man of the house.

Who needed sweet and sour KandIi anyway?

Critter had bigger fish to fry.