Cold Plate Special

by Rob Widdicombe

  It was real.

  It was crap-your-pants real.

  I was finally doing something with my life.

  And I wasn’t scared, either. Nervous as hell, yes, but not scared. I was running on straight adrenaline. I felt like someone else. And even though I didn’t have a pre-set series of insults and gotchas to launch, I felt like I wielded the power of the zinger. I knew somehow that at the crucial moment, the words would arise like a spontaneous silver fountain of electrified space dust. Screw a bunch of rehearsed speeches anyway. I was a creative sonofabitch now. These thoughts were pretty clear as I drove around Glade Farms lost, but when I finally found Motorcar’s street and actually pictured myself knocking on his door, my mind went purple. There were no more barriers. There was his house. There was the limo he drove. My stomach waters started bubbling. D-Day had arrived. D-Hour and D-Minute. I parked a couple houses away and sat there in the dark.

  Motorcar’s place had a decayed look. It was the national headquarters of creepiness. Some lights were on inside. Creepy lights. Pervert neck was probably in there, standing at the stove in his socks and underwear, fixing his mother some warm milk. Suddenly I wanted to bash his face in with the old baseball bat. Then I pictured my words, coming out of my mouth in slow motion and physically bludgeoning his face.

  Piece of human…sonofabitch.

  No! Stop thinking.

  I squeezed the steering wheel and took a long, deep breath. The death army of flying space robots was mine. I was their space general. My personal electricity rocking full blast.

  It was time.

  It was time to chew aluminum foil and spit glass.

  It was electric adrenaline space time.

  Time to swim the impossible.

  If I don’t go now I’ll never go, I said to myself, sitting there.

  I could still cruise. Leave and get out of there. I opened the car door instead. Just a crack. I looked down at the pavement. Then I shut the door. I had completely psyched myself down somehow. I don’t know how long I sat there. Probably a year. Then I thought: what if I had the wrong Motorcar? What if it’s not him? Then I guess I’ll apologize and start all over again. Right after I kill myself.

  Finally, when all thought and feeling had drained out of me and onto Glade Farms Way, and all that was left was the feeling of wanting to smash my head against a cinder block a thousand times, I opened the door and got out.

  The dried summer grass of Motorcar’s yard was crunchy. Loud and crunchy. The knobs on all my senses were turned to eleven. Then the aluminum and plexi-glass screen door was there in front of me.

  This was it.

  Moment X.

  Shit.

  My lips were tight. Every muscle in my body was clenched. Neck, hot. Stomach, a bottomless nerve hole. I tried to take a deep breath, but my lungs were locked up and it didn’t go all the way down.

  “…three…two…one…”

  And I rang the door bell.

  After about a hundred-thousand years, I heard a couple of creaking sounds. Someone was coming.

  The front door made a strange vacuum sucking sound when it opened. Like the place was a hermetically sealed perv chamber. The door opened about two inches.

  There was a hand and a creepy eye.

  “Who is it?”

  It was him. I could tell from his high-pitched, wet voice. I remembered it to a tee.

  “Daniel Marticlair?”

  “Who is it?”

  “Are you Daniel Marticlair?”

  “No,” he said in a snippy weasel tone. “Who are you?”

  “It’s Jarvis Henders.”

  “I don’t know you.”

  “Yes, you do, Daniel.”

  “No, I don’t. Never seen you before in my life.”

  “Maybe you’d recognize me if my face wasn’t bashed in.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Can you please open the door and come outside? I want to speak to you about something.”

  “No. I’m not coming out there.”

  “I just want to talk to you for one minute.”

  “What about?”

  “Just come out here and I’ll tell you. I know you’re Daniel Motorcar.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “So, you are him.”

  “No, I am not. He’s deceased. You should leave right now.”

  “Yeah? Well, how do you know he’s deceased if you’re not him?” That was almost a zinger. I was gearing up.

  He didn’t say anything.

  “If you don’t come out here and talk to me, I’m going to wake up your mother. Do you want me to tell her what you did?” I said the last part kind of loud.

