Meeting Bonnie

“You hear me, Achmed?” The huge black woman pointed a sausage finger at the skinny guy behind the counter. “You frikkin’ Arabs should all get sent back to wherever the hell it is you all come from.”

“My name is Sanjay, I am an American citizen. Just like yo...”He didn’t get a chance to finish.

“Oh, no. Don’t you go there,” She was wagging the puffy finger in the poor guy’s face now. “I ain’t never hijacked no plane and crashed it in the damn Pentagon.

“I doubt she’d fit on one.” I said under my breath.

The skinny Hispanic guy in line behind me laughed, “Hell, someone gonna have to crash a jet on the bitch to shut her up.”

“Madam - I am Indian. I am not an Arab. We are very very different” Sanjay was trying valiantly.

Taking a sip of the rapidly cooling coffee, I looked at the more lurid headlines splashed across photo-shopped images of aging celebrities. Not even George Clooney’s sheep’s blood-skin-treatment could keep the grating voice out of my head.

“It don’t matter none, you all come out here and take jobs off hard workin’ Americans.”

The tinkling of the bell over the door was a welcome distraction.

“Whoa,” said the Hispanic guy, behind me.

Her hair was so black, I decided there and then, her name was Raven. She gazed around the store as if surveying her domain before letting the door swing shut. The bell tinkled cheerfully as she disappeared down an aisle.

I saw her briefly as she moved gracefully to the next aisle, her midnight hair falling over the shoulders of her leather jacket. She stopped, intensely studying some item for a moment before moving on to the next. She looked up and for an instant our eyes met.

The air was sucked from the room and there was only her there. A split second later she smiled, deep red lips parting coyly and yet knowingly before turning and continuing along the aisle. She looked back and caught me checking her out, breathless. She winked from behind her raised shoulder and kept walking.

A poke in the ribs snapped me back to reality. “Dude,” it was the Hispanic guy, he was grinning. “You lucky pendejo.”

“Huh?”

The huge black woman wasn’t finished with Sanjay, though he was now rapidly packing her shopping into a flimsy looking plastic bag. “Don’t you break my eggs, Achmed,” She warned.”

“Chica bonita, hermano.” He nodded toward the dark haired girl, “She digs you, man. Got talk to her.”

“I don’t know, man.” Hesitating.

“Go on, bro.” He nodded her way again. “Worst that can happen is she shoots you down. You won’t feel any dumber than our boy at the counter.”

I chuckled a soft nervous laugh. “Nah, look at her. She’s like a supermodel or something.”

“Do it, dude. You might get lucky.” He winked. “And I’ll be another spot closer to the head of the line.”

Taking a deep breath, I said, “Ok, I’m gonna go talk to her.” He slapped me on the back as I stepped out of the queue.

The honking voice at the counter faded into the swirling hum of my rising pulse as I paced down the aisle. She looked up furtively as I moved along the shelves stacked with packets of peanuts and microwave popcorn. I fancied that she smiled shyly before deliberately looking away.

Rounding the end of the shelf, I found her engrossed in the ingredients of a vividly coloured bag of pork rinds.

“Those things will make you fat.” I said, and immediately regretted it.

Turning in my direction, pork rinds in hand, she shot a glare at me.

“I... I didn’t mean you are fat. I just meant...” She continued glaring, green eyes ablaze.

“I just meant...” I threw my hands up in defeat. “Shit, I don’t know what I meant.”

“I don’t care if they make me fat. I like them.” Her frown changed to a sly grin. “I just work off those calories anyhow.”

Confidence returning, I said “I saw you come in just now.”

“I know.” She brushed a strand of dark hair away from her face.  “I saw you too.”

“So...” Nerves rising again, I shifted from one foot to the other. “what’s your name?”

She didn’t answer for a moment. Instead, she pulled another shiny bag from the shelf. “You can call me Bonnie.”

“You know, I’m not from around here. I don’t really know anyone.” I tried to sound casual. “Maybe you and I could go get a coffee or something at the diner back up the road?”

“Gee I don’t know.” She looked at me doubtfully. “You are kind of cute I guess. Not really my type though.”

Desperate to keep her attention, I said “Type shmype. Who knows you might even like me if you give me a chance.”

“Tell you what.” She looked me up and down once more and shoved the snack filled bags at me. “Let me think about it while I do this one little thing. Hold these.”

She kissed me quickly, then turned and walked toward the counter, where the forlorn looking Sanjay was placing a last few items into a plastic bag.

Just as she got there, Bonnie turned her head and thrilled me with a teasing wink.

“You are so damn slow Achmed, no wonder people don’t like...”

“Excuse me,” said Bonnie pleasantly, cutting off the scowling woman’s latest tirade.

“Who the hell do you think you are?”

Bonnie held up a shushing finger at the woman and spoke softly to the startled man behind the counter. “Sanjay, darlin’. Can you do two little things for me?” She leaned forward with her elbows on the counter top and looked up at him with big eyes.

“Get your little bubble butt out of my face you damn skank.” The irate customer’s blonde wig wobbled with indignation.

Bonnie ignored the older woman, “Please?”

