Here's a sample chapter from my novel Old Man Flick.
Not much you need to know other than Flick and Callahan are best friends and are very old men.
Enjoy and ignore any formatting issues that may have escaped my attention.
“We’re
surrounded by medi-cunts,” Flick said.
“Of course we are,” Callahan said. “The
mall just opened.”
Everyone walking around them was menopausal
plus twenty or twenty five. They loved their spandex too, even if it didn’t
love them back. They pumped their arms harder and faster than their legs
carried them. Fanny packs bounced on decaying hips while their ear plug wires
snaked up their gravity defeated bodies to sing in their ears.
“When did malls become gyms for the
elderly?” Flick asked. “And what the hell are they listening to?”
Lifetimes spent with the Dewey Decimal
system, postcards and AM radio, now these same people can’t spend a minute of
their lives without being plugged into their grandchildren’s technology. Not
one of them could explain how any of it worked, but all that mattered was that
it did.
The old ladies wearing Bluetooths in their
ears always made Flick laugh. Like their grandchildren were itching to call
them every five minutes, or maybe the church was going to run an emergency bake
sale.
The MP3 players bothered him the most. What
were they listening to? What was so important that every day chores couldn’t
interrupt? Would pausing their mystery stories cause them to lose track of the
plot?
Flick loved the leaps and bounds of
technology. There wasn’t a day that didn’t pass that Flick didn’t wish he was
young again so he could truly enjoy it. He’d love to live another hundred years
and see what the world would turn into.
Just then three women over took them. They
looked over their shoulders and waved at the boys.
“You’re walking in the fast lane slow
pokes,” one called out.
Their speed walking turned into swaggers as
they tried to samba their hips. Every woman is still a young girl at heart.
Feeling attractive is essential for life.
Even if they didn’t admit it, the boys
appreciated it. They walked a little faster.
Most days they walked the mall, only
peering into the stores. It was rare that they actually shopped the stores. The
mall was their addiction. There was comfort in knowing the architecture,
recognizing the stores and the regularity of the morning walk. But it was the
ever changing people that fascinated them. The way they went about their lives
in very different manners all in the pursuit for the same stuff.
“Look at those old fucks,” Callahan said.
He had stopped Flick at an intersection and
pointed at a group of couches sitting around a television. Each chair save for
one held a lifeless looking old man. A sports program played to unconscious
snores. Flick and Callahan just laughed at the sacks of skin. It would have
been a depressing sight if it wasn’t so funny.
“Flick!”
Callahan always pointed out his favorite
hairstyles of the day. Flick loved people watching for bad choices in clothing.
He hated all things fashion, but was amazed that grown adults were unable to
dress themselves. Many, many grown adults were unable to dress themselves.
Apparently most consumers never looked in a mirror and decided what clothes to
wear by their appearance on a plastic model.
“Flick!
There was a special place in his heart for
old people who wore clothes adorned with pictures of grandchildren. And ones
with animal heads glittered out as spiritual guides. They were an embarrassing
wrinkle in the elderly community.
“Flick!”
“Hey, I think someone’s trying to get your
attention.”
Flick’s eyes travelled past Callahan
through a crowd of shoppers and landed on a short geezer headed their way. He
recognized Henry immediately. Anyone who had ever seen Henry before would
recognize him again. Although he was on the short side, Henry’s body had
muscular, forward rolling shoulders. He dressed and acted as if he was still in
high school. Unfortunately for him, his nickname from high school had traversed
the passage of time with him and was perhaps more appropriate now than ever.
“Trollman,” Callahan said.
“Don’t call him that,” Flick said.
“That’s his nickname.”
“He hates it.”
“He gave it to himself.”
Henry was closing in on them. His hand was
outstretched and ready to shake. His dual hearing aids would no doubt pick up
their hushed tones at any second.
“I remember you calling yourself Cunt Hunter
for a time,” Flick said.
“I was young.”
Flick laughed and greeted Henry with a
handshake.
“Henry,” Callahan said in
greeting and made sure to catch Flick’s eyes.
“How are you?” Flick asked. “I like the
shirt.”
Henry gave a distrustful look. He glanced
at the other shoppers. Most were already looking at him. They were trying to be
discreet, but it wasn’t very common to see someone’s grandfather wearing high tops,
ripped jeans, a low slung backpack and a shirt that read I The
Bitches.
“Only my mother calls me Henry. You guys
know I’m the Trollman. Don’t you follow my tweets?”
“What the hell is a tweet?” Callahan asked.
“You’d like it Playboy. It’s a computer
thing where you tell everyone what you’re doing and people follow you. People
are always asking me about my clothes, so this way they can improve their
style.”
“Sounds like you should twit too, Playboy.
Teach everyone how to pick up chicks,” Flick said, enjoying Callahan dealing
with a nickname he hated. “You could start teaching a senior community group
about picking up bitches.”
