by DBC Pierre
'Well, the president isn't here right now.'
'I know, he's down here – you must've seen him on TV these days?'
'That's in very poor taste young man. Why, I've been blind for thirty years.'
'I'm real sorry, ma'am.'
'Have you seen him? Have you seen my Lalo?'
'As a matter of fact, he's staying at my – uh – friend's house.'
'Oh heavens, let me find a pen…'
Another bunch of stuff clatters down the line. I stand here and wonder how you read and write when you're blind. I guess you etch lines that you can feel with your fingers, like in clay or something. Or cheese, carry cheese around all the time.
'I know it's here somewhere,' she says. 'You tell Lalo the finance company took everything, they wouldn't wait another second for payment on the van, and now the Wylers are suing over their video camera. Imagine that! – and I was the one who talked them into repairing it in the first place. Those cameras don't fix themselves overnight you know, that's what I told her. I just wish everything wasn't in my name…'
She finds the cheese, and I give her my phone number. My early joy has melted now, with the serious reality of things. I say goodbye to the lady and ride away towards the escarpment, to find the gun. Jesus rides with me in spirit. He stays silent. I've changed the course of Fate, and it weighs on me heavy.
Bushes on Keeter's trail are bizarre, all spiky and gnarled, with just enough clearing between them so the unknown is never more than fifteen yards away. Not many creatures come this far into Keeter's. Me and Jesus are the only ones I know. Last time I saw him alive at Keeter's, he was in the far distance.
Ole man Keeter owns this empty slab of land, miles of it probably, outside town. He put a wrecking shop by the ole Johnson road, Keeter's Spares & Repairs – just a mess of junk in the dirt, really. He doesn't even run it anymore. When we say Keeter's around here, we usually mean the land, not the auto shop. You might see some steers on it, or deer; but mostly just bleached beer cans and shit. The edge of the universe of town. Martirio boys suck their first taste of guns, girls and beer out here. You never forget the blade of wind that cuts across Keeter's.
In the thick of the property lies a depression in the ground, sixty-one yards across, with wire and bushes matted around it. At the steepest end is an ole mine shaft. The den, we call it. We rigged up a door with some sheets of tin, and put a padlock on it and all. It was our headquarters, during those carefree years. That's where I took a shit the other day, the day of the tragedy, if you need to know. That's where the rifle is stashed.
It's two thirty-eight in the afternoon. Hot and sticky, with fast-moving clouds bunched low across the sky. I get to within two hundred yards of the den and hear a hammer-blow. Something moves in the bushes up ahead. It's ole Tyrie Lasseen, who runs Spares & Repairs, sinking markers into the ground. He's dressed in a suit and tie. He jackrabbits before I can hide.
'Okay, son?' he calls. 'Don't be touchin nothin, could be dangerous.'
'Sure, Mr Lasseen, I'm just cruising…'
'I wouldn't recommend you cruise around here, maybe you better head back to the road.'
Tyrie is the kind of Texan who takes his time telling you to fuck off. He shuffles three steps towards me, and wipes some sweat from the top of his head. His eyes crinkle like barbed wire snagged with horsehair, and his mouth hangs open a little. Ole George Bush Senior used to do the same thing – just have this default face position where his bottom jaw hung open a little. Like these guys listen through their mouths or something.
'Sir, I'm just passing through to the San Marcos road, I won't touch anything at all.'
Mr Lasseen stands there and listens, through his mouth; his tongue lolls like a snake inside. Then these rusty sounds slither onto the breeze. 'The San Marcos road? The San Marcos road? Son, I don't recommend takin this way to the San Marcos road. I recommend you head on back to the Johnson road, and ride around it.'
'But, the thing is…'
'Son, the best thing I recommend is to get yourself back onto the Johnson road. I recommend that, and don't be pokin around here no more – this'll be a restricted area just now.' His jaw drops even lower, to hear any stray comeback, then he throws a finger at town. 'Go on now.'
Weeds blow across the trail home, corrugated metal sheets flap, and with their creaks come the sound of dogs barking. I have only one chance left to reach the gun. When Lasseen is safely out of sight, I edge my front wheel off the track and rocket through the wilds in an arc that will take me around him, to the back of the den. Bushes squat lower on this part of Keeter's, joined by tall grasses and chunks of household debris. I nearly smash into a nest of toilet bowls, abandoned in the undergrowth like some kind of vegetarian pinball machine. As I slalom through them, I see a Bar-B-Chew Barn cap up ahead. Voices waft down on a breeze.
