Dead Nolte (12 page)

Of course, he would split the crazy woman’s money with his
brother, he was by no means greedy, he just had refined taste. Three-quarters
of million would do nicely to keep him rolling, even allow him to acquire a few
more collectibles. Ron wasn’t cash strapped or hurting, he just wasn’t quite
where he wanted to be.

He patted around the bed behind him to locate his cell
phone; it was never out of arm’s reach. He pinched it to light the screen and
check the time. “Fuck me, it’s not even noon.” He forced himself to stand and
stumble to the living room, his legs having not yet received word of his hair,
popped as he stood. To normal people the day was in full swing, they were
probably contemplating what fast food they would use, to quiet their belly
monsters on their lunch breaks, but Ron kept the hours of vampires and hoot
owls, and this was his equivalent of three o’clock in the morning. Few things
got him out of bed at this hour, not even the need to piss like a racehorse;
racehorse pissing could go in his book of idiotic catchphrases.

It was this time of the day he would be inclined to answer
the phone with “Someone better be dead.” and he usually did. Though, this time,
he was glad he hadn’t, it had been his stepsister Martha and someone was dead.
Truth be told, he really didn’t care if he had hurt Martha’s feelings, but the
“better be dead” howdy, would have seemed tacky and he didn’t want to appear
tacky to some hillbilly who thought a slice of lime in her Coors made her look
worldly.

He spotted a bottle of Beefeater’s by the TV, right where he
couldn’t remember leaving it. He needed medicine, a cure. He smudged his tongue
against the roof of his mouth and smacked his lips, he had been inflicted with
an acute case of dragon breath; gin should wash the shit out of his mouth,
whatever it was. Gin had put it there, so it only stood to reason that gin
would be the perfect remedy. He picked up a glass from the coffee table, on his
way to the gin and held it to the light. Always check for cigarette butts and
dead flies, cigarette butts and dead flies, cigarettes and dead flies, the
thought repeated itself, as many of his thoughts did when he was this tired.

He poured the glass a few fingers deep and splashed the back
of his throat with it. He was swishing it around in his mouth when he noticed
the reflection in his flat screen, the gin attempted to go down the wrong pipe.
Nolte was stretched out on his leather couch, clad only in a diaper, his
flip-flopped feet resting on the arm and his fingers laced behind his head. Ron
felt the bottle slipping from his hands and quickly gripped it, saving himself
from an embarrassing cliché.

He swallowed the gin in a clump. “No fucking way.” He
whispered to himself. His brother Charlie believed the life after death
bullshit about the coin, but Ron had chalked it up to a crazy woman with more
money than sense. Even if it was true and it had brought the old coot back, he
was three days early. Of course, Ron wasn’t completely familiar with how
stringent the rules regarding returning from the dead were.

“Get your feet off my couch.” He said still facing away,
pouring more gin. The mouth of the bottle rattled nervously against the rim of
the glass. Ron blinked hard and waited for the hallucination to pass. He fought
the urge to click his heels and chant, “no place like home” and "wake the
fuck up."

Nolte lifted his legs and rotated, surprisingly spry, into a
sitting position; his diaper squeaked and stretched against the leather of the
couch.

“That motherfucker better not leak.” Ron warned as he turned
to face Nolte, “That couch is worth more than your car.” On the inside, he was
scared that what he was seeing was going to turn out to be real; on the
outside, he was as cool as the other side of the pillow. He had learned long ago;
fear wasn’t your best foot forward when it came to Nolte. Not many feared the
old man anymore, so when he got a taste, the old man relished it and held on to
it like a snapping turtle, he wouldn’t let go until lightning struck, or he had
bored you senseless with his verbal strutting and semi-intellectual posturing.

“Relax, Creampuff, this one is brand newish.” Nolte cupped
the crotch of his diaper, checking his package. “I’m fresh as a daisy and
almost bone dry, for some reason I squirt a bit when I fast travel through the
abyss,” Nolte smiled, removing the cigarette he had stuck behind his ear.
“Gotta light, Nancy?” Ron pointed to a lighter on the coffee table, willing his
hand not to shake. “Are you surprised to see me, Princess?” Nolte asked as he
puffed his cigarette against the flame. Other than the geezer’s movements
seemed more fluid and less creaky, he looked exactly the same as the last time
Ron had seen him. Perhaps the alcohol stretched bags under the old man’s eyes
sagged a bit more, but the old man didn’t look dead. Ron, though, not really
interested in details, had often wondered what sordid tales Nolte’s past, kept
in those sagging eye bags.

