Close Call

I yawn.  Somewhere between the boisterous music and the haze in my brain, I realize we’ve been here way too late.

How did that happen?  Eh.  It’s fine. It can’t be that late really, can it?  I’ve been waiting a long time to get one more song in on karaoke before we head home for the night.  But the outdoor patio of the bar has become super crowded with people.  Some are so inebriated they can’t walk out on their own.

I had hoped to hear that young lady sing again, too.  She’s a pretty girl with a pretty voice, but no self confidence.  She’s overweight.  Poor thing probably has all the mental health issues that go along with that.  

I’m not going to get another song in any way.  And, I doubt she will either.  What was her name?  Oh, heck if I know.  She only sang once.  That’s all I’ve gotten to sing, too, come to think of it.  Saturday karaoke is for the wild drunken fools.

Where’s Bob now?  Oh, right.  He went to shoot a game of pool.

I weed my way through the crowd to the other side of the bar, ignoring the drunken leers.  Little black dress.  Sorry, not sorry, penises.  Not here for that.  Plus, out of here.  

Bob stands at the opposite end of the pool table from me, so he sees me walk up and smiles.  My heart warms.  He’s examining the balls on the table when I reach him.  He stops as I wrap my arms around his waste from behind.

“I’m ready to go,”  I exclaim toward his ear, hoping he can hear me.  “I’ll be out in the car.”

“Okay babe,” he shouts, and kisses me.

Out in the car, I crawl into the backseat.  Shoving everything off the seat, I’m wishing I had a pillow.  I spy my  fuzzy pink hoodie with the ears. Wadding it up for a pillow, I curl up on the seat.  As an afterthought, I tug my skirt down in case someone strolls by the car.  They aren’t going to like getting flashed with my granny underwear. 

Lying there in a drunken stupor, I sorta grasp that I shouldn’t have had that last whiskey.  Ginger whiskey.  Who invented that?   It goes down too easily, kind of like that vanilla one.  That goes down way too quick, too.  I can’t drink it because I end up sick to my stomach and having a sugar headache before I even lay down to sleep.  I already have a sugar headache from the three I had tonight. Four?

My mind’s wandering over the day’s events, and the evening they’ve had out, and what they're going to do tomorrow. 

 I hear yelling.  It sifts through the fog in my brain, slowly.  People are making some much of a raucous, and the music is concert level loud.  Not concert level good at the moment 

“What’d ya do with our s***?!” 

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Thud, grunt.

“Don’t get mouthy, s*** head.”

I peek my head over the door and gazes groggily out of the car window 

A young kid, must be about twenty-five because he looks no older than Jeff, is backed against the patio fence.  He’s very confused and dazed. Drunk, I’m sure.  He has the appearance of a college boy headed for a career in an office somewhere. Probably, his family has a cottage on the lake and he's there for the summer. 

The crew of three older hoodlums have him pinned.  They’re screaming at him, but I can’t understand what they’re saying.  And not because I’m drunk.  They’re just screaming nonsense with profanity thrown in.  

The one older man has his shirt front gripped in his fist and keeps slamming him against the fence.  I’m surprised nobody’s reacting inside the fence, but the music is blaring.  Somebody's screech karaoking.  Too bad one of those young lady’s aren’t up singing.  They actually can sing.

“I  don't know what you're talkin about,” the kid is saying. 

“Don't play dumb with us.  We know you have it. Julio done told us he gave it to you.”

Julio?  I feel sorry for anybody named Julio that’s gotten himself tangled up with this riff raff.  Dumb, cumbersome white guys who think they’re bad ass and always trying to prove it.  They probably don’t even know a Julio.  They’re just using a Mexican name to sound tough.  

The kid notices me and makes eye contact.  The goons turn around to see who he's looking at.  I drop down below the window, quick.  That’s the last thing we need, is to get involved in an altercation.

“Hey, hey, hey,” the kid stutters, panic creeping into his voice. “You don't have to do that.  you got the wrong guy!”

“We ain’t got the wrong guy!” 

I peep over the door again.  The ring leader has a knife to the kid’s throat.  The young man is pleading with his eyes, begging me to help him.  This time the punk turns his head quick. I’m too slow and he spots me.  

Damn!  Are the doors locked?  No.  Why didn’t I lock the damn doors sleeping in a car outside a damn bar.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

I gotta lock the doors.  I can’t even figure out how to do that.  No more ginger whiskey.  I’m done with that poison.  I can’t lock the doors from the back seat.

I scramble up to through the front bucket seats, thumping and bumping like a pinball. When I keep flopping into everything, I grab a hold of the steering wheel to pull myself toward the door handle.  The back door squeaks open.

I can hear the other two guys shouting in the distance, feet hitting stones, and a car door slam.  The kid broke free and ran to his car.  Good.  Maybe he made it.

I slam my hand on the lock repeatedly, but it's too late. He yanks me by my feet.  The fingers of my right hand nearly pull loose.  The left hand fingers scrape free of the wheel, scratching grime and gripping at air.  That hand automatically clamps back onto the wheel.  I didn’t tell it to.  I almost stop to contemplate that, but he’s yanking again.  

I grab on and pull.  So does he.  My back cracks multiple places down my spine.

Ahhh…

Focus!

A car squeals it's tires, kicking up dirt.  Some of the stones patter on Bob’s car.  The other two, frustrated at losing their prey, crunch through gravel heading my way.  Now I’ve got all three of them on me.  I’m dead.  I’ll never survive this.  

At least the kid lived.  He’s got his whole life ahead of him.  I’ve had a tumultuous, but full one.  So far.  My heart hurts at not ever seeing the boys again.  At them having to lose me.

The door to the bar opens. 

“Someone’s coming, Frank.  We gotta get!”

Frank growls. And swears.  At least he’s got the language of profanity right, even if he can’t speak human.  He drops my feet, and I plop awkwardly in the gap.  I don’t fit in the gap and am instantly wedged.  I can hear them running down the road.  My heart is thumping, hard. 

“Baby! What ya doing?” I hear Bob exclaim, jovially.  I gag.  A bit of that ginger whiskey comes back up into my throat, and I force it back down.  After all this, I’m gonna worry about not puking on his seat?

He's trying to open the door, but it’s locked.  He reaches for his keys on his pants, but I fumble with the button first. 

“What's going on?  What was the noise out here about?”

He stares at me, strewn between the front and back seat.

I’m fighting down the whiskey and the chicken strips.

“Get me out!!” I manage.

I don’t think I can hold the contents in my stomach much longer.  Bob clutches my arm.  We both pull.  It hurts as he pulls me loose and out of the car.  I scramble to the bushes by the building.  And vomit.  He rubs my back.  I keep vomiting.  I cry.  Ugly tears.  Hyperventalating.

“It’s okay, relax, you're okay.  What happened?” 

A group of drunk people come out, moving to another car and cavorting.

“Bob!  They were going to kill him and he was just a kid.  They were going to kill him.  He looked like Jeff.  Baby, he was just a kid!”

“What are you talkin’ about?  You drank too much.”

For the first time in twenty years of being together, I slap him.  Hard across the face.  Shock registers in his eyes, and my hands shoot to cover my mouth.

As calmly and as sternly as I can I say, “I am not being a hysterical female, Bob.  These guys, they had a kid out here and they were going to kill him.  And they’re getting away.  They left on foot, they can’t have gone far!”

“Okay, okay.  Do you want me to go after them?”

“No!!  They had a knife.  They were trying to pull me out of the car.”

His face takes on a whole different expression and he pulls out his cell.  

“I’m calling the cops.  Which way did they go?”