Wednesday, March 28, 2007  

First Taste's Free

So I haven't posted jack squat in a long time, and frankly, I don't intend to. I'm neck deep and banging away on a writing project, and it's taking most of my time and all of my words. But on the off-chance anyone's still peeking in here, here's a little taste of what I'm working on. There's about 60,000 more words kind of like this, and if and when I get it done, I'll probably take this post down.

In the meantime, here you go:

I wake with a start and a scream and I don't know why. I have a head full of zombies and a mouth full of road tar, and the pounding in my ears is louder than the pounding on the top of my car, which is louder than the frantic sound of something hard tapping on my passenger side window.

Son of a bitch.

My eyes feel like they have sand in them, and rubbing them with my knuckles doesn't do much to change that. Ditto for a few exaggerated blinks. I keep trying, though, because the visual information I'm getting makes absolutely no goddamn sense. All I can see out the driver's side windows is the middle third of a person in dark blue clothing and a black belt, which isn't doing much to contain a fairly sizable male belly, which is pressed up against the car. This is where the pounding seems to be coming from. Behind him a little bit is a station wagon, painted white with a semi-official green stripe running down the side and flashing orange lights on top.

When I crane my neck and look behind me, I see a smaller person, a woman, wearing brightly colored clothes and holding a paper bag and a cup of coffee. She's rapping on the window with the knuckles of the hand holding the bag. Actually, it looks like she's using a ring: a decent sized diamond job that's making a cruel and unfair amount of noise. It's like a chainsaw in my brain. She keeps tapping, even when she starts to yell.

"Hey! Wake up! Come on, mister, wake up!"

The pounding on the roof stops, and a man's voice starts yelling. Just not at me.

"Carol! Stop it, Carol! I mean it!"

"Fuck you, Pete!

"Fuck you, Carol! And watch your language, okay?"

My working theory is that I died from alcohol poisoning during the night and have gone straight to hell. Pete and Carol keep screaming at each other while I try to get my bearings. It's hot in my car, thanks to the Arizona sunshine pouring through the windows, and my shirt is absolutely soaked straight through with acrid sweat. I'm sure I reek like rotting tacos and rubbing alcohol, but luckily, two packs a day murdered my sense of smell years ago. Still, I make a mental note to get a pine tree air freshener if and when I figure out what the hell is going on.

To that end, I pound on the ceiling with the palm of my right hand.

"Coming out!" I yell. I think I heard it in a movie once.

My body feels like I've been tortured, and getting from the back seat to the front is an awkward and painful exercise. I'm sure I look ridiculous, but I don't really care. Every part of me hurts. My ankle is throbbing, my ribs are stiff, my hands feel broken, my neck feels compressed, and my face itches like crazy, thanks to knitting scabs and unshaved stubble. A passing glance in the rearview tells me I look exactly like I feel.

Once I'm in the front, I make a snap decision and get out on Carol's side of the car. I have a natural aversion to security types and a natural attraction to girls with coffee. This is, I believe, a fairly evolved philosophy.

Getting out of the car is almost as hard as getting out of the back seat. Once I get the door unlocked, I have to figure out how the latch works. When it's open, I step out, catching last night's unopened beer with my foot and kicking it into the parking lot, where it rolls across the blacktop until it hits Carol's foot. She just looks at it while I get on my feet and get the door closed. Then she looks at me with big sad eyes. Her face seems wise somehow. If nothing else, she doesn't actually recoil in horror. I can already tell I like this girl.

To call her pretty would be an overstatement, but to be fair, a purple Donut Hut uniform is a pretty severe handicap. No woman should have to endure that much stretch polyester, not in this day and age. I wonder if she could file a report with the appropriate government agency. The cooking oil hasn't been kind to her complexion, either. It makes it tough to pin down her age. I'd peg it somewhere around thirty, give or take a decade. The donut industry ages a woman fast, I guess.

I stand as straight as possible and give her a nod that's meant to seem gracious but comes out spastic, thanks to my cricked neck and the pain therefrom.

"Morning," I say.

Before she can reply, Pete horns in on the action.

"Sir," he says. "Can I see some ID, please?"

"Jesus Christ, Pete," says Carol, with the kind of condescending disgust only a woman can muster. "Give it a break, will you?"

I turn around to get a look at him. He's exactly like I expect: mid-thirties, doughy, and pale. His chest is thrust out in what I assume he thinks is a tough guy pose. In reality, it only adds a cup size to his man-tits. His lips are wide and red, and he licks them with a long, disgusting tongue before he speaks again.

