My Ship Comes In, Excerpt 11: dreaming of a bleeding heart

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My Ship Comes In, Excerpt 11: dreaming of a bleeding heart

April 24, 2022 by T.K. O'Neill

“My Ship Comes In” is the fourth story, a novella, in T.K. O’Neill’s Northwoods Pulp Reloaded collection of three short crime stories and this longer story. Ebook available here.

CHAPTER 7

Now the weak VW heater is going full blast and my teeth are chattering along with the windshield wipers. A road sign tells me Otter Creek is six miles ahead.

Three miles later, I swing off the highway at a roadside rest area and crawl into the back of the van. I towel off and put on dry clothes: white jeans and a blue polo shirt (Bagley’s), and a blue windbreaker jacket (also Bagley’s).

Along with the clothes, there’s a wallet in Bagley’s duffel. A wallet stuffed with identification for one Elton Kirby: Colorado driver’s license, library card from Littleton, social security card, and three credit cards (Chevron, Texaco, Montgomery Ward). I surmise that either Bagley found these, or possibly had them made. It’s the type of scam Dan was famous for. I can see it all now, after murdering Schmidt and me, Dan would have had to disappear and become someone else.

People along the pipeline know of Bagley and Schmidt but they don’t know me from Jimmy Buffet. I can easily become Elton Kirby. The license photo is badly blurred and the height, weight and hair color are close enough. I might have a problem with the blue eyes, though.

I get myself nice and dry, stash the forty-five kilos in various places in the van and get back on the road. On the outskirts of Yankeetown, I spot a small motel, with a diner a few yards away.

Elton Kirby gets himself a room at the Friendly Haven Motel with color TV and refrigeration. After showering and smoking, he wanders over to the diner for a bite, his stomach growling.

The light is dim in Elly’s Café and the paint is faded green, like pea soup. There is one plump waitress in a brown uniform. Her face is furrowed and she’s wearing a hairnet. In the kitchen, I presume, is a cook. Only other person in here is a good-looking blonde girl wearing blue jeans and a blue T-shirt. She’s sitting at the end of the counter drinking coffee and looking nervously out at the road, occasionally biting a fingernail.

If I wasn’t so tired I might be interested in her. She’s pretty, with cloudy blue eyes and a sculpted nose and chin, but she looks a little haunted. I take a seat in the middle of the counter and grab a menu from behind the napkin dispenser. Right away I see what I want.

When the waitress plops the chicken-fried steak with mashed potatoes and gravy in front of me, I temporarily lose interest in the girl. I wolf down the chow and barely have enough strength to limp back to my room. Once inside, I double lock the doors and flip on the tube. The room smells of mildew and pine-scented cleaner. I pull back the green chenille bedspread and collapse onto the crisp white sheets. At least they’re clean. The TV picture is black and white with some streaks of color on the edges of the screen, what passes for color TV at the Friendly Haven Motel. I find a rerun of Starsky and Hutch, where Huggy Bear goes undercover as a pimp, and let the drone put me to sleep.

I dream that I’m running in slow motion through a field of tall grass. It’s like one of those television commercials where the man and the woman are approaching each other, arms extended. You see the anticipation on their faces as they get nearer, each stride carrying them closer to true love and intense joy.

But my dream is a little different.

I see my wife Carole gleefully bounding toward me in that pretty little flowery sundress she wore at our Las Vegas wedding. As she gets closer, I’m trying to see into her eyes. But the harder I try to focus, the more the face blurs. Then when we’re nearly together, I extend my welcoming arms and it’s not Carole’s face at all, but that of some unknown teenager with buckteeth and a pimply chin. I stop running and stare at her and she changes into old Mrs. Olson and all of a sudden I’m four years old and sitting on the little hill by the swing set in the backyard of my childhood home. It’s a bright sunny day but it feels cold. My mother is hanging up wash. Some part of my brain is telling me I’ve been through this before, as Mrs. Olson stands on her back porch calling to me: “Keith, Keith honey… do you want to come in and play? There’s quite a wind out today. Come in and have something warm. I’ve baked some of those ginger cookies you like.” I look over to ask my mother if I can go but she is no longer there.

Mrs. Olson and I walk up the flight of brown stairs, holding hands. At the top of the stairs I stop and look back for a second and wish it were warmer out. Then I go inside and see Mr. Olson sitting at the white kitchen table in his white strap undershirt, reading the morning paper. It’s dark in there but still he’s reading. Mrs. Olson takes my hand and we walk toward the bedroom and I feel a strange excitement.

The scene changes again and now I’m in the dinghy from the Larson E, floating helplessly in the middle of the ocean. I’m dying of thirst, the sun is beating down on me and I’m alone, no food or fresh water. I rub my hand across my chest and feel a warm liquid. I look at my hand and it’s covered with blood.

My heart is bleeding.

I’ve got a fuckin’ bleeding heart.

My eyes jerk open and I sit up straight in the tiny motel bed. Gray light of dawn is creeping in above the curtains. I try to crawl out of the bed but my body is leaden. I fall back down and sink into a deep dreamless sleep that’s like smoking good hash and lying in the sun with the radio on.

The green plastic clock on the veneer bed table reads ten after ten when I finally put my feet to the worn, green carpet. I rub my eyes and the severity of my situation plunges down on me like a bucket of blood.

Dread and Fear push me into the shower and kick me in the ass when I get out. I dress and become resplendent in Bagley’s khaki shorts and blue polo, tan L.L. Bean boat shoes filling out the picture. I feel like a model in a catalog.

(To be continued)