I don’t need you, Matt!
10:48 PM
Not until the sedan is almost at the end of your block do you ease away from the curb and follow. Angie is leaning forward in her seat, hands gripping the dash. “Hurry, we’re going to lose them.”
The car makes a slow right turn at the cross street, rolling past the stop sign.
“Relax, I don’t want them to see us.”
As soon as the taillights disappear around the corner, you click on the Volkswagen’s headlights and speed up. After turning, you immediately have to slow down again to keep from getting too close. A few intersections later, the car makes another right turn.
“They’re getting away.”
“They’re not getting away, Angie. There’s no one else even out here.” It’s true. Aside from a few porch lights and the occasional glow of a street lamp, the car lined neighborhoods are all fast asleep. Except the next street they turn on heads back toward the highway, and by the time you catch up there are at least three or four cars between you.
“Fucking Matt!”
“I see them,” you lie, your gaze darting from one glowing red rectangle to the next.
“Oh!” Angie exclaims, “So do I. They just turned.”
“Really? Where?”
“Foster Freeze!” she says, pounding on the dash with her right hand. “They just went into Foster Freeze!”
“Yeah, I see them.”
“Well, turn then.”
You continue past the entrance without slowing.
Angie turns to you in disbelief. “Fucking Matt.”
“Relax.” Now you flick on your signal. “We’ll circle around.”
You exit the highway, turn right at the very next corner, drive past a shuttered warehouse, then a row of single-story apartments, through another darkened, tree lined neighborhood, and finally, after two more right turns, make your way back to Foster Freeze.
“There,” says Angie the moment you turn in. “There it is.”
You see it, a midnight blue sedan, parked against the back wall of the lot with its chrome front grill facing out.
At night, with wall-to-wall windows on three sides, this burgers and ice cream restaurant is a fishbowl. It looks like there are at least a dozen people inside, maybe more, a few sitting in booths, the rest gathered around the middle tables. The owner never keeps a consistent closing time. If enough people are paying, he’ll stay open.
“Are they in there?” you ask. “Can you see them?”
“I don’t know.” She is twisting in her seat to peer out your window. “Maybe?”
You continue your slow crawl around the back of the building until you are on the other side with its double-door main entrance and the payphone just outside.
Angie peers past you for a moment and then abruptly turns away, sinking into her seat again and looking straight ahead. “Yeah,” she says, almost too quietly to hear. “It’s them.”
“Which ones?” you ask. “Those guys at the front counter with the—?”
“I said they were in there, didn’t I?” she shouts, her voice nearly breaking. “Why should I have to give you a fucking description? You either believe me or not!”
You turn to your sister, ready to demand answers, but the look on her face stops you cold. Instead, you shift into reverse and roll backwards past the payphone booth and just out of sight of the diners inside. With as much calm as you can muster, you ask, “What are we doing here, Angie?”
“You don’t have to do anything,” she says, eyes forward. “I got this.”
“You got what?”
“I’m going to break every window in that car, okay?”
“With what?”
“I don’t know, a big rock, a brick…”
“And what if someone sees you?”
“I told you…” she begins to say, opening her door and jumping out of the Volkswagen.
“Angie!” At the same time, a car turns into the parking lot from the highway, momentarily blinding you with its headlights.
“I don’t need you, Matt,” she finishes, slamming the door behind her.
“God dammit, Angie!” you hiss.
The car is almost past you when it suddenly brakes. Your heart is in your throat, sure your sister is somehow beneath it. But then, engine rumbling, the car, which you now see is a red Corvette, makes a slow curve in reverse until it has backed into the last parking space nearest the street, placing it on full display for everyone in the restaurant as well as passersby.
Something moves in your rearview mirror and you catch a glimpse of Angie in her short-shorts and black t-shirt running barefoot through the parking lot. You can’t leave her, but neither can you just sit here. Shifting the Volkswagen into first gear and stomping on the gas, you take off with a loud sputter toward the highway. The doors on the Corvette are opening, but your attention is on the approaching traffic as you merge sharply onto the busy street, and then, almost immediately, brake and turn into the very next parking lot on the right. This one belongs to a laundromat, closed for the night, which is separated from the Foster Freeze property by a five-foot-high cinderblock wall.
As soon as you come to a stop, you are out of the car and peering over the top brick. The occupants of the Corvette are just entering the restaurant. Even at this distance, you recognize them from school. A couple of Izod wearing hot-shots you’ve learned to avoid. They are brothers, or cousins maybe, both with the same compact builds, short curly hair, and blunt features. Boxers, or so you’ve heard. Nobody messes with them. As soon as they are inside, you scramble up and over the wall, then run through the parking lot in a low crouch. As you round the back of the building, the putrid odor of food garbage invades your nostrils and you turn to find the restaurant’s roll-out dumpster overflowing with plump, black bags of trash.
