“Go away.”
“I got coke.”
“I’m not going to ask you again.”
“Can I have my twenty back?”
“No.”
Steve bit his lip in thought. Then under his breath: “Bitch.”
Story slowly raised her head, eyes boring holes in a blank spot on the wall. Blood pressure zoomed into the red zone. The bartender was looking at them. He smiled. She smiled back until he turned around to run an American Express card. Like lightning, her left hand shot out, seized the hair on the back of Steve’s head, and smashed his face down into the bar. It happened so fast, the guys in the cheap seats weren’t exactly sure what they’d seen. Then, just as quickly, her hand withdrew before the bartender could spin around at the sound of the attack.
“Good God!”
Story looked up from her textbook. “What?”
The bartender ran over with a thick stack of napkins and handed them to Steve, blood pouring from his nose all over the counter. “You okay, fella? What happened?”
Between booze and kissing the bar, Steve could only manage incomprehensible slurring.
“I think he’s drunk,” said Story, turning a page.
AN HOUR LATER
Two young men with shaved heads couldn’t move. They lay crammed in the trunk of a 1971 Javelin. The hood opened. Serge stood back-lit by an energy-saving streetlight. The pair glanced up with puzzled faces.
“You’ll absolutely love it!” said Serge, panning the camcorder from one skinhead to the other. “I’m filming the perfect ending to your movie.”
“What are you going to do with us?”
“First I’ll tape your mouths, because I don’t like interruptions when I’m teaching class.”
On the side of the road, Coleman pushed himself up from where he’d lost another dance with gravity. “Serge, what gave you this idea?”
“Back when we were renting on Triggerfish Lane.” Serge set the camcorder on the ground and tore off long stretches of duct tape. “Had that embarrassing near-fatal accident in the front yard performing my one-man interpretive dance honoring those natives in National Geographic with the big neck hoops.”
“That’s right. I saved your life with just seconds to go by turning off the hose.”
“And don’t think I haven’t forgotten,” said Serge. “Sixty more times and we’ll be even. After the blood returned to my brain, I said to myself, I may have just tripped over a major advancement in my chosen field. Let’s take it to the next level! But until today I never had the right dick-wads.”
Serge finished with the tape, stood back up and smiled proudly with arms outstretched in an encompassing gesture. “Welcome to the First Coast! The chambers of commerce name them alclass="underline" Space Coast, Treasure Coast, Gold Coast, Nature Coast, Emerald Coast. But you’re at the First! Florida is a paradox that way, one of the youngest states, yet with some of the oldest European settlements. And this particular section of the northeast shore was home to a couple of the earliest sixteenth-century Spanish and French fortifications. You mentioned before your admirable devotion to pride, so I can tell by your buggy eyes that you’re overwhelmed being bound and gagged at a seminal site of Euro-centrism in the New World. I built that into tonight’s program just for you! … Coleman, give me a hand.”
Coleman grabbed a pair of wrists. “What about the neighbors?”
“What neighbors?” said Serge, gripping ankles. “It’s the only house at this end of the new development. And there’s extra newspapers in the driveway, which means they’re on vacation. That’s why I picked it.”
They hoisted the skinheads out of the trunk. Legs tied tightly together with rope; more coils secured arms against their sides. Serge pulled one by the feet and dragged him across a lush lawn. “We’re heading down to St. Augustine next. Well, you won’t. Sorry, those are the rules. But get this: It’s St. Augustine grass I’m dragging you over! What a coincidence! America’s oldest continuous city and name of the grass. I’m getting dizzy. St. Augustine is my favorite lawn, reeks of childhood. But it need lots of watering, which means these homeowners were more likely to have an automatic sprinkler system that is essential for converting my accidental discovery a decade ago into practical, everyday use. There’s the timer on the side of the house. I reset it to twenty minutes before opening the trunk. And that’s the pump and main PVC line aesthetically hidden in those bushes … Stay put. Just be a sec …” He left them in the middle of the yard and ran back toward the car.
Coleman swayed with a beer and smiled down at the captives. “You guys really bald?”
Serge quickly returned from the Javelin, got on his knees and began emptying shopping bags. “I love Home Depot! Especially the locations open twenty-four hours, when I need them most …” He ambitiously went to the task, starting at their toes and meticulously working his way up with the recent purchases. “Don’t look so bored. Almost done …”
Serge finally stood and pulled a small, threaded adapter from his pocket. “Excuse me again …”
Another quick trip, this time to the sprinkler pump, and he was back, gleefully clapping his hands. “The show’s about to start!” He picked up the camcorder and aimed it at the side of the house. “That PVC junction has a tie-in for auxiliary manual-watering flow, which I utilized with my adapter. More specifically a Y-adapter. Splits into two additional lines, one for each of you. The adapter has a little plastic lever on the front. Right now it’s in the middle, which means both your lines will get water. But push the lever to either side, and the ball valve in the adapter will cut flow to one line and provides extra pressure to the other.”
They stared in confusion. So did Coleman.
“Still no idea?” said Serge. “One lives, one dies-you make the call!” He panned the camcorder down to ashen faces. “I should have my own reality show.”
“But Serge,” said Coleman. “How can a sprinkler system kill?”
“Easier than you’d think.” Serge lowered his eyes toward the contestants. “You’re a couple of worms, so we’re going to have a worm race. If one of you can get to the valve …”-he checked his watch- “… in the next five minutes, and switch it with your nose, you live and your pal dies. If both of you get there at the same time, I guess you’ll be smashing your faces together in a desperate bid for survival.” Serge zoomed in with the camcorder. “If this doesn’t get a million hits on YouTube, we’re lost as a people.”
The skinheads desperately thrashed across the grass, but progress was less than modest.
“Forgot to mention,” Serge called after them. “You’re on an advanced strain of St. Augustine called Floratam. Fun fact: got its name when cross-bred in 1972 by a joint research project from the University of Florida and Texas A&M. Get it? Floratam. Genetically engineered it to be extra chinch-bug resistant, in case you’re planning on sodding anytime soon.”
“Serge,” said Coleman. “I don’t think they care about chinch bugs.”
“They should. Fuck up your yard something fierce.”
“I doubt they’re going to make it to the lever.”
“Oh, they’ll make it to the lever all right,” said Serge. “Just won’t do them any good.”
“Why not?”
“I removed the ball valve from the adapter. No way to cut the flow.”
“Then why’d you tell them they had a chance?”
“Because some types are prone to panic when faced with certain doom.” He fiddled with the camera’s focus. “I like to give the people hope.”
“Still don’t understand how … whatever it is you’ve done here is going to work.”
“Neither will the authorities after I’ve removed my yard-care products of death.”
“I thought you liked to get credit for your projects.”
“I do.”