Ridding the World of Vice
by Laura Cody
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Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3 |
part 1
Coleman Viceroy slid from the booth, stretched both arms in the air, and belched. “Excuse me, darlin’!” He flashed his date a lopsided grin and squeezed the edge of the table for stability.
Across the mess of empty pitchers and shot glasses, Sheree snort-chortled. Her head swayed dangerously from side to side, eyes unfocused. “It’s ’kay, Vice,” she hiccupped, using the only name anyone ever called him.
Vice peeled his hands away from the table and tested his legs. “Be right back.”
“It’s ’kay,” she said again, smiling at nothing.
Vice turned and headed toward the dimly lit hall at the back of the bar and pushed open a door with peeled paneling. He took a long beer piss, sighed contently, and zipped his fly. He pulled Sheree’s wallet from his back pocket and roughly fingered the bills, calculating what he’d need to settle up at the bar, then slipped a few extra bucks into another pocket. Catching his reflection in the warped mirror over the sink, he winked. Vice, you are one good lookin’ SOB!
An unexpected sound made him flinch. Vice hated to flinch. He set a hand on either side of the grimy sink, leaned into the mirror and scanned the background for another reflection. No one was there. Too much beer. Then it happened again. Something like a throat clearing, harsh and phlegmy, and coming from right behind him in the space where no one was.
“Holy sh-” he said, whipping around. “Where’d you come from?”
“Nothing holy here,” the man chuckled, then cleared his throat again, all serious. “We need to talk, Mr. Viceroy.”
The familiarity further disoriented Vice, and he squinted hard trying to place the man but couldn’t. “Who the hell are you?”
“Who the hell indeed?”
What is that supposed to mean? Vice rubbed his head, regretting that fourth pitcher. “Who the hell cares?” he said. A quick top-to-bottom scan of the irksome toilet apparition revealed him to be white, probably somewhere in his fifties — just like Vice — but also slight, about 5’5”, with a crown of dark, blackish hair orbiting a bald pate. He was dressed in black jeans, dark shirt, and a field jacket. Vice judged he could kick his ass easily, so he took a step to the door, uninterested in wasting any more time.
“Hey, Vice, not so fast.”
For an instant — a mere nanosecond — Vice’s vision faltered and knees locked. Paralyzed in that sub-fraction of time, he had an impression that he was gazing through a lens of blood. The strangeness, however, ended as soon as it had started, leaving Vice unsure it even happened in the first place.
Vice inhaled deeply to restore himself and, satisfied that the room looked the way it should, turned back to face the man.
“Do I have your attention now?” the man asked.
Vice glared and said nothing.
The man glanced at his watch. “We don’t have much time here, so let’s make this quick. In about five minutes, that little love muscle in your chest is going to call it quits.” He brought a hand up and sliced it across his neck. “Buh-bye.”
Vice watched his fingers and gloating facial expressions. “What are you talking about?”
“Well,” the man said, cracking his knuckles, each crack a loud, ugly pop, “it’s your time.”
“For what?”
“To go.”
“Go where?”
“Um, well,... there’s this little thing in the universe called karma and yours, well, sucks.”
Vice stared blankly.
“You know... what goes around, comes around and all that.”
Still nothing.
“It’s your TIME. You’ve led your life like a real shit-wad. Now it’s time to make things even.”
Vice blinked hard and tried to focus. He should’ve passed on the shots. “So, what, you’re like the Angel of Death?”
“I’m no angel.”
There was silence in the bathroom, and Vice felt an odd tingle down to the hairs on his ass. “Listen, douchebag, my date is waiting for me outside.”
The man looked at his watch. “Yeah, you should get back to the table just in time for Sheree to see you drop dead. Or,” the man hesitated, “you can hear me out first.”
The whole interaction was hypnotically strange, and Vice heard himself say, “Go ’head.”
“I have a little proposition for you.”
“I’m listening.” For the life of him, Vice couldn’t figure out why he was listening.
“Okay, here’s the deal.” The man spoke quickly, all business. “You’re dead in three and a half minutes. You, I’m afraid,” he said, pointing a finger at Vice, “do not qualify for an express ticket to the land of clouds and harps, if you know what I mean.”
Vice started to protest, but the man held up a hand to stop him. “You have not earned that, not by a long shot.” He looked sternly at Vice who shifted his gaze away.
The man cleared his throat and continued. “You are headed for the in-between place.”
“In-between place?” Vice looked up.
“Yeah, it’s kind of a way station. You wait there for... a while. They size you up, put you through the paces, evaluate your merits.”