“Angie?”
She spins around in surprise. “Matt?” she gasps, stepping out from behind the bin and moving toward you. “I thought you—” She stops, quickly masking her relief with a look far less vulnerable, and gestures toward the rear of the dumpster with her thumb. “Get over here. Check this out.”
Maybe she found her window-breaking brick, you think, but no, she is standing over a white, five-gallon bucket. “What is it?”
She answers by lifting the bucket’s lid.
“Oh, God.” The stench nearly gags you. “It smells like rotten, burnt fish and…”
“And barf, right?”
“Yeah, sure.” Her excitement is unsettling. You step closer. “It’s probably old fry-oil,” you suggest, peering cautiously at the dark substance.
“Like for French-fries?”
“Yeah, and whatever else was in there.”
“It’s perfect,” she says, pushing down on the lid. “Help me carry it.” She lifts the wire handle by one side and waits for you to do the same.
You take hold and pull up, but even with both of you lifting it will hardly move. “Fuck, it’s heavy.”
“No shit. That’s why I need your help.”
“And there’s grease all over the handle. I can hardly hold on.”
“Here, you big baby,” she says, grabbing some filthy looking rags from off the ground and handing you one. You bring it toward your nose for closer inspection and immediately regret it.
With the rag draped over the handle, you grip the wire firmly in the center with both hands. Angie does the same, placing a skinny fist on each side of your own. Huddling over the bucket, your faces nearly touching, you manage to lift it off the ground and shuffle sideways with it out from behind the dumpster.
“Okay?” you wheeze into Angie’s ear.
“Yes,” she huffs back. “Keep going.”
You are halfway to the unsuspecting target, the putrid substance sloshing about in the bucket beneath you, when another vehicle’s headlights suddenly illuminate the sedan’s chrome front end.
“Car,” you announce. “Car coming.”
“Shit,” says Angie. “What do we do?”
“There.” You gesture with your chin to a van parked only a couple of spaces away from the sedan. “Go, go, go!”
You almost reach it before the approaching vehicle appears, but instead of rounding the corner and pinning you and your sister in its headlights, the truck continues forward and parks in the empty space between the sedan and the van you are now hiding behind. You lower the bucket to the pavement and crouch down with Angie next to it.
With a final, rattling cough, the truck’s engine shuts off, soon followed by the sound of its door squealing open and slamming shut.
“Do you think he saw us?” Angie whispers in your ear.
You place a finger over your lips and shake your head, praying you’re correct.
Slowly, you straighten up until you can just see through the driver’s side window to the other side of the van. The driver, in a white t-shirt, his head shaved nearly bald with only a shadow of dark stubble, is walking around to the passenger side of his truck. When he gets there, he pulls on the door handle, as if to reassure himself it is locked. Seemingly satisfied, he turns and begins walking toward the restaurant. You duck down again and motion with your eyes for Angie to follow as you move around to the front of the van.
As the scratch and shuffle of his leather-soled shoes across the asphalt fades into the distance, you risk another peek through the van’s windows in time to see him disappear around the back of the building on his way to the front entrance.
“Okay, let’s do this.”
With the bucket again suspended between you, the two of you crab walk your way around the front of the van and the old truck until you are finally behind the blue sedan, which according to the raised chrome script on the back corner of the trunk, is a Cutlass Supreme. The beat-up white Chevy, you realize with some relief, is so far helping to conceal you from anyone who might be looking out from inside the restaurant.
“Take off the lid,” you say, tightening your grip on the wire handle as you prepare to heave the contents of the bucket onto car.
“Wait, put it down,” she says. “I need to check something first.”
“Angie, we—” But she’s already moved to the passenger side of the car is pulling up on the door handle.
“Dumb fucks didn’t lock it,” she says, swinging it wide open.
You think about the Volkswagen you left alone in the next lot. “Shit.”
Then she reaches into the back seat, removes a pair of beige sandals, drops them onto the ground next to her, and steps into them one at a time.
“Shit,” you say again.
“Now,” she says, prying the lid off the fry-oil, and you don’t have to ask what she plans to do next.
Foul, fishy sludge sloshes over the sides of the bucket as the two of you lift and then heave its contents onto the front seat. A wave of black oil engulfs the plush interior of the Cutlass Supreme, splashing up onto the dash, dripping from the ceiling, oozing back out onto the parking lot.
You turn to run, but your sister doesn’t follow. “Angie!” you hiss. “Let’s go!”
She reaches into the front pocket of her shorts and pulls out a Bic lighter. Then she flicks on the flame, squats down, and holds it to the surface of the ever-widening pool of oil beneath the car. Your heart stops beating … in anticipation of the ball of fire that is about to consume the both of you.
Except that doesn’t happen.
“What the fuck?” She glares back at you. “You said this was oil.”
