“Would you just shut-up and go,” the biker said. “You’re making me sick to my stomach. Goddamn know-it-all.”
Buick was crestfallen. “You know something, stranger, I’m not sure I like your attitude.”
“Like to step outside?”
The other two bikers grinned. They liked that idea. Dan shook his head, sighed, and continued polishing glasses. “How about I get you boys another round?” he said. “On the house?”
They ignored this, and the tall blond biker set his stick against the table. “Let’s step outside,” he said.
“What the hell for?” Buick said.
“To have a little chat.”
The other two bikers grinned and elbowed each other like a couple of kids still. They were anxious for the fight.
“Sure. Sure,” Buick said. “If you want to step outside, that’s fine. Nothing like settling a dispute between friends.”
“We’re not friends,” the blond biker said.
“We’re not?”
“No.”
“Well then, what the hell are we playing pool for? See, that’s what I don’t get. Nothing makes sense. It’s a strange world we’re livin’ in, ain’t it, Dan?”
Dan hid is face behind his hands and tried to ignore Buick. Buick had gotten himself into this mess was what he was thinking, and Buick could sure as hell get himself out of it.
Buick and three bikers stepped outside. It was a warm night. The stars were visible and clear overhead. A light breeze was in the air.
“Something you wanted to discuss?” Buick asked.
Huge gold and silver rings adorned the biker’s fingers. The hand didn’t seem to be made of flesh. It was nothing but gold and silver studs. The studs collided into Buick’s face at lightening speed. Pain lanced through his nose and into his eyes. He saw stars, bright flashes of gold and silver. The warm sensation of blood cruised slowly down his face. Buick stumbled back and hit the pavement.
“Get his wallet,” one of the bikers said.
Blackness surrounded him. He couldn’t see anything. Lightening bolts of pain thundered in his head and face. He didn’t know what had gotten into him lately, why he was acting the way he was. Maybe the portal was changing him. The biker grabbed his hair, lifting up his head, and punched Buick in the mouth.
The lights went out. The darkness was permanent, and Buick lost contact with the civilized world.
“You got to learn to keep your mouth shut,” Dan seemed to say from somewhere close by. Or was he far away? It didn’t matter.
Buick slipped into oblivion.
~
After a while, he heard someone calling his name. It wasn’t familiar. He didn’t know to whom the voice belonged.
“Step this way, just crawl this way. It’s nothing, Buick. You have salvation, redemption in this one little miracle.”
Buick Cannon crawled toward the voice. It was farther along the sidewalk. Blood coated his face. He was surprised he wasn’t dead. Where was the ambulance, the police cars? Was there even a hospital in Peekie? He didn’t know. He couldn’t think straight.
He crawled toward the voice and realized it was the portal, the rip in the air, revealing cool darkness. That sounded fine. No lion’s head, no dead things emerged. Strong, powerful hands reached out and pulled him up and over the edge, and he slipped into that confining space. The world was closed off behind him. In a moment, his wounds began to heal.
“Who wants some?” he said, still incoherent. “You want some, I got it. You don’t scare me.” Buick crawled across a dark floor, saw a black house in his thoughts, a massive structure made of black boards and black paint. He slipped beyond and into another world. He forgot about life for the moment. “Dan, you got another drink waiting for me?”
Dan did not reply. He was still shaking his head back and forth.
CHAPTER III
The beast was unknown. He didn’t know he was the beast, let alone where the beast had come from. The portal seemed to cure him—did, in fact. He was no longer bleeding at least. On all fours, he chased them, the sound of motorcycles echoing in the distance through the streets of Peekie. He loped, hungry, tongue lolling, swinging from his mouth. A trail of thick saliva plopped behind him and onto the road. Beastly thoughts drove him, motivated him toward destruction, tearing juicy flesh apart.
He caught up with one of the darker-haired bikers first, their Harleys roaring loudly through the still night. The other two looked back, eyes wide.
Buick ran on all fours, eyes intent on the prize, and swatted at one of the rear tires with a massive paw. The bike slid and showered sparks—the man screaming—then collided into a wall of rock. The impact killed him instantly. Buick tore into him with rabid furor, while the other road hogs rumbled off into the dark, engines revving.
When he was finished, he ran after the others. In his beastly state, he was faster than the hogs. He caught up to them quickly, taking them both at the same time.
He grabbed the tailpipe of one motorcycle and threw it toward the trees, where it exploded against a large pine.
I hope that doesn’t start a forest fire, Buick thought, somewhere deep inside.
He launched himself onto the blond biker. While still driving at sixty-plus miles an hour, Buick tore into the man’s throat. They were moving around a hairpin turn.
“Remember me?” he wanted to say.
Buick jumped off the biker in the next instant. He stood in the middle of the road and watched the biker hit the pavement sideways, skidding into the guardrail, which snapped and sent the biker over the edge and into the darkness.
Buick raised his head and howled at the moon. He befriended the moon; he had feelings for it. He didn’t realize there was no moon, of course. The moon, in fact, was nowhere to be found.
