The Borrowed Comb

By Barry F. Schnell

Murky. Sexy. Empowered. All that hashtag crap. Behind every corner lurks Stranger Danger. In every mirror reflects the eternal struggle between good and evil, right and wrong, carb or protein. It’s when things are going well on the surface when one must look within; there is where one finds the ugly truth. Fate is a four-letter word.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664172470

Barry F. Schnell

In his first posthumous work, Barry F. Schnell explores the depths of the feline psyche as it has never been extrapolated before. Barry F. Schnells final weeks along the beaches of Pitcairn Island were described by locals as being filled with arguments with palm trees, air quotes, and gluttonous excess. After cramming his manuscript into an emptied, dominated Jeroboam of pink champagne, Schnell grasped a wooden fork and walked into the ocean descending on a school of pufferfish never to be seen erect again.

Book preview

SATURDAY

Where’s the extension cord? I asked.

She was on the phone, but she heard me. She pointed to the kitchen junk drawer which was the top one just adjacent to the old green stove, battered with Lord only knows how many metal spatula miscues over the decades, that was wedged in place (probably since the structure’s construction) inside this two-bedroom, one-level townhome before we bought it in November of last year.

The townhome was absent of any curb appeal to adults. Most children in the neighborhood believed it was haunted, which was okay by me. That meant none of them would be coming around trying to sell seed packets or economy sized chocolate bars at premium prices.

Anyway, once the wedding is over, we plan to use some of the hotly anticipated gift money to fix the place up. First, we’ll do the floor in the front room. Next up will be the master bedroom and bathroom, then the kitchen. If there are any monies left, I’ll slap a coat of fresh paint on the outside and fix most of the busted windows.

In this town we live in, Pelosiville, busted windows outnumber un-busted windows by a long shot. For the time being, it’s the only place we can afford. And my bride-to-be insisted on being …within a two-cell phone tower drive of her parents’ house.

Not that one—the big one—the fifty-footer, I said.

She rolled her eyes, covered her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone, rolled her eyes again and asked, Why? in a soft, breathy, irritated voice.

I’m going to work on my novel.

Her face turned red, then blue, then red again. She returned to the phone conversation, briefly. Can I call you back? I’m about to have a situation here.

Then she disconnected the call and set her phone down on the counter. She folded her arms across her chest while eyeballing our three-month old laptop computer I’d had tucked up into place beneath my left armpit.

And just where do you plan on doing this?

In the tub. You know I do my best work when I’m naked and wet.

You are not taking our nearly brand-new laptop computer near the bathtub. In the first place, I’ve got all of our wedding information on it. And in the second place, no. Just, no.

On the one hand, I’d had enough of her rules. Ever since we moved in together, it was nothing but a litany of rules with the goal posts constantly being moved. Before we moved in together, we dated for five weeks and there were no rules at all. It was akin to America in 1776 vs. America now.

On the other hand, this was one battle I didn’t need to fight today. A battle would only serve to distract me from my goal of getting at least three-hundred solid words down before lunch. I finally had two weeks off from the day job, and I needed to get cracking.

And where do you get off thinking you can write a novel, anyway? She said. You have no life experience. You possess no skills. You’ve never had an original idea. Nothing you say is important to anybody. And, I still have all of the love notes you wrote me last year; you don’t even know the difference between ‘there,’ ‘their,’ ‘they’re,’ and ‘where’!

I told you I was going to use my two weeks to finish my novel. You even gave me a thumbs-up and a wink right after I told you.

Sarcastic body language, Einstein. We have a wedding to plan in three months. Do you think I’m just going to let you sit around here for two weeks pounding your thumbs on our laptop keyboard with no ultimate pay day attached to it?

She was really obsessing about this wedding. We already had the appointment at City Hall and sent out about twenty invitations. I don’t know what more there was left to do but spit on my comb, drag it across my head, and show up on June 3.

Her phone rang. She looked at the screen.

That’s my father again. He’s coming by in an hour to take you hunting. So, for crying out loud, put the computer back on the desk, and get some clothes on. She answered the phone. Hi, Dad… No, it’s okay… Don’t worry, he’ll be ready.

Hunting? I asked, rhetorically and laden with apprehension.

I was determined not to lose my creative mojo as I slunk out of the room. Once inside the bedroom, I put the computer on the desk then slid into a pair of underpants and socks.

She was likely to be on the phone with her father until he showed up.

