The Bodyguard ("Driver" story #97)

DRIVER
by Michael Kroetch

The bodyguard is on his knees. He doesn’t remember getting the napkins, but they are mooshed in a sodden gob in his hand as he wipes the floor around the feet of the jack-o-lantern. He is wiping and wiping. There is long since no more mess, but he is still wiping. His effort has captured the attention of the coffee shop staff, but the jack-o-lantern keeps waving them back. She won’t let anyone near. The bodyguard senses this out of the corner of his eye. And he is about to get up and sit with her again when the worst sacrilege occurs.

His dark glasses slip off, then spiral down at the freshly sanitized floor. Both lenses instantly fracture. They are supposed to be factory-tested against such breakage, but the bodyguard can’t deny what is before him. And it’s happened far too fast to seem real. He plunges to the floor and peers closely at them. His lips open and close—then open and close again wide like the lips of a blowfish. He can’t believe this. His neck muscles flash into a spasm. Now his whole body begins to rock and thunder uncontrollably from side to side. The jack-o-lantern puts a comforting hand on his shoulder. He reacts by whirling on her with a crooked growl and mouthful of teeth. She doesn’t understand! How could she? He spins back to the injured glasses and huddles there, afraid to touch them. Afraid he might somehow hurt them worse. But what could be more catastrophic? They were officially issued with his gilded certificate of safety. They are everything—the very bedrock of who he is. He should never have entered this coffee house with all its garish lights and looky-loo people watching him. That’s when it occurs to him where the real blame hides and who the real enemy is! These watchers. And now he knows then he can’t reveal anymore about the internal injury they’ve just inflicted on him. It would go against his professional edict. As part of the elite, he has sworn not only to be normal, but also to uphold dignity. To maintain grace under pressure. No matter what. That’s why he focuses on keeping himself from any more thought as he rigidly aims his fingers out toward his glasses.

Once they are back on his face, he is back in the driver’s seat. It matters not that the lenses are now somewhat ruined. He is still in control. He can overcome the impediment. He’s had adequate training. He rises gain to the perch across from the jack-o-lantern and baptizes himself anew by letting another almost microscopically small, yet relentless and victorious smile pass over his lips. He is ready now for her to tell him why they are here: His new mission. But then his smile slips away, because again he notices that thin sensuous web between her two smallest fingers.