by John Kenyon
Randy and the other guys were still behind us, staying tight but not so close that someone would get suspicious. The phone rang again. Trudy glared at me, so I swiped it off the floor and pushed the button.
“What?”
“Jack, now isn’t the time for games,” Randy said. “What are you doing?”
“What, you don’t want to toss a few for old time’s sake?” I said. “You’re not willing to help me recapture the innocence of my pre-incarceration days?”
“Jack, you don’t know what you’re in the middle of here, OK? Why don’t you toss the bag and then circle around the campground and get out of here.”
“Sure, and leave you to scoop up the drugs and your buddies back there to tail us and take care of business while you conveniently split again? Don’t think so.”
I hung up the phone and jammed it in my pocket. Trudy had reached the parking area for the course. I pointed her to a back section that was reached by passing through a narrow drive between some trees and told her to park at the far end of the lot, then be ready to run. Randy had expected us to park in the front lot, so the move bought us a couple of seconds. That was enough for her to slam the car into park and for both of us to leap from the car, leaving the doors open, to sprint through the light fog across the adjacent field and toward a hilly stand of trees.
“Stay low and follow me,” I said over my shoulder, clutching the bag to my chest as I ran. I hit the trees first, Trudy a couple of seconds later. Squinting through the fog, I could see that Randy was out now, running across the field, Mark close behind. The two other guys were out of their cars, each with a handgun at the ready, looking around as if scouting for cops.
“Listen,” I said, pulling Trudy close. “You remember hole 6, the one with the rickety bridge over the gully?” She nodded. “Run straight for that and hide under that bridge. Pull some branches up alongside yourself if you can. Just stay out of sight until I come for you. OK?”
“What are you going to do?” she said, her voice breaking.
“Get us out of this.” I took a couple of steps in the opposite direction, then turned to see if she would go. She looked across the field, saw Randy coming, then turned and ran. My direction was uphill, toward the course’s back holes that sprouted like overgrown metallic mushrooms in small clearings among the trees. I didn’t really have a plan, hoping that I could somehow lure Randy in and knock him out with a rock or tree branch, and perhaps lose the Mexicans in the process. It was a dumb plan, I realized. They weren’t just going to go away, and after following our car for 15 minutes, they’d have people watching for us all up and down the interstate, meaning we’d have to ditch the only thing of value we owned.
My feet slipped as I scampered up a muddy path carved into the side of the hill over the years by hundreds of skater sneakers and crashed through some bushes in an attempt to make my route less obvious. As I climbed, I rose out of the fog. Thorns clawed at my coat and face, raising long welts that seeped beads of blood along my cheeks. I reached the 12th hole, the most secluded on the course, in a small clearing surrounded by rocks and trees, and hid behind a large boulder marked by the scrawled wisdom, names and epithets of dozens of players.
I peeked around the side of the rock and saw Randy through the haze about fifty yards away, his hand above his eyes to cut the glare of the sun as it broke through the haze. He unzipped his coat and moved his hand to the butt of a gun in a holster on his belt. A chill that had nothing to do with the temperature slid up my spine.
“Jack, this is it,” he yelled. “Pretty smart to hide someplace you know like the back of your hand. Or it would be if I didn’t know it just as well.”
He kept walking, growing nearer with every step. Mark came into view, his head and then the rest of his body seeming to lift out of the fog a moment later. “I’m guessing you’re behind that boulder on 12. Pretty decent spot. But again, you don’t really have a way out, do you?”
I realized he was right. This was the back of the course, and unless I was willing to trek through thicker brush and trees, making a tremendous amount of noise in the process, I’d need to go back past them to get away.
“Look, let’s sort this out before my friends show up,” Randy said. “I have something to tell -- ”
Just then we heard something else crash through the brush, then a cry. It was Trudy.
“We have the girl,” I heard. “If we are able to leave with the drugs and the money, she doesn’t need to die.”
Randy started to scan the surrounding brush, and then his gaze locked on a spot about twenty yards away. He hadn’t stopped walking, and was now in front of the rock. “Jack, get out here. We need to end this.”
I took a step from behind the rock, the bag still clutched tightly to my chest. The Mexicans emerged from the trees then, one with a tight grip on Trudy, the other with a gun pointed in our direction.
“You get one chance,” said the one with the gun. “Throw the bag over here. Then you,” he said, pointing at Randy, “you toss your guns and your keys. You don’t follow us and we’ll let you live.”
“But what about my money?” Randy said. “I had nothing to do with this!”
“We heard everything. We know you are friends. I’m not sure how you planned to rip us off, and I don’t care.”
Trudy struggled against the grip of the other Mexican. “Don’t do it, Jack!” she yelled. “They’re punks. They’re not going to kill anyone!”
The Mexican with the gun turned and fired, hitting Trudy in the shoulder, the bullet driving her head back and sending her and the other man still holding on to her reeling. She screamed, and blood began to spread across her shirt as she fell. The man holding her scrambled out from under her.
“You son of a bitch!” I yelled, stepping fully around the rock. The Mexican turned and aimed. As he pulled the trigger, Randy leaped in front of me. I felt the force of the bullet as it slammed into his back, pushing both of us to the ground.
