It’s Due at 11:59 P.M. Thursday

I rolled down the window and looked at my watch. Then I glance at the bank, and then all around the town’s concrete square. They should be finished any second.

Some dude is hanging outside the music store across the street. He carries a guitar case and wears cowboy boots. I wonder if he’s waiting for a ride. Mrs. Winters says you can get ideas from just watching people.

She’s right, this gives me one: a story about a guy who learns guitar and becomes a national hero. He uses his guitar to fight evil. Or it could be about a down-and-out keyboard player who wins America’s Got Talent, but loses a landmark deal because of drinking and gambling. But that might be too much of a cliché. What did Mrs. Winters call it? A trope, I think.

They’re still not back. How long can it take?

Or is this better: how long must it take? Should it take?

I’m not sure.

The short story is due tomorrow, on Thursday, one minute before midnight. That’s a bit dramatic, don’t you think? Noon would be another story, but midnight? But it would be cool if when I submit it, the electronic interface thingy would play a drum roll: Here it goes—off to the presses!

I’m not usually the one who stagnates and second-guesses and procrastinates and all of that. I guess the reason is that I usually don’t do things that you can procrastinate on. Then again, that might not be entirely true. It did take me three years to get my GED. I sometimes laugh at that—G-E-D. Except for a single letter, G-E-D could be G-E-R-D, which I know because I was diagnosed with GERD in high school. I blame my old man and his fucking lessons for that. I still have the burn mark on my left hand. My front tooth is still loose. But it’s better now. Doc says inward injuries take longer to heal than outward ones. I see that in Busker. He didn’t like the idea of a shrink. As for the old man, well, I’m over that prick. I’ve mastered the memories that snipe at me.

Snipe at me, that’s good.

Mrs. Winters seems really nice. I wonder what she’s like at home with Mr. Winters. I bet she’s nice with him, too. She’s a really nice person. You can tell that from how she interacts with the other students.

Besides being clean, the car is running good. I mean well—the car is running well. I got Kelp to help me change the oil and he did it no problem. He’s the brains of us four. For example, he once told us how he shot a turkey while shitting on an outdoor toilet. According to him, waiting was the key. Although Kelp’s the boss, Adam probably knows the most. In fact, he and Kelp once tracked this guy down after he skipped to Mexico. Kelp said it was all about IP slips, old logins, and the wrong WiFi at the wrong time. The way he tells the story, the guy never saw it coming. Poor bastard. But they don’t do that anymore.

Anyway, Kelp is the brains. He’s the planner. He planned this outing.

The street is fairly clear, except for the guitar guy across the street and a few shoppers. I look around. No one’s leaving the bank.

Again, I look at my watch.

Maybe my story could be about a driver. I’m known to be a good one. I once outran a souped-up eighty-six Camaro down in Baton Rouge. Loud mother-fucker. A V8. Two hundred and forty pounds of torque. A straight-pipe exhaust. Loud orange. The guy wanted to race—his car jerked like it was being pulled back on a leash. But I declined. I was above that sort of thing. But when he peeled out, I couldn’t help myself and floored it. I beat him to the Dairy Queen by a half a length. He had no idea that my Ford Mustang GT had forty-five more pounds of torque than his sorry-ass Camaro.

I spot Kelp, Busker, and Adam, half-jogging, half-skipping my way. I start the engine. Adam jumps in the front while Busker and Kelp climb into the back. The car bounces with each arrival.

Move it.

Did you see that dude’s face?

What about the rack on the blonde?

Shut up, Busker.

Yeah, shut up.

 I look over my left shoulder. No traffic, only the cracked asphalt of Main Street. I drive past little stores and a couple of fast-food joints. I make a left on Forest and drive over tracks, which makes us all hop a little. We pass a burnt-out BBQ shack and an empty parking lot beside a flat-roofed factory.

Maybe I could write about NAFTA. I know a lot about that from Adam’s dad. Not that he would be considered an expert, but he was out of prison when it was signed. He told me that he literally heard the jobs being sucked down south. I don’t know how you can hear that, though. Is that a metaphor? I’m not sure. NAFTA sucked the jobs south. That’s not right. Like a hurricane, NAFTA sucked the jobs away. That’s not right, either. That’s what Mrs. Winters calls a simile. NAFTA is a hurricane, sucking jobs south. That’s better. Maybe I could use that.

