Back Roads & Hat Check

by David Berens

  It was a ridiculous question in a building like this. I’d lived her for years and still saw new people every day. The cheap apartments in New York got a lot of turnover from people moving into town and then getting broke and moving out of town. If I can make it here… and all that.

  “Nah, man,” Moe spoke up, still frowning, “we ain’t seen shit.”

  Manny and Curly both seemed a little surprised at this coming from their friend. I held my hands up in surrender.

  “Okay, okay,” I said, “take it easy. I’m just trying to help a friend find something she lost.”

  “Yo,” Curly said, “what’d she lose?”

  “I’d rather not say just yet,” I said carefully, “but if you hear of anything, or see anything strange, you’ll let me know?”

  “You got it boss,” Manny said.

  “Sheeit,” Moe said flapping his hand down at me.

  Yeah, a gang was the next stop for Moe. I hated to see it happening and wondered if there was anything I could do about it. I walked up to the door.

  “See ya later, fellas,” I said pushing into the building.

  I walked up the stairs into a hall I knew very well… my hall. I passed by our apartment door 3D and stopped at 3E – Mrs. Sansers apartment. I was about to knock, when she pulled the door open.

  “I thought you’d never get here,” she was clearly flustered, “I just didn’t know who to call. I know the watch isn’t worth much, but I don’t know what I’d do if I never got to see it again. You know, having it there on the mantel is a reminder of… of my…”

  She choked back tears.

  “It’s ok Mrs. Sanser,” I said putting my hands on her shoulders to comfort her, “we’ll find it. Don’t you worry.”

  I did a quick walkthrough, checking around the mantel and under the couch. I did a quick sweep behind the cushions with my hands. Nothing. There was no sign of the watch. I knelt down and looked under the recliner – Bill’s recliner – and found only dust and a few crumbs of whatever he’d eaten last… before he died. Mrs. Sanser followed me around like a lost child, wringing her hands in worry. When I was satisfied that the watch truly wasn’t here, I pulled out my notepad.

  “Do you happen to know what the model name or a number or anything like that was on the watch?” I asked the grieving widow.

  “Oh, my,” she said shaking her head, “I have no idea. It was gold or gold tone. And it had roman numerals on the dial. Oh, and it was a Seiko.”

  Great, I thought to myself, that narrows it down.

  “Do you suppose he had the box or the instruction manual that came with it, or any kind of papers on it?” I asked.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said with new tears forming in her eyes, “I think we threw all of that away a long time ago. We’ll never find it, will we?”

  “Mary, we’ll find it,” I lied, “Don’t you worry about it.”

  With her permission, I rummaged around in Bill’s side of the closet. Besides a few mothballs, I found nothing to get me closer to the watch’s specifics. I pulled open the bedside table and besides a heavily read, dog-eared copy of The Message, I found nothing there either.

  I comforted Mary one more time promising to find the watch and walked into the hall. As I passed my own apartment door, I heard a thump and a laugh. What the heck was Peggy doing in there? I turned the knob – locked. But that wasn’t unusual. I pulled out my key and slid it in. Opening the door, I heard the shower running in the bedroom. I also heard a man’s voice.

  What the hell? I thought as I rushed into the bedroom. Oh, it was Dr. Phil… on the TV. I could hear Peggy’s voice now too. She was singing in the shower. I thought about telling her I was here… stopping in to say hello… but... I didn’t. I crept back out of our apartment and clicked the lock. I stood outside the door and wondered what had become of my beautiful marriage. My job. That’s what I was married to… But hell, it paid the bills, didn’t it?

  At the end of the hall, the elevator door dinged open. Curly was standing there… a worried look on his face.

  “Curly?” I called, “What’s up? Are you okay?”

  He opened his mouth to say something, and then abruptly closed it again. He did this two times and then reached over and punched a button inside the elevator. I took a few quick steps toward it, but I could only lock eyes with him as the doors closed. The numbers clicked down and I ran to the stairs.

