Bad Games

by Jeff Menapace

  Patrick laughed and took the man’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Edgar. And yes, my son and I aim to do a little fishing today.” He looked down at his son, still wrapped to his father’s thigh like a koala to a tree. “Isn’t that right, brother-man?”

  Caleb looked up and nodded, not ready to commit to a smile just yet.

  “So is it some fishing poles you’ll be needing?” Edgar asked. “My selection isn’t too great I’m afraid, but any one of ’em will get the job done.”

  “No, no,” Patrick said. “We’ve got poles. All we need is some—”

  “Bait!” Edgar said.

  Patrick touched the tip of his nose and smiled. “You got it, Edgar.”

  Edgar turned his back to father and son and shuffled down the length of the wooden counter. Just near the wall’s end a large rectangular cooler hummed and lay length-wise along the floor. It reminded Patrick of something you’d find in an old thrift shop, carrying an array of ice cream bars.

  Grunting, the old man bent over and slid open the rectangle’s glass door. He reached in and pulled out a large Styrofoam container shaped like a cylinder.

  “Don’t know why I don’t store these things in something a bit higher up,” Edgar said as he began making his way back down the length of the counter. “I swear every time I bend over to grab something from it I hear the creaks and cracks getting louder and louder. Soon I reckon I’ll be able to play a darn good symphony just standin’ still.”

  Edgar placed the container down onto the counter in front of Patrick, adjusted his cap, and pushed his glasses high up onto his nose. The screen door screeched and banged as someone else entered the shop. Edgar gave a quick look towards the entrance.

  “Be right with you, sir,” he said. He turned back to Patrick. “How do these work for you?”

  “Are they night crawlers?”

  “Yes, sir. Big suckers too. Fish won’t be able to refuse.”

  Caleb tugged on his father’s pant-leg.

  Patrick looked down. “What’s up, bud?”

  Caleb hesitated.

  “You wanna see them?” he asked.

  Caleb shook his head. His brown eyes looked desperate and he was shuffling his feet as though standing on a hot plate.

  “Ah ha,” Patrick said. He looked up at Edgar. “Edgar, you wouldn’t happen to have a restroom here would you?”

  “Sure do.” Edgar smiled in Caleb’s direction. He turned around and snatched a key off the wall behind him. “Gotta go back out the way you came, then around the shop and to the left, past the porch swing.” He handed the key to Patrick.

  “Thanks. We’ll be right back.” He tapped the top of the bait container and smiled. “Keep ’em on ice for us.”

  “Sure thing,” Edgar smiled. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  The screen door screeched and banged again as father and son left.

  * * *

  “And what can I do for you, kind sir?” Edgar asked his most recent customer.

  The customer was a decent-sized man wearing a blue Penn State cap and a white sweatshirt with jeans. He didn’t answer Edgar, merely reached out and took hold of the bait container on the counter.

  Edgar stuttered. “Is…is it bait you’re after, sir? I can get you some from the cooler if you like, but those belong—”

  The man in the Penn State hat cut Edgar off by turning his back to him. When he turned back around a moment later, the man placed the bait container back on the counter, held his index finger up to pursed lips, and breathed a gentle shush.

  Edgar did nothing in return. He stood rooted, unable to comprehend what was happening. Yet there was one thing he was sure about. Nearly three quarters of his eighty years in sales had given him a keen sense for reading people. And something about this man just plain wasn’t right.

  The screen door called out its familiar screech again as Patrick and Caleb reappeared. Patrick handed the key back to Edgar. The man in the Penn State cap took a few steps back and stood behind Patrick and Caleb.

  “Thanks, Edgar,” Patrick said. “How much do we owe you for the bait?”

  Edgar took the key and looked behind father and son at the man in the Penn State cap. The man smirked at Edgar, put his index finger to his lips again, changed the shape of his hand into a gun, pointed it at Edgar, the back of Patrick’s head, and then the back of Caleb’s head, each point followed by an imaginary click from the hammer that was his thumb.

