From the Archives - Chase Scene #9

When I was in art school, I got stuck taking a creative writing class. I wasn't too pleased about it, since I expected it to be full of hippies and heartbreak poets and, you know, that sort of riffraff. However, one good thing came of it: I discovered I really enjoy writing random chase scenes. Sometimes, I go for a simple chase, one guy chasing another. Other times, I add conditions I've got to adhere to--you know, the chase has to be on an aeroplane, or there have to be at least five chasers, or the chasee can't get away--that sort of thing.

This is a chase scene with four conditions. These conditions were relatively easy, except for working out why the hell I'd be carrying an animal. I didn't think up that one--it was an outside suggestion. I was a bit too vague about the setting. It was supposed to be New York, but I've never been there. Ah, well.

1) There is a crowd
2) I am carrying an animal
3) I am horribly out of shape
4) I can't be seen by the chaser, not even once.

You know how it is: you're out having a soda and a slice, or maybe buying a newspaper--minding your own beeswax, essentially, when who should appear but your nemesis. Said nemesis varies, of course. One day, it might be your publisher: "Ey, Jack, where's that illustration for page 145?" The next, it's your ex: "Ey, Jack! So, erm, how've you been? You think we could...er, you know, have coffee?" The day after that, it's your grandma: "Ey, Jack, come along now! It's lovely down here with the worms!" In the last case, of course, it usually turns out to be a dream--either that, or you've wandered onto the set of That Moment Between Late Afternoon and Evening Where it Isn't Quite One or the Other of the Living Dead. (You never get to play the lead at times like these. You're always Man Walking Down the Street who gets Torn Into Four Squelchy Pieces by Eight Squelchy Zombies Who Appear from Nowhere. You get one line, and this is it:

MWDTSWGTIFSPBESZWAFN: Eeeeeeaaaaaaagh! Kkkk-kkk-kk...k.)

Anyway, my name's Jack. Today, I was walking down the street with my dog, Mr. Spanky. I didn't name him that. I bought him with my first girlfriend, the one who left me for my dad. She got custody of the furniture, the stereo, the computer, and our mutual workplace. (Never, ever date your boss.) I got Mr. Spanky. Over the last eight years, I've tried to get him to answer to Fred, Joe, and Rover, but his brain is the size of a walnut, and only fits one name. Every time he wanders off in the park, my testicles recede a little. Picture this: a grown man walking about with a pooper-scooper in one hand and a miniature leash in the other, shouting "Ey, Mr. Spanky! Where'd you go, Mr. Spanky!" That, my friend, is emasculation. At that point, you might as well get a sensible car with a bumper sticker reading Pussy-Whipped". It wouldn't be so bad if I at least had some pussy to be whipped by, but--

--well, as I was saying, me and Mr. Spanky were out on a walk this morning. He'd found a sock that looked exactly like a dead mouse, and was humiliating me by dragging it around with him. For three blocks, I'd been followed by a gaggle of teenaged girls, and every time they giggled, I just knew they were laughing at me. I, in turn, was following a pack of pensioners. They were spread out all over the sidewalk with their walkers and their canes and their giant canvas shopping bags, so nobody could get past. Worse still, they were window-shopping:

"Look at this, Madge!"

"What's that, Winnie?"

"Oy! You're going blind! The cuckoo clock, Madge, look at the cuckoo clock!"

"I don't see anything special about that. Why I've gotta look at that? Always with your cuckoo clock this, mason jar that! Why you've got me looking at that?"

"Madge, I don't know why you bother!"

"Oh, now she's wishing me dead! Frieda, did you hear? She doesn't know why I bother. My son's just like that. He never calls me."

"Or mine!"

"Or mine!"

"Mine too!"

"Ungrateful kids! We raise 'em for what...?"

And then Mr. Jones hoved into view. Mr. Jones is my landlord, and he doesn't know about Mr. Spanky. He can't find out, either. I live in a no-pets no-smoking no-noises no-children crackerbox five minutes from downtown. It doesn't sound like much, but the whole five minutes from downtown thing is very important. Also, it's rent-controlled. If I get evicted, my life will end.