The sound of flipping paper comes from the backseat. By the sound of the giggling, it must have been a good haul. With my cut, I want to get the hell out of here. I glance over and see Adam studying his phone. Take a left in three miles on Birch, he says. Sure, I tell him. I notice that his sideburns are trimmed like a ruler, and he isn’t scowling. That’s a good sign. Once when he had that scowl, he beat the shit out of a guy who looked at him the wrong way. His girlfriend left him after that, but he got another. Adam is either way up or way down. It’s been like that for ages.

Girlfriends might make a good story. About some guy who is looking for a girlfriend but doesn’t get any dates because he’s a porn star. Or maybe he gets too many dates because he’s a porn star and so he has to juggle them. Or maybe the girlfriend is the porn star and…

A loud squawk comes from the back seat. Bzzzt—shhh—kkkshh…respond code three…bzzzt—shhh—kkkshh.

Will you turn that damn thing down, Adam yells. In a calmer voice, he says, it should be up there around half a mile.

Now, if I write my short story about a porn star, I can show off my alliteration skills. Peter’s pecker poked Polly’s pee-hole. It has a nice sing-song quality to it. Yet, Mrs. Winters might not want me to write about peckers and pee-holes. She seems too nice for that. It would violate her pink knitted cardigan.

Up ahead, there is a gas station beside the highway. Nothing around, only flat brown Earth. Shit, there are honest to God tumbleweeds rolling across the street, just like in those Saturday morning cartoons. I follow Kelp’s instructions and slowly turn into the gas station and drive to the other side of the building. I hear the gravel spinning underneath the tires. The main building where you pay is all shuttered up. The pumps stand in obvious decay: paint peeling, concrete cracking, and windows wallowing. No one’s home.

I park. That’s when I see the man in a cowboy hat and tight jeans leaning against the garage side of the building. He’s smoking a cigarette and holding a beer like he’s in a commercial. I make out a light green Lincoln inside the open garage.

Maybe the main character could be a chain-smoking cowboy who’s also a porn star. Maybe he smokes a cigarette after he has sex. Or maybe he smokes because of an early trauma or affliction. Mrs. Winters says most characters have faults, but they should also be relatable to the reader. Something that the reader can relate to—relatable trauma. Maybe the porn star cowboy smokes because his old man did when he would beat the shit out of him. But that’s depressing as hell. I don’t want it to be depressing. I’m over that. I guess I’ll start when he’s in his twenties, after the beatings but before he gets the job of putting his pecker in pretty pixies. What did Mrs. Winters call that? in medias res—in the middle of things. I’ll start there. In the middle. It’s sophisticated.

From the backseat, I hear Kelp say that it’s three-thirty and we’re on schedule.

Adam tells us that we should wait in the car while he talks to the guy with the beer and cowboy hat. He climbs out and ambles over. The man takes a swig of beer, takes a few steps toward Adam, and tosses his cigarette to the ground. I see them talking, the words faint then loud. The guy shakes his head, motions to the ’83 Lincoln in the garage, and then to us. Adam glances over, and I see it—the squinty eyes and scowl. Time slows. His right hand moves to the small of his back. He finds something under his belt, under his jeans. Then out comes a gun—a wooden handle and a dark gray barrel. Adam raises the gun and shoots the guy in the head. Bam! No hesitation. He drops like a pillowcase full of doorknobs. Blood paints the side of the building.

Oh fuck! comes from the backseat. This is not part of the plan. Fuck, fuck, fuck all around.

We pile out of the car and head toward Adam, who is now inspecting the Lincoln in the garage. Busker is laughing, but Kelp is furious. Kelp yells, “Why the fuck did you shoot him?”

“He wanted more money,” Adam says. “He wanted to split things five ways. I told him no, and then he said we couldn’t have the car. Fuck that. So, I did what had to be done. And fuck you Kelp for bringing that douche onboard.” Adam spits at the ground.

Kelp looks pained, bringing his hand to his temple. “I told you he was getting a fifth. Goddamn it, Adam, you have to listen. Now, we have to clean this shit up.” He kicks the asphalt.

So, we spend the next few minutes cleaning things up. Everyone’s pissed. I know that I am. Adam rummages through the guy’s pants and finds the keys. He struts to the Lincoln and opens the trunk. It has a tire in it. He takes it out and rolls it to the back of the garage. Kelp goes to the car that I had been driving and retrieves the surprise wrapped in a towel, and places it in the back of the open trunk. Easy now, says Adam. The surprise. That’s what they called it when they carried it out of their apartment—the surprise. Not my job to know everything. Kelps says that the less I know, the better. But I have my suspicions, and it goes something like three, two, one…boom.

Busker and Adam pick up the guy by the feet and hands and swing him into the trunk of the ’83 Lincoln. The guy’s head makes a cracking sound when it smacks into the side of the car. Busker laughs, but we give him the eye—it’s not funny.

