Nuclear Jellyfish

HOMESTEAD

Aerge squinted up as wispy clouds parted around a crescent moon. “Still more light than I’d like. But no going back now. We’ll wait for the next cloud.”

Coleman peered out from the edge of the palm tree farm. “Where’s Story?”

“Auditioning.”

“Another strip club ?”

“Not exactly.” Serge kept his eyes on the hacienda. “At least she’s out of our hair. Women don’t approve of guys’ habits.”

The pickup and van had returned to the driveway. Lamps glowed through slits in hurricane shutters on the back of the house.

Serge held a travel thermos that had risen above all others in function, value and personality statement. He clicked open the drip-proof sipping spout, raised it straight up and sucked a good fifteen seconds. Then he tucked the half-empty bottle into the shopping bag at his feet. Next to the bag were a pair of hefty black machines with molded rubber grips, the size of small suitcases. Serge reached down and grabbed one in each hand. “Here’s the next cloud. Coleman, get that shopping bag.”

“What’s in it?”

“You’ll find out soon enough. So will they. I love surprises! The expressions are priceless.”

They slipped quickly across the clearing.

“Hope we’re in time,” said Serge.

“For what?”

“If my suspicions are correct, once the Eel finds out ‘Dick’ hooked the gang up with a double-cross, he won’t have the life expectancy of a lottery-winning heroin addict.”

They slid along the side of the hacienda and reached a side door.

“You don’t want anything to happen to ‘Dick’?”

“Not before I get him.” Serge set his cargo on the ground and tried the knob. Locked. He pressed an ear to the door. Loud TV and louder voices. “Perfect.” He picked the lock with a pair of thin metal tools and slowly opened the jalousie door. A rusty creak. They tiptoed into a small utility hall with hooks for rain gear. Voices grew louder. Light in the next room. Serge pulled his pistol and peeked around the corner. The goons were rolling up a Persian rug, two feet sticking out the end. Serge stepped back.

“What is it?” asked Coleman.

” ‘Dick’ won the lottery.”

“What now?”

“They’re distracted.” Serge sprang from the hall and spread his legs in police academy shooting stance. The thugs looked up, unimpressed.

“Turn around!” yelled Serge. “Against the wall, hands high!”

They bitterly complied.

Serge ran over and pressed his pistol to the back of a skull.

The goon turned his head sideways. “You’ve just written your own death warrant. I can’t wait to be there. It won’t be quick-“

“Shut up!” Serge’s free hand slammed the man’s head, smashing his face into the wall. He jerked the goon’s right arm behind his back and pulled out the plastic wrist cuffs. “Coleman, coffee me!”

Coleman reached into the shopping bag, opened the thermos and held it to Serge’s mouth …

Moments later, another typical scene of increasing frequency. Two bound hostages. With one crucial distinction.

“Hey, Serge, how come you’re not using chairs this time. You don’t like them anymore?”

Serge looked down at the floor. “Chairs are out.”

“What about songs?”

“No more chair songs either. Especially instrumentals.”

On the side of the room lay Dick’s broken, lifeless body, where it had rolled to a stop against the baseboard after Serge had grabbed the edge of the Persian rug and unspooled him. Now in Dick’s place were his two killers, only their gagged heads visible, wrapped back-to-back in six layers of carpet that were secured with a hundred feet of thick hemp rope and almost as much reinforced packing tape.

Coleman fired up a joint. “You like that rug?”

Serge looked down at the wiggling hostages. “It brings the room together.”

“Rugs are now in?”

“And rug songs.”

Coleman took a deep hit. “Can we go to the Rock Vault?”

“Lead the way.”

‘“Magic Carpet Ride’?”

“Good choice.”

The goons looked up in terror as their clearly off-kilter captors swayed to silent music inside their heads.

The music ended. Swaying stopped. Serge stood directly over the captives. “And now we’ve come to the Q-and-A portion of the program. Most of the other guys have tons of questions when they reach this point. That’s why I like people: We’re adorably curious. So, what’s on your minds?”

Muted desperation under mouth tape.

