Worm

by Anthony Neil Smith

  They ate dinner in a place decked out like an old Western saloon, all 1870s with velvet wallpaper. Ferret ordered a bloody prime rib and a beer while Dee Dee had Chicken Penne and a Long Island Iced Tea. They overdid it. They even ordered dessert. By the time they staggered out and drove up to Rushmore in time for the light show, they were giggling like teenagers and Ferret was giving her ass little pinches like they were dating all over again.

  Back to the hotel after getting kicked out of souvenir shops because they nearly broke some ceramic mugs and glass art, playing with the shit like kids. They relaxed in the lobby, all decked-out like a hunting lodge, in front of a gas fireplace, somewhere between drunk and dreaming.

  The sex was funny. They couldn’t stop laughing. He was having a little trouble getting hard enough because of all that beer and he had a little tantrum about it, but Dee Dee giggled and grabbed some hand lotion from her purse, slicked him up while she made fun of him. But it worked. She gave him a sloppy striptease, fell a couple of times, then tripped on her own panties.

  It was cute. Both of them were falling asleep and had to keep waking each other. She climbed on top of him and rode hard, grabbed hold of his chest. After she came once, twice, almost a third time, Ferret was exhausted and nuzzled behind her on top of the cover, Dee Dee interlacing her fingers in his while his other arm went numb under her pillows. That’s how he fell asleep.

  He was startled awake by the chill on his skin, but he was alone. He hadn’t felt her get out of bed. The clock said it was 2:46AM. His eyes adjusted and he found her in a chair pulled close to the window. She was wrapped in an afghan that had been folded at the foot of the bed, peeking through the closed curtains. A shaft of parking lot light bathed over her.

  “Baby?”

  She turned to him, lips parted and worried. “Can’t we stay here?”

  “We’ve got another night. Tomorrow, we’ll go see bison.”

  “I mean, can’t we stay? Never go back up there?”

  It was the drink talking. Dee Dee was a realist and knew better. Ferret got up and walked across to her. He rubbed her scalp and she rested her head against his stomach.

  “I promise, really. Another nine, ten months. Just until Violet gets out of school.”

  She closed her eyes. “I don’t know.”

  “Hey, you’ve got a job. You’re going to like it. You need one of your pills? Want me to get you one?”

  “Jesus, Finn.”

  “I don’t know what to say, baby.”

  It took her a little while, but she finally said, “Can you promise we’ll go back down South? Close to Mom and Dad?”

  He yawned. He couldn’t say yes and get her hopes up. And he sure as hell didn’t want the in-laws that close anymore. “Let’s talk about it in the morning. Really, you might learn to like it. Wait until it snows.”

  She let out a long breath. “It’s okay. Get some sleep.”

  He stood there, stroking her scalp some more. Peeking out the window at not much, an occasional set of brakelights heading down the hill. Her skin on his skin, her breaths warm, goddamn it, the timing was all wrong. But he couldn’t help it. Things hadn’t been like this in so long. He looked down and he was getting hard again, and it was right by her chin. Dee Dee looked up at him, and her eyes magnified by her glasses just made him grow faster.

  She didn’t smile. Still had those parted lips and raised eyebrows. But she said, “Okay.”

  “No, I didn’t mean to—”

  “Really, baby, it’s okay.” Dee Dee stood from the chair and took his hand. She let the afghan fall from her shoulders and she led him back to bed.

  *

  Dee Dee started going to meetings at the school, and she had to prepare her classroom, her lesson plans, and buy supplies that the school couldn’t afford for her students, even with “all that oil money” the district was supposedly getting. Dee Dee was more than happy to stock up on markers and paste, pencils and bright cartoon erasers. Notebooks with horses and rainbows on them. Ferret had been right, but he didn’t point it out to her—once the job started, she had adapted and found her routine. She would wake up an hour later than him and go to bed an hour earlier. They still had enough time in the evenings, enough of a sleepy kiss in the mornings. It was like a psychic link, yeah, that he hadn’t felt in a long time. He felt stronger with her around, better able to stand up to the jackasses he worked with, more worms coming every day claiming to need the job so bad, then washing out within a couple of weeks because they didn’t know a goddamned thing and wouldn’t listen to anyone explain it to them.

