The son of a bitch caught me. This is not at all in the script. Stupid big dumb bastard.
I squirm to free myself, but Hardy’s too strong. Barney asks, “You OK, kid?” but Hardy doesn’t answer. One hand gripping a leg and one on my throat, Hardy hoists me over his head. He squeezes my windpipe.
“Look out, Cooper!” a female voice from the audience yells. Not Brook. Not Alix.
“No more kidding around,” Barney says to Hardy. “Put him down!”
“Sssubmit!” Snake commands.
“Nilla sha ulla kuku!” Hardy shouts beneath me, and with a heave I’m weightless, tumbling backward through the air. I sail over the top rope and slam into Snake and we both crash off the apron, down onto the operations table of Big John Franko. The table snaps in two and the black boxes of equipment collapse on top of us. A circuit board gets dumped on my lap and wires spill out. There are sparks and smoke and suddenly the strobe lights come on again. It’s like a disco in here, but the red heat lamp light stays on. Disco Inferno. Big John and the techie are up and staring down at us. Snake is beneath me. His thin arms are still and there’s something dark all over his forehead that I’m taking for blood. The fans applaud, most rising to their feet.
“Get up, Cooper!” the female voice yells. I kick free of the equipment and get to my feet, face the crowd and stare into the disco strobes. There. A dozen rows back. Red hair and waving. It’s Rhonda, my beautiful wounded psychic dancer, come to see me crowned champion.
Snake moans behind me, so I reach in and pull him free of the wreck, but we hit something that again starts up “The Star-Spangled Banner.” For the second time in ten minutes, Kate Smith asks, “Oh say can you see?” and the audience explodes with more applause. My mind flashes to Quinn, who’s right now no doubt lying through his teeth to the investors, pretending this is all part of his master plan. Here and there I hear Quinn’s plants still stupidly yelling “Fix! Fix! Fix!”
I step around to the edge of the ring, peek into the strobing red light just in time to see Hardy backhand Barney, knocking him unconscious to the canvas in front of Lucifer, whose tongue flicks the red air. Hardy looms over both of them like Frankenstein’s monster. In a photo shot of strobe, I see Hardy’s stoned expression. He’s gone.
The fans chant “Apple-seed! Apple-seed!”
Kate sings, at the twi-light’s last glea-ming!
I look behind me, thinking of Rhonda, vaguely recalling her prophecy. I scoot under the bottom rope, back into the ring, and my hands ache for the sure grip of the tire iron.
I circle around Hardy, who doesn’t much seem to notice me. He’s watching Lucifer wrap herself around Barney’s chest. I’m six feet from the Dream when I shout, “Hardy! Everything’s OK. Why don’t we sit down for a minute?”
He stares straight through me, then looks back at Lucifer and points. “Nalla sha ulla?”
I had to try.
And the rock-et’s red glare …
Behind Hardy, I reach over his turnbuckle for the SWC Supreme Victory Belt. I’m afraid for a second that I won’t be able to lift it, like all those sad knights trying to free the sword in the stone. But it rises easily in my hand and I know it’s mine. I hold it and feel its weight, a good twenty pounds of solid metal. It’ll do.
Kate works toward the finale like only she can. Oh say does that star-spangled ba-a-nner yet wa-ave? and I cock the belt back like a Louisville slugger and through the red strobes I fix my eyes on the base of Hardy’s skull.
For the la-a-nd of the freeee, and the hooome
I go.
of the—
I brain Hardy. A home run shot to center. Nobody hears the last word.
Appleseed drops like an oak, falling onto Barney and Lucifer.
Now the wrestlers—NinJa Z, Mad Maestro, the Spirit Warrior, even Cro-Magnum Man, stream down the aisle. They’ve raced up from the locker rooms to save the day. But everything’s under control now. The day has been saved. By me. I’m the hero. And Rhonda witnessed my victory. A whole new life is—
“Ouchie!” Hardy shouts from below. He springs up in front of me and yanks the Victory Belt from my hands. In one strobe flash I see him lift it and in the next black blink something collides with the side of my face and I’m down hard, my head dizzy and light. The edges of my vision go dark and the canvas rolls beneath me. A few feet away, Hardy kneels beside Barney, like he’s going to pray again. Lucifer’s white coils now swallow Barney’s chest, her head resting on the mat. The red strobes make it like watching a cartoon with missing frames. One frame Hardy holds the belt over his head with two hands. In the next it’s sunk in Lucifer’s skull. Something wet hits my face. My fingers have gone numb. Hardy pumps the belt now, smashing the snake’s skull into mush frame by frame. And all the while he’s explaining, “Nabble. Nabble. Nabble.”
