Old Man Maddington

Old Man Maddington

  by Shannon Lee Martin

  Copyright 2014 Shannon Lee Martin

  Cover art Copyright 2014 Shannon Lee Martin

  The sun could be seen glinting brightly off Space Platform XII, if one's eyes were good enough, and the old man's were. He shook his head at the platform in disgust, the wind twisting more knots into his wispy grey-white hair as he descended from the sky.

  The old man parked his hovercycle in the handicapped section of Piggy's Grocery and Flower Shop, flung his dirty brown sack over his shoulder, dismounted his ancient bike -- a well-preserved machine for its age -- and entered the store.

  Piggy's was much larger than its predecessors of times long past, for it, like other stores of its kind, had to cater to the tastes of a wealth of different beings. The old man was interested in none of this.

  He searched around for quite a while until he finally came upon the isle with the various brands of pipe tobacco and happy-weed. He sorted through them all until he came upon his favorite brand, Captain Raleigh's Aromatic Paladin Brand-Borkum Blend, (black cherry), hefting the largest can they had under his arm.

  As he carried his tobacco to the nearest checkout line, a shot from a plaz pistol rang out, followed by a commanding, if almost feeble, yell.

  "Everybody down! Down! Now! On your fat bellies now! Now!" The voice didn't sound too pleasing, or patient. It belonged to a man that looked like he'd never had a bath in his life, and smelled the same, his hair matted and thick with natural oil. His wide face was heavily scarred, and his brown trenchcoat looked as if it'd been recently pulled from a sewer.

  "I want money, monnnieee, now! Give me monniee, I want some money now! Now now now now now now now!" Everyone near the man, and even some people who only heard him from a distance, hit the floor quickly. A woman with blue hair, who weighed well over a quarter-ton, made the air vibrate, either from her impact with the floor, or the gas she passed when landing.

  The man of filth walked up to the nearest cashier, a young woman with no hair, and held the gun to her head. He pulled a burlap sack from under his coat, and thrust it to the crying woman. She quickly began filling the dirty sack with the money from her register.

  An old broken voice tore the silence.

  "H-h-hey you. Y-y-ya havin fun there threatenin th-that defenseless young lady? Turn around and fight like a man."

  The man turned around quickly, both hands gripped tightly around his pistol, and looked around for the voice which threatened him. The voice of a .45 caliber cracking in anger broke open his head. He fell into a candy rack, and laid there with blood trickling from a corner of his mouth, pouring from the back of his head.

  The people lying on the floor rose slowly to their feet, some slower than others. The crying and mumbling ceased, and everyone turned to look upon their savior.

  The old man stood unmoving with the almost mythical gun firmly held in his left hand, white shirt unbuttoned to expose a bare, thin body with a round belly. He wore loose-fitting brown pants and a pair of battered brown loafers. In his other hand he held the tobacco. His face was wrinkled and thin, his blue eyes bright and wild, his white beard thick and smooth and touching his navel, his nose large and thin.

  The old man stuck the gun in the small of his back in his pants, and tossed his can of tobacco onto the rolling rubber checkout of the beautifully bald cashier. Her expression was a mixture of stunned confusion and gratitude, but she picked up the tobacco and rang up the price. The old man grimaced at the register's figure, paid for his tobacco, and stuffed the can into the bag laying over his shoulder.

  The old man was two steps away from the automated doors when the police arrived.

  "Down on the ground, you mangy demented thing you!" yelled the first officer through the doors, sweat dripping from his hands where they gripped his needlegun. "Down on the ground before I tear so many holes in you, these nice grocery people curse me for having to use a ladder to wipe your gore from the ceiling!"

  The old man smiled, and raised his hands into the air. He walked to the wall, and placed his hands there, legs spread.

  "Are you fucking deaf or fucking retarded? On the ground!" If it were possible, the officer's hands shook even more. Other policemen were lining up beside their fellow officer now, all needleguns pointed at the old man.

