Cheater, Cheater

Cheater, Cheater

  by Carter Thomas

  Copyright 2011 Carter Thomas

  Cheater, Cheater

  by

  Carter Thomas

  My wife, Anna, strikes a match, lighting an off-white colored candle that sits on the counter by the stove in the kitchen. I shut my eyes and breathe in the vanilla-mixed-with-smoke scent that fills the room in the next few moments. “Here’s your coffee,” she says, handing me a white mug that says DAD on the side of it in big green letters. My daughter gave it to me last year for Father’s Day. I take slow, small sips of the hot, bitter liquid.

  “Aren’t you going to be late?” I ask Anna. “It’s almost seven forty-five.” She teaches sixth grade at the elementary school across town. Normally, she leaves around seven thirty, so she is very late today.

  “No. There is an assembly today and I don’t have to be at work until eight thirty.” She had told me that before, I remember, and I had since forgotten.

  “Oh. That’s right. You told me that.”

  “You probably just weren’t listening, like always,” she jokes at me.

  “Right, well, I do have to be at work at a reasonable time, so I had better go,” I say, placing the empty mug in the sink for her to rinse out. “I’ll see you tonight.” I kiss her goodbye and leave the house. It is Friday night, which is our date night. I am planning on taking her to a restaurant downtown tonight, as we almost always do. There is really not much for two people to do besides that and sometimes a movie.

  I get into my car—a Volkswagen Jetta—and sit down in the driver’s seat. The car purrs to life when I turn the key in the ignition. I back slowly and carefully on to National Street, and I am on my way. There is a radio talk show on and they are speaking about a charity organization that donated a couple of million dollars to a children’s hospital and was later found to have stolen most of the money from banks. “They are like a modern Robin Hood,” said one host of the show. I am disgusted by the charity organization when I hear this. I have been driving for ten minutes now, and I am halfway to work. I realize that I am going to be late—I have to clock in by eight, and normally I try to be there at least five minutes early. I feel that it makes a good impression. At least I have a reputation of being very early so one mishap can easily be overlooked.

  Suddenly I am pulled out of my thoughts when my car jolts rapidly to the left side. I yell and something hits me in the temple on the right side of my head. I feel a shock of pain instantly. The crunching sound of metal against metal sends chills through my spine. My head hits something hard—I think it is the window beside me, but I am completely disoriented. I look out the windshield and the world is inverted. My car is rolling. When the movement stops, I know that I am losing blood fast and that I don’t have much time left. I see a large, red truck speed past, undamaged. I have no way to reach my cell phone to contact anybody. Slowly and painfully, I die.

  I jerk quickly from the dream. I am surprised to be alive. The dream was so realistic, so almost painful that I felt it had to be real. I sigh, and go move towards the restroom. I need to take a piss.

  With my bladder emptied, I enter the kitchen. “Hey, baby,” Anna says. I tell her at length about the wild dream. It feels good to get the thought off my chest because it felt so real. “Well, it was just a dream,” my wife says. She is gorgeous—straight, brown, hair that stretches past her shoulder blades and beautiful brown eyes.

  “I love you,” I say. She lights a candle that sits on the counter by the stove. I should have known something was wrong at that point.

  “Here’s your coffee,” she says, handing over the DAD mug.

  “Holy shit,” I say. “This is just like my dream. Do you think it could have been a premonition?” Now I am starting to get very nervous.

  “Don’t be silly. It’s probably just a coincidence,” she reassures me. She’s probably right, but I continue.

  “You have to be at work at eight, right?” I ask nervously.

  “No, there’s an assembly. I don’t have to be there until eight thirty. Now tell me this isn’t about your dream.”

  “Well, everything’s the same!” I yell. “This is getting freaky!”

  “I’ll tell you what,” she says, walking across the room to pick her purse up off the table. She hands me a bill. “Why don’t you take a taxi? Then your dream can’t come true, right?”

