Torpedo Juice

by Tim Dorsey

  Serge walked up to Sop Choppy. “How are they doing?”

  “Almost got it out. You ready for tomorrow?”

  “Really nervous. I don’t understand it. I never get this way.”

  A cue ball bounced across the floor.

  “It means you’re normal,” said the biker. “Even the toughest guys get the shakes.”

  “You know how to get rid of a green spot on your eyeballs from staring at the sun too long?”

  “Look at the pool table. It’ll blend in.”

  Coleman came over. “Whew. Another close one.” He pulled an envelope from his pocket and handed it to Serge. “Got a piece of mail for you.”

  Serge checked the address through the cellophane window. The Grodnicks. “Perfect!” He tore open the envelope and stuck the credit card in his wallet. “Just in time for the wedding.”

  The screen door flew open. “Son of a bitch!”

  The gang didn’t even have to look. Gaskin Fussels. Sop Choppy’s head fell. “Not again.”

  Fussels charged up to the bar and jumped on a stool. “I’m going to have to kill someone!”

  “What happened?” said Jerry.

  “I just got ripped off! One of those little mom-and-pop motels. Oh, they’re so fuckin’ sweet and countrified when you arrive. You know what they did to me? They stuck me in the last room over the office. Then after they closed up, all the heat rose and the window unit couldn’t handle it. I had to check into another motel!”

  “Didn’t you ask for a refund?” asked Jerry.

  “Of course! I called the after-hours number, but they refused!”

  “That’s not right,” said Jerry.

  “I’m going to get them!” said Fussels. “I’m going to get them so good!”

  The gang at the pool table was having difficulty focusing on their game with Fussels yelling and pounding the bar with his fists. Sop Choppy concentrated on a shot. He pulled the stick back.

  “Nobody messes with Gaskin Fussels!”

  The five went in the corner pocket, followed by the cue ball. Sop Choppy slammed the butt of his stick on the floor. “That’s it. He’s gotten on my last nerve.”

  “We can’t wait any longer,” said Rebel. “This used to be a great place.”

  Jerry came over with a tray of drafts the gang had ordered. “Here you go, guys….”

  “Jerry, why the hell do you talk to that jerk?” said Bob the accountant. “You’re just encouraging him!”

  “What?” said Jerry. “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No, Jerry. You didn’t do anything,” said Sop Choppy. “You’re just a nice person. Bob’s upset about something else.”

  “You’re upset about it, too,” said Bob.

  “What is it?” said Jerry. “Maybe I can help.”

  “Trust me. This isn’t in your area,” said Sop Choppy.

  “We need to figure out how to get rid of Fussels,” said Bob.

  Jerry looked puzzled. “Why? What’d he do?”

  “See, that’s what I mean,” said Sop Choppy. “You like everyone. It’s not your nature.”

  “He’s fucking up the whole pub,” said Rebel.

  “He is?”

  “Jesus, Jerry. You talk to him more than anybody, and he doesn’t annoy you? All his offensive jokes? We’re the most offensive people we know, and we find him offensive.”

  “You like it if I got rid of him?” asked Jerry.

  “Shoot, we’d love it!” said Rebel.

  “I know how to do it,” said Jerry.

  “Yeah, right.”

  “No, really…” Jerry told them what he had in mind.

  “Jerry, that’s awful!” said Bob. “I can’t believe you said that. It’s so out of character. It’s perfect!”

  “You really think so?”

  The guys started laughing. Rebel put a hand on Jerry’s shoulder. “We always knew we liked you…. Serge, what the hell are you doing?”

  Serge was working with the wooden break triangle, tediously assembling an elaborate triple-deck configuration of balls in the middle of the table. “Pool trick. Saw Minnesota Fats do this once on TV, but not nearly so complex.” He grabbed the bridge, three sticks and some chalk. Coleman was already kneeling on the floor behind the right back pocket, holding the eight ball on top of his head with an index finger.

  “Serge, you’re not going to knock that ball off Coleman’s head, are you?”

