Phil Barr was scared. Scared shitless.
And with good reason.
He kept thinking that this wasn’t how his life was supposed to turn out. It wasn’t fair. For one, he hated being scared, felt it was beneath him, but at the moment he couldn’t help it. And he wasn’t supposed to be curled up, a huddled mass of sweaty fear, in a bedroom closet just hoping not to make too much noise or otherwise draw attention to himself. This shit didn’t happen to him, or at least wasn’t supposed to. None of this should be happening to him. Maybe to other people, but not to him.
And yet here he was, stuck in the City of Dreams.
L.A., like much of America it seemed, was in flames. A missile or rocket or some damn thing had hit downtown Los Angeles two days ago. From what he had caught on TV early on they thought it was a nuclear missile (or rocket, he really didn’t know the difference and really couldn’t give a shit at this point), but the nuclear part didn’t go off. If it had, La La Land would be a lot toastier, like New York and Chicago and a bunch of other cities were right now.
So L.A. had gotten lucky.
Sort of.
Looters were streaming to and from still-burning businesses and storefronts like ants on discarded chicken bones. The staccato soundtrack of gunfire and sirens hadn’t ceased resonating beyond his gates in literally days. The Internet and all phone services had stopped working on that first day, when he still had thoughts of possibly getting out of town in his Lambo or one of the SUVs. From what he’d seen on one of the local stations, though, most of the freeways had become gridlocked shooting galleries.
He then settled into the thought that he could wait out the insanity in his Hollywood Hills estate until the National Guard showed up, which they surely would.
But that was before the full extent of what was going on across America became apparent. Barely held together governmental control had given into mass chaos in a matter of hours. A shooting on the steps of the capitol claiming the lives of three congressmen, massive power outages across the country, and everyone asking where the President was. Only the Vice President seemed to be doing anything of consequence, declaring martial law in D.C. until further notice.
So, he wasn’t exactly surprised when he began seeing private helicopters arriving at his neighbors’ places, loading up the families there, and taking off to someplace they felt was safer. Later, though, when he witnessed one of the helicopter pilots pistol-whip an A-lister, take a briefcase the actor had been carrying, and take off while his client lay bleeding on the helipad, a real sense of panic had set into the host of The Truth Laid Barr.
Well, yes, there had been panic, but there was anger as well. The timing of all this shit couldn’t have been worse for Phil. Only ten days ago he had been set to sit down with the Speaker of the House with, unbeknownst to the Speaker, some very damaging information about a relationship the Speaker had had outside of his marriage a decade ago. Phil had planned to eviscerate the son of a bitch on live TV, and knew that something like this might allow him to either renegotiate his current contract (which was up next year, anyway), or jump ship to HBO or one of the other major cable networks and really make some scratch.
Slowly, though, as the anger ebbed away and the reality of what was happening set in, Señor Panic made it known that he was here to stay.
It began with the events of this morning and early afternoon. They were what had him currently curled up into a neurotic ball of impending dread in that corner closet of one of his many bedrooms.
First, his bodyguard LaVell had unceremoniously resigned his position under Phil’s employ. Put more honestly, LaVell had told him he was fucking crazy if he thought he’d be working for Phil any longer. He had arrived with a posse of five large black men, every one openly brandishing handguns.
“Phil, I’m taking the Escalade and the black Suburban,” LaVell had said after quitting.
Not knowing how else to reply, Phil exclaimed, “You can’t fucking rob me! Why do you think you can rob me, Vell? You’ve been my n-, my guy for…”
“Fuck. You,” LaVell interrupted emphatically. “I’ve been your bodyguard. That’s it. You know I’ve never been ‘your guy.’ You can go right to Hell with that shit. And I can rob you ‘cause things don’t matter any more. You ain’t rich anymore, motherfucker. You’re just some dude, and I’m a bigger dude who’s strapped. And I got friends who’re strapped. Now, where the keys to the Suburban at?”
LaVell was angrier than Phil had ever seen him, and every one of his friends look ready to savage Phil if he pushed any further. So, he had relented and given LaVell the keys to the Suburban (LaVell had already pulled the Escalade out front and loaded half of Phil’s food in the back), leaving him with only the bright green Suburban (that he mostly used on his Vegas road trips), the Aventador, and his new McLaren supercar as transportation, none of which seemed like especially wise choices to be driving around in if he decided to venture down the Hills on his own.
On his way out, LaVell stopped, turned and walked back across the foyer to where Phil was standing by the main staircase. Phil took a step back, half expecting LaVell to throw a punch or accost him in some way. Instead, he unholstered the pistol he had hidden under his jacket and handed the snub-nose .38 revolver to Phil. Phil noted that LaVell dropped his other hand to the butt of the large gun he had holstered at his side as he did this.
“Take it, man. Fair trade for the rides.” Reluctantly, Phil took the small gun, but almost immediately placed it on one of the steps behind him.
LaVell shook his head and smirked. “Shit, a liberal to the last, I guess,” he laughingly said. As he was heading out the door, he again turned around, a forefinger in the air as a thought occurred to him. “Oh, one more thing, Mr. Barr.” Phil again had a thought that now LaVell would come at him, or maybe shoot him since he was now technically armed, but instead he said, “I don’t know who the fuck told you that you’d earned the right to toss nigger around like you do, but they were wrong. Especially with the hard ‘r’. Just cuz you’ve gotten down with a couple of black girls in your day doesn’t give you a nigger pass, homeboy. You can’t fuck your way into that. Shit, I was almost shot once because of your dumb ass. I don’t know what your plans are, but I’d cut that shit out right now.”
“So I guess asking if I can hitch a ride with you guys is out of the question, then?” Phil asked, only half-jokingly. LaVell rolled his eyes and turned to leave, when Phil, now completely serious, said, “Vell, I’ve got a safe with a quarter million in cash if you can get me out of L.A.”
“I don’t think that cash is going to be worth the shit it’s printed on,” LaVell said, “but I already loaded it up this morning just in case it is.”
Pushing his already faltering luck, Phil inquired, “And the combination?”
LaVell was stone-faced for a moment, then a surprising, ominous sort of smile began growing on his face. “That’s right, the combination. I almost forgot about the combination. Thank you so much for reminding me, Mr. Barr.” At this, he unholstered his pistol and brought it to waist-level, pointing it directly at Phil’s midsection.
Phil began to blubber at this, wondering if he could dive behind something before LaVell could begin firing, when his bodyguard began laughing. And not just chuckling, but really out-and-out having a good yuk at his former employer’s expense. “You should see your face right now, Philbert,” LaVell said while he wiped away a tear with his non-pistol-wielding hand. “Man, I should’ve pointed a gun at you years ago.”
Despite being on the wrong end of a gun barrel, Phil Barr began to get angry. “You can go now, I guess. Unless you really do need that combination,” he said in a huff.
