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Tom decided to park a block away from Joe Williams’s home. The house was mostly dark; the only lights were shining through what must have been the kitchen window. Tom approached cautiously, nearly tripping in the fresh hole where the lawn gnome once sat. He wore a toque over his face with two eyeholes cut roughly in the wool. He clawed at the mask continuously, knowing he should have bought a balaclava, but settling on what he found in his closet. The eye holes were not matched properly, and he could only truly see out of one, the other offering unnecessary exposure to his left cheek or eyebrow, depending on how he managed it. His breath came in rapid succession, which immediately condensed inside the mask, making the wool cling to his face. His tongue flicked compulsively at what he hoped was only spit.
He held the tire iron tight in his hands as if it were a railing guiding him along a treacherous route in the dark. He knew he would have to enter through the back door, and he would have to move fast. He would have to move like the night itself, dark and dangerous...
“Hello.”
“Holy shit!” Tom hissed and fell backward. He sat down hard on the concrete and reflexively searched for the tire-iron while fumbling with his mask. He tilted his head back to see who was speaking. It was one of Joe’s twins, his blonde hair gleaming in the dark. Tom used the crowbar to lift himself unsteadily to his feet.
“Are you cold?” the child asked, “Is that why you have a hood?”
Tom nodded slowly and looked around for an adult as much as his mask would allow. “Is your mommy home?” he asked.
“She’s at wait and see.”
“Wait and see?”
“No,” the child frowned. “Wait and watch.”
“Weight Watchers?” Tom said.
“Yes.” The child’s face broke into a smile. Two front teeth gone. He looked like a sick little version of his parents. Tom felt a chill.
“Do you remember me?” Tom asked. The child shook his head no. Good. “Do you think I could talk to your daddy for a second?”
“OK.” The child turned, and Tom followed him to the back door. He opened the screen door and waited until he was inside, then he slipped along the side of the house just out of sight.
“Dad!” He heard from inside the house. “A guy with one eye wants to talk to you!”
From further inside the house: “What the hell are you doing out of bed? Get up there and I don’t want to see your face again until morning, do you understand?” Tom heard a smack and then a prolonged wailing, which faded away as the child presumably stumbled up the stairs. He stepped back into the shadows and felt his feet slip into the flowerbeds that lined the house. Nearly losing his balance, he used the tire-iron to steady himself against the house. Then he thought about the absurdity of his plan. He had no contingency plan at all. And really, what was he planning to do? He thought he could lure Joe out of the house somehow and then crack, right on the head. That was the extent of his planning. What if Joe was to meet him face to face as he was about to now? Could he really smack a fellow right in the head with a tire iron, all the while looking into his eyes? He couldn’t even hurt the second mouse he and Eddy caught in their apartment one day. They had set a trap and when he found the mouse still alive and twitching in pain he threw up, causing Eddy to curse him and kill the mouse herself. Maybe he should have brought her. How would he explain his logic, though? He could hear the words coming out of his mouth: I am going to kidnap a man so that his family will become afraid and buy life insurance from me. It sounded so reasonable in his head when he sat beneath the image of Rebecca on the billboard.
“Hello?” Tom heard Joe coming toward the door. “Who the hell is out there?”
Tom saw Joe’s bald, red face protrude from the door while the man held the screen door open. He looked first left, toward the porch light and before he could turn Tom’s way, Tom placed the end of the tire iron against the folds of the man’s neck. “Don’t move,” Tom said and heard his voice take on a decidedly Clint Eastwood vibe, straight from the Good the Bad and the Ugly. He felt a surge of excitement in his chest as he felt time stop for a second and electricity surround them both. “Don’t do anything stupid, now.” He wanted to say: ‘do you feel lucky, punk?’ but it was the wrong genre. He had already discarded using the Clint Eastwood.
“Whoa, buddy, what the hell?” Joe was holding the screen door tight and Tom could sense the man tensing.
“I mean it, I will blow your head off,” Tom growled. He hoped he growled. “Just step outside and keep looking the other way. Don’t you look at me.” But that wasn’t right. That was Dennis Hopper. No matter, it still sounded intimidating in his own ears, so how would it sound to a man with a gun/tire-iron stuck in his neck?
“Don’t hurt my kids.” Joe said in a low voice.
