Chapter Three
Helicopters in the black of night, black helicopters matching the sky around them with just the barest hint of the sun, a sliver, on the horizon. That’s what was on the mind of Pecos Ward as he was washing up in the bathroom.
Splashing some cold water on his face, he gazed in the mirror at his perpetually haggard expression. Long bushy, scraggly hair and beard that seemed to jut out in odd angles, blue eyes hidden under the bulk and weight of his massive brown eyebrows. Pecos saw those helicopters in the mirror for just a moment, he could hear their whir as their blades sliced into the air, just shadows dancing in his imagination.
He took out his plastic vial and swallowed more pills. Then, pouring out a pair of tablets he pulled something from beneath his soiled white shirt. A necklace, more like a beaded rope with a small leather sack attached in the middle. Pecos put his pills into the sack and rummaging around in it, took something out to make room. What he removed was a tiny object: a gold toothpick.
The helicopters were a memory, nothing more. Pecos remembered laying down in his room as a teenager, stripped to the waist on a hot summer’s night, looking out his open window, with all the lights in his room turned off. The moon had been set in the sky like a yellowish eye peering down on the little kingdom of the night it presided over. And then, Pecos heard a sound. Then many sounds. A gentle whir, then several whirs, then finally, a sound of a mechanical swarm. Pecos looked up with a start and found to his absolute astonishment…a fleet of black helicopters all traveling in the same direction.
And then Pecos woke up.
It had been a dream.
Pecos placed the gold toothpick betwixt his teeth and journeyed out of the restroom.
Ray Hill had been absentmindedly devouring his double cheeseburger (perhaps subconsciously wanting the arterial atomic bomb to kill him before the Mancini family did) while Pecos was in the bathroom. Not sure of what to do next, or if he should even wait for Pecos to return, Ray then decided to finish his food as quickly as possible. Downing his fries, burger and shake quickly enough so that he was guaranteed digestive vengeance later.
Ray had placed the money down on the table to pay his check (but not for Pecos’s soda), and was about to leave the diner, when he quickly adjusted his cap and sunglasses. Perhaps lady luck was at last lifting her skirt a little for old Ray, because for once he saw a Mancini before they saw him. Right outside, having just pulled up in an old Cadillac, were several well dressed men with slicked back hair. Ray at first glanced at them, then peered, then gasped, then finally ducked back into his booth and hurriedly drew the brim of his cap over his eyes.
How did they find me so fast?! Ray screamed in his thoughts. Across the entire damn country! He echoed in his head. Muttering expletives under his breath, Ray began to slide down the plastic vinyl of the booth until, upon reaching his feet, he began to strut in a rather quick fashion towards the second exit.
“Excuse me?” a voice suddenly emanated from somewhere, stopping Ray in his tracks as (despite his best efforts) he was still able to be stopped by a human voice if it was directed at him, even if only because it somehow (he thought) would involve the giving or taking of money, both of which concerned Ray greatly.
“What? What is it?” he stammered at the waitress who had taken his and Pecos’s order. Maria was her name, and she was more than a little confused.
“I looked over your check,” she began.
“Yes?” Ray said in barely suppressed agitation as he looked over Maria’s plump shoulder towards the window where the Mancini men were looking over the cars in the lot outside the diner, getting ever closer to the Ford Escort.
“You paid for everything…except for your friends drink.” Maria said, scanning the check.
“Wait…you expect me to pay for him?” Ray said out loud, his fear momentarily replaced by the kind of indignant rage that could only come from a cheapskate.
“Well…I guess I just assumed you were covering the bill, I’m sorry if I’m mistaken-”
Ray’s cheapness was overridden by his fear once again as he witnessed the made men approaching the diner door.
“Alright alright, here, take it take it!” Ray practically screeched as he took out, what, a twenty, a hundred, who cares? Just so long as he could pay the fat girl her check and get out of the diner.
“Oh, this is way too much…” Maria said.
“Keep it, it’s a t-t-ip,” Ray said as he turned to hurry out the second exit at the far side of the diner. Just as he began to run, he didn’t notice in his peripheral vision that a man sitting at the diner had just gotten up. This unexpected mass of a human body unknowingly backed into Ray and thanks to the hurried force of Ray’s exit, the latter slammed into the former quite hard and caused them both to fall, crumpled, to the floor.
“Hey, what the hell man, I’m in a damn…what the hell?” Ray exclaimed as he looked at the sight in front of him. What gave Ray pause and actually managed to interrupt the many death sequences he was imagining in his mind, was the sight of an unshaven teenaged youth (his cap having been forcibly knocked off in their collision) revealing a head of hair with green and red and black plant sprouts jutting up and out from between the hairs.
