Atomic Lobster (9 page)

THAT NIGHT

J
im Davenport’s muffled voice came through the closed bathroom door of the master bedroom. “Ready?”

Martha lay tucked under the covers. “You’re not supposed to ask if I’m ready.”

“Okay, but you are ready?”

“Jim.”

“You don’t want to mess with me. I’m capable of anything. I’m a
baaaaaad man
!”

“Come on.”

“Okay.”

The bathroom door opened. “Don’t ask for mercy.”

Martha sat up in bed. “Jim, what’s going on?”

“You wanted a bad man.”

“You’re wearing a pirate costume.”

“I’m a pirate.”

“Are you serious?”

“From everything I’ve read, they were bad.” He crawled into bed and began stroking Martha’s hair.

She put a hand over her mouth. “Jim, I’m sorry. I can’t make love tonight.”

“What do you mean? You’re the one who scheduled this.”

“It’s the costume.”

“I’ll take it off.”

“The pirate image is already stuck in my head. You know how I have to be able to keep a straight face.”

Jim fell back on his own pillow and stared at the ceiling fan. “I’m sorry. I’m new to this.”

“Please don’t feel bad.” Martha reached over and reassuringly held Jim’s hand that was covered by the plastic hook. “Maybe we should see a sex coach.”

“Martha, are we pandas?”

She reached for a book on the nightstand. “Have to get up early tomorrow anyway. Our real estate agent’s got all those houses.”

“So you definitely want to move?”

Faint cursing from street level. Martha opened her book. “Yes.”

Jim got out of bed and walked to the window. Down on the corner, three shadowy people struggled at a bus stop. More swearing. A woman in a halter top had a pudgy guy in a headlock. The third person tried to break it up. They tumbled over the bus bench and rolled across a lawn. A motion sensor tripped.

Martha turned a page. “What’s happening out there?”

“Three people were fighting, but they ran away when the Johnsons’ security lights came on…. Now they’ve stopped in front of the strip mall for a meeting.”

“Meeting?”

Jim stepped closer to the window. “Wonder what they could be talking about?…”

“What the hell’s wrong with you two?” said Serge. “Families are trying to sleep around here.”

Rachael shoved Coleman in the chest. “Fuckhead here can’t read a fuel gauge.”

“Hey,” said Coleman. “It’s not my fault we ran out of gas.”

“You moron!” She grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head side to side.

“Ow! Ow! Ow!”

“Knock it off!” said Serge. “What’s done is done. We’ll just walk to that gas station and get a spare can. Besides, there’s a silver lining.” He pointed back up the street. “We got to see Plant High School, the
first stop on my new renaissance collection tour. Coleman gave me the idea.”

Rachael threw down a clump of hair. “The retards leading the retards.”

“You’re welcome to leave anytime you want,” said Serge. “But you’ll miss the tour.”

Rachael poked a finger in an empty cigarette pack and threw it aside. “Tour?”

“Tap into the spiritual undercurrent of genius. Total spectrum of disciplines, from science to politics to art, that have graced our fair state. Like the high school back there where Stephen Stills graduated…” He reached in his pocket and produced a clear plastic tube of dirt.

“What’s that?” asked Coleman.

“Soil sample from the high school. My legacy needs a dirt collection.” He held the tube to Coleman’s ear. “Listen.”

“I don’t hear anything.”

Serge placed the tube next to his own ear. “‘Suite: Judy Blue Eyes.’ Just imagine, Buffalo Springfield, CSN&Y, Woodstock…” He held the tube inches from his eyes. “…And it all started here….”

“You said we were going to make some money!” said Rachael. “And score!” Her left hand flashed out and smacked the plastic tube from Serge’s hand. It broke on the ground.

Serge gasped. “Stephen!” He fell to his knees. “Coleman, Stephen needs us!”

“What do I do?”

“Grab Rachael’s cigarette pack from the weeds.”

“Got it…. Here you are.”

Serge uncrumpled the empty pack and gently scooped dirt inside. He stood and wiped his forehead. “Crisis averted.”

“That’s it,” said Rachael. “I’m done with you boobs.” She ran across the street and accosted a random night wanderer. A negotiation. The man handed her something.

Coleman looked down at the cigarette pack in Serge’s hand.
“That’s the collection you were talking about at the library?”

