The Big Something
Hugh Lessig

Hugh Lessig is a newspaper reporter who lives in
Richmond, VA. His work has also appeared in
Thrilling Detective, Plots With Guns and Handheld
Crime. He is currently at work on a novel, and welcomes
all comments at hlessig@earthlink.net.
©Copyright 2001
Hugh Lessig

Brian is making an extra large with pepperoni. He arranges the
slices like spokes on a wagon wheel, radiating outward. I see what
he’s doing: Now every slice will have its own red line running
straight down the middle.
He postures and preens like a sculptor working in clay.
“Orderly, straight lines,” Brian says. “That’s how it will go
tomorrow night. If tomorrow night starts to go wrong, if things go
south, just think about this pizza. It’s all interrelated.”
I give him one of my looks, just to spook him. He shuffles his
feet and looks at the floor. “Most people would put the pepperoni
in concentric circles. Do you know what concentric means, Jody?”
Brian pats my shaved head and sprinkles the pizza with Fairy
Dust, a mixture of Parmesan, oregano and garlic salt. Fast food
places have names for everything. They even have a name for me,
although I’m not supposed know it. I am the Gorgon, which is
some kind of monster, and I can’t say I blame them. One year ago,
I dove into a pond and hit the rocks. It resulted in skull fractures,
brain damage, head lacerations and various whatnot. Now I’m OK
on the outside, but my therapist says I still have external
communications issues common to the head-injured. In other words,
I tend to look right through people, like I can see their secrets.
My therapist asks what I want, and I tell her I want out. She
thinks that is a good sign, like I want out of my body. Jesus.
“Jody, move your buns.”
Linda comes back from the dining room and pushes behind me.
She has a tray in each arm. Her cheeks are flushed pink and
copper-colored hair clings to her damp forehead. I take a tray for
her.
“Thank you, sweet cheeks.”
Linda has a thing for men’s asses. Linda is scared about the
future. She’s 29 and still ripe, but her mother has thunder thighs and
is going bald. Linda has steeled herself against her mother’s future.
Linda will do something with her life. The Big Something. These are
not my words, but Linda’s own. We go out together for smoke
breaks and I hear about her thighs, her boobs, her aborted baby,
her first husband, and the various sexual techniques she picks up in
books. It is all interrelated.
“Jody,” she whispers. “Can you be lookout tonight? Last time I
swear.”
She kisses my nose and returns to the dining room. We are busy
right up until closing time, then we go into our break-down routine:
Brian mops floors and takes apart the Make Table while I wash
dishes, Linda fills the salt shakers and runs the sweeper. Walt, the
manager, zeros out the register and balances the books.
Walt is the first to leave. Brian and Linda wait for his little red car
to exit the parking lot, then they pull down the ladder that leads to
the crawl space above the kitchen. They climb up, giggling and
poking at each other. Zippers are pulled. Shoes are dropped. The
ceiling beams groan and shift. This goes on for maybe 45 minutes. I
stand near the front door just in case Walt comes back. Mr. Lookout.
I think about Linda’s smell, her chunky hips. I wonder what
position they’re using tonight.
Linda comes down after a while, pushing at her hair. She walks
out to the dining room and puts a hand on my shoulder. Linda has
small, strong hands. She’s always squeezing me.
“That took long enough,” she says. “Brian seems nervous.”
I give her one of my looks.
“I guess we’re all a little nervous,” she says.
The next night, Linda calls in sick as planned and Walt seems to
think nothing of it. It is a Tuesday, and no one calls in sick on a
Tuesday unless they’re really sick, right? That is Brian’s thinking.
Tuesday is also a good night for robberies because most places get
hit on a Friday or Saturday when they have the most cash. Walt
would never suspect Tuesday.
Walt is one of those guys you can’t peg. He could be 28 or 45,
straight or gay. He could be wearing a toupee or doing the Grecian
Formula thing. He could be a hero tonight or he could wet himself.
He could have a gun. Or not. The whole Walt thing has me
worried.
At closing time, Brian and I do our regular duties. Walt zeros out
the cash register and goes back to balance the books. The waitress
working in Linda’s place doesn’t fill the salt shakers and barely runs
the vacuum before bolting out the door. After what seems like a 
long time, Walt emerges from his little office with the night deposit
bag. He makes a show of inspecting the dough mixer and the
electric roller, although he has never told me to clean them twice.
He makes little clucking noises of disapproval when he sees the
empty salt shakers. Brian wipes down the counter near the register.
I am in back, drying dishes, and I can hear them.
“It’ll be good to have Linda back tomorrow,” says Walt.
Brian laughs and nods.
“Damn salt shakers. Linda’s not flat on her back, I hope.”
“It’s a stomach virus,” Brian says quickly. “One of those 24-hour
bugs.”
Walt nods in understanding. “You OK for me to leave?”
“We’re OK. Take care of yourself, Walt.”
Walt gives him a funny look, then he waves goodbye to me and
goes out the front door. He leaves the parking lot at 11:23 p.m. We
had estimated his departure at 11:25 p.m., so that’s good. Brian
starts whistling a nameless, happy song. In another five minutes, we
are out the door and standing in the empty parking lot.
“Now we walk home,” he says. “Just like normal.”
Cherokee Pass has about 3,000 people and maybe six stoplights.
The restaurant is on the highway leading out of town, within sight
of the interstate. It is maybe a 15-minute walk back toward town,
where Brian and I live on neighboring blocks. It was during one of
these walks a few weeks ago that Brian “let me in” on the plan.
