by Tim Dorsey
“You’re breaking up. I can’t hear you.”
“Don’t give me that old trick!” said Ingersol. “Drop this Serge business right now! You’re insubordinate! You’re over the line!…”
Mahoney turned off the radio.
THERE WAS KNOCK at the door of 867 Triggerfish. Serge answered it wearing a chef’s hat and eating a chicken salad sandwich.
It was Jim Davenport.
“Hey! Jim! What’s up, buddy?”
Jim stepped inside. He looked troubled. “I have to talk to you about something.”
“Sandwich?” asked Serge, showing Jim his own partially eaten one.
“No thanks. I—”
“Chicken salad,” said Serge, pumping his eyebrows.
“Listen, I have to talk to you about our double date. Martha doesn’t—”
“My special recipe,” said Serge. “I’ll give you half. Take a bite. You don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it.”
“No, I—”
Serge tore his sandwich in two and handed Jim half and left the room.
Jim looked around uncomfortably. He glanced over at the couch and saw Coleman staring down, picking at something.
Serge came back in the room stirring a giant mixing bowl with a spatula. “Okay, you start with a bucket of KFC extra crispy. Debone and dice. Then mix with mayo and—here’s the secret ingredient that puts it over the top—cashews!”
“Serge, I have to tell you something.” Jim absentmindedly took a bite. “I came over here to—” He stopped and looked at the sandwich. “Say, that’s not bad.”
Serge pointed at the couch. “Have a seat.”
“I can’t stay.”
Serge sat down and clicked on the TV with the remote. “Sit down. You’ll hurt my feelings.”
Jim sat tentatively on the edge of the sofa. Serge changed channels to Deliverance on TBS.
“Serge, listen—”
“I love Deliverance!” exclaimed Serge. “I’ll make you a sandwich, and we’ll watch the rest together. This is a good bonding movie.”
“Serge—”
“Shhhhh!” said Serge. “Here’s the Ned Beatty scene. Cracks me up every time.”
“Damn it, Serge, I have to talk to you!”
Serge clicked off the TV. “Geez, Jim, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was so important. What’s the matter?”
“It’s about Melvin—”
Serge stood up fast. “What’s the matter with Melvin? He’s okay, isn’t he?”
“Melvin’s fine—”
Serge sat back down. “Whew! You had me worried. He’s a fine boy.”
“Yes, he is.”
“You should be proud.”
“I am.”
“Listen, Jim. I love that kid. I wish I had a son like that but, well, things never worked out. You tell me what the problem is. I’ll do anything to help you. Just name it. Anything.”
Jim hesitated and looked down.
Serge put his hand on Jim’s shoulder. “What is it, Jim? You can tell me.”
Jim looked up at Serge. “Martha doesn’t think…We don’t think we can go on that double date.”
“I see.”
“In fact, we would prefer it if you didn’t come over anymore…”
Serge got up and went over to the window. He put his sandwich down on the sill. He stared outside silently with his hands in his pockets. He could hear songbirds. He picked up the sandwich and took a bite.
“I feel terrible about this,” said Jim. “But we have kids, and you have…this lifestyle.”
Serge turned and walked back to the couch. He put a hand on Jim’s shoulder again. “Is that how you two feel?”
“That’s how we feel.”
Serge took another bite and nodded. He sat down on the coffee table facing Jim. “You know, Jim, Martha’s a fine woman. You’re a very lucky man.”
“Thank you.”
“And she’s a great mother.”
“I know.”
“And a mother has to do what she thinks is in the best interests of her children. If she doesn’t, she’s not a good mother.”
“I agree.”
“So I understand completely. I’ll stay away.”
“Serge, I hope you don’t take this—”
“No, no,” said Serge, holding up a hand for Jim to stop. “No need to explain. Family comes first. I’m not going to interfere with that.”
