It was sunny out and warm. Spring was just days away.
“Great day for volleyball,” Erik grated to Charlie.
“Sure is. Glad to see you’re playing for a change, Erik. Do ya good to get out with the others.”
Yeah, he thought. He glanced behind him as they chose up sides. At four minutes past eleven, the lawn supervisor was walking down the hills, toward the trees.
“Chad’s a faggot,” Duke barked. “I don’t want him on my side.”
“Enough of that, Duke,” Mike warned. “We’re all here to have fun.”
“Fuck fun, I wanna win.”
“I’m no faggot,” Chad complained.
“Come on, folks,” Charlie said. “Let’s get playing.”
What a clusterfuck, Erik thought once they started going. Many of the pats were extrapyramidal, a neurological side effect of long term phenothiazine therapy. Slow. Uncoordinated. Twitchy. One of the girls served and the ball didn’t make it over the net.
“My turn, thank God,” Duke said, and batted the ball across. It went back and forth maybe twice before Harry the sterraphobe knocked it into the net.
“Jesus to Pete,” Duke complained. “Can’t any of you faggots play?”
“I’m telling you, Duke. Any more comments like that and you’re back inside,” Mike told him, standing aside.
“Your turn to serve, Erik,” Nurse Dallion pointed out. They rotated. Erik took the ball.
“Come on, Erik, let’s see a good one,” Charlie said, and clapped.
“Aw, Erik can’t serve for dick,” Duke yelled. “He’s a faggot too, just like all of ya. Just like Chad.”
“I’m no fag!” Chad yelled, fists clenched at his sides.
“Shit, you suck your daddy’s dick. He told me so last time he came to visit.”
“He did not!”
Dawn started crying. “I can’t play!” she screamed. “Not while Duke’s here!”
“You go down on your mother, fizzlehead,” Duke guffawed, and rubbed his crotch. “Why don’t you just shut up and suck my knob, huh?”
“That’s it, Duke.” Mike gave him a shove. “Inside.”
Erik, still holding the ball, nodded.
“I fucked your girlfriend,” Duke reported to Mike. “I ever tell you that?”
Nurse Dallion commanded, “Get him inside, Mike. He’s ruining this for everyone.”
“She wasn’t nearly as good as Nurse Dallion, though.” Duke busted out a laugh. “Yeah, Nurse Dallion, she can suck a good one. Suck your balls right out your dickhole.”
Dawn sat down on the grass, bawling. Several other pats began to wander. Mike grabbed Duke by the collar and began escorting him off the field. “You just lost your Class III, Duke.”
“Shag my balls, queer. Your girlfriend licks my crack.”
“Now!” Erik yelled.
Duke lunged, then rammed his elbow back into Mike’s throat. Simultaneously, Erik rocketed the volleyball into Charlie’s face. Nurse Dallion was running up: “Erik, what are you—”
“Sorry,” he said. He really was, because Nurse Dallion was nice. He slugged the heel of his palm right into her forehead. Suddenly, the pats were running all over the place. Erik glimpsed figures dashing. Duke was stomping Mike’s face, then breaking. “Motherfuckers!” Charlie yelled. Erik had time to palm heel Nurse Dallion in the head again, and that was it for her. Charlie grabbed him, lifted him up, and Erik spun. He raked Charlie’s glasses off, kicked him in the groin, then stomped on the glasses. They crunched.
Charlie’s teeth were gritted in pain. One hand held his groin, the other reached out. “I’m sorry,” Erik grated, and kicked him in the head.
Erik broke for the trees.
Two minutes, he told himself. If we’re lucky.
Mike, Charlie, and Nurse Dallion were all out cold. The pats fled every which way. “Fly, Fleance! Fly!” Harry the sterraphobe quoted Shakespeare. Dawn was still blubbering in the grass, while Chad shouted to the sky, “I’m no fag!” as he urinated on the net post.
Erik disappeared behind the stand of trees.
“I took care of this big fucker sure as shit,” Duke was gloating. The lawn super lay limp. Duke pulled two clumps of keys out of the guy’s overalls, and his wallet.
“Jesus Christ!” Erik yelled. “You killed the guy!”
Duke looked up, disinterested. The supervisor’s neck was broken. Erik grabbed the keys and gratingly shouted, “Come on!”
The lock on the service gate was a big Rollings Mark IV with a tubular keyway. Erik fished out the only tubular key on the ring; the big lock snapped open instantly.
This is too easy, he considered. “Walk,” he whispered to Duke. “Walk normal. We’re just two lawn guys walking to our truck.”
Duke loped along beside him, whistling “Hail to the Redskins.” The Ford keys had black plastic shrouds; Erik isolated them at once. Ten seconds later they were pulling the big pickup out of the lot.
“Shit yeah!” Duke exclaimed. “The faggot was right! We’re out of this shithole!”
“We’re not out yet,” Erik reminded him. “We still have the main entrance to get by, and the security guards.”
“Those creamcakes? I’ll bust all their heads.”
“You shouldn’t have killed that guy.”
“Fuck him. Killed Mike too, the faggot. Heard his windpipe crunch.” Duke laughed. “Sounded like steppin’ on walnuts.”
Jesus, Erik thought. “Get ready to talk,” he grated. “I can’t talk, so you’re going to have to.”
This was what would make or break them; Erik doubted Duke’s expertise at method acting. Quickly, Erik opened the super’s wallet. “Phillip Alan Richards,” read the name on the driver’s license. In the back of the pickup were several five-gallon gas cans. “Tell them we’re making a fuel run for Mr. Richards,” he said.
“Fuel run, sure.”
The guard at the entrance stopped them. The gate was down. Shit, Erik thought. He might have to drive through. He might have to kill the guard, and he didn’t want to do that.
“We’re makin’ a fuel run for Mr. Richards,” Duke said. “Lawn King.”
The guard nodded. He handed Erik a clipboard through the window. A sign out log, Erik thought. He scribbled a name, wrote the time in the Out column, then paused. Tag Number, the next column requested. His eyes scanned up the sheet, found the name Richards signed in at 7:23 a.m., put the following tag number in his column, then passed the clipboard back to the guard. The guard glanced into the pickup bed. Then he glanced in the cab again.
“Later, guys.” He raised the gate and waved them on.
Erik pulled through. Slow, he thought. Normal. A moment later he heard the phone ringing in the guard booth. Erik turned the pickup truck off the court and onto the main road.
Ten seconds later the elopement alarm began to blare at the hospital.
Erik pressed the accelerator to the floor.