Author’s note: I recently gave myself a writing prompt—person smoking in car—and this is what came out. Drop a comment if you feel so inclined. I’d love to hear from you.
By Jason Offutt
Smoke burned Trent’s lungs.
He pulled the cigarette from his dry lips, and flicked it through the open window of the Lincoln Continental the way he’d seen cool guys do in movies. Trent did a lot of things cool guys do in movies. Brad Pitt, Clint Eastwood, Humphrey Bogart, Moe Howard. They taught him everything he knew.
How can people smoke these? he wondered, shoving the soft pack into his jacket pocket, a cough lingering in the back of his throat.
What? A movement. He froze. The shadow of a body approached the lightly-tinted glass of the office building across the street.
Dropping lower in the driver’s seat, Trent picked his nose. Universal Truth No. 456: human beings don’t notice someone who picks their nose. It’s like the simple act of ridding a nasal orifice of dried mucus reboots a person’s operating system. It’s the “have you tried unplugging it and plugging it back in?” of the human brain.
The front door of the bank whooshed open, and Arnold Pendicott stepped onto the sidewalk. Arnold had a problem neither the Midwest Unlimited Credit Union shareholders, nor Mrs. Pendicott, knew anything about.
Trent didn’t know what his problem was either, but Pendicott was Trent’s “mark,” and his boss had given him a job.
Mr. Pendicott stopped and looked toward the Lincoln, but turned his head before a trace of recognition told Trent the deal was off. It was the nose; Universal Truth No. 456 was never wrong.
“I need a volunteer,” Trent’s new employer, Mr. Funk, had said at the Funk and Tyree Enterprises morning meeting. Mr. Funk sat in the big leather boardroom chair; the one at the end of the table, the chair reserved for mob bosses, one of which Mr. Funk certainly was not. Mr. Funk smelled of sandalwood at 7:50 a.m., and wore a crisp suit Trent knew probably wasn’t from Men’s Wearhouse, but it wasn’t expensive either. Mob bosses had suits made in Italy, or someplace. “I have a business associate who needs educated on a certain subject.”
Educated? Oh, boy. Trent had only been employed at Funk and Tyree Enterprises for a few weeks, but he could educate Mr. Funk’s business associate. He just knew it, because he’d developed his life’s philosophy while viewing television, and WWTTSD? never did him wrong.
Mr. Funk’s business associate was a key candidate for WWTTSD? Trent raised his hand.
“You,” Mr. Funk said, pointing at Trent in a way Trent almost peed. “What did you do before you came here?”
Me? Me?
“I worked at a bakery, sir,” squeaked out.
The man, in the not-Men’s Wearhouse suit, stared at Trent long enough sweat began to soak his collar.
“A bakery?” Mr. Funk said. “Okay, so prove to me you belong here. I want you to do the hit. Hit Pendicott—” Trent’s new boss looked around the conference table at other men in suits. For some reason they looked nervous. “—with a ‘pie’.”
Laughter rumbled through the room. Benny Dubanowski laughed so hard he spat coffee back into his cup.
With a pie? Trent thought. He said, “with a pie.” The man was a master.
***
The grays that made up the picture of Arnold Pendicott weren’t exactly accurate, Trent noticed as he looked from the photograph propped on the steering wheel to the real man standing on the sidewalk. The picture looked like the Pendicott he was supposed to hit, but the man was more colorful in person. His tie was green, and his hair red. Hmm. Must be the lighting.
Mr. Pendicott pulled a phone from his suit jacket, and glanced at it before slipping it back into the pocket.
In a hurry, Mister?
The Lincoln’s door release engaged silently, and Trent pushed it open, bending to retrieve his weapon from the rear seat. Thinking back, Mr. Funk’s tone changed when his words went from “educated” to “hit.” Hit. Trent knew what a hit meant. Years of streaming services had prepared him for this moment.
He slid across the street and onto the sidewalk, the heavy weapon in the right hand behind his back.
“Pendicott?” Trent said, approaching the target. “Mr. Arnold Pendicott, CEO of Midwest Unlimited Credit Union?”
Arnold Pendicott’s eyes grew large, so large he looked like a cartoon character. Pendicott glanced around, looking for what? An ice cream man? A policeman? Somewhere to hide? The more Trent thought about it, the more he knew it didn’t matter what Pendicott looked for. Trent had, what Bogart would have said, “the drop on him.”
“Wh-wha-what?” Pendicott stuttered. “What do you want from me?”
The man seemed nervous. Secret problems had the habit of doing that to a person.
“My employer, Mr. Funk, sent me here to put you in your place, Mr. Pendicott,” Trent said, shoulders straight. Pendicott nervously looked toward Trent’s arm hiding behind his back. “I’m here to teach you a lesson.”
The man’s face drained into an entirely unhealthy shade of copy-paper; his, “What do you mean?” nothing more than a whisper.
“I thought I’d made that clear, Mr. Pendicott,” Trent said; his voice dropped. “This is a hit.”
The bank president attempted to move. It looked to Trent like he wanted to take a step backward, but the poor fellow’s legs refused to work right. Pendicott stood in place, and shook.
“A hit!” Pendicott’s hiss soft, like a nearly empty tea kettle. “In broad daylight? People will see you.”
Darn right they will, Trent thought. Or this wouldn’t be any fun.
“I’m counting on it,” he said, and pulled his arm forward, throwing his weight into the throw.
The coconut cream pie smashed into Arnold Pendicott’s face, the aluminum pan sliding off and splatting onto the sidewalk. Pendicott followed.
The tight grin on Trent hurt, just a little, as he squatted next to Mr. Funk’s business associate.
“I hope you’ve learned your lesson, Mr. Pendicott,” Trent said, wiping an index finger through the ruined dessert on the CEO’s face. He brought a dollop of whipped cream to his lips. “Nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee.”
Oh, man. That just came off the cuff, Trent realized. He’d practiced a few catch phrases in the bathroom mirror earlier—“Your just desserts,” “You’ve been pied,” “You’re like, really dumb, Mister”—and none sounded right. But “Sara Lee?”
Wow, I’m so good at this.
A shout came from nearby. The vocal alarm sent Trent into a run, crossing the street, and skidding around the trunk of the Lincoln. He hopped into the front seat, and tore from the spot he’d legally parked in, disappearing into midday traffic.
“This is a hit,” Mr. Funk had said to Trent. “You know what that means, right?”
“Of course, sir,” Trent reassured him.
Trent took the red and white packet from his jacket pocket and tapped out another cigarette, fumbling for the lighter. He lit the cigarette before he realized he had, and pushed it between his lips. A coughing fit sent him swerving onto the curb.
I need to stop doing this, he thought, righting Mr. Funk’s car.
Trent tossed the cigarette from the window, and wiped the hot tears from his eyes. He chanced a glance at the rearview mirror. Red rimmed his eyes, and a dab of whipped cream dotted his nose, but neither damaged his smile.
My first hit.
“Mr. Funk’s going to be so proud of me,” he said, police sirens moaning behind him, but Trent didn’t care.
He was cool. He was smooth. He was professional. He was—a hitman.
I don’t write holiday stories, at least not usually. Here’s one I wrote a number of years ago. I hope you enjoy it.
Image courtesy of krakenimages.com
By Jason Offutt
We went to the mall the day Dad saved Christmas. Technically, it wasn’t Christmas Day he saved, it was Christmas Eve, but I figure anything that falls within 12 days of Dec. 25 is still Christmas. He didn’t do anything noble. He just saved his family from evil, that’s all. He could have saved us on Arbor Day, or Presidents Day, or even July 12, but what happened to us picked Christmas Eve, so when I say he saved Christmas, I mean he saved Christmas for us.
I grinned as I sat at the breakfast table, milk dripping from my chin and back into my cereal bowl. I grinned because I’d figured out Dad’s plan. Sure, last night he’d only said, “we’re going to the mall in the morning,” as he scratched his belly in my doorway. “And if you don’t get to bed, Stu, Santa will put your hand in a bowl of warm water while you sleep.” But I could tell he was hiding something. We had to be going to the mall for a reason, and that reason was to buy me the new Mega GameStation with “Blood Oozing Zombies of Dread 4.” I’d only asked him for this new video game system 472 times since Christmas Present Begging Season began after Halloween. Besides, I was 10 years old. I didn’t believe in Santa.
“I made poopy,” Bennie said. His face popped above the tabletop and disappeared again. Bennie was my brother and he was three. But Bennie wasn’t important right then, at breakfast, on the eve of me getting me the most prized Christmas toy of my life. Bennie was fun, but he wasn’t Mega GameStation with “Blood Oozing Zombies of Dread 4” fun.
“You’re not getting a Mega GameStation,” Dad said as he cut a bite off his eggs and crammed it into his mouth, the yellow bit all drippy and gross. “You’ve got an Ultra GameStation. What’s wrong with it?”
“Poopy,” Bennie said. His head popped up on the other side of the table.
I looked up from my Sugary Chocolate Puffs, the milk dark brown after only half a bowl. Sugary Chocolate Puffs is the best cereal on the planet. “It’s chocolate chocolaty madness,” the guy on the commercial screams while doctors tie him into a straight jacket. “Now with a Surgeon General warning. Who loves Sugary Chocolate Puffs cereal?” I do.
“‘Blood Oozing Zombies of Dread 4’ won’t play on the Ultra GameStation,” I said as I poured more Sugary Chocolate Puffs into my bowl. There was a two dollars-off coupon for the game “Blood Oozing Zombies of Dread 4” in that box, and I had to eat my way down to it before we left for the mall.
Dad’s fork clanked on his plate, the sound loud even with Bennie yelling “poopy.” Dad was the kind of dad who brought home comic books for me sometimes when I didn’t even expect them. He’d take me to a really cool movie up to three times before saying no. But that was it when it came to spending money. He and Mom bought me an Ultra GameStation last year after my Super GameStation caught fire. Maybe he was serious. No, no, he couldn’t be. He was a kid once. He had to know when I went back to school after break, everybody in my grade would have played “Blood Oozing Zombies of Dread 4” but me, and I’d be an outcast like that kid who still sucks his thumb. Then the real horror struck me; the kid who still sucks his thumb will have probably played “Blood Oozing Zombies of Dread 4,” too. Then where would I be? Yeah, Dad had to buy me a Mega GameStation. How could he not?
“Then why are we going to the mall on Christmas Eve?” I asked, in a surprising display of bravery in the face of Dad dropping his fork.
“Because we’re taking Bennie to see Santa,” he said.
Sure we were. After breakfast, Mom and Dad changed Bennie’s pants and loaded us into the minivan. The traffic guy on the radio warned us to stay home. “You’ll die if you leave your house,” he said. Heck, Dad probably shouldn’t have taken us to the mall that day at all. It started to snow and, unless I heard “Bill Nasty in the Sky” wrong, there was some problem with syrup and a chicken truck. But Dad was taking us to the mall for something really important and Christmas-related and it was all because of me. I was sure of it.
Snow covered the road by the time we pulled into the mall parking lot; the traffic guy on the radio screamed something about mass chaos and the end being near. The only spot available was way back near the Burger King, so Dad took it.
“You know, they hire people to sit in the empty seats at awards shows on TV,” Dad said as we got out of the car. “Malls do that, too. They hire people to park in their parking lot, then bus them back home for the day.”
“Why would they do that?” I asked, although I should have known better. Dad always had an answer. The whole class laughed when I read my history paper on the ancient Sumerians who invented mathematics just to figure out how many lawyers it took to screw in a light bulb. The teacher gave me an F.
