The Big Machine Eats, page 4
No, I had breakfast for that.
I’m much better now. Back to my old self. All because of Jenna, of course. So smart, that woman! So sane! I fought it at first, sure, who wouldn’t, but the more I looked in the mirror, the more I remembered what I’d become—saw myself ripping metaphorical meat from metaphorical bones. Bipolar Bowler is what my Dad calls it: good at stuff one week, not so good the next. Makes sense, though, once you boil it down. It happening so soon after I proposed to Jenna, I mean. Talk about “Eyes Wide Shut,” right? Anyway, I’m told the only thing left is the invites. They seemed to have fallen by the wayside during what we’re calling my “sabbatical.” Jenna agrees that this is understandable, but she also says that the time has come to correct our course. I share this view, I do, and it’s because of this that the first invitation I fill out is addressed to Mr. Hunt and Guest. Mr. Maguire comes next, he and the girl he had from “hello.” It’s only when I come to Maverick that my hands begin to shake and Kenny Loggins floods my mind. I want to sing along but I dare not. Not while Jenna is looking. Instead I tell her to show me the money, show me the money, and then we share our little laugh.
It proves I have been, and always shall be, her friend.
Back to TOC
ROAD TRIP
A Bishop Rider Story
Fontane is ruthless, feral, and reminds me of Toomey. Toomey being a goddamn piece of work in his own right. Hired by Marcel Abrum back in the day, he is brought in to take out Mick the Fish when Marcel decides to make a play. Toomey brings not only his own brand of carnage to the table, but a wood-chipper as well. Custom-made and portable, it’s what he comes to be known for.
Until he runs into me.
That was then, however. Fontane, of course, being now.
“I’m not the bad guy here, Rider. I never have been. I’m only filling a void.” Right. Tell yourself another one. But men like Fontane could see things no other way, evil and them as far from each other as they chose to get.
He pushes himself back from his desk. Thick, his face is more blockish than round. He attempts to come toward me, stopping when I re-raise the Glock. “If it wasn’t me,” he continues, big ringed hands now up and in front of the million-dollar suit. “It woulda been someone else. And fourteen, last time I checked, is looking more and more like eighteen every single day.”
“Tick-tock,” I say, and he gets my meaning as I begin to stand myself.
“Okay. Okay. But you have to realize the situation I was put in. Rock and a hard place and all that jazz.”
I move forward, tired now, content with taking the long way if needed. Fontane reads the writing on the wall, the man right to the point by the time I have metal touching his forehead. “How do you think this all began? Who do you think showed those Abrum boys the ropes?” Another name from the past. To a time when a pair of brothers chose to destroy my life. “Their father made money at this far longer than you can possibly know.”
Was it a ploy? A last-ditch effort to save his life? Maybe. Probably. I’m sure Fontane was counting on a version of some sort, the man believing himself a survivor. He wasn’t though. Not where it counted. Reason number one was because he deserved the dirt. The other reason being Batista, and how the Detective has confirmed certain scenarios for me in the past.
“You’re telling me there’s a chance this man is still alive?”
“I can do better than that,” Fontane says, and the smile on his face becomes a prideful one. “I can give you the name of the retirement home I send his percentage to.”
The rage surfaces, my mind aflame with everything that could and should and might have been. I picture my mother. My sister. And then the men who took them from me.
I thought we had gotten them all. I figured there was no one left to get.
It seems I had figured wrong.
“Whoever it was, they hid their trail well. But yes, Jackie Abrum had been receiving, but no longer receives, a monthly stipend via Fontane Enterprises.” Batista gives a little hand trigger as he says this, even though I had used a five-iron to take Fontane down. “I went back further. Missing persons from the fifties and sixties. Abrum Senior is on record as being questioned, twice in fact, but nothing ever stuck.”
I finish with the pig-blade, put in back down into the side of my boot. “Doesn’t need to stick. Not now. The connection between him and Fontane is all I needed to hear.”
