13
Don lit a cigarette and cracked the window, mingling tobacco smoke with the smell of damp earth.
“I think this rain is slowing down a bit. You tired?” he said, gripping the wheel with his right hand.
“No,” Vessie said. “You?”
“I’m fine. I figure we can stop once we get outside Cincinnati. Somewhere off 75. Sound okay?”
“I’d like to make dinner,” she said.
“You don’t want to get a hamburger or something?”
“I’d like to make dinner.”
Don looked at Vessie, then back at the road. It was near dark now. Yellow beams from oncoming headlights magnified and distorted as they penetrated the rain drops winding down the windshield. He rotated the wiper switch to its highest speed. The blades slapped the water away, then screeched back and forth.
“How are you going to make dinner in the hotel?” he said.
“Just stop at a grocery store before we get there. I’ll take care of it.”
“Of course you will,” he said.
Vessie’s eyes slid to the left, but her head remained still. She crossed her hands on her lap, then stared at the white line rimming the road’s edge.
Don pulled the Tahoe into a puddled Kroger parking lot near Florence, Kentucky. He stopped next to a cart corral closest to the store’s entrance.
“Maybe this one will have it,” he said.
“If not, let’s go get some hamburgers,” Vessie said.
Don got out, opened his umbrella, and shielded Vessie from the light rain. They hurried into the store and scanned the overhead signs for the peanut butter aisle.
“Seven,” Don said, pointing. “Seven.”
They stepped down the aisle in nervous anticipation.
“Let’s see,” Vessie said. “Jif. Peter Pan. Skippy. Nutella. There. Donald, up there.”
Don reached for the little jar with the white label on the top shelf.
“Is this it? Millard’s Real Cashew Butter?”
“Yes. It’s the last one. Don’t drop it,” Vessie said.
“You hold it then. What else?”
“All we need now is some fresh, white bread from the bakery, a jar of hot pepper jelly, and some smoked turkey from the deli. And I guess we’ll need a box of those plastic butter knives. And some ice. And one of those Styrofoam coolers. Oh, and some milk.”
“Okay, okay,” Don said. “You take the cart and go get the bread, the jelly, and the turkey, and I’ll get the knives, the ice, and the cooler.”
“And the milk.”
“And the milk. Meet you at the registers in ten minutes.”
14
Don paid cash for two rooms at a Holiday Inn just south of Corinth. The lobby smelled like 1976, like The Who just checked out. He walked to the Tahoe and grabbed the suitcases. It had stopped raining, and the parking lot was cloaked in an argentine fog.
“Here’s your room key,” he said. “I’ll take the bags up and come back down for the food.”
“Thank you, Donald,” Vessie said, grunting as she slid out of the passenger seat.
They took the elevator up to the fifth floor and walked down the hall. Don leaned his suitcase against the door to his room and accompanied Vessie to hers, four rooms down.
“Here you go,” he said, placing Vessie’s luggage on the queen bed. “I’ll go get the cooler.”
Vessie nodded, eyeing the avocado green/squash yellow hotel room. She sat on the edge of the bed, removed her shoes, and rubbed her toes. Don returned a few minutes later.
“You want to make dinner in your room or mine?” he said.
“In here is fine.”
Don and Vessie pulled the items from the cooler and arranged them on the dresser next to the television. She waddled into the bathroom, washed her hands, then returned to the dresser.
“Now, shoo,” Vessie said, flapping her hand at Don.
He turned on the television – a replay of a 1983 Sixers/Celtics game on ESPN — and sat down in an uncomfortable corner chair.
“So, you’re making sandwiches?” he said.
“Yes. Special ones.”
Vessie sliced the loaf of bread into thick pieces. She opened the little jar, brought it up to her nose, and took in its nutty-sweet aroma. She spread each piece of bread with thick strokes of cashew butter, followed by cumbrous dollops of hot pepper jelly. Then she added four slices of smoked turkey and pressed the sandwiches together, handing one to Don, along with a coffee cup full of cold milk. She turned back around and poured herself a cup.
“Enjoy,” she said.
Don was already chewing.
“This might be the best sandwich I’ve ever tasted,” he said, reaching for the milk. “How’d you learn to make it?”
Vessie picked up the jar of cashew butter, brought it up to her nose again, and screwed the cap back on.
“I came up with it myself years ago. It seemed like something you would have liked when you were a boy.”
Don stopped chewing.
“The other mothers made plain old peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,” she continued. “I would have made you a special one like this. One only I could make.”
“Me?” Don said.
Vessie took a bite of her sandwich, then a sip of milk.
“I want to tell you a story,” Vessie said.