  He also felt like it was time to step up his game with Pancrazy and the driving gigs. Like, okay, so he had a couple of “supply runs” each month, but how about more? One more per month would definitely put him closer to his goal a lot sooner. He was already thinking about the next step—get on with the offshore rigs now, move to the Texas coast, two weeks on, two weeks off. Close enough for the in-laws to fly in or for Dee Dee to fly out on the cheap. Not close enough that they could get in her head again, though.

  He wasn’t ready to leave her alone for the extra run so soon, not when she was bringing home construction paper collages, stacks of spelling tests, a burst of exhausted energy when she talked about the things the kids said or the ones that drove her up the wall. Never mad, always amused. She had really found her calling in life. Something about these kids in the classroom freed her up.

  Dee Dee came home a month into the gig with red cheeks from crying. She smelled like paste and gummi bears. Her glasses were smeared. Ferret gave her a long hug, didn’t even ask her what had happened, not yet. But then she told him, muffled into his shoulder, “Cindy accidentally called me Mommy.”

  So that was that. Soon as she got off work Friday afternoon, Ferret drove her to the airport. She was going home to get Violet and bring her back, regardless of what her parents thought about it. This was the strongest he’d ever seen her.

  *

  While she was gone Ferret drove over to the Walmart parking lot to find Pancrazy. Mid-September, Dee Dee back in two days, it was time.

  He parked in an actual parking space, right between the yellow lines. God only knew why, since none of the RVs or trucks squatting back here were in any order at all. There was a lime green Fiesta with a “For Sale” sign, cardboard, stuck under the wiper. It stuck out like a lime green anything would anywhere. Ferret thought it might be a nice car for Dee Dee, but there was no price, no phone number, no tags.

  Pancrazy came to the door, bags under his eyes and a cigarette between clenched teeth. “What?”

  “Why don’t you move? Don’t you make enough for a nicer place?”

  “Mind your own business.” Pancrazy took the cigarette from his teeth and flicked ash. “Maybe I’ve got plans. Why rent a shitty trailer like yours for a fortune when I can rough it here until I save enough to buy a ranch?”

  “You want to be a rancher?”

  “Fuck, kid, can’t a man want a ranch? What do you want, anyway?” Lording over Ferret, three metal steps up.

  “I want another supply run.”

  “I thought we already had you down for the end of the month.”

  “Yeah, that one, that’s fine. I mean I want another one. An extra one.”

  That got him Pancrazy’s angry forehead. “Like today? Today?”

  Ferret shook his head. “Listen, Dee Dee left yesterday. She’s bringing our daughter up early. I didn’t expect it.”

  “Kids. Yeah, I wouldn’t have those, if I were you.”

  “Well, it’s done. That’s the way it works. Family, I mean.”

  Pancrazy sighed, waved Ferret up the steps. “Beer?”

  “Not today. Sorry.”

  A laugh. “You don’t apologize over not wanting a beer, son.”

  Inside, the window unit a/c looked out of place, like it was a piece of satellite that fell from the sky and made its own hole. It didn’t matter, because it wasn’t even on. It was pretty hot inside,
although Pancrazy was wearing a long-sleeve shirt, buttoned all the way to his neck. The place felt smaller than it looked from outside, but he couldn’t tell you why. There was a smear of oily black on the wall next to the stove top. The place smelled like rubbing alcohol and grease and cigarettes.

  Pancrazy didn’t sit down. He paced. Ferret flattened himself against the door to keep out of his way. Not that there was any place to sit. The seats were stacked with bricks of cash. Jesus. Pancrazy was keeping the shit here? Out in the open like this? The fuck?

  All these months Ferret had thought he was working for a slick operator. But looking at this, man, this was a house of cards in a hurricane. If he kept the cash here, where the fuck did he keep the crank?

  Quit now. Little voice in his head ran it on a loop. Quitnowquitnowquitnow—here comes the drop. Boom.

  But...Dee Dee, man. Violet. A better life, faster.

