Caught in the Crotchfire

by Kim Hunt Harris

  And now I could have something she wanted.

  Such a stupid reason to buy a car.

  “I’ll bet it drinks a ridiculous amount of gas,” I said, trying to talk myself out of it.

  “So what? Gas is cheaper right now than it’s been in five years. I heard it on the radio this morning. And it’s just going to go down. It won’t go up again for the next eighteen months. By that time, you’ll have saved enough to trade up.”

  “Let’s take it down the street a ways so you can get the feel for how it handles,” Papa Pigg said.

  That was a good idea, but I was not sure about driving this thing down the street. I mean, it was huge. Would it even fit in one lane?

  “Let’s take it around the Loop!” Viv said.

  “We’re not taking it around the Loop,” I snapped. “Good lord. This thing is seriously enormous. I’m nervous about driving it.”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to that,” he said. “You just need to spend some time behind the wheel. No time like the present.”

  With a great deal of unease, I buckled my seatbelt and reached for the gear shift on the steering column. I’d never used one of those, either — in every car I’d ever driven, the gear shift had been to the right of the driver’s seat.

  I pulled down on the shifter, and nothing happened.

  “Pull it toward you first,” Viv said. “Good lord, how old are you?”

  “I’m twelve years younger than this car,” I said calmly.

  “Oh.”

  That shut her up. I sometimes got the feeling that Viv operated under the impression that she and I were about the same age — not that I was as old as she was, but that she was as young as I was. Moments like this had to be a bit disorienting for her.

  I pulled the shifter toward me, then down to D. The car felt like a powerful wild animal beneath me. I slowly took my foot off the brake.

  The car leapt forward like a racehorse leaving the starting gate.

  I panicked and slammed my foot back on the brake.

  Viv and Stump both glared at me.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I wasn’t expecting it to take off like that. I didn’t even touch the gas.”

  “Just one of those things you have to get used to,” he said calmly. “Don’t worry about it. Just ease off the brake and then let the car do its job.”

  I eased off the brake, swinging the car around the side of the building. I checked the side mirror obsessively, unsure of how much clearance I needed to make it around without hitting the building.

  In front of me, the hood stretched out like an acre of tan desert.

  Slowly we moved through the car lot toward the street. I almost had a stroke as we passed Viv’s Cadillac. It didn’t seem possible that I could squeeze the Monte Carlo in the lane between her car and the cars for sale without scraping something, but I did it.

  At the street, I watched for traffic from the west before I pulled out.

  “Good Lord, girl,” Viv said. “Any time today would be good.”

  “I want to wait until nobody’s coming,” I said. “I don’t know how much room I need to get this thing onto the street.”

  “You drive like my grandma,” Viv said.

  “Shut up,” I answered calmly. When all visible traffic was cleared, I eased up on the brake.

  “Hang on!” Viv shouted, looking to the west. “I think someone just crossed the New Mexico state line. Better wait on them.”

  I thought about flipping her off, but I was afraid to take my hand off the wheel. I made a mental note to do it later.

  We headed east on the Clovis Highway, and although I was nervous, I had to admit the monstrous thing handled beautifully. The ride was smooth as silk, the steering effortless. A signal light a block ahead of me turned red, and I panicked again and threw on the brakes. Again, Viv and Stump glared at me, but I let off and slowly coasted to a stop at the light. Maybe I could get the hang of driving it.

  Meanwhile, Viv was busy checking out all the buttons and knobs. “I’m not a bit surprised that Earline Whatley’s car would be in this shape, to tell you the truth. The woman was obsessive about everything. She got one of those motorized scooters and the handyman who takes care of that stuff said she was in there every week, wanting something adjusted or replaced. She hired her own cleaning lady to come clean her apartment, wasn’t satisfied with what the staff did.”

  As she prattled on, I asked myself if I really wanted a forty-year-old car, even one in good shape. I tried to imagine parking it beside my trailer, or at Flo’s. Driving it to Walmart. What would it be like, to be the laughingstock of Walmart?