“Wait—”
“And we both know you don’t have any merits.”
“Screw off!”
“You could be there a good long time. We’re talking... five, six, seven—”
“Shut up!”
“Hundred years,” the man said. “Just to end up in the same damned place.”
“What place?”
“The damned place.”
“Now, wait just a minute!”
“So, here’s where the deal comes in,” the little man pushed on, ignoring Vice. “My boss is a betting man. A real deal-maker.”
“And?”
“And he wants to offer you a deal.”
“A deal?”
“It’s a good deal,” the man said, looking up at Vice. “Easy as pie.” The man cleared his throat again, and Vice wondered if he had a tic. “Okay, as I’ve mentioned, you’ve led your life like a real piece of shit. Folks like you, they don’t progress beyond the way station. But a lot of time is wasted there. Time when you could be... you know... working a side of the fence. It’s frustrating.” The man raised his shoulders and held up both hands in a but-what-are-ya-gonna-do-about-it kind of way. “The Boss doesn’t like that. So, he’s willing to give you twenty-four hours, twenty-four hours to turn things around.”
Vice struggled to follow. “Turn what around?”
“Your odds. You get twenty-four hours to do one nice thing. One nice thing, and then you get a reset. That giant bubble on your aorta will not burst, no one will be the wiser, and you get another spin at the roulette wheel. Maybe you’ll win another forty years. Who knows? And you’ll have that time to change your profile, improve your karma, purchase that guaranteed ticket to the land of eternal sunshine. No detours, no way station. Sounds good, right?”
“Wait a minute,” Vice made a ‘halt’ signal and narrowed his eyes. “Just how nice does this nice thing have to be?” Deals usually have a catch.
The man laughed. “The challenge is for one small act of kindness or good will. That’s it. See? Easy as pie.”
“What’s in it for your boss?”
“Oh, well...” the man looked down and shuffled his feet a little, “if you lose, he gets to claim your soul for all eternity.”
Vice looked at him, waiting for the punchline. Surely, he was being put on.
The little man continued, “There’ll be no way station, no second chance, no—”
“But how could I lose?” Vice interrupted, scoffing. “It sounds too easy.”
“That it does.” He shifted, then looked Vice in the eye with a smile. “Can’t say the Boss is unfair.”
Vice searched the ceiling of the cramped bathroom and all the corners. “Is this some reality show? Am I being filmed?”
“I assure you it’s not, and you’re not.”
“Why should I believe anything you say?”
The man rolled his eyes. “What do you need? A sign?”
“Yeah, a sign.” Vice folded his arms across his chest. “Let’s have a sign.”
The man considered Vice’s words, nodding. “Okay, here’s your sign.” He put both hands up, palms outward and closed his eyes. The water in the urinals started gurgling and swirling. Vice turned toward the source of the noise just as the contents of the toilet bowl in the stall behind the strange man erupted in a foul tidal wave that arched over the stall door and slapped Vice in the back of the head.
The man’s lips curled into a grin, and his scraggly yellow teeth glinted under the faltering fluorescent lightbulb. “Sorry about that,” he said, flicking a few fingers and instantly restoring everything to normal. Vice patted the back of his head — dry now — and looked wildly around the room. That fourth pitcher had definitely been a bad idea.
“I can only work with what I’ve got,” the man said, shrugging. “Here. All dry now. Although,” he lowered his voice and moved closer to Vice, sniffing his shoulder, “if I were you, I’d probably change my clothes ASAP.”
“Son of a bitch!”
“Maybe,” the man agreed. He shrugged again and looked at his watch. “But the moment is now upon us, Mr. Viceroy,” he said, suddenly all business again. “Do we have a deal? Or not?”
Vice stood paralyzed for a moment. It was so insane...
“Five, four, three,—”
This couldn’t be real.
“Two,—”
“Okay! Okay! We have a deal.”
“Excellent.” A wide smile erupted over the man’s small, pointy face.
Vice sniffed his sleeve and growled, “I don’t know what exactly is going on here, or how you did that... thing” — Vice waved his hand in the direction of the toilet — “but I’m gonna win. You tell your boss the game is on, and I’ll see him... um, I’ll see him in —... ah, I won’t see him at all.”
“We’ll see.” The man held Vice’s gaze, the smile fading, dark eyes glowing in a way that made Vice’s heart hammer in his chest. He broke eye contact, and, when he looked back, the little man was gone.
