Mammoth

by Douglas Perry

  He came out of his daydream, glanced furtively to his left. Jackson had his left arm crooked on the top of the door, the elbow pressing against the window. The right arm hung limply over the top of the steering wheel. He looked like he was about to fall asleep. Billy glanced in the rear-view mirror. Sam sat hunched forward, his eyes downcast, chewing his cud. Billy leaned back in his seat again, closed his eyes. He didn’t like to think about what had happened between him and Jillian, but he did, all the time. He became depressed—that was what happened to their relationship. He could admit it to himself. He became so depressed that he took to bed. He slept for fifteen hours one night. It was in December; he couldn’t remember what year. Cold. After the fifteen hours, he’d gotten up, peed, made some toast for himself, and, without even thinking about it, gone back to bed. It was the morning when he woke up again. He had no idea what day it was. His joints ached from disuse, his mouth felt like a garbage disposal.

  “You sick?” Jillian asked when he tottered into the kitchen. She was sitting at the kitchen table in a bathrobe. The nub of a cigarette hung from her mouth like a snaggletooth. She looked sick herself. Sick of everything.

  “No. I’m not sick.”

  “What’s wrong with you, then?”

  “Where’s Tori?”

  Jillian stubbed out the nub, extracted a new cigarette from her pocket, and lit it. She puffed, took the stick out of her mouth, and waved the smoke away from her face. “I told her she could go to what’s-her-name’s house.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. What’s-her-name.”

  “Why’d you tell her that?”

  “Why not? She’s over there all the time. You were dead to the world. I thought I was going to have to call an ambulance.” Jillian got up, went to him. She pressed the back of her hand to his forehead. She turned him and rubbed his back. “My poor baby. Can I make you something to eat? Some toast?”

  “Toast? I just had toast.”

  “You’ve been asleep for hours. Do you want some breakfast?”

  “I had toast. I remember I had toast.”

  “Right, you had toast. I remember, too. The highlight of the fucking week. It was very memorable toast.”

  Billy smiled. Look at that—Jillian made him smile. That was funny. Not Carole Lombard funny, but a start. It was progress. He decided to go back to bed again, except this time with Jillian. She was giggling as they headed for the back of the house, untying the bathrobe. And, sure enough, it was like old times. She banged her palms on the bed. She yelped and bucked. When it was done, Billy fell straight to sleep and was out for another five hours.

  He got up in the middle of the afternoon and looked out the window at the empty street. He walked down to Tori’s room and peeked in. Empty. Still at what’s-her-name’s house. Or maybe she was at the record store. She wanted that Partridge Family LP. Billy couldn’t bear the thought of it, that song—the one at the beginning of the show—playing over and over in the house.

  He returned to the bedroom, lay down, but now he was done sleeping. Now he had to think. He had to figure out how to end things with Jillian with as little mess and upset as possible. Tori, after all, liked Jillian. She was the closest thing Tori had ever had to a mother.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about this route?” Jackson said. “I’m the driver, man. I should have known.”

  Billy opened his eyes, startled. “What?”

  “I said, why didn’t you tell me about this road, man? I should have known about it.”

  Billy sat up, blinked away the past. “Yeah, you should have known,” he said. “You’re a professional. Why didn’t you know?”

  Jackson shook his head, chastened. “Shit, who knew they even had maps for places like this? Why would I go up a mountain? Do I look like a ski bum?”

  “Me neither,” Billy said. “But I looked at a map. Planning. That’s what being a professional is all about.”

  “Don’t tell me about being a professional, man. Two seconds in that bank and I knew it was an easy score. That’s being a professional. That’s why I signed on for this thing.”

  “Right. The money you owe me had nothing to do with it.”

  “Why don’t you just shut up with that, okay? You never had a cold streak? I just paid off my debt. You and me is clear. You owe me now.”

  “Jack, what were you doing, trying to pay your bills with the horses?” Sam had come to life in the back. He stretched his legs out on the seat and laughed, a high, short burst.

  Jackson looked at him through the rearview mirror. “I have a job, all right?”