“Oh, right. Your particular procedure means you can’t ask questions at this time. No problem. It’s come up before. We’ll just go to Serge’s Florida Experience F. A.Q. And if you don’t know what F.A.Q. stands for, that’s actually the first question in my F.A.Q. None of the other travel service F.A.Q.s think of that. Accept no substitutes!” Serge squatted low for intimate conversation. “Second question: What kind of incredible learning curve of jollies is old Serge about to take me on? The answer is in that shopping bag! Shall we go to the shopping bag?”

Coleman took a triple hit off his roach clip. “Whoa! Good weed! Serge, can we go over to the shopping bag with out-loud music this time?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“Cool.” Coleman stubbed out the roach and joined Serge, singing and jitterbugging across the room: “Let’s go over to the shopping bag! Let’s go over to the shopping bag! Let’s go over to the shopping baaaaaaagggggggg!… And see what fun’s inside!”

Serge grabbed the sack, and they began dancing back across the room to piercing whines of desperation.

Serge: “And see what fun’s inside!”

Coleman: “And see what fun’s inside!”

Serge: “Ohhhhhhhhh! Let’s look into the shopping bag …”

Coleman: “Right on into the shopping bag …”

Serge: “What the fuck’s in our shopping baaaaaaagggggg? …”

Coleman: “Some crazy fuckin’ shit!”

Serge opened the top of the bag and began rummaging. “Let’s see what we got here …” He extracted items one by one. “Doorbell, extension cord, vegetable peeler, post office overnight express envelope …”

Coleman, pianissimo in the background: “… Some crazy fuckin shit, some crazy fuckin shit…”

“… Bicycle inner tubes, soldering iron, model railroad tracks, tiny envelope of fake diamonds. That’s about it … Oh, and those two other big things on the floor with the molded rubber grips. Travel tip two-fifty-four: Always have a portable, self-powered five-in-one roadside auto emergency center. Heavy as hell, but worth every ounce. That’s because of the giant internal electric cell you charge up at home. But you ask, Serge, what are the five uses? To the F.A.Q.! One, fluorescent lamp for engine work; two, cell-phone recharger; three, battery jump-starter; four, flashing highway-shoulder warning light; five, air compressor with over-pressure cutoff to fill tires after using Fix-a-Flat … And for today’s lucky contestants, a sixth additional use chosen especially for you!”

“They fainted,” said Coleman.

Serge lightly tapped cheeks. “Wake up, you don’t want to sleep through the additional use or you’ll kick yourselves.” Tapping turned to slaps. “Wake up! … That’s better. Pay attention because I’m only going to say this once. My intricate plan begins with this doorbell. Houses are so much bigger today! Who can hear the doorbell from the Jacuzzi? So they came up with a new remote broadcasting system. See this little ringer?” Serge turned it around. “Wireless. Takes a single double-A battery. Adhesive back that sticks permanently to the outside doorframe and transmits a hundred feet to electric chimes …” -he held up a small white speaker in the other hand-“… that you plug into a wall socket in the back of the house … Again, I read in-quisitiveness in your eyes: How on earth did you dream this up? Home Depot! Whenever I’m suffering a creative block, I wander the aisles and ideas flood! … Now just sit back and enjoy the show.”

Serge turned on the soldering iron and grabbed the vegetable peeler. He dove into his science project with usual speed and obsessive attention. Covers were unscrewed on the doorbell chimes and roadside emergency units. Wires pulled out and stripped with the peeler, circuits rerouted. Tendrils of smoke rose from fused electrical posts. He gripped each of their heads. “Hold still. This won’t hurt.” More plugs went into sockets. Rubber tubes clamped onto male fittings.

Serge stood. “And that about does it… Brilliant, eh?”

They looked up with vacant eyes.

“I keep getting that expression,” said Serge. “You don’t get it? It’s so obvious!”

Still no flicker in their stares.

“Okay. Guess I have to explain everything. I’ll start at the back end with a little diamond-courier inside dope.”

Coleman’s head snapped up.

“Dope?”

“Knowledge.”

“Ick.”

