A Very Long Walk

            by Greg Specht

 

            The alarm clock blares at me, screams at me. More sleep…. I hit the snooze. The alarm clock goes off again this time I must get up. I roll out of bed and fall flat on my face. Instead of soft warm carpet meeting my face and cushioning my fall, cold hardwood greets me. I slowly get to my feet and I wander to what should be the bathroom. I open the door and walk into a closet. Oh man this is not my bathroom. I wonder around the apartment until I find the bathroom. I slump over the sink. Raising my eyes I look at myself in the mirror. Sunken eyes peer out of a worn and tired face. I look around the bathroom Wow, pink. Everything is pink:  pink shower curtain, pink rug, pink hairbrush, even a pink toilet cover. This is definitely not my apartment. I walk over to the shower and try to turn it on. After five minutes I finally get the thing running. I step inside the shower and immediately I am burned by the scalding streams of magma shooting from the showerhead. Man some people complain about how they don’t get enough hot water. I finally adjust to the water temperature to be just the right temperature, when the water turns from lava to ice. I scream and jump though the curtain, tearing it down, and again land right smack on my face. This is going to be a good day.

 

            I get up slowly and walk back to the bedroom to get dressed. There is a woman in this apartment, not bad looking either. She is tall with dark hair and a figure that makes you want to risk the pepper spray. What the hell did I do last night? She turns and says, “What the fuck are you doing here I thought I told you to leave like an hour ago.” Interesting I thought that that was a dream…

 

I finally find my voice “What happened last night. Where am I?”

“Wow you must have been more hammered then I thought. So you don’t remember anything do you?” I shook my head “Its better that way. It really wasn’t worth remembering…” Great now I need to know what the fuck happened.

“What happened last night? I really want to and need to know.”

“Well we were both really drunk and one thing lead to another and well it’s not really worth thinking about.” Well at least I seem to have been memorable. Even if it was not so great.

“I guess I should go then, call me if you want to have a good time.” The way I see it is that if I’m going to be bad I might as well be the worst at it.

“Just get the hell out of my apartment.”

I turn and walk out of the room and down to many stairs. I walk out of the building into the hot mid-summer day. Where the hell am I. The street is covered in old used chewing gum colored black from the years of pedestrian activity, every ten feet there is a tree growing in a small patch of dirt. There are apartment buildings all around me reaching into the sky. All kinds of cars line the sidewalk and people rush to and fro trying to get out of the heat. Ok time to take stock. I check my pockets for my wallet and cell phone. I seem to have none. I also seem to be lacking money as well. Sweet I guess I will just have to walk. I start off walking up the block; I get to the corner of the street and step into the muck of the gutter with my right foot. My right shoe is sucked into the dark brown sludge and slips off my foot. I take two strides before I notice that my sock had turned a dark black. After I put my shoe back on I walk back into the street. I get to about halfway across the street when my light turns red and the other light turns green. The first car accelerates right over my foot making it flatter then the geography of Nebraska. “Faaahhhhhk!” I scream.  The driver slowly gets out of the car. He is a mobster if I have ever seen one. He has on a green sweat suit and so much gold it has to be illegal.

“Excuse me Madame but you seem to have gotten cheap shoes on my new tires.” He says in calm but chilling voice. He has the kind of demeanor that tells me that the only reason I am still alive because he is having a good day.  Well at least he likes me. “I think you should get into my car.” He says each phrase with no indication of emotion. Well he will probably shoot me if I run… I hop over to the back door of his car and get in.

 

He starts the car and starts to drive. “How’s your foot?” he asks

“Well it cou…”

“Look I don’t really give a shit the way I see it is that you fucked up and its not my fault that you happened to be in the crosswalk when I hit the gas. Am I right?”

“Not really…”

“Not really… NOT FUCKING REALLY! AM FUCKING UNDERSTANDING WHAT THE FUCK YOU ARE SAYING TO ME CORRECTLY?!!! NOT REALLY?”

“Uh I think…” He quickly lodged two pistol bullets into the soft leather seat next to me. That is one hell of a way to shut someone up…man I wish I had thought of that one. Then again I would probably be in prison for using it. I wonder if he will shoot me if I ask him where we are going…  “So where are we going?”

“Well you don’t expect me to take you to the hospital do you? I mean I just ran over your foot. Shit if I took you to a hospital you would get my ass arrested. You are going to see a guy I know. Don’t worry. He is a real pro, he knows what he is doing.”

“Ok how far away is this guy I mean my foot kinda hurts a lot.” The man chuckles

“You know you’re a funny girl. Don’t worry, it shouldn’t take long to get there. So what do you do for a living, I mean, you got what appears to be a real schumk suit on there buddy.” He has a bright look in his eyes. “Say you wouldn’t happen to be an accountant would you?” I look at my suit. When I bought it the day before the sales woman in the tight dress said that it was a handmade Italian suit, I guess she lied.

