Tidal Wave

by David Berens

  As the images faded from his mind, he wasn’t sure if he was losing consciousness, the blood was clouding his eyes, or his thick-rimmed glasses had finally shattered away, but his vision began to swim and fade. His head lolled down to touch his chest and he thought with sadness that he would never get the blossoming red stains out of his seersucker sport coat. God, he loved that jacket… just like Matlock.

  As if on cue, thug number one ripped the front of the jacket open and shoved his hands down into the inside pockets.

  “No,” Rick moaned, but no one was paying him any attention—just like no one paid attention to him at the city council board meetings. But all that would change when he delivered the seven million dollar check.

  His view of the world was dimming rapidly when the man tore into his pants pockets, scattering the assorted contents on the concrete floor of… wherever they had taken him. A crumpled toddler photo of his now grown stepdaughter slipped out of the hooded man’s grasp and hit the floor. A spatter of blood from Rick’s forehead dripped down onto the picture. Everything was in slow motion now. He knew his end was near.

  He wanted to cry out, take my wallet, take my ‘56 Dodge Royal convertible… take anything you want… take the check, for God’s sake, just let me live to tell my sweet girl I still love her! But his wrecked jaw could only mumble and spew blood.

  The check! In his final thoughts, he wondered how they’d missed it. His eyes flitted to the forgotten cowboy hat lazily tilting to and fro under a nearby metal table. And that’s when the darkness ended Rick Hairre’s tenure as the 2012 Vice Chairman of the Murrell’s Inlet’s Board of Directors.

  2

  Troy’s Crick

  Troy Clint Bodean stood motionless on the rickety wooden dock. The sun had risen slowly above him and the heat of the day was just beginning to warm his skin. He had his brand new and ridiculously expensive Loki Lightning Redfish Rod propped against his left thigh, and his right hand gently tested the silvery web of line for any sign of resistance. He dabbed a trickle of sweat from his eyes with the light blue bandana around his neck, and pushed his salt-stained LSU cap back on his head.

  Two hours of daylight had brought him absolutely nothing; not a tremble, not a bite, not even a nibble. Damn you, Debby, he thought while rolling a toothpick back and forth between his teeth.

  The tropical storm that grew only slightly above the hurricane designation—dubbed Debby, by the World Meteorological Organization —had plowed through Northern Florida and churned up the East Coast, leaving Pawleys Island with nothing to catch but a sunburn. But no one else was out, so he thought the few fish that may have been left in the storm’s wake might be hungry and food might be scarce. It was looking more and more as if he really was the only one out today… including fish.

  Hurricane Debby, he thought, was a perfect name for the storm, just like his ex-girlfriend, Debby Robinson, in Vegas. She too had crashed into (and out of) his life, and left nothing but baggage and debris in her wake. Good riddance, he thought as he chewed a little harder on the toothpick.

  Troy had seen a great many things in his life. He’d had a relatively incident free tour as an Apache AH-64 pilot in Afghanistan that ended abruptly with a shrapnel-ruined right ACL. Upon rehabilitation and return to the states, he’d learned his only surviving relative, his youngest brother Ryan, had been honorably discharged (reason unknown) and disappeared. Troy had been shot at from kingdom to come, took a hit to the knee that almost cost him his leg, and survived hell on earth… only to find that he had no one to come home to—no friends, no family, no nothing.

  Down and out and alone, he’d grabbed one of the few vocational opportunities offered to an injured war vet—bartending in a shady Las Vegas strip joint, The Peppermint Hippo. More than a few of his war buddies were patrons of such establishments, drinking and laughing loudly to drown out the sound of gunfire in their heads. His own tour had been short enough that he never heard those phantom screams.

  After a few desperate months of searching for work, he’d taken the job of D.J./bouncer. Lucky for him, the gig included the apartment above the club that was little more than a one-room loft with a bug-ridden bed, a futon, a dorm-room refrigerator and a hot plate. After the thumping stripper tunes finally fell quiet around five in the morning, he often ate lukewarm SpaghettiO’s out of the can then slept on the futon. More than once, a strung-out stripper or two had crashed in his bed—without him. A hero’s welcome indeed.

