Lick Your Neighbor
station, Randy’s wagon sat unattended. The key was still in the ignition, but the door was wide open.
    Out from the trees that bordered the lot came a furious huffing and puffing as Randy hurtled forward at full sprint, wielding a large tree branch and screaming his head off. He thrashed the back of the car mercilessly with the branch, as if he was giving the car a good spanking. If the wagon could have talked it would have said things such as “Ouch” and “Hey cut that out.”
    “Take that!” Randy screamed. “And that! And some of that!”
    Randy’s relationship with his car was similar to many a man’s relationship with God. He knew the car existed and that it had the power to do certain things that would make his life easier. It just chose not to.
    Randy thrashed away until he ran out of breath. Then, panting, he stopped, turned and walked a few steps away, changed his mind, spun around, and went back at the car with renewed vengeance.
* * *
    Ten minutes later, as Dale was about to call Andie to pick him up, he heard the all too familiar sound of Randy’s Oldsmobile rumbling in the distance like thunder. The car came screeching around the corner, spewing thick black smoke like a volcano, and rattling as if every single screw holding it together was loose.
    Dale nearly wet himself as the car flew over the curb and screeched to a halt just a couple feet in front of him. Randy kicked open the passenger door and shouted, “Get in!” over the sounds of Peter Cetera’s “Glory of Love” blaring from the radio.
    “What the hell is wrong with you? You almost killed me!”
    “We have to get you out of here,” Randy warned. “You’re in great danger.”
    “We’re in front of a police station. What could possibly happen?”
    Randy reached into an old box of donuts on the passenger seat, pulled out the last Bavarian Cream, and threw it at Dale, hitting him in the nose.
    “Fool!” Randy shouted. “You’re a damned fool!”
    “Ow!” Rubbing his nose, Dale reached down and picked up the donut. “What the hell is this, a donut? How old is it? It’s hard as a rock.”
    “Old enough to know the difference between friend and foe.”
    Dale looked down at the hardened, crusty object in his hand. All its friends and family long since eaten by a merciless giant, there was a certain loneliness to this sole survivor. Even the smidgen of cream, poking out the side, looked sad. It reminded Dale of the little pearl of saliva that had always nested in the corner of his late Grandfather’s lips.
    “Don’t you see?” Randy said. “The police are probably in on it. Look up on the roof, is there a sniper up there? My God I think I see one! Take cover!”
    Dale tossed the donut aside and dove behind the bench.
    Randy reached under the seat, felt his way through a forest of empty Big Gulps, and pulled out a pair of toy plastic binoculars.
    “Wait, wait, wait. False alarm. It’s a pigeon.”
    Dale brushed himself off. “Just give me a ride to work and don’t say another word to me.”
    “Yes, yes, of course. Just get in!”
    Dale got into the car, crushing the empty box of donuts. He didn’t even have the door shut before Randy hit the gas and sent the car flying back off the curb and spinning onto the street.
    Dale braced himself. “Slow down! There is no need for this.”
    “No need? A rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Duxbury, and you say there’s no need?”
    “Don’t talk like that. Nobody understands you when you say crap like that.”
    “So you want the bad news in the King’s English, eh?”
    “No, I don’t want it at all,” Dale said. “I want silence.”
    “This morning I had homefries for breakfast. Do you know what that means?”
    “It means you’re a fat bastard who’s getting fatter.”
    “Wrong!” Randy shouted. “It means that there’s something funny in the wind. I have had hashbrowns for breakfast every day for the past twenty-three years. Twenty-three

Similar Books

John Gone

Michael Kayatta

Taken

Kelli Maine

HS04 - Unholy Awakening

Michael Gregorio

The Last Empress

Anchee Min