Previous chapters:
Chapter One: Georgie
Chapter Two: Guns, Blurbs, and Steal
Chapter Three: Big Jugs and the Hairy Arm
Chapter Four: Sophia, the Pain in My Chest, Part 1

CHAPTER FIVE

Dead Man Under the Table

HALFWAY UP TO THE rim of the ditch I see my parking lot, and Justin’s black Ford Expedition is not in its parking space. Instead, there is one of those new Fiats that are being advertised everywhere you look. Someone’s going to get towed, I’ll see to that.

I have to erase what I saw at Big Jugs from my mind, but I can’t. What a whore. She’ll see. She’ll see along with everyone else, when Justin and I are on the news and Fox News analysts try to get their heads around how a couple of computer guys from King of Prussia managed to take out a hardened ISIS cell without any military help. Then she’ll know what I was about.

Behind me, Georgie huffs and wheezes along and it makes me smile. Maybe he has lung cancer too. Breathing is a bit difficult with all the dust in the air, even for someone in shape. Georgie is not in shape.

“What are you so upset about, G&D? You’re neighbors are not terrorists. You need to relax. You’ve got to come across the pond and come with me to Amsterdam sometime.”

“Yeah?”

“Absolutely. Oh, you’d love The Dam.”

“I’m not really into prostitutes.”

“Oh, it’s so much more than that. The red light district is just a tiny little part.” He stops for a moment and takes a deep breath. “I got to stop smoking, I think.” He pulls out his pack of smokes and packs them again. “There’s all sorts of things to do there. They have the most fantastic birds, and it has some of the best smoke. There’s also a place that reminds me a lot of Big Jugs, only better.”

“Better than Big Jugs?” I don’t know if he gets my sarcasm.

“Yeah. It’s called Teasers and they do this dance that I think you’d like. They sing ‘McDonald’s, McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Kitchen and a Pizza Hoot!’” He sings to a nursery rhyme melody and reproduces their little dance by forming arches for McDonald’s, flapping his arms for Kentucky Fried Chicken, and forming a little roof over his head for Pizza Hut. “You know,” he says, “that’s how the rest of the world views you Am-air-icans.”

Typical. I really hate it when people stereotype a country they don’t even know, especially those dope-smoking, prostitute-nailing, Anne Frank-killing fucks.

We reach the top and I still see no Ford Expedition belonging to one Justin A. Marter.

“I could use a little pick-me-up,” Georgie says. “Can we get the charlie now?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because we can’t buy coke in a convenience store like we should be able to.”

“Yeah? You think charlie should be legal?”

“Of course.”

“You don’t even drink. Why do you care?”

“Because it’s about freedom. Don’t you think it should be legal?”

“I dunno. I’d do a lot more of it if it were easier to get. Sometimes I’m glad I can’t go down to the corner chemist and buy it. I’d go broke.”

“But if it were legal, it’d be cheap.”

“Crack cocaine is pretty cheap and that doesn’t prevent people from going broke on it.”

“What’s your point?”

“Well what about heroin? Do you think heroin should be legal?”

“Absolutely.”

“That shite takes away a man’s freewill. Know any heroin addicts? It’s not a pretty picture.”

“In a truly free society, people should be allowed to become heroin addicts if they want.”

“But how can it be called a free society if it’s filled with people who have no freewill? And who’s going to look after these addicts if they can’t get healthcare? It’s obvious that freedom-loving people like you aren’t gonna help them.” He raises and lowers his eyebrows like Groucho Marx. “Who’s going to take care of them?”

My thinking is getting confused. Too many great ideas floating around in my head—sometimes they get jumbled.
“The answer is ‘no one’, mate.”

I don’t have time to explain this to him. He wouldn’t understand anyway, as is apparent by the stupidity of his statements. He’s an idiot.

“Have you read The Forgotten Man of Socialized Medicine?”

“No, I haven’t.”

Didn’t think so. “Have you read Atlas Shrugged and The Virtue of Selfishness and the Romantic Manifesto and The Ominous Parallels? Read them, man. Read them. They explain everything. Just read the books, man.”

“All right. Relax, mate,” Georgie says. “Take it easy. I don’t want you shooting me with that thing you got in your pocket.”

“I used to be like you,” I say. “Then I met Justin. You question if he’s a genius? Just read the books. Read them, man.”

I’ll have to remember to thank Justin when I see him. It’s amazing that I was once as clueless as Georgie.

We walk on toward my house, past Sophia’s house, all dark and mysterious. Somewhere inside is a man who is completely dependent upon her. I feel bad for the guy, make no mistake, but I feel worse for her. No one should have to take on such a burden, and no one should make his daughter take on such a burden. It’s not like the man is going to have a fulfilling life trapped in a paralyzed body. The poor guy can’t even masturbate. He should do the honorable thing and commit suicide and spare his beautiful young daughter from wasting her youth on his care.

I trip on a loose block in the walkway, but catch myself before I take a nasty header. Georgie laughs.

“That’s God punishing you,” he says.

“What?”

“That’s what Mum always said if something like that happened. She said it was God punishing you for something you were thinking.”

“Nice, positive philosophy. No wonder you’re so flawed.”

