::the open end::

by ML Kennedy

I’m flying past Erie, Pennsylvania and Barb’s keychain keeps hitting my leg. It’s darker than Guinness outside, I’m going eighty miles an hour, I’ve just been shot twice, and this goddamned keychain won’t stop hitting my leg.

Holding the key in the ignition I yank the chain to pieces. The offending trinket is aluminum, slightly bigger than a silver dollar, and is somewhat evocative of Xena’s chakram. I had previously seen it as being round, but upon closer examination the annoyance is actually a dodecagon. I mistook twelve sides as being one. The more sides a polygon has, the more it resembles a circle. Infinity approaches one.

Huh. It flies out the window just like a round thing would.

Used to be that I would still be overcome by adrenaline and thinking about the fight, not waxing mathematically philosophical. When I got in fights as a kid, I would black out and not remember what happened. By the time I was sixteen, I would play a fight over and over again in my head, trying to figure out how I could’ve done better. You know, like how a guy replays a bad conversation in order to remind himself how stupid he sounded?

Maybe I’m the only guy that does that thing.

Nowadays, I really enjoy fighting but the high doesn’t last. Maybe all those anti-drug after school specials-

This thought is interrupted by a tingly feeling in my stomach. It doesn’t last, wait, here it is again.

Oh, that’s right; I stole this coat. I take a cellphone from its pocket.

The phone informs me that it is ICE KRISTINE CALLING. I decide to answer.

“Talk to me.”

“Omigosh, I thought you were going to call.”

“I wasn’t under that impression at all,” I reply. Ice Kristine has a babyish voice that some men find alluring. I read somewhere that it more than likely means that she was molested as a kid, so I‘m not part of that group.

“You fucking told me that you were going to call. I’ve been, like, up all night worrying.”

“I really don’t think-”

“Richard, is that you?”

“Nope.”

“Who is this?”

Hmm. . . Fake name, fake name. . . “My name is Terry Lennox, ma‘am, pleased to-”

“Where’s Richard?”

“I was kinda hoping you could tell me, ma’am.” I figure Terry Lennox is the sort of cat who would call people ma’am and sir.

“What?”

“You see, I think we accidentally swapped coats. I went to 24 Karat Gold with a trench coat, and he went to 24 Karat Gold with a trench coat and I guess I just checked out with his instead of mine.”

“What?”

“I’m dreadfully sorry. I went back to see if I could find him there, but he had left the club by then. You see I have this pair of mittens in my coat with a strong sentimental value.”

“What club?“

“24 Karat Gold. It’s right by the Buffalo Stamping Plant, off of route 5. Actually, maybe it is on route 5. You know how 5 kinda veers . Anyway, these mittens-”

“ Richard wasn’t at a club.”

“Well, my dear, his coat was. And his phone.”

“That’s that booby bar by the McKinley Mall!”

“It is about half a mile from the mall, and it is a gentleman’s club,” I clarify. “So, these mittens, they were knitted for me, or maybe crocheted, by my grandmother who suffered from rheumatism and sugar, and she-”

“He told me he doesn’t go to those places. That he doesn’t believe in- ugh!”

Apparently Richard might not believe in “ugh”. I, myself, remain agnostic to such a thing‘s existence. “Relax, honey, maybe Richard’s coat was swapped previous to that, and somebody else wore his coat to the, um, booby bar. The guy at the place said that he kinda looked like Michael Stipe. Liked to lie back and get Mickey Mouse ears from this really endowed dancer.”

“He told me that he was fighting- and I believed- how could I be so damned stupid?! Ugh!!” Ice Kristine just took Ugh’s name in vain. Sinner!

“I don’t believe you’re stupid ma’am. If this Richard fella is the bald fella that I saw at the club, well then he is a charismatic and magnetic fella. He prolly just bewitched you. All the dancers seemed to like him and that lady friend he brought in with him. But I don’t wanna get the guy in trouble. “

“He’s already in trouble, Mr. Lennox.”

“That’s not my aim here, ma’am. Now about my mittens.”

“You can pick them up in the morning. We live in Derby South. As for Richard-”

“That’s great. I’ll pick them up right after church. Need some church after a night of fornication like that. I’ll bring the cellphone. As for the mittens, tell Richard ’I’m coming for ’em.’”

There can’t be more than sixty houses in Derby South, but it is back whence I came. It’ll have to wait.

“Feel free to, like, make a bunch of long distance calls on Richard’s phone.”

She hangs up. Making calls on Richard’s phone sounds like a good idea. It takes me an embarrassingly long time to find the phone’s address book. When I do, a name near the top of the list sticks out: BSF. It has a 773 number.

BSF: Blood Sucking Freaks, Chicago. Oh, I have to call this number.

I go to call the number and accidentally push the button to edit it.

Stupid fucking cellphone. I threaten it with a brand from the car’s cigarette lighter before it submits and does as its told.

Related TOE posts:

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• TOE Short Story :: The Mosquito Song – Ch 1
• TOE Short Story :: The Mosquito Song – Ch 3
• TOE Short Story :: The Mosquito Song – Ch 5
• TOE Short Story :: The Mosquito Song – Ch 2