“Yeah, a little. Martha called; she told me she found you
dead this morning. She’s box of rocks stupid, but I’m sure she can tell the
difference between dead, dying and alive.” Ron moved over and sat in the chair
opposite of the couch. The crazy rich lady didn’t seem so crazy anymore. Nolte
shifted and again his diaper creaked. “I’m serious, if that thing leaks, we’re
going to have a problem. Why are you wearing a fucking diaper anyway, were they
out of bed sheets with eye holes at the ghost supply?”

“Looky, looky, someone is wearing his big boy pants; I
remember when you used to shit yourself over the boogeyman and bumps in the night.
Besides, you wouldn’t believe how comfortable a well-fitting diaper can be,
Cupcake.” Nolte moved the sunglasses he had clipped to the waistband to one
side and flicked the crotch twice with his finger, “Plenty of room for the ol’
package, too.” His Pall Mall fizzled audibly, drawing his attention away from
his package. “Must have been a tobacco worm in that one.” For whatever reason a
cigarette had to fizzle, Nolte always blamed tobacco worms; he smacked his lips
as if he suddenly had a bad taste in his mouth. “What little miss semen
receptacle found, was my dead body. The old me, if you will, what you see
before you now, is the new and improved and not quite dead me.” He took a long
drag on his Pall Mall and tapped ashes onto the carpet. His gray tongue swept
his lips to erase possible tobacco worm remains.

“Burn a hole in that carpet and we’re going to see if we
can’t take you from the not quite dead you, to all the way dead you,” Ron
warned, as he slid him an ashtray. “So why are you here? Does Satan have some
moral standard you failed to meet?” Ron was no longer shaking; he wanted to
jump on top of the old man and beat him silly for flicking ashes on his carpet.

“I’m makin’ my rounds, Bitch.” The old fart leaned forward,
“Do you mean to tell me, you’re not the least bit frightened that a dead man
came a-callin’?” Nolte lowered his eyebrows and tried to look menacing.

Ron chuckled, “Give me a break, geezer, a diaper-clad
geriatric doesn’t really scream scary, and the new you, looks exactly like the
old you. We stopped fearing that you a long time ago. Without a gun, your
‘crazy’ is weak and pathetic.” Ron tossed back the rest of his gin, “I was kind
of expecting you.” He instantly regretted telling Nolte he’d expected him when
he saw the old man’s eyes narrow. He quickly returned the conversation to the
relatively safe topic of Nolte’s insanity. “Speaking of guns and your crazy,
remember the ear flicking?” The ear flicking story never failed to piss Nolte
off, and redirect his attention. “Flicking his ear probably wasn’t such a good
idea in hindsight was it?” Nolte’s eyes narrowed, even more. “Did you come here
to flick my ear, Old Man?”

“Humph.” Nolte scoffed.

“Have you seen Charlie since your passing?”

“Fuck you, I was blindsided and you know it.”

***

T
he boys had grown up watching Nolte wave a
gun.
 
To Nolte, the measure of a man was
respect, but respect walked hand in hand with a pistol and a willingness to use
it. There was nothing better to get one’s point across, than a nickel plated
exclamation point stuck under an unreasonable child’s chin, if a right hook to
said chin had failed to do the trick.

By the time they were sixteen, the boys had outgrown Nolte
by at least a foot in height and the punching had stopped. Nolte’s ‘crazy’
would not interfere with his sense of self-preservation and as painful as it
was to admit, a punch would have resulted in an ass whipping, with him holding
the non-winning end of the stick. The gun waving continued on for almost
another year until the day of the ear flicking. The flicking of the ear brought
an end to the gun. It was an end to the gun, at least as far as the boys were
concerned.

On Charlie’s seventeenth birthday, Nolte had started
drinking earlier than usual and was in a fairly festive mood by noon. Charlie
sat at the kitchen table, silently eating a bowl of Spaghetti O’s. Charlie kept
Nolte interactions to a minimum. This never set very well with Nolte, he liked
to be noticed and the more he drank, the more noticed he liked to be.

Nolte leaned over and sang/whispered in Charlie’s ear.
“Happy birthday to Chickenshit.” His warm breath reeked of beer and Pall Malls.
“Happy birthday to Chickenshit.” Nolte switched ears. “Happy birthday dear
Chickenshit.
 
