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The Cause Way Strip Mall.
Midnight, with no clouds smothering the stars.
The Cause Way Strip Mall was a real shit hole. That is, the place was built on the very edge of a marsh where the town dumped its shit-waste.
“Damien, what are we doing?” asked Benton. They were making their way across the parking lot, drinking coffee from the Dunkadough. That was the thing to do in Machias. Head down the cause way at night and drink yourself a coffee. Wicked good time.
“I got this feeling like I’m going to do something that no one has ever done before, and that no one will ever do it again. But I guess everyone probably feels that way.”
Benton dug around in his pocket for the keys to his 15 year old Chevy S-10. “Would you believe it, I fuckin’ don’t.” He threw his empty coffee cup into the back of his truck. The back of his truck also held an old vacuum cleaner. The thing could suck up entire sheets of paper. “Offices first?”
“Let the marathon begin!” He chucked his cup behind the truck, staining the new pavement with the rest of his coffee. The black surface grew slightly fainter.
The marathon was them working. Doing their jobs.
*
Damien dragged a large trashcan behind him across the carpeted hallway. Bumped it against the wall next to the bathroom. He unhooked the spray bottle from the edge of the trashcan and entered. “Holly shit!” he cried.
Benton used the vacuum, touching the handle lightly. With its old faulty wiring, it delivered near continuous but faint shocks to his hand.
*
Back at the shit hole.
More coffee.
The truck was not parked in front of the Dunkadough, but in front of the shit hole store next to it. Benton and Damien stood before the red double doors of Who Recalls? Professional block lettering. Dignified further by an abstract sculpture of perhaps two bodies merging into one. In sticker letters on the door: http://www.whorecalls.com.
Damien leaned against the truck like a cowboy. One leg bent. “I heard some shit about this place and it made me wonder if I should check it out.” He wanted to sound tougher than he really was. Like a motorcycle with a glass pack. “You know, break in?” He waited for Benton’s reaction. Nothing.
Benton was thinking about sharks. Razor teeth. He unfolded his pocket knife and stabbed his coffee cup. Let the black stuff bleed out.
“I’ve been holding off on it so far because technically it’s illegal to break into places, even if it’s just to check it out. Then today I remembered I have the key.”
“Oh you got the key?”
Damien grinned a shit-eating grin, letting coffee dribble down his chin. “Oh I got the key.”
“You drunk?”
“Yeah.” Damien wiped vodka from his chin. He traced the thin gold chain around his neck and pulled it out from under his shirt. It was horse-tied around an aluminum foil wrapped key.
“Where’d you get that key?”
“I don’t recall.”
Benton glanced down at the other stores: Pen Island and Speed of Art. Such promising names.
*
It wasn’t a big place inside.
Hospital artwork in the first room. Framed calendars in the second room.
He found a peculiar white door. Windcurved like an old fashion refrigerator. Same size, too.
He turned the long skinny handle, cracking the seal. Smelled musty, dusty and wet in there. He swept the wall behind him, searching for the light switch. The wall felt rough and damp. Could have been cinder block.
Fluorescent lights flickered overhead, suspended from the stone ceiling. The lights struggled into the distance. They formed a single file, which started straight, but soon curved around stalactites. “Holy shit!” He whispered.
He stepped back outside, leaving the lights – which were still turning themselves on in the distance – turned on.
“What do you think?” asked Benton.
Damien let the door close, but quickly opened it and gestured for Benton to see for himself.
*
Daytime.
Hot heat penetrating his shirt.
Knee deep in mud. Cool water gushed into his shoes. Sinking, he instinctively fell backwards and sat in the doorway.
He pulled his right foot up, while the shoe remained lodged in the muck. In the distance, large cowish animals huddled at the edge of solid ground.
“Well that’s something isn’t it?”
Damien, who had remained in the hallway, not looking, now looked inside. “What the fuck?” He had expected to see the cave.