  But Debby had been different, or so he thought. She wasn’t called Cinnamon or Candy or Porsche on stage, but Gidget… a name he fondly attached to the movie starring Sandra Dee. Her music had always been rather tame as well, leaning more toward Bon Jovi than Marilyn Manson.

  He’d never seen her touch alcohol, or any other mind candy handed out in the alley back behind the club. She always made the customer happy without crossing whatever professional line there could be between a stripper and her mark. When she’d asked to stay with him, it’d been because her Mercedes had refused to start after her shift, and she wasn’t going to let Slick Mick’s Quick Towing screw it up like she’d seen done to so many abandoned cars in the club’s gravel lot. Even if it was only a C-class, it deserved better than that.

  He’d offered her a beer and they’d finished what was left of a Longboard twelve-pack by seven-thirty. They hadn’t even slept when the Mercedes dealer’s flatbed truck came to rescue her ride. In the glow of their buzz, she’d grabbed his cellphone and typed in her number.

  “You’d look good with a beard,” she’d said, and brushed her hand on his then only stubbly cheek and climbed into the tow truck sporting a pair of his gym shorts and an old LSU hoody.

  When he finally worked up the nerve to call her, he hadn’t known she’d stepped out on the balcony of her extravagant condo atop the MGM to take his call and set up their first date. He also hadn’t known her husband had been in the living room of said condo watching the races and checking his numbers.

  A couple of dates later, a sudden, unexpected, and oddly quiet, not to mention awkward meeting outside her condo’s bathroom door with her Mafioso-looking husband, had led to an embarrassing towel-only run through the casino floor of the MGM.

  Teddy (the Mafioso husband) had come to The Peppermint Hippo escorted by Vinnie and Louie—apparently those names really did exist for Italian bodyguards—and politely asked him to leave Las Vegas if he knew what was good for him. Which was exactly what Troy had been planning to do anyway. His bag was already packed.

  He took the 93 down to Kingman and hopped on I-40 and traveled east as far as he could hitchhike. When he got to Memphis two weeks later, he turned south on 55 and headed back home to Louisiana. He had learned to drink to pass the time during that long and crazy trip, and spent the next ten alcohol-dazed years on and off shrimping boats off the coast of Louisiana. He made a lot of money and drank most of it up. Bought a boat of his own and became a bona fide businessman… with a bona fide drinking problem. An alcohol induced near-death experience in an overturned boat shook him out of that daze and he sold his boat. It made him enough money to set him up nicely for a while and keep him from hitchhiking to his new destination, wherever that would turn out to be.

  He took the first Greyhound bus out of town and left the New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal in his rear view.

  Hours later, when he stepped off the bus into the hot sun, he was in Litchfield Beach, South Carolina. He spent the last of his money on an old, dilapidated beach house on Pawleys Island, and had just enough left over to get a very nice fishing rod and reel.

  Watching the lazy creek water swim past his wooden dock, he thought he’d just about seen it all. As he watched the abandoned twelve-foot aluminum jon boat drift in, he knew he’d been wrong.

  The boat itself was quite unremarkable. Hurricane Debby was probably responsible for the unpiloted craft’s lonely drift down the creek. It was rusted and salty, but only looked to be four or five years old. It was bluish gray aluminum with only a
trolling motor attached on the back. Behind the black identification numbers SC-1971-LD on the side it had large, sun-peeled green letters, saying: RENT ME.

  It bumped against the dock he was fishing from and he put his right foot out to push it back out into the current. Given his past with bad juju floating into his life, he was going to let this one drift into someone else’s path. That’s when his eye landed on the hat: a beautiful, straw cowboy hat, its owner nowhere to be seen. He looked slowly up and down the creek.

  When he was certain he was alone, Troy reached down into the boat and picked up the hat. It was worn, but in good shape; no holes, pretty clean, and expensive looking. It had a brightly colored plume of some kind stuck into the band on the back. Peacock maybe, he thought, and sniffed the inside of the hat. Is that… Old Spice? It looked well taken care of and smelled clean, so he felt assured there were no bugs in it.

