Ventrunner

High and Very Low

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

The frame of the payphone still hung on the peeling painted brick outside of Burdoes.

The nudge that knocked Karl Coschber off balance couldn't possibly be because someone needed to use the phone.

Karl wasn't yet fully balanced when the voice inside the nudge said “You do that Ventrunner cartoon, huh? Don't say no. You do. Seen your pitcher.”

Karl hesitated, thought the guy said “ Senior Picture.”

Seen your picture. Okay.

Karl started to respond yeah, that's me but hesitated again. 

The voice was not lauding him.

The voice did not want a selfie, nor an autograph.

Cartoon stood out. 

Ventrunner was dramatic animation for adults, not a “cartoon.”

The voice had weight, and a sort of a changing rhythm that suggested mental illness. 

Karl stepped back and tried to get a good look at the guy, who started talking again.

The voice was unique.

Karl squinted, really examined the guy.

He's auditioning, right here on the street. This guy wants to play one of the Shadow Puppeteers. 

Did the guy have a glass eye?Does that matter? Anyway, something is off.

The man was playing with a Zippo, flicking it, though there were no visible cigarettes in his hand or mouth. 

Karl realized he had missed a sentence or two.

The streetlight flickered.

The reflection told Karl the guy did have a prosthetic eye.

“...fucking anyway, this little girl, she got some bad ideas from your fucking cartoon.”

Karl leaned against the wall. 

The guy was legit mad and Karl was regretting the last shot of plata when Burdoes closed. 

“Woah, amigo,” Karl started. He never called people amigo. Ever. He was drunker than he thought.

He was rich now. 

Ventrunner had been renewed for Season Three. He was creator,writer, and now he was locked in as Exec Producer this season, plus he was voicing Dorgan.

He could have moved out of Detroit, moved to LA, but fuck that. He bought the condo next to him and had some walls knocked out.

Now this guy was gonna either rob him or knock his teeth out because his kid picked up some swear words from his animated show.

“...look, you just…you're coming over and seeing what you did.”

Karl started to shake his head. 

He could just start walking to Meder’s. If this guy followed whoever was working the door would get rid of him.

Karl spun and began to walk.

The guy followed.

“ You put your shit out there man, and you don't …you don't …like absorb the consequences…like…”

Karl stopped.

He reached in his pocket.

“You want money, man? You want 100 bucks? Is that it? Like…”

The guy started to laugh. There was mirth and malice and phlegm and crazy all in one laugh.

Karl took two backwards steps closer to Meder's.

He thought he could outrun the guy but had nothing to base that on.

“I told Sheila what happened, she didn't believe me. She told me you was here.You're gonna believe me.”

“Believe fucking what, dude?”

The guy yanked Karl's arm. 

“You'll see. Your fucked up sick cartoon.”

The guy was dragging Karl now. 

Karl wasn't gonna bother asking where they were going, he was trying to think of a way to not go wherever it was.

“The house is at the corner of Atkinson and the Lodge,” the guy said, like a very aggressive psychic. “Two blocks, man. You gotta help.”

“Help who?”

“The little girl. Kaela. She watched your stupid fucking cartoon. Shit is twisted man. You're sick. But you gotta help.”

Karl focused on a little girl needing help.

The booze was clearing his head like someone tossed a glass fishbowl on the cement.

Karl grabbed his phone. 

He hated the phone, kept it shut off when he was drinking. Ten billion messages now that the show was a success.

He held it out.

“If a girl needs help let's call 91—”

The guy slapped Karl's phone and it skipped down the street a few car lengths.

Then he got Karl in a headlock, not crouched, wrestling style, but upright, like two drunk pals headed home from the bar.

“We'll help your little girl,” Karl said, panicking.

“Not my little girl, dickhead. Crystal’s. I barely know her. She left her little girl with me. I think she's muling. Know what I mean? She's in Miami, left her kid with me, fucker, and she watched your terrible shit.”

The guy had Karl tighter. 

He could call for help, but…the house had to be locked. When the guy reached for the key, Karl would run. Simple. The guy was crazy.

Karl flashed back to the photo shoot for the Free Press. The photographer wanted him to look ominous, like Dorgan. 

Now he regretted the photos. 

How the fuck did Sheila know this guy?  She went from his favorite bartender to his least.

They were in the alley now, then cutting across a backyard.

They went to the back of the house and the guy kicked the unlocked door open with a smash.

Any little girl in this house would have to be terrified.

The guy flicked a light on.

Karl got out the Where of “ where is the little girl?”

He'd expected to explain that his show was for adults and she shouldn't say bad words or emulate what she sees on TV, especially things people draw, but the Where was both out of his throat and stuck in it, maybe forever. 

A child was on a dinette, gray and purple and quite obviously dead.

Karl spun and looked at the guy because he needed to look at a living human, and the guy was babbling but Karl couldn't hear words, and the guy wasn't mentally ill, necessarily, he was high out of his mind, and now he looked just as panicked as Karl felt.

And then the guy shook Karl, and his ears worked again, he heard clearly: “she ate a fucking rosary, she choked on a fucking rosary.”

Season 2. Episode 5. 

Karl Coschber gagged and spun away from the man, he just wanted to be away from the man, but when he spun he vomited IPA and tequila and an undercooked burger on the feet of a dead little girl.

The man was shaking Karl now, then he shoved him, shoved him hard and Karl began to vomit again when he heard a click.

The man was cocking a gun.

No, it was a Zippo, and the man was pulling a stem from a cupboard, and he lit it.

Karl looked at the man’s eyes. He did have a prosthetic eye, that's why he couldn't tell the guy was high.

Karl screamed “call an ambulance”, though it was obviously far too late for that.

The guy’s head kicked back from the rush of the rock.

He said “I can't asshole, I can't” and then he smiled because the dope was in his brain.

“Do the thing, man, do the thing from your show,” the man said and Karl knew the giy wanted Dorgan to use the Shadow Puppeteer to kill the demon.

Guilt pummeled Karl Coschber, like waves of fists and rocks and hornet stings. 

He turned to the body of a child, an innocent little child.

How could a kid emulate choking on a ros—

Red,like a rose,shined from the little girl’s chest, into Karl's eyes like  the color was bright and animated, not a muted tone animation for adults.

It was a MedAlert medallion.

Karl leaned toward the pale body.

Asthma.

He turned. The man had the stem in his mouth again.Karl took one step and his fist broke the stem against the man's face.

Karl kept punching like he was in a very violent cartoon.

***