Untitled #1
Contributors: Ahchie, The Diesel, Brother Nature, Throcksmorton, Albuquerque Tom
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen (stay tuned...)
Hank picked up Herman’s dirty dishes and placed them in the sink as he watched what was happening through the kitchen window. Herman walked up to the driver’s side of the stopped vehicle. Doobie was inside, leaning over on the passenger side, inhaling deeply from a small pipe and blowing out clouds of smoke. Herman thought about making an easy kill to offset some of his earlier losses, but with Hank watching from only a few feet away it felt disrespectful.
Herman brushed back his thick long mane and yelled at Doobie, “Get out of the car before my gun takes a bite out of your ass...Hippie!”
Doobie quickly looked up, hitting his head on the “Eddie” necklace he had hanging from his rear view mirror. He began to whimper when he recognized it was Herman, who still had Doobie’s blood on the collar of his shirt. The area of his face that was bitten off was crudely wrapped in a blood soaked t-shirt. Doobie slowly opened the door, allowing Hank to easily hear his whimpering from inside the house behind a closed door and three shut windows.
- - -
Hank moved from the sink toward the front door. He could hear Herman yell
at Doobie, “Get down on your knees!”
Hank threw open the front door and said, “No blood will be spilled on
my land!” and he quickly lifted a sawed-off shotgun from his side and
aimed it at Herman.
“Well obviously you won’t shoot me if no blood will be spilled on your land,” Herman said sarcastically.
“I’ll do what needs to be done. You don’t know what needs to be done.”
Doobie stared on in disbelief at what he saw. Herman turned toward Hank and aimed his .44 at him, then slowly turned back toward Doobie and said, “Get in. You’re drivin’.”
Doobie looked at Hank, who continued to stare at Herman, and slowly slid back into the driver’s seat. Herman reached over and slammed the door shut. He turned back to Hank and said, “This ain’t over old man,” and he walked around the front of the car, still aiming his .44 at Hank. He glanced at the hood of the car and back at Hank and slammed his fist down. “I’ll fix you. You’re dead,” and walked around to the passenger door and slowly opened it. He started to sing to himself, "Red Skies at night, red skies at night, Wo oh, wo oh oh oh oh oh oh oh..."
Leaning in, he made sure Doobie was still sitting in the driver’s seat ready to drive, and he pushed the paraphernalia onto the floor. Herman slowly slid onto the seat and closed the door. He told Doobie to start the car.
"I’d like to hear some funky Dixieland
Pretty mama come and take me by the hand…”
came blasting out
the speakers and Herman leaned back and kicked the cassette deck with his
heel. Doobie instinctively yelled, “Hey. You don’t have to do
that. I’ll turn it off.”
Doobie froze and realized what he said, and that he should keep quiet so he
doesn’t anger the murdering madman. He reached over and calmly turned
off the car stereo. He looked at Hank one more time and put the car in reverse.
- - -
Herman shook his head back and forth and came to the slow realization that “Red Skies” by the Fixx had been replaced by “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by the Simple Minds. Herman found that he was still standing outside of Doobie’s car, and Doobie was still standing next to the driver’s door, nervously staring at Herman. As Herman slowly turned his head back to the cabin, he could see that Hank was standing in his doorway holding a shotgun in his left hand.
Hank continued to watch with trepidation, anticipating what might happen next. As uneasy as he felt, Hank could see a distinct change in Herman. After their lengthy afternoon conversation that culminated to the point where Hank was about to reveal details of Herman’s father’s death, Hank could see that Herman was not quite the same man he was when he encountered him on the hill.
Doobie was beginning to calm down enough to realize that perhaps he would survive this confrontation with the most insane person he had ever seen in his short life. He felt that the longer this crazy person hesitated, the better chance he had. He also felt tremendous relief that Caesar was there and was unharmed.
Staring at the “Eddie” necklace hanging from the rear view mirror, Herman continued to stand there virtually motionless, having just pictured in his mind what the Herman of this morning would have done. In that all too familiar and grimly satisfying vision, the hippies, Hank and the rest of the world were his enemy. For so long he thirsted for killing for no other reason than it tasted good. That was the world Herman lived in and was comfortable in – a world where he would not think twice about threatening the old man who had opened his meager home to him to provide food and medicine. A world where every hippie was the most putrid and disgusting form of life one could imagine. A world where he could kill a man just for playing music that he thought was crap.
