by Faricy, Mike
“Our right to free speech shall not be silenced. We…”
“The phone call to 911. Made from a couple of blocks away, you know, you should have thought things through a little better, before you had her call,” I bluffed.
It was Thompson Barkwell’s turn to go red faced.
“I’ll take that, wait here while I cut you a check,” he said, then snatched the envelope out of my hand and stomped back toward his office.
“Could I, could I have my gun back?” the Sergeant Major whined.
“Are you kidding me?”
“It’s, it’s not mine it belongs to one of the other guys on the team.”
“Team?”
“Seal Team Six, there’s six of us. We’ve sworn an oath…”
“Stop, before I really hurt you. Seal Team Six, this isn’t some fucking toy, numb nuts, this thing is loaded. In fact you know what, spoils of war, I’m keeping it. You better find a new line of work because this sure as hell doesn’t seem to fit you.”
“But I promised, I’d take care…”
“Mister Haskell, here, your deed is done, now get out.” Thompson called from behind me then thrust a check in my direction.
I glanced at the amount, about a hundred and twenty-five bucks short.
“That’s not the right amount.”
“I took a twenty percent discount, based on early payment.”
“Twenty percent, that’s not my policy.”
“No, its mine, good day, Mister Haskell.”
“You’re stiffing me for a hundred and twenty-five bucks?”
“No, I’m paying you more than you’re worth, as it is, now get out before I call the police.”
“This isn’t the last you’ve heard of me.”
“Good day, Mister Haskell.”
Chapter Twelve
There wasn’t much I could do. I thought about throwing Thompson out the window but with the way my luck was running he would simply land on his thick skull and remain unfazed. Instead, I drove over to his bank, cashed his check before he had a chance to reconsider and stop payment. Then I drove to my office, rifled off a nasty letter and attached an invoice for the balance owed. I slapped a stamp on the envelope and mailed the thing before I had a chance to reconsider.
Amazingly, the mail box was right across the street from The Spot. I decided a beer couldn’t hurt. I was successfully pursuing that activity some hours later when my phone rang.
“Haskell,” I answered, forgetting the ‘investigations’ part.
“Oh wow, Dev, how exciting, you sound positively uncivil. I heard you had a run in with that tubby little wart Tommy Barkwell, earlier.”
“Who’s this?” I was having trouble hearing over Lonesome George Thorogood cranking out ‘Bad to the Bone’ on the jukebox and I staggered outside into the heat.
“It’s me, Kiki. Where in God’s name are you?”
“The Spot. What do you want?” I mumbled, attempting to clear multiple beers from my head as I leaned against the outside of the building.
“Oh I don’t know, just a girl looking to party.”
“Well, like I said, I’m at The Spot.”
I don’t remember much beyond that. I know Kiki must have shown up at some point because I woke up in her bed the next morning. Mercifully, there were no knives. In fact there wasn’t any drama, well except for the spray painted “KRAZ SUCKS” in large red letters, about four feet high, across a bedroom wall.
“Holy shit,” I groaned stuffing my head back under her pillow.
“Here, take a couple of these,” Kiki said, holding out what I guessed we’re four aspirin and what looked like a glass of orange juice.
I tossed all four aspirin into my mouth, then washed them down with the orange juice, sugary, sweet and the first non-alcoholic thing in my system in the past eighteen hours.
“Actually, two of those were for me,” she said.
“Oh, sorry ‘bout that, God, that stuff was sweet, man.” I smacked my lips and then ran my tongue over my fuzzy teeth.
“Yeah, I added sugar, lots of it. It’s what the system craves just now. The sweet carbs will go a long way in fighting your hangover. I’m guessing you’ve got one, a hangover.”
“The king of all hangovers. What the hell is this?” I asked as I turned my head back and forth to crack my neck and felt something tighten.
“Whoops, your collar and leash.” Kiki laughed.
