by Dorsey, Tim
Stinky was messing with a large flare gun, smacking the back of it with his palm when the breech refused to latch. Kept smacking it, and it kicked with a quiet whoosh, and a trail of smoke laced across the deck. Stinky followed the trail and saw Cheese-Dick, surprised, staring down at this thing the size of a soup can lodged in his chest. The white-hot phosphorus lit up the inside of his rib cage like a jack-o’-lantern. A small parachute popped out of him and he fell backward into the water.
“You killed Cheese-Dick!” shouted Ringworm.
“It wasn’t me! It’s the curse of The Triangle!” said Stinky. “We’re all gonna die!”
Ringworm slapped him around. “We’ve got work to do.”
By midday, Stinky was sure they were near Africa, but the rudder had them turning in an evertightening circle due west of Naples until they were spinning in exactly one spot like they were over a bathtub drain.
Stinky found a block of frozen squid at the bottom of the freezer and gnawed on it with his dog teeth.
Ringworm found a chart and tried to read it. Stinky, squid in his beard, passed the frozen bait.
Serge had visual contact with Veale’s Aston Martin as they passed the Lakeland exits on Interstate 4. On the radio, a guy was hawking beef jerky and calling homosexuals “fudgepackers.” As they pushed east, the signal faded a bit, and the stream of bigotry acquired the backbeat of an urban contemporary station out of Orlando. Serge thought it sounded like rap music of The Third Reich—Master Race MC Eichmann. He went to change stations, but the knob came off. He handed it to Coleman, who put it in his mouth.
After seventy miles, Veale took the ramp to the Bee Line Expressway, skirting under Orlando.
“I spy with my little eye…” said Coleman.
“No road games,” said Serge.
“What about songs?”
“No songs.”
“I’m bored,” said Coleman.
“I gotta take a piss,” said Sharon.
Veale continued his neurotic escape flight until he was stopped by the Atlantic Ocean. He decided to spend the night, and in the morning head to Port Canaveral and take his chances on a cruise ship to anywhere else. He pulled into the motel parking lot, grabbed a suitcase and gym bag and walked toward the office. Serge was right behind. The Barracuda bottomed out as it sailed into the lot, and Serge sprang from the car.
Veale saw him and sprinted into the motel office. Serge thought better of it and got back in the car, watching Veale at the counter through the office’s front window. Sharon got out of the Barracuda and walked cross-legged to Launch Pad Food Mart, where they gave her a restroom key chained to a hockey stick.
“Sean?” said an unfamiliar voice.
Sean, signing a credit card receipt in the motel office, looked up. He tensed at first. But he remembered it was Halloween Week as he looked at Harpo Marx.
“It’s Sean, right?”
Sean studied him but nothing came. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I remember…”
“It’s me! George Veale! You were at my Gasparilla party in Tampa!”
Another pause. Sean said, “You’re the one who blew the parrot through the window with the cannon?”
“You remember!” said Veale. “You decide to join the krewe yet? We’re a fun bunch!”
Sean found it hard to ditch people, and he tended to give boring, cloying, overbearing cretins far more time than appropriate, which only encouraged them to sink their hooks deeper into his life like jumbo ticks. By the time Sean ultimately had to cut them loose, his delivery was abrupt and socially messy. “I want you to go away.”
Veale walked out of the motel office with Sean, continuing an excruciating conversation as if they were on speaking terms. Sean loaded luggage into his car as Veale went on and on.
Sean and David had arrived the day before, taking in the attractions at the Kennedy Space Center. Now they were checking out of the motel to drive to a viewing area for an evening launch of the space shuttle Columbia.
Veale offered to help load Sean’s car, which Sean thought was a little much, but a nice gesture all the same. The twelve-year-old Chrysler, a land yacht, was backed to the room. With the trunk lid up, Veale was blocked from the Barracuda and Serge’s field of vision.
“What’s he doing?” asked Coleman.
“Stalling,” said Serge.
Veale glanced around the edge of the trunk lid; Serge still there. Veale correctly figured all the money would be lost if Serge caught him with it. Veale studied the trunk while talking to Sean, looking for a place to stash the suitcase. At least that way, there was a chance he could catch up with Sean later and get it back.
