Soul Hostage

by Jeffrey Littorno

  “No, I sure cannot have people coming in and disrup-ting things and eating food in the store.” Perry replied and nodded.

  “Well, I know my friend Joey here is truly sorry for any trouble he has caused. Right, Joey?” Louis motioned for him to respond. A smile crossed my lips at the idea of Joey apologizing. I waited for the coming explosion from my hot-tempered friend.

  Even from a few feet away, the rage burning in his eyes was unmistakable. An image of the assistant store manager sprawled on the tile floor twitching in a widening pool of his own blood popped into my head. I assumed it would only be a matter of seconds before the picture in my head became reality at my feet.

  Joey stood still as he appeared to be considering how to react to Stoaffer and the request for an apology.

  Stoaffer repeated, “Right, Joey?”

  Joey’s head shot up to glare at Stoaffer. It was a look of pure hatred, and the image of two bodies sprawled on the floor popped into my mind. I was trying to decide how to defuse the situation when Joey’s scowl loosened into a grin. He shuffled over to stand next to Louis grinning all the way.

  In a tone which left no doubt as to the total absence of sincerity anywhere in his words, he said, “He’s right, Richard … Dick. I … uh … hope you don’t mind me calling you Dick.” He continued without waiting for or wanting a response. “I wanna to tell you how sorry I am for causing any trouble. I guess I got carried away. Have you ever gotten carried away, Dick?” Joey glanced at the blank stare on the face of the assistant manager. “No, I guess not. Anyway, I was really hungry and saw all this killer lookin’ stuff and couldn’t wait. So I’m really fuckin’ sorry.” The last line was delivered as a clear challenge to anyone who was not satisfied by his apology.

  As soon as Joey finished, Stoaffer again stared into Perry’s eyes and said, “Mr. Perry, you can certainly accept the young man’s apology and allow us to continue shopping.”

  Almost before Stoaffer had finished, Perry was nodding and replying, “I can certainly accept the young man’s apology and allow you to continue shopping.”

  Louis began gathering up the containers Joey had opened and putting them in a red shopping cart which had appeared from somewhere. As if in a final act of defiance, Joey grabbed a cookie from one of the containers Stoaffer was about to collect from the display table. With a grin toward me, he stuffed the cookie into his mouth.

  Clearly not amused, Stoaffer scowled at Joey and then at me and said, “You seem to have forgotten we are here for a reason.”

  “Sorry, Lou, I didn’t mean nothing. I was hungry and had to eat. No problem though, ‘cuz Dick said we can keep shoppin’. No harm, no foul.” Joey did his best to seem completely sincere in his second apology within a matter of minutes.

  The only response from Louis was to continue watching with a stern look on his face. Then as I watched him, a sort of loosening of his face became noticeable. The veins on his forehead disappeared, and his mouth curled up a little. The arms folded across his chest relaxed. A chuckle and then a more pronounced laugh broke out of him. Stoaffer shook his head and said, “No matter how I try, I cannot stay mad at you. We should have followed the wise advice about not shopping when hungry.” He looked at the cookie crumbs still clinging to Joey’s chin and shirt and laughed again. “Well, I’m sure Mr. Perry has much more important things to do than supervise us so let’s finish our shopping.”

  As if on cue, the assistant manager turned and walked away. The onlookers including the young man with the broom scattered quickly as if they had suddenly been caught eavesdropping.

  “Are we having fun yet?” I commented as I stepped forward and pushed the cart next to Louis as he picked up a package of bran muffins. Without acknowledging my remark or even my presence, Stoaffer put the muffins into the cart.

  Suddenly, Joey was standing next to me with his hands on the red handle of the cart. “Thanks, Thomas, I’ll take it from here.” Joey pushed the shopping cart away from me.

  I was left standing there watching Joey and Louis walk off. I have to admit feeling left out. Not that I had any ideas about the world being a fair place, but the way Stoaffer and Joey treated me struck me as entirely unfair. I felt like I was being blamed for something. But I was not the one who had caused a big scene with the assistant manager. It was not me who had been chatting with those cops in the restaurant. And it sure the hell was not me who killed those people in the grocery store. Even though I knew all of this, I still felt like I was being punished for something. The whole thing seemed like some sort of bad dream which did not quite seem real. Regardless, the only thing which mattered was for them to stop punishing me. With this in mind, I trotted after them.

