A Concatenation of Misfortune

The metal spoon met the floor with a vibrating clink dragging Sam back from his reverie.

“And I’ll get that with a side of hash browns and a fresh cup of coffee with three sugars but hold the cream.” Sam focused on the dark and obscurely long chin hair wriggling as the old woman mumbled on her breakfast order. When she had finally finished reciting the entire menu, he stumbled back to the kitchen and uncaringly passed the note of indecipherable scribbles to the feigned chef.

“Cheque please” a coarse voice grumbled from the diner bar. Sam sighed as he reached for the petite black bill folder and slid it across the counter to the man. He studied him for a moment, wondering when the old croak had even entered, let alone ordered and had now paid up and was on his way out. Sam was humble enough to wait until the white bearded stranger was out of sight before reaching for the leather wallet to learn what underwhelming tip had been left for him.

You will drop the food.

Confusion soaked up the air as Sam absorbed the words. He flicked through the following empty pages realising the man had left behind his little black book and taken the bill presenter instead. Sam sighed again.

The chaotic melody of the diner bell rang calling Sam to service. He tossed the book into the trash and dragged his feet along the soiled floors to collect the overfilled tray. He paused for a moment as the dooming words flashed in his mind, but the gag-worthy sight of the old woman clicking her false teeth into place in preparation for her meal, left no room for his thoughts. Her smile grew wider and the chin hair straightened up as he neared her.

The synchronicity of it all was almost poetic. As if it had occurred in slow-motion to an instrumental sound track. The cut of bacon slapped the ancient hag right in the centre of her face as if a war cry for all food to come raining down. And it did.

An uproar of silence followed. Nothing but the sad drips of coffee hitting the ground made a sound.

“ISAMBARD FERNSBY HAUL YOURSELF TO MY OFFICE NOW” the manager screeched out of the PA system into the diner.

Sam shuddered at the sound of his unfortunate name. He anchored himself to the nearest booth and stood up. He wiped down his apron and glumly headed towards the back of the restaurant, taking one last peak at the sad looking chin hair.

He made sure to retrieve the little black book and slid it into his back pocket as he headed towards the cherry on top of another miserable day.

***

Sam sat in his raggedy Nissan Pulsar rubbing his temples in hopes of ridding himself of the events that had transpired that day.

After a gruelling hour-long lecture about the disappointment that he is and the aura of pessimism he brings wherever he goes, he had been let off for the day and asked not to return until he could put the smile in Smiley’s Breakfast Bar.

He opened his eyes and felt for the little black book. He touched the moleskin cover absorbing the smooth, textured feel of it. He turned it around hoping to find any sign or symbol to explain its prediction. He flicked it open.

You will be $20,000 richer today

Sam let out a hysterical laugh.

He wiped the tears from his eyes and threw the book out the window as he drove away. He chuckled in disbelief as he recalled thinking it a fortune telling book.

***

The Metallica music blasted loud enough to cover the piercing shriek of the sirens erupting from the somewhat dilapidated bank.

Sam tapped along to the rhythm as he waited at the red light, completely oblivious to the masked men sprinting towards his car.

The light turned green just as all three doors sprang open and the men hopped into the car hastily yelling at him to go.

Never before had Sam noticed how time was very much like water; in that it could pass slowly, one drop at a time or rush by in a flash. That very moment seemed like a concoction of both leaving him nonplussed. He found his hands frozen on his steering wheel and yet his feet commanded the car to life. He pushed the accelerator all the way down and his Pulsar jolted forward to a dispiriting maximum speed of 60.

The masked men’s tumultuous demands for him to get going paused as they turned to him. He could feel the furious eyes gleaming at him from the badly cut out holes in their hoods but he focused his attention on the road and pushing his car to its peak speed which as his luck would have it, fell below the speed limit.

“We just robbed a bank and you couldn’t find a car that moves faster than an old lady on a Powerchair!” The man in the passenger seat squawked at Sam.

Sam shook away his disoriented thoughts to defend the finite dignity of his car when a little old lady actually passed them on a Powerchair. She paused her angry fist shaking when she realised who the driver was. Sam pushed down on the accelerator hoping his little red car would pull away from the food-ridden woman and her feisty chin hair.

“You robbed a bank” Sam knew better to sneer at the stranger who had seemingly just robbed a bank, “and I’m driving you away from that bank.” He hoped saying it out loud would explain the ridiculousness of the situation. It didn’t.

“If you can call this driving!” The man in the back seat called.

A barrage of words erupted as the men began to yell accusations of fault. They didn’t seem to realise they had hopped into the wrong getaway car.

