Who’s Sorry Now by Gail Farrelly

            The sweet voice of Connie Francis on my iPod is helping to make the after-hours plumbing job on the industrial sink at Dan’s Diner go a lot faster.  Well actually, it’s not only Connie, but many of her singing colleagues from the 50s and 60s who are keeping me company through this long night.   

            I look out the window over the sink and see something that sparks a deliciously evil revenge fantasy.  Carl’s Car Repair Shop across the street has a dozen cars in its lot.  One of them is the squad car belonging to Police Chief Rob “The Rat” Ratner.  Too bad his personality (officious and obnoxious) can’t be repaired as easily as his squad car. 

            Twenty years ago when I was eighteen,  The Rat made my life – and the lives of many of the teenagers in town – a living hell, with his constant carping and eagerness to enforce every minute ordinance, not only about drinking and drugs, but also about noise containment, crowd control, and whatever else he could find to make our lives miserable.  He’s simply a nasty man.  That summer I ‘borrowed’ a car and took it for a joyride.  The Rat caught me.  If I had been from the right side of the tracks, it probably would have meant probation or maybe even just a warning.  But as a not-so-rich kid of an alcoholic single parent who didn’t have the sense to hire a smart lawyer, I ended up with a two-year jail sentence.  Serving it was pure hell. 

            My hands are busy with the nuts and bolts of sink repair, and my mind is just as busy.  It’s 2 a.m. and there’s no one around.  It would be so easy to sneak across the street and “fix” Chief Ratner’s car for good – or for evil.   I’m talented with my hands.  Fixing sinks, cars, car alarms, electronic systems, it’s all the same to me.  No problem.   

            According to the nuns who taught us in grammar school, “an idle mind is the devil’s workshop.”  But what about a mind like mine that can’t help thinking about that patrol car across the street, even when I have the discipline to drag my eyes from the window and back to my work?  Just a few adjustments on my part could mean that when Ratner turned on his emergency siren, something very different could be triggered.  An explosion, for example, with lots of noise, flying glass, blood, and gore.      

            I shudder.  In my ear, Bobby Vee is crooning “Devil or Angel, I can’t make up my mind.”  Good timing.  I think of the prayer once voiced by St. Augustine:  “O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet.”   I silently echo a similar prayer, not asking for help to be pure, but for help to be just plain old good.  I don’t EVER want to  go back to jail.  Been there, done that.  But I’m not quite ready to be good all the time…….

            With a sigh, I finish the sink repair and pack up my tool box.  The moon is shining brightly.  I’m listening to “Blue Moon” by The Marcels and staring at my iPod when I make my decision.  I reopen my tool box, remove a few items, and head across the street.  A half hour later, I smile as I hop into my car to head home. 

            The Rat will be surprised (to put it mildly) when he turns on his emergency siren 72 hours from now and is serenaded with a question from Connie Francis.     And he won’t be the only one who hears it.  I was careful to set the volume on ‘high,’ so that the whole town will be asked, “Who’s Sorry Now?”  And asked it more than once, since there’s a special control that will play the song over and over – for three hours.  Yes!

            I doubt that I’ll be caught.  Ratner would never regard me as a suspect.  He’d never think that a girl would have the balls or the smarts to tinker around with his patrol car.  A girl HE said would never make anything of herself.  A girl who is an electronics whiz and just celebrated the tenth anniversary of being licensed as the first female plumber in the county. 

            Who’s sorry now, Chief?  Who’s sorry now?

 

Gail Farrelly (www.farrellysistersonline.com) is the author of three mystery books.  Her short story “Even Steven” published in Mouth Full of Bullets in 2006 was a finalist for a 2007 Derringer award.