“Business, my boy,” Dad said, and dropped a hand on my shoulder to start our alpine hike to the mall doors. “If the parking lot is full, people driving by think they’re missing out on something like a sale, or a soap opera star signing autographs, or looting. So they’ll want some, too. In Third World cultures, entire economies are based on the number of spots not available at mall parking lots.”
“Don’t listen to your father, boys,” Mom said, pushing us to walk faster in the cold. “He’s just confused by the fact that the parking lot is full on Christmas Eve.”
Big fluffy flakes fell slowly to earth as we walked toward the building. Mom held onto Bennie’s hand so hard he squealed, and occasionally dropped into The Noodle so she had to drag him. Mom didn’t hold my hand when we went anywhere in public anymore. She either figured I was big enough to take care of myself, or if gypsies were going to snatch me, they’d have done it by now. Bennie wasn’t so lucky.
Dad pulled open one of the doors at the front of the mall, a blast of heat and the mixed smell of Americanized ethnic cooking from the food court enveloped us. Dad hated to go to the mall. I loved it.
“Well,” I said, pulling off my gloves to shove them into my coat pocket. My coat was big and brown and looked like something Daniel Boone wore when he felt like killing bears, which was all the time. We were at the mall, and it was time to call Dad’s bluff. “I think the game store is this way.”
“And why,” Dad began, grabbing my arm and pointing me in the opposite direction. “Would we be going that way, when we’re going this way?”
He was only teasing me. We came to the mall for a Mega GameStation with “Blood Oozing Zombies of Dread 4,” but that would be the last thing we did. Of course. Why would we go see Santa with the biggest, best present of the year already tucked under Dad’s arm?
“And don’t fool yourself into thinking we’re here to buy a video game,” he said, steering me toward the food court. Santa’s throne was always at the end of the line of booths, next to Mr. Wok’s Egg Noodle Emporium. “You’re not getting a new one until the one you have catches fire again. And don’t get any ideas.”
At that point it hit me. I don’t know why the thought waited until that moment in the mall, right next to the condiment table in front of Dave’s MasterBurger. Maybe it was the tone of Dad’s voice. Maybe it was his 474th denial. But there it was, doubt creeping into my head. Would Dad really not get me the Mega GameStation with “Blood Oozing Zombies of Dread 4?” Would I have to spend another year playing “Blood Oozing Zombies of Dread 3” on my lousy Ultra GameStation? Was my life already over at 10?
I walked with my family through the food court in silence, except when Bennie occasionally laughed for no reason. At that moment, I wished I was three, then the highlight of my day wouldn’t be over.
The line for Santa started at Pandora’s Pizza. It usually started as far back as Jolly’s Cracker Hut, but this year it was at Pandora’s, just two booths away from Mr. Wok’s.
“None of these kids seem very excited,” Dad said softly, leaning close to Mom. He nodded toward a boy walking away from Santa’s throne with his parents, the boy’s eyes big and blank, like he was in a Japanese cartoon. “They’re pretty quiet.”
“Yeah,” Mom whispered. “Usually they’re like …”
“Satan,” Bennie screamed.
“Bennie,” she hissed.
“Satan, Satan,” Bennie yelled. He’d leaned way out of line and spotted Santa on the throne, a little girl on Santa’s big, red lap.
“Bennie,” Mom said, picking him up. “It’s Santa. San-ta.”
“Sa-ten,” Bennie slowly enunciated, then giggled.
I leaned out of line, too. Maybe Dad wasn’t fooling around. Maybe I wasn’t going to get a Mega GameStation at all. Maybe… . The little girl who had been on Santa’s lap walked by holding her mom’s hand. She stared at something, but I couldn’t tell what, unless it was at the guy at Potato Heaven’s fixins bar who had his right pinky up one nostril to the second knuckle. I looked around. Nope, she wasn’t staring at him. I turned back toward Santa. It was Christmas Eve, so the guy in the red suit might just be my last hope. I was going to have to do it. I was going to sit on Santa’s lap.
“Mommy,” Bennie said, Mom’s hand still holding his in a death grip. “Why I’m gonna sit on Satan’s lap?”
“His name is Santa, Bennie,” she said. “And you’re going to sit on Santa’s lap to tell him what you want for Christmas. Then tonight, he’s going to come to our house and put your presents under our Christmas tree.”
“Satan’s comin’ to my house?” Bennie screamed. Bennie had only two volume settings, loud and off. And he wasn’t off enough.
I didn’t listen to any more. The whole Santa thing was silly. I knew that. I mean, it wasn’t like he was real, like vampires or killer robots from the future. He was something grownups invented to keep us from doing anything stupid for an entire month. So why was I going to sit on Santa’s lap and tell him I had to have a Mega GameStation with “Blood Oozing Zombies of Dread 4?” For the same reason people on death row pray – they’ve run out of options.
The line moved and we stepped even with Mr. Wok’s Egg Noodle Emporium. There were two more kids ahead of us. The others had sat on Santa’s lap and filed soundlessly by, holding at least one parent’s hand – sometimes two. I took a deep breath; my mind was set. This was my lowest moment. Well, if that’s the way things had to be.
“I’m going to do it, too,” I snapped to Mom and Dad, not looking at either. A warm feeling rushed over my face. “I’m going to sit on Santa’s lap.”
“What?” Mom asked. I could hear the grin in her voice. Her little boy wasn’t growing up after all. For one more Christmas, I was still her iddle, widdle man. “Since when?”
“Since Dad told me I wasn’t getting a Mega GameStation for Christmas.”
“Yes,” slid from Dad’s mouth in a stifled hiss. He wanted to scream it, I could tell. He’d beaten me and he wanted to gloat. I wish he had. “Remember this moment in a few years when you ask for a car,” he said.
I let my head hang, my chin hitting the zipper of my Daniel Boone coat. I’d have a zipper dent on my chin when I got to Santa, but that was okay because my folks didn’t bring a camera so there’d be no photographic evidence of my moment of shame. I just hoped none of my friends were here or I wouldn’t have to worry about being an outcast for not playing “Blood Oozing Zombies of Dread 4.” I’d be an outcast for something much worse.
Another family walked by, the little boy quiet as the rest.
“Geez, that kid looks like a zombie,” Dad whispered to Mom.
Pfft. What did Dad know about zombies? Zombies were all green and smelly and made ‘Uuuhhh’ sounds. That kid didn’t look anything like a zombie. Then the next family was finished. We were next. In just a few minutes, it would be over with. I looked at the boy who’d just told Santa his secret wishes. He shuffled by, holding each parent’s hand. His face was slack, like his muscles were controlled by a puppet master who’d dropped all the string. That was the third …
“Ho, ho, ho,” a voice bellowed. I looked away from the boy who walked lifelessly by, and into the eyes of Santa. The blue, blue eyes of Santa. Ohmagod. We were it. We were next. Mom nudged me in the back, but I couldn’t move.
Hey, kid, a voice said, but didn’t say. It wasn’t really a voice because I hadn’t heard anything. Come on over. Santa wants to see you. I tried to open my mouth, to ask, to beg Dad to get me out of here, out of the mall. I wouldn’t ask for a Mega GameStation again – ever again. Just take me home. But I was lost, Santa’s eyes were …
“Hey kid,” the same voice said, but this time the words came through my ears. Santa’s elf stepped into my line of vision. The elf was dressed like an elf was supposed to be dressed; green tights, pointy hat with a bell on the end, and a big red belt. He was my size, but he wasn’t a dwarf. He was just a little man, and old, really old. He smiled at me; his smile stretched too wide for his pointy little face. “Come on over. Santa wants you.”
The elf touched my hand with long, spindly fingers, and I screamed.
“What’s wrong with you?” Dad said, pressing his hand in my back and pushing me toward the elf – the evil, evil elf. “You said you wanted to sit on Santa’s lap, so sit on Santa’s lap.”
Yeah, what’s wrong with you? The grinning elf told my head. Santa just wants to know your secrets. Your deep, deep secrets. Come on over. Everything will be better after you talk to Santa. The elf took my arm and led me away from Dad, his little fingers like vice grips in my flesh. I knew I was going to die. The elf pulled me toward the big, red suit and lifted me up to Santa. Santa wants you.
“Ho, ho, ho,” Santa said in loud, booming voice. Mom and Dad were smiling, and I was there, stuck on his lap. “Whisper in Santa’s ear what you want for Christmas.”
Then the stench hit my nostrils. Santa smelled funny. Not Grandma after a few too many ‘special Pepsis’ funny, but old, wet trash funny; and not just old, wet trash. It was something else. Santa’s blue eyes, as blue as a summer sky, burned into mine. I couldn’t look away from him. His skin changed as he drew me toward him. The soft pink hue spread away like a drop of dishwashing liquid hitting a greasy pan. His face grew slick and green, and his beard, big, white and fluffy, was different up close. It was alive – infested. The beard crawled over itself as he leaned closer to me.
“What are your fears?” Santa whispered, his breath scrambled across my face like ants looking for a place to crawl inside my head. “What makes you stay awake at night?”
I felt weak, dizzy, like I was going to sleep, but the smell. The smell. It was … it was something familiar. Something that churned my stomach. “Poopy Satan,” I heard Bennie say from what sounded like miles away. That was it. Santa smelled like Bennie’s diaper pail. Bennie’s wet, sweet-sour smelling poop-filled diaper pail. My stomach lurched and I heaved; a brown, milky Sugary Chocolate Puffs goo splattered across Santa’s bright red shirt.
Hhhhiiissssss, shot through my head as Santa dumped me off his lap. I hit the hard mall floor in front of Mr. Wok’s, the breath shot from my lungs.
“Hey, are you okay?” Dad asked. He lifted me off the floor in front of Santa’s throne and held me like a toddler. Then he turned to Santa. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not the first time,” Santa said to Dad, smiling, his voice different than the voice he’d used on me. It was soft, low and jolly. “Or the worst.” Santa wiped his shirt with a rag the elf put in his hand, and waved at the next kid. But Santa was just Santa again. Pink skinned, cotton-bearded Santa.
“We lost our place in line,” Dad said, cradling me against his shoulder. “Bennie won’t get to …”
“Bennie won’t care,” Mom interrupted. “Let’s just go home.”
I leaned into Dad’s ear.
“Santa’s a monster,” I whispered.
Dad looked at Santa, another unsuspecting kid on his lap, telling him her secret hopes and dreams, and fears. The elf stared at me and grinned.
“Yeah, he’s a big one,” Dad said as we started our long walk back toward the mall doors and away from any store that carried the Mega GameStation with ‘Blood Oozing Zombies of Dread 4.’ “But I wouldn’t call him a monster. Your Mom’s brother Albert’s a monster. The fire department had to cut through a wall just to get him out of the house.”
“Hey …” Mom started, and we went home.
—
“You sure you’re okay, honey?” Mom asked, looking at the thermometer she’d slid out of my mouth. It wasn’t one of those fancy electronic ones Mom could have just wiped across my forehead; it was one of the old-fashioned mercury thermometers I had to hold under my tongue for 10 minutes. I sat there, listening to the motorized angel next to our tree, clicking as it moved back and forth, spreading joy and goodwill to all who weren’t trapped on the couch listening to it click, click, click.
“I’m fine, Mom,” I said. We’d driven straight home in the snow as the guy on the radio recited Bible verses from Revelation. Somebody in the background beat on the studio door and shouted words I’m not sure were supposed to be on the air. When we got home, Mom had me put on my pajamas and lie on the couch while Dad took Bennie to the hardware store. Dad said he’d seen a guy in a Santa suit ringing a bell in front of the store by the snow blowers and he wanted Bennie to sit on some Santa’s lap. “I told you why I threw up.”
Mom frowned. “Because the mall Santa was a zombie lord and he was trying to devour your soul.”