When Sean returned to the room to get another load, Veale tried to fit his suitcase this way and that in the trunk, under the other bags. Nothing worked; too conspicuous. Veale stood up and scratched his stomach, and he noticed the false panel leading to the wheel well behind the backseat. It was attached with plastic snaps and came off easy. A few automotive tools back there, and the spare tire was smaller than he’d thought. Plenty of room.
When Sean got back to the car, Veale looked up from the trunk as innocently as someone hiding a body. Sean only thought: Please let this end.
“So, where are you going?” he asked Sean.
“To the launch.”
“The launch?” asked Veale.
Sean looked around them on the edge of Highway A1A. There were a dozen signs for sandwich shops, hardware stores and a lingerie place that all had “space shuttle” in the names. Logos of the space shuttle were everywhere. One shuttle had a smile and was waving hello.
“The space shuttle launch,” Sean said.
“Right, right,” said Veale. “Then where?”
“Just down the coast.”
“Where ya gonna stay?”
“Play it by ear.”
And this cat-and-mouse went on in agony, Veale desperately trying to cling to some scrap of itinerary so he could link up with Sean and retrieve the suitcase. And Sean deliberately nebulous so there’d be no conceivable way Veale could bump into them. Sean wished David wasn’t next door at the Moon Hut restaurant and could get him out of this.
Veale kept glancing across the parking lot.
“What are you looking at?”
“Nothing,” said a jumpy Veale. “So you’re going to Key West? You know any good hotels?”
“We’re staying at the Purple Pelican,” Sean said, assuming Key West was way too far to have to worry about Veale—and hoping a direct answer might eclipse the interrogation.
“The Purple Pelican, eh?” said Veale. He repeated “Purple Pelican” in his head eight times and made himself picture one.
“I think I’ll go to Key West too,” said Veale. “Maybe stay at the Purple Pelican.”
Sean put a Post-it note in his brain to cancel reservations at the Purple Pelican.
“So, what’s there to do in Key West?” asked Veale.
“Please go away,” said Sean.
Fourteen
George Veale looked out the window of the second-floor room at the Orbit Motel. He would have enjoyed the ocean view more if he hadn’t been tied up in a chair and gagged with duct tape.
“We need ice,” said Coleman, trying to figure out the TV remote.
“I need cigarettes,” said Sharon.
Serge closed his eyes and tightened a second at the sound of their voices. He wrapped duct tape and braided cord to fasten the end of the twelve-gauge shotgun to Veale’s throat. He looked up at Veale’s face. “You need anything, George?”
George shook his head no.
Serge turned back to the others. “See, now George is a good travel companion. Low maintenance, a happy camper. You should try it.”
Serge had booked the room in the name on the stolen Visa card with a hologram logo of the Orlando Magic. They’d carried Veale up the stairs. One second after Serge had produced the shotgun, Veale had spoken in tongues. He’d told them where the suitcase was and about Sean and the Purpl
e Pelican and had made a river of other language sounds that never quite became words.
In the parking lot, Mo Grenadine got out of a Lincoln Town Car and walked over to George’s Aston Martin. He reached under the bumper and removed the metal box held to the car with a magnet. He walked over to the Barracuda and slipped it under the bumper. He got back in the Lincoln and unwrapped a beef jerky.
Serge told Coleman he needed to go out for more equipment and to keep an eye on Veale. He returned in forty minutes with a bag from Radio Shanty and another from Space Shuttle Hardware and Paint. He sent Coleman down to the car to bring up more stuff.
Serge spread out the bags’ contents on the avocado carpet: copper wire, twelve-volt electric motor, twine, more duct tape, folding sawhorse, batteries, solenoid switch, tin shears, souvenir space shuttle key fob and Apollo 13 baseball cap. Total: $61.78.
