Harmless (20 page)

“What?”  I tried to
open my stinging watery eyes and through the liquid haze, I could make out a
blue uniform and the outline of a bicycle. 

Uh-oh.

“Stand up for me,
please.”

I stood up, holding
my breath, listening to my heartbeat pounding away inside my skull.  I freaked
out, of course.  I mean,
good Lord
, had they caught me already?  I’d
made it two hours and four miles away from my clandestine meeting with Thomas
and I was done for already.  That whole life-flashing-before-your-eyes thing is
such a cliché, and I hate to even bring it up because of that, but it’s true. 
It really happens.  As sure as I’m telling this story, it’s legit. 

However, instead of
seeing a slideshow montage of my past, instead of seeing where I’d been over
the years and how I’d gotten to this world-altering moment—like choking on a
peach slice in third grade, like failing Chemistry and getting grounded for a
month, like
trying
to kiss Shayna for the first time—I saw my future. 

I saw handcuffs.  A
ride in a squad car.  The orange jumpsuit that Thomas had mentioned.  I saw a
judge sitting high above me and could even hear the sharp
crack
of his
gavel.  Prison bars and a disgruntled line cook shoveling some unidentifiable
glob of goo onto a tray.  I saw showers full of naked murderers, rapists, and
thieves, all of them eyeballing the new pansy with his white tan lines where a
thong used to be—and as weird as it sounds, I had enough time to regret that
vain decision.  I saw the shank, made from a sharpened spoon, as it pierced my
ribcage and the fountain of blood that followed, cascading onto the concrete
prison floor.

And then it occurred
to me; how had they found me so quickly?

Had I pushed too far
with Thomas?  Had my threat to take him down with me been the final motivating
factor he needed to get rid of me, once and for all?  Had he reported it?  Had
he told them what I was wearing and the general direction in which I’d headed? 
If so, how would he explain it?  A chance encounter at the park?  Or would he
lie?

Would he do it? 
Would he really do it?  I wore his t-shirt, his hat—both of them likely soaked
in his DNA.  How would he explain that?  Would he go to extremes?  Would he
punch himself in the face a few times and say that I accosted him, stole his
clothes for cover?

Maybe he’d decided it
was worth the risk.  Maybe he thought that nobody would ever believe me if I
tried.  He was an honorable officer of the law; I was a murder suspect.  Who
would you believe if you didn’t know the truth?

I was sure of it. 
The bastard had turned me in.

I got lightheaded
again and struggled to maintain my balance.  An entire bottle of wine wouldn’t
have had such a strong effect.  I felt high, like I’d smoked a bag of weed by
myself, and I’m sure with the way the dust had burned and reddened my eyes that
I probably looked like it.

Right there, in that
moment, I thought it was over.  I’d failed at life, I’d failed Kerry.

I’d failed to “
Be
the victor
.”

I held out my hands,
wrists up, figuring it was better to surrender than resist.

The bike cop chuckled
and asked, “What’re you doing?”

His nametag read “HENDERSON.”

I almost,
almost
,
said, “You’re looking for me, right?” which would’ve been my downfall, as sure
as the sun rises, because it would’ve led to so many questions.  I wrenched the
words back just in time, dropping my hands in the process.  “You’re—I mean, am
I in trouble?”

“Eh, I’m feeling
generous.  What’s that sign say?  The one right there behind you, on the
fence?”

I rubbed at my eyes
again—they were finally clear enough to see.

The sign in question,
directly above where my head had been, read: 

CITY ORDINANCE – ES 1749.1

NO
SKATEBOARDING

NO
LOITERING

NO SITTING

Earlier, I’d been
stuck so far inside my own head, thinking about the shitty direction things had
gone, watching the dogs, praying their owners were too self-absorbed to notice
me, that I hadn’t seen the white warning sign with big, bold red letters in ALL
CAPS, screaming at me.

“Oops,” I said. 
“Sorry.  I didn’t see that.”

“Hard to miss,
wouldn’t you say?”

I feigned
embarrassment to mask the all-consuming relief I felt.  “Hah, yeah.  I’m not
very observant sometimes.”  Which was a lie, obviously.  Pendragons, in most
cases, are spot on masters of observation and recall.  That one rare instance
does happen, but what challenge does life hold without the occasional misstep?

“But,” I said, “no
sitting
? 
That’s a little excessive, isn’t it?”