Batista grunts, swivels from his laptop to the computer on his left. “If I were a smart man, this is the point in time when I’d mention your lack of a valid driver’s licence. If I were a smart man, I’d also mention that this plan, if it fails, is probably the one that shuts us down.” He stops, stands, and makes his way to me. “But I also know you need to do this.” Batista has been there from the beginning. Helped me destroy the men who’d destroyed my life, even after I’d turned in my badge. I can only hope he will be there to the end.
“The residence is out of state. Just inside Delaware. Should take you less than a day to get there.” He adds the name of the place, Seasons, and admonishes me to please take care because the other residents there were nowhere near the likes of the man I was going to kill.
I promised nothing.
The sun is at my back, just up and offering its eye.
Seasons is more than a retirement home; it is also inclined to extend independent housing for those able to afford as much. As it should be, so it was: Jackie Abrum residing on the far left side of the detached units surrounding the main building. Sparse, his bungalow was more like a bachelor’s apartment than anything, but one that smelled of chemicals and age. Tethered to an IV stand and an oxygen machine, I find him in his bedroom, the curtains drawn. For a moment, I’m disappointed, but this changes when he opens his eyes, and I am granted something more. I don’t know for sure, not at all, but I choose to believe he recognizes me. One frail hand paws at the oxygen mask but fails to complete the task.
“I never knew you existed,” I say and approach from the left, coming toward him at an angle. “It probably means you thought you got away.” He tries to protest, tries to move his head from side to side. Only when I produce the zippo do my ears hear what I had hoped they would. “Do me a favor when you get there, Jackie,” I say and light the corner of the sheets down by my boots. “Say hello to your boys for me. Tell ’em Bishop Rider says hi.”
I could have said more. Tons. But that’s not what this was about. Everything in life has a price, good, bad, or how we envision evil.
In the end, it’s how we choose to pay.
For men like Jackie Abrum, it’s how they choose to beg.
Back to TOC
NOT ALL HEROES WEAR CAPES
(DAVE IN THREE PARTS)
Pre-Dave (before but after)
I know where the bodies are buried. Well, the bones, anyway.
Ask me this question a year ago and I would have countered with, “Why, is the world about to end?” But even that would have gotten squat from me. This was pre-Dave, remember. A time when meat was still meat and I considered myself unscathed. Times change, though. People, too. And if this little meeting of the minds is about anything, it’s about that.
We compile first. Always. Narrow down our selections based on family, social cues, popularity, and age. We do this to ensure our exposure is minimal and remains cursory at best. An exact science it is not, and very rarely is someone missed. What might surprise you is how soon a disappearance loses steam when there aren’t any friends or family members to spur on the authorities. We tend to favor geeks, as well. Helps when padding the base. They tend to present as introverts more times than not, and this, this is where the fishing begins.
The twins are recon, with Bobby doing most of the driving. Me, I’m the face, the one who befriends and opens the door. This leaves Anita, our info gatherer, and Daddy Terry, who is mostly just a figurehead now, ever since the stroke put him in that chair.
By my count we have done it this way a total of seventeen times. How many times before I was grandfathered in I cannot say. If I were a betting man, rest assured, the word on the street would be lots. We’d make it last, too, the meat, until we found our next candidate and began the process all over again.
Dave changed this though, that dude somehow digging into the depths of me like nobody’s business. It’s silly, too, that such a meek and timid man opened me as he did. I mean, years I had been doing this. What made him so different from the others? I can’t rightly say. Not without shaking my head. I want to say it involved everything I didn’t know about him, but no, I can’t buy that either.
Regardless, it happened. The dude never knowing what hit him until he’s burning on the spit and screaming himself awake. It’s a slow burn, too, his tits a kind of chicken slurry we collected and used as spread.