Mr. Jones was coming straight for me, huffing and puffing. He had a bagel in one hand and an extra-large Orange Julius drink in the other. The bagel had enough lox in it to fill sandwiches for a small army. I started walking faster, hoping to evade him, but a second herd of oldsters burst out of Bargain Harold's. Noisy greetings ensued, and the gang became a small battalion. How is it that all old people know each other? I muttered a series of "Excuse me"s and "Pardon me"s, but every time one biddy got out of the road, another fell in to take her place. I glanced over my shoulder: Mr. Jones was almost upon me. If he looked up from his bagel now, even for one moment--

I scooped up Mr. Spanky and stuffed him under my jacket. Most dogs wouldn't stand for that kind of treatment, but Mr. Spanky's a dachshund version of that lazy hound Columbo had in the old detective movies, the one he was always carrying under his arm. I checked my reflection in Bargain Harolds' display window: lumpy, with hairy dog-butt hanging out. No chance of hiding the evidence. I'd have to escape undetected. Bargain Harolds' double doors beckoned, promising sanctuary, and I took them up on the offer. A blast of air-conditioning hit me in the face, and I relaxed. Mr. Spanky kicked feebly, digging my shirttail out of my waistband. I hurried past racks of depressing sundries which reminded me of my schooldays, things my mother used to buy for me. There were yellow legal pads and blue, red, and black Bic pens. There were erasers (Pink Pearl and Pink 'n' Ink), and bottles of Liquid Paper in white, blue, and something called "Jonquils", which might have been yellow. Beyond the stationery lay miniature tracksuits with stupid stencils on the tops: bears for boys, rainbows and unicorns for girls. I navigated a small sea of flannel shirts, hung in no particular order on racks, and a flotilla of unpleated khakis. I went down an escalator, and found myself surrounded by pots and pans. A checkout girl fixed Mr. Spanky's legs with a disapproving stare, so I detoured down a continent of garden supplies (hoses and watering cans and planters, oh my!) and out the back door, into the street.

I breathed a sigh of relief, which turned into a gasp of horror, then a minor coughing fit. Mr. Jones had gone round via the street, and was standing not five feet away from me, getting a newspaper out of a vending machine. I was in his peripheral vision. I turned to go back in the store, but the disapproving clerk had followed me, and was shaking her head.

"Don't let him see me," I said to nobody in particular, stepping behind a small potted spruce tree. Nobody in particular listened, but Mr. Jones came and stood by the tree. He set his Orange Julius cup down on the windowledge, folded his newspaper under his arm, and bent down to tie his shoe. I watched him through the branches. Although the bagel was gone by this time, it had marked its passage with a crumb in the corner of his mouth.

"I'll just wait here till he leaves," I thought to myself. "Then, I'll head in the opposite direction." So I waited. Mr. Jones tied and retied his shoe three times, questing after the perfect knot, then headed left. I went right. Behind me, another chance old-folks encounter took place, this time involving Mr. Jones.

"Herbie!" croaked someone.

"Barbara!" boomed Mr. Jones.

"Where are you going, Herbie? We never see you any more!"

"I was going to catch the bus. I was going for a swim." (An image of fat, warty Mr. Jones in skin-tight Speedos scrawled itself across my eyelids in indelible ink, never to be forgotten.)

"Swim later," said this Barbara, whom I was hating more and more by the second. "I've gotta tell you about Shirley's niece and that husband of hers."

Mr. Jones was hooked. He's worse than a woman when it comes to gossip. He always comes in person to collect the rent, so he can try for a glimpse of your dirty laundry. He turned around and started following me again, arm in arm with nosey old Barbara. I became acutely aware of my jacket--I had on my basketball jacket from college, which has my name on the back: J. Pinkerton. How many J. Pinkertons can there be in one neighbourhood?