I could see out the window that this March 29 was like every March 29 I could remember for all of my twenty-three years: cloudy, cold, drizzly, and depressing.

At the desk, I cracked open the computer and powered it on. There was fifteen percent battery power—just enough for me to get a few thoughts down before I completed dressing.

The word processing program opened quickly. I looked at the blank page then typed ‘Untitled,’ followed by ‘By’ on the next line, and then after another swift slap of the return key with my right thumb, ‘Fonzy K. Crumbwicz’ on the final line of the title page.

Twenty more slaps of the return key, and I was ready for page one.

To my surprise, my future-bride, the current Bessie Baranov, 21, formerly of her parents’ home in Hestwaven, Indiana, burst into the bedroom with the phone still pressed to her ear.

Hestwaven borders Pelosiville and is a step up cosmetically and intellectually, but Hestwaven has its, ahem, more come as you are part of town, too. That’s the side Bessie’s parents live on.

I said, get dressed. She said to me, covering the phone.

I nodded, stood up from the desk, and made the long seven-step trek over to the clothes dresser. She stood there and watched as I picked out a pair of dungarees and an old, orange sweatshirt. As I slid the various limbs through the respective garments, she stepped towards the desk and looked down at the computer where the title page of my new novel was still visible at the top of the screen.

Bessie closed her eyes in a manner that looked more painful to me than I’d ever seen anyone feel when closing her eyes before. Then she said something in Russian to her father and left the bedroom without giving me another look.

I went back to the computer and tapped out the first two sentences that were still fresh in my brain.

The sun rose over the French foxhole, where Sgt. Tex Erekcja lit up his last smoke as he sat atop a pile of five gutted Nazis. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em, boys. Sgt. Tex Erekcja said, with a wry smile and a twinkle in his eye that he hadn’t had since leaving Winnie Loo back stateside.

It was all coming together. If only I could be left home alone to write for these next two weeks. I’d be able to wrap up my first novel by day ten and then get a head start on the next one before having to go back to work at Kumpanya Ng Pagdurusa (KNP), my professional home as a Customer Experience Representative (CEP) for this international concern for the past three years.

KNP employed people like me all over the world. It had a client-base of about 2,000 companies globally. My job, as a CEP 1, was to be a sympathetic ear to embittered and swindled customers all over the United States that had experienced some kind of damaged product, poor service, bruised ego, etc. at one of the 700 U.S.-based companies contracting with KNP to act as the public contact punching bag for their operations. This way, they wouldn’t have to employ any CEP’s of their own.

CEP’s were generally a miserable lot when the phones were off and an epic downer to any workplace.

My go-to phrases on the job include: I understand. I’m sorry to hear that. Oh, how awful. And On the record, we can empathize.

Of course, none of the CEP’s ever empathized, as having to sit strapped to a headset and wedged into a cubicle for eight hours every day listening to people grumble about petty problems with this or that that you, as the CEP, had absolutely nothing to do with; CEP is probably the worst working experience in the cosmos this side of a congressional page for a representative of an urban district.

But it’s the only position I could get hired to do with two years of spotty junior college accomplishments under my belt. And a man with a wedding coming up in three months needs to have a steady paycheck, or so they say.

That’s why we only have the one car—the Buick—to save money. Bessie drops me off at work every day. And she’ll either pick me up after she’s finished working, or I’ll try and bum a ride from a co-worker. In a pinch, I could also walk. It’s about six and a half miles from home, but sometimes I’m left without another option.

Once Bessie and I get all settled down and into a better living situation, then I’ll really be able to focus on my writing. After the first year, I figure I’ll probably have three or four novels completed with enough residuals coming in every month to quit the CEP work and keep writing full time and forever.

If I make it through this hunting trip, that is.

I didn’t even know Bessie’s father was a hunter. He’d never mentioned it in the two meetings we’d had during me and Bessie’s five-month courtship. Mostly, Mr. Viktor Baranov liked to sit imposingly in a chair and pass judgment on others via his thirty different contortions of glower.

LATER SATURDAY

Viktor Baranov could best be described as a no nonsense individual with a chronically downturned mouth and a left eye that was but a slit between two hair-covered eyelids and only of any use under the full sun. He was bald on top with thickening hair the lower one looked on his body. Viktor always moved at his own speed, regardless of the terrain or circumstances.

