***Satire***
More than 45 years after he wrote his bet on the back of a highly classified dossier, John Smith is finally collecting on his guess as to how Fidel Castro would die.
“I guessed old age. And was laughed out of the room,” he says, climbing in his Lincoln continental to begin his cross-country ‘Pay-Up’ tour from his old colleagues at the CIA, with whom he made the bet. “They all had things like garrotted in his bed, or vaporized by a micro-nuke on his way to El Capitolio. But I had a feeling he’d outlast all of that, through a combination of CIA incompetence, and Russian pressure. And I was right.”
While the purse he wins is only $4.75, with no provision for inflation, and a Tab, he says it isn’t about the money.
“It’s about being right. And waiting, a really really long time to find out. Some of the guys who owe me are going to be hard to find. But I’m looking forward to looking. And you know what? RIP Castro, why the hell not?”
Categories: Featured
The Out And Abouter 