The Fighter (25 page)

He
slewed onto the pedestrian footpath, his heart palpitating madly. He popped an
ampule of Deca-Durabolin into his mouth, crushed the light-bulb-thin glass
between his molars, and swallowed it all down.

An
old man was seated on a bench scattering bread crusts to pigeons; his eyes
became cavernous white Os at the sight of the onrushing car. Paul considered
grazing the bench, severing his legs at the knees, but the old man didn't
deserve it half so much as the cyclist so he swerved through the pigeons
instead and had to admire their reluctance to pass up a free meal, even in the
face of death; their gluttonous shapes bounded over the hood leaving blood and
shards of pigeon skull on the windshield. One bird's beak got jammed in the
windshield-wiper arm—its body sailed over the roof but its knotted rag of a
head, with its calcified beak and diseased eyes,
that
stayed put. This unsettled the hell out of Paul; he flicked the wipers but the
damn thing just flapped side to side across the glass.

The
cyclist glanced over his shoulder and saw Paul twenty yards back; his legs were
pumping like a pair of sewing machine needles. Paul checked the speedometer,
saw he was doing nearly forty klicks, and felt grudging respect. He pictured
himself in a courtroom, defending his actions to a powder-wigged judge.
Mitigating circumstances, your honor: not only was the
deceased riding a recumbent bicycle, but let the record show he also wore a
fruity purple helmet.
He inched up on the bike tire, close enough to see the cyclist's terrified
reflection in the bike's rearview mirror—
Your honor, he
had a
rearview mirror
bolted to the handlebars! I throw
myself upon the mercy of the court!

Paul
was charged up, galvanic, rocket fuel coursing through his veins, but at the
last possible instant he jerked the wheel and the Micra went skipping back
across the greenbelt, the front bumper clipping a trash can and sending the car
into an unchecked swoon. His head cracked the dashboard and stars, whole
constellations, blossomed before his eyes as the car spun across the
frictionless grass, one revolution, two, three, then he was back on the street
as the windshield filled with the blaze of oncoming headlights, tires
screeching, horns bleating, and Paul, still woozy, hit the gas and cut across
lanes into the parking lot of an insurance broker, mercifully closed. He lay
draped over the wheel until he heard angry voices nearby and veered onto the
street again.

In
a supermarket now, pushing a shopping cart down the aisles. The industrial
halogens stung his eyes. In the produce section he picked a ripe peach, took a
bite and grinned as sweet nectar dribbled down his chin.

He
bagged up a dozen tomatoes then swung down the next aisle and picked up six
cartons of extra large Omega 3 eggs. He spied a pack of firecrackers in the
discount bin and chucked it in the cart.

He
passed down the household gadgets aisle. He saw the Remington Fuzz Away; phone
attachments with 200-number autodial memories; something called the Racquet
Zapper, an electric flyswatter that promised to make "pest control a
zap."
It was funny, Paul thought, how we do it to ourselves. He thought of all the
inventions over the past fifty years and figured ninety-nine percent were of
the "quality of life" variety. Inventions to make life easier,
lighten the roughness of existence—as if an electric flyswatter could somehow
ease the stress of daily life. So now everyone's got a houseful of these dopey
gadgets, mountains of cheap plastic and wiring, and can't possibly live without
their juicers and pepperballs and hands-free phone sets and—he scanned the
shelves restlessly—yes, their cordless Black and Decker Scumbuster 300s,
couldn't visualize life before any of them—god, how did the pioneers manage
it?—when all they really did was make everyone weaker, more reliant, less able
to do for themselves until they were nothing but puddles of mush.

"Remember
your own damn phone numbers," he muttered. "Roll up a newspaper to
swat at flies," his voice rising. "Pick lint off your fucking sweater
with your
fingers?'
he screamed.

In
line at the checkout he scanned newspaper headlines. The
Weekly World News'
s
top headline read:
cloned hitler turns seven years old
! The
Toronto Star's
seemed equally absurd:
shot in the
dark: blind students treated to deer hunting trip
. He felt much calmer now, having
settled on a plan of attack.

The
cashier eyed his purchases skeptically. "Looks like you've got an evening
all planned out."

"Yes,"
said Paul. "I'm baking a pie."

She
waved the firecrackers over the scanner. "Missing a few ingredients."

"It's
mostly meringue."

She
handed him the bags with a rueful shake of her head. "Hope you're not
planning to bake this cake in my neighborhood."

In
the parking lot with his gonads kicking out toxic levels of testosterone some
biological imperative made him drop to the tarmac and burn off push-ups; his
mind whited out at two hundred reps and when his senses returned he was
crouched behind the Micra with his hands gripping the bumper, straining to lift
the rear wheels off the ground, but merciless pressure built up in his
abdominal cavity and he feared a hernia or a prolapsed colon so he walked to a
payphone at the lot's edge and dialed Lou Cobb.

"That...
that place you were ... talking about..."

"You
been out jogging, kid? Sound puffed."

"...Gladiators
..." Paul was picturing arms and legs rupturing from excess mass,
hyper-developed muscles splitting biceps and thighs."... Thunderbird Layne
and all that..."

"How's
your schnozz?" Lou wanted to know. "Healed up yet?"

