Special Smashwords Edition
11 - 11 - 11
by
John Rachel
Special Smashwords Edition
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Published by
Melange Books, LLC
White Bear Lake, MN 55110
www.melange-books.com
11-11-11 Second Edition: Copyright 2012 by John D Rachel
eBook ISBN: 978-1-61235-192-6
Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Published in the United States of America.
Cover Art by Mae Powers
11 - 11 - 11
by
John Rachel
Noah was turning 23 and desperate to get out of town. Pulnick, Missouri had always been a hopelessly hayseed blemish on the pallid face of rural Bible-belt America. Always bland and soporific, it was now being invaded by white supremacist meth heads, visited by an unprecedented crime wave, exploited by spiritualists and local politicos, and driven to hysteria by paranoid rumors that the world would end on November 11th. Moreover, Noah's personal life was becoming more convoluted by the day. Everything seemed to conspire against his singular need to go somewhere where he could begin a new life and learn how to dream.
Acknowledgements:
First, I'd wholeheartedly like to thank the fictional citizens of the fictional town of Pulnick for their unparalleled hospitality and valuable assistance during the writing of this book. For a place which doesn't exist and which therefore I've never been, I feel like I have lived there all my life and now have a second home to which I can comfortably return anytime.
I want to profoundly thank my best friend and constant companion Masumi Nishida for her encouragement and faith in me, and her magnificent role as teacher and guide in my discovering the wonders of Japan and Japanese culture.
For their inestimable contributions to my literary and intellectual development, and my current tentative grasp on reality, I wish to express my appreciation and awe to: Tom Robbins, Woody Allen, Kurt Vonnegut, Stanislaw Lem, Christopher Moore, Chuck Palahniuk, Jerzy Kosinski, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Neil Postman, and Jared Diamond.
For their continuing friendship and support, I extend my heartfelt gratitude to Judy Rachel, Randy Calligan, Mickey Eres Finn, Travis Rood, Ron Ruiz, Gary Cambra, Gilly Adkins, Nicholas Penrake, and Joe Bennett.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 — May 5…
Bambi Meets Godzilla
The Long Weekend
Bones
Big Thoughts
The Usual Suspects
With Friends Like These
Chapter 2 — June 7…
The Big Box
Girl In A Blue Dress
Björn Agynn
The Great Escape
Slow Bullets
Chapter 3 — June 25…
The Day Michael Jackson Died
As Normal As It Gets
A New Breed Of Entrepreneur
White Punks On Dope
Pulpit Fiction
Chapter 4 — July 4…
Patriotism 101
The C10H15N Diet
Heavy Metal
My Fair Lady
The Short Arm Of The Law
Chapter 5 — July 26…
A Swinging Door
Postcards
Billboards
Sweet Tooth
Family Values
Chapter 6 — August 19…
Alien Abduction
Fear
Man Up!
Full Metal Militia
The Slippery Slope
Chapter 7 — September 11…
Patriotism 102
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Allergy Season
Blitz and Krieg
Mean Streets
Chapter 8 — September 23…
The Ugly American
Mother Knows Best
Rapture of the Ascension
Bad Cop Bad Cop
Shell Game
Chapter 9 — October 17…
Walk Like An Egyptian
Mission Implausible
Mischief Night
Family Reunion
Anger Management
Chapter 10 — November 10…
Patriot Act
End-of-the-World Sale!
Pickles
Eve of Destruction
One Nation Under God
Chapter 11 — November 11…
God
The Vigil
Suddenly!!!
11-11-11
The Perfect Blissful Fog of Nothingness
Magnetic North
Legal Notices and Disclaimers
The world would finally end. For sure this time.
Not like all those other times.
Really.
May 5…
Bambi Meets Godzilla
Noah was watching Bambi Meets Godzilla on YouTube.
He loved that little film. How many times had he seen it? Fifty? A hundred?
Almost the entire length of the three-minute film consisted of opening credits rolling over an idyllic animation of Bambi eating and frolicking in the forest. Gentle spring flute music playfully accompanied the chirping of birds. Finally the credits finish and to a thunderous, forest-shaking kaboom!, Godzilla’s giant foot comes down and squashes the innocent little fawn. All we see is Godzilla's grizzly leg and Bambi's four tiny twig-like limbs sticking out from under the giant reptilian foot. The music and birds have stopped, and as the kaboom! trails off in a long tail of reverberation, The End fades up on the screen and the film is over.
What a perfect metaphor! thought Noah. Especially for life in this stinking town.
