by Tim Dorsey
“You know how all those soul bands back in the seventies had some guy who would scream, ‘Say what?’”
Serge rolled by a house and pointed the remote control out his window and pressed the button. Nothing happened.
“That’s the job I want,” said Coleman. He took a double-toke and held it.
“What job is that?” asked Serge. He rolled by the next house and pressed the button again. Still nothing.
“I want the job of the guy who goes, ‘Say what?’”
“You’re uniquely qualified,” said Serge. He pointed the remote control and pressed again. Nothing.
Coleman exhaled a hit. “Check it out: Say what?”
Serge kept clicking the remote control without result.
“Say what?”
Serge looked both ways as he crossed a well-lit intersection.
“Say what?”
They continued into the darkness of the grid street on the other side.
“Say what?”
“Now it’s annoying.” Serge clicked the remote again.
“Sorry,” said Coleman. He thought a second, took a hit. “If I can’t get that job, I want the job of that tiny little fucker who screams on Sly and the Family Stone.”
“I know his work,” said Serge, clicking the remote again.
“I think there are several of ’em,” said Coleman. “I’ve heard the same vocals on Kool and the Gang and the Edgar Winter Group, to name but a few.”
“A cottage industry of James Brown midgets.”
“Check this out: ‘Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!’”
“Again, impressive.”
Coleman grinned and nodded and took another hit. “That’s why I really never worry about being unemployed. If push comes to shove, I always have that.”
Serge clicked the remote. A garage door began rising. Serge stopped the car.
“This is the Eagle. We have lunar-module separation,” said Serge. “Prepare for cabin depressurization and space walk.”
“Roger,” said Coleman. He grabbed Serge’s flashlight and jumped from the car.
Serge soon saw a flashlight beam swooping around inside the garage. Then Coleman disappeared behind the parked car. The flashlight swooped across the ceiling. It was starting to take a long time. There were some noises, just a little at first, things dropping, pliers and screwdrivers. The flashlight went out. More noise. Serge could see Coleman’s silhouette knocking over something, then hearing the crash, then reaching to try to catch it before it fell, only sending more things over, until Coleman built to his big 1812 Overture finale, crashing into a set of metal garbage cans. One of the cans began rolling down the driveway. A light went on in the garage, and a man’s voice: “What the hell’s going on out there!”
Coleman came running down the driveway with something in his right hand. He stumbled and accidentally kicked the garbage can rolling ahead of him, sending it slamming into the side of the Barracuda. Serge stuck his head out the driver’s window and looked down at the paint job.
The porch light went on, then a floodlight. Coleman jumped in the car. Serge hit the gas and sped off as a man in a bathrobe came out the front door with a shotgun.
They were three blocks away before Serge turned and saw what Coleman had taken from the garage.
“Electric pepper mill?”
“Is that what this is?” said Coleman.
“What the hell were you thinking?”
“It looked expensive in the dark.”
“It’s a piece of crap. It’s for people with more money than imagination.”
“We can always pawn it.”
“It might bring five dollars on Crack Street, but that’s it.” Serge looked around the car. “Where’s my flashlight?”
“I must have left it.”
“Nice going, Rico Suave. That was my sentimental flashlight. Cost twenty-nine bucks.” He pointed at the pepper mill: “We’re losing ground.”
Coleman pressed a button on the pepper mill; an electric motor began to whir. “Hey, it works.” Coleman held the mill in front of Serge’s face and pressed the button again. “See?”
“Get that fucking thing out of my face. I’m trying to drive.”
Coleman removed it from Serge’s face and began playing with it in his lap. “I’ll bet I can use it to grind up dope.”
Serge pulled out of the neighborhood and turned right on Gandy Boulevard. “There’s the Seven-Eleven,” he said. “It you want real coffee these days, forget the bookstores. This is where you have to go.”
“I like those little creamers they have,” said Coleman.
“Me too,” said Serge, pulling into the parking lot. “The lavender ones are my favorite. I usually get about five of those and another five packs of sugars, dump it all in a piping-hot twenty-ounce Styrofoam cup, add a dozen ice cubes and chug the whole thing right at the cash register. After that, watch out! I once pulled back on the highway without my car.”
