More of Rizzo’s vicious lies.

This man is going to have a long talk with my lawyer and his magnum when he gets out on bail. The savage little pedophile was fondling a helpless little brown child right in front of my house. He’s done this before, and usually is hoping for a chance to flee the crime while scattering mail he’s stolen from my mailbox, attempting to incriminate me.

Not satisfied with the Gomorrahn debauchery he subjects his illegal manservant Pepe to, his lust for younger and younger wog-flesh drives him to deeper and deeper trenches of depraved behavior. Schoolteachers all over the nieghborhood hurl chairs out the window when they here his insidious whisper from below the window ledge at the kindergarden, calling through dusty glass and crude construction paper renditions of heathen saints and holiday icons from savage and possibly cannabalistic cultures, trying to lure black haired and swarthy boy- children out to the parking lot, with his skin crawling lure;

“Peen- ya- ta? Peen- ya- taaa? You liiikeee Peeenyata…?”

Of course, to hear him tell it…

“No, no, no! I don’t have a police report, and for the last time, I’m not going to get one. Just pay me, dammit! What do I pay you people for, anyway? What’s the purpose of insurance if I can’t use it? Send an adjuster out here, he can see the damage. Why do I nee--“

For the sixth time, “Judy” launched into her monotone reading of their policy regarding payment of insurance claims for vandalism, over my weakening logic. I dislike insurance companies in general, and I was beginning to genuinely hate Mutual of Des Moines. I’m usually a helpful guy, but I just can’t get the police report Judy so desperately longs for. I’d have to explain to the officer why I was driving without a license – something Judy really doesn’t need to know either – and then they might want to inspect the vehicle. I try my damndest to keep cops out of my car, what with the drugs and guns and all.

I hung up on my baby. This was getting me nowhere. It was sort of my fault anyway. I should have known better. I figured it was safe to drive down 24th Street, since the sun was up. Usually I avoid the block at all costs, in case Flagg just happens to be looking out the window, but if the sun’s up, he’s usually asleep under his rock. It was just my luck that I was taking the 24th Street shortcut to the projects as Flagg awoke from a 48 hour coma with revenge on his mind. That’s not really all that uncommon, but even if I was parked at the curb I could get away before he made it down the sidewalk. He’s not the athletic type. Unfortunately, just as I passed his hovel, a ball bounced out into the street. I slammed on the brakes and screeched to a stop. No, that’s not a cliché, it really is the noise tires make when you stand on the brakes. Kind of a screeee-chirp. A small foreign child ran out after the ball, bent over, head down, arms outstretched, eye on the ball like they tell you in gym class, completely unaware that two tons of steel was about to smear him down 24th Street. This is why I stopped: one more ball dent in the grill isn’t going to make me cry, but if I hit a kid, there’s gonna be paperwork. At the moment, I’m allergic to paperwork. The kid momentarily froze at the sound of the tires, an unwise move since he was already in front of the car, and then burst into tears as he looked to the right and saw only gleaming chrome and dirty white paint. The kid’s mother came running out and scooped him up. She began alternately yelling at the kid in what I think was Portuguese and apologizing to me in pretty bad English. I started to wave her off, but then did a double take. She was kinda cute. She’d be cuter if she had all of her teeth, but really not too shabby, especially for the neighborhood. I then made my second mistake of the day: I smiled and began my sweet talk:

“That your kid, baby? I saved his life. You owe me, big time, baby. Why don’t I let you buy me a drink.”
Blank stare. Blink, blink. Blank stare.
“You like wine? How ’bout tequila? Ta-ke-la? Taa-keee-laaa?”

At this point I had a flashback. In my rearview mirror, I saw Flagg, running down his front steps, a brick in each hand, wearing nothing but flip-flops and a purple wife-beater, belly and testicles flopping to and fro. I slapped myself in an attempt to snap out of it. It didn’t work. I slapped myself harder. Still no response from my brain, although my new friend was now backing away from the car. She glanced back over her right shoulder, then turned and ran down the block, yelling in her native tongue. Sigh. She made Portuguese sound so good. I then made my third mistake of the day. Instead of taking off, getting off that accursed block, I slapped the car into “park”, killed the motor and began to get out. I had to explain to my baby that I wasn’t going to hurt her. Zoe must have been telling stories to the neighbors again.

I was halfway out of the car when the first brick crashed through the rear window at an angle, broke out the rear passenger door window and dented the well-used Subaru parked across the street With a cracked growl, Flagg hurled the second, only to have it bounce off the trunk.

“This one’s for Pepe, you bastard!”

Fresh out of bricks, he then hurled one of his flip-flops. His aim was better than with the bricks; it sailed by my ear, almost close enough to infect me. I hopped back in the car and turned the screwdriver in the ignition. It turned over, but wouldn’t fire. Flagg uncharacteristically displayed some good sense, picking up a nearby garbage can to continue his assault.

“Whirr, whirrr.”
Crash! There went the decklid
Whirr, whirrrrrr”
Crash! Tinkle. That would be a taillight.
“Whirrrrrr, whhirrrrrrrrrr, click.”
Crash!
Damn. Left fender.
“Click. Clickclick. Click.”

Oh, shit.

I slid across the passenger seat and out the door as Flagg’s garbage can sailed past the driver’s door, sending more broken glass flying as it ripped off the rearview mirror. I crossed the street at a dead run, still pursued by Flagg and his amphetamines. I was paying too much attention to the mostly-naked madman chasing me, if there is such a thing, and ran into a very, very large Portuguese man with an aluminum baseball bat. Since bad things come in twos, I assumed he would be killing me for hitting on his wife. From my new position, sitting on the sidewalk, I could see my baby watching from their porch, eyes wide with fear – or some really good shit. The very, very, very large man stepped over me and deliberately walked into the path of the charging Flagg. As I sat there on the sidewalk, trying to remember if he owed me money, the very large man cracked Flagg in the head with the bat. He went down like a girl from Ohio on her fourth Long Island Ice Tea. The large man stood over the bulk – boy is he unattractive from this angle! – and waited for an excuse. Flagg managed to pick his head up.

“Wha? Wha? Pepe? Ish tha you?”

Before the exceedingly large man could swing the bat that far down, Flagg’s neck went limp again and his head hit the sidewalk with an all-too-familiar “thudump.” Zoe came running out with a bathrobe to cover him up. This was not the first time he’s left the apartment without his pants. She began yelling at the Portuguese man:

“Whh? Whhum? Dbddbunn! Llmnp smbvwfrumn nbnubm!”.

When I returned to my car it started on the first revolution. I could almost hear the snicker.