Seven
SEVEN
The street was empty, no cops in sight. Bruce’s shit heap of a car was, unfortunately, parked exactly where he’d left it. He climbed down the final fire escape ladder, crossed the street, got in, started up the engine and just drove, taking lefts and rights until he ended up out in the country lanes where he could breathe easier. He could relax a little; he had a lead. He had her number. He pulled over into a lay-by and plugged his phone into the cigarette lighter socket to recharge. Bruce sat back; taking a moment to think, watching small black birds with chattering orange beaks flit in and out the hedgerow.
Sophie, Jimmy’s wife, was vengeful by her own written admission, passionate, fiery; she reminded Bruce of himself. He’d play nice. He powered his phone on as he looked at her picture. She was pretty too. The phone at last told him the time. It was 9:36 AM, a day later than he expected. He shook his head as he keyed her number in.; how had he slept so long in the ventilation system? The phone hung up; no answer.
He put the phone down and turned the key in the ignition. His petrol gauge read empty and his stomach growled in agreement. It was time to refuel.
He drove on, in search of a petrol station. A small hamlet came and went; long convoluted village names littered white signs. Everywhere was shut; all the Post Offices, pubs and forecourts he passed were boarded up. He turned around in the entrance to a field, taking care not to scrape his car on the rusty gate and drove back towards the city.
Bruce kept to the low gears as the distance to Bristol counted down on the roadside signs. Eventually, a familiar petrol station sign welcomed him onto its slick forecourt. He parked up and filled the tank, mindful of the large skinhead with the thick neck polishing his damp racing green Mini proudly behind him. The man had given him a look as he turned in, his nostrils flaring like a bulldog. He had a tattoo of a swastika on the side of his neck. As he filled the tank, Bruce imagined smashing the guy’s dumb racist face into the headlamp of his stupid little car and smearing his blood across the St George’s Cross painted on the roof. Instead, he walked inside to pay.
The checkout assistant looked up as he stepped through the automatic doors. He wore a blue polo shirt emblazoned with the company logo and a five o’clock shadow on his chin. He lowered a copy of the Daily Star as he nodded his welcome.
Bruce nodded back and perused the chocolate bars. The Wispa was back, Nineties retro. He groaned. Adidas popper trousers ran through his mind. The assistant chuckled at the article he was reading.
“Did you know that Tom Cruise allegedly ate his wife’s placenta? Scientology’s bloody mental isn’t it?”
He looked eager for conversation. Bruce avoided his eye as he approached the counter.
“Pump three please.”
“Alright mate, no problem. Do you watch Celebrity Big Brother?”
“How much do I owe ya?”
“That’ll be forty quid please sir.”
Bruce’s arm hissed as he paid with Jimmy’s cash, his fingers closed tightly around the blood money, unwilling to let it go. The assistant scrabbled at the notes for a moment, confused. Bruce’s prosthesis continued to disobey him; he concentrated hard on letting go.
“Just a second.”
Bruce forced his arm down against the check-out counter with his good hand; it touched down with a clank and let go. As the guy scooped up the money, Bruce instinctively thrust his artificial hand back into his pocket. The assistant was grinning at him inanely. Bruce knew what was coming; the guy just couldn’t keep his mouth shut.
“Bloody hell mate, is that a metal arm! Are you like, Robocop, or summat?”
Bruce snorted derisively.
“Robocop? I’m not that cheap tin pot has-been, mate, I’m the fucking Terminator!”
The guy cowered at the sudden change of tact. Bruce was furious; who did this polo-shirt prick think he was? He slammed his prosthetic hand down on the counter, upsetting the tasteful chewing gum display. The assistant jumped back, flapping his hands slowly back and forth like an owl coming in to land. If it was supposed to defuse the situation, it didn’t work. The bloody feathered scene on the rooftop flashed back into Bruce’s mind like a white-hot bolt. He crackled; he felt electric. The colour drained from the attendant’s face.
“Whoa, alright mate, calm down! I didn’t mean to have a go, you know, at your... disability.”
Bruce picked up a packet of extra strong mints, he found their XXX branding irresistible. He tossed them rhythmically in his artificial hand as he spoke.
“I may have lost an arm, but a disability? This prosthetic arm makes me more “able” than you, Jack. You’re a disgrace!”
Bruce made a sudden move, as if to punch the assistant with the fist full of mints, but his arm stopped an inch short, hissing in disapproval. The assistant flinched back and clattered into the cigarette stand, looking confused and a little bit like he’d pissed his jogging bottoms. He was obviously a stranger to confrontation. Bruce felt the rage begin to subside at the stranger’s doe-eyed display of submission. He grunted, turned and walked away. As the automatic doors slid open and the cold air hit him, he stopped still. The assistant was shouting after him.
“OI! I SAID YOU FORGOT TO PAY FOR THOSE MINTS!”
Bruce shook his head and took another step forward and stopped in the doorway, his back to the counter, willing the guy to keep his mouth shut. He didn’t get the hint.
“OI! Come back here, I’m talking to you! I don’t care if you’re all gimped up mate, you still have to pay! This isn’t some fucking charity you...”
He never got to finish that sentence. The mints came wheeling at his face at close to terminal velocity as Bruce span around with a flick of his pneumatic wrist. The assistant heard the hiss as the hard little sweets smashed through the skin of his forehead and crashed through his skull. The mints exploded into a thousand sugary shards, tearing through the soft tissue of his frontal lobe like a candy grenade. He fell back against the cigarettes, scattering the multi-coloured boxes.
Bruce pulled a crumpled packet from his pocket, lit his last cigarette and tossed the empty box onto the ice-cream freezer’s glass lid as he walked back across the room and vaulted the counter. They had to have his brand. He gave the guy’s twitching body a kick, picked out a couple packets, a tray of bright plastic disposable lighters and a supposedly Cornish pasty before walking slowly back out to his car. Smoking in a petrol station, felt so, exciting. He threw his ill-gotten goods onto the back seat and drove off the forecourt. On a whim, he threw the smouldering butt at one of the pumps as he left. It bounced off harmlessly and fizzled out on the floor. No dice. He rolled to a halt just off the forecourt, lit another of his new acquisitions and carefully tossed it into a puddle of fuel, dripping from a loose nozzle and hit the gas. This time, as he screeched away, the cabin of the car lit up bright orange as the forecourt burst into a ball of roaring flame; he felt the heat on the back of his neck.
Bruce smiled and reached behind for yet another smoke, this time tearing the filter off before lighting up. The cigarette was rough and hot on his throat, stinging and satisfying. He held the smoke in for a second or two before exhaling softly, releasing an Irish waterfall that rolled up over his face and filled his nostrils. He felt like he’d just had sex with Venus and her mother, and all her sisters
A storm rolled in menacingly overhead as he drove through the city, darkening the sky and threatening rain. He picked up his phone from the passenger seat and hit redial; it was time to meet the mysterious Mrs Sophie Masters and give her the bad news.