'Til Death Do Us Part (48 page)

BOOK: 'Til Death Do Us Part
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He was appr
oaching a small blue d
umpster about midway along the wall. He turned with his back to me so that he could urinate on the trash collector. It was twenty feet from me to him,
t
hen what? He hadn

t done anything that necessitated me killing him
.


Act first
, think later,

I said as I started running towards him.
He either had a sixth sense
,
or I
wasn

t as stealthy as I had hoped. H
e turned when I was no more than a few feet away,
as he turned
warm urine traveled up my leg it was almost enough to stop me in my tracks.


What the fuck
,
man?

h
e said, one hand still holding his penis, the other coming up in a defensive gesture.

I caught him with a right cross that I

m
fairly certain cracked his jaw.
His
eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed. I swear I would have caught him as he was going down
,
but he was still pissing. Luckily he crumbled more than falling forward or backward so the impact as his head hit the ground wasn

t quite as traumatic. At this point I still felt like shit, the man hadn

t done anything more than need to relieve himself at an inopportune time. Who knew I might have just smacked the shit out of a sainted brain surgeon. Odds were that I hadn

t
,
but still.

He had one leg bent back behind him
,
but for the most part he was
lying
on his back
. H
is penis was still doing what he had been in the act of before I so rudely interrupted
. I
t looked like one of those old bubblers from my youth in school, the ones that were always running before we figured out that wasting a precious commodity like water wasn

t such a good idea. Although
,
even way back then
,
before the germ-a-phobia truly set in
,
I would never have drank anything that rusty looking. I wasn

t thrilled that he was getting all his clothes, which I needed, wet.


Fuck
,
dude
,
when

s the last time you took a pit stop?

I asked him as he just kept going and going. It was looking like he had downed two huge Slurpees and a carafe of coffee. I couldn

t wait any longer or he would completely soak his clothes. I quickly pulled his shirt over his head, undid his boots
,
and pulled his pants down, thankful that he had already done the majority of the work.

I took a couple of deep breaths as I ass
essed just how sopped his clothes were. And still he was going, I was wondering if he had somehow sprung a leak. I knew I was stalling, how much of a rush would you be in to put on someone else

s piss soaked clothes? Yeah didn

t think so
. I still had to get moving, a d
umpster pretty much screamed, PEE HERE, to a man. Soon
,
someone else would come, and for a second that sounded like a good idea, but this time I would knock his ass out
before
he started to go.


Shit,

I mumbled.
I could hear voices, I couldn

t tell if they were getting closer but I couldn

t risk it. My snake-
draining buddy seemed to finally be closing in on empty
.
I waited a few seconds more as the normally shaken drople
ts made their way down his side,
then I unceremoniously picked him up under his shoulders and dumped him into the trash. I was happy there were at
least a few bags at the bottom;
somewhat so he wouldn

t get hurt
further,
but mostly so his body wouldn

t make a large

bonging

sound as he hit bottom.

The man

s shirt was the traditional gas station attendant blue button down, it even
had his name embroidered on it—
that was actually not a good thing for me. What were the odds that there were two

Horatios’
in this
convoy?
And I

m sorry
,
but who the fuck names their kid Horatio? His childhood must have been a blast.
I put his shirt on, not buttoni
ng it for exactly three reasons. F
irst
,
because I hoped that leaving
it open would obscure his name;
second
,
because the bottom front of it was soaked and this way I coul
d
keep it mostly off myself
;
and third
,
but far from least
,
I was betting that Horatio

s
nickname was

Stretch
.’
I couldn

t have buttoned the thing up if I had wanted to.

There was a good four inches of gap between button hole and button. I loo
ked down at the
pants;
my guess
was they were going to be as equally ill-fitting. It was sort of a blessing
,
because
as long as they stayed unbuttoned
it kept the majority of wet material off of me, but what were the fucking odds that I would waylay a
six-foot-two
man that had the waist and chest of a
twelve-year-
old girl? I though
t about pulling him out of the
d
umpster so
I could smack him one more time.
He
was actually making me regret giving up my jean shorts. I was as low on body fat as I had ever been in my life
,
yet
this man

s pants
still
made me feel like I needed to join Jenny Craig. I knew I wa
s in for a world class struggle
when I felt them tugging on my calves.