As many times as he had watched it, it never failed to put him in a great mood. Of course, the first twenty or thirty times left him rolling helplessly on the floor in convulsions of laughter. Now it just left him pleasantly amused. Buoyant. Hopeful.
He knew he wasn't alone. Like minds. Somewhere out there.
When the clip finished, he clicked on the Today's Recommended Videos link.
The Featured Video was called "11-11-11: The Pleiadians Warned Us!!"
What was this all about? Some fat loser with greasy hair flopping in his face offered a five minute rant based on alleged alien visitations from the Pleiades constellation. Filmed with a hand-held camera, it was replete with photos of flying saucers and very weird mathematical symbols scribbled on a white board. The presentation concluded with a wildly unhinged catalog of every imaginable catastrophe and collusion of spiritual forces, a cosmic fusillade of supernatural cataclysms all occurring exactly at 11:11 am on November 11, 2011.
Right.
What a pile of kaka!
11:11 am. What time zone, loser?
Jokers like this annoyed him. All of these prophets of doom, conspiracists, rapturists and various peddlers of paranoid poop — and that included gurus, televangelists and faith healers, even parish priests and local Bible-thumpers if they were mongering fear from their bully pulpits — really pissed him off. Whether they believed their own nonsense or not, these lunatics went around spewing this ridiculous crap, scaring the hell out of people and actually getting paid for doing it, while real people like himself actually had to work for a living.
Speaking of which…he had a job to go to.
Noah threw on his work clothes. He didn't have to be at work for three more hours but this was a perfect day for riding. He hated it when he got sucked into the internet and wasted such beautiful weather geeking out.
With a wifebeater under his open work shirt, a pair of jeans tucked into his riding boots, and his backpack buckled on, Noah kick-started his 140 cc Kawasaki off-road bike. It fired up on the first try and he did a decent enough wheelie out of the garage under his tiny studio apartment. Without looking back, he knew his landlady was at her window cursing him and his errant youthful ways. She would go back to mumbling prayers for God's forgiveness and His blessing for her abominable existence here on Earth.
Pulnick was one of the three main city-towns along a corridor that ran diagonally through Monroe County, Missouri. Monroe City sat in the very northeast corner of the county, Paris was dead center, and Pulnick midway between them just north of the artificial lakes that were the recreational foundation for Mark Twain State Park. Pulnick's surrounding landscape was a mixture of farms, woodlands, and open fields, and showed both the growing and shrinking pains of development, successful and otherwise. The area bore witness to the ambivalence of a region of middle America which could not make up its mind whether to jump on the freight train of industrialization and modernization, or to just lean back as it had for many decades and watch the corn grow.
As the crow flies, Noah's job was exactly 18 miles east and slightly south of Pulnick. If he went straight across town on Main Street, hammered it along Highway 24, then took some back roads east around Mark Twain Recreation Area, he could be there in less than twenty five minutes. Frankly, this was a pretty boring way to go. He had done it way too many times.
Today he had the time and wanted a little variety and challenge. That either meant heading north on the county roads where he could open up his little screaming metal monster for some serious speed, or south of town past the Monroe County Industrial Park, out toward Swinkley Lake. The lake was surrounded by woods, and there were lots of hiking and biking trails. It was fairly hilly and if he could avoid the mud holes from the recent rains, he could do some great off-road riding.
Noah opted for speed. He banked a right on Dillinger, left on Smithers, then right on Gandolph, which turned into County Road 171 at the outskirts of town. Two more lights and a stop sign and he'd be looking at thirty miles of pedal-to-the-metal open road. He could pull around any cars and trucks without blinking.
Just as he was approaching the last four-way stop, he suddenly heard a strange sound. It was coming directly from his left and behind him. It sounded like a combination of the roar of a truck engine and the blast of air brakes.
Then nothing.
The Long Weekend
When Noah came to, he was inside of an ambulance. He heard the long shrill whine of a siren and as the fog partially cleared, he could see he was not alone. Next to him looking out the side window was a man wearing an antiseptic mask. He gently held a breathing apparatus over Noah's face. The man turned back and noticed that Noah was regaining consciousness.
“Darn good thing you were wearing a helmet.”
“Wha…?”
“Don’t try to talk. Just be calm. You were in an accident. We’ll be at the hospital in a few minutes. You're going to be alright.”
Noah went back under, off into whatever world of dreams or metaphysical suspension is the temporary hospice for a traumatized body.
Next thing he remembered was feeling like someone was shoving something down his throat. He gagged and it felt like he tried to struggle. He couldn’t be sure. Again the blank screen and autonomous hum of nothingness descended on him. Everything dispersed in a dreamless void. Time stopped. Then…
Faintly he heard moaning. Who was it? When he licked his lips it stopped.
