Short Stories

THE MAYANS WERE RIGHT.

The news reported by astrophysicist Richard Bukovinsky barged into public view like a drunken frat boy crashing a pajama party. It was released on January the third, two thousand thirteen, early in the morning. At the time, America was a week into savoring the scandal involving Congressman Andrew McHowell and a thirteen-year-old girl.

The congressman had the right position on every issue that mattered to Bible Belt soccer moms. He had spoken in most fancy mega-churches in the Atlanta area. He had stressed more than once that American kids “lived in the epoch of hyper-sexualized popular media.” When it had suddenly come to light that he couldn’t resist the lure of mauve toe polish, a pair of incredibly thin legs and a skirt from Justice, the slobbering reporters couldn’t care less about Pakistan, Israel or Syria.
 
As it turned out, the congressman had paid the girl’s mother, an immigrant whose English was barely sufficient to negotiate the transaction. But the victim herself was unusually mature and cynical for her age. She didn’t think she could afford the rosy idealism of Disney princesses, not while living in a basement studio with mom and baby twins. She had simply demanded her cut. And then came the science nerd and wiped the delicious sex scandal off the LED screens in bars and electronics stores. Instantly outshined the whole thing, like a supernova.

“Can you believe it?” said Aaron dropping the newspaper in front of his business partner. Dover Inquirer, weighing in at ten pages daily, including weekends, piles of it available in front of every grocery store for free, would look very impressive for a student newspaper in a crappy community college. Half of the front page was taken up by the picture of the congressman.

“Yeah. I can,” said Ted without looking and moved closer to the fire, a burning pile of branches, broken crates and construction wood.

“You're gonna burn your gloves,” said Aaron.

The orange flames were dangerously close to the fingerless woven gloves, which looked just as classy as Ted's yellowish, crusty fingers with three-week-old nails and tiny grains of dry blood in the cracks of the skin.

“Nah,” said Ted dismissively. “I'm careful.”

“This here,” exclaimed Aaron pointing at the plump, cleanly shaven face on the picture,  “is a moron who delivered lectures -- nay, sermons -- on how every one of us could be driving a Bentley, if only...”

“Whatever,” barked Ted, tossing the Inquirer into the fire. “It doesn't matter anymore.”

“Why?”

“You're a big boy. You can walk two blocks down to Emma's and find out for yourself. Trust me, there's enough in the news to make you forget about some lying old fucker who should've had sex with Rush Limbaugh.”

Emma's, a mom-and-daughter-owned joint serving hotdogs, burgers and beer, had enough humility to let Aaron's type through its doors, if they wouldn't linger too long. Aaron weighed his curiosity against the desire to wash and brush his teeth. The nearest public restroom was half a mile in the opposite direction. He was the type that preferred to eat his cake and have it too, something that had irritated Ted throughout the four years of their partnership.

“Can't blame a chick for wanting a shiny new iPhone,” said Aaron. “Too bad they didn't print her photo.”

“Shut up, man. I've heard your box shake yesterday night. Your imagination must be just as good.”

Aaron only shrugged in response: he had long abandoned any pretense of being ashamed of the natural wiring of his organism. Not without pride, he caught himself thinking that his face wouldn't have gone red, like the congressman’s; his voice wouldn't have shaken, had he been caught. Well, at the prospect of a multi-decade prison sentence, maybe. But for the mere fact that something perfectly natural had been openly acknowledged? Oh, please.

Still, he made a mental note to move his cardboard box -- his home for the last three days – a few inches to the right so that it wouldn't hit against the tree trunk.

“Can't believe he went down like that,” said Aaron. “He could probably afford a Marilyn Monroe lookalike.”

“Not what he wanted,” said Ted, still staring into the fire. “He wanted a thirteen-year-old, can't you see? You get something like that into your head, it can only go out o' the other head.”

“Should've fucked a Chinese figure skater, then. I mean, lose his family, lose his career…”

Ted rolled his eyes.

“Fuck his career. The world's better off without Congressman McHowell having a career like that.  That would make me a bit happier, except, like I said, it doesn't matter anymore.” His hand reached into the warm, foul and sweaty depths of his winter jacket. “You still got two bucks on you?”

