SHYSTERS
The Brothers Flim-Flam
“Step right up!” a colt beseeched. He was tender-voiced, and slim with a round face. His eyes were pinched by his smiling cheeks as he spoke. “I present to you a high quality, pristinely engineered opportunity, comrades. Remarkably, the very best deal you’ll find this side of the Great Ghastly Gorge! No fooling!”
“It’s true!” said his brother. “Dually true! You have not one but two young bucks to give witness! How could you pass up?”
Ponies cantered and cavorted by, craning their snouts in the air, wrapping themselves up against a steely wind purring up their backs. Mountain air, tinged with the scent of stratosphere, kept the blood from draining from their upturned heads. A particular remove, distinguishing the enthusiasm of these colts and their wooden booth.
These two little colts on the side of the road should’ve been in school. It hadn’t been too long ago that they’re cutie marks appeared, but already they were tremendously far from home. And, any adult supervision.
Flam bent over the booth‘s pouting wood, pushing his ribs into it as he reached out to the passers-by. “You'll never find an opportunity so ready for the reaping! I promise!”
Not a single stir or twitch in their direction. Dead ears.
Flam stumbled his charm, darting a look his brother’s way. The back of Flim’s head received it as the enthusiastic salesman tried a new strategy. "How about a sample?” He clapped his hooves together, “A demonstration!"
The colt bound from his brother’s side, taking to the street. He floundered in a breath before shelling the ponies of Canterlot with speech. “Good ma’ams! Good dams! Good, fair sirs and sires of all prestige! Lend an ear for a chance - yes, chums, a chance - of enormous rarity! Of rare enormity!”
“Poppycock,” a stallion groused in passing.
“Flim-Flam, actually.” He beamed. The stallion trod off with a contemptuous lip buzz. Flim gambolled after him. “You see, sir, if I could but reinvest your attention in my brother’s and my invention, you could be the judge of its mavelosity yourself.”
The large stallion folded down his chin with some exasperation. “Then, what would this precarious curio happen to be?”
Flim hopped out in front of his path, straightening his posture and ears, and put on his most winning smile. “An apple cider grinder, of course!”
“Apples?” he recoiled. “I’m direly allergic. You could’ve murdered me, you tiny ninny.”
“Oh,” Flim remarked.
The stallion walked off with a harrumph.
Flim bounded around. “Surely!” he said. “There must be somepony intuitive enough to uptake the shot of a lifetime.”
Flam chimed in, “You! Um, wait no, stop- uh ... S- Sir! Si- ... Madame! Missus! ... Eh, Miss? Sir! Sir!” Finally, a stop, and Flam sighed, “Oh thanks, I- Argh!”
The pony walloped Flam in the head with a purse. "I'm a mare!"
Flim valiantly smiled whilst Flam rubbed his buckle-stained forehead.
Flim chuckled sprucely, "Why, of course, my sweet petunia. Alas- I must apologize- my brother is, uh," his face scrunched, brilliance struck, and then a savvy smile came out. "he's come down with a case of the googlies." he explained delicately, a hoof up blocking the noise from the flummoxed-looking Flam. "Can't well see having that in your eyes, can you?"
She took a breath. "Can you?"
"Sweet salamanders, no! Madame,” he told her gravely. “as a gentlecolt I implore your gracious forgiveness, and Flim Flam policy in such a situation calls for a freebie. On the hou-" a hoof plugged his yap hole.
"What my confuzzled brother meant is a discount, fair siren."
"Dear me …” she put a hoof to her neck. “A discount on what?"
Flim and Flam grinned coyly to one and other, and told her, "Why, the Flim-Flam Brothers Super Speedy Cider Squeezy Seven! No other!"
Now they'd attracted a few hangers-on.
A gangly voiced colt and his filly companion looked on in bemusement. They looked only a few years older than the brothers. The colt with a coat the colour of icicles looked on “What is that?”
The brothers Flim Flam gaped at him. Flam ran up. “You don’t know?”
“Well, uh,” his voice bubbled, with a pre-pubescent range.
Flim rushed to put a hoof around his neck. “You better keep up with the times, boy-o, the world’s a-changing and we’re a part of the tide. If you fall behind, you are left behind, and behind‘s a lonely place.”
Flam smirked handsomely to the filly friend and put a little extra sparkle in his eye. “I take it you’re more of a go-getter than your pal? More progressive, should we say?”
The pink filly giggled. She squirmed in a graceful way, her red-as-lipstick bob cut swishing around her nice smile. “The fairer sex always is.”
He pecked her hoof and winked at her from under his bowler hat. “I couldn’t consent heartier, daffodil.” Smoothly, he popped up, gesturing her towards the booth. “If you’d do the honours …”
“What?” her coltfriend blundered, bottom jaw jutting out and eyes full. “Poppy Petal, your dad's waiting.”
She winched and turned to the red-maned colt. “I’ll only be a minute, right?”
Flam brushed up against her and chuckled under his breath. “Shouldn’t take too long, at all.”
The coltfriend grimaced.
Flim zapped ahead of them. In a timely matter of moments, he assembled from beneath their wooden stand a bronze gismo of cog and spool.
