The Riptide Ultra-Glide (5 page)

“They laid off another five hundred,” said Bar.

Pat sat down at the table with the paper. “
State Journal
says six.”

“Charlie called last night. He just got word.” Barbara set two paper sacks on the edge of the counter. “Jen's gone, too.”

“Everything will work out,” said Pat.

“I know,” said Bar, pulling out her own chair at the table and placing a hand on top of her husband's. “It always does.”

Their exchange wasn't just platitudes or keeping a stiff lip. They were among the few people who genuinely counted their blessings. You had to hate them.

They had gotten their own notices the previous week. Abrupt walking papers after seven years with the school district. And an awkward arrangement because it took effect at the end of the school year, which was three more months. Because the district needed the teachers.

The vast majority of their colleagues quit immediately. An option with a severance package. Who could blame them? Bar and Pat never considered it.

Theirs was an older wooden house, behind a dairy farm, with propane tanks on the side. The kind of extremely small place that Realtors call cozy. But it was ample room since there were only the two of them. Not their choice. The McDougalls desperately wanted children but couldn't have any, even though they were practicing Catholics and rabid Packers fans.

That's why they would finish the school year. And volunteer after that. Their students
were
their children. Corny, yeah, the premise for a schmaltzy network series, except these were not made-for-TV kids. The McDougalls volunteered for special-needs duty.

They were offered developmentally delayed. They turned it down, and said what they really wanted. The administrator stared at them in disbelief, then signed off immediately before they could change their minds.

Their classrooms had special, washable paint, floor padding, and no sharp corners. Three grades were combined, six-to-eight-year-olds, emotional disorders. Courtney cried all day, Jason had to wear a football helmet, Gary was permanently stuck making a beeping sound like a truck backing up, and Alex threw feces.

That was just Barbara's class. Patrick was stabbed at least once at the beginning of each day, even though it was only a Popsicle stick.

“I stab you! Stab! Stab! Stab!”

“That's nice, Jeffrey. Now time to sit down.”

Then Harry's turn:
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

And all the other kids in unison:
“I'm telling!” “I'm telling!” “I'm telling!”

As he did every morning, Patrick picked up an acoustic guitar. The students magically settled down, more or less, and sang along.

The McDougalls were unflagging. First to arrive at school, last to leave. And every single student got extra attention. They spent hours on the phone with parents and made house calls.

At the end of the first year, the children had become, well, a year older. Still the same by measurable test standards. But there was a difference only a parent could notice. They were more
reachable
.

At the PTA meetings, some parents had tears. Bar and Pat were nominated and heavily favored for teachers of the year, but the award instead went to someone whose family barbecued with the chairman of the school board. The principal put in for special merit-pay raises, but the district gave it to a phys ed teacher who turned the football team around.

A lot of people complained.

But not the McDougalls. They were happy as long as they were with their students.

So they were laid off.

Chapter Four

KEY LARGO

T
wo men sprinted frantically from a post office and jumped in the front seat of a '76 Gran Torino.

“I got to get the hell out of here.” Serge turned the ignition and floored it. “I know I said I was into patience, but that was like waterboarding.” He grabbed his camcorder and rewound the film. “All that footage was worthless. Just people standing around. It was too real.”

Coleman's shaking hands cracked a beer. “Don't ever let me go back in that place. It's enough to make me give up pot.”

“I thought you said you had a good buzz.”

“I did. It was excellent weed,” said Coleman. “That's the problem. I was totally grooving, and suddenly I realized I'm in a brightly lit place crowded with people that's super-quiet. And they all just
knew
I was stoned, man. Except they all acted like they didn't, which is how you know they can tell you're totally baked. Your pulse races, you can't catch your breath, and your face and palms get all clammy, which just makes it more obvious. There's nothing so terrifying as when they all know, man.”

“Coleman, I really don't think anyone knew,” said Serge.

“Of course they didn't know,” said Coleman. “It was just the drug creating this horrible effect. That's how you can tell it's excellent weed.”

“I had my own horror show back there,” said Serge. “Like one of those bad science-fiction movies where an alien ray gun shoots a plasma beam at the town square, and it acts like a giant blob of glue.”

“I thought it was only the pot that made them seem slow to me,” said Coleman. “Could have sworn the guy working that one counter had died.”

“No, it wasn't the pot,” said Serge. “He actually had a near-death experience. His heart stopped and he was clinically dead while handling three or four customers, then when he came back from the tunnel of light, he's thinking: ‘All this rushing isn't good for me. I'm going to smell the roses.' ”

“Is that when we were almost to the counter, and he suddenly put out his ‘Position Closed' sign and went backstage?”