“Yah I’m an accountant. How did you know?” I was never really an accountant I was a temp once for the H n R Block call center. But that is pretty close right?

“I think that the boss was askin’ after an accountant, maybe you should have a conversation with him after you see my doctor friend.”

“Ok…” We pull in to a small parking lot and my friend  turns off the car. We walk into the adjacent building.

 

            The building is darkly lit and filled to the ceiling with crates of presumably stolen electronics and alcohol. I walk around the crates trying not to touch anything and keeping as much weight off my foot as possible. “I think he’ll be somewhere over here…” I take the next step and fell to the floor, smashing my head against a stack of bootleg whiskey.

 

I think it is about three hours later when I finally came around. I am lying on a cold steal table. A single lamp hangs from the ceiling, lighting the windowless green room. I sit up and smack my head on the scalding hot lamp breaking the bulb in the process. “Hello? Is anyone there? Uuhh, I think I need a flashlight or something I kinda broke the bulb.” I continue to call for about an hour until a fat guy in a suit walks in, changes the bulb and walks out. “Sir do I get crutches or anything?”

“You are lucky enough to be alive. You shouldn’t be complaining.” There is a long silence.

“So can I leave?”

“You can leave as soon as you can walk out.” O…k… that sounds fair.

I looked at my foot. It had a new cement block formed around my formerly flat foot. That wasn’t there when I was last awake. I slide my feet off the table, hop down onto my feet and drag my cement foot out the door. “Where do you need to go?”

“Home I just really want to go home.”

“Ok where do you live?” we start walking to the car, I drag my foot across the pavement leaving a long white gouge in my wake.

“I live on forty second and Polk.” I say as I throw my leg into the rear of his town car, and slid in. “So why are you helping me?”

“Well big Vinnie feels bad about the way he treated you earlier and figures that to make up for being such a ass he would arrange a ride for you.” Ok, this is either really good or really bad I guess that I will just find out. We drive along now darkened streets.

            “Umm I don’t think this is the right way to my apartment. I live in the city and this is…” THE DOCKS!!!!

“This is a short cut I know don’t worry you will be resting in just a few minutes.” Replied the driver slash hit man.

“So what was you name again?”

“Hank Tomlenson” What? Why doesn’t this guy have some kinda gangster name like Gorgeous George, or Tiny Tim? I mean Hank Tomlenson sounds lame.

“So why don’t you have a cool gangster name?”

“I’m not part of the family. I just have to do this job and then I don’t owe the Don anything.”

“So it was like one of those ‘I need you to do me a favor’ thing huh? What did you ask for from the Don.”

“I asked him for some toilet paper. I regret having the extra-spicy hot link that day.”

“Sounds like you got a really raw deal.”

“Yah and the worst part was that he gave me like the cheap paper too, so my ass is well raw.”

“Well I guess you got a pretty easy job I mean all you have to do is drop my off at my house and you’re done.”

“Yep all I have to do is drop you off.” He turned into an abandoned pier and turned the car off. “Look I am sorry to tell you this but you aren’t going home.” He said in a rather ashamed voice.

“I know you think I’m dumb or something.”

“Look just get out of the car and we can do this quickly and cleanly.”

“I just have one question; why don’t I have both my feet in cement?”

“Well this is kinda funny, when I was putting your first foot in cement, we ran out of cement. I guess that big Vinnie had knocked off more people before he got to you. So I had to run down to the hardware store to get some more, and when I got back you were wide awake. I figured that one foot should be enough to pull your skinny ass down.”

He walks over to me and throws me out of the car. I land on my hands and knees. I tried to crawl away from Hank. “ Yah right like you are going to out run me like that?” I stop and slowly got to my feet.

“You know I really liked you until just about five seconds ago.” He laughs Fuck you how dare you laugh at me. You fucker that is it. I just attack; teeth, nails and fists fly. Hank is suddenly a claim brutal killer. He blocks teeth; nails and fists with a calm practiced boredom. This calls for drastic measures. I aim a kick right at his chest. He grabs and stops my foot with one hand and starts to move me closer to the edge of the pier. Oh god, oh god, shit. I take my last shot at life. I gather myself for it and I jump. I swing my cement incased foot to bear on his unexpecting face twisting my body around just like I had seen those “professional” wrestler do so many times. His face twists on his neck. He drops my leg. Hank's momentum carries him to the edge of the pier. He teeters on the edge and I know that if he doesn’t fall that I will be doing the falling instead. I get to my knees and grab the closest object to me: just a small little pink hairbrush. I throw it at him and plunk him right in the head. He tumbles off the pier and into the water. I will never bash pink again.

I get to my feet and walk over to the car. I see that Hank has left me a parting present: the keys to the car. I climb in and drive home. I park down the block from my apartment and drag myself to the door. My landlady lets me in. I walk over to the stairs (no elevator) and think how long it will take me to climb all the way to the top floor of my building. I start climbing my staircase to heaven.