“Yeah,” said Aaron. “I got, like, three fifty, I think.”

Ted's hand emerged, clutching a couple of neatly folded dollar bills.

“Here,” he said. “Go catch up with the current events and buy us a pack of cigarettes. Don't pay unless you have to.”

Certain that he understood that last remark, Aaron nodded. Given the nature of their business partnership, which, by the way, involved clean shirts, after-shave, shampoo and a pair of smartphones with Bluetooth earpieces, he was bound to interpret the phrase a certain way. They would normally do business in crowded places: shopping malls, big stores, busy railway stations. Open-air events were the best: there were no ceiling cameras to worry about. But they would take the risk as long as the place fit their three criteria: thick crowd, not too many cameras and some elevation that could serve as an observation deck for Aaron. A small hill if it was a fair, or a second level of a mall galleria.

Ted, with his incredibly sharp vision, would profile a potential pasture a few days before an operation. He would note where all the cameras were, how many security guards there were, what they looked like. He would map the place out on his notepad while hiding somewhere in a bathroom stall, just to make sure nobody would see him recording his observations. If he could, he would also make some side notes about the security: who was fat, who was tall, who was a football fan, who was a smoker -- that sort of thing.  It helped.

Next came the planning meeting. He and Aaron would sit down with all the maps and notes and work out a strategy, come up with verbal codes for different areas, decide which places to avoid and where to run in case of emergency.

Then it was time to get into character. They would find a place to wash. Trailer park showers, college gyms, McDonalds, Starbucks, et cetera. They had once managed to sneak into a room at Marriott. Out came the clean shirts, smartphones and Bluetooth earpieces, all disturbed in their Ziploc slumber at the bottom of the oversized hiking backpacks. For the next few hours, the world would see Ted an Aaron for who they really were: two partners in a highly successful venture.

On the pasture, Aaron would position himself at the observation deck. He would watch the crowd, the security, while pretending to be a very picky customer browsing through the merchandise, or just an extremely busy guy, whose full attention was devoted to something in the depth of his email. His task was to calculate when one of the gray areas on the pencil-drawn map was fully obscured from view of the cameras.

“OK, maybe C-west in a moment,” he'd mumble into the mouthpiece. “Wait... Yeah, a three-story villa, the red one. It's got a patio. Yep, sounds great!”

That meant a tall lady in a red coat.  Patio stood for a shopping bag. Sometimes, a bigger shopping bag would be promoted to a tree house. Three-story meant tall. They tried to stick to real estate terminology: trailers, houses, and mansions for men; homes, hotels and villas for women. Yep, sounds great for it's a go. Or, if a security guard was nearby, excuse me, gotta take another call here. Any phrase beginning with an excuse me was a warning.

Sometimes, when nobody was within hearing range, Aaron would allow himself to get creative: “B-east this time. Sort of an ordained chorus boy fucker in a business suit. Balcony on the east.” Balcony meaning pocket.

And, when it was all over: “All right, man. Talk to you Monday.” An unambiguous command to split and clear the area.

That was not the end. They had to liquidate their catch, then wash and neatly stove away the clean clothes – they could now afford a Laundromat. Smartphones and Bluetooth accessories went back into their bubble wrap and to the bottom of the backpacks. True professionals, Ted and Aaron would faithfully care for the tools of their trade.

So, the phrase don’t pay unless you have to had a perfectly obvious meaning to them both. Except, this time – and Ted let his partner find that out for himself – the intended meaning was somewhat different.

There were five patrons at Emma’s. One was hopelessly drunk at this early hour. The others were glued to the thirty-five inch LED screen above the counter. Emma herself looked even more battered than usually. Her eyes were red and puffy and the drunk customer, the kind that normally would have been thrown out faster than a bum such as Aaron, didn't seem to concern her.