By the time I pulled them up over my ass, I had lost enough circulation in my lower extremities to be of concern. I could only take air in small
,
measured doses. The zipper moved maybe one or two teeth up and that was it, the gap between the button and button hole for the pants could not be bridged. I had a couple of things going for me, apparently

Stretch

had also been losing weight and these pants were

pre

zombie invasion. He had
,
at some point
,
needed to get a belt and luckily it was more my sized as opposed to his. The belt would hide a fair amount of my skin showing
,
plus
,
his shirt had that front part that hangs down so you can tuck them in. I have no idea what that

s called b
ut as long as no Marilyn Monroe-
type breezes
started,
I might be alright. Although running was out of the question, I felt like Morticia from the Ad
dams F
amily.

Y
ou want to know what the kicker was? This was how I figured out that God has a sense of humor. The guy had a baseball cap which was great, I didn

t dare take off my Eliza-
screening tin foil hat
,
but I couldn

t imagine walking out in the midst of all those truckers wearing it either. I grabbed the guy

s cap
,
even more reluctant to put it on t
ha
n
the urine-infused clothes—
the familiar, dreaded, loathed, hated

NY

logo of the New York Yankees stared back at me with contempt. This was about the last
straw;
I almost said

fuck it
.’ T
here ain

t nothing worth donning that thing. The only thing that wasn

t small on Stretch was his damn hat, the guy had a head the size of a watermelon, and of course he had a non-adjustable
,
fitted hat, why wouldn

t he? At least it would safely cover the foil, and the foil would act as a
barrier to whatever diseases a Y
ankee fan was apt to carry.


Forgive me
, Ted,

I said
, alluding to the Great O
ne
,
Ted Williams
,
as I pulled the damn thing over my head. Odds were
,
if I looked hard enough, Bucky

Fucking

Dent probably signed it.
The only thing that saved the whole thing was his b
oots; I
could
finally rid myself of Stephanie-the-Amazonian woma
n

s shoes. He had boots that
,
while a lit
tle bigger than I needed at ten-and-a-
half
,
would still suit me nicely.


Here goes nothing,

I said as
I stepped out from behind the
d
umpster.
A big
man easily double my size was heading my way, his
clothes would have made it look
like I was swimming in them. It still would have been preferable. He did not look at me as he walked past, that

s a traditional male custom, if we are within a few moments of grasping our members we do not make eye contact with
males of our
species. Not entirely sure why;
maybe it has something to do with a small dose of homophobia or
,
more than likely
,
it

s just an intimate moment of sweet release that we do not wish to share with others.

I rounded the corner of the ga
s station and realized that I’d never had need to worry.
There
were so many truckers
that
it was easy to get lost in the crowd.
Now what genius?
I berated myse
lf. I was there for some reason.
I just had no clue what for. I circled around
,
catching snippets of conversations
,
but never really joining any of them.


...then she said that it smelled like shit on
Astroturf
and I....


...hauling nuclear waste and dumping it on the south side of the Grand C...


...some eyeliner and panty hose it feels great...

What?
The guy looked like a professional wrestler and he was te
lling a group of five other men.
I must have missed a fair amount of that conversation. I was glad I had slowed down enough to listen a little bit to th
e Randy Savage lookalike.
I had changed direction just enough until I came upon what had to be Horatio

s rig. I

d love to say that it was because of my extraordinary detective skills, but the giant
,
red rig had Horatio

s Highway Haulers emblazoned in
two-
foot high lette
ring across the entire trailer—
even I couldn

t have missed it.
I walked up to it as if I owned it, which according to the keys that were jabbing me through my front pocket only confirmed that suspicion.


What are the odds his last name, MY last name is Hornblower?

I asked.
It was worse:
Heimerdinger.

You

re kidding right?

I asked as I ran my hand over the pin striping. Horatio

Slight

Heimerdinger.
How
many times can a kid get beat up? I hoped he didn

t have a riding partner as
I stepped up on to the running board and opened the door. Well
,
I had to give it to

Slight

,
he ran a tidy ship. I looked around the entire cab
. I
t was gorgeous
,
then it dawned on m
e that I really should take it…
Horatio would want me to.

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