Untimely Endings- An Anthology (Story 1)

STORY 1: A Friend In Need

         It was blowing a dirty gale outside in a watercolour scene of smudged greys.  Thunder rolled towards the video store. The slanting rain marbled across the front window and newspapers and the occasional buckled umbrella flew and tumbled past like the black and white scene from The Wizard of Oz.  Ricky sat at the counter and watched the storm outside.  It seemed as if things were falling down the street, as if the world outside had been turned on its side.  He was imagining what that would be like, if the world had turned on its side and anything not fixed to the ground could free fall across the streets and smash into buildings.  He was imagining cars and buses cart wheeling through the town and wondered what he would do if suddenly caught in such an unprecedented global disaster, when he heard his name.
         “No more tonight, Ricky,” said his co-worker.
         Ricky was annoyed by the intrusion, partly because it interrupted his very interesting Armageddon fantasy, but mostly because he had no idea what his co-worker was talking about.  He grunted a laugh as sincerely as he could. 
         Ricky was a high school student, final year.  He’d been working at the video store after school and on some weekends for two years.  He was a good boy, mostly.  But the hormones traversing his body these days due to the late onset of puberty made him a little testy and selfish at times.
         What eighteen year old isn't?
         Well that can be true.  He’d shot up five inches in the past year and had naturally slimmed down, so his clothes hung from him as if he were an oversized coat hanger.  His strawberry-blonde hair was darkening and his soft, rounded face had become more defined and harder.     
         His co-worker had finished sorting A-L in the action section and made his way back behind the counter beside Ricky.  “No, not tonight,” clucked the co-worker again.
         His co-worker was three years Ricky’s senior and a university student.  His name was Lawrence.  Ricky figured he was a descent guy, just overbearing.  Lawrence was shorter and rounder than Ricky, and his genes betrayed him with pale, colourless skin, eyebrows like strips of tar, and a rounded nose that might look cute on a bulldog.  Lawrence talked and talked and talked.  He was a talker.  He had this grinding habit of starting to talk at what seemed mid-story, as if he were having the conversation with himself in his mind and decided to verbalise it at midpoint.  Now was one of those times.     
         “We’re definitely not getting anymore customers tonight.”
         So that’s what he’s talking about, Ricky thought.  He glanced up at the wall clock.  2:32am. Wednesday morning.  “I’d say you’re right there.”
         And it was true.  Rarely would they get any customers after midnight during the week, storm or no storm.  It was ridiculous of Mr. Angelovski, the video store’s owner, to keep the store open 24-7.  Heathcote was a small town outside Melbourne and absolutely no one wanted to rent a movie in the middle of the night.  But Mr. Angelovski insisted.  He was fairly new to Australia, and even newer to Heathcote.  He left Italy with a bag of clothes and a heart of dreams and believed if his store was open, then the customers would come.  Ricky knew otherwise, but he didn’t complain.  To do so could result in fewer working hours.
         “I just don’t know why Mr. Angelovski keeps the store open 24-7,” Lawrence quipped, as if they had never broached the subject before.
         “Beats me.”  Ricky turned to the computer monitor and squinted at the last customer’s rental details.  Elisabeth Walton – Driving Miss. Daisy – weekly.  He read the information over and over, hoping his perceived preoccupation would deter Lawrence from continuing this conversation.  A clap of thunder barked then groaned closer than before and the window flashed momentarily. 
         “I mean like, I admire the man’s devotion to his business, but Heathcote’s a small town.”
         “That it is.”
         “Like, when was our last customer?  At nine?”
         “Yeah.”
         “Who was it?  Don’t tell me.  I served, right?”
         “Ah, yeah, I think so.”
         “Ok, let me see who it was.  Let’s see if I can stretch the grey matter back to nine pm.”
         Ricky so wanted to like Lawrence.  They did work together, after all.  But he was just so annoying.
         “Nine pm, nine pm.  Let – me – think.”
         The computer in the upstairs office had internet.  Ricky wondered if he could escape up there without being rude.
         “Was it a man or woman?” Lawrence asked.
         “Woman.”
         “A woman.  Hmmm…the plot thickens.”
         There aren’t any customers.  I could tell him I need to go upstairs to do some research on the net for my homework.
         “How old?”
         “That I wouldn’t know,” Ricky replied.  He smiled when he answered.  He never wanted to offend Lawrence, for he knew he wasn’t a bad guy, just an irritating guy.  Ricky was mature enough to recognize the fact that Lawrence’s eagerness to talk was a reflection of his nervous disposition and loneliness.  The man never talked about catching up with friends, never mentioned a girlfriend.  For this, Ricky felt sorry for him.  But it wasn’t really his problem.  Yeah, research for a school project.
         “Do you remember who it was?”
         “Yeah, I’m looking at it right now on the screen.”
         “Ooh, ooh,” Lawrence cooed like a child seeing an aeroplane flying overhead for the first time.  “Don’t tell me who it was.”
         “Ok, but I can tell you it was a woman and she was elderly.”
         “I can’t believe I don’t remember!  It was only a few hours ago.”
         Ricky suspected Lawrence did in fact know, and that he was merely using this memory lapse charade as an opportunity to engage Ricky in some kind of discourse.  The two had absolutely nothing in common: Ricky was a hero member of the high school baseball club; Lawrence was a transparent member of the university book club.
         “Hey mate, I’m gonna head upstairs and jump on the net.  Got some research to do for my school assignment.”
         “You know once I went to the movies,” Lawrence continued, as if Ricky hadn’t spoken.  “I saw Die Hard II.  You know the one?  It’s the one at the airport.”
         “Yeah I know.”  Ricky stood.
         “I reckon it’s the best of the Die Hard movies.”
         “Yeah, it was pretty good.” From trying to remember the last customer to Die Hard II.  What’s he on about?
         “The first one was good, you know the one?  It’s when they’re in the tall building.  But three was pretty crappy…had that black guy in it.”
         “Samuel L Jackson.”
         “And I don’t think the wife was in it.  What’s her name?”
         “Holly.”
         “Yeah!  Holly.  I liked her character.  I think they got divorced between Die Hard II and Die Hard III.”
         Ricky chewed his bottom lip.  A gust of wind whacked the building.    “Anyway, it’s an elderly woman and she came in at nine.  Let me know if you remember.”  Ricky moved towards the stairwell leading to the upstairs office.
         “Oh yeah, so I went to see Die Hard II and the next day I told a friend in the book club that I went to the movies yesterday…well not yesterday, but at the time it was yesterday…you know what I mean.  And my friend at the book club asked me what movie I saw, and do you know for the life of me I couldn’t remember what movie!  And it was only yesterday!”  Lawrence rarely breathed when he spoke in monologue.
         “Shit ay.  Anyway, it was a woman and she was elderly.  Let me know if you remember.”  Ricky moved closer to the stairwell leading to his escape, to his peace and quiet, to his own little heaven.  He had to hunch a little so he wouldn’t knock his head on the ceiling that followed the stairwell up to the first floor.  “I’m gonna be upstairs doing some research.”  And he disappeared up the stairwell.
         “Are her details still on the monitor?” Lawrence called after him.  “I don’t want to see it if it is.”
         Ricky trotted down the stairwell again and moved behind the counter and cleared the screen.  “All gone,” he smiled, painfully.