“Fuck no, I don’t need it. My man Charles took one look at that safe of yours and said he could have opened it with his feet. I don’t know what you paid for it, but you got screwed, buddy boy.”
One of LaVell’s group popped his head in the front door, saying, “Vell, we’re set. You all good here?” He eyed Phil suspiciously, and Phil dropped his gaze instinctively, knowing that he may be able to get away with mouthing off to LaVell, but had the feeling the rest of this crew would have no qualms about doing him harm.
“Just one other thing, as long as I’m airing all my grievances in this exit interview with Mr. Man here,” LaVell said to his friend. He advanced on Phil, who began backing up toward the staircase behind him. “Just stay where you are, unless you want me to take out a kneecap.” Phil saw that although LaVell’s smile was still plastered on his face, it did not reach his eyes, which had a deadly seriousness to them that Phil did not care for at all.
Phil momentarily searched for the pistol he’d been given, and saw that it was several feet away, laying uselessly among a sea of granite steps. LaVell noticed, and his smile only broadened. “That wouldn’t do you no good anyhow, Philly. What might have done you some good over the years would have been knowing to take me seriously when I asked you not to call me a civilian. See, I don’t quite remember you standing beside me in Iraq or Afghanistan, and I’ll bet you never even did a USO tour anywhere, did you? Am I right?”
Phil, breathlessly, exhaled, “Wha-? This again, man? LaVell, it’s just an industry term. Everyone fuckin’ uses that word. I-“
LaVell, moving with the speed of a linebacker, suddenly lunged forward, surprising Phil, who then stumbled backward onto the staircase. LaVell was on him in a second, the barrel of his handgun painfully shoved under Phil’s chin. “You’re still a mouthy little bitch, you know that?” LaVell shouted at Phil. “You remember me bringing this up to you the first time, right? How many times after that did you make it a point to make sure people knew I wasn’t in the biz? Like anyone thought this big fucking nigger standing next to your ass couldn’t possibly have been an actor? Maybe I could’ve been a producer? Shit, anything’s possible, right? How many times could you have just let it slide, you fucking prick?”
This last LaVell said with so much force that a small shower of spittle peppered Phil’s face, and he was surprised the gun didn’t go off, even if by accident.
Seconds felt like days with the weight of LeVell’s body on top of him, the steps digging into Phil’s back. Mercifully, LaVell moved off him when one of his crew honked the Escalade’s horn.
“Gotta go, Philly boy. Have fun in the Apocalypse.”
That had been this morning.
He had watched from his kitchen window to ensure that both vehicles left (they left the piece of crap rice burners they’d arrived in parked in the middle of his very expensive landscaping). For a minute he thought they might have intentions of turning around, because both vehicles were left idling at his front gate while LaVell and company got out for some reason he couldn’t ascertain. They seemed to be having a good time, though, from the way they were laughing and carrying on.
Once they got back in his SUVs and drove off, he picked up the small revolver from the staircase landing and made his way upstairs into his main bedroom. If he did end up needing LaVell’s present it would mean he was in dire straits. Because luckily for him, Phil had equipped himself for such an emergency (though at the time he had been thinking of a break-in more than the collapse of civilization as he knew it).
He offhandedly put the pistol in the pocket of the robe he was wearing, then crossed the cavernous bedroom to the almost life-sized framed picture of himself which hung on the opposite wall. He had had a famous back-and-forth with a Republican senator on his show awhile back, and at one point Phil had challenged him, “I warn you, sir, that getting into a verbal sparring match with me is like bringing a knife to a tank fight.” That caption, which had become something of a motto amongst his followers (even though in truth one of his writers had actually come up with the quip), was emblazoned on the picture.
Phil now swung that frame to the side on hidden hinges to reveal a large metallic door behind it. He input a code into the digital keypad and opened this door to reveal a collection of three handguns and an exquisitely outfitted assault rifle.
Call me a liberal if you want, LaVell, he thought to himself, but I’ll be the last liberal standing in this town. And if you and your thugs do decide to come back I’ll be waiting for you.
He took the H & K .40 USP handgun, and with a practiced motion he checked its chambering and magazine release. After judging both were in good working order, he put the gun in the other robe pocket and then picked up the small but vicious-looking rifle.
The X95 he’d gotten on the recommendation of the trainer at the range in New Mexico where he had taken a shooting course years ago. He’d done this all in complete secrecy, of course. All he needed was a whisper of him touching a gun and every mouth-breather in every Red State (but really, weren’t they all mouth-breathers?) would be on his ass about his anti-gun stance. Worse though, would be his friends and colleagues in Hollywood, distancing themselves as soon as any word got out that that he was a gun owner. He loved them (well, most of them), but they were a bunch of hypocrites, every fucking last one of them having armed guards protecting their delicate asses.
He grabbed two spare magazines each for the handgun and rifle, then closed the safe and swung the frame back into place.
The thing was, he thought to himself as he laid the rifle and magazines on the bed, he had sort of grown to love guns, as weird as that sounded. He couldn’t give a shit about the Second Amendment or any of that crap. But something about the way guns worked, the feel of them, the immediacy of their action, the destruction they could impart on whatever they were pointed at, the power that it gave him at the squeeze of a trigger. He’d often ridiculed and publicly laughed at rednecks and survivalists and hunters for their love of firearms, jokingly calling into question their lack of genitalic endowment. He, of course, didn’t have any issue in that department, but it didn’t negate the fact that firing off a magazine’s (or several) worth of bullets gave him a rush that he didn’t get much in his life anymore. He’d spent some serious time thinking about why he enjoyed it so much, and had finally figured out that for him, being a supposed liberal beacon in American society, it was taboo to go anywhere near a firearm. And it was even taboo-er to possibly derive any sort of pleasure from actually holding one, using one. It was a forbidden fruit, and he’d become infatuated with the taste of its juices.
Besides, he wasn’t really a liberal.
He couldn’t give a shit about most causes, one way or the other, be they political, social, or individual. Some faggot wanted to marry his faggot boyfriend? Sure, why not? Chop up a baby just before it’s born because you want to go to college? Go ahead, darlin’, it’s your body! Not enough blacks and Mexicans and chicks in the movies? Can someone say remakes called Mr. Washington Goes to Washington, Citizen Quien, and The Queen and I?
Whatever side, he figured, would bring him the money, the fame, and the notoriety was the definitively winning side. He’d mastered this lesson early in his stand-up career, and never lost sight of it. From the beginning of his time as a road comic in the early 1980s he knew he wanted off the road as soon as possible. But still, he put in his time and had done his rounds up and down both coasts and all across the heartland of America. He’d done shit gigs in Addison, Texas and Cleveland, Ohio and a particularly horrendous set once in a club that had once been a Pizza Hut in Atlanta, Georgia. He’d done bullshit 20 dollar-a-set nights in just about every comedy club that would book him. Even then, though, he had set his sights on California.