  “So what’s the deal?” Pancrazy streamed smoke with each word.

  “Is this...the profit in here, is this everything? You keep it out like—”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got this. What was that about your kid?”

  I hope she never gets the chance to meet you. “An extra run each month. I’m the best at this, I never get stopped. I’m solid.” Never told him about that thing with the Rez cop because, well, he had to know already, right? If Pancrazy was paying off those guys, right?

  Pancrazy shook his head. “Supply and demand. When the demand goes up...”

  He kept pacing. He hadn’t looked at Ferret this whole time. He didn’t finish his thought.

  “Are the Russells still doing runs?”

  Finally got Pancrazy to look up. A laugh deep from his throat. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Something, right? I mean, I’m solid. You can find me something extra.”

  The driller stopped pacing, stared at the ground. Almost ghostly, his silhouette in a blue haze. Ferret’s throat was itching already.

  Pancrazy said, “I’ll see what I can do. Sit tight.”

  “Soon, right?”

  “Go home, play with your daughter. Do your work. I’ll let you know.”

  He started coughing, braced his arms against the stovetop and hacked something awful. Ferret asked if he was alright, but Pancrazy ignored him. Ferret let himself out. The coughing followed him to his car. Before he pulled out of the lot, he put the windows down and cranked the a/c because he wanted the smoke and the smell and the whole visit flushed out of the air as quick as it would go.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Slow Bear parked and climbed out and headed up to the Walmart. It was getting close to midnight. Walmart was open twenty-four hours because of the way the oil shifts worked. They’d originally been surprised at how many men wanted to shop for groceries at two in the morning, but now, hell, it was one of their busiest times. Right then it was bare bones. Too many people still out drinking, not ready to head in for fried chicken tenders or microwave burritos.

  This time, the meeting was in electronics. Printer ink and USB cables and anti-virus software. Funny, Slow Bear thought, grabbing some Sweet Tarts from a bin full of movie theater-sized candy, that even with all the surveillance—the black eyes-in-the-sky hanging down like they were in a Vegas casino—Walmart was the most anonymous place to do this sort of thing.

  But it wasn’t Pancrazio he was meeting. Pancrazio, the Russells, the “Sons of Silence”, none of them. He turned into the computer aisle and found Gene Handy waiting for him, as planned. Handy was crouched, checking out speakers. Slow Bear browsed slowly, pretending like he gave a shit about USB 2.0 conversion. Picked up two packages, scanned the back of both, thought about one of his nephews who knew computers inside and out but who had failed eighth grade twice.

  When they were close enough, Gene Handy standing tall again, Handy said, “So who’s it going to be?”

  Slow Bear had been thinking about it all day. “Russell.”

  “Which one?”

  “Good Russell, right?”

  Handy sighed. “Shit, no. He’s called Good Russell because he’s good at this. It’s Bad Russell who would wither like a dick in a pool.”

  “So Bad Russell?”

  “You can’t use either Russells. They’re too tight. You do one, the other knows. Like twins or something.”

  “Shit, man. Who?”

  “Finn. Ferret. He’s a good kid.”

  Slow Bear shrugged, put a cable back, picked up another. “I thought the whole point of stopping him was to scare him away.”

  “It didn’t work, so might as well try this on him. He’s quiet. He’s got a family. He just wants some money.”

  A woman, typical soccer mom plus ten years, turned her cart into the aisle and stopped, looked back and forth between the two men. “Excuse me.” She pushed the cart against Gene Handy’s back, tried to nudge him out of the way. She didn’t look like the kind of person you’d expect at Walmart at midnight.

  They took a walk down to the toys. Slow Bear looked at some of this stuff and wondered if he’d stepped back in time. Transformers? Star Wars? Really?

  He pointed to a Millennium Falcon. “I had that.”

  Gene Handy nodded. They went one more aisle over, stood next to the bikes.

  “I’m going to need a bigger cut than you’re giving me,” Slow Bear said. “It’s not enough.”

  “What, another five?”

  “I need ten. It’s got to be ten.”

