Chapter 311: Danny XXVIII—And This One’s a Doozy…

Keaner’s deadpan expression, as always unreadable, betrayed nothing about what he could be feeling inside. Danny couldn’t tell if he felt more than he showed, or if he were lying. She was kinda boring…. She had little kids hanging on her legs…. Her cooking was a fucking disaster. Really, all of that, more than likely, was true. Why would Mike lie about it and she had to have a beginning somewhere.

Mike was her friend, Danny knew that, and Patty’s friend as well. He would have sensed Danny’s interest in her from how he had just spoken. Protecting her from him, especially after his admission to Mike that he had kissed her, would be the first thing on his mind. Naturally he would paint a dull picture of her to him when asked, just to kill his interest in her. A good friend to her and a good teammate to him, Danny knew he should thank Mike for his vigilance.

But I know she’s not that boring, Danny thought. I know it deep inside, there’s so much more to her. Her eyes ask for more than she voices, more than perhaps she’s even aware of. Bruises on her skin, little bruises, the way she can shrink from a man, and how bravely she holds her head high, how beautifully she presents everything, Mike can’t be more wrong than he is now. She’s not boring, she’s fascinating!

“So what’s your great plan for distracting me?” Danny asked as he followed Keane into a convenience store. The humid and heavy cold air pressed all over the skin of his face and cut into it sharply. This late at night the only other people in the store were a few kids dressed head to toe in black goth clothes and clustered around a slushie machine. Danny nodded to them when the looked at him, snapping their faces to their direction as quickly as a snake would. They narrowed their eyes and turned their attentions back to filling their cups. They reminded Danny of a litter of mice.

“We need to start with gumballs, and a lot of them.” Keane replied. He had his arms loaded with packages of brightly colored gumballs. Danny could smell the sugar of them through the plastic and his gut reacted with a plaintive wail, begging him never to eat sugar again.

“And what are we going to do with gumballs, lots of them?” Danny asked Keane as he juggled them in his arms in the elevator. A few packages slid off the top of the pile and piled onto the floor.

“A little help here,” Keaner snapped.

“Mike I don’t think I can eat much sugar, I’m kinda sick of it for now,” Danny said. He picked up the gumballs and the scent of them boiled his stomach over and he belched.

Wide smile, teeth glinting, Keaner winked. “We ain’t gonna be eating these babies. They’re not for us.”

Danny frowned. “Who are they for?”

Mike didn’t answer him, he just kept grinning. Slowly, Danny felt a smile spread over his face. “Come on Mike, tell me! What are we gonna do?” Now he couldn’t stop the excitement in his chest. One of Mike’s ultimate specialties was practical jokes, one of the perks of being his roommate, was learning these jokes. Ah yes, Master I am willing to learn today! Danny felt his brain soften and he imagined it now porous as a sponge so that he might absorb all that Keane had to offer.

Still, Mike didn’t tell him anything as they went back into the room. He tossed the gumballs onto one of the beds and then he went straight to the phone. So this would be one of those watch and learn jokes. Danny went to the tall windows looking out into the street. He pushed one open, no screen, cold night air, he leaned out, looked down at the busy cars and pedestrians and he spat past the railing of the fire escape.

“Yeah,” Keane said into the phone. “Yeah, I’m one of the Avalanche staying in room 765, and I’m locked out, lost m’key could you please send someone up to let me in? Yeah…. Scott Parker…. Yeah….. thanks bud, yeah, thanks.” Keane hung up the phone and his smile bordered on malevolent.

“Parker?” Danny gulped and remembered the sight of Parker sitting on Drury, waving a snake in his face as retribution for slashed skate laces. “Scott? What are we gonna do to him?”

“You saw him working on that honey in the bar right?”

Danny nodded. “Sure.”

“Parker will have her up here by closing I bet, in an hour or so, and Muller won’t be back tonight till later cause he’s never in early. So we have some time right now.”

“Oh.”

The concierge sent up a bellhop to help unlock the door and Danny stayed in the room, looking at the gumball bags. Okay what was he up to, he tried to put two and two together and his mind came up with an answer but no, that had to be too simplistic.

“Alright we’re in,” Keane barked, “Bring over the bags my apprentice.”

“Keane really, this is silly!” Danny exclaimed as he ripped open another bag and as Keane told him to, he poured them over the floor. “I mean this is so simple and stupid a kid could do this. There’s nothing to this!”

“Sure there is,” Keane replied as he dumped the last bag over the floor. “It’s a classic, and if I’m gonna teach you anything, it’s an appreciation of the classics. Now are you gonna look at me with those baby eyes and tell me you have no appreciation of the classics?”

“No sire,” Danny replied. And he tossed an empty plastic bag aside and flourished a bow to him.

Keaner flashed his killer smile. “Now you’re talking babe, now you’re talking.”

Danny took one last look around the room before he clicked off the lights, one last look at the gumballs lying on the floor, “What if he breaks his neck.”

“Now with thinking like that how are you gonna get any jokes done?”

The only thing left to do was wait. What Danny really wanted to do was sleep but he couldn’t do that as he sat on his bed with his arms crossed, watching with a dull fascination as some blonde bounced in a hairy, sweaty man’s lap on some porno Keaner had fallen asleep watching. Keane’s being asleep dictated that Danny had to stay alert and awake. He felt his lip curl as the blonde became louder and, the sound reminded him of something whiny and irritating.

