Super Born: Seduction of Being (5 page)

“
Heading out for a little night on
the town, Doc?”

Jones chuckled. “You saw those buffoons in the
bar. In a town like this, where men would not know a woman even if
she was sitting right on their face, even a guy like me can get
lucky,” he added, giving me a smile and a big thumbs-up. “Research,
research, you know,” he said, before turning to go into the
bar.

“
Oh, I get it, research. Lots of
research, lots of fun,” I commented as I turned to go.

“
Lots of research,” I could hear him
say as the door closed.

I remember I was glad for him, able
to move on with his night. But for me, I felt disturbed, like I was
suddenly aware of a different world than the one I had known. I
stood in front of The Banshee for a long moment as two RFDs walked
by, one running head on into a lamppost that had suddenly jumped
out in front of him; the other laughed, then tripped over the
first’s legs and slid down the icy sidewalk on his belly into the
base of a trash can.
He’s right, a city
full of assholes!
I said to myself. That’s
when the truth of Jones’s theory finally hit me. If the Epsilon had
made these men this dumb, then it must have made the women…amazing.
Then I thought about the blond with the flashing eyes, and
everything became clear.

After watching a few of my deep breaths turn to
clouds in the night air, I decided I had to find her again. So I
followed the compass in my pants back across the street to
O’Malley’s. (Luckily, I looked up in time to see a speeding beer
truck appear around the corner and was able to stop before it
flashed by and mashed me into the pavement.

I was just about to reach for the
door of O’Malley’s when it opened and a blond woman dressed all in
black appeared quickly before me. I was taken aback. She paused a
second as well. A black Zorro mask disguised her eyes. She gave me
a look of surprise, then recognition, before hitting me with a
flash of blue and then green from her eyes that left me
frozen.
Christ, does every woman’s eyes do
that now?
I wondered.
Am I going blind
? Then She disappeared
into a fog that seemed to come out of nowhere and vanish with
her.

I wasn’t able to move until her image was
completely gone. “Hey,” I said feebly when I was finally able to
speak.

I stormed back into O’Malley’s and soon found
myself standing before the empty booth in which the blond had sat.
Stupid as it may seem now, I expected her to be there. Like an ass,
I hadn’t connected the woman in the mask to the woman in the bar.
In my defense, it was a really good mask…okay, even a four year old
would have known. I picked up one of her empty Miner’s Lite bottles
and sniffed it like I was some sort of bloodhound or frickin’ DNA
machine. She had left nothing else, except a twenty for a
tip.

I stood and looked at the twenty
thinking how nice it would look in my wallet, which was empty
waiting for Jones’ work to fill it.. I knew taking it would wrong,
and it certainly was not a habit of mine, but I also remembered the
glowing
empty fuel
light on the dashboard of my car as I had pulled into the
parking lot of O’Malley’s, along with the $1.47 in my
pocket.

I was still debating when the old
barkeep collected all five of her bottles off the table into a
plastic pail with one sweep of his forearm. He gave me a
don’t even think about it
look, then grabbed the twenty, gave the table a quick wipe,
and said, “If you’re looking for a drink, I recommend someplace
other than here.” I noticed that now, in addition to his dirty
white apron, he was wearing an army helmet on his balding
head.

“
One of those guys back there is
getting pretty good; might actually hit something, if you know what
I mean. I’m trapped in this dump with these assholes—they’re my
only regular customers—but you should get out of here.”

“
Thanks for the tip…” Then I
couldn’t resist asking, now that I had become a real investigative
journalist, “The blonde that was sitting here, know who she is? Is
she a regular?”

“
Not hardly. I might be an ol’ fart,
but my heart is still ticking…I thinks I’d remember a bird like
her.”

“
Did you happen to see her
eyes?”

“
Listen,” he said, “I already told
ya I was old! But I ain’t dead…least not that they told me! I done
brought her a table full of beers; think I didn’t notice them
eyes?”

