The next time he spoke his voice sounded completely different—it had a thick guttural accent and his words slowed so they had more weight and flavor when you heard them. He sounded like Henry Kissinger talking. “A hero eats lions for breakfast.” He stuck his index finger so hard into the kid’s ear that the poor boy’s face collapsed in on itself while he let out a screeching catlike yelp.
“Do you want to be a hero, or do you want to deliver mail? Or iron another man’s shirts? That would be a good job for my son—iron another man’s shirts.” Another ringer stab into the ear, another startled scream.
George, Floon Junior, and I watched the lunatic vent his festered fifty-year-old gripe on a little boy. It was so bizarre and crackbrained that for too many moments we did nothing because all three of us were simply hypnotized by the force and ugliness of it. What’s more interesting than a car wreck when you first see it? Why do you think traffic always backs up for miles? All those eyes want to see what’s left. A car wreck or another’s bad news, a person losing control in public... Because they are all different kinds of death in action, folks. Step right up and see life bite—someone else.
“Lemme go!” The boy struggled wildly, twisting every which way but he could not escape. No way.
Leaning against the house a few feet away was a long and quite heavy metal pole. On the porch was a black plastic dishlike thing with several color-coded wires hanging off it. This contraption was meant to be bolted onto the pole. If done correctly and with proper adjustments, the completed outfit became an outdoor TV antenna. A few days before George had been sitting up on his roof, imagining himself as this very antenna so that he could write a good description of how to properly assemble it.
I had seen the pole earlier but what with all the action taking place it didn’t much register on me. Old Floon watched with interest as the boy flipped and jumped frantically around in his hand. While his attention was distracted, Young Floon stepped over to the house, took up the pole, and without a second’s hesitation swung it full force at the old man’s head.
The sound of metal on skull came out a mix of clong and thunk. It was a deep, dull noise, not loud but oh-so-vivid. You remembered a sound like that even if you didn’t know what caused it. After the hit, the pole shook so violently in his hands that it looked alive. My eyes followed that jittering pole up all the way to Young Floon’s eyes. They were still blank/empty of anything but just being alive. That’s all—that’s the only thing they showed. As far as he knew, this man had just crushed his father’s skull with a five-foot-long metal pike but the only emotion that showed on his face was nothing.
Old Floon fell to the left. Little Frannie to the right. He had been pulling so terrifically hard to get away that when the old man let go of him, the boy just dropped toward gravity. They separated like a wishbone snapping. As soon as the kid hit the ground he crawled lickety-split away on all fours, not sure of what had happened except for the physical fact he was abruptly freed and was not about to be recaptured. As he moved he screamed, “Asshole, asshole!” in a high, hurt little boy’s voice. It was a strange sight—him crabbing away, shouting that word over and over at an old man who lay on his back with nothing left but some escaping body heat.
I looked at the others and then eventually bent down to feel for a pulse. Nothing. Anyway Floon’s head told the tale before I even touched his throat—one look and anyone would have known. Because what had once been the man’s temple was now fresh bread dough and red oatmeal.
I glanced at his killer. “Home run, bud. You knocked this guy out of the park.”
Raising his eyebrows only a little, Young Floon dropped the metal pole on the ground. It landed with a clang and rolled away from him. I think all of us spent a moment watching it roll till it stopped. Lying there, it suddenly had a whole new personality: It had gone from being an antenna pole to a murder weapon in a minute and a half.
Dreampilot
Just about everything that took place after that was strange, but strangest of all was what happened immediately after Floon killed Floon. Without a word the three of us adults moved into action with the kid looking on.
I went to the car and gestured for Floon Junior to open the back gate. He unlocked it and as soon as it swung open, we went back for the body. I looked at George and said only, “Get those big Baggies.” He went into his house and came back a few moments later (followed by Chuck the dachshund) with a box of giant, industrial-size garbage bags he used when he cut branches off his apple tree. Walking to the back of the car, he pulled out several and rapidly lined the floor of the trunk with them. Not once did I look to see if anyone in the neighborhood had witnessed our goings-on in the last ten minutes or even if anyone was watching us now.
We picked up the body, awkwardly maneuvered it into another of the shiny black bags, and hefted it into the trunk. Its plastic landed on the other plastic with a clunk and the sound of a lot of crinkling while we pushed and shoved it flush into a corner. Then I slid the murder weapon in next to the bag. Obviously it would have to disappear too.
That done, I put out my hand for the car keys. There would be no debate about this—I was driving. Floon gave them right over. All four of us (and the dog) got into his brand-new Isuzu and drove off.
We rode through town in silence. Once in a while I looked around remembering how different the place looked earlier that morning when it was Crane’s View of thirty years ago. From what little I could see, the Rat’s Potato crew had put everything back in its proper place. But then again I wasn’t about to stop to check the details, what with the serious cargo we were carrying.
George and Floon sat in the backseat, the boy up front next to me. Our silence continued until I realized, hey, I don’t having a fucking clue where to go now. I looked in the rearview mirror and checked the passengers to see if they looked any less confused than I. Both were staring out the windows with their hands in their laps.
“Hey.”
Blinking, I shifted my eyes over to the kid. “What do you want?”
He just happened to be holding the famous feather, twirling it back and forth in his little fingers the way anyone plays with a feather in their hand.
“Where’d you get that?”
Saying nothing, he jerked his head toward his shoulder.
“What? What does that mean?”
“I got it from him. The guy. The guy in the baa “
“How?”
“I just got it.” Suddenly he had changed from a chatterbox into Mr. Laconic.
“Give it here.”
He didn’t. Looking full at him, I snapped my fingers under his nose. “Give it to me.”
With a dramatic sigh he handed it over. “That big stupid jerk hurt my ear inside. It still hurts.”
“I bet it does.” Glancing in the rearview, I saw that Floon was watching me. I reached backward and gestured for him to take the feather. “You’re going to need this.”
He took it, gave it a look, didn’t say a word.
“You’ve also got blood on your cheek, so you’d better wipe it off. Now listen, Floon, there’s something incredibly important about that feather but don’t ask me what ‘cause I don’t know. The thing’s not what you think it is, it’s not even from a bird. It’s just something completely different. You’ll understand that when you examine it in your lab or wherever. That feather is going to play a really important part in whatever you do with the rest of your life, so take good care of it.”
“Frannie, how do you know these things?”