The David Goode Analogies

[Arroyos]

The David Goode Analogies

She’s mighty tall, thought Slummings as a female officer escorted him from the Bulldozer front office out to the waiting patrol car. She towered over him like … like … Analogies escaped Slummings.

The tall officer put her hand on top of Slummings’ head and pushed down while holding the black-and-white door open for him. “Watch your head,” she said in the voice of a remote automaton.

Like a David Goode popup! Slummings said to himself. That’s how fucking tall she is. That man could hit some monstrous popups in his day. And now he was dead, and he—Taffy Slummings—was being arrested for his murder.

Funny, Slummings thought, how things come round, ain’t it? The wheel of fate, isn’t that how folks thought about it during the Dark Ages? Shit, these days are the dark ones. They had faith back in those days. We only call them “Dark” because we are so ignorant of what life was like back then. It’s our ignorance that’s dark, not the Middle Ages, the glory years of the Christian church. Taffy smiled. He was proud of his liberal arts education. It brought such comfort, especially at times like this.

The tall officer was driving the patrol car the short distance to the police station from the Bulldozer ballpark—John Deere Stadium over my dead body, Slummings thought. First thing I’m doing when I get out is change that damn stadium name! And the team nickname, the Bulldozers, while I’m at it, he thought. You can’t expect young people to identify with some damn piece of farm equipment! No siree, gotta come up with something better than that.

And with that thought, Taffy Slummings relaxed back into the black-and-white with a big smile on his face. He knew how’d he’d spend his time in jail: inventing new team names. The thought comforted the white-haired owner of the perennial losers. Losingest ball club in the history of the PEBAverse, he thought. Well, fuck, losing ain’t nothing. I been a loser all my life. Even spent a decade living on the streets before—Shazam!—outa the blue, I’m a millionaire. That fickle wheel of fate come round again to shake things up. One minute I’m a bum, the next the owner of a ball club, and in less time than it took for a David Goode popup to fall back to earth—into the waiting glove of some opponent, naturally—Shazam again! Arrested for murder.

The Amazon officer in the front seat was watching him in the rear view mirror. She looked like she wanted to say something, so Slummings leaned forward. Hearing ain’t what it used to be, he thought, and listened carefully while also trying to read her lips in the mirror.

“What have you got to smile about, Slummings?” she asked in a voice as smooth as Bourbon. Her eyes twinkled. Slummings was tempted to flirt with her, but realized this may not be the best time. Though, truth be told, there never was a best time for the old ‘amor,’ was there? And yet it kept interrupting life at the most inconvenient moments. Like this one, Slummings thought, then realized he hadn’t heard what she’d asked.

“Say what?” he shouted over the noise of the engine.

“What’re you smiling about?”

“I was smiling?” Slummings responded, then smiled a smile as wide as a Goode popup was high. “Don’t rightly know, ‘cept maybe the sight of a beautiful woman in uniform.”

She laughed, a loud, horsey-like neighing that forced Slummings to laugh along.

“Making a pass at the arresting office is not the usual response to being arrested for murder.”

“Well, shit,” Slummings said, “I apologize. Ain’t never been arrested for murder before.”

The officer laughed. “Plenty of other arrests, eh?”

“Well,” Slummings blushed, “yeah, I guess so. You’ve seen my wrapping sheet, I guess.”

She chortled. “Rap sheet, and yes, I’ve seen it. Petty thefts, misdemeanor trespassing, drunk and disorderly, vagrancy and one very atypical grand larceny—”

“I never stole that money!”

“They couldn’t prove it, you’re right, but you were caught holding the cash!Forty thousand, was it?” the Amazon asked.

“Heh, I don’t know. I’d never seen that money before. It wasn’t mine—”

“Obviously!”

“I mean, I didn’t take it, I didn’t know it was in the suitcase, some guy just handed me his suitcase and said, ‘Hold this, pal, I gotta take a piss,’ and then he disappeared.”

“So, what? You just stood there holding the suitcase for some guy you didn’t know from Adam?”

“Yeah.”

The tall officer laughed her horsey laugh again, head back, jaw thrust forward, a great yapping sound that filled the little patrol car. “You gotta come up with a better story than that!”