Paul
felt his own muscles twitching, the tendons hard and tight as a condom packed
with walnuts. "My nose is fine. So, about that place—"

Lou
laughed for no reason:
Bhar-har-har!
Or was Paul hearing things; was
it some odd distortion on the line? "We'll work something out. Sounds like
you're ready."

He
hung up and drove to Bayside, a neighborhood strung along the banks of Twelve
Mile Creek. In the dusky evening light he saw million- dollar homes, topiary
gardens, pool houses. Paul stomped on the brakes and stepped out. The house was
gaudy: ornate columns, three- car garage, his-and-her hunter green Range
Rovers.

He
tucked the tire iron down the back of his pants—cold steel slid between the
crack of his ass and he shivered—and grabbed a carton of eggs. He eased through
the open gates up the drive and found a spot on the front lawn. Methodically,
with great relish, he started chucking.

Eggs
broke over the mullioned windows and the stained-glass door. Eggs broke with
the sound of brittle bones, so richly rewarding.

A
soft terrified face materialized in a second-floor window. Paul threw an egg
and that face vaporized. Egg dripped off the eaves. Egg coated the Range
Rovers.

The
mailbox was shaped like a dog: an Irish setter. Paul stared at this grinning
dog with a metal pole shoved up its ass and found himself unsettled on a
sub-cellular level. He drew the tire iron from his trousers and whacked the
fucking thing's head and put a satisfying dent in it; another whack tore its
mouth off its hinges. He jammed the tire iron down its throat and pried it off
its moorings. A kick sent the mouthless thing skittering across the driveway into
a flower bed.

A
buttery face poked out the front door. The face hollered that Paul was an
unhinged crazyperson and that the cops were on their way.

"I
am
the cops!" Paul screamed. "My name is Rex Appleby—part of that thin
blue line separating you from the unadulterated
scum
out there!"

"Get
off my lawn, degenerate!"

"Your
mailbox was resisting arrest. I'm well within my rights!"

When
the guy reappeared at the door, relating Paul's physical description to 911
dispatch, it was time to hit the dusty trail.

Back
in the car he crushed Dianabols on the dashboard and snorted the pink powder.
The Micra started with a shudder; he punched the accelerator and blatted down
the street singing along to the stereo, slewing around a hairpin curve, getting
the shitbox up on two wheels.

He
drove a few blocks before pulling up beside a gold Lexus SUV. Paul had once
wanted one of these so badly—he'd planned on asking for one for Christmas. Now
the very sight of it made him queasy with rage.

He
got out and checked the door: unlocked. He grabbed a handful of eggs and pelted
the mahogany instrument panel. With the tire iron he stabbed holes in the
fragrant leather seats and jammed Roman candles into the stuffing. He lit the
fuses and slammed the door. The soundproofing was top-notch: only brilliant
intermittent flashes behind the tinted windows. Acrid gray smoke seeped from
the door seams.

He
hopped in the Micra. His heart trip-hammered wildly; he pictured aortic valves
spun from carnival glass on the verge of splintering. He lit off some Magic
Black Snakes on the passenger seat but they were unrewarding, dirty little
turds, so he fired up a Screaming Devil and puttered down the street with gobs
of shrieking orange fire spitting out the windows.

At
some point he noticed the flashing cherries in his rearview and pulled over.

The
cop was old, with the skittery-dodgy gait of a man clearly terrified of being
shot or otherwise incapacitated so close to retirement. He scanned the car's
interior. An arresting officer's wet dream: busted eggs, squashed tomatoes, the
reek of gunpowder.

"And
how are you tonight, sir?"

"Feeling
jim-dandy
fine,
officer."

"I'll
ask you to put both hands on the wheel... yup, like that."

The
officer walked around front of the car. "You've got a busted headlight. And
what looks to be a ..." He hunkered down for a better look."...bird
lodged in the grille, here."

"That
came with the car."

"Funny
option, I'd say." He returned to the driver's side. "We received a
call about a disturbance. You wouldn't happen to know anything about
that?"

Paul
scraped at a shard of eggshell stuck to his chin. "I did see a suspicious
fellow—a prowler, you might say—a few blocks back. He was tall and skinny, with
rolls of fat hanging off his squat frame. And he was sitting astride a gryphon."

The
cop sighed heavily. "A gryphon, huh?"

"Yes,
the mythical creature. Half lion, half eagle. Quite rare, I can assure
you."

"And
you haven't been making mischief tonight—throwing eggs, batting mailboxes, and
the like? Nothing illegal?"

"My
understanding of the law is fuzzy, officer—is driving drunk illegal
nowadays?"

"Telling
me you're intoxicated?"

"Yo
ho ho and a bottle of
r-r-r-r-r-ruuum
!
"

The
cop looked as though he'd dearly love to drag Paul to the precinct and
interrogate him with a phonebook. "You've got some restitutions to make,
son—though by the looks of this heap here, the offended parties may have to
satisfy themselves with an apology. License and registration."

Paul
rooted through the glove compartment and handed them over. The officer's brow
wrinkled. He glanced at Paul, the license, back at Paul.

"You're
not ..." confused, "... Jack Harris's son? The winery owner?"

Paul
nodded.

The
officer leaned down to get a better look. "Lord," he said, "it
is
you."

Paul
tallied up his offenses over the past hours: assault, petty larceny, attempted
vehicular manslaughter, drug abuse, vandalism, tendering false statements to an
officer—how many years in the hoosegow was he looking at here?