“Okay.”
“When I was a girl, eight or nine years old I guess, my mother and I lived on a farm near Louisville. My oldest brother was killed in World War Two. After the war, my other brother moved to California. My father died a year later. He got drunk one night and started walking down the railroad tracks behind our house. They said he fell asleep on the tracks, and a train ran over him. Why do people do that? They still do that. I see it on the news from time to time. Falling asleep on the tracks. Anyway, we kept our three farm hands, and the five of us ran that little farm for years. But when I was eight or nine, I remember whenever a train would come down those tracks, my mother would run out back and throw anything she could get her hands on at it – eggs, apples, corn cobs, rocks. She wouldn’t shout or curse, she would just throw things. She hated trains after my father died. Then one summer morning a train rolled by real slow, and a man jumped off and walked up to our fence gate. I was playing in the back yard, and he called out to me. ‘Hello, young lady,’ he said. ‘Is your mama home?’ He was tall and skinny, with thick, black hair and eyebrows. And he was wearing tan pants and a black shirt. And he had these big, black boots. I was scared, and I ran inside as fast as I could to get my mother. I said, ‘Mama! There’s a man outside!’ She pulled off her apron and walked out the back door, with me at her heels. She told me to go play, but I just acted like I was playing. I was trying to hear what he was saying to her. They were smiling, I could see that. Then the man walked away, toward the tracks, and grabbed onto a rail on one of the cars, hopped on, waved to me, and was gone. I asked Mama who he was, and she said, ‘A nice man named Louis.’ ‘Is he coming back?’ I said. ‘He might,’ she said, and walked back inside the house.”
“Did he ever come back?” Don said.
“Yes. He did.”
“What happened?”
“The first thing I noticed was that Mama stopped throwing things at the trains. I asked her why, and she said that ladies shouldn’t behave that way.”
“Really?”
“Then, a couple weeks later, Louis returned on the train. This time he brought me a bag of candy. Tiny candies in all different colors. And sparklers. You know the kind you hold in your hand on the Fourth of July? I loved those sparklers. I’d never had any before. Mama walked out to greet him, and they laughed. She told me to stay out back because she and Louis had business to discuss upstairs. Of course, I know now what sort of business they were discussing.”
“A merger,” Don said.
Vessie laughed and put her plate on the coffee table.
“I think that’s right,” she said. “Mergers.”
“Did he keep coming back?”
“Yes. Every two weeks or so. Always with candy for me. And sparklers. And he always had business to discuss with my mother. Sometimes he’d stay for supper. Mama was so happy when Louis arrived. And so was I. Her face would change. She looked younger. And she smiled and laughed a lot. He’d tell us stories about the places he’d been and the people he’d known. But when he’d leave, her face would change back again, and she’d look old again. Sometimes I would hear them shouting at each other, and it frightened me. Then, I guess it was about six or seven months later, wintertime, he hopped off the train with no bag of candy, no sparklers. He glanced at me, but didn’t speak. Mama told me to go up to my room. They started shouting again. I heard the door shut and ran downstairs, past my mother, into the back yard. She yelled at me, but I didn’t stop. His big, black boots stomped a path through the snow. I called his name, but he kept walking. I called out again. He turned, looked at me for a moment, and hopped over the fence and onto the train. I ran along the path his boots made, calling his name as the train picked up speed and rolled away.”
“He never came back?”
“No. I remember my mother crying sometimes after that. I’d ask her what was wrong, but she’d just say she wasn’t feeling well. I guess I knew the real reason. She never mentioned his name again. And she never bought me sparklers on the Fourth of July. Louis was running, too, I guess. Running from something.”
“We’ll get there,” Don said. “We’ll be fine.”
15
“I’m a cork on the ocean. Floatin’ over the ragin’ sea. How deep is the ocean? How deep is the ocean? I’ve lost my way. Hey, hey, hey.”
16
In the indigo state between consciousness and sleep, Don grappled with strange visions and words:
I have seen ringmasters and their concupiscence drown out the unified voices of hep cats and small town fools sipping dark, warm stout in dark, warm places. I have seen the hysterical behavior of fanatics, religious and otherwise. Suckers in Pintos with one foot on the brake and the other in the crypt. Bitter idiots calling these rants bitter drivel. I have seen these things nearly every day. I have embraced their madness, peeking around their columns, always listening for the plaintive, penetrating cry of the killdeer.