  I was suddenly somebody’s little brother trying to keep up with the bigger boys. Once I caught up with them, things became awkward. I did not know what to do. It was one of the situations when everything seems totally uncomfortable and you are not even sure where to put your hands or how to stand.

  My fidgeting did not go unnoticed. Joey watched me and said, “Christ, Thomas, what’s wrong with you? Can’t you just chill out for a minute?”

  Louis grabbed a box of cereal from the shelf and turned to put it in the cart. He stopped and gazed at me for a moment before saying, “Like a great philosopher once said, ‘No harm, no foul’.” A smile blossomed on his lips. “Now, can we just finish our shopping and feed this starving man?” He smiled at Joey with what could only be described as fatherly pride.

  For his part, Joey now seemed to be on his best behavior as he walked alongside Stoaffer putting things in the shopping cart chatting and giggling like two great buddies. It probably sounds like I was acting like a jealous punk or something. I wasn’t. It is just the whole thing was so damn phony. A day and a half ago, Joey wanted to put a bullet in the old man’s head. Now, he acted like the two of them had always been best buddies. Like they had known each other all their lives.

  In truth, it was Joey and I who had known each other all of our lives. In fact, I could not remember a time without Joey in my life. Of course, the times I remem-bered best happened to be all of the times we had gotten in trouble.

  In third grade, we broke into a classroom during recess and ate the good stuff from everybody’s lunch. One year in high school, we hotwired the principal’s car and drove it around town. The little prank landed us in Los Guilicos Juvenile Center for a few months. After high school, the “pranks” turned a little more serious and only slightly more profitable. We burglarized a couple of houses. We never got much of value though. After a lot of begging and pleading from Joey, I agreed to give up burglaries in favor of armed robbery. As he had said, “It don’t make no sense crawling around in the dark tryin’ to find somethin’ that’s worth somethin’ when we can go right to the people and take the money.” He made a kind of twisted sense, but I never liked confrontation which is exactly what robbery is all about. As might be expected, the confrontation was the part Joey liked most. He ab-solutely loved looking into some guy’s eyes and forcing him to do whatever he was told. But even when he didn’t have to, Joey liked punishing people.

  For one of our first robberies, we hit a small liquor store along the highway. Late at night with nobody in the store except Joey, me, and this fat, old white guy behind the counter. Joey went over and told the guy to fill a bag with all the cash in the register. Everything seemed fine. I was walking over to keep an eye on the front door about fifteen feet away when I heard screaming and fighting behind me. I turned to see Joey standing over the squirming, crying clerk slapping him with the pistol. He did not stop until the clerk stopped moving and blood dripped from the silver barrel. Joey simply said, “He kept starin’ at me.”

  I remember a counselor at Los Guilicos asking me one time why I did things I knew were wrong. I thought about the question for a while and tried to come up with a good answer. The first thing which came to mind was “They sounded like good ideas when Joey said them”. But I knew that wasn’t true. A lot of times
I knew Joey’s schemes were bound to end badly, but I went along with him anyway. Why? While Joey could be a very con-vincing guy when he wanted to be, the answer was not so simple.

  One afternoon Joey and I had been driving through a small town. It was in Oregon, I think. Anyway, we drove passed this big, old white church and a coffin was being carried out by about four big guys in dark suits. A bunch of people stood around watching as the box was loaded into the back of a black hearse. I wondered aloud whether or not the person inside the coffin had had a good life.

  Joey replied, “What’s a good life? I mean, is it goin’ to church every Sunday and listenin’ to some prick go on and on about heaven later but crap now?” My companion sort of looked like a preacher himself as he smiled and went on with his fake sermon. “Think about this. What is god spelled backwards? Yeah, dog. Now, what is devil backwards? That’s right! Devil spelled backwards is lived! Let that sink in for a minute.” He paused for dramatic effect. “So do you wanna spend yer life like a dog beggin’ for scraps and whining? Is this a ‘good’ life? Or do your wannabe someone who really lived?” Joey had even added finger quotes around “lived” for extra emphasis.

