“Maggie, why don’t you just invite them in?” Came the other feminine voice, it was worded as a sarcastic challenge and Maggie knew that, but she used the words for her own devices.
“Do you want to come in?” I guess her name is Maggie asked.
Before I could even answer I heard Tommy shout from across the way. “Can we get some Kit-Kat bars!?”
“Tommy? Right?” The voice that must be Maggie asked me.
“One and the same.” I answered. The potential for violence had passed like an ill wind but I still wasn’t taking any chances. “I’d like to grab my rifle and shoulder it.”
“Oh yeah sure, go ahead.” Came the male voice with not a hint of the earlier malice. We had, in seconds, gone from Showdown at the OK Corral to Mr. Rogers Neighborhood and again it was Tommy that saved the day. He was like a cat with the whole nine lives thing going on. No, that wasn’t quite right because cats don’t generally give their lives out for others. Whatever he was, he had at the very least saved my ass. I’d buy him that damned Kit-Kat machine.
The danger had passed, I can’t tell you how exactly I’d known but I did. I didn’t consider it gambling our lives on a hunch either. I waved Tracy and Brendon into the parking lot. They must have felt the same way I did because neither of them hesitated, as it was Tracy almost clipped Brendon’s front bumper in her haste to get in. Was Tommy broadcasting good cheer like a high wattage radio station? There was a good chance of it and if Tommy wasn’t concerned then none of us should be.
The little motel wasn’t much to look at. It was two stories tall and basically just a giant box. It was like any other motel you’ve seen 150,000 times before if you had ever traveled the highways of North America. That being said it was in better shape than 95% of those other motels. I’d even wager that during the summer months the pool wasn’t a shade of avocado green. As tired as I was, the Ritz Carlton would not have looked much better. The man lowered a ladder down to us that I hadn’t noticed before. Maybe because it was painted black but more likely because I had a green laser dot on my chest. Those tend to transfix your attention to the detriment of all other things.
Tommy had come up beside me, eyeing the ladder warily.
I absently fingered the gun on my shoulder. Unease trickled in from a small black hole in the base of my skull. “What’s the matter Tommy?” I asked as innocently sounding as possible.
Tommy turned to look at me, his face a mask of seriousness. “The Kit-Kats aren’t up there.”
The unease evaporated under the light of a thousand suns. I laughed until tears streamed from my eyes, and I’m sorry to say, as snot sluiced from my nose. Tommy handed me a wrapper from his phantom pop-tarts. I started laughing harder at the prospect of wiping my nose with a piece of papery tinfoil. Catching my breath was becoming agonizingly difficult, in a good way.
Nicole had got out of the car to see what was so funny. When she saw the state that I was in she felt the need to comment. “Ew gross Dad, I’ll get you a paper towel.”
I started laughing harder, I guess it was the pent up endorphins. Under my tutelage, my daughter suffered to a degree of germ-a-phobia. She doesn’t have the advanced degree like I do, but she is working on her undergrad status. I laughed at how she cringed at my condition. Hell if I wasn’t laughing so hard I would have been grossed out too. True to her word within thirty seconds or so she had brought me half a roll of paper towels. I was beginning to come down from my self-induced high. Shit I’m a cheap date. That almost got me going again but streamers of snot nearly a foot long kept it at bay. Tommy was watching me fascinated. He kept absently wiping his nose, maybe in the hopes that I would follow his lead.
“Ew Dad! Take these!” My daughter said, thrusting the paper towels into my hand.
“How’s about a kiss for your dear old dad?” I made like I would go after her and she fled like I was the world’s largest oozing sore. I was moments away from bursting. My sinuses ached from the fluid I had pumped through them. I couldn’t even begin to explain how happy I was when later Maggie would break out a First Aid kit that contained Benadryl.
I assured Tommy that we would get some Kit-Kats before the night was through, but right now we should meet our hosts. That seemed to mollify him somewhat and at least his bottom lip stopped quivering. Tommy made sure he was first up the ladder. I think he was so that he could get the greeting part out of the way and the eating part underway. Again Tommy’s action made me realize that this was a safe place but it still takes more than a minute or so to get the stain of a bullet beacon off of your mind.