“My what?” I asked sitting up, then glanced at the black leather leash along my side, reached up and felt where it clipped onto a dog collar around my neck.
“You were in need of some, um, training, last night. Don’t you remember, bad puppy?” she said, then gave the leash a tug.
“What?”
“Oh, you were a bad boy, a very bad boy,” she giggled.
I noticed the grass stains on my knees.
“Need to be taken outside again?”
“No, no, ahhh look, I probably should get going, I’ve got a meeting. What time is it, do you know?”
“Just a little after two?”
“In the afternoon?”
“Yes, in the afternoon, do you think the sun would be out if it was two in the morning, silly?”
“Yeah, good point, I guess.”
I swung my feet onto the floor, sat on the edge of her bed and took a couple of deep breaths, then looked around the bedroom for my jeans.
“You sure you haven’t already missed your meeting?”
“I only wish, no, it’s at three thirty or four I can’t remember which,” I lied.
“What are you doing?”
“Actually, to tell you the truth, I’m looking around for my jeans.”
“Oh, I think you left them in your car.”
“My car?”
“Yeah that big red clunky thing you drive, it’s out in back.”
“Oh yeah, now I remember.”
I thought I spied my t-shirt on the floor, began to pull it on, but it got caught up on the leash.
“Hey, could you maybe help get this thing off me. The leash?” my arms were up in the air with the t-shirt over my head.
“Yeah, I guess. By the way that’s my top you’re putting on, unless you have one with spaghetti straps.”
“Oh sorry,” I peeked out at her as she climbed off the bed and unclipped the leash.
“Here, give me this. Now turn round,” she said directing me with her hands.
“I think puppy needs a lot more training, what do you think?’ she giggled and rubbed against my back.
“I think I need my jeans.”
“I’ll go get them,” she said pulling on a thong and exiting the bedroom.
“What if someone sees you?” I called.
“What if they do?” she said, already in the kitchen. I heard the back door open a moment later. After a couple of minutes she strolled back in, carrying my jeans, t-shirt and boxers.
“No worries, they were all in your car,” she said like it was an everyday occurrence.
“Thanks for getting them,” I said, then glanced at the spray painting on the bedroom wall as I pulled my boxers on.
“Enlighten me,” I said nodding at the wall.
“Oh, you did that right before I took you outside.”
I looked at the graffiti I’d apparently sprayed on her bedroom wall. I must have been flying, I never write with capitol letters, but then again, I never write with spray paint either. It seemed particularly harsh against the beige walls and glossy white woodwork.
“You were pretty screwed up,” she said.
“Yeah, I would say so. Look, sorry about that. I know a guy who can fix that, paint it, I mean. Let me get him over here, take care of that right away.”
“I don’t know, I kind of like it.”
“You do?”
“No, just yanking your chain, I mean, your leash,” she said and held up the leash, giggled, then tossed it onto the bed with a suggestive look on her face.
“Look, I better run, so
rry to dash out like this,” I said, slipping on my shoes.
“Sure?” she said, raising her eyebrows and running her tongue back and forth over her lips.
“I’ll call my pal. I’m sure he can get over here in a day or two and get that taken care of.”
“No rush,” she said following me out the bedroom door and into her kitchen.
We stopped, kissed and groped for a few minutes at her kitchen door.
“I gotta get going, I said,” felt for my keys in the pocket of my jeans, kissed her a final time and stepped out the backdoor. She grabbed an apple off the counter, took a bite then stood there chewing, watching me as I walked out to my car in the alley.
“Hey Dev, oouuuuuu!” she howled, just as I opened the gate.
I smiled, shook my head, then quickly closed the gate behind me, jumped into my car and locked all the doors.
Chapter Thirteen
I didn’t drive home. Instead, I stopped by The Spot, just to see if I could piece things together from the night before. It sounded like Dean Martin on the juke box, I wasn’t sure, but it was too early for whoever it was. I nodded at the three guys drinking.
