Closure Part 7

Posted on March 28, 2006

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    On the whole, a kerosene powered forklift isn’t really a very efficient means of murdering an able-bodied man.
    I won’t say I calmly stepped aside as Bruce drove the farting, aged Komitsu forklift past me. After all, my last few minutes here at Furd Motors had begun with the violent death of a friend–who then commanded me to hide his dismembered remains through means of his swollen tongue–and was now culminating in this attack by my asshole foreman and his tiny, clown-faced, conjoined twin brother. I was a bit on edge.
    Which is why I won’t say that I was calm as I stepped aside; in fact, I’m quite sure I was jabbering something along the lines of “Oh, God–shit–he’s trying to kill me!”
    As I dodged, the forklift drove by me and Bruce let out an angry yell–along with an impressive string of expletives. He passed me only a scant few hand lengths away, but was too engrossed in controlling the forklift to so much as take a swipe at me. Only a second or two went by before his cursing was drowned out by the screeching groan of tortured metal as the blades of the forklift sank deep into the side of the Furd Expulsion just pulling up to the hydroponics installation point.
    “You should fucking stand still, Joe!”
    The hell I would! I cast about wildly for something with which to defend myself as a blinking light and a loud “BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!” told me that Bruce had begun backing the forklift away from the truck. I thought of simply running away; I’m almost completely sure I could outrun the Komitsu. But I still hadn’t gathered up Chuck’s legs and pelvis. His arm, protruding at a crazy angle from the cart where I’d already dumped his torso, seemed so vulnerable and needy. I remembered the words of his tongue as it spoke to me in a courier typeface just moments earlier,
    “Hide Me, Buddy!”
    That pleading tongue hardened my resolve and gave me new purpose. I had to deal with Bruce, grab the rest of Chuck, and get the hell out of there before the hazmat team arrived. If I was lucky, they’d be delayed by their union steward and his insistance that they hermetically seal their coffee service. …If I was lucky.
    At that moment Bruce swung the forklift around wildly, striking a blade against a mezzanine support with a loud “CLANG!” I readied myself and, thinking quickly, subtly positioned my body in front of the decal spool as he straightened out his impromptu and ineffective death machine and charged towards me again.
    “I’ll show you who’s a freak, you dumb shit,” he yelled, “you’ll be the freak! Only freaks have forklifts in their kidneys!” Amazingly, at this point he began hopping up and down behind the tiller of the Komitsu, laughing and shrieking like a cheerleader. Bruce’s little brother, with his clownishly furious green eyebrows and jolly red smile, bobbed up and down as his tiny, little lips silently mouthed, “Oh! Oh! Oh!”
    At the last instant I hopped out of the way and Bruce barreled past me.
     “I told you to fucking stand still, man! I’m your foreman, and you are STILL ON THE JOB, ASSHOLE! –Umf!”
    That last was forced out of him as the Komitsu’s fork slammed into the five tons of dashboard stickers resting in the pool of Chuck’s pleasantly berry scented bodily fluids. Inertia had thrown Bruce against the knob of the tiller and had knocked the wind out of him.
    I ran up behind him and yanked him off the lift by his shoulder. Bruce staggered for a moment, still gasping noisily, as I hauled off with a wild roundhouse punch which missed him entirely as he bent over to try and catch his breath. I followed it up with a desperate uppercut which struck him in his left shoulder and jerked him upright. Startled back to what for lack of a better term I shall call his senses, he bellowed in rage,
     “You hit me? That’s another fucking write-up, you know that?” He proceeded to lunge at me and I barely jumped back in time as he continued, “That’s two in one day, Minnetola!”
    I made another desperate swing and this time my fist made contact. With a certain amount of horror I glanced down at my fist and saw smeared make-up covering my knuckles.
    I looked up at Bruce, who was standing there with shock written across his face, and noticed that his little brother’s clown paint was smeared half off, exposing the pink flesh of his bulbous little head for the first time I could remember. Bruce’s shock morphed into obviously telegraphed hatred.
     “No one hits my brother. You mess with him, you mess with me.” He closed the distance between us and punched me hard in the stomach. I’m no fighter, and hadn’t been struck since high school. I’d almost forgotten the incredible sensation a good strike to the solar plexus brought with it.
    It was now my turn to double over, gasping for air, while Bruce grabbed my hair and pulled me back up straight. My eyes rolled about as I struggled to pull some oxygen into my lungs, and I noted with interest the way Bruce’s lips seemed now to be working in time with his little brother’s, as if they both were quietly going, “Wow. Wow. Wow.” I saw his other arm drawing back to hit me.
    My only thought was that I really didn’t want to be hit again. That last punch sucked. I instinctively brought up my other arm to try to fend him off and was pleasantly surprised as he struck the solid mass of the sticker gun, still securely fastened to my forearm, and howled in pain.
    Letting go of my hair, still screaming in fury, he grabbed his wrist and shook it in obvious agony.
    Oh, yeah! The sticker gun! With that thought I hurriedly brought my Furd standard-issue decal launcher to bear and fired four times in quick succession, emptying the hopper of the remaining sticker feed.
    Three direct hits. Bruce’s eyes, mouth, nose and his little brother’s head all now asked that consumers please refrain from growing pot in their glove box.
    I would have expected Bruce to work at the stickers blocking his airways first, but he reached to help his brother instead. Interesting choice. Either way, however, he was left blind just long enough.
    With as big a wind-up as Pop-Eye could ever have asked for, I windmilled my arms and back-handedly slammed the sticker gun into the side of Bruce’s temple with a sick thump.
    Unable to see, he didn’t even flinch at its approach; he simply dropped like a stone and landed with a wet thud in the sticky slick of Chuck’s deliciously smelly blood.