  Edgar swallowed hard and went pale. His blood ran like ice water and he regretfully acknowledged his previous instincts about the stranger. Should he tell the father and son what was happening? Call the police? No. He was a good Christian. If this man did have a gun he could never live with himself if a father and child lost their lives because of some old fool like him. He wouldn’t say a word. He would let the father and child leave peacefully and pray that the stranger didn’t have plans for him once they’d gone.

  “Edgar?” Patrick followed Edgar’s eyes over his shoulder towards the man in the Penn State cap.

  “How are ya?” the man asked Patrick.

  Patrick nodded. “Good thanks.” He looked up at the man’s hat. “You a Penn State fan?”

  The man nodded once. “Die hard.”

  “Good man,” Patrick said with a quick smile. He thought of Arty for a fleeting moment then quickly shook the thought away. He turned back to Edgar. “So how much, Edgar?”

  Edgar said nothing. He was still a pasty white, his magnified eyes skirting and unsteady.

  “Edgar, you okay?”

  Edgar nodded weakly. “Fine,” he said, still avoiding eye contact with Patrick. “Something I ate earlier, I think.” He risked a quick look behind Patrick again. The strange man was laughing silently at his feeble excuse.

  “Oh, okay,” Patrick said. “Maybe pop an Alka-Seltzer when we leave.”

  Edgar nodded fast. “Yeah, good idea.”

  Another moment of pause.

  Patrick smiled. “So, are you going to tell me how much I owe you, Edgar?”

  “On the house.”

  Patrick frowned. “No, no, come on, Edgar, how much?”

  Edgar risked one last peek over Patrick’s shoulder. The stranger shrugged back at Edgar, black eyes wide with amusement.

  “Threevin,” Edgar said fast.

  “What?”

  Edgar cleared his throat. “Three even.”

  Patrick raised an eyebrow, handed Edgar a five and said, “Keep the change.”

  Edgar grunted a thanks and watched Patrick and Caleb leave through the screen door with their container of bait. He waited until their car pulled away before looking at the man in the Penn State cap. He swallowed and steadied his voice. “I have very little cash in the store, mister. But you’re welcome to all of it. Please…”

  “Please what, Edgar?” the stranger said.

  Edgar’s next words were a frightened whisper. “Please don’t shoot me.”

  The stranger burst out laughing and rapped his knuckles on the counter. “Come on, Edgar, man-up! Has time shriveled away both your balls?”

  The stranger reached over the counter and gently pulled Edgar’s cap of lures off his head. The thin hair beneath was gray and oily. Edgar didn’t dare move.

  The stranger turned and flung Edgar’s hat to the floor. He then took his own hat off and scratched the shaved-bald head underneath.

  “I was only having a bit of fun with you, Edgar. Just playing a little game. You like games, right?”

  Edgar nodded, still rooted to the floor, still afraid to even breathe.

  “How about Penn State? Are you a Penn State fan, Edgar?”

  Edgar swallowed, his Adam’s apple pronounced like a thick knuckle.

  The stranger leaned in and placed his blue Penn State cap over Edgar’s head. He left it there for a short moment, smiled, then yanked it down tight over the old man’s head causing him to pitch forward, his glasses falling with a clatter onto the countertop.

  “You are now, right?”<
br />
  Edgar’s voice was gone.

  “Right?”

  Edgar nodded quickly.

  The stranger picked up Edgar’s glasses and put them on. “Whoa! Coke bottles!

  You’re damn-near blind aren’t you?” He reached behind his back and withdrew a pistol, held it up in front of Edgar.

  Edgar did have poor vision, but his bad eyes knew a gun when they saw one. He thought of his wife, long since gone, and knew he would be seeing her soon.

  The stranger pointed the gun at Edgar and aimed it just over his head, targeting a wooden bass mounted on the wall behind him. “Hold still now, Edgar; I’d hate to miss the little fishy and hit you instead.”

  Edgar managed a plea. “Please…”

  “Shhhhh…I need to concentrate.” He adjusted Edgar’s glasses. “It’s not easy in these ya know.”

  The stranger slowly lowered the gun off the wooden bass, pointed it directly at Edgar’s face, smirked, and pulled the trigger. The gun clicked. The stranger frowned and pulled the trigger again. And then again. More empty clicks.

