[Fiction] Blonde and Bouncy

"What took you so long?"

"He wanted to play bocce! Can't you believe it?"

"Quick! Get in the van!"

"He was at the bar by himself most of the time," the big blonde continued as he sped from the curb, "a perfect mark. Looked like a loner, you know? Every once in a while someone would try to start a conversation with him but then they'd wander off, bored."

"What did you get? He must have something - he's a member of the Golf & Tennis Club for chrissakes!"

"Get? I didn't get anything, you jerk! These things take time, finesse. Ever hear of finesse, you unsophisticated jackass?"

"Jackass?" His hands gripped the wheel as he drove faster. Each bump in the road was registered as a rolling gallop in the used minivan. "I'm just trying to provide for you, baby."

"Then why don't you fix the shocks in this piece of junk?"

He took a deep breath. "Baby, it's the brakes not the shocks, okay? How many times to I have to tell you? And, if you could just get the fish on the hook we could get enough to take care of a few things, alright? We gotta work together here."

The light turned red but that didn't seem to matter. He drove faster, his rage at a boiling point.

"Slow down! You're gonna kill somebody!"

"The only one I'm gonna kill is you, f'ya don't be quiet."

The only sound that immediately followed was the engine revving as if it was going to burst from the low-end family van itself.

"Sweetie, slow down," the squarish woman tried to soothe. "I'll go back to the club and I'll make nice-nice and get enough to fix the shocks."

He had just taken a can of soda from the cooler on the floor between them and, at this remark, glared at her - so long that she was afraid he had forgotten he was behind the wheel and racing nearly out of control. "It's the brakes," he said with an icy calm.

He rounded the corner, nearly knocking down a pedestrian. It was all the big blonde could do to hold on.
"It's got nothing to do with your fucking brakes!" she yelled half as much to make her point as to have something at all to yell as the van leaned precariously in the turn.

As the wheels made solid contact with the pavement once more, he hurled the soda at her, barely missing her head. It sailed out the passenger window and hit the curb, bouncing straight up.



(Inspired by [Fiction]Blonde and [Fiction] Bounce.)