A high school reunion at a seedy bar becomes the setting for a cat-and-mouse spy thriller in this short story with audio below performed by William Coon.
(1,900 words, originally published in MacGuffin magazine)
i go by tim
Past the beer taps, dart boards, pool tables, and the thickening crowd of people, I locate my target. Scott Kleiner. A shiny nametag dangles from the front of his sports coat, but I don’t need it to identify this balding asshole. You better believe I remember the letter-jacketed quarterback who routinely pushed me against my locker, called me “fag,” and punched me in the stomach to the delight of my smirking classmates.
With an arm-jiggle, the syringe tumbles down my shirt sleeve and into my cupped palm. My thumb finds the capped point, ready to twist and unleash the needle inside. Perhaps I’m being a little forward, since there is a fair amount of barroom terrain to cross between us.
“Timmy?”
A weathered blonde woman who seems distantly familiar appears before me. I try not to glance at her nametag, but it happens anyway. Jenny Hawkins-Korvath.
“I go by Tim now,” I say.
Jenny wears a grin wider than the Cheshire Cat’s, and yes I remember her. Jenny Hawkins, student council, cheerleader. Legendary tits back then, but now they hover closer to her waist. She casually dated a friend of mine for about two weeks during junior year.
“Tim Phillips. Well, well, it’s so good to see you. What on earth have you been up to?” Before I can open my mouth, she continues. “For the life of me, I can’t remember you attending the ten-year. Were you at the ten-year?”
“No, I was… out of town that weekend.” In fact, I was in Bosnia, on a job so lucrative that I didn’t work at all for six months afterward. I miss those days. Now, I’m lucky if I get one job every six months. Stupid economic downturn.
“Well, it’s so good that you’re here now,” she says. “I haven’t been keeping up much with our classmates, you know, so it’s just so wonderful to visit with everyone again after all this time. What have you been doing with yourself?”
“Traveling. Doing a lot of consulting for people; that kind of thing.” My standard answer.
Jenny scrunches her brow, but I pay no mind because I’m monitoring Scott in my peripheral. He’s talking to a former junior-varsity wide receiver/date rapist, who now sells life insurance and drives a minivan. I forget his name.
“Jenny, it’s nice to see you again, but you’ll have to excuse me.”
My mind wanders to a particular spring afternoon when, after lunch, I was walking across the school parking lot to the annex building. The team’s starting running back had a new alarm installed on his car, and the cool kids had a recent tradition of smacking the hood to trigger the alarm. The social norms of my lower caste forbade me from participating, but I decided to chance it anyway.
No sooner had I thumped the car with a closed fist–the jarring blont blont blont echoing across the campus–when someone grabbed me from behind. Two of the offensive lineman steadied my shoulders while Scott Kleiner socked me in the stomach. By this time, a crowd had gathered to watch.
I was so accustomed to this treatment that I had already anticipated a beating as punishment for my crime of touching the car. I’m sure Scott knew this, and that’s why he unbuckled my belt and yanked down my pants and boxers, exposing my junk for all to see. Despite being late spring, it was quite chilly that day.
I need to forget about this. I’m here tonight on business. Make any job personal, and then it becomes too easy to overlook the crucial details. I need to forget about the towel-popping in the gym shower room, the taunts scrawled on the outside of my locker, the spitballs flung at me across classrooms.
I escape Jenny and order a Yuengling at the bar because I need a few minutes to think. Here’s what I know: tomorrow morning, Scott Kleiner will board a plane for Venice and won’t be back for a month. He cannot get on the aircraft. Procedures are different in Europe, and I’ll have a much harder time tracking him. Also, after the bar tonight, he will return home to his wife and kids, which he cannot do. I don’t like home jobs because of that whole terrorizing-small-children thing.
The injection will make everyone think he’s having a heart attack, which is why it has to be here and now. He will collapse, grasp his chest, and die within seconds, with dozens of witnesses to report what they saw. Toxicology reports will show nothing suspicious. Half a syringe of my digitalin-and-potassium-chloride mixture to his ass cheek and Scott Kleiner becomes a memory.
The primary variable I need to account for is the crowd. I obviously have to get close to stick him, but I prefer not to be seen brushing up against Scott Kleiner moments before he crumples into a heap of convulsing flesh. My best shot will be a stick-and-dash. Glide right behind him, poke him, and glide on by.
I drain the beer and wipe foam from my mouth. No more waiting. I flip a five dollar bill onto the bar, nod at the bartender, and melt into the mob.
I meander through them with my eyes level, hoping to avoid any more Jenny Hawkins-type incidents. Approximately thirty people stand between me and Scott Kleiner, who is still chatting with the date rapist. I can use the crowd to my advantage.
My approach takes me on a broad arc towards him, through the bar patrons, trying to stay vigilant against anyone between us who might cause problems. I have to detour to avoid what’s-his-name, the kid who had the pubescent mustache that I played role-playing games with as a freshman. He’d want to talk to me for sure, because he’s now the wealthy CEO of some Austin-based former-startup tech company gone public.