Veale had lost the Harpo wig and hat in the initial struggle, taking refuge in the vending machine alcove and fending off Serge and Coleman with the plastic ice-machine scoop. Serge put the baseball cap on Veale’s head and began assembling his purchases. Coleman made two trips to the car and brought up three brown grocery sacks, a giant bag of Doritos sticking out of one. Also, a Styrofoam cooler, a case of Busch and two large foam fish that clamped on a person’s head to indicate support for the Florida Marlins professional baseball organization.
Coleman held up the teal fish and studied it with a single knitted brow.
“I completely forgot,” Serge said, pulling one of the fish onto his head, “the World Series is on tonight. Marlins and Indians tied two games each. Boy, have we been out of the loop.”
Coleman wiggled the foam fish onto his head, a tight fit. Serge turned to Sharon. “Sorry, I only got two.”
“I’ll live,” she said.
She sat on the edge of the bed with her back to him, a crossed leg swinging. Smoking and staring at a lithograph on the wall of a clown and two fat ladies at the beach.
Coleman dumped the grocery bags out on the bed. Onion dip, kaiser rolls, roast beef, Dijon mustard, sesame sticks, beer nuts, rolling papers, pickled cauliflower, grapefruit juice that wasn’t from concentrate, microwave Tupperware, spicy fried chicken, three newspapers, deli packs of German potato salad, coleslaw and Swedish meatballs, six postcards for a dollar, a four-pack of C batteries, and a half-size souvenir World Series baseball bat.
Serge tossed the batteries underhand to Sharon, and they bounced on the mattress next to her. “I got those for your little vibrating friend,” he said. “Lock and load!”
He turned to Coleman: “I made sure the whole food pyramid was represented. You got your nacho food group, the beer group, the hoagie group and the buffalo wing group.”
“Why’d you get Busch? You got fifty thousand in that shaving kit,” said Coleman, arranging the beer cans in the cooler for maximum storage.
“Habit of the damned,” said Serge. “Like a rat that gets electric shocks so long he forgets to leave the cage when the door’s open.”
Serge tossed one of the beers to Coleman. “Kill that,” said Serge. “I need the can.”
Coleman popped the top on the Busch and took a motel pen sitting on some stationery and slammed it down on the can, puncturing a second hole on the other side of the top. He raised the can and shotgunned it. He tossed the empty to Serge, who clipped it apart with the tin shears.
The television was on Florida Cable News. A gray-haired man behind the anchor desk reported near tragedy at a state motor vehicle office, where a man who had failed the eye exam pulled a gun and fired fifteen shots at the staff, hitting nobody.
With unflagging persistence, Coleman poked at the remote control, getting no results. He Cheech-and-Chonged on a joint and switched the TV back and forth from video mode, changed the clock, switched it from stereo to mono, turned the set off and on and ran the volume bar left and right across the screen. He found the channel button and mashed it through sixty channels, accompanied by his stoned narrative: “…William Shatner’s personal tragedy, remove unwanted facial hair with electrical tape, the gallery of unsellable homes, fishing with Jimbo, Jazz with Junkies, phone sex for shut-ins…”
“Gimme that!” Serge smacked Coleman on top of the head with the remote. He switched the TV to the NASA channel. Seven astronauts in orange pressure suits waved as they walked to the launch gantry. “It stays on that channel!” Serge said, and he threw the remote in the toilet.
Coleman broke out the cocaine, jarring Sharon from her indolent stupor. She picked up the plastic space shuttle tray next to the sink and flung the cellophane-wrapped shuttle cups into the corner. Urgency got the better of precision, and they dumped a gram and ran two lumpy lines across the tray with Coleman’s driver’s license. Sharon leaned her face down and made one long, guttural pull.
“What’s that? More crank?” said Serge.
“No,” said Coleman, “blow,” and leaned over to take his turn.
“Shit, every day it’s something else,” said Serge.
“If it’s Thursday, this must be cocaine,” Coleman replied.
“One day it’s meth, another day psilocybin; you drop acid on Sunday and Percodan on Monday,” said Serge. “Then it’s Thai sticks. And what about the time you boiled those flowers that were supposed to be like Aborigines’ curare darts? Can’t you just pick a drug and stick with it?”