'Who cares about ole nature,' says a kid.
'It's not just nature, Steven – there might be a gun.'
It's the meatworks posse. I know it even before the marching band strikes up. I lay down the bike and huddle into the nest of bowls, trying to gauge the distance between me and the dogs working their way from the town side. It's four minutes to three. Kids start to surround my position. I crouch low.
'Bernie?' says a little voice.
'Wha?' My nerves half electrocute me to fucken death.
I spin my head around. Behind a bush at my back crouches Ella Bouchard. She's a girl from Crockett's, who used to go to my junior school. Believe me, you don't want to fucken know.
'Hi, Bernie,' she says, shuffling closer.
'Shhh, willya! I'm tryin to rest a little here, God.'
'Looks like you're hidin out to me, that's what it looks like, to me anyway…'
'Ella – it's real urgent that nobody disturbs me right now – okay?'
Her smile falters. She watches me through big blue eyes, like doll's eyes or something. 'Wanna see my south pole?' Her dusty ole knees part a little, a flash of panty shines out.
'Shit, come on, willya? Hell,' I blow extra air out of my cheeks with the words, like a Democrat or whatever. I still look, though. It's automatic with panties, don't tell me it ain't. Ole cotton there, stretched gray, like fucken airplanes use her to land on.
'Can I just hang out – Bernie?' She closes back her legs.
'Shhh! Anyway, my name's not even Bernie, duh.'
'It is too Bernie, or somethin like that, it's Bernie or somethin like that.'
'Listen – can't I owe you or something? Can't we hang out another time?'
'If it's true, and for actual real, maybe. Like when?'
'Well I don't know, just sometime, next time or whatever.'
'Promise?'
'Yeah I promise.'
I feel her breath lapping at my face, Juicy-Fruit breath, hot and solid like piss. I turn my back, to invite her to crawl away, but she doesn't. I can tell she's staring.
'Fucken what?' I say, spinning around on her.
She throws a weak smile. 'I love you Bernie.' Then, with a thump of plastic sandal, and a swish of blue cotton, she's gone. It's five minutes after three. Your eyes automatically check when it's time for deep shit, in case you hadn't noticed.
'Okay team, stop here for the first item in your snack-packs!' yells a lady. 'That's the item with the red label, the red-label item only.'
'Don't go there, boys,' you hear Tyrie Lasseen call in the distance. 'That's an ole mine shaft, stay well away.' Relief scuds through me as Tyrie warns them away from the den. Then another cluster of voices comes near.
'Todd,' says a lady, 'I told you to go before we left the meat-works. Just use one of these bushes, nobody can see.' You hear a dorkball squeak something in back, then the lady says: 'Well you ain't gonna find one out here, this ain't the mall, in case you hadn't noticed.'
We don't even have a fucken mall, by the way. Notice how folks always throw in that extra smart-assed thing when the media's around. They just pick the first fucken thing to say, like the mall o
r whatever.
'Use those toilet bowls, over there,' calls some asshole in a fake girl's voice.
'Hey, yeah,' says a lady, 'I saw some toilet bowls around here somewhere – maybe that'll help you pretend.'
'Wait up!' says Ella Bouchard. 'You better not use them potties – snakes sleep in 'em.'
'Oh my God,' says the lady. Todd, wait! I better come with you.'
They crackle through the bushes into my nest. I stand out of the dirt and pick up my bike, casually, like I'm in the freezer section at the Mini-Mart or something.
'It's the psycho!' says the kid.
'Shhh, Todd, don't be silly,' says the lady. She turns to me. 'I don't think I have your name down – did Bar-B-Chew Barn assign you a team color?'
'Uh – green?' I say.
'Can't be green, it can only be a color from their logo.' She pulls out her phone. 'I'll call Mrs Gurie and check the list – what's your name again?'
'Uh – Brad Pritchard.'
'Brad Pritchard? But we already have a Brad Pritchard…'
There comes a wet rustle from the bushes, like a dog eating lettuce, then Brad tiptoes into the clearing with Mini-Mart bags tied over his Timberlands. He points out a cloud with his nose. That's nouvelle; having the convict look for his own gun.'
