Blaze of Glory

CHAPTER 7

He knocked once, then opened the door to the master bedroom where MacHenry lay naked on the spread, his white flaccid body a perfect color match to the cheap sheets. The used car salesman was propped up against the headboard, smoking a cigar. Gert sat cross-legged beside him with the covers drawn around her in a diaphanous swirl, dismay creasing her worn face.

"What's up with him?" Buckley asked.

"He says he's gonna kill himself."

"What's she talking about, MacHenry?"

MacHenry smiled as he took another great puff from his cigar and launched three perfect smoke rings into the air. He sipped from a brandy snifter, paused and puffed again.

"Listen, I don't know what's going on here and, at this point, I don't really care,” Buckley said. “Get your clothes on. We're gonna have a meeting in the living room, most ricky-tick." He turned to go.

MacHenry’s response stopped him. "Nope."

Buckley spun around. "What'd you say?"

"I said nope. I thought I said it pretty clear."

Buckley's first instinct was to launch himself across the room at the smart-ass car salesmen, beat him within an inch of his life, then drag his naked ass down the hall and into the living room, but he forced himself to remain calm and invoked the old yarn about the carrot and the stick. Still, he gritted his teeth when he said, "Come on, MacHenry. We need you out there. The caddies are coming and no telling how much time we got left."

MacHenry shook his head and blew another smoke ring. "I told you, I ain't coming. At least not until I finish my cigar. Hell. This here is a Robusto. You ever smoked a Robusto, Adamski? This baby's leaves were rolled on the honey-brown legs of a Cuban Senorita.” He sniffed the length of the cigar. “I can almost smell her sweat. I can almost taste her. A man can't hurry a cigar like this. A cigar like this is meant to be savored. Anything else would be disrespectful."

"Listen, Lord MacHenry. I don't know where you think you are, but this ain't Cuba. Hell, as far as we know, Cuba is gone."

"One more reason to take my time. This may just be the last Robusto in existence."

Buckley eyed Gert, pleading for some assistance, but she merely shook her head. Her expression held little hope that Buckley would succeed.

"He's been like this for hours. Rambling on about this and that. He says he wants to die. But not like Lashawna or Sally or any of the others. He wants to do it in style."

"Listen MacHenry." Buckley caught himself and removed the edge to his voice. One of the complaints from the others was that he wasn't taking time to listen to their wants and needs. He was always ordering people around without a care or concern for their emotional well-being. They’d called him a micro-manager. They’d used the term type-A personality. Bennie, the drug dealer, had actually called him a fascist. Fine. If they wanted him to listen, then by the God of All Impatience, he'd fucking listen.

He began again, but softer this time. "Listen, MacHenry. As far as we know, this is the end of the world. We really need to pull together. We need you to help us."

"So what if it's the end of the world? Who the fuck cares? It was bound to happen sooner or later and seeming how it's sooner, now actually, I'm gonna go out with a bang. Not crying, not screaming, not begging. Hell no. With a fucking bang."

"Remember Elliot? He said This is how the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper."

"What crack have you been smoking, Buckley?" MacHenry rolled his eyes towards Gert. "Of all the joints in all the world, I had to hole up with the only garbage man with a PHD in uselessness. Poetry."

"Those are some wise words."

"Fuck that!" MacHenry sneered.

"What?"

"I said Bang!"

"You don't know what-"

“B — A — N — G.”

“But-"

"Shut up. I ain't done. You wanted me to talk, so now I'm talking, so listen and listen good and none of your poetry shit. I, Travis James MacHenry, am gonna go out with a bang. In fact, as soon as I finish the better part of this cigar and this rather lazy cognac, I'm gonna get dressed, comb my hair, walk in the kitchen, pour fucking turpentine over my head, open the door and use the last of my Robusto to Flame On.”

He puffed on his cigar and eyed Buckley. “You ever read that Fantastic Four comic book when you was a kid, Adamski? You know with Johnny Storm, The Invisible Woman, The Thing, Ben Grimm, and that rubber band man, Reed Richards?"

Buckley glanced over at the nightstand and saw that the bottle of Hennessy was half empty. Yes, he’d read the comic when he was young. He liked Ben Grimm the best. The rest of the super heroes were just too white and too suburban. He nodded. “Yeah, I read them when I was a kid.”

"See Gert? See? I told you our Minister of Sanitation Defense, his right royal honorable highness General Buckley Adamski hisself was well read. So you know Johnny Storm then. You understand how them writers seemed to make him out as some selfish, bastard teenager like he was some kind of social retard, just an angry young man who was so lost in life that he couldn't find his way out of a paper bag with a knife. Sure he was the youngest of the four, but they made it seem as if it was his youth that made him hardly in control, always going off." MacHenry puffed at his cigar and waved his hand expansively. "I got my own ideas, though. He was a metaphor, see. He wasn't only Johnny Storm. Hell, he was James Dean. He was Marylyn Monroe. He was a freaking pro wrestler always diving from the top rope in a suicidal suplex. Live fast, die young, enjoy life, and fuck the world. He was the mach in machismo and lived life at Mach 10. He was Johnny fucking Storm, every second of every day going out in a blaze of glory. He was a metaphor, you see. He was you and me."

A scraping, like the sounds of a hundred teeth against wood came from the front door. Screams exploded from the living room as the men and women there dealt with the threat. Buckley wanted desperately to leave and see what was wrong, but he’d been told he was too much in charge. He fought down the urge to run and fix things. Fuck it. Let them see if they could handle it on their own. He squeezed his hand until his nails dug in his palm as MacHenry continued.

"You want to know who I am? I’ll tell you who I am, Adamski. I’m Johnny Storm. No longer am I a washed up old has-been whose best days were when Toyota's motto was Oh What a Feeling. No longer will I wait to die like the rest of you chumps. I'm Johnny Fucking Storm who’s gonna go out in a blaze of glory. And you? Hell, man. You’re Ben Grimm. Always so grim, Ben Grimm. I'd always thought Ben Grimm was a brother, you know. The way he acted, the way other people treated him. He was both cool and downtrodden at the same time. The rest of them wore costumes. Hell, he was a costume. If that wasn't a metaphor for an outcast, then I don't know what was. I couldn't have been more surprised when that issue came out where he became human again and he was white like the rest of them. How about that, Adamski? You believe they made The Thing white? You remember that one, Adamski?"

Yes he did. In fact, he'd stopped reading the Fantastic Four then.

MacHenry finished his glass and fell back upon his pillow. "Now, Mr. Grimm. Get the hell out of here and let me finish my bottle. I have a short life ahead of me and a long life to relive."

Buckley sighed. Yesterday, he would have jerked the man out of the bed and shit-kicked sense into him until he capitulated and realized that his best chance at survival rested in his participation in his own defense. But today, within their newly formed pocket of democracy, Buckley intended on letting the old guy do whatever he wanted. After all, it was his decision. If he wanted to die, then it was one less body to be concerned with.

Buckley glanced down at Gert who stared fondly at her Johnny Storm. Poor woman. Years searching for love on the gritty streets and she’d finally found it in a crazed old used car salesman with a Marvel Comic’s death wish. If that wasn't the saddest thing he'd ever seen, he didn't know what was.