by phuc
"Maybe not just now," I said.
From inside the cab we heard Crier say something about "goddamn ingrates," and Bob and I went-very, very quiet.
2
We crawled under the truck and tried to sleep. The grass made it pretty soft, but there were bugs crawling on me and it began to get cold and I was feeling stiff in the hands and feet. One thing I had gotten used to in the drive-in was the constant moderate temperature, and that made the chill seem even chillier.
I got one of the larger bugs off of me and crushed it with my thumb and forefinger, a movement that made my sore hand throb. The bug's body collapsed like a peanut husk. I tried to look at it closely, but under the truck with only a stray strand of moonlight, there wasn't much to see. It looked like a crushed bug. Maybe I was expecting little silver wires and a battery the size of a pinhead.
I suppose Crier started feeling guilty, because in the middle of the night he came and woke us up and pulled us out from under the truck and helped us into the camper, which he had, in fact, cleaned out quite well, though the odor of Sam's last bad meals clung to the interior like moss.
Still, it wasn't cold in there and the bugs, real or synthetic, weren't crawling or biting.
After we lay down, and Crier was about to shut the back of the camper, Bob said, "No kiss and story?"
Crier held out his hand, palm up, made a fist and let the cobra rise.
Bob looked at Crier's stiff middle finger and said, "That's not nice."
Crier shut the back of the camper and went around to the front seat and lay down.
Bob managed to get up on his knees and thumped his forehead against the glass that connected the camper to the cab.
Crier sat up and turned to look. I've seen more pleasant faces on water moccasins.
"Night-night," Bob said.
Crier did the trick with his finger again, only with less flourish this time, then lay down out of sight.
Bob wiggled onto his sleeping bag, got on his side and looked at me and said, "You know, I like that guy, I really do."
That night the dreams came back, the same sort I'd had in the drive-in. They seemed more like visions than dreams, like I had tapped into some consciousness that controlled things.
Bob and Crier didn't have the dreams, so I could only guess that through some quirk of fate, or by alien design, I had been given this gift. Or, I was as crazy as a cat in a dryer.
Hot-wired to aliens or not, the dreams/visions were clear. I could see the aliens in them, their bulbous heads sporting wiggling tendons tipped with eyes, tentacles flashing about, touching gears and punching buttons. Lights and buzzers and beepers going off and on around them. And them leaning forward, conversing with one another in a language that sounded like grunts, squeaks, burps and whines, and yet, a language I could somehow understand.
And some of the things they were saying went like this:
"Slow, uh-huh, uh-huh . . . that's it."
"Nice, nice ..."
"Very pretty, oh yes, very pretty . . . tight and easy now ..."
"All right, that's it. CUT!"
Then the connection was cut as well, and the dream, or whatever it was, ended. The next thing I knew it was morning and Crier had joined us for breakfast, such as it was: a can of sardines that we had taken from Sam's bus before we blew it up.
Afterwards, Crier got us out of the back of the camper and made us take turns walking, him supporting us, so that we could exercise our sore feet. Mine had started to curl like burned tortillas, and Crier said if I didn't make them work, they'd quit on me, and that at best, I'd end up having a couple of lumps that had all the mobility of potted plants.
I believed him. I exercised. So did Bob, though he grumbled about it.
Worst part about the exercise, worse even than the pain, was the thirst. It had been a long time since I had had a drink of water, and of course, this was true of Bob and Crier too. In the drive-in, for a time, we existed on soft drinks, and later on, Bob and I had nothing but the juice from jerky, and now the liquid from sardines.
If that doesn't sound so bad, go out some summer evening and do some kind of hard work, like say hauling hay, then try quenching your thirst with a big glass of soy oil or meat broth.
The bottom line was we were dehydrating, starting to look like flesh-colored plastic stretched over a frame of coat hangers.
"I figure," Crier said, after we got through exercising and were sitting with our backs against the truck, "any place as full of trees and grass and critters as this, ought to have water."
