The Kimota Anthology by William Meikle & Steve Lockley & Paul Finch

Author:William Meikle & Steve Lockley & Paul Finch [Meikle, William & Lockley, Steve & Finch, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sf fantasy horror anthology stories fiction
Publisher: Kimota Publishing
Published: 2011-03-05T00:00:00+00:00

[Originally published in Kimota 15, Autumn 2001 and has since been expanded into a novel]

LIMBO LARRY

by Hugh Cook

“But he’s perfect!” said Gibi Gibi with dismay, checking out Larry’s parameters. “Where do we even start?”

Young. Athletic. Upper middle class parents. Good education. Good genes. Good at the pool table, too.

“Just wait,” said Broblomov Zooz. “Just wait, and watch what happens, and you’ll learn something.”

They watched.

“Kiss me,” said Caroline. “What’s the matter, Larry? Didn’t you take your pill?”

“I have the weirdest feeling,” said Larry, “that we’re being watched.”

The feeling came again, now and again. At the oddest moments.

Eyes staring at him from out of his spaghetti. Eyes? No, just chestnuts.

“Caroline! Is this your idea of a joke?”

Maybe God was watching him, or something. Well, no matter. I’m a good boy.

So thought Larry. And maybe he was right. But good isn’t perfect. Stealing the policeman’s dog was the first mistake. It was meant as a joke - - we’re just college students, okay? But nobody was amused. Strike one! Kidnapping the baseball to hold it to ransom was the second mistake. Hey, that baseball was worth half a million bucks. Half the nation could remember seeing, live on TV, the hero hitting it for the record.

“It was just a joke,” said Larry lamely.

But the law has no sense of humour, and that was strike two.

A bunch of other stuff he didn’t get caught for. Smashing the window to get at the whiskey. The bar fight in which he hospitalised the other guy with a pool cue. Trashing the company’s backup tapes on the day he got fired. Stealing the car and driving drunk out of Las Vegas on the day he lost the last of everything at the blackjack table.

The third strike was stealing the chocolate bar.

“My client is a hopeless alcoholic,” said the public defender.

And by then it was true. Alcoholism: self-inflicted. But so what? Three strikes are three strikes.

“You’re out,” said the judge.

And he was, right out.

“No tomato sauce?” said Larry, in dismay. “Then what’s that red stuff on the table?”

“Don’t ask.”

So he was in, for life. Productively in, picking up roadside trash in the chain gang, until the day the truck’s tire blew out and the vehicle flipped, killing eight, maiming nine, and sending Larry to hospital with a bad case of concussion.

He didn’t mean to escape. It was just that he needed a drink. Sure, prison had dried him out, but all those medicinal smells in the hospital brought back those old cravings. Somehow, Larry associated all medical smells with alcohol, Something to do with childhood, and his mother, and cough drops, and Oedipus - - he could never quite figure it out.

“Don’t drink that!”

But he already had.

The nurse yelled for a security guard, but that was when the disgruntled postal employee turned the corner. In the resulting confusion, Larry stole a wallet - - at any rate, he picked it up when he found it, and never had occasion to give it back - - and so was rich by the time he hit the nearest bar.

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