“If I wanted to hurt your kids I would have already,” Tom hissed. “Why the hell aren’t they in bed? It’s like ten o’clock.”
“I sent them to bed. The little buggers won’t stay there.”
“Do you read to them, motherfucker?” Tom jabbed the barrel/tire-iron forcing Joe’s head to the side. “You have to read to kids.”
“Sometimes I do...”
“Shut up!” Tom shouted. “Keep your head still.”
“Dad?” A muffled call from the upstairs window. One of the twins was still awake; the shouting must have aroused him. Tom pushed the iron further into Joe’s neck; a ‘you know what to do’ gesture.
“It’s all right, son,” Joe called out. “I’ll be right up to read you a story.”
“What the fuck, man!” Tom said, feeling his bladder threaten to lose control.
“Well, you said...”
“You’re not going to be right up! You are being kidnapped.”
“Kidnapped?” Joe tried to turn his head and stopped short. “What the hell for?”
“Just shut up.” Tom fumbled with his mask with one hand until he had it off, and then fumbled again with one hand until he had it backwards on Joe’s head so the eyeholes bulged with red hair and Joe’s eyes were covered with wool. “Move,” he said and guided Joe down the walk and onto the pavement. Joe was gagging. “It’s all wet and gross,” Tom heard him say through the toque.
Doot doot. Tom opened the trunk of his car with the key remote. “Hold still,” he instructed his prisoner. He pulled a green sleeping bag from the trunk and stretched it out on the sidewalk. Overhead, the streetlights gleamed on the polyester fabric. Why didn’t I park in the alley, Tom thought too late. What if someone sees? Idiot. “Ok. Lay down in there.”
“In where?” Joe said through the fabric, his breath coming ragged and wet. Tom knew he would never wear the toque again.
“Ok, wait.” Tom laid the sleeping bag open in the bottom of the trunk and then guided Joe in, all the while keeping the gun/tire-iron on Joe’s neck. Joe obliged as best as a large man could getting into the trunk of a Cobalt. “Feel around,” Tom said. “You feel that sleeping bag?”
“Yeah.”
“Get in it.”
Tom watched the man struggle blindly until he was decently engulfed in green polyester. He reached in and zipped the remaining bag over Joe’s body.
“Jesus Chri...”
Tom slammed the trunk. He looked up and down the street at the dark houses. Everyone would be in bed except for Joe’s kids, Tom thought. There were no cars to be seen and the only movement was the trees letting their yellow leaves sway gently in the night breeze. Calm. A light rain began to fall and there was not even the expected struggle coming from the trunk. Ok, Tom thought. This is it.
Each turn of a corner must be accompanied with, and well in advance, a turn signal. The appropriate wait at a four way stop. Not rushing, not forcing another driver to accelerate and stop, unsure of him/her self. In fact, sometimes even waving people through when it was clearly not their turn. Tom slowed and stopped at each traffic light with the utmost respect. Never too quickly through a yellow light, but neither too quick to stop, after all, he was not in a hurry to get anywhere, but neither was he in a hurry to make it look too obvious that he was trying to look like he was not in a hurry to get anywhere.
Painfully slow, the lights of town gradually lessened in their frequency. Soon Tom was on the road he had driven that morning in preparation. It was perfect because it ran around the outskirts into a swampy area, and he could see the billboard through the trees as he drove. It was almost like a sign. It was a sign, really, a sign with Rebecca’s face. Yet more than that, it was like it was Meant To Be. Karma, or something. Ordained. If he believed in that sort of thing.
The trees started to get thick and reached out and slapped his windshield. In the dark it was more disconcerting, and Tom slowed. Had he gone too far? No, he could still see Rebecca’s billboard just through the trees to the right. Which pose would she be in now, he thought, feeling his back muscles relax for the first time in hours. Glasses on or off?
Suddenly, Tom felt the wheels bounce and his jaw clamped tight. He had enough time to bite his tongue while saying “Holy thit.” And then it was over. His headlights illuminated some Birch trees and there was steam coming from the front of the car. But besides his tongue he was all right. A little blood. He put the car in reverse and stepped on the gas. The car rocked, and Tom heard the tires whining.
“Holy shit, what a dick I am.” He whispered a few times before finding the courage to open his door and assess the damage. “How could I be stuck!” Tom shouted at the side of the car. It was obvious, he knew. He walked around the car. Then there was a low thump from the trunk.