Linda had told me a few days before that.
Brian has all these student loans. He has credit card debt out the
wazoo. He’s come within a cunt’s hair of bankruptcy. His words. He
doesn’t want to spend forever paying debt, and he figures the cash
from one night’s deposit will put him years ahead. Here’s the funny
part, or at least I think it’s funny: Brian wants to be a funeral
director. And believe it or not, the Cherokee Pass Community
College has a pretty good program for this - expensive, but good.
Once Brian gets established, he’s got it made because funeral homes
don’t go out of business. People are always dying. His words again.
Brian shakes his head now. “I never should have said ‘Take care
of yourself.’ That was stupid.”
A car comes toward us with high beams, but it’s not Linda. Her
car is a little bigger. Still, the speeding car makes my heart jump and
I force myself back into the calm space inside my head.
Brian looks at his watch. I know what he’s thinking. Right about
now, Walt is approaching the night deposit slot at Cherokee First
National. Ornamental shrubs border the building and Linda will
kneel behind them, wearing a clear plastic Halloween mask. She’ll
come in from behind, blind him with pepper spray and take the
money. Then she’ll go back to her apartment and wait. We’ll come
to work tomorrow and divvy up the money sometime later. 
“We’re not biting off more than we can chew,” Brian says. “That’s
the main thing. If this was a Friday night, cops would be making
the rounds at the bank. But this is Tuesday. No one cares about
Tuesday.”
I stare down the highway and wait.
“The risk is that Walt will ID her. But I figure it this way: It’s less
of a risk than hiring someone we don’t know, bringing in a fourth
person. It’s me, you and Linda, and we’re all friends.” Brian has told
me this a hundred times, but I nod just the same. It was Linda’s idea
to bring me in, but he never says that.
Another car comes along in the opposite lane. It lurches once and
veers toward us. The driver crosses the yellow line and positions
the headlights directly on us. The car is straddling the road, looking
at us.
Brian shields his eyes. “What the hell?”
Linda’s voice comes from beyond the lights: “Hey you two. Just
get in.” She sounds different - not excited, not calm. Just different.
Brian and I run to the car. Linda is behind the wheel, looking
much like she did earlier in the night - cheeks flushed, hair pasted
to her forehead. But her eyes display a joyful recklessness that
transforms her face. The Big Something has happened.
“Let’s go people,” she says. “I don’t have all night.”
Brian gets in front and I climb into the back seat. Linda gives me
a wink and tells me to be careful what I touch. I reach down and
pick up a gun. Brian sees it and his face falls. I can almost see little
pieces of his manhood dropping onto the floor of the car.
“You shot him,” he says. “You shot Walt.”
“Nope.” Linda purses her lips and smiles. “I stuck it in his back,
though.”
“We agreed no guns. We agreed to meet later - no cars, no
getaways. Linda, what is this? What the hell?”
“Change in plans,” is all she says.
We roar past the restaurant, down the highway and onto the
interstate. I allow myself to feel the weight of the gun. It is a
revolver, that much I know. It has a very short barrel, and the silver
plating, or whatever it is, shines back in my face. Linda starts
whistling ‘Light My Fire’ by The Doors. Brian huddles against the car
door, his brain not working, wondering where the pepperoni pizza
went wrong. Perhaps he has blown a fuse. I am somewhat of an
authority on this matter.
Finally Linda says: “Brian, get a grip. Did you really expect me to
wait for you to pay off student loans, get a degree in embalming,
get a job at Corpses R Us, or wherever the hell you might end up?”
“Corpses are us!” I say. “Now with the convenient drive-through
window.”
Linda howls with laughter and pounds the steering wheel. I can’t 
see Brian’s face, but soon the wail of a police siren drowns out
everything. Red and blue strobe lights reflect inside the car. Linda
pulls over smoothly, stops the car and keeps the engine running.
She turns back to me.
“Gorgon, give me the gun. Shit, I mean Jody.”
I hold onto the gun.
“Jody, I’m sorry. That was terrible. Give me the gun, sweet
cheeks. OK?”
But the cop is coming up to the car now. He has a little clipboard
and a flashlight. Linda takes a deep breath and lets it out. I move
the gun around in my hand, like I’m feeling the weight of a rock.
The police officer asks if Linda knew how fast she driving. Linda
says her boyfriend here in the front seat is sick, and they were
going to the emergency clinic in Dublen. The cop asks to see her
license and registration. Linda starts digging in her purse. The cop
shines his flashlight to help her. He hears the click of the hammer
being pulled back and turns to look at me. I don’t think he has time
to be scared before I pull the trigger.
The bullet hits him square in the throat, and he makes a strangled
noise before staggering backwards. Linda grabs the gun from my
hand and fires it three more times. The last time, I see a little tuft of
uniform come away from the trooper’s chest, and he collapses on
the ground, folding in on himself. We leave the him bathed in his
own headlights, his own blood. Linda looks at me via the rearview
mirror. “You should’ve let me do it,” she says.
“A Gorgon can always plead insanity.”
She thinks about that for a moment, then nods her head.
Something has happened between us. My Big Something. Brian’s
jaw quivers like a baby. When the cops find him in the shallow
grave Linda has conceived, will they look at his jawbone and figure
he was a weakling? They can do all kinds of things these days. And
when the police kill us, will Linda and I be locked in an embrace?
Or will they even kill us? Will they? Maybe it will work. Maybe we’ll
be famous.
I try to catch Linda’s eye, but she has blinders on. It’s time to live,
time to sprint, time to go.