  “Well I’ll be a son of…I guess I forgot to load the fucker.”

  Edgar found his breath; it whooshed out of every pore in his body.

  The stranger took the glasses off and placed them on the countertop. He touched the point of the gun gently to Edgar’s nose. “I forgot to load it. That means you’re either very lucky or I’m very stupid. Which one you think it is, Edgar?”

  Edgar felt his bladder fail him. He hardly cared. “I’m very lucky,” he said.

  The stranger smiled. “Yeah, I’d say you are as well. After all, you’ve got a brand new Penn State hat now. This weekend is all about being a Penn State fan.” The stranger dug the point of the revolver into Edgar’s nostril. “I’m going to be coming back here in a couple of days, Edgar. I’ll be back and I won’t forget to load it next time. If you’re not wearing your new Penn State hat when I return I’m going to fire a lot of bullets up this wrinkled nose of yours. Sound fair?”

  Edgar nodded, the gun barrel digging deeper into his nostril with each nod.

  “And you won’t do anything silly like calling the police, will you? Because if you did that, well, jeez…I may just have to come back sooner than later.”

  Edgar shook his head.

  “Promise?”

  Edgar nodded.

  The man pulled the gun away and smiled. “Great. This was fun wasn’t it? It’s fun to play games like this don’t you think?”

  Edgar looked down at his soiled trousers. The stranger’s eyes followed Edgar’s and spotted the stain.

  “Whoopsie,” the stranger said. “I guess accidents like that happen when you get on in years, yeah? Something about the prostate not working the way it used to?” He took hold of Edgar’s neck and pulled him close. “I could check it for you if you like.” He brought the gun over the counter and tapped the barrel against Edgar’s rear. “Might be a little cold going in, but I’m sure we could make it work. What do you say?”

  Edgar swallowed dry and his throat seized up on him. He coughed.

  The stranger let go of Edgar’s neck. “I’m just kidding, Edgar. I was having some fun again.” The stranger then gave a deep, wet snort, and hocked a thick wad of yellow on the counter. “You won’t forget your promise now, will you, Edgar?”

  “No, sir.”

  The stranger smiled and dropped his head. He began swirling the wad of phlegm on the countertop with two fingers, seemingly lost in the moment the way an infant might be distracted by a messy toy.

  A brief silence passed. Edgar’s pulse was in his ears. The stranger just kept his head down, still swirling two fingers in the slime, still in a daze. And then he looked up and casually wiped the phlegm on the front of Edgar’s nose.

  “Some people spit in their hands and shake on a promise,” the stranger said. “I didn’t feel like spitting in my hand. That okay?”

  Edgar nodded, the yellow slime hanging from the tip of his nose.

  “Good.” He then gestured to Edgar’s nose, the countertop of phlegm, the dark stain on Edgar’s paints. “You might wanna get all that cleaned up before the next customer comes in, Edgar. It’s gross.”

  The stranger left, and Edgar collapsed to the floor holding his chest. He wiped his nose then touched the brim of the Penn State cap. He would never take it off again.

  15

  Back in the Highlander Caleb said, “That old man was weird.”

  “You thought so, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I thought he seemed friendly at first,” Patrick said. “But then he did get kinda weird, didn’t he?”

  Caleb nodded.

  Patrick glanced over at the bait container on the passenger seat. He grabbed it and raised it into the air so his son could see. “You wanna open it up and take a look?”

  Caleb quickly shook his head.

  “No?” Patrick smiled.

  Caleb shook his head again.

  “No creepy, crawly critters for Caleb?”

  The boy smiled, but the answer was still an emphatic no.

  Patrick smirked and set the container back down. “Okay…but we’re gonna have to look some time, brother-man.”

  16

  Two wooden docks bordered Crescent Lake, each one extending close to twenty feet out over the water—more than enough distance to cast a decent line into the belly of the lake.

  As the family settled in on the dock closest to their cabin, Amy was skeptical but amused by her husband’s child-like determination for the afternoon’s activity. His enthusiasm for family adventures that held low but harmless odds for success was one of his many charms she loved, finding it irresistibly adorable.

