today. She, of all people, should know that brain chemistry could go out of balance through no fault of the brain’s host. Suffering a mental illness was no cause to treat the man like an ax murderer.
“Tamara,” she said, peering into the cab just in case the man happened to be carrying an ax.
“Tamara,” he echoed. “That’s what I figured.”
“Why is that?” Seven miles from nowhere in every direction and she had no way to protect herself. She eased two steps away from the truck.
“Didn’t you hear it?”
“Hear what?”
“You ought to listen better.”
She looked around. No vehicles were approaching. She was about to ask if the man had seen any other strange animals when he waved toward the forest that climbed the slope of the mountain.
“The trees, ” he said. “They’re saying things that ain’t right.”
“Excuse me?”
“They’re liars.”
He rolled up his window and headed down the road, the truck’s exhaust lingering in her nostrils. Tamara looked up the face of Bear Claw, wondering what sort of “it” the man had imagined there.
The alien aspirated, drawing air through the plants it had converted, and absorbing the energy of the animals that had become part of its own flesh. As it expanded and its roots probed deeper, more symbols collected in the heart-brain center. The symbols brought pain, but pain was necessary, because pain was survival. If the creature was going to become part of this planet, the planet must join in return, a symbiosis that was thicker than blood and sap.
The symbol pierced its fungal walls and lodged in its center, where the other symbols were stirred in the confused soup of sleep.
Tah-mah-raa.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Jimmy had rounded up Peggy’s first official customer.
Howard Pennifield entered the trailer behind Jimmy, his shoulders sloped like a gorilla's. He blinked stupidly and looked around at the clutter, trying not to stare at Peggy sitting splay legged on the couch with a drink in her hand. She eyed him, trying to size him up. She knew him from Little League, because his kid was on Little Mack's baseball team. She wondered if Howard could wield a bat better than his slow-witted kid could.
Peggy had spent almost an hour deciding how to dress. She wasn't sure if she should go for the sophisticated look, with fake fur and that kind of stuff, or just act naturally. She didn’t think men wanted to pay for 'natural,' they could get 'natural' from their wives, bruised-looking eyes and hair in curlers and wrinkles backfilled with foundation.
She didn't have a whole lot of accessories. Maybe she would make Jimmy invest in some of those see- through garments and thin-strapped lingerie they sold in that Frederick's of Hollywood catalog that kept showing up in the mail.
In the end, she had chosen her Kmart negligee that was a shimmering pink with ruffles along the bustline. She had skipped the panties. May as well give them an eyeful. It wasn't like she was going to be standing on a street corner or anything. She gave the two men the provocative look she had been practicing in the mirror. She noted with amusement that Jimmy licked his lips like a weasel.
'We parked behind the woods, Peg, and walked in around the back way,' Jimmy said. 'May as well keep a low profile, at least here at first.'
Howard nodded as if his head were a sack of feed.
'Then what are you doing here, Jimmy?” Peggy said. “You going to hold it for him?'
A shadow crossed Jimmy's face, then he said, 'This here's Howard. Don't know if you know him or not.'
'We've met. Hello, Howard.' She gave him a painted smile. He nodded again. She hoped the bulge in his wallet was as big as the bulge at the front of his pants.
'Well, let's get this show on the road,' she said, dragging at her cigarette and taking a painful pull of cheap whiskey. Jimmy, looking a little uncomfortable, leaned down to whisper to her.
'I was wondering if, you know, you and me first? Just for old time's sake. Plus-' he leaned right to her ear-'He wants to watch.'
'What's half of fifty? That’ll be twenty-five bucks, Jimmy.'
'Damn you, girl, it's supposed to be like before. Us being in love and shit.'
She let the negligee ride up a little more, until the soft down of her love nest showed. Jimmy licked his lips again.
“Twenty-five bucks,” she said. “Take it or leave it.”
Peggy enjoyed this new feeling of power. Maybe this little enterprise had more advantages than just bringing in some cash. She stood and walked to the bedroom, curling her feet a little so that her rear wiggled under the hem of the negligee.
Howard spoke for the first time. 'You said seventy-five, and she said fifty. What's the deal, Jimmy?'
'Hush up, you peckerhead. You ask for extras, you got to pay for extras.'
The men followed her into the room where she lay in the sagging curve of the bare mattress. Jimmy dropped a pile of green bills on the bedside table and began shucking off his boots and shirt. Howard nodded at her. She winked and stared at the ceiling, imagining a prince swooping from the clouds on a winged white horse.
Reggie Speerhorn parked his Camaro behind the GasNGo. He walked through the kudzu-draped jack pines where he and Jimmy had smoked bushels of dope together, then hopped over the oily little stream that bordered the trailer park. He had found that afternoons were a perfect time to get a piece off Junior's mom, before the bus dropped off Junior's dipshit brother. And Junior was probably drooling and puking right now, his guts ripped by moonshine. Reggie hoped Peggy's boot-brained redneck lover hadn't beaten him to the punch again.
He walked past the silent huddled trailers that were crowded together like sardine cans on a grocery shelf. He didn't understand how people could live like this. Car engines and baby-doll parts were strewn through the bare red yards. Clotheslines sagged from the weight of ragged blankets and underwear with big holes in the crotch. Even the scavenger birds avoided this place, as if instinctively knowing that not a crust of bread would escape these sorry tables.
The Ford pickup wasn't parked in front of the Mull trailer. Neither was Junior's dad's truck. Reggie crept around a rusty oil barrel toward the trailer, feeling a shiver of excitement ripple up his spine. He tried to picture Peggy at the window, her hand on her pale cheek, waiting for him to drop by, a maiden longing for her prince.
As he passed the end of the trailer, he heard voices coming from inside. He stooped and ducked under the trailer through a ragged gap in the white aluminum underpinning. He put his ear to the floor. Peggy was saying something, and the mattress was squeaking. Reggie could hear the bed's bare iron legs lifting and settling, lifting and settling, on the groaning floor.
He looked at the tar-papered tool shed twenty feet away. He could get up on top of it and see through the window. That old apple tree would hide him, that tree with the split trunk and gnarled nest of elbows. A few snowballs of white blossoms protruded from its upper branches as if the tree hadn't yet realized it was dying.
He glanced around the trailer park. Somewhere a kid was squalling like she had a razor blade under her fingernail, and a dog barked weakly from the end of its chain. Traffic flared past on the distant highway, but the rest of the park was hushed, as if smothered by poverty.
Reggie slipped behind the shed and scrabbled up its boarded side, pushing his feet against the knots in the apple tree. He wriggled onto the roof, hoping the shed wouldn't collapse. The tips of the tree branches skittered on the tin sheeting around him like wet chalk on a blackboard. He held his breath and looked through the trailer window, still slightly buzzed from his lunchtime smoke break.
A man was standing in the room, someone Reggie didn't know. He was nodding his big head and scratching