Did the Greek gods die in the middle of my last good dream? Did they die when tigers ran free across painted plains of melancholy twigs, softened by cool, neon rain? Did they die when supple, clutching, concubine hands flinched, moist with sin’s mists? Did the Greek gods die when our dreams did? Do we stand and stare stupidly at wheels ablaze, cans defiantly skipping behind, half-waving goodbye to a half-pursued, half-developed, half-considered near paradise? Only in the movies, Sundance.
Strain your eyes to see the flashes of old, American city streets. Hot dog vendors. Smoky, lavender glances on the davenport in a Back Room. She shows just enough leg. Black, thigh-high stockings evident as she slides into a cab at three in the morning. The bloody, smashed nose of the pug who Made The Wrong Move with his blade. Hookah hipsters and never-sleepers with pockets full of little whites. Sin with whipped cream and a cheap wine chaser or a Martini if you still have some cash. How glorious it is to wake up alive in America.
On the edge of sleep now:
The winter light waned. Their feet crunched through the ice and dropped into the heavy snow beneath. Don tried to take Karen’s right hand, but she pulled it away.
“No reason to do that now,” she said.
Cacophonous howling sliced through the cold night.
“What’s that?” Karen said.
“Stay here.”
Don walked to the edge of the pond and in the pallid light saw a small doe, belly-deep in the gelid water. Three gaunt, wild dogs snarled and leapt at her, forward to the edge of the water, then back, manic eyes wide, jaws snapping. He yelled at the sanguinary beasts, and they stopped for a moment, quiet. The doe splashed to the left, but the dogs cut off her escape and began raging again.
“Damnit,” he said.
He hurried past Karen and into the house. He unlocked the gun case in the study, pulled out a rifle, rushed to the edge of the pond, and fired a shot into the air. The dogs stopped and looked at him, their ears raised. He fired again. The dogs scattered. The doe glanced back at Don. Then, like an acrobat, she kicked out of the frigid water and vaulted into the woods.
Don heard ice crunching behind him and spun around.
“You saved her,” Karen said.
“You scared the hell outta me,” he said, breathing hard.
“I know.”
They walked to the red barn. Karen stuck out her right hand. Don pulled the keys from his jacket pocket and gave them to her. She unlocked the door and swung it open. The piney smell rushed past them into the cold dusk. Don clicked the rifle’s safety lock and leaned it against the wall. He pulled a yellow flashlight from a shelf above him and turned it on.
“The woman is perfected,” Karen said. “Her dead body wears the smile of accomplishment.”
“Plath,” Don said, waking himself up.
17
“I’m a rock in a landslide. Rollin’ over the mountainside. How deep is the valley? How deep is the valley?”
18
Terry Stebbins entered the lobby and winked at Clara, a petite redhead in a modish, black business suit. She half-smiled back at him.
“He’s in his office,” she said, looking back down at her computer keypad.
Stebbins grinned, “Thanks, honey.”
Clara didn’t acknowledge the stubby, balding, thirty-nine-year-old man, and he plodded down the hallway. His clothes did not fit well: the sleeves of his brown leather coat nearly swallowed his hands, and the cuffs of his black rayon slacks dragged along the plush, green office carpet. Clara sneezed and blew her nose — he was clumsy with his favorite cologne, Drakkar Noir. Stebbins arrived at the last office on the right and knuckle-tapped the door twice. He hoped his boss would be pleased to hear the news.
“Come in,” Pioneer Gordy said.
Stebbins opened the door and paused. The dim office was lit by a small, gold upright lamp in the far corner. Gordy, seated behind a mammoth oak desk, swiveled to face him. Stebbins stepped inside the office and closed the door.
“We think we know where he is,” Stebbins said. “I just got off the phone with Victor.”
Gordy stared at Stebbins. He leaned forward and scratched his neck.
“Where?”
“Houston. Not sure where he’s staying yet, but Vic’s working on it.”
Gordy stood, removed his gray, silk suit jacket, and draped it over the back of his spacious leather chair. He loosened the knot of his Leonard tie and stepped toward the rectangular liquor table to the left of his desk.
“Good,” he said. “Drink?”
“Sure. Bourbon’s fine.”
Gordy poured two drinks and handed one to Stebbins. The men said nothing. Gordy turned, walked behind his desk, stopped, and looked out the window at the street.
“Terry, you understand why this has to be done?” Gordy asked, examining his own scarred, middle-aged countenance reflected in the window.
“Absolutely. He burned you bad.”
Gordy turned and glowered at Stebbins.
“Sorry, boss. You know what I mean.”
Gordy raised the glass of bourbon to his lips, not averting his gaze.