  Serge’s tongue stuck out the corner of his mouth. He carefully set the last ivory ball atop the pyramid inside the triangle. “Not at first.” He arranged the three cue sticks in the bridge with their ends jutting over the edge of the table. He stepped back. “Okay, here’s what’s going to happen. Don’t take your eyes off the table because it’ll be over in a blink. I’ll have to go all the way to that corner on the far side of the bar because I need the biggest running start possible. Then, when I get up enough speed, I slam the ends of the three sticks. If I do it just right, the balls scatter and one will immediately fly into each of the six pockets. But that’s just the beginning. Other balls will leave the table altogether, the three ball caroming off the rest-room door, the seven taking a short hop on that wall, the two skipping back, knocking the eight off Coleman’s head”—Serge patted the side pocket near his hip—“which ends up right here.”

  “I gotta see this,” said Rebel.

  Gaskin Fussels banged the counter with an empty glass. “Jerry! Getting mighty dry over here!”

  “Coming, Mr. Fussels!” He hurried over and stuck a frosted mug under a tap.

  “Hey, Jerry, I got a new joke for ya.”

  Jerry poured foam off the top of the mug. “What is it?”

  “Why did God give women vaginas?”

  “I don’t know, why?”

  Fussels slapped the bar. “So we’d talk to them! Ha ha ha ha…”

  Jerry set the refill in front of Fussels. “And we talk to them and then what?”

  “No, you see the thing about women…screw it, this one’s easier. Stay with me, boy. You know why my ex-wife threw away her vibrator?”

  “No.”

  “It chipped her teeth! Ha ha! Woooo!…”

  “She threw it away? What? It didn’t work right?”

  “Jerry, you gettin’ enough oxygen back there?”

  Serge passed behind Fussels, counting off paces to the far corner of the pub.

  Jerry wiped the bar down with a towel. “So, Mr. Fussels…that motel business really got under your skin?”

  “Damn! You had to go and remind me! Of all the underhanded, chicken-shit—”

  Jerry worked hard with the towel on a particular spot. “Yeah, it sounds like something he’d do.”

  “Who?”

  “The owner.”

  “You know the owner?”

  “A total asshole.”

  “Jerry, I’ve never heard you talk bad about anyone.”

  “This guy’s different.” The bartender slung the towel over his shoulder. “Biggest jerk I ever met in my life.”

  “You’re preachin’ to the choir.”

  “I know how you can get even with him.”

  “You do?”

  “Definitely. I know what he loves. That’s what you attack.”

  “Jerry, this is a completely different side of you,” said Fussels. “I like it!”

  “Believe me, this will completely burn his ass.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  Serge went sprinting by in the background.

  “I know where he lives,” said the bartender. “He’s out of town right now. What you want to do is go over to his house….”

  A three ball bounced across the top of the counter between Fussels and the bartender.

  “Jerry!” yelled Sop Choppy. “Quick! Get me all the ice you got!”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “We got some people down.”

  26

  The morning of the Big Day

  S ERGE HAD SLEPT all night in his wh
ite tux. At the first hint of sunrise, he leaped from the couch in Coleman’s trailer. There was much to do before the wedding.

  He’d told Molly not to worry about a thing. Just leave the planning to Serge. He reached under the couch and grabbed a tickle stick used to catch lobsters. The sticks were long Lucite wands with a hook on one end and a scuba diver’s wrist strap at the other. If you saw antennas twitching out a hole in the coral, you stuck the stick inside and “tickled” the lobster on the tail, and it would jump out into your grasp.

  Coleman was dead to the world.

  “Wake up! I’m getting married!”

  A groan and a head buried in the pillows.

  Serge poked him in the ribs with the tickle stick. “Wake up!”

  Coleman swatted blindly behind him.

  “Wake up!” Poke.

  “Ahhhhh!” Coleman rolled onto his back and swatted wildly with eyes closed.

  Poke.

  Coleman reared up and grabbed the end of the stick. Serge struggled expertly with the other end like an alligator poacher. “There we go, big boy…. Easy now…”

  Coleman suddenly stopped and opened his eyes. He swung his legs over the side of the bed. “I’m hungry.”

  They wandered into the kitchen. Coleman rubbed his ribs. “Why do you always have to use the stick?”

  “Because you always swing.”

  “Automatic reflex,” said Coleman. “From those times I’ve woken up in jail with some guy straddling my chest punching me in the face.”

  “Need to shake a leg.” Serge dragged three already packed gear bags from a closet. Coleman plopped down on the end of the sofa next to his nitrous tank. He turned on the TV and grabbed the regulator.

  Serge yanked it out of his mouth.

  “Hey!”

  “We have to get moving!”