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Just come outside. I’m not gonna hurt you. I swear on the Bible.”

  “I’m not coming out there. You should go away.”

  “Mrs. Motorcar!”

  “Shhhh!”

  “Daniel?” I heard an older woman’s voice calling from inside the house. “Who’s there?”

  “Nobody, Ma.”

  “Who are you talking to?”

  “One of the neighbors. Lost their dog.”

  “See? You are Daniel.”

  “Don’t call me that. What’s this about?”

  “Mrs. Motorcar!”

  “Okay, okay.” He opened the door.

  I stepped back off the stoop and Motorcar came out. This made him taller than me, which I didn’t like. I looked at him. He was stumpy, a little pudgy. He had the look of someone who watched a lot of TV and didn’t do much. Hunched into himself. He smelled like wet band-aids.

  “You remember me?” I said.

  “Like I said—never seen you before in my life.” He said it with a real smart-ass tone. “Well?” he sharpened his little eyes at me.

  “Summer camp. You were my camp counselor.”

  “So what?”

  “You remember me now?”

  “No.”

  I couldn’t believe his attitude. I had expected him to be more remorseful. And no zinger, any zinger, not even a bad one, was anywhere near the vicinity of my brain. It seemed to have swelled shut.

  “You know…what you did,” I managed to say.

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “Look—I have no idea who you are. I don’t know about any camp. And you’re the second kid this summer to come here and accuse me of something I don’t know anything about. So goodnight.”

  There was someone else? I wasn’t the only victim? Wasn’t the only one to confront him? This weird feeling of jealously crawled up into the bottom of my stomach. What the fuck was that? I went into a state of mental shock. Corpse shock. I couldn’t process. And I couldn’t believe he was being such a dismissive little no-account bitch. Which would have been a sufficient zinger. I could think it but I couldn’t say it. It was the perfect opportunity for me to lay down a smoking-cold word bomb and I had a metal desk lodged in my mouth.

  “I know it’s you,” I said. “I can tell.”

  Motorcar waved his hand as if brushing something away. “Well, you made a mistake. Stranger things have happened.” Then he folded his arms and looked at me with this smart-ass look. “So, is that all?”

  I knew it was him. There wasn’t any question. He wasn’t even trying that hard to lie. And who was this other dude who came to confront him? Whoever he was, he had probably laid him out with a sweet zinger. Or decked him in the face.

  “Look,” he said, “I’m going back inside now. I’m going to ask you to remove yourself from my property. Got it?”

  Remove myself? I felt like I was hyperventilating, even though I wasn’t. My weight was shifting back and forth on my feet. There was a forest fire on the back of my neck.

  “Well,” I said, “you really. . .you really. . .”

  I launched my index finger at him. A world-class power-zinger had to be on its way, rising up from the depths of my wit. I knew it was coming, I just nee
ded a few more seconds. Pervert sonofabitch wasn’t gonna do it.

  Nothing.

  “So, goodnight,” Motorcar said, and he moved toward the screen door.

  “How could you do that to me? I was just a little kid.” I couldn’t believe how wimpy and desperate it came out.

  “Like I said,” he snipped. “I didn’t do anything and I don’t remember you.”

  “Yes you do, godammit!”

  Then I heard someone yell nearby. Motorcar and I both turned and looked. It came from a few houses away on the sidewalk. Then I heard stomping and running. At first I thought it was teenagers letting off steam. But no, it was two dudes. One of them was carrying something. And no fucking way—they came into Motorcar’s yard and started running toward us. And it looked like—

  Holy fucking shit!

  It was Shred and Farns.

  They appeared in the yard like insane suicide commandos on a whacked-out hell mission. Shred was shirtless and covered in green greasepaint—chest, face, hair, arms, all—and he was holding a green mannequin of Summer’s out in front of him like a psycho death shield. It only had one arm. He looked like a Martian boy from a bad 50’s sci-fi movie with his robot Martian wife.