The reporter on the LED screen was a very imposing young lady.  She was wearing an elegant green coat and plenty of makeup to ensure an extra-professional appearance. Defying the cold, she refused to wear a ski cap, so the viewers could admire her shiny brown hair. Aaron caught himself thinking he'd probably hate to be married to someone like that. She was speaking with confidence and energy, which made her sound exactly like every other reporter he had ever heard. What she was saying, though, did not go well with her business-as-usual tone:

“... confirmed independently by scientists from Sphinx Observatory in Switzerland and Whipple Observatory in Arizona. We will have Doctor Richard Bukovinsky on the program in about fifteen minutes. So far, we know that one impact is predicted in the area of Cape Verde, a group of islands in the Atlantic, some four hundred miles off the African coast. Another one -- somewhere in Kansas, I think, we are waiting ...”

“And she still had to put on that stupid makeup,” said Emma and wiped her eyes with the napkin.

The four men at the counter were sitting like cold, bloodless cadavers, their life force having been sucked out by CNN.  Aaron sensed their state of doomed paralysis.

“What is this, a joke? A fucking Comedy Central?” he asked, but nobody said a word. Only the man closest to him shook his head a couple of times, without taking his eyes off the screen.

“Bullshit,” whispered Aaron.

“Here, have some fries,” Emma said to him, taking a basketful out of the oil pan and dumping it into a paper plate.  “On the house,” she explained. She was struggling not to cry.

Aaron eyed the dish he couldn't always afford, as if it had just magically appeared out of thin air.

“Thanks, Emma,” he said quietly. “You couldn't spare me a hotdog with that, could you?” He waited a while for a response, then quietly said “thanks” again and covered the offering with a generous doze of ketchup.

Meanwhile, the lady on the thirty-five inch LED screen kept going; serious, business-like, as if she had very little time to spare, as if she was just putting final touches on that report, tying a pretty little bow in the corner, so she and her camera crew could attend to something even more important.

“It could be,” she said, “the greatest irony in history that this disaster falls on December the twenty-first, which, according to popular belief, is the doomsday predicted by Maya Indians. Now, most of you are probably thinking today is January the third. Not according to the Julian calendar, which is running thirteen days behind our own. It was back in 1582 that Pope Gregory XIII had authorized the adjustment. And having received this dismal news, one can't help but wonder...”

Great, thought Aaron, We've been missing Christmas for the last four hundred years. That’d do it right there. But he knew better than making the joke out loud. Emma broke down in tears.

“Shit, I knew it... I knew!!!” She banged her fist on the corner of the table. The pain broke the first wave of her hysteria. “I... I had the feeling on the twenty-first… And Greg and the kids kept saying it's nothing. And the whole next week, Jenny teased me. But the feeling… It wouldn’t go away! I... Sorry... I'm sorry.”

She composed herself enough to go to the kitchen and get a hot dog for Aaron off the griddle. When she returned to the counter, he was gone. Half of his fries were still on the plate.



***


Aaron couldn't take the drama. He hated it when women cried. Besides, he had a much fancier meal in mind. After each successful operation, he and Ted would allow themselves some small luxury. For the last few months, he'd wanted a sushi dinner, but every time he and his partner would sell another tablet, digital camera or a diamond ring, his sex drive would invariably prove stronger and he'd buy himself a lap dance.

Over the years, he had developed an intuition for finding an affordable nightclub and a girl that would pretend not to notice when a customer “accidentally” brushed her nipple with his nose or her ankle with his index finger; a girl that took pride in seeing a happily relieved client; a girl that would look pretty in the right light. Of course, there were some concessions he had to make: for the lady's age, for slight flabs of belly fat.  Fortunately, all the nightclubs preferred to save on lighting, which helped Aaron navigate the right path between fantasy and reality. And for a man in his position, that skill was key to staying sane.

Long story short, Aaron realized that if he wouldn't have his sushi now, it’d never happen. In fact, he did have a Japanese restaurant in mind. He had had his eye on it ever since he and Ted had settled in the area -- which was only four days ago.

The restaurant was located in a little, cozy strip mall, next to  a nail salon, a drycleaner and a small store selling overpriced furniture, which, one might think, had no chance of staying afloat in that location.

