Here is a short story featuring two of the minor characters from Flamingo Dawn. If Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern robbed a bowling alley…
When Things Were Good
Man it was white outside. It snowed all morning, even down in the city. Electric Bob kept the dial on the all news station. News, weather, traffic, regular as a heart beat. He squirmed on the unfamiliar driver’s seat; the upholstery was thread bare, worn to the color of week old mud.
The van he’d stolen was a panel truck with a kidney shaped swimming pool on the side. A fish was painted over the pool though Bob couldn’t recall a single time when he’d seen a fish in a swimming pool. He thought about it and decided it might be some kind of artistic thing. Donna took yoga and art appreciation. She’d dragged him to a museum to see some paintings. He remembered a painting of some babe with a really nice rack. It was from the Renaissance. Art was pretty cool in a boring sort of way
Bob wasn’t supposed to use the cell phone for personal calls, but he was tempted to call Donna and ask her what she thought about the fish. The scales were kind of shiny. The surface of the pool was rippled. Yeah, it was probably art.
Electric Bob stopped for a light and watched a cop roll through the intersection to hang a left. Bob scratched his cheek with his middle finger extended before he realized the windows were all steamed up and the cop couldn’t see him. Bob rolled the window down but the cop was gone.
A kid in a minivan gave Bob the finger.
Bob scratched his cheek. The kid stuck out his tongue as the light changed, so Bob had no time to retaliate.
Four inches had come down and the wind whipped the powder into swirls. His to do list was taped on the dash; steal a truck, drive to the diner, wait for the call. Bob drove over the Central Bridge, caught a glimpse of the river and shuddered. Ice had scaled the riverbank; he’d fallen in once during the middle of winter. After Bob was rescued, the old man had broken his cheekbone with a ringing right cross.
The diner was dead ahead. Bob pulled into the parking lot and found a space beneath a gnarly old tree. Its branches were bare like something out of a ghost story or a haunted house. He banged the fender on a concrete block hidden by the snow. Bob put the transmission into park and killed the engine.
Webly called on the cell phone and told Bob to hang tight. The job was about to unfold. Bob took his DMV pencil from his shirt pocket and drew lines through ‘drive to the diner’ and ‘wait for the call.’
Donna wanted to drive every time they went anywhere; it was embarrassing because Donna was short and couldn’t see where she was going even when they used the phone book, the fat one, not the skinny one.
Donna was a better driver than he was though. He had other gifts.
Bob could hotwire anything because of his special relationship with electricity. You could pump direct current through Bob’s fingertips and it didn’t bother him. It hurt like hell, yeah, but it wouldn’t kill him the way it might a normal person. Up in Elmira Bob had expired, he remembered that word, like food in the supermarket. He’d been electrocuted, expired, revived, put back in population. All because a grinder he’d been using short-circuited and a million volts of electricity had passed through him. The guards had escorted him to the infirmary. From the gurney Bob noted that he could see through his eyelids and there was a continuous hum in one ear. It was a glimpse into the next world accompanied by the nasal drone of the chaplain. Bob’s lawyer argued that since the State of New York had declared Bob dead, his debt to society had been paid. A judge agreed and Bob was released. It was funny as hell, and some guys tried faking it after Bob’s release. One of them died, so he was done with time served.
A new Bob, Electric Bob, with no sheet and no longer behind bars had emerged. Donna called it metamorphosis; something to do with Greeks and insects and maybe incense, he wasn’t sure. His near death experience left him hearing impaired. He applied for a handicapped-parking sticker. The town rejected his application even though he told them that people climbed into Bob’s car sometimes and said the radio was too loud. During the proceedings someone had knocked over a chair in the back of the room and Bob had jumped. The town council was full of tricks like that.
Bob wasn’t allowed to change the station in Donna’s car or his mother’s. Those were some of the things that pissed him off. A stolen vehicle, like this one, was a gray area.