The screen door flung open and crashed into the wall. Sharon stood in the doorway backlit with bright sunlight, legs apart, hands on her hips like Superwoman. She wore cowboy boots, dark sunglasses, hot pants and the top half of a Corona T-shirt. No bra. Her flowing blond hair was untamed, and she was pissed off in a sexy way.
“Where’s that shithead, Coleman! Wait till I get my hands on the little dickhead!”
“Sharon!” snapped Serge. “We have a guest!”
Jim stood and held out a hand to shake. Sharon looked at it like a turd. She walked by, flicking cigarette ash on the floor. “Who’s this asshole?”
“Sharon!” Serge said. “This is one of our neighbors! Your manners!”
“Fuck manners! And fuck him!” Then to the room in general: “We got any liquor in this shithole?”
Serge snatched the sunglasses off her face and threw them against the wall.
“Hey! Those were my favorite shades!” She reached out and stuck him in the hand with her cigarette.
“Aaaaaauuuu!” Serge screamed. He looked at the burn mark, then backhanded her across the face, sending her tumbling into the kitchen. She got up and slapped him back. They began to struggle. A chair went over. Sharon broke free and Serge charged. She grabbed the hanging lamp and swung it, catching Serge in the forehead.
“Owwww!” Serge grabbed his head and staggered. Sharon went for the butcher’s block. Serge reached for some utensils sticking out of a ceramic rooster. Sharon pulled a meat cleaver from the block and spun around, but Serge bonked her on top of the head with a soup ladle.
“Ouch!” She dropped the meat cleaver and grabbed the top of her head with both hands.
“You’re dead now!” Serge hissed.
“Oh shit!” She ran down the hall into the bedroom and slammed the door.
Serge calmly walked down the hall after her and kicked the door open.
There was cursing, a tremendous crash and a woman’s scream. More stuff breaking.
Jim looked with concern at Coleman and pointed down the hall. “Shouldn’t we do something?”
“I think they want their privacy.”
“What?”
“Listen,” said Coleman.
Jim listened. They were still cursing and screaming. But Jim also began to make out bedsprings squeaking with a distantly familiar rhythm.
“Have a seat,” said Coleman. “They’ll only be a few minutes.”
Jim awkwardly sat next to Coleman on the couch. Coleman clicked the remote control over to Jerry Springer and two obese women with mustaches fighting over the white supremacist who snaked their toilets.
The bedsprings got louder. Jim heard Sharon’s voice down the hall again, rising in volume, her words falling into iambic pentameter with the squeaking coils: “Oh-God! Oh-God! Oh-God! Oh-God! Fuck-me! Fuck-me! Fuck-me! Fuck-me!…”
Sweat began to bead and trickle down Jim’s temples. He looked out the corner of his eye at Coleman, who seemed oblivious as he watched TV. Jerry Springer grabbed his chin and looked on with pensive concern as a female Godzilla vs. Mothra hair-pulling contest got under way.
Sharon was now screaming at the top of her lungs.
“Don’t-stop! Don’t-stop! Don’t-stop! Don’t-stop!…Oh, my pussy!…My…wet…hot…snapping…pussy!…Yip-yip-yip-yip, Eeeeee-hawwwww!”
“Jesus!” screamed Jim, leaping off the couch. He looked at Coleman and pointed down the hall with a trembling arm. “I can’t believe you’re not hearing that!”
“Oh, I hear it all right,” said a forlorn Coleman, listlessly pressing the cha
nnel-changer. “I wish I had a girlfriend.”
Sharon’s noisiness subsided, and Jim sat back down.
“I envy you married guys,” said Coleman. “You probably get that every night.”
It was quiet for a while. Serge finally came around the corner wearing only jogging shorts and holding a bath towel around his neck like a tennis star. Jim stood up.
“Oh, Jim, I’m so sorry. I completely forgot about you!”
Jim walked up to Serge bashfully. “Can I ask you something?”
“What is it, Jim?”
Jim tried to say something, but then looked down at the floor.
Serge leaned his head to look at Jim from a slightly different angle, then straightened back up. “You want to improve your love life with Martha?”