What part of that didn’t she get? “Yes, yes,” I howled. “I saw him change right in front of me. His skin turned green, his beard moved like it was full of bugs, and you saw all those quiet kids. Dad even called them zombies.”
“You want ‘Blood Oozing Zombies of Dread 4’ so badly,” she said, and crossed her arms, signaling the conversation, to her, was over. “You’ll be lucky if I don’t take away your ‘Blood Oozing Zombies of Dread 3.’”
I shut up. Mom wasn’t listening to me. She hadn’t seen the Santa monster. The grown ups hadn’t seen a thing.
Dad and Bennie got home after dark, supper already cold. “I saw Santa,” Bennie screamed at Mom as he jumped out of Dad’s arms and ran through the living room, throwing his coat, gloves and hat wherever they landed – on the floor, the Christmas tree, the ‘click-click’ angel.
“What took you so long?” Mom asked.
“The Santa at the hardware store wouldn’t let Bennie sit on his lap unless I had a receipt,” Dad said, holding up a box. “So I bought a nail gun.”
“What are you going to do with a nail gun?”
Dad shrugged, taking the heavy tool from the box, a box decorated with a big red bow Dad peeled off and stuck to Bennie’s head as he screamed by. “I don’t know yet. I might build the boys a tree house, or a trebuchet.”
“Tree Boo shay,” Bennie squealed, jumping over the couch arm and landing on my feet. “Daddy gonna build a boo shay in our tree.”
“You feeling okay, champ?” Dad said, leaning over the couch, snow still in his hair.
I nodded.
“Still think the mall Santa is a monster?”
I nodded again. Dad didn’t believe me either, I could tell by the way he was grinning. It was the same grin he gets before he asks Bennie to pull his finger.
“You’re telling me you bought yourself a nail gun on Christmas Eve?” Mom asked, appearing over the couch next to Dad. Her arms were still crossed. Oh, yeah, she was pretty mad. Mom had more hand signals than a third base coach.
“Well …” he started, then a knock sounded on the door. A loud, slow knock. Thump. Thump. Thump. Dad smiled. “Hey, I’ll get the door.”
I sat up, Bennie still on my feet, and watched Dad walk to the front door. Who’d be at our house on Christmas Eve? Dad opened the door, our holly wreath swung freely on its nail. I screamed. Standing at my front door, in the snow on top of our “The Fredericks” welcome mat, was the mall Santa and his bad elf.
We’ve come for you, Stu, the bad elf’s voice rang in my head, his evil little face demonic in the flashing red Christmas lights that framed our front door. You got away today, and nobody gets away from Santa.
I screamed again.
Shut the door, Dad, I thought, but the words wouldn’t leave my throat. Shut the door, Dad. Shut the door, Dad. Shut the door, Dad.
“Momma,” Bennie said. “You said Satan’s gonna come to my house. You said it. You did.”
“How did you find our house?” Dad asked mall Santa, my brown puke stain still on the big, red shirt. “You trying to get us to pay for dry cleaning, or something?”
He’s going to eat you, Stu, the bad elf said in my head. He’s going to eat you all up. The elf grinned, the points of his teeth slid over his slug-like lips.
“You may find this funny,” Mom said, turning toward the door, toward the thing that was there to eat me. “Our son thinks you’re a zombie lord who works undercover as Santa to secretly devour the souls of children.”
“Yes, I do find it funny,” the mall Santa said, the red flashing lights making him look like he stood at the Gates of Heck. “Because it’s true.”
I screamed again.
“Ho, ho, ho,” boomed from mall Santa’s mouth, his voice faded more into a hiss with each ho. Mall Santa’s skin started to waver, just like it did in front of Mr. Wok’s; the pink rushed away in a flood of oily green. A centipede, or something like a centipede, dropped from Santa’s beard and into the snow on our front step.
“Holy crap,” Dad spat and slammed the door, the doorknob caught the bad elf in the face. The door rattled shut, our holly wreath dropped to the floor. Dad slapped the deadbolt locked, then locked the knob. “Call 9-1-1,” he screamed at Mom.
He’d seen it, too. He believed me now, because he’d seen mall Santa’s flesh crawl. Dad turned toward Mom, then the door exploded, throwing Dad across the room with a pile of splintered, white wood. He landed on the coffee table and slid off onto the floor, a jagged splinter of our front door stuck from his leg. I stared at him for a second – only a second. He didn’t move.
“Merry Christmas,” the bad elf cackled, and stepped into our house.
“Run,” I screamed at Mom and I grabbed Bennie’s hand.
“Dennis,” she whispered at my Dad’s body that lie in a lump on the floor next to the clicky angel, the phone fell from her fingers.
“Ho, ho, ho,” mall Santa hissed and stepped into my house. My house. Run, little man, run, the bad elf said to my head. You taste better when you’re scared.
I pulled Mom and Bennie down the hallway.
“Ho, ho, ho,” mall Santa thundered behind us. I could hear his heavy boots thump like cinder blocks on our hardwood floors. “Ho, ho, ho.”
He’s getting closer, the bad elf cackled. Closer and closer. Have you been naughty? Have you been … Then the bad elf was gone. He was there, in my head, then he just wasn’t anymore.
“Ho, ho, ho.”
I ran through the hallway, the hallway that led to all the bedrooms, montage picture frames showing the evolution of our family, from Mom and Dad looking gangly and teenage-dumb, to Bennie’s first haircut when he kicked the barber in the groin. My family history flew in a blur as I dragged Mom and Bennie to my room. I was 10, where else would I go? Where else in this house was my castle, my fortress?
“Satan’s at my house,” Bennie screamed. Mom was crying.
“Help me push the bed in front of the door,” I wheezed at Mom as I yanked at my big wooden bed, my NFL blanket advertising to the world what a big boy I was. “Then we can climb out the window. Then, then …” then I smelled Bennie’s sour diaper pail. Mall Santa was there. He was at my door, and I was too late. My bright white bedroom door, a poster of “Gloriana, Zombie Killer” taped to the back, crashed against the wall, my shelf of Zombie Hunter action figures (not dolls, action figures) slammed to the floor.
Mall Santa stood in my doorway not looking like Santa any more at all. Its face, once round and rosy, was pointed and green. Centipedes danced around its chin, some fell to the floor and skittered under my bed. It grinned, showing two rows of sharp, pointed teeth. “Uuuhhh,” it said, smiling at me. “That’s what I’m supposed to say, right?” Bennie started crying and mall Santa laughed, the sound spewed from his pointy mouth like he was eating a cat.
Mom stepped in front of me, and threw her arms across me and Bennie. “Stay away from my babies,” she whispered.
“Noble,” mall Santa hissed. “But I’ve come for Stu’s soul.”
It pushed Mom noiselessly away from me and Bennie. She just fell to the floor and didn’t move. “What are your fears, Stu?” Santa said, his voice pounded in my head. No need to whisper now. “What makes you stay awake at night?”
Mall Santa sniffed the air and grinned. I was scared, and he could smell it.
“I’m going to enjoy you,” he said as he loomed closer to me, close enough to swallow my soul. Then Dad was there, behind mall Santa, blood splatter dotting his face. Dad grabbed a black, plastic box off the top of my TV and swung it in a wide arc, bringing it down corner-first on top of mall Santa’s pointy head. The black box – holy crap. My Ultra GameStation – exploded in a shower of plastic shards. Mall Santa’s scream bit into my head as the big, green thing collapsed on my floor; the system motherboard and my game CD of “Blood Oozing Zombies of Dread 3” stuck from its ruined skull. Dad stood there for a moment, looking down at the body like he might give some Tarzan scream, then he collapsed onto my bed.
“Dad,” I whispered.
He opened an eye. “Call an ambulance,” he said. “I’m hurt real bad.”
Ohmygod. “What happened to the elf?”
“My nail gun works great as a hammer,” he whispered.
And that’s how Dad saved Christmas. The police had a lot of questions, but since it was a home invasion, and the invaders were a green zombie lord and his minion, there were no charges. Bennie screams a lot at night now, and Mom started taking prescription medications with vodka. Dad got out of the hospital on Dec. 30, and the first thing he did was buy me a Mega GameStation with “Blood Oozing Zombies of Dread 4.” He bought it for me within 12 days, so it still counted as Christmas. And me? Mom and Dad believe everything I say now, and maybe when the Extreme GameStation with “Blood Oozing Zombies of Dread 5” comes out next year, a little trust will count for something.
Author’s note: Hi, folks. It’s been about a year since I retired this column, but it’s family vacation time and, well, things like this happen all to us all too frequently. I wanted to share.
One of the most important bits of planning a vacation isn’t the when, or the why, or even to put every family member in the car. Forgetting one or two might make the experience more relaxing. The important detail, at least from the onset, is knowing where.
It’s harder than it sounds.
We embarked on the Offutt Family Summer Vacation 2021, with me behind the wheel, my only instructions, 1) don’t kill us, and 2) go north.
From our home, “north” takes in a lot of territory. At the top are white places filled with Canadian rednecks and maple syrup. Below that, there’s Minnesota with its lakes and mosquitoes, then Iowa. I listed Iowa last because that’s where we were headed. Yes, on a family vacation. Shut up. Iowa has a lot of interesting sights, like the tree that ate a plow, the Iowa Quilting Museum, and corn. Don’t judge us.
My wife, who expertly planned our vacation to a place with lots of hiking and biking trails, then slipped on the stairs the day before departure and hyperextended her left ankle, sat in the back seat, her swollen, bruised foot on my arm rest.
Simply go north? Nope. I wasn’t going to question a damn thing.
An hour later, after stopping for lunch, I pulled over, because, like he mighty lion gorging on a gazelle in midday, I needed to crawl beneath an umbrella tree and nap. For the record, my gazelle was a vegetarian low-carb wrap, and this lion wore a Hawaiian shirt, and shorts with a coffee stain.
You’re judging again, aren’t you?
“I can drive,” my wife said. “My right foot’s fine.”
Rule 1 of surviving on the plains of the Serengeti: Never argue with your wife. She’ll eat you.
I crawled into the backseat and fell asleep.
I have no idea how much time past. All I knew was during that time, a thick heat and even thicker smell crawled over me like something evil in a science fiction movie. As an adult, being dragged from sleep in the back of the car during a family vacation is like being in Metllica’s tour van during the early years. Body odor, stale French fries, and we all know somebody threw up, even though no one will own up to it.
“Where are we?” I asked.
I ask the stupidest things.
“Honey Creek is 1.2 miles,” the generic Google Maps computer lady said. “Turn left on Honey Creek Road.”
One-point-two miles later, my wife turned onto Honey Creek Road, which was, in reality, the gravel drive of a modest ranch-style house with an American flag and above-ground pool out front.
“You have reached your destination,” Google Maps Lady said.
Destination?
“We’re in the middle of nowhere.” My wife’s voice held a sound I’d never heard from her. Oh, sure, I recognized it. My own voice made that sound all the time. It was defeat.
After she held a discussion with Google Maps Lady (which involved lots of middle fingers. Touch screens are so therapeutic), she cheered up.
“I told the GPS Honey Creek, not Honey Creek Resort. There’s apparently a difference,” she said, laughing in a way that made us all nervous. “We’re three hours away.”
Our 16-year-old boy stirred from whatever foggy semi-conscious state teenagers exist in and spoke.
Dear God, he spoke. Couldn’t he see the paper-thin difference between Happy Mom and this one?
“You said–” he started, before I interrupted him.
“Did you see they have a pool? And–” I motioned toward the trees behind the house. “Ticks. They probably have ticks. Nice place.”