Noah felt a cool damp cloth on his face. It gently patted his forehead. Brushed over his eyelids. With some effort he was able to open his eyes. Everything was a blur. He heard a soft voice. A female.
“Mr. Tass.”
“Where am I?” Which came out as ‘Wuh uh ah?’
“You’re at Monroe County General. The hospital. And this is the intensive care section. You're going to be fine. You've had a bad accident but you are going to be okay. Just rest.”
He was going to be okay. That’s what the lady said.
He just had to rest…
Bones
They moved Noah out of the Intensive Care Unit after three days. His attending physician was a real comedian.
“Chances are you’ll live. But in case you don’t, we’re moving you into a regular room, so you don’t muck up the outstanding record of ICU this year. So far, they’re batting a thousand, if you don’t count the people they dragged out into the hall before they drew their last breath.”
Noah was in a semi-private room. The person in the next bed was about 127 years old and if he had regained consciousness at any point during Noah’s stay there, no one seemed to notice. Noah had all of the privacy he could desire or handle.
Not that he could do very much.
Watch TV. Eat. Sleep. Watch TV. Eat. Sleep.
Even when he was awake, the pain medication floated him in the weightless cloud of a semi-conscious stupor. Considering the quality of the television programming, this was probably best.
Soap operas would segue into cooking shows into weather reports into heroics on the basketball court into crime scene investigations into talk shows. Somehow it made sense without making any sense at all.
Days went by. At first he couldn’t count them. Then he started to recognize a definite pattern to the way things were done. How often they would take his blood pressure. How long it took for him to use up the contents of his IV bottle. Which nurses were on days, which ones on afternoons, who had the night shift. There was only one on nights. Her name was Eleanor.
Sometimes he would look out the window. The windows were sealed. One day he asked a nurse if maybe they could get some fresh air, but in the controlled environment of the hospital it wasn't allowed. Day after day, the weather continued to be beautiful. Great riding weather.
By the beginning of the second week, Noah was permitted — in fact he was encouraged — to get up and move around a bit. Slowly. Carefully. Always with a nurse at his side. And with his IV bottle and rack in tow. They told him that the more he moved around, without of course aggravating his injuries, the faster he would heal. It was important to work his muscles, flex his joints, get his blood flowing, and jack up his metabolism. All good for the body.
Moving around might have terrific things going for it. But unfortunately it hurt like hell.
He frankly could not believe how bad it hurt. What had he done to himself?
Exercise notwithstanding, most of the time that second week he still spent in bed.
Noah had seven broken bones. Three broken ribs. A broken collar bone. His left leg broken in two places. His right arm, down near the wrist. The good news was they were all clean breaks, none requiring surgery, truss rods, bolts, or screws.
He had also gotten pretty bruised up: His chest where he took the impact of his handlebars. His legs, feet and ankles which had whipped around and broadsided the grill of the 18-wheeler. His right arm and shoulder from the rear tire of his motorcycle as it landed on him.
Naturally, he had some scrapes and superficial gashes as well. His face, hands, knees and elbows had a number of abrasions and shallow cuts. But despite their gruesome appearance and blue puffy swelling, especially the first three days in ICU, none of these injuries were very serious and the doctor assured him he would have no scars. It could have been much worse.
Darn good thing he was wearing a helmet.
Noah never got straight in his mind all of the details of the accident. Partly this was because his mind still was not very clear. And partly it was because he frankly couldn't remember anything at all about what had happened that day. Not a thing. When the body is severely traumatized, the mind always protectively blocks any recall of the incident. That's what his doctor told him. That certainly seemed to be how it was. He couldn't remember leaving his apartment to go riding that day. He couldn't even remember breakfast. Or lunch. Nothing.
What they told him, however, was that a truck driver from out of town didn't realize that there was a four-way stop intersection on that stretch of road, got distracted by something inside the cab of his truck, then when he glanced back up immediately saw he was about to plow into one to four vehicles waiting their turn after stopping at the crossroads. He initially swerved into the oncoming lane but a school bus full of kids had just made a right turn onto the road. He cut his wheel hard back into his own lane, making the choice of lesser evils. That was when he nailed Noah, on his way to taking out two other vehicles.
Amazingly, no one else was seriously hurt. The drivers of the other two automobiles were a little shaken up, but even though their vehicles were totaled, they and the truck driver himself came through it virtually unscratched.
Noah got it all.
Bad luck and motorcycles.
Of course when you ride a bike you know the risks. But you rationalize. It won't happen to me. I'm a good driver. I'm a safe driver. I'm a lucky guy.