There was one small problem: he had no money.  He did, however, have his butterfly knife, and, he figured, the restaurant owner would probably want to live a little longer. In view of the circumstances, Aaron could easily afford to do life in prison afterwards.

As he approached the restaurant, Aaron checked the parking lot for presence of police cruisers, looked through the restaurant window for any potential heroes who might thwart the operation, but the place was empty, so it was a go.

Ignoring the 'Closed' sign, he pushed on the door and walked in calmly, with the air of absolute authority. The eyes of the young waitress instantly fixed on him. She froze in a somewhat unnatural position, but no part of her dared to move.  Only her left hand slowly reached for the register and gently pulled on the cash drawer, lifting it up a bit, so it would open without a sound. She was holding her breath, as if the slightest noise would have been tantamount to a deadly provocation. Aaron suddenly remembered he had a hole in the back of his jacket, where the left sleeve attached, but immediately dismissed the thought as irrelevant. He flipped his butterfly knife open and held it to the face of the waitress.

“I want sushi,” he said.

“Excuse me?” she asked quietly, still frozen like a snapshot of her living self.  Only her lips moved that time. Not the cheeks. Not the eyebrows.

“You heard me, bitch. Keep the cash. I want sushi.”

“You want sushi,” said a deep voice. The chef, a small Japanese man was standing there, hands on hips. He was wearing his street clothes, clearly prepared to lock up and go home. He said something in his native tongue to the girl, and she slowly backed away from the register and into the kitchen. The chef walked up to Aaron, ignoring the knife.

“What is it, a last meal?” he asked.

Aaron made a quick step backwards, keeping the blade trained on the chef’s throat.

“You got it,” he said.

“Fine. Let me change back, wash my hands, and get you some nice sushi. Take a seat.”

“I'm afraid, there's no time for changing-washing thing, just get me something from the fridge and go,” said Aaron.

The chef shook his head. “You can kill me now, then who's gonna make your sushi. Or, you can wait, and let me do things the way I've been doing them for the last thirty four years. It takes more than a space rock to make me serve a client with dirty hands.”

Aaron put his knife away.

“Know what,” he said, “Forget it. I am sorry, sir, I'll just...” He turned to leave, but the chef put his hand on Aaron's shoulder and gently held him back.

“That's okay. You're the last person I’ll ever serve. Please, sit down.”

Aaron gave a loud sigh, expelling all the weight of the last five years of his life:  his spine injury, his surgery, his job loss, his decision to camp out and save on rent, as a temporary measure and a great alternative to a diet of spaghetti and frozen chicken legs.

“Well,” he muttered, “just a California roll, maybe, I dunno...”

“A California roll?” A hint at a mocking grimace appeared on the chef's face. “Your last meal and all you want is a California roll? Tell you what, how about combo number eight right here. It has spider handroll, caterpillar roll, some nigiri. I can wholeheartedly recommend that instead. Trust me.”

Aaron clenched his teeth as a wooden bowl of hot miso soup was placed in front of him. Little pieces of green onion were floating on the surface. He wanted to cry. It didn't help that the hand-cleaning tissue was among the first things that appeared on the table, together with the soup and a pot of green tea.

As if to make him even more miserable, the chef took care to show him how to mix wasabi with soy sauce in a tiny porcelain dish and warned him to eat a piece of ginger root between  different types of sushi, just to keep the taste fresh. All Aaron wanted now was to get out of there, but he patiently finished the meal, and left his entire liquid assets on the table, a grand total of three thirty seven. The chef smiled and took the money with a professional thank you.

***

In another hour, Aaron was back at his campsite, a patch of dry land about thirty feet off the side of a countryside highway. A former parking spot for rollers and bulldozers, it was covered with dusty gravel, nice and firm. A thicket of dry shattercane along the edge of the road concealed the campsite from the passing cars. Ted was snoring on the foam mat by the fire, wrapped inside two sleeping bags, Aaron's and his own.

He woke up at the sound of the footsteps. Aaron held out an open pack of Dunhills, his own cigarette already in his mouth. Ted yawned, unzipped himself and took the pack from his partner's hand without a word. He used a burning twig to light his own cigarette, took a draft and exhaled a thick, gray jet in the direction of the fire, watching it mix with the smoke.