~
He dreamed incoherently. He didn’t know what the dream was anymore than he knew about the beast. In the dream, he saw a man with a pale, sinister face, black eyes, and thin, long, angular eyebrows. The man knew all about him. Buick didn’t know how he knew; it was simply an impression. Was he a jokester, a jester in the modern world? What was with the marble floors and walls?
Buick laughed at the sinister face and wondered, maybe…
Ah, to hell with it!
Maybe he should ask Christine out to dinner sometime, invite her over, and have a few beers. They could barbecue chicken on the grill in the backyard.
When Buick awoke, he couldn’t remember the night before. He was in his own bed with the same clothes on. He remembered the bar, going to Dan’s, and having some drinks. He remembered the bikers coming in. After that, everything was a blur…
“You’re the creamy weenie, whoever you are,” he cried. “There’s nothing that says the creamy weenie isn’t you?” Feeling no threat to these words, he closed his eyes again, and went back to sleep.
“Christine?” he said.
~
A black house was somewhere, a large Georgian style embellished in darkness. Had it been burned? Was that why it was black? No, someone had painted it a deep flat black, even the windows. There was no shine to it at all.
For some reason, Buick knew he had to get to the black house. The house would explain everything. The house would make all his dreams come true.
“Bullshit,” he said, aloud.
The house was meaningless, unimportant. It was just another senseless thing lately. The house was an excuse to make an excuse. The house was going to explain something. It should explain something. The black house was the key, Heaven and Hell. It held the answers to life and death.
He was trying to dream up something that made sense of these ridiculous situations he was finding himself in lately. Somehow, even if it killed him, he’d understand the talking doorways and the lion heads.
The house, he told himself, is just a vision, a stupid fancy in my mind that wants things to be explained.
What was happening to his life lately? Bikers wanted to pummel him; doorways opened in the midd
le of day, and now black houses emerged in his mind he’d never seen before.
Buick lied in bed and put a hand to his head. He wasn’t hung over, but he wanted to lie here for a minute, or maybe an hour. He didn’t want to face the day, go into work, deal with the children, Christine and Marion.
Perhaps it was just the town of Peekie itself. He needed an explanation for that, too.
He saw himself in a great marble hall, windows without glass letting in the light of day. He was doing cartwheels, bells ringing on his head.
That’s because that’s what you are, Buick. A goddamn jokester. You always have been and always will be a comic genius.
“More like an idiot,” he said. “You can’t accept what’s going on. Someone is playing with you, toying with you. You have nowhere else to go. How come it’s taking you so long to understand that?”
He didn’t know, didn’t care.
Buick got out of bed and went to the fridge. He opened a rare morning beer and guzzled it, then went to the shower. “What the hell is this red crap under my fingernails?” he said, examining his hands.
He turned the shower on, waited for the hot water, and stepped inside. “And where the hell is my good shirt? Goddamnit, am I losing my mind?”
He might’ve been losing his mind, but he wasn’t sure. How did you know if you were losing your mind or not anyway?
“Nothing ever makes sense,” he said. “It’s just the way the world is. How the hell can you trust a man who talks to himself all the time anyway?”
He brushed his teeth while in the shower. He didn’t notice because his eyes were closed, but specks of blood washed down the drain. Blood was embedded in the bristles of the toothbrush. Specks of blood were in his hair.
He poured Head and Shoulders into his palm and lathered up. He was singing by the time he toweled dry.
~
“Jesus, Mr. Cannon, are you all right?”
He looked up from his desk. Two Christines stood before him. He’d stopped at the liquor store and bought a bottle of whiskey. He was mixing it with Coca-Cola and ice in a very short glass. He couldn’t remember what he’d been doing, sleeping, dreaming, wondering what Christine looked like with all her clothes off, what she looked like wet with all of her clothes on, what she looked like wet with all of her clothes off.
“Who told you you could come in here?” he said. “This isn’t your house.”
“It isn’t your house either. This is the bookstore.”
“Don’t try to tell me different. It isn’t how it looks.”
“Excuse me?” Christine said, frowning.
“Don’t interrupt me when I’m talking. Get the hell out of my house!”
“Sir? This isn’t your house. This is the bookstore. And I’m worried about you.”
“I’ve just about had it with you, Christine. You and Marion both. This isn’t good for business.”
“Sir, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Well, that’s convenient, isn’t it? It’s all a big conspiracy!”
“Sir?”
Buick pointed at her. “I’m not putting up with any more. You and Marion are fired.”
Christine laughed. “Sir, why don’t you go home?”
“That’s just what you want, isn’t it? Just get Buick to go home.” Buick hiccupped. “That’s just what everyone wants,”—(hiccup)—“…isn’t it?”
Christine couldn’t help but laugh. She moved around the desk and put an arm around his shoulder.
“Don’t touch me!” Buick said. “I’ve seen you naked!”
Christine raised her eyebrows. “Excuse me, sir?”
“I see you naked all the time, Christine. I know. I see you. You don’t think I imagine you naked.”