At first, he thought that maybe getting a sitcom or being cast in movies was the way to go. He really didn’t care much for acting, and although he booked a couple of bit parts in what turned out to be truly horrendous romantic comedies, he didn’t find his true calling until he started talking politics in auditions and pitch meetings.
It was the mid-1980s by this point in his career, and the political landscape, though not nearly the charged toxic wasteland of post-9/11, was nonetheless ripe with discourse between Left and Right. He had mostly begun making fun of politics in general and didn’t choose to berate one side or the other exclusively. That changed when, more and more, he got responses from producers and other industry people he met with about their general disapproval of conservatives, and Ronald Reagan in particular. He’d call Reagan an out-of-touch codger and the guy across the conference table would laugh and offer some insight of his own. When it later came out that Reagan had Alzheimer’s, well, Holy Shit, was that just manna from Heaven, wasn’t it? Soon enough, Phil knew to start early and often with this rhetoric and he began seeing more and more work.
It struck him as funny that he didn’t believe most of what he was espousing, but that it really didn’t matter, as long as he sold it. As long as he appeared to be all in, no one would know that he wasn’t. This viewpoint, this political rhetoric, was a product, and the people he was meeting with for jobs were addicts for it. Best of all was that his mouth was a factory for that product.
So that was another thing he learned early: If you say something loudly enough, with enough “conviction,” it didn’t matter whether you actually believed it (and often didn’t matter whether it was factually true, either).
And thus, with a little luck in timing, a gift for knowing what vapid Hollywood suits wanted to hear, and enough intelligence to know how to deliver the message, he had somehow built himself an empire out of thin air.
Looking out his bedroom window now, though, over the Hollywood Hills and into the smoldering mess beyond, he began to realize that that empire was now sliding its way past purgatory, through perdition, and straight into the waiting jaws of Hell.
And he had a feeling that if he didn’t abandon his empire now, he may not have a choice to later.
This ominous feeling was confirmed a few hours later when he turned on his television to see if there was any news of military intervention or an emergency evacuation plan. Surprisingly, through all the chaos and destruction thus far, a good portion of Los Angeles still had electricity. On the first night after the missile had hit, he’d looked out over the city and had been able to discern parts of West Hollywood in darkness. Last night, Studio City and more of L.A. near the coast were also without power.
On both nights, despite the amount of widespread panic and disorder, there had still been a few local channels broadcasting updates, warning people about the whereabouts of roving mobs, and giving general information in case of medical emergencies.
Something had changed since last night, however, as now only three channels showed anything other than static or some form of a sign-off graphic.
One local station was broadcasting a darkened news desk, which Phil at first thought was a frozen image until he spotted a small oscillating fan in the corner sweeping slowly back and forth. In the background, almost imperceptible until he turned the volume up, someone had left an audio version of what he thought was either Brave New World or 1984 playing. Some fucking hipster making his ‘deep’ social commentary, no doubt, he thought bitterly before changing the channel.
The second station was the public access channel, which featured a young man, dressed in military fatigues, and who had painted his face with black and white greasepaint into something resembling a skull. The sweat dripping from his forehead made this skull into a melting, nightmarish death mask. He was giving what appeared to be some sort of lecture on various survival strategies.
Phil watched and listened, in grim fascination, as the man first demonstrated the moving parts and functions of a standard semi-automatic handgun (very much like the one Phil had in the pocket of his robe at that moment), then explained how to sight a target and the difference between squeezing the trigger (good) and pulling the trigger (bad). He next walked over to one of three whiteboards where he had sketched a profiled outline of a bird, and he proceeded to explain how to prepare it for cooking (twisting its head off, disemboweling it, plucking it, and spitting it over a fire). He did the same when he proceeded to the second whiteboard, though this one showed the profile of a dog (he was quick to explain, however, that these methods would work for almost any other mammal such as cats or rodents), and the third whiteboard on which he had sketched the outline of a person. He explained that the best parts of a human for eating (which he nonchalantly referred to as “long pigs”) were the thigh and bicep muscles, though well-developed chest muscles offered excellent sources of protein, as well.
Throughout this explanation the young man, despite his profuse sweating, showed almost no emotion, reminding Phil of a home improvement show host, perhaps explaining to his audience at home how to regrout bathroom tile. This guy, though, was methodically giving step-by-step instructions on how to filet up your fellow man, and what to expect when you plunged the knife in. As the gruesome host began his explanation on the proper and improper ways to use a pistol to commit suicide, (not against the temple, you may only take out your eyes, and die slowly and in great agony. Rather, place the gun barrel under the chin or in the mouth and aim for the back of the head. This way, the bullet will take out brain stem, resulting in an immediate, painless death) Phil had had enough and changed the channel.
The third channel was also one of the local stations, and one he had set to record yesterday in case an emergency plan was put into action. He now doubted any such plan was in place. This station was not being broadcast from within a studio, but from a field camera. And the images being transmitted chilled Phil to the bone.
What first struck him was that as the camera was sweeping back and forth, he recognized the street as one only a few blocks down the hill from where he currently was. Second, he had the distinct feeling that the cameraman was one of several people making their way up the Hollywood Hills. He would occasionally hear the man behind the camera call out to one of them, and long walking shadows would sometimes cross into view as he made his way up the street. And last, he sensed a maliciousness practically oozing its way through the video feed, a sense that whatever these guys were up to, it wasn’t just looting or looking for cars to steal.
They meant to do harm.
He began rewinding the recording, to sometime earlier this afternoon, until the scene changed from the street level view to something resembling the interior of a building. The feed was cutting in and out, the view jerking significantly along with the cameraman’s gait as he followed a young man in a football jersey up a flight of stairs, then into the sudden brightness of a rooftop. In the sunlight this young man, tattooed seemingly from head to toe, turned around to face the camera, smiled, and said, “Now if we want some mero mero movie stars, we need to get up there and over there.” The camera panned to where the man was pointing to the Hills and Bel-Air areas, respectively.
“They’re all gone, Chuy, they probably took off a few days ago,” the guy behind the camera said.
“Not all of them. Shit, they can’t all get away.” Chuy then turned and looked directly at the camera. “You hear me, beautiful people? I know some of you are still here. You can’t all get away. I want my autographs, fuckers!”
“Oh, fuck,” Phil said absently to himself. He didn’t know what this guy meant by “autographs”, but he was sure it wasn’t anything good, reinforcing his earlier thoughts about these guys.
Phil decided to begin the recording from where it started several hours ago. At that time there was still a regular, though very chaotic newscast being shown. Several large fires were burning out of control, and there were mass shootings throughout the city. The police were attempting to gain control a few blocks at a time, but that strategy didn’t seem to be working effectively. The LAPD had apparently been expecting a contingent of National guardsmen and Army regulars that had not materialized.
