by P G Loiselle
“Dale, wassup? It’s me.”
“Luke, you’re alive, buddy. Tommy stopped by yesterday. Told me everything. Joey da Silva? Stone? Amy stealing his money? He’s big time. How you going to get out of this doozy?”
“Not sure yet. How about you? You alright?” Heard about your fender bender with those buttheads.”
“No, everything’s cool. Nothing happened to me, but the hunk of junk Pacer I was driving was smashed up in the back. When those flunkies heard the cops coming, they slipped me a couple grand to buy the piece of trash. We had it on sale for $500, so I kept the rest for pain and suffering. Not a bad deal, actually. We all pitched in to shove the wreck out of the way in time for them to beat it before the police came. By that time, I knew you’d be long gone. I told the cops it was nothing major and that we squared things away. That was enough explanation for them. Who wants to spend a Saturday writing up an accident report when you can sun yourself at a park and pretend to be working?”
“Dale, I need you again. I can’t see anyone following me, but these people are like the FBI or something. They have a picture of Amy and Stevie, recordings of me and Amy, and who knows what else they’ve got waiting to lay on me when the time is ripe? I need to get to Stevie at the shop and sneak him out of there without anyone noticing. Any ideas?”
“Have I got ideas? Tons. Whether they’re good ones is another story.” He took a couple of seconds and let one loose. “Hey, I got it. What about you take my chopper and grab Stevie from the back door of the shop? I’ll pick you up on the street behind your house in like a half hour. I got two full-face helmets and Daddy Longlegs can ride on the bumper seat. Even if they’re right in back of you, those assholes wouldn’t even know it’s your exhaust they’re choking on.”
“Your chopper? That sucker’s humongous. Not sure I can handle that.”
“Come on, you wimp. It’s low to the ground maybe, but it’s not that big. You sat on it plenty of times and didn’t dump it.”
“Sitting isn’t riding. And yeah, I used to ride dirt bikes. That’s different though.”
“My sister takes it out all the time. You think I’d let you take it if I didn’t think you could handle it? No way, pal. But I trust you, hundred pro. Besides, you break it, you buy it. Standard rules for everybody.”
“I don’t even have a motorcycle license.”
“You got bigger problems than that, buddy and you’re probably breaking tons of laws already. You need to be mobile yet still out of sight.”
“I’m always out of sight.”
“Whatever, dude. Just be out there like I said. No guts, no glory.”
Dale hung up and left me no choice. There was no time to mull it over. It was a done deal.
I sped home to find that Stone’s people had indeed staked out a blatant place in front of my house; however, I didn’t fuss. Once inside, I put down the shades, cranked up the music like on Friday, and scuttled out the back to meet Dale as ordered. He was already waiting.
“You made it, buddy,” he said. “I always thought you only talked like you’ve got balls, but right now, they’re practically bulging out of your nose.”
“Shut your face and give me that helmet.” I strapped it onto my head and proceeded to hop on the back until Dale halted me.
“Where’re you going, Lone Ranger? I’ll be your bitch until Tonto mounts your back saddle. Someone’s got to give you a crash course on how not to crash.” Dale hit the kill switch and got off. “You’re up.”
I took on the challenge without any gripe and swung my leg over the seat, holding the machine upright. I turned the key and cranked the kick start while revving the gas. By the third kick, the chopper started rumbling, and I could feel the engine’s power vibrating from my thighs, through my innards and outward to my extremities.
“See, you’ve got it,” Dale said. “Now get ready. Here I come.” He jumped on behind me and settled in passenger-style. Since we were sunk down low with the weight of the bike rooted in the middle, it wasn’t a problem to balance all that mass without tipping. “What’re you waiting for?” he said. “Let’s rock and roll.”
“Ok, here we go. But if we die, it was your idea.” I downshifted into first gear, drew back the throttle and we began to move.