  “But the wedding isn’t till this afternoon.”

  “I’m expecting a lot of traffic.”

  He wasn’t kidding. It was going to be a huge day in the lower Florida Keys, and not because of the wedding. One of the largest annual community events was about to kick off. That was no coincidence. Serge couldn’t conceive of getting married without a cultural tie-in. He’d approached the organizers, who loved the idea. A wedding would be great publicity. Lots of photos for the newspapers. Serge was going to get married at one of his favorite places on earth: Looe Key.

  Looe Key wasn’t like the other keys. You couldn’t get there by highway. And even if you could, you’d be in trouble. Looe Key was submerged.

  It was named for the HMS Looe, which sank in 1744. There’s almost nothing left of the wreck, but the awash coral reef is famous for its spectacular pattern of finger channels supporting teeming quantities of angelfish, parrotfish, tarpon, snapper, eel and just about everything else. The reef sits five miles offshore to the south. Dive boats make continuous runs from Ramrod, Little Torch and Big Pine.

  For twenty-one years, the locals have hosted the annual Looe Key Underwater Music Festival. Water conducts sound much better than air, and divers come from all over to feel the tunes pulse through their bones. The music is broadcast by WCNK—“Conch FM”—and pumped down to the reef with special underwater speakers from Lubell Laboratory. Some of the divers arrive in wacky costumes. They jump in the ocean with guitars and trombones and whatnot, forming string quartets and marching bands. Some dress like pop stars. Tina Tuna. Britney Spearfish.

  The concert lasts six hours. The minister would arrive during the third. The vows would be exchanged under water. Serge had written them himself.

  Gear bags flew into the Buick’s trunk and the lid slammed. Serge checked his watch. “Still on schedule. You got the ring?”

  “Ring?”

  “Coleman! You’re the best man!”

  “What ring?”

  “I gave it to you last night. I was extremely clear. I said, ‘Coleman, put down the bong and pay attention. This is the ring. It is of utmost importance. Screw up everything else, but don’t lose the ring. The ring is everything. The ring is life and death. Do you understand?’ And you said, ‘Sure,’ and I handed it to you.”

  “Oh, that,” said Coleman. “I thought you were handing me a piece of trash.”

  Serge and Coleman sorted through garbage dumped out on the kitchen floor.

  A half hour later, the Buick pulled up to the tiki bar at the Looe Key Reef Resort. Serge took the ring from his pocket and wiped off coffee grounds. He handed it to Coleman. “This is the ring. It isn’t trash. Do not throw away.”

  The gang from the No Name was already waiting under the thatched roof. Molly was there, too, sitting on a bar stool in her wedding gown. Wearing glasses. Serge gave her a peck on the cheek.

  “We’re not supposed to see each other before the ceremony,” said Molly.

  “I don’t believe in bad luck….” Serge pointed at the ground. “Coleman!”

  “What?”

  “In the dirt! The ring!”

  “How’d that get there?” Coleman picked it up.

  Serge snatched it. “You’re relieved of ring duty.”

  “Thanks. That was way too much pressure.”

  The gang toasted the happy couple. Nothing could go wrong now. They were already in place with a full two-hour pad. Just let the moment build enjoying the company of friends.

  They weren’t all friends. Most of the customers in the tiki hut were divers attending the music festival. Lots of rum drinks, cans of beer, buckets of oysters and cocktail sauce and chisels. It was noisy. The loudest were the three used-car salesmen on the opposite side of the bar from Serge and Molly. They’d just gotten in from the morning dive, drinking up quickly so they could work in another afternoon dive. A definite no-no. But rules were for other people.

  Serge had noticed the trio in passing, but now he happened to catch them pointing his way and laughing. Actually, they were pointing at Molly. Serge scowled at them. They looked away, made another unheard remark and laughed even harder.

  Serge turned to Molly. Her head hung sadly. Laughter across the bar. They were pointing again. Serge got off his stool.

  The three men were still giggling when Serge arrived in his white tux.

  “Hey, look. It’s Bogart!”

  “Were you pointing at my fiancée?”

  “Who?” The leader stretched his neck theatrically and looked across the bar.

  “I’m getting married today,” said Serge. “So you’ve caught me in a good mood.”

  “Oh, the one in the wedding dress.” He looked back at his buddies. “Wonder how a nerd does it?”