'Vaine?' says the lady into her phone. 'I think we need some assistance.'
I jump onto my bike and hit the pedals hard. Dirt spews across the clearing.
Girls giggle, camera tool-belts rattle, and in amongst them as I ride away, ride like the fucken wind itself, you hear Brad Pritchard faking a dumb girl's voice. 'Hey, Bernie – wanna see my south pole?'
I spin twisters along the track to town. My only option is to hit the fucken road. Right away. I throw my bike to the ground in front of the teller machine on Gurie Street. I love my bike, but I just crash it the fuck down. It ain't a fancy bike, but it's strong, and used to belong to my grand-daddy, back when the town still only had two roads. I crash it down. That's the kind of twisted shit this life has in store for you, guaranteed.
I put my bank card into the machine, and tap in the code -6768. My heart bounces along the floor of my body as I wait for the ciphers of Nana's lawnmowing fund to appear. After nine years, a message jumps to the screen.
'Balance – $2.41,' it says.
ten
I have no option but to spin home and grab stuff to pawn or sell. It's after four when I reach the house, willing it to be empty. Empty. Like: yeah, right. Lally's rental car is out front. I enter like a ghost through the kitchen screen. At first everything's quiet inside. Then there's a knock at the front door. An air-dam of perfume collapses into the hall. I freeze.
'Shhh, Vernon, I'll get the front door.' Mom scuttles over the rug like a hamster.
'Do-ris?' the kitchen screen opens behind me. Leona wafts in, flouncing her hair.
'Shhh – Lally's sleeping!' hisses Mom.
Get that. When my daddy used to doze on the sofa after a few beers, she'd put on high heels and clomp around the kitchen, just to wake him up. I swear to God. She'd pretend to be doing stuff that required clomping, but she wasn't actually doing anything at all. She'd clomp back and forth for no reason, instead of just saying 'Wake up'. That was in the days after he hit me, after things went kind of sour.
A bedspring creaks up the hallway. Mom gently opens the front door to the reporter Lally owes money to. 'Afternoon, ma'am, is Eelio Lemeda here?'
'Lally? Well, he's here, but he's indisposed right now – can I tell him who called?'
'I'll wait, if you don't mind.'
'Well he shouldn't be much longer.'
The toilet flushes deep in the house. The bathroom door bangs, and Lally stomps down the hall. 'Vanessa, have you seen my therapy bag?'
'No, Lalito – anyway, I think you're all out of your gin-sling things.'
Fucken Vanessa? I search her face for clues. One thing you notice is her cheeks are all proud and peachy, like when she eats ice-cream in important company. Her eyelashes flutter double-time.
'Vanessa?' says Leona.
Mom blushes. 'Well I'll explain just now.'
She hides another final notice from the power company behind the cookie jar, then goes to fuss over Lally, who only has his robe on, you can just about see his cock flapping all over the place. If you had a fucken electron microscope you could just about see it. He strides into the kitchen with this smile full of teeth, and grazes a hand to Leona's butt as he passes. She gives a wiggle.
'Lally,' says Mom, 'there's someone at the front door for you.'
'For me?' His smile stiffens. Joy wells up in my heart. As he turns to the door, I tackle Mom into the corner of the kitchen.
'Ma, go check Lally's visitor – fast! Go on now!'
'Well Vernon, what on earth's gotten into you? That's Lally's private business.'
'No it ain't, Ma, quick – it's real important.'
'Oh, Vernon – cope for God's sake.' She flashes her creamiest-pie smile as George and Betty clack into the kitchen, in the middle of one of their typical conversations.
'Honey, no way,' says George, 'just being a shareholder doesn't mean he has to buy that whole ridiculous SWAT thing of Vaine's. Can you imagine? She can't even keep her damn flab under control, let alone a team of gunmen!'
'I know, I know.'
I try to shunt my ole lady up to the front door, to witness Lally's shame, but her skin-tight pants don't make her any lighter; she won't budge at all.
Lally opens the door to the man. 'Don't tell me – you're on a recovery mission.'
'Yeah, if you can spare it,' says the guy.
'Here you go, fifty dollars – and thanks.'
