Chapter Two

FORT MYERS

Thud, thud, thud.

Coleman turned around in his passenger seat. “We got another that likes to bang.”

“Note to self,” Serge said into a digital recorder. “Soundproof trunk.”

The Challenger pulled into a strip mall.

“What are you doing?”

“My new business. Spring-training tickets and trunk insulation aren’t free.” Serge got out, popped the rear hood and motioned with a pistol. “Would you mind rolling a little to your left? You’re on top of something I need… Thanks.”

He closed the trunk.

Thud, thud, thud.

They started at the far end of the shopping center. Dry cleaners. Bells jingled. Serge approached the counter.

“Can I help you?”

“No, but I can help you!” said Serge. “Hate to cold-call like this, but spring training left me no choice.”

“I’m sorry,” said the clerk. “We don’t allow solicitors.”

“Then we’re brothers in the struggle!” Serge held up his hand for a high five that never came. The clerk looked curiously at Coleman, swaying and drinking from a paper bag.

Serge slapped the counter. “Pay attention! Opportunity knocks! Sometimes it plays a tambourine or makes shadow puppets, but mostly it knocks. Are you ready? Bet you can’t wait! Knock-knock! Hi, I’m Opportunity!” Serge placed a pile of large, thick-stock white cards on the counter. He flipped up the top one, covered with Magic Marker handwriting.

NO SOLICITING.

The clerk scratched his head. “You’re soliciting to sell ‘No Soliciting’ signs?”

“I know! Can’t believe it hasn’t been thought of before: The perfect mix of product and presentation. We came in here creating a problem and providing the solution. Just look at my friend here…“ -Coleman burped and fell back against the door frame-”… Do you need this kind of nonsense all day long?”

_“I-”

Serge pounded the counter again. “Hell no! You have important stains to get out and can’t waste time with every bozo who wanders in from the street with bottles of the latest stain-removal craze, but they’re really just giving all their money to a doomsday cult with their fancy suicide machines and little or no interest in the laundry arts. I’m sure they’ve already been in here a thousand times.”

“Not really-”

“Five dollars,” said Serge. “I’ll even throw in ‘No Public Rest-rooms.’ That’s actually more critical. Ever seen a restroom after Coleman’s done his fandango?” Serge whistled. “Not a pretty picture.”

“I don’t think-”

“There’s a guy in our trunk,” said Coleman.

“Maybe I need to amp the presentation.” Serge leaned comfortably against the counter and stared at the ceiling. “I love dry cleaners. Could hang out for hours…”

Coleman raised his hand. “Can I use your bathroom?”

“… Always wondered,” said Serge, idly tapping his fingers. “What the fuck’s Martinizing?”

“If you don’t leave I’m calling the police.”

Next stop, dentist office. Same story. Accounting firm, ice cream parlor, nope, nope.

Computer repair, walk-in clinic. “Howdy! Pay no attention to the man behind the beer…”

The owner of the dog-grooming service pointed at an already-posted NO S OLICITING sign.

“My point exactly,” said Serge. “Did it stop us?”

“Out!”

They reached a drugstore. Serge pulled a handwritten list from his wallet and headed toward the back.

“Wait up,” said Coleman. “Aren’t you going to sell your signs?”

“Not yet. Have to pick up a few things. Let’s see…” He began grabbing items off shelves. “… Nylon rope, pliers, razor blades, duct tape-naturally-nine-volt batteries, broom, saw…”

“One of your projects?”

Serge turned up the next aisle. “If this baby doesn’t win me a grant… Kwik Dry superglue, wire cutters, tape measure, kite string…”

He finally arrived at the counter and tried to pay with some signs, but the cashier said they only took dollars and credit cards.

“But America was founded on a barter economy.” Serge reached for his wallet. “That’s the whole problem with stores. It’s all about money.”

Serge walked across the parking lot and opened the Challenger’s trunk. A head popped up. He smacked it with a tire iron. “Not your turn.”

Coleman peed on the side of the building. The front side. He straggled over. “We didn’t sell any signs… What are you doing now?”

“The free market was built on artificial demand.”

Serge rummaged through the trunk and removed a larger sign on a wooden stake. He hammered it into the ground next to the road.

They drove away. Downtown came into view.

“ Fort Myers, City of Palms!” Serge raised a camera. Click, click. “And there’s the new baseball stadium!”

“Serge, do we really have to watch a stupid baseball game?”

“It is not stupid.”

“Nothing happens. Dudes stand in a field a long time, then every once in a while someone runs a little bit, then they stand around again.”

“They serve beer.”

“I love baseball.”

A few miles back, passing motorists stared curiously at a sign in front of a strip mall.

CLEAN P UBLIC R ESTROOMS (S OLICITORS E AT F OR F REE).

“We’re here!” said Serge, screeching into the parking lot. “Spring training home of the Red Sox!”

“Thought the Tampa Bay Rays were your favorite team.”

“They are,” said Serge. “ Boston was my team before Florida had any, but now we do. And that’s why we drove down here today. They’re playing the Rays! Anyone who doesn’t root for his home team deserves to be spat upon and have his head shaved like those French chicks who screwed Nazis during the Resistance.”

“Are there Nazis at spring training?”

“Yes, but they keep a low profile in the bleachers and are now too old to goose-step and start their shit again.” Serge grabbed a baseball glove from the glove compartment. “I’m getting a ton of foul balls!”

“How can you be so sure?”

“You haven’t seen me in action.”

19 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT

City plows had pushed the previous day’s snowfall into dirty banks. People bundled in thick coats walked quickly along Lans-downe Street, heads ducked low in the icy wind. They were made even colder by a structure towering up the south side of the road that blocked the sun. At its top, thirty-seven feet above street level, sat a cantilevered balcony. More foot traffic came around the corner, scurrying past the back side of the Green Monster, the fabled left-field wall at Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox.

One of the pedestrians blew into freezing hands as he reached Brookline Avenue and made a sharp right turn, climbing through the gray, wet crust. He grabbed a door handle and jumped inside. Rambunctious chatter and cheering. Waitresses rushed by with teetering trays.

Overhead TVs everywhere, all the same channel.

The man rubbed his arms and climbed onto one of the few vacant stools. A finger went up for the bartender. “Sam Adams.”

The televisions showed a news correspondent in bright natural light, surrounded by palm trees and dozens of screaming, waving people with baseball caps and ghostly non-tans fighting their way into the camera frame.

“This is Jill Montgomery down in sunny Fort Myers, Florida, where the temperature is a fabulous seventy-eight degrees, and the faithful of Red Sox Nation have begun their annual migration to the spring training home of their beloved team. Let’s talk to one of them right now…” She motioned for a bald man in a Josh Beckett jersey. “ Sir, where are you from?”

“Red Sox going all the way! Wooooooooo!”

“And where are you from?”

“Yankees suck!”

Beer arrived. The man on the next stool looked out the windows at dreariness, then up at the TV. “I’m jealous.”