“So? What took you so long?” he finally said.

“Fucking crazy, man. I've taken a stroll on the boardwalk.”  That was only partially true. The stroll had hardly lasted fifteen minutes, but Aaron didn't feel like mentioning his Japanese adventure. Didn't want to remember it, in fact.

“How is it there?”

“Exactly how you'd expect. Windows broken, stores looted.”

“I suppose, you didn't pay for them Dunhills, did you?”

“No. The cops downtown are trying to do what little they can, but…”

“Bullshit. The entire police department here is, like, ten people.”

“I saw two girls walk past The Vice Admiral's Inn. You know, thirteen, fourteen, just like the one that got screwed by the congressman. And that guy came out. A fancy motherfucker, you know, business suit, tie, everything. And he stood in their way and with both hands, he just grabbed their pussies. Just like that. Then he went back into the hotel.”

“Damn.”

“Let's go, man,” said Aaron.

“Go where?”

“Downtown, man, where else?”

“What, you too wanna go pussygrabbing?”

“No, but, you wanna see it. There’s some food lying around. You hungry?”

“Nah. I've finished the last of macaroni. Sorry, man.”

Aaron got up and they stuffed the sleeping bags into their backpacks, which they promptly hid in the thick growth, further away from the road.

“You armed?” asked Aaron as they ran across the highway.

“You know I am.”


***

The entire downtown was four or five blocks along the boardwalk, which was joined to a narrow sandy beach by two simple wooden stairs. It took them about half an hour to get there. The very first business that lay in their path was a small convenience store. The place looked every bit as battered as they would have expected: windows broken, trash scattered on the floor. They could see a lone police officer inside, scanning the place with his smartphone camera.

“Motherfucker,” Ted whispered.

“What?” Aaron asked, instinctively whispering back.

“Walk forward,” Ted ordered ferociously. “Faster, cover me up.”

Aaron obeyed and Ted followed behind, blocked from the officer's view. Not that the policeman was paying attention. They got close to the door in about five seconds. Ted sprinted inside, catching the cop by surprise. The latter made a step backwards, reaching for the gun, but Ted had the advantage of surprise, speed and mass. In a flash, he was sitting on the officer's back, bending his left arm toward the right shoulder blade.

The victim closed his eyes, preparing for the worst.  Then, realizing that the worst was not all that bad compared to what was coming, he suddenly stopped resisting and relaxed his body. But Ted wasn't planning on making it quick. He pulled out his switchblade and ran it down the back of the officer’s neck in a shaving motion, scratching off a little skin here and there.

“Let's see,” he said. “My new bike two years ago, in Fullerton, California -- impounded. I had three. Full. Minutes.” Ted made three cuts with each of the last three words.

“Look, I don't ...”

“Shut up!” Ted added a twist to the officer's arm. One of the joints gave a crack and the cop moaned, clenching his teeth. “A ticket for smoking in the park, when I was full fifteen feet away from the fucking premises.”  Another cut, parallel to the first three.

“Not me, either,” said the officer.

“I know, I know, that was in Jersey. What else... Oh, yeah. A bunch of you motherfuckers cutting up our tent back in Phoenix.” Ted made another cut, across the previous four, closing a tally of five.

“Look bitch, I...”

“What?! Whatcha just call me?!” Ted pressed the blade hard against the skin of the neck.

“I’ve always helped guys like you! Our whole department...”

“Bullshit!” shouted Ted, hitting his victim on the head with the knuckles. “You swines are all the same! And the ones hiding behind your backs, hiding in their SUV's, behind their fucking fifty-inch Sony's... You know…” Ted caught his breath. “I hate them even more. No, really. Even more than I hate you, pathetic motherfuckers. You wouldn't be much poorer if you were a fucking pizza driver.  You are just somebody else's bitch. But,” Ted made a cut in the back of the officer's pants, just between the buttocks, “point taken. You, personally, aren't one of the badge-carrying assholes who were driving me to the brink of insanity every day, demonstrating how they could walk not just all over me, but all over the law. If I met one of them -- see this?” Ted picked up a beer bottle on the floor and held it to the officer's face. This would be all the way up your ass now, and I'd break off the bottleneck...”