  I wasn’t sure why I decided to go after him, but I was baffled by his odd behavior. He must know something… He had sought me out, knowing I lived on the third floor. But what was it?

  I jumped down the stairs three at a time, wishing I’d spent a little more time in the gym. I’m not a fat guy, but my gut hangs over my belt these days. By the time I got to the bottom floor, I was huffing and puffing a little harder than I thought I should be. I made a mental note to schedule myself some time on the treadmill. I jerked open the door to the lobby and caught a flash of a multi-colored leather jacket through the front door. I ran, slamming open the door. I saw him run down the street a couple of blocks and then duck into an alley.

  “Dammit,” I muttered to myself.

  I noticed the other boys weren’t on the stoop anymore. I looked at my watch. I’d been here over an hour now, so I got into my cruiser and radioed the station. Nothing much going on that needed my attention, so I told them my location and said I’d be on foot for a bit.

  I locked the car and walked toward the alley I’d seen Curly run into. I checked my holster. Subconsciously, I tugged on my Glock to make sure it would clear the holster in a hurry… just in case. I followed all the protocol… I did everything right… except for one thing. I was alone. But it was just Curly… a kid… what could possibly go wrong.

  The snow that the weatherman had been threatening us with finally started falling in huge, white flakes. It was difficult to see very far… and everything got really quiet. I peeked around the corner, hand on my gun. Nothing. Nobody was in the alley. Apparently, Curly had been fast enough to run through the alley to the end and hop over the back wall, or duck into a door, or…

  The bang and the pain were almost simultaneous. I felt as if a sledgehammer had hit my back. Thank God for the vest. But with the wind knocked out of me, I couldn’t move, couldn’t catch my breath. I was a sitting duck. The second bang rang out so incredibly loud that I knew the shooter had taken a couple of steps closer to me. The second shot hit my vest again and knocked me to my knees. I fully expected to be executed from behind, assassination style… a third shot to the back of my skull. The fraction of a second between the second and third shot allowed me to lunge forward. When I did, I felt the shot that had been intended for my head hit me low on the vest. And then the pain stopped. My legs went slack, my arms dropped by my side and I fell face first into the snow. I lifted my head… the only thing I could move and turned to look back. As I began to lose consciousness, I saw Moe standing there.

  “Sorry, brah,” he said tugging on his belt and wagging his pistol, “I tried to get jacked in, but they said that shit-ass watch was a damn gold-plated piece of crap. So, I got the next best thing, your dumb ass in an alley alone, pig.”

  So, that was it… Moe had tried to prove that he had what it took to be in the gang by stealing something valuable. He’d taken Bill Sanser’s watch, but it had turned out to be a joke and worthless. So, the gang leaders had upped the initiation requirement. And now, he’d lured me into an alley and shot me up. And at this point, I thought he’d paralyzed me. In hindsight, it’s probably best that I was stunned and couldn’t move… I closed my eyes, waiting for him to come closer and blow my head off. But the next sound I heard, wasn’t footsteps or more gang members coming to watch… it was a meow. A low, scratchy meow echoed from behind a nearby dumpster. It just happened to be in my line of sight, so I saw him stick his nose out.

  Grey, curious, mangy and bony thin. It had walked over to me, rubbed my nose and then sat down to stare at me
, as if to watch me die. From my prostrate position, I drifted into darkness with my last thought being that the wretched thing had six toes on each foot. Strange.

  I woke to the doctors telling me that I was lucky to be alive, that I had severe spinal cord trauma, and that I was probably… not permanently paralyzed… I asked where Peggy was and they said she’d been here for over forty-eight hours while I was recovering from the attempted surgery. Upon opening me up, they found that they couldn’t risk taking out the bullet, or they might paralyze me permanently. So, I still have that 9mm slug in my spine and it hurts like a bastard when it’s cold… which is eight months out of the year in New York. And with the slug still in there, I was officially put on permanent disabled leave, which was good. That meant I still got a pension in my early retirement.