I wasn't so sure. I wouldn't have been surprised to come to what looked like a stream only to discover it was colored glass or rippling cellophane.
We were looking at Sam's grave while we talked, examining his ankles sticking up, his feet wearing the hubcap, and all of a sudden, we grew silent, as if possessed of a hive mind.
"I could have at least spoken some words over him," Crier said.
"And who the hell would you have been talking to?" Bob said. "Sam? He don't give a damn about nothing no more. God? Personally, I'm not real fond of the sonofabitch. Or wouldn't be, if I thought he, she, or it, existed."
I didn't say so, but I was in Bob's camp. Like the drive-in patrons, God was on my shit list. I had tried religion during our stay in the drive-in, and it hadn't exactly been a rewarding experience.
I had decided that if there was a God, he was a cruel sonofabitch to allow the things he allowed. Especially since he claimed his name was synonymous with love. It seemed to me that he was little more than a celestial Jack the Ripper, offering us, his whores, rewards with one hand, smiling and telling us he loved us, while with the other hand he held a shiny, sharp knife, the better with which to disembowel us.
"I don't know what I believe anymore," Crier said, "but I feel I owe the ol' boy some words because he's a human being. It doesn't matter if I'm talking to the wind, or just myself. I didn't give him the best kind of burial, so it's the least I can do. And who knows, if there is some God out there, maybe he'll be listening."
Crier said this soft and solemnlike, and you could almost hear the organ music in the background. I think Bob was as affected as I was by Crier's remarks, because he didn't say anything rude, and something of that sort was always on the tip of his tongue. A lump, like a crippled frog trying to make it downhill, moved in my throat.
Crier went over to the grave and looked at the hubcap, picked it up and looked at the soles of Sam's feet, put the hubcap back, sighed, looked at the jungle.
"I'm here to say some words about this man, but nothing much comes to me. I didn't really know the poor bastard, but from what I could tell, he was about the dumbest sonofabitch that ever shit over a pair of shoes.
"Still, he was a man, and he deserved better than this. I'm sorry I couldn't get him buried proper, couldn't get his feet to stay down, but I did get his arm in the grave, and that was a job. I hope he rests in peace.
"I'm sorry about his wife, Mable. She wasn't any better or smarter than he was, from what I could tell, maybe a damn sight dumber. But I guess she did the best she could, like all of us. She s back at the drive-in, burned up under some lumber pieces, just in case you care.
"And listen, God, if you're out there, how about some relief around here? Lighten up.
Things are multiple-fucked-up, and if anyone can put things straight, it ought to be you.
Right? I mean, you hear what I'm saying? Give us some sign of good things to come. It would be appreciated. Okay, that s it. Amen."
Crier walked back to the truck, and about the time he reached it, the jungle parted and out stepped a nasty red-and-blue dinosaur that was probably a baby Tyrannosaurus Rex, or something close enough to be a double cousin to one.
Whatever it was, it stood on big hind legs and held two puny forelegs in front of itself as if pleading. Its face was mostly teeth.
Toothy sniffed the air delicately, scampered over to the grave, snapped at the hubcap with its mouthful of big, sharp te
eth, and managed to gulp it and Sam's feet down with very little chewing.
After a moment, Toothy coughed and spat out the hubcap, which now resembled a wad of aluminum foil. He used one clawed foot to scratch Sam out of the grave the way a chicken might scratch a worm from the dirt, bent and bit into Sam's corpse. With a series of rapid head-flipping motions, he proceeded to gobble the old boy so viciously that pieces of Sam flew out of Toothy's mouth and sprinkled the grass.
Finished with his repast, Toothy eyed us, as if giving the dessert counter a once-over.
We stayed very still. Rocks couldn't have been that still.
He let out a little honk that shook the truck, then started to turn toward the jungle.
A weight watcher, to our relief.