Mark, who had been standing a few feet away, unholstered his gun and in one motion shot the Mexican gunman in the chest, then ran, the gun held in two outstretched arms the entire time, across the clearing toward the other one and Trudy, sprawled on the ground.
“Police! Get away from her now!” he shouted, keeping the gun trained on the Mexican’s head. The Mexican rolled away from Trudy. When he was on his stomach, Mark stepped forward and put a boot in his back. “Hands behind your head.” He pulled a zip tie from his pocket and secured the man’s hands, then went over to check on Trudy. She was holding her shoulder with her good arm, moaning softly, rolling back and forth on the ground.
I pushed Randy off of me and rolled him onto his back. His eyes were slits, his face a chalky white. I ran to Trudy's side and put my hand on her burning forehead.
"You gonna be OK?" I said.
"Maybe."
I rose and shoved Mark hard.
“You guys are cops?” I yelled. “Since when?”
“The whole time,” he said. “College was our cover."
I walked over to Randy, still flat on his back.
“Then why did you let me take the fall? One word from you and I wouldn’t have gone to prison.”
He swallowed, then grimaced in pain. “It was that packet in your pocket. I vouched for you, but when they found that, all bets were off. They said you weren’t worth blowing my cover over.”
As I sat next to him, shivering from the cold setting in as the sun began to go down, I felt something wet seep under my hand. I looked down to see rivulets of blood leak out from under Randy’s back.
Mark, supporting a staggering Trudy whose good arm was draped across his shoulder, came up to us. “Jesus, Randy. We gotta get you guys out of here,” he said.
I wiped Randy’s blood off on the wilted grass and stood.
“Why didn’t you guys tell us you were cops?" I looked down at Randy. "On the phone; you could have said something. You could have ended this. No one had to get hurt.”
Mark, fumbled in his pocket for a cell phone. He pulled it out, keyed 911, then put it to his ear. “Randy didn’t want to blow the bust,” he said while waiting for the call to connect. “We don’t want these guys. We need to go higher up the chain.” He swung Trudy’s arm over his head with his other hand and led her to me, then knelt at Randy’s side as he talked in low tones to the dispatcher.
How could I not have seen it? I wondered. Looking back, things never did add up. Randy never going to class. Mark showing up so often. Hell, a hippie speed dealer? I looked down at Randy, his face still twisted in pain. I realized that I wanted him to hurt. That he could never hurt enough.
Demon, Him
Who knew that the crazy homeless guy was right all along? Sitting at his kitchen table, fashioning a hat liner from aluminum foil, Jack thought back to his days in the late ’90s as a newspaper reporter. It was a small satellite office for a larger newspaper, housed in a converted convenience store. The homeless guys in the neighborhood had been so used to returning the college kids’ beer cans for change that the alteration didn’t deter them. Instead of seeking money, they came in to see validation of their crazy theories.
Or so Jack thought. One in particular had amused him. “There are subliminal messages in textbooks!” he’d shout. “The sheriff is trying to control my mind, so I put foil on my windows!” he’d wail. The staff of four reporters had an unwritten agreement that they’d take these nutjobs on a rotating basis. Unless you were on deadline, the next one up would take the crazy guy – and they were all guys – into the conference room. Jack always seemed to draw the one they dubbed Subliminal Man. There was a 20-minute limit; if it went that long, another reporter would come in to alert the rantee of an urgent phone call. The homeless guys seemed to understand this process and respected it, dutifully leaving when it was time.
Jack folded the foil into a cone, then rolled the point down to create a skullcap of sorts. The sides were then rolled up to hold it all together. He fitted it inside a baseball cap and stuck it on his head before leaving his apartment. It was an unseasonably cold New Year’s Day, a brisk 48 degrees according to the Minneapolis Tribune app on his iShades, so he had decided a walk was a nice way to enjoy the day off. The problem was that an idle stroll led to idle thoughts, and Jack didn’t want to spoil the walk by having to worry about either avoiding the sensors or keeping a rein on his mind. Thus, the foil cap. Subliminal Man had something there; the sensors were high-tech, but they were, well, foiled by foil.
It was a tricky dance, dealing with the sensors. Jack had purchased his house from a friend who had had lined half of the rooms with foil and then covered it with plaster and paint to avoid detection. He had left the other rooms unshielded because a house that didn’t show up on the grid would draw immediate suspicion. If Jack wanted to think about sports or reality TV or read the preapproved publications on his tablet, he would sit in his living room. If he wanted to discuss politics or read a novel or look at underground pamphlets, he would sit in his study or guest bedroom. The bathroom was most difficult. Like a walk, a shower is where the mind wanders. But the sensors know how much time people spend there, so shielding it wasn’t an option.
As Jack walked near the sensor closest to his home, he decided to test the hat with a relatively innocuous notion. “I wonder if the president fully thought through the repercussions of selling the Upper Peninsula water rights to Mexico,” he thought. He carefully chose his words, knowing it would be categorized as “tepid doubt” if picked up, and thus earn only a mild tasering from one of the roving monitors. He even lingered under the sensor so he would be easier to find, but nothing happened.
