“What a minute! That’s a hundred!” Harry protested. But 156 / CHUCK LOGAN
the Hmong had already pocketed the bill and was making like Long John Silver toward the nearest building lobby.
Bud steepled his hands in a Buddhist devotion and called after him. “Najoong.” He turned to Harry. “Is that the right word?”
“Time-out, Bud,” said Tully. He pinned one of Bud’s arms, Harry had the other and they dragged him to the Honda.
Bud wagged a finger in Tully’s face. “Guy should at least have an artificial leg. All our fucking fault, Billy, all that crap we did, the dope and the marches and the fucking McGovern campaign. We were partying and left the Neanderthals to mind the store.” The crowd had drifted away. Bud was babbling to the snow.
Tully glanced at the ghostly lights of St. Paul and laughed. “And empty office buildings and beggars on the street. Wipe your nose, Bud.”
Bud wiped his nose but tatters of old speeches still fell out of his mouth: “Thirteen-year-olds joining gangs, carrying guns. Reagan’s children—they grew right out of the goddamn concrete.”
Tully’s pouchy eyes glowered. “Put the cork in it, Bud. Let Harry here take you to the hospital and here’s the word: you do this right and maybe you can pull off a come back.”
Bud gave Tully his full attention. “Well, I don’t know, Billy, after that thing up north,” he said dubiously. “And now the CD ward.”
“Nothing wrong with that in Minnesota. It’s an acceptable rite of passage. Like losing your virginity. As far as up north goes, figure out how to put that kid into a nice rap about drugs.” Tully smiled.
“You know, turn it into a fucking speech. In there.” Tully pointed at the brick bastille of the hospital down the street. “And make that marriage go away. Then call me after a decent interval, we’ll talk,”
said Tully tartly. Bud’s five minutes were up. They shook hands.
“Get in the car,” said Harry. He shoved and Tully’s hand guided Bud’s head so he wouldn’t bump it on the door.
Bud wheezed, fitted himself back in the front seat, and HUNTER’S MOON / 157
dusted snow from his scalp. He waved bye-bye to Tully, who gave him thumbs up.
“Hmong die in their sleep, you know that,” said Bud with a perplexed grin. “For no apparent medical reason. They get yanked out of their jungle and get dumped in a city on the other side of the world and they fucking die. Weird, huh?”
“Look, showboat, I need the keys to the lodge,” said Harry dog-gedly as he skidded to a stop in front of the hospital.
“What?” Bud shook his head. His teeth chattered. “Man. I don’t feel so hot.”
“You’ll be fine. They’ll take care of you. Give me the keys.”
Bud winced as he reached in his pocket and pulled out a thick key ring. Each key had a neatly printed legend on a strip of adhesive.
“This one is to my grandfather’s gun cabinet. Make sure they didn’t take anything. This one’s the Jeep. Garage-door opener is under the front seat.”
Harry took the keys. “You all set?”
“Wait—what are you going to do?”
“Make sure the rabble don’t sack Castle Frankenstein. And serve the divorce papers.”
“You don’t know your way around up there, Harry—”
“I know where she’ll be at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning.”
“Christ, you’re serious.” Bud had a lucid episode, aghast through his pallor.
“C’mon. Let’s get you inside.”
They were expecting Bud at the desk. “I think he may be in alcohol shock,” Harry told a nurse.
“We’ll get a wheelchair,” the nurse replied. But nobody moved.
Bud grinned weakly. “No tickee, no washee,” he said as he pulled his wallet from his pocket and dropped a Blue Cross card on the counter.
They stamped the plastic, resumed their efficient attentiveness, and called for a wheelchair.
“Get some rest, Bud. I’ll be in touch.” Harry squeezed Bud’s arm.
158 / CHUCK LOGAN
Bud reacted with a loud tantrum of resentment. “You’re the one who belongs in here, not me!” Heads turned in the reception area.
Bud Maston slouched over, feeble and bitter in his baggy sweat suit, with his cueball haircut and a ring of flab hanging around his neck, he looked like a lost recruit on the first day of basic training being shunted off to the fatboys’ platoon.
27
With Bud under wraps, he was free.
Free also from Randall with his Geritol advice and Linda. Didn’t need their nagging or Bud’s raving. Never did believe that stuff about alcoholism being a disease. Doctors and hospitals and weepy therapy groups. Nobody’s fault. Let’s all be victims together. Through being sick. Be weak or be strong. The Honda idled at the curb. He was traveling in his head.
He pawed through his tapes, found the one to blow him out of town, slapped it in the deck, and cranked the volume way up.
He sucked the blood from his skinned knuckle, glanced at his scarred face in the rearview mirror, and popped the clutch to a thunder of guitar chords and the bawl of Waylon Jennings. The Honda fishtailed onto the streets of St. Paul.
Now that would be an AA group he’d love to sit in on. Waylon, Kris, Willie, and Johnny Cash singing through raw holes in their livers, wallowing in Confederate self-pity…
Harry leaned on his horn. Goddamn Minnesota drivers. Car in front too slow coming off a light. Stop-go-red-green-walk-don’t walk.
A block later, he ran an amber, and forced a car onto the shoulder on his way to the freeway ramp.
He had blowing snow and the open four-lane ahead of him. And a full tank of gas and a roll of new $100 bills in his pocket. Johnny Cash waved him on singing about gunplay in Reno.
Driving the wrong car. The Honda had a lot of heart—no, his old Plymouth Valiant had heart. A Jap car wouldn’t have HUNTER’S MOON / 159
heart; it would have what they called ki in Shotokan karate.
He drove out of the storm at Forest Lake and Interstate 35 ran