Before I knew it, I was maneuvering through the streets like an old pro. Dale gave me tips the whole way back to Magic Cars where I dropped him off before setting course to the Saylesville Mills to haul away Stevie. I arrived a couple minutes prior to breaktime, disguised as a motorcycle man, pulled up to the employee entrance and sauntered in.
I knew the whole crew, and nobody stopped me from walking onto the shop floor and up to the machine Stevie was working at. The raucous orchestra of saws buzzing, drills drilling and wood smacking against hard surfaces was deafening. Stevie’s demure nature juxtaposed this battlefield of distractions and afforded him the calm to glide about his task, making millimeter precision look like child’s play. Once the clock needle reached the top of the hour, Stevie approached me. I handed him the other helmet, and he took it, blindly trusting any kooky plan that I might have had in mind. After exchanging a few words with his boss, Stevie geared up, and we left in a flash. I needed to find a place where we wouldn’t be spotted and the best location I could think of was the trestle near the Lonsdale mills. The trestle was an old bridge-like industrial era monolith, spanning the entirety of the Blackstone River, save a little section of damn composed of four shoots used in the olden days to control the water flow. I figured we’d be secure there. What kind of business would Stone’s gang possibly have in the mills or at the trestle?
Upon arrival, we both dismounted. I took Stevie in my arms as if he’d been my missing kid, the kind placed on milk cartons, and he’d just been returned to me after years of captivity. I removed my helmet and glared into the sun reflecting from his face-shield. “Stevie, buddy. You’re safe.”
His head, still contained within the protective shell, was pointed vaguely in my direction. “Why wouldn’t I be?” he asked, voice muffled and barely coherent. “Was only at work.”
“I saw him again today. Stone, I mean, in Carney’s office. What a creepy son of a bitch. He’s like the Godfather meets Elmer Fudd. Tried to get me to blab and pretended we’d be safe. That he’d help us if he had his money back. The whole time, I swore I knew nothing. I’m sure he didn’t buy it. Even stuck a lobster fork in Carney’s hand, the crazy bastard.”
“A lobster fork?”
“What?” It was difficult to understand him with his head still covered.
“A lobster fork?” he asked again, now straining his voice.
“You know, one of those long, two-pronged thingies. And he’s probably waiting for one of us to slip up and then get us all.”
“With a lobster fork?”
“No, silly. In general, I mean.”
His face slanted towards the ground. “Maybe,” he said. His helmet padding swallowed his reply making it sound like ‘Amy’.
“He even had a recording of me and Amy from when we went to lunch at Alias last week. They suspected she might try something, for a long time already. So, they followed us, recorded us. It was disgusting. I felt frickin’ raped, Stevie. My private sphere had been penetrated by those interloping needle dicks. And uh, Stone also gave me this.” For the second time, I took out the picture and handed it to another person. This time, it was someone who could shed some light on the moments captured within the image, even if it would mean a world of hurt for me. Stevie held it out an arms-length away and gave it a long stare from behind his mask.
“It’s Amy. And me. Kissing.” He continued to examine the picture before finally succumbing to gravity and letting his arm drop. “Don’t know where this came from. I see it’s us. But making out?”
“You two aren’t together?”
“No. I mean, who doesn’t love Amy? But us, to
gether? Definitely not. Trick photography maybe?”
“You’re telling the truth, right?”
“Why lie?” he said.
“True. Why lie?” I said and snagged the photo out of his hand and tucked it away.
After his non-confession, though, we both only moped about, stumped, not knowing what to say or do. Stevie still had his helmet on and face mask down, and I thought he must be sweating his ass off in the high-noon stickiness. When he finally removed his head gear, there wasn’t even the tiniest bead of perspiration anywhere on his skin or in his golden locks of hair.
“Let’s ask Amy,” he said. “The warehouse is right here, in the mills.”
“No shit,” I said. “But seeing her this early after Saturday wasn’t even an option for me. What if they’re watching us? We could be putting everyone in danger. Plus, I wouldn’t even know how to find her.”
