Flump the Grump

The ship is huge. Moored to a neverending peer. A cavernous gap seperates ship and peer. A gentle swell starts the huge ship on a slow, crushing roll toward its mooring. As I glance upward I see the rough, rusted steel hull, and the ocean stained, concrete peer closing on each other; I am falling. I look below and know that I will be ground into paste before I reach the grey sea far below.

Fuck.

My head catapults from the bar. Barely keeping my seat, the backless stool wobbles from the startling motion. My feet dangle just above the footrest. The man beside me, looks a little frightened by the new action. He turns to me and a small grin replaces the wide eyes. But. He goes back to his beer, a shot glass in the bottom oozing an oilslick of bourbon throughout the pint. It is all gone in a tilted flash. He nudged my pint closer. I drowned the dream.

His burley appearance is somewhat distorted by the too-small, woven ShadyBrady on his fat head. He is at least 5 feet tall. Sitting down. Standing, at least 6 and a half feet. His red beard lookes like it may have been busheled by a combine. His outfit may have come from jj bean. But I doubt it. Trendy trailer park vogue.

We are the only two in the dusty bar. It is 10AM. He reached over and peeled the cardboard coaster from my forehead. According to the mirror I looked into behind the bottles of oozo and peach brandy and wisers and .... a swollen red ring remained to remind me of the dream that was begining to fade into the abyss of alcohol and dust and smoke.

He got up from his stool and made his way behind the wood. He poured two more from the tap and placed the drinks on the bar. Two shots of tequilla quickly joined them. No fruit. No salt. I reached for my pint and took a slow sip. He drank both shots of tequilla and came back to his perch on the right side of the bar. It's OK. I've never been fond of Tequilla since a short stint in a Mexican jail. The homemade stuff was everywhere and was the only way to cope with the queens and cartels. Six months of thickly shaved blue agaves and toilet water boiled to soup was enough to turn most people against that turpid shit. Generally speaking.

We sat and sipped.

My story is different than his. He was born and bred bad. His mother sold him. His 'father' beat him. His sister once took him into the deep woods and sat him down. She tied his wrists and arms and ankles and knees. At 6 the heavy nylon rope was probably a bit much but she didn't want him to make his way home. It took 2 days of fear, piss and chiseled granite to get back. She eventually said she was sorry. Later. Much later. Too late though.

Those were the cement boots that kept Flump kicking up plumes of mean in the cesspool at the depths of life. He killed her. So he says. The death certificate says she died of complications as the result of some kind of cancer. Maybe not those words exactly. His sister. He put a soft pillow over her face. He says he didn't have to push or fight. She just stopped.

----

Cops. They are a learned and calm group. Mostly. When the shit hits the fan they run at it. Screw the mess. Mostly.

Bug. thats what they call him. Not because he is small. Or annoying. Because he has the uncanny ability to sniff out shit in the air. Mostly.

Bug watched the highway roll out in front of the cruiser. Flat, dust, rust and boredom. But. Bug smells shit.

2200 square miles. The size of PEI. Less potatos though. That is Bug's zone. He's not alone. He is accommpanied by 3 other patrols, 5617 civilians, a skinny, dreaming drifter and Flump.

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Someone who knows Flump must have coined the phrase 'not a guy you want to run into in a dark alley'. When Flump was 14 he beat his 'father' so badly in a dark alley that he needs a double dose of oxy to make it to the post office to pick up his pension cheque. He probably should have killed himself a long time ago but he is a chicken-shit-priss according to Flump. Seeing him stagger about in a cloud of fear and pain makes Flump smile.

I am not amused though. sitting on my stool. Half corked. I can see the truck we arrived at this shit hole in through the nicotane stained window at the front of the bar. Sitting in an empty lot. Deep cobalt and 40 feet of trailer. If anyone was looking it wasn't hard to find at the moment. The other car that had been there is now parked out of my line of site. Flump made the dead guy move it.

The dead guy. The mouthy fuck was having a bad day. Had. Hopefully he saw the sunrise and that sort of thing. Maybe he got a quicky before heading out this morning. He doesn't seem that lucky.

Flump looked at the guy sprawled on the floor indifferently. A small cooked hole made the guy look East Indian. His teeth were bared and a silent scream to the gods had his mouth open all the way. Flump had shot him. The low velocity 9mm round hadn't come out. It was still in the jello between the guys ears.

But his pocket kept chirping. Flump kicked him every time it did. Someone was wondering what dead guy was up to. I wanted to answer it and tell whoever it was exactly what the guy was doing. I could even tell them what he would be doing tomorrow. Call me psychic.

I met Flump accidently. He was already a bad, bad man. I was thumbing and he was in that truck. We put the miles in the rearview. Lots of them. Maybe because he was sober. Maybe because he was tired. Maybe. I don't know. But. We talked and put the past in the front of us. Cathartic, no. Interesting though.

-----

Bug. He picked up his blackBerry and held the 2 key. Kevin was a bit of a drama queen but he never held a grudge long. He knew that Kevin couldn't ignore him for long. Bug isn't gay. Kevin is. But. Kevin loves Bug. Something that a 15 year old would scratch into a caffeteria table top in high school. With a big heart around it. Bug is flattered but still not gay.