“Hi Dev,” Linda called as I walked in the side door.
“Linda, how’s it going?”
“Beer?” she asked.
“No, not right now. Just checking in, any messages?”
She pulled a handful of pink “While you were Out” notes from behind the cash register, flipped through maybe a half dozen, shaking her head.
“No, no, don’t look like there’s anything here for you.”
“Kinda working at putting last night together, anything you’re aware of?”
“No, I haven’t heard much. Usual insanity, but you didn’t shoot up the place or hide in the ladies room or anything, if that’s what you mean. Least as far as I know.”
“Okay, thanks.”
I walked across the street and up the stairs to my second floor office. The office door was closed, but unlocked. I stepped inside and glanced around, everything seemed to be in order. My laptop was open, but the screensaver was on, fireworks bouncing around. As soon as I touched the mouse the screen returned to a word document, a one page letter to Thompson Barkwell at KRAZ. The letter began with the greeting; Asshole. Not even so much as a ‘Dear’ in front of it. Then went down hill from there, demanding payment in full of the hundred and twenty-five dollars still owing. Two paragraphs calling Barkwell just about every name in the book followed by a third paragraph using rather colorful, often misspelled language describing exactly what I would do to him if he refused to comply with my payment request.
I always print two copies of letters, one for a hard file, and the other to actually mail. There was one copy of the nice letter I’d sent before I went into The Spot. There was also one copy of the insane rant I’d just read. The book of stamps on my desk was empty and I knew there had been two or three stamps in there yesterday after sending the first letter. I must have stupidly mailed this second awful thing when I was drunk.
I went out to the mailbox on the corner. Pick up in about an hour at four-thirty. I wandered into The Spot and waited.
I didn’t know her name, but I recognized her from across the street when she pulled up in the mail truck fifteen minutes early. Who ever expected the government to be early?
“Excuse me, ma’am,” I called from the front door of The Spot, then half stumbled down the three steps in my hurry to get to her.
She was busy shoveling envelopes into a white plastic box stenciled with black letters. “Property US Postal Service.”
“Excuse me ma’am, I’d like to get a letter back, I think I tossed it in there last night.” I called half running across the street.
“Sorry, no can do, it’s in the system now.” She said, shoveled the last two or three envelopes in then looked up at me, dead pan.
“Yeah, I get that, but see, I sent the letter in the first place and I forgot to enclose something, actually the check for payment. I don’t want to waste the stamp, if I could just get it back. I’ll put the check in, toss it back in the mail box, you can pick it up tomorrow.” I thought my little white lie sounded pretty convincing.
She smiled, nodded, seemed to consider my logic, and then said, “Nope. Sorry, against Federal regulations.”
“But I wrote the letter, see, and forget to put the check in, so if I could just get my letter back from you…”
“Yeah, I know, happens more than you think. Well, or so folks tell us. Anyway, I’m sorry, but once it’s in the system, we can’t. You could go down to the main Post Office, fill out I don’t know, maybe PS form 8076, oh wait, that holds mail, you don’t want that. They’d know the form number, this going out of town?”
“No, it stays right here, in St. Paul.”
“Oh, well then there’s really nothing we can do, it’ll be sorted and delivered by tomorrow. Did you use zip plus four?”
“What?”
“Doesn’t really matter, in town, it’ll be in their hands tomorrow. Why not just put the check in another envelope, mail it and maybe call them, explain what happened just to be sure.”
“Why not just give me my letter back?”
“Wish I could, but it would be against government regulations, no can do.”
“Come on, damn it, I mailed the damn thing to begin with. Besides, I don’t have another stamp.”
“So for the sake of forty-eight cents you want me to commit a Federal offense, that it? Sorry not happening,” she said and took two steps to her truck, tossed the box onto the floor and began to climb in.
“Aw come on, you gotta be kidding. I think I saw my envelope on top of that pile of letters.”
“Look buddy, I said no. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
I grabbed her ankle, attempted to get past her to snatch my envelope back.
