Mondo Crimson

by Andrew Post

  Merritt said nothing. Kept his eyes on the road, both hands on the wheel.

  “And this thing? Is this an air compressor?” the dead man said. “Hypodermic needles? Fuck’s sake, son, what kind of shit are you mixed up in now? You get stopped with this in here, there’s no telling what a pig will decide you’re into.”

  Merritt said nothing.

  “You listening to me, boy? The pigs have cottoned to the Plains men. Descendants of outlaws and wranglers and rustlers and Injun killers, us. Wouldn’t be no America if it wasn’t for our like. No fence can hold us. They get to sensing that and they can’t stand it. You get stopped by one of them, boy, he’ll pick up on that outlaw scent of yours and dollars to donuts he’ll draw on you right then and there.”

  Merritt said nothing.

  When he blinked, another dead individual was in the car with him, in the passenger seat, head twisted to an unnatural angle, boring holes into him with his rheumy, blank eyes. Winston Plains would always be twelve years old.

  “Think prison life will agree with you?” his dead brother said. “You look like some overgrown baby that waddled out of Love Canal.”

  Winston had never said anything like that to him when he was alive; he’d never been that cruel. It was like in death he’d maybe become just like their dad, a transferred vitriol. Then again, it’d make sense if Winston was still upset. Merritt had murdered him, after all; he’d been his first human being. But he had to remind himself, they’re dead, none of this is real, and the mean junk they’re saying to you is just you talking to yourself. Look in the mirror. Your mouth is moving. You’re saying this.

  Nonetheless: “They’ll eat your ass alive up in there,” Winston said, which got a laugh out of Dad in the back seat. “Roast you over a spit they dug in the prison yard and divvy you up to share, pass the mustard. Guards won’t do nothing. Everybody will know your sheet, forward and back. Everything goddamn thing you’ve done. And ain’t nobody going to think you deserve a shred of mercy, you fucking murderer. You’re a…. You’re, shit, what’s it they call somebody who kills their own father?”

  “A filicide?” Dad said.

  “No, that’s somebody that offs both parents,” Winston said. “He didn’t kill Mom. Not yet anyway.”

  “Patricide?”

  Winston snapped his dead fingers. “That’s it. Patricide. You’re a patricide, Merritt. And a brother-icide. And a whole-bunch-of-other-folks-icide. Not counting cats, how many notches you got on that belt, anyway?”

  Merritt said nothing.

  “Jesus Christ, you don’t even know?”

  It’s just taking a sniff, nudging you, trying to get you to react. It wants a fight. Breathe. Watch the road. Get there, do what Felix has asked you to do. You’re on your way to go kill Brenda. Be excited.

  “I remember in the kitchen,” Winston said, “back behind that big old fridge Mom and Dad used to have – that old Frigidaire, color of baby shit? – there was a spot where the paint was starting to come away from the wall.”

  “I remember this story,” Dad said, laughing.

  Winston flung his arm over the seat back and turned in his seat, to include their father in the unfurling of his tired yarn. “So, one day, must’ve been summer because I remember I was wearing my cleats, suppose I was coming home from Little League practice. Anyway, soon as I walk in what do I find? Merritt squeezing his big ass out from back behind that baby-poop-green fridge, licking his fingers. Then I notice all those flecks of loose paint were gone from the wall, nowhere to be seen. And get this. Before I manage to get one word out asking what he was up to back there, he goes, ‘I wasn’t eating paint.’ Before I even said anything! Just, ‘I wasn’t eating paint.’ Right away. Like something out of a fucking cartoon.”

  Laughing, their dad in the back seat said, “Mixed-up from day one. Instead of cutting it, I should’ve let that cord wrapped around your neck finish the job. Watched you dangle, do the world a solid.”

  Merritt turned the radio back on.

  Winston turned it off.

