This is the tenth installment of the short story "Ink" by Steve Metcalf as it first appeared in the second Event collection "Iron Bay."
INK
Steve Metcalf
Chapter Nine
In Other News
Late Sunday afternoon was certainly better than Monday morning. Jones woke up on the couch in his living room. Fully dressed, chest covered in cream. He rubbed his temples and stood up. It was nearly four p.m. and he had lost almost 20 hours.
“Motherfucker,” he said to himself and the room in general.
* *
Mo Lazenby took up nearly the entire couch.
“Motherfucker,” he said.
Jones nodded.
“Yeah. I know.”
Jones had called Maurice, who had come right over. Mo exhaled a long breath. He drained the mug of coffee – faux wood with a sterling silver Jolly Roger on it – and gently placed it on the side table. He leaned back, spreading his legs against the hardwood floor in front of him and his arms across the back of the couch.
“So, you lost all day Saturday,” Mo said after a moment of silence.
Jones nodded.
“How do you feel?”
Jones sat on the opposite side of the room, facing the couch from a tufted leather chair. He, likewise, finished his coffee and put the mug down. He shrugged and spread his hands expansively.
“Tired, I guess,” Jones said. “Groggy. A headache from dehydration. At some point yesterday, I pissed the bed.” He stopped talking for a moment and cleared his throat. “I drank two bottles of Gatorade before I called you.”
“So, I’m gonna suggest that you stop seeing this chick, right,” he said. “Enticing Asian that she is.”
Jones nodded.
“Yeah,” he said. And paused for a moment. “That’s probably for the best. But my tattoo’s not done.”
The sound of a ticking clock filled the room as the two men just stared at each other.
“The fuck you just say to me?” Big Mo asked.
Jones sighed.
“I know, I know. But the damn thing’s like three-quarters done and I paid her a fortune.”
“And you’ve lost two days of your life while under the influence of some powerful painkillers. Not to mention the bizarre dreams.”
Jones absently reached up and touched his tattooed chest through the material of his shirt. He nodded.
“Killed some zombie named Chad.”
“Well,” Mo said. “That’s a start. Do you want me to call a doctor? Take you to urgent care or something?”
Jones shook his head.
“Like I said, outside of the dehydration, I feel fine.” They heard the clothes dryer downstairs buzz that it was finished with its cycle. “I’m still operating under the assumption that it’s a reaction to the painkillers. The opioids. Maybe some sort of drug interaction.”
Mo sighed.
“I mean, I could physically prevent you from going back.”
Jones smiled. The only moment of levity so far that Sunday.
“I know,” he said. “And, honestly, you’d probably succeed. Let me get this final piece done. I’ll get a full physical. I’ll never see this girl again.”
Big Mo sat quietly for a moment. He crossed his left ankle over his right knee. Didn’t like it. Crossed his right ankle over his left knee.
“Okay,” he finally said. “I’ll take you to the doctor myself after.”
Jones nodded.
“When’re you going back?” he asked, finally uncrossing his legs and just letting his feet rest on the floor again.
“Friday,” Jones said. “The final session is Friday.”
“Then I’m comin’ over Saturday morning. If you don’t answer the door, I’m kicking it in.”
“Fine. Deal.”
Mo leaned back and got comfy on the couch. Jones got up, grimacing, holding his left knee. He went to the laundry room to take his sheets out, piled them up on the bed, and came back to the living room. He sat down, groaning under his breath at the action. Mo arched an eyebrow, but didn’t comment.
“You remember the show Saved By The Bell?” Jones nodded briefly, so Mo continued. “Yeah. Big hit with the teen crowd in the early nineties. You know that the first season was actually a completely different show called Good Morning, Miss Bliss?”
Jones squinted his eyes and finally shook his head.
“No,” he said. “I don’t recall that.”
“There’s a fan theory that the whole of Saved By The Bell takes place in your hero Zack’s mind. That the actual reality of the situation was the first season. Miss Bliss.”
“Naw.”
“Sure,” Mo nodded. “The first season takes place in a realistic school in the Midwest. Zack is a tool. Can’t get any heat with the ladies. Gets his ass busted by his teacher, Miss Bliss, any time he tries something. It’s only in the second season … the first season of the rebranded Saved By The Bell … that Zack becomes the cool kid. Runs the school. Mackin’ the honeys. Bell also takes place in Southern California. What Midwestern kid doesn’t dream about escaping to the West Coast?”
“Huh. Interesting.”
“The mind is a powerful tool, Mochumbo,” Maurice said. “You might also want to take a moment and explore these dreams you’ve been having.”
Jones nodded.
“Sure. Yeah. Good point,” he paused. “You want a sandwich?”
“Hell yeah,” Mo said, and grunted as he stood up. “Just don’t put any bacon on mine. Can’t stand that shit.”
“How can you not like bacon?”
“Sick of it,” he said, following his friend out of the living room into the kitchen. “People went nuts. Putting it in everything. Crossing value streams. Bacon chewing gum. Bacon soda. No fucking way. I’m afraid the same will happen to sea-salt caramel. Pretty soon we’ll have caramel mac-and-cheese or something.”
“Okay. No caramel-flavored shrimp cocktail.”
“Thank you.”
* *
“In other news,” the handsome newscaster said adopting a somber tone. “Police are still chasing down leads on the hit-and-run death that occurred late last Saturday. A third-shift janitor, Martin Gustavson, was run down in the parking lot behind his building. Surveillance cameras caught images of the event. We’re not going to show you the actual accident, folks, but here is the aftermath.”
The screen turned to a grainy, gray-scale image of a white van parked at an odd angle in a parking lot. Kira got out of the passenger seat. The bad frame-rate made the series of images jumpy. You couldn’t see any of her features – her hood was pulled tight around her face. The camera picked up her right arm, though, as she exited the vehicle. Though there was no detail, it was clear that her arm was covered in ink.
“Police believe this to be a young woman,” the newscaster narrated. “But we never get a clear look at her face. Slight build. Asian, possibly. Or Spanish based on what you can see of her hair and facial features. Maybe 5’ 4”. She has what’s known as a sleeve of tattoos on her right arm.”
He paused his narration as Jones also exited the van through the passenger door. He looked around – looked to be smiling – and followed Kira around the front of the car. The camera view switched to a longer shot on the other side of the van – from the rear of the vehicle.
“For some reason,” the narration continued. “The driver exited through the passenger door. Police have included damaged driver door to their search. We get a better view of the driver’s face, but it’s still not clear due to the low-quality video and the poor lighting.”
Jones crouched and appeared to talk to the injured man – Marty Gustavson. Martin was clearly in pain, and kept switching his gaze between Kira and Jones. At one point, he reached up a hand and held it toward Jones. Kira leaned in and said something to the man. He jerked in response and then the two got back into the van and drove off.
“The man was pronounced dead on the scene. This image. This gesture,” the image of Martin holding out a hand to Jones. “Is it accusatory? Or is it familiar? San Bernardino police are stumped. And have kept adding resources to the search for these two.”
Bren clicked her mouse and the image evaporated on her laptop screen. She smiled as she closed the computer down.
* *
Kira spent most of her morning on a beach in Half Moon Bay. Even though the day was relatively warm, she dressed in board shorts, a t-shirt and hoodie. Her hat was pulled down to shield her eyes from the sun. She walked barefoot, holding her flip-flops, across the sand. She enjoyed the feeling of the sand, heated from the sun, as it fell across her toes. She listened to the sound of the waves crashing on the beach and smiled.
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