Mollified, he started walking again. It was the 10th anniversary of the coup and the resultant issuance of martial law, but that was nothing to celebrate. Patriot Act II had instituted things like ThoughtControl and the TreasonCams that certainly hadn’t made his life any better. And when the media was nationalized, he lost his job and had been forced to work at a flag pin assembly plant. Subliminal Man’s conspiracy theories had seemed laughable at the time; they were quaint now. There was no conspiracy necessary; everything was out in the open.
As he turned a corner to head toward the riverwalk, the artificial daylight gave way to Situational Darkness. He looked up to determine the cause and realized he was at the center of the blackout. A high-power LED on the nearest sensor tower shot a beam at his head and an automated voice declared, “Jack Simmons, you are being detained for treason! Your thoughts have been recorded and have been found to be in violation of Patriot Act II’s Treason Deterrence Protocols. Remain in position until an officer can apprehend you.”
He knew it was futile to run. The sensors could track him anywhere. He must have messed up the foil hat, and the police, growing craftier by the day, likely figured out that he was testing the system earlier and waited for an infraction worth prosecuting.
As he contemplated his fate, he saw people gathering in the shadows of the Situational Darkness. At first just a handful, but the crowd soon grew. They advanced, weapons in hand, to exact their own justice. Mob punishment was not only legal, but encouraged because it saved money. Because the TreasonCams were infallible, there were no trials or appeals. Scooping a bludgeoned suspect’s remains from the sidewalk was cheaper than apprehending and housing him, so any police response would surely be a long time coming.
The citizens gathered around him in a circle, chanting as they had been taught on television, “Kill the traitor! Punish the treason! Protect the country!” The first blow drove Jack to his knees, the next brought him to all fours. With each strike, Jack couldn’t help but think of the zombies of old outlawed movies, mindless beasts bent on destruction in the name of self-preservation. As the last of his blood leaked onto the sidewalk, weapons were sheathed and neighbors started to discuss the coming football game and reality TV results as they walked back to their homes.
Countdown
10...
We were so close that her heart and my heart were touching, as if fused together. She looked up at me, her eyes clouded with confusion.
“What do you mean?” she said.
“I have a confession,” I said. “I’m afraid it’s going to tear us apart, but I can’t keep on like this.”
“Oh, God. I should have known,” she said. “Too good to be true. What, you’re married?”
“No. Remember when you said it was the worst thing and the best thing to ever happen to you? Well, please keep both possibilities in mind.”
9...
It was the first time we had made love with the lights on. It wasn’t teen-aged apprehension or the shame of flabby thirty-somethings gone to seed. There were simply things she didn’t want me to see. I knew they were there. They didn’t affect me. At least not the way she thought. She was worried about the surface, how she looked. But I was in love, and appearances didn’t matter. She was beautiful, and the flaws did nothing to take away from that. She was baring herself to me. I felt like it was time to reciprocate.
8...
“I really don’t mind the scars.”
She stood looking at herself in a full-length mirror affixed to the back of the bedroom door. She turned this way and that, twisting to find the right angle to take in another part of her body. In bra and panties, the scars were clearly visible. They snaked up her forearms, made red splotches on her lower legs and angry welts along her neckline.
“You don’t mind them, do you?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “Now come to bed, and this time let’s leave the light on.”
7...
"I don’t know how I would have gotten through this without you,” she said.
She sat next to me on the couch in my apartment, her legs up under her, her head on my chest. I didn’t respond, simply ran my fingers through her hair. It had grown out into a bob that made her seem younger.
“I kind of feel like I’m falling for you,” she said.
“That’s not a surprise,�
�� I said, taking her by the shoulders and pulling her upright. “I’ve been taking care of you.”
“No,” she said. “It’s something more.”
6...
Mr. Jennings paced back and forth across the back room. I caught a glimpse of collegiate flesh through the door to the front of the tanning salon.
“Is this going to be a problem for us?” he said.
“No, sir. It’s under control. It’s strictly professional.”
“It had better be,” he said, stopping directly in front of me. “There’s no room for guilt in this business, David.”
I nodded. “It was my mistake. I’m just trying to make it right.”
“Just don’t make it any worse.”
5...
“You’re doing what?”
Chris had just gotten back from picking up payments. We were sitting in the back of the salon.
“It’s only until she gets on her feet. I’m responsible, so I thought I’d help her out.”
“Well, she is hot. Saw her picture in the paper,” he said. “What did the fire do to her?”
“She has scars, but the doctor said they’ll fade with time.”
“Guess she won’t be coming in here any time soon,” Chris said with a laugh. “These piece-of-shit beds would finish the job.”
4...
“Did you get that from me?”
We were on my couch, watching TV. She had pulled aside the collar of my button-down to reveal a small, red scar in the shape of a heart.
“I guess. It’s just like yours,” I said, pointing to her neck. “Your necklace must have heated up in the fire and branded both of us when I carried you out.”
“I still don’t know how to thank you.”
“There’s no need,” I said. “Right place, right time. I was lucky.”