Americana

and Dowd sat on a tire. Clevenger sat on a fender of the dump truck. I leaned against a bare section of wall. We started drinking. It was seven o'clock in the morning.

We drank straight from the bottles. The beer tasted awful at that hour of day but I said nothing and kept drinking. The others were drinking about twice as fast as I was. Dowd chugged half a quart and then said he'd best be getting outside for a kingsize piss and everybody laughed. We drank beer for about an hour, each of us in turn drawing laughter by standing in the huge square of the open garage door and pissing onto the gravel outside. When my turn came, there was both laughter and applause as if by this act I had joined them in some mythic union. I found myself pleased with their benedictions. Peewee showed up with a fifth of bourbon and we started passing the bottle around. Through a window I could see the cars and trucks circling the track, headlights off now. Clevenger went to the wall phone and spoke very softly and evenly for no more than ten seconds before hanging up. Dowd lowered the garage door.

The women arrived half an hour later. There were three of them, all Mexican. The young one wanted to know where Danny Boy was and Clevenger told her Danny Boy was in jail minus his right eye. Dowd took the fat one into the cab of the truck and she got on her back and pulled up her dress. His knee slipped off the seat and he fell over her leg and down under the dash. We were all laughing. He crawled out onto the running board and dropped to the ground, laughing and vomiting, one foot still hooked to the running board. Lump walked right over him, then opened his pants and got on top of the woman. Clevenger took off all his clothes, stepped back into his boots and told the young one to sit inside a truck tire that was standing against the wall. As she lifted her dress he got on his hands and knees and put his head inside. Peewee had the other one against the bare wall, dress up, biting her breasts which were not uncovered and trying to work his way into her. I dragged Dowd over to the back of the truck and when I was sure no one could see what I was doing I kicked him hard in the ribs. Then I finished off the bourbon and poured part of a bottle of beer on Lump's head and he laughed and kept going. Peewee began sliding down the woman's legs. Over Clevenger's rump the young one looked at me, picking her nose. Peewee was on the ground, curled around the other one's legs, biting, his pants not quite off. Lump came out of the cab, took off all his clothes and picked up a quart of beer. Clevenger came out from under the dress and got on top of the fat one in the cab. He told her to take off her dress but she wouldn't and he began to laugh. Lump threw the bottle at a wall. I saw Dowd crawling past and I helped him to his feet and pushed him toward the young one. He fell over halfway there. She was still in the tire and Lump went over and put his head under her dress. I kicked Dowd. Peewee had the other one's shoes off and he was putting one of her feet inside his pants. She looked down at him and laughed and then he laughed and she dropped on top of him and they lay together laughing and pulling each other's hair, biting, rolling from side to side. I couldn't get the garage door opened and I leaned my head against it, feeling myself falling and waiting to hit, wanting to, but somehow still standing, the door cold on my cheek. Clevenger was slapping me on the back and repeating the words soft white underbelly over and over. I turned and saw the fat one pouring beer all over Dowd. Peewee was standing now with a length of pipe between his legs and they all laughed. The young one was still inside the tire. Lump pissed against the wall. Dowd got up and put his arms around the fat one and threw up again. She punched I him in the face, twice, hurting him, and everybody laughed. Peewee was out of his clothes now and he crawled over to the young one and put his head under her dress. Clevenger told me to watch out for the fat one. Her cunt had teeth in them. The fat one and the other one sat on the running board sharing a bottle of beer. Dowd, on the ground again, said it was time he was getting his. He lurched toward the two women, tried to get up, lost his balance and hit his head on the edge of the bumper. Lump was standing in his own piss. I went over to Peewee, grabbed his ankles and pulled him away from the young one. I dragged him along the ground on his belly and face. Clevenger poured beer on him. Then I went to the girl sitting in the tire, pushed her dress up around her hips and buried my face between her legs. Her thighs parted and then closed, wet against my ears, and I tried to put my tongue higher into her, feeling again as though I were about to pass out. She was patting my head. Someone pulled me away from her and I crawled toward the fat one, trying to take off my shirt, just my shirt. Clevenger got to her first and they went to the back of the truck and after a while managed to climb in. The other one pushed me to the ground, straddled me, unbuttoned my shirt and took it off, and began taking off my belt. I could see Dowd. He was still out but there was no blood. The woman had my cock in her hand and she was trying to put it inside her. I pulled her down to me and kissed her and she let go finally and just lay on top of me, moving from side to side and licking my face. Then she straddled me again and I realized she was pissing all over my belly and chest. She got up finally and sat on the running board and drank some beer. I pushed myself up to my knees and fastened my belt. Then I threw up. Lump was under the young one's dress. Peewee was on the ground smoking a cigarette. I crawled over to him and asked for a drag, although I hadn't smoked in several years. We sat next to each other sharing the cigarette. Clevenger eased himself down off the truck, took off his boots, got dressed and put on the boots. The fat one stood in the back of the truck and the other one handed the bottle up to her. Clevenger made a phone call. Lump came out of