“Live human couriers are still the preferred method, but believe it or not, some expensive gems are simply sent through the U.S. mail in small, unassuming packages like this one.” Serge held up the express pouch. “Heavily insured. Back in the day, this was unheard of, because when you purchased insurance, the amount of the surcharge was stamped on the package. And they didn’t have computers to track packages back then. So all that any postal employees in the transit stream had to do was multiply the surcharge stamps to get the value of a package’s contents. Not too good a procedure. But then came laser scanners! The insurance amount was concealed inside bar codes. The package could contain a Ginsu knife for all they knew. Then, upon hitting its final destination, the last bar scan triggered a code summoning a top local post office manager, who had to personally accept and sign for the package. Imagine that! Every day, millions in gems flying all around us, mixed up with Publishers Clearing House.”

Serge grabbed a small brown envelope, stuck it in the express package and sealed the flap. “These are just fake diamonds, though still a nice present for someone’s girlfriend if you don’t think it’ll last. And since they’re not real, I won’t need insurance. But don’t underestimate the importance of the package! Its value in the domino chain is essential! In this case, the dominos are a series of electrical circuits that need to be competed.” He set the parcel aside.

“Now, on to the heavy lifting. You’ve probably noticed that I’ve wrapped deflated bicycle inner tubes around your necks, and their inflation stems are connected to the rubber hoses of the roadside emergency air compressors. This button on top of the unit turns on the compressor by, as everyone knows, completing the circuit of the two wires attached inside. That’s why I removed the back panel and snipped the wires off the switch, which unfairly voided the warranty. Then I soldered the ‘on button’ wires to the model railroad tracks. But not any model railroad tracks! This piece here is called the switch. It’s one of those Y-connections where you can let the choo-choo go straight or divert it off into the mountain tunnel. The switches are complex to wire because they’re controlled by solenoids, but I rigged tons of them in parallel circuits on my train set when I was ten, then took little plastic people off the depot platform and put them on the tracks and-Oh my God! Here comes the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe! I can’t watch! … Throwing the switch at the last second. Whew! … But wait, what are those other crazy people doing up on that trestle? Hours of endless fun!”

Serge grabbed the stretch of railroad track and its magnetic controller. “The beauty of a solenoid is that, in order to throw the switch, it requires but a single pulse of electricity, which can be supplied by …”-he grabbed another pair of wires leading to the wall- “… say, door chimes. And there you have all the dominos: If someone comes to this house and presses the doorbell, which I took the liberty of installing on your porch, it transmits a small frequency to this wall unit. The chimes will ring, but they’ll also supply power to the train tracks, which will switch, turning on the air compressor, filling the inner tubes around your neck and cutting off your oxygen. If it was a regular compressor and nobody was around to monitor, the tubes would simply keep expanding until they exploded and you’d be in the clear. But as I said, the roadside unit has an over-inflation cutoff. You wouldn’t want me rigging you to something unsafe.”

Now that the entire picture had taken shape, the goons fought to free themselves like never before.

“Whoa!” said Serge. “Hold on. You don’t have much to worry about. Given unlimited time, there’s a hypothetical point where people can wiggle themselves out of even the most complex restraints. Or someone else in your gang could drop by and stumble upon you. Just as long as nobody rings that doorbell. And what are the odds, way out here in the middle of a palm tree farm?”

Struggling continued unabated.

Coleman checked the fridge for beer. “You really thought this up in Home Depot?”

Serge nodded. “Had this plan in my back pocket ever since I bought those garden hoses in Jacksonville. It’s the perfect complementary bookend to those skinheads, whom I only wrapped to their shoulders-blood pressure, remember?-and now I’ve wrapped the rest of the way, completing the spiritual cycle of life, or, well …” He faced the goons again. “I always like my science projects to have a relevant theme. In this case we’re dealing with the transportation of diamonds.” He picked up the overnight express package. “Hey, look, it already has an address on it.” He held it to his face. “Well what do you know? It’s this place. Isn’t that an amazing coincidence? Better get it to the post office right away because, if you’re anything like me, you can’t wait to get a surprise in the mail!”

Serge collected three cell phones from around the room and started walking for the front door. He stopped and looked again at the express mailer in his hand. “Whoops, almost forgot to check this box on the form.” He turned it toward the goons and smiled.

Signature required.

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