  Billy turned in his seat, raised an eyebrow at Sam. “He cleans Porta-Potties.”

  Sam’s eyes widened into saucers. Realizing Billy wasn’t joking, he clapped a hand over his mouth. “Shit, Jack,” he said. “There are a lot of places to get work.”

  Jackson glared in the mirror. “Hey, I got disadvantages, all right? I told you, man, I was in prison.”

  Billy watched the trees chunk past on the side of the road. He’d liked Jackson right off. The man bet with daring. He had the courage of his convictions. He took a big loss on the Colts when he should have known better. That team hasn’t been the same since Unitas retired. Everybody knew that. Afterward, Jackson admitted his head hadn’t been in the right place. He’d needed money fast because his girl, his ex-girl, had shown up and told him she was pregnant. When she said she was on the pill, she must’ve meant aspirin, Jackson said. Billy chuckled, remembering the conversation. He’d met the girl once, before she and Jackson broke up. White girl. Pretty. Jackson had a way with the ladies.

  “We’re going to split up the money in Stockton?” Sam said.

  Billy sat up, annoyed. “I told you, I got to clean it. I know a guy. It’ll take a couple of weeks.”

  “Right,” Sam said. “I remember now. We got to trust you.”

  “Yeah, you got to trust me. You think I’m going to double-cross you, Sam the Man?” He turned and punched at Sam’s knee. “I’d have to be crazy.”

  Sam laughed, slapped at Billy’s fist. “Yeah. You’re crazy, all right.”

  “Boys . . .” Jackson said, his eyes on the rear-view mirror.

  “Right, Dad,” Billy mocked, “no horsing around in the car.”

  “No, not that.” He nodded at the mirror. “Look who’s back.”

  Billy and Sam turned around in their seats. The lumber truck. Coming on hard. They watched the driver reach up and pull something. A horn blasted, rolling over the Buick like thunder. Jackson stomped down, and the car responded like a whipped horse, jerking and surging forward.

  Billy placed a hand on the dashboard to steady himself. “Ease up. He’s just trying to scare you.”

  Jackson kept his eyes on the road ahead. “I don’t think you understand the redneck psychology.”

  Billy looked back again. Jackson could be right. The truck driver was bent over the truck’s steering wheel like a rutting dog, a look of grim determination spackled on his fat face.

  The race was on. The Skyhawk zapped along the little road, Jackson leaning forward to hold the car to its course. Billy couldn’t see the speedometer, but it felt like they were going eighty. The car became airborne for a moment—the road suddenly went quiet, and Billy had the sensation of floating, his stomach yawing, a foul taste rising in his throat. The Buick bounced on its shocks. Billy’s hands flew up, his fingers scrabbling at the headliner. Jackson pumped the brake, but only for a moment, only to regain control. Booming into a wide turn, the car pitched and shook. Billy held onto his seat. He heard Sam tumble in the back. The look on Jackson’s face—the set of the jaw, the hard little eyes with the exploding irises—scared Billy. Was Jackson in control of the car—or was the car in control of him? Billy thought of the racers dumbly going around in a circle at the Indianapolis 500. The redneck’s Super Bowl. It was easy money f
or him every year. There were no dynasties in car racing, no Yankees or Steelers. It was impossible to pick the winner of the race. The fans—Billy believed they secretly wanted the crashes. Actually, it wasn’t such a secret. Spectators always tried to get as close to the track as possible before the race, thrusting programs and slips of paper at the drivers as they marched through Gasoline Alley in their space suits. The fans wanted to be able to say they got their man’s last autograph ever. Billy turned and looked out the back window. The goddamn truck was keeping up. How was that possible?

  The noise of the thing was incredible. It seemed to growl and roar at them, taunting them to go ever faster.

  “We need to cut this out,” Billy said. “We don’t want to get pulled over.”

  “Don’t worry. Flying off the side of the mountain and bursting into a fireball is a much stronger possibility.”

  “This shit isn’t funny. You really are going to get us killed.”

