The sweat on his brow began to pool horizontally in the deep schisms of his man wrinkles. Jack Grabber catches his reflection in a mirror that leaned up against the wall between the kitchen and the living room, Men really do get better looking with age, he thought to himself.

“Did you say something, Jacky?” a voice from an unseen source shouts from not too far away.

“Nope.” Jack replied, “Do you need any help over there, Godot?”

Samir Godot, Jack Grabbers long time, and only-ever business partner chuckles loudly, “I’m fine, Jacky, you got enough problems over there.”

Jack Grabber had been in these situations before and he had emerged victorious and unscathed, but he never had been this much in over his head. Jack Grabber was not one to sulk, and certainly not one to fixate on his own thoughts, but he could not help to wonder how he had gotten himself and Godot into this mess.
Grabber’s knees quivered and ached beneath the weight of all the silver and muhogany. It was no secret that he was getting older; Grabber was creeping up on somewhere between forty and fifty-five, no one knew his age for sure, not even his closest ally, Godot. Grabber never told a soul his age, hell, there were times when Grabber himself forgot how old he was; but one thing was for sure, he was definitely probably somewhere between the ages of forty and fifty-five. What made it even more difficult to pin his number was his looks; Grabber had the looks of a early thirty year old which were perfectly matched by the ruggedness of a present-day Ralph Lauren sipping cowboy highballs in his favorite teepee in the mountains of Telluride. Then there was the wisdom… all the wisdom present in his eyes, resting like napping dragons waiting to breath fire onto anyone that may disturb them.

Grabber finally snapped out of it, by the movement of the shadows inside the house he discerned that he had been staring at his reflection in the mirror for roughly twelve minutes.
Godot breaks up the common day retelling of Narcissus by shouting to his partner, “How much longer you think this is going to take us, Jack?”

Jack takes a deep breath, repositioning his legs in the hopes of getting better footing beneath the crushing weight on his shoulders. How did he get themselves into this? Jack could not remember how or when he agreed to any of this, but there they were; sweating nearly to death inside an old mansion, torquing their bones and muscles, twisting their bodies to the brink of snapping.

Grabber remembers that his friend had asked him a question, “I dunno, Samir, probably at least another three hours, hopefully not much more than that.”

Samir sighs and nods, “You’re lifting with your back right?”

Grabber nods in agreement, “Of course I am. You?”

Samir gives one of his trademark chuckles, “You know it, Jacky, what am I, some elderly pregnant Sharmootaa?”

They both start laughing uncontrollably. “Oh no!” Jack shouts, “I’m losing it, Samir, I’m losing it!”

Samir releases the piles of things he is holding against his chest, letting them crash to the ground. He leaps across the hallway, clearing a sixty-five pound hand cart and two boxes stacked on top of one another; one has FRAGILE written on it crudely in black permanent marker. The other has nothing written on it all. Just as Jack is about to drop his load, Samir slides across the marble floor on his knees, jumps up and supports the back end of the six hundred and forty pound piano.

“I told you we should have carried this out together, Jack.”

“And I told you that I got it.” Grabber snaps.

“Clearly you don’t, so let me help.”

Grabber gives in, not because he could not carry the piano by himself, but he figured it could go faster with Samir’s help, which it did. With the two of them working together, they got the piano out the double front doors, onto the driveway, and up into the long, white Van Lines truck.

Samir sits down on the backend of the semi and lights a cigar, “Hey Jack, I noticed one of the boxes in the hall wasn’t labeled – I know I labeled all my boxes, so that only leaves you.”

“I labeled all of my boxes, Samir. It was my idea, remember? So that only leaves you.”

“Perhaps if you quit bickering over who labeled which box, you two knuckleheads would be done by now,” a strangers voice scolds the two of them out of their line of sight.

Grabber reaches into his back waistband and pulls out his Glock. Samir does the same, except Samir keeps his in the front part of his waistband, practically tucked into his underpants. “Stupid underpants,” Samir whispers to himself. Grabber taps his friend in the back of his head with the Glock, when Samir turns around Grabber makes a “shoosh” gesture with the Glock up against his lips in place of his index finger. Samir nods.

Grabber extends his weapon with his left hand and pulls a buck knife out of his right sock. Samir and Jack meet eyes, nod, and quietly count to one another, One… Two… they shout Three in unison and jump off the back of the truck ready to murder whoever it was that called them knuckleheads. When their feet hit the ground, the man from behind the truck was waiting for them with six-shooters drawn.

Grabber immediately puts weapons back in his pants, “General Ozpatt!”
“Grabber, m’ boy!” the man says with a smile. The two men embrace mangily.
Samir follows Grabber’s lead and puts his weapon away too, “So this is the great General Ozpatt who convinced Jack Grabber into helping him move.”

General Ozpatt shakes Samir’s hand, “Convinve, Shmavince. Your friend Jack owed me a favor, and I cashed it in.”

Samir looks to Jack, “I thought you lived your life making sure you never owe anyone a favor.” Jack smirks wishing to ignore his friend’s keen observations.
Samir continues, “As a matter of fact, I believe it was you who said, ‘Favors are like eskimos: if you don’t owe one, they don’t exist.’”

General Ozpatt takes a step towards the both of them, “Well, Samir was it?” Samir shakes his head yes, “Well, Samir, there is only one thing in the world that trumps Jack Grabber’s hatred of favors.”

“Oh yeah,” Samir asks. “What’s that?”

Jack was back inside grabbing more boxes, “Ol’ Jack don’t like it all that much when people know his business, so he can tell you if he wants.”

General Ozpatt shouts up to the three story mansion; he sees Grabber walking past an open window on the second story, “Jack, m’ boy! I’ll see you at the ranch, thanks again for your help, son!”

General Ozpatt salutes Samir before heading back down the long, double driveway. Samir salutes back and jogs down the asphalt to catch up with the General. He reaches him and taps his shoulder, “‘Scuse me, General.”