But before this…before this, I’m a beast. So on-point I won’t even let this one guy, Cliff, I won’t even let him watch the final episode of “Breaking Bad.” What’s one more night, right? Nope. Not the old me. Not even close. Same thing with the last book in the Dark Tower series. I could have given Darren the time to find out how King’s epic ends, but no, why the fuck would I? I did give him a there-are-other-worlds-than-these salute as his time came to an end, though. It was nowhere near the likes of the I-AM-THE-ONE-WHO-KNOCKS salute I gave to Cliff, but hey, they can’t all be winners. What this means is that I never cared. Not once before we got to the endgame a thousand times before.
Not once before my time with Dave.
What does that say about me? Again, I don’t know. What I do know, however, is what we began this with: my knowing where the bodies are buried. More specifically, the bones. If it means I have to give up the twins, Daddy Terry, and Anita for the chance at righting things in the name of Dave, well then, so be it. I can think of nothing better, nothing finer.
And if I’m honest with myself, if I am, I’m pretty sure my man Dave would agree.
Dave (during)
There isn’t a difference in the way we picked Dave and the way we picked any of the others. I think I just liked Dave more.
Chubby and short, recedingly meek, Dave was what society deems a nerd. His hygiene proved much better than others I have seen in their twenties, and I’m happy to express this. He wore Harry Potter frames and T-shirts solely representative of his favorite heroes. These shirts he wore under his work shirts, too, there at Mister Food.
An only child, Dave lost his parents to a car crash the night of the Millennium. When custody is given to an aunt on his father’s side, he goes to live with her before he turns eight. Isn’t until fifteen rolls around that the big C comes to change all that. Alone again, next comes foster care, and this is where some of Dave’s time falls between the cracks.
We fill these cracks, yes, once he is chosen, of course, but now that I think about it, this might be the reason I’d taken such a shine to Dave. Because of what I didn’t know. Made him more mysterious perhaps. Like how losing a mustache can utterly reconstitute a person’s face. Either way, I introduce myself in the pickle isle, my main man Dave down upon his knees.
“You blocking the bread and butter there, friend?” Dave looks up, straightens his blue smock against the bulges as best he can. “Um, yes. Sorry, sir. B-Bick’s or generic?”
“You think Bruce Wayne would ever use a name brand?” And I wink, pushing the message home. It helped that I could see the Bat logo through the back of his white work shirt, sure, but I’d already known coming in that Batman would play a role in what went down that day.
Dave smiles, his considerable mouth housing teeth so small and so large I’m almost caught off guard, even though I’m aware of the abnormality. Oligodontia. When six or more adult teeth fail to get the memo as to what the fuck is supposed to be going on. “The Bat, he wouldn’t be caught dead using a n-name brand. He’d just go and create his own.” The Bat. My word. But still, the shine had been taken, the stuff on paper and video paling in comparison to the real thing.
“That’s what I’ve always liked about the guy,” I say. “Always willing to take out the bigger villains when given the chance.” That smile again, all those bitty teeth, like miniature, off-white Legos. He somehow reminded me of Ryan, the first person I ever partook in and the toughest meat I ever cut. Dude had been a body builder, tight to the core. I learned, though.
Man, did I.
The next time I “bump into” Dave we’re at his local comic book shop. Upon entering I’m hit with the smells of paper and dust and social inadequacy. “Pickle-man,” Dave says, offering a hand as limp as I envisioned once the gap had been closed. He’s wearing a hat today, one exclaiming, Truckers Did It By The Mile. Cute. Inaccurate, but cute. “What are the odds?”
If he only knew.
We spend one full year on candidates. One full year until we’re prepared to strike. We need to know for sure, though. Wouldn’t want anyone with too many ties—no immediate family, no one too popular.
Someone who wouldn’t be missed.
His butt-munch smile, though…that hiccuppy laugh…and oh, how we discussed not only the Parker luck and how it could never be counted out, but also how Robin was maybe the greatest hero of all.
“The kid is wearing underwear to fight crime for crying out loud! What more does one need to see how committed he is?” I couldn’t disagree. Not then. Certainly not now. I do wonder if it was this particular afternoon that our bond was forged, though. When hunter and prey became so close that the pain to come could do nothing but harm us both.