Busker goes over, picks up a beer from the cooler, and says nothing. He has that look from high school. Sorta like the old man after getting laid off—distant. A smile wasn’t a real smile, but then again, he rarely smiled. Especially after Mom left.

I stand by waiting for Kelp to give orders.

I really want a good grade. Not like in high school. Doc said that writing would help me with my feelings. An outlet, he calls it. And besides that, the counselor lady at the college says if I do well in the class, it will look good later on.

If I go with the cowboy porn star, then what does he want? Mrs. Winters says that all characters want something. She says that sets up goals that might be shit upon (my words) that create drama and conflict. That makes sense. In eleventh grade, I wanted to ask Allison Simson out but Don Taylor asked her to the prom before me—a real cock-blocker. But in the end—spoiler alert—he met with an accident and couldn’t go. Technically, it was my fault. Yet brake lines are known to break. So, I asked Allison to go. She hemmed and hawed before saying that she couldn’t. I learned later that she had spent prom night in his room at the hospital.

I guess some guys have all the luck.

Kelp tells me to deal with the license plates. As I unscrew the license plates from Busker and Adam’s car, I think I have it. The cowboy porn star wants to marry the ‘girl next door’ but he knows that she wouldn’t marry him if she knew that he works as a porn star. Their names could be Peter and Polly, and that way, I can get some alliteration going. That’s good, right? I have a good character and a good goal, and a good goal blockage.

Kelp tells me to go out over a hundred yards and bury the license plates. I grab the heavy hammer from the trunk and trek out through the dry ankle-high bushes and loose dirt. I find a spot and use the claw end to make a decent hole. It isn’t that hard. Although clumped, the dirt comes up easily. I should say: it comes up periodically. Mrs. Winters says that many authors only use adjectives and adverbs when absolutely necessary. The context can fill in the details, she says. So, I place the licenses in the hole, cover them with dirt, and head back.

We wipe down Busker’s and Adam’s car and switch it with the ’83 Lincoln that’s in the garage. Adam makes Busker wipe the blood off the building. Kelp doesn’t say anything except that we are now behind schedule and that we need to hurry if we’re to make the train to Amarillo. We need to go. He sounds pissed. So, we hop in the green Lincoln, with Adam in the front with me, and Busker and Kelp in the back with the tape and radio. I look both ways and continue the plan.

Kelp says having a plan is everything. When you have one, you can relax.

How can I get the girl to marry the cowboy porn star? Maybe he quits the porn industry to appease her. Nah, that’s boring. I don’t want to write about a p-whipped cowboy. Maybe he invites her to dinner but instead of giving her the address of a restaurant, he gives her the address of a porn shoot. The plan is that when she arrives, she’ll get so turned on by seeing all of those gyrating naked bodies that she joins in. And when she is riding some dude, he’ll arrive, pretending to be shocked. He’ll say oh well and join in. Bam, she becomes a porn star, too. Problem solved, and they live happily ever after.

After driving for a while, a red and blue light flashes in my rearview mirror. I hear oh, fuck from the backseat. I see Adam taking out his gun. Just play it cool, Kelp says. Nothing to see here—the cop didn’t have time to call it in. Adam shakes his head. Oh, shit—easy dude. I roll to a stop. Nothing to see here, I say to myself. My stomach feels like high school. Things are sniping away at my feelings. Mrs. Winters says tension and suspense can happen when plans get interrupted. No shit.

License and registration, the sun-glassed cop says to me. I pass him my five-hundred-dollar license and the registration from the top of the sun visor. I see Busker and Kelp in the rear-view mirror, sitting statues—staring straight ahead. I glance at Adam, who has that squinty-eyed scowl.

“Where are you guys going in such a hurry?” the cop asks.

“To a porn shoot,” I say, without thinking.

The guy jerks his head back, bends down to look in the car, but doesn’t say a word. Then he stands straight and says, “Pop the trunk and wait in the car,” and heads to the rear. Without saying a word, Adam opens his door and creeps out like a cat. No, no, no, we yell in whispers, but we’re too late. Adam is walking hunched over, gun in hand, placing the car between him and the cop.

“I told you to stay in the car!” I hear the cop yell.

Pop! Pop! Pop!

Adam jumps back in and yells drive. When I pull out, I see the cop in the rear-view mirror lying crumpled on the asphalt, sunglasses half off his face. I think he moves, but I’m not sure. Busker is laughing like he always does.

“Why the fuck are you laughing?” I yell at Busker, although I know the answer. The doc says it’s a coping response.