  “That’s right. Good idea,” I tell her, accepting the money. She smiles. “Well, I had better go ahead and call for a taxi. Where’s my phone?”

  “Just use the home phone,” she says, taking the handheld phone off the receiver. I take it and call the number that we have hanging by a magnet on a small piece of paper that was torn from a magazine on the fridge.

  “I need a cab,” I say, telling the voice on the other line our address.

  “Try to calm down, okay?” Anna tells me as I leave the house. I kiss her, but on the cheek this time. I want all similarity with the dream to end here. I romp across the sidewalk, cutting the corner of the grass as I head for the yellow cab.

  “Hi,” I greet the driver and tell him where to take me. “Don’t take National, though, okay?”

  “You know that’s the quickest route there, right?” the driver asks sarcastically.

  “Hey, it’s my money, just do as I say!” I am nervous, but it is better to be safe than sorry.

  “Whatever,” he says, giving up.

  I notice that the radio station is the same as in my dream. “They are like a modern,” the host begins.

  “Can you please change the station? I hate this one,” I say nervously. The cab driver probably thinks that I am very strange, but this is a very strange situation. Besides, he is a cab driver, so I don’t care. He shrugs his shoulders and turns the knob on the radio. I hear four words, all on different stations and static-filled, but they are undeniable. YOU CAN’T CHEAT DEATH. I squeeze my eyes shut and place my head between my knees.

  “Dude, what is wrong with you?” the cab driver asks.

  “Hey, buddy, just drive, okay?” I am a little annoyed. How can he not have heard that on the radio? I realize that I am being a little bit rude, but he isn’t really the most friendly person ever either. I return my head to its spot between my knees and feel safe. Comfortable. I feel like if we were to get in a wreck right now like the one in my dream, I would survive. Actually, this position probably makes me somewhat vulnerable, but I don’t care. If it makes me feel secure, then I will stay there.

  After a while, the driver alerts me. “Hey, man, we’re here.” I look up and see that we are parked at the curb of my three-story, glass-and-brick office building.

  “Oh, thanks,” I say, handing over my wife’s money.

  “Yeah,” he says as I get out of the cab.

  “Liam!” my boss calls to me as I enter the building. “You’re late. What’s up? You are always on time.”

  “Sorry. I am just having an…abnormal morning,” I explain. I decide that further explanation is needed, so I lie. “Uh, car wouldn’t start. I had to take a cab.”

  “Oh. No problem. It happens to everyone sometimes.” I thank him and head for the elevator that will take me to my office on the third floor. I push the button to take me to the third floor, but somebody is jogging towards the elevator.

  “Hold that, please!” he calls to me. I realize that the person is Thomas Dewey. He works in one of the cubicles on my floor.

  “Hey, Dewey, how are you doing?” I ask him, trying to make friendly conversation.

  “Don’t call me Dewey. It’s Thomas. And I am fine, Liam. Thanks.”

  “Great,” I say at length, fighting the awkward silence that he has created. A bell rings on the second floor. The doors open and two people—a man and a
woman—enter, pushing the button to go to the first floor. They will have to ride to the third floor with us before they can go to the first.

  “Hello,” they each say, then go on with the conversation they were having before, the man speaking to the woman in a gruff voice. The bell rings again and the elevator doors open on the third floor. I exit, and Thomas Dewey follows close behind. When he yells, I can feel the heat of his breath on the back of my neck.

  “Everybody get on the ground!” he commands with a bit of a shake in his voice. “Nobody move.” I look around and see that everybody in the room is on the floor, trembling in fear. I turn on my heels to see Dewey, holding out a pistol. I drop to the floor, remember the radio’s message that you can’t cheat death. Death had, it seemed, come for me. I turn my head towards the elevator and see the doors slowly close. The man and woman from the second floor were standing just behind the closing doors, mouths agape.

  Hope fills me. They will surely send help before Dewey