Chapter 22

Chapter 22

I have to hire a new locksmith. After I arrived at the store, I called the other guy and tried to schedule an appointment. He’s booked solid for the next month. I slammed down the phone in disgust.

As I sit in the empty store, I flip through the Yellow Pages, scanning the advertisements. I may as well tack the pages to the wall and throw a dart to decide. What the hell do I know about hiring a locksmith? The last fucker should have already done the job so I wouldn’t be worrying about this shit now. I should have screamed at him instead of just hanging up to let him know exactly how I feel.

“This is bullshit,” I say to myself. Screw it. There’s nothing worth locking up in this place anyway. Dusty books, untouched comics, and worn furniture are all I have to protect. Anyone who stole those would be doing me a favor.

I set the portable television on the counter and turn to a judge show. Susie and I should go on one of these. Let someone else decide what to do now. Then we wouldn’t be able to blame each other for the unsatisfying verdict. The judge could shoulder the entire burden for us.

“Your Honor, I never led this girl on. I didn’t want her to fall in love. I just wanted to get laid. It’s not my fault she misinterpreted my intentions,” I would say in my defense.

“Your Honor, he took me out to dinner after his father’s death. He took me dancing on at least six occasions. He let me move into his house. We even took a trip to Indianapolis together. If that’s not leading me on, then what is?” Susie would tell the judge.

“Excuse me, Your Honor, but I went to Indianapolis under duress. Let the record show I left her at the Colts game to return home alone.”

“Then why did you move back in together?” the judge would ask us. That’s the question I can’t really answer. Desperation seems the most likely answer. I was living above the Marshall’s garage. I hadn’t screwed or even masturbated in two weeks. Then I got clubbed over the head at a strip joint and woke up in Susanna Sterling’s bed. By that point I think I have a pretty good case for temporary insanity. I thought Susie and I could go back to casual fucking without any romantic entanglements. I should have known better.

Three months after Mom died I met Cynthia Gibbons at a party. She had long red hair and a chunky physique that reminded me of The Birth of Venus when she got naked in my bedroom. Not the most gorgeous girl, but not a bad piece of ass either. Her being a demon in the sack is what sealed the deal. We fucked all night long.

I made the mistake of not sending her home that morning. Instead, we went out for breakfast and then to a Freepoint State football game. As the day wore on, I began to realize Cynthia Gibbons was dumber than the goalposts on the field. She thought George W. Bush and Al Gore were rival designers. She thought Columbus landed on Plymouth Rock to celebrate Thanksgiving with the Eskimos. Every time she opened her mouth, something dumb would come out.

After our second night, I knew I had to break up with her. The next morning I tried to explain things weren’t going to work out between us. “We’re just different people,” I said by way of half-assed explanation.

She furrowed her brow and stared at me for two minutes, as if I’d just told her everything in Spanish. “You don’t like me?” she asked.

“No, that’s not it.”

“You think I’m ugly?”

“No.”

“You think I’m fat, don’t you?”

She probably could have peeled off ten pounds or maybe even twenty, but she wasn’t a whale like Haley Fitzsimmons. “Nonsense,” I said.

“I don’t understand why you don’t want to be with me then.” Then of course the waterworks started up. I spent the entire morning and well past lunchtime giving her all the standard lines about it being me, not her and I needed space. She still didn’t understand.

Finally in frustration I screamed, “Of course you don’t understand! You’re a moron! A dolt, a dimwit, an idiot. You should be on the short bus with the special ed kids.” She ran away then. For the next year I avoided her in the halls. She made avoiding her a lot easier by packing on another thirty pounds during that time. I was lucky her family moved to San Francisco after that year. Otherwise I might have spent all of high school ducking her.

After the Cynthia Gibbons debacle, I realized it was better not to cultivate relationships with girls. One poke—maybe two or three—and then show them the door. Everything was a lot less messy that way. We both had some fun and got what we wanted. Why ruin a perfect night with a shitty day afterwards?

Since I doubt any TV judges would take my case, I don’t see any choice but to sit Susie down and explain we can’t go on this way. It would be stupid to play out this farce any longer. I’m not going to be tied down to her forever, end of story.

Of course in our case there’s the problem of Brooke and my newborn niece. If Brooke stays in the house, then Susie will be a frequent guest. I can’t just avoid her like Cynthia Gibbons, which will perpetuate awkward moments where we have to exchange pleasantries. Then again, it’s not so different than what we have been doing, only without the promise of sex.

I need to just get rid of Susie, Brooke, the house, and the store. I need to go back to school to finish my degree and start going back to Ike’s to find some fresh pussy. Better yet, I could follow Todd out of Indiana. I could start the next phase of my life in the deserts of Arizona, in the mountains of Colorado, or among the skyscrapers of New York. Why stop there? Paris, London, Tokyo, the sky’s the limit. I could reenact the “It’s a Small World” ride at Disney World by fucking girls on every continent.

I leap from the director’s chair to find an atlas on the bookshelves. The only one I can find is from 1959 with the Soviet Union still together and threatening America. I pour myself a cup of coffee and take the atlas back into the office to study.

I would like to see everything from penguins in Antarctica to polar bears at the North Pole. The only problem as always is money. Even by selling the store and the house, I still couldn’t afford a jet-setting lifestyle for very long. A year or two at most and I would end up broke, begging for scraps and starving to death in some exotic location. I have to admit, though, becoming a bum in Asia, Africa, or Europe sounds preferable to sitting around Freepoint with Susie and Brooke. At least a bum is free to do as he pleases.

With this in mind, I start working on the books for the month so I can see where Alternate Dimensions stands. Before long I see the store is deep in the red. Only someone as dumb as Cynthia Gibbons would buy this place. I may as well board up the windows and wait for the lease to expire.

I hear the door open and check my watch. Between my daydreaming and bookkeeping it’s after ten o’clock. The store should be closed by now. Still, there’s no way I’m turning away a possible customer even at this hour.

“Can I help—” I begin, but then stop when I see my customer is wearing a gray trench coat and has a blue ski mask over his face. The Trench Coat Bandit!

The closest I’ve ever come to seeing a gun is in the movies and on television. When the Bandit pulls one from his pocket, I’m surprised by how small it is. The black barrel is all I can see sticking out from the Bandit’s meaty paw. He tosses a paper sack at my feet. “The money. Now,” he says in a surprisingly high-pitched voice.

I stare at him with my hands up in surrender. I can’t move. I can’t even think. I’m too scared to even be embarrassed about the piss trickling down my leg. All I can do is focus on the gun in his hand pointing at my chest. I saw Mom die and I saw Dad’s corpse before the funeral, but never has Death look me in the eye before.

“Didn’t you hear me? Get the fucking money,” the Bandit says. The gun twitches in his hand and I flinch, expecting the fatal shot. The gesture is enough to spur me to action. I bend down slowly to pick up the paper sack and then open the cash register. As I empty the meager contents of the register into the bag, I can’t help thinking this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. Batman or Spider-Man is supposed to come swinging in here, breaking through the front window to haul this creep to jail.

Instead, the front door opens and Susie says, “Harry?”

The Trench Coat Bandit whirls around in surprise. I’m even more surprised when I find myself reaching across the counter to take the gun from his hand. The Bandit swats away my feeble attempt at heroics and then nails me with a left hook. My forehead slams against the old butcher’s counter on the way down. I sag to the floor, my head spinning and the world going dark. Susie screams. The gun fires.