The General turns around, “Yes, what is it son?”

Samir fidgets nervously, “I gotta know. What was the favor?”

The General smiles, looks around a bit and leans in close to give Samir the thought nugget he so desired to put into his brain pocket, “I found him a Snacktime CPK.” The General tips his hat and leaves.

Samir scratches his head with his cigar hand, immediately burning his scalp, “Dammit!” he shouts. His yelp calls Grabber’s attention who runs out to the driveway, “You alright, champ?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Samir says, “Hey, Jack…” Samir’s voice quivers with nerves.
Jack gives him a quizzical look, “Yes, Samir?”

Samir pulls the trigger, “What’s a Snacktime CPK?”

Grabber says nothing, turns around and walks back up to the house.
“What is it!?” Samir shouts, “C’mon, tell me! C’mon, Grabs… Grabs, c’mon… c’mon Grabs… GRABS! GRABBIES!”

Jack ignores Samir’s pleas and tosses back, “If you don’t know, then I ain’t gonna tell you.”

Samir drops to his knees, his hands reaching to the heavens above his head. He calls out to God, “WHAT’S A SNACKTIME CPKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!???”

“Yessir, Mr. President Osama, Sir.”
“It’s Obama,” the Hawaiian Muslimy voice says on the other end, but it was too late – the other end had already hung up.

Jack Grabber had never directly been asked to do a mission by the President of the United States before and he had never heard of this Osama bin Laden character before either. Apparently he had something to do with the events that took place on September 11th 2001 and that was good enough for Jack. Of course the first thing Grabber did was call his old friend and at-times mission partner, Samir Godot. He had met Godot in Iraq and thought Samir and Osama sounded like they came from the same geographical region and one thing Grabber knew more than anything was that outside of the United States, people with similar names that lived in the same geographical area almost always knew one another. Godot didn’t answer his phone the first, second or even thirty first time Grabber rang him.

Grabber needed to make a stopover in DC. Luckily he was in nearby Annapolis giving the commencement address at St. John’s College graduation. He cut his speech down to three minutes in order to reach DC in time. He spoke mostly about Godot and hypothesized on why he did not answer his phone earlier that morning; the students were confused, but after all, there were more pressing matters at hand. Grabber was debriefed in a suburban parked two blocks from the White House and took a C-130 to Italy. On the flight over, Grabber informed his handler what he would need once he landed in The Boot, before taking his connecting flight into Pakistan where he would approach bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad on foot. Grabber wrote down what it was he needed on a notepad he was carrying with him: Night vision goggles; two water bottles; a rain jacket; three pairs of dry socks (one with poms); a flashlight; a map of Iraq (to see where Godot might be); thirty pairs of bat-cuffs and a bat-arang; nachos; two nine millimeter side arms with ammo; chapstick; back up chapstick; a bag of hair; a turban; a full set of king-sized sheets; M4 Carbine; M249 and accompanying ammo and that was all. At the bottom of the page were three drawings: one of a ringing phone with question marks surrounding it; another of a plate of nachos and third of a cartoon bird with a comically sized penis. Grabber told his handler to disregard the drawings.

The Italy/Pakistan transfer went without any hiccups and Grabber was dropped from a helicopter 6 miles from the bin Laden compound. Grabber found his bearings, licked his thumb and adjusted for wind. He knew he had a six mile trek ahead of him and that’s what the nachos were for. He gobbled up his nachos, knowing that nothing gives a soldier more energy and stamina than tostada chips covered in room temperature powdered cheese. Grabber did the first five miles in less than thirty minutes; it was the last mile that he had to approach with caution. He could see the compound: he approached from the back which had a ten foot wall, a gate, and beyond that gate a twelve foot wall. From inside he could see a housing building with a seven foot tall privacy wall. Grabber assumed it would take about forty minutes to get the job done. His first thought was to bomb the hell out of the place, but that could make it difficult to gather evidence of the individual’s death, so Grabber did whatever any good soldier would do: ring the doorbell. A guard approached but not before Grabber pulled out his back up chapstick, smashed the entire tube in his palms and smeared it all over his face, dumped the bag of hair all over himself and wrapped up in the robe.

“Abullah Bullah Allghah Ahckmah,” the guard says.
“Uh huh,” Grabber replies.

The gate opens and Grabber shoots the guard in the face, “Ahckmah that, goat eater.” Grabber rolls across the compound floor and sees the sign written on the door across the way: Osama’s Man Cave, with a Spike TV logo next to it. That must be it, he thinks to himself. Suddenly, Jack Grabber’s obvious observations are interrupted by the sound of a chopper overhead.
“So they think I need back up do they?” Grabber says as he pulls out the M4, aims steadily and shoots down the back up whirly bird.

As it crashes to the ground and explodes, Grabber whispers to himself, “Looks like you had some mechanical issues.” The ruckus of the explosion brings out three soldiers that Grabber kills with his bare hands. He sprints to the Man Cave sign; kicks open the door and catches Osama with this pants down; using a woman, possibly one of his wives, as a human shield. “Bad day to be married to this dick,” Grabber says before unloading his 9mm into the woman who Osama discards immediately. Grabber takes one step closer, then a second and a third until he is less than five feet from his target. Grabber raises both 9mm and aims them at Osama’s head and just before he pulls the trigger his cell phone rings.

“Hello?”
“Hey, Grabs, its Samir. You called?”
Grabber is ecstatic, “Hey, where the hell have you been?”
“Out, I’ve been out. What’s up?”
“Well, it’s kind of moot now, but I was wondering if you know a guy by the name of Osama bin Laden?” Grabber asks, putting one of his weapons under his right armpit and raises his right index finger towards the terrorist in front of him, signaling to the man to hold on for just a second.
“Yeah, he’s the mastermind behind 9/11,” Samir answers.
“No, I know that, but do you know him, know him?”
“Personally?”
“Yeah.”
“No, Jack, I don’t know Osama bin Laden personally.”
“Oh, alright. We still on for our reading group next Saturday?”
“Yeah, what are we on?”
“Mystic Pizza,” Grabber answers, pulsing his index finger towards the man in front of him whom he has cornered behind two barrels for burning garbage and feces.

