Flatlander

A novel by Dan Galdenzi ... Flatlander by Dan Galdenzi Copyright © 2023 Dan Galdenzi All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review. Cover art and layout: Diego Alcalá Flatlander is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Printed in the United States of America ... This book, my first, is dedicated to my creative writing professor, who, I’m certain, won’t remember me. Your suspicion that I couldn’t possibly have written several of the pieces I wrote has forever fueled my confidence to keep writing… … And to my beautiful wife, Brenna. …And to my late father. I know you would have been proud. I miss you Dad. Contents Chapter 1 GOODBYE, NEW YORK 9 Chapter 2 HELLO, VERMONT 29 Chapter 3 BAIT PILE HILL 65 Chapter 4 TREED A BEAR 99 Chapter 5 RELEASE THE HOUNDS 133 Chapter 6 SET A TRAP 169 Chapter 7 GASOLINE 203 Chapter 8 RANSOMWARE 229 Chapter 9 MANURE POND 247 Chapter 10 TWO VERMONTS 273 Chapter 11 THE BOYS IN BLUE 287 Chapter 1 GOODBYE, NEW YORK We approached the entrance at the same time. I slowed my pace a bit, before grabbing the door handle, to let him go in first. I tend to do that. No matter how busy or rushed I am, I find myself being unnecessarily thoughtful. Doing it in some small town where everyone knows each other is one thing; but in New York City, where it is rarely ever appreciated or paid forward, it was just naive. In fact, it startles most people when I perform even the smallest acts of kindness. They’ll reluctantly accept the gesture and move on quickly, avoiding eye contact, assuming I want something in return. I see it more as a curse. So, predictably, it happened again, and I regretted waiting. The “gentleman” I let go first into Chipotle didn’t even see me and made an aggressive lunging kick toward a pigeon that was by the doorway, eating the rice stuck along the side walls of what looked to be the remnants of a burrito bowl. He wore an expression of true anger, like someone had just wronged him terribly. As his leg swung through, the pigeon barely escaped the tip of his sneaker and flapped away in distress. She was flying low and fast, directly toward crossing traffic. I stopped, frozen, as I watched to see if she would make it. Fortunately, she pulled up hard and miraculously went from a low horizontal flight pattern to climbing nearly straight upward, only just avoiding the top of a slow-moving box truck. I went inside and stood in line behind the pigeon hater. His black cloth mask, with some abstract orange corporate logo, was over his mouth but under his nose in a now-universal sign of pandemic fatigue. Not a big man, he was shorter than average, with no apparent muscle tone and a nascent beer belly under active development. He lacked any qualities that would make him distinguishable, and his face, albeit half covered by a mask, was unremarkable. I guessed he was middle-aged, around 45, thinning hair, dressed in a blue-collar desk job wardrobe of wrinkled khakis, a black T-shirt, and thick-soled, black ASIC sneakers. Just your average run-of-the-mill, angry-at-the-world white guy, who also happened to hate birds. “Excuse me?” I asked. He looked over his shoulder at me and stared but didn’t say anything. “Why did you kick at that bird out there just now? His eyes widened with a look that told me he was either shocked to be in this conversation or he had a serious thyroid issue that was flaring up at that very moment. “Why do you care?” I wasn’t sure why I did. I thought to myself, where is this going and what will it achieve? But I was already in it now, and as my heart rate began to increase, I continued, “Because I want to understand what would make you want to do something like that.” “They’re just rats with wings, what does it matter?” he scoffed. “It’s a living creature trying to survive in a place where it has every possible card stacked against it. It might just be the only wild animal that can survive above ground in this goddamn city,” my voice rising as my adrenaline flowed. He turned his back to me and mumbled, “Mind your own business,” with some colorful adjective to describe his feelings toward me that I couldn’t entirely make out. I visualized wrapping my left arm around his neck from behind and interlocking it with my right arm, the palm of my right hand cupped on the back of his head, in a tight chokehold I learned in my Krav Maga class. I imagined him struggling to free himself by grabbing the arm that was around his throat and trying to peel it away, as my hold grew tighter with every bit of resistance. I thought, too, about him having a pet at home, whatever unlucky species it might be, and imagined how scared and mistreated that poor animal was, at the whim of his insecurity and father issues. As the line moved it was his turn to order, and as I thought about saying more, I decided not to. I was at once proud of myself for not acting on my instinct, while being ashamed for not standing up for what was right. If I were to get arrested again for assault, I might have to serve actual jail time, and the prospect of that was enough to make me think twice. This was just another random act of violence that