  They dragged Moe into a lineup a few weeks later and I picked him out. He had gone completely to the dark side by then… and dragged Curly with him. Only problem was, Curly hadn’t been so lucky to go to jail. No, he got his own execution when he tried to leave the gang. That hurt more than anything. And I think the pain of it all made it hard to be at home with Peggy too. She didn’t understand why I couldn’t just let go of it and move on. So, I didn’t stay home much.

  The local police bar was a place called Maggie’s and I’d hang out there most evenings after all the guys got off their shifts. It wasn’t bad. For a while they’d all buy me drinks and tell me what a hero I was… even though I didn’t feel much like one. And for a time, that seemed to make me feel better about it all. But the longer I was out… I realized I wasn’t in the loop anymore. The stories they shared had nothing to do with me. I stopped accepting the beers they bought and stopped being invited to pull up at the bar with them. The last night I dropped in… I looked around and realized I didn’t know a soul in there. I just didn’t have it in me to stay. I walked, or hobbled, back home as best I could and made the slow climb up the stairs… the elevator was on the friggin’ blink again. I could barely lift my foot the distance to the next step. I think it took an hour to get up all three flights and I was in excruciating pain by the time I made it to the third floor.

  As I slid my key into the lock, I heard Dr. Phil from behind the door again. Peggy laughed at something on the TV and I smiled. Maybe this was a good thing. Maybe reconnecting with my wife was what I was supposed to be doing all this time. And I’d been spending it with the boys, down at the bar. I opened the door, threw my keys in the bowl by the door, and closed it behind me. I shook the snow off my jacket and hung it on the coat tree.

  Then I heard Dr. Phil say, “Oh yeah, baby, ride me like a pony.”

  What the hell? Ride me like a pony? And it struck me that this was not Dr. Phil’s voice. I walked into the bedroom to see my naked wife sitting on top of a man, who was also completely unclothed. They were getting it on and both sweating profusely. Peggy looked up and for just a second, she was happy to see me… I think. And then the shock set in. She jumped off the guy, wrapped the sheet over her chest as he stumbled off the bed trying to cover himself too.

  “Honey,” she said running her hand through her wildly tangled hair, “what are you doing home so soon?”

  I didn’t say a word. I turned around, grabbed my keys and my coat.

  “Baby, wait,” I heard her call over the stumbling sound of someone trying desperately to pull clothes on.

  I still said nothing. I had guessed something like this might happen. I mean, I was down in my back, so I definitely wasn’t satisfying her… but then again, I hadn’t been satisfying her before that anyway. It was true, we had become roommates and she had sought out the touch, the love, the satisfaction she needed elsewhere. Thank God, I hadn’t recognized the guy – I might’ve shot him. I had always thought it would be another cop I knew… someone from the force. But no… it was just some regular schmo she’d picked up somewhere. I waddled to the elevator, pushed the button and then swore to myself realizing that it was still broken.

  Peggy called into the hall, “can’t we talk about this, Joe?”

  “I’ve got nothing to say,” I answered her, “It’s okay. I’m not really that mad. Go back to doing what you were doing. I’ll be by in the morning to get my things.”

  I climbed the God forsaken stairs down and ambled out into the cold. I walked intending to trudge over to Don’s place and see if I could stay the night. And that’s when I realized I was going to pass the alley where I’d been shot. I instinctively reached down and realized my pistol was no longer on my hip. But curiosity got the best of me… I poked my head into the alley. The snow was soft and deep and everything was quiet. I took two steps into the alley and stopped. I glanced behind me. Nothing. Nobody there. I was alone… well, not exactly alone.

  I heard the soft mewing again. From behind the dumpster. I walked over and found him sitting there… shivering. I reached my hand down, which sent a sharp pain up my spine and I winced. The cat sniffed it carefully and then, stretching each leg out one at a time, he stood up. Arching his back under my hand, he let me pet him. He meowed and started purring. A wind gust hit me from behind, the air freezing the back of my neck. I figured if I left him out here tonight, he wouldn’t make it.