“Boss, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Gordy turned again and looked at the streetlights’ bronze glow hovering above car headlights zipping back and forth, up and down Centennial Street. It was that bronze glow — that ugly shade of brown, the color of grain, the color of dirt, of dirt roads — that pulled him back to the place he never wanted to return. It was an unpleasant sensation, a hateful, powerless feeling. His eyes fixed on the light and, as if in an elevator going down, his memory descended toward that color of grain, of dirt roads, poverty, impuissance, rage.
19
Victor Paine contemplated his next move, the engine of his orange-flame 1975 Corvette Stingray Coupe roaring as its back tires tore through the gravel epidermis of the half-paved country road. It was a challenging assignment. Gordy had more enemies than friends, and in a town like Dewberg, too many waves being made by someone like Paine meant darting shadows, dead phone lines, and uneasy exits.
The drive to Consuelo’s, the cows little black dots on sloping rectangles, was eerily nostalgic. A mild fluttering in his belly, almost giddiness, preceded a collection of memory-flashes — joyful, free, bold moments– that had, incredulously, led up to that very instant in his life. The difference between his past, present, and future seemed infinitesimal.
The red sun released its hold and bled into sheer, pink clouds. Consuelo’s was nearly empty. A few hoots and hollers erupted from two tables in the back corner of this, the best restaurant in Dewberg. It was a dark, little place with no windows, plenty of cold beer, two friendly barmaids, and the best Cuban Steak and Relish Paine had ever tasted. The tall, bearded man was hungry, but first walked across the sawdust-covered floor to the bar and ordered a Lone Star beer.
“There you go, Vic,” the bartender said, sliding Paine his beer in a frosted glass.
“How’s things, Nate?” Paine said as he sat down on the barstool and lifted his battered but loyal snakeskin boots onto the footholds.
“Oh, you know, Vic. Hangin’ on,” he said, wiping the bar with a thick, white towel.
“Lennon or McCartney?” Paine asked as he lit a cigarette with his aged Zippo lighter.
“C’mon, Vic. Every time you come in here?”
“Lennon or McCartney.”
“McCartney.”
“Good. Hemingway or Fitzgerald?”
“Hemingway, for sure.”
“Two for two, Nate. Not bad. Miles Davis or Charlie Parker?”
“Davis?”
“Whoa! Three for three.”
“Joni Mitchell or Stevie Nicks?”
“Mitchell.”
“Okay, smart guy…Roger Moore or Sean Connery?”
“Connery. Absolutely Connery.”
“Wrong. The correct answer is neither. George Lazenby. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. 1969. That’s the best James Bond, you cur. Now, time to talk business. What can you tell me about Freeway?”
Nate turned, placed two mugs on the shelf behind him, and turned back to face Paine.
“Just that he had some radio gig up in Indiana. New name. ‘Don McQueen.’ Then he disappeared.”
Paine stared at the bulky, sweating bartender, inches from his face.
“Freeway wants to turn pro, huh?”
“Looks like it.”
“What’s he driving?”
“Don’t know.”
“You’re not much help, Nate. I’m gonna run a tab. Cuban Steak and Relish, medium rare, and another Lone Star.”
“No problem, Vic.”
Paine scanned the restaurant with easy-does-it eyes and dragged on his cigarette. Red, plastic lace-covered candle jars like low-angle film lights illuminated faces of men and women full of drunken joy or drunken sorrow. They either yelled or talked quietly, pulling hands up from battered wooden tables to take a puff or a swig. The glow of neon beer signs reflected in the bar mirror.
He pulled his wallet out of the back pocket of his faded jeans and opened it, sliding a picture from its plastic sleeve. Himself, age six. Orange Winnie The Pooh t-shirt. Deeply tanned from what must have been one hell of a great summer. No worries.
Now, forty years later, he had death to worry about. Killing. Being killed. Death waiting patiently, licking its chops in the abyss of consequences. No other options, really. No alternative plan. His instructions were clear. He had a slight head start on Freeway, though. At least he had that.
Paine finished his meal and walked out of Consuelo’s to the ’Vette. He opened the door and sat down but didn’t start the engine, instead turning the key counter-clockwise so he could listen to the radio. The Classic Rock KTEX deejay was spinning the Eagles’ “Good Day in Hell.” He stared up through the t-tops at the stars in the hot, black, south Texas sky and thought about Freeway. Killing Freeway. That was the job. No alternatives. He looked at the book on the passenger seat as he started the Corvette’s engine. Heart of Darkness. It was his favorite.
20
“Oh well. It’s been a good day in hell. Tomorrow I’ll be glory bound.”