“It’s over the top,
yeah.  Like one of those peculiar laws on the books that nobody ever really
enforces.  Did you know that in Arizona, it’s illegal to have more than two
dildos in a house?”

“Whoa, that’s…odd,” I
answered, trying to sound interested, trying to sound calm and collected, like
if I was friendlier, more amiable, he’d be less inclined to charge me with
anything and get me sent to prison for Kerry’s murder.  “No more than two
dildos, huh?  Why would you
need
more than two?”

“I guess it depends
on how many holes you have to shove ‘em in.  Anyway, rules are rules, so I
gotta run you off,” he said.  “Had to clean it up around here a while back. 
Too many skate rats ruining public property and too many homeless guys ruining
the scenery.  And since you don’t appear to be either, you move along and we’ll
call it even.  Work for you?”

“Yes sir, no
question.  Thank you.”

“No problem, just be
sure to put your glasses on next time.”

I agreed, promised
I’d pay more attention, apologized again, thanked him again, apologized once
more, and then picked up my backpack and gallon of water.

I walked up the
sidewalk, exhaling heavily, trying to keep my composure after avoiding such a
close call.  Too goddamn close.

CHAPTER
22

I absolutely had to
be more careful.  No more silly, stupid mistakes. 

Overlooking something
small like a simple city ordinance had almost cost me my freedom.  I promised
myself from then on that I would pay attention to everything down to the most
miniscule detail, like the color of the lone Boston Terrier’s collar over in
the park. 

It was pink.  Her name
was Ruby, according to her owner’s beckoning call.

Thirty steps later, I
heard the hum of tires on concrete coming up behind me, the high-pitched
screech of applied brakes, and the
ching-ching
,
ching-ching
of a
bicycle’s warning bell.  I glanced to my left and saw Henderson rolling up
beside me and slowing down to match my pace.  The setting sun caught his black
helmet at just the right angle and sent a bright flash into my already wounded
eyes.

He said, “Where you
headed?”

I didn’t know if he
was bored and making conversation or had suddenly gotten suspicious, so I tried
to sound nonchalant.  “Oh, just out for a walk.”  Giving little detail, but
enough to seem genuine.

He said, “A walk,
huh?” in such a way that I couldn’t tell how my response had registered.  He
didn’t say anything else.  He pedaled slowly, attention straight ahead.  The
silence was unbearable.

I said, “Gotta stay
in shape, you know.  Getting older, trying to keep the pounds off my waist.” 
For a second, I panicked, thinking I might’ve unintentionally offended him if
he’d been the slightest bit chubby around the middle.  I shot a quick look down
to his midsection—it was thin and trim, not even the slightest half inch of fat
bulging over his bike shorts.  On the inside, I sighed with relief.  “I got a
thing for cheeseburgers,” I said—total bullshit, I wouldn’t bombard the
Pendragon castle that way—“and I swear they go straight to my thighs.  I’m not
like you, sir.  What are you, like seven percent body fat?  You’re a beast.  No
way I could keep that up.”   Trying to joke around, trying to make sure I was
on his good side.

“No way I could keep
that up.”  Yet another falsehood.  I’m at five percent.  I burn fat like a
hummingbird beats its wings.

He said, “Eight
percent, but I’m working on it.”

I didn’t know what
else to say, so I kept my mouth shut, thinking of that quote by Abraham
Lincoln: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and
remove all doubt.”

Get your camera out,
because I’m getting ready to go all Sasquatch-sighting here.  You probably know
by now that Lincoln’s quote isn’t something I adhere to on a regular basis.  I
realize that and I’m working on it.  Ye Olde Pendragon Castle has recently
acquired an Under Construction sign.

I walked.  He rode. 
In silence.  Cars zoomed past.  Dogs barked and yelped inside the park.  One
particularly rambunctious German Shepherd rushed the chain link fence, pinned
its ears back, and growled at us.  I squirmed away, closer to Henderson, even
though there was little chance of having my balls ripped off by the snarling
beast.  The fence was too high, too sturdy.  I prayed there wasn’t an open gate
close by.

A shout came from
somewhere in the distance.  “Muffy!  Get over here!”  Loping toward us was a
giant, burly dude with a black bandana tied around his head and a scraggly
biker beard.  He wore a sleeveless leather vest that showed off multi-colored
tattoo sleeves on his arms.  “Muffy!  Heel.”