Happy birthday to you.”

Charlie knew that by ignoring Nolte, things would turn ugly
in a hurry, but he was in no mood for Nolte’s shit. He took another bite of
Spaghetti O’s and tried to block out the stench of Nolte’s breath, which was
still puffing in his ear. Nolte stood up straight, clearing his throat. Even though
Charlie was facing away, he knew Nolte had struck his tough guy stance, all
puffed out and peacocked. It was all part of his basic method of operation.

“What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?” Nolte reached out
and flicked Charlie’s ear with his forefinger to emphasize the importance of
his question. Instantly Charlie stopped chewing and stared ahead at nothing.
“Got nothing to say, Birthday Boy?” Again he flicked Charlie’s ear. Charlie’s
face grew beet red and he swallowed hard, the Spaghetti Os felt unusually large
in his throat. “Uh oh, is Birthday Boy going to cry?” Nolte pouted in baby
talk, as he flicked Charlie’s ear again.

Charlie burst backward as he came to his feet, knocking
Nolte back across the room. He came to rest against the wall, knees bent and
arms extended to the front as if he had suddenly decided to do some squats.
Nolte had traveled the distance in such a short amount of time, he felt like
he’d occupied two places at once.

A fraction of a second later Charlie’s fist smashed into his
face. Nolte dropped to one knee, completely confused by the pain and the
strange turn of events. He reached behind him and brought his trusty .380 out
of his pocket, but before he could bring it to bear, Charlie punched him again
and removed it from his hand. The transfer of the gun was so fast; it looked as
if Nolte had been trying to hand it to him all along. Grabbing a handful of
thinning hair, Charlie tilted Nolte’s head back and pressed the front sight of
the pistol against his father’s lips. Nolte froze, paralyzed by the look in
Charlie’s eyes, that told him that shit was about to go way south. ‘He’s going
to hurt us!’ The little coward in Nolte’s head cried out in horror.

“Did you brush your teeth this morning?” Charlie asked
calmly. He pressed the barrel more firmly to Nolte’s swollen lips. “I asked you
a question.”

Nolte tried to answer with his eyes; fear was eliminating
any chance of a verbal response.

“Would you like me to brush them? Would you like to find out
what gun smoke tastes like?” Charlie drew back the hammer until it clicked. He
knew this wasn’t necessary to make the gun fire, but he wanted Nolte to truly
appreciate the gravity of his situation.

The sound caused Nolte’s eyes to dart as they tried to focus
between the gun and Charlie’s glaring eyes. He slowly moved his chin from side
to side, and mumbled, “No.” which sounded more like, “Mo.” Through his
stretched lips.

Charlie took a knee so he could look directly into Nolte’s
face. “I want you to listen to me closely because I’m only going to say this
once. Today was the last day you will ever lay a finger on either of us. The
next time you raise your hand to me, it better be to wave goodbye, or I will
kill you. If this fucking gun ever comes out of your pocket around me or Ron,
you better hope it’s made out of chocolate, because I will feed this
motherfucker to you in one bite. Your days of playing Joe Kidd are over. Now
tell me you understand.” Charlie backed the pistol away from Nolte’s lips so he
could reply. “Say you understand,” Charlie repeated.

“I understand,” Nolte said weakly, tears of embarrassment
welling in his eyes.

Charlie stood and stared down at the beaten man who sat
crumpled at his feet. Things should have never gotten to this point and he knew
with all his heart, if he ever turned his back on this idiot, he would die.
Charlie eased the hammer back into place and dropped the gun in Nolte’s lap. He
turned and walked past Ron, who had watched the entire scene unfold from the
doorway.

“Holy shit, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, huh,” Ron said trying not
laugh as Charlie passed.

The next day Charlie was gone, but his message remained,
from that day forward Nolte never laid a hand on Ron and the gun had
disappeared. Stories trickled back to Ron of a drunken Nolte waving a pistol around
at some watering hole, from time to time, but Ron never saw the gun again.

“I’ll bet you could have used one of those fucking diapers
that day, huh, tough guy?” Ron smiled at Nolte’s glare. “I’m surprised your
little man syndrome allowed you to live as long as you did, your mouth was
always writing checks your ass couldn’t cash,” Ron grinned, delighting in
Nolte’s squirming.