21
Pursuers and the pursued. Murderers and those to be murdered. For them the night did not surrender easily. It held on. The night forced them to rethink, retool, remember. It was stronger than they were. The night mocked their absolutes, made them question their motives and acknowledge their fragility. The night reduced them to their essence and reminded them of their powerlessness. The night frightened them not because of what it veiled, but because of what it clarified.
How skilled they were at killing or avoiding death was a matter of opinion, only their own, and those opinions meant nothing to anyone else in that darkness where they breathed. When it came to doing their jobs, they were not void of feelings. They just didn’t dwell on those feelings. These were things civilians could never understand. It was why life could become so cold, like a planet too far from the sun.
Yes, the night held on. It kept them waiting, kept the killing and the running fresh in their minds.
22
Paine sat alone on a maroon, leather couch in the living room of Pioneer Gordy’s downtown condominium. A block-candle on the glass coffee table and a dim glow over the wet bar were the only sources of light. He could hear Gordy and Stebbins talking in the study, Gordy’s voice at times rising in anger.
Paine botched the job, and he knew it. He hoped for another opportunity.
The door to the study swung open and Gordy, with Stebbins at his heels, walked into the room and stared at Paine.
“You want a drink, Vic?” he asked.
“Yeah, thanks,” Paine said. “Maker’s on the rocks.”
“Terry,” Gordy ordered, “three Maker’s on the rocks.”
“You got it, boss.”
Gordy, wearing a green, silk robe and matching pajamas and slippers, walked across the room to the picture window, lit a cigarette, and pulled the blinds open a bit. He turned back around, again stared at Paine, blew a cloud of smoke in his direction, scratched his neck, and flashed a condescending grin.
“Here you go, gentlemen,” Stebbins said as he shuffled over from the wet bar and handed the men their drinks.
Gordy began pacing deliberately between Stebbins and Paine.
“Sit down, Terry,” he said.
“Sure, chief,” Stebbins said, plopping down on a bamboo mamasan chair.
“How could you fuck this up?” Gordy asked, peering into Paine’s face, then into Stebbins’s. “How could you fuck this up? I’d like to know. Houston?”
Paine looked at Stebbins, then up at Gordy, and said, “It was air-tight, PG.”
“Air-tight?” Gordy said. “Air-tight?”
“I thought the information was sound, PG.”
“You need some hearing aids, then, Vic.”
“Look, Vic.” Stebbins said. “Maybe you’d like to stay closer to the office, you know? You’ve been out in the field for a lotta years. Might be losing the old edge, huh?”
“You’re a goddamn fool, Terry,” Paine said. “One of these days I’m gonna help you understand that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean, scumbag?” Stebbins said, standing.
“Sit the fuck down!” Gordy shouted, throwing his glass across the room and shattering it against a large painting of two nude women playing croquet.
Stebbins flinched. Paine sat still, unimpressed.
“I’m trying to run a business here,” Gordy said. “If you two don’t start acting like normal fucking people, I’m gonna personally bury you…alive…in one of those cornfields up north. Both of you. Understand?”
The two men nodded, glaring at each another.
Gordy paused, looked back and forth at Paine and Stebbins, and began explaining their next move.
Paine brought the glass of whiskey to his lips, pulled in a long draft, and swallowed. The warm liquid raced down his throat and into his guts and untied his burly neck-knots. He felt as if he’d been holding his breath for the last two days.
23
The highway roped through the mountains, and the afternoon heat like a steel pressure-cooker lid clamped down on the valleys and imprisoned the steamy air.
“And so I told Richard from North Dakota the whole story,” Don said. “Coach Mozz was in serious trouble with Gordy. Owed him twenty-five thousand. Gordy said he’d wipe the debt off his books if Coach could guarantee him I would not only break the NABL single-game scoring record, but in doing so drop in exactly seventy-one points. Not seventy. Not seventy-two.”
“Why only seventy-one?” Vessie said.
“See, Gordy could make a hell of a lot more than twenty-five thousand dollars if he bet on me both breaking the record and scoring a specific number of points.”
“How could your coach do something like that to you? Expect that from you?”
“He was a walking dead man, Aunt Vessie. He couldn’t pay the debt. It was a last gasp.”
“What did you say to him?”
“I told him I’d talk to Gordy. That I’d take on Coach’s debt. Let Coach off the hook. Put it on me. Gordy agreed to shift it over.”
“Oh no,” Vessie said. “You scored seventy points that night, Donald.”
“Yes. Four seconds left in the game. Broke the record with the first free throw. Missed that second free throw, though. I’d sprinted to the locker room as soon as the third quarter ended. Told Coach I had to go to the john. Instead, I snorted up what was left in the vial of cocaine I’d stashed in my locker.”
“Donald. Why?”