My wife did the first two out of three in a three-point turn, partially in the yard of the nice people with the pool at the gravelly tail-end of Honey Creek Road, Iowa, and ripped back down the gravel.
“We should have at least walked up to the front door with our bags and told them we’re here,” I said.
No one laughed. I thought that line was funny, but maybe it wasn’t. Our family’s used to events like today’s. We’re that TV sitcom family, the one that’s sometimes nominated for an Emmy, but never wins, and the network’s usually “this” close to cancelling us. Catch our show, “Those Darn Offutts,” every weeknight at a Dumpster fire near you.
Yeah, sure, we finally made it to the resort, and it was nice. Nicer than that Metallica smell we’ll never get out of our car. Wherever I parked it.
Jason Offutt is an award-winning humor author. His latest novel, “So You Had to Build a Time Machine,” is available at www.jasonoffutt.com.
The old streetlamp glowed yellow, just another pinpoint of light in the distance. A Cass County Disposal truck rumbled down a hill lined with trees, the black dome of night over the rural highway dotted with stars, the silky streak of the Milky Way hung like Elvis’ ghost tossed that big fluffy sash from the stage of the universe.
The King is still out there, somewhere. That topic had come up more than once on Route YY.
Chuck scooted forward in the passenger’s seat, staring through the bug-splattered windshield, his right boot pressed hard onto the cab floor. A fast-food wrapper clung to the heel, but he wouldn’t know this for approximately 35 minutes.
“It’s too dark out here, man,” he said, his eyes on the sky. “I hate this stuff. Makes me all jittery.”
“You say that every Thursday,” Jesus said, his arm out the window, the chill of early Autumn raising goosebumps. “I am, too, but that’s your fault.”
“I’m just saying, it’s dark, we’re the only ones on the road—”
Jesus shifted down as the engine struggle. “Where’re you going with this? Bigfoot or space aliens?”
Chuck shrugged. “Space aliens, but I’m good either way.”
The next five miles were going to be rough. Chuck wished he’d brought his Kindle to keep his mind somewhere else, but—no. “Communion” by that Strieber guy was on the Kindle. That would make the night even worse.
“I don’t believe in space aliens.” Jesus pulled a smoke from the hard pack in his shirt pocket and depressed the old truck’s lighter. “As physicist Enrico Fermi put it, ‘Where are they?’ The universe should be teaming with life, but if it is, why haven’t we seen any?”
“You read too much,” Chuck said.
The lighter popped, and Jesus dropped his pack of smokes onto the seat. He brought the orange, glowing element to his cigarette, and sucked until the fire caught. He exhaled and said, “My friend, there is no such thing as reading too much. You should try it.”
“You do not immerse yourself into the right kinds of media,” Chuck said. “Science is fine, but there’s also personal experience.”
Jesus laughed. “Are you talking about that crazy radio show you listen to? My momma slept with a reptilian and all that shit?”
Chuck looked out the window until he couldn’t take it anymore.
“It’s not crazy. Those people saw something. They experienced something. And, and—” he stuttered. “If it involved a reptilian alien’s reproductive organs, those things are like seven feet tall.”
“The reproductive organs?”
“No, damn it,” Chuck shouted then saw Jesus smile. That took all the piss out of his vinegar. “The reptilian guys. They’re tall. Basketball tall. With big feet, you know?”
Jesus’ right hand slapped Chuck on the shoulder.
“No worries,” he said, the corners of his mouth sagged, but didn’t sink all the way. “I saw something once.” His voice dropped, the volume barely audible over the roar of the diesel engine.
“Seriously?”
Jesus eyes remained on the highway; the smile now gone. “Yeah. It was a light in the sky, green. There are no green lights in the sky; not that bright.”
Chuck reached over the seat, took Jesus’ pack of cigarettes, and shook one into his palm.
“It moved in a straight line, parallel to the ground. I thought it was an airplane, you know, a special airplane, like the president’s or something, then it shot up into the sky.”
The cigarette fell on the cracked vinyl seat. Chuck didn’t pick it up.
“It did?”
“Yeah, at like a 45-degree angle, and was gone, whoosh, just like that,” Jesus said. “Musta been a thing the military’s working on, or something.”
Chuck’s mouth hung open for a second, then two until he said, “That’s what they want you to think.”
“No way, man,” Jesus said, glancing at Chuck, nodding. “If aliens were here, we’d see one on every street corner beggin’ for change just to get the hell off this rock.”
When Jesus’s eyes slid back to the windshield, a small figure stood in road.
“Shit,” he shouted and swerved into the empty oncoming lane.
Chuck grabbed the dash and screamed, watching the headlights cut through the tall corn on the opposite side of the highway. Jesus laughed and eased back into the right lane.
“Take a breath,” he said, his own coming in hard bursts. “It was just a opossum.”
***
The truck turned onto a long gravel lane and ground to a halt before turning, its back-up beeper warning people who weren’t there the vehicle was about to run them over. The yellow oasis of the streetlamp surrounded a trash pickup at the back gate of Lemaître Labs, the farthest and best-paying customer on their route. Government pick-ups always were. The truck eased to a stop at the light’s edge. The brakes hissed and the men stepped out.
Jesus inhaled deeply and tossed the spent butt on the gravel before releasing a cloud of smoke.
“What do you think they do in there?” he asked.
“Build time machines,” Chuck said, crushing the butt with the heel of his boot before lifting a trash can. “Or maybe wormholes.”
The long, low building behind the gate sat like a long concrete sandwich. Soviet-era construction had more personality.
“In there? It looks like a warehouse, or a factory that makes boxes.”
Chuck upturned a cylindrical plastic trash can into the loading hopper, dumping in stuffed 30-gallon bags. “Jesus, Jesus. Think about it. It’s a government lab, way out in the country. That means they’re hiding something.”
Jesus laughed.
“Like a time machine? Sure. Whatever.” He held up a black trash bag. “What’s in here? A transporter from Star Trek?”
“No,” Chuck said. “Neanderthal heads or something.”
Jesus tossed the bag in the hopper. “Let’s get the big bin and get out of here. I don’t know if it’s this place that gives me the creeps or if it’s you.”
Chuck opened his mouth, but a noise slammed it shut; the slap of a body hitting metal.
“You hear that?”
The garbageman nodded and pointed to the big metal bin. “Yeah. It came from in there.”
A thick hand grabbed Jesus’ arm. He swatted it away.
“Stop it. You’re a grown man. Act like one”
“Yeah, but—”
Jesus took a step forward. “No buts.” More words wanted to come out, but they stuck in his throat. A shadow loomed in the top of the big metal bin. A wind picked up, and from somewhere far away a coyote howled.
“Jesus—”
A pointed nose rose from the bin’s lip and sniffed. This time Jesus grabbed Chuck’s arm. A head popped up, gray and white and—
“Oh, shit, man.” Chuck’s words came in a whisper.
Jesus dropped his partner’s arm. “It’s just another opossum.”
The thin snout of the seven-pound animal stretched wide and a hiss streamed out. Chuck took a step back.
“These things are everywhere,” Chuck said, watching the creature drop to the ground and look at them, its black eyes gleamed in the streetlight. “This part of the county must have a opossum problem.”
“It’s called nature,” Jesus said. He got behind the full bin and pushed it toward the truck. The opossum waddled to the side, apparently in no hurry. “So many pizza joints deliver out of town now, the rednecks have stopped eating them. The population has exploded.”
“That sounds like bullshit,” Chuck said, hand on the joystick that operated the hydraulic side lift. “Where’d you read that?”
“Missouri Nature magazine. You should never stop learning, my friend. For example, I’m studying to become a conservation agent.”
The bin clanked against the truck, and Jesus grinned.
“Conservation agent? Isn’t that a nature cop?”
Jesus shrugged. “You could say that. Jolly Green Giant, Private Eye.” A grin crawled across his face. “What did you think was in here, Chuck?” he asked. “Before our friend Mr. Opossum popped out? Aliens?”
The hydraulics moaned as a claw grabbed the bin and lifted it to the truck, dumping black garbage bags with questionable contents into the truck’s compression body. Chuck moved the joystick back, and the bin lowered to the pavement.
“That’s not funny,” he said, then paused, listening. So far out in the country, the fields that surrounded Lemaître Labs are always quiet, only the occasional low from a cow in a nearby pasture, the call of a night bird, and crickets break the silence, but as the two men stood there, the fat woodland creature waddling toward a road that might be the end of it, the only sound in the night was their own breathing.
“Something’s wrong here,” Jesus said, shoving the bin back into place. “I’m getting creeped out again. This time I’m pretty sure it’s not you.”
“Come on—” Chuck said, his voice drying to sandpaper in his throat. The opossum stopped at the edge of the road outside the halo of streetlight. Its body shimmered, the cat-sized marsupial’s form twisted, and thrashed before it grew, and straightened, its forelegs stretched into hands with long, spindly fingers. Its pelt grew into its body, underneath was a slick skin, gray in the night, the snout gone, leaving only—
“Holy shit,” Chuck wheezed.
The creature, now four feet tall, turned to face them, its bulbous almond-shaped eyes blacker than the inside of the truck hopper. A gray biped stood not ten feet away; what passed for lips curled into a grimace
“The aliens are disguised as opossums, Jesus,” Chuck screamed as the shock broke. He ran toward the cab of the disposal truck, beer belly wagging. “The aliens are disguised as opossums.”
***
Jesus Christ walked on water; Jesus Molina tripped over his own feet and fell on his chest, jagged bits of gravel skinned the palms of his hands.
“Yaaaahahhhhhh,” he howled. His feet churned, throwing up rocks and dust behind him. Not capable of much else at the moment, he screamed “Yaaaahahhhhhh” again.
“Get in,” Chuck shouted from somewhere above him.
The splayed, four-toed feet of the space creature staggered closer, their movement chopped and jerky, like a 1970s cartoon. Jesus pushed up as his lungs fought for breath through the terror. A flash of an idea burst into his scrambled thoughts that maybe, just maybe, if he got away from this thing, he’d quit smoking.
“No. No, no, no, no. Come on, dude,” wheezed from him.
Jesus’ boots found purchase and he launched himself toward the truck, the space beast closer now, the smell that rolled off it metallic, tinged with oil. Sucking for breath, Jesus leapt onto the running board and threw open the door, the oval logo with the words “Cass County Disposal” in Brush Script caught the alien square in it’s ugly assed face.
“Merph,” leaked out, and the creature with a head like a frozen turkey dropped. Jesus jumped into the cab and slammed the door.
“Did you hear that?” he screamed at Chuck. “That thing said ‘Merph’. What does that mean?”
Chuck threw up a hand. “Take me to your leader.” He waved his hand like third grader who needed to use the bathroom. “No, no. We’ve come for your women. No, I’ve got it. I’ve got it. Merph. It means Merph. You hit him in the face with the door. That’s the sound I’d make.”
“Goorgrat,” growled into the open windows.
“He’s standing, Jesus. Oh, Jesus, he’s standing.”
Jesus ground the truck into first gear, and it lurched into motion. The gray turkey-headed motherfucker leapt onto the running board and glared inside the cab with its black, almond-shaped eyes, each one the size of a beer can. Its breath brushed Jesus’ face.
“Yaaaahahhhhhh,” Jesus screamed, popping the clutch. “Gingivitis. It stinks, Chuck. It’s breath stinks like your mother’s.”
The alien’s grip slipped as the truck lurched forward, and the creature dropped out of sight. By the time Jesus slammed the transmission into second gear, the monster was gone from the window, taking its bad breath with it.
The back driver-side wheel thu-bumped, and a slight vibration went through the garbage truck.
“Jesus,” came from Chuck. “Did you just run over a space alien?”
