Scott Wittenburg - See Tom Run

He paused before opening the door and glanced back at the mysterious car parked in the driveway. It was an older model Pontiac, green, and looked to be around a mid-nineties model. Who in god’s green earth would be visiting from Smithtown? he wondered. Peg’s family hailed from Columbus, so it almost had to be either a friend or a relative of his-someone with an awfully good reason to warrant the two-hour drive.

Tom crept over to the garage. He was not going to go into the house without some kind of weapon. He found a crowbar, recalled Bummer for a second, then carried it with him over to the side door. Opening the door as quietly as he could, he stepped inside.

From the laundry room, Tom could just make out a tiny orange glow coming from inside the kitchen. It looked like the end of a lit cigarette. He took a whiff and recognized the pungent smell of burning tobacco. At that same moment, the glow intensified as the person at the other end of the cigarette took a long drag.

“Come on in, Tom,” a voice suddenly rang from the darkness.

Tom flinched.

A flashlight flicked on and its beam shone directly into his eyes.

“And ya can put down that goddamn crowbar.”

The man’s voice was gruff sounding with a heavy southern Ohio drawl. It wasn’t the least bit familiar.

“Who are you?” Tom asked, feeling his heart rate go up a notch or two.

“Right now, that’s for me to know and you to find out. I want you to drop that piece of iron (pronounced “arn”) and walk toward me real slow-like,” the voice commanded.

“No way-this is my house and I’m not going to drop anything!”

Click.

Tom knew that was the sound of a gun cocking in the darkness.

“Ya sure about that, Tom? I’m bettin’ ya might wanna reconsider if ya don’t want a slug in yer haid”

“Okay, I’m dropping it!”

He let the crowbar fall to his feet; the dull clanging nearly deafening.

“There ya go. Now come toward me real slow. Or as God is my witness, I’ll waste yer sorry ass.”

Tom moved tentatively toward the man holding the flashlight. He couldn’t make out any of his features except that he was thin.

“That’s far enough, right there,” the man said. “Now, I’m gonna light a candle so we can see each another. I want you to just stand there nice and still for a second.”

Tom watched anxiously as the stranger grabbed a butane lighter off the kitchen table, flicked it and lit a candle. As amber light filled the kitchen, Tom gazed at the man’s face, trying to determine if he’d ever seen him before. He was heavily bearded, had a broken nose and wore his long, greasy hair in a ponytail. Tom was fairly certain he had never laid eyes on him before.

“There. Now have a seat and we can begin our little chit-chat,” the intruder said, gaping at him with bug eyes that looked like he was on crystal meth.

Tom sat down across the table from him and said, “What do you want with me?”

“Hold on and I’ll tell ya in a minute. First I want to get something to drink.”

The man got up, went over to the refrigerator and took out two warm Michelob Ultras. “Here,” he said, offering one to Tom.

“No thanks, too early for me,” Tom said, trying to appear under control while in fact he was terrified of this scary-looking redneck.

“Suit yerself,” the stranger said, screwing off the bottle cap. He kept the gun trained on Tom as he sucked down several huge gulps of beer.

“Ahhh, that’s better. Now down to the business. I don’t reckon you remember me, Tom, but I lived on the west side of Smithtown back in the eighties around the same time you shuffled off to New York. I’d seen you around in the bars from time to time but we never talked none because you were one of them city fellahs and I was just what you thought of as a hillbilly or whatever. Which I didn’t really give a big shit about because I figgered as long as you never messed with me or any of my buddies, I wasn’t gonna start no trouble with you.”

Tom thought back to those cobweb-shrouded days twenty years ago, trying to place this guy’s face in a bar. He looked just like the other typical hicks from the sticks: ultra-long dirty hair, full beard and that same sort of startled, demented look as the good ol’ boys in Deliverance But the guy didn’t ring any bells.

“Anyway, my name is Donnie-Donnie Shortridge. Now, does that name sound familiar to you?”

In fact, it did, but only faintly. Tom recalled the name Donnie Shortridge but couldn’t place exactly where he’d heard it before.

“Not really,” he said. “Should it?”

“Aww, it sure as hell should! But like I said before, your type of folk didn’t give a shit about my type so you probably don’t want to remember. Don’t really make any big shit to me, anyway.”

Tom noticed that the longer this Donnie character talked, the more anger showed in his face. He was scowling at him now, looking like a time bomb ready to blow any second.

Tom needed to keep this in mind, whatever the guy wanted from him.

“My memory is pretty fried, Donnie. Too much booze over the years, I guess,” Tom quipped, attempting to add a little humor to the conversation.

Donnie’s expression didn’t change one iota.

“You’re a goddamn pussy, Tom. You don’t know what drunk is.”

Hmmm, Tom thought. He’s getting downright nasty now.

“Let me throw another name at ya, Tom, and I’m betting that you’re gonna remember it! How about the name Mindy Conkel?”

Mindy Conkel. Tom did recall her name. She was the girl he’d picked up at a bar one night. Really good looking but a little on the sleazy side. He’d taken her to her place and had a pretty good time. And that was about it-he’d never seen her again.

“Yeah, I do remember Mindy. Why do you ask?”

Donnie’s expression went from angry to furious. “Because, motherfucker, she was my wife and you fucked her!”

Tom’s heart skipped two beats and his head felt like a lead weight all of a sudden.

Shit! So that’s what this is all about…

He decided to play it cool. “I what? No way, Donnie! What makes you think I did that?”

Donnie drained the bottle, opened the other one with his yellow buckteeth and spit the cap out onto the table. “Because I just know, fucker! She told me!”

Tom thought back, trying to recall exactly what had happened the night he had picked up Mindy Conkle He’d been at the Short Stop Pub with Mike and Jeff that night. They had all been fairly smashed when all of a sudden these two chicks came over and sat down at their table. One was Mindy and the other was-hell he couldn’t remember what her name was. She was pretty ugly though, which made Mindy look all that much better.

One thing led to another and Mindy began flirting with him big time, rubbing his leg and pressing her tits against him every time she said something into his ear. Before long, she asked him if he wanted to go to her place and he had happily agreed.

They had gone to her downtown apartment, which was a little rough and seemed to fit her personality to a tee. They drank some more and eventually went to bed together. About all he could recall from that point on was that she was a good lay but he couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there the next morning. Mindy Conkel was not exactly the stuff that dreams were made of. But he’d had a very good time, and that was a fact.

Mindy had never said anything about being married or mentioned any boyfriend. And she definitely had not been wearing a wedding band-he would have been keeping an eye out for that no matter how drunk he’d been. In fact, he could recall her mentioning a roommate named Sarah So she had definitely not been married to Donnie Shortridge at the time “Donnie, I swear to you that Mindy was single when I went out with her. And I only went out with her one night. I think you have the facts wrong-”