“Must be where they keep the roses,” said Serge.

“I thought your head was about to explode when he left,” said Coleman.

“It was,” said Serge. “It only fed my post office psychosis. Whenever I'm in one, and almost to the counter, I keep repeating to myself: ‘Please don't put out the “Position Closed” sign; please don't put out the “Position Closed” sign; dear God, don't let him put out the sign; please, please, please, I'm almost to the counter! I made it! I finally made it! He didn't put out the . . . Wait, what's he reaching for? . . . Fuck!' ”

“You did yell ‘fuck' pretty loud back there.”

“But I quickly apologized to the crowd and pointed at the sign,” said Serge. “You could tell they had all been repeating the same thing.”

Coleman fiddled with a lighter that was low on butane. “That was a brutal wait. There were only two people at the counter, but a whole bunch of guys in the back room. You could see them through the doorways. What were they all doing?”

“Standing in groups just out of sight behind the doorway. Then, one by one, they send someone across to the other side so we think that actual activity is happening. But they're just walking to stand in a circle painted on the floor until it's time to be sent back the other way. Except for the one guy who's assigned to come out of the back room every fifteen minutes and walk up to a ‘Position Closed' sign, and all the customers joyously weep and praise Jesus, but he just opens a drawer for some scissors and goes back.”

“How do you know all this?” asked Coleman.

“I don't,” said Serge. “It's too easy to make fun of the post office. And ironic, considering their deceptively amazing efficiency. For less than the price of a newspaper, I can stick a small square on an envelope, and two days later my letter is a thousand miles away being dusted for prints by the cops. It's a modern miracle.”

“But then why does everyone make fun of the post office?” asked Coleman.

“To feel good about ourselves,” said Serge. “We used to brighten the day by shitting on ethnic and religious minorities. But that got ruined just because it turned out to be very, very wrong. So now the post office is one of the last prejudice sanctuaries left, like bad-mouthing airline food: Fire at will! . . . Except I genuinely like airline food because of the cool packaging, and it's not the postal employees' fault about the waiting lines. Management messes up staffing and sends a million people to one post office with no customers, and vice versa. The jokes are unfair and cruel.”

“So you're going to stop telling them?”

“No, it's fun,” said Serge. “Plus, there's a lot of responsible things you need to do while waiting, like reading the sign that says it's a federal crime to assault a postal employee. Okay, that's always good to be reminded of. Then I check the FBI photos to make sure I'm not up there. Now I'm free to kick back and enjoy checking out the photos of who
is
up there. What a bunch of losers! Those creepy mug shots are one of my very first memories as a tiny kid. Killers, kidnappers, people who assault postal employees. I was only four, and still thought logically: These pictures are up here, so it must be a system that's working. I mean, they're not asking us to spot people in Seattle; all these guys obviously live in my neighborhood. And they wondered why I was a jumpy child.”

Coleman pointed his joint at the windshield. “Where are we going now?”

“To find an ATM,” said Serge. “I'm low on cash.”

“There's one,” said Coleman. “But how do you get a bank account?”

“Most people think that if you're a fugitive, it's harder than it actually is, but establishments aren't as strict with ID when
you're
giving
them
money,” said Serge. “Any kind of fake photo ID will suffice, like an annual pass at the zoo, and you rent one of those private PO boxes at a strip mall that appears to be a real street address. Does that answer your question?”

“I meant an account in general,” said Coleman. “I've never had one. But I've heard about them. And I see people going in and out of banks. Just curious.”

Serge parked at a slot right in front of the machine. “We're in luck. Only one guy in line.”

They jumped out, and Serge took up a spot at the edge of the curb.

Coleman leaned sideways. “Why are we standing so far back?”

“Another tip to weld society together. Give the person up to bat at the ATM plenty of space so they're not nervous about you peeking at their PIN number or slipping a blade between their ribs the second the money spits out.”

“You said that kind of loud,” said Coleman. “I think he heard.”

“Good,” said Serge. “Then he's happy to know the knife isn't coming.”

“What's he doing?” asked Coleman. “He's not even at the machine. He's standing to the side at the little metal shelf that's like a table.”

“He's still at the ATM proper. It's his until he relinquishes the zone.”

“But he's just playing with his wallet.”

“I think he's looking for his card,” said Serge. “And making a deposit in my patience karma.”

