54, Fire

“If I had a nickel for every time a woman told me to hurry it up, well…” demolitions expert Dale O’Connor paused his attempted joke and dropped his wrist watch communicator back into his lap.  He was trying to be funny, but his brain went numb for a punch line. 

“Yeah, yeah!” the voice of pilot Porter yelled through his speaker.  She figured his silence was the actual punch line of a useless sex joke.  “Just fucking get here!”  Her voice was frantic.  “If you don’t, we’ll be burned to death by that forest fire!  It’s getting closer!”

O’Connor pushed the gas pedal of the fuel tanker to the floor.  The old soviet fueler rig was barreling down a very narrow shoddily paved Russian highway at a hundred kilometers per hour.  O’Connor had no idea how many miles per hour that was, but he cursed under his breath that it wasn’t fast enough.  “Fucking metric system commie fucks,” he bitched to himself.  The huge vehicle felt top heavy and O’Connor said a silent prayer to a god he didn’t believe in asking for level roads without bumps or pot holes.

“Doc!  Talk to me!” Porter pleaded.

O’Connor’s brain came back online.  “Roger.  I’ve got the hammer down.”

“The sooner the better!” 

“The sooner the better,” O’Connor muttered to himself.  “The sooner the better….”  

While unsafely driving, twenty nine year O’Connor had a flashback to when he was twelve.

“Daletun!  Where in the hell did you hide my lighter, boy!”  O’Connor’s mother was drunk as shit and unruly towards her son who wasn’t helping her look for a way to light her unfiltered camel cigarette.

“Ma, I’ve told you, call me Doc.”  O’Connor hiccuped.  He showed no emotion behind his aviator glasses.  “Maybe then I’ll help you.”

Two years previously, ten year old O’Connor had rigged a fuel truck with a brick on the gas pedal to run into a mafios’s mansion.  His best friend Trent Murdock was there to witness the whole thing.  The truck smashed into the front windows of the home and exploded like a military bomb.  

The sound, the flames and the feeling permanently changed O’Connor in that very instant.

In that moment, ten year old Daletun O’Connor’s voice had dropped two and half octaves.  Hair suddenly had grown under his arm pits and his nether regions.  Everyday for two years since, he’d stolen Jameson whiskey from his mother’s liquor cabinet while skipping school and hanging out in the dark alley’s of his hometown with shady people.  He’d had no doubt about his life’s purpose, and further more he had no fear.  He was put on earth to get drunk, blow shit up and kill bad men.

“I’m not calling you that stupid fucking nickname, boy!  Now, where’s my flame?!”  

Twelve year old O’Connor yawned and got up from the kitchen chair.  He stunk of whiskey and stale coffee.  “You’re drunk, lady.  Get your shit together.”

“I’ll beat the Irish out of you, boy!”  O’Connor’s mother tried to jump up from her ratted out couch but she tripped and went face first into the stinky carpet.  Her unlit camel cigarette broke from the impact and little tobacco shreds fell randomly over the floor.

“I’ll be back, drunkie,” O’Connor said to his cursing mother without helping.  He walked out the front door as he added, “I have to go blow up a pimp’s corvette.”

A few blocks later, his best friend Trent Murdock walked up to him from a side street.  “Hey Doc, I have the item you asked me to bring,” he said with no emotion.

“Good,” O’Connor approved.  “This shouldn’t take long.”

Neither boy talked about what they were going to do.  They didn’t seem to have any interest in their task at hand.  Instead, they started arguing about useless shit.  “I think the Michael Jordan rookie card should be the highest valued NBA card of all time, don’t you?” Murdock asked.

“Nope,” O’Connor answered.

Twelve year old Murdock showed emotional fire as he fired back, “Well then, please grace me with your perfect opinion, Mr. Basketball Card expert.”

“There’s no need for that shit,” twelve year old O’Connor replied dryly.  He pulled a flask out of his jacket and untwisted the cap.

“Then please enlighten me to the error of my ways, oh wise one!”

O’Connor took a sip of whiskey and handed it to Murdock as he said, “Wise one?  There you go, pulling your shit again.  I don’t need these underhanded insults.”

Young Murdock took a small sip and the gasoline tasting liquid burned on his tongue.  “Insults, shminsults, you still haven’t explained why you would ignore the value of a rookie card from greatest basketball player of all time.”  He handed the flask back to his friend without ever looking at him.

O’Connor took another sip and answered, “I never said he wasn’t the greatest of all time.  I merely said his rookie card shouldn’t be the most expensive.”  He thought it over for a quick second, then added, “Dummy.”

“Dummy?  I’m the dummy?  Well then how do you figure that the greatest of all time shouldn’t be worth the most money of all time?”  A cool winter breeze blew through the shadows of the tall city buildings and Murdock pulled a hoodie over his chilled ears.

“You don’t know shit about value, dude.”  O’Connor sighed.  “There are eighty million baby boomers, then only forty million of our parents generation.  Don’t you get it?”