Serge got out of the Barracuda and began taking pictures in the parking lot. He lowered the camera to check for a better angle. “This is a historic place.”
“Historic Seven-Eleven?”
“Not the store. The location.” He snapped more pictures. “The store didn’t used to be here. They just built in on the corner. See what’s wrapped around the back?”
“Yeah, an old motel nobody’s staying at.”
“Not just any motel,” corrected Serge. “The Crosstown Inn. It’s where Donald Segretti stayed.”
“Who?”
“One of Nixon’s henchmen. He stayed at the Crosstown when he was playing dirty tricks on the Democrats. Ever see All the President’s Men?”
“No.”
“Remember the scene where Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford are going through Segretti’s credit card receipts?”
“I didn’t see the movie.”
“If you put the VCR on pause, you can see a receipt for the Crosstown Inn.” Serge turned and snapped more pictures, then lowered the camera. “If you watch an entire movie frame by frame, it’s amazing what you’ll find. That’s what I do.”
“Let’s go in and get some beer.”
“Hold on. I’m not done.” Click, click. “It’s stuck in a 1972 time warp! Can you feel it? Look at that old sign, the retro architecture of the office. I can just see Segretti checking in”—Serge started creeping around the parking lot—“looking over his shoulders, making calls from the pay phone, using code words like ‘Condor’ and ‘The Package.’”
“You kinda like history, don’t you?” said Coleman.
Serge straightened up. “Who doesn’t? Let’s get some coffee.”
Serge pushed open both front doors of the 7-Eleven at once—Doc Holiday entering a saloon. He threw his arms out wide: “My people! I am home!”
The customers stopped and turned to see what the noise was about, then ignored him. They fell in three groups. Some were drunk. Others had been drunk. The rest would soon be drunk. That was it.
“What? No welcoming party?”
“Hi, Serge,” said one of the clerks.
“What’s shakin’, Serge?” asked the woman in the deli.
“That’s more like it,” said Serge. “I could live in a convenience store. No fooling around. Everything’s close to the bone.”
“Beer,” said Coleman, pointing at a stack of Bud twelve-packs.
“This place is like a proletariat terrarium. The salt of the earth.”
“Beer.”
“Okay. Go get your beer. I’ll be at the coffee.”
Serge grabbed a cup and picked up the coffeepot. He held it to his nose, sniffed and smiled. “February was a good month.”
He filled his cup three-quarters, leaving room for creamers, sugar and ice. He went to the front counter and got in line. There were seven people ahead of him, six buying lottery tickets and one buying a lottery magazine.
Coleman arrived with a Budweiser suitcase in each hand and joined Serge in the back of the li
ne. Serge twisted and fidgeted and stood on his tiptoes to see up to the counter. “What’s the delay?”
The line bled down to the last customer in front of Serge, a middle-aged woman in jumbo sweatpants and a T-shirt with a rebel flag.
“What do you think about this Confederate flag controversy?” Coleman asked Serge.
“Sometimes people adopt fashions that say things about themselves they don’t even realize they’re revealing.”
“What do you mean?” asked Coleman, munching a beef jerky and wearing a baseball cap that said, OFFICIAL PUSSY INSPECTOR.
“I’ll explain later.”
The woman in the sweatpants dropped a pile of candy bars on the counter and handed the clerk a lottery card.
The clerk stuck the card in the machine; a ticket popped out.
“Those are my lucky numbers,” said the woman. “They’re the birthdays of my cats.”
“That so?” said the clerk. She handed her the ticket.
“Oh, what the hay!” she said. “I feel lucky. Give me a Quick Pick!”
The clerk gave her a Quick Pick.
The woman pointed down through the glass counter at the vibrant rolls of instant scratch-off tickets. Cowboy Cash, Lucky Seven, Gold Rush, Treasure Island. A strip of tickets with flying saucers grabbed her eye. “That a new game?”
“Which?”
“UFO Dough.”
