by Paula Boyd
“Mr. Bobcat? Did you really say that? Jesus Christ.”
“Aw, you don’t have to call me that, Jolene will do.”
He flicked his cigarette butt on the ground. “Ethel said you were a smartass.”
“I really doubt that Ethel Fossy said the word ass.”
“You’d be surprised,” he muttered. “But that’s all beside the goddamned point.”
The unmistakable sound of tires spinning in gravel interrupted our scintillating conversation.
I jerked around to see a cloud of dust and Mother’s Buick speeding away. “What the—”
“Well, shit,” Bobcat muttered.
“What’s going on? What is she doing? Is that Ethel with her?”
Something jabbed me in the side as Bobcat grabbed my arm. Realization and fear froze me like a statue, but I did manage to glance down enough to see that there was indeed a pistol wedged against my ribcage.
“Get in,” Bobcat said, pushing me toward the van’s sliding passenger side door and shoving me inside.
The van’s cargo area had two bucket seats identical to the ones in the front. I stumbled over the first and fell headfirst into the second as he closed the door.
Raising my head, I saw the other door handle. If I could just reach it I might be able to open the door enough to fall out the other side. Before I could try it, however, Bobcat scooped his arm under me, twirled me around and sat me in the seat, right side up. “You don’t want to do that. There are easier ways to kill yourself.”
“Good to know,” I muttered.
A woman with long reddish-blond braids sat behind the wheel. Lily. Her reflection in the rear view mirror just showed a blank expression, not anxious or on edge like you’d expect a getaway driver to be. Her eyes did look puffy and red though, like she’d either been crying or maybe was on drugs. She put the van in gear and started pulling forward. “Oh, no,” she slammed on the brakes and looked in the rear view mirror at me. “I bet you didn’t get to eat, we hardly gave you any time inside at all,” she said, with a mellow airy voice. “We’ll just go get your food and you can take it with you, yes, that’s what we’ll do.” She started again, drove a few more feet then hit the brakes again, hard.
My brain and internal organs lurched with the jerky movements of the van, sending my senses spinning. Motion sickness hits me fast and hard, and another round of that I’d be taking the gun and shooting myself.
“You didn’t order any meat did you?” Lily asked with both suspicion and condemnation. “I just can’t condone that sort of thing—”
“Jesus Christ, Lily, just drive,” Bobcat said, getting surlier by the second.
Lily hit the gas and lurched forward. “We have to be sure she has food, no one should have to go hungry,” she said, as if I was a gerbil she’d just picked up at the pet store. As she pulled the van into the drive-through lane, she added, “You really should put the gun away.”
Bobcat laid the gun in his lap, but kept his grip. “It’s Texas, nobody cares.”
“I care,” Lily said, rolling down the windows down and pointing to me so the lady behind the counter would connect the dots.
Any other time I would’ve had to produce a receipt, driver’s license and birth certificate to pick up at the drive-through window that which had been paid for at the inside counter. But not today. Before I could wink, blink, or send hand signals, the clerk had grabbed a sack off the counter and cheerfully tossed it to my kidnapper. She then handed Lily the white Styrofoam cups one at a time, which she in turn handed back to Bobcat, one at a time so he could keep one hand on the gun. “Ya’ll have a nice day” drifted out as the DQ lady slammed the little glass window.
Bobcat had put the first cup in the holder on the door and held the second out toward me. “Have a drink.”
Sure, why not. No need to be dead and thirsty. I took the cup, and may have even taken a sip, I don’t really know, you do funny things when a gun is pointed at you. And it can sometimes help the nausea. The drink, not the gun.
Lily opened the sack and peered inside. “These don’t look like salads,” she said, suspicion morphing into angst. “You didn’t order chicken, did you?”
Of course it was chicken, the grownup versions of the ones she’d freed from the feed store. However, since she looked genuinely distressed and disturbed at the fact that there might be cooked animal parts in the sack, I tried to smooth things over. I’m ever the people pleaser—even at gunpoint, maybe especially at gunpoint. “No, no, its tofu, southern fried tofu. It’s new on the menu. Comes with organic gravy and whole grain toast. And an onion ring. Onions are nature’s wonder food, you know.”
