Dimebag Bandits

by Craig Furchtenicht

  Todd was uncharacteristically reserved at the beginning of the trip. At first Kori interpreted the quiet demeanor as nothing more than Todd being strung out from the crank. He had seen Little Chris get like that a lot. He quickly realized that Todd was just being himself for once. With no audience to entertain, the constant jokes were replaced with meaningful conversation. Before long they both let their loosened up and enjoyed the ride.

  They passed the time by talking about things that neither of them would possibly be able to discuss with the others. They discovered that they shared similar taste in books and music. Kori never imagined that he would meet another person who held both Chuck Palahniuk and Vonnegut in the same regard. As the miles behind them accumulated, the conversation digressed to the years before Kori moved away.

  “Remember that time on the I-80 Bridge?” Todd asked. He spoke of it as though he were remembering one of the fondest moments of his life.

  Kori laughed and said he did. He remembered it well.

  He was about twelve when it happened. Todd, who was almost a year older but in the same grade in school, would have been thirteen. It was toward the end of the summer before their first year in junior high. The unincorporated berg of Cedar Ridge had little to offer two adolescent boys in the way of entertainment. Every other diversion from the mundane had been exhausted weeks ago. That day they had only their bicycles, an empty ice cream bucket and the entire day to waste.

  For some unexplainable reason Todd picked up a stick and poked it into a pile of dog crap in the grass behind the Woodson's garage. It was something only an immature and extremely bored thirteen year old boy would be compelled to do. He proceeded to chase Kori around the yard, threatening to brand him with his smellier version of the mark of Zorro. Another stick was drawn and another dog pile was disturbed. Fortunately for the both of them a truce was declared before either of them landed a direct hit.

  They spent the better part of the next hour, also for reasons unbeknownst to them, filling the bucket from the unlimited supply of dog waste in the neighborhood. Then with half a bucket of dog shit and the rest of the afternoon to kill, the two boys peddled their bikes toward the interstate.

  It was a good three mile ride to I-80. They regularly made the trip, sans bucket-o-poop, whenever they had a few dollars to spare and a lapse in parental supervision. The latter came more frequently than the former in those days. The KOA motor camp behind the truck stop was just the thing to feed a bored young soul. A few dollars lasted quite a while in the beat up arcade games that lined the back wall of the camp office.

  They never made it to the game room that day. It was a blistering afternoon and even young men have their limitations. As they reached the bridge Todd pulled over and carefully leaned his bike on the guardrail, minding not to spill the rancid cargo that they reluctantly took turns balancing on their handlebars for nearly three miles.

  “I can't do it anymore,” Todd declared, breathing heavily. He licked the beads of sweat from his upper lip and leaned over the rail. “Too hot for me.”

  Kori joined him and watched the semis and cars as they appeared from under the bridge. Looking straight down, the vehicles seemed to come out of nowhere. One after the other they came from beneath the bridge, sometimes in bursts of three or four, sometimes nonstop for minutes. The smell of diesel exhaust and road dirt blew up in their faces. The soles of their shoes vibrated as the massive big rigs rumbled through.

  “We're almost there,” Kori declared, nodding to the other end of the bridge. The truck stop sat just a few hundred feet beyond the off ramp. “Let's at least get a pop or something for the ride back.”

  “Nah. Let's just rest here for a while,” Todd replied. “I ain't got any money anyways.”

  “You made me come all the way up here for nothing?” Kori was in disbelief. “Goddammit, Todd! Why didn't you say something? I only brought like three bucks. I could have gone home to get a couple more for you.” He picked up his bike and started across the bridge.

  “Where you going?”

  “I'm gonna go get a damn pop. I'm thirsty as hell and I'm not riding home without getting something to drink first.” Kori rode toward the truck stop, peddling halfheartedly.

  “Hold on a second and I'll go with you.”