But something was different now. In Hank he had found a connection to his past, and possibly a source of answers that his mother did not have. The change had actually started that morning when he woke up with no memory of his past. There was the same uneasiness he felt then as he was feeling now. When the memories had come rushing back after recognizing his mother and fingering the three bullets in his pocket, he had slipped ever so easily back into the world he had spent the last twenty years constructing.
Herman looked at the young man with a bloody shirt wrapped around his face and, for the first time in twenty years, he did not look at a hippie in disgust. He still didn’t want to put his arm around him and sing hippie songs while dancing around in circles, but now he did not feel that unrelenting urge to destroy him.
Herman felt more than a little uncomfortable with this new reality and it sickened him to think that he might be going soft. Part of him felt weak, like he was now something less of a man, while another part of him felt a renewed hope that the world of death he had constructed could never provide.
As much as he wanted to continue talking to Hank, Herman felt the pressing need to find his mother. Speaking to Doobie more brusquely than intended, Herman said in a firm voice, “I need you to take me to the chick you call Sunshine.”
- - -
With the radio turned off, Herman’s index finger resting on the trigger of the pistol that was resting on his lap, and the sweet smell of freshly smoked grass still in the car, Doobie wasn’t able to divert his attention to anything more pleasant.
He didn’t want to say anything to remind Herman that according to his normal modis operandi he should be scalping Doobie, setting the forest on fire, and drinking baby blood. The pain associated with having a piece of his face bitten off was returning and the less he spoke the better. Doobie let the uncomfortable silence gnaw away at his reasoning for staying quiet, and said the first thing he could force out of his swollen face.
“Look aht that beer...dee (winces in pain) deeeeeer...in the field.”
- - -
Herman continued to stare into the passenger side rearview mirror as he had done for the last 25 minutes. Herman had watched Hank waving goodbye as though they were the best of friends who might not cross paths again for a while. It was odd that Hank was waving like June Cleaver and standing in his driveway until they couldn't see each other anymore.
“Sometimes they...eat...from...hand,” Doobie continued trying to use as few words as possible to convey his thoughts.
Herman turned to Doobie and asked, “What’s Sunshine’s name?”
“What? Sunshine? What do you mean?” Tears began to form in Doobie’s eyes from the painful syllables.
“You have 3 seconds to tell me her legal name and not some asinine, hippie, feel-good, load of...”
Doobie, unable to think straight cried, “Man...what...you want?”
Herman carelessly ripped back the makeshift bandage on Doobie’s face and pushed the tip of the gun into the open wound. The blood that didn’t go directly into the barrel of the gun flowed along the outside of it until it ran off at the trigger.
Screaming from the pain of the raw wound, “Her name is Wendy Green...bottom...I think.”
Herman pulled back the pistol and fell back into his seat, “Clever old man, you almost had me. I’ve been doing this a long time, Pops, and you’re the first one to get to me.”
Herman looked at Doobie, “Stop the car!”
With the car stopped on the side of the road, Herman opened up the passenger side door, grabbed Doobie by his right shoulder and pulled him out of the car and onto the ground.
Herman yelled, “Put you hands on the car!”
Doobie was again whimpering loudly. He placed his hands on the passenger's side door as he focused on the gravel below his feet. Herman placed the muzzle of his pistol on Doobie’s right thumb and said, “Your friend Caesar is a liar.” Then he pulled the trigger. The bullet rattled around inside the hollow of the door as Doobie fell to the ground clutching the place where his thumb should be.
Herman got into the car and turned it back around before stopping in the middle of the road. Doobie slowly rose to his feet and watched Herman rummage for a few moments through his vest pockets. Herman pulled out a cassette tape placed it into the deck. As Jan Hammer’s “Miami Vice Theme” began testing the limits of the car’s audio system, Herman muttered something to himself then pretended to lift up both sides of his shirt collar. He then placed the car in drive and raced back towards Hank Greenbottom’s place.