Rescued from his harasser, Sanjay perked up a little. “Yes madam, how may I help you?”
“Well...” She said, “First, you can give me all the cash in the register.” She pulled a pistol from under her jacket and pointed it at the stunned cashier.

“Holy shit” said the Hispanic guy who had been behind me in the line. He backed away hurriedly, his shoulder ramming a rickety shelf loaded with soda. It collapsed in a heap of foaming bottles.

Startled by the sudden loud crash, Bonnie swung around in his direction. She shot him once in the belly. Clutching at his bloody midriff, the man fell back on to the wreckage of the shelf before settling on his back among the sticky bubbles.

The sound of the shot knocked the wind out of me as though I had been shot myself, paralysing me.

In the second of silence after the shot, Bonnie stood with the pistol raised in the direction of the fallen man. “Shit,” she said. She took a step in his direction.

Dumbstruck, I saw Sanjay reach under the counter. The loud woman saw it too. She put her flabby hands over her ears began a high pitched shrieking.

The wailing snapped Bonnie’s attention back to the short man behind the register. She swung around as his hand disappeared from view under the counter. Sensing he had been caught, Sanjay froze.

Bonnie took a second to aim this time. Sanjay’s glasses flicked into the air as his head snapped back quickly from the impact of the forty five bullet. His feet took small convulsive steps backward until he hit the rack of cigarette packets suspended on the back wall.

Slowly, as if he had somehow found the will to resist it, the small man sank to the floor.
Ignoring the ear piercing shriek, Bonnie strode around the counter. Kicking Sanjay’s spasming legs from her path, she punched the register key with the muzzle of her pistol.

When the drawer popped open, she scooped the cash out with her free hand and came back out front. Stuffing the crumpled bills in her jacket pocket, she halted and looked around at me as If she had forgotten I was there.

My back pressed against the cold glass of the refrigerator, our eyes met once more. Her face was even paler now and those inviting ruby lips drawn tightly shut. Her eyes still shone like flawlessly cut emeralds. They pierced my body, making the blood rush through my scattered mind, drowning the shots and the wailing response.

Taking a step toward me, Bonnie spoke, “What’s it going to be, cowboy?”

“Huh?” Still dazed, I stayed flat backed against the damp glass door.

She raised the pistol in slow motion. The rising muzzle stared at me with a yawning black eye. 

She pulled the trigger.

I flinched, waiting for the punch of a forty five bullet against my skull.

The glass refrigerator door shattered inches from my ear, showering me with sharp edged shards of glass and a spewing wave of soda. The world swelled in on me as Bonnie grabbed my collar, dragging me along the aisle to the accompaniment of the wailing woman at the counter.

Bonnie nonchalantly raised the pistol and shot her in the throat.

The big woman went quiet for a moment before making a wet choking sound and clutching at her punctured throat. Dropping to her knees, she clawed at the counter with a bloody hand. Losing her feeble grip, the woman slumped forward, splashing a slick gout of bright blood across its surface.

Still dragging me by the collar like a naughty child, Bonnie stepped delicately around the blood already spreading across the floor. “Watch your step,” was all she said.

The Hispanic guy was lying in a pool of soda and dark stinking blood quietly praying in fading Spanish. Bonnie looked down at him for a moment. “Sorry, muchacho.”

“Puta.” He spat it at her.

She shot him once in the head then turned to me. “Let’s go.” She pushed me toward the door.
Pressing the pistol’s muzzle against my neck, she pushed me to the door, the oily heat thrilling and repulsing me in equal parts.

The bell over the door tinkled a happy farewell as we pushed out into the cool evening air. Bonnie held me a moment, scanning the dark night beyond the brilliantly lit gas pumps, ready for a challenge from a cop or police sirens howling from the freeway.

When she was satisfied that it was all clear, she jostled me to the black SUV parked next to the nearest pump. Reaching past me she opened the passenger door and shoved me inside.
In a moment she opened the driver’s door and took her seat. Without saying a word Bonnie surprised me by leaning over and kissing me hard on the mouth. Stunned, I sat fixed to my seat as if paralysed. Then, inexplicably I came back to life and kissed her back.

We eventually broke our clinch and sat panting, neither one daring to speak. She was first. “Damn that was intense.” Emerald eyes blazing she changed magazines in the pistol she still held. “Did you feel it too.” She jammed the handgun into the gap in the hand rest on her door.

I nodded dumbly, still shell shocked.

Grinning, she said, “Man I am hungry. Want to catch a bite?”

“Uh huh.” Was all I could manage.

“Do you mean that? You want to come with me?”

Nodding like an idiot I said, “Yes. I think I do. But what about...” I pointed back to the door of the store.

She laughed a giddy girlish laugh. “It doesn’t always go down like this one. Mostly it’s just in and out. Thirty seconds, no harm no foul you know.”

She put the key in the ignition but didn’t turn it. “Silly me. I never even asked your name.”

Sinking into the deep green ocean of her eyes, I thought for a moment then in the coolest voice I could manage, “Just call me Clyde.”

Throwing her head back, Bonnie brayed with joy. “I knew it. You’re the man for me, Clyde.” She turned the key and laughing we peeled rubber for the freeway.