Jim nodded, still looking at the floor.
Serge put his arm around Jim’s shoulders. “Step into my office…. Coleman, hold my calls. And bring Jim a beer.”
Jim walked into Serge’s bedroom. He stopped and stared. A seven-foot-tall, fifty-foot-long Mercator map of the world stretched all the way around the four walls.
“I put that up when I was working on my plans for global domination,” said Serge. “But then I got distracted by Paleo-Indian archaeology.” He pointed at the neat row of clovis-point arrowheads in a shadow box on his dresser. “I figure when I get back to world domination, I’ll already have the map up.”
Coleman came in and handed Jim a beer. Serge handed him a pad and pencil.
“You’ll need to take notes.” They sat down on the bed. “Okay, if you really want to please Martha, here’s what you have to do…”
AN HOUR LATER, Serge and Jim shook hands on the front porch.
A ’76 Laguna with chrome hubs screeched up in front of the Davenport residence, the stereo thumping about political disenfranchisement and bitches. Debbie and the shirtless driver got out and kissed.
“Hey!” Jim yelled at the driver. “I want to talk to you!”
Jim ran down from the porch as fast as he could, but the Laguna took off again. Jim walked back to Serge’s house. “That guy’s way too old for Debbie.”
“You want me to take care of him?” said Serge. “I still got some of the baseball bats from coaching Little League. I know these guys—”
“No,” said Jim. “I have to handle it myself. I’m her father.”
“How old is Debbie now, anyway?” said Serge. “Sixteen?”
“Next week,” said Jim. “I heard her talking on the phone with one of her friends. I think his name’s Scorpion. He’s twenty-two. And what was the deal with his underwear hanging out like that? Didn’t he realize it was showing?”
“I think that’s on purpose,” said Serge.
“Really? That’s what they’re doing these days?” said Jim. He pointed inside Serge’s open front door at Coleman bending over to go through some old albums.
“So Coleman does it on purpose, too?”
Serge shook his head. “That’s not fashion. That’s congenital.”
34
J OHN MILTON held a can of spray paint in his right hand and looked up at the dripping red letters on the side of the new Consolidated Bank building: THE FIRST THING WE DO, LET’S KILL ALL THE CONSULTANTS.
He tossed the can in a trash bin and began walking south along Dale Mabry Highway. He passed a homeless man holding up a cardboard sign: WILL TAKE VERBAL ABUSE FOR FOOD.
“That’s every job in America in a nutshell,” said John.
“What?” said the man, but John kept walking. He was on a mission. Ever since the day John found Christ and the Antichrist rolling on the sidewalk, he had taken the Messiah’s words to heart. He was on a quest, searching for The Messenger, the one who would reveal all. But John was getting discouraged. He started to think that maybe there was no messenger. He decided to take matters into his own hands.
That meant revenge. John came up with Plan A. That was the plan with the stun gun. In the meantime, John had started getting hungry. He had been walking all morning and was amazed at the kind of appetite dementia could whip up. Madness affects people different ways. In John’s case, it made him crave chocolate malt balls. John began looking for a place that sold both stun guns and Whoppers.
He walked another half hour and went inside the Sam’s Club near Gandy Boulevard. Ten minutes later, he strolled down aisle seventeen holding a stun gun in a clear plastic blister pack. He saw an employee.
“Where are the Milk Duds?” asked John.
“Aisle fifteen,” said Jim Davenport.
John disappeared around the corner and came back. “Don’t see ’em.”
Jim put down his price gun.
They went to aisle fifteen. Jim pointed sharply upward, seventy feet above them on the steel-girder shelves. A forklift pallet of Milk Duds in ten-gallon cartons.
“We’ll need the stairs,” said Jim.
John waited as Jim left the aisle. Soon there was a squeaking sound, and Jim came back around the end of the aisle pushing a tall metal staircase with a revolving amber caution light. Jim rolled it into place and set the parking brake, then put on a hard hat and climbed to the top.
