Tall Tales of Felony and Failure Page 4

  This thought passes and I accept Tom’s argument. Everything should be in order before we start pulling the other passengers out of time with us. They’ll be upset without a well-planned and verified route to safety in place. I crawl down to Tom and the escape door and peer out again. It’s still a long drop, with the inflatable ramp hanging almost straight down.

  “You slide down and look around. Make sure there are no fucking savages down there. I’m going to scavenge what I can and send it down to you. What do you think we’ll need?”

  “I’m not sure,” I answer. “Maybe some of those microwave meals they serve. And some booze off the drink cart.”

  “That might be good, for first aid.”

  “Yeah, or to drink,” I say, still gazing out the door. “Don’t take too long. I’m starting to feel sketchy about the whole thing.”

  Tom backs away and watches as I sit up at the open escape door, legs dangling over the side. I cross my arms over my chest and shove off. Twenty three skidoo.

  Unfortunately, the inflated ramp doesn’t have much purchase on the ground below. It just gives way and I free-fall to the ground, crumpling into a pile upon impact.

  I’m untangling myself as Tom yells from the plane. “You alright?”

  I croak, “I’m fine.” After a few moments I’ve caught my breath. “Get the shit so we can offload this plane. And try to find some more rope. The ramp’s broken.”

  He hollers back. “Right. You go scout a perimeter.”

  Goddamn my legs hurt. I don’t think they’re broken, because I’m not crying, just gimping a little.

  Tom disappears back into the plane and I hobble around, scouting a perimeter. I’m moving slowly, and my body hurts, so my perimeter’s only about seven feet to a side when I decide to collapse. It’s a perimeter nonetheless. I rest and stare at the treetops.

  My gut reminds me that I still need to piss, so I roll over on my side, unzip and relieve myself. At least that felt good. And there’s no blood, which is promising.

  Tom eventually returns and yells for me to pull the ramp back out and hold it for him, which I do. He uses it to slide down items like frozen airplane meals, bags that appear identical to the ones I’d already tossed down, some pillows and blankets, toilet paper and a few dozen little airplane booze bottles. No beers, which is good, because we’ll want to travel light. I catch everything he sends down, tossing it all into a pile beside me, away from the ramp.

  “I’m coming down to set things up.” He shouts. “You’d just blow that off like the scouting you were supposed to do. Hold the ramp out so I don’t eat it like you did.”

  Good enough. I hold the bottom of the ramp as he slides down, letting go when he’s about five feet from the ground, causing him to eat a little shit as he plows into the ground. Not as much as I did, but a little. He swears at me from his hands and knees.

  Tom dusts himself off, then goes to the pile I made and starts sorting our goods. I lie back down by the ramp. Once he’s finished, there are several smaller piles, which he starts loading into his arms and carrying away.

  “We need a base camp,” he says, “as far away from this goddamn airplane as possible. I don’t want to be sitting here when it decides to finish hurling itself at the goddamn ground.”

  Tom wanders off into the trees until I can’t see him anymore, which isn’t very far because we’re surrounded by the fucking things, and they’re pretty close together. A few minutes later he returns, soaked with sweat. “You could lend a hand to help speed this up.”

  “I would, Tom, I swear, but it’s taking so much of my concentration to maintain the status-quo that I’m afraid any potentially distracting effort on my part may prevent me from doing so.” In Tom’s absence, I dig through our stash to retrieve a couple of pillows, blankets and some vodka nips. I use the blankets and pillows to comfort my wrecked body, and lay down snuggly amongst them. The vodka smoothes the edges caused by my near-death experience and Tom’s goddamn nagging.

  Tom shakes his head and continues his task, and after a few more trips has taken everything away except my pillows, blankets, and empty vodka nips. He’s had a few of his own his last couple of trips, so he’s not completely intent on bringing me down anymore. He finishes the one he’s carrying, tosses it and crumples to the ground beside me, sighing.

  “Are you done shitting around yet?” I ask. “I don’t know how much longer I can hold this plane up in the air. It’s taxing.”

