The Blue Ride

Craig’s father called the city bus “the blue ride”. Brandon only used it when his ’81 Ford Cruiser broke down, and this time, it was because the alternator was shot. The family only owned one car in order to save on auto insurance and gasoline. The supermarket and post office was within two blocks of their house, and Tina liked to walk for those trips—except during the winter, but she did so anyway. Craig was disappointed this was where Dr. Krone had placed him next.

This wasn’t how he met Katie.

He was eleven years old in this memory, he remembered, shifting his backpack strap so it was secure between his shoulder blades. During most of their normal car rides, his father was quiet. He sipped his coffee and played the rock station, the eighties hair metal his favorite—Def Leopard in particular. But today, the journey was on “the blue ride”. Craig looked up at his Dad and knew the man was hatching a plan, and it had nothing to do with taking his son to school.

The bus was jam-packed at this hour. The air was stale. Somebody wasn’t wearing deodorant. Somebody had farted. Despite the distractions, Craig waited for the moment to happen, what had happened all those years ago. He wanted to warn his father, to tell him not to say anything to anybody, but he couldn’t. The childhood fear of the man prevented him from acting out before it was too late.

He wouldn’t interfere with Brandon’s extra-curricular activities.

He followed his father’s gaze, and there she was, walking up beside him, then staying inches from him. She was much too close to be a casual patron. She wore a leopard-skin coat, knock-off quality, black high heels, and a gray sheath dress underneath the coat. She was in her mid-thirties. She had applied spider-black eyeliner and her eye shadow was a shade of green. The woman clutched the bar overhead, working even closer to him. When the bus stopped, she over-exaggerated the impact and brushed up against his father.

“Oh sorry,” she apologized, holding his arm briefly. “I didn’t mean to bump into you.”

Brandon ogled at her cleavage. The man was suddenly knocked from his morning routine. The man liked to flirt. He was a true cheater, and it couldn’t be any more obvious to Craig, especially now.

You really fucked over Mom.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Damn bus drivers,” he joked. He held her arm gingerly. “I guess I can’t let you go. The driver might take another sharp turn, and down you’ll go.”

Craig predicted it. Brandon peeked at her cleavage yet again. Her breasts were small. He supposed the chest wasn’t the most important feature to his father. The plumbing was number one.

She licked her dark brown lips. The shade was between cinnamon and dark spice. Craig knew the distinctions because his mother sold Avon products for a brief spell. She tested the application process on Alice Denny, his next-door neighbor and friend. “Doesn’t she look pretty?” Tina would ask him during dinner sometimes. “She looks very nice, Craig, yeah? You should ask her out. Oh, it’d be so cute. Dad could drive you guys to the movies.” He talked a lot to Alice now that J.J. had moved to Cincinnati and Neil had made new friends.

Craig found himself distracted, so he focused on the woman on the bus again. She was sleazy. A child’s eye refused those details in the past, but now Craig could see her for who she really was. She practically had her hands reaching into her purse for a condom to flash at his father.

“What’s your next stop?” She forced a lisp. It was intended to be sexy. “I’m off work today. I haven’t eaten breakfast. I know a place. It’s the next stop.”

She pulled the cable above them, and the light dinged overhead. The bus soon pulled over and stopped. The location was between a long strip mall and a Denny’s.

“Missing summer school won’t be such a bad thing, huh, pal?” Brandon relayed the fact without expecting a response from his son. “Let’s call today a wash. And don’t tell Mom. I’ll buy you that Atari game you wanted. We’ll have fun later together, okay? Promise.”

He turned to the woman without waiting for his son to respond. “What’s your name?”

“You can give me a name.” She batted her eyes seductively. “Pretend I’m somebody. Whoever. It’s funner that way.”

“I’ll call you Tina.”

Craig’s grip tightened on the pole. Butterflies gnawed at his stomach lining when he was ten, but now, he was fuming.

They walked out of the bus, Craig following behind them. Brandon would’ve forgotten him otherwise. He tagged along with the two, battling to decide what course of action to take, if any.

Brandon said, “I’ll call in sick to work, and I’ll buy you some breakfast.”

He thought his father was talking to him, but he was engaging “Tina”. Once his father completed the call to work, the woman sauntered to the back alley of the strip mall. “Forget breakfast.” She beckoned him with her pointer finger. “Come here.”