“It is.” You almost laugh out loud with relief. “I guess you need a lot bigger flame than that little lighter.” You look out over the parking lot, planning the direction of your escape. Should you go back the way you came, or circle around and get to the laundromat from the sidewalk along the highway, just a couple of fishy-smelling kids minding their own business?
When you look back at Angie, she is holding the grease rag from the bucket handle. It is smoldering and already half engulfed in flames. She tosses it onto the front seat, and although there is no immediate explosion, the oil-soaked upholstery quickly catches fire.
She turns to you, with a wide grin and a look like joy in her eyes. “Okay, now,” she says. “Run!”
Angie’s recovered sandals clapping behind her the entire way, you follow your sister along the back wall using the parked cars as temporary cover. At the far corner of the property, you stop to look back. The flames are now visible over the top of the van and a column of black smoke is billowing upwards into the lamp-lit night. Suddenly, people are rushing out of the restaurant from both sides.
You grab Angie around the waist and lift her up and over the wall. Then you pull yourself over, dropping down on the other side right next to her.
You stay there, chest rising and falling as you catch your breath. Behind you on the other side of the wall, the sounds of the diners begin to intensify. There is much cursing, some in anger, some in awe, and the repetitive demand for someone to call 911.
A succession of explosive pops, temporarily hushes the crowd.
“I need to see,” Angie says, getting to her feet. Your hand, you realize, is holding her wrist and you immediately pull her down next to you again. “We need to go.”
As sirens begin to wail in the distance, she looks up at you calmy, sighs, and shakes her head. “Don’t pussy out on me now, Matt,” she says. “You’ve come so far.”
Not for the first time this evening, you are overcome with the powerful compulsion to either hit or hug her. Of course, you do neither. You glance past her, gaining some needed assurance from the sight of your brother’s Volkswagen sitting as yet unscathed in front of the darkened laundromat. “Okay,” you say, releasing her arm and raising up on your knees, “but give me your shirt.”
She frowns up at you skeptically. “Why?”
“Someone might recognize you.”
She nods and stands as you begin unbuttoning your own. Then she reaches down, arms crossed, grabs the bottom edge of her Ozzy t-shirt, and pulls it up and over her head in one swift motion. You trade, making sure hers is still inside-out before pulling it over your head. Your blue plaid shirt falls almost to the hem of her shorts, her hands half disappearing into its sleeves.
Keeping your heads down, you stay in the shadow of the wall as much as possible until you reach the street. People are beginning to pull over, some even getting out of their cars to get a better look. Holding Angie’s hand, you step onto the sidewalk and lead her past the front of the now empty Foster Freeze just as the fire truck arrives. The growing crowd of looky-loos, the two of you now among them, follow the engine into the parking lot. As it turns left, continuing past the billowing smoke and flames, one firefighter drags the hose from the back of the truck while another begins yelling at everyone to move back. You pull Angie close and whisper into her ear, “Stay behind me.”
As you edge your way forward, you are relieved to feel the tug of her grip on the back of your new, snug fitting t-shirt. Now you see that the old white truck is also on fire and equally engulfed in flames, which is not so surprising considering the amount of oil you and your sister managed to spill beneath it. You also see that several people remain dangerously close to the flames, despite the presence of the firefighters and the obvious danger to their lives. The four huddled nearest the Cutlass Supreme, you realize, your heart racing with a morbid satisfaction that both frightens and shames you, are ones who hurt your sister. But the other three…
The boxers, unmistakable in their bright polos, one red and the other blue, are physically restraining the truck’s owner from reaching his vehicle. The scary looking dude with the shaved head is twisting in their arms and wailing inconsolably like a mother at her son’s funeral, like his truck was priceless, or a living thing. You can hardly bear to watch. Not until the firefighters begin to douse the flames and the hopelessly charred remains of his Chevy are exposed does he seem to gain control of himself.
“Timo, man,” one of the brothers is saying. “There’s nothing you could do.”
But Timo, the scary one, doesn’t seem to be listening. Suddenly he straightens up, lifts his head, and begins to look around, at the firefighters, the punks next to their torched sedan, his fellow restaurant patrons, the uninvited onlookers crowding onto lot, like he’s looking for someone, someone in particular.
You reach behind, grab Angie by the wrist, and quickly make your way back to the sidewalk along the highway. More sirens, more flashing lights, but this time it’s a police car with a voice on the loud speaker commanding people to move their cars and clear the street.
You are past the front of Foster Freeze and crossing the driveway when Timo and the brothers appear from behind the restaurant heading your way.
“You were always complaining about that old thing anyway,” one of the brothers is saying.
“Yeah man,” says the other. “You got insurance, right?”
“Insurance?” says Timo, his gaze continuing to dart about the parking lot. “Insurance?” he repeats with disgust, like it’s the punchline of an offensive joke.