The light switch protruded from the brown puffy part of a cattail. Damien flicked it off.
Pitch black. Black as your pupil, everywhere except where the dim light trickled in from the refrigerator door.
“Hold on,” said Benton, “my shoe!” But he could feel the ground tightening around his other foot, which was still deep in the mud. He jerked it out as the rich soil plasticed over before his very eyes. “God dammit!”
“Well that’s something, isn’t it?” He tested the spot where Benton had just stood. Solid as a rock. It tapped, even, like a tiled floor. Flat as linoleum.
He sniffed. Nothing. Sterile as a fresh vacuum bag.
“Do you see my shoes?”
“No,” he whispered. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
*
Next building: the Bangor Savings Bank. Damien punched in the security code, calm as a cucumber, like nothing unusual had happened, just moments ago. The pad into which he punched the code had been replaced by a much larger model. Buttons as big as your fist. He paid them no mind.
Benton made wet footprints, which showed his toes, across the cold marble floor. He reached the edge of the carpet by the tellers’ counter and unwrapped the power cord. It was long and orange and spotted with gray duct tape.
He turned it on and found it more difficult to move his legs. “Son of a bitch!” He struggled through the hallways. His father and his father’s father and his father before that had all been nighttime cleaners.
*
Three in the AM.
High clouds blending with the milkyway galaxy.
White Northern lights finger up from the treetops behind the marsh.
Tired, Benton drove off the road at a wide spot saying, “Coffee?” and then, “Holy shit Damien, where’s the Dunkadough?” His truck soon mired itself in swampy tall grass.
All the while Damien was telling him to keep it on the road.
They opened the door and stepped out into thick deep mud. They climbed into the bed so they could see farther. There was no Causeway Strip Mall to be seen.
*
Damien walked along the road and Benton hobbled tenderly in the grass along side. Soon an eighteen-wheeler came slowly up behind them. It came along side and the driver struggled for some time to roll down the passenger side window. “You boys need a lift?”
Inside, the boys were shocked at the driver’s appearance. He was normally, even respectably dressed, wearing a crisp white shirt, suspenders, pants. But the son of a bitch had no shoes. That is, he had shoes, but he chose to wear them on his fucking hands. The boys watched in amazement as he steered with one hand and kick-slapped the tremendous gear shifter around with the Nike sneaker that bobbled around on his right hand.
Could have been retarded. Just smart enough to drive a truck.
“You guys look cold. You got cold hands?”
The boys looked at each other, regrouping, communicating something they didn’t understand.
“There’s some Keds in the glovebox. I keep an extra pair in there if you need to borrow them.”
“Thanks,” said Benton, as he was the one sitting directly in front of the glove box. He reached in and pulled out a size 6 Ked. Far too small for the feet of the driver or either of the confused passengers.
The driver became more and more shifty, kind of nervous. “You boys ain’t from around here, are you? I can tell.”
“Ok.”
“I don’t mean to be rude, it’s a free country. But you need to cover yourselves up now.”
“Is this some kind of joke?”
The driver nodded towards Damien’s hands, as if they were his dick and balls. “Come on now.”
“We’ll walk from here, thanks,” said Damien.
“You got somewhere to go?”
“Anywhere in town is fine. We’re both in town.”
“Town? There ain’t no town for a hundred miles, son.”
“The bank, then.”
“The bank?”
“Yes, the bank. Right here is fine.”
“You sure, son?”
“Thanks for the lift, old man.”
As they departed, the driver stole a glimpse at Damien's feet. "Say, there's an idea! I ain't never seen anyone use... what are those, Nikes? like that!"
"You mean my shoes?"
"Whatever you say, boss!" and that son of a bitch waved his shoe goodbye.
A page out of a magazine drifted by on the breeze. Damien showed it to Benton. Benton took it and tore it to pieces and threw it into the marsh.
------
It's a tough old world. Better critique me before I make my way down that list to you.
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The Final Day of the Launch