  "If you want me on the floor, on my belly like a dog, boy, you and your entire mo -- " before he could finish he was interrupted by a girl's scream.

  "Please don't hurt him, Mr. Police Man! He saved us from that stinky man! He's my hero!" The girl broke down into uncontrollable sobbing.

  "Shut that girl up before we arrest her for aiding and abetting or whatever the hell we decide to charge her with," yelled a thin black cop who was a picture-perfect image of cool, steely nerves. His long hair draped to his ass in a thick plaited braid.

  "Yeah!" said a dumb fat cop.

  "This man saved our lives, officers," said a man who must have been a manager. His every word twitched as if someone were going to bash his brains in if he said something wrong, whatever that might be. "That man there on the floor is the one you're looking for. He tried to rob us. This man saved us. . . This man saved us." His body twitched as much as his words. The look on his round puffy face said that surely the cops would now find something wrong with what he said and would. . .bash his brains in; his cringing demeanor said nothing else.

  The cops searched the old man. One of them nearly fainted when he pulled the still-smoking .45 from its resting place as if it were a diet pill. His arm shook with revulsion, and he dropped the firearm to the floor.

  "Ih ih ih illegal! You horrid old savage barbarian you!" a cop said as he clubbed the old man in the back of the head with his needlegun. "Is this what you killed that poor psychopath with? Is it? Is it?" More emphasis came from the needlegun, and the old man fell to the floor, unconscious. "You're under arrest for possession of an illegal firearm, one of the types banned by the United Nations, a felony crime. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say. . ." His words droned on by rote as he replaced his needlegun in its holster and removed handcuffs from a small satchel at his belt. He handcuffed the unconscious old man, and roughly attempted to pick him up from the floor. His strength failed immediately, and he dropped the old man to the cold tile.

  "You need to work out more Randy," snickered a cop so fat he made a duck waddle look regal.

  "Shut up, fat boy," was the cop's witty reply.

  "Don't hurt that nice man!" The girl screamed again. "You fuckin pigs, leave that nice old man alone!"

  The cop with the braid pushed his way through the crowd, pulling a stunner from his belt. He humanely moved those people that didn't move quickly enough from his path, sending some flying through the air as he blazed a trail toward the little girl. The girl looked up at the cop with a wide-eyed plea as he touched the electrodes of the stunner to the top of her head. Her hair was smoking as she fell to the ground with a dull kthunk. The cop replaced the stunner on his belt.

  "You are being charged with the third-degree misdemeanor of attempting to incite a riot. You have the right to remain silent. . ."

  "Leave my daughter alone!" was the only warning as a knife whipped out from behind the cop, and he fell on top of the little girl, a pool of blood quickly spreading from a wide smile stretched across his neck.

  "Slice of Pork!" someone yelled.

  "Vhy is it alvays a blek man zhat dies first in a violent confrontation? Just like in ze movies. . ." commented an old man with black teeth.

  "I don't know, but I noticed that too," said the fat lady with blue hair that had finally managed to make it to her feet. "That sure is peculiar, ain't it. Life imitates art imitates life. . ."

  A gas bo
mb was shot into the crowd of grocery shoppers, and the sound of thumping heads as they hit the floor made a sort of macabre music. The cops surrounded the man who gave the braided cop a second mouth. The man's arm twitched as he lay unconscious, his hand still tightly clutched around the bloody knife. Each cop unloaded his entire clip of needles into him. Only the fingerprints of an intact digit or two were left to identify the remains.

  One of the cops pulled a radio from his belt, and pressing a switch, said, "We have a riot in progress at the Piggy's Grocery and Flower Shop in the downtown area. We're gonna need a lot of backup on this one, suggest. . ."

  It took four cops to drag the old man out to the paddy wagon. One stout cop had the little girl draped over his shoulder, and he absentmindedly diddled her crotch as he walked over to throw her into the wagon after the old man. He casually sniffed his finger as he closed the double doors behind their unconscious forms.

  "Come smell my finger, Eddie. . ."