Enter Early Cuyler
In the mountains of rural Equestria, life is pretty simple. The roads are long and narrow, so covered with dirt you’d hardly believe there was a dirt road under it all. The county has its share of small towns full of mountain ponies working hard to make ends meet. Occasionally, you get the odd duck. Every flock has one. In Equestria’s Dougal County, that duck is a land-dwelling squid named Early Cuyler.
Today, much like many other days, he’s returning home from whatever shenanigans he’d stirred up that day. What shenanigans, you ask? Well, it starts with that truck-boat-truck barreling down the road and escalates from there.
The brand new brakes on the lead truck did their job with unparalleled performance. Stopping the 16-ton vehicle train on a dime was a cinch, but the 26-pound squid driver was ejected with next to no effort. He sailed almost thirty feet before leaving a twenty-foot skid mark in his wake. Every mountain shack in earshot knew that sound meant. Fortunately, the only shack for miles was Early’s and his kin’s.
“Hey, granny,” Rusty called out from the porch, “Daddy’s back. And he’s got a new truck!” Rusty exclaimed at the sight of his father’s shiny new red behemoth. He was craning his neck up above the 45-inch lift kit to get a good look at the freshly shattered windshield.
“Daddy!” Rusty asked in his excitement, “You got you a new truck! Can I see it?”
“The truck is mine! Don’t you be lookin’ at it!” he blurted out as he stumbled back towards the shack, “And don’t be askin’ ‘bout where I been or what I done neither!”
“Alright, then,” Rusty replied indignantly as he made his way back to the shack. He was somewhat bummed that he wouldn’t learn of his father’s latest exploits today.
“Hey!” Early sharply called out as his son walked away, “Git yer ass back here, boy!” Like an obedient son, Rusty returned to his father’s presence. A moment of silence passed before he shot a glance at Rusty. Rusty glanced around, unsure what exactly what to say, if he was expected to say anything at all.
“Well?” Early asked his son with an expectant look, “Ain’t you gonna ask where I been or what I done?” It took Rusty a moment to realize what his father wanted him to do.
“Oh, uhh…” Rusty stammered as he prepared himself, “Where you-?”
“That ain’t nunya’ damn business, boy!” Early angrily interjected, holding his hunting knife to Rusty’s throat, “But since ya’ ask,” he calmly continued, sheathing the knife, “I got me this here truck,” he explained, displaying his new possession. “Swiped it right off the lot!” Early proudly declared, “And looky here, Rusty,” Early said playfully, holding a collection of bottle caps in front of Rusty, “comes with a couple o’ toys for the young’uns.”
“Toys?” Rusty asked, perplexed at first, “Toys!” he shouted excitedly as he danced in place. The shiny, jingly toys got his undivided attention.
“Go gitcha some toy time!” Early shouted as he tossed the toys across the yard into a mud puddle. Rusty eagerly gave chase, whooping and hollering that he finally got a toy more exciting than the dead copper head he found last week.
Rusty was neck deep in the mud when Granny finally made herself known, hopping her walker onto the porch. She was made up in her most revealing dress, glitteriest lipstick and the wig she wore gave her hair unbelievable volume.
“And where in the hell you think you goin’ all prettified up like that, woman?” Early asked his mother as she parked her walker on the front porch.
“I ain’t gotta go nowheres,” she replied, “You keep all these petty crimes of yours up, them sexy law ponies’ll come to me,” she explained in a sultry tone as she adjusted her bra. She licked her lips as she imagined the gang of uniformed officers coming to arrest her in some kind of bondage scenario.
“Ain’t no pony comin’ after yo’ wrinkly old ass,” Early interjected, trying to beat down her fantasy.
“Yeah, it ain’t so not no more,” Granny conceded, taking Early’s words quite literally, “That’s why I focused on the fun bags!” she continued as she applied glitter to her exposed chest. She even readjusted the water balloons in her bra so the knot was placed closer to where the nipple would be.
“Best fun bags in the world ain’t never made no pig look good,” Early argued back. He was harsh, but it would take nothing less to make it through to Granny, thick skinned as she was.
“Well, lucky me then,” Granny sassed back, “Guess we’ll just have us a big ol’ pig party!” She wanted to see the look on Early’s face as she gave him sass. Early just glared back as Granny chuckled at her clever comeback.
