Kailua-Kona? I read it on Parker's lips (at least that's what I thought I read, but in the heat of the night it all unraveled so fast). Was he referencing that fight he got into with the surfer?
Except it was when I opened my mouth that the kettle boiled over, or however that saying goes. Something or other boils over. I nudged my chin at the grill in Sideways Cap's mouth and said: “You ever cook pancake and eggs on that thing?”
The silence, which probably lasted no more than a second, seemed eternal. Sideways Cap squinted his eyes and wrinkled his forehead with such ferocity that I thought what was left of his brains might squirt out from his ears. He bit his lips too. He said: “What did you say, glad rags?”
“What, you think you can box? Shit.” Big Boy stepped up. He mumbled something about his mother or somebody's mother, I wasn't sure whose, I just know he said mother, throw in a hombre and any number of other mumbled syllables that I'd have to refer to at a later time in my urban dictionary, followed with another four letter word that rhymed with ship. Total potty mouths, these four were.
“He said he was thinking of lighting a match and holding it up to your lips, see if he can light that stove with your breath, because really, it smells like gas.” Alex said. And then he added: “I would have said shit, but that didn't really fit the allegory.”
Out came the glock. Click. Lock and load.
I'm not really sure what happened after that. I never saw Richie take a hit but he was down on the ground before the fight really began. He lay there like a slug too, hands shielding the crown of his balded head, probably in hopes that he'd be forgotten about. And so he was. Alex was immediately on top of Sideways Cap, wrestling to take control of the gun. He somehow fended off Chain & Jacket and Hoodie at the same moment with furious punches and kicks, but his full concentration was in dominating the glock; to the gun, the victor.
Big Boy swung at me, a hard slap. I repelled it away with a return gift of five knuckles thrusted into his chin. He didn't budge, however, and swung back, harder. I avoided that one too, which actually came as a surprise. I knew I could hit, with years of homework via school of Great-Uncle Milhous and his brothers, but never could repel their punches. Regardless, I swung at Big Boy again, and again. A punch to the chin. Another to the cheek. Then to the neck. Oh yeah, that's the other thing, I never was very good at aiming my landings either. Oh well. They stuck to the dart board, and that's what counts. Big Boy stood his ground, despite my throws, and rolled with the punches, as the saying goes.
Jab! Jab! Now give him a cross and an uppercut! Great-Uncle Milhous screamed in my head. Tiger Woods had a better chance at hitting a hole in one than I sticking my landings right.
“Joshua!” Leah's voice. That one was for real.
Hoodie came at me, but Big Boy said he wanted me all to himself, something about somebody's mother, more mumbles, more name calling (I guess my nickname was Glad Rags now; I was fine with it) and a word that cleverly rhymed with ship. But just for good measure I slugged Hoodie on the nose. Blood squirted everywhere. He held both hands there and groaned. My fists took another few jabs at Big Boy, all to no avail. I thought he might be enjoying himself.
Elsewhere on the battlefield Chain & Jacket was down on all fours holding the palm of both hands to his face with accusations that the white ass nigger had knocked his teeth out. Blood splattered across his Philly logo. I hoped that wasn't his best letterman. Richie still lay there like a slug. I gave him an “A” for effort anyways.
“Joshua!” Leah's voice again. Or was it Penny this time?
You call that a hook? I could slap a rhino’s ass blindfolded better than that!
Big Boy finally managed to take a swing and make it stick, a sock it to me punch on the right shoulder. The old knife wound was unguarded and vulnerable, had he even known about it. But he was content with my shoulder. Two more jabs at his chin and eye, a knee to his thigh, and then the sound of a gunshot.
We all turned to look at the shooter.
