Ein stretched across
the back seat, his eyes peering out the car’s window and toward the overcast
sky. “You sure?”
Claude took one hand
off the wheel to push up his glasses -- his usual signal of “you’re pissing me
off.” For a minute, he didn’t answer; he
had a feeling he wouldn’t like where the story went. “What choice do I have?”
“You could just, I
dunno, not ask.”
“But how will I ever
get to sleep if I don’t have another one of your tales of idiocy to soothe me?”
Ein sat up and stared
blankly at the back of Claude’s seat.
“You still need a bedtime story to get to sleep? Weak.”
Ein lay back once
more. “You keep losin’ your cool like
that, and your brain’s gonna pop. That
ain’t manly.” He ran a hand through his
hair, a shock of black vines that would make even a bed head snicker. His gangly frame managed to squeeze between
the car doors, though he had to bend his knees to fit comfortably. Despite that, he rested his head on the door
handle, staring at the sky with a face between a scowl and a smirk; his ragged
brows almost always looked furrowed, and his beady gray eyes looked less than
inviting (and about ten seconds away from turning the nearest face into a sack
of bruised meat).
He took a deep
breath. “Okay. So I went to Sporty’s to grab some chicken
wings for dinner, when I notice there’s some asshole sitting on my favorite
stool --”
“Oh, Lord…”
Ein waved his hands
through the air to illustrate, taking pride in seeing the athletic tape wrapped
over them. “So I go over there and I
say, real nice-like, ‘Hey! Asshole! That’s my stool!’ And so he’s just sittin’ there, rockin’ back
and forth and knockin’ a few screws out of the bottom --”
“Oh, Lord…”
Ein grabbed at an
invisible head, and swung his arm through the air. “So I grab him, and slam his head into his
plate -- oh, and there’s blood everywhere --” He shot a glance at the back of
Claude’s seat, his face curled into a frown.
“Hey, you’re not lookin’! I
grabbed him like this, and --”
“Honestly, what good is
having a head if you never use it?”
Ein clapped his hands
together and smiled. “Ah, that’s
right! After I smashed that guy’s plate
with his face, I totally gave him a headbutt.
Thanks for remindin’ me.”
“You shouldn’t be proud
of that!”
“Why not? Name me another man in Ellisville who can
headbutt a guy without sheddin’ a tear.”
“Damn it, Ein!” The car came to a stop behind a red light,
allowing Claude to turn back to his fight-happy passenger. A young dandy of the modern age, he’d picked
up Ein while wearing his typical ensemble: black slacks, a cummerbund,
suspenders, and tie, all set against a blue dress shirt with white pin
stripes. Man that he might have been
(though sometimes Ein couldn’t help but wonder), Claude had groomed his
coiffure to perfection; his sandy hair shone so brightly, he might as well have
strapped his head to the sun. Though he
normally had a cool, almost smarmy look about him, his blue eyes nearly popped
out of his head and slammed into his glasses.
“Violence is NOT the answer to all of life’s problems! Do you have any idea what the word
‘consequences’ means? Do you?”
Ein nodded. “It means ‘don’t sit on my favorite stool.’”
Claude pushed up his
glasses once more. “It means ‘don’t do
something that’ll get you thrown in jail or sued.’ It’s a miracle you aren’t living on the
streets already; why push your luck with such wanton acts of insanity?”
Ein tilted his head
like a confused puppy. “Wanton? What’s that mean?”
“It means --”
“Are they like
croutons? ‘Cause I hate those.”
Claude let out a groan
that drowned out the sound of his engine.
He turned back to the road ahead; the light had turned green, and so he
continued piloting his Lexus down the road.
“So I take it your story isn’t done yet,” he said curtly. His eyes drifted to the rearview mirror,
giving him a full view of his friend’s clothing: dusty, torn, with a few dried
bloodstains thrown into the mix. As
always, he’d taken to wearing a Freddy Kruger-striped t-shirt, which clung to
his lean form, and an old hooded vest whose dyes had faded into a deep
gray. Splashes of mud rose up the legs
of his pants, with splotches of white reaching as high as his thigh. And beyond his much-adored handwraps, he’d
strapped a few bandages around his legs, his arms, and even plastered a few
strips across his face. Claude could
only assume that most of it was for some twisted (or rather, sorry) sense of
style, but complaining about it wouldn’t do him any good. He knew how hard-headed Ein could
be…particularly since he’d seen him smash a brick wall with his forehead on a
dare.