Bad luck and motorcycles.
It could have been worse. He could have been killed. He could have…
He was rowing a boat. The water was like oil, a thick shimmering pool of impenetrable black. The boat felt like it was being pulled, and regardless of how hard he rowed, it slipped sideways away from the shore. A girl at the other end smoked a cigarette and gazed off. She laughed as she turned to him. Her lips and hair were black but she had piercing blue eyes. “Your friends told me this was how it would be.” He felt humiliated and was overwhelmed by a desperate need to defend himself. “Honestly, I'm doing the best I can.” Then one of the oars slipped out of his hand and disappeared into the shimmering black lake.
He reached for it and banged his head on a length of tubular metal. It turned out to be the safety rail on his bed.
Noah was awake again. Painfully awake. He felt a small lump on his forehead.
The glare of the overhead florescent lights made him wince. He threw his arm over his face and tried to roll over.
He suddenly heard the acid-washed whine of his kid sister Gretchen.
“You look terrible!”
Noah's sister never was up for the Miss Congeniality Award and never would be, especially in her relationship with her brother. Whether prompted by envy or intimidation — she was three years younger and failed in every way Noah excelled — she always made it clear that she thought Noah was a loser and things could only get worse for him.
He didn’t feel like fighting with her. Not now.
“I asked for my bandages to be in mauve with yellow and silver embroidery. Look at these. And what’s with cosmetic surgery these days? I wanted a subtle sculpturing of my naturally beautiful chin, not this Jay Leno demolition bumper.”
“You are so gay.”
“Shhh.” Noah pointed his bandaged thumb toward his 127 year old roommate. “Let’s just keep it between the two of us. I think he’s a homophobe.”
Noah started to ask where his mom was. But then he saw her standing by the door.
“Hi mom. Gretchen here was just trying to lift my spirits. She always sees the bright side of things. That's why she's so popular.”
His mother had an unlit cigarette in her mouth, the filter caked with red from her lips. She removed it with her white gloved hand and waved it in the air as she spoke.
“Ha. Just like your father, young lady. Always trying to be funny.”
Gretchen chomped on her bubble gum and sneered.
“I thought dad was never funny.”
“Sometimes. I think so…I don’t exactly remember.”
“Then why did you say it?”
“Say what?”
The soft subtle electronic sounds of the medical monitoring equipment next to Noah’s bed sounded like an industrial roar compared to the uncomfortable silence which now filled the room. The Tass family was clearly out of its element. Whatever that element was.
His mother stared at Noah like he was a stranger. She always had. But it was worse today. She seemed to be looking at a spot six inches above his head and three feet behind him.
He himself had been staring at her as a stranger since his father left. Since her coronation as Queen of Trailer Park Chic. That was fourteen years ago. A long time. And these days he definitely couldn't remember the good old mom that raised him. There she stood in a full-length fur coat. In the middle of spring. Layers of pearls. Layers of makeup. Earrings that looked like Christmas tree ornaments. Thick amber frame rhinestoned glasses. Old lady cleavage swabbed with an orange base powder that couldn't hide the age spots and moles. Lipstick like the Joker.
Menopause was a bitch.
She always looked both frightened and aloof. Her best days behind her but hoping no one else would notice. Not a chance.
She was 49 going on 99, a poster lady for the never-was-never-will-be. It was as if she carried a sign that said: Ye who enter here abandon all hope.
In some strange way, his mother and sister were two of a kind. There was obviously a contrast in individual style. They were after all separated by a gaping generation gap. His mother was Victorian pseudo-chic. His sister was Gothic ultra-geek.
But if you looked beyond the particular outrageous choices each made to mock herself and send a hazardous substance warning to the rest of the human race, essentially they were both doing the same thing. Tragically, that was putting a wide forbidding psychological moat around themselves, guaranteeing that no one could get close enough to get a good look and see how woeful and self-loathing they were. A barrier barring any help from the outside.
Noah never played head games with his mother but he loved baiting his sister.
“Hey, Gretch. You look pretty stunning today yourself. How are things at the coven?”
Gretchen dismissed him with a snarling aside to her cell phone which she was pointlessly checking for non-existent text messages. “So pathetic!”
“Come on now. Don’t you two get started.”
Mommy dearest. The peacemaker. Never deterred by her complete and total failure to keep them from tearing into one another at every available opportunity. Somewhere beneath his physical pain, Noah couldn't help but feel sorry for her.
“Aw, mom. It’s just healthy sibling curiosity. I like to know what's going on with my lovely little sis. I was just going to ask if they had set a date for her exorcism yet.”
