In the Time it Takes to Ring You Up

This is a corrected first draft I wrote based on an exercise from a writing group I attend irregularly. I borrowed heavily from the opening lines of Ernest Hemingway's "The Killers."

for Ernest

The door to Louis’ Lunch opens and two men walk in, vaudevillian in their differences.  The younger man, laugh lines in the corners of his eyes, the first flesh of his early thirties circles his waist. Otherwise fit and in fighting trim. Face set into the world.  Opens the door, holds it for the older man.  Settled, this one.  Gray in much of his hair, bags beneath weary eyes. His heft and bulk like a comfortable chair.  They walk in and each take a stool at the counter.

“What’ll you have, what’ll you have,” the senior waitress says.

“Gimme a second,” the older man says.

“Sam, you been coming in here over fifteen years, and you don’t know what you want? It ain’t like we got a lot of selection.” She points to the menu board, red plastic letters affixed in mostly neat rows: grilled cheese, single hamburger, double, triple, four-way. Gut buster, fries, onion rings. Patty melt.

“Still, gimme a second,” Sam says.

She nods. “Know what you want?” She looks to the younger man.

“Take a patty melt, onion rings.”  He scans the board. “What milk you use for the shakes?”

“Whole.”

“Malted?”

“We got it.”

He nods. “Take a vanilla malt.”

“You know that’ll kill you,” Sam says.

“Like anything here’s that good?”

“Who’s this one, Sam?”

“Hery,” Sam says.

“Everything here’ll kill you dead, Hery.” The waitress stands with her small pad clutched in her hand, the other first on her hip. “But you’ll enjoy dying.”

Hery smiles, stares down at the red and yellow squeeze bottles on the table, back up into the waitress’ face, her lipstick just off her lips in small tributaries of age. “It’s what he tells me.”

“I don’t know, Muareen, what’s good.”

“It’s all good. Have what you have.”

“Fine.”

She takes some notes on her pad, turns and clips it to the wire running overhead from the counter back through the open kitchen. Sends it skittering to the man at the friers

“So tell me again,” Hery says.  “Tell it to me straight. He’s naked?”

“No no,” Sam says. “She’s naked. He had the gun.”

“But he’s the one been stabbed, right?”

“Yes, got the weapon stuck in his chest. Likely to have saved him. Weapon stuck in there like that.”

Hery cracks a smile, looks down again, this time at his hands, at the napkin holder, back to Sam.

“And what’d you say it was again?”

“You know.”

“No, no. For the report.”

“Damnit, Hery.”

“Hey, now.” Maureen a the shake machine, her lips pressed firm and her eyes on Sam. “We got kids in here.” Juts her chin towards the corner table.

Sam and Hery turn. A young family there, two small kids, maybe two and five. Probably mon and dad sitting on either side, one minding each kid.  When the two men look over, the couple  looks back. The men nod, Hery raises a hand. The couple nod back.

“Sorry,” Sam says, after they turn back. Not to the couple or to the kids but to Maureen. “I’ll keep it down.”

“See you do, detective.”

“Sure, sure.”

“She got you,” Hery says. Then, in stage whisper. “So go on. What’re you looking at there?”

Sam looks away, out the front windows, over his shoulder towards the corner table.  Around them at the other tables here and there.  Mostly single men from the courthouse. A janitor in blue, lawyers and clerks in crisp white shirts. People talking mostly quiet, chomping burgers and chewing fries.

“Guy’s got it stuck in his chest. The phallus.”

Hery smiles bigger. “Like a real one?”

“No. A fake phallus. A surrogate.”

“Surrogate phallus,” Hery says. Whispers, “Like a d***o?”

Sam’s face reddens. “Yes, like that.”

“But not like that.”

“No, not exactly.”

“Because what’s it doing?”

“It’s vibrating there, in his chest.”

“How’d she get it in?”

“Strong woman. Hard plastic.”

“Hard?”

“Yeah, shiny, too.”

“Like chrome?”

“Yeah, but pink-shiny.”

“Because of the blood.”

“Nah. Not much blood. Stopped it up, mostly. Went right in through the ribs there and the body clamped around it. Man so scared he dared not turn it off.”

“So it’s pink?”

“Yeah.” Sam looking everywhere now but at Hery. “Pink and kind of sharp. Had several of ‘em lying around. Green and blue and yellow. Don’t know why they’d make it like that.”

Hery smiles again. “Ask your wife.”

“The f**k, my wife.”

“Sam!” Maureen now with both hands on hips, her hard eyes and thin lips.

“I’m sorry, Maureen.” He turns a bit on the stool, addresses the restaurant in his way, his voice louder than normal. “Sorry, folks.  Tough morning with the crimes.”  He turns back, Hery laughing under his breath. “I swear. One of these days you’re going to get me in real trouble.”

“I’m sorry,” Hery says.  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”  Though he’s not. Not really.  It’s good to get the old guy going from time to time. Get his blood rushing.  The man’s seen so much. So much degradation and killing.  Men missing heads after ending their lives with double-aught buck. Women bailing naked in the early morning hours from cars near truck stops, gas stations, rest areas. Once stopped the paperboy, though not a boy at all. A man near 60 down on his luck, his beater Cutlass station wagon with no tail lights, a pair of hacked-off hands on the papers in the front seat beside him. “So what’s he say?”

“Gentlemen,” Maureen says.  She sets the food in front of them, the grease already soaking into the wax paper, the small clack of the plastic basket on the counter.