All of a sudden bin Laden makes a move, “I gotta go, Sammy.” Grabber lets the phone drop and puts two rounds in bin Laden’s left eye. “Face shots and childhood obesity, that’s what America does!” Grabber shouts as he tosses the dead terrorist over his shoulder.

Grabber killed an additional sixteen individuals on his way out of the compound that morning, none of them Americans. He also torched the downed helicopter just as a second one touched down chock-full of Navy Seals. Grabber handed over the body and hoisted himself up into the chopper. The Seals took Jack Grabber and the dead body to the USS Carl Vinson where President Obama was waiting for them both.

“What now, Colonel Grabber?” the President asks.
“Better drown the sonuvabitch to make sure he’s dead; I read Middle Easterners turn into mummies.”
“I heard that too,” President Obama agrees. “Toss ‘em over boys!”

Grabber received a secret medal of combat valor, the first one of its kind, and as he sat alone on Air Force One, he smiled as he sipped his Four Loko, grabbed the stewardess’s arm as she passed and whispered, “Have you read Mystic Pizza?”

The bone-licking, subzero arctic air forced itself into Jack Grabber’s veins, dropping his core body temperature to a stern 89 degrees, which was troubling to Jack who always worried when his body temp dropped below its usual 94.1. Jack couldn’t believe that it was still snowing. It had been snowing for over a day and part of him was happy about it – anything to prove Al Gore’s silly global warming fairytales a farce – but another part of him was angry at the snow. Out of all of Mother Nature’s weathers he thought snow to be the cockiest: always shutting down cities, turning itself into water and eventually becoming slippery. He didn’t trust something that changed its appearance as much as snow did. It’s the same reason Jack Grabber didn’t trust the mystical, shape shifting Windigo of Native American folklore. He wished the government would send him on a murder mission against snow, but no matter how many requests he put in his boss’s suggestion bin, that call never came.

Grabber had to quit thinking about not liking the snow and focus on the task at hand. He had to keep burrowing, he had to find that box and kill to death whoever possessed it. Grabber could have had the box, killed who owned it and be finishing up his Sesame Chicken #18 from Orange Garden already if it wasn’t for all this damn snow. When General Howl called him in for the mission, Grabber wasn’t entirely enthusiastic. The last time he was in Chicago he was nearly turned into a werewolf while fighting a shape shifting lycanthrope at the Lincoln Park Zoo, not only that, he hated the way the alleys smelled. You could be walking down the street, catch a whiff of a Renaldi’s pie, walk past an alley and BAM! fart city. General Howl assured Grabber this time it would be different and boy was he right. Jack Grabber doesn’t keep time like most of us do and he certainly doesn’t follow the traditional idea of “months” and although he swears by his system, he often has no idea what time of year it is and because of this, he was not concerned about going to Chicago in the middle of January. Grabber studied the map of the city on the bus ride to town but his version of the map was missing one important aspect: the snow. Grabber couldn’t find his way through all the snow so he had to rely on his eleventh strongest sense: smell. Much like a German Shepard trained to sniff out bombs or homeless people in school basements, Jack Grabber spent many nights sitting alone in the dark with various items set before him, sniffing them strongly until he got a nosebleed (which signaled that the smell had been stored in his nostrils) and luckily for Jack, he did the same thing with the box that he was searching for now. He stole the box off of General Howl’s desk three years earlier when he noticed it and thought it would be good smelling material.

Grabber could barely smell the box through all the snow but it was close, he knew that much. As he dug and dug, he broke through the snow barrier and out onto Michigan Ave. Surrounded by dozens of abandoned cars, buses and trucks, he made his way down the empty street like a nomadic soldier walking through a winter apocalypse. The scent was getting stronger and good thing too – his baby seal, bunny hair and sloth puppy-lined coat was doing little to keep him warm. The smell of the box was at its strongest when he saw where he had to go… down the alley. The box was down at the end of the alley. Grabber had a choice to make: does he ignore all of it, return to General Howl empty handed with his shame between his legs or does he go down the stinky corridor of fear and get the box back? Grabber knew he couldn’t make this decision on his own and since the snow had kept any and all humans inside their respected dwellings, his only option was to make someone to have a conversation with. Although, he had never done it himself, he once saw a young child do it on television and so he began: he rolled the first big ball, remembering that the bottom had to be the biggest, he then rolled the second which was slightly smaller than the one before, finally, he rolled the third and smallest of them and placed it on top. He looked around for something to give his new friend senses with. With no coal or carrots in site, Grabber improvises – he uses a frozen dead rat for the nose, punchy fist holes for his eyes and the change from his pocket for the mouth. Grabber explained his alley-way dilemma to his new snow-boned friend and angry due to the lack of his response, he smashed the snowman to wintery pieces.

“I guess it’s down the alley for ol’ Grabby.” Jack Grabber said as he put up his koala cub hood. The box was at the end of the alley, he was certain of this. As he made his way down the alley he felt confident, confronting two of his biggest nemesis and as he reached the brick wall at the end of the alley, there it was – The box. When Grabber opened The Box, he was disappointed to find it empty. After all, Jack Grabber only smelled the box itself, not what was inside.