  I put my hand under his belly and lifted him up, tucking him into my jacket. He curled up into a ball and nuzzled his head under my arm. Nice and cozy. I stood to go and I noticed a glint of something shiny underneath him. In another extreme act of defying pain, I knelt down again to pick it up. It was a gold tone pocket watch. I clicked it open. On the inside of the cover, it read: Thanks Bill. I slipped it into my pocket and left the alley.

  The next couple of days, I grabbed my things from the apartment while Peggy stood around with her arms crossed. She went through several stages: crying, laughing, and shouting. But, I was gone. Mentally and then physically. And on Friday the thirteenth, I bought two plane tickets. One for me and one for… well, I think that’s when he got his name. I call him Lucky. That’s the day Lucky and I left New York forever and headed south… all the way south… to Key West.

  Joe Bond appears in Ocean Blue and Blight House

  Becky and RayRay

  Dark Glasses And The Naked Truth

  __________________________

  Becky Renee Patton couldn’t take it anymore. She had lost it when she looked up and saw RayRay Tishomura staring at her. But that wasn’t exactly accurate… RayRay couldn’t be staring at her because he was blind. Though most of the students attending the Savannah College of Art and Design were a little strange… RayRay took the cake. He was a short, rotund, Japanese kid from Michigan who had been blind since the age of five. His talent was sculpture and even Becky had to admit, his sculptures were good… damn good. And for the most part, RayRay was a pretty nice guy, he was a little introverted, but when the social setting called for laughing, he laughed, when it called for frowning, he frowned, and when it called for sarcastic wit… well, that’s where he fell a little short. Becky wondered if there might be a little Asperger’s syndrome goin’ on in there, because RayRay took everything you said literally. She’d once told him that he could go fly a kite and he’d showed up on the lawn of his dorm later that day with a bright pink Power Rangers kite soaring above him. Again, doubly odd because he didn’t understand the jab, but also because he could not see the kite at all.

  But none of that is what set Becky off. It was his eyes. Damn his eyes, lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eyesssss. In her mind, she thought that last part in the voice of Quint in the movie Jaws. Like most sight-impaired people, RayRay wore glasses, but unlike most other blind people, the lenses in his glasses were clear. That in itself pissed Becky off… what the hell… why even bother? RayRay just shrugged when asked about them.

  “They are comfortable, Becky-san,” he always said.

  The issue was that RayRay had naturally lost the muscle control of his eyes and they tended to drift… sometimes in different directions. His right eye might be looking right
at you, while his left eye would be staring into the sky. To say that it was unnerving was an understatement. Becky often found herself unable to look at RayRay’s face because of the odd stare. This worked pretty well until the group had started playing the fantasy role-playing game with RayRay acting as the campaign master.

  The current campaign involved a lot of doings in a town called the Glade that was being terrorized by a troll… a giant troll.

  Being a new campaign, RayRay had created a lot of monologue material to set up their adventure. This meant listening to his broken English for hours on end, droning on about the setting and the people and the creatures they encountered. It wasn’t that RayRay wasn’t really good at setting these things up and being a campaign-master… it was just that he didn’t have to look down to read his notes. He just ran his fingers across the page, reading the braille and looking straight ahead… straight at Becky. Both eyes were on her… the issue was that they weren’t exactly looking at Becky’s face. RayRay was staring directly at her breasts. That’s it, she thought, I’ve had it. I’m going to fix this.

  To combat the problem for the current moment, she stood her creature manual up on the table in front of her and crouched down to lower her chest beneath his line of sight. Samantha, the only other girl in the group watched her setting up this screen and mouthed, what are you doing?”

  Tell you later, Becky mouthed back. She suffered through the rest of the evening’s campaign with her back hunched over. At the end of the session, as she was jamming her things into her backpack, Samantha leaned over to whisper to her.

  “What gives?” she asked.

  “It’s his damn eyes,” Becky hissed, “he was checking out my rack!”

  “Becky,” Samantha smiled and shook her head, “you know he can’t see you, right?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she retorted, “do you want him staring at your boobs all night?”

  “I wouldn’t care,” Samantha shrugged, “at least somebody is lookin’.”