“You know why.”
They rounded a switchback, and Don tapped the brakes as the Tahoe approached a wobbly semi.
“Is that why you missed the free throw?”
“Probably.”
“I never understood why players miss free throws. It’s not a long shot.”
“Nope. Fifteen feet.”
“And nobody’s allowed to bother you while you shoot.”
“That’s right. They’ve gotta leave you alone.”
“And you can take your time.”
“Pretty much. Yes.”
Don sped up and passed the semi.
“So now I was in the deep end of the pool,” he said. “Gordy had bet fifty thousand on me. I owed him seventy-five grand. Didn’t have it, of course.”
Don lit a cigarette.
“That day,” Vessie said. “The storm.”
“Yes. The day after the game. Gordy and his guys were out looking for me. I didn’t know what to do, where to go. I was just driving, trying to think. My gun on the passenger seat. Barely knew how to fire the thing. Dark sky. And then there they were. In that goddamned Cadillac of his. He saw me. Intersection of Highway 4 and State Road 29. They U-turned and followed. I turned left on to 29 and floored it. They sped up beside me. Driver’s side. They rolled down their windows. Gordy was in the passenger seat. He was yelling, ‘Pull over! Pull over!’ I panicked. Rolled down my window, picked up the gun, and fired twice, just to back them off. They swerved. There was blood, like thin, red racing stripes, along the back end of the Cadillac. One guy was slumped over, his head hanging out the backseat window. His hair, it was long, it was flailing in the wind. Looked like a nest of black snakes, spinning and curling and whipping back and forth, spraying red mist.”
Don dragged on his cigarette and checked the side view mirrors.
“And the storm had moved in fast. They were still following me. Right on my bumper. My rear view mirror framed the Cadillac, Gordy hanging out of the passenger window, screaming, spit on his cheeks. We got off the highway and on to the county roads. The oldies station was playing Simon and Garfunkel’s “America”, then the disc jockey breaks in and says something about a tornado warning, ‘a tornado has been spotted, has touched down.’ Then I saw it. Death Twister. And I drove toward it. Gordy wouldn’t back off. Just kept coming. He was still screaming, his hair leaping like black flames, his eyes wide. The Death Twister was maybe a quarter mile ahead of us. The sound was like they all say – a freight train. I heard a blast and looked back. Gordy had a sawed-off shotgun in his hand. My rear window shattered. The Death Twister inhaled a barn, spit out a cow, and roared up the center of the road. I drove straight into it.”
Vessie shook her head.
“And Richard from North Dakota wasn’t Richard from North Dakota,” Don said.
24
Don drove while Vessie slept, her snoring keeping his drowsiness at bay. Still, the miles of mountain road accumulating behind him were abandoned by his memory, memory that wavered in tumult’s presence.
His road-thoughts, mercurial and fragmentary:
Motionless motorcade of need. Dismembered stillness. Its silence works to extinguish the fire. The staring miracle seems much younger in a knee-high grain field. Bitter, bark-bitten traveler. Destinations disguised. Maybe write a film script about a rock and roll star. Last chance to make things right. Plenty of room for guitar players selling lies. Ripping notes off other guys that tell the truth.
Candelabrum on the mountain top. Wed the spirit of a queen. Lovely sounds from the zenana. A scimitar carves up juvenocracy. Follow the euphony.
Magnified summer slush. Sprinkling lawn dancers, they float on stones. Three in the sun with the far-out one. Dry minutes dissolve.
Expelled from a too-distant rock. Gathering a peculiar dust. Content with my space-age rust. Armored men surround the table. I am one. Phantasm on horseback. Mind-gangster. The psychedelicate will survive, will be catalogued, categorized, cat-got-my-tongue. Sitting at the ‘grown-up table.’ Talking movie deals with no cash in pocket. Funky jazz club in Redkey, Indiana. Stalling in a dying Buick. Behold Chuck Mangione.
The Mad Hatter in the doorway of Lenny’s On the Corner said you were back in town. Funny. You once covered your exit-prints with sharp, little slivers of my devotion. Coffee-wired and stoned I was when the latch clicked.
Make believe. Rake and heave. Wake and leave.
Weave a lake. Deceive a fake. Relieve the goddamned ache. Receive and take. And take. And take.
You growling dog. Scowling frog. Murky bog. Gelatin fog.
Seated and still. Completed. Filled with needed heat. The movement inside a drummer’s beat. I’ve been numb for two days. Been strung on the line. Railriding ain’t no place for the timid. There ain’t no law out on the rails. Steel suffocation in waves.