         a-i-r-p-l-a-n-e-c-r-a-s-h-v-i-d-e-o-s
         
         Ricky typed the words into YouTube’s search field and up came dozens of videos of aircraft crashes caught on tape.  Ricky had a morbid fascination with aircraft crashes.  He felt there was something bad about watching them, yet he found them curiously fascinating.  He was waiting for his first choice to finish buffering when his mobile phone started to vibrate in his pocket.  At least the service network is still up, he considered to himself.  The landlines had been down for a couple of hours.  He looked at the display:
         
         CALLER ID: lawrence.  GROUP: unset. 

         “Hello?”
         “What movie did she rent?” Lawrence asked.
         For the love of God.  “Driving Miss Daisy.” 
         “Driving Miss Daisy, Driving Miss Daisy.”
         “Driving Me Crazy.”
         “What?”
         “That’s right, Driving Miss Daisy.”  Thunder growled above.  “Good luck with it, Lawrence.  Remember, female and elderly.”  Ricky flipped the phone shut.  Bugger off and leave me alone.

         He was watching the world’s first fully computer controlled jetliner do a fly-over and crash into a forest when his phone vibrated again.
         “What’s up mate?”  He made a fist.
         “Seriously Ricky old boy, it’s driving me crazy.”
         “Yeah, I know the feeling.”
         “I mean like, how could I not remember?”
         “Yeah, well….”
         “Do you think it has anything to do with that joint I had a bit of last year?” Lawrence asked conspiratorially.
         “I reckon it might’ve,” Ricky joined in.  He was grinding his teeth without realizing.
         “Driving Miss Daisy, Driving Miss Daisy.”
         “Well, keep at it.”  And he flipped the phone shut again and placed it beside the keyboard.
         