On a day like today, gloomy and grey, there’s no way that left eyeball slit of his was going to let any sighted stimuli enter into his brain for processing.

The double barreled 12-gauge shotgun poked up from the floor of his rusty, yellow Dodge pick-up truck, tucked in between his legs and pointed straight towards his throat. Every time he cranked the steering wheel rigidly to the right or left, the barrel of the shotgun would make a hard clanking sound that caused me to lurch sideways in my seat against the door with my index fingers dug deep into my ears.

Today, Viktor Baranov shoot, skinny boy listen, Viktor said.

Bessie never mentioned to me you were a hunter.

Without saying a word, he looked over at me, and for a length of time longer than somebody piloting a motor vehicle should, then finally said, First time.

Oh?

Then he affixed his 20/400 gaze back in front of the truck and down the road.

He turned on the radio. The weather report on the local news station announced that an unexpected early-spring blizzard was taking an icy dump all over Illinois and should be laying waste to northwest Indiana in the next couple of hours. All in all, about eighteen inches of snow should fall and be immediately followed by temperatures below zero degrees.

I looked down at my sneaker clad feet and the dime-thin ankle socks layered in between them and my ten bare toes.

Wow, I said. Zero degrees. That’s pretty cold to be outside for just about every reason I can think of, no?

Is a summer afternoon where my parents gave born to me.

Where was that again?

Is there no longer.

Right.

Viktor Baranov forty-four years old. When I was half as old is when my Varvara and I made born my only daughter—Bessikolva.

Viktor reached between his legs and pulled out a compact disc he’d been sitting on. He shoved it into the CD player on the radio like I might push away a charging Pitbull.

I was in luck. It was a collection of Russian drinking songs with Cherniy voron leading the way.

Viktor pounded his right fist against his chest three times.

Is the song I sing when I make love to Bessikolva’s mother. He said.

I could already feel the tips of my toes icing over.

We drove on. The light grey skies became a darker grey. I couldn’t think of anything in English to try and talk Viktor out of going on this hunting trip. And I didn’t know anything in Russian I could articulate other than Nyet. Bessie never taught me to speak Russian; she reserved the sacred tongue for communicating with her parents and some strangers on the internet.

Hunting, you say? I said. What’s in season?

I patted myself on the back. That was spot-on hunting talk. Little did my future father-in-law know that the closest I’d ever been to hunting was when I lost my balance in a cornfield at age twelve and fell backwards onto a nest of bluebird eggs.

Whatever Viktor Baranov shoot, Viktor said.

I tried to busy myself in the cabin of the pick-up truck looking for something, anything, that I could use to stab into my hand and request a detour to the hospital. But inside the glove compartment, there was only a full bottle of vodka. Beneath my seat—two more bottles of vodka. And inside the humbly sized cooler bag Bessie slung over my arm just before I climbed into Viktor’s truck was but a jar of peanut butter with one plastic spoon and a small, stainless steel, insulated bottle. Inside the insulated bottle—more vodka.

Conveniently, we were driving toward the storm in Illinois. Viktor contended once we were out of the truck, standing in the middle of the forest in hip-deep snow with no sense of direction, too far from our screams to be heard by any other human beings, only then would we have hair on our chest.

Judging by the nearly three-inch long hairs of the back of Viktor’s hands and knuckles, there was no way he didn’t already have hair on his chest.

We arrived at the destination about ninety-minutes later. I didn’t know for certain what state we were in—Indiana or Illinois. It didn’t matter, I suppose, other than whatever the competency of the coroner in each of the two states. And I sure hoped we were still in Indiana.

I got the feeling Viktor didn’t really have the destination in mind before we left. My sense was that he just drove until he found the scariest looking thatch of woods that he felt were too far away for me to walk back from should such a panicked escape situation arise.

He clearly didn’t know his way around this particular crop of forest as we’d traveled down four different roads before they each ended at a partially iced-over sanitation canal. Then Viktor finally found one road that had a bridge made of loosely tied logs that we were able to navigate over above the sewage river and deep into the trees.

I didn’t notice any signs forbidding us from being on the property on the drive in. I also didn’t notice any Welcome mats, either.

Without explaining why, Viktor stepped heavily upon the accelerator and launched the Dodge into a dozen violent wheel-spinning donut maneuvers atop the snow-covered soil, the shotgun between his legs slamming into the steering wheel again and again and again the entire time.