“Of course, it doesn’t look like much,” he admitted to the gathering, “true opportunity never does. However, it’s that very innocuousness that heralds true fortune to those patient enough to see the brilliance. After all, when opportunity knocks, there’s no better answer than investment!”
Well, the ponies couldn’t argue with that. There was even a couple murmurs of agreement, and the assembly was rapidly growing.
“How, you may ask, is our product more superb, more splendorous than the next? Well, how smart of you for bringing it up, I see the ponies of Canterlot are much more in tune than those in the ditches of Manehatten.” He let himself smile at that one.
Chorally, the entire group gave their opinions on Manehattenites.
The shaggy haired colt put up a hoof and everypony quietened.
“I not only give you my word,” he knocked his hoof on the wood of the booth. “but allow for the unknowing consumer to give you her say. If she sees it as sublime as my brother and I, there cannot, logically, be any doubt to this miracle of ingenuity! Fair’s fair, Canterlot?”
They stomped their hooves in delight, laughing and squabbling over who saw these dynamos first. Flim grinned at Flam.
“Now,” Flam said to the filly. “If you wouldn’t mind using this apple to make some delicious cider?”
Poppy looked at it. “… How do I?”
Flim swung his head to the crowd empathetically. “Isn’t that always the trouble?”
“Not anymore!” his brother assured. “Haughty apple farmers would have you believe cider is a ‘seasonal beverage.’” He scrunched his tiny face in mock. “Humph. But, what if I told you that it was possible to make your own, year round?”
“Lunacy!” cried a dark mare.
“This is madness!” roared a stallion.
“This. Is. Reality! Not only does the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy Seven outmatch its predecessors, and its, ah, competition, heh, but each glass is guaranteed to satisfy, stupefy, maybe even change your life.”
“It’s possible.” Flim grinned, raising his shoulders.
“Plausibly possible!” Flam shouted, his enthusiasm getting the better of him as he elbowed the stack of cups behind him. They spilled to the ground.
He tittered, “Um, what an exciting offer, huh folks?”
He got his laugh from the crowd.
Flim grinned wide, slowly ducking down.
Expectantly, Flam turned on his volunteer. “Let the show go on, sunbeams.”
“How do I work this fantastic machine?” asked Poppy, laughing an odd, squeaky laugh.
He detailed the inner-workings of the mechanism. Being careful not to get too technical, for the tykes of course, he disclosed the bewitching, unconceivable, I-can’t-believable synchrony in play (sparing details like the duct tape and sparkle glue). He got a little wrapped up in it, but he turned back to Poppy with a thrilled smile. “All you have to do is put the apple in the slot.”
“Oh.” She picked up the stem in her teeth and motioned to the machine. “Jush thad simple?”
“Yep. Simple Simon,” he laughed. His cheeks stretched as he smiled.
Poppy Petal tossed the apple into the open-faced grinder, and sooner than she could blink, it was sucked away into machinery. She laughed delightedly to Flam, a hoof to her cheek.
Flam blinked, and snickered with her. In an off moment, but for only one, their laughter felt private. A little like the privacy of a playmate, or a schoolyard crew of chums laying down aces and spades.
An exceptionally off moment, but it gave him confidence.
He turned to beam at the rest of the crowd, and shooed the frog lumping his throat. “Ladies and gentlecolts! Young, old, and otherwise; witness with me the product of your affections, the attraction of your fever, witness cider.”
Baited, the audience leaned and stretched, jabbering and tweeting like a nest. A chilled wind swept their legs. They could smell the tartness, the sweet apple flavour, their taste buds revved with daydreams prickling. Then, when they stood on the tips of their hooves, a steamy tendril of fluid fell from a nozzle to the plastic cup below. Instantly, nopony could take it.
“I’ll buy!” hollered a fluffy mare.
“No, I will! I’ll buy two!” a slim stallion erupted.
“Not if I buy them out first!”
Clamour ensued, obnoxious, beautiful clamour. Flam’s heart leapt, hidden slyly in a genial, boyish smile. A genuine smile. Ponies rumbled for his call. They wanted to buy him out. They wanted to give him their wallets and let him walk away, a free colt, no time-outs. They bayed for his whimsy, and applauded his showmareship. By golly, they loved him.
“Form a line, form a line, Canterlot!” he called with glee. “No need for panic.”
As the first straggler got through, the booth behind Flam flipped over – CRASH - making the customer jump back. The clamour turned to gasp, and then silence.
Where the booth had been, Flim sat in brown puddles, rubbing his horn to stop it from twanging. Nopony had noticed, but the cups he’d gone to retrieve were already stacked away. Spilled out around him, jugs of cider blubbered their contents, “Sweet Apple Acres” hugging the sides of each.
The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy Seven had overturned. And was hollow.
A colt in the back shouted out. “Elements alive!” Aghast, the crowd gawked at them, some in injure, some offence.
Flim gasped when he saw what was sloshing in his coat. “No! Please, I didn't mean to do that!”
A deeper rage snarled.
Flam‘s throat muscles clenched. "Folks! Folks, if you will we could- AH! Don’t! Canterlot, wait!"
