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Wrong Place, Wrong Time

Robb White

    I drove my piece-of-shit car to Richard’s shop as I’d been doing for the last two years.
    There’s no Richard despite the barely legible sign above the garage door, actually a converted barn. Bobby’s over 350 pounds and bald. Fat rolls on his neck show dirt caked in the creases. I guessed his name from the tops of the tattooed letters peeking out of his grease-spotted wifebeater. Driving ten miles out into the countryside past a dozen in-town garages to this burgh just to let Bobby work on my car made no sense unless you understood how deeply I hate dealing with human beings. Bobby never used ten words when none would do. I tell him in a sentence or two what’s wrong, he calls a day later and leaves a single word in my voicemail: “Done.”
    Sometimes I’d pass a scruffy-looking teenager or a dodgy-looking older male who’d eyefuck me on my way past the farmhouse to the barn. The stack of catalytic converters on a shelf told me Bobby did a sideline business. The longest conversation he and I had happened a week before this time. He was feeding his six pit bulls in big metal kennels behind the barn.
    “What happens if you let them out at the same time?”
    “They’ll kill each other,” he replied.
    I was debating whether to knock on the door of his house or drive back home with my muffler dragging and sparking all the way when a couple men stepped out the door, stopped and stared at me. The gun coming up seemed to be in slow motion. I ran—but not far. The bullet slamming into my back felt like a red-hot spike pounded through it in one mighty swing.
    When my brain snapped back into place, I was sprawled in the dirt on my belly. Playing possum seemed like a good idea. A heavy boot kicked me in the leg.
    “Who is he?”
    “Who gives a shit,” a different voice said. “Put another one in him.”
    Playing possum wasn’t so wise.
    A different voice: “What if he ain’t no citizen? We bring heat down on the club, our asses are next.”
    “Quit fuckin’ the dog. Check his motherfucking wallet,” the second voice said. “Then finish it, what the fuck.”
    One of those kids Bobby dealt with must have come stumbling up the driveway carrying another stolen converter. Apparently the mope had his earbuds in and didn’t notice the two big guys standing over a third guy lying on the ground.
    When he did figure it out, it was too late. Voices yelling, gunshots. A high-pitched scream loud enough to shatter crystal. Another gunshot. Risking a backward glance, I scrambled to my feet, absorbing the pain with an act of will and a dose of adrenalin.
    Stumbling my way to the back of the barn to the cages, I flipped the latches, one by one. A slug caromed off metal missing my head by inches. I hurled myself inside an empty cage and curled into a ball. The dog in the next cage went berserk, slathering and pawing to get to me. The next slug ricocheted off the top of the cage.
    Two strangers running aggressively toward them provided a better target.
    The bigger of the two men braced himself for a shot and hit the lead dog coming for him. His buddy decided discretion was the better part of valor. Three dogs hit the shooter like brindled missiles; he went down hard, flailing, screaming.
    The running man never made it to the house. The dogs packed up, took him down like wolves on an elk, a dog on each limb. One tearing at the crotch. They eviscerated him, bloody jaws snapping. I watched one sniff the dead boy’s face. One dog trotted into the barn looking for Bobby.
    My bullet wound festered. Another half-day in that cage would have done it. While conscious, I watched the dogs roam and feed off the corpses.
    A detective later told me they might need me in court someday. All I learned was that Bobby narced on his biker gang.
    “You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said.

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