Skulking through my cover, I’m confident that Pubescent Mustache hasn’t seen me.
I make my way back toward the corner, trying to keep out of Scott Kleiner’s vision. He and Date Rapist bump fists and separate, so Scott Kleiner is now standing alone. Have to hurry.
I’m close. Ten feet.
I make myself smaller to avoid entering his line of sight. In five more seconds, I’ll be able to slip past him and…
“Timmy Phillips,” he says. Stupid, stupid me, I assumed he’d keep his eyes forward, but I wasn’t far enough to the side to avoid his peripheral vision.
I stand up straight and acknowledge him. “I go by Tim now,” I say, trying to hide a scowl.
Maybe I can meet him at the airport tomorrow morning? But if he sees me then, how do I explain myself? Just happened to be flying out of the international terminal on the same day?
His eyes glisten with something that seems like nostalgia. “Wow, Timmy Phillips. Oh, wait, I mean Tim.” He raises his beer glass and nods at it. “Sorry, had a few already. How the hell are you, Tim?”
I’m trapped now, with no choice but to engage, despite the fact that I should clearly abort and exfiltrate. “Not too shabby. How are you?”
“Oh, man, I’m so blessed these days. My oldest is first in his class, my wife finally found a publisher for her cookbook, and I just made partner at my firm.” He pauses, grinning. “I know that sounds like a laundry list. I feel like I’ve given that same speech a hundred times tonight, you know? Everyone wants the quick and dirty version of what you’ve been up to.”
“Sure, I get it.”
“What about you, Tim? What have you been doing with yourself?”
“Oh, you know, not too much. Traveling quite a bit. Doing consulting work here and there for some private firms.”
He flashes a toothy smile. “Wow, right on. So good to see you.”
I realize that my face is blank, because I’m working and that’s just my natural expression. I force the corners of my mouth to curl upwards, and this gets a response from him.
“Do you smoke?” he says.
I nod.
“The wife won’t let me smoke at home,” he says. “Wanna step outside with me and have one?”
Here’s an interesting opportunity. We can step outside, preferably in the alley behind the bar, and I can stick him without any pretense or subterfuge. Then, he falls to the ground, I wait a few seconds, run inside the bar and shout for help. Not nearly as good as Plan A, but with my limited options, may be the only viable one left. I’ll probably have to talk to the cops, but that’s not a show-stopper.
I follow Scott Kleiner outside into the cool evening air, and just as I’d hoped, he rounds the back of the bar. In the alley, he opens a cardboard box from his jacket pocket and extends a brown cigarette to me. I pass it under my nose, noticing a distinct aroma from the tobacco.
“Very nice,” I say.
“Thanks, they’re from Germany. I can’t smoke American cigarettes anymore. It’s like I can taste the chemicals, you know?”
We light up, silent for a few moments. He stares lazily as we puff our cigarettes, which unnerves me. He can’t possibly know why I’m here. Can he?
“I gotta tell you,” he says, “I was a total asshole in high school.”
Oh Jesus, I do not want to have this conversation. “It’s okay, Scott, you don’t have to–”
He steps forward and places a hand on my wrist. “No, please hear me out.” A tiny labored breath escapes his lips as if he were about to speak, but nothing would come. His face, unchanged from twenty years ago except for a few delineated wrinkles, is only a few inches from my own. He looks at my lips, then back into my eyes.
Scott Kleiner leans forward and kisses me. His tongue darts into my mouth, the sandpaper of his five o’ clock shadow scraping against my chin. I take his head in my hand, running my fingers through his thinning hair.
He presses up against me. Even in his late thirties, he still has that svelte quarterback’s physique. I’m surprised, but lost in the moment.
I pull away. “Scott, we can’t–”
He lays his fingertips against the side of my face. “It’s okay. Somehow, I feel like you always knew this about me.”
And maybe I did know, but I don’t respond. Instead, I kiss him again, letting him wrap his arms around me, the warmth and strength of his body enveloping mine.
He moans and thrusts his hips forward, his bulge pressing against my thigh. I let one hand slide down the back of his jacket to his waist and pull him closer.
Then, with a jolt, he stops advancing. He ceases his embrace and gapes at me, eyes wide and unsure. He tries to take in a breath but it catches, and a spot of drool appears at the edge of his mouth.
Scott Kleiner grasps his chest with a clawed hand, and his face contorts into a grimace as he stumbles backward and emits muted grunts of pain. He falls to the ground, wheezing and sputtering. I glance left and right, waiting and listening for the last breath to escape his lips.
I replace the cap on the syringe, wipe my mouth, and dash back inside the bar.
* * *
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
1. What the hell just happened?
2. Did Scott Kleiner get what he deserved?
3. Why are there so many stories about teenage bullying? Is it because it’s a real problem in the world? (Yes. The answer to that question is Yes.)