TARKIO - Story 2:

SO LONG, RONNIE

Ecstasy. Filth. My name is Opal Brenner. My friends call me "Brenner", or "Ben" for short, because my Christian name is so weird. This is my friend Conner. We call him "Connie". He hates that. We're admiring a young woman we've never seen before on main street. "She's not a townie," we mumble to each other in our thoughts. Our eyes meet. It's understood.

"I can honestly say I'd fuck her," quipped Conner.
"Shut up, Conner. Are you out of your mind?" I said, and pointed at the little girl running up the sidewalk with an old man gasping to catch up. "Woh, woh, slow down sweet heart," I urged, "Is that your grandpa?"
"That is-a my Popo. I hold you?" she asked, with her arms outstretched. I gathered she wanted held right away. Her arms shook urgently.
"Hah, hah, h-alright h-Abigail," huffed the elderly fellow presumed "Popo", "Let's not disturb these fine young gentlemen." He smiled at me, and frowned at Conner. No way he heard him. I think he could just smell the fart stench of the word "fuck" on Conner's lips. Old people have keen senses to things of that nature. Especially Baptists.

As they passed by, I stopped Conner, who was still walking and staring at the young woman across the street. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
"What? I didn't know they were coming."
"For one thing, there's no way you could 'honestly say' (with quoting fingers) that you'd fuck anybody. If she presented herself prostrate before you, open legged, with a 'come hither' face, you'd wet your pants. Secondly (we continued walking), you don't just say things like 'fuck' out in the open. Especially since you talk so loud."
"I do not talk loud!"
"See! Right there. Nobody's ever told you that before?"
"Seriously, I do not talk loud."
"Yes, yes you do. You so do. You should try listening to yourself. Or better yet, tape record your next conversation. Don't you have something like a tape recorder on your phone?"
"Yeah, a voice recorder. But so what? I'm not taping myself talk to prove your point."
"Why not?"
"Because it's ludicrous. Even if I do talk loud (we arrived at the diner, and went in the door), I can't see any conceivable way of lowering my volume perminantly."
We grabbed a table. There was a strange silence for awhile, but then Conner picked back up with, "Unless of course I stopped talking."
"Yes, yes. That would help immensly."
"Yeah, you're one to talk. Literally. All you do is talk. Analyze. Think of what I'm thinking. Try to decompose what I'm saying."
"You're still talking loud-"
"I have a point!"
"-we're inside shut up..."
"I have a point! You're the most analytical person I know sometimes."
"What we need for you (looking up from the menu, ignoring what he was saying) is a girlfriend. Someone you want to talk softly to. 'Oh Angela -
"Shut up, Brenner..."
"'- my darling sweet-pet, I will kiss you. Better yet! (speaking even softer) I will fuck you! Mmm! Yes! I will!"
"Stop it, ass-hat."
"Oh! We we! (French accent plus kissy noises)"
"You're an idiot."
I smiled. We were strange friends. Conner never liked to admit he spent lots of time with me. His friend (not girlfriend, mind you. An important detail Conner never omitted) Angela did not understand me in the slightest. Taken from a family of tomboy sisters, she so clearly adored Conner. It must have been his farmhand build, his grundgy t-shirts, and his shifty, watch-the-clouds attitude. His presence alone would make any farmer's daughter swoon. He looked back down at the menu and lifted his cap from his brow. We sat in silence for awhile.
"So did you hear about Ronnie's dad?" piped up Conner.
"No, I didn't. What happened?"
"Well, you know how he had to go down to St. Joe to get surgery, right?"
"Yeah. I heard about that. Some sort of spinal issue, right?"
"Yeah, he was having trouble walking and everything. He couldn't work."
"Where does he work again?"
"Down at the Kawasaki plant down in Maryville. He operates the robots."
"The...robots?"
"Yeah, you know. The things that actually put the bikes together."
"Ah. I see. I thought you meant -"
"Actual?"
"-actual robots."
We laughed. A lot.
It was early.
"Well, so anyway, he got some sort of buldge in a disc or something removed, and it took him too long to recover from it," Conner continued
"Uh-huh..."
"So Kawasaki had to take him off the payroll because more than 90 days, or however long their limit is on disability, had already passed."
"They laid him off?"
"They had no choice, apparently. Damn Japs, if you ask me."
"Geeze. So what are they doing? I mean, Ronnie's family?"
"Well, Carl's looking for work now. He's fine - fully recovered - it just took him too long."
"Yeah but there's no jobs. Especially not around here."
The waitress came out with coffee. I ordered biscuits and gravy. Conner ordered four eggs scrambled. Same as always.
"The closest thing I could think of would be the Harley plant in KC. I doubt they'll want to travel that far though. The problem is that these robots are self-automated now. They don't even need a human to monitor them anymore."
"I see."
"They just get computer techs to program them, and when a problem arises, they hire a mechanic to fix them. Most automotive companies wouldn't even need guys like Carl."
"Well, he could learn the computer systems I guess."
"No way. Ronnie's dad wouldn't even touch one. He's too old to understand computers. In fact, when Carl got laid off from his last job and the Ford plant in Detroit, he was the one building the cars. Not the robots. He was ousted by a robot. He had to learn to control the robots to get his job at the Kawasaki plant. Which, according to Ronnie, took him three years. They spent three years in a trailer park while he learned how to control goddamn robots."
The food arrived. Conner continued.
"I hate to say it, but Ronnie might be in the poor house again for awhile until his dad learns something new. Ronnie's got three years left of college, so his dad has to keep working. He should have retired years ago, but he wanted to pay for Ronnie's school."
"Well, that's his own misfortune. He could've cut Ronnie loose easily enough. Isn't Ronnie working full time too?"
"Part time. He's in construction up here on weekends. I think part of the rebuilding project up here. They're tearing down that old station today by the look of it."
Conner was right. The wrecking ball stood ready and machine sounds filled the air. Groaning engines. Backing-up beeping. The whole bit.
"Yeah," I replied.
We sat silent again.
"Hasn't he been acting a little strange lately?" I asked.
"Who Ronnie?"
"Yeah."
"I haven't really noticed anything (mouth now full). Have you?"
"Well, not anything specifically (scooping up biscuit bits and gravy with a spoon). He just seemed very down last night."
"You saw him? (swallow) Where?"
"In Maryville. He didn't have class on Friday. Some kinda senior homecoming ritual or something. Anyway, I decided to go down after I got out of class in the afternoon to see him. The whole time he seemed, distant. We went to the theater to see 'Meet the Spartans'. He didn't even laugh that much. He usually dies over retarded movies like that."
"Yeah, totally. He roared all throughout 'Scary Movie 3'."
"Something's not right. Maybe it's his whole dad situation."
"Maybe it's his whole everything situation. I don't know man, but Ronnie's been weird for awhile now. Ever since he left for school, anyway."
"Yeah. Well, maybe we should go down there and see what he's doing. Maybe we could cheer him up?"
"I suppose anything's possible."