Sell your soul! Keep the club open! They’re broke and the joke won’t let hope in. A glass spider creeps across the leaden sky again. A sun that never rises, just disguises, pretends. And puts together my new beginnings. And pulls apart my old split ends.
Her morning bath ends with tea. And a daydream flutters like the opening of a present. They said to be home before dark or nine. The taste was like metal, with a dash of theater. Dim light and Joni Mitchell. Camera pans across rock star walls. I tasted her sex scene. She, moon-colored grace, matched my bed-cinema. And the fatigue was broken by the breath after each verse she read. We slept through the eclipse.
Deviled heights. I stood agape. Formerly foolish and a fool again. Fourteen dollars for a new double album. Fourteen dollars for a new double album. The Brass Section Daffodils, for fourteen bills, play Gram Parsons songs: “Out with the truckers and the kickers and the cowboy angels. And a good saloon in every single town. Oh, and I remember something you once told me. And I’ll be damned if it did not come true. Twenty thousand roads I went down, down, down. And they all led me straight back home to you.”
25
“Where are we going to stop, Donald?” Vessie said.
“The coast. Gotta get to the coast. We’ll have more options there.”
“Promise me we’ll make it, Donald.”
“We’ll make it. I promise you we’ll make it. We’ve got thirty grand in cash and a full tank of gas. We’re fine.”
“It’s all the money I have, Donald, so it better be a nice beach.”
She patted his arm.
They reached the Carolina side of the mountains as the sun dipped out of sight. Don saw the white, four-story cross ahead on his left and steered onto the exit ramp. A hundred yards to the left of the cross was Adult Planet, its exterior bright, its design contemporary.
“Just sit tight, Aunt Vessie. I’ve gotta run in here for a minute. I’ll be right back.”
A-D-U-L-T P-L-A-N-E-T flashed in big, bright, red letters.
“You’ll be in there for more than a minute.”
“Give me a little credit, please. Be right back.”
Don stopped as the entrance doors closed behind him. Dark as a basement. Then the neon lights – green, red, blue – fuzzed in from left and right and lit the way to a man sitting at a counter. His acne-ravaged face peeked out from a black Slayer t-shirt like a turtle’s head from its shell. His eyes were half-closed.
“Peepers, movies, or bookstore,” he said.
“Dingo here?” Don said.
“Who are you?”
“Tell him it’s Don.”
The man sat still for a moment, spun around, and disappeared behind a black curtain.
Phil Collins’s “In the Air Tonight” pounded the walls. Potent, synthetic cherry smell. Women’s voices. Moans. Fabricated, ecstatic screams.
Dingo stepped out from behind the curtain rolling up the sleeves of his pink button-down shirt. Khakis, no socks, and Top-Siders completed the look.
“Come on back,” he said, flipping sandy-brown bangs from his forehead.
The men shook hands, and Don followed Dingo to his office, a nautical-themed room with wooden ducks decorating nearly every flat surface.
“Have a seat, Ronny. You want a drink?”
“Can’t, man. Gotta make it quick. I appreciate this, Dingo.”
“Anything for my old college buddy. Two right? And the Glock?”
“Yes.”
Dingo turned and opened a gray container on the floor. He tossed two bullet-proof vests to Don, along with a large, green, Orvis duffel bag, then placed the handgun on his desk.
“Nice weapon,” Dingo said.
“I owe you one, man.”
Don stuffed the vests and the handgun in the bag.
“No worries, old sport. Where you headed?”
“West.”
“Stop by next time you’re in the neighborhood. You’ve gotta see the boat.”
“I will. Take care.”
“You okay, old sport?”
“Yeah.”
They shook hands again, and Don walked out through the cherry air-bath and back to the Tahoe.
“What’s in the bag?” Vessie said.
“Body armor and a handgun.”
“That’s a relief. I thought you were going to say X-rated movies.”
“Smart-ass.”
“Oh, I’m tired, Donald.”
“Tell you what. We’ll drive for a couple more hours and then stop for the night. Okay?”
“Okay. I’m going to go back to sleep. Unless you need me to drive.”
“No. Get some sleep.”
“The sea, huh? We’re headed for the sea. I’ve never been there.”
“Get some sleep.”
26
The hospital chapel door opened. It was Karen’s mother. Don stood but did not approach her.
“I’m sorry, Teresa,” Don said.
“You’re scared, aren’t you,” she said. “Scared of all this.”
She scanned the dim chapel.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“You don’t know? You’re scared of death. Karen scared you, didn’t she?”
“Yes.”
An imperceptible draft disturbed the candle flames.
“Don’t you think Karen was scared?”
“Of course.”
He stepped toward her.