  “I’m going to get us killed? The redneck asshole has nothing to do with it?”

  “If you hadn’t passed the sonuvabitch—” “Don’t you start, man. Don’t go blaming this psycho Klansman on me.”

  “All right, fine. But we’ve got to stop this.”

  “You got any suggestions?”

  Billy swung around and squinted until he had the truck driver in focus. The man was munching on something. And he was smiling. The fucker was smiling. Billy grabbed onto the small compartment between the seats, which rattled in his hand. The rattling pulled at him like a falling anchor. The man is back there smiling, he thought. He has no margin for error—the smallest error could kill him—and he’s smiling and eating Funyuns. Because rednecks are dumb and they always feel safe in their trucks. They love their trucks. The bigger the better. Pick-ups, dump trucks, semi-trailers, ballast tractors.

  Lumber carriers.

  Billy had never seen a truck so big. This was not a machine for pussies, and the redneck driving it wanted everyone to understand that. The truck shook. The truck coughed. It spewed enough exhaust to choke the Man in the Moon. With every bump and pothole, the whole apparatus centipeded from the cab to the trailer’s rear end, the logs mumbling, the axles pumping. How long would it take the truck to stop after Redneck stomped on the brake? Billy pictured it: the trailer swinging around, the tires throwing off rubber like bolts of lightning, the engine grinding into itself. Had the redneck ever stomped on the brake? Billy didn’t think so. The man’s face was unmoving, his plug-like eyes gleamed in the windshield. He looked like a full-speed-ahead man, a damn-the-torpedoes man.

  Jackson’s right arm jerked, and the car did the same, throwing Billy against the dashboard. Sam screamed as if giving birth. Billy wiped his hands on his pants. He felt like his stomach was lodged halfway up his esophagus.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Sam yelled at Jackson.

  “I didn’t do it on purpose.”

  “You thought you could fake him out? It’s a one-lane road!”

  “I don’t need this right now, okay?”

  “You’re jerking off up there!”

  “Jackson,” Billy interrupted. “What do you think would happen if we just slowed down? If we didn’t play his game?”

  “He’ll run right over us,” Sam screeched.

  Jackson nodded. “We’ll end up ass over teakettle.”

  If they went over the cliff, would they ever be found? The truck driver obviously wouldn’t report it. If the car missed the trees along the side of the road it would simply disappear, Billy thought. There were a lot of mountain crevices and lips that could eat a Skyhawk. And the snow would come in a few months, and then no one would ever find them. All that money in the trunk: gone from the civilized world. That was deflation, man. A nice little bonus for the economy.

  Billy unbuttoned his shirt and peeled it off. Next he pulled his undershirt over his head. “Slow down,” he said, balling the top of the undershirt in his fist.

  Jackson glanced at him. “You want to go out of this world the same way you came in?” His voice broke, spiraling off into a girlish yelp at the end.

  “Jackson, slow down—just a little bit.”

  The car shuddered as it decelerated. Jackson held it steady. Billy began rolling the window down. The wind shouldered its way into the car and boxed his head. Behind them, the truck’s engine roared: it was right on top of them. Billy shoved his right fist out the window and shook the undershirt, which snapped into a full stretch. He shook it as hard as he could, back and forth.

  The truck grazed the Buick’s back bumper. The Skyhawk jounced, and the truck made contact again. Sam pressed his forehead into the seat in front of him, prepared for the smashup. Jackson’s arms vibrated; a quiet moan slipped out of his mouth. Billy continued to shake the undershirt. The g-forces battered his arm, and he strained to keep the wind from snatching the shirt away. Waving the white flag, he flashed on Jillian again, the night of the breakup. The screaming. The stomping around. She didn’t care that Tori was right down the hall. She wanted to be out of control. She wanted to hurt him. She wanted him to beg her to stop. The car squirmed, caught in the truck’s beam. Jackson pressed himself into the steering wheel to maintain control. His biceps bulged; veins popped down his forearms. He pressed his foot down on the accelerator, jerking the car free of the truck’s gravitational pull. Redneck didn’t follow suit.

