five I dollars for them, wrote the sale carefully down on her pad
below 'ONE DOZ. ASSORTED POTHOLDERS & HOTPADS,'
then turned back to Kinnell.
They went out to Arizona,' she said, 'to stay with Iris's folks. I
know George is looking for work out there in Flagstaff-he's a
draftsman-but I don't know if he's found any yet. If he has, I
suppose we might not ever see them again here in Rosewood. She
marked out all the stuff she wanted me to sell-Iris did - and told me
I could keep twenty percent for my trouble. I'll send a check for the
rest. There won't be much.' She sighed.
'The picture is great,' Kinnell said.
'Yeah, too bad he burned the rest, because most of this other stuff
is your standard yard sale crap, pardon my French. What's that?'
Kinnell had turned the picture around. There was a length of
Dymotape pasted to the back.
'A tide, I think.'
'What does it say?'
He grabbed the picture by the sides and held it up so she could read
it for herself This put the picture at eye level to him, and he studied
it eagerly, once again taken by the simpleminded weirdness of the
subject; kid behind the wheel of a muscle car, a kid with a nasty,
knowing grin that revealed the filed points of an even nastier set of
teeth.
It fits, he thought. If ever a title futted a painting, this one does.
' The Road Virus Heads North,' she read. 'I never noticed that
when my boys were lugging stuff out. Is it the tide, do you think?'
'Must be.' Kinnell couldn't take his eyes off the blond kid's grin. I
know something, the grin said. I know something you never will.
'Well, I guess you'd have to believe the fella who did this was high
on drugs,' she said, sounding upset - authentically upset, Kinnell
thought. 'No wonder he could kill himself and break his mamma's
heart.'
'I've got to be heading north myself,' Kinnell said, tucking the
picture under his arm. 'Thanks for-'
' Mr. Kinnell?'
'Yes?'
'Can I see your driver's license?' She apparently found nothing
ironic or even amusing in this request. 'I ought to write the number
on the back of your check.'
Kinnell put the picture down so he could dig for his wallet. 'Sure.
You bet.'
The woman who'd bought the Star Wars placemats had paused on
her way back to her car to watch some of the soap opera playing on
the lawn TV. Now she glanced at the picture, which Kinnell had
propped against his shins.
'Ag,' she said. 'Who'd want an ugly old thing like that? I'd think
about it every time I turned the lights out.'
'What's wrong with that?' Kinnell asked.
Kinnell's Aunt Trudy lived in Wells, which is about six miles north