But before he could make a complete turn, he froze, turned his head slightly to the side and acquired a look akin to that of a patient who has just experienced the greased finger of the doctor up his ass. Then with a grunt, Toothy leaned slightly forward and cut a monster fart that was reminiscent of an air horn, but with more tonality.
When the fart was finished and Toothy had adopted a more satisfied and comfortable look, he moved into the jungle and out of sight.
After a moment of silence, Bob said, "Well, Crier, hope that wasn't the sign from God you were waiting for."
3
We drove along for a while, and finally Crier, who had been looking pretty distressed for a time, pulled over and killed the motor.
"What's up?"
"Sam," he said. "I can't get him out of my mind."
"Hell, you buried him, didn't you? Wasn't your fault all you had was a hubcap. And that dinosaur even gave him a musical salute after he ate him. Tomorrow sometime, Sam will be fertilizing a patch of ground. What more could you ask for?"
"Fuck Sam. It's me I'm talking about. I don't want to end up buried alongside the road like that."
"You aren't dead, Crier."
"But I might get that way, and I don't want to end up in some trench next to the highway where something can dig me up and eat me."
"Something doesn't dig you up, the worms are going to take care of you, so what's the difference? Maybe we could just leave you where you lie and save the dinosaurs some digging."
"That's nice. I'm pouring out my heart here and you're making fun. I don't want to be left beside the road and I don't want to be buried beside it neither."
"Perhaps we could arrange for you to be whisked away to heaven."
"I want to be carried to the end of the highway."
"Keep driving, and if we don't run out of gas, that's a wish you'll get. You don't even have to be dead. Have you noticed the gas mileage we're getting? It's got to be super or the gas gauge is fucked."
"Forget the goddamn gas gauge and the mileage, I'm serious here. I get croaked, you guys make sure I get to the end of the highway. Something about that appeals to me. I like the idea of finishing things. Dinosaur eats me there, so be it."
"Crier, if you're dead, it doesn't matter if fifty naked girls with tits like zeppelins are at the end of the highway ready to suck your dick until your balls cave in. You'll still be dead."
"Promise me that should something happen to me you'll make sure I get to the end of the highway to be buried."
"Okay."
"Okay what?"
"If you get killed, I'll see you get to the end of the highway and get buried or cremated or something."
"Not cremated. I don't like that."
"Tried it?"
"Just bury me. I'll make you the same promise if you like."
"Something happens to me, leave me in the bushes. I'll be past caring."
Bob rose up in back and tapped on the glass with an elbow, held out his hands to question why we had stopped.
Crier waved him down, started up the engine and pulled back onto the highway.
"I'm going to talk to Bob about it too," Crier said. "Think he'll do it?"
"Who knows about Bob?" I said.
We finally came to a clearing on the right-hand side of the highway. There was grass, but it wasn't high, and I figured a lot of critters had been grazing on it. In the distance I could see the blue of a great lake. Or what looked like a lake. I still felt as if I were on a movie set.
Reality was not to be trusted.
Crier turned off the highway and drove over the grass, and it seemed like it took forever to reach the lake. He parked about six feet from it, jumped out and went belly down on the bank and stuck his face into the water and began to drink.
It was real water.
I opened my door and tried to get out, but it was too far a step and too much pressure on my feet to manage it.
I sat and waited for Crier to finish drinking. If there had been any moisture in my mouth I would have salivated.
When Crier was done he came over and got me out of the truck. The grass was soft and I found I could hobble across it without too much support from Crier.
"I couldn't wait," Crier said. "Sorry."
"I'd have done the same," I said.
The water was cool and sweet, and pretty soon Crier had Bob beside me, then all three of us were lying there on our bellies drinking. I was the first to overdo it. I puked up the water and the sardines on the bank, and Bob and Crier followed shortly thereafter.
We finished puking and went to drinking again, slower this time, and when we were finished, we pulled off what we were wearing and went into the water, Bob and I entering it on elbows and knees, looking like pale alligators.
Waterlogged, we climbed on the bank and lay on our backs and looked at the sky. The sun went down—in the south, go figure—and the lake went dark and the moon rose up—
in the south, go figure again—and the water turned the color of molten silver.
