The Eye-Patch

by Nathan Kersey-Wilson

“Aw, shit,” Johnny swore as the milk splashed on to his bathrobe. He had forgotten to pour the cereal into the bowl first and the milk had slid down one side of the bowl gaining enough speed to splash over the other side onto his lap. It had been a while since he had made a bowl of cereal. This time he put the Kix in first, and it all went very well until he realized that no normal person could eat his morning cereal without reading the paper.

Johnny Guy walked out onto the front porch of the duplex where he and his buddy Phil had begun renting just yesterday. Johnny liked Phil, but couldn’t help but notice that he hadn’t been the same over the last couple days, and it irritated him that he couldn’t quite tell what was different. Well, people change, and he hadn’t seen Phil for a year or two. Johnny bent down toward the newspaper and saw the headline, “Sam Kaecus Escapes from Prison,” and grunted. He used to know Sam; they had been very close, and he was the one who was ultimately responsible for Sam’s imprisonment. The subheading read, “Super criminal is wanted for the murders of two police officers, four civilians, and countless robberies.” Johnny, curious, read on:

San Quentin- Yesterday morning, prison guards found the cell of Sam “Picket” Kaecus empty. Authorities said that there were no clues as to how he escaped, but assumed that members of his street gang helped to free him. Police and prison officials declined to go any further except to state that they had immediately called for a statewide search. Kaecus, blind in one eye, earned the nickname “Picket” because of his practice of lining the string of his eye-patch with the teeth of his victims, making it look like a white picket fence… SEE ‘KAECUS’ PAGE A13.

Partly right, Johnny thought, but none of them would ever know Kaecus like he knew Kaecus. He knew they were probably coming to find him and could be here any minute.

Johnny opened the newspaper to A13 and saw a large picture of Kaecus’ scruffy face, and a series of memories struck him. He remembered when that picture was taken. He was there. They had just robbed Edna’s Jewelry Shoppe. It seemed to be going too smoothly because an undercover cop had set them up and as soon as they made it out of the store, jewelry in hand, cop cars had appeared from around every street corner and more police walked out of the shops across the street, guns drawn. Phil was there, too. He was lucky Phil had helped him out after the gang broke up. Just as the gang was surrounded, a little boy on the opposite sidewalk had taken this picture before his mother could hurry him on.

But now Johnny had blocked that life out. He lifted his head and looked around. The houses and lawns were all the same. The people were all pretty much the same. He felt comforted by the normality and predictability of his new-found middle class suburban lifestyle. He breathed deeply and actually had to cough afterwards because of the thick smell of lawn fertilizer. He went back inside and closed the door. Now he could eat his Kix like a normal person. He was a normal person now. He shaved and cut his hair. He made his bed. He took a yoga class. He just had to collect his last few earnings and then the bad life, the life Kaecus had brought upon him, would be gone forever. He would dig them up first thing tomorrow morning.

Halfway through his bowl, Johnny heard three quick knocks at the door. He said, “see ya” to Phil and bolted out the back door. He hopped the back fence and sprinted through the yards of houses for about five minutes. He knew he would probably be running a lot for a while, so he’d better get used to it.

Since he was out anyway, Johnny decided to get some eggs from the store. He was almost there when he realized that they could be expecting him and waiting for him at the store. He had to watch out for them. They were after him. On his way back to the duplex, he saw one of them, the likes of whom he used to know very well. He instinctively dove into a bush, afraid that they might ask him about Kaecus, or even recognize him. When he was sure the man had passed, he poked his head out, saw that nobody was there, went back onto the sidewalk. Just then he realized that concealing himself in the bush had been completely unnecessary, and created more suspicion than it potentially avoided. He looked different than he used to- it would be extremely difficult for anybody to recognize him.

He didn’t see any of them on his way back to the duplex. He calmly strode through the front door and asked Phil, “Who was that at the door a while ago?”

Phil was reading the paper and seemed not to have moved a muscle since Johnny left. He always answered questions quickly and concisely, striving for the bare minimum of human communication, “The Police. They were looking for Sam Kaecus.”

Johnny laughed, “Sam Kaecus? Here? They should know neither of us has been associated with him for a long time now. Did they come inside?”

“No. I took care of them.”

“What do you mean you ‘took care of them’? You change their diapers or something?”

“Don’t worry about it. They won’t be coming back.”

“How do you know? Are you sure?”

“Yes. Johnny, I’ve always had your back. Trust me.”

“Alright, but did they know anything about where Kaecus was last seen?”