It was too cold without the heater on. Bob keyed the ignition and adjusted himself in the driver’s seat; there wasn’t a lever to make the seat move, so he lifted his knees, banged one on the steering wheel, cursed and hit his elbow. All he wanted to do was get comfortable, and now pain was shooting from his funny bone to his wrist, his legs cramped and his skull began to vibrate. The vibration was a legitimate part of his disability lawsuit. His lawyer, “The Don,” had an office up in Troy and had filmed Bob during one of his episodes. Some insurance lawyer had laughed his ass off right in The Don’s office. Donna kicked the guy and had to be restrained.
The coolest part was The Don’s answering machine. When you called, the message was, “this is The Don. If you’re a client, press one. If you want to be a client, press two; if you’re a bill collector, don’t press your luck.”
Even Marvin had to admit that was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.
The cell phone rang again. It was the lookout, Webly Dent. Bob was relieved that he hadn’t used the phone for personal use and missed Webly’s call.
Webly recited an address and hung up. It was time to roll.
Bob eased the pool truck out of the space and spun a little on the black ice. He dodged a family near the diner’s entrance. The father glared at Bob as he fishtailed toward the invisible driveway and swung back into traffic.
Webly had sneezed twice during their brief conversation. Bob sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his glove. Marvin had schooled him on forensic science; once the cops found the pool truck, a team of scientists would be called in to search for Bob’s DNA. If they found any, he’d be arrested and airlifted to SUNY at Albany for involuntary tests. After that, the army would take over and make him stand near a nuclear explosion to see what affect it would have. Bob would be especially interesting because of his immunity to electrical current. He’d be sent overseas to interrogate prisoners.
The cell phone rang.
“Where are you?”
“Mom?”
“I need milk. Two percent. I want a loaf of bread, but don’t let them slice it. Hurry up, it’s snowing.”
“Mom?”
Shit. Bob set the phone down on the console. He’d given Donna the confidential cell phone number and she’d coughed it up to his mother. The other possibility was the FBI. They had female agents trained to imitate people; a cellmate had told him about it.
Wait, what had she said?
Shit.
Bob found the address Webly had given him, a bowling alley off the parkway. He followed a county plow that blew three tons of snow all over him and just missed a chained up import. He drove around back to the service area and parked next to a loading dock.
The bowling alley had a lounge and a snack bar. Bob couldn’t bowl because he had exceptional knuckles. They were really large and people stared at them.
Somebody pounded on the rear door of the truck.
Bob climbed out, slipped and straightened up. A man in a dark coat stared at Bob. He was from the city, you could tell by his attitude and the fact he didn’t wear a hat.
The guy who’d banged on the door gestured for Bob to unlock it. It was hard to get the key in, but Bob managed. Vapor poured out of the guy’s mouth and nose and when the door was open he brushed Bob aside and had a gander inside.
“All right,” he said.
The building had a rear entrance and two guys emerged carrying a long box wrapped in a blanket. They shoved the box into the truck and nodded to Bob.
One of those guys was Marvin.
Bob closed the door and locked it. The vapor guy counted out five hundred dollar bills, folded them and shoved them into Bob’s mitten. “Lake Toyuga. You know it?”
“Yeah.”
“Put the package in the lake. Capiche?”
“Two percent milk,” Bob blurted.
“You put the package in the lake.”
“I was making a mental note,” Bob said.
“Don’t make notes. You got a fish on your truck.”
“I know.”
“What’s it mean?”
“It makes you want to swim maybe.”
The vapor guy smiled. “Perfect.”
Bob drove away, watching the men in the truck’s big mirror. Despite the weather they remained by the loading dock. Vapor man was talking to the fellow in the dark coat, gesturing for emphasis. As soon as he was out of sight Bob found a spot and parked the truck.
Bob grabbed the 9mm. semi he’d stashed under the driver’s seat, slapped in a magazine and put the gun in his belt. He climbed out of the truck, locked it and entered the bowling alley’s main entrance.