“Yeah. So after that, the guy calls over some of his
pals -- real un-manly of him,” Ein continued; he balled his hands into fists
and jabbed at the air. “So we take it
outside, and then -- I shit you not -- all these Mohawk-wearin’ goons come out
of the woodworks. So I just start
wailin’ on ‘em, one after another, and then I totally grabbed this fat dude
like this, and --”
Claude reached into his
pocket and pulled out an Advil. His
guess was spot-on; this little taxi ride DID give him a headache.
“Hey! Hey, you didn’t look! Come on, man.
Not cool.”
After Claude swallowed
the pill, he sighed heavily. “So does
this story have a point, or is it just the tale of how you got away with
manslaughter?”
“Oh yeah, it’s got a
point. I was just buildin’ it up a
little, you know? Dramatic tension and
all that.” He swept a hand through the
air. “So anyway, that’s when this huge
shipping crate comes fallin’ right outta the sky, and slams into the guy who
took my stool.”
“…What.”
“I said that that’s
when this huge --”
“I heard you the first
time! But…but, honestly, a shipping
crate? One sturdy enough to survive
plummeting from well above ground level, and heading towards the earth at the
gravitational constant of nine point eight meters per second -- ”
“You know how I feel
about science, Claude. That ain’t
manly.”
“A giant crate falls
atop your dancing partner and leaves
you unharmed?”
“What? No.
Friggin’ box blew up the whole block.
Almost tore my face off from the blast.”
Ein waved a hand through the air, as if to dismiss something as
unimportant as a nigh-meteoric detonation.
“So when I got up, I think to myself, ‘Man, that guy’s toast. Seriously, burnt toast. That was a good one liner. I should save that for later and tell it to
Claude.’”
“That was an awful --”
“But just when I’m
about to call it a night, some crazy masked dude shows up and starts screamin’,
‘My bombs! My beautiful, beautiful
bombs! All my plans, dashed!’ And
whatnot. Now that I think about it, he
kinda talked like you -- all proper-like and not makin’ any sense to anybody
but himself. Kinda annoyin’, you know
what I mean?”
“Well, excuse me for expressing my erudite
nature!”
Ein furrowed an
eyebrow. “There you go again, you
frilly-pants wearin’ dandy.”
“I’ll have you know
those pants were a gift from my uncle!”
“And you still wore
‘em.”
“Out of courtesy! Nothing more!”
“Yeah, yeah.” Ein shrugged.
“So anyway, that bomb guy. I
dunno, man, I think he was a terrorist.
Wearin’ a mask, goin’ on and on about his explosives, being pretty
all-around un-American by blowin’ up my seat…I think we oughta do something.”
Claude had to struggle against
the urge to slam his head against the wheel.
“Accusing someone of being a terrorist is a serious matter. Do you have any evidence to support your
claims?”
“Yeah. He blew up my favorite stool.”
Claude gave in to his
base desires; he slammed his head on the wheel as hard as he could. “Damn it, Ein! I’ve had it up to here with your cockamamie
adventures! Ellisville is already
ridiculous enough without your little escapades -- don’t make things any worse
than they already are!”
Ein turned away from
the clouds and peered at his good buddy.
“You act like that’s a bad thing,” he argued. “If there weren’t so much weird crap goin’ on
all the time, how would any of us prove we’re manly?”
Claude shook his
head. “Listen, you,” he began, his rage
reaching fortissimo, “and listen well.
You’re your own man, I acknowledge that.
All I ask in return is that you allow me to do the same. Don’t drag me down into your affairs when you
know I have special matters to attend to.”
Ein scratched at his
head. “I don’t follow you.”
“You do whatever you
feel like doing. But for one night -- TONIGHT
-- do NOT involve me in any way. Don’t
ask me to help you in a street brawl, or evacuate a burning building, and most
certainly not to create a one-to-one scale model of Hungry Hungry Hippos.”
“Look, I already got
the giant marbles --”
“I don’t want to hear
it!” Claude swerved the Lexus into a
nearby parking lot (with a drift that would make Vin Diesel proud), and glared
at his pugnacious passenger. “If you
call on me, I won’t come. I’ll leave you
to burn, or rot, or drown, wherever you may be.
