1
The convertible fishtailed to a stop, disappearing into the darker part of the highway, and right before it did, I caught the ghostly reflection of something in one of its mirrors, some kind of monster that faded with the car’s movement. Then the driver was out of the car and running toward Crier. I knew the moment I saw his cowboy hat that it was Steve from back at Shit Town.
I got my feet out of the glue and started over to Crier. Steve was down on his knees feeling Crier’s chest and neck. He looked up at me and said, “Dead as a rock.”
I tried to kick Steve in the face, but he caught my foot and pulled me on my butt.
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” he said.
I tried to get up and swarm him. He jabbed me in the chest with his palm and knocked me on my butt again.
“I didn’t see him. He shouldn’t have been standing in the highway.”
“You sonofabitch. You goddamn sonofabitch.”
Bob and Grace came over. As they neared us they slowed down, as if taking small steps would give the reality of the thing time to go away.
When they stood over us and looked down, Bob said, “Damn. One thing after another.”
“One of you get his feet,” Steve said, “and let’s get him out of the road before we get creamed by somebody.”
Grace got Crier’s feet and Steve got him under the arms and they started him off the highway. Crier’s hand fell off his chest and he dropped what he was holding.
“Put him down,” Steve said.
They lowered him to the highway and Steve picked up what Crier had dropped and put it in Crier’s shirt pocket. It poked out the top like a periscope.
They picked him up again and carried him over to the side of the road, and Steve went and got in his car and pulled it over to our side and walked back to us. I kept thinking I’d find something on the ground to pick up and hit Steve with, but the urge was going away. There didn’t seem to be any reason to hit anyone.
Grace didn’t feel that way. She kicked Steve flush in the balls. He dropped to his knees and had a facial workout. When that was over and he got his breath back, he said, “Damn, lady.”
“It didn’t make me feel as good as I hoped,” Grace said, “but it still does a little something for me.”
Then the camper blew up.
2
Hot, sticky morning with the convertible’s tape deck blasting Sleepy LaBeef who’s singing something about how he’s a boogie-woogie man, jetting along with the top down, doing about ninety plus, me in the front seat, Steve at the wheel, bugs on the windshield, Grace, Bob and Crier in the back. Crier strapped in with a seat belt, leaning to the left, head partly out the window, hair standing up like wire, eyelids blown back by the wind, eyes glassy as cheap beads, pecker in his pocket, the tip of it shriveling and turning brown.
“Oh no,” Grace says, “the fire’s all right. It isn’t too big. No sir. Just right. I’m in front of it. No problem. It’s not too close to the truck. Ol’ Bob’s got it under control. Ol’ Bob’s got it by the balls. Ol’ Bob-”
“Shut up, will you,” Bob says.
Steve sings along with Sleepy LaBeef. New bugs hit the windshield. Outside the scenery is changing. More popcorn bags and garish posters lying about, blowing up as we jet by. The trees are starting to fill with film. Broken TV sets and fragments of antennas clutter the side of the road. Crier’s pecker continues to wither.
Steve moves the convertible up to a hundred and it’s rocking a little. The sun is glinting off the hood and the tires are whining: I hope no one is standing in the road. All seats are taken.
3
High noon and we ran out of Sleepy LaBeef. Then we got Steve.
“Now the reason I’m here is my wife. Finding out your gal can work a dick better than Tom Mix could work a lariat is all right, but the bad news on a thing like that is finding out the dick she works best don’t belong to you. Wrong cow pony, you know. It can deflate a man’s ego.”
“What about you?” Grace said.
“Oh yeah,” Steve said, not catching her tone. “Especially when all I ever got was the old in-and-out and are- you-finished-yet.”
“Imagine that,” Grace said.
“Worse than that, her man was none other than Fred Trual, and that goddamn got me, I’ll tell you. He’s a real baboon’s ass, all the personality of a snot rag and as loyal as a paid-for date. He also stole my song ‘My Baby Done Done Me Wrong,’ and that was enough for me to swear I’d kill him.
“How in hell do you figure a woman. This Fred is not only ugly, but he’s been in the pen and rumor has it he poisoned his old maiden aunt for what she was gonna leave him, and he knew that wasn’t nothing but five hundred dollars. I mean we’re talking a greedy sonofabitch here. He even eats until he gets sick. I’ve known him since grade school. Wasn’t worth a damn then either. But the gals always went for him. Must have had some kind of smell that got to them. Had to be that. He wasn’t pretty and he wasn’t smart and he wasn’t nice. He and Tina Sue even stole my car.”
“See you got it back,” I said. “Are you sure we heard both sides of Sleepy?”
“About three times to a side,” Steve said. “I got it back all right, but not because they gave it to me. I’ll tell you about it.”
“That’s all right,” Grace said. “No need to bother.”
“I don’t mind,” Steve said, and he made a corner and the tires screeched like startled owls. “I told myself when I caught up with them I was going to kill Fred. I thought I might even kill her too. And I thought when they were both dead I was going to get out my guitar and sing the song I wrote over their dead bodies, then maybe on the back of my guitar I’d write another one in their blood, right then and there. That’s how mad I was. Nasty, huh.”
“You’re not a nice fella, Steve,” Bob said.
“Now I didn’t mean to run over that ol’ boy, I swear it. I’m a sensitive fella, don’t think I’m not. I mean I can write the kind of songs that make the whiningest, sorriest-living, beer-drinkingest and gal-losingest sonofabitch cry like a baby with a thermometer up its ass. Kind of song that’ll make women’s thangs tingle and make fellas call home to make sure their old ladies aren’t doing it with the next-door neighbor. Know what I mean?”
“I think you sort of summed it up there,” Bob said.
“It’ll make me a rich man. Or would if we were back in the real world. I’d be able to buy clothes that aren’t on sale at the goddamn K-mart. Go to some place to buy stuff that ain’t made out of genuine plastic and genuine cheap. I’d be able to get me a new hat made out of real hat stuff and have it be one of those with a fancy band around it with a feather fresh out of a peacock’s ass sticking up in it. I’d get me some unchewed toothpicks to stick in the band. I’d move to Nashville and sing my sexy little heart out. I’d wine and dine and chase them honky-tonk angels until my dick needed a wheelchair to get around. Course, that’s what I would have done. I reckon Fred’s made a mint off it now. It’s probably on the radio back home. Go in any joint with a juke and I bet you can hear my song coming out of it, probably sung by George Jones or Randy Travis. And ol’ Fred’s spending my money. Tell you, I still want to kill him. If I got the chance I’d kill him deader than the ol’ boy in the back seat there, then I’d really get rough.”
“I take it you don’t like Fred,” Bob said.
“You’re getting it. Let me backtrack on my story here.“
“I thought that was all of it,” Grace said. “I mean that’s enough to hold me. What about you guys?”