  Kori looked back and saw that Todd had his pants halfway down and his back arched. He stopped the bike and stared. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “I'm taking a piss. What's it look like?” Todd stood with his back to him, alternating the stream of pee between the vehicles below and the bucket. Flies that had found their way to the growing stench buzzed away from the bucket momentarily with each spray. When the stream was redirected the flies reclaimed a stronghold on their new bounty. “Hold on. I'm almost done.”

  “How does so much juice come out of such a tiny pickle?”

  “Ha ha. You're a funny one, Woodson,” He zipped up and flipped Kori the bird. “Now what were you saying about buying me a pop?”

  Kori giggled at his own joke. It wasn't really his joke, though. He had overheard it from one of the high school guys, razzing his buddy in the bathroom at the Pizza Hut in Cameron. He'd been waiting a month for the right opportunity to repeat it. “Why should I buy you anything, Hillyer?”

  Todd ran to the opposite side of the bridge and looked out. There was a rare lull in the oncoming traffic. Only a lone car could be seen in the distance. A slow one from the looks of it, chugging along as if it were the only one on the road. In a sense it was. He watched intently as the car approached and then walked back to the other side. He picked up the bucket and grinned. “Because I'm gonna blow your mind.”

  “What the hell are you doing?” Kori screamed as Todd dangled the bucket over the rail and took aim.

  Todd dismissed him with a wave and shushed him. The car vanished beneath the overpass. The hum of the slow moving car tires altered as the sound echoed off the supports below. A hollow whooshing as it glided through and then the screeching of tires as the brakes locked up.

  “Holy shit! I nailed it!” Todd yelled. He mounted his bike and started peddling. “Kori, come on!”

  Kori stood frozen in horror as the vehicle came to a stop. The occupant of the car slowly climbed out and he thought to himself, we are so dead. Todd peddled back to him and tried to get him moving by pulling on his shirt. Kori let himself be turned in the direction of home but never took his eyes from the car or the giant that stepped out of it.

  “Man! That's gotta be the fattest guy I've ever seen.” Todd's voice must have carried because the fat giant looked in their direction. He pointed at them and screamed something that they could not quite make out. A fist as big as a catcher's mitt pumped in the air. “Man, we are so dead.”

  “What do you mean, we? You did it!”

  Before Todd could respond, the man walked half the distance between his car and the overpass. By the time he reached a stopping point his face was flushed and his breath came out in a raspy wheeze that the boys could almost hear. The man eventually regained enough of his composure to walk until he was directly below them. He threw his hands up in the air and looked up at them. He yelled, “What the fuck was that?”

  “Uh... sorry about that, mister. Was an accident.” Todd yelled back.

  “Accident, my ass. I'm gonna accidentally clean that windshield with your dead fucking bodies.” Even though it was close to a hundred degrees that day, the fat man was wearing a long sleeved flannel shirt. He rolled up his sleeves and walked to the base of the grassy embankment. To their horror, he began to climb up.

  Todd leaned over and whispered in Kori's ear, “Wait until he gets about halfway up, then we bolt. His fat ass will be so winded, he'll never catch us. By the time he makes it back to his car, we'll be gone.”

  Kori looked at his friend, wondering exactly when he had suddenly become retarded. “Are you serious? It's three miles to home. Even if he drives to the Cameron exit and back we're dead. He'll catch up to us before we make it halfway
.”

  “You gotta better plan?” Todd inched his bike to the end of the bridge so that he was looking directly down at the struggling man. He shook his head and smiled. “Maybe we don't need a plan. This guy's gonna have a heart attack before he gets to the top.”

  Kori sidled up between Todd and the guardrail. He peered over the edge and saw the fat giant had made no progress in his attempt to climb the embankment. He was on all fours, wheezing as he grasped at tufts of foxtail and vetch for support. He would make it five feet up before his feet would slip on the weeds that he had torn from the hillside. Then he would slide, belly down, back to where he started. Occasionally he looked up at them and cursed, muttering threats to body parts they did not even know they had. The threats possessed less and less conviction with each failed attempt to ascend the hill.