Brandon stalked after her, playing into her game. “You stay here, Craig. Don’t move. Don’t follow me. I’ll be back soon. I promise. Just stay here.”

He watched the philanderer at work. Craig walked to the mouth of the alley beside the closed-down bookstore and the hind end of Denny’s. Laughter echoed to him, a woman’s giggling. It made his stomach turn. This was the same man who’d make love to his mother and claim her as his wife.

Get a divorce, you dickhead, if you want other women so bad.

Craig hid behind a Dumpster. He dug his nails into the brick wall to abate his anger. The woman had somehow removed her panties and twirled them on her finger. “What are you going to do with me now?”

Brandon reached to caress her when a man in a white undershirt and faded black jeans leapt from behind the other end of the alley, armed with a Louisville Slugger. A superman tattoo was inked on his left shoulder. The man was nearly a foot shorter than his father, but he was burly and wore the face of lunatic. “Throw me your wallet and put away your hard-on. This is my woman, so back the fuck off!”

His father’s fantasy abruptly crash-landed. Brandon cowardly tossed the man his wallet.

You deserve this.

For some reason, Craig couldn’t stand by like he did back then no matter how much of an asshole his father was. The incoming scene that would occur was brutal and unnecessary. He remembered the scene from his childhood with alarming clarity.

He thought he could move, but Craig stayed hidden. The robber pounded the bat into Brandon’s rib cage. His father grunted and faltered to the ground, moaning, the worst look on his face playing out in dramatic fashion like a person drowning and helpless to reach air.

“I think I want more than your wallet. You’re a bit too grabby with my lady.”

“Fuck him up,” the woman shouted. Her eyes were ignited by the prospect of violence shed in her honor. She hovered around Brandon waiting for the action to play out. “Beat his skull in. He was lookin’ at me funny. He was going to rape me. Behind a Denny’s, Rob, is that what I deserve?”

“Were you going to do something with my lady?” He aimed the baseball bat at Brandon’s crotch. “You’re not even that good looking, but my woman can pick ’em. The dumb men with small dicks and big wallets.”

“No!” He held up his hand in surrender. “I meant no harm. Take my wallet. She talked to me first. She flirted, man—honest. I meant no harm.”

The incident had ended with Brandon suffering three broken ribs and a concussion. He was bleeding from the head afterwards. He hid his face in shame from Craig who came to his aid when the two strangers finally fled the scene. Brandon even made Craig lie about it to the cops and his mother. “I took you to Denny’s for breakfast, and I was robbed. That’s how I got hurt. Simple as that, and that’s all you say, Craig.”

Rethinking the situation and its outcome, he wouldn’t allow the scene to escalate this time. Something was triggered in him, and he refused to remain on standby as his father got pummeled. He searched the alley for a weapon. The best he produced was a chunk of the curb the size of a baseball. He aimed for the assailant’s head. One throw was all it took, Craig suddenly able to pitch the piece with perfect control—and for a moment, he wondered if Dr. Krone had anything to do with the newfound ability—and it struck the assailant’s skull with a sick crunch.

“Agggghhh!” The man spun backwards, bleeding from a gash in his head the shape of an upside down triangle. He dropped the bat with a hollow ringing sound. Brandon picked it up, and charging at him, he slammed it onto the man’s back repeatedly. “Throw my wallet onto the pavement. And give me yours while you’re at it.” He raised the bat to the woman, pointing it at her face. “You keep your pussy to yourself. You keep acting like that, someone’s going to slit your throat one of these days, and your man won’t be able to do a damn thing to stop it.”

He glanced at Craig as relief washed over his features. “That’s my boy! You should pitch for the Yankees. Holy shit, you were dead on. Dead. Fucking. On.”

The robber tossed his wallet at Brandon's feet, fearing another blow. Half his face was red with trailing lines of blood. “Please, don’t hurt me…”

His father recovered the wallet, but after bending down, he clutched his ribs. “That’s going to leave a bruise. I should shove this up your ass.”

The woman bit at her nails, pacing the same four steps, left to right. She noticed Craig and snarled. She mouthed something Craig couldn’t understand, even this time.

The second wallet was offered up, the woman digging it begrudgingly out of her purse and throwing it underhanded in their direction.

“Now get out of here before I really fuck you up.” Brandon enjoyed his victory. Testosterone, Craig thought, is working its magic. “This bat looks too new. I want to break it in some more. What do you think, son? Knock her head around a bit, and it’ll be ready for nine innings, huh?” He swung it twice in the air at head-level and shouted his final warning, “Now get out of here before I really do hurt you!”