  His brother leaned close to Merritt’s side and said, “Merry Merritt here wasn’t just a paste-eater. No, sir. His palate was refined. He wanted the hard shit. Lead-based paint. Seeing how that was back in the Sixties, didn’t nobody know nothing about the perils of eating that shit and how it might further fuck up an already whackadoo mind. But I guess we got the living product sitting right here before us. Behold, better living through chemistry.”

  “See you’re hauling a mess of guns back here, son,” their dad said. “That sign we just passed said we got a rest area coming up in a half dozen miles. Might be fine place to try out the roof of your mouth for some target practice. Never were much of a shot, but I imagine even you’d have a hard time missing that.”

  Having had his fill of this abuse, Merritt looked in the rearview mirror and told the half-missing head of his father staring at him, “I didn’t miss you. Did I?”

  “He was asleep,” Winston said. “And you two were in a fucking tent. Wasn’t exactly hitting a duck at eighty yards, Wild Bill. And me? I had my fucking back turned. You better pray your dumb luck holds out and lets you catch Brenda at a similar disadvantage. Because you two make it a fair fight, she’s going to Swiss cheese that big ass of yours.”

  The leather seat creaked as Joseph Plains sat forward, close enough behind so Merritt could smell ruptured flesh and gun smoke and feel his father’s chin on his shoulder, close at his ear the scrape of his dead father’s five o’clock shadow on the collar of his polyester shirt, his father’s shirt.

  “Son,” the dead man said, “I think you need to hear something. Trust this ain’t easy for me to say. You’ve had a good run, you’ll be leaving a good deal of money behind for your mother and I do appreciate that, but you need to face facts here with something. That gal you’re after? She’s younger, she’s smarter, and she’s faster than you could ever hope to be.” Merritt could feel the stale, cold breath of the dead man on his cheek. “It may feel like you’re alive right now on your way to go best her,” his dad said, “but, Merritt, and I mean this with every bit of kindness I got left to give in this heart of mine, you’re already dead as me and your brother here.”

  The Neon shot past a car on the road shoulder with its four-ways flashing. A few yards on, filtering into view from the dark as Merritt’s headlights burned across him, a man plodded along carrying a gas can.

  Merritt nearly rolled his vehicle pulling over to the side. The blare of a horn came from the eighteen-wheeler he’d cut off. He looked past his dead father in the rearview mirror to see the stranded man wasn’t approaching the car but instead just standing there, face lit red as the gas can he was carrying by the Neon’s taillights. Merritt rolled down the driver-side window, reached an arm out, and motioned forward. The man still hesitated, looked back at his own car, then hurried to approach the Neon on the passenger side.

  The young man leaned down and said, “I really appreciate the thought, mister, but I don’t mind the walk.”

  “It’s really no trouble,” Merritt said. “I need a fill-up, myself.”

  “Roadside assistance said they wouldn’t be able to get out to me for another four hours,” the young man said. “And here my dumb ass is, tooling along never even noticing the idiot light had come on until it was too late.”

  “It happens,” Merritt said. “But there’s no reason to let a bad night turn into a worse one. Jump on in.”

  The young man was clearly cold and frustrated with his situation, but like many times in the past Merritt could see this young man had picked up on something in him, even as bright as Merritt tried to smile and keep good eye contact, but not too good.

  “Listen, I appreciate it,” the young man said. “I mean it, it’s really kind of you to offer, sir, but I think I’d prefer to just get there on my own. It’s really okay.”

  “Look
at it this way,” Merritt said, “I can’t remember the last time I saw a sign for a gas station. So, best-case scenario, it’ll take you no less than an hour to get to one and then that same amount of time getting back here. That’s a lot of time to be out under the elements. And excuse me for saying it, but that coat of yours, while cool-looking, doesn’t look like it’s going to keep you warm.”

  The young man remained at the window, nodding, listening, coming around but still on the fence.

  “And it’s dangerous walking out here on the interstate at night. Somebody doesn’t see you, maybe a truck driver falls asleep at the wheel….” Merritt shrugged. “I mean, heaven forbid of course, but bad things happen to good people every minute of the day.”