We paid for the meal and started walking. We came around the bend to find Ronnie sitting by himself, already eating from his lunch pail. "Taking an early lunch, Ronnie?" asked Conner. "We were just talking about you."
"Oh yeah? What about?" asked Ronnie, looking up from his peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
"Just about your dad losing his job," I said, "I'm really sorry to hear that, Ronnie. You guys going to have to move or something?"
"I don't know," he said simply with a sudden frown on his face. He squinted in the sunlight.
"What's with you Ronnie?" asked Conner. "You aren't yourself today."
"You're right I'm not myself today," he said. I remember he sounded and looked like Joaquin Phoenix at that very moment. It was pale, dark, and cut-up, like he was about to cry. I reached to pat him on the shoulder, but just then the loud wrecking ball fired up. I looked over, and before I could turn back, Ronnie had shot up wild eyed and darted for the inept building.
"Hey, Ronnie! What the hell are you doing?" I yelled.
"Ronnie! What are you doing?!" Conner yelled after me.
He ran and we stood speechless. He ran up the blue steps to the second floor where we could see in (the south wall was gone already) and the wrecking ball lifted. We reached out our arms and resumed yelling incessantly, to no avail. Conner darted for the wrecking ball operator to stop it, but it was too late. Ronnie had lifted himself up the rafters on the second floor to the lip of the west wall, and just as the crane dropped the huge metal ball, he stretched his arms out to greet it. It was the most incredible yet horrifying feat I'd ever seen a man accomplish. The ball pushed Ronnie's rag-doll body into the east wall, which he bounced off of, and the building collapsed all around him.
Conner and I ran for the building after him. Neither of us saw his mangled body. Neither of us could say anything. I opened my mouth to speak, but could not. One of his co-workers behind us filled my empty voice with,

"So long, Ronnie."