“You’re sure your family won’t mind?” Did he really want me to answer that? I kid, of course—but only because of how far we’d come and because of the pain it would cause. If anything, I had come to love Dave in my own weird way. It meant I would do anything to alleviate any and all pre-pain where I could.
The entire last year we’d been pretty much inseparable. Two dudes just doing their thing and fuck you very much. We went to comic-com. We went to movies, “Captain America: Winter Soldier” being Dave’s top pick for the year. We even tried to get him a date, but poor Dave, no matter how hard one might try, some juggernauts remain immovable, prostitutes paid for or not.
“Hell, no, my family won’t mind. If anything, they’re hungry to meet you.” As I’d been doing, I continued to salt the meat. Or what I thought was salting the meat. The real salting would come later, when Dave found himself upon the rack and golden brown.
First things first, though: time for the show.
“And this must be Dave! Colin has told us so much about you!” Anita always loved this part, said it was just like drama class all over again. She was the power number here, number One of Five. She looked good, too, despite her age, her abs the feature she took pride in most.
“Ah, there isn’t really much to tell, M-Ma’am.” He wasn’t lying. The life he led consisted of work, comics, video games, repeat. Not the worst of lives, no, but nor was it the best. Getting to know Dave as I had, I tried to remedy this in many ways, but as the old dog and new tricks shtick goes, it ain’t for introverts.
Dave stood amazed, took in what equates to a souped-up log cabin with all the fixins: animal heads stuffed on every wall, a fireplace spitting up sparks. Miles from nowhere, we are a property much like Camp Crystal Lake. Not as many hockey masks here, of course, not with the real ones hiding in plain sight. Me for an entire year, the other four for a few more hours or so.
We drink. We eat. We laugh. Dave in between the twins and everyone falling into their roles like no time at all had passed. Near dessert is when Daddy Terry decides it’s time. No harm, no foul, his eyes say, just salting the meat. He’s been sitting across from Dave the whole evening, his toupee much like roadkill and men who fail to listen. “Used to be stories of meat-eaters up in these here parts, Dave. Colin ever let you in on that particular crumb?” He throws Dave a wink as he says this—his way of usurping a lie that was more of a truth.
“No, Sir, he did not. He told me about that time you guys had a run-in with a grizzly, though. Shot its one paw clear off is what he said. Thing had a limp the whole time it tried to run away. Musta been pretty funny, seeing that.”
“Sure was, Dave. The funniest part being it wasn’t no bear. Was a man is what it was. One who got loose before the drugs took hold. A real screamer if I’m remembering my nights correctly.” Dave laughs for a moment, for just a second, but as he looks around to each of us and sees that none of us is speaking, this is when he falls over into what would have been his chocolate pie.
Full disclosure: like meat in a slow cooker, my parts of Dave would be pulled.
He wakes up screaming because his skin has begun to slow bubble. Nothing coherent or anything, until we are given this: but you were my friend!!! Even that I might have misheard. Agony, she can be a fickle bitch. But I did feel something. Something I hadn’t felt in quite some time. I liked him. I really did. From his nervous sniffles to the way he deep-tucked his shirts. I chalk it up to my getting on in years, my being closer to forty now than I am to thirty. Or maybe it’s just my time spent doing this that’s making me partial to the protein.
Either way, I find it unfair, considering the alternatives or not. It gives me food (ha-ha) for thought, though, as we take aim to begin this journey again. Maybe I’ll go with someone not so nice this time. Maybe someone I would dare to hate.
For Dave, yes, I can at least do that.
Post-Dave (after the after)
After Dave comes Boyd, and Daddy Terry seems fine with this. With Anita’s selection I mean. Never says boo, does Daddy Terry, just gives his wave of approval from his wheelchair and sends me and the twins off to begin. Me, I had lots to say. Tons. Like how I wanted something other than Dave this time around, someone I thought I should maybe try and hate. For truth, it felt like Dave deserved as much. For truth, it’s because I’d come to like Dave so damn much.
