I was glad to have George Morgan with me that day. Mostly riding single is all right, but when you happen on a guy who's all over the road because he's whaling on the person sitting next to him in the cab of the truck he's driving, it's nice to have a partner. As for the punching, we could see it. First as Lippy drove past our 20 and then as we pulled out behind him, this silhouette driver pistoning out his right arm, his right fist connecting again and again with the side of the passenger's silhouette head, too busy-busy-busy to realize the fuzz was crawling right up his tailpipe until George hit the reds. Fuck me til I cry, I think, ain't that prime. Next thing my old pal Brian's over on the shoulder and half in the ditch like he's been expecting it all his life, which on some level he probably has been.
If it's pot or tranks, I don't worry as much. It's like ex. They go, 'Hey, man, what's up? Did I do something wrong? I love you.' But stuff like angel dust and PCP makes people crazy. Even glueheads can go bonkers. I've seen it. For another thing, there was the passenger. It was a woman, and that could make things a lot worse. He might have been punching the crap out of her, but that didn't mean she might not be dangerous if she saw us slapping the cuffs on her favorite Martian.
Meantime, my old pal Brian wasn't stepping away from the truck as he'd been asked. He was just standing there, grinning at me, and how in God's name I hadn't recognized him right off the bat was a mystery, because at Statler High he'd been one of those kids •who makes your life hell if he notices you. Especially if you're a little pudgy or pimply, and I was both. The Army took the weight off- it's the only diet program I know where they pay you to participate - and the pimples took care of themselves in time like they almost always do, but in SHS I'd been this guy's afternoon snack any day he wanted. That 'was another reason to be happy George was with me. If I'd been alone, my old pal Bri might have gotten the idea that if he put the evil eye on me, I'd still shrivel. The more stoned he was, the more apt he was to think that.
'Step away from the truck, sir,' George said in his flat and colorless Trooper voice. You'd never believe, hearing him talk to some John Q. at the side of the road, that he could scream himself hoarse on the Little League field, yelling at kids to bunt the damn ball and to keep their heads down while they were running the bases. Or kidding with them on the bench before their games to loosen them up.
Lippy had never torn the Fruit Loops off any of George's shirts in study hall period four, and maybe that's why he stepped away from the truck when George told him to. Looking down at his boots as he did it, losing the grin. When guys like Brian Lippy lose the grin, what comes in to take its place is this kind of dopey sullenness.
'Are you going to be trouble, sir?' George asked. He hadn't drawn his gun, but his hand was on the butt of it. 'If you are, tell me now. Save us both some grief Lippy didn't say anything. Just looked down at his boots.
'His name is Brian?' George asked me.
'Brian Lippy.' I was looking at the truck. Through the back window I could see the passenger, still sitting in the middle, not looking at us. Head dropped. I thought maybe he'd beaten her unconscious. Then one hand went up to her mouth and out of the mouth came a plume of cigarette smoke.
'Brian, I want to know if we're going to have trouble. Answer up so I can hear you, now, just like a big boy.'
'Depends,' Brian said, lifting his upper lip to get a good sneer on the word. I started toward the truck to do my share of the job. When my shadow passed over the toes of his boots, Brian kind of recoiled and took a step backward, as if it had been a snake instead of a shadow. He was high, all right, and to me it was seeming more like PCP or angel dust all the time.
'Let me have your driver's license and registration,' George said.
Brian paid no immediate attention. He was looking at me again. 'ED-die JACK-you-BOYS,' he said, chanting it the way he and his friends always had back in high school, making a joke out of it. He hadn't worn any head-down Christs or Nazi swastikas back at Statler High, though; they would have sent him home if he'd tried that shit. Anyway, him saying my name like that got to me.
It was like he'd found an old electrical switch, dusty and forgotten behind a door but still wired up. Still hot.
He knew it, too. Saw it and started grinning. 'Fat Eddie JACK-you-BOYS. How many boys did you jack, Eddie? How many boys did you jack in the shower room? Or did you just get right down on your knees and suck em off? Straight to the main event. Mister Takin Care of Business.'
'Want to close your mouth, Brian?' George asked. 'You'll catch a fly.' He took his handcuffs off his belt.
Brian Lippy saw them and started to lose the grin again. 'What you think you gonna do with those?'
'If you don't hand me your operating papers right now, I'm going to put them on you, Brian.
And if you resist, I can guarantee you two things: a broken nose and eighteen months in Castlemora for resisting arrest. Could be more, depending on which judge you draw. Now what do you think?'
Brian took his wallet out of his back pocket. It was a greasy old thing with the logo of some rock group - Judas Priest, I think - inexpertly burned into it. Probably with the tip of a soldering iron. He started thumbing through the various compartments.
'Brian,' I said.
He looked up.
'The name is Jacubois, Brian. Nice French name. And I haven't been fat for quite awhile now.'
'You'll gain it back,' he said, 'fat boys always do.'
I burst out laughing. I couldn't help it. He sounded like some halfbaked guest on a talkshow.
He glowered at me, but there was something uncertain in it. He'd lost the advantage and he knew it.
'Little secret,' I said. 'High school's over, my friend. This is your actual, real life. I know that's hard for you to believe, but you better get used to it. It's not just detention anymore. This actually counts.'
What I got was a kind of stupid gape. He wasn't getting it. They so rarely do.
'Brian, I want to see your paperwork with no more delay,' George said. 'You put it right in my hand.' And he held his hand out, palm up. Not very wise, you might say, but George Morgan had been a State Trooper for a long time, and in his judgment, this situation was now going in the right direction. Right enough, anyway, for him to decide he didn't need to put the cuffs on my old friend Brian just to show him who was in charge.
