by Brian Bakos
29. Serious Deliberations
Bert settled into his big leather recliner in the corner of the basement – his truncated ‘man cave’ amid the general clutter – and popped open another beer. He was as contented as he was as likely to get, with a little refrigerator full of 25 ouncers on one flank and a bag of Mexican take-out on the other.
He’d come home immediately after the incidents at the Armstrong estate, so as to ponder the momentous decision he had made. He chomped into a super-sized burrito and flicked the remote to a recording of the Wandering Willie Fishing Adventures show.
He wasn’t particularly fond of fishing, and old Wandering Willie impressed him as something of an idiot with his homespun commentaries. Yet this was one of Bert’s favorite programs. He liked it because every episode took place in a new locale around the world. His wanderlust had never gotten any satisfaction. He’d scarcely been out of the state in his whole life.
Usually, the show dealt with fresh water fishing – angling for trout or bass, that sort of thing. But today, it had gone to the deep sea off the Belize coast in Central America. The show began with an airplane-eye view of old Wandering Willie coming in for a landing at the San Pedro airport, then going out to charter a deep sea fishing boat. This all seemed like great fun. But the best thing was the background information on the country.
Belize was in the same Caribbean ball park as the Cayman Islands, and the women there were great! All kinds – chocolate colored ones, deep black ones, lily white young tourists stuffed into clinging bikinis.
“Right on!” Bert said, reaching for another burrito.
The ‘introduction to Belize’ portion of the show continued – the Blue Hole, the laid back beach lifestyle, dancing in the streets. To hell with the fish! Why would you catch those things, anyway, if not to impress the girls?
The girls ... like the ones who came to watch him play football. He may not have been one of the sexier guys running with the ball tucked under his arm, but he was out on the field, too, doing a job that very few others could handle. And the team had winning seasons both years he’d played in high school. He could still hear the crowd cheering them on.
Again he asked himself: Why didn’t I take that football scholarship?
Sure, it wasn’t Michigan State, just a small liberal arts college with a modest football program. It would have been a whole new world for him, though. He could have been somebody, at least for a while, if only as a big fish in a little bowl.
But it was an elite academic institution, nothing like his blue-collar high school. He’d have felt like an oaf among all those bright kids. He’d have had to take the easiest classes and struggle with tutors to keep from flunking out. The humiliation would have been terrible. And then what? It’s not like the NFL was pounding at the door.
Still ...
He’d had an excellent job at an auto plant – full UAW negotiated pay and benefits. How would Dad have felt after pulling all those strings to get him in only to have him quit? Jobs like that were getting scarce; not everybody had an old man rooting for him. And Sally didn’t want him to take the scholarship, either. She was hot to get married and feared competition from the “college bimbos.”
Yes ... Sally. What could be done about her?
A divorce might not be so easy, not with all the information she had on him that could be blabbed to the IRS. Could she be bought off somehow – let her have the house, the SUV, the landscape business?
No, the house was heavily mortgaged, the SUV was pushing 100,000 miles, and Sally hated the landscape business more than anything on earth. And if he offered her cash, she’d be suspicious about where he’d gotten it. What then?
Another murder, perhaps?
After making the moral leap to one act of homicide, a second leap did not seem to be quite so radical. Perhaps committing murders was like eating pretzels – once you got started, it was kind of hard to stop.
There was a third possibility ... He could try to patch up his life with her. A huge infusion of cash would really help with that. No more worries about bills, get out of this crappy house. He’d help her get over her gambling and drinking problems. They could rediscover the love that had made them marry in the first place, go on diets together.
They could do that, right? Anything was possible, wasn’t it?
Then he heard Sally barging into the front door above him, returning from her latest gambling foray.
“Bert!” she cried. “Where the hell are you?”
The floor boards creaked and groaned under her steps. She belched massively.
“Bert, I’m talking to you!”
Bert sank deeper into his chair. All thoughts of reconciliation flew out of his head. Things would have to be handled one at a time, he decided. Frank Armstrong first – everything else later.
He punched a button on his remote. The Notorious Crime Fugitives program appeared.
