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A run for it

D. Kalteis

    Dobbins burst through the door. “Wooly, you got to help me, man.” Hands like claws in the air, the few fringes left on his jacket flapping, pocket catching and tearing on the knob. A jumble of raw nerves, his eyes wide in their sockets, face feverish, wet with sweat. The hounds of hell biting his heels.
    “What the ...” The sudden intrusion threw Wooly, his hand slipping on the wrench, slamming fingers, ripping flesh on metal. Face scrunched and pained, he came up, bumped his bike, eyes narrowed from the lamp light falling in behind Dobbins.
    “I got to get out of here, man.” Dobbins looked to the street, then closed the door. “Fast.”
    “Whoa up.” Wooly sent the socket wrench clattering onto the tool bench, sucking the bleeding finger, pissed.
    Dobbins’ eyes bugged like a scared horse, voice up an octave. “You got to hide me, man. It’s ...”
    Wooly’s flat hand smacked against Dobbins’ cheek, staggering him, leaving a grease smear on bristles. “Said calm the fuck down.”
    “Sorry.” The bitch slap stung. Another time or place, rail thin or not, Dobbins might have skewered Wooly for it. “Can’t find Lindy either.”
    “From the top, Dobbs; stop bein’ an asshole.”
    “Okay,” Dobbins caught his breath, gulped it, his eyes on his friend’s eyes. Wooly was right. Steady. Steady. Steady. “Okay, Malcolm’s got it in for me, says I let Jelly in.”
    “You did.”
    “No, I did fucking not, he just tagged along that one time, but Malcolm’s got it in his head that he who lets the rat in’s ...
    “For fuck’s sake.”
    “How could I know he was under-fuckin-cover?”
    Wooly threw his hands up. “I don’t need this shit, man, not today.”
    “Your right ... sorry ... yeah, happy birthday, man.”
    “Fuck that.”
    “All I did was bring Jelly by the bar – never said I was vouchin’ – never did, not a fuckin’ word like that came through these lips, uhn uhn.”
    “But you brought him.”
    “He hustled Sandy, shacked up with her. Blame her, fuck her up.”
    Wooly went to the window and peeked outside. “Anyone see you come here?”
    “Naw, I was careful, pretty sure, I kept lookin’. No, no way.”
    “Where’s your bike at?” Wooly bolted the door. Thinking. Thinking. Thinking.
    “Back at my place. Took Lindy’s bug over.”
    “Okay, at least that much was smart. Fuck. You know if they find you here ...” A storm in Wooly’s eyes.
    “They won’t ... I’m not going to see her again, am I?”
    “Naw, you go, Lindy’ll go, too.”
    “My bike.”
    The storm flashed. “Look, somebody comes by, sees you here, and my neck’s in the rope.”
    “I’m sorry, but you’re all I got, man.”
    “God damn ...” Wooly wiped his hands on a greasy rag, flung it away. Fishing his keys from his pocket, he tossed them through the air. “Get to my place. Drive easy, park around the block, go in the back. Middle of the night, we’ll get your ass outta here.”
    “Where?”
    “Anywhere Greyhound goes, that’s where.”
    “But that’s–”
    “That’s the best I can do, amigo.”
    “Okay, but, I’m tapped–”
    “Just get over there, and stay the fuck downstairs. No lights, no TV. Don’t even look out a window, no sound.”
    “Okay, but I need cash, some clothes.”
    “Worry about that later.” Again, the storm.
    Dobbins knew to turn and hurry out to the bug. It was full dark now. At least that. The bug fired up on the first crank, the motor he rebuilt sounding pretty good, a present to Lindy, a means of getting her to the club, Lindy not wanting a bike of her own. The only way she ever got on one was when she rode on the back of his.
    It was over, a lightning flash, a gunshot, like going flat out into a highway head on. “Take your patch and wipe your ass with it,” he told his rearview image, “Just like that.” He opened the glovebox and grabbed the mickey of bourbon. “Totally fucked.”
    He drank, feeling it burn its course. Where to, Canada? Land so cold they wear fucking flannel, and they don’t speak no fucking English in Mexico, he thought. Least those places were safe.
    Fishing his Baretta from under the seat, he checked the load, reached for the cap on the passenger seat and tucked his hair under it, pulling the wool low on his sweating brow. He palmed the cross Lindy had hanging from the rearview, swung it, looking at it. Could use you, Jesus, he thought, you and a few Cupids, armed with more than arrows though. He squeezed the bottle between his thighs and put her in first.
    At the light, an ambulance wailed through the intersection, then a bus, a fishbowl of tight-ass faces. A florist’s van raced the red.
    Dobbins rolled, eyes going every which way, spooked. Him, the hunted. Flash cards of what they would do: Tie him to a chair, slice him, beat him, then a petrol shower. Malcolm with a Zippo.
    He didn’t chance running the next amber light, waiting through the foreverness, foot tapping the floorboards, electricity letting loose, sweat rolling down. A bike zipped past him, through the light, the rider in full leather, laying across the top. Japanese junk with its bee buzz, whining engine.
    Rolling by Wooly’s house, he slunk low behind the wheel, giving it a peripheral shot. The house was dark. Stillness.
    At the end of the street, he rolled over some glass and pulled into a spot along the curb. He tossed the empty bottle on the passenger floor, dropped the pistol into his pocket and walked into the alley, the weight of it bouncing. Shoulders hunched. More flashcards: running from his brothers, robbing some taco stand for cash, treating that fucker Malcolm to a full clip and watching his lights go out.
    At Wooly’s picket fence, his eyes touched on everything in the cluttered yard: the once-orange, half-eaten Dodge standing fender-high in thistles, the apple tree, the greenhouse, the garage, the rotting porch. Through the squeaking gate, he crossed the yard and stepped over the broken step, shoved the key into the lock. He listened, put his hand on the steel in his pocket and stepped through into the pitch. Fingers up and down the cold wall, feeling for the light switch. He was thinking of a quick call to Lindy. Click, and the fan whirred. He flicked the next switch.
    “Surprise,” wailed from twenty throats. Balloons, streamers, noise makers, cake. A frozen moment. Malcolm with mouth wide open, party hat on his greasy hair, Dobbins with the Baretta coming up. JoJo, Bingo, Sammy, Dion, silhouettes of the Machine. A leather dance, twenty bodies laid in as one.

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