  Winston Plains said, “You’d know.”

  The young man still wasn’t getting in. He looked back at his car. Weighing his options.

  “It’s supposed to get down to ten below tonight,” Merritt said. “Ten below. And that’s not even taking windchill into account. Everybody makes mistakes. Come on, hop in.”

  That apparently sealed it. The young man climbed inside and set the gas can on the floorboard between his feet and wasted no time pressing his palms to the Neon’s heating vents. Merritt cranked up the heat for him, put on his blinker, and got them back up to speed.

  Now in the back seat with their father, Winston said, “Ten bucks says he kills him before crossing the state line.”

  Joseph said, “No deal.”

  Merritt turned the radio back on and asked his passenger, “Do you like classic rock?”

  “Sure,” the young man said. He blew into his hands and put his palms to the vents again. “Sometimes some dad rock is just what the doctor ordered.”

  Merritt hoped his laugh didn’t sound too forced. “Dad rock, huh?”

  “Sorry,” the young man said. “It’s just classic rock has kind of grown to be associated with, you know, people of a certain age.”

  “People my age, you mean.”

  “Not old. I didn’t say you’re old, it’s just—”

  “But it’s still good. This stuff, these songs, they’re still really, really good. They may have had a few spins on the turntable, true, but that doesn’t mean they should be forgotten about or pushed aside for the new, shiny thing. I mean, just listen to that.”

  “Okay, classic rock is still the shit. Village People, Barry Manilow, Toto, wall-to-wall bangers. No argument here, dude.”

  “Village People was disco, for the record, and just because something is new doesn’t automatically mean it’s better.”

  “I didn’t say it was. I am in total agreement here with you, man. Seriously. Elvis is still king, Prince is still a prince, yeah, it’s all super good shit still, no question.” The young man was placating him and wasn’t even trying to hide it.

  I’ll just shoot him and get it over with, Merritt decided.

  As casually as he could, he reached over the seat back to the maroon duffle bag in the rear floorboard. He could just barely touch the zipper pull and feel the hard angles of his guns through the bag’s nylon material – and the cold caress of his dead brother’s fingers on his wrist. Merritt retracted his hand with a jerk, but fortunately the young man in his passenger seat didn’t seem to notice. Merritt shot a glare through the mirror and his brother’s milky eyes pinched at the corners when he smiled, just like they did when Winston was still alive.

  The young man in the passenger seat saved his own life by saying, “I know this one. My dad freaking loves this song.”

  “‘Goodbye, Stranger’.”

  “Sorry?”

  “That’s the song. ‘Goodbye, Stranger’. Supertramp. This is from their album Breakfast in America.”

  “Supertramp. Yeah, I think he had a shirt too. Good shit, either way. You ever hear of the group Void-Moist Coil? They’re metal, but what these guys are doing with that one riff, that kind of reminds me of something off their early—”

  “I’ve always liked Supertramp,” Merritt said. “I’ve probably been listening to them before your parents even met.”

  “Cool, cool. Man, cold one tonight, isn’t it?”

  “How old are you anyway?”

  The man gave an uneasy chuckle. “Why?”

  “We might have some time before the next gas station comes along,” Merritt said, “so I’m just trying to make conversation.” And before the man could answer, “I figured it’d make you uncomfortable if I asked your name or where you’re from or where you were heading, so I thought, instead, if I asked how old you are that’d be impersonal enough but still a topic we could use to start a conversation of some kind. Something to pass the time.”

  In the back, Winston said, “Here we go.”

  “Listen,” the young man said, “you can just pull over anywhere along here, okay?”

  Merritt didn’t take his foot from the accelerator. “If that’s what you want.”

  “It is. Pull over.”

  Merritt did not.

  “Dude. Pull over. I’m serious.”

  “It’s icy.”

  “I don’t care. Pull over. Let me out.” The young man brought his phone out and blinded Merritt, shoving the lit screen in his face. “I will call the cops. Won’t even hesitate.”

