Leeli had come out of Ava’s bungalow, wearing white shorts and a green halter. She wandered over to me and sat on the stoop. What you think’s wrong with Squire? she asked in a hushed voice.
—Boy’s so slow, maybe his brain idles out every so often.
She stared at Ava and Squire as if she was trying to figure something out. I did some staring myself, digging my eyes under that halter. The heat cooked her scent strong. I leaned closer and did a hit. She glanced up and asked, What you doing?
—I wish I was smelling breakfast, I said.
Squire and Ava scrambled up, Squire gesturing like he was wanting to explain something of importance. They made for Ava’s bungalow. Leeli started to join up with them, but Ava waved her off and said she needed to tend Squire for a while. That brightened Leeli, but she watched until the door closed behind them.
—Don’t none of this strike you peculiar? she asked.
—Pretty much everything strikes me peculiar. So I guess nothing does, really.
If I hadn’t been consumed with getting Leeli into the bungalow and the two of us shaking the walls so hard, the framed picture would shudder off its veil of dust and the palmetto bugs would prepare for the fall of creation, I might’ve had room for some helpful thoughts. I don’t suppose it matters, though. Chances are I wouldn’t have reached any conclusion. If I had, either I wouldn’t have acted on it or else it would have been the same half-assed conclusion I come to without even stretching my brain. Studying on things until you couldn’t tell whether what you thought was what you wanted to think and all that—it wasn’t my style. I had two ways of going at the world. One, I was a furnace of a man and everything I saw was viewed in terms of how it would do for fuel. The other, I was a pitiable creature who’d been walked on for so long there was a damn dog run wore down into my skull and whenever a shadow crossed my path, my instinct was to snap my teeth. Neither of those boys gave a sugary shit about situational fucking analysis.
Ava was kept busy that night tinkering with Squire’s self-esteem. ’Least that’s what I believed had sucked his fire down so low, his pilot light kicked off. It was like Leeli had been busted out of jail. She wanted one of everything with me. We come close to killing each other. Toward nine we took a break, borrowed Ava’s car, and brought back catfish and puppies and fries. Halfway through our greasy feast, we went at it again, smearing fish juice all over the bed. It would’ve took oven cleaner to scour the sheets. Long about midnight we smoked cigarettes on the steps. Fireflies bloomed in the hazy dark. The breeze hauled a smell of night-blooming cereus out from the shadows of the palms. A shine from the bulb over the office door fresh-tarred the blacktop. We had us one of those made-in-Nashville moments. Our arms around one another, heads together. Snap the photo, frame it with a heart, and stick in a word balloon with me saying something forever stupid like, Somepin’ wunnerful’s gonna happen to them peaches, honey. Hillbilly Hallmark. I gave Leeli a kiss that sparked a shiver and she settled in against me.
—I could stand another beer, she said.
—Want me to fetch it?
—Naw, it’s too much trouble.
Skeeters whined. A night bird said its name about three hundred times in a row. The TV inside the office flickered a wicked green, an evil blue, a blast of white, as if Mrs. Gammage was receiving communication from an unholy sphere. I wouldn’t have much cared if the rest of everything was just this hot and black and quiet.
