Gathering of Imbeciles: Book One

by Paul Kmiotek

  ***

  In response to Donald’s gesture of good will, the driver behind them merely redoubled his efforts to get their attention.

  “Who is this fucking guy?” Gun inquired of Donald.

  “I dunno. Looks like a limo or something. Gimme something to throw at him.”

  “Don’t be an asshole. Just slow down and let him pass.”

  This discourse continued, more or less along the same scintillating lines, for another five minutes before Guenther convinced Donald to let the limo by. But instead of passing, the driver pulled up alongside of the van. He was nearly lying across the passenger side of the vehicle, still attempting to maneuver through the midday traffic, and yelling and gesturing for Donald to pull over.

  “This guy’s starting to get on my nerves.”

  “What’s he want?”

  “I dunno.”

  “Well, why don’t we find out?”

  Donald leaned back out the driver’s side window, noticed that the limo was actually a hearse, and called out to the driver.

  “What the hell do you want?”

  “Pull over!”

  “Fuck you!”

  Donald looked up just in time to see that traffic had come to dead stop ahead; he nearly put Gun through the windshield when he stamped on the brakes, bringing the van to a smoking, screeching halt. The crate came crashing into the divider between the cab and cargo areas and Donald thought he heard some of the boards crack. Great! He thought to himself. How am I gonna explain an alligator running around loose in the back of the truck. This fucking guy’s toast.

  The other driver hopped lightly from the hearse and ran over to the van. Donald also jumped from his vehicle and was winding up to hit the guy when Gun stepped between them, facing the driver.

  “What’s going on?”

  “You have my box!”

  “What!!!?”

  “At the airport! They gave you the wrong box!” The driver waved a receipt in the air.

  “So . . .Waitaminnit . . . What’re you saying?” Donald was starting to look a bit queasy.

  “You got my box. I got yours.”

  “Are you sure?” Gun took the piece of paper and examined it while the driver continued.

  “Let’s put it this way. I thought I heard something moving in my box. And there shouldn’t be.” Donald was starting to look worse.

  “So whadaya wanna do?” Handing the receipt back to the driver.

  “Pull over up ahead and we’ll switch.”

  “I don’t think so.” Gun was shaking his head.

  “Why not?”

  “I’m not touching that thing.” While Gun and the driver continued, Donald went over to the curb and sat down with his head between his knees. He’d been driving down the highway with a stiff sliding around in the back of the van. The crate didn’t look that sturdy. What if it had broken completely open? He started to moan quietly and buried his head deeper into his crotch.

  “So what’re you gonna do, keep it?” The driver was saying.

  “Uh . . . alright . . . let’s go.”

  IV

  “Hey Pukey, wanna give us a hand?” Gun referring to the fact that Donald’s coffee and bagel breakfast was now laid out before him like a cheap Jackson Pollock knock-off. “This thing ain’t getting any lighter.” He and the driver were approaching the zoo van carrying the hearse’s most recent occupant between them.

  Donald’s reply consisted of nothing more than a low raspy moan as he abandoned the relative comfort of the highway curb to get the van door for the two men and their scaly cargo. If Donald thought the curb was cushy, then he must have deemed the pavement absolutely luxurious, for that was where he ended up, dead to the world, in response to the gaping mouthed, angry hiss of a greeting he received from the occupant of the van, upon opening the door.

  The driver’s response was to drop his end of the box, breaking it open, and spilling its nappily dressed contents - a waxy faced, elderly gentleman with unnaturally smooth skin and hair as white as his pallor - all over the breakdown lane of the Van Wyck Expressway. The alligator, who, as it happens, was riding in the correct vehicle all along, lumbered through the gaping doors and belly-flopped onto the tarmac. The scaly black reptile plucked the well-preserved occupant of the other box from the ground, and headed south, back toward the airport, apparently intent on returning home, but, with memories of the sub-par airline food fresh in its tiny reptilian brain, decided to pick something up along the way.

  The sight of the eight-foot-long prehistoric monster, dragging, what looked like a tuxedo-clad crash-test-dummy down the side of the highway caused even the most jaded of New York drivers - namely the cabbies - to stamp on their brakes and cause, what Gun later estimated to be, a twenty to thirty car pile-up. Donald, of course, was still contemplating how many sheep were going to make it over the fence, when his slumber was rudely interrupted by a sharp pain in his side.

  “Dude, get up!” Gun was kicking the zoo-keeper in the ribs. “We’ve got a situation here!”

  “Cut it out, asshole!” Donald grabbed his side and sat up.

  “Where’s the net?”

  “What net?”

  “Don’t you animal freaks always carry a net?”

  “I’m picking a crate up from the airport. What the fuck do I need a net for?”