  But the fact remained, it fit in my budget. And as I got used to driving it, and if I ignored the age factor, it did feel kind of luxurious.

  I had another minor heart event when I considered turning around in the Taco John’s parking lot, then panicked and pulled back onto the street. At the next block, I turned and circled the empty high school parking lot to get headed back toward the car lot.

  “Okay,” I said, hunched over the wheel and driving like a turtle. “I’m going back in there to try and get five hundred off the down payment.”

  Viv nodded. “But keep in mind, this is a classic. It’s worth putting in a few extra bucks.”

  I would have given her the side-eye if I wasn’t afraid of taking my eyes off the road for a second. I managed to get the car inside the lot without hitting anything again. I killed the motor and sat for a few seconds, letting my heart rate go down.

  Inside, the Papa Pigg was talking to a woman and a younger man. The woman had to be Mama Pigg. She had that short-haired, hard-working, no-nonsense West Texas woman look. She looked like the kind of woman capable of raising five sons.

  “How was it?” Papa Pigg asked. “You in love with it?”

  “Yes!” Viv said.

  This time I didn’t settle for the side-eye. I gave her a full-on shut your mouth frown.

  “I mean, we’ll need to do a bit of negotiating first, of course,” Viv said.

  “Of course. Five here can handle that for you.”

  Five was maybe a few years younger than I was. He gave his father an uncomfortable look, then motioned with his head for me to come to the counter. Viv struck up a conversation with the Pigg parents and left me to handle this bit on my own. The fink. I glared at her, but they were off on their own conversation about taking the Cadillac to Amarillo for “adjustments.”

  “Amarillo?” Papa Pigg said. “That place is the worst. Think they’re such a happening place just because they have their own Krunchy Kreems.”

  I turned back to Five, who shuffled through some papers behind the counter and cleared his throat. “Okay, well. Let’s see. The list price on that one is…” He searched through his papers.

  “To be honest, I’m really not sure that’s the car for me,” I said.

  He looked up, his shoulders dropping in what looked like relief. He nodded. “I mean, it is pretty ancient, right?”

  I blinked. “Yes, well…”

  “I don’t blame you,” he said. “We have cars that are twenty years newer than that one. And, I mean, they’re still really old. You want to look at them?” His eye twitched.

  Was he trying to wink at me? “Umm, no. I already looked.”

  He frowned. “Well, then.” He went silent. Then shrugged as if to say, “What can you do?”

  Wait. What was happening here? Did I have to talk him into selling me the car?

  “I already looked,” I said again. “I think the Monte Carlo is almost what I can afford. I’ll just need you to come down on the down payment by five hundred dollars. And the monthly payment will have to come down by — ” I looked at the ceiling as if I was thinking hard. I said the first thing that came to mind. “Gosh, at least forty percent.”

  “Sold!” Five shot his hand out.

  In a daze, I took it. It had all happened so fast, and I’d been prepared for much more of a struggle. Any struggle at all, in fact.r />
  “Okay.” Five stood and reached for a folder. “Here are the sales forms. Just fill these out and write me a check, for…” He looked a little confused, like he couldn’t remember what we’d just talked about.

  I told him how much the down payment would be with the five hundred knocked off, and he nodded. “Yep, write out a check for that much, and I’ll get your keys.” His eye twitched again. If he was trying to wink, it was weird.

  The forms were ridiculously simple. I filled in my name and contact information. There were blanks for my down payment amount and the monthly payment amount and I filled that in with what I guessed was about forty percent under what the elder Pigg had quoted me. I signed at the bottom, wrote out my check, and joined the grownups’ conversation, which had, of course, turned to the robberies.

  Mrs. Pigg was shaking her head. “It’s a shame. Just a shame. So many people have been put through the wringer by this thing. I guess we just need to be thankful it’s not been worse than it has. I mean, nobody’s been hurt.”

