Twelve
Later, when the bell rang and the shift was over, and the blood was still pumping through his veins, and his mind was racing a mile a minute, and there were incredible savings to be passed on, and he was full of advice for every one in every situation, it was time to go. Time to deal with the Richie situation, hopefully once and for all. As he gathered his jacket and headed for the staircase, he caught a glimpse of Diane. It looked like she was heading his way and he said to himself, “no, I can't do this. Now now. Not today”, and he picked up the pace and scooted on out of there, reaching his car unmolested and zipping out of the lot as fast as he could.
He had plenty of time to reach the 7-11. In normal traffic he'd have fifteen minutes to spare, but that was fine with him. He wanted to collect his thoughts, calm down if he could, plan out his approach. When he got there, exactly as early as he'd predicted, he sat in the parking lot remembering to breathe and fingering the items he'd been carrying in his pocket all day. The snail interested him especially. He hadn't paid much attention to it at first, but now that he looked closely he saw it was made from several different bits of steel, shaped and welded together in a peculiar way. The body of the snail was in the form of concentric circles of flat dull metal, while the head was a flat dip attached to two long nails. The base was oval and pewter-ish, while the tail was another nail, bent up. Someone had gone to an awful lot of trouble to craft the object, and he wondered where it had come from.
The chicken leg was pathetic in comparison, just a blob of brown rubber made out of spare gunk in some junkyard in Malaysia most likely. It barely looked like a chicken leg at all, just enough that it didn't look like anything else but a chicken leg. It felt slimy, too, as if the rubber was still dripping from the tree when they made it, and it never quite solidified. He put that one back in his pocket but kept the snail out, rubbing its outermost layer with his thumb, like Aladdin rubbing a magic lantern. If only a genie would pop out! If he ever could have used a genie, now would have been a good time.
But there was no magic, not in the snail, not in this world. There was only a case of mistaken identity and a problem that had to be cleared up. Eugenio took a deep breath, stepped out of the car, and made his way into the 7-11. He was surprised to see it was completely deserted, except for the huge woman who manned the front register. She bore a name tag proclaiming her to be “Mac”. Her face was covered in large brown freckles, and her curly red hair was short and shaggy. She didn't look friendly, but she didn't look ferocious, either. More bored than anything from what he could tell. She looked up and greeted him as he entered.
“Howdy do,” she said with a half of a smile.
“All right I guess,” he said. He realized that all that time he'd been driving and then sitting in the car he hadn't been thinking of any plan at all. He had no idea what to say or do.
“I've got the chicken leg,” he blurted out, and fishing the thing out of his pocket, he held it up for Mac to inspect. She sniffed and nodded slightly.
“In-di-vis-a-ble Front,” she snorted, pronouncing each syllable with separate but equal disdain.
“I guess,” he shrugged.
“You guess?” she seemed surprised. “You mean you don't know?”
“Don't know anything about it,” he admitted. “I never heard of that whatever-you-said.”
“Huh,” she paused. “So if you didn't come about the Indivisible Front, then why the hell, pardon my French, but why the hell are you here and why the hell, excuse again please, are you holding up that motherfucking chicken leg?” This last she said with rising volume and a developing sneer on her face.
“Beats me,” Eugenio said. “Somebody thinks I'm somebody else, and they threatened me, said I'd better come here and better have the chicken leg or else.”
“Oh. Must have been Lobster Boy,” she said. “He gets like that.”
“Little guy? Kind of mean? Blue suit?”
“That be him,” she nodded.
“Is he here?”
“You sure you want to know?” she asked. “I mean, if I was you, and I was so completely clueless as you sure seem to be, I would, pardon once more, get the flying fuck out of here right now and hit the road fast.”
“I've got to deal with it,” he said. “I don't want your Shrimpie or whatever coming around again.”
“Well then,” she said, “it's your funeral, Jack. They're in the back,” and she indicated with a jerk of her head which way he ought to go.
“Thanks,” he said, thinking he ought to buy something or at least put a dollar in the tip jar if there was one. He headed towards the back, still wondering why there was nobody else in the store. He didn't think he'd ever been in an empty 7-11 before, especially around that time of day. People didn't want shitty coffee and cheap hot dogs anymore? Maybe the world really was coming to an end.