“Federal employee, mister, that’s assault.” I heard the hiss for a nanosecond just before the pepper spray hit my eyes.
“God, what the… Arghhh, Jesus Christ!” I screamed, and then collapsed down onto my knees.
“This is driver eleven twenty. Repeat, One, one, two, zero, assault on a federal employee, in progress. Subject has been neutralized. Please dispatch, repeat please dispatch. Corner Randolph and Victoria, repeat corner Randolph and Victoria.”
Chapter Fourteen
I think I was in the back of the squad car, I wasn’t sure because the paramedics told me to keep my eyes closed and my head tilted back. I was following their advice, doing just that. My eyes were on fire, my nose was running and my face felt raw. I could hear the paramedics laughing with the police officers a few feet away.
“Stuff’s lethal, man. We had to put a German Shepard down once, some mail carrier sprayed the thing. It was a blessing to shoot the poor dog.”
“This is so great, I can’t wait to tell my wife, she’ll go nuts that Dev was pepper sprayed by a Post Office gal, she hates him.”
Isn’t that cheery? Laughs all around after being assaulted by some reactionary wench who literally went Postal on me. Luckily for me I knew my arresting officer, Timmy Callahan. We’d played hockey on the same pee wee team. His wife Shelia had never quite fallen for my charm ever since I threw up on her prom dress junior year. It had been a particular off white color, unfortunately I’d had a number of bottles of Red Ripple. I vaguely remember leaning over to stare down her low cut top when things began to…
“Mister Haskell, I want you to keep your eyes closed and your head tilted back. I’m going to help you out of the car and we’re going to flush those eyes again.”
“Am I going be alright? Will I be able to see? This shit still really stings.”
More snickers.
“Yeah I think so, you might want to get checked out, but usually twenty-four to forty-eight hours does the trick. Okay, there you go, that’s right, just step out nice and easy. Keep the eyes closed, head back. Good, real good.” He was saying all the right things, but I could tell he found my predic
ament hilarious.
“Shit’s still burning, man.” My eyes were killing me, my face felt like someone took a belt sander to it and my nose was still running.
“Yeah, she nailed you pretty good. I’d guess once you were down she gave you a couple more squirts just to keep you there.”
“Did Timmy arrest the bitch?”
“No Dev, I just took her name, we’ll put her in for a Citizen of the Month award. You know keeping the streets safe, dealing with local riff raff, that sort of shit.” This came from off to my right somewhere. Even with my eyes closed, I recognized Timmy’s voice.
“Thanks a lot. That bitch is a menace to society.”
“Okay head back, this is going to feel nice and cool, it’s just water. A good long shower when you get home should go a long way in getting you back to normal. You’re going to have some swelling for a day or two, a little redness. Might be a good idea to have a doc check it out. Just to be on the safe side.”
The water was refreshingly cool washing over my face and I moved my head slightly left to right as he slowly poured the water onto my face. The burning in my eyes was reduced substantially.
“How we doing, feeling better?”
“Much better, much better.”
“Keep those eyes closed, yeah that’s right. Now, the stinging is going to return a little, so when you get home hop in the shower. I wouldn’t make any plans for tonight. And you sure as heck can’t drive. Officer Callahan offered to give you a ride home.”
“So, I’m not going to jail?” I asked.
“Well, I guess that’s up to your arresting officer,” he said, suddenly sounding deadly serious.
Chapter Fifteen
“You fucking idiot. What the hell were you thinking? Attacking some postal chick picking up the mail, you must have lost what little brains you’ve left.”
I was riding in the back of Timmy’s squad car, eyes closed, head back, just as the paramedic had instructed. I had the sense we were really moving fast. My head was bouncing off the back seat, none too gently.
“Hey, I told the bitch I just wanted a letter back. I forgot to put the check in. What? All of a sudden it’s some sort of federal crime to pay your bills on time?”