“You know,” Granny finally said, breaking the silence, “I said ‘pigs’ to refer to-“
“I knowed what you meant by ‘pigs’, bitch!” Early shouted as he as he hurled Granny and her walker back into the shack, “It ain’t funny when you gotta explaininate the damn joke!” Early shouted as he slammed the door shut. He didn’t like being sassed and he often retaliated by asserting his dominance over his elderly mother. Granny could only groan in pain as she peeled herself from the splintery floor. Shortly thereafter, a glint in the distance caught Early’s attention. This particular glint meant only one thing.
“Russel,” Early calmly called to his son, getting his undivided attention. Rusty immediately stopped pressing the bottle caps against his zits and turned to face his father, “go on inside now,” he continued as he adjusted his trucker hat, “The men will be talkin’ soon.” His tone was grim and serious, like he knew what was coming and wanted his son to have no part of it.
“Yessir,” Rusty immediately replied, leaving his new toys outside as he hurried inside to safety.
From the rhythm of the clopping, there was just one of them this time. His heavy boots remained polished despite the amount of dust he was kicking up. The large gleaming golden badge was worn by only one pony in all of Dougal County: Sheriff Sheriff Stone, AKA Sheriff Stone, AKA the Sheriff. He was a no-nonsense kind of law enforcement official. He personally was responsible for half of all arrests made in the county, that half being all of Early Cuyler’s arrests.
“Afternoon, Sheriff,” Early opened as he tipped his hat, “What brings you on to Cuyler land?” he asked with an undertone of intimidation. Stone wasn’t scared one bit, but it was almost a formality between them at this point.
“Well, Mr. Cuyler,” Stone replied professionally as he pulled a note pad from his pocket, “I got a report that a talking squid matching your description stole a customized performance truck and fled the scene.”
“Oh,… Uhhh…” Early spoke after a moment of silence with a guilty look on his face.
“After that,” Stone continued, “this suspect robbed Quills and Sofas at gunpoint, harassed three mares,” the sheriff flipped over to his second page of notes, “tore through town square and left a trail of destruction leading right back here.” There were more details, but Early already had over a dozen charges coming to him.
“Oh, I know what this is,” Early finally said after a long moment of guilty silence, “You must be lookin’ fer that other squid-lookin’ feller what lives ‘round these parts.” Early’s obvious attempt to misdirect the Sherriff did not fool on the seasoned veteran. “It’s a honest mistake, really.” Either Early didn’t know that the lie wasn’t working or he was just desperate to get the law pony to leave. “Boy!” Early shouted to his son inside the house, “Git on out here!” Once again, Rusty answered his father’s summons.
“What is it daddy?” Rusty asked, “Oh, hey sheriff.”
“There’s yer man, sheriff,” Early lied as he presented his son as his scapegoat. Rusty was a little confused as to what was going on. “Why don’chyall git goin’ now,” Early continued, pushing the Sherriff and Rusty back down the road, “Mystery solved. Go on, now. Git the hell off my land.” Stone wasn’t having any of Early’s nonsense. He dug his hooves in the dirt, turned back around and made his stance known to the criminal offender.
“It wasn’t Rusty, Early,” the Sherriff asserted, his tone steadily more aggravated than before.
“Whachyou mean it weren’t him?” Early asked as if he were being accused of lying, “You sayin’ my boy ain’t man enough to do this?”
“Yeah!” Rusty interjected, “I’m man enough to do it!” Rusty said, imitating his father’s confrontational behavior. He was completely oblivious to the situation, but it didn’t matter as long as he was doing something to gain his father’s approval.
“And you can’t prove he didn’t do it neither!” Early aggressively declared as he puffed out his chest and raised two curled up tentacles like fists.
“I have witnesses that place you at the scene,” Stone said, getting the discussion back on track, “Besides, you dropped this when you left Quills and Sofas.” Stone presented Early with one of his trucker hats. This one read ‘I like to be mooned’ with Princess Luna’s butt cheeks as the ‘o’s in ‘moon’.
“Oh, that’s where that went,” Early casually said as he took his hat back.
“And that’s all I need to make an arrest,” Stone remarked with a smirk, “Let’s go, squid.” Stone pulled out a pair of hoofcuffs specially made for Early.
“Oh, I see how it is,” Early said, offended by the sheriff’s accusation, “Just ‘cause I look like him, sound like him, got the same name as him, did all them things like him, you think I done this!”
“I know you did this,” the sheriff sighed wearily, “23 witnesses-“
“That there’s profilization!”Early ranted, pointing at the Sheriff.
