Six Bad Things

Rolf looks over the seat into the front of the bus.

– What’s up?

– We need gas. Baker’s right up here. I’m gonna pull off. And, dudes, we can check out the World’s Tallest Thermometer.

I stay in the back and look at Rolf’s day pack and think about the guns in it.

SID PULLS off the I-5 onto Baker Boulevard, into the heart and soul of Baker. That heart and soul is an expanse of tarmac that hosts the Mad Greek, the “Original” Bun Boy, the Country Store (“the Luckiest Lotto Dealer in California”), and the Will’s Fargo, Bun Boy, and Arne’s Royal Hawaiian motels. All have a great view of the thermometer. Then again, all of Baker has a view of the hundred-and-thirty-four-foot thermometer.

– Sid?

– Dude?

– Isn’t this stop playing against the plan to keep moving?

– Dude, we need gas. Oh, man, check it out!

He’s pointing at the thermometer.

– I’m gonna get a picture.

He grabs a disposable camera from the glove box and jumps out of the VW. We watch as he runs to the base of the thermometer, stands with his back to it, holds the camera at waist level, pointing it up at himself, and clicks a picture. Then he runs back and jumps in.

– That is gonna be rad.

He pulls the bus under the brightly lighted awning of a Shell station.

– Uh, dudes, I could kinda use some gas money.

Rolf pats his pockets, ignoring the seventy-five grand wrapped around his middle.

– Yeah, dude, I’m kinda tapped too.

I reach in my pocket. After buying the BMW, I have just under four thousand left. I take five hundred off the roll and hold the cash out to Sid.

– For travel expenses.

– Dude, you sure?

– Yeah.

– You are so cool. Thanks, dude.

He hops out to fill that tank and climbs back in a couple minutes later.

– Dude in the station says we got to have a strawberry shake at that Mad Greek place. How ’bout it? My treat, seein’ as I’m flush.

He parks at the far end of the lot, away from the lights, and goes in for the shakes. I get out and stand, stretching my cramped limbs and trying to walk the stiffness out of the wound in my left thigh. My head is still goofy. If I turn it too quickly everything blurs and I have to wait for all the ghost images to catch up with the real world. But my stomach has settled and I’m looking forward to my shake.

Sid comes back. I slide the side door of the bus open, sit on the floor with my feet hanging out, and sip my shake. Rolf stays in the front seat, sucking hard on his straw. Sid is pacing back and forth in front of me, drinking his shake and trying not to look like he’s watching me, but he is.

I don’t want to look at him. I don’t want to talk to him. But I need him to like me. I need it to be harder for him to kill me, if it comes to that. When it comes to that.

– Sid, why don’t you sit down?

– That’s cool, dude, I’m OK.

– You’re making me a little nervous, have a seat.

He shrugs and sits next to me, leaving as much room as possible between us. He kicks his feet against the tarmac, takes a sip, and lifts his shake.

– Good, huh?

– Yeah.

– Yeah.

There’s a loud gurgling slurp as Rolf hits the bottom of his shake. He climbs out of the bus and points at the Mad Greek.

– I’m gonna piss, dudes. Then we roll.

Sid bobs his head.

– Dude, yeah, we, like, still have to find a spot to bury the clothes and shit. I mean, that’s cool right, Hank? That’s the way to do it?

– Yeah, sure.

Rolf walks toward the restaurant. Sid watches him disappear inside. He sucks some shake into his straw, pulls the straw from the waxed paper cup, and shoots a stream of shake onto the ground. He looks at me out of the corner of his eye.

– It’s OK, dude.

– What’s that?

– If you think I’m a freak. Like the story of my life. Whatever.

He leans forward and puts his elbows on his knees, fills his straw with shake again, and starts Pollocking little abstracts on the ground between his feet.

– I don’t think you’re a freak, Sid. I just don’t know what you’re doing here.

He shrugs.

– I don’t know.

– Is it the money?

Thinking about his cabinet of fetishes, knowing already it is not about the money for this guy. He shakes his head, hard.

– No, dude, I don’t want your money, man. I mean, like, I like money. I’m not that big a freak, but.

He takes another sip of his shake, then pulls the top off and dumps the rest of it on the ground, obliterating his design.

– What, Sid?

He crumples up the cup, throws it in some bushes alongside the parking lot, stands up and faces me.

– I don’t want your money, dude. I want to be a part of something. I just, like. Like, when Rolf told me he needed help finding someone, and there was cashish in it, I was all, Totally, I’m in. But then, when I found out it was you? Dude! I was, like, all, No way! I’m… I am such a freak, and I’ve never done anything. I mean, if I told you, if I told you just how fucked up, how stupid my life is, dude, you just wouldn’t fucking believe. But you? You’re this totally famous dude! You’ve done so much with your life. When I found out Rolf knew you and all, I just wanted, I just wanted to meet you and. I just wanted to help out, do my part and be a part of something for once. Be a part of something important, dude. Like when, dude, when I shot that cop? That was, that was, it was so ir-fucking- revocable. That was real. I was all, This is me now doing this and I can’t take it back. And I totally felt it. In the moment. More than anything I’ve ever done in my life. More than fucking or getting high or holding up a gas station or even catching a monster wave, dude. I mean, I’ve been dreaming about a feeling that real my whole life. And I got to feel that because of you.

He kicks at nothing, hard.

– Dude! I’m sorry. I’m not trying to freak you out, but I am like such a fan and I just think you are so cool and I can’t change that, you know? And this is just such an amazing experience for me. Shaaaw! I am such a geek.

He stands there in front of me, staring at the ground, too embarrassed to look up. Behind him, through the windows of the Mad Greek, I can see Rolf coming out of the bathroom.

I can do this.

Mom and Dad.

I can do this.

– Actually, man.

Sid looks up a little.