Jim put his hand to the side of his mouth and yelled down. “How many you need?”
“What?” John yelled.
“How many cartons you need?” Jim yelled louder.
“One!…No, two!”
Jim climbed down with twenty gallons of malt balls.
“Thanks,” said John. He stopped and studied Jim’s face. “Don’t I know you?”
“Don’t think so,” said Jim. “I’m new in town.”
“You look familiar,” said John. “I was thinking it was from work, but I guess it couldn’t be, since you work here.”
“Where do you work?” asked Jim.
“I’m between jobs,” said John. “Actually had a pretty good one until the company brought in the consultants.”
“Don’t get me started on the consulting business,” said Jim.
“Bad experience?”
“Horrible. I was so naive. Then I learned the truth.”
“They called me in on a Monday morning,” said John. “What about you?”
“Friday afternoon.”
“My boss said he had no choice but to fire me,” John added. “Claimed the consultants were forcing his hand.”
“He was lying.”
“But that would be wrong.”
“The company was the one who wanted to fire you in the first place. They told that to the consultants, who wrote a report recommending layoffs. Then someone from the company says, ‘Hey, if it was up to me, I’d keep you on. You know I would.’”
“That’s what they told me! Those exact words!”
“It’s part of a script,” said Jim. “They hand it out at a luncheon.”
“But why would the consultants take the blame for something that’s not their fault?”
“They’re paid scapegoats,” said Jim.
“Paid scapegoats?”
“It’s this economy. There are all kinds of new jobs.”
“Wow.”
“That’s not all,” said Jim. “After an employee is dismissed, the company will start spreading vague hints about his mental stability.”
“Why?”
“To discredit him in case he tries to talk to the others.”
John stepped back and his face changed. He pointed at Jim and put his other hand over his mouth. “Oh my God! You’re The Messenger!”
“The what?”
“You’re the one I was supposed to find. The one who would reveal all.”
“What are you talking about?”
But John fell silent, slowly taking steps backward. Then he turned and ran out of the store without paying, and the alarms went off.
JOHN MILTON RAN to a pay phone and dialed.
“This is Jerry, your account representative. How may I assist you today?”
“Jerry, it’s me. John. John Milton.”
“Joh
n!” Jerry whispered in alarm. It sounded like he was covering the phone with his hand. “Are you okay? There are some pretty strange stories circulating about you. They said you had gone…”
“Gone what?”
“…Mad.”
John cringed. “He warned me this would happen.”
“Who?”
“That’s not important.”
“John, I’m worried. Where are you?”
“I can’t tell you right now. I have to ask you a big favor.”
“Name it.”
“Do you think you can get in the vice president’s office without being seen?”
“Which one?”
“Number thirty-eight. The one with the inspirational poster.”
“Of the rowing team?”
“That’s the one. I need you to—”
“He took it down.”
“Took what down?”
“The poster.”
“That’s not important.”
“It was important enough for you to bring up.”
“Forget about the poster. I need you to get in there and find the consultant’s report.”
“Don’t have to.”
“Why not?”
“They gave it to us. Everyone was getting really upset about the layoffs, a lot of tearful good-byes, so they passed out copies to prove it wasn’t the company’s fault.”
“Meet me in an hour in the parking lot. Bring the report.”
“An hour in the parking lot?”
“Right.”
“What do you want me to do about the poster?”
“I don’t care about the poster.”
“Then what’s this call about?”
“The consultant’s report!”
“Oh! You want the report!”
“Of course I want the report!”
“When do you want it?”
“In an hour! In the parking lot!”
“You don’t have to shout.”
“Geez, Jerry! And you’re one of the ones they kept!”
“You’re the one who’s crazy.”
“See you in an hour.”
JOHN WAITED ACROSS the street from Consolidated Bank. Jerry came down in a few minutes. He looked around to make sure he hadn’t been followed, then ran across the street to Jim. He pulled the report from inside his jacket.