“Early-“ The sheriff widened his stance and his horn glowed with magic, ready to deploy a spell, but his attempts to quell Early’s confrontation were in vain.
“We don’t need no court! We gon’ settle this right here!” he shouted as he puffed his chest and curled his tentacles into fists.
“Early, we don’t have to-“ Stone raised his voice, attempting to de-escalate the situation.
“Oh yeah, we do!” Early shouted as he advanced on the officer, “Imma show ya’ why they call me ‘The Law Breaker’! C’mon there law pony!” He would not get more than a few paces forward.
“Daddy,” Rusty interrupted, “what’s he talkin ‘bout-“
“Shut ya’ damn mouth, boy!” Early snapped, “The men are talkin’!”
Without warning, Sherriff Stone sent a shower of magic sparks through the air and struck Early, stopping him in his tracks. He let out a scream of pain as the electrical energy coursed through his body. Rusty jumped back from the sudden burst of activity, unsure of what to do now that Early was no longer trying to start a fight.
Early’s tentacles and eyes convulsed uncontrollably as he released his ink bowels all over the ground beneath him. The spell only lasted three seconds, but that was enough to incapacitate the heavily intoxicated and enraged cephalopod.
His small body hit the ground with a wet splat, his tentacles twitched as the spell wore off. The Sherriff prepared the shackles for Early. One end was for all of his tentacles, the other was latched to Stone’s wrist. He was more than capable of dragging the worn-out squid behind him as he returned to the station for booking.
“Ughhh…” Early groaned as his vision slowly returned, “every… damn… time…” he complained in rhythm with the Sherriff’s walking pace.
“Yup,” the Sherriff candidly replied, “As predictable as Celestia’s sun rising.”
***
Most residents of the county were law abiding citizens. The county jail was specially built for those who weren’t. Many were petty thieves, parole violators, even some tax evaders. Nothing truly violent or vile, just everypony that nopony wants to deal with.
As the on-duty jailer walked down the hall, he looked over the release paperwork, his keys jingled as they hung from his hip. Each inmate knew this sound as a chance that he would be released. Others were too distracted with other tasks to notice the sound of freedom heading their way.
“Come on, Early,” Jack-Knife taunted, “this’ll go the easy way if you just come down.”
“How ‘bout I give to ya the Cuyler way!” Early shouted from the cell’s top bunk, “You ain’t a’getting my ass a third time!” he shouted as he hurled a waterlogged toilet paper roll at his opponent. It hit him square in the face, but that only meant that Early was out of ammunition now. Jack-Knife put on a sinister grin as he approached his next victim.
“No, no, no!” Early protested as Jack-Knife pulled Early down and pinned him to the floor, “I’m sayin’ ‘no’! That’s how this works, ain’t it?!” In reality, prison worked completely differently from the outside. It was difficult, but Jack-Knife was close to getting that squishy squid booty. All movement stopped when the heavy metallic clanging of the door echoed throughout the cell. Against the florescent hallway light stood the silhouette of the jailer on duty.
“Cuyler, Early,” the jailer announced.
“Well, hell yeah!” Early cheered as he kicked Jack-Knife in the crotch, “ ’Bout damn time ya’ let out!” Early said as he confidently marched out of his cell. Jack-Knife curled up in pain, taking a futile swipe at Early in retaliation. He was stopped short of leaving by the jailer’s muscular hoof.
“Says here,” the jailer said, looking over his paperwork, “You’ve got a court appearance in an hour.”
“Say what?!” Early said, taken aback by what he was just told, “You gotta be kiddin’ me! I spent a week in jail with a damn sodomotist, and now I gotta’ go get f****d in court?! You off ya’ damn rocker!”
“Well,” the jailer began as he started to close the cell door, “if you don’t want to go, I can push it back to-“
“No, no!” Early panicked, “Take my ass to court!” Early shouted as he scuttled out of the cramped cell. Jack-Knife lunged at him, and only managed to grab a tentacle as he slammed his face into the iron bars. Still flustered, Early struggled against his attacker’s grip. Jack-Knife was pulling Early closer with each tentacle he was able to grab, the animal lust in his eyes only getting stronger.
Without warning, both inmates convulsed as an electric shock coursed through their bodies. Three seconds of shock and both Jack-Knife and Early lay incapacitated on opposite sides of the cast iron bars.
The jailer’s horn shifted spells from stun-shock to levitation. He shackled Early and carried him down the hall to prepare for his hearing. Early had no idea what all his years of being a criminal nuisance in Dougal County was about to get him…