thought about turning back the hands on his watch but then immediately decided to simply allow events to transpire as they would. After all, he still had half an hour. A lot could happen in that time.
“So, uh, like how old is it?” asked one of the cops without looking up.
“Not sure. It’s been pieced together from a variety of chassis components that I’ve salvaged over time. Originally, it packed a V 12 under the hood but that’s history now. I’d actually have to look in the papers if I wanted to give you an honest answer about the pedigree of the car. But it’s certainly older than any of us around here is, that’s for sure,” answered Barnz.
Perhaps it had been a mistake not to just reset the watch, the thought shot through Barnz’s mind. His mouth was suddenly drier than cotton.
“Well, that would mean it qualifies as being antique, then, don’t it?” answered the cop with a bit of a tease discernible in his voice. He deliberately drew the latter syllable out to make it sound like “ann-teeek.”
Barnz didn’t bother to reply.
Turn back time? He wondered. A voice in his head told him no, not yet.
PLΔcebo walked slowly and deliberately around the rear end of the car, mustering it and even caressing it wordlessly as he went. He stopped next to the driver’s side door, standing at the end of the driveway and facing Barnz directly. His feet, clad in the very same spit-shined black shoes he wore during their previous encounter, were spaced apart, toes facing outward as he stood. His thumbs were hooked almost casually into two belt loops at the sides of his trousers. The four fingers of his left hand seemed to be slowly stroking the handle of the SlapStick hanging at his side.
“So, like, what’d you say your name was?” he asked as he took a few steps in Barnz’s direction, peering out from beneath the rim of his blue apparatchik cap.
“Barnz,” was his reply. He didn’t move a muscle as he spoke and his gaze didn’t flinch.
“You know, you gotta have a mighty formidable ZipperCard to be paying for that thing,” answered PLΔcebo, pointing his thumb in a jabbing motion over his shoulder rearwards toward the car. His speech was on the verge of becoming nearly unintelligible because of the huge wad of gum which he would shove into one cheek when he spoke. He had an annoying habit of putting more and more gum into his mouth as the day progressed, causing his cheek to swell as though he were the uniformed sex-and-crime reality show incarnation of a khat-chewing Yemeni highland peasant-turned-officer transporting a wad of leaves in his jowls. As he stood at the end of the driveway facing Barnz, he withdrew yet another piece from one of the pockets of his trousers and slowly unwrapped it, stuffing the gum into his mouth first and then carelessly letting the tinfoil wrapper flutter to the ground. It landed directly in Barnz’s driveway.
“I guess you could see it that way. But I guess, at the end of the day, it’s just about what priorities one sets. I don’t think that there’s much point thinking too deeply about that,” replied Barnz in a casual sounding tone of voice. “I just do my job and don’t worry a whole lot about other folks’ business. And, with a bit of luck, they afford me the same courtesy.”
“Is that right? So tell me: what kinda job does a spooky old Bro like you actually do?” replied PLΔcebo in the most mockingly offhand manner he could muster. His eyes narrowed to provocative slits as he waited for a reply.
PLΔcebo was looking for an opportunity to pounce.
Barnz swallowed hard, registering both the slight as well as the threat implicit in the tone of it, but wisely remained outwardly composed.
“Lot of things, actually. But for the regular daytime job, I drive a bulldozer mainly. Speaking of which: I’ve got to get going now or I’ll be running real late.”
Although he instinctively and immediately knew that the odds were slim, Barnz was nonetheless hopeful that he would succeed in ending the encounter elegantly in this fashion.
At first, his words seemed to hover in the air. There was no discernible response from PLΔcebo. Trying to gauge his reaction was like watching a Holstein cow trying to figure out why flies buzzed around its ass all day long or why it sometimes rained. His expression simply didn’t budge.
Then he slowly broke into a wide beaming grin.
“Hey! I remember now,” he declared. “I’ve been tryin’ to figure it out but I think I remember now. Bulldozer Barnz!” He turned to the other officers and spoke, his voice exuberant and sinister at the same time.
“Guys, you ain’t gonna believe it, but this man here’s practically a friend. He’s like a damned buddy of mine.”
He stepped back to the buena.Vista and rejoined the small cluster comprised of his colleagues who were still busily inspecting it. He patted one of them–El Niño was his name–on the shoulder enthusiastically, thumping his flat and open hand on his shoulder repeatedly as he pointed toward Barnz.
“May I introduce to you gentlemen: Bulldozer Barnz!” he announced loudly to the other three officers. “We go way back! I mean, we’re real tight.”
“That right? Hey! Do ya think he might let us take a ride in this then?” asked El Niño as he indicated the buena.Vista. “I ain’t never rode in an ann-teeek car in my entire life before!”
“Hell, yeah! Better yet: this man’s gonna take us all for a ride. He’s gonna give us a grand tour. Ain’t you, Bulldozer buddy Barnz? You ain’t gonna disappoint anyone this early in the morning, especially not us–your friends!”
“Hey, I can’t do that,” replied Barnz. He regretted now that he hadn’t altered the course of events a moment earlier.
His voice sounded strained and a bit hoarse as he spoke again. “Please. I hope you understand. But I’ve got to go now.”
“What do you mean? Why can’t you be doing what?” asked PLΔcebo. “You high on something or what? You been drinking? Naw! Not this early in the day. No buddy of mine be fooling ’round with dope or booze. I choose my friends judiciously. It’s OK, Barnz Buddy. You got no good reason to decline our modest proposal here. Let’s go for an early morning drive! Don’tcha be disappointing my good friends here.”
NEW ARRIVALS
It was early morning as Jacqueline, Charles and Niklas wordlessly collected their belongings from the overhead bins that were now gaping wide open over their heads. They made their way numbly in short fits and starts down the right aisle of the aircraft as part of a weary procession that flowed toward one of the front exits. Engrossed in the task of keeping their belongings together as they collectively inched toward the threshold of the forward door, the majority of the disembarking passengers simply elected to ignore the small cluster of flight attendants that were strategically positioned next to the exit doors, dispensing uniform-sounding cheerful farewells.
Charles flashed a hurried smile in response to the wave of a trio of stewards and stewardesses standing in the forward galley as he left the airplane.
“I’d be smiling and waving, too, if I was one of them, knowing that I was flying home again in a couple of hours,” the thought crossed his mind as he approached yet another stewardess positioned directly at the door.
He stopped for a moment and waited for Jacqueline to overtake a passenger who had managed to wedge himself into the queue between them while disembarking. Niklas was already a step or two ahead of them, looking over his shoulder impatiently as he waited for them to catch up with him.
Collectively fatigued by the swift loss of an entire night spent travelling, a hushed but expectant silence reigned as the queue of passengers shuffled almost wordlessly, like a herd of sheep, out of the long tube of the jetway, the scent of humid salty air and burnt kerosene or cow dung wafting into their dehydrated nostrils, and entered the large holding area before the terminal gate. Charles was carrying an oversized black canvas bag in one hand. Clamped resolutely under the other were his jacket and a few loose items. It