Jack Grabber stripped off the last of his western clothes, picked the crisp, light, white Middle Eastern robe off the bed and slid it over his body before putting on the traditional headdress.  He could smell the myrrh that scented the cloth.  He inhaled it deeply; a satisfying scent that reminded him of the very first Christmas.  He walked to his full length mirror to see the results – It was a mixed bag;  the outfit was authentic for sure, but his skin was obviously too fair; fortunately his light hair was covered by the “towel.”  The robe was too short for his 6’5 inch frame, the bottom resting just below his knees.  “I wonder if they sometimes wear these as capris,” he thought. “I bet they do.”  He took some of his homemade fake tan compound that he had derived from the skin cells of darker foes he had defeated, it also included mayonnaise, sandalwood and the faintest hint of feces (amongst other throw-ins) and smeared it thick across all exposed patches of his white skin, being cautious not to rub it in, just kind of layered it on like cake makeup.  Next, he grabbed some dark, black hair from the loose hair bag that he kept next to the sink and stuck it onto his face where it clung to the excess fake-tan compound -  An improvised beard. Overall it looked pretty goddamn convincing.  Everything was in order.  He walked back into the bed room and climbed onto the double bed; pulled the sheets up to his eyes.  Beneath the sheets, the smell of the myrrh reached his nose more easily and was strengthened by the accompanying scent of memories.  The feel of the robe was taut against his tummy; his funny, contrived beard itched him as he lay cheek against pillow. He wouldn’t hear the footsteps leading to the flat this particular evening as Samir Gadot (his best friend and ex-Iraqi Guardsman) had been away on vacation for just under two days, but dressing up like this comforted Grabber in the moments when missing him kept him awake.  Perhaps this night he could sleep.

With the door closed it was impossible to see a damn thing in the little holding cell.  The prisoner was completely deprived of any sensory experience but his own internal thoughts; his consciousness hovered there in the blackness.  And the blackness bled into his consciousness, altered it, made it think bad things.  In his training in Pakistan the prisoner had always been tough, always come through.  He had never thought for a moment that he could be made to give up his mission or comrades, even under the worst of pressure if taken captive.  But now he was captive and now he wasn’t so sure.  Partly it was just because it’s obviously more stressful when it’s not just in theory.  Partly because of who had caught him.  The guy was huge.  Maybe 6’5.  Definitely 250 lbs.  Certainly packin’.  He didn’t know the guy’s name of course.  He had asked during his transportation and immediately realized how out of place such little chit chat was when you’re being held on terrorism suspicion.  His captor had just laughed a little and said “well you can call me Grabbs…  or Grabby…  Grabby-Grabbs” then returned to his seemingly normal, cold silence.  That was just before he’d been put in this holding cell.  How many hours ago was it?  He had no way of knowing.  The room had been completely empty when he was pushed into it.  It was still almost empty but he was slowly but surely filling it up with his own shit.  He’d had to designate one corner as the restroom.  Four times and counting.  Shouldn’t have had that double-down, but the temptation had been too great.  They would almost certainly have to re-carpet.  Then he heard it.  Heavy, deliberate footsteps.  Only one man, which would have been a relief, but his footsteps rung out loud enough to have been a whole squad.  They set off alarms in his brain.  US news stories about waterboarding and genital electrocution and man-piles.  The kind of stuff you might choose to do on a Saturday night, but wouldn’t want to have done to you by a stranger in an opposing army.  But then Grabbs wasn’t in the army.  He had claimed to have dropped out “when the Geneva Cunt-vention was signed.”  Now they just used him in special cases.  Apparently he was a special case.  He cursed the Iraqi ex-guardsman who had turned him in as the last heavy footsteps came down outside the door.  He and the guardsman had been drinking together and were raising a little hell with the girls in the village.  Well, raising a LOT of a hell.  Just as they were finishing one girl, the Iraqi, Gadot, had pulled out and run away.  He’d been grabbed from behind that instant.  Grabbed…  by Grabbs…  Grabby-Grabb-Grabb-Grabberton.  Grabbed.  Now here he was.  Waiting in terror…  yes, he, in terror…  for what would be behind that door.  It opened.  Slowly.  The huge American stepped in.  The prisoner couldn’t believe it but all the American held was a yellow whiffle ball bat and a semi-large freezer bag.  He sighed out loud in relief.  He had been expecting electrodes, a torture rack or a judas seat.  Here it almost seemed like Grabby just wanted to play.  And in a sense he was right.  Grabber threw the baggy down on the table.   White powder spilled out everywhere.  A LOT of white powder.  Cocaine.  “Why…  do you have a wiffle ball bat and…  cocaine?” the prisoner nervously asked.  “Because I plan on doing a lot of batting,” said Grabber with a smile.  “Look,” said the prisoner “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”  Grabber took a long, long pause.  18 minutes.  Dramatic as hell.  “That’s the thing,” he said, “I don’t want any information from you.  I don’t give a F*CK.  At least not about your little schemes.  But what I am curious about is how long it’d take to beat a motherf*cker to death with a whiffle ball bat.  I’ve been wondering that since I was about nine.”  The last thing the terrorist heard was Grabber yell out that no “head shots” were allowed.  Then it was just the flurry of activity and pain raining all over his body.  At 30 minutes he was almost totally numb.  But a painful numb.  The bat made a funny plastic fwappy sound.  At an hour his clothes had caught fire and disintegrated.  At 3 hrs Grabber had hit a home run with one of his balls.  At 37 hours Grabber had his answer.  At 37.5 he had hit the showers and shared that answer with Gadot.  They had slapped a wet high five.  They were always on the same team.

Jack Grabber sat relaxed (or as relaxed as Jack Grabber actually gets) in a cabana that he had paid 63 dollars for exactly four hours earlier. As his eyes followed the lines down to his toes, wriggling in the sand, he was surprised: he was wearing more clothes than he thought he would have by now. He was pleased but removed his swimming shorts, revealing a quaint pair of racing trunks; this was still more than he wanted to wear, but he felt like following the rules this particular day. He hadn’t been in the water in a while so the sand barely clung to the soles of his feet and the frog-like pads of this toes. “Knock, knock.”