“Yes, of course I know that,” she snapped, “but fried foods are so unhealthy.”
So are bullets. “You know, you’re absolutely right,” I said, still trying the agreeable and pleasant tactic, and hoping for a chance to flee without getting shot. “I’m not that hungry anyway so I’ll just take these unhealthy things over to that trash can by the front door and throw them away. Somebody has to make a stand. It won’t take but a second.”
“Stay put.” Bobcat leaned forward and grabbed the sack from the van’s console then said to Lily, “Forget about the goddamned food and drive.”
Lily did. And not in a smooth easy fashion either. The gas/brake grasshopper crap was getting old fast. I was apparently in the middle of some kind of power struggle between these two, and the one who seemed to be losing was me.
Out on the highway, the ride smoothed out and Bobcat pulled out a rectangular white box and set it in his lap then held out the sack to me. “Eat. I’m not going to kill you.”
“Again, good to know.” I set my tea in the door’s cup holder and took the sack. “If that’s the case though, you might want to rethink the kidnapping at gunpoint drill. It’s really confusing.”
Bobcat opened his box and the smell of hot fried chicken wafted through the van. I took out my own box and did the same just to have something to do with my hands. Or maybe I thought I could spear him with a French fry or blind him with gravy, I don’t know.
Lily coughed and grabbed a bottle of spring water, presumably to keep from gagging at the odor and/or idea of grease-laden animal flesh being consumed by lesser, unenlightened beings in the backseat. I had no problem with that label for myself, however, it did bring up a bit of a conundrum for Carnivore Bob since he had to have been a part of the feed store fiasco to free the chicks. Curious, that. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him about it and my hand put a French fry in my mouth to stop me. It could not possibly be in my best interests to point out that he was not who he wanted people to think he was. Not while being hauled at gunpoint away from the only speck of civilization there was within miles.
Bobcat stuck the pistol in the seat pocket in front of him. “Went into autopilot. It happens sometimes.” He shrugged. “Saw Lucille coming and had to do something. Didn’t want to deal with her today.”
I couldn’t fault him for that. I’d considered taking a bullet myself for the same reason. “So you nab me and Ethel gets my mother?”
Bobcat eyed his four strips of breaded and fried contraband along with a pile of French fries, a little tub of white gravy and big slice of greasy Texas Toast. “I love this shit.” He opened his gravy and sighed then grabbed and dipped and stuffed, talking as he chewed. “Ethel was just supposed to keep her busy inside while you and me talked outside. That’s all. I don’t know why they left or what the hell they’re doing.” He grabbed another chicken strip, dipped the end in the gravy and shoved the whole thing in his mouth. “They won’t kill each other.”
Obviously, he did not know Lucille very well, or have a clue as to how far off the deep end Ethel Fossy was actually dangling these days. No point in explaining that, however. And, since I figured he’d get around to what he wanted with me, I could jump in now and find out what I wanted to know about him. “Okay, let’s cut to the chase. You didn’t come here because of the horny toads, did you?”
Bobcat stuffed in another bite of country-fried bliss. “Haven’t seen a single one of the little bastards.”
“Stop it! Lily twisted the cap back on her water bottle and banged it down into the cup holder. “You may not care about the lizards, but I do! Every day acres and acres of native habitat are either plowed over by humans or overrun by invasive species, which is a double irony because it’s the most invasive of all species—the humans—that have arrogantly and thoughtlessly spread scourges across this beautiful land.”
She delivered this passionate speech while speeding through a panoramic backdrop of scrub mesquites—an invasive scourge if there ever was one—and a mirror image of the land she was apparently hell bent on “saving.”