The two men stop. Sam goes for the ketchup, Hery the mustard, a little hot sauce.  They take turns pulling napkins out of the chrome dispenser. Hery sips his malt. “Damn good,” he says. Outside, an old black Mercedes cruises the street, stops too long at the stop sign, takes a right, eases its way up the narrow avenue.

“Thanks, Maureen,” Sam says, though she’s already at the other end of the counter.  Just after noon now, and the place has filled up some, the sound of voices and din, the burgers deep frying in back. The smell of meat and cheese and grease.  He hunches into his burger, dabs the side of his mouth.  “That’s the thing.  Guy doesn’t speak English. Or says he doesn’t.  ‘Po anglee-ski. Rooski.’ Says it over and over.”

“And the girl?”

“I don’t know. Puerto Rican or something.  Boscana took her. Didn’t talk to her. Just got her out of there.”

“And the guy?”

“While the paramedics worked on him. But like I said, ‘Po anglee-ski.’ Over and over. Kept grabbing for the camera equipment. Lights and stuff.

“See there, Maureen? Kept it clean.”

“I appreciate it, Sam.”

“Files too?”

“Nah.  All that stuff in the back room he didn’t go for.  Tons of names, though. Pictures.  Like Polaroids, but smaller. Pictures clipped inside the folders with name and address, what they done. Some needing to get paid. Others not. Regular porn outfit.”

“That’s messed up.”

“Glad you went that direction,” Maureen says. Ringing up the guys in white shirts, the family at the corner table beginning to wad napkins and wax paper, stack the plastic baskets in the center of their table.

“And you want me to take ‘em in?”

“I’m tired, Hery. Been at it since last night.  If you could. Just take the files, check them into evidence.  I’d appreciate it.”

“Can do,” Hery says, slurps the last bits of malt and raises his hand to ask for water when the world thunders with gunfire, windows shatter in and his neck blows out on the left-hand side. Blood pours onto the lunch counter. Sam feels fire in his shoulder, watches the two men standing at the register hitch and pop like dancers, their shirts torn open and red, their ties flapping in red spray. He drops to the ground. Inches from his face, Hery’s eyes, his mouth gaping like a fish, the breath gurgling through blood, a fine mist with each exhale. Then his eyes cloud up.

Sam pulls his radio, mashes the button, “Dispatch I got shots and officers down, 436 south west second street. Shots and officers down.”

Another burst of shots, the windows on the side bust in. The little girl shrieks. Must be the little girl. Sam scrambles to the family. Dad’s cheek gone or something wrong with it, bits of skin hanging down, dripping blood into the girl’s face, the little girl screaming and wiping at her eyes. “Hey, there, Dad,” Sam says, searches around on the floor, finds the napkin dispenser. “Hey, there, it’s okay.” Pulls napkin after napkin, wipes the girl’s face, puts a wad of them in the dad’s hand and brings his hand up, catches the bits of his cheek, presses them back into his face.  “You hold that here, you get me?”

The man’s eyes searching for purchase, dazed and half lidded.

Sam shouts at him, “Dad, you listen up. You listen, you hear? You keep this here, keep your kids down. Don’t move nothing, okay?”

When he gets a nod from the man, he turns to the wife. The wife’s shirt is covered in blood.  The son is shot bad, and she cradles the boy and rocks him.  Sam scrambles through the glass to them, watches the hard lines on the woman’s face deepen, watches the knowing come to her eyes as she looks from the boy to him and back again.  The boy’s so young, his eyes big and blue. He can’t talk. Something wrong with his neck or his throat, and he’s not breathing well.  Sam tries to touch him, to see where he’s hurt, but the woman beats with her fists, her forearms against Sam’s forehead. He falls back on his a*s, and she retreats to the corner, her legs kicking in the broken glass, the ketchup and blood smeared on the floor.

There are no gun shots now. People moaning, a few whispered conversations here and there.  Someone telling someone else it will be okay.  Maybe a prayer.

He crawls the few feet to the front door, chances a look outside, around the door frame.  In the street, the dark Mercedes. In the parking lot two men in denim pop Sam’s trunk with a crow bar. One leans in, picks up the box of files, the other turns around to keep watch, blunt black machine gun in his hand.

Behind Sam, the woman wails, and he has had enough of killing. A belly full. A life full.  The hack jobs and creeps. Just the life. The life he’s seen and seen extinguished.  Didn’t tell Hery about the woman’s tears, the blood on her thighs, the rope burns on her wrists and ankles.  Didn’t tell him about the printed photos, the computers, about the two girls they found in back of the place, waiting their turns. Didn’t tell him any of it because Hery’d been so young.  Hadn’t seen it yet.  Didn’t need to know it then and there, would have seen it soon enough.

And now these two after the files. After what they’ve done to this place, to these people.  Pulls his gun from his shoulder holster and backs up to the shattered window.  Rests the gun muzzle on the window frame to help steady it, takes aim along the barrel.  The guys confident and sure, barely looking. Guy on the move gets one box into the Mercedes’ back seat, comes back for the second.The woman’s wail, the dad now, too, bellowing.  Maureen’s voice in the background, her husband’s not.  Sam grits his teeth and pulls the trigger.

Author's Note

I think it hangs together fairly well but am not happy with the end. Any suggestions?

Reviews

[errrmk]

yeah, it was good description and an unexpected surprise at the end. Maybe it could carry on with a car chase, I dunno just throwing ideas out there :P

[Stuff]

Ahh.. This had some great descriptions. I love seeing/reading descriptions! Keep it up! [:

[Raul Moreno]

I'm not much of a story teller but I can honestly say that you have some great descriptions...Raul