It was well known that jack Grabber didn’t read. He could read, he just wouldn’t – it was rumored that he even refused to lay an eye on a menu. Samir Godot, Grabber’s only friend, thought he had seen a novel once in Grabbers messenger bag although it certainly could have been his journal. “Knock, knock.”

Grabber stretched a kitty stretch, being careful not rustle his toes from the salty grains of the Hawaiian sand as he rubbed tanning lotion on the back of his thighs and the tippy tops of his ears. Grabber’s lotion was a special concoction that he mixes himself in his kitchen sink: baby oil, mayonnaise, old bay seasoning and gold flakes. It consisted of a few other ingredients but those were more for show than anything else. The sounds of the Pacific Ocean rapped soft ghetto island tunes in Grabber’s ear, lulling him in and out of a napping state. Grabber never napped but he enjoyed very much the exact moment before an ordinary human would slip into a nap. It was as exhilarating as a hearty sneeze to our ex-army ranger hero, who was never known to rest for more than three hours a day, but somehow, some way, this was Jack Grabber on vacation. “Knock, knock.”

Even though Grabber couldn’t nap, he would pretend. He liked the idea of napping, but detested the practice. Grabber reached his gorilla arm up over his head and flipped up the white flag that was connected to the bonnet of his cabana. Within one minute a young Hawaiian man approaches and pulls out a pad and paper. “Mahalo. What can I get you?”

“Ah, yes, Senor. I’ll have a margarita.” The Hawaiian man, puzzled, adjusts, “Sir, we have rum drinks, Mai Tais, Lava Flows. Mahalo.”

Grabber is obviously confused. “Hmmm, what about taquitos? Can I get some taquitos?”

The cabana waiter sighs, “Don’t worry, Mr. Grabber, I’ll bring you something you’ll like.” Grabber nods and hands him one thousand dollars. “Knock, knock.”

Grabber’s golden mayo scented body glistened as he examined his skin. “You can really see the gold flakes.” Grabber says out loud. To his left there are 11 empty Mai Tai glasses. Grabber confused the bartender by referring to them as Mexican Yum Sips, but after six, the waiter had figured it out. “Knock, knock.”

Grabber put the flag up. When the waiter came back, he informed Jack that they weren’t allowed to serve single patrons more than 16 Mexican Yum Sips a day. Grabber understood, “That’s fine, Actually I wanted to discuss the coconuts.”

“The coconuts?” the man asked. “Yes… the coconuts.”

Every single person that knew Jack Grabber knew that he hated coconuts more than anything. He despised them and often referred to them as a “cocky fruit” and had been overheard in his sleep asking, “who do you think you are?” the “you” of course, being coconuts. He hated the taste, the smell and the sound of them knocking together. He explained to the cabana ‘tender that the knocking was single-handedly ruining his vacation. The cabana thing pointed over to a grassy hill next to the hotel pool. A luau was being set up and three heavy set Hawaiian men in authentic tribal garb were bellying up to microphones; two holding ukuleles and the third holding two coconut halves, knocking them together. “Knock, knock.”

By the time it turned around, Grabber was gone and the man with the sweet milky, hairy Hawaiian nuts was wincing in pain as Grabber had given him a coconut bra without the straps… without any straps. There was no more knocking. And Grabber enjoyed the rest of his vacation, although as I’m sure you all can assume by now… there was more to this trip than vacation and as Grabber walked into the Hawaiian horizon in his horribly tight racing trunks and nothing else, he passed a banquet hall. He stopped to look at a large poster that was perched on a stand and in big letters it read: TOMORROW ONLY – LEE CHILDS SPEAKS AND BRINGS JOHNATHAN REACHER TO LIFE. Jack Grabber smiled, the only time he had ever smiled without killing someone minutes before.

Mahalo.

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The Great Recession had settled in firmly, its boot heels dug into the dirt surrounding everyone who stood anywhere and the aire of despair it had brought with it was palpable. Employment opportunities were beyond scarce and even the need for privatized military had dwindled severely and now, for the first time since his junior year in high school, Jack Grabber was out of work and had decided that the blows of this particular time could be softened with a change of environment. Perhaps his destiny could be changed and fate would not lead him by the neck to a grave in the Panamanian jungle or in a gutter outside of a Russian gambling house, but rather, by the hand into a soft country bed where the breeze from the outside comes calmly through the window and simply takes his breath away until his next run at this whole crazy thing.

“August in Washington State was special and those that had never been could never actualize its beauty and those that have never had the blessed luck to experience it would not understand – could never understand.” These were the words that Jack Grabber had written in his journal after the second night he had slept under the crisp blanket of the Washington sky. After nine days in the Northeastern United States, Jack Grabber found work as a land hand at a Gravenstein orchard. Grabber was hired by a quiet, soft spoken black man by the name of Jibs. Jack received a moderate wage, worked long hours and spent his evenings with the boys eating ranch food, smoking hand rolled cigars and drinking backroom spirits. Grabber along with six other hands slept in the cider house that sat lovingly at the back of the property. The boys didn’t sleep as soundly as they usually did, even after their particularly long thirteen hour day; their minds were too unsettled, unable to join their exhausted bodies in a well deserved rest. You see, there had been whispers this week, whispers of the property owner, Ms. Elderod (the heir to her father’s land fortune) would be arriving in the morning to oversee the fruit operations. Grabber and his gentlemen quarter mates were concerned that the stories of Ms. Elderod were not largely exaggerated and they wouldn’t be able to sleep until they found out for themselves.

The morning came as it did every morning in Washington’s autumn; the crimson sun slowly rose over the orchards and the alarm clock woke the tenants of the cider house to the sound of the crowing goats. Of course, as always, Grabber had been awake for two hours already; sharpening sticks he had picked up on his mid-morning walks. This was a practice he was unable to shake no matter how long he had been on vacation. As the rest of the crew wandered into the small room at the front of the house, Grabber put his sticks down and waits for Jibs to give his morning speech. The quiet man enters through the side door. He limps at what seems a painful stride and exhales loudly as he pulls up a stool.