“But all is not lost,” she continued. There are still people like Tiger and me out there who do care about the planet, and we do make a difference. We just have to stand up for what we believe. It’s not just about the horny toads, it’s about everything. This is serious. People are dying over what’s happening here and nobody even cares.” Lily paused and blinked for a moment, her eyes looking a little misty in the van’s rear view mirror. “Somebody has to do something about what’s going on here.”
In that moment, Lily sounded like a real activist, which I’d already dismissed as even a possibility. I might have to reconsider. At least for Lily. I wasn’t sure what Bobcat was. I also still didn’t know what they wanted with me except maybe to sell me a “Save the Planet” bumper sticker or something.
“Yeah, yeah,” Bobcat muttered. “I know why we’re here and I’ll do my part. I’m just saying there’s a lot of bullshit out there too.” He scowled and pinched up a wad of fries. “Hell yes, we gotta stop spewing toxic shit into the air and dumping glowing turds in the water so we don’t poison ourselves.” He stuffed in the fries and kept talking. “But it ain’t gonna keep those ice caps from melting and freezing. Global warming, my ass. That freeze-thaw shit was going on long before the goddamned gods were chanting ‘Let us make man in our own image’ over a goddamned Petri dish.”
Repetitive and disturbing expletives aside, he had a point, and he wasn’t the first one to make it. It wasn’t the current politically correct point of view, but it did have some solid scientific evidence on its side. Unfortunately, people eagerly ignore facts when said facts make them uncomfortable. And acknowledging that cooling and warming cycles have happened before and they’re going to happen again—no matter how many hybrid cars we build—is darned uncomfortable for most folks. That doesn’t mean it’s okay to pollute or that we shouldn’t develop more efficient energy sources. It does, however, mean that we need to at least pay equal attention to the messages that the flash frozen and perfectly preserved wooly mammoths left us. “Then again,” I said, deciding to find out how closely he and Ethel’s views of the world lined up. “I’ve heard that Jesus is coming soon so it all could be a moot point.”
“Yeah, well, if he is, he’s coming in a spaceship and he ain’t alone.” Bobcat snorted and sucked down a big swig of tea. “Dumbasses don’t even realize it’s the same goddamned thing. And all that shit they think matters, doesn’t. If the goddamned aliens that put us in this ant farm do decide to save some of our sorry asses, they’ll take who they want for their own reasons. It won’t make a shit that Ethel never heard a piano played in church or that some old crows never cut their hair or wore pants. And unless there’s a strip search before Scotty beams them up, I can’t figure how special underwear is gonna make a shit on who’s getting’ saved and who ain’t.”
I found it seriously disturbing that I knew exactly what he was talking about, and worse, I’d said basically the same things myself, although perhaps with fewer vulgarities.
“Stop it! Stop it right now,” Lily said, pounding her hands on the steering wheel. “That has nothing to do with anything. This is about right here, right now, and you shut up about all that crazy crap.”
Bobcat grabbed his last chicken strip and waved it at her dismissively. “I told you I’d do what you wanted, but goddamn, once this shit’s all over, then what are you gonna have to obsess about? Ethel ain’t the only one living in a jail of her own making.”
“Shut up!” Lily slammed on the brakes, throwing Bobcat and me against the front seats. “You don’t tell me what to do anymore.”
As she hit the gas and started driving again, I realized we were not too terribly far from Kickapoo.
Lily glared at Bobcat in the rear view mirror as she drove then adjusted it so she could see me better. After a few minutes, she seemed to get herself under control. After a few more, she said, “What do you know about Bob Little and your mother?”
I hadn’t seen that line of questioning coming, and I sure had no answers. “I…I don’t know anything.”
Lily’s composure shattered. “You’ve got to know!” Her nose flared with every breath. “You swore to me, Bobcat!”
Bobcat crumpled up his empty chicken basket box then grabbed the sack from the floor and stuffed his trash in it. “Goddammit, Lily, take another pill or something,” Bobcat said. “I’ll handle this.”
I saw him eyeing the meal I’d barely touched so I handed it to him. I figured the more bread and gravy he ate, the less he’d want to do. It sure worked that way for me.
He grinned and he settled the box in his lap. “I love this shit.”