“I don't think that's it,” said Coleman. “I think he already used the machine and is now reorganizing all his shit. We may be waiting for nothing.”

“Could be,” said Serge. “But there's an appropriate social procedure to find out.”

“How?”

“We clear our throats at super-high volume and then stare at him unflinchingly,” said Serge. “As a courtesy.”

“Then what?” asked Coleman.

“If he's into a wholesale spring cleaning of his billfold, he won't look back. But if he really is waiting to use the machine and can't find his card, he'll reflexively glance up. Then he'll hurry his search or wave us on. Either way, we'll know the score so we can make the polite choice . . . Ready?”

Coleman nodded.

“Ahem!”
Cough, cough. “Clearing my throat now
, ahem
!” said Serge.
“
That would be my throat clearing,
ahem
. . .”

“Clearing my throat, too,” said Coleman.
“A-hem!”
Cough. “And now a fart.”
Pffffft
 . . .

“Coleman!”

“What?”

Serge pointed. “He's downwind. The national fabric.”

“He's still going through his wallet,” said Coleman. “He's not looking up.”

“There's our answer,” said Serge. “But we give it another ten-second cushion as a fail-safe, and then move very slowly in case he misinterpreted what I meant about stabbing him.”

. . . Eight, nine, ten. They crept forward. Serge slipped a magnetic card into the slot and began entering his pass code.

From the side:
“You are one rude motherfucker!”

“Uh-oh,” Serge said to himself. “A wild card.” He tried to hurry the transaction, but that only made him mess up.

“You deaf, too, motherfucker?”

“What?” Serge turned. “But I didn't mean—”

The man crowded in from the left side, stretching to get his face between Serge and the machine. “Do you just cut in line whenever you feel?”

“I'm sorry,” said Serge. “I thought you had completed your transaction and were reorganizing your wallet.”

“That's what you get for fuckin' thinking!”

Serge thought:
What does
that
mean?

The man tried to wedge himself farther between Serge and the machine.

“Please stop leaning against me,” said Serge. “I'll just get my money and she's all yours.”

“And then you just walk away, motherfucker?”

Serge got his money and walked away.

Ten minutes later, Coleman sat in the passenger seat as the '76 Gran Torino tooled down the Overseas Highway. “That guy was unbelievable.”

“I still can't process what my eyes just saw,” said Serge. “But you were there. I'm not imagining things, right?”

“No, man. That dude was off the charts.”

“If you tried telling people this story, it would sound like bad fiction some guy wrote in a book,” said Serge. “But it really did happen to me. And it was a nice shopping center; that's what threw me off balance.”

“He just went on and on,” said Coleman. “Still yelling even after you left.”

“That's the nature of the twat-heads,” said Serge. “The second I responded to his initial insult with patience, he took that as a weakness green light to unload all the emotional bile he brought with him to the ATM from breakfast. And I should know: I have the same perpetual loop spinning in my head of people who have fucked with me going back to kindergarten, running nonstop, over and over, driving up my blood pressure and pissing me off until I find myself muttering out loud and honing the absolute perfect comeback ten years later: ‘Oh yeah? Well, you're wrong.' . . . That kind of pent-up rage will eat you alive unless you get your arms around it and recognize the problem.”

“So by knowing that it's just inside your head, you've learned to turn it off?”

“Not exactly,” said Serge. “Some jerk crosses my path and I beat the piss out of him for what all those other people did to me.
Then
I can turn it off.” He turned to Coleman. “Is that normal?”

Coleman shrugged. “I thought everyone was looking at me in the post office.”

Serge pulled over to the side of the road and opened the door.

Coleman got out his own side. “But you still didn't do anything to that ATM guy. That's progress.”

“You know me when I put my mind to something. It's all about coping mechanisms.” Serge stuck his key in the trunk and popped the hood. “Where's that tire iron?”

Coleman gestured with his beer. “Under those rags by the spare.”

“Good eye.” Serge reached for the metal bar. “What was I talking about?”

“Coping skills.”

“That's right.” Serge raised the iron high over his head and brought it down hard like a carnival mallet.

A curdling, muffled scream from under duct tape.

“Oooooo!” Coleman winced. “You got the ATM guy right in the kneecap.”

“For some reason that always sounds to me like pottery breaking.”

Coleman chugged the rest of his beer. “How do you feel?”

“Now I can turn it off.” He reached in the trunk again. “Every day you spend sweating the small stuff is such a waste. Snatching dicks like this out of parking lots is much more constructive.” He yanked hard.

Another ghastly, muffled scream echoed from the trunk well.