“I told the security cops it wasn’t mine, the suitcase, but they pinned me to the floor while they removed the suitcase in a great hurry.”

“Must of thought it was a bomb.”

“They were gonna arrest me for terrorism until these guys in padded suits, looked like gray spacemen—”

“Bomb squad.”

“Yeah, those guys, until they finally opened the suitcase and found the money.”

“And arrested you for grand larceny. That’s a whole lot better than terrorism.”

“Yeah? Maybe. But it still feels like shit when you don’t know what’s going on.”

“You plead innocent?”

Slummings nodded. “To everyone who’d listen. Finally, they released me. My fingerprints weren’t on the money and I guess I had an alibi for the time of the robbery.”

“Lucky you.”

“Except there it is,” Slummings pointed to the clipboard sitting on the front seat next to the officer. “Follows me everywhere, same as if I’d been guilty.”

The officer said nothing, but pulled the black-and-white into the parking lot adjacent to the police station. She got out and opened Slummings’ door, then helped him out.

With her hand clasped on the cufflinks behind Slummings’ back, she directed him toward the door. But just before they stepped inside, she whispered to him, “Don’t say a word. Just ask to call your lawyer. Got it?”

Slummings nodded, totally confused now. “Why would you—?”

She cut him off, “You talk too much. You’re gonna blab your way into a charge that will stick.” She pushed him through the front doors into the police station.

Inside, the station was cold. Slummings could hear the air conditioner fan rattling away somewhere. He shivered. The tall officer pulled a key from her back pocket and unlocked the handcuffs. Slummings rubbed his wrists, then turned to thank her. She shook her head to silence him, and it was at that moment that Slummings noticed the nameplate pinned to her uniform.

“Officer Michael Mabry,” it said. Slummings smiled. The universe was watching out for him.

The desk sergeant took Slummings’ name and personal information, then directed Officer Mabry to deposit him in Interview Room D, which she did, in a cold metal chair designed to make human beings feel uncomfortable. Before she left him alone in the room, the officer held a finger up to her lips to remind him to say nothing. Then she left.

The first thing Slummings noticed about the room was that there was nothing worth noticing about it. It was cold, so he wrapped his arms around himself and rubbed them up and down. He squeezed his legs together and began humming and rocking. It was what he’d done as a child when his parents left him alone, and though it didn’t make him any warmer he stopped thinking about how cold he was.

Then he noticed the smell. Disinfectant. It made him sneeze. On the second sneeze, the door opened and a giant appeared in the doorway. Lit only by the light behind him in the hallway, the figure appeared larger than the doorframe, but Slummings knew that wasn’t possible, so he shook his head to clear the cobwebs and looked again. The giant stepped inside and closed the door.

“Detective Warren,” he said, “Chuddy Warren,” and for the first time since the cuffs had locked around his wrists, Slummings knew he was in trouble, real trouble. It was as if the universe were now laughing at him.

The detective pulled out the other chair in the room, a padded one Slummings noticed, and sat down across the table from Slummings and thumbed through a thick file, nodding and muttering “Uh huh” repeatedly.

“Taffy, huh? Where’d you get a name like that?”

Slummings was tempted to explain the curious history of his first name, but he remembered the Amazon officer and her finger to her lips, so he said nothing.

“When did you change your name from David Seemings to Taffy Slummings? And why?” The officer waited. Without ever looking at Slummings he thumbed through more of the file and asked casually, “What about your past did you need to hide with a new name?”

“Parents would never name a child ‘Taffy,’ it’s too silly. Parents pick names they hope will help their children achieve the dreams they never achieved. No, pal, you got yourself a nickname there, sorta like mine. Chuddy! My parents wanted me to be Charles, after some remote uncle somewhere I think, but my younger sister couldn’t pronounce Charles. It came out as ‘Chuddy’ and it stuck.” For the first time Officer Warren looked up at Slummings. “Who stuck you with ‘Taffy,’ eh?”