Christine blushed wildly and burst into a fit of giggles. She didn’t know whether to be flattered, embarrassed, or offended. “Sir, I think you’ve had too much to drink. It’s not even ten o’clock in the morning. Why don’t you go home and sleep it off.”
“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? I hear the way you talk about me.”
“Sir?”
“You and Marion. I know you want me. Hey, I can’t blame you. Single. Tall. Strong hands. I’d make love to myself if it was permitted.”
Christine couldn’t believe what she was hearing. A part of her felt sorry for Buick; a part of her struggled not to laugh uproariously. “Come on, sir. Let’s get you home.”
Buick, however, put his head down, and wrapped his arms around himself. “Do what you want with me,” he said. “I’m a slave, Christine.”
Christine raised her eyebrows. She walked out of the office and put the Closed sign in the window. She locked the door behind her on her way out.
~
“Excuse me, officer, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Dan, of course, didn’t know what they were talking about it. He knew about the bikers, the dilemma he’d had the night before with Buick, but this…No, he didn’t know what the officer was talking about.
The main officer, at least, was a nice enough man. He had all the proper mannerisms of a polite cop—to win the affection of those under suspicion, perhaps. Several other officers stood behind him, as if for moral support.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Dan said, polishing glasses. He put a clean beer mug down and wiped his hands on his apron. He ate a few pretzels. “Those bikers had a score to settle, it seemed,” Dan said, through a mouthful of pretzels.
The officer looked at him and raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean?” the officer asked. His name was Al Carty. He was Officer Carty to everyone else, thin, short, dark haired, with a big nose and beady eyes. He had a thin neck and a small chin.
“Buick had a thing for them,” Dan said. “Or they seemed to have a thing for Buick. Buick was having a rare night.”
“Buick?”
“Buick Cannon. He owns the bookstore here in town, Little Time to Read, it’s called. Buick comes in a lot after work. These bikers were giving him a hard time.”
“I see,” the officer said, and scribbled in his notebook.
“Did these bikers threaten Buick in any way?” he asked, after a time.
Dan’s brows came together. “Now, what’s that supposed to mean?”
“Sir?” the officer said.
“The bikers were in body bags. Are you suggesting Buick took on three bikers by himself?”
“Look, sir,” Al Carty said. “This is just routine questioning. We’re just trying to follow up the murders of three bikers.”
“But what about Buick! What about what happened to him? Are you gonna sit there and tell me Buick man-handled three bikers and maintained a few scratches was all, took out a night at the local hospital?” Dan didn’t know that Buick had never been to the hospital.
“Sir, please calm down. We are investigating this to every possible means.”
“The means of what? The means to no end! Christ, you guys give me the willies. Why don’t you have some cake and coffee and leave me the hell alone? I have a bar to run!”
Officer Carty looked at the rest of his officers and shook his head, sighing heavily.
“Look, Mr. Gilmour, We’re just trying to investigate a murder…”
“Three murders,” another cadet spoke up from behind. Why were there so many policeman here to begin with? It was like the entire Peekie Police force had decided to pay Dan a visit.
Al Carty looked at the young cadet as if he wanted to pull out his liver. The cadet bowed his head and stepped outside.
“Sorry,” Carty said. “Do you happen to have this Mr. Cannon’s address?”
“I might have it somewhere,” Dan said.
“Would you mind giving it to me, please?”
“I’m a little reluctant. Buick didn’t do anything wrong.”
“We’ll be the judge of that,” Carty said.
Dan looked at the officer and nodded. He rifled through a Rolodex and gave a card with Buick’s address on
it to Officer Carty.
~
“Christ! Who is that banging on my door?”
Buick put a hand to his temple, sat up, and went to the door. He wasn’t feeling so hot, despite tearing apart three bikers the night before. This wasn’t An American Werewolf in London, let alone Paris, Costa Rica, or Bangladesh.
“I’m getting tired of all the shenanigans,” Buick said. “A man can’t even have a little peace, go to the local bar…” Buick opened the door. “What the hell do you want?”
The officer looked surprised, abashed even, and swallowed the lump in his throat. Buick didn’t know what he swallowed…spit perhaps. The street beyond his yard was filled with police officers. Three cruisers were parked in front of his property.
“Uh…Buick Cannon?” the officer said. “I’m from the local Peekie Police—”
“I can see you’re all dressed up,” Buick said, irritably. “What do you want?”
“Three bikers were killed last night, Mr. Cannon. You don’t happen to have any recollection of that, do you? Bikers? Hmm? Dead?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Buick said, flustered.
“We found three bikers mutilated. Bikes destroyed and everything. Bikers dead. They’re not coming back to life, Mr. Cannon. They’ve rolled over nighty-night for the last time.”
“Well, maybe they got hit by a bus,” Buick said.
This caught the officer off guard, and he swallowed again. He was frightened, Al Carty, and he didn’t know why.
“Maybe they got crushed by a semi!” Buick said. “Shit happens, you know? Haven’t you been seeing weird shit lately, officer?”
“No, sir, I haven’t.”
Buick Cannon: (A Joke From the Moon) Page 3