THE PLUCK

A Tale of the Hatchback Woman by Dan Jire

The news reported that officials had no answer for why the three-story office building suddenly shifted from its foundation before collapsing nearly eighteen inches from its original position.

“We will keep our viewers up to date as we learn more of what officials are calling a freak catastrophe.”

Andy chuckled. An eyebrow peaked to his left, then his right. He was trying to gauge the interest of his friends, but both Tony and Oren looked bored.

“That isn’t weird to you?” he asked.

“Eh.”

“There was that earthquake in Louisa a year ago, right? Probably an aftershock or something,” Tony said. “The news just wants you to stick around from the commercials.”

“Nope.”

“No? What does a drop out like you know?”

Andy flipped a pair of white-rimmed sunglasses in his hand before putting them on. The lenses were big and round, and mirrored on one side.

“You and those shades. They don’t look cool, man. They make you look like Elton John.”

He looked more like the Cheshire Cat the way his teeth smiled from one cheek to the other until his two friends felt uncomfortable.

“You’ve gone full-on weird,” Oren said.

“Please don’t go shooting up any movie theaters.”

Andy dropped his smile and leaned back in the sofa they all shared.

Andy annunciated each syllable. “Drop out.” He held his pointer finger and thumb an inch a part in front of his eyes.

A soda can fell off the kitchen counter. The soda burst and sprayed everywhere.

Tony jumped off the couch. “My parents are gonna kill me, which one of you idiots left the can on the edge like that?”

Oren and Andy refused any blame.

“It wasn’t on the edge,” Andy taunted. “You know I can tell you why it fell.”

“No. You can come clean it up.” Tony demanded.

“No. I won’t be doing that at all.  Let me tell you about last week. You see I was just riding around on my bike, minding my own business . . .”

Andy whistled. Followed it up with another cat call, “Hey hoochie mama, where you stepping out?”

The blonde rolled her eyes. She had on a skirt that wasn’t agreeing with her.  It was too tight, didn’t look like it belonged to her. Neither did her beat up red hatchback.  This blonde looked like a million bucks as far as Andy could tell. So, he was quick to assume she was one of Richmond’s Finest.

“You want to take me to my prom, lady. I’ve got milk money.” Andy admired the view and made sure the woman knew he was doing so. “By milk I’m referring to you—

The woman was right in Andy’s face. He lost his breath and felt his heart stop. All the blood had rushed to just one place on his body and if it didn’t disperse soon, he might pass out.

The woman removed her white-rimmed sunglasses. She flipped them around and put them on Andy. “Now you’re hot stuff.”

Oren groaned. “Great, the mystery behind your lame sunglasses is solved.”

“That ain’t the end of the story.” It wasn’t even hardly the truth.

“Let me guess, she gave you a hand job.”

Andy nodded. Tony’s choice of words was almost ironic.

“Yeah, right. You ain’t never been with a girl.”

“Yeah, they’ve all be women. I’m not a pedo.”

“Okay so you made out with this woman. Great story man, I thought you were going to explain why the soda can fell over.”

“Wasn’t an earthquake that did that,” Andy said before he continued his story.

The woman had said something mean. Andy wouldn’t share that with his friends. He skipped ahead in the story. He had stopped by the Cary Street gym to see all the girls practicing soccer. College girls—women. He had kept the sunglasses on. If anything, so they couldn’t see him staring.  He leaned on his handlebars and lurked. He spotted two young women and couldn’t decide whose butt was bigger. He held his fingers out and tried to measure each at a distance.

“Did you just pinch my ass?”

“Hey, that hurt!”

Both girls looked at each other.

“You pinched mine.”

“No, you pinched mine.”

Andy cracked up. He would tell his friends he knew right then, but he wasn’t that smart. It took him a few more tries, at which point the girls had to be broken up by their coach. There were lots of homophobic phrases that turned more insulting as digs were made at each one’s finances, ethnicities, boyfriends, and finally soccer skills.

Andy decided to stir up more trouble and soon witnessed a full-on female brawl.  It wasn’t nearly as sexy as he would describe it to Oren and Tony.

“So, you have like telekinetic powers? Like Catwoman?”

“Catwoman doesn’t have telekinetic powers, she’s just hot,” Tony reminded Oren.

“Whatever. Neither does Andy.”

“No, no, I don’t. I thought that I did.” Andy almost told them he knew it was the glasses that somehow, they allowed him to take the things he saw, fit them in his hand like depth did not exist, and move them as he so pleased.

“So, what then?”

“Mind control, right?”

Andy shook his head.