“Noah! Enough. Be nice! I can see you’re feeling much better than when they brought you in.”
“I am I am! Doctor says I can run the marathon this weekend. Besides I am being nice.”
“Well, then…be nicer.”
A nurse walked into the scene of smoldering family warfare.
“Time to check his vitals. I’ll just be a minute. You both can stay put, if you wish.”
After taking his blood pressure and temperature, then annotating his chart, she started to leave but Noah stopped her.
“Eleanor! You haven't met my family.”
“No, I missed out on that.” She turned and flashed a beauty contestant grin, extending her hand to Noah’s mother. “You’re Noah’s sister?”
“Why, thank you!” Giggle giggle. “But I’m his mother.”
Noah couldn’t believe it. His mom fell for that cheap bit of flattery.
“Well, Mrs. Tass. Noah is doing quite nicely. And this here…” She then started to offer her hand to Gretchen but since the girl was totally preoccupied with her cell phone, she skipped it and went into her oft-repeated but always enthusiastic official visitors spiel.
“Visiting hours are over shortly. It is very important that nothing upsets Noah and that he gets lots of rest. But you are certainly welcome to visit whenever you can. The comfort of family is very crucial to his full recovery. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.”
She then left to continue her rounds.
The comfort of family is very crucial. That was a good one! He liked Nurse Eleanor. Wickedly wry, understated sense of humor.
His mom and sister remained another ten minutes, most of it passed in the silence of a strained detente. Noah wondered if they intentionally came this late in visiting hours to avoid spending more time with him. Whatever the reason for their brevity, he was grateful.
His mom bent over to kiss him good-bye but rather than risk smearing the artlessly applied red gunk on her lips — which he assumed was lipstick though it could have been some designer calking compound available now in all shades of the rainbow — she stopped several inches short. She puckered and floated an air kiss toward his forehead.
“Get well, my boy. The world is an oyster.”
“And I am the pearl.”
“You have been listening all these years.”
“Only because I am a sucker for metaphors. Thanks for coming, Mom.”
Gretchen stood up and still staring zombie-like at the screen of her cell phone, headed toward the door. Noah's mom poked her in the back, prompting her to say something.
“Good-bye, loser. I think you should fuck Eleanor.”
“Thanks, Gretch. Have a great evening with your vibrator.”
Big Thoughts
Laying there recovering in the hospital, Noah had a lot of time to think. Time to take stock. To think about things he never usually stopped to think about.
Nearly being flattened by a 52-ton truck can definitely prompt a person to try to gain a new perspective on life.
It now seemed extremely important to figure out what was important. Establish some priorities. Ask the big questions. Like…
What did it all mean?
Okay. Maybe that was too big. He needed to scale it down a bit.
How about…
Is there a God?
Hmm. Probably not. Anyway. Who cares?
Next…
Is there an afterlife?
Probably. Too bad when you died you weren’t around to enjoy it.
Ha ha ha ha.
Will good triumph over evil?
In practical terms, not a very useful question but easy enough to answer.
Answer: Only if Hollywood writes the script.
Hmm. That wasn't even funny.
Noah could see he was not making much progress.
He needed to be more specific, to think in terms of something more directly applicable to him and his current situation.
Okay…
If life is a journey, where exactly was he at?
Aha! This was doable. This was a dog he could hunt!
Plus it was a very important question. A profound question. A relevant question. One with real meat and gristle.
It was certainly something he should think long and hard about.
Unfortunately, it only took about six seconds and no effort whatsoever to answer.
He was nowhere.
He had been nowhere.
And was heading nowhere.
Worst of all, there were no prospects that anything would change.
Let’s face it. He was the perennial hamster on a tread wheel. A one-trick pony going round and round in a circle. He was a fish in a very small bowl. No one ever even changed the water.
What a horribly depressing state of affairs! Only 23 years old and already at a dead end. Stuck in a cul-de-sac of blandness and monotony.
He had to wonder. How did this happen? What was it about all of the particular elements of his existence on Planet Earth which collectively managed to add up to one big fat pitiful zero? Zilch. Nil. Nix. Nada.
Hmm.
There was his job. He had been working at Walmart for almost two years now. Unloading trucks and opening boxes. Steady pay. Got along with everyone. Seemed in the performance of his duties to please management in general, his boss in particular. Okay. But? He had always thought of it as a temporary arrangement. He had just assumed the job would do until he came up with a better plan. But where was this plan going to come from? Would it miraculously drop out of the sky? Or would he find it in a box of Coco Crispies?
Score that a big zero.
Moving on.
There was his family.