Alex had pulled the gun away from Sideways Cap. It had fired into a blanket of sky during the struggle, but it was in his control now. Parker turned its barrel right back on the Fab Four's fearless leader and squeezed one into his kneecaps. No hesitation. Cap cried from the immediate pain. Big Boy just stood there, fat and dumb, not a hint of pain anywhere on him. Even my knuckles stung like a mother; somebody's mother. Alex turned and kneed B Boy in the groin. In turn my human punching bag keeled over, holding his two smaller boys. In Star Wars, even the Death Star had a weak spot, and Alex apparently had the R2 readout memorized.
“And that's how it’s done.” Alex bent over, gasping for breath, and grabbed the meat just above his knees. “I think that's enough excitement for one night, don't you think?”
I heard Leah's voice. She said something like, I don't care if we drive to Disney World, throw him in and lets go. And so I instinctively opened up the trunk and said: “Let's get out of here.”
“Sure thing, boss,” he bowed down before climbing in, one hand cupped over his chest, the other extended tea-pot hand holding the glock. “Oh, and your welcome, by the way. How many times have I saved your ass this summer?”
“No, thank you. The next beer's on me.” I grabbed the gun and pitched it overhand as far as I could. It actually managed to hoop through an open window of the brick building and topple around across the vast emptiness within.
With one leg in the trunk, Alex paused, looked to Sideways Cap, who was holding his knee, groaning, and grumbling about how we mother f-something or others are dead, and grinned. “See this?” By this he meant the trunk. “This is how my buddy Joshua here treats his friends. Imagine then how he treats his enemies.”
I closed the trunk, making sure not to slam it on his head, was careful to maneuver around Sideways Cap, and returned to Penny's side (she'd opened the door for me). Before Leah squeezed the pedal I peeled my head through the open window and said: “So which one of you is Dizney and which one of you is Dramm?”
But Leah launched her car so quickly down the street and around the corner that they never had time to respond. To this day I've often wondered which of them was Dizney and which of them was Dramm.
13
THE MAIN TERMINAL at Dulles International was designed by architect Eero Saarinen, the same guy who created the gateway arch in Saint Louis and the TWA flight center at JFK. Its airy windows and swooshing curves spoke of ariel flight, and at five in the morning the terminal illuminated the traveler's path with otherworldly shades of green. We released Alex from the trunk at the Exxon gas station just down the street; let him ride at my side for the remaining quarter of a mile, and when Leah pulled Albino Cave Dweller up to the airports curb I climbed out with him. This was the end of the road. Our friendship was over. I was quite certain of that fact. And it needed a proper farewell. I just didn't know what to say to him.
“Where to this time?” I hugged my chest in the chilly morning air.
Alex just stared at me, single carry-on bag slung over his shoulder.
“Better yet, don't answer that.”
“It's been an adventure,” he finally said. “Before this summer I'd never been further east than Vegas or north of Six Flags and now look at me, I'm practically a globe trotter, all thanks to you.”
“The next time you want an adventure, let’s not and say we did.”
“I know it wasn't always rose pedals between us, but it wasn't from your lack of trying. I had a good time, better than Disneyland, anyways.”
“Alex, some adventures are nothing more than miscalculated inconveniences.” The words sort of slipped out from my mouth. “We just weren't meant to be, you and me.”
“That's not true. Don't say that.”
“What am I supposed to say then?”
“If you're going to dismiss our friendship, then nothing at all.”
I looked at him and sighed. “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.”
“Let me guess, one of your d
ead poet friends?”
Everyone knows its Dickens. “No. Actually, I wrote it.”
“You did?” He looked confused.
“You probably heard of it from somewhere without realizing that I'd written it. It's in one of my publications, A Tale of Two Cities.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, under one of my ghost names; you should check it out some time. Give it a read.”
“Joshua, I've never been much for sentiment, but you need to understand something. So long as I've known you you've always been straight as an arrow. Whether it was your faith or your pursuit towards chivalry or the dedication you showed towards Elise, everything was so black and white with a path laid out before you. I admired that.”
“There's nothing black and white about this.”
“That may be so, but what I said about you doing all the changing at LAX, it simply isn't true. It's also what I like about you. Every wild card needs a little stability. And that's what you are. If I ever said you were misguided, it was only to protect myself. I'm sorry if I threw everything out of balance.”
