by Pete Hautman
Tigger was giggling.
Dean blew imaginary smoke from the muzzle and slid the pistol back into his jacket pocket. “You got to watch these guys every minute,” he said to Carmen. “They’re a buncha fuckin’ animals.”
An hour or so later, even as he was talking—telling Carmen and the skins about how he’d avenged himself on Tiny Tot, telling them how much cash he’d scored, telling them about how easy it was—a little man behind his left eyeball was telling Dean to shut up, to be discreet, to not trust this bunch with every thought that ran through his head. But that small portion of his consciousness could not withstand the tongue-loosening power of the methedrine. He was gabbing away like a speed freak!
Dean barked out a laugh, interrupting himself.
“What’s so funny?” Tigger asked.
“I’m talking like a fucking speed freak!”
That turned out to be the funniest thing anybody’d heard all night. Dean basked in their admiration, feeling his chest expand. He decided to read them some more passages from John Donne, but when Pork saw him reaching for the book, he turned to Carmen.
“I hear the guy you work for is really rich,” he said.
“He keeps his money in coffee cans,” she said.
“Bullshit!” Dean said. “We checked his damn coffee cans and didn’t find shit.”
“Well, it was there. I saw it. It’s not my fault he moved it.”
“Yeah, well, anyways, the donut guy was the one with all the money.”
“He’s back at work, you know,” Carmen said.
Dean said, “No shit?” He was surprised. He thought he’d killed him.
“Maybe you ought to score off him again,” Pork suggested.
Dean laughed. “Not a bad idea.”
“I don’t know,” Carmen said, getting into the spirit of it. “Him and Axel, they walk back to his place together now.”
“So hit ’em both,” said Pork.
Tigger jumped in. “Fuck, why don’t we hit the fuckin’ gate? Man, would that be cool, or what? Get, like, a million bucks or something!”
Pork said, “Tigger, I ever tell you what a fucking idiot you are?”
Sweety made a rumbling sound in his chest.
“I ain’t talking about you, Sweety,” Pork said. “You’re one of the smartest Aryan motherfuckers I know. And big too.” He pulled a folded paper from his pocket. “What do you say we do a little booster?”
Sweety grinned, using his entire face. Dean could hear his scabbed brow crackle.
Sweety’s stomach started growling a few minutes into the 6:00 A.M. edition of Sesame Street.
“He’s hungry,” Tigger explained. “We got to go get something to eat.”
“I’m hungry too,” said Dean. “Hey, Pork You hungry?”
Pork nodded. Dean looked at Carmen, who was curled up on the floor. “You hungry, Carmen?”
Carmen did not answer. Two hours earlier, she had swallowed a few Valiums, and she was now on the floor, wrapped in the bedspread, snoring.
They took Tigger’s car to a Perkins. Sweety ordered a breakfast steak and six eggs, scrambled. Tigger explained to the nervous waitress how to prepare them.
“He likes ’em just barely cooked. You go tell them to just stir the eggs up and dump ’em in a pan and then dump ’em right out again on a plate. Hardly cook ’em at all. He likes ’em real soupy like. And get him some extra toast too, so’s he can sop it up. Okay?”
The waitress said, “Steak and eggs with a side order of six eggs, scrambled, very loose.”
“Yeah, only you know how loose you think he wants ’em?” The waitress nodded. “He likes ’em even looser than that.” Pork was talking to Dean. “I can get it for you. But not till tonight.” “That’s cool.”
“I’d have brought it last night, but I didn’t know for sure you wanted it. Besides, I don’t like carrying weight.”
“No problem. I can have the money for you whenever.” Dean could feel the money pressing against his ribs, two thick bundles stuffed in the inside pockets of his jacket.
“So what do you guys want to do today?” Tigger asked. “You guys want to do something?”
Pork scratched his chin with a fork. “I was thinking I’d go someplace and crash.” “Fuck that,” rumbled Sweety.
“Yeah,” said Tigger. “Fuck that. Let’s go do something. What do you guys want to do?” Dean said, “You guys ever go to the state fair?” They all looked at him.
“I mean, I was thinking we could go over there and get some donuts or something. Go look at the freaks.”
Chapter 28
Shortly before Friday noon, Midges Flores, the maid, knocked lightly on the door to room 19, hoping that no one was there. She put her ear to the door and listened, then knocked again, louder this time. Midges did not like the girl who was staying there, and she liked the bald man even less. But he hadn’t been around since last weekend, when he had sat and watched her make the bed, cleaning his teeth with a fingernail and not saying a word. And the girl, she was a slob. Midges knocked again. No response. She relaxed, inserted her passkey into the doorknob, and opened the door.
What a mess; this was the worst yet. The bed all undone, and it stank of cigarettes, sweat, and alcohol. Midges had pushed her cleaning cart all the way into the room before she noticed the girl lying on the floor.
“Oh! Excuse me!” Midges said.