“Okay, boys, todays the day. Lady Elderod should be arriving any minute if she aint here already by now. She’s gained the land due to her daddy’s cold death and she’s been talkin’ bout makin’ a resort out here. Tearin’ down about eighty percent uh da trees if not more. Now, I have no idea how in the name of dick, this Lady Elderod thinks building a resort is uh wise choice durin’ deez ridiculous money times…”

“It’s not a resort, Mr. Mackenrow, a resort is where your peasants would stay if they had ten times the money they have now. I’m creating a luxury escape for the ultra wealthy, for those whom the recession does not even touch.” The voice of a well educated woman comes from behind Jibs. It was Lady Elderod. She was a tall woman, nearly six foot and slender but not in a grotesque Tilda Swinson way.

Jibs turns around and steadies himself as he rises to greet the woman. Ms. Elderod stops him, “Please, don’t get up.” Ms. Elderod flashes the boys a smile and exits.

Jibs stands up and takes a deep breath in order to address the boys. He hangs his head and raises it again.

“Well boys. I guess there’s no point now. I’ll pay you your dues and keep you on until she shuts it down. I guess I’ll go talk to her.”

From the back a man rises, his shadow casts coldness onto the room. Jibs catches eyes with the tower, “Yes, Jack?”

Grabber makes his way through the six other men, who, if Grabber had friends, the man would consider his friends. As he approaches Jibs, the frail man takes a painful step backwards.

“Relax, sir. Just let me talk to her. I can be very persuasive.” Grabber speaks as he pats Jibs on the shoulder.

“With women?” Jibs asks.

“With everyone,” Grabber replies.

Jibs steps out of the way, “Be my guest, son.”

As Grabber approaches the cider room, where he knew Ms. Elderod would be, doing paper work or looking at herself in an expensive compact, he could feel his fists clenching for the first time in seven months, it felt grand. He released his grip though – almost immediately. “This is a woman,” he thought. “She might be a twat, but she’s certainly not dangerous, I mean, Grabber knew the only dangerous women were those that touched his heart. He knocked at the cider room door but no one answered.

“Hello?” Ms. Elderod?”

There was no answer. In any other instance with any other person in any other state, Jack Grabber would be more cautious, more suspicious. Maybe it was the seven months of fresh air and no violence or maybe it was all the cider in his tummy that was making him sleepy, but whatever it was, it scared him. Regardless, Grabber pushes the door open, he thought he did it gently but as it crashed into the wall and a photo of Abraham Lincoln gutted on the floor, he guessed not. As the glass crushed beneath his size fourteen boots, Grabber peered here and there but he couldn’t sense the presence of anyone anywhere. He relaxed. As he surveyed the room, his eyes caught a desk by a window and on the desk were red-tagged files. If Grabber knew one thing, it was that these red-tagged files could release a shitnami of trouble. He gave his surroundings one last check before perusing through the files. He sat quietly and opened the files – the papers were from Guatemala and written in a Spanish dialect common in Belize, luckily for everyone, Jack Grabber understood every single word. Eleven minutes passed and Jack Grabber had become comfortable in the old hickory rocking chair with his feet up on a small lamp desk. His comfort quickly fades and Jack freezes… someone was in the room.

“Ms. Elderod, I presume.”

“You must be Jackson Brimley Grabber.”

“So, I assume by “Luxury Escape” you meant child slavery housing escape.”

“Clever man. Who would have thought one of Jib’s monkeys could read Portuguese.”

“That’s not all this monkey can do. You know I’m going to stop you, Ms. Elderod.”

“You know I’m going to stop you from stopping me, Mr. Grabber.”

“Not if I stop you from stopping me from stopping you, Ms –“

“Silence!”

Grabber hears the cocking of an old featherweight colt pistol. He’s been out of practice for almost a year but he knew what to do. But before he could execute his plan, Lady Elderod shoots Grabber through the rocking chair through his left shoulder. Grabber couldn’t believe it; was this woman more insane than he could have ever imagined or was he that out of practice? He couldn’t take the time to figure it out. Thank goodness for Grabber, he’d been shot so many times in the shoulders that he barely felt a thing. Grabber kicks the chair out from beneath him, cracking Lady Elderod at the waist, just as she gets another shot off. Grabber leaps through the window and out the cider room. The child trafficking land baron fires numerous shots through the walls.

“C’mon and get me, Sweetheart.”

Grabber takes off down the cobblestone path that leads to the press room – where the juice gets made. It worked. Elderod was following him firing shot after shot, missing Grabber with each one.

“How many bullets does she got?” Grabber says out loud.

Grabber bellies to the ground and sneaks into the press room through the side door. He knew if he could get her in, facing him, he could take control of the situation so he makes it in and sits in the back corner. Now he waits, surrounded by baskets of Gravensteins and a gigantic cider press, sticky sweet with apple juices. Grabber waits and waits and then he hears the footsteps around the press house side door. With one hand full of apples and the other grasping an apple corer he waits for his moment, the door slowly opens… his hands tense and sticky he gets ready to pounce, he could almost see her and just as he’s about to unleash, Ms. Elderod bleats. Grabber slowly rises, it wasn’t Lady Elderod, it was Tallulah, the morning goat. Grabber puts his apples down and Tallulah wanders over to him and licks his face.

“Hi, sweetie, what are you doing in here.” He playfully asks.

“It’s me, Samir. An Iraqi wandering sand witch cast a spell on me and placed my spirit inside this goat, Jack. I can’t be returned to my original form until my name is cleared in Iraq. Please help me.”