You need to learn that I won’t always be there to save you -- and the
best way to do that is to have you learn first-hand what your actions may
bring!”
Ein stared coolly at
Claude for all of eight seconds. And
before he said anything more, the scrapper bolted out of the car.
It’s like talking to a moose, Claude thought. Still, he figured that letting Ein walk
around unsupervised was a wildfire waiting to happen. He sprang out of the car and started after
Ein. As luck would have it, they’d
stopped in Ellisville’s famed Ridgeline Park; the rolling knolls whipped
against Claude’s thighs, and a slew of critters fluttered into the air with
each new step. The hills led him down to
a flat expanse, with playground equipment -- swings, a merry-go-round, and
slides -- on his left, with a large pond a few clicks ahead.
Claude caught up to
Ein, but kept his distance; his buddy had drummed up a conversation with a
crying little girl. In fact, he just
stood there, patting her on the shoulder, and consoling her as if he was her
older brother. And he hadn’t even thrown
so much as a right hook!
I never would have guessed that he was even capable of a peaceable discussion, Claude
thought, stroking his chin. Perhaps I was a bit too quick to judge him.
Meanwhile, Ein patted
the girl atop the head. “So cheer up,
all right?” he asked, with his rough visage now as soft as a newly-minted
father’s. “You’re a cute little girl,
you know that? So it won’t do ya any
good to look all sad.”
The girl dropped
lowered her hands from her face.
“B-but…”
“Just leave it to me, all
right? If there’s anythin’ I can do to
cheer ya up, I’ll do it.” He tapped a
hand against one of his biceps. “’Cause
that’s what men do.”
The girl sniffled. “M-my seeds,” she confessed. “I was gonna take them home and plant them in
my backyard. B-b-but those swans came
near me, and I got scared, a-and…”
Claude’s face
soured. Swans? He looked at the pond -- sure enough, a small
flock of them slid across the water, necks curved and white feathers
a-ruffling. Well, I suppose it couldn’t be helped. He waved a hand at Ein. “Come on.
If it’s to lend aid to this girl, I would gladly buy her some more
seeds. It’s of no consequence to me.”
Ein stood up and
nodded. “Yeah. You take the girl. I got some business to take care of.”
He turned toward the
pond, and popped his knuckles.
“Takin’ you punks
DOWN!” he roared. He rushed to the pond,
and flung his body into the water.
“Jackass swans! Gonna tie all
your necks into a knot! That’ll teach ya
not to scare a little girl!” And of
course, he’d made his little declaration while wading through the waist-high
water, splashing and thrashing about, and planting his fists into the faces of
several water fowl.
Claude, aghast, covered
the little girl’s eyes. “A bit of
self-control would be much appreciated,” he called out while his buddy caught a
swan in a headlock.
“Eat it, swan!” Ein
yelled, just before busting the beak of his captive. He flung the swan through the air, and
started his rampage anew -- with his arms lashing about, he stampeded through
one bird after another, hitting them so hard that clumps of feathers exploded
from their bodies.
Claude almost threw
up. “I think I’ll take the girl to the
flower shop now,” he yelled over the chaos, covering his eyes to protect his
fragile sensibilities. “You…you just
keep…mindlessly attacking.” He stepped
backwards, horrified at the symphony of honks and flapping just a few feet
away.
“You’re not gettin’
away that easy, you ugly duckling wannabe!” Ein howled, clutching a swan by the
ankle as it tried to fly away. He swung
the bird around his head like a lasso, and slammed it into another set of swans
trying to escape. “Jackass swans! Who said you could run from a fight? That ain’t manly!”
Claude (in the safety
of his car) rolled down his window and waved at Ein. “We’re going now. Have fun!
And remember: don’t interfere with my plans tonight!”
“Here’s a little
somethin’ I learned from WrestleMania!” Ein yelled in the distance.
“I assume that’s your
stamp of approval.” Claude turned to the
girl in the passenger seat. “Now,
then. What do you say we go and get you
some more seeds?”
The little girl looked
up at Claude with wide eyes. “Mister,
are you kidnapping me? I-I think I need
an adult…”
Claude ground his teeth. She’d just seen someone commit swanslaughter,
but somehow HE was the bad guy?
No comments:
Post a Comment