A History of Falling Off the Wall

Humpty Dumpty was a notoriously bad egg. He had been a little cracked for a while, but he was about to get scrambled.

He awoke late to someone pounding on his door. The pounding echoed in his own head. The previous night had been eventful, if perhaps ill-advised.

"What?" he yelled.

"It's Jack, open the door," came the reply.

"Jack…" Humpty mumbled. "What do you want?" he yelled as he staggered to the door.

"Do you know what time it is?" Jack shouted through the door.

Humpty opened the door and leaned against the jamb. "No."

Jack, a scrawny, nervous-looking fellow, stood out in the hallway. "It's past noon. Shouldn't you have left by now?"

"To?"

"I don't know, maybe pay a little debt? On Drury Lane?"

Humpty squinted. "No, I've got 'til Tuesday."

"It is Tuesday, man."

“Oh. Shit. Are you sure?”

“Yeah. You have the money, right?”

Humpty looked back into the apartment and blinked a few times. “I may have spent it.”

“On what?”

“Oh, you know, the usual. Tiskets, taskets… and a bag of high quality Black Sheep.”

“Dude, are you serious? The Muffin Man’s not going to be happy.”

Humpty stepped back into the apartment. “Get in here.”

Jack came in and closed the door. “So what are you going to do?”

Humpty dropped into a chair. “I don’t know. I’ll think of something.”

“Well you better think pretty quick. He wants the cash by sundown.”

“I know, I know. Just give me a minute.”

“You got any Black Sheep left? Maybe we could sell it.”

Humpty looked around the room. “Uh… no. I’ve got… three tiskets, half a tasket…”

“That’s not worth much. How did you go through a whole bag of Black Sheep?”

Humpty squinted at him. “You know, I couldn’t tell you. I had some people over last night, and I guess we used it all.”

“How many people did you have? The apartment’s not that big.”

“It was only four or five.”

“And you used all that Black Sheep? At least one of you should be dead. Who was here?”

“I don’t know, it’s all a bit fuzzy, and I was a little distracted by Bo getting all up on—”

“Bo? As in Bo Peep?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Dude, if anyone’s looking to score some free Black Sheep, it’s Bo Peep.”

“You think she stole it?” Humpty asked, rubbing his head.

“Yeah,” Jack said, as though it was obvious.

“That’s the last time I invite her to a party.” He gave Jack a determined look. “We should steal it back.”

“We should what?”

“Yeah, we go over there, grab it, sell it, and I’m home free.”

Jack sighed. “Well, we’d better do it quick. We only have a few hours.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Humpty said, digging through a drawer for something. He took out a baggie containing the last three tiskets and half a tasket. “For the road.”

“Seriously?”

“No, you’re right, I should probably do one before we go.” He took out one of the paper-thin tiskets and dropped it under his tongue. He stood still for a moment before nodding. “Okay, now we can go.”

Outside, they headed down the sidewalk to Bo Peep’s place on the hill. Humpty wavered back and forth, nearly walking into traffic until Jack grabbed his shoulder and steered him in a straight line.

“You should have been there,” Humpty said. “It was a hell of a party.”

“You don’t even remember it!”

“Yeah, that’s how you know it was good.”

Jack shook his head. “Jill doesn’t like me doing that stuff anymore.”

Humpty rolled his eyes. “That’s because your girlfriend is lame. We used to have so much fun!”

“She’s not lame. She’s just responsible enough to be an actual functioning adult.”

“So, like I said. Lame.”

“Dude, I’d probably be dead by now if it wasn’t for her.”

“Don’t be so dramatic.” Humpty shook the baggie at Jack. “Come on, for old times’ sake. Have a tasket. It’s only half.”

“Nah man, I'm good.”

“Come on! Live a little!”

Jack glanced up and down the street, as though Jill might materialize to scold him for this indiscretion. He took the tasket and swallowed it.

“Happy now?”

“I am,” Humpty replied, “And you will be, in a minute.”

“Let’s just get this done.” Jack turned to continue up the street, and walked straight into Jill.

“Hey, babe. What’re you doing?” she asked, looking suspiciously at Humpty.

Jack stared at her. The tasket was starting to kick in. “Nothing.”

“We’re going to see Bo Peep,” Humpty said cheerfully.

“What for?”

“She borrowed something from Humpty,” Jack said, gazing intently at her forehead. “We just have to go pick it up.”

“Is it okay if I tag along?”

“I don’t know if—” Jack began.

“Absolutely!” Humpty said with a grin. “This is going to be so much fun!”

“We may have different definitions of fun,” Jack muttered.

They made their way to a run-down apartment building on the hill. Bo Peep’s place was the first on the left on the third floor, right by the stairs. Humpty knocked. The door opened a crack revealing a young woman who resembled a shrew, if that shrew had been kicked in the face and not slept for three days.

“What?” Bo asked.

“You have something,” Humpty said. “Of mine.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure, sure,” Humpty said, pushing the door open.

Jack took Jill by the arm. “We should probably just wait here.”

“Why?”