“But I'm innocent!”

“Liar!”

“I swear!!!”

“Hey, Aaron! Couldja kick the fucker on the head, so he shut the fuck up. You’ve never been kicked in the head while sleeping? No? Never did that to anyone else, either, huh? ”

“No! No, I swear!”

“Okay, then,” said Aaron with unexpected gentleness in his voice. “You won't be dying a slow and painful death. In fact, you’ll probably enjoy what's about to happen.” He used his teeth to open the bottle, drank most of it, and poured the rest on his prey's head.

“This,” he said sticking the empty bottle to the officer's nose once again, “is still gonna be all the way up your ass. But I won't break it. You see, my lifestyle for the last few years... All the stress, not to mention your colleagues, and the others, you know, the ones who throw you the bone so that you're there, on your chain, barking at my kind -- not starving like me, but still fucked up -- all of that had an effect on my sexual appetite. Besides, it's cold. So, please, understand when I tell you I can't use the right tool for the job. Aaron!!! Get back here, you fucking coward! Now...” Ted turned back to the cop. “Now, as you very well know, a policeman's most terrible weapon is his radio. Get his radio, Aaron! And you -- hold this.” Ted put the radio into the cop's free hand. “Now, tell the dispatcher who you are.”      

“Eighty one, I have a ten-thirty five,” the officer spoke, “I am at South Delaware...”

“No!!!” Ted twisted is arm, as if shutting him off. “Tell them I have this nice, hard bottle up your ass!”

“Aw! Aww!!! Oh… Aaaaah!!!”

“Pfrghhhh. Ehthy-uh,” said the radio, “Teh-tree.”

“Tell them!!!”

“This guy has a bottle...”

“I said nice!!! And hard!!!”

“...nice and hard bottle up my ass,” whimpered the officer.

“Tell 'em you love it!!!”

“I love it.”

“Tell 'em you wish it was my dick!!! Say it, or...” Ted pressed the knife to the poor guy's ear, preparing to make one serious cut.

“I… I wish… I wish it was...”

Bang!!! Aaron smacked the officer on the head with a beer can. Startled, Ted jumped backwards.

“Fuck, man!!!” he shouted. “What didja do that for!? Shit…” he wiped his wet hand on the policeman's jacket. “You killed the motherfucker?”

“No,” said Aaron. “Just knocked him out. It's not cool man.”

“Not cool, huh!? Not cool!? Everything else is so cool, only this one little thing I just did, that's not cool, everything else is fucking perfect!!!”

With the last word, he kicked the unconscious man in the hip, putting in the total force of all the kicks he had received himself over the years while sleeping in parks, on sidewalks, on public lawns.

“Look at the bright side,” said Aaron. “It's almost over.”

“I know.”

“Let’s go, man.”

“Yeah, let’s go. No, wait…”

Ted picked up the gun and the radio.

“Take the bottle out,” said Aaron.

“Sure, if you drink from it afterwards.”

“Man, it’s not cool.”

“Revenge is therapy. Let’s go.”

They walked in silence for a while, papers, leaves and shards of broken glass cracking under the thick soles of their boots. A couple of smashed, charred autos were standing on the beach parking lot, giving off a smell of burnt metal and rubber. At times, the odor of urine also mixed in. Neither one of the partners felt like speaking, so when Aaron suddenly saw something familiar, he simply alerted his friend by pointing.

Pacing up and down the boardwalk, in the space between the public restroom and the fountain was a black man, about fifty-five years of age. He was wearing a grey long coat and a flat cap to match. He was smoking a cigar.

“He's here,” whispered Aaron. “Just like yesterday. And the day before.”

“Who’s he?”

“Dunno. But he’s here every day. His coat is different, though. Not as expensive.”

“Sure. Or he'd be walking without it by now.”

“Hey, sir!” called Aaron. “Sir! Excuse me, you know how soon is the wave coming?”

