Brokenhearted in Bakersfield

 

93 - THE INVISIBLE HAND

Down here at Broken Heart Park, some people just don’t know when to shuddap.

“What’s dat noise?”  Christos covered one ear with the hand not holding the gun.  “Somebody shut off dat dam telebision!  Dun you peoples around here never do nuttin’ but watch ‘I Luv Luzie’?  Dat song drives me nuts.”

Christos turned his rage back toward Maggie as he thundered, “You’ll be dead like a doornail soon enough, girlie, but you shouldn’t go witout me tellin’ you I got another business associate dat you might know.”

“Yeah, who?”  (Maggie looked pretty blasé, well, maybe as pretty and nonchalant as anyone could look who was grasping their blood-splattered leg and about to be shot like a rabid dog.)

Christos glared, “A mechanic named Louie.  A brake specialist.  I tink you two already made wit each udder’s acquaintance?”

Before Maggie could say anything I butted in, “Can I put in my two-cents?  Boss, your last name is Kartone.  I gotta know, would you be of the famous singing-and-dancing Kartone family?”

“Enuff wit dis!” Christos exploded.  “It’s over for me, and it’s over for you.  Youse all anti-Christos.”  As he drew a bead on Maggie and me, Christos foamed at the mouth, “Say your prayers.”

As if in answer, #1 Broken Heart Park began to shudder and it began to shake and it began to shimmy, and then it began to burst apart with what looked like a million of them insulation-eating bugs crawling out of the seams of the walls.  A split second later, with all them bugs sweeping and scurrying over the yard, there was an odd sound like metal twisting and tearing loose…

Kaa-Kaa-Kaaa-creeeeeaaaaakkkkkkKKKKKKAA-Kaa-Kaaaaa-creeeeaakKKKK

I looked up just in time to see a chunk of the front wall of the Manager’s Coach topple over on top of Christos himself.  It was almost like an invisible hand was guiding it.  A chunk of trailer wall smacked Christos in the head, knocking his foul body to the ground where he landed flat on his face, covered by the broken remains of the very symbol of power and control in Broken Heart Park.  (Plus a few of them insulation-eatin’ bugs.)  From beneath the wreckage came a pathetic cry.  I moved to lift the wall off Christos, but Maggie held me in place.

“Not yet,” she advised, “not until he stops.  Forever.”

I couldn’t say how long Maggie and me stood there watching the fallen wall of No. 1 heaving and doing a kind of dance on top of Christos.  Then we heard a rumble heading our way.  It was a caravan of Escalades pulling up a cloud of dust behind them.  They slid to a stop, and Sashimi Luckyfeather jumped out followed by a shitload of Kachingas.  Each one was heavily armed.  Chief Like-A-Horse sat in the front passenger’s seat of the lead vehicle silently staring forward.

“What happened here?”  Ms. Luckyfeather was on the warpath.  She pulled out her lipstick, “We heard the explosion all the way over at The Horse U Road Inn.  We could see the smoke and fire from our balcony.”

“Wellll…” I started to explain, but Sashimi pushed past me and rushed over to Maggie’s side.

“Are you hurt?” Sashimi asked her tenderly.

“Yeah, I’m hurt pretty bad.  Those Kartone fuckers tried to kill me,” Maggie hissed through clenched jaw.  “I’ve been shot in the leg.”

Sashimi stood right by Maggie.  “I was pre-med before I switched to law,” the Kachinga woman said, “let me look at that.”  Ms. Luckyfeather ripped open Maggie’s jeans and exposed all the pink, perfect flesh from ankle to upper thigh, and a big gaping hole.  Sashimi proceeded to bury her face in Maggie’s wound, and the sound of sucking went on and on until Ms. Luckyfeather finally lifted her face from between Maggie’s parted legs.  They looked at each other eyeball-to-eyeball, as Sashimi spit the slug into her hand.  “There,” she said, smacking her lips.

“There, indeed,” Maggie smiled.  Sashimi returned her smile.  “It’s not often that I’ve depended on strangers providing emergency help with such kindness.”

“My pleasure,” Sashimi replied warmly.  “Souvenir?”  She pressed the bullet into the palm of Maggie’s hand.

As Maggie and Sashimi eyeballed each other, I interrupted, “Hey, Maggie!  Honey!  The wall’s stopped moving.  Wanna go see if Christos is doing okay?”

Ms. Luckyfeather barked to some nearby Kachingas, “Rolling-Bones, Jacks-Or-Better, Flaming-Nipples, and you, Looks-Like-Elvis, go help him.”  As the four Kachingas came over to help me remove the wreckage laying on top of The Boss, each grabbed a corner while I, as Park Manager, supervised.  I could see the golden brown muscles of the Kachinga warriors rippling under their ammunition belts, and all I could think was, I hope this ain’t gonna be messy.

I glanced up and saw Sashimi Luckyfeather enfold Maggie in her arms in a sisterly gesture of nurturing support.  I could hear Maggie coo softly.  I tried to remember her groaning so softly in the double-wide we shared.  I imagine she found some comfort for her throbbing wound from that Kachinga squaw.  As she embraced Ms. Luckyfeather, Maggie firmly placed one hand around Sashimi’s neck, the other hand held onto a full, Native-American breast.

Meanwhile, me and the four Kachingas was looking busy lifting that chunk of wall that had fallen on top of Christos.  (Well, actually, they just sorta flung it off him like a cheap cardboard prop.)  Surprisingly, the revelation underneath was not near as benign as a person might hope.  There, in the heap of burnt residue and dust, laid the still remains of Christos Kartone.  Upon seeing the bloody body, the Kachinga braves let out a long, “Eeeuuuwwww!”  (Naturally, I assumed that to be some sort of primitive lament.)

Then, I had to look.  I didn’t wanna look, but I had to look.  Anybody would’a looked.  They all looked.  I had to look.  You should’a seen it.  The tattered remains of Christos was splayed out like so much overcooked kabob on a skewer.  He landed on some of them wooden stakes used to mark the excavation pits of the Kachinga Tribe, and he got himself run clean through.  That had to be a mighty hurt.

While Maggie was involved with getting comforted in the embrace of the Kachinga’s legal counsel, me and the Kachinga boys stood by looking at the undignified smoking remains.  Nobody showed much interest in moving or disturbing the carcass.  I poked it with a stick.  Christos was dead all right.  At that point a Sheriff’s vehicle drove up.

Whether it was the vibration from the car on the ground or the movement of the hot breeze, the three remaining sides of the First Coach collapsed into a heap of dust-blown rubble.  This time there was no further fatalities, although my new big-screen HDTV did land screen-down in the dirt right next to Christos.

Deputy Whitey emerged from his vehicle and strolled on over.  “Seen a big fireball in the sky and heard an explosion,” he drawled.  “Something going on?”