As he neared the swinging doors at the rear, he began to hear voices coming from the storage room. First he heard a man say,
“We blow the whole mother fucking thing sky high. Fuck those mother fuckers. We blow it up and we blow it the fuck up tonight!”
Then a woman's voice came, seemingly to the right of the man. Eugenio slowed and stopped just outside the door to listen.
“No, Richie. How many times we have to go through this? We expose them. We have the paperwork. We have the facts. We go to the newspapers now. We shut 'em down the right way.”
“Fuck that,” a third voice said, coming from the left side, near to where “Richie” had been. “They own the fucking newspapers, and the TV, and the radio, and the whole fucking internet. You think they're going to do a damn thing about it? I'll tell you what they'll do. They'll round us up, that's what! Every last one of us. Bug our phones, tap our homes, follow us around. We're as good as goners anyway so I'm with Richie. I say let's take 'em out and go down in flames right with 'em.”
“Listen to yourselves!” came a fourth voice. Eugenio couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman speaking this time. “We're supposed to be the Indivisible Front! We've got to get ourselves together. We can't be going around like this. One side kidnapping Richie over there, the other side kidnapping Gabby here. Have we all gone crazy?”
“You're the fucking nut,” Richie said. “You started it, nabbing me like that. What the fuck? Now you're like peace-out and all that shit? Fuck you! Fuck you and fuck you too, Gabby. Stupid mother fucking boss bitch! Like you couldn't have ever told me who you were?”
It seemed like as good a time as any. Eugenio flung open the door and walked in. There to his left, stood Richie, a.k.a. Alejandro Martinez, and damned if he didn't look almost exactly like Eugenio himself. They were like twins, same age, same height, same stupid look on their poorly shaved faces. Next to Richie stood Lobster Boy, who seemed to actually know Richie now. When had they met for real? Across from those two Gabby stood next to one of those bald goatee-wearing tattoo mother fuckers. These guys, Eugenio thought, they're like those check-cashing stores. You see one and you know you're in the wrong fucking neighborhood. All four of them gaped at Eugenio.
“I brought the chicken leg,” he said, and held it out.
“The fuck!” Richie said.
“Fucking moron!” added Lobster Boy.
“What are you doing here?” asked Gabby.
“Your friend here told me I'd better come,” Eugenio said. “Beats me why.”
“That's MY fucking chicken leg!” Richie yelled. “Where'd you get my shit.”
“He's got your desk,” Gabby said. “He took your place after you, you know.”
“After you fucking kidnapped me?” Richie snarled. “Then you fucking hired clone boy here? What the fuck? Give me my shit,” he demanded.
“I just have this,” Eugenio lied.
“Fucking drawer was empty yesterday,” Lobster Boy pitched in. “Fucking thief.”
“Look,” Gabby stepped forward, “Alex here doesn't know anything. Right, Alex?”
“Right,” he said. “Just what this guy said,” gesturing at Lobster Boy.
“So you just go,” she said, stepping closer with her arms raised aiming to push him back out the door. “You just get out of here.”
“I want my shit back!” Richie shouted. “You'd better not fucking be there on Monday.”
“Except to bring my shit back,” he added as Gabby was now physically shoving Eugenio. She was tiny but determined.
“He won't be there,” she said, and then looking up at Alex she added, “you're fired. Do you understand? You're fired.”
He thought he saw tears forming in her eyes as she said those words, and it slowly began to occur to him what she was doing.
“Now get out of here,” she pleaded as they went through the swinging doors back into the store. “Just go!”
He didn't need to be told again. He placed the chicken leg in her palm, closed her hand around it, then turned and walked briskly back towards the front of the store.
“Smooth move,” Mac winked as he rushed past her and out the door. He ran to his car, flung open the door and jumped inside. With shaking hands he managed to get the keys into the ignition and turn the car on. He pealed out of the lot and re-joined the long, slow line of traffic heading north, getting the fuck out of Trés Piños as fast as he could. It was a crawl all the way, but it felt like freedom.