Squire seemed fine to me, especially for someone who looked to be a goner, but Ava was still acting mothery the next morning. Around noon she herded us into the car and drove to Silver Springs for, I guess, a give-Squire-love day. At a stall near the gift shop she bought a T-shirt with his face airbrushed on it by a genuine T-shirt artist. Squire had the good sense not to wear the thing. Wanna go see the tropical fish? she asked of Carl and Squire both. Squire said he didn’t know, whatever, and Carl repeated the word fish until he figured out how to spray spittle when saying it. We crammed into a glass-bottomed boat with a mob of lumpy fiftyish women in baggy slacks and floral blouses. I assumed they were a church group, because they appeared to be the cut-rate harem belonging to this balding, gray-haired individual with a banker’s belly and a sagging, doleful face, dressed like a Wal-mart dummy in slacks with an elastic waistband and a sweated-through sports shirt. A pretty blonde in a captain’s hat steered the boat and as we glided across the springs, her voice blatted from the speakers, identifying whatever portion of nature’s living rainbow we were then passing over. The man stood the whole trip, clutching a pole for balance, providing his own commentary and sneaking glances at Leeli, who was wearing short-shorts. He was trying to make some general point relating to the fish. It had a charry Unitarian flavor, a serving of God and fried turnip slices. All the ladies nodded and favored him with doting gazes. Squashed between two of them was a chubby kid about fourteen who had the miserable air of a hostage. One of the women whispered urgently at him, probably telling him to pay attention or sit up straight. He stared cross-eyed into nowhere, dreaming of columbining the bunch of us. I winked at him, wanting him to know that some of us so-called adults could be dangerous haters, too, when forced to ooh and aah over a glittery mess of edible sea bugs. This only got him hating me extra special. If somebody had slipped him a piece, they would’ve found me with my splattered head resting on a cellulite-riddled thigh.
After the boat ride we headed for a Howard Johnson’s restaurant down the road from the resort. The reverend and his flock had beaten us there and were crammed into a circular booth across from ours. The ladies chattered away, the kid stared at his fries like they were a heap of golden brown logs on which he was roasting his mom in miniature. Part of my problem was I’ve been cursed with this inept paranoia that sees danger everywhere except where danger lies. Though I’d done nothing criminal recently, the reverend’s presence made me feel criminally guilty. I fiddled with the suspicion that his turning up at the restaurant was police-related. That he’d recognized me for the perpetrator of a crime I’d committed and forgot. Now and then his fruity voice cut through the chatter. He was still going on about the damn fish.
—Did you notice, he asked, how the entire school turned as one? Indeed, all the actions of the underwater world seemed in concert, as though directed by a single mind. Is it such a leap to conceive that our actions are so directed?
Hell yes! would’ve been my answer, but Carl thought this was about the best thing he’d ever heard. He jumped around in his seat, repeating portions of the reverend’s lesson and said to Ava, You see? See what I mean?, like these phrases connected with an argument they’d been having.
—I know, she said, and patted his hand to calm him.
—A single mind directed! he said loudly.
Several of the ladies were shooting pissy looks his way. Anna shushed him and said they’d talk about it later. But Carl wanted to talk about it right then and there. I’d never seen him so heated up. Whenever the reverend’s voice carried to us, Carl would go to chuckling, spitting back the reverend’s words, saying, Yes! Yes!, and sputtering other foolishness, giving this weird sort of affirmation, like he was a shouter in a retard church.
Eventually, urged on by his outraged ladies, the reverend scooted out of the booth and ambled over. He clasped his hands at his belly, delivered us a patient look, and asked Carl if he wouldn’t mind toning it down.
Carl beamed at him and said, Yes! A single mind!
Leeli said, Can’t you see the man ain’t right! Ava offered an apology and I said, You best take your fat ass on back to the hen house, or they gonna need another rooster.
The reverend armored his face with a smile and looked down on me from a peak of blessed understanding. Young man, he said. Actually he said a good bit more, but the words young man were all I heeded. When I was five Reverend Nichols from the First Baptist told my mama having such a sweet little fellow as me by his side would be an asset when he was doing fund-raising, and since this gave her more time for d
rinking, she loaned me out to him on a regular basis. Young man, he’d say once we were alone, wanna sit on my lap while I drive? Young man, I’m gonna open you to God’s greatest gift. I didn’t much appreciate anybody calling me young man, and I sure as hell didn’t want it from a preacher. I caught him by the collar and yanked him down so he was gawking into the leavings of my chicken-fried steak. The only thing I recall saying was, Cocksucking holy Joe motherfucker, but I know I expanded on that considerable. People were tugging at me, women were screaming, something struck the side of my head, but I was serene in the midst of it, talking to the reverend, showing him the ketchup-smeared edge of my steak knife.
