To celebrate reaching 400 subscribers, I asked for some prompts, with which I’d create a new piece of short fiction. Well, I couldn’t decide, so I kinda used them all.
I hope you enjoy, Turtle Drum Boogie.
And a big thanks to all of you who prompted!!
Turtle Drum Boogie
Stan drove the car like he stole it, even though he didn’t. It was his dead grandma’s, and the only thing worth a shit that she left him. If Granny Smith would have known what he’d end up using the car for, she might have changed her will. He imagined her puckered up mug glaring at him and shaking her head. Come to think of it, the name fit, she looked like one of those green apples—one that sat too long on the counter.
The music snapping on the radio had a great beat. Must have been a kick-ass drummer smacking those skins like they were turtles on a beach. He thought the damndest things.
“Slow down, we’re far enough.”
“You gonna attract attention. We gotta be cool.”
Stan nodded to the music, which the two guys sitting in the back took as a yes. But he didn’t slow down.
“Hey. Asshole. Take it down a notch.”
Stan gave a thumbs up and floored it, sending his passengers back into their seats. More swearing. Man, that guy could drum. He took a hard turn at the lights, tires squealing, rubber burning, and something clunking on the undercarriage. Hell, it was like he was part of the band. Play it, Stan. That’s what his band members would have yelled at him.
Something pressed against his forehead, cold and metal-like.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? Ease off.”
Stan jammed the wheel left and right, a high hat followed by a crash cymbal. The guy with the pistol flew back. Stan waited for the gun to go off but it didn’t. So he peeled around another corner, fighting the fishtail, and bringing the car back to the straightaway. He had to admit he was pretty good at this.
“You fucker. Johny is going to bust you up when we get back.”
Seemed like an empty threat to Stan. Johny Lemus the big bad dude who hired him to work with the guys in the back seat was an agoraphobic. Never left his house so the story went. He controlled his little empire like he was playing that game on the computer. Stan couldn’t remember the name.
“You shoot me I’m gonna drive into that semi. Then we’re all dead,” Stan said it like he was giving a weather report.
More swearing from the back, like one long curse-word the two of them put together: mothershittercockdamnpieceoffuck.
Johny L. was pretty good at putting guys together, pulling jobs all over the city. Stan wondered how he did it. How do you get that much power if you can’t even go outside to get the morning paper? Maybe he wasn’t always like that. Still, he should have done some more background checks before he took Stan on as a driver.
Red and blue cherries appeared in his rearview.
“You son-of-a-bitch. Now we’re cooked.”
“Boot it,” the other guy yelled.
Stan touched the brake, slowing the sedan.
“Are you mental? They’re right behind us.”
He eased the car over to the far right, it was like a water-skiing move, a slow slalom behind the boat, wave to the folks on the shore. He slid behind a dark Burgundy Buick. Now there’s a nice car.
The guys in the back didn’t know whether to shit or go blind—that’s what Stan’s old man would have said. He rolled down the window.
“Who you got in the back, Stan?”
“A couple of winners. They’re locked and loaded, so be careful.”
The other cop, either Johnson or Jackson, Stan could never tell them apart, yanked open the back door and pointed his service revolver at the pair.
“Hands on heads,” he barked.
“What station is that, Stan?”
“Not sure. But listen to that beat.” Stan did a finger drum on the wheel. “You get Lemus?”
“Not yet. But we know where to find him. The King is dead.”
John-Jackson hauled the pair out of the sedan and cuffed them.
“Drive safe, buddy.”
”I always do.”
Omg awesome. Love this. Always love this.
Very cool. Nice twist--fooled me completely!