Now Mom grabs me by the shoulders – fucken me, no less – and spins me into the corner. ' Vernon, don't tell your nana, but I had to raid the lawnmowing fund to help Lally. His camera equipment wiped the code from his Visa card. I'll put it back as soon as my loan is approved.'
'Ma, I needed that money…'
'Well Vernon Gregory, you know that's Nana's lawnmowing account, and it's supposed to be earning interest for your college fund.'
'Yeah, like you get a whole pile of interest off fifty dollars.'
'Well I know it's not much, but it's all I have – just a mother on my own.'
Lally finishes with the reporter, but he doesn't come inside. Does he fuck. Instead he stands on the porch and hollers: 'Park in the driveway, Preacher – the girls won't be leaving for a while.' He leaves the front door open, and swaggers into the kitchen, passing me by without a glance.
'Lally, I forgot to mention,' says Mom, 'a lady called for you, from the network I think.'
'A lady?' Lally's hand twitches over his crotch.
'Uh-huh, she sounded very senior – she'll call back later.'
'She didn't leave a name?'
'Well she said it was your office – I told her to call back.'
One of Lally's eyes snaps to me. A quivery eye. Then he grabs Mom around the belly and says, 'Thanks, Vanessa – you're indispensable.'
'Van-essa?' say the ladies.
Mom swells. 'Well, I can't tell you much now – can I, Lalito?'
'Suffice to say,' says Lally, 'the network was impressed with her appearance the other day. No promises, but we could be seeing a lot more of her – when the right strategies are in place.'
'I'll always be the same old Doris to you girls, though, you know I won't change a bit, deep down.'
Check Leona. Her mouth flaps empty of words for a moment, then she goes, 'Wow, it's weird because, did I tell you guys my new dialogue coach is sending my reel to the networks? Right after I get back from Hawaii – God, that's so weird, isn't it…?'
Mom just snuggles back into Lally's arms. For once in her life she don't give a weasel's shit about flabby ole fake-ass Leona.
'Vanessa Le Bourget,' Lally says into my ole gal's ear. 'Boor-jay,' he croons, like the cartoon skunk off TV, the one that always tries to fuck the cat. Mom just about shits on the floo
r when she hears it. Leona nearly bursts out fucken bawling. Lally's on a roll. I just let him roll. 'Tch, I can't wait to share you with the crew back in New York, you'll just love those guys.'
'Well don't be impatient, Lalito, everything has its time. Meanwhile you'll have everything you need, even though it's just lil' ole me, in this itty-bitty town.'
'You can say itty again – damn hole doesn't even have a sushi bar!'
'Not like Nacogdoches,' I say.
'Nacog-doches?' says Betty. Lally shoots me the devil's eye.
'Bwanas tardies,' booms the pastor, stepping through the door like he's a fucken Meskin all of a sudden. Bwanas tardies my fucken ass.
'C'mon in, Preacher,' says Lally. 'Can I fix you a loosener?' Lally's eye doesn't scan my way anymore. His eye has a new scanning pattern.
'Thanks, but no,' says Gibbons, 'I have to get that refrigerator moved into the media center – it's a mighty fine donation, I can't thank y'all enough.'
' Vernon, perhaps you'll explain to the pastor why you abandoned his charity stall today,' says Lally. Tension turns the air in the room to crystals.
'I got a stomach ache.'
'Surely,' he says, 'a person bailed for murder would do better to…'
'I'm not even on bail for murder, I'm a goddam accessory to Jesus Navarro's murders – fuck!'
Lally leans in like a whip and smacks the back of my head. 'Control yourself!'
I fill with acid blood. Mom starts to bawl in the corner, making it as difficult as possible for the ladies to maneuver her to the sofa.
'Such aggression in that boy,' says George. 'He was bound to fetch trouble, with so much aggression.'
'I know, I know – just like that, ehm – other boy…'
A dizzy feeling comes over me as I hit the ring-end of my fucken tether. I pull Lally's business card out of my pocket, and hold it up in the air. 'Everybody – I called Yoo-lalio's office today, and guess who answered? His blind momma, who just had her house emptied by the finance company on account of his van repayments.' Lally's eyes turn to coal. 'Now she's facing a lawsuit over the camcorder he stole. Did you know he's actually a TV repairman, who works out of his momma's bedroom in Nacogdoches?'