  He gently laid the Loki rod down on the dock, removed his ragged LSU cap, and folded it into his back pocket. The cowboy hat fitted perfectly, and rested neatly above his Costa Del Mar Pescador sunglasses. With his eyes so well shaded, he saw the immense shadow of what had to be a thirty-pound red drum swim out from under the dock.

  That’s a dang big fish, he thought as he saw it jerk his line and yank his ridiculously expensive rod and reel flying into the creek. Suddenly, realization hit him, and he leapt into action.

  “Hey,” he shouted and jumped into the water after it. The silver barrel of the reel glinted and he lunged after it, but the fish had other plans and took off. Unfortunately, the line was not reeling itself out, but holding fast and dragging his beautiful Loki away from him. He cursed himself for leaving the tension so high. He half-swam, half-crawled forward in the shallow water knowing he must look like he was drowning—or attempting a very awkward butterfly stroke.

  He plunged his head under and squinted into the distance as the glint of chrome winked and rushed away from him into the dark water. He planted his feet on the bottom and lunged. His bad knee caught what could only be described as a blade of rock jutting out of the creek bottom and pain knifed into his leg. He ignored what he felt sure must be another tear to his ACL, and plunged forward.

  He stuck his head up, and with a gasp of air and a quick scan downstream, he again leapt toward the rapidly escaping rod and felt the end of it tickle his fingertips. But then it was gone. He lurched again, blindly flailing after it, but his bad knee jerked him back in a shock of pain. He limped to a standing position, now harder to hold with one good leg, and peered into the current. There was no sign of the fish, the rod or the reel.

  “Dangit!” He slapped the surface of the water.

  He lifted his leg to examine the damage to his knee… no cuts, just a few minor abrasions. His knee was starting to turn purple, but it didn’t look like he’d done anything more than bruise both it, and his pride. He sat back down in the cool water; it felt good on his aching joints.

  As he massaged his throbbing tendons and watched the hypnotic current drift slowly down the creek, he wondered how he was going to eat tonight. He’d spent the last of his shrimping money on the Loki Lightning Redfish Rod (and two sixers of Coronas). It was a greenhorn mistake, laying down his fishing pole unsecured. His shrimp boat first mate Harley would’ve given him hell if he’d—

  His thought was interrupted as the escaped jon boat thumped him hard in the back of the head. He tumbled forward and swallowed what must’ve been at least a quart of salt water. Scrambling out of the path of the boat sent a new shock wave into his knee, and he coughed harshly, expelling the briny water. He gingerly stood up and the boat nudged him like a lost dog.

  “Double dangit,” he cursed as he shoved the boat past him down the creek, “stop followin’ me!”

  It finally drifted away but seemed to look back plaintively. Troy flipped his hand toward it like he would if it’d been a stray dog. “Go’on, now, git!”

  Troy waded painfully to the creek bank and began limping his way back upstream. Assessing himself, he was sure his ACL was re-torn, and an egg-sized knot had risen on the back of his head. But all in all he was ok. He reached up to check the knot and was flabbergasted to realize the straw cowboy hat was somehow still perched on top of his head. And there it would remain.

  His fingertips came away from the bump on his head with a splotch of blood on each. Dang boat had split his skin, though probably not bad enough for stitches. Salt water’s supposed to be good for that stuff anyway, he thought.

  As he took stock, he was relieved to find his Leatherman tool still strapped to his belt and his Costas still on their croaky strap, though the LSU cap was long gone from his back pocket.

  Dang, he thought, lost my favorite hat.

  3

  Spotted Dick

  Deputy Chesney R. Biggins was the first on the scene after the tip had been phoned into the Garden City Police Department. His CB radio had squelched out the call, and he’d been only too happy to leave the Keep Georgetown Beautiful rally and head out to Midway Inlet.

  “Dick, we got a hard one for ya out there!” snickered the voice from his crackly CB.

  Chesney (whose middle name was Richard) was the constant butt of jokes at the Georgetown PD. His very mature colleagues had discovered that when used together, his middle name, shortened to Dick, and his last name, Biggins, were far more entertaining than any of their old fart jokes. Chesney had heard it all before… in middle school.