  So why did I do those things? I don’t know. Maybe I just liked the excitement of doing things I knew were wrong.

  When I finally managed to push all the strange thoughts to the edge of my brain, I found myself back in the grocery store. I was standing in the middle of the aisle with Joey and Louis staring at me.

  “Thomas, would you care to join us?” Stoaffer asked me still using his fatherly voice. Joey just flashed me an irritated expression.

  I looked at the two of them, and something made me angry. I had to use every last bit of control to tamp down my anger and simply reply, “Sure, Louis, I’d love to.” My words must have sounded strange, because they watched me closely as if trying to judge my sincerity.

  “So what would you like, Thomas?” Stoaffer’s question was a simple one. At least, the question was simple until entered my twisted mind.

  I let the word grow inside my brain. “So what would you like, Thomas?” Well, what does anyone want? Words from somewhere came to me, “All I want are ‘tight pussy, loose shoes, and a warm place to shit’!” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, they were followed by a roar of uncontrollable laughter. The laugh quickly faded, and I quickly saw my companions had not joined in the laughter but were instead shaking their heads at me. I turned to see a group of three young men in dark blue vests standing about twenty feet behind me. The young guy with bright red hair and freckles was also there, minus his broom. Everyone was watching me.

  “So what would you like, Thomas?” The question was repeated.

  “Well, I would like to be out of this grocery store. I would like to be back to a time when I had never given any thought to a place called San Pietro. I would like to be back to a time when I had never met anyone named Louis Stoaffer. I would like to be back to a time when everything around me was not somehow fucked up. That is what I would like!” My answer bounced around inside my head for a moment but did not find its way out. Instead, I said flatly, “I would just like to finish shopping and get out of here.”

  Louis smiled at me and nodded his head as he said, “Yes, I think we all want the same thing.” He glanced toward the trio of dark blue vests. “However, my question is in regards to the kind of cereal you would like.” He motioned toward the assorted colorful boxes on the shelves near us.

  Suddenly the simplicity of his question and the serious consideration I had given it embarrassed and irritated me. I turned to the shelves and grabbed a red box with a white rabbit holding a bowl of colorful cereal on it and threw the box into the cart.

  “O-kay,” Joey commented as he resumed pushing the cart down the aisle.

  I followed behind Louis and Joey as did our blue-vested escorts.

  “I guess we should get an ice chest and some ice,” I said quietly as the idea floated into my brain.

  My comment stopped everyone in their tracks. I wondered at the power of my words. Just like the old comedy routine, slowly they turned. However, rather than having threatening expressions, both Louis and Joey looked absolutely delighted.

  “That’s an excellent idea, Thomas!” Stoaffer ex-claimed. “We should get an ice chest and some ice.” He glanced over at Joey who nodded in agreement.

  The irritation I had felt earlier melted away with Stoaf-fer’s praise. Thinking back, I am not sure why I did not recognize his condescension or the fact I was behaving like some trained dog. None of that mattered at the time. All that mattered was the immediate gratification of being part of the group again.

  The rest of our shopping spree consisted of the sound of genuine laughter, loading the shopping cart to its limit and beyond, and being escorted around SmartPrice by the trio.

  When I was a kid, I used to watch a cartoon every year around Christmas time, How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Seeing the red shopping cart with its contents piled high and threatening to spill out brought back memories of the scrawny dog in the cartoon struggling with a red sleigh overloaded with Christmas presents. The memory brought a smile and the sense of everything around me being too colorful and somehow cartoonish.

  Only after Joey pushed the heaping cart into the chute for checkout lane #3 did our escorts depart and reality return. I realized there was no way we had enough money to pay for everything. “Guys, we’re gonna have to put some of this stuff back. We don’t have enough for all this!” I said nodding toward the overloaded red shopping cart.

  “Oh, ye of little faith,” Stoaffer replied as he motioned for Joey to go ahead. Once next to the counter, the two of them started lifting things out of the cart and putting them on the belt.