  “Come on, fat ass! We ain't got all day. My mom says I have to be home before supper,” Todd yelled over the edge. He kicked at the shoulder with his toe, sending a scoop of gravel raining down on the guy's head.

  “Dude, are you crazy?”

  The man gave up on the climb and waddled back to his car. The spot where he had made his attempt looked as though a weed eater had been through it. Kori started to pedal away. When he realized that Todd was not behind him he stopped and circled back.

  “Todd. Come on, man. Let's get out of here,” he said, almost begging.

  Todd ignored him as the fat man squeezed back into his car. He slammed the door shut and started the motor. By this time the shit water that covered the entire front of the vehicle had started to dry. He turned on his wipers which only succeeded in smearing the mess into an even layer across the glass. He climbed back out of the car and grumbled as he unrolled the right sleeve of his shirt.

  “Oh, man. What's he doing?” Kori whispered. It had not occurred to them that the man had no idea what the brown sludge was that covered his windshield. They watched in amazement as the guy reached over the hood to wipe the glass with his sleeve.

  “Time to fly,” Todd yelled, laughing wildly. Kori furiously pumped at his bike pedals, trying desperately to keep in pace with his friend.

  As they peddled away they could hear the fat giant screaming at the top of his lungs. His voice was hoarse and full of disgusted anger. “Shit! Fucking dog shit!”

  They laughed about the memory for miles until both of their faces were streaming with tears. It did Kori's heart good to reminisce of some of the better times of his childhood for a change. They exchanged a few other less remarkable stories of their misspent youth before the conversation took a more serious turn.

  “Does it scare you? What you guys do, I mean,” Kori asked.

  “Hell yes it scares me. It scares the shit of me all the time,” Todd replied without hesitation. “Do you think I enjoy risking getting my head shot off every other day? I mean my head's not the prettiest thing to look at but I've kinda grown attached to it, you know.”

  Kori ignored the weak attempt at humor and stared at a van loaded with school children in the other lane. For a moment he was lost in a fog of mild jealousy that adults reserve exclusively for the young and innocent. He wondered where the van was headed on such a beautiful afternoon. Probably returning from a class field trip to a farm or maybe the zoo. Some of the children waved as they passed them by.

  “Then why do it?” he finally asked.

  “You do know that we get paid, right?” Todd looked at him as if he were and idiot. “I mean, why are we doing what we are doing today? Driving across half the state with a trunk full of drugs, just asking to get shot or thrown in jail. Come on man, you already know the answer to that. We're all just slaves to the mighty dollar.”

  “But how much is enough? When does it end before somebody finally gets killed?”

  “Oh, I've got an endgame,” Todd said, waving back at the school children. “So does your brother. He's got his farm to pay off, and then he'll walk. You've got your schooling, so you can be a dog doctor or whatever. We all have something to live for after we get out. Just gotta risk dying for it first.”

  “What do you have that's worth dying for?” He immediately realized how callous that may have sounded. “I mean what's your endgame?”

  “Oh I've got myself set up just fine. Don't you worry about me,” Todd replied, smiling. “I'll tell you about it sometime. Just not today.”

  “What about Chris and Soup?”

  The smile faded from Todd's lips as he settled in behind a semi pulling a trailer full of new cars. He shook his head and looked over at Kori. “Those two got nothing. I'm gonna tell you something right now, just between the two of us. Watch yourself around those two. They would stab their own mothers in the back without a second thought if there was something in it for them. When that endgame does come they are gonna fight it hard. They piss away every dime they earn on dope and god knows what else. Without me and Brenden they got jackshit and they know it.”

  “Then why mess with them?”

  Todd shrugged and signaled to pull around the semi. “Can't run a crew with only two guys. Four was hard enough. Besides Virgil pretty well pushed the idea of pulling them in. I think they have some weird side thing going on with the Perv.”