Jack had two reasons. One, he didn’t want her to know that this was all for a bag of Black Sheep. And two, the tasket had really taken effect and he wasn’t confident in his ability to move away from the wall he hung onto.

Inside the apartment, Humpty looked around, ignoring Bo’s attempts to push him toward the door.

“You need to go,” she said, “I know we had a good time last night, but that doesn’t mean—”

He looked down at her. The tisket he’d taken earlier made her frizzy blonde hair crackle like static around her face. “What? No, I’m not here for you. I’m here for my Black Sheep.”

She stepped back away from him. “Black Sheep? What makes you think I have it?”

He turned and moved into the kitchen. “Because I know you, Bo.”

“I doubt that very much.”

He opened the silverware drawer and produced the mostly full bag of Black Sheep. “Really, Bo?”

She sighed and glared at him. “How’d you know where to look?”

He tapped the side of his head. “I asked myself where I would put it, if I were you. With the spoons, of course.”

She smirked and walked up to him. “Come on, Humpty, I'm sure we can work something out here. You can’t just leave me empty handed.”

“Actually, I can.”

Her smirk faded. She snatched the bag out of his hand and ran for the door. Her way to the stairs was blocked by Jack, but that didn’t stop her. She ran full bore into him, knocking him down the stairs ahead of her.

“Jack!” Jill screamed as he tumbled down and smacked his head on the landing.

Bo ran down the stairs and hurtled over him, with Humpty right behind her. She made it as far as the sidewalk before he tackled her.

She kicked him. “Get off me!”

He wrestled the bag away from her. “Trust me, I need this more than you do.” He stood up, clutching the bag to his chest. “So, uh, you want to buy some Black Sheep?”

She blinked at him from her place on the sidewalk. “Are you kidding me?”

“I need the cash. Or the Muffin Man’ll have my head.”

“He’ll have to get in line,” a voice said from behind him.

Humpty spun around to find a very pissed off Jill. Beside her was a very dazed Jack.

“Hey man…” he said slowly, holding his head.

“Oh good, you’re alive,” Humpty said. This was perhaps not the right thing to say. He squinted through the tisket-fueled haze at Jill’s face. This was definitely not the right thing to say.

“I always knew you were trouble,” she said.

Humpty looked down at the bag in his arms. “No, this is… It’s not like that.”

“You didn’t just come down here to get that bag of Black Sheep?”

“Well, I—” Humpty began.

“And you didn’t just drag Jack into it?”

Jack held up one hand while the other clutched his head. “Hey, it wasn’t like that. Cut him some slack.”

But Jill wasn’t finished. “No, he’s going to destroy himself, and he’s going to take you down with him.”

“Look, I’m up against the wall here,” Humpty said. “But if I can just pay this debt to the Muffin Man, I think I can climb over it.”

Jill rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before. But I know you Humpty, and you’re better at falling off of walls than climbing them. I already pulled Jack out of a hole. You’re not going to pull him down into another one.”

“I’m not pulling anyone down!” Humpty protested. “Just you wait. I’m going to go over to Drury Lane, and offer up the Black Sheep as payment for my debts. I can turn this around. You’ll see.”

Without another word, he shoved the bag under his coat and headed for Drury Lane. He found the Muffin Man in his usual spot in the bakery he used as a front.

“Well, well, look who it is,” the Muffin Man said. “I assume you have what you owe me?”

“Sort of,” Humpty replied. He held out the bag of Black Sheep.

The Muffin Man frowned. “What the hell am I supposed to do with this?”

“You can sell it, to cover my debts.”

“Do I look like a dealer to you?”

“Well, I didn’t really have time to sell it myself.”

“I like you, Humpty,” the Muffin Man said with a look that strongly implied the opposite, “and so I’m going to give you another twenty four hours, to turn this garbage into cash.” He picked up a large serrated bread knife off of the counter. “After that, I’m going to start taking pieces off. Are we clear?”

“Completely.”

“Good. Get out of here.”

Humpty spent all night and most of the following day selling off the Black Sheep in small pieces.  He hit all the seedier parts of town, surreptitiously offering it to butcher, baker, and candlestick maker.

Around midday, he came across the Tweedle twins. They were snickering in unsettling unison and looked up when he approached.

“Hey Humpty,” one of them said. It was anyone’s guess which was which.

“Been a long time,” the other added.

“Want to buy some Star Bright?” the first asked.

“We’ll give you a deal,” the second said.

“What kind of a deal?” Humpty asked, before remembering why he was there. “Never mind. I’m not buying today.”

“So you’re selling,” the first said.

“What have you got?” asked the second.

“Black Sheep.”

“Is it the good stuff?” asked one.

“We only want the best,” said the other.

“It’s high quality. Do you want some or not?”

The twins conferred between themselves, which consisted largely of them aggressively agreeing with each other. Finally, they turned back to Humpty.

“We’re in,” they said in unison.

Finally, in late afternoon, he had almost enough cash, and one portion of Black Sheep left. If he could sell it in the next hour, he could pay back the Muffin Man and get started fixing his life. If he could make it over this obstacle, he could do anything.

He looked down at the last bit of Black Sheep in his hand. Then again, he did have a history of falling off the wall.