He's still twisted around to see the white leather club chairs that recline and swivel. The white carpet. The bird's-eye maple tables, polished until they look wet. The white suede couches that line the cabin. The matching little throw cushions. The magazines, each one big as a movie poster, called Elite Traveler, with a cover price of fifty dollars. The 24-carat gold-plated cup holders and the faucets in the bathroom. The galley with its espresso machine and halogen light bouncing bright off the lead-crystal glassware. The microwave and fridge and ice machine. All this flying along at fifty-one thousand feet, Mach zero-point-eight-eight, somewhere above the Mediterranean Sea. All of them drinking Scotch whiskey. All of this nicer than anything you'll ever be inside. Anything short of a casket.
Webber's nose, he tilts his drink back, sticks his big red-potato nose into the cold air, and you can see up inside each nostril. See how they don't really go anywhere, not anymore. But Webber says, “What's that smell?”
And Flint sniffs and says, “Does ammonium nitrate ring a bell?”
It's the ammonium nitrate their buddy Jenson had ready for them in Florida. Their buddy from the Gulf War. Our Reverend Godless.
“You mean, like, fertilizer?” Webber says.
And Flint says, “Half a ton.”
Webber's hand, it's shaking so hard you can hear the ice rattle in his empty glass.
That shaking, it's just traumatic Parkinson's is all. Traumatic encephalopathy will do that to you, where partial necrosis of brain tissue takes place. Neurons replaced by brain-dead scar tissue. You put on a curly red wig and false eyelashes, lip-synch to Bette Midler at the Collaris County Fair and Rodeo, and offer people the chance to punch your face at ten bucks a shot, and you can make some real money.
Other places, you'll need to wear a curly blond wig, squeeze your ass into a tight sequined dress, your feet in the biggest pair of high heels you can find. Lip-synch to Barbra Streisand singing that “Evergreen” song, and you'd better have a friend waiting to drive you to the emergency room. Take a couple Vicodins beforehand. Before you glue on those long pink Barbra Streisand fingernails; after them you can't pick up anything smaller than a beer bottle. Take your painkillers first, and you can sing both the A and B sides of Color Me Barbra before a really good shot puts you down.
As a fund-raiser, our first idea was “Five Bucks to Punch a Mime.” And it worked, mostly in college towns. The aggie schools. Some towns, nobody went home without some of that Clown White smeared across their knuckles. Clown White and blood.
Problem is, the novelty wears off. Renting a Gulfstream costs bucks. Just buying the gas and oil to fly from here to Europe costs about thirty grand. One way, it's not so bad, but you never want to go into a charter place saying you only plan to fly the plane one way—talk about your red flags.
No, Webber would put on that black leotard, and folks would already be salivating to hit him. He'd paint his face white, step into his invisible box, start miming away, and the cash would just flow in. Colleges mostly, but we did good business at county and state fairs, too. Even if folks took it as some kind of minstrel show, they'd still pay to knock him down. To make him bleed.
For roadhouse bars, after the mime routine petered out, we tried “Fifty Bucks to Punch a Chick.” Flint had this girl who was up for it. But after, like, one shot to the face, she was saying, “No way . . .”
On the floor, sitting in the peanut shells on the floor and holding her nose, this girl says, “Let me go to flight school. Let me play the pilot, instead. I still want to help.”
We still had, must've been half the bar standing in line with their money. Divorced dads, dumped boyfriends, guys with old potty-training issues, all of them wanting to take their best shot.
Flint says, “I can fix this up.” And he helps his girl to her feet. Taking her by the elbow, he leads her into the ladies' room. Going in with her, Flint holds up his hand, fingers spread, and he says, “Give me five minutes.”
Just out of the army like that, we didn't figure how else to make that kind of money. Not legal-wise. The way Flint saw it, there's no law yet says folks can't pay to sock you.
It's then Flint comes out of the ladies' room, wearing the girl's Saturday-night wig, all her makeup used up on his big clean-shaved face. He's unbuttoned his shirt and tied the shirttails together over his gut with paper towels stuffed in to make boobs. With whole tubes of lipstick smeared around his mouth, Flint, he says, “Let's do this thing . . .”
Folks standing in line, they're saying fifty bucks to punch some guy is a cheat.
So Flint, he says, “Make it ten bucks . . .”
Folks still hang back, look around for some better way to waste their cash.
It's then Webber's gone over by the jukebox. Dropped in a quarter. Pressed a couple buttons, and—magic. The music starts, and for the length of one exhale, all you can hear is every man in the bar letting out a long groan.
The song, it's the wailing song from the end of that Titanic movie. That Canadian chick.
And Flint, with his blond wig and big clown mouth, he steps up on a chair, then up on a table, and starts singing along. With the whole bar watching, Flint gives it everything he's got, sliding his hands up and down the sides of his blue jeans. His eyes closed, all you can see there is his shimmering blue eye shadow. That red smear, singing.
Right on time, Webber reaches up to offer Flint a hand down. Flint takes it, ladylike, still lip-synching. You can see now, his fingernails painted