The clerk said yes.
“Give me one.”
The clerk gave her one.
The woman leaned over the counter and rubbed the ticket with a quarter.
Serge spun around and grabbed Coleman by the shoulders. “Oh my God! She’s scratching them off at the counter!”
“Easy,” said Coleman.
The woman finished rubbing. “Fudge! I lost. Better give me another.”
She scratched again with the quarter. No luck.
“Well, easy come, easy go.” The woman began rummaging in a purse that was the extra-large size favored by refugees and kleptomaniacs. She eventually came up with a personalized checkbook imprinted with cats.
Serge turned and grabbed Coleman’s shirt again. “Sweet Jesus! She’s paying by check!”
“Hang in there,” said Coleman.
The clerk bagged the candy bars. “You can use a check for this stuff, but you have to pay cash for the lottery tickets. State law.”
“Oh, heavens,” said the woman, beginning another excavation in her purse. She came up with a peanut butter jar. “How many pennies can you take?”
A fist slammed down on the counter. The startled woman jumped back and saw Serge.
“Bzzzzzzzzzzzz! That’s our final buzzer. Time’s up. You lose. Collect your shit and move along to extinction.”
The woman was taken aback. “Well, I never!…”
“Pipe down, Chumley! I don’t know what black hole of personal ambition you climbed out of, but it’s now time to skee-daddle on back, you Crisco-based life-form.”
The woman put a hand up to her open mouth, then ran out the door. Serge stepped up to the counter. He set the coffee down and opened his wallet.
“Dollar-six,” said the cashier, blowing a bubble with her gum.
“Ever see the independent movie Clerks?” asked Serge, handing over exact change.
“No,” said the clerk. “What’s it about?”
“It’s about your struggle, sister!” Serge held up a fist of solidarity.
Then he picked up the coffee and downed it all at once. He set the empty cup on the counter and gave a satisfied “Ahhhhhh,” hydraulics venting pressure.
Coleman took a cautious step back. The clerk saw Coleman and took her own step back.
All was quiet for a moment. Then the tremors started, first in his legs, moving quickly up his body like the coyote after he eats ACME earthquake pills. When they reached his neck, the babbling started.
“Al Lang, Jack Russell, Doak Campbell, Joker Marchant, Chain O’Lakes, Tropicana, Raymond James, Pro Player, O’Connell Center…”
“What’s he saying?” asked the clerk.
“He’s naming Florida sports venues.”
“…Gulfstream, Brian Piccolo Park Velodrome…”
“Why?” asked the clerk.
“Because he drank coffee. It makes his brain incontinent. The state’s aquifers should be coming up next.”
“…Floridan, Biscayne, Chocoloskee, Hawthorn, Tampa Limestone…”
“Now the endangered flowers.”
“…Dingy Epidendrum, Delicate Ionopsis, Rose Pogonia, Yellow Rhexia, Teyrazygia…”
“The lighthouses…”
“…Jupiter Inlet, Rebecca Shoal, Sombrero Key, Fowey Rocks, Alligator Reef, Boca Grande—middle and south, Cape Saint George…”
“And the original Indians…”
“…Calusa, Tequesta, Tocobaga, Timucua, Apalachee…”
“Finally his favorite roadside attractions…”
“…Weeki Wachee, Tupperware Museum, defunct Xanadu home of the future, Alternate Highway 19 Chimp Farm, Pasco County Taxidermy Museum (with two-headed cow)…”
Serge stopped and jerked his head around in terror, screeching like a cornered animal. He bolted out the door. Coleman and the clerk ran to the window. Serge loped across the parking lot, arms swinging low to the ground. He ran out into the busy intersection. Drivers slammed on brakes and skidded sideways. Stopped cars filled the road at all angles. Serge jumped up on one of the hoods and screeched some more. He beat his chest with his fists before running across the intersection on the roofs of cars and disappearing into the night.
“Unbelievable,” said the clerk. “He actually thinks he’s a monkey.”
“No,” said Coleman. “He thinks he’s an actor. He’s doing a scene from Altered States. It’s one of his favorites.”