“…” the plant headed young man was speechless as he scrambled for his cap. Lyle Stanley Kubrick fumbled for his hat on the ground while Ray looked on in horror.
“Kid, you got plants on your head!” Ray yelled. Then, the whole diner turned to stare at Lyle who promptly pulled his cap down over his head, hard, and brought the brim down suddenly.
Ray, realizing that the well dressed killers were a foot or so away from the door, rushed to his feet and walked over Lyle, running for the door. Opposite the one his would be murderers were about to use.
“Hey,” Lyle said to the sprinting Ray who paid him no mind. Maria then turned to greet the well dressed men at the door.
“Hello, welcome to the Greet and Eat diner, may I seat you now?” Maria said with a plastic smile fixed tightly on her face.
“Yeah, why not, give us some beers too while ya doing that, okay honey?” the lead man, his slicked almost to the point of being glued to the scalp, said. Maria’s smile faltered a little but she complied.
“What’s with him?” the second man, the tallest and widest of the three, a living extreme, said, referring to Lyle who was still on the floor.
“Dunno, maybe he had some bad rye or something?” the third guy said, his sunglasses obscuring his eyes, even after he entered the diner, refusing to take them off.
“Hey kid, you the gimp mascot of this place or something?” the fourth guy, the leader, streaks of gray hair at his temples, asked Lyle.
Lyle didn’t respond to the question or the laughing that the four men indulged in as they sat down. He simply got to his feet slowly and picked up his backpack from beneath the stool at the diner and began to walk towards the bathroom. Knocking on it, he heard no response, then started talking to the guy inside.
“Come on man, New York monk gotta whiz man!”
Everything calmly resumed, or would have, had the sound of a ragingly desperate man pounding on a purely ornamental second exit disturbed the new peace in the diner.
Damn it damn it damn it! Ray thought to himself as he tried for the eighth time to pry the door open. No good. Ray then wondered, maybe there’s a window in the bathroom. He slowly walked towards the bathroom door, being careful not to make a sound…
“Hey, the bathroom’s full sir, you’ll have to wait outside!” Maria yelled as she looked away from taking the orders of the well dressed killers. Said killers than looked up and froze. The third guy even dropped his sunglasses a few millimeters to see if the lenses had been screwing with his vision. They weren’t. It was Ray Hill.
In the crapper, Ray thought. Slowly, he inched his arm behind his back towards the piece he had stuck in the back of his pants, a .357 snub nose. He probably wouldn’t get a shot off, these were the well dressed killers for Lords sake, but he had to try, had to try and impress the overweight waitress and the oldie witnesses who would forever remember this part of the vacation as the part where the chubby mafia wannabe got plugged, stuck, and crucified on a hamburger grill.
“Ray-” the first guy, with slicked back hair began.
That very moment, the bathroom door swung open and nearly clocked Lyle had he not had the reflexes of a hyped up crack addicted marathon runner.
“Hey Ray!” Pecos yelled as he stepped out of the bathroom. The diner was silent. What an exciting day at the Eat and Greet.
“What?” Ray whispered to himself, not quite believing his eyes. Pecos sauntered past the surprised looking Lyle towards Ray.
“You dropped something,” Pecos said when he was a few feet away. “Oh my Lord he has a gun!” Pecos yelled at the top of his lungs. The entire diner (excluding the well dressed killers) dove to the floor. As they did, Pecos dashed behind Ray Hill and grabbed him, wrenching his arm back. Ray gasped and his grip on the gun (that being the arm being wrenched) weakened. The gun dropped into Pecos’s hand who promptly drilled it into the side of Ray’s head.
“What the hell are you doing!?” Ray screamed. Pecos ignored him, instead he chewed on the gold toothpick between his teeth and stared around the diner. Everyone on the floor except the well dressed men.
“Hey nut job! Let that cat go, he’s…with us.” the well dressed man with gelled hair exclaimed, giving Ray a look of distinct ire.
“Yeah, take it easy,” the one with sunglasses said as he along with the rest of his crew reached for the guns in their pants.
“Don’t you know what I am?” Pecos asked as he drove the gun deeper into Ray’s head causing said Ray to wince.
“A friggin schizo or something, am I right?” the leader of the men asked.
“I’m a mental patient with a damn gun!” Pecos yelled as he removed the gun from Ray’s head and blasted the ceiling “And you better start taking me pretty damn seriously!”. Then, without missing a beat, he took a shot at the well dressed killers.
“Jesus!” one or all of them cried as they dove to the ground. The people in the diner collectively screeched.
“You, get the door.” Pecos said motioning towards Lyle, the only person besides himself and Ray who was still on his own two feet.
“What?” Lyle asked.
“Get the door.” Pecos said calmly.
“…get the door?” Lyle asked again, keeping a careful eye on the gun.
