Robert Conrad Sets the Pace

            by Sam Finn

 

            “Three fifty.  If you don’t have it by tomorrow I’ll be using your fucking kidneys for Taco Tuesday.”

            I stare back into those dark evil eyes, deep enough to see she doesn’t have a soul.  This one is certifiably insane, a loony, a wacko, and she owns more knives than a ninja with access to Home Shopping Network.  Such lunch ladies must be dealt with carefully.

            “I swear to God ma’am, I will pay you as soon as I get the money.”

            “Plus the juice you scrawny bastard.”

            “Of course.  Ummmm, yeah.  Is that a new hairnet?  It’s nice.  I like it.”

            She glops beans on my tray with disgust, and when I ask for ketchup she squirts mustard into my sweetly trusting eyes.  Betrayed, I howl in rage and hurl every relish packet in reach at the formidable mass in front of me.  I hear them explode against her with marvelous squelchings but my joy is soon tempered by the grim rasping of knives being unsheathed.  With gazelle-like grace, I gallop blindly out of the cafeteria and into the courtyard of this God forsaken cesspool of hatred and despair they call Berkeley High.

            The name’s Conrad.  Robert Conrad.  I’m a gumshoe, a PI, the man you turn to when you want a job done but you don’t want questions.  If you don’t pay me in cash, then I have to get a work permit from the registrar and I don’t have to tell you what a bitch that is.  It’s a rough business for a sophomore but I’m a rough man.  I tried to buy a gun the other day but they wouldn’t sell it to me.  They said I was an “underage cocksucker.”  Actually, I had to sneeze when I was in the shop and the closest thing to cover my nose with was a Confederate flag.  That might have had something to do with it.  But I’m a survivor; I don’t let trifles like that stand in my way.  I went on down to Mr. Mopp’s and bought a Super Soaker, XP 60.  It rides my hip like Batman on Robin and I keep its belly full of ammonia.  It’s not everything I’d like, but it can incapacitate an unfriendly individual for a few seconds… that’s all I need.

            When I first came to Berkeley High, I was scared and alone, a rotten combination no matter where you are.  People here are about as willing to meet your eyes as they are not to rob you.  If you’re lucky enough to start a conversation, it will probably go something like this:

            “I’m a big A’s fan.”

            “The A’s don’t have any black players.  Are you a racist?

            “Are you a cunt?”

            “He hates women!  He hates women!”

            I found my first friend in the most inauspicious of places, a place that would later become a safe haven and second home to me.  One day after first period, a vicious piss longing took hold, grabbing my bladder like a strong Texan handshake.  I scurried into the empty G-building bathroom and nearly collapsed on the urinal, too pained to even appreciate the luxury of having the center one all to myself.  After a Caspian Sea’s of piss had gushed forth, something unbelievable happened.  It flushed!  By itself!  Without asking, without asking anything in return, without the smug righteousness of hippies who spend more on their dope and hippy clothes than they do on saving the rainforest.  I named him Zed.

            Unfortunately, Zed isn’t with me all the time.  Right now he’s about three hundred yards to my right with three walls in between the two of us so he can’t hear the intercom blaring my name.

            “Robert Conrad.  Robert Conrad.  Report to Principal Slemp’s office immediately.”

            The walk to the administration building is long enough for my heart to play six or seven games of hopscotch on the way.  Slemp has a strong dislike for me, and we’ve crossed swords many times, perhaps inevitable since we belong to the same fencing club.  I knock on his door and instantly regret it; he’s put superglue on there again. 

            “Haha!  Got you Robby!”

            Slemp has all the maturity of an eight year old, so I try to treat him like one.

            “Ok, very funny Mr. Slemp.  You’ve done it again.  If I give you some parmesan goldfish, will you let me go?”

            “Damn, I love seeing you squirm on the door, but some goldfish would really hit the spot.  Baked not fried!”

            With disappointment keen in his eyes, Slemp drizzles green solvent between my hand and the door.  My hand is free and I give him the goldfish.  I’m angry.  That was my snack for fifth period, and I do about as well without my fifth period snack as a Canadian without maple syrup.  My patience is waning.

            “Why did you call me here?  That lunch lady had it coming if it’s about that.”

            Slemp’s smile fades.  He sits down behind his desk and puts on a pair of aviators.