“Lucy!” comes from the side. Snake’s head pokes over the apron. His goatee soaked in blood. White face paint smeared with black lipstick. “You son of a bitch!” he shouts at Hardy, then rolls up into the ring. His voice is no longer transmitting to the arena speakers—his mike must be busted. I’m the only one who hears Snake now.
The pool of Lucifer’s blood puddles on my hands and is sticky. The wrestlers have reached ringside, but none of them know what to do.
Standing over his decapitated pet, Snake shouts down at Hardy, “You’ll pay for this. You hear me, you miserable fuck?” I’m finding it hard to stay awake. Hardy may have given me a concussion.
Snake’s eyes shift up to behind Hardy. He shouts, “And who the fuck are you?” Then there’s one loud pop and a red splash explodes from Snake’s leg.
An adrenaline burst sends me sprawling for the nearest cover, which happens to be Barney the ref. Groggy, I crouch behind his limp body, wrapped in dead Lucifer. A few feet away Snake lies slumped in the corner, shiny blood oozing from his thigh. Screaming fans stampede for the exits in the strobing light, sweeping the wrestlers away. Hardy hasn’t moved and is still kneeling just on the other side of Barney. But he’s in the open. In a red snap of light I see past Hardy, to the far apron, where a dark figure holds a gun. “Snake Handler,” he says. “You have failed our unholy master.” The youthful voice doesn’t go with the large body, and the next strobe shows his face to be bright and boyish. Our attacker is a man-child. The teen is dressed in a preacher suit, tie and all, very proper, but he’s sporting long rebel hair that looks gray in the red strobes. “Lucifer demands retribution for this desecration of his earthly host.” The gun flashes again and Snake’s body jerks with the impact.
I see the new wound on Snake’s chest, but then the thumping in my head diminishes, and time itself slows, almost stops, and I understand. I feel remarkably alert, enlightened. I was a fool for thinking that things could change. That I could be part of a plan that worked. This will be much better. This feels so much more right. Even better than SWC Champion. The absolute best kind of hero. Blaze of glory. Alix weeping at my grave. Brook crying at school as she reads her essay about her daddy. Rhonda remembering my last brave act as I defied destiny. My notion sweeps away the last of the grogginess, and I stand up and step over Barney, passing Hardy, heading right for the kid.
“Infidel!” he shouts and fires—sledgehammer shot shocks my shoulder and spins my feet into the air. Above me the red hot sun. A pile of coals burns my arm. My heartbeat pounds behind my eyes. The man-child assassin leans over the ropes and his long gray hair drapes his face. Looking down at me, he aims the gun so I’m staring into the barrel. Behind it, his eyes are vacant.
“Nabble! Nabble!” comes from my other side. Dear sweet Hardy stands in the pulsing red light, one hand up like a crossing guard stopping traffic. In the other he holds out the bloodied Victory Belt like some kind of badge.
The kid shifts his aim to Hardy. “Fools!” he shouts. “How can you defeat that which you don’t understand?” But Hardy’s simply not in right now. He takes a slow, deliberate step and the kid pulls the trigger. I wince at the report bu
t nothing happens to Hardy. He’s not hit. Behind him Barney’s body spasms. Hardy takes another slow step and the man-child fires again. A spark flashes off the Victory Belt, spinning it from Hardy’s hands, but he keeps coming. “In the name of Lucifer!” the kid shouts and fires again as Hardy steps over my body. Still nothing. Now Hardy stands at point-blank range. I close my eyes, plant my face into the canvas. Another shot cracks loud and sharp. But when I look up, Hardy’s still standing there. He grabs the kid by the jacket collar and yanks him clean over the top rope, then starts shaking him like a rag doll. “Nabble,” he explains. “Nabble, nabble.”
The gun drops free and I reach for it. My hand likes the weight.