“I don’t know,” the man said, his eyes never leaving the lane that led to the rural highway, his voice as high and tight as a marine haircut.
“I don’t think it’s going to leave Earth a very good review on TripAdvisor,” Chuck said, fishing for another cigarette from Jesus’s pack.
Jesus turned onto the highway. The faded, chipped asphalt surface of the road stretched back to the town of Peculiar, Missouri, a slight pinkish glow showing the universe where it was.
“I wouldn’t either,” Jesus said, shifting into third gear. “We’re fucking racist down here.”
***
The opossum on the road stood its ground while the garbage truck rumbled forward.
“Hit it,” Chuck shouted.
Jesus shook his head. “No. What if it’s a opossum?”
“What if it ain’t?”
The truck loomed over the marsupial and Chuck’s left hand shot out; he grabbed the big steering wheel and yanked it to the right.
“What the hell?” Jesus shouted.
Thu-bump.
The vehicle squealed when Jesus shoved both feet onto the brake pedal; the big truck jerked to a stop.
Jesus’ head hadn’t budged, his eyes still focused on the road. “Don’t you ever do that again,” he said.
“What?” Chuck snapped. “Save the world?”
Jesus turned. “No. Touch my steering wheel. That’s like grabbing another man’s privates.” He jabbed a finger at Chuck. “Abide by the Guy Code.”
Chuck nodded. “Sorry, man.” He held an unlit cigarette, his hands too shaky to operate a lighter. “You wanna go out and check? It might be one of those turkey-headed things.”
“If it’s not, I might make a citizen’s nature arrest for marsupicide.”
Jesus’ door clicked open first. He shot a look at Chuck, who swallowed and opened his own. Jesus didn’t move until his partner did, and they stepped out onto their respective running boards together. Jesus’ boots hit the pavement before Chuck’s, but Chuck followed. Jesus reached inside the truck and pulled a baseball bat from behind the seat.
“This is one small step for a garbage man,” Chuck said. “One giant leap for—”
“Goddammit, this isn’t funny,” Jesus snapped. “I either killed an innocent woodland creature or helped stop an alien invasion.” He paused, the click of a cigarette lighter silencing him for a moment. He exhaled and thought he may quit tomorrow. “Either way, something is dead on this highway, and I am not cool with that.”
They met at the rear hopper, Chuck holding a shovel handle in both hands. The wet streak on the road reflecting the moonlight may have been red, or green, or black. It was too dark to tell. The thing the truck ran over lay in a heap, its frozen-turkey head intact, black beer-can eyes open wide. The rear tires bisected the space being’s body, a tire had turned the area between its chest and pelvis into lasagna.
“Oh, God,” Chuck wheezed, turning away. “It doesn’t have a dick.”
Jesus wanted to turn his head from the mangled result of another planet’s evolution but couldn’t. “Maybe it’s a girl.”
“It doesn’t have a vagina,” Chuck said.
“Maybe space people don’t have junk.” Jesus pulled the Cass County Disposal cap back from his head and scratched his scalp even though it didn’t itch. “Lots of things reproduce asexually.”
“Asexually?” Chuck asked, swallowing hard. “You mean up the butt?”
“What? No. Asexually means not sexually. Like they might make little aliens through spores, or something.”
“Like mushrooms?”
Jesus’ shoulders rose and fell. “Yeah, maybe.”
“Whoa,” Chuck whispered. “Matango, attack of the mushroom people.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Classic Japanese cinema, dude. Expand your horizons.”
A light sparked in the alien’s eyes, dragging the garbage men’s attention back toward the ruined creature.
“Gallagalla,” croaked from its throat.
“Run, Jesus, run,” Chuck screamed, and disappeared on the passenger side of the truck, the blade of the shovel banging along the side. “It said Galaga. I suck at Galaga.”
Jesus hesitated at the unmistakable glow of intelligence in those cold, black eyes.
“What do you want from us?” he asked.
A slight grin pulled across the thing’s sliver of a mouth. “Everything,” it hissed. “Go fuck yourself.”
A shriek tried to burst from Jesus, but panic locked it inside. He ran to the driver’s door and slammed it behind him, tossing the bat into the passenger floorboard, and shifting the truck into reverse. The heavy machine beeped its warning and bumped slightly, running over the alien monster a second time. The truck screeched to a stop and Jesus shifted into first. He nodded at Chuck before popping the clutch and running over the gray alien again.
“The opossums may all be aliens,” he said. “You wanna save the planet?”
“Hey, yeah,” Chuck said. “Can I pee first?”
Jesus soft brown eyes grew hard. “Hold it.”
***
The Cass County Disposal vehicle, a 1987 Loadmaster hopper fitted onto a Ford LN8000 truck, growled as it sat idling on the dead-of-night road. A 2002 champaign Toyota Camry blew past the truck out of fucking nowhere and screamed to a stop, blocking the road, its lights off.
A man in khaki Dockers and a polo jumped from the passenger seat, his arms waving over his head as if there’d been bees in the car. Jesus shifted the truck into neutral and revved the big diesel engine. Dockers Man stopped, now holding his hands palms up. Jesus’s left boot sank slowly onto the accelerator again, and the engine roared, black smoke rolled from the twin smoke stacks on either side of the cab.
The driver door of the car opened, and a man stepped out; Jesus nearly shit. The man, dressed in a black helmet, black Kevlar vest, black uniform, and probably black underwear, moved forward, stopping beside Dockers Man. He pressed the butt of an M4A1 automatic rifle to his shoulder.
“You got something red on you,” Chuck said, swatting at Jesus’s forehead.
The red dot there came and went between the sweeps of Chuck’s hand. “It ain’t coming off.”
Docker’s Man took a step forward, his hands now at his sides. Military backup is a great confidence builder. He motioned for Jesus to kill the engine—he did.
“Hello, gentlemen,” Docker’s Man said, his voice firm, in control, but at the same time, not. The soldier stood solid as mortared brick.
At that moment, Jesus wanted nothing more than to drive to the sanitation department, get in his pickup, stop at the convenience store near his apartment for a twelve-pack and some roller dogs, then watch two hours of Shark Week while getting seriously fucked up. Some days are like that.
The laser sight flashed near Jesus’s eye and he raised a hand to block it, the red dot now on his palm.
“Oh, shit,” he whispered.
“Mr. Molina, Mr. Gordon,” Dockers Man said, taking a few more steps toward the cab. The soldier didn’t flinch. “Would you please exit the vehicle.”
“Who are these guys, Jesus?” Chuck asked from the corner of his mouth; fear gripped him and told him he’d better not fucking move if he knew what’s good for him.
“Government, I guess,” Jesus said. Dockers man crossed his arms in full view of the truck headlights, a frown dominated his face. “Do what he says. There’s a red dot on me.”
“Yeah,” Chuck said. “I tried to tell you.”
Jesus opened the driver door, then put his hands on top of his head like the cops always ask the bad guy to do on TV. He stepped out.
“I don’t think I can, man,” Chuck said after him.
“Why?” Jesus asked. “You still gotta pee?”
Chuck’s door clicked and slowly opened. “No. Not anymore. I’m good.”
It’s a long way down from a garbage truck, the distance stretched by the automatic weapon. Jesus and Chuck finally landed on either side of the cab. Dockers Man smiled in a way that looked like he had trouble remembering how, then waved them forward.
“Come on,” the man said in a voice he would use on a puppy, if a puppy would let this man get close to it, which it wouldn’t. “Nobody’s going to hurt you.”
“That’s what people say who’re going to hurt you,” Chuck said, as he shuffled toward the guy wearing Dockers.
Jesus moved until he met Chuck at the front of the truck, about ten feet from Dockers Man and the soldier. That sounded like an ’80s sitcom about mismatched buddies who solved crimes on an army base, Dockers Man and the Soldier.
Dockers Man, his hair combed so precisely he looked like he parted it with a razor, waved Jesus’ arms down. “We’re all friends here, Jesus, Chuck.”
“How come you know our names?” Chuck asked.
The smile disappeared. “If I told you ‘the government,’ would you shut up?”
Chuck’s head bobbed like a novelty toy.
“Good,” Dockers Man said. “My name is Dr. Karl Miller, I’m a physicist, and the director of Lemaître Labs.”
Chuck’s mouth dropped opened.
Dr. Miller squinted. “Do you know what we do there?”
“I, uh, I—” Jesus stuttered. “My friend here thinks you, you know, build time machines, and wormholes, and stuff.”
A laugh as devoid of humor as an Andy Dick standup leaked from the scientist. “We do lots of ‘and stuff’,” he said. “Which sometimes brings forth friends like these bug-eyed xenoterrestrials from HD 13808 b.”
“HD 13—” Jesus began.
A hand waved him off. “It’s a planet orbiting the star HD 13808, which is 93.27 light years from Earth,” Dr. Miller said. “We, uh, accidentally invited them for a visit. Unfortunately, we didn’t know the people from HD 13808 b were HD 13808 bastards until it was too late. They say they want to conquer our planet. We can’t let them do that.”
“Okay, okay.” Chuck’s shout cut off Dr. Miller. “What do you want from us?”
Dr. Miller glared at him before nodding, his razor-parted hair didn’t budge.
“Extermination,” he said, motioning back down the highway. “I want you to take care of my problem. No. I want you to take care of the world’s problem.” He reached into his front pocket; Jesus and Chuck flinched. When Dr. Miller’s fist came out it held a thick business envelope. He dropped it onto the pavement. “There’s $5,000 in cash. There’s $5,000 more for you when you return to the lab. All you have to do is run over opossums. Hell, they practically run over themselves, am I right?”
The night suddenly ignited with sound. Owls, foxes, coyotes, and things none of them could identify.
“These xenoterrestrials are the scourge of the universe, gentlemen,” Dr. Miller said, approaching Jesus. He dropped a hand on the garbage man’s shoulder. “Come on Jesus, be the savior you were born to be.”
“Wha?” Jesus couldn’t even finish the word.
Dr. Miller waved a finger in the air and turned toward the Camry; the soldier moved with him.
Chuck leaned toward Jesus. “Should we tell him we were going to do it anyway?” he whispered.
Jesus stomped his boot. “Shut up and go get the money.”
“Jesus Christ,” Chuck wheezed.
“Oh,” Dr. Miller said, turning back toward the garbage men. “And I don’t want to worry about separating the glass from paper from aluminum anymore. That’s a bunch of horseshit. Take care of it yourselves.”
A rifle crack split the night. A second later, the soldier dropped to the gray, cracked rural highway, his blood dripping from the mouth of gray xenoterrestrial from HD 13808 b.
Fucker.
***
It all happened in slow motion, like in the movies. The turkey-head space alien crawled over the roof of the Camry, its long, thin limbs and deft fingers making no noise at all. Jesus and Chuck stood as still as Han Solo frozen in carbonite, their eyes bugged, unable to spit out a sound. The space monster reached the edge of the car roof and leapt, pulling the soldier’s head back as it ripped at his neck with whatever it had for teeth. The soldier’s finger involuntarily squeezed the trigger and a bullet shot harmlessly into the air. He dropped after a moment of frozen time, the alien grinning like someone had told it a dirty joke.
Dr. Karl Miller turned and screamed, running toward the garbage truck, obviously as used to physical exertion as he was to smiling.
“Get in the truck,” he shouted, waving his arms over his head.
The sudden movement broke Jesus’ shock and he slapped Chuck’s arm before bolting for the driver’s door. Dr. Miller dashed past Chuck and climbed awkwardly into the cab, Chuck right behind him.
Jesus’ foot jammed the clutch to the floor, and he turned the key; the truck growled to life.
