Bidgood Bob - Back from the Joint and Hungrier Than Hell (sort of a Corsino's review)

Bama Bing right after the "Incident"

Forgive me Gumpers, for I have sinned. It has been about three years since my last post. You may recall back in the summer of 2010 when I nailed my ex-pal Bama Bing between the eyes with a stray golf ball and put him into a three-month coma. While poor Bing was out, Auburn's football team went undefeated on its way to a national championship. Also during this period the vapid, narcissistic laptop thief Cam Newton won the Heisman trophy, the Republicans pulled off a relatively bloodless coup and overthrew the State of Alabama and I... well, I had this sort of a thing with Bing's wife.

Apparently the risen Bing took offense at me, his best friend, looking after Ramona while he was out cold for a whole football season. Who knew Bing would pull through? Well anyway, once Bing started getting up and around he started raising hell about marital fidelity, betrayal and lawyers, and the next thing you know he's talking about getting a divorce from Ramona. Ordinarily this would have worked out fine and dandy for me, but it turns out that Bing still had a big pile of dough left over from all the no-bid contracts he racked up during the Siegelman administration, and Ramona (who has many fine qualities but marital fidelity ain't one of them) had signed a pre-nup that was going to leave her with nothing but a dented Lexus and twenty bucks if Bing could prove adultery.

Since Ramona didn't have the good sense to take down all the Facebook pictures of our trips to Vegas and the Pine Lake Motel out on 231, Bing had us dead to rights. We were left with no other choice but to kill him.

How to go about it, though? Old pal Tojo Yamamoto offered to take Bing out with the Stomach Claw (Tojo's signature move). Since I merely wanted Bing out of the picture before he got a chance to re-write his will, and had no desire for him to die a slow, agonizing Stomach Claw death, I held my giant Japanese rassler friend at bay.

Getting to Bama Bing was going to be difficult. He had his guard up and was surrounded by goons at all times. My trusted consigliere Chase N. Allpots, a harmless foppish dandy at first appearance but blessed with a cunning mind, approached Bing's people with the offer of a meeting to "iron out our differences." Allpots set the meeting on Bing's turf, at an old-school family-owned Italian place called Corsino's on the north side of No-Clo. Prior to the meeting, fellow Gumper Fat Clemenza snuck into Corsino's and stashed a .38 snub behind one of the old-fashioned toilets (you know, the kind with the pull-down chain) in the Corsino's men's room.

I was picked up by one of Bing's cronies, a corrupt Irish precinct captain from the MPD. Capt. O'Herlihy, or whatever his name was, patted me down before we entered Corsino's. There sat Bama Bing in the back of the joint, a steaming veal parm before him on the red-checkered tablecloth. Bing turned to O'Whatshisname and told him we'd be speaking Italian for the remainder of the sit-down. I excused myself to hit the bathroom, prompting a worried look from Bing. "He's clean," said O'Shaughnessy, or whatever his name was, already into his second whisky.

The pistol was right where Clemenza said it would be. I took a few deep breaths and splashed some water on my face. Emerging from the men's room I walked right up to Bing and unloaded three rounds, then turned to the drunken overgrown corrupt Irish police captain and gave him the last three.

Well, I missed all six shots, then ran outside where Shadow Pup was supposed to be waiting in the getaway car, but he was across Court Street sniffing some stray french poodle's butt. So the plan to get out of town and hop a freighter to Sicily with the lovely and talented Ramona was shot, so to speak. Thanks to the shitty .38 Clemenza hid for me I got 15 years for attempted murder (and got fined 25 bucks for discharging a firearm in the city limits of the Gump). Thanks to Alabama's absurdly overcrowded prisons, I got out today.

Where did I go? Corsino's of course, for a Combo Sandwich and a Dago Salad. They can get away with calling it a "Dago Salad," I guess, because one of the owners might be Italian. Why is it OK for the folks at Corsino's to call it a Dago Salad, but if I yelled out, "Yo! Hey Dagos! You Dagos make a damn fine salad," that would be insensitive. But I digress, as usual. This is a food blog, so remember, the Combo Sandwich and a Dago Salad at Corsino's is one of the best lunches in this here Gump.

Oh, almost forgot. Bama Bing and Ramona patched things up and have lived happily ever after.

I am glad to be back, although I have another one of those ankle bracelets and can't go outside the bypass without the blessing of my PO. Again.