“Actually it wasn’t my first choice. I was originally going to start a sperm bank.”

“Sperm?”

“I figured if you’re going to collect,
collect
. You know how there are those institutes in Sweden with samples from internationally famous geniuses? But then I started running the logistics through my head: ordering watermarked stationery, composing the request letters, which have to be very delicately worded. And nobody would reply anyway. All those places in Sweden are well connected through Nobel Prize cocktail receptions. That’s the thing about starting a jiz farm: It’s all who you know. Plus the special freezers cost a fortune. Dirt’s less maintenance.”

“Where’d you get the idea?”

“Had it bouncing around my head several years ago. But I’d never heard of anyone else doing it, so I figured it must be stupid.”

“What changed your mind?”

“
Saving Private Ryan.
That scene after the D-day invasion where this sergeant collects a little tin of sand and adds it to a canvas bag full of tins marked with names of other battles. I said, ‘Hey, that’s
my
idea! He stole my fucking idea!’ Then they made me leave the theater—”

Rachael came screaming back across the street with something under her arm. “Get him the fuck away from me!”

The man in chase: “Give it!”

She hid behind Serge and peeked over his shoulder. “Protect me.”

The porky pursuer finished a rapid wobble across the road and reached the curb. “She ripped me off!”

Serge stared at the man’s T-shirt.
VAGITARIAN
.

“I didn’t rip you off!” yelled Rachael. “You gave it to me!”

“I want my television!”

GULF OF MEXICO

The G-Unit’s empty stomachs growled on the way out of the restau
rant. They normally wouldn’t have conceded cafeteria arrangement to the cruise company, but they were on deadline. The real priority was ballroom dancing. They never missed it.

Like tonight. The quartet moved quickly up the Fantasy Deck. The carpet was movie-premiere red. Everything else shiny: faux-gold doorways and banisters reflecting harsh rows of cabaret lightbulbs.

“There’s the ballroom,” said Edna.

“Where’d all those people come from?” asked Eunice.

“Told you we should have gotten an earlier start,” said Edith. “It’s getting more popular.”

They stood in the back of a large, anxious mob. The doors opened. Everyone charged inside, a trail of bent canes and walkers lost in the stampede.

The sound system struck up Guy Lombardo. A disco ball spun. The G-Unit made its move. Flecks of light swirled over the hardwood floor. They zeroed in on a pair of men by the punch bowl who looked like David Niven and Don Ameche, but a rival gang from the Catskills had the angle and executed a flying wedge.

“Over there!” yelled Eunice.

James Mason and Cary Grant in later years. The women took off. More trouble, this time a rolling screen block from Boca Raton.

“Damn,” said Edna.

They made a sweep of the room. Everyone worth taking was taken.

“I guess it’s the Brimleys,” said Edith.

“Not the Brimleys.”

They looked across the ballroom at a gathering of stocky gentlemen leaning over the bar. Curiously, every last one of them bore a striking resemblance to each other, like they had all been contestants in a Wilford Brimley look-alike contest.

Unbeknownst to the women, the Brimleys’ similarity of appearance was no accident. The men had, in fact, been participants in a number of look-alike events, all veterans of the annual Hemingway contest in Key West. But as time and barroom falls took their toll, those Hemingways who could no longer make the grade were put out to stud on cruise ships. They could be counted on for two and only
two things: always available, and always completely hammered.

“Okay,” Edith sighed. “I guess it’s the Brimleys.” Since there had never been any competition for these men, the G-Unit was in no hurry. Just then, a championship quilting team from Vermont blitzed their left flank and snagged the leftover dancers.

“What just happened?” said Eunice.

“I don’t get it,” said Edna. “They were always available before.”

“This is no accident,” said Edith.

“What do you mean?”

“The cruise line’s ratcheting back the gender ratio.”

One of the Brimleys took a nasty spill, pulling the lead quilter down with him.

“Let’s watch TV in the room.”

They arrived back in their cabin. Edith grabbed the remote control and swatted a towel-scorpion off the bed.

SOUTH TAMPA

Jim stood at his upstairs bedroom window. “I’m starting to appreciate you talking me into moving.”

“Why?” Martha looked up from her book. “What’s going on out there?”

Rachael clutched a small TV to her chest. “It’s mine!”