"Shut up, Carol. This doesn't concern you. Your ID, sir?"

"Ignore him," says Carol. "Everyone else does."

"Sir, if you don't hand over your ID, I will call the police."

"The real police, he means," sneers Carol. "Not a fucking rent-a-cop like him."

"Goddammit, Carol!" Pete's losing it now. His voice echoes across the parking lot. "Why are you doing this? Why?"

Carol ignores him and turns to me with a self-satisfied smile. Apparently him blowing his stack means mission accomplished. She holds out the bag and the coffee to me, immediately transforming her into the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. I look at her skeptically, but she gives me a little nod, telling me it's okay to take the stuff.

"Here, sir," she says with professional detachment. "I brought you your donut and coffee."

"Thank you," I say, taking them gently. I'm still baffled, but a free donut is a free donut. It's best to be zen about these things.

"You're welcome, sir," says Carol. Then she turns to Pete. "I'll ask you to please stop harassing Donut Hut customers, Mr. Grossman."

Pete's face goes from pasty to purple in an instant. It's the face of a man about to blow. I instinctively back up a couple of steps. Carol stands her ground. Pete closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. As he exhales, his lips move, forming silent words. I can't be sure, but I think he's saying a Hail Mary. If he is, it works for him, because he actually gets a grip on himself. His face turns back to a vaguely human shade, and when he opens his eyes, he's a model of security professionalism. He's got the smug smile of a guy who didn't take the bait. He even goes so far as to tip his cap to me.

Carol just says, "Hmmm," turns on her heel, and leaves. Pete and I stand there, dumbly, watching her walk. She makes it all the way to the Donut Hut before she stops and looks back. I can feel the laser beams shooting out of her eyes, and they're not even aimed at me. Then she slips inside and slams the grey steel door hard enough for us to hear, even from a few hundred feet away. Pete's shoulders slump, lower and lower as the sound echoes around the lot. The smile disappears, and he looks like he might even cry. Hell, I might cry, just out of brotherhood. It's tough to watch a guy get his nuts handed to him.

"Shit," I say.

Pete nods. He's still looking at the back of the Donut Hut with a thousand yard stare, his thumbs tucked in his security guard utility belt, which really only adds to the overall pathos of the whole scene, the poor mook. For my part, the smell of the coffee is making me crazy, but somehow it feels wrong to drink it right there in front of the guy. I'd feel like I was kicking him when he's down. I give it a good minute before I say something.

"Want the donut?" I ask, holding it out towards him.

He turns his head slowly, obviously reluctant to tear his eyes away from his vigil. Once he does, though, he considers the bag with the intensity of a puma watching a gazelle. His lips start to move again. This time, he stops mid-prayer and sighs.

"Yeah," he says. "I'll take it."

I toss it to him underhand. It arcs up and over the car, blazing white and beautiful in the hot morning sun. He plucks it out of the air with one hand and digs the donut out with the other in one smooth motion. He does it with such grace that when he jams the chocolate glazed in his mouth, it's like watching a gymnast stick a landing. More importantly, it grants me absolution, and I can take a nice long sip of coffee, which tastes as good as it smells. It's plasma hot and jet black, just like I like it. I wonder if Carol was in a hurry, or if she's just that good a donut pro. Not that you'd have to be that good to figure that a guy sleeping in his car probably isn't all that fussy about his morning joe.

We munch and slurp in silence, pointedly avoiding eye contact and conversation. Luckily, Pete makes short work of the donut. He pulls a couple of napkins out of the bag and dabs his lips carefully, like a surgeon. Then he folds them neatly and puts them back in the bag. The bag gets folded and tucked in his back pocket. He hitches his pants up and takes a deep breath, trying to get back onto some sort of official footing, I guess. He puts on his mall cop tough guy face.

"Just park between the lines next time, okay?" he says.

"Sure thing."

He gives me a nod and then starts to amble back to his car, unsnapping his walkie-talkie holster as he goes. Before he gets too far, I call to him.

"Hey, Pete!"

He turns around.

"What?"

"What did you do to her, man?"

He looks at the Donut Hut again and purses his lips, like he's mulling over how much he wants to tell me. His eyes look sad, even from where I?m standing. After a long while, he sighs, but he doesn?t look away when he answers.

"I stuck my dick somewhere I shouldn?t have."

I nod and let it hang out in the air for a bit before I speak.

"Don't beat yourself up, man," I say. "There's a lot of that going around."

Labels: novel, writing