  “You aren’t doing anything. It just happened--like it did at the bar--and you don’t know how to turn it on or off.”

  “I’m a hero who’s accomplished this through strength of character alone. I sincerely believe this, which isn't easy because I know from personal experience that I’m a goddamn fraud.”

  “We’re not going to help anyone out of that plane, are we?” he asks.

  “I don’t think it would be a good idea. I think the authorities should assume we died on that plane with everyone else. Of course, everyone else needs to be there for that to work.”

  “We have to get them off of the plane.” Tom’s bland expression does not match his statement. He’s just replying as programmed, the same program that’s telling me that I should be mortified and ashamed of what we’re about to do. I should be terrified of the bad karma we’re setting in motion. But I don’t believe I need to follow that program anymore. It’s bullshit, and no one follows it, anyway. It’s always been for show and talk, not actual direction.

  “We’re just playing the hands we’re dealt.”

  I feel very good lying here, shooting the breeze with Tom. I’m very optimistic about our prospects, what with my godly skills and Tom’s keen mind.

  Tom and I help each other up and gather the blankets and pillows. Tom then leads me to our base camp. My legs feel great.

  “Are you feeling okay?” Tom asks.

  “I’m good, buddy.” I mean it, too. I feel like I can rob the world at my leisure, which is comforting. “I’m trying to start time again.”

  “I’ll let you get on with that.” Tom pulls a bourbon nip from his picket and enjoys it as we walk quietly over the sodden, fouled earth, each in our thoughts.

  I’m looking around in my brain for something that wasn’t there before, some difference that identifies itself as responsible for this. I know it’s there. I can feel it like an itch and, now that I’ve recognized it for itself, it’s just as annoying. I think of the talking head on its pedestal, friendly as can be. “You can’t throw the lever until you know what it looks like,” the head says.

  “What does it look like?” I ask the head.

  “It looks like whatever you want it to look like. Who’s going to argue? It’s your goddamn lever.”

  The talking head drifts off and I ponder the difference in my head again. I grope around it, narrowing in. I can almost feel my own greasy fingers prodding my brain, which sends uncomfortable shivers down my neck. When I get as close to the spot as possible, I cover it with the image of a light switch.

  Now I’m getting somewhere. I'm closing in on manual control. Before, it was a difference in my brain with no qualities, no value. I couldn’t consciously do anything with it until I gave it form. Now, I’ve imposed an interpretation on it. Now, it’s just a run of the mill white, plastic light switch you’d find on any wall. It’s even a little grimy, due to my mental pawing. I imagine myself flipping that switch.

  It’s easy to forget how unnaturally quiet things are in frozen time. When normal progression resumes, it’s startling. We jump at the noise of impact and explosion. It’s louder than anything I’ve ever heard, and it smells like hell. Then, like men, we shake it off and continue on.

  We’re murderers now, or, at least, manslaughterists. The innocent have perished and the unworthy walk free. I feel we’re going to pay through the nose for this, eventually, then decide that we won’t. I should wish that I could care more, but I can’t, so I don’t. I just feel this new greatness in my gut, and it’s pleasin
g the hell out of me. So I groove on that as I follow Tom through this God-forsaken sweat-fest of a jungle. I also wonder where the hell we are. Somewhere in Asia, I’d guess if I had to. I wonder what Tom’s thinking.

  “We’re here,” Tom says as he flops down next to our camp’s booze pile and lounges on the pillow pile. “You can see that everything’s nice and organized, so don’t go fucking it all up. Don’t start thinking I’m your fucking maid just because you can stop time and all.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t.” I mull through the food pile, feeling a little peckish. “I don’t guess you brought a microwave, or anything to cook this shit with.” Tom ignores me.

  I take a bourbon nip from the booze pile and, after a taste, continue berating Tom. “Do you have any idea how we’re going to fucking eat?”

  “What do you mean? You’re standing next to the food pile.”