  “That’s right. And I’ll tell you what.” Papa Pigg pointed his finger at Viv. “It’s making this little community even stronger than it was before. That’s the way hard times affect people. We’re banding together, watching each other’s backs. We look out for each other. One of these days these robberies will be over, those High Point Bandits or whatever they call themselves will fade into the background, and we’ll still be standing, stronger than ever.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “I’m not sure how much longer my grandmother can handle the strain. If they don’t catch these guys soon, she’s going to end up shooting someone just for the sake of having someone to shoot.”

  “Is Virgie McDonald your grandmother?” both Piggs asked at once, which made me a little nervous.

  I nodded.

  “Well,” Mrs. Pigg said with a laugh. “She doesn’t need to worry about those Bandits. They’re not going to bother her.”

  “No? They broke into Mario’s tamale restaurant two nights ago. That’s awfully close.”

  “Oh, I know, but…” She laughed again and waved a hand like it was simply out of the question. “They wouldn’t bother with someone like her.”

  “She’s quite certain she’s next on the list.”

  “I suppose you do never know,” Mama Pigg allowed. “Our son’s insurance office was robbed, what, about two weeks ago?” She turned to Papa, who nodded. “An insurance office. I mean, seriously. How much cash could be there? People don’t bring cash to an insurance office. Still, he lost what he did have there, and they did some damage. Stole some things — computers and stuff.”

  “Everybody’s taking a turn,” Five said from behind me.

  I jumped. I’d kind of forgotten he was there. He was a bit creepy, to be honest, even if he had an easygoing smile on his face.

  “Hopefully the police will catch them soon,” Mr. Pigg said. “Although I’m not holding out a lot of hope. If this was happening on the other side of town, they’d be all over it and these criminals would be locked up already. But we’re not quite the priority over here on the other side of the tracks. We have to help ourselves.”

  Viv nodded like she was one of them. “Indeed we do. Salem and I are going to do a stakeout tonight, in fact, to see what we can turn up.”

  “We are? This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

  “No, we talked about it, remember? I said we should catch them before the police, and you said we might as well.”

  “That hardly translates to a stakeout tonight.”

  “How else are we going to catch them?” she asked, as if this was completely obvious.

  “Well, you two stay safe out there, if you do go out,” Mr. Pigg said. “Nobody’s been hurt yet, but we certainly wouldn’t want you two to be the first.”

  Chapter Seven

  Stakeout

  I had about five more heart events on the way home. I was driving too slow, but every time I tried to go the speed limit I felt like I was driving a runaway train, and I panicked and threw on the brakes. That made people pass me, which terrified me even more. I was quite sure I was taking up more than one lane, and I was sure each time that they were going to scrape the side of my car, but I would be the one to get the ticket, because I was probably supposed to be carrying some kind of regulation WIDE LOAD sign. Every time I saw someone coming along side me, my heart hammered and I said, “Hang on, Stump.” After the third time, she started to ignore me.

  So I was wired when I got home, but weirdly proud of myself for making the trek and getting that cruise ship parked in my space. Plus, I’d negotiated a decent deal. I wondered if Mr. and Mrs. Pigg were going to be mad at Five when they realized he’d completely rolled over on my terms, but I figured I’d let him be the one to deal with that.

  As for me, I felt like celebrating. I went over and knocked on Frank’s door, planning to let him know he had to fend for himself for dinner and also have him come admire my new car. But he wasn’t home.

  Let down, I went back to my deck and sat on one of my cheap plastic chairs and stared at the car. If a person looked at my old trailer and my old car, they might wonder for a second if they’d been transported back to the mid-70s. Of all the times to travel to.

  I wanted to celebrate with someone, though. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and said, “Windy, call Tony.”

  When he answered, I said, “Guess what I got?”

  “What’s that?”

  “A new car! Well, it’s a very old car, actually. But, you know. New to me.”

