Sanford Crow

CHAPTER 34

The kids always called him Panda in school. With his pale skin, baggy eyes, and all-around bulk, the name stuck to him like flypaper. He didn't mind, not really. It brought him a certain type of notoriety that his birth-given name, Kevin, could never do. Only his mother called him Kevin, and he would listen to her use it relentlessly as she'd extrapolate on the meaningless day-to-day details of her life on the phone.

When the phone rang, his heart sank. He knew it was her; it was always her. The woman lived less than ten minutes away, yet she felt compelled to call him at the same time every day, the way only an overbearing mother can.

"What?" is how he answered the phone.

She'd go on in her Queens accent. "That's no way to answer the phone!" He was already having a terrible day amongst a horrible week. As he heard her motherly voice, he felt the urge to wring the phone like a dish towel and cover the floor with its tiny bits of plastic.

"Sorry, Ma."

A detective visited him earlier, and the questions he'd asked about his friend were troubling, to say the least. Though he wasn't sure what was more troubling, the questioning or the answering. He cooperated hesitantly, describing the steady demise of Sanford's state of mind. He'd talked about his blackouts at work, his eerie passion for the job, and the ever-growing creepiness that Sanford seemed to exude daily.

He felt like a rat. But the fact that Sanford was the lead suspect was far from surprising. What worried Panda the most was that they didn't know where Sanford was. They confirmed he had been in Maine with his daughter and dropped her off at home safe and soundly. It was all news to Panda. He'd just been sitting around and waiting for Sanford to come calling with another job. Why would anyone go to Maine in the winter anyway?

Sanford hadn't been home when they showed up with their warrant. Panda gathered that much, and wondered the mess they must've made of his apartment.

If it wasn't a mess already.

"Are you even listening to me, Kevin?" his mother said and didn't wait for a response. She went on, babbling about her sister and the way she talked to her before, how it ruined her day.

Panda pressed his bong to his mouth with the phone pressed to his ear. He lit it, inhaled, and let the bubbling sounds soothe him. His lungs filled with smoke that he let pour gracefully out of his mouth.

"What was that, Kevin?" his mother asked.

"Nothin', Ma."

"Can you imagine that, sweetie? The nerve of her to say such a rude thing to me, after everything I've done for her!" Panda had no idea what the rude thing even was, and wouldn't dare ask. That would create another twenty-five-minute ear battering. He'd let her say what she had to say until there was nothing else, then he could go on with his night of indulgence.

"Are you even listening to me, Kevin?" she asked again, momentarily pausing from her breathless chatter.

"Yeah, Ma."

The coffee table in front of him was covered with the cliché trash of a single man. Empty Chinese food cartons stuck to the table in hardened pools of soy sauce. An ashtray, filled to the brim with menthol cigarettes, dusted the table with ash. There was a porn mag with the pages stuck together and a bottle of hand lotion next to it—the only sanitizing item, used for unsanitary purposes.

"Okay, well it's time for me to go. My show's about to start. Thanks for listening, sweetie. I love you."

"Okay, Ma."

They both hung up the line at the same time, and Panda felt relief wash over as he pressed the bong to his mouth for another round.

His eyes drifted to his own midsection. The white tank top he wore emphasized his cartoonish gut, making him laugh at his own sluggish body. As the last of the weed smoke slipped from his lips, he reached for his pack of menthols and lit a cigarette.

The TV blared, as did the stereo. In his high frame of mind, he couldn't decide which form of entertainment he wanted more, so he let them duel it out in a mishmash of sound. There was an old western on the screen, and the shot was of a young Clint Eastwood in a grisly close-up. His five o'clock shadow emphasizing his intimidating glare.

On the stereo, music blasted. It was always hip-hop in his apartment, in his headphones, and in his car. He'd never call it rap music if it was done exceptionally well. When it was, it was called hip-hop in his mind, and A Tribe Called Quest was his paragon of perfection. Q-Tip rapped above a smooth beat, providing an unorthodox soundtrack as Clint Eastwood faced another duel.

The noise hindered his ability to hear anything else. For example, he couldn't hear the percussive smash of a window from an intruder. As he lay on the couch and admired the fearless Clint over the horizon of his own gut, that same intruder touched his boot down on the hardwood floor of Panda's apartment.

The oblivious Panda grazed on the couch, shoveling handfuls of microwave popcorn down his gullet and barely chewing. The CD in the stereo was on its last track, nearing its final minute, masking the man's steady breath, a knife being pulled from its wooden block on the kitchen counter.

Twenty-seconds left in the song, and as the beat began to fade, the sound of boots began to soften, as their owner tiptoed closer towards the couch. Clint Eastwood was about to draw his gun. A cigar rested in the corner of his mouth, smoke rising. Panda tried to impersonate it with the cigarette he held, but he knew looking cool was something he had forfeited at least twenty pounds ago.

Ten seconds left in the song and the intruder stood behind the couch, watching the duel along with Panda. Good Ol' Clint saw the flinch first and drew, laying down his enemy in the dusty streets. Both Panda and the intruder behind him smiled.

Two seconds left in the song, and the last thing Panda saw was glimmering steel swiftly passing in front of his eyes. It startled him, but he still hadn't moved away, he had only looked above his head to see a faceless man, masked in his own fear. The song ended, and the blade swiped across Panda's neck. He wished the music was still playing so he could listen to something else, anything else, besides the sound of his own blood gurgling out of his opened throat.

He slid deeper into the couch—dark brown suede, now splattered with his own blood, forming abstract russet stains. He was thankful to be high. It made the act of dying intense and frightening, yet somehow easier. After what he had done to Sanford, it seemed somewhat appropriate. Where he came from you didn't rat, and as he lay there—drowning in himself—he felt more like a rodent than ever.