The place wasn’t very busy; maybe ten lanes were in use. The lounge, which was nothing more than a crummy bar, had one customer. Webly glanced over his shoulder as Bob went by. The bartender was reading a newspaper, his face buried in the sports section.
Bob walked through the bar; Webly palmed him a key. The bartender glanced up and Webly asked for another Genesee. The bartender leaned down to get the beer out of the fridge as Bob unlocked the door marked “private” and got his bearings. A cold draft filled the gray hallway; he followed a worn carpet until he opened a door marked “Deliveries.”
Cases of beer were stacked along one wall. A roll-up door stood open allowing a sharp breeze in. The storage room was about the size of a standard double car garage. The voices of the men in the parking lot drifted toward Bob.
Bob pulled his 9mm. and advanced toward the roll-up door. The guy in the dark coat-the hatless guy-saw Bob and scrunched his face into a scowl. Bob shot the guy in the forehead.
The vapor guy reached for something, cursing the heavy coat he wore, cursing Bob. Bob pumped three rounds center mass into the half-acre parka the clown was struggling to open. The man puffed a breath and keeled over.
“Bob,” a voice said.
Marvin grinned at him. “Come on, the money’s over here.”
Another body lay next to a case of light beer; the guy’s eyes were open. There were flecks of snow on his eyelashes.
“Hustle up,” Marvin said.
It took them five minutes to load the money into a trash bag. When they were finished, Bob slung the bag over his shoulder.
Marvin led them onto the loading dock, down the metal stairs to the parking lot.
Bob unlocked the pool service truck and tossed the bag into the back. Marvin settled into the passenger seat and slammed the door.
“How much?” Bob asked.
“Four hundred grand.”
They drove out of the shopping center. Marvin yanked Bob’s to do list from the dashboard and waved it at him. “This has got DNA all over it, man.”
When they reached the edge of town, Bob swung the truck behind a bar called Leo’s. Donna’s Camaro was right where he’d left it. Marvin handed Bob a bunch of money in a gym bag. “Here’s eighty large. Be careful for a while because the place we hit was connected. It’s not friends of ours or nothing, but take it easy for a month or so.”
“What about the guy in the box?”
Marvin glanced over his shoulder. “We’ll leave him for the cops.”
A dead body in a stolen truck. Bob grinned. “That’ll be funny.”
“No shit. Vibrate your head one time before we split up.”
“What? Right now?”
“Sure.”
Electric Bob focused and conjured up the mysterious flow of juice from deep inside his body. Marvin cackled and set his swastika teeth back into his mouth.
“You did good.”
On the way home it stopped snowing. Bob picked up a quart of milk at a corner store; he had to drive past the bowling alley on the way to the bakery. He had to go to the bakery because his mother wanted unsliced bread even though regular bread was widely available on store shelves, but it was all sliced.
The parking lot outside the bowling alley was awash in flashing red lights. Bob couldn’t see that much because the Camaro had a low roofline and the wind had kicked up, swirling the snow.
Once he’d made all of his purchases, Bob put the to do list in his mouth and began to chew. He washed down the DNA riddled list with some of the two percent milk. It was pasty and weird and his skull vibrated so he drank all of the milk and gagged.
He was almost home when it dawned on him that he’d finished the milk and had to get some more. Then he found out that the store was out of two percent, so he bought one percent. He was gonna catch hell when he got home. One percent wasn’t what his mother wanted and she’d complain until it was gone. At least he had the unsliced bread. And the eighty grand.
All in all, Bob thought, things weren’t so bad. The Camaro idled high as he waited for traffic on the main drag to clear. He gunned the car forward, cutting off some lame Toyota, ignoring the blare of the horn.
He’d gone about fifty feet when it happened.
He saw the pool truck heading eastbound toward the parkway. Bob almost put his sorry ass right through his own windshield. Pale and shaky he sat by the side of the road. Toyota woman shook her fist as she passed.
Bob conjured the image he’d seen; the truck had a kidney shaped pool and a fish with shiny gills.