“No it’s not!” said
VAGITARIAN
. “I only let you have it because you promised to—”

Serge held up a hand for the man to stop. “I have a pretty good idea what she promised, and I don’t care.
Caveat emptor
.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Never trust a stripper.”

“I’m not leaving until I get my TV!”

Serge raised the front of his tropical shirt, revealing the butt of a chrome automatic pistol tucked in the waistband. “There’s nothing more to see here. Please disperse.”

The startled man stumbled backward into the street and was nearly clipped by a drunk driver in a Dodge Dart.

Serge turned around. “What the hell do you want with that stu
pid TV?”

“Hock it. Good for a dime bag.” She set it on the ground and began going through her pockets for cigarette money. “What’s this?” She retrieved a small, forgotten square of paper, unfolded it and snorted hard, then licked residue. The paper floated to the ground.

Serge bent down for the piece of trash. “Will you stop doing drugs and littering?”

“I’ll do any fucking thing I want!”

“And lower your voice! You’re disturbing the community.”

“I talk as loud as I want!
Ahhhhhh! Ahhhhhh!…
”

Two people walked by on the sidewalk lugging a patio table—“Good evening”—then two more with the matching chairs.

“…Ahhhhhh! Ahhhhhh! Ahhhhhh!…”

“That’s it!” Serge twisted a hand up behind her back again and wrapped his right forearm across her neck, compressing the larynx. “Are you going to be quiet?”

She gasped for breath like a grouper on a boat deck.

Serge suddenly felt a sharp pain where she’d stomped on his instep. “Yowwwww!” He released his grip and hopped on one foot.

Rachael picked up a rock and hurled it with surprising accuracy. Serge ducked, and the stone skipped across the street, clanging off the hubcap on a passing Sunbird.

Brakes screeched. The driver jumped out with a baseball bat that is factory equipment on most cars in Tampa after midnight. “What the fuck?”

Serge whipped out his pistol. “Something I can help you with?”

The driver jumped back in. The Sunbird screeched away. A smaller rock hit Serge in the back of the head. “Ouch!”

Rachael reached to the ground for more ammo. She stopped halfway. Her left eye began twiching. Then her other eye. She scratched her arms and chest, then began ripping at her hair with both hands.
“Ahhhhhh! Ahhhhhh—!…”

Serge cocked his pistol. “What did I tell you about that yelling?”

“…Ahhhhhh! Ahhhhhh! I’m not trying to yell this time….”
Rachael ran in terrified figure eights, clawing the top of her head.

“Help! Help! For the love of God!…”

“What’s going on?” asked Serge.

“Too much crank,” said Coleman.

Rachael ran past them at full gallop.
“Get rid of them!…”

“Get rid of what?”

“Snakes! My hair is full of snakes! Ahhhhhh!…”
Rachael sprinted down the street.
“Ahhhhhh!…”

Serge cupped his hands around his mouth. “Watch out for that oak—”

“…Ahhhhhh!”
Smack.

“—tree.”

Rachael bounced off the trunk and grabbed the bloody wound on her forehead.
“Ahhhhhh!…”
She turned around and ran back the other way.

Serge and Coleman simultaneously sat on the ground. Their heads swiveled left to right as Rachael went screaming by.
“…Snakes!…”

She crashed over a garbage can at the corner, got up and reversed direction again.
“…Somebody! Help!…”

Coleman’s head rotated as she went by. “This is better than
Bum Fight
videos.”

A half block away, Martha Davenport looked up from her book. “What’s all that racket out there?”

“I don’t know.” Jim tried to get a better look out the window. “Sounds like some woman’s being attacked by snakes.”

“Snakes?”

“That’s what she says.” He watched as Rachael hit the ground, rolling furiously back and forth. Dirt covered her face, mixing with the blood pouring down from her forehead and getting in her nose and mouth.
“Ahhhhhh! Ahhhhhh! There’s motherfuckin’ snakes in my motherfuckin’ hair!…”

“That’s odd,” said Coleman. “A little bit ago I thought she was the hottest chick I’d ever seen, but for some reason I’m not that turned on anymore.”

“It’s the same with all women,” said Serge. “Sexiness depends on what part of the day you catch them.”

Coleman grabbed the spherical TV from where Rachael had left
it. “Wonder if this thing works.”