Coleman said, completely serious: “I don’t want to get hooked.”
Sharon interrupted in a silly, pouting voice, “My other nostril’s jealous.” So they tore off two more mondo lines.
“Look, a microwave!” said Coleman. “Let’s make some crack!”
Coleman ran downstairs to the Launch Pad Food Mart and came back with an orange brick of baking soda. He produced a sandwich bag with the rest of his cocaine, and mixed the batter in the Tupperware. He slid it in the microwave and he and Sharon watched it through the window with their faces two inches from the glass.
“Hey, Betty Crocker, you ever heard not to watch the food cook?” said Serge.
There was a pop and a bright flash, and flames flicked inside the microwave. “Fuck!” said Coleman. He popped open the microwave door and a bunch of smoke came out. The Tupperware was empty. Sharon craned her neck and sniffed at the cloud of smoke. She turned and punched Coleman in the chest. “You stupid dickwipe! You just burned up a whole fucking eight-ball! And it was good, too!”
“I got some meth left,” Coleman said sheepishly.
“Give it to me!”
He handed it to her wrapped in BC Powder paper. She went to the bed and turned into the corner of the room, protective, a cavewoman just handed a barbecued pterodactyl wing.
Serge installed a tension rod in the top of the bathroom doorframe and stuck his feet in antigravity boots. He grabbed the rod and swung his feet like a gymnast to attach the boots with special hooks. He hung upside down, crossed his arms over his chest and did inverted sit-ups.
On TV, the astronauts were at the top of the gantry climbing into the shuttle. Coleman said he and Sharon were going out for ice and cigarettes.
“Get some Perrier,” said Serge, looking like a bat.
When he got down, Serge resumed work on his contraption. He tied the space shuttle key chain to the end of the copper wire, where it hung like a plumb bob. His project complete, he said “Ta-da!” to Veale.
Coleman and Sharon returned, and Coleman sat on the bed near the window, dipping Doritos. All the other food was open and arranged around him in a semicircle, equidistant to his hands. He converted the motel-room garbage can into an auxiliary cooler, icing down four beers on the nightstand.
“Move over,” Serge told Coleman. “And beer me.”
Coleman butt-walked sideways a foot and a half, making room on the bed for Serge, and handed him a beer dripping ice water. Serge tasted how cold it was and told Coleman good work. He slipped it into a NASA can insulator, lay back against the headboard, and reached for the window.
The curtains were mo
tel grade that blocked X-rays, and when they were drawn it was a moonless night. Serge yanked down on the pulley, and the afternoon sun squeezed their pupils.
Anyone walking along the second-floor balcony of the Orbit Motel would have seen two men with foam marlin on their heads sitting up against the backboard of one bed covered in wing sauce. On the other bed, a gorgeous coke floozy licking the inside of a burnt Tupperware container like a Saint Bernard. And toward the bathroom, a man tied up and gagged with a shotgun strapped to his neck and an intricate contraption in front of him that looked part train set, part time machine.
After a single beer, Serge was half drunk and thoroughly insane. He ranted about the importance of the space shuttle program and the national imagination. He got up in a squat on the bed like he was telling a spooky campfire tale about the Cold War and the space race. In a rapid series, he imitated a beeping Sputnik, the average terrified American and a laughing Nikita Khrushchev. He adopted the German accent of Werner von Braun. He made himself rigid and narrow like a Redstone rocket, and he flailed around the floor like Gus Grissom after his Liberty Bell capsule sank. He floated in slow motion for America’s first space walk.
Even Sharon was listening now, lying on her stomach and leaning forward on elbows.
For linear tension, Serge downshifted to pianissimo as he told of the Christmas flight of Apollo 8 and the astronauts seeing the first earthrise. He built furiously through the liftoff of Apollo 11. For climax, he reenacted a splashdown off the USS Kitty Hawk, jumping in the air, bonking his head on the ceiling and coming down in a cannonball on Coleman’s bed. Food flew everywhere—nuts, chips, salads and cold cuts. A glop of slaw hit Veale in the ear. Sharon was standing, and two meatballs thwacked her on the shirt.