“Getting cool toys for Christmas. Even better, getting shit I didn’t like and blowing it up with firecrackers. My folks were always puzzled by the debris.”
“I blew up something I made of LEGOs.”
“That’s the primary use of LEGOs, even though they keep quiet about it.” Serge put his fingers together, assembling something invisible. “The interlocking blocks allowed flexibility of design so you can engineer a directional charge. Excellent demolition training, which was otherwise unavailable at that age.”
Coleman killed the beer and crunched the can flat against his forehead. “Ow, I think I cut myself… Any other memories?”
“There’s also the newer ones.” Serge handed him some napkins. “Like every year, newspapers run the exact same menu of holiday stories: family hospitalized for smoke inhalation trying to keep warm by barbecuing indoors, seven crushed in Black Friday shopping spree, needy family evicted from apartment just days before Christmas, moms arrested fighting over last Xbox, employees laid off just days before Christmas, car stolen from shopping center with all of family’s gifts in trunk, man dies watering Christmas tree with lights on, depression soars during holidays, evicted needy family gets holiday wish, hospitals warn about eating Christmas decorations that aren’t food, needy family’s hoax results in charges. It’s a special time of year.”
“Are we there yet?” asked Coleman.
“Just up ahead. I checked us into our new room before dawn while you were still unconscious at the old one.”
Coleman glanced at their surroundings, detecting a trend. Sports bars, Tex-Mex, bowling alleys. Strip malls offering tattoos, guns, and haircuts. Off-brand convenience stores with large ads for lottery tickets, Newport cigarettes, and Asian groceries. An unnatural concentration of personal-injury-attorney signs at bus stops. Gas stations selling fried poultry and hash pipes. The pimp-your-ride industry: auto-detailing, auto upholstery, window tinting, auto alarm. Grime-streaked apartment balconies full of dead potted plants, barbecues, and people banging on doors. Old mom-and-pop motel signs with patriotic motifs involving eagles, flags, military airplanes, and primitive rocket ships. And finally the sub-budget motels with no signs at all.
Coleman took another hit. “Where are we?”
“South Tampa.” Serge hit his blinker. “More specifically south of Gandy Boulevard, toward the air-force base. The closer you get to the base, the sketchier the highway. Here we are, a sub-budget motel with no sign, which is perfect.” He turned the wheel.
“Perfect?”
“The behavior of the guests at these motels is so erratic that our mission will go unnoticed.”
“What’s our mission?”
Serge pulled into a parking lot. “The story on the news a few days ago about the VFW hall. Not one of the holiday stories I mentioned, but since it’s during the season, it’s that much more despicable.”
Coleman opened his passenger door and tumbled onto the pavement. He popped back up. “Something tripped me again… What happened at the VFW?”
“The economy. There’s been a huge increase in desperate, low-end burglars ripping off heavy metal stuff right in the open and selling it for scrap.” Serge got out a key and headed for their room. “Chain-link fence, sheds, aluminum siding. One guy up in Pasco even used a cutting torch and took a span of guardrail from the expressway.”
“But we’ve done that. Remember our U-Haul full of metal garbage cans and spools of barbed wire?”
“I’m not saying it’s wrong. In fact it creates jobs far more aggressively than any stimulus package. I’d love to see a Discovery Channel special tracking the illegal hauls to the scrap yard, where it’s crushed, loaded on tractor trailers, driven to Pittsburgh, infusing capital into local diners, bars, and truck-stop hookers, finally reaching the foundry, where it’s smelted, shipped again to assembly lines in Terra Haute and Fond du Lac, which use the raw materials to manufacture new stuff to replace the shit we stole, then sending it back to Florida, creating more employment for contractors who have to reinstall everything before we take it again. A perfect, self-sustaining closed-loop domestic industrial model, minimizing dependence on foreign entities who mean us ill fortune.”
Serge opened the motel room door.
“Holy shit,” said Coleman. “Look at all the copper pipes and wires. You must have stolen all of this in the middle of the night.”
“The War on Terror never sleeps.”
Coleman high-stepped through the cluttered room. “But with all this copper, why are you upset about the TV news story the other night?”
“Because even the War on Terror has rules. Like, you don’t use crowbars to ply the brass plaques off VFW posts that list the names of all the local patriots who have made the supreme sacrifice since the First World War.”
“That’s not right.” Coleman tried the TV. “Can’t they just make a new one.”
Serge shook his head. “It’s a small post. They didn’t keep a list of the names. Sounds like an obvious thing to do, but nobody even considered this a distant possibility. The tribute will be gone forever unless we can trace the culprit. I’ve got eyes on the street.”
“That phone call to Manny’s Towing and Salvage?”
“If the bastard tries to fence the plaques within twenty miles, we got him.”
Coleman changed channels. “What about all this copper?”
“Sell it to Manny. And give him some for his trouble if he comes through.”
“No, I mean where’d you get it?”
“Another thing that burns my ass. Florida is one of the few places with a law that says your primary residence can never be seized to pay debts, even if they’re the results of criminal fraud or worse. That’s why O.J. moved here when he was being sued by the Goldmans. Wall Street fuck-heads regularly liquidate all their assets and buy the biggest home possible before going to jail. Then they get out a few years later and live in a palace, while their swindled retirees eat Kibbles ’n Bits-”
Knock knock knock.
Serge spun and flicked open a switchblade. “What the hell’s that?”
Coleman turned up the volume on the news. “The door.”
Knock knock knock.
Coleman began going through the room’s bureau for loose change. In the second drawer he discovered three prescription bottles and instantly glowed with the kind of dark horse optimism that is only available in the drug culture. His spirits sagged when he realized the bottles were empty, had Serge’s name on the labels, and were all for no-fun serotonin-management chemicals. The refill dates bordered on historical. “Serge? When was the last time you took-”
Knock knock knock!
Coleman returned to the TV dial. “Aren’t you going to get that?”
“Yes, but not right away. Because it’s not just any door.” Serge started to tiptoe. “It’s the magic door at a fleabag motel. Which means until I open it, the possibilities are infinitely greater than that of other doors we’ve come to know and love…”
Knock knock knock!
Serge continued silently creeping. “No fuckin’ boundaries, man! This dump could attract anyone with a limber global outlook. Cadaver dog trainers, pearl divers, snake handlers, snowboarders, celebrity bulimics, Filipino mystics who hang themselves with hooks through their flesh, Blue Oyster Cult, cannibals, and people curious about cannibals.”
Coleman fired up a joint. “What if it’s a midget?”
“That would work,” said Serge. “You open a door and find a midget, and there’s no way you can be in a bad mood. It’s just not possible.”
Knock knock knock. “Dammit, Serge, open up! I’m growing a beard out here!”
Serge’s chin fell to his chest. “Crap.” He undid the chain and turned the knob. “Manny, great to see you.” Serge stuck his head out the door, glanced suspiciously both ways, then grabbed his guest by the shirt and yanked him off his feet into the room. “Please come in.”
Manny looked around the room at all the copper. “You’ve been a busy boy.”