What family?
Both his mother and sister were seriously damaged goods. His father had disappeared.
Another zero. Next…
Church?
He didn't go to church.
Zero.
How about sports?
Is drinking a sport? Bowling? No, that’s a game. Realistically, the last time he did any sports was high school. That was over six years ago and even then he had only been a bench-warmer on a 2-wins-7-losses baseball team. As bad as the team was, he was worse. He would have been a better second base than a second baseman.
Zero.
Ah! There were his friends. And when he wasn’t at work or tearing up asphalt with his bike, he was out doing something with his friends. The only thing he looked forward to in life.
Then again, they always did the same things. Said the same things. Laughed at the same jokes. Looked at the same girls.
Zero.
What’s next? Of course!
Pulnick. His home town. Born and raised.
Immediately a huge black cloud descended over Noah. The same one that descended over him every time he stopped to think of the god-forsaken patch of the planet where he lived.
What was a town? Some would say the past. The history. The heritage.
But for a young man like him, forget about it. It was the present and the future.
Let the old people who got together and yakked away about the good old days, and formed committees to try to preserve the golden symbols of better and simpler times, pine away all they wanted. When you're 23 and you still have your whole life ahead of you, it’s what you see right now and what you might see in the very immediate future that counts for everything.
Pulnick? What could he honestly say about Pulnick? Honestly.
That was easy.
Pulnick had nothing to offer now and no hope for the future. It was an abysmal little place in an abysmal area of an abysmal state.
Missouri! Whoever named the damn thing just couldn't spell.
How about M-I-S-E-R-Y? That made more sense.
Pulnick? A bunch of deadbeats and hicks.
They should rename it Voidville.
Or maybe Black Hole.
Or The Abyss.
Or just leave the name blank on the map.
Alright! Finally he had his answer. Noah had nailed the problem.
Pulnick was the problem.
Randomly and cruelly located in the center of flat, lifeless, boring, dreary, barely alive Monroe County, Missouri, it was a stone's throw to another stone’s throw. The center of oblivion. A nearly impossible leap to anything that was anything.
Barren. Forgettable. Forgotten.
It was no wonder that even Noah’s earliest memories embraced one common theme. Thinking back over almost twenty years, he recalled this one particular recurring thought — actually more of a scream than a thought.
Get me outta here!
Yes! At last…
The lights came on!
The writing was on the wall.
No more thinking about it.
No more contemplating and analyzing.
No more empty brooding or muddled daydreams.
He would miss his friends. But so what?
He knew what he needed to do.
Time for real action.
He made himself a solemn promise. By this time next year — maybe next month! — he’d be gone. As far away from Pulnick, as far away from Missouri, as far away from this dreary life as he could be.
His new battle cry…
Go! Go! Go!
The Usual Suspects
Yes. He would miss his friends. That was understandable.
It’s very easy to have friends in a small town. Everybody knows everybody. People didn't bounce around the way they did in big cities. Some families in Pulnick went back four, five, six generations. Even back to the founding of the original settlement in the 1850s. Mobility in this part of the U. S. was measured in feet, rather than miles. People were no more likely to cross the state line than to move to the southern hemisphere or the International Space Station.
At bare minimum, kids stuck around all the way from kindergarten through high school. Then only a handful went away for college — there were three easily commutable community colleges in the area — and most of those who did attend a major university somewhere else, ended up coming back to Pulnick or one of the nearby towns, after getting their degree.
College wasn’t an option for Noah. He had the grades but lacked the money. Which was pretty much the case for everyone he knew. At least the money part. With only one exception, everyone in his high school graduating class stayed put right there in Pulnick, the town which was home for their parents and grandparents.
As a result, Noah could think of quite a number of individuals — twenty maybe thirty — who he had known the majority of his life and would consider pretty decent friends. Kids he had grown up with, had at one time or another done stuff with, and was to this day comfortable with. He still ran into them, especially on weekends, would give them a high five and maybe a chest bump (the guys), or a hug and a butt tweak (the girls), and would know pretty much all there was to know about what was happening in their lives at any given time. Living in a small town made this degree of familiarity both a requirement and an inevitability.
But of all of these, there were three guys in particular who he would say he was really close to, who he completely trusted, who he could turn to and count on, if he ever got into trouble or really needed help in a crisis.