         Why do I keep watching this stuff? Ricky thought as two F-11 fighters collided midair at a Paris air show and plummeted into the crowd.  Am I sick?
         The vibration of this phone on the wooden desk made such a sudden, hard sound that Ricky jerked with a start.  He snapped open the phone. “Yeah?”
         “Did you actually ever see Driving Miss Daisy?”
         “Mate, I’m trying to do some research here.”  Bloodied, screaming people ran towards the camera as smoke and flames roared in the background.
         “What you working on?”
         “Umm…Avionics.”
         “Avionics?  What’s that entail?”
         “It entails researching air disasters to determine their cause,” he lied. 
         “Fair dinkum?”
         “Yeah.  Anyway…”
         “So what’re ya watching?”
         “Plane crash videos.”
         “Wow.  You seen Flying High?”
         “Yeah, I’ve seen it.  It’s a comedy.”
         “You know in the States it’s called Airplane?”
         “Yep.”
         “You know why?”
         “Nope.”
         “Me neither.  Maybe it’s something like Hungry Jack’s.”
         “What?”
         “Hungry Jack’s, the burger restaurant, like McDonald’s except…”
         “I know what Hungry Jack’s is, but what about it?”
         “You know in every other country in the world it’s called Burger King, but in Australia it’s called Hungry Jack’s.”
         This time the windows actually rattled with the thunder above.  Ricky remembered hearing something about not to use mobile phones during a lightning storm.  I’m gonna kill him.  “I know.”
         “You know why?”
         Ricky massaged his temple.  “No.”
         “Well, there’s this one little burger joint in Perth called Burger King, and it existed before the American Burger King.  So the American Burger King came to Australia and the little Australian Burger King already had the name and they wouldn’t sell it to the American Burger King so the American Burger King couldn’t use the name so they changed their’s to Hungry Jack’s.”
         Ricky pressed the phone to his ear and chewed the inside of his cheek.  He blinked hard.  His heart thumped.  He ground his teeth.
         “You there, Ricky?”
          I can’t take this anymore.  “Hang on.”  Ricky slammed the phone shut and marched downstairs.  Thunder tumbled down from the sky like a landslide.

         He was just about to scream at Lawrence, tell him to stop being so God-damn annoying, tell him to stop talking so much trivial rubbish, when he noticed a mobile phone on the counter top.  Lawrence’s mobile phone.
         “You said about Flying High.  Have we got it?” he asked Lawrence.
         “Sure have?”
         “It might be useful for my homework.  Do you know where it is?”
         “Yeah sure!”  Lawrence headed towards the comedy section as Ricky edged towards the counter.  He scooped up Lawrence’s phone and slid it into his back pocket.  Lawrence returned with the DVD.  “Here you go, sir.” 
         Ricky took the DVD and headed towards the stairwell.  “Good on you, Lawrence, thanks.”
         “But there isn’t a DVD player upstairs,” he called after Ricky.
         “No worries,” Ricky sang back.
         “But…..”  And he heard Ricky close the office door.

         An out of control news helicopter was leapfrogging from one building top to another and breaking apart when there was a knock on the office door.  The storm outside had gathered momentum and another sudden gust of wind changed the air pressure so dramatically that it seemed the video store took in a deep breath of air.  The walls creaked and the windows warped threateningly.  Lightning and thunder crashed simultaneously without a time lag.
         “Yeah?”
         The door opened and Lawrence popped his head in.  “Have you seen my mobile phone?”
         “Yeah, I have.  A black one, right?”
         “Yeah.  No.  Yeah.  No, I mean, have you seen it recently?  I can’t seem to find it.”
         “You called me a little while ago, right?  Maybe you put it down somewhere.”
         “Yeah, I had a look around downstairs but I couldn’t find it.  Could you call it on your phone?”
         Bugger!  “Why?”
         “That way I can find it.”
         They both looked at Ricky’s phone beside the computer.  “Ok.  You go downstairs and I’ll call it.”
         “Ok.”  Lawrence stood there. 
         Ricky picked up his phone.  “Ok, well, I’ll call it, and you go see if you can find it.”  He flipped open his phone.
         “Ok,” Lawrence agreed.  And waited.
         “Well, you better head downstairs ‘cos you won’t hear it from up here.  I don’t think it’s up here.”
         “Ok,” Lawrence said, and backed out of the doorway.  Ricky heard him go down the stairs.  He closed his phone.  “Hear it?” he hollered.
         “Not yet.”
         The news chopper came to rest precariously on a building’s edge.

