The Last Call

and I was winning.

“Got something?” my father asked, but he said it slowly, like his mouth was filled with Karo syrup or he was on twenty-eight rpms instead of forty-five.

I did have something. Something big. I pulled it further in. I remembered that I could reel-in and pull at the same time. I cranked hard and fast on the reel, my rod bending double. I thought it might snap before I landed what was on the other end.

I got the sense that something was coming up toward me, almost could feel the slickness of it against the cloying, cottony river bottom silt on the embankment below the surface. And what was coming was not a fish.

“Not a fish,” I tried to tell my dad, only no sound came out. It was like I’d gotten too much peanut butter wedged up against the roof of my mouth.

I saw two white things down under the water as the cork came up into the air, and I could see something waving, as if blown by the wind. It was hair.

The body had been dead in the river for eons. No fish or eel or crawfish would touch it, because the dead hands brushed them away each time they come near. That was why it could pull against me. But I’d snagged it. I was bringing it in.

The two white things were eyes. They were dead and knowing and accusative all at the same time.

When the head broke the surface the eyes blinked at me. The mouth opened and gallons of water spilled out.

It was someone I knew.

“Oh,” my dad said at Driving Miss Daisy speed, “It’s just a hank. Kill him and throw him back in.”

The hank was reaching for me, green and gray fingers dripping river bottom mud, contorted, grasping at the air just a short space from my ankles.

The hank’s other arm stretched up, dislocated from its shoulder and grasped my hip and squeezed.

It was Julie, squeezing my hip. I’d been nightmaring again.

She shook me.

“Awake,” I managed to mumble. “Ahm awake.”

She stopped.

I turned and curled into her, my stubbly cheek pressing against her soft breast.

She hummed me back to sleep.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I was awake instantly at the sound of the gunshot. Someone was shooting outside our door.

Julie’s eyes were open wide and staring into mine in the gloom. Through cracks in the window curtains I could tell it was almost dawn.

Another window-rattling shot rang out.

I didn’t even think to grab my gun. I thrust my legs into my slacks and didn’t even bother with a shirt. I left Julie twisting in her bed covers and thrusting two pillows against her ears.

Outside. The morning was cool and fine.

Hank was there leaning up against the Suburban. He had a deer-rifle that I’d not seen before and he bolted home another shell as I called out his name.

“Hank! Goddammit! What the hell are you doin’?”

He looked at me. There was a sad and somber look on his face.

His left hand moved and the rifle recoiled down against his leg.

BLAM!

He was already reaching for the bottle of Jack Daniels on the Suburban running-board. Where the hell had he gotten that?

“Got eighteen more to go,” he said, slurring his words almost beyond recognition.

“Eighteen what?” I asked.

He didn’t bother to reply. He reached for another shell. There was an open box of them beside the whiskey bottle.

I noticed Dingo slinking back into the partially opened door of Hank’s motel room, her tail between her legs. Apparently she was not beyond fear, if not downright embarrassment.

“That’s enough,” I said. “Come on, give me the gun.”

“No can do, keem-bo-sobby,” he said. “He deserfs a twenty-one gun salute.”

Clang! He shot the bolt home.

“Who?” I said.

“Dock.”

BLAM!

The shot echoed off the walls of the old tourist court motel. Hank nearly dropped the gun. He was likely to have a nasty bruise on his leg later, the way he was taking all the recoil just south of his hip.

“Hey! Hey!” another voice called out. I turned to look. It was the skinny Pakistani motel clerk. “What you idiots doing?” He wore a pair of flannel long johns and burgundy house slippers.

“Uh. Nothin’” I said. “I’ve got this situation under control.”

BLAM!

I jerked.

“Control, shit!” he yelled. “You get the hell off of my business! Take Mr. Rambo wit you!”

“Now hold on!” I held up my finger in his face. He stopped.

I turned toward Hank in time to see him tossing down another shot of whiskey.

“Hank,” I said.

“Here,” he said, holding the gun out to me. I took two steps toward him and took it.

He set the whiskey bottle back down and grabbed another shell.

“Hey,” I said.

He reached and grabbed the gun, inserted the shell into the breech as I tried to pull it out of his grip.

“Hold on,” he said.

Clang! Another round was chambered.

“Oh no you don’t,” I said. I pulled back and away from him, but his right hand shot out and hit the trigger.

BLAM!

The rifle jerked in my hands. I almost lost it. My wrist would be sore for some time from the recoil and my ears had begun to ring.

“What’s that?” he asked. “Sixteen more, I think.”

The Pakistani was yelling behind me: “I already called the cops,” he said. “They come and take you crazy friend away.”

“That done it,” Hank said. He jumped up and grabbed the rifle out of my hands.

The Pakistani’s eyes went round and white. He turned and bolted.

Hank took two steps. I moved, fast. I grabbed him from behind and lifted him off the ground, which was no easy thing as he outweighed me by a good fifty pounds.

The rifle clattered to the pavement.

“What?” he yelled. “Let me down, Goddammit!”

I dropped him. He staggered and almost fell, but I caught him again.

The motel clerk was out in the highway. He stopped running suddenly, waved his arms and began pointing