  The truck fell back half a car length. Billy swiveled, his eyes darting until they landed on the truck’s windshield. The driver was still smiling, but it was different now. The man was pleased. The winner. The redneck nodded, up and down, mentally patting himself on the back. He raised his hand and flapped it like a fan; he wanted them to get out of the way.

  Billy retracted the white flag and rolled up the window.

  Jackson tossed an eye at him. “What should I do?”

  “Move over.”

  Jackson pressed the car as close to the mountain as he could. The truck moved into the oncoming lane and rumbled alongside. It stayed there for a minute, two minutes, the huge log carrier and the small Buick filling every inch of the road. The truck’s banging and jouncing sounded like an artillery barrage. Massive wheels filled the driver-side windows: Sam watched the backward-spinning illusion of the rims, his fingers digging into the seat. He felt his nails bend backward, the pain jolting up his arm, but he kept at it. At last the truck pulled ahead, inch by inch and then foot by foot, and, once the carrier cleared the car, it swung back into the right lane. The operation complete, the truck bellowed—Redneck was blowing the horn in triumph. Jackson, sweat beaded on his face, rode the brake, allowing the truck to lengthen its lead. The lumber truck disappeared around the side of the mountain, and half a minute later when the Buick rolled out of the turn, the men saw nothing but empty road ahead of them.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Hicks and Lloyd checked their revolvers. They eased toward the black Cadillac Eldorado, Old Man Johnson’s car. The trunk gaped. The driver’s side door also stood open. A sour smell hit them, the smell of a dead animal left out in the sun. No, not quite. Human vomit. Hicks found a splotch of it in the dirt like an undercooked egg. More puke had been wiped on the side of the car. Lloyd peered inside the Eldorado, shoved a hand onto the floor of the backseat. Nothing and no one.

  Hicks started up the path to the building, Lloyd a few steps behind. Hicks had been to the property a handful of times. Every time he came out it looked worse for wear. The architecture mimicked Louis Kahn: the building was heavyset and graceless; it showed off its seams like battle scars. The mock-monumental size surely impressed the kind of hippie kids who were drawn to cults.

  “Pretty cool,” Lloyd whispered.

  “Something like that.”

  “Should I go around the back?”

  “No,” Hicks said, holding up a palm. “We can’t cover all the exits. Best to stay together.” The front door was
straight ahead, but he remembered that a hanging balcony overlooked the large, open entryway. They’d be sitting ducks if the Johnsons had evil intent. He pointed, indicating that they should go around the side of the building.

  They gave the front walk a wide berth, staying near the tree line. The building was designed to suck in natural light, making it impossible to pick up any clues about which, if any, rooms might be occupied. Turning the corner, the soccer field came into view. It had been recently mowed, which surprised Hicks. He couldn’t picture either of the Johnson boys pushing a mower. Metal bleachers stood on the far side. A multicolored blanket flopped over a corner of the top-row bench.

  Standing in the shade cast by the building, Hicks stopped and turned, taking in the four corners of the field, the woods beyond. Of course it reminded him of the park where he used to meet Elaine Krupp. He saw himself stretched out on his back, his head in Elaine’s lap. She’s smoothing his coarse gray hair as he talks about the details of his day, always so much talk about nothing: what calls came in, the patrol routes taken, a catalogue of speeding tickets issued and abandoned cars noted. He never saw Sarah coming—somehow he didn’t hear a single footfall—until she was right on top of them. “Hello,” Elaine said to her, squinting into the afternoon sun. “Can we help you?” The look on his wife’s face as Elaine said this—“Can we help you?”—dug into Hicks’s gut, sent out tracers.

  Lloyd called him back to the moment. “Chief. Chief.” Hicks crouched and wheeled around, blinking through the ghostly afterimage. Hicks felt himself breathing hard, the huff of fear. He’d actually gone away, he realized. Drifted off into his head, right here with a gun in his hand. He should resign, he suddenly thought. He should call the mayor at the end of the day and tell him he was through.