Montana Jones' Missing Finger

Montana Jones tells the guys at the bar that he lost the tip of his left ring finger in Vietnam; tells them that he got the purple heart and then laughs that they give out purple hearts for the smallest injuries. “But if its enemy fire, it's enemy fire, right?” he asks them. 

More often than not someone will buy him a drink and toast to his service.   

“Here here,” Montana will say.

But we know better, don't we?  Montana never went to Vietnam.  The extent of his service was a quick stint in the Coast Guard aboard a Cutter followed by an arrest for smuggling ganja in from the Caribbean.  Who ever heard of a bullet taking off the tip of a finger? 

Here's what really happened.

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I was really in debt.  It looked like I was ready to lose the boat and I couldn't sink it in the harbor for the insurance money on account of the fact that I'd already done that one time just a year earlier.  I was desperate.

So I walk into my attorney's office.  I got this Jew lawyer, see.  They're the best kind so that's what I got.  I says to him, “Bennie, what's a finger worth?”

“Excuse me?” he says like he didn't hear the question. 

“For the insurance, if I was to lose my finger in a fishing accident,” I says to him. 

“Montana Jones, don't you dare do what I think you're going to do.”

“Bennie, it's just for information's sake.  I want to know how much my precious hands are worth as a fisherman. The hands are the life, aren't they?” I ask.

He's shaking his head back and forth but he goes into one of those books and searches a bit and then looks up at me through his bifocal spectacles.  “I'd probably get you twenty-five thousand in a settlement.” 

“Thank you,” I said and left him to his lawyerly pursuits. 

After that I made two important stops.  First at the liquor store for a big bottle of Bacardi Rum.  Second I stopped off at the bar for a couple of shots for the road, so as to speak. 

Then I went on my boat and got right and hammered on that rum.  When I couldn't feel anything in my extremities I took out my cleaver and put my hand right on the fish cleaning block.  I lopped it off while I still had nerve and then I wrapped it up in a towel and passed out. 

The next day I stopped off at the clinic and got myself wrapped right and then I went back over to Bennie's office. 

“What in the hell did you do?” he yelled as soon as I walked into his office.

“Bennie, calm down.  It was a fishing accident.  These things happen.”

“Let me see,” he ordered. 

So I unwrapped my hand and he looked at it for a long moment.  Then he started pacing around his room calling me names.

“Montana, you are the stupidest, pigheadest, dumbest ass on the Eastern Seaboard. I have never known anyone as dumb as you.”

“Now Bennie, there's no call for that,” I said. 

He turned to me and removed his glasses.  “Montana, there's a couple of things you don't understand.  First.” He counted that out on his finger.

“First, when you asked me about a finger, I assumed you meant an important finger. The index finger!” he points it at me.  “That's worth twenty-five grand.  The thumb maybe more.  You took off a ring finger and that's not worth as much.”

“Well I still wanted to be able to work,” I says.

He rolled his eyes.  “Second, a finger is defined by the second knuckle, Montana. You just lost the tip.  That isn't worth shit.  It's not even a finger, it's just a fingernail.  You just saved yourself some clipping and maybe some polish if you're into that.”

“Just you wait a minute,” I said.  But he wasn't interested in talking to me anymore. 

“Out! Out! Out!” he yelled. 

I left. 

You know what the worst part of this whole episode was?  I never had the heart to try it again.  The first time hurt too bad to think about taking that cleaver to myself again.

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And that's how Montana Jones lost the tip of his ring finger.

Comments

[a rose is a rose]

i'm getting to like him (if i ever did) less and less

[CV Rick]

Nobody likes him, Rose. A few people tolerate him.

[bex]

everybody has a purpose...

[CV Rick]

I love that poster, I'm adding it to the post. Thanks, bex.

[kuri]

Ever heard of Nub City?

[jane]

What a dumbass

[bex]

I thought the photo was apt... considering that this dude actually DID sink a ship...

[CV Rick]

Nub City . . . I read it . . . I'm not sure I believe it. It sounds too Onion to me.

[jane]

Oh, it is real, all right. Errol Morris (perhaps my favorite documentarian?) did a documentary on this, called Vernon, Florida.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083281/