Stone Junction

Beaten and exhausted, he’d fallen into a dreamless sleep at dawn, not stirring until he felt the sunlight on his face. He sat up blinking, checked the Diamond in the bowling bag on the floor, and slid back behind the wheel.

Daniel drove straight through to Phoenix. He stopped at a Shell station for a city map, then checked the Yellow Pages in the phone booth’s directory. He found exactly what he sought in the first listing under Auto Dismantling – ‘Aura Wreckers … cash to smash.’ When he noticed his fuel gauge showed less than a quarter tank, he unthinkingly pulled over to the pumps. When the attendant asked him, ‘Fill’er up, sir?’ Daniel started laughing so hard he could barely shake his head and gasp, ‘No, empty ’er.’

‘Beg your pardon?’

‘Nothing,’ Daniel said, more in control, ‘I thought I needed gas but I don’t.’

‘Help you with anything else?’ the attendant said. He eyed Daniel with wary concern.

‘No, I guess not,’ Daniel told him. ‘I don’t even know if I want in or out anymore, or if there’s a difference.’

‘You look like you’ve been on the road awhile. Tired. It gets to you.’

Daniel said earnestly, ‘I hope so.’

The attendant nodded vaguely and said, ‘Well, take it easy. Have a good one.’

Daniel thanked him and headed through Phoenix.

He stopped down the street from Aura Wreckers. In the camper, he dressed in his bowling shirt, jeans, and shoes, packed a change of clothes and toilet kit in a day-pack, and stuffed a thousand-dollar roll from the attache case in his front pocket. He took the pack and attache case back to the cab and set them on the floor with the bowling-bagged Diamond. He crumpled the phony registration and pink slip in the ashtray and burned them, tear- blind from the smoke before he cranked the windows down.

Daniel wheeled into the oil-splotched yard of Aura Wreckers and pulled up near a crane with a powerful magnet on its cable. The crane was picking up hulks from a pile of wrecked cars and dropping them into a forty-ton hydraulic crusher that turned each one into a small metal cube. A large beer-bellied man operating the crusher yelled at Daniel, ‘Hey, no parking! Office is back there.’ He pointed toward the building.

Daniel gathered the bowling-bag, attache case, and day-pack and walked toward the man, who looked pained at his approach. Before Daniel was halfway there the man called, ‘C’mon, man – move your ride and put you in it – we don’t have no insurance that covers fools. This is a heavy-equipment area, and I’m the yard boss.’

Daniel stopped in front of him and looked into his eyes. ‘My truck must be destroyed.’

The yard boss looked at the truck and then back to Daniel. ‘What for?’ he said suspiciously. ‘It was still moving when you got here.’

Daniel roared, ‘It is possessed of demons! I know because I am a man of God and a professional bowler. As a Minister of Faith with the Gospel Strike Church of Imperishable Bliss, I am under vows of frugality, and therefore drive from match to match on the PBA tour, spreading some of the Sun Lord’s literature on the way. And as I travel these faithless states, I pick up every hitchhiker I see, some of whom are striking young women, many not even seventeen, wandering lost in this world, bereft of love and comfort. I swear to heaven my intentions are noble when I pick them up – to share the wisdom and consolation of The Word – but there are demons in the truck, vinyl warlocks, devils of chrome, and they tear my heart from the River of Light and hurl it into the Sewer of Raw Desire. I know it’s the truck, because lewd and carnal desires seize those comely young women, too, and soon the demons have dragged us panting into the camper where we rut for hours like lust-crazed warthogs, and I feel their hot, tight, naked bodies move under me like a wave of ball bearings and my heart wants nothing more than the endless replication of our joined moment of release forever and forever!’

The yard boss gave the truck a more thoughtful appraisal. ‘Don’t look like much of a pussy wagon to me.’ He shook his head. ‘But what the hell – if you got the pink slip and the registration’s in order, I’ll give ya a coupla hundred for it. Maybe take it for a drive. Fuck, ya never know, maybe something sweet’ll jump my bone.’

Daniel thundered, ‘I want it destroyed! It is possessed by Creatures of Filth!’ Daniel raised his fist and slammed it down into his palm. ‘The Creatures of Filth must be crushed!’

The yard boss stepped back and folded his arms over his protruding gut. Tilting his head, he inquired with a trace of derision, ‘What are you, some kinda fucking wacko? You can’t be for real. The real gets weird, sure, but not this weird. Huh? How about it? You for real?’

With an extended index finger, Daniel began thumping the center of his forehead. He smiled at the yard boss. ‘It appears I am.’

The yard boss considered a moment. ‘Ya got the pink slip and reg?’

‘The demons covered them with a green slime that sucked off all the ink. Turned that pink slip blank and snowy white.’

‘Get outa here,’ the yard boss muttered, pointing with his chin. ‘We don’t touch fucking nothing without clear title, and especially from loonies who seem to have blown their mental transmissions but are still coasting to a stop. No title, no deal.’

Daniel reached into his front pocket and took out the roll of bills. ‘Would a thousand dollars change your mind?’

‘Completely,’ the yard boss said, counting it quickly before shoving the roll in a back pocket. ‘Get out what you want and pull it over. I’ll go tell Jake there, running the crane, that you’re next. And Reverend? Any more demons get to haunting your vehicles, bring ’em on in and we’ll give them a Monster Mash that’ll pop their little black hearts like rotten cherries. Same deal, same price.’

‘Bless you, son,’ Daniel said fervently, spreading his arms. ‘May you flow with the River of Light.’

Daniel watched smiling as the cable-lowered magnet locked on his truck with a solid clank, rocking it on its springs. Cable reversed, the truck jerked free of the ground, sunlight exploding on its twirling chrome as the crane swung it toward the crusher like a fish being lifted from water to land. The magnet released and the truck dropped into the press, windshield shattering on impact. Then, with a breathy hydraulic hiss and the dry shriek of buckling metal, the press reduced the truck and its contents to a gleaming four-foot cube.