“Kill it,” Dr. Miller screamed, his finger pointed toward the alien from a shaking hand.
The truck lurched forward in first gear, the engine moaning as Jesus shifted into second before the truck was ready.
“Can’t this thing go any faster?”
The xenoterrestrial hopped off the bloody body of the solider onto the roof the Camry, then into the air and out of sight before the Ford crashed into the Toyota, pushing the car to the side of the road as it continued down the highway.
“Faster? It’s a garbage truck, Mr. Miller,” Jesus shouted.
“Dr. Miller.”
“Are you sure this is the time for that, dude?” Chuck asked. “We’re into uncharted territory here with the space monster, you know. Maybe if we all just went by Chuck, and Jesus, and Mister, We’d all be a lot happier with life.”
The scientist folded his arms to hide his shaking hands. “It smells awful in here,” he said.
“As I told you,” Jesus said. “It’s a garbage truck.”
Dr. Miller tightened his arms over his chest, the only sound in the cab came from the truck engine.
“Where’s that Xena Warrior Princess testicle guy?” Chuck eventually asked.
“Xenoterrestrial, you buffoon,” Dr. Miller said.
Chuck stuck his arm out the window to do the airplane. “Gee, I liked you better that three seconds when you didn’t talk.”
A gray, four-fingered hand shot from above the passenger window and clamped onto Chuck’s arm, its clawed nails pierced his flesh.
“Oh, shit. Shitshitshit,” flew from Chuck. He yanked his arm backed into the cab along with half the monster, the creature’s face loomed inches from Chuck’s own. Its mouth parted, needlelike teeth sprang from its gums, its face still smeared with the soldier’s blood. The alien’s grip tightened.
“Yaaaaa,” Chuck screamed as his left fist clenched and shot toward the creature’s head. In the moonlight, Chuck marveled at the beauty of his dirty, scarred knuckles reflecting in the creature’s black, googly eyes.
The fist cracked the monster in its big stupid forehead, and its fingers fell limp, releasing Chuck’s arm. The xenoterrestrial flew off the truck toward the side of the road, its forehead dented in the shape of Chuck’s sizable meat hook. Chuck brought his fist into the truck and turned on the cab light—it was covered in purple goo.
“Its head went,” he said. “My hand just sunk in. It was like papier-mâché. And, and what is this purple shit, Jesus?”
“You’re lucky,” Dr. Miller said. “You got the jelly kind. Some of these spacemen bleed aqueous formaldehyde.”
Chuck didn’t ask what that was.
***
The garbage truck rattled into town; Jesus drove over twelve more opossums on the way in. He flinched each time the truck hit one, but he didn’t stop to see if the waddling forest-dwellers were friendly little bundles of insect-eating, naturally disease-resistant fur balls, or foul-mouthed bastards from space. He didn’t want to know. To him, they had to all be Mr. HD 13808 b Go Fuck Yourself space aliens or he would regret this night more than he did not asking out Jennylee McGill in high school.
Cotton candy light bathed Peculiar, population 5,139, like it never had, because it never had. The garbage truck crawled into town on State Route YY to Peculiar Drive and toward the interstate.
“Why’s everything so pink?” Chuck asked. He hung his head out the truck window, taking in the glowing dome over town, a beam of the brightest light shot from somewhere near the Sonic Drive-in. Maybe, he figured, those extra-testicles liked chili-covered coney dogs. “They summoning My Little Ponies, or something?”
“It’s a beacon,” Dr. Miller said. “They’re showing those on HD 13808 b where they can get free Cheetos, and a soldier sandwich.”
Jesus shook his head. “Too soon,” he said, downshifting. The truck rumbled louder. “What do we do now?”
Dr. Miller pointed at a spot next to the Casey’s General Store.
“Park there,” he barked.
Goddamn, Jesus thought. This guy was used to getting his way.
The truck slowed, and Jesus pulled onto the street next to the convenience store that advertised two large one-topping pizzas for $8.99 each; Miller Lite was on sale, too. Jesus knew where he was going after work. He cracked the door, his eyes on the pink dome above that cast the night in a bubble gum haze. Chuck followed Jesus as the garbage men stepped onto the street.
Dr. Miller tossed the baseball bat onto the grass next to the curb, followed by the shovel. He sat in Chuck’s seat holding a tire iron.
“Well,” he said. “Go get them.”
“Shit yes,” Chuck tried not to shout, but shouted. “Shit yes, shee-it yes.”
Jesus took the bat, Chuck the shovel, and Dr. Miller slammed the truck doors, the locks engaging loud in the silent night.
“Hey,” Jesus mouthed.
Dr. Miller gave Jesus a thumbs up, then shooed them toward downtown while he rolled up the windows.
“What was that?” Chuck asked.
“Nothing changes, my friend. It’s up to us to clean up somebody else’s mess,” Jesus said, resting the bat on his shoulder. “Do you know you have a hamburger wrapper stuck to your shoe?”
***
Jesus had never seen a Peculiar Police cruiser like the one that sat at the intersection of Main and Center Streets, partly because the vehicle lay on its side, but mostly because it was on fire.
“Jesus,” Jesus said.
A thick hand landed on his shoulder. “Where are all those Xena thingies?”
“I don’t know, man.” Jesus slowed his step, and stopped, his eyes glanced skyward at the zenith of the pink dome, the beam of light in its center a signal, the Miller guy said. WTF?
“These things are beings with intelligence,” Jesus said. “From ninety-something light years away, and without help from home, or Elliott, or Mr. Spock, and they’ve rigged up some kind of short-wave pink-ass Strawberry Shortcake radio thing to tell their buddies Earth is where the party’s at.”
Chuck nodded. “That sounds better than what that Mr. Dr. Dockers Science Guy said.”
The baseball bat rose in Jesus right hand and he grabbed the barrel in his left, bringing it to rest across his shoulders.
“So, if these guys are so smart, why is our first reaction to kill them?”
Chuck’s eyes bugged. “You saw that one dude go after the soldier. It was like a Romero movie.”
A long hiss escaped Jesus. “They traveled 92 light years,” he said. “I get the anger, but I don’t condone the action. We should try talking with them.”
“Talk to them?” Chuck swung the shovel handle and slapped it in his left hand. “It’s time to take out the trash.”
Jesus glanced at his friend. “You been sitting on that one?”
“You know.” Chuck shrugged. “I thought since we’re sanitation engineers—”
“I get it.”
“It would be—”
Jesus pulled the bat off his shoulders. “I get it.”
“—april pose.”
A figure, its slick, oily skin reflecting pink from the dome, dropped in the grass strip next to the sidewalk where the garbagemen stood. It shrieked.
“Now,” Chuck said. “That’s no way to act. If you’re going to be here, on our planet, you really need to work on your etiquette and social graces.”
The thing shrieked again, then grabbed its chest, a barking cough burst from its thin mouth.
“Hey,” Jesus said. “It’s laughing.” Glaring at the alien, he pointed to Chuck and back to himself. “We discovered, just tonight, we had friends in the cosmos, and we’re not being rude, so, come on, man. Work with us here.”
The alien creature’s black eyes squinted; talons sprang from its fingertips. “I will eat human babies.”
The shovel swung in Chuck’s hands and collided with the frozen turkey skull of the alien creature. The sentient monster’s face disintegrated from the impact, and the beast dropped. It didn’t move again because it didn’t have a face.
Seconds of silence ticked by. “Now that, that was simply uncalled for,” Chuck said.
Jesus turned to him. “April pose? You meant apropos, didn’t you?” he asked as Chuck wiped alien goo from the shovel onto the grass. “Dude. I keep telling you to read more.”
***
A hum grew in the night, the sky glowing under the dome like they walked in the light of an alien sun. A fuchsia one. The street was clear as Jesus and Chuck made their way toward the beam that invited more of these HD 13808 bastards to Earth.
“Hasta la vista, baby,” Chuck whispered. “Is that better?”
Jesus paused at the corner of a women’s clothing store and pressed his back against the wall. “It’s been used.”
Chuck saddled up next to him. “How about, ‘If it bleeds, we can kill it’.”
“Also used.”
“It’s not a tumor,” Chuck said, resting the blade of the shovel on the toe of his boot so it didn’t clank on the sidewalk.
“No.” Jesus squinted at his friend and shook his head. “Now you’re just quoting random Schwarzenegger movies.”
A grin grew beneath Chuck’s stubble. “Talk to the hand.”
“Shhhh,” Jesus hissed. “You don’t need a catch phrase. Please, stop.”
Then Jesus did something he would later consider a bad idea; he looked around the corner. The scene on Main Street something out of a horror movie. A horror movie with aliens. Or maybe a science-fiction movie about aliens. Or a dystopian nightmare, with aliens. Or—
“Shit,” Jesus whispered as he leaned back against the wall.
“What’d you see?” Chuck asked, the shovel back in both hands. “Opossums?”
“Aliens, man.” The words came out less manly than Jesus wanted to admit. “And people, dead people. I’m pretty sure they’re cops. And there are opossums everywhere.”
“People? Yeah, where is everybody?”
Jesus’ fists clenched into balls; tears threatened his eyes. “Hiding, probably.” He sucked back snot.
Chuck’s hand patted Jesus’ shoulder. “It’s okay, buddy. Breathe, slow and steady. In through your nose, out through your mouth like you’re blowing out a candle. Now—”
“Damn it, Chuck. There’s dozens of those xenodudes out there. One of them may have seen me.”
The hand Chuck used to pat Jesus went to his friend’s chest and pinned him to the wall.
“I don’t like this,” Chuck said. “I don’t like today. I don’t like smelling like garbage all the time. I don’t like baby-eating space aliens, I definitely don’t that Miller guy, and I’m sorry, man, but I fucking hate opossums.”
“What are you saying?” Jesus asked, struggling against Chuck’s hand didn’t enter his mind.
“I’m saying I never wanted to be a garbage man. I wanted to be a rock star and date Pamela Anderson, but here I am. Here we are. Garbage men clean up things other people don’t want. Nobody wants aliens to take over our planet, and we’re garbage men. This is our job, dude. Get your shit together.”
Pinned against the wall, Jesus’s eyes foggily glared into Chuck’s. The misty stare slowly cleared, and Jesus stood straight, pushing his friend backward with the barrel of the bat.
“The beam of light’s coming from this device they built in the street from a John Deere lawnmower, a car stereo, and a big meat smoker, probably from Padoolers’ Place,” he said, his voice steady. Jesus slapped a hand on Chuck’s shoulder. “We need the truck.”
***
Dr. Karl Miller didn’t know how to drive a standard transmission, although by the sound of gears grinding, he was sure trying hard to learn. By the time the garbage men rounded the corner to the convenience store, the hum had grown louder, the beam of light brighter, and shrieks of xenoterrestrials behind them angrier. The truck still sat next to the Casey’s General Store, Miller shouting words they couldn’t hear from behind the windows he’d rolled up, and the doors he’d locked.
Jesus leaped onto the running board, his smoker’s lungs begging for air.
“Hey,” he coughed; his right hand beat on the window. “Unlock the door, Miller.”
Dr. Karl Miller didn’t move his gaze from the steering wheel, sweat soaked his hair. He didn’t unlock the door; he revved the engine instead.
Someone, or something screamed behind them; it was close. Chuck pounded the passenger window. “Open the door, man.”
“Chuck,” Jesus said.
Chuck dropped from view, and the shovel swung, shattering the passenger window; glass flew across the interior of the cab. Miller didn’t flinch, although glass stuck in his perfectly combed hair.
Another screech, even closer.
Jesus leaned to the side and pulled a magnetic key holder from under the front wheel well. He slid the rusty lid open with his thumb, took out the spare key, and unlocked the driver’s door.