While the event is taking place and adrenaline is surging through your veins, you have a difficult time assessing just how much danger you are in or how close you are to taking a dirt nap. It’s after the fact, when you’ve burned through your go-go juice and the imminent danger has passed. That is when the mind fuck really starts to set in. You’ve never heard of Amid Traumatic Stress Syndrome. There’s no time to become a basket case in battle. My friends that didn’t react back in Iraq, well, I buried them.
But now that this last crisis had passed, my knees were weak and my breath was ragged. I couldn’t get the images out of my head of my inconsolable wife and daughter as they looked down on my lifeless body. I knew the boys would soldier on. I had prepared them well. Even Tommy would be alright. He had an uncanny ability to see the world in a better light, rather than the black one that covered us now. Could rose-colored glasses change the landscape that much? No, for the umpteenth time I knew in my depths it was something much grander than I was prepared to accept or acknowledge with him. I knew Henry would feel the loss, say what you will but I know I’m more than just a food delivery system for him. If you never had the grand opportunity to befriend (not own) a bully than you have truly missed out on one of life’s pleasures. I have never encountered a breed of dog that possessed more of the grander human traits, love and affection, without the less savory ones, hostility and aggression. Yes Henry would feel the loss, of that I was sure. He would not have the capacity to understand where I had gone off to, hopefully he would think I went to live out the rest of my life on some huge hominid farm. Yes, these are all the thoughts that coursed through my head as I marshaled my reserves and ascended the ladder.
Tommy was already busy making new friends when I came over the railing. The man who had moments earlier been about to give me some internal air conditioning, grabbed a handful of my jacket and helped me over. Under normal circumstances I might have been so inclined as to shrug his arm off of me but since I was pulling energy from my stashed resources, I accepted his offer. Brendon, BT, Travis and Jen, hung back by the cars in a loose semi-circle, their placement making it very difficult to be taken out quickly in an ambush. Justin had never got out of the van and Tracy and Nicole both got into the driver’s seat of their respective machines. All in all it was a very tactical maneuver, we were becoming good at the game of staying alive. We had to. The stakes were too large.
I had no sooner finished appraising our situation when the motel man spoke to me.
“Sorry about that.” He said with a quick mirthless smile. “Can’t be too careful these days.”
I nodded like a bobble head doll. I wanted to break his jaw.
When he saw I wasn’t going to give him the standard ‘It’s ok. I understand that you had to point a gun at me and threaten to shred my innards into the contour of Chipotle pulled pork. I get it, it’s cool, let’s be best friends. Do you mind if I break your jaw?’
He continued. “Right. Well then my name is Denmark and the lady over there giving the big fella a hug is my wife Maggie.”
“Who’s the one that wanted you to shoot me?”
He leaned in conspiratorially “That’s Maggie’s sister, Greta. She’s a mean bitch, that one.”
“I gathered that.”
He laughed. I wanted to, I just wasn’t there yet.
Maggie disengaged from Tommy, her face beaming. Maggie asked Tommy one question before she came over to me. “Why the broccoli tree?”
“His mom says he should eat more greens.” I answered for him.
Maggie came over to me with her hand outstretched I took it only out of a courtesy I didn’t feel. “Welcome, welcome!” She said pumping my arm vigorously. Her sour faced sister looked over Maggie’s shoulder. Greta’s look still conveyed the feeling that Denmark should have taken the shot. One glance at Greta and I knew why she was such a ‘mean bitch.’ Maggie was slightly older than Greta, maybe late fifties to Greta’s mid-fifties. But that was it for similarities. At one time it was easy to see that Maggie, was quite the looker, even now she bore a stately beauty that belied her years. Greta must have pissed God off something fierce because she had been whacked with the ugly stick a few dozen times. Where Maggie was tall and slender, Greta was short and rotund. Maggie’s regal