The newscast then suddenly froze, and went off-air sometime early this morning. Phil fast-forwarded the recording, and when the feed came back what was being shown was from a field camera. The feed showed the news crew being accosted by several gunmen. The news van’s driver was shot, and one of the gunmen got behind the wheel of the van. All the while, the cameraman and reporter seemed to be attempting to negotiate with the gunmen, pleading with them in an attempt to stay unharmed. Much of this footage was without any audio, but the dread on the reporter’s face was all Phil needed to know that this situation was deadly serious.
The feed again cut out, and when it returned Phil was both surprised by the familiarity of what was being shown, and physically wrenched by what he was seeing.
The new “crew” was filming from what looked like one of the studio lots in Burbank. This crew was comprised of at least a dozen thugs, each brandishing weapons of one sort or another, and the leader of this pack was the photogenic young Hispanic kid from before, with a face-full of tattoos and wearing that same blue sports jersey. Phil was no fan of professional sports (though he could fake his way through basketball small talk if he needed to), but he thought that the jersey was one of the NFL’s eastern teams. Carolina or Tennessee, maybe. The kid was holding a mic as if he was doing a field report, and was “interviewing” various members of his posse.
“Alright, alright, now let’s go to Miggy,” the kid said. “How many autographs did you get today, pendejo?” He said this in a playful tone that completely belied the gruesomeness of what Phil was seeing on the television display.
Miggy was a tall, fat Mexican who looked to be around thirty or so. He had a high, reedy voice with a heavy Spanish accent. “Shit, I cleaned up, puto!” He began pointing to the bodies at his feet, some of them seeming to be bleeding profusely, every one of them having been shot in the head. “These fuckers were hiding in the rafters, bro. I got two talk show dudes, three band members, and this is the guy from Vegas from that one show. You remember I took Lisa to that show once? You can’t see his face no more, but you can tell by the pelo, buey. Someone take a picture of this payaso.” At this point Miggy squats down and grabs a handful of the body’s long, red, blood-soaked hair and smiles at the camera, as if posing next to a freshly caught marlin.
Again, Phil almost hypnotically watches this happening on the screen, at one point trying to convince himself that this was a put-on, some sort of trick being played out as part of a television program. He could have accepted that premise if not for the jovial nature with which every member of this gang pointed out their killings in a way that could not be faked. That kind of intrinsic viscera-lust sickened Phil, causing a raw kind of bile to begin rising in his throat, making him feel a helplessness that he hadn’t felt in years, or maybe ever. Were these the kind of animals that awaited him if he ventured out beyond his gates, into the city? Was there anything left of order, or any police or military units somewhere to be found, some safe harbor?
He forwarded the recording until he was at the point where Chuy was on the rooftop, then he began frantically flipping through the channels again, earnestly seeking help, in any form, but coming up empty.
He found only the other two channels that had been broadcasting before, but now showing something different.
The first channel was no longer playing the audio of Brave New World (or 1984), but had instead begun playing a piece of classical music that was slow and morose and infuriatingly on point with the haunted mood that he was now feeling.
The second channel’s host was no longer giving out instructions, but had instead heeded his own instruction. His body was laying half in, half out of a shadow at stage left, a growing pool of dark blood slowly making its way stage right on the linoleum floor. He had left a message in block lettering on the middle whiteboard: “No Shame in Leaving the Party Early.”
He turned off the television, and just stood there, staring at the blank screen for several timeless minutes, its reflection showing a bleak negative to his world. He hadn’t even gotten out of his robe yet, but he knew he had to do something.
Should he shelter at his house, barricade it, and hope that he’d be left alone? He would have to make sure he shut every light off, making his house seem as inconspicuous as possible. He thought that he should maybe even break a few windows out front, make it look like his place had already been ransacked.
But if he made too much noise, that would be trouble, too.
He could start making his way slowly down the Hills, but to where he didn’t know. He was armed, but then so would everyone else he encountered be, most likely.
God Bless America, he thought bitterly to himself.
So, he simply stood there looking at that blank screen until the sound of first one, then seemingly dozens of helicopters flying overhead snapped him back to reality. He went to the nearest balcony of his twelve-bedroom home, hoping for the first bit of good news. Maybe they were looking for people stranded in their homes, or maybe the military had finally been called in.
Instead, though they were most definitely military aircraft, the helicopters never even paused over the Hollywood Hills, and continued on a steady heading toward the coast.
As the last of the helicopters were vacating the area, though, he saw figures appear on the rooftop of one of the houses just down the Hill from his own house. Before he could register whether they were the homeowners (the house belonged to a producer of some renown if he remembered correctly), he saw them begin firing at the helicopters with handguns. He doubted the pilots had even noticed, but he suddenly realized how exposed he was, and ducked back into the bedroom.
And so now here he found himself in that darkened corner of the furthest bedroom, a man worth tens of millions and friend to the power elite of Hollywood and several Presidents, and yet utterly alone. His only friends now were his guns and four hundred rounds of ammunition.
He had managed to change out of his robe and into a pair of jeans and a white tee shirt. He was still wearing his house slippers, which he wasn’t thrilled about. His sneakers were downstairs near the front door, but he wasn’t about to go down there, regardless of being armed to the teeth. He did have some dress shoes in one of the upstairs closets, but at the moment, he wasn’t interested in making any more noise than absolutely necessary. He had retrieved an old duffle bag from his main bedroom, and had stuffed the pistols, magazines, and several boxes of bullets into it.
I should go downstairs and at least turn the power off, he thought. But as much as this made sense, the growing panic and fear in the pit of his stomach wouldn’t allow him to get up and go downstairs. He felt too exposed, too unsafe.
Thinking back, he thought that at that moment he would have given his net worth to have been on one of those helicopters.
I’ll go turn the lights off in just a bit, he told himself.
Finally, he dozed.
Hours passed.
“It all comes back to you, Philip,” she had said, so frail and so afraid.
“Sure it does, Ma. Sure it does,” was how he’d responded. He would have rolled his eyes at her but he was trying to show some couth toward her in her last days.
“Please try to remember for your father’s sake, Philip, about the Mills of the Gods.”
“I will, Ma. I’ll remember. Get some rest,” he had told her, almost willing her to go back to bed. The stench of death was on her something fierce, that greasy, invasive smell that he would later recognize when a friend and fellow comic had developed an autoimmune disease and had similarly begun wasting away in a hospital bed.
Fuck the Gods and their Mills, was how he’d responded to her so many times before when she brought up this quote. He loved his mother, but he knew well that she was something of a coot, and a religious one at that. He’d turned away from such fancies as a teenager, and had suffered through his adolescence as his parents prattled on about God’s grace and God’s goodness and the humility that should be found in every blah, blah, blah.