“Yes, if you don’t mind.” Pecos said with a calm befitting a hair trigger mental patient with his finger literally on a trigger. Lyle gulped. Manhattan. His home, his parents, his old life never felt further than they did at that second. Slowly, Lyle inched towards the door, being careful to step over and not on any of the people on the floor. As he was walking, Pecos was following close behind with a captive Ray looking quite bewilderingly at the well dressed killers.
The leader of the killers looked at Ray from the floor. Ray was torn. Did he want to be saved from one robe wearing maniac in exchange for four well dressed ones? What was the exchange rate on mentally unstable people anyway?
With a jingling of the bells placed above the door to the diner, Lyle, Pecos and Ray exited.
Outside, it was hot. No, wrong, incorrect, sweltering was a better descriptive word. The sun was beating down on the sands of the desert like a charging Calvary of glorious knights on fiery steeds of raging tempestuous power. Pecos looked up, up, up, directly at the sun.
“Hey,” Pecos said.
“What?” Ray and Lyle asked at the same time.
“We should probably leave.” Pecos said. Lyle shifted the weight of his back pack. Ray thought about stomping down on Pecos’ sandaled foot but thought better of it as he felt the guns muzzle gently nudge the side of his head.
“Wait, am I hostage too or is it just that guy?” Lyle asked pointing at Ray.
“Don’t lump this crap on me!” Ray yelled out, but quickly quieted down as he spied through the diner window that the people of the diner (including his favorite Italian killers) were quickly getting to their feet.
“Easy easy.” Pecos said as he released Ray. “Neither of you are anything, well I shouldn’t say that, that’s rude, you may be any number of things-”
“What are you going on about?” Lyle asked. Then calmly stated: “Those four guys have guns you know.”
“Those four are going to kill me, and probably you guys too because you’re so damn stupid!” Ray yelled again, fumbling in his pocket for his keys.
“Relax,” Pecos said as he lifted the gun in his hand and aimed it at the Mancini men who had just exited the diner. He fired three shots. The well dressed killers dove out of the way to the best of their abilities but sustained multiple gun shot wounds.
“Jesus kid, where’d you learn to shoot like that?” Ray asked as he lowered his sunglasses to peer at the fallen killers.
Pecos said nothing, only smiled casually. Pulling the trigger again and hearing only snapping noises, the trio came to the sudden anvil crashing realization that the gun was empty.
“Keys…keys!” Ray screeched as he yanked said object from his pants with great kinetic energy. Ray rushed over to his car, the 1994 Two Door Ford Escort and attempted to jam the key into the lock. After a few seconds, Ray managed to realize that the doors wouldn’t unlock. Because when a cars doors are unlocked they generally can’t be unlocked again. Ray pulled the door open and got in. Slamming the door shut, he was surprised to hear the passenger side door crash shut. “What the hell are you mooks doing?” Ray asked.
“I hedged my bets, I think I’d rather go with the bushy hair guy with an empty gun than four gangster types with fully loaded pieces.” Lyle said, settling into the back seat. Pecos shifted until he was comfortable in the passenger seat, he then locked the door and looked at Ray.
“Well?” Pecos asked.
“Alright, alright damn it! But only until the state line!” Ray bellowed. Turning the keys to the ignition, the engine sputtered to life with all the might of a cheap American economy car. Ray stomped down on the acceleration and floored it. The wheels of the car ground into the dusty ground, keeping the car in place for a second or two before releasing and pulling the car back onto the highway and speeding down the expressway.
One minute went by. Then two. Finally after ten minutes of silence, Ray slowly turned on the air conditioner.
“Hey thanks, it’s murder back here.” Lyle said, his New York accent thick.
“I mean what I said before,” Ray muttered. “I’ll take you freak jobs to the state line and that’s it, I got my well being to consider here!”
“Don’t worry man,” Pecos said as he took some pills from the leather necklace pouch around his neck. He then took out the golden toothpick that been lodged in his teeth the whole time. Pecos downed the pills in a flourish. “From here on out it’ll all be copasetic.”
“Yeah copasetic he says,” Ray said more to himself. “Ray fucking Hill this is my life.” Ray said.
“Ray Hill, you got nothing to worry about,” Pecos clasped a hand on Ray’s shoulder. “I won’t be a stranger to you any longer, you can trust a guy who gives you his name right? Or at least a name maybe not THE name, it’s Pecos Ward by the by.”
“Stanley Kubrick,” Lyle said, raising two of his fingers. Ray looked over his shoulder at Lyle. “No, not that Kubrick, it’s Lyle Stanley Kubrick.” Lyle said, pulling the brim of his hat down to cover his eyes as he lied down on the back seat. Ray looked at Lyle again, then at Pecos then at the road.
“It’s just a dream.”
-To Be Continued.

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