Tom slipped on the mud trying to get to the trunk. He took the keys from the ignition and in his haste never thought to use the trunk release. He lost the keys in the mud twice and had to bend low so he could see the moon glisten and reflect off the bumper at anything shiny on the ground. This worked the first time, but he resigned himself to spreading his hands all over the ground until he found them the second time. He popped the trunk and the sickly glare of the sleeping bag caught him off guard. He threw up. After he calmed his mind and his stomach, he pulled at the mass until it gave way and fell to the ground.
Tom lay on the dark cocoon, his breath in rapid little clouds. The wiggling stopped beneath him and in a few seconds both their breathing were long exhales. “I’m sweaty,” came the resigned voice from within the sleeping bag.
“I’m going to unzip it a little bit for you,” Tom gasped.
“Let me breath!” The wiggling started again.
“Shut up! Shut up!” Tom elbowed the mummified figure. The movement ceased, and Tom searched for the zipper at the head of the bag. He pulled it as much as he dared and then three white, meaty looking fingers emerged like maggots coming out of larvae. The fingers scratched and pulled until a fetus like crown appeared, and then, like the spawn of hell hath no fury, the old face of his mother. But not. No. The indignant face of a middle aged, complacent man pushed beyond limits of talking.
“What the fuck!” The face bellowed. “It’s you?”
“Shut up. Just shut up.” Tom said, waving the tire iron over his head, the toque in his other hand. “I just found you here. And... and I am going to take you home. Wow, lucky.” He tried to smile.
“Found me here like hell, you bastard.” Joe was wiggling his way out of his cocoon, kicking his legs free. He looked down at his pants. “I pissed myself, you asshole!” he shouted.
“I’m sorry!” Tom shouted back in the dark. Both men were puffing small clouds and staring at each other. Joe was prone, and Tom held the tire iron as if ready to strike. “Just shut up for a second.”
After a second, “What do you want?” In place of fear, incredulity tempered Joe’s words.
Tom suddenly felt it all hard to explain. He was caught. Kidnapping was a serious crime. There would be police. How could he explain his plan now? “I’m stuck,” He said.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Joe hollered. He pushed himself to his knees and craned his neck around to the car. He whipped his head back to Tom. “You’re not stuck,” he said.
“I am!” Tom said and waved the tire iron.
“For fuck sakes,” Joe said. “First you need a spare tire and now stuck in a ditch. Don’t you have Triple fucking A or something?”
“I told you to shut the fuck up,” Tom said. Holy shit, would he really crown this guy? He didn’t think so. But he had to make it look like he would. He saw the man wince and felt equal amounts of pity and power.
“Look, whoever you are, if I can...” But Tom was not moving. “If I can get you out of that ditch. If I can, without anyone knowing either of us were here tonight, would you let me go?”
“How can you get me out without no one knowing?”
“I have a winch on my truck at home,” Joe said.
“Sure, like you would come back. Am I stupid?” Tom said.
“You drive the truck. Take me with you and we’ll drive it back together, then.” Joe was getting more excited by the second. Big fat beads of sweat glistened on his head.
“No way,” Tom said. “You have to stay here.”
“No problem, sure.”
“In the trunk.”
Eventually Joe agreed to climb back in the trunk if Tom promised to not take too long. They tested it for a few minutes to make sure that Joe could breathe all right and then Tom held the tire iron over his head as Joe tucked himself in among the spare tire. Joe handed him the keys.
“And remember,” Tom said, “if I find any cops at your house, or if I come back and find you gone, I will kill your whole family.”
“Oh, man, come on,” Joe pleaded.
“Well, no, I wouldn’t,” Tom said, “but don’t fucking go anywhere, ok?”
Tom walked through a field and three more desolate city blocks before he found a pizza place where he called a cab and sat down exhausted. He felt he might have dozed off while waiting. When he heard the honking he walked out to it in a haze. He sat in the back and couldn’t think of an address so he said: “Just drive north on 67th for a while, I’ll tell you where.”
Tom laid his head back and let the streetlights play over his face until he felt sick again. He bolted up and sat staring at a pair of suspicious dark eyes. He recognized them somehow. A low voice called out to him in the car’s darkness. “It’s you.”