“Don’t. Don’t do it. Stay there. Please.”
Don looked down at his shoes.
“Look at me,” Teresa said. “I never trusted you. Did you know that? Did you?”
“No. I never knew that.”
“Do you know why I never trusted you, Ronny?”
“Why?”
“Because you were always a perfect gentleman. You’ll always be a perfect gentleman, Ronny.”
Teresa turned, stopped for a moment at the door, then exited the chapel.
27
Vessie shot up from the seat gasping.
“Jesus!” Don said. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
She fought to regain her breath, then leaned back.
“I’m okay. Went down the wrong pipe.”
“What did?”
“I don’t know. I was dreaming about something, drinking a Coke or something. I’m parched, Donald. Can we stop and get something to drink?”
“You sure you’re okay?”
“Yes. Just thirsty.”
“Next place we come to, we’ll stop.”
He reached for her hand and held it.
“I said I was okay,” she said.
She tried to pull away, but Don held tight.
“I know you are,” he said.
She leaned her head back again and slept.
Don drove for another half-hour. Ahead on their right was a convenience store-diner-dump just off the exit. He pulled into the parking lot.
“Aunt Vessie,” he said patting her on the shoulder. “We’re at a restaurant. Do you want to go inside?”
“No. Can you just get me a Coke to go?”
“Sure. Be right back.”
Don walked into Beard’s Highway Kitchen and Appurtenances and approached the counter. The place was empty save for a woman at the cash register.
“Evening,” she said.
Her dark hair was pulled up. Her eyes. Her lips. Those hands. Hands like a model’s hands.
“…and they all led me straight back home to you.”
But, of course, it wasn’t Karen. Her name was Sarah. Her name tag read, ‘Sarah.’
“We close here at nine. Can I get you something, hon? Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah. You, I need two large Cokes to go, please.”
The woman paused, then began filling up the cups with fountain Coke. A train whistle wailed.
“Tracks right behind the restaurant,” Sarah said. “You ever just want to hop on one of those trains and let it take you somewhere, somewhere else? And then never come back?”
Don cleared his throat.
“Yes. I do.”
“I’m Sarah.”
“Don.”
The train whistle again. Rolling past the restaurant now. Evaporating. A hulking, steel ghost that tempts with an offer of forbidden manumission. On and away it moves, leaving behind and melancholy those who can only in reverie sip that endemic nectar.
“Here you go,” Sarah said, placing the Cokes on the counter. “Two-fifty.”
Don grabbed one cup.
“Will you wait here for just a minute?” he said.
“Sure. Okay.”
He walked to the Tahoe. Vessie was not there. He jogged back to the restaurant.
“Where are your restrooms?” he asked Sarah.
“Back here. And we have a restroom in the store.”
Don walked out and around to the side of the building. Almost completely dark now. He saw a figure, a mound next to the railroad tracks. The parking lot’s lone light illuminated the empty Tahoe.
“No,” he said.
Don walked toward the figure. His feet seemed to make contact with nothing. Just the warm breeze on his face. Like he was being carried.
It was her. Curled up on her right side.
“Aunt Vessie. What are you doing out here? I want you to meet someone. C’mon. Here’s your Coke. You said you were thirsty, now c’mon. We’ve got a long way to go.”
He knelt down beside her. Didn’t look at her.
“We’re gonna make it,” he said. “I promise.”
He touched her hand. Squeezed it. It was cold. Her eyes were closed, her mouth open a bit, a frozen word on her tongue.
“Wake up,” he said, pulling her hand back and forth. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what. I don’t. I can’t.”
Don stood, clenched his fists, raised them, and screamed at fiends in the night sky.
28
“Do you have any sparklers in the store? Fourth of July sparklers?”
“I think so. I think we have a few boxes left over. What’s going on?”
“I need one box of sparklers. Please.”
Sarah returned with the black, rectangular box, and together they walked out of the restaurant.
Don opened the box, pulled out the sparklers, and pushed them, one by one, into the moist ground, encircling Vessie’s body. Then he lit them. Diminutive flame-fountains shot fire-drops into the air, each one burning white hot, reaching its incandescent potential. Then a final, angry whirl. Then extinguished.
“I need to call an ambulance,” Don said.
“Phone’s in the restaurant. You gonna be okay, hon?”
“Would you like to go somewhere else and never come back?” he said.
Sarah looked at the restaurant, then at the dying lights surrounding the old woman’s body.
“Yes,” she said.
“With me?” he said.
“Yes.”
Don reached for Sarah’s hand, and they walked to the restaurant, Vessie’s body once again a dark figure next to the tracks.