“They said one woman claimed to have spotted him on Market Street in San Francisco.”

“Ah. That’s useful to know.”

“Eh.”

“Phil- I’m going to collect Kaecus’ old loot in the early morning.”

“You are…well that’s risky, Johnny, you better hurry up so they don’t get there first. Where is it, by the way?”

“I can’t tell you. Only Kaecus and I know where it is. Don’t try any funny stuff, Phil, it belongs to me.”

“Sorry, buddy, you’re right.”

Johnny stared at the upside-down reflection of his window that the streetlamp cast on his ceiling. They could be outside right now, as he sat, staring, wasting time. There was no way he could sleep. He shoved his blankets aside, quickly put on his coat, pants, and boots, and walked into the dry Berkeley night. Unable to put it off any longer, he walked west down the pedestrian path, admiring the golden glow that the lamps threw over the field to his right. The jungle gym cast an elongated shadow that stretched all the way to the darkness of the sleeping houses on the opposite side of the grass.

As he looked out across the grass, Johnny thought he saw a dark figure moving on a path that crossed his at a right angle a little way up. Johnny stared at the ground, but couldn’t help stealing glances at the dark form. With Johnny’s next few steps the figure became a man, and Johnny realized that if they both continued on their current speed, they would meet at the paths’ intersection, which happened to be right where the loot was buried. When Johnny slightly increased his pace to avoid this meeting, he didn’t get any closer to the intersection than the other man did- the other man had also sped up his pace. Johnny slowed and the other man slowed. Johnny never looked at the man’s face, but kept track of him by watching his feet. Finally the man was less than thirty feet away; Johnny risked a look up at his face. The face was staring directly at him. It was Phil.

Johnny jumped back, not only from surprise, but also from the menacing intensity of Phil’s gaze.

“Phil? Are you OK?”

As Johnny said this, Phil cut across the grass toward him and, stone-faced, drew a pistol out of his coat and held it steady at the middle of Johnny’s face.

“There’s no escaping this time. Put your hands in the air.”

“Phil, what are you doing? Put the gun down.”

“You should’ve been dead for a long time now and you know it.”

“Seriously, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“I should kill you right now.”

Phil jabbed the gun, hitting Johnny in the forehead and knocking him to the ground at the base of a lamppost. Johnny let out a yelp and inhaled through his teeth, but this was unable to disguise the muffled hollow thump that came from where he had fallen. His voice sounded pained, “Phil, look what you did. Ow, shit, I must have broken my ankle.” Johnny looked up.

“No tricks. Put your hands in the air. What was that sound? Is there something under the grass?“

Johnny reached toward his apparently injured ankle, groaning.

“I said put your hands up. Answer me.” Phil’s voice was more aggressive.

Johnny just needed a few more inches, and then he was no longer a crippled man. His timing was perfect, and Phil couldn’t even think about reacting. In one perfect motion Johnny’s adrenaline-filled pocketknife silently came out of his sock, opened, and twinkled, spinning through the air.

The stars watched the blade fly dead center and lodge itself in its victim’s Adams Apple. Phil fired his gun but Johnny had already knocked his arm upward and the bullet rang harmlessly into the still air above the city. Phil groped at his killer but Johnny was back on his feet and held the knife again, savoring the feeling of the man’s hands hopelessly clawing at his knees before he plunged the blade into the top of Phil’s head. As Johnny tore the knife out a toupee came up with it and Phil’s body fell facedown between Johnny’s legs.

Using his pocketknife, Johnny cut a specific pattern into the grass so that he could open the trapdoor where the loot was hidden. The long trapdoor opened into a three-foot deep hole containing one giant bag, which was full of diamonds, gold, tools, bills, all of Kaecus’ past glory. Johnny removed the bag in the nostalgic moment. As he rolled Phil’s body onto its back, into the hole, Johnny saw the Police badge on the inside of Phil’s coat, which was now lying exposed. Under the bronze star on the badge, it read, ‘Frank T. Winter,’ and below that, ‘Undercover Police Unit’. Stupid cops.

In an automatic maneuver, Johnny took out the bottle opener on his knife, swiftly yanked out Phil’s bottom four teeth and put them in his coat pocket. He closed the trapdoor over Phil’s body, and it was once again completely camouflaged in the surrounding grass. He reached into the bag and pulled out an eye patch, the sting lined with the teeth of many who were now long dead. He admired it for a moment, then tied it around his head like he always used to. He should get out of there; he would drill the holes in Phil’s teeth later. For now, Sam Kaecus, his face expressionless, walked out of the streetlamp’s glow.