8
crystal cats"We've been robbed"
It was raining. The heavy, thick rain drops of a cold March afternoon splattered against pavement, concrete, and chipped stones. They were late, however, not a definite lateness in the business since of the word. Not even late like a college girl who forgets to practice the adequate amount of protection on a Thursday evening after dime drafts and three-dollar-pitchers rob her lean sensibilities of the mild deterrents necessary for carefree existence. No, we were feeling that specific lateness that accompanies the initial on-set of a bizarre journey. The lateness associated with an irrational desire to hurry to the next place like a cat's midday schizophrenia.
There was also the lateness coupling with a general sense of fear. A fear that since March was fast on us, we needed to finalize the nesting behavior. We needed a place to stay. In two months, the semester would run its course with a final barrage of celebrations and then we were out on our ass. These thoughts filtered in and out of our minds walking in a cold March rain. Only these thoughts screwed our heads on tightly despite the increasing fury of the chemicals. Things were now a question of survival.
"Which one are we signing on," the rain pouring off my baseball cap as I turned my gaze toward the apartment building. It was cold and I could sense in my marrow that there must be wolves about.
"The place the cop owns," answered Edwards picking up the pace in the sloshing of puddles. "Over and up," he added with a quick point in the general direction of campus, as if I should know exactly where over and up really were. At this point, over and up were foreign concepts I was not ready to debate. Yet in some strange subliminal way, over and up constituted all the rational sense in the world. What more do we need than over and up, I thought while increasing my pace. Breaths escaping my lungs turning immediately to a dense fog that obscured my sight and made the usually minor walk to Edwards's apartment something deliberate, slow, and intensely visceral. Over and up through the gravel parking lot, over and up through the barrage of bulky raindrops, and always over and up down the stairs and into some semblance of warmth.
Walking in the basement apartment was a holy sanctuary; a haven offering refuge against the rain and cold winds of March. Giving us an opportunity for some bizarre drying ritual that would bring us closer to level and an opportunity for the first response to my question to finally collide with that one functioning brain cell. I had heard the word cop. Not in the normal intonation of the word, which bothered me. That is what initially threw me the curve and I was left in the batter's box gawking at the beauty of the pitch. "What's this nonsense about a cop?"
"Over and up," came the response from Edwards while shaking a baby blue towel and staring over towards the kitchen.
"I got the over and up part of the conversation. I was asking about the cop. What's this cop nonsense?"
"You wanna beer, man," he asked in some denial of my question ever being raised. Walking down the short corridor and opening the Maytag, "Yeah, a cop owns the place. Red Stripe?"
"A cop . ? Yeah . .," this thought was going to take more time to settle with that lazy brain cell swirling at full speed in Daytona. No mental traction, at the word cop my brain was now Teflon and thoughts kept sliding in and out. Skidding right past my eyes. "Let's get those beers open and figure this out."
"Alright. Over and up," he led the way down the back hallway to the dart room. It might do us some good. Lobbing pointed projectiles away from each other just might clarify the whole cop idea. There in the shelter of the rainy mist our senses congealed against the background music of Weezer while darts flew silently into cork.
"What's the score," asked Edwards with a long sip on the warming Michelob in his grasp. From the tone of his question I gathered the question was not towards the game of Cricket but to my general state at the moment.
"Well, if it's gonna be a cop then we might as well do it right. No sense on pulling our punches," I rationalized the coming encounter in terms of a gamble that would surely end in our favor. What threat could that pig possibly produce that we were not prepared against? It was settled in the casual addition of, "Over and up."
"That's the college try. Let's get a change of music on in here. Over and up," he smiled back through a face unnaturally bright on a rainy Wednesday afternoon. How does the Hurricane go?
"Hey, let's put on some Dylan," I called as Edwards walked slowly to the CD unit. "How about some Desire? That just might kick start our moods," the words flowing out of my mouth like some dense fog that was settling into words, a dense fog in Technicolor; floating in every unimaginable ROY G. BIV color combination. Missing from that brief dialogue and pouring out almost instinctually next came the final words, the cherry on the root beer float, "Over and up."
The sounds of guitar and harmonica wailed in, circling and spiraling around the dart room. Flying in some bomber formation over the sofas, buzzing above our heads, and hovering coiled above the speakers. The weird was inevitably setting in and the Red Stripes and Michelobs were emptying in mechanical manner. As the reassuring buzz of the harmonica slowly faded out on the album I wandered back into my thoughts of the past. Remembering slowly, as the thoughts shot by in frame-by-frame, how long ago this weird acquaintance was born?
Edwards looked over after completing his final throw smiling, "What's the dilly-o?"
"We need to buy some cowboy hats," I thought at the same time speaking into the saturated air. "That'll give the pig some idea the kinda rugged-outdoorsmen-highway mentality he's gonna deal with."
Edwards left out a controlled laugh that calmed my nerves temporarily. "What you need," he spoke while rummaging under the sofa, "is a couple dozen puffs of this." Out from under the sofa came an inspiration.
"You pick it and pack it. I'll go get some water," speaking methodically as I rose. The room was saturated and so were we, however, there was always enough space left over to do things correctly. "And some more beers," I added as I skipped down the hallway. Euphoria, like a blanket of fog crept slowly over the landscape and brought the smile back across my face that Dylan replaced momentarily with concern for cowboy hats and harmonica dynamics. The faucet churned out a steady stream filling the pitcher as I maneuvered around the refrigerator door. My sense of euphoria quickly dropped when my gaze settled on an empty shelf. Are we out of beer? Is it at all possible that the beer was truly gone? I began searching the crisper, freezer, and refrigerator door. It was a fact carved on tablets Moses hoisted down from the mountain peaks. We were beyond the looking glass and no amount of time keeping rabbits could help us unless they also knew the exact position of the missing beer.
Toting the pitcher down the hall and into the dart room I looked Edwards in the eye and could only barely breathe the words, "We've been robbed." From the lag time in our conversation I wondered exactly what part of those words were giving him trouble. It could only be the idea of the robbery. I clarified with an addition of, "The beer is gone."
"Well," was the reply that returned from his mouth. Edwards was gifted with complicating a situation already uneasy with his amazing command of one-word phrases. Maybe some modern day Robin Hood would bring more alcoholic beverages but that was only foolish daydreaming.
"Over and up," I asked as if that might clarify things for him. His head began to move up and down in some slow motion nod that swept the multi-colored fog in circles around him. "However, over and up only after this," I added while holding the water pitcher. "There's no need for us to go ape shit over this. We can find the beer and when we do," I let the thought trail off for him to fill in the blank since I wasn't quite sure what would happen when we did find the beer thieves. The saturated air of the dart room grew dense as we finished off the last remains of our beers.
The calm of the tubes emptying and refilling began to bring our moods back to the euphoria stolen as quickly as the beers. It was time to commence the second phase of the plan. The over and up plan was going to commence operation on its most vital mission of the day. We were preparing ourselves for the circumstances of venturing forth in the mist and rain.
"We can walk over and up," I said in a vain attempt. I knew Edwards decided before the beer robbery was mentioned . . . we were driving. The American way, I suppose.
"Why would we walk in this weather? I'll drive," preceded the look of determination followed by another look. This new look wiped away the meager amount of faith Edwards exuded in the declaration of our motorized departure. "Where are my keys?"