  “Well you need one now, don’t you, dickhead. The alligator’s running away.”

  Donald was standing now, a pile of devastated cars and their irate occupants to his right, and watching the toothy reptile, not so much run as skulk, down the breakdown lane, its next meal still dangling limply from its maw.

  “Okay, nature boy, whatta we do now?”

  “How the fuck am I supposed to know? The zoo manual doesn’t exactly cover situations like this.”

  “Hey! I got a body to deliver. Uneaten! You assholes gonna get it back, or what?” The third country finally heard from.

  “Listen dingus, I’ve heard about all I wanna hear from you! This is all your fault!”

  “Hey, I didn’t let Godzilla loose in Queens, you incompetent bastards did!” Things were starting to heat up again between the driver and the keeper.

  “Shut-up, the both of you!” Gun was trying to think over the din. “I got an idea.” And not a moment too soon. The overgrown reptile was already a good fifty yards away, and at this lumbering pace, would surely reach the airport by week’s end.

  V

  Gun, broomstick in hand, gingerly poked the alligator’s thick, armored tail.

  “He didn’t even feel that!” Donald yelled from the relative security of the rear of the van, where he was using the cover of the mortuary crate to construct a makeshift ramp from the pavement to the cargo area of the vehicle. “You gotta really whack him! Make him mad!”

  ‘The Plan – Version 1.0’, which had been roundly rejected by both Donald and the driver, had Gun setting up the ramp, the driver poking the animal, and Donald, when the ‘gator was distracted by said poking, grabbing the dead body and using it to lure the cold-blooded creature back into the van. This was completely unacceptable to Donald, due to his considerable aversion to dead bodies, and so he suggested ‘The Plan – Version 2.0’. The keeper’s version had his and Gun’s roles reversed. The driver, though, still not entirely satisfied with his responsibility as monster poker, presented ‘The Plan – Version 3.0’, where he set up the ramp and the two zoo creeps dealt with their razor-toothed charge.

  Finally, through a series of compromises and dire threats, and in part due to a sense of urgency, as the animal was now at least 100 yards away, and showed no signs of stopping, ‘The Plan – Version 4.0’ was agreed upon. Gun would distract the reptile, using a broomstick found on the side of the road, the driver, a recognized expert in the transportation of dead bodies, would deal with the bait (but only from a safe distance), and Donald would set up the ramp.

  This time Donald heard the snap as Gun smacked
the creature on the back, just behind its rear legs. “That’s it! Hit him again!” Gun was beginning to resent the keeper’s suggestions from the proverbial back seat, but another blow proved to be unnecessary, as the beast dropped its meal and, with an angry hiss, turned on the maintainer. “OH SHIT!” Guenther backpedaled clumsily until his panicked retreat was suddenly impeded by one of the dozens of wrecked cars behind him, its occupant wide-eyed and mouth agape.

  “GRAB IT! QUICK! GET THE OLD GUY, MOTHERFUCKER!”

  The animal, sensing a thief making away with its meal, swung away from Gun - and the fresh, acrid smell of urine - and started to follow the corpse, it’s stiff, shoeless heels scraping the pavement, back toward the van. Donald leapt to the roof of the van and, as the driver backed up the ramp, followed closely by the hungry beast, prepared to slam the doors behind them. The driver hopped from the side door, corpse still in tow, and stumbled slightly but used the stiff body to steady himself. Gun, arrived at the side of the van and slid the door closed, trapping the rough-skinned passenger inside.

  VI

  The three men were sitting on the guardrail, between their two vehicles; sharing a cigarette and listening to the prehistoric beast thrash around in the olive-green zoo van.

  “Sounds pretty pissed.” Donald offered.

  “You’d be too if somebody just stole your lunch and locked you in the back of a van. So how’s the old man?”

  “Few holes in the chest and a little scraped up. A new suit’ll cover it right up. Nobody’ll notice a thing.”

  “Cool. So we done here?”

  “Unless you Marys wanna exchange phone numbers, let’s get the fuck outta here.” Donald was a little cranky, having missed his post-morning nap. When Donald and Guenther finally arrived back at the zoo forty-five minutes later, Ron was waiting for them.

  “What the hell took you guys so long?”

  “We hit traffic on the Van Wyck. Both ways.”

  “What the hell’s wrong with him?” Ron nodded toward Donald, who looked slightly worse than usual.

  “He’s just hungry. We didn’t have time to stop.”

  “Go eat. I’ll call somebody to come take care of the ‘gator.”

  “You might wanna tell them to open the doors slowly.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind. See you later.”

  Donald, moaning almost inaudibly, stumbled toward the administration building, scratched the red, rashy spot on his ass that he’d gotten from “the patch,” and reached for his Slims.