Hardy hoists the kid up over his head and slams him down onto the mat. The heaviness has returned to my head, and my vision is now nothing more than a long tunnel with a tiny bit of light at the end. So it takes everything I’ve got, but I drag myself on top of the man-child. I push the muzzle up under his smooth chin, cock the hammer. He is defenseless. Our eyes come together and he says, “This is but a mortal vessel. Destroying it will not stop me.”
I say, “Like I give a shit,” and pull the trigger. The hammer clicks. Cock pull click. Cock pull click. Cock pull click. The gun is empty. Typical. How else could my story go?
With that the real lights come up. On cue. Bright white everywhere that hurts my eyes. Beneath me the boy—whose hair really is gray—begins laughing. I wish for the energy to beat him with the gun, but even my head feels too heavy to lift. Down the long tunnel of my vision, I see Marna just outside the ring. She smiles at me, waves with a perfectly healthy hand. Behind her, a few fans peek out over the chairs they were using for cover. Dr. Winston, returned by benevolent aliens, sits grinning with Rhonda. And behind them, Alix and Brook. Even Dr. Collins has come. All my great friends and loved ones assembled. Their smiling faces blur and the arena spins into blackness and from above me I hear Hardy say quite clearly, “Mr. Cooper, sir? It looks like somebody shot you.”
-----
The Power of Subliminal Suggestion. Presuming the Unknown
Hostile. Altering the Power Dynamic. Looking at Amnesia the
Wrong Way. Plus, Our Hero Faces the Scrutiny of Squirrels.
I wake alone into darkness, on my back in either a small cave or a big coffin. My head’s under heavy gravity, twice its size and full of crushed rocks. During the course of what could be a minute or an hour, my vision focuses on something above me; over my body hang two red stars, tiny bright blurs that shimmer with heat. I blink and squint hard, sharpen the hazy blurs into what they really are: eyes. Red eyes watching me in silence. They shine with an anger I know. Just beneath them, what could be a metallic kind of gray smile. Waking up was clearly a bad idea, but I can’t go back to sleep now.
A yellowish burning glows behind me, barely enough to register as light. It’s so faint I can’t make out the face or the body that the red eyes belong to. They stare through me, gaze as hard as Uncle Sam in that I WANT YOU! poster I fell for in the Army recruiting office. And the impression I’m getting is that the message of these eyes is pretty much the same. Seems I’m always wanted, just never in the right sense.
These eyes aren’t making any moves, so I pull a quick recon. For all I know, I could be surrounded. I’m in a bed with metal guardrails, hospital stiff sheets. My entire left arm is encased in some kind of sling Velcroed to my body. My forearm crosses my stomach, and when I try to move it, pain bites my shoulder. Dipping my chin, I see a white square taped high on my chest, stretched over the shoulder. A tube runs from my right arm up to a hanging IV. This arm, I note, is not handcuffed or strapped to the bed frame. If I’m at New Hanover at least I’m not on seven.
I look up again and it’s no real surprise that the demon eyes have vanished. I scan the black air hanging over my bed but it’s empty. I decide they were some remnant of a nightmare that didn’t want to die. I file the demon eyes away and return to the situation at hand. Something’s on my face, and my free fingers find soft gauze covering my head like a burn victim’s. I must look like the Invisible Man. Through cutout holes I touch my eyebrows, feel my lips. No scarring. I try to recall a fire but it’s hard to concentrate. I don’t think there was a fire. The central image I’m getting is an oversized boy in a preacher suit aiming a gun at me.
I try to lean up, thinking about getting a look at my chart down at the foot of the bed. But the effort of lifting my head exhausts me. Besides, they probably only do that on M*A*S*H. As my eyes adjust to the lack of light, I can make out the outline of a chair to my right. Beyond that is what might be a window with the shades pulled shut. The edges of the room still hide in shadow.
Suddenly the air conditioner hums on. Cool air shivers down from vents in the ceiling. But with the coolness comes a sound over me, a twinkling of light, and the sensation of movement. Something is up there. When under surveillance by an unknown entity, standard procedure is to presume the unknown hostile. I try again to rise but can’t. My bandaged head anchored in the pillow, I look straight over the bed, and the goddamn red eyes have returned.
“Just who the hell are you?” My voice sounds whiskeyed. The eyes make no response.
“What do you want with me?”
