Midway (1)

This is the first part of a pulp story that just formulated one day while listening to The Doors. If you like it let me know and I'll write more!

-Mac     

            Wess was the kind of man known for drinking mouthwash (for the taste) and taking illicit drugs with the strange denizens of Campble Park. On a continuum of idiocy he would have stood somewhere toward the baseline, or even beyond it. I once found the man eating a full turkey dinner out of a dumpster, on a Tuesday, whilst having a conversation with a non-existent purple cat (he informed me of the feline’s coloration and other details at a later date). So you can imagine my surprise when I saw him dressed in a plaid, collared shirt at the front of my youngest son’s elementary school PTA meeting. I mean, the fucker had no earthly right to be there. A man like that has no family, not even friends with family. What was I to think about seeing him smiling and waving to all of the other parents like it wasn’t even a problem? The world had taken a psychotic break, that’s what I was to think…

Part 1: Jason

            “There aren’t a lot of other ways this is going to go for you my friend. Now I’ll ask again, pick for me, fingers or toes.”

            “Please!”

            “Jesus Christ! Marty, we’ve been through this. You stole from the wrong people, I’m raw about it, they’re raw about it, and they’re not going to let me leave here without some of your digits in tow. Now, either you pick or I’m going to have to take all twenty of them, and I didn’t bring a big enough bag for that. I’d rather not get blood on my coat, I just had it cleaned, so what do you say? Can we make this a civil affair?” Jason was a hard man of forty-five with a tweed jacket that made him look like a professor, and dead eyes that made him look like he had killed professors. He had a reputation ten miles wide and was commonly known as the man that you didn’t want to see walking through your front door. His footsteps signaled the end of the line, and once he arrived there was a guarantee of bloodshed.

            The man in the chair was Marty Freedman, a fence that had a little too much ambition for the hand he was dealt. He wept in the chair, urine soaking through his freshly ironed slacks. His wife thought they made him look professional, which they did, when they weren’t littered with urine, blood, and tears. The shop he ran was respectable head-to-toe, but in between the joints there was room for fungus to grow. Only small pieces passed through him, but to The Man, theft was theft, and always carried with it the same penalty, fingers, toes, and when both were gone, death. It’s really amazing that someone would try to steal with no fingers, from the man that had taken their fingers, but it’s happened more than once.

            “Oh God.”

            “No Marty! You took God out of this equation the second you ripped off your employer! You think God has any energy left for a common thief like you? I think he’s already knee deep in Nun’s with Glaucoma for that. No, you my friend, are on your own. Now, and this really is the last time I’m going to do this. Fingers or toes?” Marty remained silent in the chair, continuing to weep. “Alright then.” From inside his pocket James pulled an industrial bolt cutter and began to unlace Marty’s shoes. I’ll spare you the details. Suffice it to say Marty doesn’t do a whole lot of walking anymore, and his piano playing has gone to shit.

            Jason walked out of the building with a large bag in his right hand. Blood dripped sarcastically from the bottom and onto the freshly swept streets of Midway. From his right jacket pocket a phone began to ring, playing the theme song to Happy Days (I don’t know why, he just liked it). “Yeah?” He said, shouldering the phone and shifting the bloody bag to his left hand.

             “No. Had to take them all.” He checked his fingernails in the sunlight, noticing with disgust that they were covered in Marty’s blood. A grimace split his face and he wiped them hastily on his jacket pocket.

            “Yeah, I know, it’s a bloody business.” From inside the warehouse Marty wept in shock.

            “I’m sorry about it too, but what’s done is done.” A light rain began to fall outside.

            “Yeah, I’ll bring ‘em by. Alright, thanks.” Jason hung up the phone and opened the door of a red Mini Cooper. The car was comically small for such a large man, but Jason wasn’t one to care about appearances. His reputation was the only thing that mattered, and it traveled faster than his looks. He sped off into the distance, leaving Marty to contemplate the consequences of stealing in an empty lumber warehouse while he waited for someone to find him…