Rougher hands grabbed me and the reverend broke free. Two guys wearing aprons wrangled me into the aisle, where we did some wrestling and grunting and swearing. A swung purse the size of a satchel knocked one guy off me. I clocked the other with a gut punch that cured him of upright and put him on his knees kissing the carpet like a devout Arab. Shouting people choked the aisle, a few wanting to get at me, the rest trying to get away. I heard Leeli cry, Maceo!, but I couldn’t find her in the crowd, so I beelined for the exit, shoving aside Christian and heathen alike. The manager loomed ahead of me. A porky fellow in a maroon shirt and a black tie, his skin that spoiled pumpkin color comes either from a tanning booth or somewheres in India. A wedge of old ladies blocked him off to the left, clearing a path, and I went toward the door. That’s when Carl shouted the magic words.
—Hands up! he said with sincere ferocity. Who wants to die?
The manager had retreated behind the cash register and Carl, beaming like a lottery winner, was pointing a blue steel automatic in his general direction, swinging the muzzle to cover the counter and a portion of window. People started hitting the ground, hiding in the booths, and wasn’t more than a couple of seconds before the only ones standing were the five in our party and the manager. You could hear whispering and sobbing and the wheedle of some old pop song turned into a symphony, but it was stone quiet compared to how it had been. Ava slapped at her tote bag, gave it a squeeze, and that told me where Carl had got his shiny new toy.
—Give it to me, Carl, I said, easing toward him a step.
—Okay. He kept on swinging the gun back and forth kind of aimlessly, like it had a momentum that was carrying his arms through an arc.
—Give me the gun, Ava said. You don’t need that gun now.
Squire was at her shoulder, nodding as if he firmly supported this idea, and Leeli, smart girl, was halfway out the door.
The manager made a move for something under the register. Ava and I both shouted a warning to Carl. I said, Watch it, man!, and Ava spoke what sounded like a word in a foreign language—I couldn’t tell for sure because our shouts mixed together. Carl whipped the gun around and fired just before the manager fired, the explosions overlapping. Carl’s head jerked, blood sprayed. His bullet kicked the manager into a buffet cart. He fell behind the counter. A few screams speared the quiet. Smoke lazied in the air. Somebody’s lunch treat sizzled and blackened on the griddle. I stepped forward and snatched the gun from Carl. There was blood all over his face, but he was still smiling. Ava wrapped him in a hug and hustled him to the door. I had a quick look back of the counter. The manager was staring off into someplace I never want to see. Frightened eyes were locked on me from every direction, like forest animals peeping at a mangy tiger that had interrupted their play. I fired a shot into the ceiling and told them not to twitch forever and ran like hell.
In the truck everybody talked at once, except for Squire. He was gazing out the passenger-side window, having himself a fine vacation. Ava and Leeli fussed over Carl in the back seat, and I drove fast toward Ocala. I hadn’t put a face on the wrongness of what happened, but it nibbled at the edges of a fucked-up angry fear that raised a red shadow in my brain and jammed spikes into my bone-holes, making all my limbs want to stiffen and wiggle like a bug with a pin through its guts. Leeli urged me to drive faster and Ava said, Take us back to the motel! This all stirred in with Oh Gods and Carl repeating over and over in a sunny voice, Hands up who wants to die, shaping a child’s song of the line. I told them to shut the fuck up, then I yelled it. For half a minute it was quiet. A big shopping mall come floating up on our left. I slowed and swung the car into it. Ava screeched, What’re you doing? as I swerved into a parking slot away from the buildings, hidden by other cars from the highway. I switched off the engine. She clawed at my shoulder, cursing and giving orders.
I turned to her and saw that the manager’s bullet had dug a furrow along Carl’s jawline. The wound was oozing blood, yet he didn’t seem to mind. I’m gonna find us another car, I said. But we ain’t going back to no motel.
Ava objected to this and I said, Here’s your keys. Go where the fuck you want. I’m getting the hell gone.
I climbed out and told Leeli to come along with me.
Ava caught Leeli’s arm. I need her here!
—Well, I need a look-out, so fuck what you need!