  “This food’s frozen, and isn’t going to keep long once it’s thawed.”

  Tom ponders. “I guess we’re going to have to hunt monkeys or something,” he concludes. “Are there monkeys in this jungle?”

  “I don’t know. Fuck a bunch of monkey eating. You should have brought some snacks.”

  “Fuck you. We’ll be fine. Anyway, I don't think we'll need to wait long for the local enforcement to come and investigate this mess. They’ll give us a ride, and probably some food.”

  “What? No cops, brother, right?”

  “I did some thinking during our walk. We only have a vague idea which continent we’re on. And we have no fucking plan. I intend to let us be captured and escorted safely back to some English speaking land, hopefully one full of white people. The fleecing and the stealing will be easier where we blend in, and I think we can easily escape anyone who captures us. We have wonderful times ahead…wonderful.”

  I think about Tom’s plan for a while. “Good call, Tom. We’ll do well, I think.” And it was a good call. Once again, I’m glad I brought Tom along. It would have been a laugh, though, to leave him on that plane. Wouldn’t it have just chapped his ass when he found out?

  * * *

  Chapter Six

  It’s dark and cooling off so we start a fire, using most of our blankets and pillows as fuel. We've gathered wood but it’s still damp from the jungle floor, so we have to let it dry next to our blanket fire for awhile before it's any use.

  We light our cigarettes directly off the fire, because that’s what woodsmen do.

  The burning linens stink, which doesn't bother us much next to the death smell of the destroyed and burning jet-plane. That fire seems to be out now, at least as far as we can tell from here. We haven’t seen it yet, but I imagine it’s quite a mess. I can talk and think about not caring, but don’t feel the need to test my fortitude with the inarguable proof of our neglect.

  We finish eating some chicken patties salvaged from the frozen meals. They’ve thawed enough in the intolerable humidity to pierce with sticks and heat up over the fire. We burn most of them to crisps, and they taste slightly of blanket.

  The fire, my full belly, and the booze make me feel low. I pull the cord that inflates my raft, grab my blanket, pillow, and some more nips and lay down inside of it.

  It’s not too bad inside the rafts. Tom’s hunkered down in his, covered up with his head propped on the side, sipping from his own, private booze cache. I assume the same position, and stare at the fire. “We need goals, and we need a plan to reach them,” I say.

  “Yup. Any ideas?”

  “Short term goal should be getting back to America.”

  “Easy enough. We go back to the crash site and get hauled to the closest city by local law enforcement. They’ll turn us over to some American government people, who will arrest us and take us stateside. Once on our blessed country’s terra-firma, you stop time and we stroll away and disappear.”

  “I concur. And then?”

  “You’re wondering how we make use of that little trick of yours?”

  “Yes.”

  Tom sips and ponders for a moment. “We trek about and you stop time at suitable locations to rob. You start it again once we’re safely away. We nest-egg until we have a sufficient amount socked away for phase two.”

  “Phase two?”

  “Phase one is about money, phase two is about power.”

  “I think phase one will suffice. I’ll be satisfied with enough money to never work again, thanks.”

  “Phase one won’t be enough for either of us. And it won’t end until we progress to phase two. We need seed money, for production costs and the bribes.”

  “I think you’re full of crap. Money’s power so if we steal enough, phase two is redundant.”

  “No. No. Listen. A static amount of money is never enough, because it will always run out. And even if it doesn’t, we’ll still be murderers and thieves. No matter how much we accumulate, we will always have the fear because of that.

  “We need enough cash, a fucking fortune, probably, to start a new religion. You’ll play the Messiah part and I’ll be at the helm, because I’m more grounded then you. You’re a goddamn flake…fucking incompetent….”

  Since Tom’s drifting off now, with big thinking, I lapse into my own thoughts. I ponder the talking head. I don’t think I made it up. It had to be external, because it was talking to me, directing me. It wasn’t me talking to myself because it wasn’t my voice or direction. Maybe I’m splitting in two, which is entirely possible.