The girl on the floor didn’t move. Midges started to back her cart out of the room, then stopped. The girl was very still.
“Hey, are you okay?” Midges licked her lips and felt her heart accelerating. Was she dead? In the past, Midges had found money, drugs, children, clothing, interesting Polaroid photographs, and even someone’s eight-foot-long pet boa constrictor…but never a corpse. She approached the girl, who was lying flat on her back, fully dressed but with only one button holding the front of her shirt together, and bent over her. She sure did look dead. Midges froze. What if she had been murdered? What if the murderer was still in the room? He could be in the bathroom. He could be under the bed. The bald man. Midges’ hand was only inches from the girl’s neck. She would just check, very quietly, for a pulse. Keeping her eyes on the bathroom door, she pressed her fingers against the girl’s throat. The girl’s eyes popped open. Midges jerked her hand away, took two steps backward, and screamed as she collided with her cleaning cart.
Carmen sat up, blinking. “What’s going on?” she asked. “Where did everybody go?”
Sophie hated to admit it, even to herself, but Kirsten and Juanita were a hell of a lot faster, pleasanter, and more reliable than her daughter the sleepwalker. They both did their jobs, complained only a little, and never ever told her to shove a burrito up her ass. Sophie liked that. Also, she liked the idea of having a real Mexican girl like Juanita rolling burros and frying ground beef and every now and then waiting on customers. Business was brisk going into the last weekend of the fair. The rainy midweek had kept many of the fairgoers at home; now they were out in force for this final weekend of cheese curds and corn dogs, skyrides and giant slides, Machinery Hill and the twelve- hundred-pound prize hog, and, of course, Axel’s Taco Shop. It was eleven-forty in the morning, and they’d had a steady stream of customers since ten.
The system that seemed to be working best was to keep Kirsten up front serving customers, Juanita building tacos, burros, and tostadas in back, and Sophie running the orders back and forth and doing the soft drinks and making sure Juanita was stocked and running the fryer and taking care of whatever else came up. Juanita wanted to take her break now, and she mentioned it every time she pushed an order across the stainless-steel table.
She said, “I gotta go to the ladies’.”
“Wait till Carmen gets here,” Sophie said, grabbing a pair of Buenos. “Anytime now.”
When Sophie came back for an order of beans, Juanita said, “I got my period. I gotta go to the ladies’.”
“You had your period last weekend,” Sophie said. “Are you a
rabbit, or what?”
“That Carmen, you know, she might never come, and I gotta go to the ladies’.”
“Just wait.” Sophie grabbed the beans and delivered them to the front counter. When she turned back, Juanita was gone. “Damn.” She stepped around the food table and spread out three tortillas and spooned a layer of beans across each of them.
“Hey,” Kirsten said, looking back. “How come she gets to take a break? I need two more tacos and a side of beans.”
Sophie folded the burritos, snatched a pair of taco shells from the arms of the deep fryer, loaded them, wrapped them, and motioned Kirsten to come get them. “She’ll be right back,” she said.
“I was here first thing this morning. It’s not fair. I came in early, and she gets to take a break.”
Juanita was gone for over twenty minutes. “You got to wait in line,” she said in response to the look Sophie gave her. Sophie scowled, knowing that it was probably true—the lines were longer at the women’s rest rooms than they were at the cheese curd concession. A line had formed in front of the taco stand now, six hungry people staring in at the painted menu board. Sophie moved into high gear, loving the sense of crisis, seeing each customer now as another buck in her pocket.
Carmen showed up at twenty after twelve.
“Well, look who’s here,” Sophie said. “We thought you’d got lost.”
“Can I go on break now?” Kirsten asked, untying her apron. Sophie nodded and took her place at the front counter.
Carmen looked at the people lined up waiting to be served, then at Juanita, who was trying to do about six things at once. “What do you want me to do?” Carmen asked her.
“Need more taco shells, cheese, beans, and roll two deluxe for the guy with the red hat.”
Carmen thought about leaving, about just walking out and losing herself in the crowd. Walk right off the fairgrounds and onto the street and stick her thumb out and get picked up by some guy in a Mercedes, go have a few drinks.
“You want to get your lazy butt moving?” Sophie said.
Carmen tore into a bag of corn tortillas and loaded the fryer. She’d stay for a while, maybe leave later. If she felt like it. She still had some crystal folded into a square of paper tucked down deep in the front pocket of her jeans. Last night, Pork had looked through a magazine to find a good picture and finally found one of Nancy Reagan, tore it out, spooned some crystal meth over Nancy’s nose, folded her up into a neat square with the corners tucked in, and handed it to Carmen. “This is for letting us use your room. What do you say?” he asked her.
She had said, “Thank you.” Pork had laughed and told her she was supposed to “Just say no.” Carmen didn’t get it.
She laid out a row of six flour tortillas and started rolling burros, and by the time the sixth burrito was rolled and wrapped, she was caught up in the rhythm of the Taco Shop and almost enjoying herself. Carmen was capable of moving quickly and precisely, especially when she began the day with a nose full of methamphetamine.