  “Wait and see,” Patrick told her, head down, fiddling with the crank on his fishing pole. “Just wait and see, my poor pessimistic wife.”

  Amy snorted. “I will see, my dear, dopey, delusional husband.”

  “Ah—three. Touché. However I got three in the car with Caleb on the way back from the bait shop. All with the letter C. So that’s actually four if you count his name, which of course I used.”

  “Sorry, four-year-olds don’t make credible witnesses for the absurd, asinine, alliteration affairs you make me take part in,” she said.

  He cast her a sideways glance, raised an eyebrow, looked at the sky for a rebuttal. His shoulders eventually slumped. “I’ve got nothing. Kudos, baby.”

  She took a bow and blew him a kiss.

  “Dad?” Caleb said.

  “What’s up, brother?”

  Caleb looked down at the pole in his hands, to the bait container on his left, and then finally up at his father.

  “I’ma comin’, pal.” Patrick started towards Caleb to help him prepare his hook. He looked at Amy first, smirked and said, “Baby, can you hold my rod while I help Caleb?”

  Amy tilted her head to one side, bit down on her lip, gave her husband a look that read: Darling, that double entendre was so blatantly obvious that it would belittle us both if I even attempted to retort with some equally juvenile quip.

  She took his fishing rod from him all the same, but had released the bite on her lip, no longer capable of fighting off a devilish smirk of her own. Patrick’s smirk remained, a naughty pumping of the eyebrows joining it, adding to their foreplay, the notion that such actions were limited to the bedroom a foreign concept to the couple.

  “Carrie, sweetie, do you want to watch Caleb bait a hook?” Patrick asked his daughter, who was in the process of trying to hold Oscar in her arms for more than two seconds at a stretch before he wiggled out.

  “No,” she said bluntly as she scooped the dog up again, managing three seconds this time.

  “Women,” Patrick said, winking at his son. Caleb winked back and smiled. “Alright, brother-man, dig me out a good one so we can bait that hook of yours, okay?”

  Caleb walked over the wooden planks and picked up the Styrofoam container. His tiny fingers worked at the plastic lid, eventually p
eeling it off and dropping it to the ground. He looked at the dirt and the slimy critters therein, then back at his father with an uncertain face.

  “They won’t bite, pal, I promise. They’re just a bit slimy.”

  Caleb looked back down at the container, closed his eyes, and dug his little digits in.

  “That’s my boy,” Patrick beamed.

  Caleb withdrew his fingers from the soil and immediately placed his catch into his father’s hand. He would dig and he would grab, but he wasn’t about to hold just yet.

  Patrick laughed and looked down at the worm Caleb had given him. It was exceptionally thick and coated black with soil. He picked it up with his other hand, dusted off the dirt, and spotted a fingernail.

  “Jesus!” Patrick flung the finger away.

  Both Amy and Carrie turned.

  “What?” Amy asked.

  Patrick pointed at what he had just discarded. It was less than two feet from where Amy stood.

  “Is that?” she asked, inching closer, slowly leaning her torso forward to get a better look. “Is that? It is! It is!”

  “What? What is it?” Carrie asked.

  Amy whirled around and blocked her daughter’s view with her body. “Nothing,” she said, shifting from left to right, stopping her daughter from slipping past. “It’s nothing.”

  Oscar, unfortunately, did not see the discarded finger as nothing. He saw it as an appetizer. With one swift motion he trotted towards it, sniffed once, and then gulped it down.

  “Oscar!” Amy cried. “Oscar, no!”

  The dog turned and looked up at Amy with an innocent expression on his face that in dog language would have surely translated to: It was edible, lady. I’m a dog. What’s the problem?

  “Did he eat it?” Patrick asked.

  Amy nodded appallingly, one hand over her mouth.

  “Eat what?” Carrie asked, now breaking her mother’s defense and approaching the dog. “Tell me.”

  Both Patrick and Amy ignored their daughter. Patrick walked over to his wife and placed his lips to her ear. “Please tell me I’m not crazy,” he whispered. “Please tell me that our son didn’t just scoop a finger out of that bait container. And please tell me that mangy little thing didn’t just gobble it up.”