Errands
by Kyle Moore
Why is this
taking so long? I scan the greasy street, on the
lookout for someone…anyone who might screw
up my plan. Not a single person. Of course not,
who would be stupid enough to walk through this
part of the city at three in the morning? You
would have to have a death wish, or be a loser
like me. I crouch down. Become invisible. Be one
with the street. Across the way I can see that
Joey is doing the exact same thing as me. Hiding.
Playing it cool. It’s definitely hard to
pull off. He looks like the definition of a
criminal. Cheap leather jacket, tattoos spreading
like fungus up his neck, and the idiot’s so
dumb that he refuses to take his ski mask off
even though no one’s around. I hope he has
trouble breathing through the poly cotton blend.
We’ve
both been here for forty-five minutes and
there’s still no sign of the truck. Possible
scenarios begin running through my head. Maybe
the driver is a recovering alcoholic and a
particularly tantalizing beer commercial he heard
on the radio knocked him off the wagon. He’s
face down in a ditch somewhere sleeping off his
bender, while other ruffians besides me pilfer
his truck. That would be just my luck. Or perhaps
there were mechanical problems and the driver
pulled into a gas station. The attendant, being a
hot young sex pot of eighteen with daddy issues
saw the burly truck driver coming from a mile
away and decided to use this precise occasion to
get back at her over bearing parents. Nah, stuff
like that doesn’t happen outside of
Penthouse Forum.
My cell phone
vibrates and I peer at the text message with
dismay. “Don’t forget the eggs?”
My girlfriend. Good God, what an idiot. She’s
the only person in the world to actually believe
that an unemployed ex-con with no scrap of moral
dignity would really go egg shopping at three in
the morning. It’s not just that she believes
my excuse; it’s that she believes it every
time I use it. I was sure that any sensible
person would have figured it out at least the
third time I came home with no eggs and
unexplainable cash stashed in my boots. Thank God
she’s hot.
A flash of
headlights paints the alley and Joey and I jump
into action. This is it. I race to the front of
the truck with my hand on my gun.
“Stop,”
I yell to the driver. “Get out of the truck
and put your hands up!”
Screeching
tires as the truck jerks to a stop.
I open my
mouth to speak but am stopped when I feel cold
metal placed against the back of my head and hear
the unmistakable click of a pistol being cocked.
“You
forgot the eggs baby,” my girlfriends
whisper is obvious.
Handcuffs
click. I guess she wasn’t as stupid as I
thought.
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