My heart began to pound in my chest. “You, you
saw them?” I was hoping I was the only one who saw the flashes and
that I had some special connection to her.

“
Oh yeah, I ain’t seen hazel eyes
sparkle like that since…since I was a young man.”

I began to breathe again.
Hazel eyes, my ass
, I
thought. “Thanks,” I said, as I turned to leave.

The old man grabbed my arm. I was expecting
fatherly advice. Instead, what I got was, “And if I ever catch you
tryin’ to cop one of my tips again, you’ll end up with a bottle up
your ass.”

I patted the old man on the shoulder, then
tried to walk out of the bar as coolly as I could with my butt
cheeks clenched shut.

I hurried out the door with my mind stuck on
thoughts of the blond. Where had she gone? I didn’t know how, but I
needed to find her again. I looked left up the street, then right,
bit saw nothing that offered me a clue as to where she had gone.
What an a-hole I had been to have her right in front of me, twice,
and just walk away.

I searched the street again but this
time, rounding the corner, came the wrong woman. Instead of the
blond, it was the same woman that I had seen earlier in her “Ravage
Me” dress. This time, another, equally attractive, “ravagette”
accompanied her. She whispered to her friend and they both laughed,
then lasered me with
look at us
smiles. This time, though, I looked right past
them both down the street. This time I had focus out the
wing-wang.

I could see that my lack of interest surprised
the brunette, and the smile drained from her face as she stared at
me. Her shock was so great that she plowed right into a couple that
was walking toward her despite her friends best efforts to steer
her away. But in my quest to find Ms. Flashing Eyes, I barely
noticed.

I stood there for a moment feeling sorry for
myself, sighed deeply, then lowered my head and sulked back toward
my car.

I did not find out till later, but had I only
looked up to the roof of O’Malley’s, I would have seen a dark image
crouched beside the chimney looking down, watching me.

Instead, I watched my feet shuffle
on the icy sidewalk as a Miner’s beer truck flashed by at high
speed, splashing a spray of slush over my shoes and pants.
I deserve every drop of that,
I thought, for screwing up again. “Fuck” was what I said, what
I thought, and what I felt. “You’re fucked,” is what my gas gauge
said when I tried to start my car.

“
Hazel eyes, my
ass
.”

Chapter 3

How to Get an RFD Killed

^W
hen I woke up the next morning, I was convinced that I was
being strangled and probed by aliens. To my relief, upon opening my
eyes, I realized I had wrapped my mouth with a rolled-up coil of
sheet and was only being probed by the empty beer bottles in my
bed. I had been apparently rolled around in my sleep, and one had
wound up in my ear, one in my belly button, and one was somewhere
I’d rather not mention.

I found myself lying across the bed, sort of,
with one leg dangling over the side. Looking around my messy
bedroom in the dim, gray daylight of January, I felt like
everything was back to normal…yuck.

But then my morning glory made a small tent in
my boxers, reminding me of the night before: Ms. Blue/Green Eyes.
(And Dr. Jones and Olga Settchuoff too.) Without any need for my
usual caffeine IV, I was instantly alert. Today I had a
purpose.

I turned on my computer, and turned
on the TV—to the news network, no less. Christ, I even took a
shower and shaved. There was nothing like the image of a beautiful
woman and promise of some real spending money to make a guy feel
motivated.
Carpe diem
, I thought.
What an
asshole.

While I was trying to figure out what to use as
a coffee filter, if one should not happen to have any more coffee
filters, my attention was drawn to the TV.

“
Now reporting on these mysterious
events live from Scranton, Pennsylvania, is correspondent Janelle
Roote…” I couldn’t believe my ears…Janelle Roote? What kind of name
is that?