  While thinking about where the line between giving someone a ride and kidnapping them might lie, legally speaking, Merritt pulled over and the young man wasted no time climbing out, nearly forgetting his gas can. No thank you, no drive safe, no goodbye, he just slammed the door and started down the roadside with his gas can again, having gotten maybe three miles closer to his destination.

  Merritt sat watching him for a while until the young man got too far ahead where the Neon’s headlights could reach no farther, gone.

  Winston turned to Joseph and said, “Should’ve taken me up on that bet, Dad.”

  “Yeah, well, seems like Merry Merritt’s full of surprises tonight.”

  The young man shrank in the rearview and disappeared, eaten by the dark. But when the sign for an exit came into view, Merritt started to reach for his turn signal, hesitated, then committed to it. He could spare a couple minutes. A short detour.

  In the rearview, Winston grinned at his dad. “Is that so?”

  * * *

  Mike Olson’s heart was still racing by the time he found a gas station. It’d been a bluff saying he’d call the police on that psychopath. His phone was almost dead. He might’ve been able to dial 911 but as soon as they were connected that six per cent left on his charge would disappear. He knelt to fill the gas can but kept one eye over his shoulder. The gas station itself was closed; no one was inside the convenience store. He watched the occasional car shoot by across the interstate overpass, and the frontage road off the side of which the gas station was set, but no one drove by, no one stopped – no rusty purple sedans, whatever that ugly little car of his was. Old and weird and shitty, just like its owner, the perfect pair.

  Spotting a payphone bolted to the front of the store, Mike walked over with his gas can, which was now much heavier, but saw that while there was an enclosure for a payphone, there were only dangling wires inside. He checked his own phone and saw just opening the home screen had dropped its charge down to three per cent, death’s door. He had a charger in his car, he just had to get back to it, get it gassed up, and then he could call his grandmother, tell her he was just running late and she didn’t need to worry. He might have her stay on the line with him for the rest of the drive to her house in Stillwater, and once there never let on what happened tonight but just soak up as much of that comforting talking-to-your-grandma goodness as he could accumulate. Right now, it felt like she might as well be on the moon. He had no idea how far he’d walked to find this gas station, and no idea how far it was back to the car. You just got to keep moving, my dude. One foot in front of the other. You got this. />
  He couldn’t put his finger on it, but while that guy wasn’t overtly creepy, he definitely put off a weird energy. Something out of a horror movie, that guy. The size of his hands. Those beady eyes behind those ill-fitting glasses. That fucking perv mustache. The way he talked, how he kept saying he didn’t want to make Mike uncomfortable which, like all creepy dudes, they never realize tends to have the complete opposite effect. It was all so spot-on it was like some regular guy doing an impression of a weirdo, some kind of social experiment hidden camera prank show thing for the internet. If that’s what it was, he was going to sue. Damn near pissed myself.

  A miserable mix of rain and snow fell. Mike slipped a few times; his sneakers had hardly any traction left. The gas can wasn’t helping his balance either. Without gloves, he kept switching it from hand to hand, his fingers going numb, making him afraid he might drop the can and the cheap plastic would split and then he’d be really screwed.

  Walking toward oncoming traffic this time – one foot in front of the other – he’d always stop when a semitruck came barreling along because of the crash of air that’d come after it passed would nearly knock him down. With every car that passed him without stopping, oddly enough, he was relieved. He would get this done on his own, he didn’t want any more helpful people insisting that he get in their car tonight. No, thanks. He’d rather freeze to death outside than end up in someone’s freezer.

  With the landscape seemingly never changing, Mike had no idea how far away he still was from his car. It felt like he’d passed the same tree four or five times already. He just kept his head down, took small and careful steps, watching where he put his feet among the slush and mud and trash that people had flung out of their cars, picking his way along on this narrow strip of asphalt that when the cars occasionally whooshed by it felt like they missed turning him into street pizza by mere inches.