Jack couldn’t believe it. He tickled the goat’s funny mustache. One minute he was being chased by a child slave trading monster and the next he’s talking to his old friend Samir, ex-Iraqi Guardsman currently on the run from a rape charge that Grabber just KNEW probably wasn’t true, whose essence had been caged inside a morning goat. “The whole thing with Lady Elderod must have been a dream,” he thought. “Yes, of course, a female land baron turning a Gravenstein orchard into a child slavery trading post… that’s preposterous.” Just as he went to get up, to help his friend Samir, he felt a terrible aching in his head. All of a sudden, Samir the goat was going out of focus, until it disappeared all together. The room suddenly got brighter and he was tied to a shelving unit at the back of the press house and in front of him, Lady Elderod stood, holding an old fashioned hand operated apple peeler.

“Wake up, Mr. Grabber.”

“Dammit. I must have fallen asleep in the press room waiting for her.” He whispered, “I guess my adrenaline doesn’t keep me up like it used to.”

“I guess not. I saw you through the window, you were fast asleep and muttering the name, Samir. Friend of yours?” She asks.

“You don’t worry about him… I’d be worried about you.”

Jack Grabber looks around the room, “AHA!” Elderod has her back to the old cider press, but she’s walking closer and closer, putting her farther and farther from the press. He had to act fast. Lady Elderod turns the handle on the apple peeler slowly.

“Let’s see what your situation would look like… peeled, shall we?”

As she goes for Grabber’s braided belt, he launches a boot into her chest, rocketing her onto the slab of the cider press. She moans in shock. Just then, Grabber tears the shelving unit that he’s been tethered to out of the wall and kicks a large turnstile as hard as he can, releasing the press that rests six feet above Elderod. The press slams down on the feisty charlatan, engulfing her completely. Grabber breaks from the shelves and looks around in panic, then he finds what he’s looking for. He grabs a mason jar from off the floor and places it under a spicket beneath the press slab just in time to fill it with a crimson liquid that comes dribbling out. Grabber stands and takes a long swig of the Elderod juice.

“Mmmmm… 100% bitch. NOT from concentrate.”

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One could barely see the dozens of empty wine bottles through the hazy cloud of cigarette smoke that drifted from the great room and into the kitchen, filling it like the empty space effected by a backdraft of a great fire. Jack Grabber didn’t drink… usually, but then again, Jon and Kate Plus Eight had never been canceled before.

Grabber sat hunched over his ashtray and a bottle of blush like a Black Bear hunkered over a bee hive that had fallen to the ground, cracking open, releasing a buffet of sweet sticky yum yums. He seemed teary eyed, but who knows if it was tears of sadness or rather those of irritation due to the mixture of cigar smoke and cat urine. Grabber’s quadruple XL robe hung off him loosely, this could be do to the fact that he hadn’t eaten a piece of food in over four whole days and coupled with no sleep, Jack Grabber’s emaciated frame had dropped down to a scrawny two hundred and seventeen pounds.

Three days earlier Jack Grabber was on a mercenary mission in the Upper Peninsula of the beauty of the great north of Michigan. A man’s daughter and her best friend had gone missing eleven days earlier and the father, Scott Brown had read Jack Grabbers ad in the New Hampshire penny saver ads. Grabber didn’t know much about the situation, nor that much about the Brown family, all he knew is that he thought Mr. Brown was in politics or something, but to be perfectly honest, Jack Grabber didn’t give a shit. Grabber took a direct flight from Minneapolis to Ann Arbor sixty two minutes after he got the call from Scott Brown. Grabber was in Minneapolis visiting an old friend of his. She drove him to the airport. After landing Grabber took a bus to a foggy location; he only had an address given to him by an old CIA contact who was following the Brown case from afar. As Grabber walked through the snowy trails of the ski area where the abductions were supposed to have taken place, he damned himself for not packing any footwear other than flip flops. He cursed the state of Michigan and, for a moment, wanted to give up on it all together, but he resisted the urge.

After nineteen hours Jack Grabber received a phone call from Scott Brown who had arrived in the area a few minutes earlier, he wanted to meet with Jack at his daughter’s favorite restaurant to get debriefed by Grabber, even after Grabber scolded Scott brown for suggesting that he pull his pants down. Grabber agreed even though he smelled a trap. It’s been a long time since Grabber’s fell into a good trap and he was starving for a deep one. He quickly changed sandals and met Scott Brown at a local Chevron gas station.

“This is your sister’s favorite restaurant?”

Scott Brown scoffs, “It’s my daughter and she likes the muffins.” Grabber exits the station and heads for his rental car.

“Wait!” Brown yells from the doorway. Grabber turns, “I don’t have time for this bull.”

Scott Brown approaches Grabber and grasps his arm, “I need you.”
Grabber bows his head, “I know… I need you too.”

Grabber and Brown get in the rental and drive to a cabin in the woods, they get out and tread through six inches of snow, Scott Brown in full winter apparel and Grabber in fatigues and flip flops. Grabber and Brown reach the top of a very short peak and just beyond that hill sits a cabin, lit up bright like a 24 hour taco stand. Grabber points towards the cabin, loud music can be heard even though they are sixty yards away and Grabber gets a piece of girlish laughter, “I believe your daughter is in there with your sister.”

“It’s her friend, you jackass.”

“They’re fine, Mr. Brown. I’ll be expecting your check in the mail?” Just as Grabber attempts to collect, his phone rings, “Grabber.”

“Jack, it’s Samir… you gotta come back… something terrible has happened.”

Jack Grabber hated birthdays. Not just his, but everyone’s, but especially his. Jack Grabber had such distaste for birthdays that he actually had no idea how old he was and often had trouble estimating the age of others. He had always assumed that he was between the ages of twenty and sixty years old. He was almost positive.
All this talk of birthdays and how old he may or may not have been worn tired on Jack. When heavy thoughts such as these stacked up, there was only one thing that could set him right.