“
Good morning, Sarah,” Janelle
began, as I moved over in front of the TV. “I’m reporting to you
from the scene here on Penn Avenue just outside O’Malley’s Bar,
where last night three bosses of the reputed Garbonzo crime family
were found locked in the back of a beer truck that witnesses said,
‘just dropped from the sky.’ Each alleged crime figure was found
hog-tied with black ropes and pink gift-wrap bows on their heads,
and each was covered with incriminating documents taped to their
bodies. Police officials with whom I have spoken indicate that this
could be quite a blow to organized crime in the city. Not only were
documents found with the alleged mobsters, but two of them have
outstanding warrants.” Janelle reached up to hold down her fur hat,
which was being blown by the brisk January wind. “Sarah, witnesses
claim it was quite a sight. As you can see behind me, workers are
just now beginning to remove the truck, whose fall made quite an
impression on Penn Avenue., I’ll tell you that!”

“
Not the kind of impression you want
to make, hey, Janelle?

“
That’s right, Sarah,” said Janelle,
giving a very fake laugh. “Let me show you the tape of an interview
I had with an eyewitness earlier this morning…” Janelle raised her
eyebrows and raised her fingers to put quote marks around the
word
eyewitness.
“Keep in mind these words are those of a thirty-year-old man
in Scranton and, Sarah, you know what dealing with them can be
like…Our viewers should keep in mind that the eyewitness’s views do
not necessarily reflect those of the station.”

The tape ran of a young man introducing himself
as Ed, wearing a leather helmet with half-broken antlers on it.
Despite his age, Ed had a pimply face and a poor excuse for a
sparse beard: just a few random hairs, really. He was very thin.
(There was a lot of running in the Antler Game—apparently he played
a lot of it.) His voice was soft and uncertain as he described the
events from his vantage point, as he was leaving O’Malley’s
Bar.

“…
.The sound made me look up and
that’s when she dropped the truck and it fell; scared the shit out
of me. We heard the people inside the truck, but none of us could
figure out how to open the doors. Finally, I figured out that you
had to lift the door up by the handle, and there they were, all
tied up.” There was a quick cut back to Janelle, who appeared to be
silently mouthing,
blah, blah,
blah.

“
Well, Janelle, that sure sounds
like an ‘antler-raising’ experience,” said Sarah, brushing back her
long red hair, which was shining brightly in the studio
lights.

Janelle just nodded. “Luckily, it
isn’t deer season anymore!” She repeated her fake laugh. “This is
Janelle Roote, reporting live from Penn Avenue, keeping you
informed on the unusual arrests that are sure to strike a
major blow to organized crime in Scranton. Back to
you in that toasty warm studio, Sarah.

“
Thank you, Janelle,” Sarah said
before turning to her co-anchor. “Phil did you get a load of those
antlers? What is it with the men of Scranton?” Then she turned back
to the camera. “After the break, we’ll tell you what items in your
kitchen cupboard could kill you or your loved ones at any moment.
Then at the top of the hour, Noreen Dunn gives us the third
installment of her groundbreaking series, ‘The Dangers of
Breathing.’ You can’t afford to miss it,” Sarah said, leading into
the commercial.

I couldn’t believe they had missed it. They
didn’t believe a word Ed said, just because he was an RFD. But Ed
had all the information I needed. Didn’t anyone else hear him say
“she”—“She dropped the truck?”

I pounded the Internet in search of any more
information on the event. No one seemed to know how the truck came
to be in the middle of the street. As the only witnesses were young
men from Scranton, no one took them serious. It looked like Ed and
I had a date with destiny coming up; not that I believed in Ed so
much as I believed in my eye flashing beauty.

Wait a minute. Breathing is
dangerous?
I gotta see that.

* * *

That night to get into O’Malleys, I had to
circle around disgruntled unionized city workers who toiled under
work lamps to repair the damage from the previous night’s beer
truck landing on Penn Avenue. It took two of them to do the work
and another five to adequately convey their annoyance at being
called in for double-overtime work, forced to drink coffee, eat
donuts, and scratch their butts for hours. Somehow they
managed.