“Not for another forty minutes, I think,” said the man.  “Can't run anyway, can we?”

He had to raise his voice a bit. The breeze was getting stronger. Ted came up to him.

“My friend here says, you come to this place every day.”

“For the last ten years,” explained the man. “Walking, smoking my cigar. One of my favorite outdoor activities, in my favorite spot. Here, try one.” He held out a wooden cigar case, opening the lid with his thumb. Ted and Aaron took the cigars and the stranger flipped a Zippo lighter for them, shielding the flame from the wind.

Holding a lungful of smoke, Ted nodded approvingly.  “Those are some great cigars,” he said, exhaling. “Haven't had one that good in years.”

“Oh, I love 'em,” said the man. “A birthday present from a friend of mine. Together with this cigar case.”

“Damn. Happy birthday. I guess.” said Aaron.

“Not yet,” said the man, laughing. “In three weeks. He just really wanted to give me the present, he bought it a while ago. Stopped by this morning, gave it to me, and drove off.”

“That’s pointless,” said Ted.

“Oh, yeah,” agreed the man. “'Tis crazy. FEMA didn't even bother with our town. So, everyone's either running away or breaking things. I drove by the county airport on my way here. There were three Cessna's, all smashed up, and they had some bullet holes. Somebody didn't want 'em rich guys flying off to safety. Which is, again, pointless. I mean, even if a Cessna had the fuel to stay up in the air long enough, there'll be tornadoes, debris knocked into space.”

“Nothing like a one-two from God almighty,” said Ted.

The man nodded, taking a good draft, whose vigor was evident from the tip of his cigar blazing orange. Aaron looked to the horizon and saw a strangely colored mountain range, as if they were on a shore of an extremely wide river. It wasn't there a minute ago.

“Oh, shiiit,” he whimpered and turned to run. Ted suddenly bared his teeth and grabbed his business partner by the sleeve.

“Get the fuck off me!!!” yelled Aaron, but Ted turned him around and punched him in the mouth with full force. Aaron fell backwards.

“Hey! Hey!!! What're you doing!” screamed the cigar man and tried to get between them, but Ted brushed him aside.

“You don't understand,” he growled. “This coward could never stand up for himself! Always wimping out! Paid your landlord for the last two weeks, when he was throwing you out! All he had to do was yell! You could’ve lived for months on that money!!! Or that possession charge, remember that?! They didn’t have shit on you! Could’ve just stared them down and kept your mouth shut! But you thought they’d be nice if you cooperated. You're worse than them. You just accepted. And now what?! Now, that's it! That's how it will be for the rest of fucking eternity! Wimp! Wimp! Wimp!!!” Ted yelled, kicking at his business partner with each word. “Now, get up! Get up, or I swear, I'll fucking kill you before that thing comes! This is your last chance, man! You wanna die like this?! Get up! Get!!! Up!!!”

Aaron obeyed, wiping the blood off his mouth. His lower jaw was trembling. He tried to speak but couldn’t. Ted pointed eastward.

“Now, face it. Face the motherfucker!!!” he shouted pleadingly, almost crying.

“Okay,” said Aaron, still shaking. “Okay.”

“That’s right, look at it. Look right at it. I mean, what have we got to lose.”

“Here,” said the stranger, “have another cigar. Don't want to let them go to waste.”

“Thank you!” said Aaron. And, true to professional bum’s habit, he added: “God bless you, sir.”

The three of them laughed. Embarrassed, Aaron squinted into the horizon.

“It's gonna be cold water,” he muttered and licked his bleeding lip. “Couldn’t this meteor thing wait till August?”

“Bullshit,” said Ted, “there’s, like, million tons, it'll just smash you against that hotel in less than a second.”

“Actually,” said the stranger, “I would lie down with my head toward the wall. The wave should knock me against it.”

“Maybe later,” Ted conceded, “we still got time.”

He tried to come up with something else, some last words, but quickly decided that last words were, generally, overrated. The others, apparently, felt the same way. So, she three of them just stood there, smoking, thinking, admiring the mountain range in the distance. Now that they fixed their eyes on it, they could tell it was slowly growing in size.