29
C OLEMAN STOOD in the middle of a dark intersection in one of south Tampa’s grid neighborhoods, giving his arms a rest. When feeling returned to his shoulders, he reached down and picked up the Budweiser suitcases at his feet. If only Serge hadn’t run off with the car keys. He walked some more, but his arms tired quickly. Coleman set the cardboard boxes down again. When he did, the pepper mill in his back pocket began to whir. He reached and turned it off.
Coleman got an idea. He figured if he started drinking the beer, it wouldn’t weigh as much. He put the boxes down again.
After sixteen blocks, Coleman had finished enough beer to consolidate the remaining cans into one suitcase. He took a rest near the Crosstown Expressway, smoking an emergency joint he kept in his shoe. Coleman saw a shadow near the top of the expressway embankment. He squinted at the dim form. Coleman guessed it was a woman because of the high heels and breasts, but of course that could mean any number of things. The tall figure climbed awkwardly over the concertina wire fencing off the highway from the adjacent neighborhood. She had a large, cumbersome object that took two arms to carry.
She started down the embankment. Something went wrong early. A heel got caught, and she went over. The woman and the object began tumbling separately until a ditch stopped them. Coleman ran over and helped her up, a streetwalker in red leather hot pants and halter top. He retrieved the large object from the ditch and handed it to her.
“Thanks.”
“What is it?” asked Coleman.
“Meat smoker.”
“I have a pepper mill.” Coleman pulled it out of his back pocket and pressed a button. “It’s electric.”
“I’ll bet I could use it to mix cocaine and baby laxative. Wanna trade?”
“Sure.”
THEY WAVED GOOD-BYE. The prostitute went one way with the pepper mill, and Coleman went the other with the smoker. He had put the beer in the cooker’s top compartment and lifted it by the handles.
Coleman headed into a dark neighborhood on another grid street. He went only one block before he had to set the smoker down. He was making poor time with the extra load and began to consider it a shit trade. He saw a pedestrian cross the s
treet up ahead, carrying something, then disappear. Coleman picked up the smoker and went a block. He saw someone else on foot carrying something.
As Coleman continued on, the number of fellow pedestrians increased until it was steady flow on both sides of the street, everyone carrying something. Toaster oven, bug zapper, fax machine.
Coleman ran into a man at the corner of the fifth block. He coveted what the man had; the man eyed Coleman’s smoker.
“Trade?” said Coleman.
“Deal.”
The man went off in one direction with the meat smoker and Coleman in another, pedaling a three-wheeled senior citizen’s bike with a ringer on the handlebars and a case of beer under the seat. He stood up to give the pedaling an extra oomph as he crossed the drainage crest of another intersection. Then he sat back down and coasted with no hands, drinking a beer and ringing the bell.
He reached the next intersection and more pedestrians poured in from side roads and congregated under a stretch of oaks. So that’s it, thought Coleman. Crack Street.
Dealers worked brazenly on the curb. Business was so brisk it was spinning off support industry. Coleman recognized a man operating a floating pawnshop from the bed of a pickup. It was a prix fixe operation. Ten dollars for everything. CD player? Ten bucks. Laptop computer? Ten bucks. A line of people had formed behind the pickup with lawn-mowers, rifles, microwaves and a pepper mill. Coleman was getting hungry. If only they had a sausage wagon or snow-cone cart. But it was no use even hoping. Coleman knew crackheads were like camels when it came to food and water. He pedaled on.
Seven blocks later, he stopped at a corner and saw fluorescent lights. A twenty-four-hour grocery. Coleman took a deep breath and leaned into the pedals again.
TWO PIZZA TRUCKS sped past the corner of San Clemente and San Obispo, where the local crime watch unit was keeping a lookout in Jim Davenport’s Suburban.
“I told you this would be fun,” said Satchel.
A car pulled up and a man got out on the passenger’s side. “Is this the crime watch?”
“Yes it is,” said Satchel. “You need anything?”
“Yeah.” He stuck a gun in the window. “Your wallets and those walkie-talkies.”