the dress and pissed all over Dowd. The young one sat inside the tire.

Then Clevenger left by a side door. I went after him and got my suitcase out of the car. He said he'd be back in half an hour. I watched him drive around the test track. He went around three times, almost twice as fast as the trucks and other cars. I looked at that huge circle of asphalt, nine never-ending miles, something left behind by a crazed or childlike people. It made me think of Warburton for a moment, his final memo, and I began to juggle the alphabet, to fit it together finally, three names from two, anagrammatized, a last. jest from corporate exile. I went back to the garage and got my shirt. Then I ran across the track and across fifty yards of dirt and out the gate onto the road. Clevenger was still circling the track. I put on my shirt and walked for about half an hour. It started getting warmer. Dead coyotes were hung on wire fences. A car stopped for me then, an old Studebaker. The driver started up again before I had the door closed. He was a one-arm man wearing the dress blues of the United States Navy. Along the road and spread out across the desert were hundreds of oil drills, their black shafts stroking, triangular heads and lean frames, slave colonies of gigantic worker ants, the science fiction of prehistory and hereafter. Black smoke came gusting out of a refinery and covered the land and sky. I asked him where he was heading and he said Midland. On the radio Bob Dylan was singing 'Subterranean Homesick Blues.' We came out of the smoke and I asked him how long he had been in the navy. He appeared to be in his mid-twenties, a slight wincing man with the thin mouth and white-blond hair of a secret planner of bank robberies.

'You think I'm not navy because of the arm. You find me incongruous. That's always been my strength. I project a mystery that a lot of men and women have tried to unlock. But maybe the mystery is in themselves. You're wondering how I know so much about people. I've been places all my life.

I've been to China, one of the few. I'm a voracious reader. I studied at the sore bone in Paris. That was before the arm.'

'No offense meant. I was just asking.'

'Everybody's interested in the arm. There are other parts of me, deep down, that nobody has succeeded in reaching. I have an insatiable curiosity about people from all walks of life. The way to learn about people is to keep your eyes and ears open and your lips sealed. I roamed the streets of Paris like a cat. I was silent and watchful. Nobody messed with me. I carried a knife all through my Paris days. I had only one intimate friend, a writer-painter from Harlem. He was sleek and wiry. He was the coolest spade in Paris. He was the ace of spades. We were like two cats prowling the Left Bank. I carried my knife at all times. Mess with either one of us and the other'd cut your throat.'

'What was his name?'

'Whose name?'

'The writer-painter,' I said.

'You're being polite because you're afraid of me. Fear impels people to ask ingratiating questions. I've been noticing that for quite a few years. It's an intricate thing, fear. I've been making a study of it during my travels. There's a whole literature of fear in the libraries of the world, just waiting to be read and synthesized. It's the arm that worries people. Mystery is the white man's enemy. I'm one of the few with soul. Let me take a gander at what the hell you look like.'

'How far is Midland?'

'I'm taking a gander,' he said. 'First billboard we come to I'll park this vehicle behind it. Then we'll see how much mystery you have. I'm hung. I'm hung like a fighting bull. I'm yea big. We'll see who's more man. Bigger gives it. Smaller takes. Them's the rules of the road.'

'That's it,' I said. 'Let me out.'

'Rejection is one of the banes of our time. People should never reject each other. You think this is nothing but