Todd Easton Mills received his bachelor's degree from Antioch University. As a young man he defined himself as a traveler, working his way around the world and supporting himself as a laborer, cook, and teacher in exotic locales such as the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Now, with his drifter days far behind me, Todd lives comfortably with his Zimbabwean wife in Santa Barbara, California. He cowrote and produced the documentary film Timothy Leary's Dead. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in ONTHEBUS, Voices, The Coe Review, Yellow Silk, AUSB Odyssey, Sage Trail, RiverSedge, Paranoia VHS, Collage, Antiochracy, and in the anthology Poets on 9-11.

Formosa Tap Nine (July 20, 2011. Issue 29.)

At Bob's they were getting ready for Skate Night, which meant Debbie and the other waitresses would be serving in sailor hats and roller skates. It was a warm, sunny afternoon, unusual for so late in October. Mr. Tucks came out of the storage room, hot and sweaty.

"What size skates do you wear, Debbie?"

"Size six, Mr. Tucks."

Mr. Tucks appraised Debbie's legs, which were quite shapely.

"The customers like it when we skate, Mr. Tucks."

"They love it, Debbie. By the way, some of the girls don't like to wear the ruffled panties. They're optional, you know." Mr. Tucks was an innuendo man with a boyish face and belly like the Big Boy.

Debbie was lost in thought. She was distracted by a billboard across the street. It was the suntanned Marlboro Man sitting on a horse. She was surprised she could read the caption under his stirrups: Rooter's Outdoor. Funny, she thought, I'm checking out guys on billboards. I must be horny.

*

Tommy Koolwas sat alone enjoying the laminated menu with illustrations of double-decker burgers in sesame buns and delicious desserts. He had blue-black hair combed back and was dressed in a leather jacket with motorcycle boots. He spoke slowly with a kind of carefree indifference that made him an interesting character to the waitresses. This evening, Debbie was serving in Tommy's section.

"Hi, you're back again," she said, pushing back her hair.

"Yeah, me again." Tommy said.

"I have been thinking about your offer."

Tommy put his menu down slowly.

"I read the handbook, Tommy. I think I would be very good at surveillance."

"Surveillance takes a special talent, Debbie. It's not for everyone."

She wasn't everyone. The man at the Department of Motor Vehicles told her he had never seen anyone like her.

"That's nothing," Debbie said. "Give me another chart." She stepped back.

"Wait a minute. Excuse me, folks," the clerk said. "We're testing the young lady. Can you give her room while she reads the chart? Go ahead, Miss. Move back as far as you like." When Debbie reached thirty feet, she stopped and covered her right eye.

"Now!" the clerk shouted triumphantly.

*

Debbie opened the spiral bound Detective's Handbook to the section on memorizing license plates. She was playing an Elvis record, "One Night With You," tapping her foot, feeling surprisingly energetic even though she had been working all day.

Debbie's well-developed daughter, Tammy, knocked on her door: "Mom, I'm hungry. What's for dinner?"

"Surprise, honey."

"Big Boy, again?"

"No, your mom is making her own concoction."

"Meatloaf burgers with stuffing?" Tammy asked.

"Mm hmm—the way you like it."

"Well, okay." Tammy had long blond hair, and her two front teeth were slightly bucked like her mother's.

"Mom, are you really going out with a greaser?"

"He's not a greaser, he's a private detective."

*

Debbie and Tommy were sitting in Tommy's gray Ford sedan, a car that was usually mistaken for a Plymouth. It was neither cleanly washed, nor noticeably dirty, so it was perfect for tailing subjects and co-subjects. They had been to Bonnie and Clyde at the Fox Theater in Van Nuys and now were parked on a dirt road above the lights of the San Fernando Valley.

"Good movie," Debbie said, after a long silence.

"Clyde has big problems," Tommy said. "He's acting out."

"You mean robbing banks?"

"Uh huh."

Debbie liked Tommy's sideburns.

My father says I act out. He's a psychiatrist."

"A psychiatrist?"

"A Freudian."

"You mean like the Freudian slip."

"Yep. Like the Freudian slip-girdle, bra-bra-bra."

"What did you say, Tommy?"

"Nothing."

"No, really." Debbie said, leaning closer.

Tommy knew he had to get this over with. "When I was a kid I had a stuttering problem, and my father thought he could cure me with a Freudian technique. Have you heard of free association?"

"I think so."

"It's when you relate to whatever comes into your mind, without, uh, censoring anything. I got very good at free association. How old is your daughter?" Tommy said, changing the subject.

"Fourteen."

"You look like sisters but I guess you hear that a lot."

"That's what people say. Do you really think I could work for you as a detective?"

"Well, what did you learn in the hand job manual?" Stakeout, make-out, manual...hand job! Damn it. Tommy's ears turned red.

"Yes, I finished it last night." she said, looking at him curiously.

"You're fast."

"I have good eyes. I liked the chapter on disguises."

"Very useful," he said. "Chapter on disguise, been cereal five. Bee hive, be good, be a good boy scout."

"What's that Tommy?"

Unplanned words were ejecting like debris from a tumbling sputnik. He needed something to grab hold of. Formosa! He needed an anchor. Formosa!

Maybe he could explain it to her like he had to his dad, how he could stop the jim-jam-scallywag with his own technique. "I just…" he started.

"Just what, Tommy?"

"Sometimes the words flood my brain, so I block them, little-feet-padding, by adding my own words. That's how I control-parole it. Formosa tap nine." He waited. "See, it stopped!"

"Did you see that?" Debbie shouted. "There's something out there, by the road sign!"

"Where?" Tommy scanned with his finger.

"Not there. There!"

"I don't see it. I don't sea cruise, man overboard... Hand me my gun from the glove box, Debbie."

"Tommy, what are you doing?

"I'm going to check it out."

"Be careful, Tommy."

He pushed his gun under his jacket. He saw a giant man with a huge head standing on the side of the road. No fear. No deer, no springing deer. No spring on the screen door. He took a breath of chilly air.

Tommy called out: "Hey buddy, you all right?"

"Fine," said a muffled voice. "Just need oil; I'll be out of here in a minute."

The mirror light went on; Debbie was lit in the soft glow.

"Are you all right, Tommy?"

Debbie had seen a man with a green head, deeply scarred with bolts in his neck, working under the hood. She saw him pull out the dipstick and hold it up to the moonlight where drops of oil glittered like black pearls.

"Strange man, big head." Tommy said.

"Really big head." Debbie laughed and slid over.

It was cold this October night, cold and thirty-first on this first date. It was crisp and the leaves were falling, a soon-moon, then a monster from the id-quid outside, now two peas in a sod-pod.

It's so good, she thought, this date. A perfect skate on a sunny afternoon, the clouds ruffling, while the wooden wheels made a satisfying sound on the uneven asphalt, as she stoked beneath the Big Boy. It was beautiful to skate like this, gliding between the parked cars, pushing with her bare legs, the Big Boy's hair tossed like a curling wave. Then Mr. Tucks appeared from the storage room with Thousand Island dressing on his chin…and the clouds went pink. Formosa tap keystroke.

"Isn't it perfect, Tommy?"

"Yes, perfect, Debbie."