by Drew Blank
“Well, I may be a psycho, but I did it for a good reason.” I tried to appeal to her compassion.
“Your ridiculous delusions of self importance do not qualify as a reason, Drew! Sure, those guys are scumbags, but it doesn’t mean you can just…” Again, I put my hand over her mouth, this time with force.
“I got over seven grand from them!” My defense was delivered in a rough whisper, inches from her face. Her eyes widened. She pulled my hand away.
“Dom said it wasn’t a robbery. Randy and Mouse said there was nothing taken. Randy still had his tips from the night,” she challenged me.
“What are they going to tell the cops? That some guy stole seven grand in drug money from them? I left Randy’s tips because I figure that’s honest money. Good thing I did, apparently. Threw Dom off a bit.” I explained.
“Wow.” Twisty was in a daze.
“Look. I need the money for Moxie’s doctor bills. I didn’t know what to do. It just seemed like a good opportunity.” I pleaded with Twisty to understand.
“Dom’s gonna be pissed when he finds out.” She snapped back into reality.
“Well, he can’t find out then. So far it seems like he knows nothing. Other than him thinking it may be some crazy vigilante, he has no idea who or why. I need to keep it that way,” I told her.
“I’m guessing if he doesn’t have any clue now, he won’t ever. So you should be in the clear.” She seemed to loosen up a bit.
“Yeah. This time, anyway.” There are times when words escape my lips and I wish I could just shove them back into my mouth and pretend they never left in the first place. That was one of those instances.
“This time?” Her shoulders rose again, as the moment of relief was obviously gone. “You can’t do this again! Are you crazy? You were lucky this time. Take the money and run!” Realizing her voice was rising she hushed herself. “I will not support this decision. There are other ways to make money, Drew.” Twisty pleaded with me.
“Look, nothing’s final. Phil just thought that…”
“Phil? Phil knows about this?” She interrupted me.
“Well, yeah. I went to their place after all this happened.”
“That’s great. I’m so glad I was in the loop on this.” She crossed her arms and looked away.
“I’m sorry. It isn’t that I don’t trust you. You know I do. I…” It was at that moment I realized in the back of my head I had always intended for this to become something bigger. Twisty was my confidant. I told her everything. Why go to Phil and Jim, then? I knew all along that those two would be instrumental in furthering my venture. There was no other explanation. “I need your help.” It was not clear to me what I would need her for, but I knew without her support I couldn’t pursue the plan any further.
“You really are fucking nuts, you know that?” Apparently, asking a good friend to become an accomplice to violent vigilante crimes was not a normal occurrence. “What do you need me for?”
“I’m gonna need a sweet outfit.” I smirked, hoping to appeal to her with levity. She was silent for a moment, clenching her teeth and refusing to make eye contact. Finally, after releasing a deep sigh, she looked at me.
“You are a fucking dumbass,” she assured me as she clasped my hands in hers. “But if you leave your fate in the hands of the Nerdy Boys, you will surely die.” After a moment’s hesitation she simply replied, “I’m in.”
“Really? Oh my god. That is such a relief. You have no idea what this mea…”
“Stop your blubbering, Nancy boy. We have to get you cleaned up. Shift starts in ten minutes.” She slapped me on the shoulder and pulled the bloody oxford from my hands.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
After a quick industrial bleach spot wash of the blood stained areas and a run under the power hand dryer in the customer restroom, Twisty had gotten my oxford looking as good as new. While my shirt was getting an emergency cleaning, I remained in the employee bathroom and redressed my wound. The blood soaked undershirt later found itself wrapped in a plastic to-go bag and buried under pounds of food waste in the dishwasher’s trash barrel.
Reemerging from the restroom, I was immediately accosted by DeeDee, who seemed to be especially on edge with the goings on from the previous night.
“The mayor’s here tonight.” She grabbed my arm, hoping I would catch some of her panic.