Muffy offered one
last grumble and obeyed. 

Muffy.  Such a petite
name for such a menacing war machine.

It reminded me of
Sparkle, back when he’d still been in possession of his Harley-Davidson collar
and skull and bones I.D. tag.  In reality, he’s kind of the opposite, like if
you had a bag of cotton candy as a pet and named it Deathblade.

I glanced over to
Henderson, who hadn’t given Muffy the Vicious a second look. 

“Muffy?” I said. 
“More like Godzilla, if you ask me.”

“Right, right.”

Again, silence
between us, replaced by the ambient noise.

Over it all, I could
hear the maddening
tick-tick-tick
of his bicycle chain.  It reminded me
of winding up a jack in the box, knowing what was coming, and being aware that
it was going to happen, but nearly pissing your pants just the same when it
exploded outward with that evil, bobbing grin.

Honest to God, I
couldn’t figure out what Henderson was doing.  He wasn’t speaking, he wasn’t
looking at me, he wasn’t even keeping an eye on the area around us, scoping out
troublemakers or checking for whatever it is bike cops expect to see.

Yet I managed to
maintain my composure.  One, because my future depended on it—every remaining
second in my life depended on me not breaking down into a blubbering puddle,
pleading my innocence and revealing my identity.  And two—well, I’m sure you’re
aware of the Pendragons’ mastery of their domain.

Then it happened.

I suppose what he’d
been doing was scoping me out, checking to see how I reacted to his invasion of
my personal space.  Maybe in the time it’d taken me to walk the thirty steps
away from him, dispatch had radioed out the APB for a male fitting my
description and he was shadowing me until backup arrived.

Don’t know, can’t
say, but the fearsome thought flashed through my head when he asked, “So,
what’s in the backpack?”

“Oh, um…supplies?” 
It came out more as a question than a statement of fact.

“Do I have your
permission to look inside?”

I’ve since done some
investigating on the laws regarding police searches, but at the time, it was
something that I never thought I’d be subjected to.  Resisting would’ve implied
guilt that I didn’t want floating out there in the open, hovering over me like
that perpetual dust cloud that hangs over Pig-Pen in the Charlie Brown comics. 
Complying offered a look into a backpack full of survival gear—not exactly
items one carries around when they’re out for a walk, getting some exercise,
trying to keep the tummy trim—which would lead to questions I didn’t know how
to answer.

I told him sure, to
go ahead, like I didn’t have anything to hide, trusting that I would be able to
parry any advance.  Winging it was better than fighting for whatever rights I
may have had.

I handed him the bug
out bag and he unzipped it, pawing around inside with one eye on me and one
scoping out the contents.  “Multi-tool, radio, calorie blocks, flashlight.  Wallet. 
Hmm.  Do I have permission to look in your wallet?”

“Of course.”

“David Berringer. 
Ocala, Florida.  How long you been out west?”

“Just a couple of
months.”  I had another moment of unease as I watched him take a long, slow
look at the I.D. card and the profile photo on it.  The man in
that
picture would be more in line with the description of the Steve Pendragon
they’d be looking for, but with the longer hair, glasses, and an ill-conceived
attempt at a beard, the difference might’ve been enough to throw him off. 
If
he was looking for me already.

“You expecting
something to go down, Mr. Berringer?”

My bowels gurgled for
probably the first time ever.  Being completely and fantastically nervous, when
you’re not used to it does strange things to the body.  What if he thought I
was a domestic terrorist and had advance knowledge of “something going down?” 
And the wallet.  Thank God for the wallet.  But I still had my legitimate one
in my back pocket.  I tugged Thomas’s shirt lower to cover the bulge at my
rear.

“Shouldn’t we always
be?” I asked.  It sounded like the right thing to say.  Not defensive.  Not
subversive.

His next words
allowed me to unclench my butt cheeks enough to reintroduce circulation. 

“You’re a little
light if you’re a prepper.  Are you?”

“Am I what?” I asked,
even though I knew exactly what he meant.

“A prepper.  You
know, survivalist.  Getting ready for the end.”

I’d seen the shows on
television, and they’d been my impetus to Always Be Prepared.  I was familiar
with the lingo, yet I wouldn’t go as far as saying that I considered myself an
official card-carrying member. 

“Sorta.”