----

It's still 10AM and the sky is grey. High altitude clouds and filth is making this depressing. I am still not amused. The truck is right there. We are right here. The dead guy is ringing. And. We are not moving. Flump is pacing. His lips are moving. I know he is talking to himself. Like that babe on the bus reading her Cosmo; mona lisa smile or snarl but moving those lips to the top reasons her boy left that aren't her fault. Probably the cat's fault.

The dead guy has a hat on. It is a Red Sox cap. Flump hates Sox. White ones, red ones... anyone that spells sox S-O-X. Thats not why he is the dead guy though. Flump was raped by his 'father'. Beaten. Raped. Watched by his dead sister. She also was raped. Beaten. Sold to friends. Not Flump's friends. I am Flump's friend. And. I don't care.

Flump isn't at all what you would call normal. He can walk in the sunshine; he can talk with a smile that disarms the stupid. He can sit in a bar, like this one, (assuming there isn't a dead guy spralled on the floor), and be the truck driver, yard worker, carpenter, tree cutter, pavement maker and drink with a look of tired. Like he isn't looking at you. Like he doesn't see you as the slab of meat that you are. Flump is trying to get by. He doesn't have the job that a lot of folks aspire to. He has the job that keeps you on your toes. The job that makes alarms, 2nd amendments, guards and cops a required element in todays economy.

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Cops. They don't sleep like most people. You and I. They are observent. And, like scouts, prepared. Prepared to deal with shit. Phones ring in the wee hours, bad things happen when we're asleep. So, being prepared is necessary to do The Job.

The Job.

There is no mistaking cops. Because they are on The Job. When Bug was pulled over once, probably a lot over, he simply said: "I'm on The Job, brother". Say no more. That is all.

Bug is on The Job. Eating a yellow line. The zone is grey and quiet but Kevin isn't answering. Bug has his bug on.

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Flump's job is getting by. Ask anyone. They'll tell you. Flump gets by. He scratched his beard and looked at the cop car that just pulled into the lot. Next to the big cobalt truck. The truck with 1 000 000 miles. It just rolled. So it was time. Time to stop and see how far away he really is. Away from the dead, decrepid, stinking life that seemed a million miles away. But. Life has a way.

-----

Bug saw the truck from a long way away. It is odd to see a truck parked at 10AM. At a bar. Normally, a big blue truck like that would be cruising to a new dock. To unload or pick up. Pickles. Thats what Bug imagined was in the truck. Big cases of jars of deep green pickles.

But. That was before the bullet took his ear clean off.

-----

Flump made a movement that you wouldn't think a big guy could pull off. In a swift, calm cross body reach, Flump pulled the 9mm pistol from his belt and fired it through the grimy front window. The round was tumbling almost as soon as it left the barrel. End over end the round exploded through that window. The nicotine stained window. It fell in a sheet of nickle sized shards behind the bullet. Low velocity or not it was only 50 feet to the cop car. And you couldn't have blinked in the time between flash and ear removal.

And Flump was through the window almost before the sound had made me jump to my feet. And trip over Kevin. S-O-X.

----

Bug barely had time to register the loss of two windows and an ear before the next round thudded into the door of the cruiser. The car shook from the impact. It didn't get in though. If he hadn't been looking at the truck next to him the bullet that had taken his ear would have taken his whole head.

Bug opened the car door and rolled out and under the truck. The big blue truck. Prone, he pulled the pistol from his holster. But. Life had other plans. Flump's next shot, fired as he crunched through the broken glass outside the bar, burned it's way through Bug's collar. Through the gap between shoulder and neck. Because Bug is prone that bullet made it's way down into the meat of his chest. A spray of blood hit the underbelly of the truck and dripped back onto Bug's head. His right arm couldn't lift his pistol to fire at Flump. The pistol lay at his side, dead as his arm. But his fingers were working and he pulled the trigger. The gun barked and ashphalt blasted into the air and the truck. All of which came nowhere close to Flump as he strode toward the cop. Bug.

The gun barked again and again. The rounds heading in the wrong direction. The lot coming apart inches away from Bugs arm. His arm still at his side. He rolled away from his gun and his ear and his cruiser. Watching the big, bearded fucker close on him.

-----

I stared into Kevin's cloudy eyes. They are not a window into his soul. They are staring at me with merciless wonder. Wondering why. Wondering who. What's next. I suppose the poor bastard knows what's next. I didn't shoot you Kevin.

I am not really a gun guy. I have one. A big one. Call it compensation. I don't care. Just showing it to someone generally makes their balls disappear into their vagina. I have never shot anyone. I don't know if my big gun works.

But Kevin is still dead and judging me. As I listen to the unreal shit outside, I wonder. I wonder why Flump is killing the cop. I wonder why we stopped. I am lying beside you Kevin and can't possibly imagine why I am lying beside you. I close my eyes.

----

Bug. Under the engine block of the cobalt truck. His cruiser and radio and gun and life so very very very far away. Blood is spraying from his neck. Spraying. Not good. The truck is drinking his blood and Flump is almost where he is. No. He is where he is.

No one is coming. Bug is alone. All alone. He is staring at Flump and at Flump's gun. Don't be a grump Flump.

But. One last shot. Bug's eyes are staring at Flump and Flump is staring back. Looking into Bug's eyes. Looking at the hole in Bug's collar. At the gun on the ground a few feet away, the ground up parking lot that ate Bug's bullets.

One last shot. Bang.

And no more Bug.

-----

I open my eyes. And Flump is there.

"Coming?"

"Yup."

And Flump is gone. And I am ground into paste.

Flump the Grump.