He pulled himself inside; Chuck held Miller in a headlock.
“I had a key,” Jesus said, rolling down the driver-side window. “And I am not filling out paperwork for what you did.”
The Cass County Disposal truck puffed and sputtered as Jesus steered it behind the convenience store.
“What are you doing?” Miller asked, his voice soft, shaky. Chuck held the scientist by the scruff of the neck with his left hand, the handle of the shovel that lay across his lap in his right.
“Taking out the trash,” Chuck said.
The night grew silent. A slight breeze blew a piece of paper through the cab. Jesus didn’t say a thing.
“I already used that one, didn’t I?”
Jesus shook his head. “You really have to stop.”
“It was derivative,” Miller said. “You’d never make it in improv.”
The truck groaned to a stop facing the convenience store’s dumpster. The front loader thunked against the metal trash bin, latched onto the hook lift bars and hoisted it off the pavement. When the garbage truck swung back toward the street, a gray figure stood in its way. Jesus shifted into neutral, the emergency brake clicked into place.
“What are you doing, dude?” Chuck’s voice shaking. “Ram it.”
“I’m following the lead of the Plastic Ono Band,” Jesus said, grabbing the baseball bat. “Giving peace a chance. Or, another chance.”
His heavy boots slapped the pavement, the xenoterrestrial from HD 13808 b not more than twenty feet away. The creature opened its slim mouth, its gums filled with teeth.
“I’ve seen that trick,” Jesus said, his right hand gripped the bat handle hard. “Very nice. You could take it on the road, but, you know, I guess being here means you already have.”
The monster’s four-fingered hands rose, talons sprang out like the claws of a cat.
“Seen that one, too, buddy. You may need to work on your act. How are you with juggling?”
The space monster took a step forward; Jesus held up his left hand, palm first, and the xenoterrestrial stopped, the glow from the dome casting pink highlights on its cold, unfeeling eyes.
“What are you doing?” it asked, the voice a little too much like Christopher Walken for Jesus’s tastes.
“Not fighting,” Jesus responded, keeping the palm up. It seemed to be working. “I understand you were brought here against your will.”
The xenoterrestrial sneered. “Miller.”
“Would you go back to HD 13808 b if we gave you Miller?”
“Hey,” the scientist shouted from the truck.
“No,” it said. “It is not our way.”
The night shimmered and the space alien stood closer. It hadn’t moved, not in the one-foot-in-front-of-the-other way, the creature simply stood closer.
“What is your way?” Jesus asked, his words stumbled through the hypnotic stare of the beast that came to Earth through 93.27 light years.
It’s fingers not so much waved as they wavered, moving as if through heat radiating from a summer road.
“We—” it started, then dropped to the street with a crushed skull.
Chuck stood behind it holding a shovel covered in purple goo. “Too much yackin’ not enough whackin’,” he said, then shrugged. “Miller said it was psychically eating your brain.” Chuck waved Jesus on. “Let’s go. Sounds like shit’s going down on Main Street.”
“Hey,” Chuck continued as he helped Jesus back to the truck. “That’s needs to be the title of the story somebody’s going to write about tonight. ‘Shit’s Going Down on Main Street’.”
***
Small, thin figures milled around the device the creatures built in the street, the pink light that shot into space now diagonal to the horizon.
“What’s going on?” Chuck asked.
“The Earth’s moving through space,” Miller said. “They had to change the trajectory of the signal to ensure enough of it reaches HD 13808 b the signal’s not considered simply a blip. They need a WOW signal.”
“A WOW signal?” Chuck scratched his head with the shovel.
Miller started to answer, but Jesus cut him off.
“It was a strong signal received by a radio telescope in 1977 that held the signs of being from an extraterrestrial source. The guy who saw it wrote ‘WOW’ on the printout.”
Miller slow clapped. “I guess I should say, wow.”
Jesus’ eyes didn’t move off the scene before them. He shifted into gear and pointed the garbage truck toward the device. “I’m well read.”
Unearthly screams—literal unearthly screams—sliced through the air; opossums launched their fat furry little bodies from business rooftops, their bodies churning in mid-flight. They hit the pavement on two four-toed feet. Jesus shifted to second, a mass of alien bodies rushed toward the garbage truck.
The big diesel engine roared as Jesus pushed the accelerator deeper toward the floor and shifted to third.
The first xenoterrestrial exploded when the dumpster hit it. Jesus shifted gears again, and gunned the engine, the dumpster on the front loader plowed through HD 13808 b baby-eaters like, well, you know, a dumpster at 35 miles per hour.
“Whoooooooo,” Chuck howled from the shattered window, his middle finger high in the air.
Jesus downshifted and slammed the brakes of the old Ford LN8000; the squeal of brake pads that desperately needed changed sliced through the alien screams until the truck shuddered to a stop, the dumpster hovering over the pink beam. The steel garbage bin glowed red before Jesus hit the toggle, dropping the big trash bin atop the John Deere; the alien device shot sparks. He threw the truck into reverse; aliens dropped behind it, crushed under the wheels.
Then the truck stopped, and Jesus shoved the emergency brake to the floor. The alien signal died beneath the dumpster; the pink dome vaporized above them.
“Chuck,” Jesus said.
Chuck’s eyes grew, a smile crossed his face. “Yeah.”
“You wanna take out the trash?”
The big man shot out the door before Jesus had a chance to grab the bat.
***
The rest of the night was boring. The few remaining xenoterrestrials transformed into opossums and tried to waddle into dark alleys, but that made them even easier to catch. After the dome disappeared, people flooded from their homes, apartments, and a few businesses armed with knives, 2x4s, garden implements, and a couple of deer rifles.
Minutes later, the thoo-thoo-thoo of helicopter blades grew, and bright, white spotlights cut the night. Miller approached the garbage men and stopped between them.
“Those are my people,” he said. “They’re here to remove the evidence.”
“Evidence?” Chuck asked.
“The evidence our friends from HD 13808 b were ever here.”
Chuck and Jesus stood silently, watching a man in a waiter uniform chase down a opossum and beat it to death with a bus tub.
“Would you give me a lift back to the lab?” Miller asked. “My people are going to be a bit busy here for a while.”
“Why should we?” Chuck snapped.
Jesus lay the purple-goo-covered baseball bat over his right shoulder. “We will, on one condition,” he said, like Chuck hadn’t spoken. “Tell us what you’re doing out there in the lab, for real.”
Miller moved his arm like he was about ready to pat Jesus’ shoulder, but apparently thought better of it.
“Sure,” he said. “No one’s going to believe you anyway.”
***
The old Ford garbage truck pulled through the main gate this time, soldiers in black stood guard, cameras mounted along the top of the fence followed the truck. The body of the soldier and the Toyota on Route YY were gone. Neither Jesus nor Chuck wondered where they went.
“So, you’re telling us you have a supercollider that runs from here under the whole town?” Jesus asked? “And it opens what now?”
“Holes in time and space,” Miller said. “That’s where the our friends came from. You know how long it would take them to fly here from there? Voyager 1 moves at 38,200 miles per hour. For something cruising at that speed to cross 92 light years, it would take more than 1.5 million Earth years.”
Chuck whistled. “Whoa.”
“You bet your butt, whoa,” Miller said.
Jesus stopped the truck near what looked like the front door. “And you can remove that distance with the push of a button?”
“Not exactly, but close enough for government work, which this is,” Miller said. “So, you officially can’t talk about it, but like I said, no one’s going to believe you.”
He pulled an envelope from the deep front pocket of his Dockers and dropped it onto the dash.
“The rest of the money I’d promised,” he said as Chuck moved to let Miller from the truck. “You did your country, nay, your species a great service tonight, gentlemen. Those HD 13808 bers are jerks.”
Miller held onto the door as he lowered himself to the paved parking lot. “Oh, if you all see something big and hairy on your way home, please don’t run over it. It’s probably Oscar.”
“Oscar?” Jesus asked, but Miller had already disappeared between the sliding glass doors to Lemaître Labs.
The drive back to town was quiet, and a bit anticlimactic.
“We should wash the truck,” Chuck said. “It probably has alien goo all over it. Who knows what that purple stuff is doing to the paint?”
Jesus said nothing.
“Well, we at least should do something about that window,” Chuck said. “You think Mac can fix it up back at the shop?”
Silence.
Chuck sat and stared into the night.
“Holy shit,” he shouted, pointing to the side of the road. A dark, hairy two-legged creature tall enough to look inside the cab, stood on the shoulder. “I think that’s a Bigfoot, Jesus. A Bigfoot.”
Jesus jerked the wheel and clipped the beast. It spun off the hit and disappeared into the distance and the tall grass.
“Not anymore,” he said, not slowing down. “You wanna go grab a beer?”
“Sure,” Chuck said, his breath coming hard. “Anything but a Miller.”
This first appeared in June 2013 during a short semester teaching abroad in London.
Nothing good can come from this.
The raven bothered me. Walking through Highgate Cemetery in the late afternoon with a small group of students looking for the graves of one of my favorite authors (Douglas Adams), and some guy named Marx (not Groucho, the serious one who worried more about the fate of the proletariat than he did of proper beard maintenance), a raven’s caw split the stillness of this ancient, vine-covered final resting place of roughly 170,000 people.
I froze and looked around. Nothing.
The raven, an intelligent, three-pound creature marked by legend to signal the end of the British Empire if the flock left the Tower of London (only about six are left there), was really, really close. But, scanning the heavy deciduous canopy that loomed over about 53,000 gravestones, this black bird, as big as a small dog, was invisible. Was it even there at all? This was the only time the harbinger of death cawed during my trip to the cemetery and I got more nervous with each step.
Highgate Cemetery, a friendly sort of place.
Then my chewing gum crunched. “Ouch,” I said, spitting gum into my hand. Bits of silver dotted the green glob. Are you kidding me? I stuck my tongue into the hole in my tooth just to be sure. I lost a filling?
At the caw of the raven, a vital piece of oral hardware popped out, opening my jawline to infection and, what was worse, giving me an extreme sensitivity to all the beer I planned to drink while in England. I was 4,290.5 miles away from my dentist. Problems with teeth, much like problems with your private parts, aren’t things people worry about when they’re away from home. Travelers are more concerned with pickpockets and having to talk to French people.
At that moment, I did what any British person would do in this situation; I went to the pub.
The cemetery sits atop a steep hill in the Highgate area of London as most things there do. Of course, some things also sit at the bottom of a steep hill. The pub we found was somewhere in the middle. Set back from the street, the Whittington Stone looked a bit more modern on the outside than most pubs I’ve been to, although that might mean it’s less than 500 years old. Inside, it captured the dark wood, and friendly “welcome and get politely drunk” atmosphere British pubs are known for.
The Whittington Stone pub is named after Richard Whittington (1354–1423), a merchant, four-time Lord Mayor of London, and epic champion of the lower class who founded a hospital for unwed mothers (it’s unknown if he helped them get their start), funded drainage systems for the poorer sections of London, and founded a charity that still exists. The “stone” on this hill is where he sat and heard ringing from Bow Bells Church six miles away; apparently 400 years before the Internet that was a pretty big deal for poor people in East London. A weatherworn statue of Wittington’s cat, a legendary mouser, sits just up the street from the pub.
Getting the hang of all this pub business (this was only a couple days into our journey), my students and I found a table, wood with a brass number at the end, and grabbed a menu. One of the many great things about pubs is what they do with their menus. Most pubs post menus outside so you don’t have to go in to realize you’ve made mistake and need to be somewhere else. A chalkboard marquee set up out front took the posted menu’s place, offering shepherds pie for £5.99, a pretty cheap price for dinner in London. Considering I’ve spent a pound more for just a hamburger (albeit a proper hamburger), £5.99 was right in my price range. The menu inside one-upped the marquee. It boasted a two-for-£7 deal my students took full advantage of.