  Gene Handy looked up at one of the bikes on the overhead rack. Cheap mountain bike. A bumpy street would tear it up, but a kid can dream, right?

  “Can’t do it, Bear. I told you before about trying to change the deal. Maybe five more. Don’t piss me off or that’s off the table, too.”

  “Jesus, can’t I even ask? I’m the one who—”

  “Take the five and—”

  “I still think it should be one of the Russells.”

  “Then you’re not thinking.”

  Gene Handy turned and walked away. Motherfucker. The guy...like...he was too sure of himself. When this was over, someone was going to take him down. Slow Bear would like to be there when it happened.

  He turned a couple of price tags on the bikes, counting down until it was his turn to leave. An extra five. Putting his ass on the line and all he’d go was an extra five?

  On the way out he picked up a couple of cans of Fix-A-Flat because you never knew. You just never knew.

  *

  He hit the town. He had the night off, but he never really had a night off, not anymore. So he drove over to the Teacher’s Lounge and sidled up to the bar. “Coors Light.”

  Slow Bear looked Indian enough for the bartender to give him cold service to go with a warm beer. Jesus, even with all the money flowing to whites, Mexicans, Indians, some blacks, the whites still couldn’t shake their prejudices. Like the whites still had the nerve to be pissed. The oil companies went down to the Fort and scooped up the land rights dirt cheap. It was a good deal for the Three Tribes, yeah, but not a great one. But those fucking corporations? Might as well have handed over some shiny beads. Jesus. At least the deal got some Indians off their asses to run trucking businesses, mechanics services, or even get on the crews themselves. Good for them, Slow Bear thought, watching to see if there were any of his people around the bar that night. Not many. He drank his beer. He left without paying for it because fuck that bartender. Warm ass beer, my ass.

  “Hey!” The bartender. “You forgot something.”

  “Not worth paying for.” He kept on towards the door, slow. The bartender didn’t care.

  What was Slow Bear looking for tonight? Good question. A girl? Shit, no, he wasn’t in the mood. Trouble? How about a good fight? Maybe, maybe, as long as it wasn’t too hard. As long as he didn’t have to draw his pistol and retreat.

  Best place for that: the casino. All the white boys drove out there and expected to be treated like princes. Wouldn’t lift a goddamned finger to salute a fellow oil man if he had
red skin, but they’d better put on a good feathers-and-rain-dance show at their own casino. Yeah, there was always a drunk roughneck out there who needed to be beaten silly in front of his friends.

  Fine. That was his destination. He climbed into his truck and rolled the windows down, enjoying the way the air felt in the Fall. Used to be, he would say the smell, too, but not anymore. With the oil boom, everything smelled like it was brining to the ground. He blasted Avenged Sevenfold and grit his teeth, driving thirty over the limit, daring the deer or elk or cows or bison or another man to step in front of him. The rushing air was louder than the music. Come on, you’re out there, troopers. Pull me over before I hit the Fort line. Do it. You’re all out there hiding in the dark, you pussies. Stop me. Let’s have some fun.

  He knew they wouldn’t. They knew his truck. He knew their daytime cars, knew what sort of illegal shit they did when not on the clock, too. That was the stalemate out here. The state troopers would have loved to have busted him. Would’ve been great getting him in lock-up. Lately he had been pushing a little harder, driving a little faster, picking on the roughnecks who might have the most connections or make the most trouble. And still, nothing. Come on. One unsuspecting trooper. One out of the loop. That was all he needed. A rookie, maybe. Drag him in on resisting or public drunk or DWI. See what sort of shitstorm descended when the bosses realized the trouble one harassed Indian cop can make for them.

  But not tonight. Tonight, he pulled into the casino parking lot, near empty, and parked in the back. He took a long slow walk to the entrance, where he would find one of his cousins—he had eight of them here, three of them cocktail waitresses—and ask who the biggest ass of the night had been. Then slip his cousin a couple of fives and wait around near the front door. His cousin would take a break and send word to the others that Slow Bear was looking for some fun. Before long, some pissed-off white boy roughnecks would stagger out saying the goddamned Indians cheated them. Shouting it loud.