“I don’t have time to sit around a computer
and waste my life.”
“Use your phone then,” Henry said to the
shrugging men and then he started to dig around in his pockets. His face was always
an exaggeration of what he was feeling. At the moment Henry’s wrinkled skin
created new folds that suggested that he had misplaced the deed to his mansion,
lost a winning lottery ticket or the supermodel who’s every curve he’d
memorized during those lonely high school nights had gone missing in his
trousers.
In his trousers an epic war commenced.
“You sit around and watch Chance play
games,” Flick said.
“That’s different. I do sit around with
Chance watching him play his games,” Callahan said. “But I also go on dates. I
have friends, a social life. And I don’t feel the need to torture myself with a
high school reunion.”
Henry was still struggling with his
pockets. Flick wanted to say something to Callahan, but couldn’t find the
words.
“One of these years, you’re going to show
up for one of these reunions,” Callahan said. “And you’re going to be the only
one there.”
“I’m never going to be that old.”
“Too late.”
“Found it,” Henry said.
From his pocket, Henry pulled out a tiny
square piece of paper. He unfolded it over and over until it had become a regular
piece of paper. For a moment, Flick believed that Henry might be practicing
street magic again. If he was about to start performing, Callahan and he needed
to walk away very quickly. The large
piece of paper was indeed a magic trick, but Henry turned out to be the
spectacle.
“It’s a winning lottery ticket. I almost
deleted the email, but you can’t imagine how happy I am that I didn’t. I won
the lottery. I’m going to be so rich. Of course I’ve already spent it all,”
Henry said and he pointed to his head. “Up here, I know where the money’s
going.”
Callahan took the paper out of Henry’s hand
without asking. He held the email close to his face and began a frantic read.
“How much did you win?” Flick asked.
“Forty three million dollars,” Callahan and
Henry answered at the same time.
Henry was starting to giggle. Callahan
never looked up from the page. The tiny print forced Callahan to trace each
sentence as he read along.
“Holy shit,” Flick said, struggling to
understand how this man looked so calm. “And you said you spent it all?”
“Up here,” Henry said, once again pointing
to his head. “Forty three million dollars isn’t what it used to be, especially
since I have to pay taxes.”
“Still.”
“And some international fees.”
Callahan finished reading and returned the
papers by pressing them against Henry’s chest, until they were ripped free.
Flick noticed that Callahan had an unusually large smile that he seemed to be
trying to swallowed.
“International fees?” Flick asked.
“Nigerian taxes,” Callahan said, barely
containing his laughter. “Do you play the Nigerian lottery often?”
“I don’t play any lottery,” Henry said.
“Lotteries are for the mathematically retarded. However, I’m operating under a
hypothesis that during one of my midnight MMO sessions, I liquored up on Red
Bull or Monster and must have entered this lottery by mistake.”
Flick now understood what Callahan knew.
People actually fell for these scams. Callahan whispered to Flick that Henry’s
name was misspelled in the email. Henry had been spelled Hennri.
“I shouldn’t say mistake,” Henry said. “I
should say fortune or fate or fucking fantastic life improvement.”
“When are you going to the bank to wire the
money?” Callahan asked.
“After I’m done here.”
“Spending your newly won money?” Flick
asked, fearful that his friend was wandering around the mall spending money
he’d never receive.
“Stealing.”
“Stealing?”
“That’s why I brought the back pack, I
don’t like to pay for things that I can steal,” Henry said. “I better get back
to it, if I’m going to get to the bank before it closes.”
Flick and Callahan traded worried glances
with each other.
“What have you stolen?” Flick asked.
Henry’s face twisted with sudden suspicion.
He even took a few steps back as if he planned on running away.
“Are you mall security?” he asked.
Flick shook his head no and was close to
laughing.
“I want to hear you say it,” Henry said.
“Say what?”
Henry took a few more steps back.
“I want you to clearly express if you are a
cop or if you are not. If you are, you have to admit it. It’s the law.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not true,” Callahan
said.
“I’m not a cop. I’m not mall security. I
hope you steal lots of stuff and get away with it,” Flick said.
Henry turned to Callahan and continued to
stare until Callahan spoke the same words.
Immediately the suspicion disappeared and
Henry was excited to be with his friends again.
“Well, I better get back to it,” Henry
said. “I’ve still got half this backpack to fill. Believe it or not, but I’ve
actually got a mannequin’s arm in here.”
“Take her easy Trollman,” Callahan said.
“Please show the banker that email before
you wire any money,” Flick said.
Henry the Trollman walked off after
inviting the guys over to his house and then gave a final wave. Where most
people would see the slight gait in his step as a lurching man, Flick and
Callahan saw a delusional but happy senior skipping to his next heist.
“That’s not a conversation I expected to
have today,” Callahan said. “Or any day.”
“Just imagine if we had kept talking.”
Old Man Flick will be available to the public...eventually...
Flick here.