  “Religion’s the easiest way to go with this,” Tom begins anew. “It’s just fake miracles and other horseshit that defy explanation. If the flock believes it, they’ll wait generations to start poking holes. As long as they think you’re Jesus or something, we'll make gobs of money. There’s our sustainable income.”

  “In the airport you started acting like a little bitch and whined about going to hell. Now you want to play fast and loose with some Jonestown bullshit. That didn’t end well. You’re just drunk again.”

  “That was sketchiness at the airport, but it helped me with this. Look at how quickly I folded, just because of a nasty fucking picture I found on the internet. But now I see how people flail for salvation after being scared shitless. We’ll terrify them, then show them the road to redemption.”

  “How the hell are we going to do that? I can’t make monsters, or do any water-into-wine or never-ending fish bullshit.”

  “We’ll come up with something. It’s probably going to boil down to some slight-of-hand action. That’s easy when one of us can stop time. Never underestimate gullibility, or the need to be led and told how to behave. I know. I watch the History Channel like a son-of-a-bitch.”

  He has a point. He does watch the shit out of the History Channel.

  I stew on Tom's words for a bit. “I agree that stopping time and stealing, your phase one, is a proper start.” I concede. “We’ll consider a phase two once phase one is underway and we have a better handle on things. Your phase two is only one option. I am going to spend every free moment devising a less stupid second phase. ”

  “Good enough,” Tom answers. “I’m going to sleep now.” Within moments, he does so.

  He is such a resounding success at passing out that I decide to do the same. After another cigarette, I hunker down in my raft, still sweating, and drift off.

  * * *

  Chapter Seven

  I don’t know how much I trust my understanding of events. Since my head wound, I feel slightly disassociated, disengaged. It’s as though there’s a filter removing the parts of each day that don’t align with some absurd, preordained farce, and my brain fills in these empty bits with scripted nonsense. I forget these moments of clarity. Soon, I’ll forget this.

  * * * *

  This is the first morning in weeks that I haven’t woken with a headache. I’m a little down from the drinking and am still sweating like a pig, but my skull isn’t screaming at me. I look up in the pre-dawn and gingerly take off my cap, peeling it away from the wound. The sun and fresh air w
ill be good for it.

  Tom’s still crashed, lightweight that he is, so I rise from my raft quietly. After stretching, I set off to find the coffee pile.

  There is no coffee pile. I manage to scrounge some sealed single-serving pouches of instant from the food pile. Tom, who’s letting his organizational responsibilities slip, didn’t think to bring any cups of hot water. I resort to pulling a fat pinch of instant coffee from one of the pouches which I pack under my lip like a big old rub. It’s gritty as hell, and it tastes like ass. I run a hand through my greasy, matted hair and play with the coffee grit floating around my mouth with my tongue. I feel like a fucking prom queen. I light a cigarette to go with my coffee, and start harassing Tom.

  “Get the fuck up you raft-sleeping cock sucker! Come on, sister, wake up!” I’m kicking the crap out of his raft to reinforce my point. God, this feels good! Steal all of my beer? I’m like an elephant. I don’t forget that shit.

  Tom wakes sniveling, and then lurches up swinging, barely missing my face as I throw myself backwards to the ground. The immediate threat vanquished, he slouches and looks around evilly, getting his bearings. “What the fuck?” he asks.

  “Sorry, Tom, but I just saw a bear.”

  “Wha…where?” He’s still confused, rubbing the morning crackers from his eyes.

  “Everywhere. They’re jungle bears, smarter than the bears you’re used to.”

  “I’m not used to any fucking bears. I don’t think there’re any fucking jungle bears, anyway. Bears live in fucking Jellystone, not in fucking China, or wherever the fuck we are.” He’s waking up now. “Except panda bears. Was it a panda bear?”

  Goddamn you, Animal Channel. He watches that almost as much as the History Channel--at least enough to learn quite a bit about fucking bears.

  “I don’t know much about bears. I only know they hate sleeping, drunken idiots. So, are you awake yet?”