“Sneaky back door?” Tom said, recognition flooding him with something that felt like relief.
“Beatleman!” Belraj was shaking his head. “What have you done?”
“What do you mean? What are you talking about?” Tom said too quickly.
“Oh my. You have. Or maybe you’re doing it now?” Belraj sighed.
Tom tried to level his voice: “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” But he was shaking, and the words came out staccato and his pitch rose on the last word to sound like a panicked question.
“I told you I read you strong right off the get-go. So, you tell me what you are getting me and my taxi into.” Belraj was firm.
“You’re not into anything.” Tom sat forward and pleaded. “You just take me somewhere and leave me there and forget we even met.” Tom said and then added: “Again. Met again.”
He saw Belraj’s shoulders slacken and relax. Tom added, softly, “No one is going to get hurt, I promise. It’s not that big a deal.”
“I am not very happy,” Belraj said and drove.
Tom paid in cash to a destination three blocks from Joe’s house. Standing in front of the truck he wondered if he should kidnap Joe’s wife at tire iron point and demand she drive him to the car. In the dark he fumbled with the keys until he found the fob, the symbols on it too hard to read from the streetlight, and too faded regardless. He pressed a button. The truck roared to life, headlights on, spotlights glowed from the top of the chrome roll bars. Tom reached frantically for the door handle, but the door was still locked. He wondered whether to start jabbing keys randomly as he scanned the house for signs of movement. No lights were coming on from inside the house, so he poked his thumb into another soft spot on the key-fob, hoping it was the unlock. The horn honked three times loudly, paused to tease Tom and then honked three more times.
Before the horn could settle into a routine, Tom found the proper buttons to shut it off and unlock the door. The truck also purred to a sleep as he tried to put it into reverse. He forgot to put the keys in the ignition before trying to drive away. Again he shifted through the keys. “Why so many fucking keys?” he whispered and then jerked a look at the house in case anyone should answer. Darkness there, still. He started the truck and backed out of the drive.
Wide truck tires for a guy who could barely drive his car. He steered too far toward the line in case the front of that long nose went over into the ditch. Then too far right when he thought he was going to drive right over oncoming cars. He serpentined back to Four-Mile Bridge. Which wasn’t four miles from town, really, and it was more of a giant culvert over small creek. The kids played through the tunnel in the summer and sometimes there was enough water in the gully to have a nice swim.
Here the headlights illuminated the rails and the giant cucumber was hopping quickly to the center of the bridge. Joe’s head had gotten free of the top of the sleeping bag and Tom could see in the wind how little hair the man actually had.
Tom pulled up behind Joe. Far enough away to barely scare the man, Tom thought, but Joe fell forward on the ground and was now a giant creeping green bug getting from rock to rock after a rain. Tom slipped getting out of the truck and his shadow loomed. “What the fuck, man?” he said to the huffing thing on the ground. “I said don’t go anywhere.”
“I didn’t, I swear.” The cocoon was trying to roll over and look up at Tom.
“Don’t bullshit me, I saw you hopping along the road.”
“I’m in the same spot, you asshole!” the man screamed. “You found me didn’t you? I can see from here where you fucking left me, so obviously I didn’t go anywhere.”
“You tried,” Tom reasoned.
“You can’t blame a guy for trying,” Joe spat.
“And what if someone ran over you?” Tom said and leaned down. He tried to pick Joe up by grabbing the sleeping bag, but the man was large and heavy. “What did you say you did for a living?” Tom asked.
“Up yours,” Joe said.
Tom realized he would have to unzip the bag a little so Joe could push with his shoulders. Joe insisted on at least one free hand and Tom watched him carefully as they both struggled to get him on his feet. The surface of the bridge was more slippery and muddy than a half hour ago and it was raining harder. Joe stumbled on the sleeping bag and fell into Tom. His weight and inertia made Tom fall backward with him, gaining speed and only stopping when they came against the bridge railing. They were both breathing heavy, their breath clouds mingling and dissipating. “What could you possibly want?” Joe squeaked out between breaths.
“I just want to do a good job,” Tom gasped.
“Doing what?” Joe screeched
“Disturbing you,” Tom said.
