Joe Surkiewicz moved to Vermont after thirty years as a reporter, freelance writer, newspaper columnist, and nonprofit flak. Now he’s writing fiction, stuff he actually wants to read.
Bobby “Blue Buns” Garfield stood on the corner across from the Union National Bank, collar up, but not enough to shield the biting wind. He wore a bicycle courier bag, well worn, slung across his back.
Enter Little Larry Lomax, bebopping down the sidewalk. “Whoa, Blue Buns, how’s it hanging?” his hand thrust forward.
“Stay the fuck away from me. Don’t you know there’s an epidemic?”
Little Larry took a step back. “Six feet, right?”
“In my neighborhood we say two meters,” said Bobby, doing a little dance to keep warm, bouncing like a fighter just climbed into the ring. “For you, Larry, four meters.”
“You buying this shit?” Larry asked, waving at the downtown intersection, no cars, no people on a weekday morning. “Chinese virus, people dropping like flies? Only I don’t see no bodies.”
Bobby ignored him. He was thinking of high school and how he got branded Blue Buns. Locked in the shower room, the hot water turned off. The coach unlocking the door. The whole fucking team laughing.
“What’s your theory?” Larry persisted, keeping his distance, still eager. “You don’t buy this lockdown shit, do you?”
“I just want that bank to open,” Bobby said.
Little Larry, shielding his eyes from the mid-morning sun Indian fashion, peered across the street. “Something’s taped to the door.”
Bobby’s face flushed with hot resentment that an asshole twerp like Little Larry Lomax saw it first.
Bobby walked across the street. A page of lined notebook paper Scotch-taped to the door, “Closed until further notice.”
He walked back across the street.
“Closed, huh?”
Bobby looked at him. Then looked away.
“What’s in the bag?” Larry asked.
“A fucking gun.”
“No shit, you were gonna stick the place up? Like Bonnie and Clyde?”
“If you was a skinny Texas woman driving a Model A getaway car, then, yes, like Bonnie and Clyde,” Bobby said. “Otherwise, then, no, not like Bonnie and Clyde.”
Larry snorted. Like he got the joke.
Then Bobby remembered. Little Larry Lomax, the newest member of the team, standing outside the shower room with the rest, laughing as Bobby streaked across the locker room, his little dick bobbing, his ass cheeks blue from the cold.
Blue Buns.
Bobby unhooked the strap and reached into the bag. “This is for fucking high school,” he said and shot Larry in the head.
The blast reverberated down the empty streets as Larry crumbled to the sidewalk like a forty-pound bag of bird seed.
“The whole thing is a hoax,” Bobby muttered and walked away.
~ fin ~
Joe Surkiewicz moved to Vermont after thirty years as a reporter, freelance writer, newspaper columnist, and nonprofit flak. Now he’s writing fiction, stuff he actually wants to read.
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