  “I’m on it, Todd,” he replied with no hint of emotion in his voice.

  “Thank you, Deputy Dick Biggins!” Todd’s boisterous reply was backed by howls of laughter. Chesney reached over and turned the volume down on his radio. Idiots, he thought.

  He already had a full front and back page of scribbled notes with key details from the tip called into the station that morning. Holding the yellow pad in his lap he reviewed the facts as he drove:

  1) Two hikers—maybe joggers—had phoned in the tip at 7:02am.

  2) Both are medical professionals on vacation from Tennessee.

  3) Discovered dead body of a man while jogging out by Old Beach Road.

  4) Body was bloated and had apparently washed up on the beach (Their medical opinion given the state of rigor was that the man had been dead less than twenty-four hours).

  5) Being vacationers, they didn’t recognize the discovered man.

  6) Man was dressed in a light-colored suit with some stains around the chest and neck… blood?

  As Chesney read the last word, his cruiser slammed into something and jolted him out of his thoughts.

  “What in God’s name!” he blurted as coffee sloshed sideways out of his thermos and burned his right hand. “Great.”

  It only took a second for him to register what had happened. With his eyes down, his cruiser had swerved onto the sidewalk and run into a parked ice cream truck. Several startled children were staring in wide-eyed wonder at the police car now jammed into the crumpled mess of the truck.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Chesney muttered, throwing his car into park and wiping the coffee from his hands as well as he could with the yellow pad.

  He sighed as he opened his door and stepped out of the cruiser. He immediately recognized the old-timey round ice cream truck that belonged to old-timey Willie.

  One-eyed Willie—as the local adolescent crowd called him behind his back while making a dirty joke that they probably weren’t old enough to really understand—was a bent up old black man from down in the deep south of Alabama; Chickasaw, he thought the old guy had told him once. Said he’d been the on-call cook for events at the J.C. Davis Auditorium and the Charles E. McConnell Civic Center. Said he’d learned to make ice cream down there that no one, not no one, could resist.

  He reminded Chesney of Dick Hallorann, the chef of the Overlook Hotel, as played by Scatman Crothers in the Stephen King movie, The Shining. He had that odd way of being the grandfatherly comfortable type, and creepy as hell, at the same time. He only had one eye for God�
�s sake…

  Willie’s truck was a completely round vehicle with a pointed roof that was designed to look like some sort of circus tent. Bright blue and red diamond shapes attracted children from blocks away while hidden speakers warbled out such favorites as Pop Goes The Weasel and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

  The impact on the police car was minimal; a basketball-sized dent in the bumper was the extent of the damage. The ice cream truck, however, was not so lucky. The back end was caved in, making the formerly round truck look more like a horseshoe or a crescent moon.

  Willie had apparently scrambled up on the coolers in the front of the truck to avoid the crash. He was still sitting there shaking, half in rage and half in fear, and a nutty buddy ice cream cone in one hand and an orange crush flavored push up in the other. Both were halfway melted lumps of streaming, dripping goop sliding down on Willie’s recently spotless white ice cream man coveralls.

  “My truck!” he yelled, coming to his senses. “Look whatchu gone ‘n done to my truck!”

  It wasn’t easy to look Willie in the eye; his only good eye, anyway. The other was covered with an oddly painted patch that was supposed to look like a clown’s eye. The pupil didn’t quite point in the right direction, giving him not only a crazy looking eye, but a lazy one as well.

  “Calm down, Willie,” said Chesney, who held his hands up. “Don’t worry, the city will pay for the damages.”

  “Pay fuh the dam-a-ges?” The one-eyed ice cream man slid down off the coolers and slopped the two melted treats to the floor. “Do you know what kind a truck dis is?”

  “No, sir… I don’t.”

  “Issa fully ree-stored Merry Mobile ice cream truck!!” He said Merry Mobile as one word; murraymobeel.

  Willie lurched toward Chesney and the officer swore he could see the eye painted on the patch reddening with anger. Creepy, he thought and shuddered back a step.