I slunk into another store--Feldman's Whole Foods, this time. My bad fortune held, and Barbara needed some nuts for her birds. I plunged into the canned-foods aisle to avoid them: no nuts there. I pretended to be deep in the throes of olive selection. I'd stick around for a while, wrestling with the overwhelming variety--red or black? Pimentos or no pimentos? Pits or no pits? Whole or sliced? Garlic-flavoured, spicy, extra-large?--then admit defeat and leave olive-less. And, of course, Jones-less. He'd be stuck in line at the other end of the store, engrossed in the tale of Shirley's niece, and I'd be free as a bird.

There was a tap on my shoulder. I turned around.

"You can't have dogs in here," said Mr. Feldman, staring myopically at Mr. Spanky's ass. Heads turned. Heads always turn when Mr. Feldman talks--he's got a voice like a foghorn.

"It's a stuffed dog," I lied. As if on cue, Mr. Spanky sneezed. "Bless me," I tried.

"Nice try," said Mr. Feldman. He took off his glasses and started polishing them. "You have to go." Mr. Jones and Barbara appeared, attracted by the noise. They parked themselves in the aisle, between me and the exit. I turned my back on them, shrugging out of my coat to hide my name. Mr. Feldman, of course, considered this an attempt to further infiltrate the canned-foods aisle, and blocked my way in the other direction.

"You get out! You and your dog!"

"I'm leaving," I mumbled, keeping my voice low. "I just have to go that way."

"What are you talking about? Take your mangy hound out of my store!"

"I just--"

"What do you want?"

"Nothing! Just let me--"

"Go out of here! Shoo!"

A crowd began to gather behind me, mostly old people. Any chance I might have had of darting past Mr. Jones with my head turned the other way went up in smoke. This was the kind of crowd you've got to sidle and squeeze and "Pardon me" through. In front of me, Mr. Feldman stuck his knobbly arms out, blocking my way.

"Please, Mr. Feldman," I wheedled.

"Go out!" he shouted.

A moment of madness took hold of me, and I ducked under his outstretched arm, sprinting down the aisle like a thief, Mr. Spanky clutched in my arms. The old people jogged, puttered, and shuffled behind me like a decrepit lynch mob, Mr. Feldman at their head.

"Who is that?" I heard Mr. Jones boom. "He looks familiar!"

"Call the police!" cawed Barbara, the old crow. Something that exploded and smelt suspiciously of gefilte fish hit me in the back, followed by cereal boxes, then bagged vegetables as I hung a right into the frozen foods aisle. A hundred-yard dash ahead of me, the fire door beckoned like Mecca. I plunged towards it, huffing and wheezing. To my great consternation, the old folks were gaining. I had this horrible feeling I was about to be trampled by a stampeding geriatric ward. My chest burned. Stitches bit into both my sides. My hands went hot and tingly. I wondered if this was how heart attacks started. Through the throbbing in my ears, I heard Mr. Feldman encouraging Mr. Jones: "Get him! Get him!"

He would have had me, too, if I hadn't been saved by a deus ex machina in the form of a slimy gefilte fish, which slid off my back and under the shoe of Mr. Feldman, who slipped.

"I slipped!" shouted Mr. Feldman.

"Are you hurt?" shouted Mr. Jones, obviously for my benefit. "Look what he's done! He knocked down Mr. Feldman in his own store! In his own store!"

"Your ankle, Mr. Feldman!" shrieked Barbara.

"My ankle!" screamed Mr. Feldman, taking the cue.

"What's wrong with his ankle?"

"He's turned his ankle!"

"It was that boy!"

"Disgraceful!"

I dove through the fire doors and into the cool morning light. A bus drew up at the stop, and I got in. The last I saw of Mr. Jones, he was bursting out of Feldman's on my trail, blinking in the sudden brightness. He stared after the bus, as though guessing I was inside, but he didn't see me in the crowd. I think I got away with it. Even Mr. Feldman, who knew me as a kid, didn't seem to put two and two together.

The bus was headed to the park, so I stayed on for the ride. Mr. Spanky was pleased. My testicles shrank another three millimetres. All in all, a good day's work...for someone.