“But I do,” Stevie said. “Top floor, in the back. Really think they’re watching?”
I pinched my hairless chin between my thumb and first two fingers, weighing the consequences. How foolish it would be, how selfish. Safety should be first, right? How could I wait any longer for an answer about the picture though? “Come on,” I said. “We’ll check it out. Make sure she’s alright.”
“Yeah, see if she’s alright,” Stevie said in his occasional repeat mode. He must have been wondering about the kiss too.
Mike’s dad’s warehouse was situated in one of the larger, more modern buildings of the mill complex. More modern meant that it was constructed in the early twentieth century instead of in the 1800s. Dilapidated old factories of ruin from that early era were still plentiful and interwoven throughout the ever-declining number of structures still in use.
The warehouse was accessible to the public from the front only via a well-worn cobblestone street that also snaked around the windowless right side of the building. The backside was located on a long and narrow alleyway that separated two blocks of buildings and connected the perpendicular cobblestone street to another more frequented, semi-modern roadway. The left side of the warehouse was fused together to some decrepit brick monstrosity that spanned all the way to the other road and must have been plagued with rats the size of beagles and pigeons that even the rats would be grossed out by. The backwall access consisted only of a few ancient windows on the third floor with no immediate means to get to them from ground level. An emergency escape ladder hung halfway down from one of the windows but was too high to reach up and grab onto. We decided to go in through the back of the warehouse since a frontal assault seemed just plain stupid.
We deposited the chopper in a discreet nook on the other end of the alley and circled around to look for a way to scale the wall and grasp the hanging ladder. The next challenge would be to pry open the window since it was sure to be locked if not rusted shut. Lucky for us, the trestle was located along the old Towpath, a multi-mile dirt way separating the Blackstone Canal from the Blackstone River and travelling all the way up to one of Cumberland’s own early factory sites. The Towpath, no longer occupied by the bustling old-style shipping transport of yesteryear, was now a haven for dirt bike enthusiasts. Not only was it possible to ride through the many scourged sections of the Lonsdale Mill grounds and the adjacent corporate-made sand dunes of erosion and environmental irresponsibility, it was also possible to take a bike long distances at fast speeds from one town to the next, off-road, without cops or anyone else bothering you or thinking twice about it. Two people on a motorcycle cruising around the grid-like maze of the mill complex, or anywhere in the vicinity, was not enough to warrant anyone’s attention. Besides, we put our helmets back on so our heads would be covered in case someone did notice.
“How’re we supposed to get up there?” I said, thinking out loud, once we ditched Dale’s road warrior.
“Can’t say.”
“Maybe we can find something long and sturdy to lean on the wall and shimmy up like monkeys,” I said. “There’s got to be something around here somewhere. This place is a junkyard. A long stable plank might even do the trick.”
We scanned the area until Stevie spotted an object too good to be true. “A ladder.”
I couldn’t believe my own eyes. There, behind a dumpster, near where we parked the bike lay a wooden ladder for the taking. It was more rot than anything but felt stable enough to hold us. We each took an end, careful not to get any splinters and made our way to the point of entry. We set it on the brick face underneath the rungs of the suspended escape ladder, which was dangling like a Red Delicious on the highest, skinniest branch for us to pluck. It would be a stretch, but we both thought we could get high enough to grab it.
“You first or me?” Stevie asked.
“Whatever, man. You want to be first to greet our damsel in distress, fine by me.”
“Ok, me,” he said.
I gritted my teeth, having to stomach being runner-up.
He started his ascent, and I held the ladder tight. “Damn it,” he said, cursing under his breath as the third rung snapped. He had almost tumbled down foot first towards my welcoming head but instead, caught himself and started up again as if it were only a minor blip. In no time, he neared the top but ran out of something for his hands to grasp. He could only continue higher with his feet. “Got me, Luke?” His dampened voice quivered.
