Get Down Moses, Chapter 1

The young guy stared him down. They pulled into the parking lot almost simultaneously from opposite ends. A young parking lot attendant just stared at the both of them. He wasn’t about to interfere. It was one of the perks of the job. And there were few.

“Hey, asshole!” the young guy, driving an orange F-150 with flames down both sides yelled. “I was fucking here first!”

The old guy, who probably hadn’t shaved in 10 days or so, got out of his car, clicked his key to lock the door and walked up the monstrosity of a truck.

“Put your dick back in your pants,” he said. “This is a no-fucking zone.” And he walked away.

The young kid, angrier than he’d been in years, revved up his engine. It had a Hemi, so why the fuck not, he thought. However, just as he did this, his hand slipped from the gear shift and his foot slipped as well. His truck lurched forward slamming directly into the car in front of him. The old guy looked back, expecting his tiny Saturn to be destroyed. He laughed out loud when he saw that it wasn’t his car, but the one next to it. The one with the plates that said “Gator 8.” He knew exactly whose care it was.

The old guy moseyed over to the bar across the street, opened the door and peered inside. He found who he was looking for pretty quickly. He wasn’t hard to find. Anywhere.

“Hey Moses,” he said, “Some skinny kid just slammed into your car.”

Moses, who played linebacker for the University of Florida three years ago before being kicked off the team for steroid abuse, looked up from his newspaper.

“What the fuck,” he muttered, folding the paper up and placing it down on the table in front of him. “I’ll be right back,” he said to the two ladies sitting at the table with him. One was Dynasty, a former stripper who was known to get around with the Gators’ players back in the day. The other was Sheena, a local barfly – just 22 years old, but already half way to the grave.

“Who’d you say hit my car,” Moses asked the old guy politely. The old guy walked outside with Moses and pointed across the street. There the kid was nervously looking at his bumper and the smashed up back bumper of the car he’d hit.

“That guy,” the old guy said. “He’s a real charmer too.”

“Thanks,” Moses said, patting the old guy on the back. “I owe ya a beer.”

Moses walked across the street. Not even looking to see if any traffic was coming. He never looked. Figured if anyone was coming, they’d see ol’ Moses parting the sea and stop. They always did.

“You. Me. Discussion. Now!” Moses said, pointing to himself, the kid and the dirt in front of him. The kid looked scared now. He didn’t know who Moses was, but he was about to find out.

“Did you hit my car?” Moses asked politely, but sternly.

The kid looked at Moses. Then his car.  Then Moses’ car. He swallowed hard. The next words out of his mouth were going to determine the path of the rest of his life, he thought.

“Um, uh,” he could only manage.

“Listen kid, it’s a simple yes or no question. You either hit my car with your truck. Or you just so happened to park an inch away from my car, with a big dent in your car that corresponds to the dent in my car. Orange and blue paint swapped. So…Did. You. Hit. My. Motherfucking car or not?” He added the pauses between most of the words. Mostly to keep himself from getting angry. The last time he got angry it cost him his scholarship, and as a result, his NFL career.

“Sir, um, I,” the kid once again sputtered.

“OK. We now know you don’t understand the English language. A lot of folks used to think that about me. They’d say ‘That Moses, he can’t speak.’ Or ‘That Moses, he real dumb.’ Well, kid, I think you know I’m not dumb. And I’m pretty sure from the looks of you that you’re just playing dumb. So, let’s have an answer in the next five words.”

“Um.”

“One.”

“What?”

“Two.”

“Shit.”

“Three.”

The old guy watched from across the street, now with a pint glass of Guinness in his hand. He figured the kid would have either started crying or bleeding by now. It was sort of disappointing.

“Yes,” the kid finally said.

“Thank you,” Moses replied. He reached into his jacket pocket, causing the kid to recoil. Moses pulled out a piece of paper from his notepad, the one he kept at all time to write down the moments of his life. He’d done it since he was 12 years old and a teacher said to him “One day Moses, they’re gonna want to know about your life. You should write it all down.” And Moses did.

He licked the tip of his pencil and wrote down some words. Then he handed them to the kid.

“Kid, this is my insurance information. If you could kindly reach into your car, and write down yours we can be done with this.”

The kid scrambled to the truck, opened up his glove box and paused. There was his grey 9mm pistol. Moses saw it to.

“Kid,” Moses said. “Don’t even think about it.”

The kid heard the clicking of the hammer of a gun. He looked in the side view mirror of his car and saw Moses holding a 45. It was cocked, and most definitely loaded. He reached for his insurance card and pulled it out.

After closing the door, he handed it to Moses.

“Thank you kid,” he said, uncocking the hammer and putting the gun back under his belt. “I always like to be civilized about such things. Let’s go inside my establishment across the street and wait for the police to get here. And don’t worry, I ain’t saying nothing about your little German friend in the glove box.”

“Um, uh, thanks,” the kid said, following Moses into the bar.

The old guy watched as the two went inside. He smiled at the kid. The kid just stared. The same stare he’d given the old guy before. He raised his hand to the old guy’s face, pointing one at him and pretending it was a gun.

“Bang,” Moses said.

Everyone laughed.

Ten minutes later, the cops were there. They always showed up at Moses’ pretty fast. It was either something bad, or something good. Luckily, McGinty thought after he’d written up the accident and handed both sides their paper work, it was a good one this time.