After we had talked a while about this and that, Crier said, "I'm one tired sonofabitch, boys. Let's call it a night."
Crier got us in the camper and stood at the tailgate. He said, "I'm in no hurry to leave. I like that water. What say we stick around a while? The highway's out there when we decide to try it again."
Sounded good to me, and I said so.
"Yeah," Bob said. "The idea of going off and leaving all that water doesn't excite me right now. Maybe just because I been thirsty for so long. But yeah, let's wait a while."
Crier nodded and went around to the cab to sleep. I lay down on my bedroll, and for the first time since before the big red comet, I felt a stirring of hope. Or maybe I had drunk too much water.
Whatever, it wasn't so exciting it kept me awake.
4
Next day Crier drove the truck to the other side of the lake, near the jungle, and that became our home. In spite of the water, we hadn't planned to stay as long as we did, but one day rolled into the next.
The jungle provided all kinds of fruit, and in defiance of the age of dinosaurs, all manner of recognizable animals from rabbits to squirrels to monkeys to snakes. All of these were good to eat, but in the beginning we left them alone. Not out of any respect for the lesser species, but simply because we couldn't catch the little bastards and had nothing suitable to kill or trap them with. Also, Bob and I were still crips, and you've got to have legs to run critters down.
Crier made a spear by breaking off a long, thin limb in such a way that it left a point. He put fruit rinds in the lake and stood in the water with them floating around him. He waited for fish to come and nibble at the rinds, then he tried to spear them.
Sometimes it took all day for him to get one, but he stayed with it. He was so determined that sometimes dinosaurs would come and stand off in the distance and watch. I think they were amused.
As time went by Crier got better, and later he changed to a more successful method. He got some strong vine and whittled a hook out of wood with a beer can opener he flattened and sharpened with a file from Bob's tool box. He used bugs and worms for bait. By the end of the day, he'd have a pretty nice mess of fish.
I was the fire builder. I'd pu
ll grass and let it dry for a day or two, always keeping the supply ahead of the demand. When the grass looked brittle, I'd take two files from the tool box and knock them together until they made a spark, which I directed into the grass.
By blowing on the spark, I could get a blaze going, and then I would feed it twigs, then larger kindling, and finally big hunks of wood. Before long, I'd have a good fire going.
Bob cleaned the fish and cooked them by spitting them on a green limb and hanging the limb between two upright forked sticks. The fish tasted pretty good. Every night, before bed, we ended up with a pile of fish bones and fruit rinds around us.
In time, Bob and I healed, and once we could get around, we turned industrious.
With what we had in the tool box, we managed to make some simple tools for cutting and splitting wood. And damn if we weren't making crude lumber, notching it and pegging it and building a two-story house at the edge of the jungle. It wasn't anything to impress Better Homes and Gardens, but it was all right. We managed to use the limbs of this big tree as part of it, and the tree's foliage was so thick the house blended into it. We christened the place Jungle Home. It made me feel like I was a relative of the Swiss Family Robinson. A poor relation, to be sure, but a relation.
The upper floor was the sleeping nest, and by stuffing it with leaves and dried grass and putting the sleeping bags and blankets on top of that, we had a pretty comfortable place.
We also built a deck of split wood and bamboo on either side of the top floor, and it gave us a place to sit and feel the wind.
It wasn't paradise, but it beat being jabbed in the eye with a number two pencil.
But, as a great philosopher once wrote over the urinal in Buddy's Fill-up, "Things will go and change on you."
Crier and Bob had gone off hunting, since Crier had finally made a bow and a few arrows, and from here on out the animal populace was no longer safe. It was going to be roast rabbit and roast squirrel to go with the fish from now on.
Or so said Crier.
I had my doubts, since I had seen Crier practicing with that thing. It didn't look to me that he could have hit the side of a barn with a cannon, let alone a squirrel with a dull arrow.