Jeff Duncan had been his best friend forever. They went to school together right from kindergarten, riding the same yellow bus. Then the summer vacation after second grade they started hanging out practically every day. Baseball was the common bond. Every afternoon, except when it rained, they would be at the Parks & Recreation baseball field for a scrub game. By third grade they were inseparable. That was about the time everyone started calling Jeff ‘Jiffy’ or ‘Jiff’. Apparently his mother only knew how to make one kind of sandwich, Jif peanut butter on tasteless and nutritionally void plain white bread. Jeff tried unsuccessfully almost every day to trade with one of the other kids, attempting some occasional relief from the daily monotony of one peanut butter sandwich and an apple. It never varied, nor did anyone’s response to the propose exchange.
“Not a chance, Jiffy Boy!”
Jiffy and Noah had been through it all together. When they were nine, they both quit Cub Scouts to become full-time cowboys. Noah remembered how they were ridiculed when they tried to organize a posse to protect the town from marauding bands of Mexican hooligans and bandits, expected to invade any day. No one would join them. The other boys said they were stupid, and instead opted to become astronauts, having it on good authority that NASA would be calling them soon for an all-boy mission to Mars.
Noah also used to help Jiff on his paper route, delivering every Saturday morning the ‘News to chase away the blues’ in the form of Pulnick Platitudes & Pleasantries, perhaps the worst small town paper in America. The PP&P was an institution which had its roots in the early years of the Great Depression, and was created as an antidote to the abundant negativity in the world. It only printed good news, stories which would warm the hearts and hopefully bring smiles to its readers, especially in times of trouble and need. Jiff and everyone his age considered it an embarrassment, and naturally he was humiliated at having to deliver it every week to its several hundred loyal subscribers. But his mom was one of the regular contributors to its stream of Pollyannaish drivel, and she insisted he take the job. As often as he could, Jiffy found some excuse for not being available Saturday morning — baseball practice, a Cub Scouts workshop, imaginary choir rehearsal — and Noah filled in for him. Noah could care less what the paper said. It provided him with some much-needed extra spending money.
It was Jiffy that introduced Noah to his second all-time best friend. This was in the third grade.
Albert Jenkins — the kids all called him Jinx — had moved to Pulnick from the big city, St. Louis. At first, everyone thought he was stuck up but he actually was just very shy — at least at first. Eventually, he started talking more and actively playing with the other kids, such that by the end of the school year he was one of the most popular in third grade. Jinx was the only one to ever trade sandwiches with Jiffy, and though it was only once, they became good buddies.
Noah, Jiff and Jinx went through the annual sports cycle together — football, basketball, track, finally baseball — and it was Jinx who always came out on top in their fierce but friendly rivalry. He was a gifted athlete and by the time he reached high school, despite being both boastful and completely tactless, he was universally admired for his prowess as a running back on the football field, and his take-no-prisoners aggressiveness at basketball. Jinx was barely 5' 6” tall but incredibly powerful, so instead of going over or around, he just barreled through his opponents. They scattered like bowling pins.
The cheerleading squad even had a special cheer for him…
We’re gonna beat ‘em
That’s what we thinks
‘Cuz there ain’t no stoppin’
Our one and only Jinx
His most famous play was the final football game of the season his senior year, one which secured him a permanent place in the chronicle of local legends. He received a pitch from the quarterback on the opponent's 18 yard line, proceeded to run completely the wrong way, both the opposing team and his own in hot pursuit, all the way to his own goal line. Then he reversed directions and plowed straight up the center of the field, sending everyone attempting to tackle him flying, each toppled player ending up in a writhing fetal clump on the turf. With only 14 seconds on the clock, he scored the game's winning touchdown. His own team, yelling and still in hot pursuit, caught up with him in the end zone, hoisting him high aloft in ecstatic celebration, then paraded the crazed hunky hero before the wildly cheering home team fans.
Jinx was married now. In fact Noah had been his best man. He made it official with his pregnant high school sweetheart, a girl named Gina he had been following around like a puppy dog from the day he first talked to her at an after-game dance their freshman year. On the heels of the shotgun baby, which arrived the summer after they graduated from high school and two months after the wedding, she kept spitting out babies and they now had four kids, all under seven years of age.
This should have meant that Noah would never see Jinx, his being tied down to family life and a mortgage. But as fate would have it, he now spent more time with Jinx than his wife did. They worked together five, sometimes six days a week, not only for the same employer, but in the same department. This was the receiving and stocking department at Walmart.
Noah and Jinx were practically opposites in every respect. Noah was tall and wiry, graceful like a river heron. Jinx was short and stocky, built like a bulldog. He actually looked a bit like a bulldog and shared the canine’s temperament. While Noah was more inclined to soothe and comfort when he spoke, Jinx barked and spat. Noah was soft-spoken and composed, Jinx short-tempered and impatient. Noah tended to put others at ease, Jinx without even trying was intimidating. His bulk and unkindly face, coupled with the potential for serious bodily harm bottled up in his charged muscular frame, put everyone around him on notice, even though being threatening was the usually the furthest thing from his mind.