So first his father had died before he was out of high school, and then his mother had developed a bad case of the brain tumors in his mid-twenties, so tell me again about your Great and Merciful Lord?
But he had humored her, and then seen her to her grave only a few weeks after. Even in her last days, though, she wouldn’t shut up about the Mills, and how they ground slow, but oh so fine.
Slow but oh so fine.
Slowbutohsof-
The sun was just beginning to set when he heard the first window being broken downstairs. The noise below caused him to awaken immediately. He hurriedly reached for his rifle.
Holding it to his shoulder, he slung the bag’s strap over his neck, and then waited. Moments later, the sound of more broken glass was accompanied by deep, though indistinct voices echoing across his large, empty house. He was momentarily frozen by the dual thoughts of what to do next and of not knowing exactly where the intruders were. The thought of encountering them, and the possibility of actually shooting at someone was terrifying. He didn’t know if he was mentally equipped for what may lie ahead.
However, at the shouts of, “Hey white boy! Hey Phil! We know you’re in here!” he found his resolve, and moved across the bedroom, away from the voice. Barely registering that they had said his name, he was about to move into the adjoining bedroom via the connecting bathroom, when a soft glow of light caught his attention. God, I’m such an idiot, he thought to himself. He’d completely forgotten about the small room where the outdoor security cameras’ video feed was being displayed on several small TVs. He looked both ways down the hall, then silently made his way into the room.
He saw on one display a couple of figures hanging out in the driveway, checking out LaVell’s abandoned jalopies, but didn’t see anyone in the backyard by the pool or the cabana. If he could make his way back th-
His thoughts came to a screeching halt as his eyes glanced at the display showing the main gate. The sun may have been going down, but there was still enough light so that the camera hadn’t switched over into night-vision. Light enough to make out the bright green spray paint lettering emblazoned on the stone wall near the main gate. He didn’t need to wonder any longer why LaVell and his crew had been hanging out there for a few minutes before taking off this morning or how the intruders had known his name. The graffiti read:
FOOD! DRUGS! CARS! $$$!
STEP RIGHT IN!
JUST LOOK OUT 4 PHIL
HE HAS NO LOVE 4 NIGGERS OR SPICS OR CHINKS OR POOR PEOPLE
WONT YOU PLEASE FIND HIS HIDING SPOT?
For what he felt was the hundredth time that day, a tangible, dark helplessness washed over him. But again, there was also anger. A deep, bitter, biting rage directed first at LaVell, then at the world. What the fuck had he done so wrong to deserve what was unfolding in front of him? He absently ground his teeth back and forth, sneering at the green message that had led these trolls into his home.
The shouting from below, attempting to cajole him into showing himself, further enraged him, tempting him into a confrontation. He doubted they would expect him to be armed, and he very nearly gave them such a confrontation.
Amazingly, it was the sound of his own voice that called him back from this line of thinking. One of the thugs downstairs had turned on the house-wide stereo system, and put the needle to the vinyl record he had on the turntable. It was the audio recording of his first Laid Barr show, which a producer friend had had pressed a few years back as a birthday present.
There was the sudden swell of audience clapping and cheering, and then the studio announcer introducing him: And now, ladies and gentlemen, the host of The Truth Laid Barr, Mr. Phil Barr!
More clapping.
Then his first monologue, which he knew by heart, which he had at one time been so proud of, but with which he now felt another wave of despair given the likely current audience: Thank you, folks. Thank you so much for being here at my first show. I’m so glad that I’ve been given this opportunity to host this show, I really am, because I think, if I’m not being too modest, that I have an important message to share with America. And that message is that America is, to be frank, broken.
And the people that broke it and continue breaking it, don’t give a crap because they make fortunes by doing what they do.
But I give a crap, and I know that you do, and so do the people who know what’s really going on and know that it’s important to care about America.
But (long pause for effect) there are plenty of those “other” people who don’t want America, and all it has to offer, to be available to everyone. They only want it for themselves, they want it for their friends. But not for everyone. Not for people who are different from them and their country club pals.
And we all know who these “other” people are, don’t we? White people, not me, but other types of White people who hold the Bible in one hand, and extend a middle finger to niggers and wetbacks and chinks and Jews and everyone else who isn’t like them, on the other hand. Because in their mind, America isn’t for anyone of color or anyone who doesn’t love Jesus (which he pronounced Jay-sus).
Of course, the network version of this show had bleeped out all the racial epithets, whereas this recording had been made from the master recording, so it was all sounded out in its hi-fi glory. His monologue continued:
Now, I’m sorry for using such language, but we all know that that is exactly how the white Republican contingent in America views minorities.
Actually, I am sorry about one thing. I didn’t mean to say wetback. That’s so 1980s, isn’t it? Is it spic now? I know it’s not beaner, right?
Anyhow (another pause) let me say one more thing before getting on to the rest of the show. It’s about why we chose to name this show what we named it. Aside from the brilliant, again in my humblest of opinions, play on words, it also has another meaning. It’s more of a statement, really. It means that I wasn’t always as enlightened as I am now. I didn’t always know what bullcrap so many politicians, conservatives mostly, were slinging. But that changed many years ago, when I had a romantic encounter with a mistress that really changed my whole world view (he pauses, the smirk on his face almost visible at this point, and the audience begins hooting, laughing). This is the only time in all my years that I was the, well, lay-ee instead of the lay-er, I guess you could say. That mistress’ name was the Truth. She laid me hard and and She laid me good, and when I woke up, she may have been gone, but she left me with a case of Truth VD. (More applause, he waits for it to die down) And it is incurable, and I wouldn’t have it any other way!
Now, let’s meet our first guests on this inaugural show. You know him as the front man for the band Stonez Thor-
The record abruptly ended with a loud and violent needle scratch, then, a silence that he didn’t trust. He strained to hear whether there were footsteps coming up the main staircase, wishing he had had cameras installed indoors. He glanced again at the monitors, seeing there was still no one in the rear of the house or near his pool.
As he began heading toward the nearest bedroom with access to the pool area, one of the intruders shouted out, “I got one question for you, Phil. What kind of asshole has a vinyl fucking record of himself? Shit, did you run out of Pryor and Carlin, you racist faggot? You ain’t even got some Eddie Murphy or Chris Rock?”
The rest of the crew started laughing at this, only causing the echoes to multiply, and Phil distractedly almost ran squarely into a gun-toting man, who at that moment had reached the top of the main staircase onto the second floor. Luckily for Phil, the man was looking into one of the open bedroom doors, and didn’t see him suddenly change direction and dive into the nearest room.
This large entertainment room, which was taken up by an extravagant pool table, a full bar, and a wall of some of his pricier art, was located toward the back of the mansion. The back wall, composed entirely of large, tinted windows, overlooked the pool and massive back lot. Hoping he hadn’t made enough noise to be noticed, Phil scurried behind the pool table, and ducked behind it.
