Received: from pyramid by pyrhard2.pyramid.com (5.52/OSx5.0-890116) id AA00644; Fri, 14 Apr 89 15:09:15 PDT Received: by pyramid.pyramid.com (5.61/OSx4.4c-890312) id AA14281; Fri, 14 Apr 89 15:04:50 -0700 Date: Fri, 14 Apr 89 15:04:50 -0700 From: ipi@pyramid.pyramid.com (hardware IPI Project) Message-Id: <8904142204.AA14281@pyramid.pyramid.com> To: radek@pyrhard2 Subject: Spike_II_6 >From voder!apple!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!unmvax!ncar!ames!pacbell!att!ihlpa!fish Fri Apr 14 15:04:12 PDT 1989 [Synopsis: Spike has come out of retirement, secretly returning to his native Chicago to track down a serial killer who runs down cyclists. After recovering a cache of weapons, he stalks the streets day after day, eventually meeting the beautiful Annie, an aspiring bike racer. Smitten and feeling the weight of years of loneliness, Spike is caught momentarily off guard by the marauding van he has been seeking. Thanks to some quick thinking and reflexes on Spike's part, he and Annie barely escape slaughter, but the van and its homicidal driver get away before Spike can get off a shot. Grateful for her life, Annie embraces Spike, complicating his situation further. Wary of the police, Spike leaves her at the scene, conscious that she knows he is concealing something.] --- I returned to my small Berwyn apartment feeling exhausted and torn. Too much had happened today. My head swam, and I longed for a drink, just one little belt to put things back in order. I knew, of course, that diving back into a bottle could only make matters worse. I settled for a hot shower instead. Letting the water run for a long time, I felt the tension slowly leave my muscles to mingle with the soap and mud that ran down the drain. Remembering how I'd gotten so muddy, I was reluctant to wash it off. I considered my feelings. The rage which had driven me for so many years was still there. The image of the blue mini-van escaping unscathed incensed me. If only I'd had my senses about me. I played it over in my mind, how I would feint to the outside, then cut back beside the van, shoot out the tires, and finish it off with a grenade. Two granades. Hell, I wanted to shred it and its driver into pieces too small to identify. I wanted to do it twice. This much was familiar, and almost comforting. But there was a lot more. Annie. I'd spent, maybe, twenty minutes with her. I didn't know anything about her, her background, her circumstances, not even her full name, yet I could not get her out of my mind. It made no sense. In my situation, I shouldn't even consider such matters; it couldn't work out with any woman, yet that knowledge made no difference in how I felt. I had to see her again. That was still not the end of it. I'd been caught off guard today; I nearly died because of it. This gave me a profound sense of failure, but even this was not new. I'd blown it before. What was new was that I was afraid. I was not afraid of death, but of life. For a brief, fleeting moment today, I had forgotten everything, forgotten who I was and all that had happened in my life, and I had _lived_. And enjoyed being alive. There was no room for that feeling in the context of my existence. Nevertheless, I wanted more. I wanted to _live_, whereas before I had wanted only not to die. It scared the hell out of me. I shut off the shower when the hot water ran out and collapsed, soaking wet, on the sofa bed. I awoke many hours later, shivering and ravenous. I crossed to the tiny kitchen and extracted a leftover chicken leg from a paper bucket in the refrigerator. Wolfing the drumstick, I padded back to the bathroom to throw on a robe. Returning to the main room with a Coke and the rest of the chicken bucket, I flicked on the tube to catch the rest of the Cubs game. They blew it in the top of the eighth, losing eight to four, which would back them into a tie for fourth place, four games below .500, and eleven and a half games behind the first-place Mets. But it was only July. Things could get better. I was finishing off a serving of congealed mashed potatoes when the nine o'clock newscast came on. I dropped the mess in my lap when the screen cut to a shot of Annie. "This Orland Park biker narrowly escaped death today as the van killer strikes again. Details next on News Nine." After an interminable spate of commercials, the newscast got under way. There was an interview with Annie, who recounted the events that had transpired earlier, save that she made no mention of another cyclist. All too soon, the camera cut away to the young police lieutenant in charge of the case. He bungled his way through the interview, commenting that they'd recovered a "valuable piece of evidence" from the scene. I presumed he meant that flattened hubcap, which wouldn't tell them diddly-squat. They already had the make and model of the van. They were no closer to bagging this bastard than they'd been when I was stinking drunk in my mountain cabin. I found out a little bit about Annie, though. Her full name was Ann Chernak. She was twenty-two years old, unmarried(!), a nursing student at Loyola. She also looked just fantastic with the mud and sweat washed off her and her hair combed and set and large hoop earrings and just the right amount of makeup around her eyes. I sat with a lapfull of mashed potatoes through a re-run of "The Twilight Zone" and half the late movie before I cleaned up the mess and went to bed. I had checked the phone book for "Chernaks" and found there were eight entries, but no "Anns" or 'A's, listed for Orland Park. I thought of contacting Loyola, as if they'd tell me anything, but then I remembered she was going to race on Sunday, two days from now. There couldn't be too many bike races in the area. I hadn't seen one in ages. Come to think of it... * TO BE CONTINUED * -- __ / \ Bob Fishell \__/ att!ihlpa!fish