“You’re doing a fine fucking job,” Joe said and pushed against Tom with his one free hand, Tom fell back and clutched at the sleeping bag to steady him. He saw Joe start to wiggle his hand loose and then take a halfhearted swing at Tom’s head. Instinctively, Tom pushed on Joe as hard as he could to get the man away from him. Joe backed against the opposite railing and somersaulted over, gone in a flash of green polyester.
Later Tom would think how strange that there was no last-minute balancing and struggling to cling to each other faced with a newer common peril. One minute Joe was there, the next, gone. Sleeping bag and everything, like it was all sucked up in some blackness. It took Tom one second to realize what had happened. He held the edge of the railing as he looked down into the gully for Joe. He could see nothing beyond the bottom edge of the railing. “Oh no,” he whispered into that pit.
Tom straightened and shot glances in every direction. There was nothing but trees dark against a sky with a lot of stars. So many stars. They were a good distance from town after all. Rain slapped on the surface of the bridge. Tom’s breath rasped with clouds of white against overhead lights. “Shit,” he said. Then shouted. “SHIT!”
He traced his hand along the railing as he walked toward the south end. He wished the railing would snag him somehow, prevent him from going further. But he had gone further all ready, hadn’t he? No. This was not his fault. It was entirely an accident. He climbed down the embankment, there was a path there littered with gleaming rocks, slippery with the rain. The rocks also served as signposts for his way down; he slid to the bottom but managed to stay on his feet despite a few close calls.
The green sleeping bag no longer seemed green. In the dim light with the water and mud, it looked slick black. A newly polished hearse ready for the morning’s event. Or perhaps nothing so dramatic. Perhaps just an ordinary black coroner’s body bag. Which is essentially what it was. Now.
It was an accident, sure. But who would see it that way? As Tom stood over Joe’s body, he realized there were a few holes in his plan. First, Joe recognized him. Which was solved now that he died, but this solution was now a bigger problem. He should have stopped right there, as soon as Joe knew who he was. He should have smiled and said, “I gotcha!” or “You’re the winner to secretive 1000’s client contest!” Maybe even suggested a reality television program. And let him go.
If he hadn’t got stuck.
Tom’s heart dropped. His car, it’s stuck. Joe’s monstrous truck should be idling heavily on the road above him. There had been no sound since Joe accidentally fell. The truck was no longer running. He clambered up the embankment, this time not caring if he remained on his feet or not, in fact, crawling most of the way, like a spider or a crab.
The truck was still there. The keys were in the ignition and Tom was able to start it. The mystery of why it would have shut off by itself was lying with Joe at the bottom of the gully. Tom drove slowly over the bridge and parked near the rear of his own car, half ditched and the trunk still open. He got out and closed the trunk of his small car, put its gearshift in neutral and wondered about how to operate a winch.
It was surprisingly easily, Tom found, despite tearing off his bumper before finding a better spot to secure the chain. He turned some knobs wrong, and some things didn’t do anything, but he was able to make the winch spool in the tow chain he laid out. The car stuttered and sucked out of the dark ditch. He had trouble shutting the winch off and there was a moment of alarm when he believed his car would crush him. And after unhooking the chain and reeling in the remaining winch line he felt a little male ego pride and dusted his hands. He was able to reverse the pick-up across the bridge a bit quicker than before, one arm slung over the rear seat, head turned and eyes squinting at the road. He pulled the chain impatiently down the slope, stepping on the all the rocks as though they were placed just for him. He had the blueprint mapped out in his head, the logistics of getting this package out from under the bridge and to an as-yet-determined other location. He felt like a fireman. He pulled at the sleeping bag to see which end he was taking. Joe’s head slid out from under the covering, split like a melon. Tom leaned aside and threw up.
Much later he half-heartedly invented a crime scene. After he winched Joe’s body out of the gully, he placed the body behind the wheel of the truck. He gagged and cried until he finally wrapped the seatbelt around the body and clicked it into place. He then thought better and released the safety belt. The only moment in the whole evening that seemed to go as planned, however fresh and utterly improvised the plan may have been, was the part about pushing the truck, with Joe in the driver’s seat, down the embankment to stage an accident. The truck went down at a good speed, all the way to the bottom. When Tom investigated as much as he was able, he was sure he saw Joe sticking through the front windshield, lying on the bed of the gully, oddly in the same position as when Tom found him the first time. Still wrapped in the sleeping bag and everything.
But Tom was not going down there again.