“Mayor’s here every week, DeeDee. Relax. I’ll go get Starboard prepped.” Cross’ mayor, Mathers Whitney, was a Tully’s regular. Once a week he would be in with at least ten other important looking people, there under the guise of discussing business. We always set aside one of the small dining rooms for them on account of the fact they would tend to drink excessively and get a bit boisterous. Mayor Whitney preferred the private room so he could discuss confidential matters without the threat of the commoners listening in. I think a small part of the reason was he didn’t want the hard working citizens of Cross to see him spending tax payers’ money on fifty dollar shots of scotch for himself and his cronies.
Every week I would wait on the mayor by his request. It wasn’t that Mayor Whitney liked me or treated me with any amount of respect at all. He simply knew I wouldn’t fuck up his food orders and the drinks would never be empty. I put up with it because he had no problem tipping extra in hopes of buying my silence about the things I would inevitably overhear. The corruption Dom experienced in the police department was nothing compared to the big money buying and selling of political favors I witnessed during those dinners. Once a month, however, the dinners would have a very different tone, when Whitney would bring along his bitch wife Katherine and their spoiled asshole of a son Mathers Jr. for family night.
Katherine was well-polished white trash. While she played the part of Mayor’s wife quite well, she still didn’t really know how to act in public or how to treat people less fortunate than herself. In the years I had been waiting on them, I never heard her say ‘please’ or ‘thank you’ to me or anyone, for that matter. She was a cold, lifeless snob trying her best to put on a regal front, when in reality her marriage was a sham. I always secretly hoped the night would come when Mayor Whitney would have a scheduling mix up and accidentally arrange for his wife to meet him the same night he hired one of his high priced escorts to keep him company.
Their son, Mathers Jr., was a different beast altogether. Unlike his mother, he truly carried himself in a refined manner. I saw him as a black sheep next to his lout of a father and his poser aristocrat of a mother. He, like the rest of the family, always seemed put out even being there. Family dinners were obviously an obligation that he could not shake himself from, even being in his twenties. The mayor had to put up a front of happy family values to keep his constituents appeased. Junior’s demeanor was cold and untouchable. If he had even said three words to me throughout the years, I certainly couldn’t remember them.
That night the mayor was without his family, so my job would consist mostly of fetching drinks and cleaning away appetizer plates. When Whitney was there under the front of doing business, the liquor bill outweighed the food bill two to one. Normally I was excited about the prospect of making decent money for minimal work, but after pocketing over seven grand the night before, their seventy-five dollar gratuity did not keep me interested.
That dinner shift I was not alone in my “don’t care”
attitude. None of the servers seemed to be concentrating on their tables and remained more focused on spreading theories and speculation about the events from the previous night. Joining in the banter to remain inconspicuous, Twisty and I began to spread the rumor that Randy and Mouse were actually lovers and Mouse’s boyfriend found out about the tryst. Nobody believed our tale, of course, but it was fun spreading as ridiculous a story as possible. By the end of the night Twisty had painted Mouse’s boyfriend out to be a big biker guy, at least six foot four, three hundred pounds and recently paroled after ten years in prison for gutting his landlord.
“Do you really think he’d be released af
ter ten years?” I playfully pointed out the flaw in her tall tale.
“He was released early after helping inner city kids through the Scared Straight program. He really turned himself around. But Mouse’s indiscretions were just too much for him to handle,” Twisty explained as she had been doing all night.
“Fascinating,” I humored her.
Twisty handled the information I had shared with her amazingly well. I think as the evening went on, she even grew to savor the idea of helping me in my endeavors. We tried to keep our conversations regarding the real happenings of the night prior to a minimum, but she did have questions she would have to wait to get answered. During a lull in business, we lingered by the drink station on the far end of the dining room and discussed her part in my future plans.
“So what can I do to help?” She asked me in a hushed voice while covering her mouth in a cup of pilfered soda.
