Bonded Out

By Ed Faunce

I stared into the face of the famous Walther PPK 9mm. The weapon looked a bit rusty and I was worried that James Bond, Agent 007, was getting nervous. He was supposed to be a cool, sophisticated man about town, excellent under pressure. But the guy in front of me with the bad teeth and the rotting tweed jacket looked nothing like what I expected after all the publicity. This 007 was a disheveled, slightly overweight, balding middle-age man, who could’ve used a shave and a shower; particularly deodorant.

“Listen to me mate,” he said with somewhat of a lisp caused by a wicked overbite, “I want that microchip you’ve got in your pocket or I’m gonna blow your left tit off.” An interesting turn of events in anyone’s book but particularly for me. I had been doing P90x because I had gained some pounds on my usually rugged bodybuilder’s frame. True, I was a bit flabby, which is why I had been overworking my pecs. They weren’t that prominent yet so I was wondering exactly who he thought he was talking to? He shoved the barrel of the Walther right up on top of my nipple. Ouch.

“Jesus, back off a minute, would you?” I protested. “I’ll give you the damn thing. Just quit poking me, particularly in my breast.”

“Your breast? “ He said sarcastically, yet almost unintelligibly, his pronunciation impeded by some obviously bad dental work. “What do you think this is? Some kind of fucking anatomy lesson?” Pushing harder with the gun, he said “Give me the goddamn microchip or I’m going to blow that nipple clean off, mate!”

I had seen Goldeneye and realized that he had a thing for men with nipples. I deftly reached into my pocket and felt the excruciating pain on my chest increase. “Ouch! That hurt like a motherfucker.”

“Slowly, dick breath,” he stated. “I don’t want any funny business.”

Well, the business up to this point had been pretty humorless so I’m not really sure that anything was going to be laughable. I reached into my pants pocket and suddenly I couldn’t immediately reach the microchip.

“Hang on a second, I think it’s in that second pocket” I said as I rummaged in my front trouser pocket.

“What second pocket?” he questioned. “You better get that thing out here or there’s gonna be a fucking hole in your chest! “

“Now you’re in a hurry,” I snipped, which earned me another purple nurple on my now very sensitive areola.

“I should just fucking shoot you NOW and get the motherfucker myself.”

I protested painfully. “These fucking pants have a second pocket inside of the regular pocket.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” said Bond, obviously irritated. Mucous ran down his lip in the chill of the evening.

I answered his question. “Yes. All these new trousers that you buy off the rack have these little secondary pockets sewn in to the inside to keep things separate, for keys and the like. I can feel the microchip but I just can’t get to it.” Wiggling around to get hold of the electronic fugitive in my pocket must have made him angrier.

In frustration, James Bond mumbled.

“You fucker!” He looked around to see if anyone was watching, trying to plan his next move. The alley was empty. 007 reached out and grabbed my pocket and, with a pull, violently ripped my entire pocket away from my trousers, exposing my bare leg and part of my boxer briefs.

“Those are $150 trousers, you ass wipe!” At my howl of protest, he moved the Walther away from my nipple and stuck it in my left nostril. This did not help the situation but my pecs felt a lot better. Bond moved in so close that I could smell the garlic and fish on his breath.

He growled “I want you to give me that fucking microchip. Is it in your pocket or not?” Bond tersely looked in my eye.

I replied as best as I could with a now plugged nose. “Yes.”

“Then give it to me. If you want to live.”

Looking down where my pocket lay with the rest of my trouser leg in a muddy puddle, I stated as best as I could, “My pocket is now on the ground.” Bond was now so close to my face his cigarette-stained teeth and nostril hair were highly visible even in the dimly-lit alley.

“Don’t. Make. A. Fucking. Move.” His bloodshot eyes stared into mine.

Holding the Walther to my nose, he slowly squatted his rather rotund body down to reach into the now soaking pocket. Bond’s knees cracked. It was hard for him to breathe, probably some type of COPD from all those years of smoking French cigarettes. He pointed the Walther as close as he could to my face while he tried to retrieve the now soaking cloth from my trouser pocket out of the fetid pothole water. It was obvious he couldn’t see well.

“Would you move the fuck back? I have no light down here!” Bond’s wheezing voice squeaked. Pushing me backward with his gun hand he reached with his other hand to squirrel around in my trouser leg remnants.

“Fucking hell, who thought of these fucking second pockets inside of an original pocket?

“It makes no fucking sense” I agreed.

Bond continued to gripe and wheeze his sartorial protests.

“There it is…I’ve got it,” he wheezed with renewed confidence in his voice.

That’s when he lost his balance.

Five minutes later, I stood looking down at the now lifeless body of James Bond, Agent 007 of his Majesty’s Secret Service. His trousers also ripped, I think, when he squatted down. A hole in one of his shoes as well, with some gaff tape applied to keep out stones. He had tried to catch himself, dropping the weapon. The Walther, a regularly good gun, had hit a spot in the pockmarked concrete and discharged straight up through Bond’s chin, exiting his cranium. Reaching into my other pocket, I pulled out my smart phone and turned the flashlight on for a look around. Bond had truly retrieved the microchip before his death. I pulled it from his now very pliable hands.

Reaching into my jacket pocket while pulling out a safety pin, which I carried in case of a wardrobe emergencies, I pinned the wayward leg back to my waist. Looking down at the corpse I surmised that Bond had seen better days, with both his physicality and his tailoring.He was right about modern trousers, though. Those pockets are killers.

Looking to the other end of the alley, I saw his Aston Martin. It had a space saver spare on the front and what looked like a trash bag duct taped over the passenger side front windows. Possibly because of bullet holes, I thought, or it could be a failure in the mechanics that roll the window up. After all it was a forty-five-year-old car.

Opening my ride-sharing app, I lamented the good old days. When men’s trousers were delicately tailored without the irritating second inside pocket. When the great 00 agents ruled the world. In our dreams.