The two fled the scene, the woman helping the man to his feet. His father called Craig over, then lowered to his knees and hugged him close. Brandon kissed his forehead, and that was the first time that’d happened without Tina instructing him to do so. His face beamed with pride. “That’s my boy. You saved my skin. You’re a hell of a shot, kid. Anytime you want to play catch in the backyard, you got it.”

You’re lying, but I’ll accept the compliment.

“We’re skipping school today. We can’t eat at Denny’s. We have to book it out of here, so how about Homer’s Donuts? I’ll take you to the mall afterwards. We’ll pump quarters into those arcade games all day.” He counted the money in the robber’s wallet. “Yes we will.”

Here came the equivalent to a court’s swearing in, the man saying, “Promise you won’t tell Mom about this. She wouldn’t understand. This is between us.” His father placed his hand on Craig’s head. “I love you. I don’t say that enough. Now how about breakfast?—all the donuts you can eat.”

Craig nodded, a childlike giddiness overwhelming him. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

This was a better ending than Craig crying on the street until somebody finally called the police and Brandon was rushed to the hospital for head trauma.

 

 

Rob cradled his forehead. The blood wouldn’t stop issuing from the gash. It stained his shirt and hands, both dripping with red. Misty kept him on his feet, though she struggled not to tip over due to his weight leaning against her. She was crying, hysterical, shaking, and speaking so fast, “He got your wallet. He got my wallet. You’re bleeding. It’s all over you. That fucking kid. He did this. We can’t let them get away with this. But look at you. Oh God, Rob, look at you! They got our money. That goddamn brat fucked everything up.”

“We’ll find them,” Rob encouraged her, closing his eyes because he was so dizzy. He thought he was about to puke or pass out. “First, get me home. I need a drink. I need to lie down. I’m woozy.”

“It’s barely nine in the morning. You shouldn’t be drinking.”

“To swallow some pain killers, you stupid bitch.”

They were at the end of the alley where it fed into the street. Their Chevy truck was parked nearby for the quick getaway.

Then a random voice called out to them. “I suggest you wait on that drink.”

“Who said that?” Rob was forced out of his daze. He feared it was the police. “I didn’t hurt anybody. I’m the victim. The guy who did this, he’s with a boy. Maybe ten years old. The dude assaulted me.”

A man in a white lab coat was leaning against the wall. He was a portly man. The double chin was prominent, like a glazed fleshy tire. He sweated in the morning sun. It dripped down his face. He was waxen in the yellow glare, melting in the heat. The man smiled at them with recognition. Delight played upon his face.

Rob called out to the stranger, “What are you smiling at, asshole? You know me?”

“You don’t know me.” He started toward them, marching slowly. “And you don’t need to.”

Misty called out to him, praying she could reason with the man or coax him to help her boyfriend. “Are you a doctor? Would you help him? I can’t stop the bleeding.”

“I won’t be able to assist you,” he replied coolly, but then his face became the color of a blocked artery, and he shrieked, “because I want to continue the bleeding!”

Misty screamed. The stranger raced toward them, advancing quickly for an overweight man. He extended his fingers to Rob’s throat, and the force was unreal, Misty thought she’d seen it happen the wrong way, her mind registering the events through a grief-stricken mind. But she blinked, shook her head, cried, cursed, turned away, stared harder, concentrated with every ounce of her being and the outcome didn’t change. The man’s fingers had punctured through his neck up to the knuckle with quadruple pops of her boyfriend’s trachea. The connection sounded like a corer being driven through an apple.

Rob’s eyes threatened to spill out of the sockets, they were so wide, stretched to shed maximum terror. He gargled, choking on fingers and blood. “Grah-gaaaaack!”

Removing his fingers, the doctor slapped a wad of tissue onto the pavement.

Rob faltered to his knees, aspirating on blood. It spurted in gobs out the concave holes in his neck. His larynx gushed in the blaring sunlight.

She fell to her knees beside him, erupting in panic. “Rob!”

The stranger wiped the red off onto his lab coat. “It’s going to be a scorcher today. Perhaps I can ask you to step inside that building behind you to cool down.”

“"W-what are you saying?”

The lascivious smile was like a slithering worm. “We’ll need to stay cool for what I’m about to do to you.”