“This may shock you, but I really don’t have much of a plan.” I told her. “I didn’t discuss anything with Phil and Jim last night. I was freaking exhausted. Hell, when I woke up this morning I wasn’t convinced the whole thing wasn’t just a dream. After feeling the huge gash in my chest and finding seven grand in the pocket of my pants, I was pretty sure it had all really happened. As to what’s next I have no idea.”
“Drew, shouldn’t you be in the mayor’s room, in case they need anything?” DeeDee had snuck up behind us in full on manager mode.
“The mayor is discussing business right now and I am sure would prefer to be undisturbed,” I replied, not trying to hide how annoyed I was with her. “Maybe you’d like to go in there and interrupt.”
“No. Just keep an eye on them. Christy, don’t you have tables you could be waiting on?” Twisty always cringed when DeeDee used her real name.
“Ummm… no,” Twisty snidely replied, waving her arm over the view of a nearly deserted dining room.
“Well, I am sure there is something you could be cleaning,” DeeDee snapped back.
Twisty chugged the rest of her drink while eyeballing DeeDee and held up the empty glass. “Yep. I’ll start with this.” She quickly walked towards the kitchen, her arm linked in mine, forcing me to follow.
“She is such a freaking cock. I hate her,” Twisty fumed.
“Cock?” I challenged her on her choice of insults.
“Yeah. Cock. If a guy can be a pussy, then that bitch is without a doubt a cock.” Twisty’s colorful vocabulary made her oddly appealing.
“Then cock it is,” I simply agreed as we headed through the swinging doors leading to the prep line.
“So when are you meeting with Phil and Jim?” Twisty’s exuberance was becoming more apparent.
“Tonight, probably,” I answered. “Why? Did you want to come?”
“Of course I do. I wanna see what those freaks have planned.”
“Phil already texted me and told me he and Jim both called in sick to work, and they’ve only slept about two hours since we last talked. This meeting should certainly be interesting.”
“Well, you can throw your bike in my trunk. I’ll drive.”
Twisty had an unusual relationship with Jim and Phil. Originally they were two parts of my life I tried to keep separate. However, as Twisty and I grew closer, their meeting was inevitable. She and Phil hit it off immediately. Being surrounded by nerd culture, which naturally repels women, Phil loved having someone in our fold that appreciated the finer points of shopping, mani/pedis and discussing what famous actor was sleeping with what other famous actor, specifically the gossip involving same sex hookups amongst said actors. They were great together, even if I felt like every time they hung out without me I was more likely than not a topic of conversation.
Jim and Twisty had a more difficult time bonding. Phil and I made fun of Jim and his dry, sometimes dull, nature on a regular basis. It was light-hearted joking and he never really minded it. Twisty, on the other hand, had no problem interrupting Jim during his long, boring diatribes about work or something vocationally related and making it abundantly clear no one was listening to him. Brutal honesty was an affliction my elf-like female friend suffered from and not everybody welcomed such truthfulness with open arms. I was confident Jim would not be pleased to see Twisty involved in our new business venture.
“So, you are actually willing to hang out at Nerd HQ?” I teased Twisty about her desire to visit a place she detested.
“Ugh. Yes. If I have to.” She slumped over in an exaggerated manner. “I just hate how it ruins my illusion that Phil lives in a pretty pink palace surrounded by chihuahuas and cabana boys.” She loved having a gay friend and constantly harangued him about his socially detrimental pastimes. Their apartment represented everything Twisty found boring in the world and she hated ever having to go inside. With the removal of the Planet of the Apes art, I was sure she would have no bastion of hope in their dismally bleak den of nerdery.
“I am going to stab that bitch!” Shane, a newer server, stormed into the kitchen, obviously enraged.
“Two guesses who he’s talking about,” I said to Twisty.
“I only need one,” she replied. “I’m going to go see if I can help Shane.”
“With his tables or with stabbing DeeDee?” I asked.