  “Pervert motherfucker!” Shred screamed, running across the lawn with Farns a few steps behind him.

  My throat filled with raw white panic. I was immediately in a state of cartoon un-reality. I just couldn’t believe it.

  This is a joke, right? This is a joke, right?

  “Oh no!” Motorcar said, jumping for the door. But Farns knocked me out of the way and grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him off the stoop and twisted him out into the yard.

  “What the fuck are you doing!” I yelled.

  Motorcar lost his footing and fell down on the grass. Then Shred squashed the mannequin into his back. Motorcar went all the way down onto his stomach.

  “Hey!” Motorcar yelled. “Stop!”

  Shred started ramming the mannequin’s handless arm up into Motorcar’s crotch from behind, pushing in and letting go.

  “Hey! Stop it! Ma!”

  “See how you like it,” Shred sneered.

  I cannot believe it.

  No fucking way.

  But I had to believe it—green Shred was molesting Motorcar with a green mannequin from behind.

  “Get it off me!” Motorcar pleaded.

  Farns went over and stuck his big construction boot on the back of Motorcar’s neck.

  “Ow!”

  “What’re you doing!” I yelled. I went to push Shred off of Motorcar, but Farns blocked me with his big arm.

  “See how it feels, you pervert bitch motherfucker!” Shred screamed with glee.

  “Take it, you child m’lester sumbitch,” Farns said. Then he stepped up beside Motorcar and pulled out a handgun from under his shirt. He pointed it right at Motorcar’s head.

  “See this, perv boy?”

  “No!” I yelled. “Don’t do it!”

  Motorcar’s face, half-looking up from the ground, turned from pale to pure white. “Please don’t kill me,” he begged, practically crying. Shred was still faux-violating him with the mannequin’s arm.

  “Get this fucking thing outta here,” Farns yelled, and he kicked the mannequin out of Shred’s hands and off of Motorcar’s back. She landed near the bushes. Shred tumbled backward and almost hit the ground himself.

  Motorcar squirmed over on his back and Farns had his boot on his collar bone.

  Farns glared at Motorcar with a real Charles Manson look in his eyes, and then like an ice cold dispenser of frozen justice, said: “All child molesting, scum sucking pervert-ass motherfucker sickos MUST DIE!”

  What a zinger!

  Farns cocked the gun.

  “Don’t shoot him!” I screamed. “Are you crazy!”

  “Do it!” Shred yelled.

  “No! Please!” Motorcar shielded his face. He was whimpering like a little girl.

  I reached in my pocket and put my fingers around the corkscrew and pulled it out. I unfolded the screw and wrapped my fist around the handle so the screw stuck out between my ring and middle fingers and went up to Farns.

  “Please,” Motorcar cried.

  Farns smiled and said: “Prepare for final execu—OW!”

  I shoved the corkscrew into Farns’s big right shoulder, the arm that was holding the gun. I don’t think I did it right, though—it didn’t go in very far. Farns flinched and his gun blasted. A dark orange fireball exploded on the ground about two feet from Motorcar’s head.

  It was just the flare gun. Farns had Flare Gunned him.

  “What the fuck was that!” Farns yelled, stretching his head around to look at his shoulder.

  It felt like someone had reached up inside me and twisted my intestines into a 25 car pile-up and then poured acid on it—the kind of acid that burned and the psychedelic kind. What was happening in front of me could not have been real. Motorcar was staring at the smoking spot where the flare exploded next to his head, like he was looking down Satan’s throat. Another tiny spot of brown grass by his head was still on fire. This yellow smoke rose up. It smelled like fireworks. Motorcar was still panting. He was holding his stomach.

  “Next time you die,” Farns yelled. “Come on!”

  And Shred and Farns took off running.

  Motorcar sat up on the ground, shivering, his eyes wide open. The whole thing took about fifteen seconds. I was still in a state of accelerated disbelief. Everything was made out of paper. Science fiction was real. My head felt like it was stuck on the spin cycle of a psychotic washing machine.

