His eyes rolled back in his head then snapped back to look dead straight at me. He stood motionless for at least three seconds glaring at me as I got ready to wind up again. And then he suddenly dropped like he had been shot. There wasn't much damage. Just a nick in the middle of his forehead that was dripping a single stream of blood down the side of his head. The son of a bitch wasn't dead. I could see that he was breathing, but goddamn I really popped him! The prick must have had a head as thick as a coconut.
Dropping the bat, I ran over to the closet to
grab the two hundred dollars in dope money that I
knew that la Favor had missed. Mike always kept
his money stash in the inside pocket of his Levi
jacket. I then went to his bedroom to retrieve
Angel's tip jar that she kept hidden under their bed.
I don't think she would miss it - no one would ever
heard from Angel again I thought at the time. On
my way out the door I stopped and pulled the
trucker's wallet out of la Favor's back pocket with
the chain that was hooked to it. I jumped down the
stairs five at a time.
I was fucking flying on my ten speed down the county
road and I thought I had it made in the
shade until I saw the oncoming headlights and I
could hear the familiar throaty roar of the engine.
Without giving it a thought I shot straight down into
the ditch and racked my nuts seriously on the
crossbar when I hit the bottom and I flew over the
handlebars into a pool of stagnant and shitty
smelling water. The car roared past without seeing
me. Doubled over on the bike with a serious case
of swollen nuts I barely made it home. Per usual,
the old man was watching an old late night episode
of Dragnet. The drunk old coot was going deaf and
I could it hear it two doors down as I came up the
street. Stepping into through the screen door, I
peeked around the corner of the living room.
My father was passed out on the couch which was a
nightly occurrence since my mother had run off
with a trucker and the old man had been laid off at
the packing plant because of carpal tunnel
syndrome. There was at least ten spent bottles of
Grain Belt beer and one full bottle on the coffee
table in front of him. I grabbed the full one and sat
down on the recliner to try to figure out just what in
the hell I was going to do to get out of this mess. I
didn't have a lot of time to dwell on it.
Angel's tip jar had almost a hundred bucks.
la Favor's wallet contained four and a half and
some change. Along with Mike's two hundred I had
some decent cash to give me a running start. Then it
popped in my head as I looked up at the commercial
that always signified the half way point of the
Dragnet shows.
That's what was going to be my
way out! It was a Navy recruiting commercial. It
was like I had just noticed it for the very first time
even though I had seen the goddamn thing at least a
hundred times before. It's more than an job! It's an
adventure! Just what I was looking for since I need
to put some serious distance between myself and
this redneck shithole. Well, fucking A! Now I was
thinking! The local Navy recruiter was twenty miles
away over in Austin. I looked up at the clock. It was
close to three AM. The recruiter must open around
eight or so.
I went into my dad's room and opened
the top drawer of dresser and grabbed the envelope
where all my personal shit - birth certificate, social
security card, high school diploma - was kept in an
manila envelope. I grabbed that and the keys to the
piece of shit Chevy Vega that my mom had left -
along with the payments - when she ran off on us.
I stuffed a change of clothes and the
envelope into a gym bag and walked back into the
living room. The old man hadn't moved a muscle. I
thought about leaving a note but didn't. It was better
this way.