“You only get one guess,” she hollered back as she swung the doors open and exited.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“I never got to ask you how Moxie’s doctor’s appointment went today.” Twisty’s sincere concern for Moxie was apparent in her voice as I hoisted my bike into the back of her Honda Prelude after our shift.
“Well, the doctor wants to try chemo.” As much as this was what we had expected, it still pained me to say it.
“Poor thing. How’s she handling it?” She was now jimmying the keys into the car door, as she talked to me on tiptoes over the roof of the car.
“Eh. She’s strong right now,” I told her as we both slid into our seats. “She really hasn’t had terrible symptoms the past few days, which the doctor says is normal. We’ll see how she handles it next week when they start the treatments.”
“She’ll be fine, Drew.” Twisty put her hand on my knee and squeezed. “She’s an awesome kid. If she can’t handle it, no one can.”
Wordlessly, I clutched onto Twisty’s hand and began to bawl.
We sat in the parking lot of Tully’s for five minutes, silent except for my sobbing.
Crying was not uncommon for me and Twisty knew it. I had never cried before Moxie was born. Behavior like that would likely get a kid sent to the infirmary at Donnelly House after a swift pummeling. It was becoming a father that turned on the emotional side of me, occasionally driving me to tears. Since we had received the news of Moxie’s cancer, short of a stray tear here and there, I had not cried. That night, in Twisty’s car, I released all the pent up fears and frustrations I was feeling. It was even more therapeutic than the beating I delivered to Randy and Mouse the night before.
“Are you finished, m’lady?” Twisty was very
understanding of my overrun emotions, but I would expect nothing other than friendly harassment to lighten the mood.
“Yeah. I’m good, thanks.” I reached into the glove box where I was sure I could find a few napkins to clean up my face. “Whew! I needed that.”
“That was a good one, coach.” Twisty had never seen me like that. Crying at a movie was nothing new or tearing up when I would have to bring Moxie back to her mother’s house; those were common occurrences she had grown accustomed to. That session, however, was altogether new to her. She leaned over to the passenger seat and gave me a huge hug.
“I feel your boobs on me,” I choked out as she squeezed me tight.
“And that’s as close as you are gonna get, mister.”
“Aw shucks,” I said as I sniffled back some snot brought on by the crying jag. “I was hoping I could get some sympathy second base action.”
“I don’t do crybabies. Sorry, fella.”
“Well, I guess I c
an understand that. I am a bit of a sissy,” I said as she twisted the key in the ignition.
“Off to Nerdvana we go!” She cheered with a forced enthusiasm as we pulled out of Tully’s parking lot.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Stepping into Jim and Phil’s apartment, it was very obvious they had been working non-stop since I left them almost twenty hours earlier. Papers were strewn everywhere with sketches, equations and notes covering every page. The void on the wall left by the removal of Mr. Heston and his hairy chest was filled with a dry erase board riddled with numbers, checklists and various figures. Jim’s desk was cluttered with scraps of metal that meant nothing to me, but I am sure would eventually be forged into something impressive. Phil’s desk had some more recognizable devices as he fiddled with video cameras and circuit boards. Neither of the two even looked up as we entered, they were so wrapped up in their individual projects.
“Someone hose me down!” Twisty tried to break the silence in the room. “All this geekery is getting me H-O-T Hot!”
“Hey fellas,” I greeted them in a bit more reserved manner.
As they both sat, focusing so intently on their work, I wondered to myself who actually got up to buzz us in and how did they get back to their seat so quickly?
“Hi Drew.” Phil was the first to look up at the two of us, though he seemed to be in an exhausted trance. “You are not going to believe what we have gotten done today.” His inflection was more child-like excitement than gloating.
“Well, lay it on us, then,” I said.
As if my use of the word “us” was the first thing to trigger his awareness that Twisty was in the room, Jim looked up from his work area for the first time.
“What’s she doing here?” Jim asked with a dry bitterness.
“She found out about last night,” I explained, “so I brought her here to kill her. I promise I won’t get any blood on the rug.”