“In the late sixties,” Lily said, her voice quivering, “early seventies, what do you remember?”
She meant me, of course, and this was a test I knew I would never pass. “The Monkees, Barbie dolls and ponies.” I knew this was not what they wanted to hear, but I didn’t have anything better. “I was a kid.”
The box lunch in Bobcat’s hand shook and crinkled under his grip. His eyes narrowed and the side of his mouth twitched. “What about the goddamn war? You telling me you don’t remember anything about that?”
So much for the gravy and grease lethargy plan. “Well, yes, of course, but they’re little kid memories. I was, what, eight?”
And then, like a color slide slipping into the tray of an old projector, I saw an overstocked shop filled with black leather jackets, psychedelic PEACE tee shirts and strange paraphernalia inside glass cases. Sweet-smelling incense mingled with the leather and there were belts everywhere. It was the only place in Redwater you could get POW bracelets. Lucille hadn’t wanted to, but I’d begged, and once she got there… The next slide in the mental tray blazed onto the screen and I could see my mother in the store, wistfully fondling a fringed leather motorcycle jacket and telling me she used to have one along with matching leather pants. When we got home she showed me a 1950s era photo of her and Dad, sitting on a Harley in matching full leather outfits. Dad held the handlebars, his boots planted wide to balance the bike, a cigarette dangling from his lips. Mother sported a trendy leather cap set on her head at a jaunty angle with a stylish scarf tossed over her shoulder. Her arms were wrapped around his waist with a sultry come hither look plastered on her face. And I only now remembered it. “I really do not know the woman who says she is my mother.”
Lily muttered something that seemed in agreement with my assessment. I couldn’t make out any of the words, but the tone told me none were complimentary.
While I’d taken my side trip down memory lane, Bobcat had apparently escaped his own mental flashbacks and now seemed okay, relatively speaking. “What do you know about that land behind your mother’s house?”
“You mean the land they want to build the park on?”
Lily slammed her water bottle into the console’s cup holder. “You can’t be this dense.”
Oh, yes I can and I am. “Look, I’m not trying to be secretive or cagey or anything else. I simply have no idea what you’re asking me or what you really want to know. That land was just a place for me to get dumped off a horse and have to walk home from.”
“You better jog your memory,” Bobcat said between bites of my half-eaten lunch. “It’s pretty goddamned important.”
If changing topics to keep me disoriented was her goal, she was succeeding admirably. “Yes, he died the day before Thanksgiving, three years ago.”
Bobcat scooped up the last of my fries. “Heard Lucille didn’t take it too well.”
That would be one way to put it.
My dad had dropped dead of a heart attack early that morning, and by the time I arrived that afternoon, Lucille was pretty much a zombie. As an only child, that left all the decision making, arranging, scheduling and general business of things entirely to me. I eventually found out that her condition was not just a normal state of shock. Before I got there, some idiot doctor had loaded her up with the latest “FDA-approved” designer anxiety drug to help her deal with the shock and grief of her husband dying in front of her.
What neither the doctor nor the drug rep/pusher knew, presumably, was that the maker of the pills—a best-left-unnamed-because-I-don’t-want-to-die pharmaceutical giant—had conveniently overlooked a few pertinent details about how the drug actually worked in order to get it on the market. Specifically, third party testing showed that the drug made rats chew off their own feet and/or hurl themselves into walls. It also made my mother semi-comatose. At first. Then, as she “adjusted to the medication,” paranoia set in, followed by panic attacks, severe ones, and she became afraid to leave the house. She thought she was having heart attacks, thus prompting the brilliant doctor to up the dosage of the offending drug and then added heart, diuretic and sleeping pills to counteract the side effects, presumably. It nearly killed her, and it took me a year of coaxing, convincing and threats to get her off all that crap. “She had a hard time, yes.”
“It’s going to get harder,” Lily said. “A lot harder.”
Bobcat wadded up the second box and stowed the trash. “Who owns the mineral rights to the Little Ranch?”