—Take Squire, she said.
—Yeah, that’ll help. Come on, Leeli.
Leeli hesitated.
A cop car whipped past on the highway, howling like a devil with a hotfoot.
—Goddamn it! Now! I said. You wanna wait around ’til he comes back for us?
Leeli hopped out and glanced uncertainly between me and Ava. She blinked and shivered as if the sun was killing her.
For the first time ever I saw a distinct lack of confidence in Ava’s face. You better not leave us here! she said. I swear to God!
—I wasn’t thinking on it, I said.
There was some sort of promotion going on within the mall. The lot was more crowded than you’d expect. Jolly old farts wearing gaudy sport coats and blue Shriner-type hats were holding bunches of balloons on strings, handing them out to children and mommies, collecting money to cure some great evil that would never die, and two lanes of parking were used up by a carnival with a little Ferris wheel, kiddie rides, game and snack stalls. Some high school girls strolled in a small pod, twelve tits in a row, those belonging to a hefty redhead nosing out a close race. They were eyed by a pack of high school boys whose thoughts of rape had likely gotten sly and civilized during hygiene class. Senior citizens dressed in peppy colors gazed soberly at the wheel. I reckon they were recalling greater wheels from the big glorious world that had died out from under them. Treacly music played—the same, it seemed, that played everywhere I traveled.
Ava’s gun was stuck in my belt, under my shirt. Its weight made me walk taller than I should have felt. I held hands with Leeli, hoping to persuade folks we were a young couple hot for some corn dogs or whatever hell meat they were pushing at the carnival. We skirted the more populated area of the lot. I spotted a newish Ford van with smoked windows. We snuck up on it from the rear. Just as I was ready to pounce, Leeli warned me off. Standing a few cars over was a huddle of men in blue hats. These old fellows had ridded themselves of balloons. They were laughing, the nudge-nudge laughing men do when they hear a real good smutty joke. The fattest of them had a two-handed grip on his belly, like he was about to lift up a slab of fat and show them something even funnier. Of a sudden the men rested hands on each other’s shoulders, forming a circle, and bowed their heads, praying, I supposed, for more balloons or for Jesus to cover the point spread against Satan or that one of the high school girls would lose her mind and fuck them.
Out front of the Home Depot was an old Chevy panel van. I busted the driver’s window with the gun butt and hotwired it. The engine shook like the mounts were loose and made a tired, trebly noise until I got it idling. Leeli brushed glass off her seat and jumped in. I headed the van toward the nearest exit and she dug her fingers into my thigh and asked where I was going.
—South fucking America if we can get that far, I said.
A pinch of time zipped by. Turn it around, she said.
—That’s not gonna happen.
—I mean it! You turn this thing right around
!
—Fuck you going on about?
—I’m serious! She reached out with her left foot and stomped on the brake, nearly swerving me into a parked Camry. I’m not running out on my friends.
She kind of hiccupped over the word friends, but kept her gaze firm and determined.
—Your friends? You talking about the Munsters back there?
Her eyes flicked away.
—Oh, okay. You’re talking about those twenty thousand friends. This ain’t about twenty thousand dollars no more, Leeli. This here’s about twenty-to-life.
—I don’t care!
—You’ll care when those lifer bitches with the tattooed mustaches start wanting to get cozy.
She opened the door, planted one foot on the asphalt. I’m not staying ’less you go back for Ava and them.
—Those motherfuckers gonna get us killed! They almost got us killed!
—Way I see it, you didn’t act such a fool with that preacher, Carl wouldn’t never done nothing!
I put my eyes out the windshield. A lost balloon was sailing off into the blue—it vanished as it crossed the sun. Damn it, Leeli! Get your ass back in here!
She slid down from the seat and stood in the glare, defiant as a dog off its chain.
I gunned the engine. I’m leaving!
She slammed the door shut.
—Something wrong with those people, I said. Man’s shot in the face and it don’t even phase him? Fuck is that? This ain’t nothing we should be messing with.
The Best of Lucius Shepard Page 61