  I get ready for the embarrassment of having to leave things at the register after being told we did not have enough money. The checker was a twenty-ish woman with unnaturally pale skin and long, straight black hair. The bulge pushing her uniform out from her stomach revealed she was far along in her pregnancy. Her eyes were down as she began sliding our stuff over the price scanner.

  “A boy or a girl?” Louis asked in his friendliest voice.

  The question forced the woman to raise her eyes from the counter almost against her will. “I am not-” Her words stopped suddenly as she caught sight of the old man in front of her. She smiled nervously and said, “My mom thinks I’m having a boy, ‘cuz I’m so big and getting sick every morning.”

  “Your mother certainly sounds like a wise woman,” Stoaffer replied.

  The young woman acted embarrassed and began again scanning the groceries. However, this time she seemed self-conscious about making sure she did not make any mistakes with Louis watching. When the last thing, a box of chocolate chip cookies, had been scanned, she read the numbers off of the small screen.

  “It comes to three hundred twenty-six dollars and thirty-eight cents,” she announced as my heart sank at the sound of her words. “Will that be cash, credit, or debit?”

  “Cash,” Joey answered. He and Louis turned to look at me. Their faces made it clear that they expected me to pay the three hundred twenty-six dollars and thirty-eight cents. This was going to be difficult since I only had a hundred fourteen dollars in my wallet. The pregnant checker also turned her eyes to me in anticipation.

  I rolled my eyes and met them with a look of irritation that said “this is exactly what I told you was going to happen”. I shrugged my shoulders and slowly pulled my wallet out of my front pocket. I opened it resigned to the fate of having to show the amount of money found there. Before I looked inside the wallet, I glanced up at my audience to find wide grins on all of their faces.

  “Whadda ya think, Thomas? Can you pay this sexy, soon-tuh-be mutha?” Joey smiled as the young woman glanced shyly toward him.

  Rolling my eyes again, I opened the wallet to show the insufficient funds. As I stuck my fingers inside to draw out the small wad of old, wrinkled bills, I instantly became aware that something ha
d changed. Instead of being warm, old, soft, and wrinkled, the money now seemed cool, crisp, smooth and, most importantly, thick. I turned to Stoaffer with an expression of amazement.

  Louis smiled and said, “Fishes and loaves, Thomas. Fishes and loaves.” His simple statement took me straight back to that Sunday school room. I was back in the cramped room at Tabernacle Baptist Church, and I was listening to the screechy voice of the small, skinny women describe the picture that was being shown to us. It was a colorful image of Jesus in his glowing white robe. In his right hand, there was a loaf of bread, and he had a big fish in his left hand. He was standing on top of a hill and down below and stretching way off into the horizon was a line of people making their way up to Jesus.

  “…So Jesus got to the place and there were thousands of people waiting to hear his teachings. They were like lost sheep seeking a shepherd, and Jesus was their shepherd.” One of the boys made a “baaaa” sound as a joke and was stabbed by the frail woman’s eyes. “Jesus taught them and healed them. But by the afternoon, they became hungry not only spiritually but physically as well. When the Savior called upon his disciples to feed the people, they asked how it would be possible. Philip replied, ‘It would take more than two hundred coins, more than two hundred days of wages, and even then that would not be enough to feed all of these people’.” As the woman became more excited, Thomas noticed a greater amount of saliva flew from her lips. “But Jesus just ignored skeptical followers and told them to search around to see what they could find. Finally, they found five loaves of bread and two fish. ‘Not enough to feed all the people,’ the disciples whispered among themselves. But Jesus just smiled and told everyone to be seated on the grass. Then our savior took the bread, lifted his eyes to our father in heaven, gave thanks to him, broke the bread and passed it to his disciples to share with the huge crowd.” She smiled a twisted, self-satisfied smile that held no happiness. “You know what happened? They all ate until they were full. Jesus fed the multitude, and there was even bread left over. This is proof our father’s abun-dant generosity!” The tiny woman was now glowing red with the exertion of telling the story. But just in case her words were questioned, she managed to end it with a cold stare that challenged anyone not to believe.