Struggling to calm himself, he heard many more footsteps and voices making their way up the stairs, sounds that grew steadily closer to where he now was.
It was at this point he realized that he may have trapped himself.
There were only two options to get out of this room, and one was the way he’d come in. The other was through a door behind the bar. This door, which was on the other side of the entertainment room, led into another bedroom via that interconnecting washroom. He quickly decided that if he could get to that washroom, he would lock himself in. If any of these thugs tried to force their way in, he could start shooting through the door. At least this way he wouldn’t have to guess where they were.
And with any luck, he told himself, they may not even notice the door and keep moving. Maybe I can just hide there until they’re gone.
It would seem, though, that today was not his day for luck.
As he prepared to make his way toward the washroom, he heard a voice just outside the entertainment room, forcing him to stay put behind the pool table.
“Oye, bueyes, look at this fuckin’ setup! Who wants a drink?” the guy nearest to his position yelled back to his cohorts. Phil peered below the table, and saw the man’s feet enter the room, then hesitate. He glanced to his left and realized almost too late that the large, tinted windows made for convenient mirrors as well, and saw in the reflection the man raise a handgun and fire. He instinctively lowered himself to floor level as pieces of wood and red felt suddenly burst around him. Dimly aware that the large pane of glass he was looking at had suddenly spiderwebbed, he rolled to see the pair of feet advancing toward his position.
The question of whether he could fire on another person now became moot as he brought his rifle to bear in the general direction of the man and began firing back. Obviously not expecting an armed prey, the man exited the room with immediacy. For his part, Phil became keenly aware of several truths in the span of only a few seconds.
First, all his time at the practice range had not prepared him for the sudden frightening exhilaration of the real world situation he now found himself in. This was most evident in the fact that he was suddenly deaf and disoriented from the incredibly loud and violent explosions he had set off with the movement of his trigger finger.
Second, he had been found, and that state was now irreversible. These beasts were not the type to go away, even if he was armed.
Third, his life was now truly in his own hands, and any mistakes were certainly fatal ones.
And last, unlike any situation he had encountered before, he didn’t know how this was going to end.
Though disoriented, a survival instinct in him knew that he had to get out of the open space of this room. He stood back up, shouldered the duffel bag while simultaneously keeping the rifle trained at the doorway, and briskly made his way behind the bar and into the washroom.
As he entered the small space he noticed movement in the hallway, and he fired once to keep the intruders at bay. He entered the washroom and shut and locked the door. Despite only being able to hear shadows of sound over the constant ringing, he sensed a strong and deliberate thud from the room he had just vacated.
Not knowing whether it was a good idea or not, and going solely on instinct, he decided to go into the adjoining bedroom to see if he could barricade himself in there. In his racing mind the thought of trying to defend himself in the washroom while this gang of thugs poured bullets in from both sides didn’t appeal to him, and his earlier plan to do so now seemed foolhardy bordering on suicidal.
He entered the darkened bedroom, shut the door behind him, then immediately ran past the large canopy bed in the center, and to the closed door that opened to the hallway. He locked it, hoping that the intruders were similarly deafened and didn’t hear him do this, then he quickly looked around to see what he could use to block this main doorway.
Moments later, though, as he assessed whether he could move a nearby dresser, the knob began jiggling and then he sensed more than heard someone pounding on the door. Without thinking, Phil abandoned his thought of sliding the dresser in front of the door and simply pushed it over. The dresser crashed down, the mirror spewing shards in all directions, and Phil hurriedly pushed the main bulk of the now ruined antique to the doorway. As he stepped back, a small circle of light appeared in the center of the door, which was then joined by several more. Several of these bullets hit the bed, sending up geysers of down and foam, and one shattered a window at the rear of the room.
Phil retreated to the back of the room in a prone position, and fired toward the door, the rifle round causing a significantly larger circlet to appear. His hearing, now acclimating somewhat to the concussive onslaught, allowed him to make out a shout from one of the men outside.
“Fucker shot me! You motherfucker, you shot my leg!” Though the voice was still muddled by the high-pitched ringing, Phil could sense the genuine indignation of the owner of that voice. This prick was actually appalled that Phil would defend himself.
“Get out of my house if you don’t want to get shot, asshole!” he heard himself scream. Without thinking he fired several more rounds until the magazine was spent. As he loaded the next magazine and several more shots were fired back through the hallway door, a large portion of the washroom door suddenly erupted outward, and Phil was pelted by several pieces of wood, one large enough to draw blood as it flew by his face. The shotgun blast made a hole the size of a man’s head, just visible in the room’s low light.
He aimed the rifle at this new threat and pulled the trigger, but immediately realized that he hadn’t set the receiver to load the first bullet, and he began to panic as his fingers fumbled with the mechanism.
Another shotgun blast eviscerated the middle portion of the door, and this time he felt the sting of a steel pellet embed itself into his forearm. His thumb finally found the lever to rack the next round in, and without aiming, Phil fired three quick rounds in the general direction of the washroom. He began a backward crawl into the corner of the room, trying to put as much of the bed between him and the two points of entry. Not wanting to give away his position, but also knowing that he needed to reload the first magazine as soon as possible, he carefully slid the duffel bag toward him. He did this while attempting to keep both doors in his sights at the same time.
He unzipped the bag with one hand and felt blindly for either a box of ammo or the other full magazine. He found instead the small revolver LaVell had given him, and he put it on the ground next to him. He felt around again and his fingers fell on that other magazine, which he quickly shoved into his back pocket. Nervous seconds turned into ominous minutes, and he began wondering what these murderous fucks were playing at.
Finally, he heard one of the men outside yell to him, “Damn Phil, you got a lot a fight for a comedian! Way more than these other rich dudes we met today!” He thought this voice was coming from the hallway, but the large space of the bedroom and the buzzing in ears didn’t allow him to know for sure. Either way, he thought this may have been the same young kid that he saw earlier on the television.
“Look, man,” Phil began, though not knowing what exactly he planned on saying, “why don’t you guys just leave? I’m not worth your trouble. But I do have plenty of ammo to hold out for a while. Why don’t you guys go find someone who’s an easier target. Most of my neighbors don’t even own any guns.”
“How do you know that?” the guy in the hallway countered. “Shit, you’re not supposed to have any guns. The way you talk on your show I thought the best you’d have is a kitchen knife, not a fucking machine gun! And what kind of neighbor are you, Bro? Telling us to go after them instead of finishing you off? That’s messed up, homie.”
Just my luck, Phil thought crazily, I found the only gangbanger in L.A. who watches my show. He was about to say something else when he noticed movement in the washroom and quickly fired a shot at what was left of the door. Again, several minutes of silence in which he could sense the men outside the room talking (and occasionally laughing), but not sure what to make of any of it.
