“No problem,” Kent replied, and got up again, without missing a beat.
The two of us motored after the man, who was not, as I now knew, what he seemed to be.
“That’s some strange homeless dude,” Kent commented.
“Tell me about it.”
How had he found me? Car driver. Clown face. Comic. Now homeless man. On both coasts, whatever part he played, he always had the same objective: to get the film and then kill me.
Pushing more tapes to the floor—comedies, classics, he smashed every genre—the man broke out of the place. The little welcoming bell on the door chimed, stupidly, for him and then us.
The guy wasn’t impressed by the crowd on the mall. He ran into and through them, sideswiping tourists and other vagrants, like a ferocious football star. I had a hard time keeping up, brushed aside by shopping bags (tourists) and shopping carts (vagrants). His dirty dark head was now almost lost to my sight.
“Get on his other side!” I heard someone cry.
When I turned to the voice, I saw Kent, who seemed to be literally flying by. Glancing down, I saw his Keds perched expertly upon a skateboard, which, I hadn’t even noticed, he had grabbed on our way out of the store.
Now I was running to keep up with him. I was coughing out air, as Kent barely breathed; between thirteen and thirty-six, there was a world of changes. Maintaining this pace, we closed in on our prey.
“Get on his other side!” he yelled again.
Now I sort of understood. Weaving in and out of the mall packed with people, I reached the “homeless” guy’s left, as Kent closed in on his right. The boy rode the board, knees bent, arms balancing, as if catching a giant wave. He waited, just waited, for his chance.
There was the briefest of breaks in the mob. Then Kent took his shot.
Swerving the board with an audible squeal of wheels, he rushed toward the guy. Seeming not to stop, he grabbed harshly at the man’s midsection. Shouting words no thirteen-year-old should know, Kent freed the tape from where the man held and hid it.
Then he chucked it to me.
We were all football stars now. Though I had never played in my life, I caught the toss like a hall of famer. Cradling it close to my gut, head bent, I ran shockingly fast, wiggling in and out of the Promenade throng.
When I checked back behind me, I saw Kent zoom away, his feet hidden, moving as adroitly as a Foosball figure. He shot me one last wave before returning to the job he was bound to lose.
The bad guy now headed for me.
PANTING, I BROKE FROM THE PROMENADE, ONTO SURROUNDING COMMERCIAL streets. I powered past stores and parking garages toward the scent of water.
In the Hamptons, it meant a dead end. Here, it signaled freedom.
I reached a huge thoroughfare, where gaudy hotels lined the block. Past it was a highway, with mad traffic going either way. Beyond that was a grassy area filled with sightseeing chairs and camps of homeless families. After that: the Pacific Ocean.
The safest route was to flee into a hotel, pretend I was a guest, and hope my friend, in his unseemly new disguise, would not dare enter. The riskiest way was into traffic, which resembled the ocean in the endless relentlessness of its oncoming cars.
I snapped a look over my shoulder. The guy was coming, his need seeming only to give him energy.
I ran right onto the highway. The PCH, I think they call it.
Drivers honked and screamed; tires swerved all around. I never stopped as I danced through cars coming north and south. Feeling exhaust fumes at my feet, bumpers inches from my flesh, I kept my eyes locked upon the beach ahead. It drew me as it had the other losers who had come there to live outdoors.
“Lunatic!” people screamed, and other things less flattering.
Not even Jim Brown ran the gauntlet as well in The Dirty Dozen. His co-star in that film, John Cassavetes, replaced Andrew Bergman as director of 1986’s Big Trouble.
My feet landed on the other curb with the finality of a winning marathon runner’s. I turned and saw the massive road I had traversed. The side from which I’d started was so far away, I couldn’t tell if my enemy remained there. Carrying my tape, I headed for a rest, to the plastic chairs placed just yards away.
I never reached them.
A shattering pain landed on my shoulders and back. A second later, my face was pressing grass and concrete, my body prone upon the ground. A chair was bouncing away, having served its purpose as a weapon.
I lifted my throbbing head and turned my neck, which rang with agony. I saw a gang of homeless men restraining my chameleon pal. He had made it across, after all—before me. He fought to be released, cursing and shouting.
“Let me go, you sons of bitches!”
Fortunately, they didn’t.
The tape was underneath me, still held improbably in my hands. I stood up with it, groggily, moving more like a former quarterback on old-timer’s day.
I heard the wail of an oncoming siren. I stumbled to the nearest corner, which I turned. The safest place to go was back to Troy Kevlin’s house. And that was a pretty sad statement.
I HAD RUN OUT OF MONEY FOR A RETURN CAB RIDE AND HAD TO CALL FOR A lift. To my surprise, Troy picked me up personally. He said he was coming to the neighborhood anyway.
“There was a sale on socks at Filene’s,” he explained.
Sure enough, bags of the gold-toed kind filled the back of his shabby Volvo. There was also a box from Domino’s Pizza, with a half-eaten pie inside.
He didn’t even notice my condition; my face was as red as a pepper and my hair was standing on end. Maybe he was used to people looking roughed-up; his own scars were healing under Band-Aids. How Troy saw anything through his huge dark glasses, I had no idea. But he maneuvered the car adequately, all the while colorfully narrating events of his past, present, and future.
“I just dropped off Captain Von Trapp,” he said, using one more nickname for Thor. “He’s got another charity match.”