The eyes bob. Could be nodding.
“Can you understand me?”
The eyes rise and fall slowly. A definite yes.
“Have you come for me?”
Rise and fall. Barely noticeable. Somber. Stern. Like my visitor expects me to be upset. Part of me wants to ask “Who sent you?” but I’m probably better off not knowing.
The eyes hover closer now, descending, just on the edge of the thin yellow glow around me. I wait for them. My whole life will flash before me any second now, and I want to be ready. After four years of rewinding the episodes myself, I’ll be interested in seeing the edited highlights. But when I close my eyes all I picture is Brook dancing, her toes aimed down into hard wood, her arms perfectly arched over her smiling face.
A soft touch settles on my stomach, and when I look the red eyes are right there in front of me. Only now I can see the round edges of the shiny, one-dimensional face, which indeed has not only a gigantic smile but a purple nose and a message printed along the bottom: QUIT CLOWNIN’ AROUND! GET WELL SOON!
The crinkly clown balloon hovers lightly on my chest, and I capture it inside my right arm. I tug on its string, causing a bouncing bubble sound behind me. I peer up over my forehead, where maybe two dozen balloons watch over me like guardian angels. Similar sounds call my eyes down to the end of the bed and there are little sparkles of light there too, and it’s like somebody wanted to see if they could make my bed float. Who the hell would buy me balloons? Using the string, I pull down one bunch, fumble one-handed for a card that I can’t at all read in the half light. I release the healthy balloons, let them rise back to the end of their leash. The Evil Clown, low on helium, stays with me, and here we sit, two has-beens. Could-have-beens. Should-have-beens. Might-have-beens. Weren’ts.
If I’m not officially dead I’d like to know how close I am, so I reach off the side of the bed, my hand groping for the Jeopardy-style button used to summon nurses. Up on seven I had to yell for one to come in and scratch my nose once. God, I was about to go crazy. Finally I find the nurse alert, but when I thumb the ignition a TV hung in the corner sparks to life, damn near scares the shit out of me. Still, my eyes are drawn to the gray picture coming into focus; a man in a sports jacket holds things up to the camera. Along the edges of the screen run a series of boxes loaded with numbers. It’s QVC.
Desperately I click the button to change the channel, but nothing happens. No matter how hard I pound on the remote, the screen remains unchanged. All I need is for one of those Star Trek specials to come on with Sulu or Scotty. They sell those plates.
QVC drains the soul, and as such is one of the things it is very important to avoid late at night when you’re tired or weak. Like the Christ Is King Redeemer Global Satellite Cr
usade, a channel I simply erased from my menu. Such things may seem silly and harmless at first, but late at night, when your mind is thin and vulnerable, they start to make sense. And suddenly you can’t help wondering about the possibility of being reborn, or it seems obvious that a clock that makes different birdcalls to welcome every hour really might lift your spirits. At three, four o’clock in the morning, QVC preaches wind chimes and Rollerblades. The forever-smiling man’s enthusiasm for better living through EZ Pay never fades.
Some sound mumbles beneath my pillow, and when I reach back I find a wire attached to an earplug, which is spitting out the rapid-fire spiel. Picturing Hardy and his Miracle Ear, I jam the plug in and face the screen, where the forever-smiling man has begun hawking a series of limited edition Beanie Babies. “Now you all know the story behind Nip the Cat. The day after he was retired an entire shipment was destroyed in a mysterious warehouse fire in Newark. This had a profound influence on the global Beanie Baby economy. If you find Nip anywhere for less than a hundred dollars, I suggest you buy him. Immediately. But I’m selling this little cutie for only sixty-nine dollars. I know it’s crazy. They may lock me up. Don’t ask me how Harvey got his hands on these for this price. It may not even be legal.”
Off camera, someone forces a laugh.
Nip the Cat looks like three dirty socks stapled together. I literally cannot tell his head from his ass.
“Now if you’re smart, you won’t just buy one. You’ll think about your future and invest today. The Beanie Baby market is running, folks. According to what our experts tell us, Beanie Baby prices are rising at a rate superior to NASDAQ and the S&P 500. So you can stake your retirement on precious metals if you really want to. Just don’t forget what happened to the tin market in the seventies. Think about your future.”
Buddy Cooper Finds a Way Page 11