The twelve year old crinkled his brow in confusion.  “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Everything,” O’Connor answered dryly.  He took one last sip of the glorious whiskey and felt the fire warm up his body as he returned the flask to his jacket pocket.  “The baby boomers grew up watching great players like Julius Irving and Kareem Abdul Jabar.  They don’t give a fuck about the guys that were playing when we were born.”

Murdock was confused.  “I don’t get it.”

“Clearly, fuck face.”  The insult made them both smile, but neither boy would back down.  “Look, Murdock, nothing sells like nostalgia.  Old people want shit that remind them of their youth.  They’ll pay a lot of money for classic cars and antique things.  They don’t give a fuck about what younger people think is valuable.  They spend their money buying memories, not things, and since there are so many more of them than us, they compete with higher prices to buy the memories that they want.”

Murdock couldn’t follow.  “I still don’t get it.”

“That’s because you’re dumber than a pile of dog shit on a sidewalk in summer.”

Murdock giggled.  “You said dog shit.”

“In the summer, yeah.”  O’Connor laughed at his own insult.

“You got pissed off at me when I called you names earlier, you know.  Why do you get to call me names now?”

“Because I’m the asshole who’s about to plant a home made bomb on this obnoxious corvette.  Give me the bubble gum.”

Murdock took his backpack off and fished out a ziplock bag that contained twenty pieces of previously chewed bubble gum.  O’Connor took it and snuck underneath the car while pulling out a package the size of a beer bottle from the inside of his jacket.  His twelve year old body was rail thin but crazy strong and wiry.  He dropped to his back and slipped under the vehicle like a mechanic about to do some work.  Murdock kept watch on the empty street.  After a few minutes, O’Connor crawled back out.  Without saying a word, the boys nodded at each other and started walking down the street.

A man stuck his head out of a window from the second floor of an apartment building.  “Hey, you kids, get the fuck away from my car and get over here!” 

The boys didn’t look up at the pimp and just ignored him.  Murdock’s curiosity was now through the roof.  “What other things do you think that baby boomers might buy for a lot of money?”

“I don’t know,” O’Connor answered honestly.  “Maybe old Led Zeppelin records or something?  My old ass uncle loves that rock and roll shit.”

The pimp yelled out of his window again.  “I said, get the fuck over here, you shit bags!  Don’t you fucking walk away!”  

The two boys had tuned out the world and were back to bickering.  Murdock became indignant.  “There’s no way old people would pay a lot of money for a vinyl record, would they?”

“I told you, I don’t know,” O’Connor said with a flat face.  “Maybe.  I’m not old so I doin’t know what they think is valuable.”  

The boys rounded the corner to the street and disappeared behind an apartment building wall.  Behind them, the pimp had blasted out the front door of his apartment complex and ran to his precious car.  He looked it up and down for scratches.  He looked back up and yelled in the direction of the boys.  “I told you punk ass bitches to get back here!”  

Knowing that the kids weren’t going to listen to him, he pulled out his keys and jumped into the driver seat.  He threw the key into the ignition and turned the starter.  A tower of flame exploded straight up in a big BOOM! that echoed throughout the streets as he instantly vaporized in the heat and expanding air.

A block away, neither boy flinched as the loud sound reached them.  Murdock felt hot air blow past him as his hair blew in the hot wind.  He smiled but without looking at O’Connor he said, “Dang, that was was fast.”

“I’m glad he didn’t run us down, to be honest,” O’Connor admitted.  “We’d have had to beat his ass and I hate seeing grown men scream in public.”

Twelve year old Murdock laughed.  “You’re a cold mother fucker, Doc.”

“I’m gonna kill all the bad guys, brother.  All of them.”

“The sooner the better,” twelve year old Murdock said.

In real time, the twenty nine year old O’Connor snapped back to reality.  “The sooner the better,” he muttered to himself.  Porter and Murdock’s words rang through his head.  Grinning, he whispered a little shoutout into the windshield.  “I’m gonna kill all the bad guys, brother.”  Laughing, he added, “Wherever you are in the universe right now, Murdock, I hope you’re finding some bad guys for me to kill.”  The thought of their twelve year old killer selves was reassuring that they were indeed the right good guy psychopaths for the job of finding and killing bad guy psychopaths.

Porter’s voice brought him back to reality.  “Doc!  Report!”

He looked at the map on his cell phone and lifted his com watch to his mouth.  “See you in five minutes or less, Porter.  This tanker has forty meters of hose.  I don’t know what that translates to in feet, but that’s all we’ve got.”

Porter sounded hopeful for the first time all night.  “It turns out there’s an opening off a dirt road that looks like it’s only twenty meters or so from the helicopter.  This is gonna work out!”  Her voice got muffled as a cloud of smoke blew downhill on her from the forest fire that was working it’s way towards the empty helicopter.  “We’re close to burning up over here!  Did I mention we need you to hurry?”

“Ha!”  O’Connor examined the map on his cell phone and decided to follow his instincts.  

Agent Death had been quiet the whole time but now she spoke up.  “Where in the fuck is that drunk bastard?”

“He says he’s close!”

Death rolled her eyes.  “If I had a nickel for every time a boy told me that…”  Even in her fear, her sex joke made her laugh.