“Thanks, Alex.”
“I'll make it up to you. I promise.”
“How is that possible?”
“Just you wait and see.”
“I'm already afraid.”
Alex widened his signature grin. “That's the way our friendship is supposed to be.”
“Take care of yourself, Alex.” I patted him on the shoulder.
“I've never been much for goodbyes,” he said.
“Me neither. I guess it's goodnight, then.”
Alex looked up to the thinning sky. “It's practically morning.”
“Good morning just doesn't have the same ring to it.”
“No,” he said. “It doesn't.”
And with that he turned towards the terminal and disappeared from my life, almost as mysteriously as he'd appeared into it at that Vegas biker bar a couple of months earlier. Except he did reappear, and only briefly, to say: “A Tale of Two Cities?”
I said: “That's the one.”
He disappeared again.
“Why did you do it?” Penny leaned against the car.
I reclined at her side. “I don't know, you tell me. Why did you come along?”
“I didn't ride all the way down to Washington for Alex, if that's what you mean.”
“Elise's half-brother Benjamin went to prison for something that Josephine and I believe he didn't do. She had his sentence reduced, but she wasn't able to save him. To this day it still haunts her. It haunts both of us. Maybe this was my way of making up for lost efforts. I spent the entire summer thinking I could reform Alex of his ways. At first I thought he wanted to be saved, but its clear now that wasn't a choice he was willing to make. I guess this was my way of finally setting him free, and to his own destruction, if that's what he chooses.”
“I would have kicked him to the curb. Your setting him free might end up getting us indicted. I can't afford your sister-in-law's legal fees.”
“Should I have turned him in, given the circumstances?”
“I don't know.” Penny shivered from the cold.
I threw an arm around her shoulder before helping her back into the car.
“Yeah, me neither.”
14
NOBODY PURSUED US as we started up northbound on the I-495 towards Baltimore. We kept to the protocol, me lying down on Penny's lap with a blanket covering my head when passing through each toll, and Leah kept to the unmanned ones if possible, using exact change to speed things along. Richie rode shotgun, just as before. Merging onto the I-95, when the sun was peeking its bloated orange head over European continents, we never saw screaming cop lights in the rearview mirror.
Even stopping for breakfast at PANCAKE HOUSE alongside the New Jersey Turnpike, we half expected the FBI to swarm in and arrest us, as if this entire operation was the plot-line to somebody else's book or movie and its author was anxious to give us up as he feverishly clapped his fingers across the keyboard. But nobody came, despite all of us coming to the conviction that they somehow should have. After all, hadn't we broken the law?
From our booth we scanned the news on our iPhones. Leah checked out MSNBC and tightened her eyes at me for even suggesting we read the headlines at Fox News.
“That's an ultra-conservative news network,” she frowned. “They don't even subscribe to Global Warming or science, now that I think about it. How would they even know if Alex used their own butts to stamp his passport?”
“Good point,” I said, and continued checking anyhow.
Nothing about the dead coming to life or apprehending the lead suspect in the murder investigation of a mobster’s daughter stood out to us. Surely crime scene investigators would have fingerprinted Nick Turino's house and seen residue of Alex's residence by now. Maybe they concluded that his fingerprints were two or three weeks old. Or maybe they hadn't found any at all. They would have started tracing his whereabouts, connected the stolen cars recovered location with his next mode of transportation, viewed available highway footage along its projected path all the way to Leah's apartment. But all was quiet. Eerily quiet. Only our consciousness screamed to be found.
His plane had probably lifted off the ground by now, safely cruising at an altitude of thirty-thousand feet or higher. How could something so ludicrous a concept as a fake passport even slip past TSA in a post September 11th society? Maybe he really had succeeded in his plight. In the movies they almost always made it; in real life, not so much. This was real life, not a movie. But far more importantly, movie or no movie, maybe all three of us had made it.