A pony launched an apple at Flam’s head, so barely missing.
“They’re bamboozling us!” Poppy’s coltfriend was red across his dirt brown nose. “Those tricksters, they were faking the whole thing!”
This cavalry of clatter came from mouths, rising indignation. Slow broiling temperament, spite sprinkled down on them as fuel. They were forgetting their marvelling, they were metamorphosing into growling gruffing animals, a whole crowd barking at two colts.
Poppy’s eyes narrowed. “You were bamboozling me?”
“Well-” Flam switched his glance to Flim. “We- I-”
“Why would you even do something like that?” Her head shook a little. “That's low."
“Crooks!”
“Connivers!”
“Swindlers!”
“Cheats!”
Flim shouted at his brother, “Scram, Flam!”
The Flim-Flam brothers hit the ground running. They left behind their contraption and their wooden booth. They galloped, their shaggy hair bouncing, their bowties trembling in their collars. In their speed, the wind frosted their ears and numbed their snouts. The small patter of their hooves grew as they distanced themselves from the mob. One and other racing, they dashed in allies and openings they could squeeze into.
Flim lifted diamonds, shooing his brother to scramble through the loose fence. He thought he heard the shouts coming closer.
They barrelled down the main concourse, Canterlot Castle ahead of them. Rumbling carriages migrated to and past the path to the golden gates. Flam shot to a carriage heading to the spiral tunnels of the mountain, the great rocky yawn. Flim followed after.
As carefully as was possible, Flam climbed the wooden beam backing pulling Flim up after, even their little weight shocking the wheels. The carter, evidently, didn’t catch on, as he continued rolling.
“You don’t think they’ll find us, do you?” Flim coughed. He sniffed in the frigid air to cool down the burn behind his chest. He flicked his glance. “Flam?”
His brother was faced away. He made little gasps and whistles and sniffles as their hinds were brutally walloped against wood with every pebble in the road.
Their carriage came into the enormous cave and soon, Canterlot was shrinking away. It was behind them now, and the full moisture and darkness of the throat-like cavern ate them up. In the dark, Flim threw a weak, affectionate punch at Flam, grazing his cheek. With gusto, the small colt softly crooned, "Next town, brother?"
Flam didn’t move. “I want outta the business,“ his little voice came.
They sat on the rumbling carriage for a long interlude. Flim’s mouth was locked slightly ajar and his green eyes searched the back of his brother’s head for the truth. He could only come up with a frailly spoken, “Why?”
Flam bit hard on his tongue. “‘Cause …”
His brother‘s brow hardened to rock. “’Cause why? We’ve been run out before, plenty-a-time.”
The tears began afresh, so hot they should’ve been steaming. “I wanna go home.”
“I hate it there, you hate it there,” Flim complained, crossing little yellow hooves. “I thought we’d come to a consensus.”
Flam said nothing.
His brother grunted. “Hey. Come on, already. I don’t do drama,” he stage-whispered. “What’s the hoo-ha with Canterlot? They’re nothing! Zilch, I tell you, Zilch. Don’t do this to me, Flam ... Come on. Dream up any other place and we’ll be there. Just go ahead and picture it.”
He took Flam under his arm and pointed his teary face upward, gesturing to the cavern's ceiling. “Uncle Filthy hooks us up with another barrel of Sweet Apple cider, you n’ I fine tune the blue prints, bippity-boppity-boo, we’re gangbusters! Just like that!
“The Flim-Flam name spreads around, and hey- suddenly Canterlot sees we‘re not so bad after all, and they‘re on board, too, and everypony else who ran us out. They‘ll put us on those billboards outside a town, you know the ones, we‘ll get our pictures taken.
“Barnyard Bargain’s business will triple, if not quintuple, and when we head for home Uncle Filthy won’t know what to think. You don’t wanna miss out on that because of Canterlot, do you? We can go anywhere we want now.”
With wilted enthusiasm, Flam smiled for is brother. “... Let’s go, Flim.”
Flim hooted, chuckling, “Hey-hey! Alright! Let’s go, Flam!”
It would be a little while later, but at night, bumping along the countryside with his brother asleep on his shoulder, Flam thought about Poppy. Somehow, she’d settled into a far, comfortable corner of his mind, resting there, waiting patiently for him. A good place. He thought about her. How she’d been so darn kind. That was it. Kind.
But, one and one didn't entirely make two here. Had she really been anything special? Was one little laugh really enough to take the business out of a businesscolt? It couldn't possibly be, could it?
It was really rather peculiar, the more he thought about it. He’d known kind ponies, just rarely. Scarce commodity.
Staring at the starry sky, he smiled a little to himself. Hey, now that should’ve been what they were selling. There was a good market for ponies who could use it.
Yeah, he chuckled, liking the idea. He let himself smile to the moon and he shook his head. Let’s sell some kindness.
After that, Flam let himself lean on his brother’s head to settle in, let his tired eyelids slowly sink deeper as the spangled sky above spat fat, fluttery snowflakes. His flannel shirt might as well have been paper, but Flim was pretty warm. The bumpy carriage ride took the brothers Flim-Flam into the small hours of nighttime, fast asleep.