“What is it with everyone having a god damned nickel when they have sex!?” Porter yelled in aggravation.

Her rant was interrupted by O’Connor’s voice on her watch.  “I can see the forest access road that you’re talking about.”  His eyesight wasn’t the best at night, but currently all his senses were like Spiderman.  He navigated the whale sized vehicle off of the paved highway onto a rough lumber access road.  The truck bounced violently since the shock system wasn’t made for off roading.  “Porter, fire up the lights on your bird.  I can’t see shit in these trees.”

As if on cue, O’Connor saw blinking lights in the distance.  He couldn’t tell how the road was going to lead to them, but he trusted the map.  Dust and gravel flew everywhere as the large tires spun hard pushing the fuel tanker to its destination.  He smelled forest fire smoke and it seemed to add to the urgency of the moment.  With both hands on the large steering wheel, he yelled at his wrist comm.  “Porter, how in the fuck did you two manage to start a forest fire?”

“We didn’t!” she instantly replied.  “There was a shootout between two groups of angry guys and then they started the fire with some sort of jet powered flame thrower!”

“You gotta be shitting me,” O’Connor said in disbelief.

“I don’t lie, Doc!  I’m not the kind of girl to tell a boy I’m pregnant just to keep him around longer, dammit!”

Agent Death looked at her friend.  “Where in the fuck did that come from?”

O’Connor found himself laughing as his heart pounded intensely.  “I”m no therapist, but I think you need to unpack what you just said with a professional someday, lady!”

“Dammit Doc!  I tell the truth and kick the boys to the curb, you know this!” Porter yelled.  “Besides, I’m gonna be burned alive and never even be able to consider the joys of motherhood if you don’t hurry it the fuck up!”

As she said those words, the headlights of the fuel tanker appeared through the trees.  Porter felt her heart jump, but a large waft of smoke poured over her, obscuring her vision.  When the patch of smoke had passed, the headlights were shining on the helicopter.  She could see the silhouette of O’Connor and Death grabbing the fuel hose and running towards the chopper.

The forest fire was indeed getting closer and the heat was immense.  It was also a fairly loud fire, so O’Connor had to yell.  “Where’s the damn gas cap to this bucket of bolts?  I’ve never gassed up a Russian chopper with a Russian fuel tanker before!”

Porter pointed to the fuel tank and yelled back, “Well I’ve never been high on ecstasy at Burning Man while being double teamed by body builders, but I sure as hell would figure it the fuck out!”

Agent Death didn’t know shit about flying machines but she seemed to act in pure instinct as she connected the fuel line to the tank adapter, turning it perfectly to complete the seal.  “My sexual fantasies are way more boring compared to yours, Porter!” she yelled as O’Connor ran back to the fuel truck.  

Ten seconds later, he fired up the pump and flipped the switch to begin the fuel transfer.  The hose went stiff as aviation fuel went flying through it.  O’Connor yelled, “Hurry!” to the fuel line, as if it would obey his command.

Porter looked from the hose up to the approaching fire, back to the hose over and over.  She looked at agent Death.  “It’ll take five minutes to get enough fuel to get us out of here, and another few minutes to warm the bird up.”  She got to thinking and said, “Fuck it.  I’m gonna warm the bird up now!  It might blow us up, but at least we’d die quickly instead of getting barbecued in this forest fire!” 

“Porter, what in the fuck are you talking about?!” Death yelled.  

The pilot ignored the question.  Porter jumped into the pilot seat and started flicking switches.  By law, helicopters and planes had safety precautions that made it to where they couldn’t fire up while the fuel tank lid was off, but this chopper was modified by Russian dissidents who were super geeky.  They’d removed that safety feature.  Porter said silently, “I’m gonna bang every one of those techs who worked on this thing.”  Half of her was grateful, but the other half was just ragingly horny and turned on by the danger they were in.

Five minutes later, Death gave the signal to kill the fuel line to O’Connor.  He flipped some switches and Death felt the hose go limp.  She disconnected it from the chopper and sealed everything up as she saw O’Connor reeling the hose back into the fuel truck.  He waved at her, as if to tell them, “get the fuck out of here!”  Once the hose was tucked back into it’s receptacle, O’Connor was behind the driver seat and already backing out of the woods at full speed. 

It took a handful of seconds for Death to strap in.  As her seat belt clicked, the chopper pulled up quickly and violently into the air.  The two women could see how close the forest fire had approached and as the chopper turned to avoid the smoke, they could see the carnage it had already created.  

Porter flew under the radar for half an hour, then found herself landing at the airstrip where her Russian friends were waiting.  A chat with O’Connor pleased her to know that he was heading back to the military base where he’d gotten the fueler from.  His Russian demolitions friend Connorvich was waiting for him to help, then the two of them were gonna go drink heavily.  It was just another day in the life of Team Whiskey.  All was right and well with the world.

In the distance, a twenty nine year old American secret agent named Trent Murdock lay passed out on the hot, dry Mexican soil, knocked out by a thug who’d snuck up on him while the rest of his team members were carrying out the parts of their mission perfectly.