Page 53 of The B!tch is Bad

I wasted precious seconds lying flat-faced in shock as Arrow licked my ear, my glasses bounced from my head. I could’ve sworn I heard Klozov shrieking from his truck as it steamrolled along.

“My mother was a fucking crafter! I hate crafters! Massengill was scrapbooking and I just know you painted that picture of Patience!”

Was he fucking serious? But at that point, nothing would be strange. As I lay there sprawled with no wind in my lungs, all I could think was that Bob Redford would never come to one of my auctions again.

The lumbering truck tires shook the soil under my very palms. Men, grape pickers, cellar rats who hadn’t yet returned home for the season, trilled in Spanish, telling each other to get out of the fucking way. Klozov shot again, and again. Empty shells clinked against the metal of his truck. Splattered grapes went flying, and one Jalisco man seemed to have been hit. He uttered that “alggh!” of a movie stuntman falling from a cliff.

My forearm boasted a bullet laceration, a candy apple trench about three inches long. Blood continuously gushed from the gouge, spurting with each heartbeat. Motorcycles revved in the background, coming our way. Good.

Broken ankle or not, I had to get up and run some more. Klozov’s truck had reached the end of the road, various wooden vines and plumbing lines spiking from his bumper, and he exploded from the driver’s door. I jumped to my hands and knees just as he kicked his door shut with his stupid cowboy boot, raising his piece with both hands wrapped around the grip.

“You’re just as bad as my mother!” he shrieked. “Your fucking paints, and yarn, and glued-on photos! You never let me have any fun!”

Now he shot me in the shoulder. Grapes winged every which way, splattering my forlorn glasses, my face, Arrow’s ear.

But the bullet remained lodged in my clavicle.

“You and your fucking macramé plant hangers!”

# # #

Patience

Fear has always stopped me from action.

I want to talk about every horrifying thing that’s happened in the world, but fear prevents me. Then I begin to fear the lack of action. Not speaking out is the same as agreeing with the horrible things. It always seems it’s not my place to speak out, or not my place to shut up.

But you know, if mere words fixed awful things, then awful things wouldn’t ever happen. So I speak out!

As I rounded the curves of the desert highway toward Seeker Valley, I yelled to myself. “Why the fuck didn’t I shoot Klozov when I had the fucking chance? When he was pretending to be a sugar guy? Well, of course the cops would’ve asked me why. Why did I just shoot a sugar guy? ‘Well you see, officer, he’s the one who killed Sean Wildstar and Thomas Massengill.’ Where’s the proof? ‘Oh, the proof is in the dog shit.’”

Well, I don’t often speak out. I often fail at it. I often write rambling, emo things to better wrap my head around something. I never share these with anyone.

But often I loudly speak to myself! The guilt in my head is so noisy I must give it a voice, to process it, then let it go. “Why did I let Creed even have this meeting? As though Klozov was going to tell us where the wine is? The wine is long gone! The port, the Angelica! Three thousand cases of library wine. Twenty years of vintages! Poof, gone! Ruined beyond belief!”

It would often cause me more pain to not do something. It’s magnificent and terrifying at the same time!

But it’s always worth it.

When I rocketed past the Pictures of Lily access road for the landscape irrigators, without a clear thought I popped a U-ie. The corner of my eye had seen a guy tear assing, and a dog who was clearly Arrow in hot pursuit. By the time I boomed in my little Prius down the rocky dirt road, I realized Arrow was playful, running from something, being chased. I stopped my car just before Arrow’s path and, whipping my Smith & Wesson from my shoulder holster, I sprung from the car into a crouch.

Of course it was loaded. Why else have it?

Someone was in the vines to the right, wailing like a starving baby. I tiptoed, hunkered down, cradling my piece. The maniac was just howling away, and it was hard to tell what he was bawling, but I thought I caught, “Egg cartons and lampshades!” When I’d dodged enough grapevines, I peeked around a curly golden leaf and finally saw Klozov in the flesh.

Grasping another ghost gun he’d apparently been shooting off.

The vineyard manager had finally lost it, as cray-cray as a shithouse rat.

He squeezed off another round, bellowing something about pottery wheels and textured eggs.

That’s when the pain of not doing something became greater than the pain of doing it.

I made my move. Like a sudden Bruce Lee, I slammed him in the ribs with the soles of my burnt sneakers. I don’t recall him ever even looking at me with recognition, he was so intent on whoever he was shooting. He went flying almost horizontally, he was so unprepared for my assault. Motorcycles jammed it my way, interlacing in and out of the torn vines.

I remembered that small things could be massive. Tiny movements, a gesture of the hand, a squeeze of the trigger, and you’re glad you’re alive.

There was Klozov, splayed for me. The ghost gun was still in his hand, but I nailed him before he had a chance to lift it.