  He was very happy for me. He couldn’t wait to see it. Thursday, when he picked me up for our date night.

  “You could come over now,” I said. “If you’re not too busy, I mean. Viv and I are going out in a few hours to do a stakeout for the Knife Point — I mean High Point Bandits, but right now I’m just hanging out.”

  “Is Viv there?”

  “No, it’s just me right now.”

  “I’m sorry, Salem, I have some things I have to take care of for work and can’t get away for a few hours. But I’ll be by Thursday to pick you up, and I’ll be happy to see it then.”

  I hung up, a bit bummed out and feeling rejected by Tony. Again.

  I was still feeling a bit of a rejection hangover as Viv and I drove around the High Point neighborhood that night. She’d asked if we could take my car, but I refused. I was going to keep my trips in that thing to the bare minimum until I got used to driving it.

  So we were doing stakeout in the Caddy, and I was telling Viv, again, how freaked out I was that Tony didn’t seem to want to be around me. Viv drove through the potholed parking lot of the bingo parlor and swung the car around to go back the way we’d come. Street lights arced through the car window and Stump snuffled as the light washed over her eyes. She stirred, then stood and slowly stretched her neck, planting her heavy feet on my thigh to brace herself.

  “I asked him to come over to see the new car, and first he asked if you were there, too, and when I said it was just me, he said he had other stuff he had to do. It’s like he doesn’t want to be alone with me.”

  “Maybe he’s just respecting your boundaries,” Viv suggested.

  “That’s what I think,” I said. The thing was, I’d never really had boundaries before. I had no idea what they looked like or how they operated. “It’s just…he’s respecting my boundaries so hard. And are boundaries supposed to be so — so restricted, for married couples?”

  “Honey, there is no manual for you two.” Viv slowed and looked through the darkened windows of a law office, the last office in a row of red brick storefronts with white awnings.

  “You see something?” I shifted Stump back into the seat beside me and leaned to look closer.

  “Maybe.” She swung the Caddy into the space beside the building and then into the alley.

  “What are we going to do if we see something?” I asked.

  “Who knows,” Viv said casually, easing the Cadillac down the alley b
etween that building and a row of houses. “We’ll probably scream and I’ll drive over something and put a dent in my new car. Maybe a little loss of bladder control thrown in for good measure.”

  “As long as we have a plan,” I said.

  She eased up behind the back door of the law office. There was a metal door over a square of concrete for a step, and a glass block of windows that was dark.

  “Have there been any robberies at offices?” I asked. “I thought it was mostly retail.”

  “No offices yet, but you never know.”

  She killed the motor. “Do you hear anything?”

  I hit the button to roll the window down, but since she’d killed the motor, nothing happened. “Turn the key on so I can open the window.”

  She turned the key. The windshield wipers swooped across, making me jump. Viv cussed. “Hang on.” She fiddled with different knobs and levers. “Okay, I think that got it. Try it again.”

  I hit the down button for the window. The horn honked.

  Viv cussed again. “This crazy thing.”

  “There is seriously something wrong with this car,” I said.

  “If there is anyone in there, they know we’re here. Just go up to the back door and see if you can hear anything.”

  “Seriously? You just said they know we’re here. What if they’re aiming a gun at me right now?”

  “Let me remind you that in the entire history of the High Point robberies, there has been no violence or bloodshed.”

  I gave her a look. Then I opened the door and leaned out.

  Nothing. Nothing but faint traffic noises from Clovis Highway. Then, a low rumble. Growing louder. And louder.

  I turned to look at Stump. She snorted, then curled into a tighter ball on the seat and settled back to the low rumble snore.

  “There, you hear that?” Viv said.

  “Over Stump’s snores?”

  “Seriously, I heard something. Go up and listen at the door.”

  “You go up and listen at the door.”

  “I’m the getaway driver. If there is someone there, we’ll need to get out of here quick. The door is closer to your side. Just hop up there and listen.”