Sam drove onwards, deep in the philosophical thought of how being an accessory after the fact might just be the most interesting thing he had ever done in his life.

The screaming was quickly swapped out with cheers at having pulled off the heist. Sam still didn’t quite capture the absurdity of what he was doing but did know that he couldn’t drive on forever and needed a destination.

He pondered the appropriate manner of posing the question to the criminal occupants of his car but his words were ripped out of his mouth when the blue and red lights began flashing and the sirens overcome the air.

It was time.

The hours he had spent playing Mario Kart in his murky abode came convenient in his pint-sized jalopy. He swerved between the traffic without using his blinkers and even dared to pass a yellow light. But the officer was relentless.

Sam felt the adrenaline pump through his veins and the cheers of his felonious car buddies only made the moment more intense. He had failed at everything in his life but for reasons he couldn’t make sense of, he refused to lose now. He caught a glimpse of the police car hungrily chasing him down and prayed for a miracle turbo booster to appear on the back of his wreckage to build distance.

And then it happened.

He swerved rapidly into an off street hoping that there would be a series of twists and turns he could disappear into.

But just like everything else in his life, his car and navigation skills betrayed him too.

The engine began to sputter and backfire just as he approached the cul-de-sac.

Sam saw his life flash before his eyes. It was brief and boring.

“You did not seriously just run out of petrol!” all three voices rang out at once.

“I’m sorry but criminal activity wasn’t on my to do list today”. The eyes stared back at him in confusion.

“You..” the passenger-side robber was silenced by the blinding police lights that came to a halt behind them blocking the only entry and exit to the street.

If there was ever a way to describe his life, it would be a concatenation of misfortune.

“Step out of the vehicle and place your hands on your heads” the coarse voice grumbled over the speaker.

Sam stepped out first, the other three followed. He knelt down beside his car resting his hands on his head as they do in the movies he’d watched.

“I knew this would end badly, why did you think this would be a good idea” the robber sulked.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time. I don’t know.” His colleague retorted.

A single officer stepped out. He approached the foursome and began to cuff them.

“Isn’t this the part where you say you have the right to remain silent and anything I say can and will be used against me” the still sulking robber questioned.

The officer remained silent.

He approached Sam and Sam obediently put his hands out in front of him in surrender.

“Pathetic” the cop spat.

He grabbed Sam and walked him towards the police car pushing him into the backseat.

Sam watched the officer carefully. Something seemed oddly familiar about him. He watched as the officer returned to the pitiful getaway car and pulled a black duffel bag from the back seat.

He watched as the officer left the three criminals sitting there cuffed by the side walk and returned to the police car.

He watched as the officer got into the driver’s seat and backed out of the street.

“I’m sure you’ve done this many times and I’m really not one to tell a servant of the law how to do their job but leaving them behind doesn’t really seem like something from the rule book.” Sam respectfully spoke.

“You mean these rule books” the officer dumped a heap of little black moleskin books into Sam’s lap.

It hit him all at once.

This was the man from the diner earlier in the day. These were replicas of the fortune telling book he had found.

“Are you a wizard” Sam regretted the words as they left his mouth.

The man pulled the white beard off his face and turned towards Sam.

His mouth instantly dried up and his palms began to sweat.

“No… it can’t be… you’re supposed to be dead”

“I’m as alive as the sky is blue son.” Oswald Pacome stared back at Sam

The most infamous heist mastermind that had ever existed. It all made sense now. Oswald Pacome was a worldwide phenomenon renowned for swapping his respectable job as a psychiatrist to pulling off the most impossible heists in the world using Covert Hypnosis.

He was also Sam’s grandfather.

The pieces fell together instantly. Why he had dropped the food. Why the robber trio jumped in with him. Why he had the sudden urge to aid and abet rather than pull into the nearest police station. It was all mind games.

He let out a small laugh at the ingenuity of it all.

“But the book” Sam questioned. It was the only thing that he couldn’t figure out.

“I learnt how to read and write in school too son. While you made a fool of yourself, I sneaked back into the kitchen and swapped out the books.”

Sam continued to laugh, but this time at the stupidity of it all.

Oswald Pacome threw the duffel bag at Sam.

Sam unzipped it.

His eyes almost fell out of his head. He had never seem that much money in his entire life.

He counted $20,000.

“There’s plenty more where that came from son. Stick with me and I will teach you everything your mother wished she could before she passed on.”

Sam had spent every minute of his life alone. Until now.

“Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life son.”

For the first time in a very long time, Isambard Fernsby smiled wholly.