“Flawed? Most people think I’m a good chap.”

I form my right hand into the shape of a gun and point it at him.

“Have you ever used that gun on anything other than targets?” he says. “Have you ever used any of your guns? I know it’s dangerous and all living next door to terrorists—”

“Shhhh!” We’re right in front of Hairy Arm’s house. Luckily the windows are shut.

“I’m just saying,” he whispers. “What’s the use of having them guns if you never use them?”

“Oh, I’ll use them,” I whisper back. “When the time is right.”

“In London we have to make do with our fists.”

“That’s cuz you’re pussies.”

“Pussies, eh?”

We pass Hairy Arm’s house and I snap off a dead shrub branch to use as a whipping stick for when Georgie gets out of line. The arm is in the window, true to form and as hairy as ever. I turn to whip Georgie who is following behind for a change and see something so unbelievable I can’t fully grasp it. It’s Georgie poised and ready to bang on Hairy Arm’s door.

It is unreal to me, as if everything has been boiled down to a few snapshots, nothing complete, nothing connected, like I’m reading about this on a blog or seeing it on TV. It has an unreal quality due to its lack of provocation, due to its lack of causal effect, as John Galt would say. There is no reason Georgie should be doing what he’s doing, but there he is in the snapshots in my mind.

There’s his fist striking the door.

There’s the hairy arm in the window.

There’s Georgie’s maniacally grinning face, cigarette clenched between his teeth, both fists raised, ready to come down again with full force.

There’s the hairy arm in the window.

There’s both of Georgie’s fists as they make contact with the door, his cigarette bitten in half with the lit end hanging from his cracked bottom lip, the hair on either side of his head swept up into points.

The Hairy Arm is gone.

The front of the house explodes. Georgie vanishes in a flash and a shockwave. All that’s left is his grin hanging in empty space as debris falls around it.

It wasn’t supposed to go down like this. I don’t bother to yell, I can’t say anything at all. I spin on my heels and run to my house, reaching for my keys before I notice that we left the front door open the whole time we were at Big Jugs. This doesn’t sink in until I’m already in the house and have slammed the door shut behind me. My house is engulfed in flames from the explosion, and I watch heavy chunks of charred joist fall into my living room and crash through my subfloor on their way to the basement.

I brace myself against the front door and slide down to the floor and draw my Glock.

“Any of you fuckers in here!” I yell. “Come out!”

Someone pounds against the door like they’re trying to force their way in, and the flames are now gone. The gun slips from my hand and hits the floor as I grab the door handle and pull myself up. The pounding halts and then resumes with renewed vigor. I squeeze my eyes shut and turn around, slowly relaxing one eye to look through the peephole. I draw back in horror at the massive set of choppers that greet me through the hole. I fling open the door and there is Georgie, grinning like a lunatic and giggling so hard his whole body shakes. I pull him inside and lay such an unrelenting barrage of verbal abuse on him that I’m certain Hairy Arm—who I assume can hear me—will fear me if he did not already.
“Oh shut it, you wanker!” Georgie counters.

“How could you do that? That doesn’t fit into the plan! Not to mention I could’ve shot you.”

“You wouldn’t have shot me. That thing’s a toy, something to play with between tugs on the ole’ chap.”

“You’re lucky. You’re a lucky, lucky man—”

“Shhhhhhhh!” Georgie holds his finger up to his mouth and molds his brow into a look of terror. “You hear that?”

“What?”

“Nothing! That’s just it. There’s nothing to worry about. To him, it might just be a local custom. For all he knows, all Americans in these parts bang on each other’s doors for no reason. This is such a friendly place, after all.”

“Dude, you don’t know what you’re messing with.”

“Just sit back, relax, and let Dr. George take care of everything. And make sure the safety’s on that thing.”

“Glocks don’t have safeties. You don’t want to draw on someone and realize the safety’s on.”

“No safety sounds awfully scary.”

“I hate them. Half the time I forget which position is on and which one’s off.”

“What you need is something you don’t hate, but love. I’ll make you an extra special RBV, something to knock you out cold for a couple hours till you calm down.”

He trots off and I picture myself choking him out in the ring and beating his unconscious body with a steel folding chair. He could’ve compromised everything. I walk toward the kitchen and hear the freezer door slam against the wall followed by the sound of one magnet hitting the tile floor. He comes back with two pieces of cake.

“Where’d you get this?” I say.

“It was on the counter.”

I take a bite. It sucks, but I’m starving because we never got our hot wings. I eat it in one bite and Georgie does the same.

“And now,” he says. “Something to wash it down.”

He goes into the kitchen and brings back a fresh RBV. I take it and throw it against the wall as hard as I can.

“It’s a shame to waste good RBV like that,” he says without flinching.

“Listen asshole. Stop making me drinks, and stop trying to trick me into doing coke by telling me it’s sugar to put on my cereal. Understand? I don’t drink. I don’t do drugs. I’m not a loser. I’m a winner. You hear me? A winner.”

“Well, that is outrageously obvious,” he says. “I don’t want to ruin your winning streak, but I think there’s something you should know.”

“What?”

“There’s a dead man under your coffee table.”