Mind control might’ve been better. Andy had tried to undress a girl from afar, but it ended badly, very badly. He could still hear her screaming as he biked back up Harrison Avenue and turned down Grove. He had already tried it without the sunglasses and knew then that he needed them. The woman had not told him he was hot stuff now. She had told him something different. The words rested in his mind, unable to sit next to each other in a sentence, but he could feel them and their meaning still.

She had given him power.

Andy watched as a car bounced on the pavement. He removed his fingers from in front of his eyes and howled. He had lifted it—the car! 

And soon, a delicious idea came to him and he began the pull each car out of its parking spot until Grove Avenue looked like a Tetris-themed traffic jam.  Horns began to applaud his work and a few curse words gave him laughter as people looked for the drivers who had blocked the street.

“Didn’t hear about that. That would’ve been on the news, too.”

“Maybe,” Andy said. “It had nothing to do with weight loss or celebrity scandals. Maybe they were too scared. Maybe somebody doesn’t want people to know what I can do.”

“So, what you’re Magneto now?” Tony asked.

“Ha, I’m better. I can move anything.”

“With your magic tampon glasses. Let me try.” Oren forced a hand out.  Andy looked at it, and with his two fingers in front of his eyes he reached out and took Oren’s hand and lifted it high above his head. The muscles popped as his arm stretched too far.

“What the hell!”

Andy laughed a lot. That was until he heard sirens. Then he started to see dark cars that seemed to make the same turns he did. He knew someone knew what he could do. He biked, wishing he could pull himself miles down the road, or bring the road closer to him. But it didn’t seem to work like that. He pocketed the sunglasses and rode as far away from the scene as he could.

Andy felt safe once he disappeared into the more residential parts of the Fan District. He ditched his bike and walked a block to an apartment he knew was for rent. He climbed the fire escape to its back porch and rested there.  Five minutes felt like three hours, but no one came and The sirens were faint enough that they clearly hadn’t followed him.

He tried the sunglasses again. He couldn’t believe they really worked. He turned a dumpster upside down and felt like the luckiest man on the planet.

“Who do you think is following you?” Oren asked.

“We’ll look, I don’t think they’re magical. It could be like Google Glass or something. Right? Like an even more non-consumer friendly model?”

“Wait. The news report earlier—did you shift the building down town?”

“That’s what he’s been claiming this whole time.”

“I made that can fall off the counter, too.”

“Bull,” Tony said.

“Do it again.”

Andy held his fingers in front of his eyes and sized up the refrigerator.  It started to shake, and then Andy pulled it closer.

“Ta-Da!”

Tony barreled over laughing.

“This is a joke. You’re in on it aren’t you, Oren? You moved your hand as part of his stupid game. Who you got beneath the counter shaking the fridge? Is Barney here? You got me. That was awesome.”

“Barney is not here. And Oren didn’t know about it. This is my first-time telling you guys. I can move anything I want.”

Oren mimicked the fingers in front of his eyes and he sized up Andy. “How can Andy be the same size as a soda can?”

“It’s depth perception you idiots.  Whatever these glasses do they like mash it all together. Some kind of force or something, right?”

“So, you can pinch girls’ butts and move buildings, what else?”

“I can crush you like a fly.”

The tone in the room changed. There was no joke in Andy’s voice.

Pop, went Andy’s lips and thin his devilish grin sunk down into his neck.

Oren cleared his throat, and then asked, “Can we try?”

Andy thought about it and shook his head. “You’ve got to earn it first.”

Tony shook his head. “You may think you’re hot stuff now. That’s what that woman said. But I bet those guys after you were the military and they’re gonna catch up to you and make you keep quiet.  You’d be real easy. A stupid drop out overdoses on drugs. Forget that he’s never done them before, it seems reasonable enough.”

“What makes you think I’d let them?”

“Because the one thing you haven’t told us is how scared you must be. You’re hiding here. You could be tossing buildings through basketball hoops and yet you’re sitting on your butt on my couch. I bet every time you did something you were scared. You didn’t just bike away. You ran away scared. That’s what you are, a big chicken. I bet you stole the glasses. No way a woman gives you a pair of sunglasses and calls you ‘hot stuff.”

Andy flicked his wrist. Tony spun up into the air squirming.

“I’ve got your nose, Tony. I’ve got your nose!”

“WMMAMA LUMMAU UMMA STUMMA FUMMA!”

“Dude, chill out!” Oren yelled, backing away. It actually made it easier for Andy. He squeezed Oren with his left hand.

“Screw you guys.”

Andy slammed his hands together. Again.

And again.

And again, until the blood began to slop on the ground.

The woman had said something different when she had put the glasses on Andy that day. She had told him, “The world is not as big and mean as it seems, you’ll see.”

Still Andy ran.

THE END.

© Copyrighted DAN JIRE, All Rights Reserved.