He grabbed the remote control and clicked the mute button. As soon as he did, Keaner grunted. “What? What?”

“Shh!” Danny hissed. “I hear him!”

Keane grinned. “That’s it!”

They could hear Scott’s voice and the high giggle of a woman, no doubt the woman from the bar. They were loud, they laughed, and they were talking in incomplete sentences. They could also hear Muller’s voice, he was griping about wanting sleep and Scott better count on sharing to which the woman cussed at him and Scott did as well. Keane rolled onto his hands and knees on the bed and pressed his ear against the wall. “Come on, listen to the fun!”

Danny’s cheeks hurt from smiling so hard and he pressed into Keaner as he copied him. He could actually hear the sound of the door being opened, the giggle of the woman, and then Scott’s low voice and then….

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” CRASH, CRASH, BOOM! And then a high pitched scream from the woman and an identical sounding crash.

Danny stifled his laughter but Keane didn’t as he fell on his back, holding onto his belly. More crashes and cries and sounds of furniture breaking came from the room, they were obviously trying to get back on their feet and falling over more gumballs.

“Gumballs!” the woman cried out, “They’re all over the place, they’re gumballs!” She must have got to the light first and Danny could hear her laughing. “You guys look like big dumb animals falling like that!”

“Eh stop laughing you haughty bitch!” Muller snarled.

The woman laughed harder. “See ya boys but I ain’t diddling eenyone that’s fallin’ around like Bambi on a lake.”

“Ah hell!” Parker snapped, “Those sons of bitches lost me my woman! Whenever I find out who did this I’m gonna chop off his testicles!”

“Shit,” Keaner said calmly, “Kid lock the door.”

Danny swallowed and as he skittered to the door he had a feeling identical to the one when he was a kid having nightmares that some monster wanted into the house and he couldn’t get to the door fast enough to lock it. He clicked the lock and ran back to the bed and silly as it was, he felt comforted pressing into Mike’s warm side.

“Shit I know who did this!” Muller snarled.

Danny held his breath.

“Who?” Parker asked.

“KEANER!” Muller bellowed. “Only Keaner would think of doing something this stupid god damn gumballs!”

“He’s gonna be chewing em outta his ASS!” Parker howled.

Danny felt the spit dry his mouth to a sandy wasteland.

“Don’t worry kid,” Keane muttered, “We have the door locked he wouldn’t be stupid enough to...” Before he could finish the sentence Danny screamed and fell off the bed at the sound of the loud crash of glass in the hallway and then within the moments, there was a dull cracking on the door and a red, glinting axe head pierced all the way through. Danny’s mouth fell open and his knees locked in terror.

“He’s chopping the door down!” Danny cried, “We gotta get outta here!” He turned around. “The fire escape!”

“Naw he’ll expect that,” Keane muttered, “He’ll only chase us down and break our knees. The last thing we need is an axe wielding incident on a public street, we need to keep this indoors where it can be covered up. Aren’t you thinking of the team at all you cabbage head?”

“Then what do you suggest OH MASTER!” Danny hissed.

CHOP! CHOP!

“Oh this one’s gonna be a doozy,” Keane replied in a calm voice.

“I hate you,” Danny gasped as they pushed one of the beds all the way against the door as the wood splintered down. He was relieved that the movies had it all wrong and it wasn’t all that easy to chop through a door and it sounded like Parker was having a little trouble with it. They piled on the night stand for good measure. “Now what do we do? We’re locked in.”

“Come on, out the window,” Keane cried. “OUT THE FIRE ESCAPE!”

“I thought you said we shouldn’t,” Danny asked in a low voice.

“And we won’t,” Keane answered, “That was for their ears.” Danny felt Keane’s warm, sweaty palm grab onto his wrist and drag him to the window. He leaned out and pointed, “Your good balance is gonna haveta come into play, Kid. See that ledge? We’re gonna get onto that ledge and we’re gonna get to one of those windows along the side of the building. We can stay in one of those rooms until it blows over or Scott’s arrested.”

“We’re gonna die aren’t we?” Danny asked.

CHOP! CHOP!

“If we stay here while he’s still pissed, yeah we are.”

Danny cursed as he crawled out the window and he refused to look all the way down to the street below. I’m just a kid, he thought, a kid on a tree house, my balance is awesome, it’s like rock climbing without ropes. I can do this… I can do this… The ledge supported only part of his foot and he had to tip toe along it, his back pressed against the side of the building. Keaner was right next to him as they slithered along the wall and Danny could only think how lucky they were that there had been no precipitations that night. “How far do you wanna go?”

“I can’t take these heights that long,” Keane muttered, “Next window.”

The light was on at the next window and it was open to boot. Danny cried out as he rolled into the room with Keane rolling in on top of him. He couldn’t help but laugh, “We made it Keanes we made it, we’re alive, we’re….”

Danny’s eyes widened when he saw the room occupants. Joe Sakic was standing there, looking at them with an irritated face, and Alex Tanguay was on his knees in front of Joe, his face dangerously close to Joe’s crotch to which the fly was hanging open and his hands rested one on Joe’s waist and another on his ass. What the….

“Hey boys,” Keane grinned. “What are you doing?”