Slummings shrugged.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t admit to it either, if I were you. Best to deny everything. But the friend who stuck you with that name? Woohee! Him, or her, you gotta get even with. Probably a childhood friend, am I right?” He was studying Slummings’ face for a response. Slummings shrugged. “Perhaps a bigger, taller, more athletic or smarter friend who wanted to diminish you, right?”

Slummings tried not to respond.

“Right,” Officer Warren said. “Kids can be so cruel, even unintentionally. Especially unintentionally.”

The officer studied Slummings’ face for several moments, making the white-haired suspect very uncomfortable, then tapped the thick file folder. “Says you were born on the 21st, that right?”

Slummings started to nod, then stopped.

Officer Warren smiled. “That’s today, right? I mean, it’s your birthday, ain’t it?”

Slummings’ eyes revealed that he was unaware of the date, unsure if this was an elaborate trick Officer Chuddy Warren was playing on him. He swallowed.

“Hell of a way to spend your birthday, pal.” The officer leaned back in his chair, stretch his arms behind his head, and looked at the ceiling. After a moment he suddenly leaned across the table toward Slummings and said, in a voice meant to convey sincerity or intimacy, even friendship perhaps, “She told you not to say anything, didn’t she? Yeah, she does that. Gets a sense of when someone is innocent and tries to help them out. Just fucks up the justice system, that’s all it does, but she thinks she’s helping.”

Chuddy Warren lifted his right finger to his lips in an obvious imitation of Officer Mabry’s gesture. Chuddy nodded at Taffy Slummings, like they were old pals, then grabbed his thick file folder and stood up.

“Look, Taf—that’s what your friends call you, isn’t it? Taf? Well, look here, Taf, you’re no more guilty of killing David Goode than I am. I think we both know that. But.”

Slummings hated it when people ended speeches with ‘but.’ It smelled ominous.

“But, the thing is, we know you stole the money, we just can’t prove it. So, for the time being, we’re gonna keep you here on this trumped up murder charge until you realize that it’s in your best interest to plead guilty to the lesser charge—larceny—than face a trial for murder. When your suit gets here, I’m sure he, or she, will tell you the same thing.” Officer Chuddy turned to leave. “Nice talking to you,” he said as he opened the door and exited.

Slummings took a deep breath. So that was the game. Coerce a confession from him by threatening to charge him with murder. Well, Slummings thought, it won’t work. I didn’t kill Goode and I didn’t steal the money. He repeated it to himself: I didn’t kill Goode and I didn’t steal the money.

It brought little comfort. He was cold, the chair was hell on his hemorrhoids, his teeth were starting to ache and he was hungry. He understood for the first time why people sometimes confessed to crimes they didn’t commit, to avoid the pain. He clutched himself and began rocking again. He tried to hum a song, but none would come. He realized this is exactly what Gogo felt like in Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot and all he wanted was for some little boy to come tell him that Mr. Godot would visit him tomorrow.

If only, he thought.

Suddenly someone banged on the door. The lights in the room jumped in intensity and then went dark. The door flung open and a great mass of people stormed inside, singing and carrying tiny torches. They were loud, they were raucous, they smelled of something sweet, and their voices were out of tune. They thrust the tiny torches in front of his face and smiled the most hideous, distorted smiles he’d ever seen. Then they sang out his name, “Dear Taffy, happy birthday to you!”

The lights went on and he saw before him not a threatening collection of tiny torches but candles on a cake. Someone slapped his back and said, “Hip hip hooray!” Others chimed in. He could make out the faces of Detective Warren and Detective Mabry, Roberta Tippitina from the Dozer front office, the mail delivery kid from the office, plus a whole bunch of smiling faces he didn’t recognize. They seemed happy. He figured he should be happy too.

He felt light headed, tried to stand but couldn’t, so just sat there and let it all wash over him. It was like … well, he wasn’t sure what it was like. It was unlike so many things he’d experienced. No, this was something unusual, something rare, something that made you leap up from your seat and shout for joy. This was like … like … like a David Goode home run in the bottom of the ninth.

Yes, that’s exactly what it was like. And just as rare too.

[Borealis]

Well, now... that was as perplexing as a David Goode contract...

[Arroyos]

Just have a piece of cake and de-perplex.

[Sandgnats]