“Sorta? There’s no ‘sorta’
about it.  God almighty, you don’t even have a shelter started yet, do you?”

I toed the sidewalk
and hung my head.  “No.  Not yet.”  And really, it had never been my intent to
descend into the madness that had gripped the end-of-days movements out there,
but somehow Henderson had managed to make me feel guilty and inadequate anyway.

“And this is all you
got?  Where’s your bug spray?  Your mirror?  Your waterproof matches?  Damn,
son, you wouldn’t make it a week.” 

Think what you will
of me and my inability refrain from pointing out the obvious to the ignorant,
but I knew that it wouldn’t be a good idea to mention my alpha status, king of
the survivors, if the world ever did come to an end.

Instead, I faked
ignorance.  “You mean I need more than what’s in the bag?”

“Damn straight you
do.  When the shit hits the fan,”—a true prepper, indeed—“you’re gonna want a
lot more than this if you want to come out alive on the other side of
Doomsday.  Are you free on Sunday nights?”

Obviously I lied and
said yes, but I had no earthly clue whether or not I’d still be free within the
next twenty-four hours.  So much depended on my ability to stay hidden and
Thomas’s ability to come up with something to help solidify my innocence.

Thomas.  I felt a
flush of regret for thinking he’d ratted me out.

I’ve never figured
out what aroused Henderson’s suspicion—if he really thought I was up to no good
or if it’d just been nothing more than standard operating procedure—but the
fact that he was distracted by preaching to me about the proper survivalist
tactics probably kept him from identifying me that day.  And later, when my
name was all over the radio—no working televisions in the Steven A. Pendragon
Post Office—I would wonder if Henderson was kicking himself for having me
within arm’s reach, or if maybe he’d been suspended for allowing me to get
away.

He said, “A group of
us get together every Sunday night over at the VFW Post on Alexander Avenue—you
know it?  Over where the Ford dealership used to be?”

I lied and said I
did.

“Great.  You come by
around seven Sunday night, we’ll get you set straight.  Bring some chips or
maybe cupcakes.  Yeah, cupcakes would be good.  We don’t mind teaching
newbies.  Matter of fact, the more the merrier.  Helps us build up the numbers
for when it happens.”  He leaned in closer, like he was telling me a secret,
motioned for me to get nearer to him.  “Why do you think I became a cop, huh? 
We needed somebody on the inside.  When I get off this damn bike, when they
promote me, that’s when we learn the good shit.  We already know things
you
wouldn’t believe
.”

Remember when I said
things got really scary in more ways than one?  Well, there it was.  The fact
that I’d almost gotten caught, the fact that Henderson probably needed a padded
room instead of a gun on his hip, and whatever it was he and his buddies
thought
they knew…I didn’t want to know.

He gave me this
anticipatory, ‘ask me, ask me what I know look.’  He was waiting for it, all
that magma of information building up pressure underneath, ready to explode up and
out of his volcano mouth.  I hated to disappoint him.  I kept quiet.

The truth was, I
didn’t want to be around the guy anymore.  Cop or no cop, he creeped me out,
big time.  All that need for approval, the ‘hey, hey, hey, be my friend’ attitude
like one of the more approachable dogs over in the park.  It was too…clingy.

I didn’t spend much
time on this thought, but I briefly wondered if that was how Thomas saw
me
. 

Doubtful.  Our
relationship had progressed beyond that point.  Hadn’t it?

A drop of rain
splattered on my cheek and I used it as a reason to escape.  “Rain’s coming.  I
should go.  Protection from the elements, right?”

He winked.  “You got
it.” 

I thanked him for the
invite, told him I’d try to make it Sunday, and promised to read up on some
literature he suggested, like
Emergency
by Neil Strauss.  And as he
pedaled away, he had a big dumb grin on his face, thrilled to have made a new
friend.  I’d seen that look before because I’d worn it a few times myself.

***

Once Henderson was
safely out of range and out of sight, I found the nearest bus stop bench, one made
of glass walls and an overhang to block the downpour, then sat down and fanned
my face with a copy of
The Watchtower
(the Jehovah’s Witness religious
magazine—you’ve had one handed to you, haven’t you?) that had been left
behind.  I couldn’t remember ever feeling more relieved.

With two miles to go,
I had to wait until my legs were no longer jelly before I could move again.  It
gave me time to watch the rain wash nothing away and it put me in a morose
mood.