He laid the rifle next to him, and, his eyes having adjusted to the dark, was finally able to find a box of rifle ammunition in the duffel bag and began carefully reloading the spent magazine.
However, after only loading a handful of bullets, he became aware of a dim orange flicker in his periphery, then he again saw movement at the washroom door. He dropped the magazine, and as he was picking up the rifle, two more shotgun blasts in quick succession obliterated the remainder of the door. Fully expecting to see several men barrel through the door, he instead saw a darkened yet shiny object with a tail of fire rocket through the hole in the door, strike the wall on the opposite side of the bedroom, and burst into a vertical carpet of flame.
Before he could fully react, a second such Molotov Cocktail was hurled into the room, this one not quite reaching the wall, but instead shattering on the floor at the head of the bed frame.
“Oh, Fuck!” he exclaimed without realizing it, and got up off the floor. The bed received several bits of fiery shrapnel, and flames quickly spread from the thick comforter to the flowing satin material adorning the canopy. The room had transformed from twilight dim to glinting midday in a matter of seconds, and he knew he only had a few more moments to get out before the impinging fire consumed him as it was currently consuming the bed.
As he picked up the bag and the pistol and cautiously ran to the washroom door, he heard the crashing of glass and felt more than heard the immediate whoosh of several more fires being sparked into existence.
He peeked around the doorframe into the washroom, all the while sensing the air in the room beginning to blister with heat, and saw that it was empty, catching a brief glimpse of two men exiting the larger game room beyond, which was likewise beginning to fill with fire. He began to panic, not knowing how to get out of the room, and the first real thought that he might burn to death seized his actions.
Desperately, he decided to move the fallen dresser and try to make his way into the hallway, hoping that the thugs had scattered and were not waiting there to gun him down. He put the duffel bag down and yanked the dresser out of the way as best he could. Though the dresser was still somewhat in the way of the door, he forced it open enough to allow him access to the hallway.
With the rifle at the ready, he quickly peered into the hallway. The men had vacated this area as well, but had been considerate enough to start several fires as they were leaving.
He reached back to grasp the bag’s strap, but just then a large, flaming piece of the ceiling dropped down on the dresser and the bag, while simultaneously almost slamming shut the door behind him. More and more of the room began to disintegrate around him, and he realized that if he tried to free the bag from this debris, he’d likely die in this room. So instead he yanked the door open and dove into the hallway.
Scrambling to his feet, he then looked to his left, where the fire had begun to consume the corridor leading to that stairway, making the route almost completely impassable. To his right, there were flames beginning to show from the open doorway of the game room, as well as the carpet at the top of the stairway, but he still had enough room to maneuver between the flames in order to make his way to some of the rooms in that wing of the house.
As he began sprinting in that direction, he heard gunfire, sporadic at first, then an all-out assault of ballistics. He ducked his head, thinking that the gang of men were waiting for him in one of the rooms he’d just run by, but then realized that the fire had finally begun to set off the boxes of ammunition in the abandoned duffel bag.
Exhausted, he made his way to the end of the hallway, then into the last bedroom which had a balcony overlooking the pool.
He entered the room, which was eerily still and silent at the moment. He knew well enough that this stillness was an illusion. He knew that it would soon enough be a part of the growing crackle of burning wood and drywall that was once his house.
He went immediately to the balcony doors, opened them, and leaned over the railing to judge the distance to the ground. Even if he could have shimmied to the bottom of the balcony, it had to be at least twenty feet down. And it wasn’t grass he’d be landing on. It was concrete. An endless stream of shit! escaped his mouth breathlessly as he tried to formulate some way to get out of this inferno.
He looked to his right, and could already discern through the large window that the fire had begun its expansion into the room next door.
He had perhaps two minutes before the fire began burning down the wall of this last room, as well. If the room had had a bed, he may have been able tie a bed sheet to the balcony and climb down. But this room was maddeningly sparse, with only a small desk and old boxes of swag he’d collected from other shows over the years.
Finally, he concluded, he had but one realistic option.
The pool.
He had to try to jump the distance from the balcony to the pool. He wouldn’t have to worry about the depth. Thankfully, he was near the deep end, which he’d had built at twelve feet deep. However, the gap from the railing to the edge of the pool had to be at least eight or nine feet, and maybe as much as fifteen. And there wouldn’t be a running start, either, as the balcony’s railing was at waist height, and he didn’t have the time to try to tear it down.
“If there was even a fucking table in this room,” he muttered to himself, “at least I could prop it up like a ramp.” As he was trying to wrap his mind about actually going through with this plan, the sound of the incoming flames steadily increased, and one of the windows beside him blew out.
This got him moving. First, he unslung the rifle strap from his shoulder, lowered it over the railing and let it drop to the ground. It clattered to the concrete, and he saw a part of the stock break off from the impact. He likewise dropped the magazine that he’d put in his back pocket.
He could only hope that the fire-starters were long gone by now, happy in the knowledge that he was being barbecued in his own home. However, if he could make it to the pool and out again, he didn’t want to be defenseless.
He also had LaVell’s pistol, but this he held onto. Climbing precariously onto the railing, he maintained his balance by holding onto an arched support to his left. From this new vantage point, the gap seemed to be more than twenty feet, and he momentarily thought about going back into the room to see if there was some other way out.
A glance behind him, though, let him know the futility of this thought. The flames were indeed coming, licking the edges of the hallway door now, and the wall adjoining the next room was starting to char and bubble from the heat. His only decision now was to jump or to burn.
He closed his eyes, and for the hundredth time that day, could not quite believe that this was what his new reality had come to. As he jumped, he felt the seconds begin to stretch like taffy, fat on the ends and thinning in the middle, so sure of where he had been and where he’d end up, but as he fell through the median gap, so much more was unsure and tenuous.
A thousand inane thoughts traveled through his mind as he descended toward the water. He again wished he’d had a pair of sneakers to put on, as he was almost certain he’d felt the house slippers lose traction as he pushed off the railing, and that he would have landed well into the pool if they hadn’t, but now, who knew where’d he land? Probably smack his face squarely on ground, maybe paralyze himself the way everything else had turned out today.
He felt the cool night air rushing past him, and felt the heat he was escaping behind him, the two meeting at his nexus like crashing waves. He felt the revolver in his hand, and just as he hit the water acted on the crazy thought to fire a shot into the Los Angeles night like some kind of twisted apocalyptic cowboy.
These thoughts were all rudely interrupted by the slick thud of his ankle hitting the edge of the tiled pool, causing him to inhale in pain as he submerged. Though a strong swimmer, the sudden absence of a full breath shot panic into his thoughts, and he began to struggle to resurface. The pain subsided after a moment, though, and he was able to regain his composure enough to reorient himself. After a few more seconds, he felt the pool edge with one hand, and pulled himself above the water line.