            “This is about something much more serious than your quarrel with Deloris.  There has been a rash of muggings in the past few weeks.  The vice-principals and I believe you’re our best chance to stop them.  We have suspects: Hussell Rilken and Dalex Ay.”

            “Could you say that second one again?”

            “Dalex Ay.  No, not Alex Day!”

            Whew.  Alex Day was the notorious donkey sodomizer of the East Bay, my first case.  I couldn’t get evidence of the donkey abuse but was able to put him behind bars by documenting the 274 times he rubbed his left nipple at Sam Finn in Physics class.  Sometimes he licked his finger first.  Berkeley doesn’t like sexual harassment and neither do I.

            “What will you pay me?”

            “Well Robby, the budget is a bit tight, but I’m prepared to offer clemency for the Mustard Incident.”

            “Mr. Slemp, I think I’ve really reached the point in my career whe-”

            Whap!  In mid-sentence he slaps me in the face with a cold red herring.

            “Hey, what the fuck!?”

            Slemp smirks contentedly, mutters something about a suggestion from Mr. Bye.  I am not impressed and I tell him so.

            “I am NOT impressed!!!”

            “Ok, ok.  Sorry I guess.  And, yeah, sure, the district will pay you thirty dollars.”

            Thirty bucks isn’t a lot of money, but when your only other income comes from household chores, anything starts to look good.  I can tell that Slemp had wanted to keep the money to himself; he’s as corrupt as they come.  I accept the job and Slemp tells me that the security guards expect them to strike in the G-building bathroom next.

            This case has quickly become personal.  That’s my turf, my home.  I know the topography of the piss puddles, the etymology of the graffiti, the voltage of the hand dryer.  They don’t stand a chance.

            I leave Slemp’s office and walk quickly to the G-Building.  Once in the bathroom, I scale the wall of the corner stall and remove the ceiling panel above.  The guy on the toilet is staring bullets at me.  Hoisting myself up into the crawlspace, I narrowly avoid being hit by some airborne pencils and hear the guy leaving.  Good.  Now I’m alone in the room and not a moment to soon.  Footsteps squeak their way to my ears and I take a covert look through the crack.

            They’re in the central space now, in front of the three urinals.  Dalex quickly steps up to the one on the left and Hussell walks to the short one on the right, leaving Zed unoccupied in the middle. 

            “Haha, you have the little one.  You’re a bitch.”

            “Fuck you Dalex.”

            I hear soft splashings against the porcelain and Hussell takes out a Pez dispenser, Donald Duck, with his free hand.  He’s leaning back as he eats his candy, rocking on his heels, and Dalex starts watching.

            “Dude, can I get some Pez?”

            Hussell looks at his dispenser, considering, and throws it at him.  Startled, Dalex falls like a fat figure skater into the North-Eastern puddle.

            “Dude!”

            “Don’t think you didn’t have that coming.”

            “What?!”

            “Just last week you didn’t flush the toilet at my house.”

            “I did, I swear!  That turd was a ninja, man!  It hid so I thought I’d flushed everything but then it came back.  It was a NINJA!”

            “That’s not all, Dalex.  You mugged me last week when we got high.  You took my goddamn aviators.”

            “Dude!  That wasn’t me; the same guy mugged both of us!  That tall fool in the fencing mask took my superglue!”

            “Oh.  Then I’m sorry I made you piss on yourself and fall in a piss puddle.”

            The gears in my head whirl like horses on a merry-go-round and I’m making connections left and right.  I jump out of my hiding spot and run to Slemp’s office.  There’s something rotten here and it’s a lot more serious than apples.  He’s just leaving when I catch him in the doorway.  His arms are full of graphing calculators, cell phones, and enough Pepperidge Farm snacks to feed every kindergartner in America.

            “I knew it all along, Slemp!”

            “But how did you know?  How!”

            “It was pretty easy, seeing as the author’s on my side.  He wants to put you in the slammer where you belong.  He’s a very handsome man.”

            Slemp pouts.

            “No he’s not”

            Poor Slemp.  Three men in red cloaks advance on the defiant principle.

            “I didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition.”

            “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!”

            Everybody thought Sam’s story was so good and that he was so handsome that they elected him the king of the world.  He let Slemp be the Secretary of Education.