Busker shuts up and then I hear Kelp yell from the backseat, “Why the fuck did you shoot the cop? We could have said the lock was broken.”

But Adam is having none of that. He just says fuck and points ahead. God damn it. It’s like the time in high school. Like then and now, I’m glad that I wasn’t the one who shot anyone. Dan told me once what they do to cop-killers in prison. It isn’t pretty.

Kelp will have a plan. He’s a planner. Been like that for ages.

I wonder if Polly should get disgusted by the naked gyrating bodies when she shows up to the porn shoot. That’s more believable than joining in, right? That’s why she’s ‘a girl next door’ type—they don’t do porn. So, when the smoking cowboy shows up to the porn shoot, he’s disappointed that she isn’t banging some dude.

After a while, I hear an engine noise. I look up and see a helicopter flying overhead. They seem to be going our way. Up ahead, there is some type of farm on the right—a big silo next to a light brown house. Pull in there, pull in there! I do as I am ordered. The house has that abandoned look, paint flaking and the front door lying at an angle, attached to the frame by a single hinge. Kelp points to a rusting carport to the side. There, there! I pull in. At least the car is out of view from the helicopter. I turn off the ignition.

I’m really glad I didn’t shoot anyone. That takes the edge off ever so slightly. I’m just a driver. I know nothing. I notice that my hands are white on the steering wheel.

If Polly is turned off by porn, then how is the porn cowboy going to get her to marry him? He could tell her that doing porn is safe because he uses condoms. I told Theresa something like that, and immediately drop the idea. It’s not a good reason for a girl to marry you.

Sirens are getting louder. We book it from the car. Busker takes the bag of money and we step through the front door. The place is dusty and smells of mold; faded wallpaper curls in a corner. We crouch below the front window and peek out. Adam grips his gun, mouth tense. Kelp takes out an old-timey TV remote from his shirt pocket. Busker looks down, muttering shit, shit, shit. Within minutes, three police cars are parked out front, lights flashing, radios squawking, and policemen aiming rifles behind car doors.

Maybe Polly finds about the smoking cowboy doing porn and leaves him. But that’s no good; everyone wants a happy ending. Get that? Happy ending? And if I get a good grade, then I can write more stories. And then the Pulletser prize after that. So much to think about.

I see officers spreading out, two of them heading to the carport. When they disappear from view, , yards away from the car, Kelp presses down on the remote-control thing and a huge BOOM! rocks the house. Each of us falls to a side, bits of ceiling and dust clouds everywhere.  I hear a high, constant tone. Kelp wipes dust from his eyes and Busker groans. Shit, I know it’s bad when Busker has those eyes. I don’t see Adam until it’s too late—he’s running out the front door shooting it up like Butch Cassidy. He makes it a few yards before dropping like a plum.

Shit, shit, shit.

Oh, God. I have that sniping feeling.

Maybe Peter the Porn Cowboy finds God, and God tells him to quit the porn business and to be honest with Polly about his past. If you do that, God says, she’ll find forgiveness and marry you. So, he does, and then she does.

But that sounds like a copout ending.

Shit, the story is due tomorrow by midnight.

I smell something burning and look over to see black smoke coming out from under a side door. Seconds later, flames appear from behind a corner. The smoke is getting hot. I lift my head to the window and peek out. More cops, at least a half-dozen. Another helicopter is overhead. Then I see a white van with a radio dish on top and Channel KDFA-NewsChannel 10 printed on the side.

I’m just a driver. I didn’t shoot anyone. I didn’t know what they were doing. I’m innocent.

Oh God, I should drop the whole porn cowboy thing. Mrs. Winters says you should write about things from your experience. I know shit about porn stars.

The smoke begins burning my throat. I lift my shirt over my mouth, but it doesn’t help. My side hurts. I’m hot. I hear a man’s bull-horned voice. I stretch my neck. I see more officers getting into position.

Oh fuck, Busker is crying. High school all over again. Kelp is crawling away.

Oh, God, I’m stuck.

I don’t know what to do. It’s due tomorrow night by 11:59 p.m. But I have a plan. I take off my white shirt and then roll it up and stuff it out of the bottom of the window. I jiggle it so that it looks like it's waving. I hear a bull-horned voice. Surrendering is better than death.

I listen to the bull-horned voice. It tells me to go to the front door, hands on my head. Since I didn’t do anything wrong, I stood up and walked to the door. Busker is still crying, and I don’t see Kelp.

I am ordered to kneel, and I do. That’s it. The end. I wonder if Mrs. Winters will extend the deadline.