15
“SO, I'M DYING TO KNOW. What's in the bag?” Penny kept her question to a whisper as she leaned over the table at PANCAKE HOUSE. All four of us looked like we'd just survived all three days of the battle of Gettysburg, and our waitress, her name was Verne, said she'd keep the coffee coming until those eyelids of ours lost a few pounds.
“The less I know the better.” Leah held both hands up for effect.
“It can't possibly be cash.” I stabbed a pancake with my fork. “If it’s more than nine or ten-thousand dollars, he'd have to claim it.”
“I guess what I don't get is, why the man-hunt for Alex?” Penny said in another hushed tone. “If he didn't do it, if he didn't kill his wife, then.....”
“Let's hope I never have to find out.” I made an attempt at dropping some of that eyelid weight with a welcome slurp of morning Joe. “Alex Parker is dead to the world. We delivered the goods. I'd kind of like to move on with my life now.”
“I'm with Joshua on that one.” Leah let another sloppy slurp of coffee roll off her tongue and down her throat, but did very little for the heaviness in her eyes.
Richie said: “Amen to that.” “Yeah, but do you think it’s over?” Penny was especially careful that no one could overhear her, and probably coming across as overly paranoid. “I mean really over.”
“I hope so,” I said.
“Just think of the aftermath if this Parisi fellow finds out.”
“Hopefully not completely over,” Leah turned to me.
“Louie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” I utilized my best Humphrey Bogart impersonation. All things considered, a black eye, a fresh knife wound, burnt and swollen ass, bruised knuckles, several hundred miles on the road, and over twenty-four hours without sleep, my Bogart wasn't bad.
Leah shook her head and sighed, and trying desperately hard, I suspected, of not laughing. “Okay, maybe some things can be more over than others. It's settled. You are a dork.”
“She's right. You really can be a dork sometimes, Joshua,” Penny said.
“Penny, when you visited Comic Con last summer, you thought half the guys dressing up as superheroes were hot.”
“That's because dorks can be so hot,” she said.
“So hot,” Leah breathed into my ear.
“So hot,” Penny curled her tongue into a taco.
<
br /> I looked to Richie. “If you even say....”
But he said it too.
“That's it.” I slid out from the booth and stood. “You girls have had enough coffee for one lifetime. We're leaving.”
I picked up the bill and started for the register.
“Look at that dork walk away,” Penny said.
“So hot.”
16
I GUESS THAT'S ALL I have to say about my relationship with Elise and Leah, the homeless hitchhiker I now referred to as the Shaggy Man, that whole Alex and Gracie Parker fiasco, and her murders aftermath (mafia and everything), for now. Believe me, I haven't flushed it all out of my system yet, so to speak. I mean, if you think about it, the summer of 2008 isn't nearly over yet, which was my original promise, to tell the events of that summer, and I hope to get around to the rest of it just as soon as I recover my creative strength. I never really saw my life as a serial. But that's really what it all boils down to, isn't it, a series of episodes just waiting to be written.
Ernest Hemingway once said: “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” See, that's just the problem. I've been clapping away at this keyboard for weeks now, trying to write everything down before its forgotten in the old noggin, which is also a lot of blood to lose if you take Hemingway's playful opinions seriously, and I do.
Before I close the writer’s workshop I feel there are still a couple of scenes that need to be fleshed out, particularly as they pertain to the confused relationship between Leah Bishop and me. Not that I should complain, because really, I placed myself in this dilemma with little to no qualm, and in time I'd have to own up to it. I'll get to those in a moment, because there's one other important little detail to tell. It involves my iPhone and the instant gratification this new technology allowed for people in long-distance relationships during the dawning hours of the twenty-first century. Or in my particular case, what it didn't involve. Had my cell phone's battery not died about halfway between Philly and John F. Kennedy Airport I would have received one of the more important text messages of my life. Not that I'm ranking them. But take my word for it. It was important.
Goodnight Sometimes Means Goodbye (Wrong Flight Home, #2) Page 35