Finally, Viktor stopped spinning the wheels and the truck with it.

Now, Viktor said, we can remember where is parked the truck.

He put the transmission into park, reached into the glove compartment, and helped himself to a king’s quaff of the big box store discount vodka.

It didn’t feel like the proper time for me to point out that the snow would only be intensifying and probably cover his artisan’s tire tread work within the hour.

Viktor reached beneath his seat and brought out a box of shotgun shells. He handed them to me.

You are supply donkey. Viktor said. When I instruct, you reach into box and give me new bullet to shoot.

I looked into the box. There were seven shells remaining.

You mean, a ‘shell’?

Viktor stared me down with his one-and-a-half eyes.

Daughter of Viktor Baranov told me you have much disrespectful mouth. I can hear for myself now.

I tried to retrace every syllable I uttered on the ride over to the woods as I had no clue what he was talking about.

Viktor looked me up and down. For the longest time he gazed at my sneakered feet.

Who goes for hunting with the kiddie-bop playground shoes? Viktor asked.

Well, I stammered, I’ve never been hunting before. And we didn’t hear the weather report until we were already in the car. If it’s all the same to you, I can just sit here while you go off and shoot for a little while. It’s fine by me.

Fine? Then who will be supply donkey?

We looked at each other. Then, Viktor drained the remaining contents of the vodka bottle, wiped his mouth on the barrel of the shotgun, and rolled down his window. He heaved the empty vodka bottle upwards and behind him into the bed of the Dodge.

What in cooler is? Viktor asked.

There was some nut protein and, er, something to drink.

Give! Viktor said, yanking the cooler up off of the floor from between my legs.

He peered inside the cooler. Then he grabbed the plastic spoon, broke it in half, and threw it out the driver’s side window into the snow. Next, he unscrewed the lid from the jar of peanut butter and plunged three fingers from his right hand into the goop. Viktor withdrew a third of the contents of the jar and lip smacked them into his throat. While he licked his fingers clean, I observed a bevy of his knuckle hairs still stuck into the peanut butter and laying limp over the brim.

Viktor loosely put the cap back onto the peanut butter jar, grabbed the insulated bottle, and pushed the cooler back down between my legs.

Let’s go, donkey. Is time for shooting.

We ambled out of the Dodge.

I made a mental note to put off getting hungry until tomorrow.

At the last second, I remembered to grab the cooler as I might need something to stick my feet into for blizzard protection in a little while. I left the jar of peanut butter on my seat inside the vehicle.

Standing in front of the pick-up, Viktor proceeded to remove his gloves, his boots, his heavy burlap jacket, and then his pants. He stood before me in just a condemned pair of one-piece long johns and a big fur hat made from Coypu. He pounded his chest and took in a big gulp of frigid, snowflake-filled air blowing down from Chicago way.

Viktor wore no socks. His feet were wrapped with a mud-caked gauze from heel to just below the toes.

It seems to be getting colder by the second, I said. Maybe you’ll want to bring the boots along?

Bah. Viktor Baranov’s only daughter was conceived on such a night, atop a frozen field of grass burrs above the sixty-second parallel north with her mother’s head buried into a snow drift. Viktor Baranov wore no boots then. Viktor Baranov need no boots now. You wear my boots, weak donkey.

I attributed all this sudden ‘donkey’ speak to the vodka talking.

Before I could respond, Viktor picked up the shotgun from the ground and fired one shot, eye-level high, directly into the woods. It echoed for a couple of seconds, and then he began marching towards the trees. I’m not sure what he saw when he aimed then fired, but there was definitely purpose in his posture and his one normal eye. He waved for me to follow him.

The snow was four inches deep already. The trees were as naked as I was only a couple of hours before. And that got me to thinking about writing and what Bessie told me about how I lacked the necessary life experiences to write my novel.

The terrain surrounding me could easily pass for a winter in war torn Poland, circa 1942. Seeing this hunting trip through to the end with my future father-in-law could be just the experience I need to flesh out a couple of chapters in my story. All the elements were there for the chapter I’d been brainstorming earlier: bitter cold, meteorological suspense, and a man in his long johns with bare feet and vodka breath.

I was determined to make the best of it. As Viktor stomped his way westward into the leafless, but thickening, trees, I walked ten paces behind carefully placing my sneaker covered feet into the deep tracks he’d laid down in front of me. Alas, my feet were already sopping wet once we