“Dang.”
Bill thought that the thing to do now was kill Pete. Pete probably wouldn’t remember he had been out here, but if he killed him, threw his body in the river, he wouldn’t have that worry. Except there would be a dead body to fish out and it would obviously be murder. He could make it look like an accident, not murder. Maybe Double Buckwheat could end up taking the rap. He might be able to work that. Damn, you had a Siamese twin up for murder, were they both guilty? Could one rat on the other? Could you kill one and let the other live, saw off a head, have the other go around with one head and a cauterized stump?
Pete looked at Bill as if he had never seen him before, which was the way he looked at him every time he saw him, or anybody. For Pete, all days were new days. A nap was like a rebirth.
Bill, without saying a word, turned and walked back to camp. When he looked back, Pete was following. Bill went between two trailers, cut left, and went back to the Ice Man’s trailer and stood for a moment on the steps. He could smell the river strong now, and it was unlike before. It was not the fresh clean smell of being born, but instead the old smell of dirt and decay.
Bill heard Pete tromping around the trailer in his direction. He slipped inside and locked the door. He listened with his ear to the door. He heard Pete come up on the steps and pull the handle. The handle popped back into place out of Pete’s hand. He heard Pete say: “Blow me. You blow me, I blow you. Turns.”
Bill took a deep breath and let it out as quietly as possible. He heard the steps creak and thought he heard Pete moving away. He went to the window beside the Ice Man’s freezer, eased back the curtain and peeked out. Pete was staring back at the window over his shoulder. Bill was certain Pete saw him. Bill let the curtain drop slowly. He went over to the bed, kicked off his socks and shoes, lay down and looked at the ceiling. A few minutes later he got up and turned off the light and looked out the window and saw that Pete had turned and was facing the window, watching. It was as if Pete had forgotten who he had made his blow job deal with.
Bill dropped the curtain, lay back down and looked at the ceiling some more.
I should have killed Pete, he thought. I could have killed him and maybe somehow fixed it so Double Buckwheat took the rap. I thought of that and I didn’t do it. I think of things I should do and don’t do, and things I shouldn’t do, and those I do. It’s the way I am. I wouldn’t know a good choice if it bit me in the ass and hung on.
He got up and turned on the light and looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. His shirt was filthy where he had been crawling on the damp ground. And so was the front of his pants. He took his shirt and pants off and, wearing his underwear, he hauled them into the shower with him. He scrubbed his clothes with the bar of soap and scrubbed himself. He squeezed water out of his clothes and hung them up to dry on the shower curtain. He peeled off the wet underwear and twisted water out of them and hung them up as well. He dried off and went over to the window and looked out. Pete was still there, looking expectant. Bill went back to bed and lay there naked.
I need to go out there now, before daylight, and make Pete think I’m going to blow him, and take him down to the river and toss him in and let him drown.
No. I’ve done too much already. What I ought to do is get up there on the whirligig and screw those bolts back on with my fingers so they’re tight enough to hold, that’s what I ought to do. So far I haven’t killed anyone. I’ve made some fuck-ups, but Chaplin killed that guy at the firecracker stand, and Mama died and I didn’t report it, and the cop chased Fat Boy and me into the swamp and Fat Boy died of snake bites, then the deputy killed himself by accident, but I haven’t killed anyone. No one.
Not yet.
I could stop all of this if I just go up there and fasten those bolts. Christ, I ought not to have loosened them in the first place. I should have stayed inside. I shouldn’t have answered the door. I shouldn’t have picked up that wrench, and I sure shouldn’t have climbed up there to loosen those bolts. I shouldn’t ever have laid down with that devil woman. I got time to correct things. I can go out there in a bit and climb up again and fasten those bolts with my fingers. I can do that. And I will.
So what? You don’t help her, she’ll get him anyway. It might not be the day coming, but it’ll be some tomorrow soon.
Sure, that’s right. But it won’t be me doing it. I could even tell Frost. I could warn him. I could do all kinds of things and it wouldn’t happen at all. I don’t need her. I don’t need anything she’s got. But then I like what she’s got. She’s got plenty. She’s got whatever it is, and she’s got plenty of it, whatever it is.
The thing I ought to do is forget what she’s got and go out there right now and tighten those bolts. That’s right. Yeah, the bolts. I’ll do that. The bolts… The bolts…
When Bill awoke it was to a scream and a clatter.
Twenty-eight
The fresh morning was bright and a little warm when Bill charged out of the Ice Man’s trailer after having jerked on his pants and shoes. Glancing up at the whirligig, he saw the bucket had dipped down and it swung back and forth like a steam shovel scoop and little pops of fresh green paint were falling down from it like a slow radioactive rain.
Bill had never heard of Icarus, but the way Conrad lay, his neck bent, his back twisted in an even deeper U, his hind legs up in the air and drooping, balancing as if he were trying to do a trick by standing on his neck with his feet in the air, he had crashed in a way Icarus might have crashed after his wings melted from the heat of the sun.
Two gallons of bright green paint had exploded like a giant avocado all over the ground and Conrad. It had splattered onto the Ice Man’s trailer, splotching the side of it as if someone had chewed and spat out great wads of spinach. Some of the paint had spattered across the image of the Ice Man and had beaded up into fast-drying balls that looked like uncut emeralds.
A paintbrush, wet with paint, had flown onto the window of the Ice Man’s trailer and had stuck there as if it were an exotic bird that had smashed into it. One of Conrad’s shoes was lying upright in a puddle of paint.
Already there were others gathering. Pete, who Bill thought may have waited there all night for a blow job, and now, screaming, U.S. Grant, and a midget named Spike, spinning about on one leg uttering obscenities. Others were appearing: Double Buckwheat, pumpkin heads, some greasers, and finally Frost.
Frost and Bill moved toward Conrad at the same time. They arrived at his side at the same time. Conrad’s head was turned and he lay with one side of his face in the dirt and the eye they could see was popped out of place on the tendons. It lay on his cheek as if trying to crawl off. There was green paint running down his long nose and over his top lip, gathering in the crease where his mouth was open, bathing a handful of teeth scattered inside his mouth. Another two or three teeth lay in a puddle of paint around his head. There was more green paint than blood, but there was blood too. Conrad was breathing in a rattling sort of way, like something fragile had been crunched inside of cellophane and was continually being unwrapped or danced upon.
Bill got down on his hands and knees and looked at the eyeball that was out of the socket so Conrad could see him. Above, the eyelash winked as if it still housed its charge.
“Fugged ub,” Conrad said, spitting out teeth and paint.
“Oh shit, Conrad,” Bill said.
“It’ll be all right, Conrad,” Frost said.
“Nuwont,” Conrad said.
“God, Conrad,” Bill said. “Jesus Christ.”
“Uhtradta grubuhrailn. Dudnt mageid.”
“Sure,” Bill said.
“Uhtradto thunk rubba.”
I bet, thought Bill.
Frost gently picked up the eyeball by the tendon and turned the eye so it could see him. “I’m sorry, Conrad.”
“Yeg, bud dun’elp nun.”
Frost lay the eyeball gently on Conrad’s cheek. He turned and yelled at the spinning midget. “Call someone. Get my cell phone. Tell Gidget. Call someone. 911!”