Vice burst out of the men’s room and staggered clumsily toward Sheree who was slumped in her chair, head on the table. He kept on moving, right out the front door. Bye, Bye, Mon-Sheree-Amour, he sang in his head, patting the pocket cradling her wallet. He slipped behind the wheel of his beat-up old Ford Escort and peeled away from the curb with a loud screech. No cops in the rearview mirror, thank God. His brain floated and bobbed on the dense BAL in his skull as he contemplated his predicament. One nice thing. How hard could it be?
He parked one wheel on the curb in front of an apartment complex in the shabby part of town and was already dialing Marilyn’s number as he climbed the three stories to his unit. Hopefully, she’d pick up. It was a new flip-phone with a new number, so he shouldn’t be blocked yet.
“Hello?”
“Mar, hi, it’s me.”
“Hi, it’s you? Vice, its 11:30 at night. What do you want?”
“Listen, Mar, this is serious...” It came out sounding like thesesseres, and Vice resolved to enunciate clearly. He didn’t want Mar to know he’d been drinking.
“You’ve been drinking. And who do you owe money to this time, asshole?”
“No, it’s not like that—”
“Good, because I’m not giving you a thing.”
“I’m not looking for money.”
“Whatever you’re looking for, don’t look here.”
Vice cleared his throat. “How about forgiveness?” Howbowfifness?
“Fitness?” Marilyn snorted. She had a way of distorting everything he said, always had.
Vice tried again, speaking slow and clearly. “For.Give.Ness?”
“Forgiveness?!” she repeated.
Vice took a deep breath. “I know I messed up when we were married—”
“Vice, I’m not in the mood.” She spit out the first syllables in what he expected to be a rage-fueled tirade, “I... You...” and then she suddenly dropped the octave, sounding tired. “It’s late. Just leave me alone.”
“I just think it’s time I said I’m sorry and set things right.”
“Set things right? You’re a joke, Vice, you know that? What? Are you diagnosed with cancer? Doing another 12-step program?”
“Something like that.”
“Of course, because I know damn well the motivation could only be self-interest.”
“Your forgiveness could save my life.”
“I wouldn’t care one bit.”
“Mar—”
“Vice, you skipped out on me when I was eight months pregnant.”
Vice sighed. “I was young—”
“Hocked my wedding ring and drained our bank account.”
“I—”
“To support a mistress...”
“I—”
“Who was 16 years old!”
“I’m not saying I didn’t make mistakes.” His eyelids were getting heavy.
Silence on the line. Finally, Marilyn sighed. “Here’s a little advice: lay off the booze, stay with the 12-step program, get a nice job flipping burgers or something, and stop bothering people. Earn forgiveness. Don’t ask for it.”
“But there’s no time—”
“There’re no quick fix, Vice.”
“But—”
“There are no buts, Vice!” Her voice was louder again, the anger back. “Now, don’t call me again! And I’m blocking this stupid number!” She hung up, and Vice stared at the dead phone in his hand.
Bitch! In the silence of the room, Vice came alert again. Anger made his heart pound, and his finger glided over the little blue vein in his temple that always throbbed when he was mad. He needed to figure out something else. No big deal, but for some reason he couldn’t think. He was too tense. So, he grabbed a bottle of Jack off a shelf, stretched out on his bed, shoes and all, and drank himself to sleep. He’d have plenty of time tomorrow.
Vice woke up in his clothes, mouth thick and dry, head pounding. Sunlight was squeezing into the room through the smudged window. He got off the bed, relieved himself in the bathroom, swallowed two ibuprofens, and ran a comb through his hair. He braced himself against the sink and studied his reflection in the mirror. Okay, so the little shit-water guy accused me of having bad karma. He looked steadily into his own eyes and scrunched his face into an expression so incredulous he almost bought it, himself. No matter. The problem was easy enough to fix. Even if Marilyn shot me down because, let’s face it — he shrugged his shoulders at his reflection — Marilyn was always a high-strung bitch with a black heart.
He’d go see Leo.
Vice slammed the apartment door behind him and found his way back to his Escort. He made a pitstop and ordered a large coffee, delighted to find a bounty of cash in his jeans. In his hurry to get moving this morning, he hadn’t showered or changed clothes.
He remembered Sheree passed out at the table last night and did a quick-check of his cell phone. Not surprisingly, there were a number of missed calls from Sheree’s number and several texts progressing sequentially from questioning to accusing to expletive-laced death threats. Vice chuckled as he shoved the phone back in his pocket.
He drove the way to Leo’s house, hoping it was early enough on a Saturday morning that he’d catch him home. The aroma of cheap coffee filled the car, and Vice took several burning gulps in an effort to clear his head and think strategically about what he would say to his son.
Copyright © 2021 by Laura Cody