         “I’m starving,” Lawrence complained when he returned to the office thirty minutes later.  There was no mention of the phone.  An awkward air thickened between them, for Ricky knew that Lawrence knew he took his phone. 
         “Did you bring anything to eat?”  Ricky didn’t look up from the computer.
         “No, did you?  I’m starving.”
         “Me neither.  You could always go down the road to Mario’s.”
         Mario’s was a little takeaway pizza shop that was also open 24-7.  Must be an Italian thing.
         “Do you reckon they’re open?”
         “Sure, they’re twenty-four hours like us.”  Ricky had passed the pizza shop on his way to work.  He remembered a sign in the window that read: CLOSED DUE TO STORM.
         “I’d kill for a pizza.  I might get one delivered.  Wanna go halves?”
         “I don’t think they’re delivering because of the storm,” Ricky lied. 
         “How do you know that?”
         “I think I remember a sign in the window when I came in today. And you couldn’t reach them anyway ‘cos the phones are out.”
         “Do you reckon they’re open?”
         “Sure.”
         "Do you mind if I head out for a while?”
         Ricky turned from the screen.  The building rattled with thunder and his face flashed a violent white.  “Of course not, buddy.  It’s not like we’re busy or anything.”
         “Ok, I’m gonna run down there.  It might take a while ‘cos I can’t call ahead and pre-order ‘cos of the phones, so I’ll have to wait for them to cook it.  Sure you don’t mind?”
         “Of course not, mate.  Go ahead.  I’ll hold the fort.”  He smiled.  “Watch out for the lightning,” he added as Lawrence descended the stairwell.  Another crack of thunder shuddered the building.  Hell, he really better watch out for the lightning.

         Ricky stood and watched Lawrence trudge down the street in the pelting rain towards the closed pizza shop.  A fork of charged white light split the air only a couple of hundred metres away.  Ricky jumped back from the window.  He moved towards it again and cocked his head so he could see Lawrence, who had pulled his jacket up over his head and was now running towards Mario’s. 
         I hope he makes it, Ricky thought as he grabbed his bag and retrieved an egg and lettuce sandwich his mum had made.  He unwrapped the cling wrap and took a hearty bite.  He wanted to eat it quickly and remove any evidence of its existence before Lawrence returned empty-handed and empty-stomached. 
         He swallowed.  And as soon as he did, he knew it was too big a piece.  In his haste, he hadn’t chewed enough.  The ball of mashed eggy bread lodged in his throat.  He didn’t have to try and swallow; the peristalsis action started automatically as his brain recognized something was wrong.
         I’m gonna choke on mum’s egg and lettuce sandwich, he thought, almost amused.  His throat muscles continued to automatically try and move the ball of bread along.  It wasn’t budging.
         I’m gonna choke on mum’s egg and lettuce sandwich? he thought.  A flutter of panic spiraled through his body.  He steadied himself in the chair and concentrated on drawing in a deep breath of air.  Nothing.
         I’m gonna bloody choke on a sandwich!  He felt his heart beat to the rhythm of the peristalsis action.  His eyes watered. 
         Reaching for the office phone, he punched in “000”.  The line was dead.          Remembering the phone lines were out because of the storm, he grabbed his mobile phone. 
         It’s remarkable how the human brain can process thoughts faster than they can be verbalized.  In literally a second, he considered calling “000”, but realized the nearest ambulance would be in the next town, forty-five minutes away.  He considered calling his mother’s mobile phone, but realized she’d be in bed and he wouldn’t be able to speak to her (he couldn’t even breathe) and anyway it would take too long by the time she figured out something was wrong by recognizing his number on her caller ID and got out of bed and put on her dressing gown and went down stairs and got in the car and drove the fifteen minutes to the video store.  He considered calling Lawrence and thought even if he can’t speak, Lawrence would recognize his number on the display of his mobile phone and would realize something was wrong when Ricky would just be groaning or making some kind of strange noises one makes when choking and would run back to the video store and up the stairs to the office and find Ricky turning blue and would give him a good whack on the back and the sandwich would pop out and Ricky would take a deep, life-saving breath of air.  He considered all of this, all in a second.  He flipped open his phone, scrolled to Lawrence’s number and hit the dial key.
         And then he considered how it’s remarkable that all of one’s millions and millions of seconds on this planet can be compressed into a single moment of time.  He felt all the experiences of his life: school, work, the old woman who lived next door whose garden gnomes he smashed because she yelled at him for riding his BMX on the street, the elementary school friend he abandoned because the other kids did the same, everything.  He knew, at this moment, that all those experiences had pushed and bounced him along the path to this point of his life, like a pinball in a pinball machine ricocheting from one charged rubber to another until it eventually succumbs to gravity and rolls towards the two paddles at the bottom of the machine, only to slip in between them and into the dark, unseen tunnel, ready to be loaded for the next game.   
         Ricky felt the vibration in his back pocket.  He ripped out Lawrence’s mobile phone and stared dumbly at its blinking LED screen.

         CALLER ID: Ricky.  GROUP: friends.