Lying in Wait

Sturgis let his head rest against the driver’s side window. The glass felt cool to his temple. He shifted in his seat for a more comfortable posture. The late autumn afternoon sun had pleasantly warmed the car interior and that, combined with the cheeseburger he had recently finished, made him drowsy. He wanted to shut his eyes and rest, but he kept them open and trained on the house.

Sturgis’ mind wandered. He yawned. He wondered if it might rain tomorrow, as he’d heard on the radio, and how miserable that might make things. He replayed an episode with a cashier who had been rude to him when he stopped for gas two days ago. Should’ve whipped that asshole’s ass. He thought of the afghan his mom had knitted for him when he was young and how nice it would be to wrap up in it and take a nap right here. What ever happened to that thing? Somehow sis got it, I think. I should take it back.

As his thoughts gamboled, the house remained in his vision, but hazily, as if his eyes were blurring. He picked a snowflake of crust from inside his left nostril and began to slowly roll it between his thumb and forefinger. After a bit, he caught himself and looked down at the yellowish-white, tiny wire he had created. It lay like a frown over the tip of his thumb. It amazed him – its length, its smoothness, its tacky, almost-plastic feel, and the fact that it had been transformed into a wholly new shape and size from the amorphous, flat schmutz he had pulled from his nose. Memories from a junior high lesson about the mechanical properties of metals wavered in his mind. So is this malleability or ductility I have here? Malleability, he concluded, when he grew tired of trying to recall the differences. Without looking, he flicked the transmogrified booger onto the floor mat on the passenger’s side.

           “Hey, watch it!” Wilson violently sidled against the car door.

           Sturgis, startled, noticed Wilson. It brought him out of his daze. “Lord, I had forgotten you were there,” he said. And he briefly had. Then he added, “You’re acting like it was a bomb.” Fucking flincher. Sturgis reached for his untouched coffee in the cup holder and removed the black, plastic lid.

“Shut up. You know I’m trying to eat, and I’ve got to watch you pick your nose,” Wilson fumbled out the words, his mouth full. “Damn it; this tastes terrible.” He opened the door and dumped his takeout order in the gutter.

“Why’d you get spinach dip?” Sturgis asked. “What kind of meal is that, anyway? Who in the holy hell orders an appetizer for a meal?”

“I don’t know, OK? Just got tired of all the fried food we’ve been eating. Just wanted something that wasn’t greasy as the bottom of a lard bucket, something that sounded healthy. What’s more healthy than spinach?” 

Fucking idiot. Sturgis had grown to dislike Wilson. He sometimes wondered if he hated him.

Wilson brushed at his pants. After a bit, he added, “Why does everything have to be fried, anyways? You know, I think Americans would eat fried shit; I really do.”

Sturgis looked out his window and grimaced. Not this fried-shit shit again, goddamn it. Shut up!

  “Fried shit. Yep,” Wilson continued. “We eat everything else fried: pickles, candy bars, fish, broccoli. You fry it up, give it a snappy name, and we’ll eat it up. Flabby-armed Americans in 10-year-old purple sweatpants and stained T-shirts would stand in line for Dale’s Fried Feces, the Double-F New Wonder of the Snack World. And if anyone hesitates, holding a trembling turd inches from their salivating mouths as they ponder the intelligence for one last time of eating shit, we’ll just dump cheese on it. That would end the debate lickety-split. We’d gobble down friend shit with cheese on it double-time. Fry it and cheese it; one way to end the sewer problem in this country.”

           “God, you – we – have been out here too damn long,” said Sturgis. He flung his coffee lid at the windshield in disgust, wishing it were a throwing star, and he had aimed it at Wilson’s heart. The lid wedged painfully between the glass and dash. “I’m getting tired of this: all this sitting around, all these boring assignments, no action. I’m used to action! And you. I’m tired of you, too! I’m tired of all of it. The bosses might think you’re a loser and stick you out here on this shit job, but I’m not a loser.” Sturgis’ tirade trembled through his body, flushing his face. He gestured with his arm and spilled some coffee on his leg. “Goddamn it!”

Wilson glanced cautiously at Sturgis before turning his gaze to the house. “Jeez, sorry,” he mumbled.

      Sturgis felt useless, old. But he knew why he was stuck here with Wilson on jobs like this. He had been pushing it with the bosses lately. They could’ve given me an even shittier job. Or worse. Sturgis pushed back into his seat and stared at the house. Just get through this. Get this fucker, take him out and get back in the good graces.

“There he is,” said Wilson.

The emaciated wreck inching along the sidewalk shocked Sturgis. More stick than man approached, clad in a worn, button-down, white long-sleeve shirt and faded blue work pants. Gray horns of uncombed hair poked out from a death’s head. But the oxygen mask attached to the gaunt face saddened Sturgis the most. The old man could barely pull the tank behind him. Sturgis felt like he was kicking a baby; he even thought of not doing the job. They had said he was old, but not decrepit. Jesus.

The old man had racked up a shah’s fortune in unpaid parking tickets all over town. The department wanted him more for his audacity than the money owed. And Sturgis had been looking forward to catching this whale; this would be the biggest perp he had pinched yet on these stakeouts. He and Wilson had brought in every failure-to-appear and scofflaw they’d been assigned while on this punishment duty. A month of perfect work. Bring this one in, Sturgis had thought, and they had to give him back his detective badge.

But now, Sturgis just felt ill as he watched the shuffling spectacle before him. The old man approached his porch and stopped, breathing deeply. He moved cautiously, slowly. He walked up a step, stopped, and gently bumped the oxygen tank onto the step with him. Then he repeated the process.

“Poor bastard,” said Sturgis.

“Poor bastard, hell,” said Wilson. “Should’ve paid his tickets. Pricks like that are why we are stuck out here. He’s lucky I don’t pull my piece out, shoot that oxygen tank like that guy did at the end of Jaws, and plaster his ass all over his yard.”

Wilson’s irreverence shocked Sturgis. He started to unload on Wilson, but he stopped. His anger had been hijacked, stopped in its tracks and overcome … by laughter. He laughed harder. A surprised Wilson joined in, glad at his partner’s sudden turn in temperament.

“Jaws. Boom,” Sturgis said between laughs. He chuckled one last time. Yeah, it’s not pretty, and probably not fair, but this old bastard’s tickets are my ticket out of here. The Lord closeth a door and openeth a window. “OK, let’s hurry on over there and hand him this bench warrant before he gets inside and pretends he’s not home.”

“I don’t think we have to hurry,” said Wilson. They laughed again.

As they opened their doors, Sturgis stopped, turned around in his seat and slapped Wilson on the shoulder with the back of his hand to get his attention. Wilson paused his exit and looked back.

“Hey,” Sturgis said with a smile, “what you say once we get this over with, I take you out and buy you a real meal?”

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