  Serge tapped him on the shoulder.

  The leader got off his stool and stood up to Serge’s chest. He was a lot taller than he looked sitting. “Why don’t you go back to your seat before you get hurt?”

  “I’m trying to be polite.” Serge snapped his fingers for the bartender. “Give these guys a round on me.” He turned to the salesman again. “A little common courtesy. It’s all I ask. I don’t want anything to ruin this special day.”

  “Whatever, Bogey.”

  “Thanks.” Serge returned to his stool. He and Molly faced each other, holding hands, lost in each other’s eyes. A loud remark came across the bar. This time it was clearly audible.

  “My Big Fat Geek Wedding!”

  Serge continued smiling at Molly. “Would you excuse me?” He got off the stool and tugged Coleman’s arm. “We need to go back to the trailer.”

  On the way to the Buick, Serge stopped in the motel’s dive shop to pick up the reserved scuba tanks for him and Molly. “I’m going to need an extra.”

  The pair made an express trip to the mobile home and was back at the tiki hut in under forty minutes.

  Serge hoisted an orange tank from the trunk and carried it on his shoulder into the bar. He walked up to the head car salesman and set the tank down. “Sorry about the misunderstanding earlier. Free tank on me. No hard feelings.”

  A sheriff’s cruiser drove up. Gus and Walter got out an
d walked through the parking lot. Gus stopped behind one of the cars and looked at the APB in his hand. “This is the one.”

  The deputies entered the tiki hut and made a slow circuit around the bar, studying customers.

  “Uh-oh,” said Serge. He held up a hand to shield his face.

  Gus stopped behind a stool and checked the mug shot on the bulletin in his hand. “Are you Rebel Starke?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  Gus pulled handcuffs off his belt. “You’re under arrest for six hundred traffic tickets in Tennessee.”

  Rebel jumped off his stool and ran up to Serge, grabbing him by the lapels of his white tux. “Serge! Hide me! Do something!”

  The deputies dragged him off.

  Serge stood and straightened his jacket. “Sorry there was a disturbance, folks, but everything’s all right now. Just relax and have a good time.” He offered Molly his arm. “Shall we?”

  THE DIVE BOAT throttled down and moored to a special float over the reef. The minister was already waiting below. The wedding party and best man lay around the afterdeck. They would be staying topside because of safety technicalities like not having dive certificates and being drunk. Serge and Molly stood on the back dive platform with their tanks. They held hands and gazed at each other one last time, before clutching regulators to their mouths and splashing into the ocean.

  The first song was “Octopus’s Garden,” then “Fins” and “Aqualung.” The radio station had let Serge pick them out himself. Serge also gave the station a marriage script that would be piped into the water as the minister and the couple pantomimed. The groom removed the ring from a Velcro pocket in his buoyancy compensator. The theme from Jaws started. A DJ began reading.

  I, Serge, take you, Molly, to be my lawfully wedded wife, to love and hold, in sickness and in health, in good times and bad, choosing you exclusively as my wife, friend, partner, airtight alibi, getaway driver, nurturing each other’s growth, making fun of the same relatives behind their backs, developing a list of running gags that is the foundation of any solid relationship, doing all the cool things married people do, which is why I’m really looking forward to this: snuggling on the couch with photo albums, watching classic movies in bed with lots of snacks, making silly remarks when we fart, at least at first before it becomes contentious, always agreeing with my wife that her really hot-looking friends dress like sluts and promising never, ever to fight. And when we do, to fight fair and not take off our rings and throw them at each other or reach for hot-button secrets we confided like those kids from junior high and their cruel nicknames—damn them to eternal hell! Then having lots and lots of kids with normal names instead of Scout, Tyfani, Dakota, Breeze or Shaniquatella, reading them bedtime stories and nursery rhymes, singing Christmas carols, teaching them that the “special words” Mommy and Daddy use around the house can’t be repeated at school because it’s “our little secret.” Now a moment to thank the sponsor of today’s wedding. Let’s hear it for Conch FM, home of the hits! And remember to keep a lookout for the Southernmost Prize Wagon! Back to live action: I further solemnly swear to adore and respect, to honor and defend, against all foes foreign and domestic, my love, my light, my life, the wind beneath my wings, the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air, fourscore and seven years, in Birmingham they love the guv’nah—ooo-ooo-ooo! As long as we both shall live! Amen!