Bob wondered if maybe he’d been killed back at the bowling alley and just didn’t know it. He’d seen a movie about dead guys who think they’re still alive. But he had the milk and the bread and Marvin had spoken to him.
He was driving Donna’s Camaro.
Bob wasn’t dead. Somebody had stolen the pool service truck from behind Leo’s. They had a corpse in a box under a blanket and the radio was set to the all news all the time station. Maybe the guy even had a list taped to the dashboard leaving scientific evidence all over the place.
Excited now, Electric Bob pulled into traffic and whipped the Camaro around to follow the truck.
He reached for the radio knob to change Donna’s soft rock station. He wasn’t supposed to, but what the hell. A cop car blew past and Bob tried to give the cop the finger. The traffic had stopped in front of him.
He saw it all happening, his damp sneaker lingered too long on the gas.
Bob rear-ended the pool service truck. The door bucked open and the white box flew out and landed on the hood of his car; the crash was pretty loud even though Bob was hearing impaired and got gypped out of a parking sticker.
The dead guy flew out of his box, out of his blanket and kissed the windshield inches from Bob’s face. Hot steam gushed from under the hood of the Camaro.
When his skull finished vibrating, Bob heard the weather report. Milk dripped from the new carton of one percent. There’d be hell to pay.
He crawled across the bucket seats and pushed the passenger door open; the gym bag was zipped under his coat. Bob staggered across the gray white sidewalk, leaned over a railing and fell.
On the hill above the river Bob raced downward on a bellyful of money; he spread his arms as he gained momentum, remembering a sled he’d once owned. The old man had come home drunk and fallen over the sled. He’d woken Bob up with murder in his heart. Bob had knocked his father unconscious with an official NFL helmet lamp; those had been bad days, ambush days, days of sudden pain, broken teeth and screams.
Bob sailed over a picnic table camouflaged with snow. The old man had died in a car wreck, up on the Saw Mill. Marvin had puked at the funeral.
His knee struck a barbecue pit nobody used, altering Bob’s trajectory; as he turned in mid-flight, feeling the bounce of rigid air, he caught the oily scent of the river. The park was like a sheet of wedding cake under a hammerhead sky. With his back to the river, Bob came to earth amid the iced over pebbles and rocks.
There was no pain only a starlight display behind his eyes. The gym bag under his coat exhaled and Bob’s knuckles ached as the afternoon faded to gray.
When it was dark Bob crawled away. Cops shined their flashlights down the hillside.
One of them slipped. There was a curse and the wet sound of falling.
Bob lifted the 9mm. from his belt and threw it into the river. The gun made a plop and was gone in a gulp.
Bob’s hearing had been restored.
He wasn’t surprised; when things were good, power came to you, sought you out. If you cried on your knees when things were taken away, they left anyway. Life had left him once and returned, a little off kilter maybe, what with the vibrating skull, poor driving skills and the hum in his ear.
The hum was gone.
Bob waited under the bridge and listened to the river make its broad dark journey to the sea. Then he buried the money in a snow bank and began to climb back up the hill. Bob waved his arms at the first stupid cop he saw; he slipped and fell, climbed again.
It was Donna’s Camaro or Bob would’ve split. The cops would run the tags and start busting her balls about leaving the scene. That would suck.
A bunch of cops were waiting for him at the top of the hill. One asked to see his license and registration. They didn’t notice that he was giving them the finger behind his back.
Bob reached for his wallet. The dead guy no longer graced the hood of the Camaro.
A cop told him to hurry up.
Electric Bob chose the Vermont license with the photo of a middle-aged black woman. When they saw the license, the townie cops sneered. They forced him down and cuffed him; he lay on the sidewalk and watched milk drip from the Camaro’s open door. He could hear the river underneath the bridge and the distant wail of an ambulance.
The cops read Bob his rights and one of them stomped Bob’s fingers; a flare hissed on the roadway and the snow turned orange.
Bob pressed his chin against the cold concrete and smiled.