Maybe the contrast and resulting tension fueled their friendship. They certainly were never at a loss for things to talk and argue about. Religion was a biggie. Jinx was a member in good standing with the unquestioning flock at his Baptist church. Noah a declared atheist. Baseball was another. Jinx was a to-the-death St. Louis Cardinals fan. Noah, for reasons he would not divulge, had glommed onto the Boston Red Sox. Jinx refused to speak to Noah for two months at the beginning of their senior year, when Boston trounced St. Louis four games in a row to win the 2004 World Series.
They had had only one serious fight. It was in their junior year and came on the heels of some ribbing Noah was throwing Jinx’s way about how Gina had Jinx wrapped around her little finger. ‘Pussy whipped’ was the phrase that finally sent the fists flying. What should have been a first round knockout by Jinx, ended up a full-length split decision. Jinx won the physical bout but Noah won the psychological battle and was still laughing when Jinx pinned him to the ground, sat on Noah’s arms and demanded an apology. Two weeks later, Noah reiterated that he had only been joshing but apologized. They were back to being buds again.
Noah had one other close friend who went back as far as memory would take him. This was Phillip Roswell, aka Zipper. Zipper had gotten his nickname from spending several years, beginning shortly after his initial potty training and extending well into elementary school, with his fly open. At first he was politely reminded, ‘Hey Phil. Your fly is open.’ Or, ‘You need to zip up.’ But it became such a constant theme in all of his appearances in public, soon the other kids would just giggle and resort to shorthand, merely saying, ‘Zipper.’ Eventually, this became the standard for greeting him, lasting beyond the day in sixth grade when he finally started remembering to zip up his pants, right to the present.
Noah for some reason never bothered to call him Zipper, nor frankly did he really take him very seriously, despite the fact they spent a lot of time together. He just called him Phil, plain and simple, and hung out with him when their paths crossed, which happened to be pretty often. Phil was never someone Noah actively sought out, at least during their school years. Basically theirs was a friendship by default, born out of convenience and circumstance, rather than built on common interests. Phil’s family lived next door — actually on the adjacent farm property — and that proximity meant that he and Noah were thrown together almost every day into the hopper of life. They rode to and from school together, then on the weekends often quietly explored the surrounding fields, creeks and streams. More frequently than not, they ended up playing in the same pick-up baseball and football games in town on an empty lot that had been marked off for some impromptu sports action.
They typically had very little to say to one another. Phil was quiet by nature and Noah not much interested in what came out of Phil's mouth when something did, things which tended to be rooted in whatever was Phil's obscure preoccupation of the moment. It was a constantly evolving menu of unconnected oddities.
For example…
Phil went through a phase when he was ten, of being obsessed with the Unabomber. It was never clear how this had come about or where he got his information. But for about two months, he might have been regarded as the world expert on all things Una and bomber. Dangerously, this fascination ended up embracing the design and construction of small explosive and incendiary devices. The climactic culmination of the two months was the field testing of a pipe bomb. Phil came over one Saturday morning and requested Noah’s assistance in a “scientific matter”. With nothing else to do, Noah accompanied Phil and watched him set the device on top of a tree stump in the corner of Gil Coulter's corn field. Gil made his living growing the stuff and since it was September, his hundred twenty acres were well along and only a few weeks from harvest. Not this year. When the pipe bomb exploded it sent a shower of molten sparks a few yards in every direction. A freak wind fanned some initially fairly harmless fires, which the two boys tried to stomp out. Within minutes, these few innocent smolderings had turned into a major conflagration. A wall of flames nearly twelve feet high swept across the field and turned Coulter's entire season's planting into a black cindered moonscape.
The boys escaped unharmed. They did make a last-ditch effort to limit the damage by running as quickly as they could to Phil’s house and making an anonymous phone call to the fire department. But it was too little too late. No one ever found out who or what had caused the fire. Fortunately, Coulter was a savvy businessman and his insurance company paid up.
Another time — this was when they were twelve and Phil was convinced he was going to be the youngest driver to ever win the Grand Prix de France and would go crazy if he had to wait until he was sixteen to start driving a car — Phil gathered up not only Noah, but Jinx, Jiffy, and a girl from their class, Liz Sharona, for a drive in the country. They were all just leaving the school grounds when Phil pulled up in his step-mother Mabel's 1983 Chrysler La Baron Town & Country station wagon, looking all proud and slightly demented.