Jack Grabber loosened his grip from the rag he was using to choke out the counterfeit king pin, Hansel Bode. Grabber had been after Bode for almost a year after a run-in ten months earlier when Grabber was declined at a surplus store for mega boats called “Got Yachts” when he attempted to purchase a boat with counterfeit cash, which he was able to trace back to a Mr. Hansel Bode, who as it turned out, had been behind the largest counterfeit ring in the history of the Southeastern United States.

Bode gasps for air, once and then again, longer and deeper than the first. Grabber throws the dirty blue rag to the floor and grabs his coat. Samir Godot looks up from a table in the corner; he’s been doing paper work while Grabber was getting answers. Grabber turns to Samir on his way out the door,

“I gotta go get some pie.”

“Aw, birthdays again? Jack don’t think about it.”

Grabber kept Samir on for more than one reason, but one of them was that deep down, Samir got him.

“Keep an eye on Bode for me.”

Samir nods and goes back to his paper work, but then barks,

“Jack, wait!”

Grabber turns around and leans in through the door frame, staring at Bode.

“What is it?”

“Whats a three letter word for “patisserie?”

Grabber averts his gaze from the man gasping for breath in the folding chair in the middle of the room to his friend, Samir, and smiles.

“Pie.”

Samir scribbles the word “pie” down, gets up and watches over Bode, who has now caught his breath. Samir circles him, looking back and forth between the criminal in his possession and the crossword he had been tackling for nearly two hours.

“You any good with words?”

Bode looks at him from under his brow and lets out a normal, steady breath,

“What’s the deal with the pie?”

Grabber approaches the large archway and heads through the doors of a gothic, upper west side Manhattan building. The heavy scraping of his metal soled boots are deafening in the empty hall. He approaches a small space on the left. The words, “Mai Pies” are etched in the glass on the door. He’s talking on the phone as he pulls out a set of keys.

“Thanks again, Jeanie. I know its Sunday and you’re not open, but I just really needed a pie and your pies are the best.”

Grabber fumbles with the keys until he finds the one he’s looking for, slides it through the grooves and turns the key to the left, a loud “click” announces to him that the door is now unlocked.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve made tons of pies before; I won’t burn down your shop. Hey, how’s your dad doing?”

Grabber walks in and looks around, he pulls the phone away from his ear as he looks in awe, surveying all the pie making gadgets.

“Yeah, well, you should probably get him buried then. Thanks again.”

Grabber hangs up and puts the phone on a metal wheelie cart near the entrance.

“Alright, what do we have here?”

Grabber peruses all the ingredients and starts pulling all the prep tables together to form one large surface. Throwing flour and prepping the crust, the base of the crust is getting bigger and bigger. It’s now six feet in diameter.

“Excellent.”

Grabber pre-heats the oven to four hundred and fifty degrees and hops back to the enormous crust.

“Perfect.”

Grabber’s cell phone rings and he reaches for it in his jean pocket. It’s not there. Then his back pocket, nothing.

“Looking for this?”

Grabber turns around. Hansel Bode is standing in the door way, holding Jack Grabber’s phone. Bode looks at the caller ID,

“Who’s Samir Godot?”

“How did you escape?”

Hansel Bode raises his gun at Grabber but not before Jack is able to fling the rolling pin across the kitchen, knocking the gun from Bode’s grasp. Bode charges at the six foot six man and leaps, but in one swift motion, Jack Grabber catches his enemy, flips him over his shoulder, setting him gently into the enormous pie crust. Grabber reaches across to the other side of the prep table, pulling the top of the pie dough across Bode like a flourery bed sheet and hurling the man pie into the oven with such force, the open oven door slams shut. Grabber jumps over the prep table, grabs two large metal pie spoons and bends them in a pretzel shape between the handle of the lower and upper ovens. Grabber flips the light switch on for inside the oven and watches Hansel Bode bake to death. Quickly the screams from inside the industrial sized oven fade into crackling pops of Grabber’s new yummy pastry. Grabber takes a deep whiff, flaring his nostrils above the oven door,

“Mmmmm. I wasn’t in the mood for Steak and Kidney pie, but I’m sure Bode wasn’t in the mood to chicken pot die today, either.”

Grabber looks around for someone to share his laughter with, but it was just him and the pie.

Ex-military policeman, Jack Grabber, had come to. It took him a moment to feel his bearings; on his fists he pushed himself up from a prone position. He had injured one his 400 bones on the fall…he didn’t know which one it was, or what it was called, he only knew it was more crooked than usual. He took two deep breaths and began gagging viciously, then with a dry heave, up came his pocket watch pistol, a gift from an old lover. He thought to himself, “I knew swallowing this would be a good idea.” At just 5 inches long, the snub nose was an easy swallow for Grabber. The brutish and now ferocious Grabber looked about, realizing he was in a shaft of some kind, he doesn’t know if he was pushed or if had fallen in. His weapons were stripped from him as well as his clothes, “I don’t ever remember being this nude,” he thought. He begun to assume he had been pushed, although he had read accounts of men’s clothes disintegrating into gaseous material from intense impacts, he had read it from a book he wrote…although he didn’t think this was the case here. He took notice of the walls and the height of the shaft he was in… “fools” he scream-whispered, “This will not hold Jack Grabber.” With that he climbed a foot and a half up and he was out of the dirty grave. It must have been the light, as the hole wasn’t nearly as deep as he thought it was. “Smoke and Mirrors” he chuckled, “Smoke and Mirrors.” But where the shit were his clothes? Then it hit him…he was beginning to remember – He had taken them off because it was so hot. And wait…he remembered even more – he had dug that hole himself. “Of course!” he screamed. He was digging a hole in the back yard of his boss’ home. He had agreed to do this for the man’s daughter’s new play set. Then they caught glances: She was watching him the entire time! Grabber bellows, “NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! I can leave no evidence of this blunder” he said quietly “Just to be safe” he thought…