  “Oh, man,” I said. “I am really sorry. I did not mean for—”

  “I’m calling the cops!” Motorcar said, his smart-ass voice snapping back, even as he was trying to catch his breath.

  I couldn’t believe this guy. Here I was apologizing to him for what Shred and Farns had just done—though God only knows why I was apologizing—I had even tried to defend him from getting shot—and why the hell was I doing that? Little prick had zero remorse. Just attitude all the way.

  “You’re gonna call the cops on me?” I said, and without even thinking about it, I reached down and grabbed him by the shirt. His wet, round cheeks looked like they were filled with butter.

  “Fuck you!” I screamed. Then it came to me—like the yellow electric flash of the lightning bug—and I knew exactly what to do.

  I bitch-slapped him.

  Right in his puffy, butter-filled face.

  I bitch-slapped Motorcar as hard as I could. It made the perfect slapping sound. His eyes were clenched shut. Then I threw him back to the ground and went over and picked up the mannequin. I didn’t want any evidence around if he did call the cops.

  “You suck!” I shouted as I walked by him. “Pervert sonofabitch.” And I headed across the yard toward my car.

  Oh my god—that was the worst zinger ever. But it felt awesome. My palm hurt from slapping him. A pain of total joy.

  I went to the Hyundai with Shred’s green mannequin wife under my arm. I threw her into the backseat. As I drove past, I could see Motorcar brushing himself off. I honked the horn but he didn’t seem to notice. “Pervert sonofabitch!” I yelled.

  It was all swirling in my head—my crazy cousin and his wild punk-neck bully friend! Shooting off a flare gun? Raping him with a mannequin? What the hell just happened? And why did I defend Motorcar? What was my problem? Was I a pervert too? I was already a stalker. No—I am not a stalker. I am not a murderer! Those jerks! That was supposed to be my confrontation back there. Motorcar was my pervert. They had no right to fall up into my deal like that. And I was just about to serve up a titanium-strength hell zinger. Those fuckers ruined everything. And Motorcar—he didn’t even apologize!

  At a stop sign, I reached back and pushed the mannequin further down so no one could see it.

  “They’re going to have to burn you, lady,” I told her.

  For some reason, even though I wasn’t really pa
ying attention, I drove right out of the neighborhood without getting lost. I hit the main road and a breeze came shooting through the car, washing my head in cool air.

  So I had faced him.

  I bitch-slapped him.

  I called him a name.

  Is that all?

  Shred and Farns had way better zingers than I did. Oh my God—they did not just show up and ruin my confrontation! I wanted to find Shred and beat him with a claw hammer until Spaghetti-O’s came out of his ears.

  So I faced Motorcar.

  Big damn deal.

  I don’t feel any better.

  I feel exactly the same.

  It didn’t work.

  It wasn’t enough.

  I should have spit in his face.

  I should’ve grabbed the flare gun from Farns and shot Motorcar in the face. I should have shot all of them. I should have shot all of them with a real gun. I wanted a drink. I wanted fifty thousand drinks.

  That bitch-slap was pretty satisfying, though. Shit, I dunno.

  The bitch-slap is a human act replete with rich and complex meaning. The pain caused by the well-timed, well-placed bitch-slap is more emotional than physical. Injuries sustained from a good bitch-slap are to the slappee’s dignity, their pride. While sharp, the pain to the cheek is shallow and relatively swift in dissipation, whereas the pain of bitch-slap humiliation is deep, and the memory of it may last a lifetime or longer.

  I should have been happy. I wasn’t feeling like the triple deluxe limited-edition super hero I had envisioned for myself. I felt dirty. Empty. Stupid.

  Dead inside.

  I felt exactly the same as before.

  21

  My landmark, the grocery store. I parked in the lot and started scouring the car for change. I was doing pretty well, had about three dollars collected from the seats and the floor. Then I remembered there was some change in the ashtray. Big score. I felt rich. The a/c in the store was roaring like an arctic tsunami, so I made it quick. I got everything I needed and hurried back up front.