He stayed in the water for several minutes, composing himself, then muscled his way up out of the pool, and onto the concrete.
Exhausted, he crawled a few feet beyond the concrete to an adjoining strip of grass, then laid down to sleep in its softness.
***
“Hey, hey mister,” a voice said to him, a finger nudging his shoulder.
“You okay, mister?” the voice asked, though this time vague laughter accompanied the voice, and he thought crazily that he smelled cooking meat. He tried to talk, but only a ragged croak emerged from his throat.
“Where…where am I?” he finally managed. His last memories were coming to him, but the sheer craziness of their contents didn’t register with him at first. He was remembering heat, and fear, and death.
“You’re in Heaven, mister. I’m San Pedro,” the voice said, and this set off a gale of laughter, both from the speaker and from others somewhere in the background.
Phil’s recollection of the past hours came back to him in a bolt, and his eyes opened wide to a scene so absurd that he was at first speechless. He’d been moved to the other side of the pool, near the guesthouse. He could see that the destruction of the main house was nearly complete, and could feel the heat still coming off the embers of the mansion. Only the remains of the twin granite staircases still stood tall in the rubble, though they now led to smoldering heaps of ash and broken glass. Near the guesthouse was a group of about a dozen men, mostly Hispanic, gathered around his portable gas grill, which like his house, was brightly aflame.
Most strangely of all, however, were the array of gold and crystal statuettes, awards he’d won over the years, at the rim of the pool. They were lined up very neatly, like toy soldiers, and were all connected to each other by a white nylon rope.
And the end of that rope was connected to him at the ankle.
His brow furrowed, his mouth agape, he could only manage a confused, “What the fuck?”
The young man, still in his blue jersey and crouched down next to him, said, “Man, Mr. Barr, you fuckers sure do like giving yourselves awards. Shit this isn’t even half of them. I’m sorry to inform you, but the rest of them were lost in the fire. I sincerely hope they were insured.”
His smirk would have infuriated Phil in times past, but now it only filled him with that strange dread that he had never known before today.
The young man began reading the inscriptions on some of the awards: “Outstanding achievement in Variety Entertainment – Comedy. Best Comedy Production. Outstanding Performance in mamando mi chile.” At this the young man’s gang again burst out laughing. Phil sat up, though his aching back and shoulders screamed for him to stop. As he propped himself up on his elbows, he realized that he was still holding the revolver. Without thinking, he grabbed at the kid’s jersey with one hand, and put the revolver’s muzzle under the kid’s chin with the other.
“Don’t fucking move! Tell your muchachos to get back or I’ll blow your head off, kid!” Without waiting for the young man to say anything, he decided to tell them himself, “You hear me?” he yelled, “Get back, go away! I’ll do-”
“Pull the trigger if that’s what you gotta do, Phil,” he heard the young man say. He looked at the kid’s face, the smirk still stamped there, and realized that the guy at the grill was still cooking, and the others were still talking and laughing loudly, all having completely disregarded Phil’s pronouncement.
Knowing the outcome, but being unable to stop himself, Phil pulled the trigger. A vapid click was all that was produced.
“There was one empty shell in that gun, Phil. That’s pretty useless,” the kid said, pushing Phil back to the ground, then knocking the first of the statuettes into the pool. The weight of this first award pulled in the second, which pulled in the third, until they were all submerged and pulling at Phil’s leg, suddenly dragging him toward the edge.
He flipped over, and clawed for any anchor he could find. The surface he was on was slightly inclined and tiled, and he found that he could just barely hold his position by digging his fingernails into the edges of the blue and orange tiles.
As he did this, the young man walked over to a folding chair and dragged it over to where Phil was now desperately clinging. “You know Phil, I got to know you real well when I was in the Navy. Real well. I was on a ship for three or four months at a time. We’d get to watch TV shows, you know, but a lot of the time it was the same episodes over and over. It really sucked. Some of the bigger ships got Internet, and you could get Netflix and all that shit. But not our ship, it just had a bunch of reruns. But I remember your shows really good, you know? You were always talking about how you spoke for minorities, and how there were all these evil people out there that hated brown people and black people.
“But you know what I think? I think you don’t give a fuck about minorities or any of that shit you always talked about. Maybe legalizing pot. You’re a big pothead, huh? But I mean, you always made fun of stupid rednecks and how they love guns and Jesus, right? Shit, I love guns and Jesus, too, Phil. Does that make me evil?”
Phil, almost at the end of his strength, was able to advance toward where the young man was sitting, and grabbed ahold of the chair’s aluminum leg.
Not even acknowledging Phil’s progress, the young man continued, “And look at you now. We come over to pay you a visit and you got guns coming outta your asshole. Shit, you shot Marcos in the leg. You’re lucky it was just a ricochet or we woulda killed you when we found you. !Oye, Flaco!” At this, one of his gang came over and handed the young man Phil’s rifle and what looked like a photo album.
Motioning to the rifle, the young man said, “The fucker’s broke, Phil. That sucks, too, cuz I woulda like to have it. It’s a X95, huh, like the Israelis use. Shit, anything the Jews use is good enough for me, Phil.” He leaned forward, and Phil could feel him grab his busted ankle, the pain of which he hadn’t felt until that moment. “Look Phil, I’m using a bowline knot. I learned that in the Navy, too, not the Niño Scouts.” The kid laughed to himself as he tied a second rope to Phil’s injured ankle. He then secured the other end of the rope to the rifle’s strap.
The kid then turned his attention to the album, opened it, and produced an expensive looking pen. He then laid the album, which was more of a banker’s ledger, and the pen down next to Phil’s head. “Would you mind signing there, at the bottom, Phil?”
Phil looked at him, not knowing how to respond. Finally, breathlessly he said, “Will you cut me free if I do?”
The kid looked at him, looked through him with eyes that barely registered as human, then looked up to his cohort, Flaco. Flaco produced a handgun, chambered a round and put it to the side of Phil’s head.
Phil signed without further protest. His shaky, almost illegible signature was one of perhaps a dozen on the page. The young man picked the ledger back up, snatched the pen from Phil’s hand, then regarded the rifle once more.
“No,” Phil pleaded, seeing what the kid was planning.
“Don’t tell me what to do. This ain’t your show no more, Mr. Barr.” He then tossed the rifle into the pool, and now the pull was insurmountable. He held tighter to the chair’s leg, even to the young man’s foot.
“Please! Please don’t do this to me! For God’s sake!” he pled feebly, but truly.
“God’s got nothing to do with this, Phil. This is a man to man proposition, in case you haven’t noticed. Besides, I think God’s on vacation this week, homeboy.”
He eventually slipped into the deep end, as neatly as an envelope into an open slot.
“Hollywood Ending” is one of 12 short stories from my anthology “Going Gone” which can be found on Amazon as a Kindle or Paperback here: Anthology Link.
Abraham Lopez 