The sidewalk is suddenly crowded with people returning to their cars and you and Angie are forced to weave around them, slowing your escape.
“Give me your keys,” you hear Timo say.
“We got you, man,” says one of the brothers.
“Yeah,” you hear the other one say. “Anywhere you need to go.”
“I want your car,” shouts Timo. “Not a fuckin’ charity ride!” And you turn to see the brother in the pink Izod reach into his pocket and pull out his keys, the look on his face more hurt than afraid.
Timo snatches them from his hand and turns to look directly at you. Or, for one terrifying moment, so it seems, until you realize it is more likely the brothers’ red Corvette next to you.
Suddenly, a second police car, without the warning of a siren or flashing lights, turns in from the highway, tires bouncing over the curb as it skids to a halt across the front of the driveway. Timo drops the keys to the Corvette, turns, and runs.
What happens next, you don’t know, because you and Angie are past the wall and running to your car.
Back in the Volkswagen you hardly have time to shove the key into the ignition before movement outside Angie’s window catches your eye. “Hide,” you say, ducking your head and pulling Angie down with you.
Just over her hunched shoulders, you see Timo come crawling over the brick wall. He lands hard and falls to his hands and knees in nearly the same spot the two of you escaped earlier. “Fuck,” whispers Angie, and you know she’s watching too as he staggers to his feet and limps past you toward the rear of the building.
Then a second figure tops the wall, swinging both legs over like a gymnast before dropping down. He’s dressed all in black, except for his badge and the white v of his undershirt showing beneath his throat.
“Timo,” he calls out, quickly gaining on him.
To your surprise, Timo stops and turns around.
“Enough already,” says the cop, holding his empty hands out in front of him as he closes the space between them.
“What the fuck, Ballard?” wheezes Timo, now bent at the waist with his hands on his knees. “I’m in the middle of something here.”
“Not anymore, you’re not.”
All of this is happening on the shadowy side of the darkened laundromat less than fifty feet in front of you. Both you and Angie have your heads just high enough to see over the dash.
“What,” says Timo, straightening up. “Now you’re going to arrest me?”
“Seems like it,” says the mustached cop, reaching behind for something on his belt. “You know the drill,” he says. “Turn around, hands on your head.”
“Mother fucker,” growls Timo through clenched teeth, but he does as he is told.
The cop steps forward, but instead of handcuffs, he lifts a pistol to the back of Timo’s head and fires. Timo sways slowly forward and then crumples to the blacktop.
“Down,” you hiss. “Get down.”
Angie slides off her seat and curls into a tight ball beneath the dash. You try to do the same, wriggling onto the floormat, but can’t get your shoulders beneath the steering wheel.
“Hurry!” breathes Angie.
Twisting sideways, you press your back against the door and wedge your head between the steering wheel and the dash just as the cop walks past your side of the car.
Across from you, the silhouette of his head and shoulders passes slowly along the inside of Angie’s door. You’re not sure how you hear it, not with your own pulse thrumming so loudly in your ears, but you swear you can feel the crunch of his boots on the pavement as he hesitates just outside your door.
Then the shadow passes and you remember to breathe.
Easing up into your seat again, you follow the cop’s progress in your rearview mirror.
“Is he gone?” Angie whispers up at you from the floor.
“Not yet.”
At the end of the wall, just before stepping onto the sidewalk, he stops and pulls something white from his back pocket. You twist around in your seat to see more clearly through the back window and realize it’s some kind of cloth, a handkerchief maybe. As you watch, he uses it to carefully wipe the outside of the pistol he is holding. Then, with a quick look over each shoulder, he drops the weapon on the ground near the wall, straightens up, and disappears around the corner. A moment later, a police car pulls onto the highway and speeds away.
“You can get up now,” you say, turning the key and bringing the car to life. It won’t be long, you think, before Timo’s boxer friends come looking for him.
“Why did he do that?” asks Angie, staring out the windshield at the lump of baggy jeans and white t-shirt lying face down on the asphalt. “Why didn’t he arrest him?”
“I don’t know,” you say.
“Can we go home now?” she asks, eyes still on the dead man. “I want to go home.”
Without headlights, you weave the car around Timo’s body and continue toward the back of the laundromat in order to exit from the far side of the parking lot. Not until you are back on the street do you turn them on.
Angie raises the volume on the stereo. Led Zeppelin is still in there, Houses of the Holy. She immediately switches it off and starts to cry.
To be continued…
This story is a work in progress — I’m writing it as fast as I can! More episodes in this thread coming soon. While you are waiting, feel free to return to the beginning: if you make different choices you will get a different story.
I would love to hear from you!
THE MISADVENTURES OF MATTHEW VAN DER BOOT is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental … no matter how many times you ask.