  “Side thing?” Kori raised his eyebrows.

  “Virgil's got some underground porn thing going on in his basement or something. Twisted shit from what I hear. I don't know much about it, don't really want to. I think those two dipshits have their hands dirty in it somehow.” Todd drove a minute, debating how much to tell. “You know they had some sort of sex charges filed against them about ten years ago?”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, they supposedly went down to Amish country and tricked some girl into leaning into their car to give them directions. Those Amish kids are so sheltered that even Soup's pile of junk must of seemed like something special. Word has it that they rolled her head up in the window and took turns tagging her from behind. Her brother heard her screaming and showed up in his horse and buggy. They beat him half to death. Hurt him pretty bad, I guess. Now he does his chores from a wheelchair with wooden tires.”

  “No shit?” Kori asked. The fast food that they had stopped for before hitting the road suddenly did a double somersault in his stomach.

  “The only reason the charges didn't stick was because none of the Amish would come forward to testify. They are a sick pair, man. Don't turn your back on 'em,” Todd said. “Or stick your head in the car to give 'em directions, either.”

  Again Kori let the humor slide as he tried to digest the story he had just heard. He leaned back in his seat and stared through the window at the cars as Todd passed them by. He decided it was best not to ask any more questions for a while. He was truly afraid of what the answers might be.

  As they approached the Martin Luther King expressway Kori began to see Des Moines in a different light. It was no longer the shining sanctuary from the dull existence of living in rural Iowa that it had once been to him. He could not put it into any clearer perspective than that. He had been gone less than a week, but the city seemed dirtier than he remembered.

  The meetings with former buyers went as well or better than expected. By the end of the afternoon Kori was thousands of dollars richer, even after Virgil's half was figured in. The only errand left to tackle was to swing by the house and collect some of his belongings. His mother had packed only the bare essentials and he was in desperate need of some personal items.

  They drove to the suburbs, leaving the grittier side of the city behind them. Todd drove slowly through the gated community and stared in wonder. Kori realized as he watched him that Todd had probably never been anywhere bigger than Iowa City in his life. He did not know whether to feel bad for him or envy him.

  “This is where you lived?” Todd asked.

  “Live,” Kori corrected him. “This is where I live.”

  “How the fuck do you find your house here? They all look the same.” Kori detected a hint of disdain in Todd's voice and found him
self resenting it. Who the hell was he to look down on him for not living in some shit hole like the Ridge? As soon as he made the comparison a tinge of guilt crept in, leaving him feeling ugly and conceited.

  “Right here. 604. That's me,” Kori pointed to a large two story house on the left. For the first time he noticed that it did in fact look almost the same as 602 and 606. The only differences were the color of the blinds in the windows and the cars in the drive. That was when he saw the strange vehicles parked in front of the garage. “What the hell?”

  “What is it?” Todd asked, slowing down.

  “I don't know. Wait here.”

  He got out and approached the house quickly, anxious to get his things and get out before the god squad caught on. He could see that lights were on in the downstairs, but that did not concern him. It was probably just Maria, doing her Thursday cleaning. She probably didn't even realize the house was unoccupied. There was rarely ever anyone around when she cleaned on a normal day.

  He punched in the code on the panel mounted beside the garage door. Nothing happened. He tried again two more times with the same result. Battery must be dead; he thought for a moment and then walked around to the back of the house. There was a key hidden under a flower pot on the patio. He shook his head, scolding himself for not thinking of it in the first place. Suddenly, the sliding glass door opened.

  “Can I help you?” A middle aged man wearing a track suit stuck his head outside. The outfit was freshly pressed and matched the color of the sweatband that he wore on his head. Ear buds dangled from his neck playing what sounded to Kori like Wagner. He stepped out and flashed a smile that was as ridiculously flawless as his attire. He looked vaguely familiar.