Groceries, short fiction sunday in Flash Friday

The first engine whined, the second keened, and the moon pulled at me; a dull yellow glow in a low cloud. A few bumps down the runway and we were up. The smuggler grunted.

“I haven’t flown one of these in ten years.”

“It’s like riding a bike.”

“No it’s not.”

“You know what I mean. What are you doing here?”

“You took me at gunpoint and said you’d shoot me if I didn’t take you and your … stuff.”

“You didn’t struggle.”

I shrugged, “It’s been ten years since I’ve flown one of these.”

We were quiet for a while.

“My dad was a cop,” I said.

He didn’t say anything.

“He was shot and killed when I was kid, five years old. My brother was still in diapers, not even two.”

He kept saying nothing.

“I don’t remember when it started, a month, six, a year, but we started getting groceries delivered, like a months’ worth every couple of weeks. My brother was still young enough that some of the groceries were formula and gerbers mushed veggies.”

He was looking at me but his lips stayed closed.

“Mom said she tried tracking down who was doing it, even had some friends on the force look into it,” we rose past the low clouds, and the moon was large and bright in her reflection off the next tier, “ Well, sort of, she asked them if they were doing it, or if the force was, you know, sending groceries, and they got curious. The grocery store said they’d just get a type written envelope with cash and and a list,” I tried keeping between the clouds and moon, “the kid who delivered the groceries always got a big tip from my mom. “

He looked out the window, looked back at his cargo, raised his eyebrows at me.

“A couple of years after my kid brother had gone off to college, UC something, Berkley maybe, that’s the kind of kid he was … we aren’t that close … Mom told me the groceries were coming once a week and there was formula and mashed veggies, sometimes they came on a Monday and a Wednesday, sometimes with envelopes of cash — though I think the store manager probably did that, I had this theory when I was like sixteen that they store pocketed some cash, I don’t know why, except there was never a receipt; we had no idea how much they were given. It was kindness when we were little and the family was on hard times, but my mom started working once my brother was in grade school and the pension had kept a roof over our heads. I don’t know, I think the manager had a guilty conscious, I mean the cash in envelopes, he was old by then and retired about a year after it stopped.”

He waved his hand, an impatient gesture to continue.

“That’s sort of it. An erratic wealth of groceries for an entire family when it was just my mom, she gave some to loaves and fishs, some to the neighbors, she baked a lot. And then it just stopped. My theory is the guy who was doing it got alzheimers, forgot the what and when and then either couldn’t function at all anymore or died. We never did find out who it was. I always thought it was the guy who shot him, that went unsolved by the way, with a real bad conscious. My brother thought it was some kindly philanthropist who stayed anonymous out of a sense of real altruism. My mom didn’t like talking to us kids about it and when we grew up we just stopped askling. Except when my mom called to say the groceries were coming quick and crazy, and even then, we didn’t really talk about it. I think she was concerned for … the benefactor.”

He smiled. “About twelve clicks ahead you’ll wanna bear west and,” he pulled a wrinkled piece of paper from his pocket, “remember how to read co-ordinates?”

I nodded.

“Good,” he pointed at a set of underlined numbers “There, it’s short and steep and it won’t be lit until I call,” he held up a sat phone “I ain’t calling until we’re real close.”

I nodded.

“it’s just coke man, don’t worry.”

“Ok,” I said. The moon broke through and covered us in light.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I was three quarters of the way into my descent when he called the lights in, a sharp clumsy turn and a panicked push of the wing flaps and we were bumping up a narrow steep runway that looked like a combine and bulldozer had plowed just that morning.

He unloaded the cargo at the end of the dirt runway, my nose was over the sharp ridge of a cliff. I didn’t see anyone, not even whoever had turned on the lights, he was back in within a minute.

“Let’s go.”

“It’s not like riding a bike.”

He took a maglite from his pocket, there was a narrow turnaround 200 feet back. Between managing the wheel brakes and having him push, we managed. The take off was rough.

“It’s not like riding a bike.”

He was visible relieved, his shoulder slouched from the tense straight-back that flew out there with me, he even managed a smile. It was the other way around with me.

“Where do you want her when we get back?” I asked.

“Doesn’t matter, I don’t even know whose plane this is, glad it had gas.” He smiled again, he thought he was funny.

“So,” he says, like we were having a conversation, “I’m at the Japanese gardens right?”

I nodded because what the hell else was I going to do.

“Yeah, I’m at the Japanese Gardens with my wife and kid. Christ he was a beautiful kid, round faced big smiley rosy cheeked and a halo of hair so blonde it looked white. Chubby kid, but cute as hell, dimples all over. We’re sitting on this bench looking at some kind of fancy tree with purple leaves and the sun is warm and a light breeze is blowing.

The kid is all like ‘I wanna see the fishies!’
And the old lady is like ‘Koi, mikey, they are called koi’.
And they both look at me and I’m all like ‘G’won, have fun’ right? I mean it’s comfy on the bench and the kid is with his mom and it’s the fucking Japanese Gardens you know?”

He pauses. So I look at him like I’m interested, with a touch of concern, the right’s and you knows are foreshadowing, right?

“It’s like a half hour later and I stretch and think I better go looking for them, and I see the old ladies goofy wide brimmed white sat bobbing along these bushes. She’s holding a kids chubby little paw and they are both smiling.”
He pauses again.

“It ain’t my kid. It looks like him, sort of, but not an exact match, you know. And she’s all ‘Hey Honey, you alright?’ and this kid is all ‘Daddy! Koi is giant goldfish!’ I didn’t hit her or anything, but I flipped out, I mean I was yelling crazy shit like you do when you’re real angry and real scared. Security tried escorting me off quietly and threatened to call the cops. I might have one or two of them, the security guards, I was all ‘Call the cops! I need a Cop.’

And yeah, there were cops. They didn’t take a report, and I was held a couple of days, just long enough for a restraining order … and yeah there was some other drama. But I never saw my kid again, I mean my real kid.

The other one, when he turned eighteen, he came and found me; they had moved to someplace like Minnesota or Wisconsin. I tried to get the real story out of him. Neither one of us got what we wanted. I still don’t understand who would do that? What sort of woman changes out her kid at the Japanese Garden?”

I shrugged and we flew in silence. I left the plane at the end of this little airstrip about ten miles from the one we started at, lights were on, nobody home. He handed me an envelope with five thousand in it. Seemed light to me, but, you know I wasn’t expecting anything. I guess the money was insurance, like I was an accomplice.

Last updated October 12, 2015