My students ordered barbecue chicken, fish and chips, and one of them decided it would be best to flirt with the barmaid.
“What are you going to eat, Offutt?” one student asked.
Me? With fish and chips, a beef sandwich, and the chalkboard shepherds pie all looking delicious, I played with my tooth hole.
“Beer,” I said. “I’m going to have beer.”
Lots. The best part, I didn’t have to chew. Wait. That was the second best part.
Running into a quasi-medical problem so far away from home in 2013 isn’t like it was in 1847, or even 1987. I took advantage of the six-hour time difference and cell phone technology and called my dentist.
“There’s a product called Dentemp,” he said. “It’s a temporary filling. Get that and I’ll see you when you get home.”
In 1847, a traveler with a tooth problem may have died an agonizing, oozy death. Today I just went to the chemist (pharmacy) and got the British equivalent to Dentemp, Toofypegs (a name I assume people at an ad agency came up with while high on nitrous oxide). I was going to be fine. As for the rest of the trip—I survived my trip to England without an oral infection.
Author’s note: This piece is based solely on my opinion. If you agree, great, if not, that’s cool too. I hope we can still be friends. Everyone has different tastes. For example, one of my wife’s favorite novels is, Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road.” I have not told her I wrote this for the simple fact that I’m not stupid.
What a sanctimonious douche looks like in a photograph.
As an author, I should never hate on other authors. It’s bad form. Hey, gang, we’re all on the same team, fighting the same fight, suffering the same setbacks, and celebrating the same victories. I love the writing community I’ve discovered online because that’s what we’re all about. We either know where other writers are and want to help them over their hump, or they know where we are and want to help us for exactly the same reason.
So, I would never talk shit about another author, especially one who’s won a Pulitzer Prize. I’ve honestly said since I pecked my first story into a Macintosh 512K at the only newspaper in 1987 that would give a job to someone as inexperienced as me—if I ever win a Pulitzer, I’m wearing it around my neck on a big gold chain 24/7.
Damn right, that’s what I would have done.
I’ve moved on from that. I’m here for my fellow writers who need a digital hug, or (hopefully) a literal kick in the pants when it comes to making their writing better. I love you all.
Except Cormac McCarthy. Fuck that guy.
More like “The Road Apple.”
McCarthy won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished fiction by an American author for his post-apocalyptic novel, “The Road,” even though authors have written about that kind of thing for years and no one paid them any attention. John Hillcoat directed the 2009 movie based on “The Road” that starred Viggo “Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings” Mortensen, Robert Duvall, and Charlize Theron.
What a great cast. I nearly went to the theater to watch this movie, but like I try to do with every film based on a book, I stopped at the public library to read “The Road” first (support your public library, folks).
Hey, gang, I have a question. Have you ever slogged through “The Road”? Come on, be honest. If so, good for you. You have the kind of strength to actually survive the post-apocalyptic hellscape America will become soon enough. However, that wasn’t me.
The same year McCarthy won the Pulitzer, Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Eat, Pray, Love,” came out (and white-trashed so many American kitchens with those words painted on barn wood), as did “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas,” “Water for Elephants,” Gillian Flynn’s “Sharp Objects” (Flynn can write. Damn, can she write), and another post-apocalyptic work—which is highly more entertaining than McCarthy’s—Max Brooks’, “World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War.”
McCarthy can’t hold the jocks of these authors. They create characters, they paint a scene with something other than dirt and plants described in the depth of a surgeon discussing a recently-freed bowel obstruction, and they do not—I REPEAT, DO NOT—write shit sentences like this:
“He rose and stood tottering in that cold autistic dark with his arms outheld for balance while the vestibular calculations in his skull cranked out their reckonings.”
Wait. What? This is the kind of faux-poetry nerds get beaten up for writing in junior high school.
I’m fully convinced people say they like McCarthy’s work only because others have said they should. You want to feel like garbage at an intellectual dinner party, say you don’t understand the appeal of Cormac McCarthy, and twenty people will start lecturing you on how you failed to understand the deeper meaning of “Blood Meridian” that made such a violent book so goddamned boring, or the fact that Cormac really would know how to use a fucking quote mark if he thought it necessary, thank you very much.
Dear Pulitzer Prize committee: Never consider me for your award. I’ve seen what you think is good, and it ain’t.
This first appeared May 30, 2013 during a short semester teaching abroad in London.
The Warwick Arms.
It’s interesting what kind of insight you get about yourself when it’s through the eyes of someone who thinks you’re a bit silly, by which I mean they know you’re American.
The Warwick Arms is a friendly sort of pub (I’d like to think they all are). The warmth as you walk in is welcoming compared to the ever present cold rain that falls on London an average of 160 to 200 days of the year. Yellow tungsten lights glow on a wall of liquor bottles behind a polished wooden bar that spouts taps of UK beers like Fuller’s London Pride and Guinness Stout. Barmaids fill pint glasses of these room temperature beers by cranking hand pumps, no American Co2 set-ups here. Traditional British food like meat pies and fish and chips dot the menu, as well as a long list of Indian food.
But the most interesting part of any night at the pub is the locals.
“He was a piece of shit,” a man in a blue delivery uniform I’d soon discover was named Tom said to a gentleman in a tweed jacket (I’m not making that up) named Bob (I’m not making that up either). Both gentlemen sat on stools next to me at the bar.
Tom referred to British-born Michael Adebowale who brutally murdered British military drummer Lee Rigby near the southeast London Woolwich barracks in London May 22. Like Adebowale, his accomplice Michael Adebolajo was a convert to radical Islam. Witnesses say the men butchered Rigby with a knife and meat cleaver on a city street.
Bob took a pull of an amber lager in a tall, thin pint glass and sat it onto a Fuller’s London Pride coaster on the bar. “These were not smart boys,” he said. This was two days after the attack.
My goodness, my Guinness.
I took the dark black pint of Guinness the barmaid handed me, and turned toward Tom and Bob. “I doubt the American media has given this story more than a mention,” I said.
“Why’d you say that?” Tom asked.
Glad you asked, Tom. As a print journalist and current university journalism teacher, I feel I’m in a good position to criticize the media, and the American media is notoriously bad at covering its own country, let alone what’s going on overseas.
Like any good American, I didn’t realize I’d be wrong.
“When I came into town a couple of days ago, the front page of ‘The Metro’ (a free daily newspaper provided to the London Underground) was about the tornado in Oklahoma,” I said. “If a tornado hit a city of the same size here, the American media might not have mentioned it.”
“And why should they?” Tom asked. “There’s 300 million people there in America. There are 62 million people here. Why would they care?”
I didn’t expect that. The American media has faults – many, many faults, like the Kardashians and Honey Boo Boo. When I drove to Canada in 2011, anyone who discovered I was from Missouri brought up a tornado that destroyed Joplin, Mo., months before. They seemed genuinely concerned. That same year, Tropical Storm Washi struck the Philippines killing more than 1,000 people. Can’t say I heard of it at the time.
“Say you’re in the middle of Utah,” Tom continued. “Why would you care about someone from Britain or from Kyrgyzstan, or even know where it is, you know?”
That made sense. But still. “Then why was the British press in Oklahoma?” I asked.
“There’s a lot of us over there,” Tom said. “More than you’d think.” Then he turned back toward Bob and resumed their conversation.
Sipping my inky black stout I thought Tom made a good point. Maybe the America-centric nature of the U.S. media isn’t because Americans don’t care about the rest of the world, it’s because, well, we really don’t care about the rest of the world.
“You’re not talking to me.” Bob’s voice grabbed my attention. He was in the middle of a story. “Piss off. My food’s getting cold.”
Bob howled in a belly laugh, and Tom joined him.
“Where you been so far?” Tom asked, turning back toward me, leaving Bob laughing at his own story.
“Today I went to Borough Market.”
Tom shook his head. “No, no. Burah. Burah Market. It’s spelled like that, though, isn’t it? Borough. But it’s pronounced Burah. You pronounce it Burr-oh.”
For an American, pronunciation in London is rather confusing. “I noticed that with the Thames (Tims) and Gloucester (Gloss-ter),” I said.
Tom nodded. “That’s because you Americans pronounce things phonetically. Which makes sense. With us, I don’t know. It’s hundreds of years of this. That’s just how it is.”
He drained his pint glass and motioned to the barmaid for another. “Where else you going over here?”
I smiled and said, “Stonehenge.” Maybe the most iconic 5,000-year-old structure on the planet, right up there with the Great Pyramid. It’s mysterious, something every school child reads about, or at least remembers from the first “Ice Age” movie, and I was going to hop on a bus and stand next to it in a few days.
“Stonehenge?” he asked, his voice rising a bit at the end. “You want to see a bunch of rocks?”
“Uh, yes,” I said.
“You do know they’re just in a circle, don’t you?”
Constance Haltwhistle, a headstrong young woman of unruly hair and suspicious tendencies, has a problem. More than one, really, such as the law demanding she marry someone respectable or lose the family estate, an error with a sausage delivery to the king of Sweden he’s not happy about, and the damn cowboy. Yes, the cowboy was definitely a problem.
Haltwhistle is the Brass Queen, an arms manufacturer in a steampunk Victorian England. She has been in control of Haltwhistle Estate since her scientist father, the Baron Haltwhistle, disappeared. Whether he be treasure hunting in Africa, or China or on another world is anyone’s guess.
Author Elizabeth Chatsworth Photo credit: Sam Chinigo
The night of her coming-out party is a disaster, complete with an airship, a kidnapping, and the appearance of the cowboy J.F. Trusdale. Is all of this connected? Does Constance find a husband? And what happens when royalty comes to town?
THE BRASS QUEEN is the debut novel of author Elizabeth Chatsworth, and is a dizzyingly fun romp through a world where modern conveniences are run by steam, and all our characters are run by hijinks and shenanigans. Palace intrigue, spies, and Prussian polo, THE BRASS QUEEN has a lot to offer, usually through a veil of cheeky humor.
“I’m sure you’re familiar with the rules of Prussian polo,” author Chatsworth writes, “there are only seven hundred and thirty-seven, so it’s much easier to understand than cricket.”
Constance is irresistibly flawed. Brilliant, beautiful, self-centered, and endowed with serious trust issues. The man she butts heads with, J.F. Trusdale, is a mysterious, rustic American who’s a bit of an embarrassment to Victorian British society. These characters gel, even when they try not to. The twists in the plot kept me eagerly flipping pages to see just how the Brass Queen handles herself in this world of royal backstabbing.
Much like its namesake, THE BRASS QUEENis funny, smart and smooth. Chatsworth’s writing style is tight, light, and easy to read. Even the secondary and tertiary characters are fleshed out, the villains believable and truly, truly unlikeable.
The book, however, isn’t without a weakness or two. Chatsworth shows the reader a picture we’d like to see painted into a little more clarity. For one example, Chatsworth makes a point—more than once—that a character in Haltwhistle’s employ is an accomplished boxer, but we never see him box. This is in no way Chekhov’s gun, but the mentions made me expect he and the cowboy Trusdale (no small man himself) to square off.
No matter, I thoroughly enjoyed the fast-moving, humor-filled THE BRASS QUEEN, and I’m sure fans of steampunk will love it as much as I have.
The Brass Queen is a 448-page steampunk novel available at CamCatbooks.com and all major online outlets.
Jason Offutt is the author of sixteen books, including the novel So You Had to Build a Time Machine from CamCat Books. He teaches journalism at Northwest Missouri State University.