“Course. And if you take a dive, I’m here to catch you.” We both knew that I wouldn’t be able to really catch him, and we’d both probably end up in the hospital, or maybe the morgue. “Just relax and walk up the next two steps. Use the wall for leverage. But don’t lean too close or cling to it. You’ll fall backwards.”
He glared down, then up, and down again. By now, the bottled-up sweat must have been raining inside his helmet.
“Think about how much stuff we climbed as kids,” I said, “like that ledge in the Lonsdale plat we scrambled up. Almost got taken out by falling rocks. Remember? Now that was sick shit. This is a cake walk.”
Although feeling confident he’d make it, it was easy for me to think positive with my feet planted on Mother Earth. He might not have shared my opinion considering the way the poor guy’s legs trembled, sending vibrations down the wooden rails. He forged on, taking another step, almost lost his balance, scurried for the next one, seized the fire escape and clung to the metal rung. With a final grunt, he thrust himself up and scampered to the top.
“Woohoo. You did it,” I said as soft as possible without tone.
Besides the deep sigh, his reply wasn’t even understandable. He must have been sapped out because he collapsed where he landed, helmet still on, and looked drenched under the pits.
I was stoked until it dawned upon me that I was next. I started out cautious and deliberate like Stevie and hustled up until I got to those last couple of steps. Stevie had one big advantage over me. He was much taller, like Amy’s size.
“You can do it, Luke,” he said, egging me on as if I were his six-year-old kid. “Last part looks harder than it is.”
I gazed upwards and knew I had to go for it. I took the first step. Waited to catch my breath and regain my center. Carefully put my foot on the top rung. And with all the spunk I had, stepped up, heaving myself through the air and grabbed hold of the escape ladder’s bottom step. I must have put too much force on the decomposing wood of the last stair I catapulted from. It snapped in half, and the whole contraption tumbled to the ground, where it splintered to pieces. My left hand wasn’t firmly holding on yet, and I lost my grip. Now dangling with only my right arm, I had to act fast. Without thinking, I tightened my gut, swung my weight and hoisted myself up again so that all ten fingers were wrapped around the wrought iron bar. I walked my feet up the wall and made it further up the escape to take my position next to Stevie. My heart pumped like the bilge of a sinking ship, and a thick layer of sweat coated my body.
“See, you made it too,” he said.
After a solid minute, Stevie crawled to the front of the platform and peered over the edge. “Ladder’s gone,” he said. “If we can’t get in, how do we get down?”
I moved to the space beside him and contemplated the battered pile of wood. “Dunno,” I said and continued to gasp “Let’s fall off…that bridge…when we come to it.” I slumped back down for another long breather and thought about how close we were to Amy.
Once I was ready to move, I gave the signal, and we proceeded to the window. Stevie gave it a nudge, and it was stuck. Both of us grabbed the bottom of the frame and heaved, but the window seemed to be rusted shut. We got under it again and lifted and pulled upwards, with all our strength, as hard as we could, trying to abstain from loud grunting, until the window freed itself from the metal crust confining it and there was a half-inch of movement.
“Yes,” Stevie said, elated, and opened the window the rest of the way. He gave me a thumbs up and without looking, dove in with all the optimism of a young teen running into the Providence Civic Center to see his first Kiss concert. To greet him was a folding chair being busted over his head. There was a nasty crack followed by a thud.
I ripped off my helmet and jammed my head into the opening. “Stop. It’s us.”
Amy screamed like a train whistle and dropped the chair. “Luke, what the…?” She stared down at the phantom with the full-faced helmet sprawled out limp on the floor and dropped to the ground to de-mask him. She didn’t know who it was yet realized it must be a friend.
Stevie’s initial look of shock morphed into a nerdy smirk as he glared up at her. “Amy?” he said, spacing out the two syllables of her name.
“My god, Stevie. I’m so sorry.” She started running her fingers through his hair and stroking his face as if she were Mother Theresa tending to a leper. “You alright, dear?”