The nearest rest rooms, located in the shadow of the Giant Slide, had grown a thirty-foot-long tail of females—about a ten-minute wait, by Kirsten’s estimate. She took her place in line and watched enviously as men walked easily in and out of their side of the building. She had to pee too bad to let herself get mad, but it bugged her how slow most women were. Some of her friends complained that rest rooms were designed by men, that women needed more time, so they should have more toilets available. Kirsten did not agree. She could take care of business as fast as any guy, maybe faster. Unless she had her period, of course, but even then she wouldn’t just sit there staring down between her legs like some of these women.
God, did she have to go!
The trick was to let your butt touch the toilet seat lightly, or not at all—at these rest rooms, she went for not at all—and just pee quick, wipe, and get out. Make room for the next person, who maybe had to go really bad.
Kirsten shifted her weight from one flexed leg to the other. She fantasized squatting down right where she was and letting loose. No, thinking about it that way didn’t help at all. Maybe she was keeping her muscles too tense. She tried relaxing her belly. She imagined a hollow space inside her abdomen. All the room in the world. An empty lakebed. As her eyes danced over the heads of the people passing by, she wished she were one of them: people who did not have to pee. A dome of flesh caught her attention. One, two, three. Four. Four of them, standing over by the Pronto Pup stand. One of them, the one in the orange T-shirt, looked familiar.
Sweety was able to fit the entire Pronto Pup into his mouth without swallowing. He held it there, cheeks distended, and stared at the girl who had sold it to him. She wouldn’t meet his eyes. He grinned, his lips parting to show her the floury, meaty, mustard-yellowed mass that strained at his teeth.
Tigger said, “C’mon, let’s go do some rides, man.”
Sweety forced his hps over the corn dog and began to work his jaw back and forth as he fell in behind Tigger. Pork gave Dean a look, shrugged, and followed.
Dean thought, This is like being the bionic man, the terminator. He was sweating like a pig, but that was okay. He’d left his jacket back in Tigger’s car, and that helped.
With just the T-shirt on, he could stay cool. He liked the way the .45 felt in his waistband, and the bulge it made in the T-shirt. He would be cool and bionic, cruising the fair with his bionic pards. He could feel his joints as he walked: snick, snick, snick. He could hear his engine humming.
Carmen admired the face she had created. The pinto beans formed a smooth layer over the tortilla disk. Two black olives made eyes. A green olive nose. A white sour- cream smile. Shredded lettuce hair. Who did it look like? She pulled off the lettuce. James Dean! No. It wasn’t quite right. She moved the olives farther apart.
“I’m out of lettuce,” Juanita said.
“Need three deluxe and two bean,” Sophie called back. “Carmen! Let’s get a move on. What are you doing back there?”
“She’s making faces again,” Juanita said.
Sophie shouted, “Carmen!”
Carmen’s feet flexed, popping her a couple of inches into the air.
“I told you not to do that. Quit acting silly and do your job, girl!”
Regretfully, Carmen folded the tortilla face into a burrito, wrapped it, began again.
Axel was strolling up the mall toward the Taco Shop when Kirsten ran up to him, breathless.
“Mr. Speeter! I saw that guy.”
Axel cupped her shoulders in his hands. “What guy?”
“That guy they say beat up Mr. Fabian. That skinhead guy.”
“Where?”
Kirsten pointed down Carnes Avenue. “Down by the Giant Slide. He was with some other guys, some other skinhead guys.”
Axel dropped his hands and started back down the mall, his jaw clamped so tight he could feel his bridge flexing.
Chapter 29
“That fuckin’ Tigger,” Pork said. “He does this shit all the time.” He reached in his pocket and came out with his fist wrapped in brass. “You can’t take the little shit anywhere without him pissin’ somebody off.”
A pair of cowboy-hatted young studs had Tigger up against the side of the Headless Woman trailer, one of them holding Tigger’s arms, the other slapping him in the face. After each blow he shouted at Tigger, “What did you say?”
Tigger kept replying, “Fuck you.” They all seemed to be having a good time.
Sweety charged with his fist held straight out and hit the first cowboy on the side of his neck. The cowboy bounced off the aluminum side of the trailer and slid to the ground. Dean, not sure what was going on, followed Pork, who jumped on the other cowboy’s back and pounded him several times on the temple with his metal-sheathed fist. The cowboy was spinning around, trying to throw him, when Sweety came in with his big fists locked together and brought them both up under the cowboy’s jaw. The sound of that made Dean’s stomach roll. The cowboy went down hard. Tigge
r, bleeding from his nose, was kicking the other one, who was too dazed to resist. Pork grabbed Tigger and pulled him away. Several people had stopped to watch.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Pork said. They moved out through the crowd, Pork looking pissed off, brushing dirt from his shoulders, Sweety with his arm locked around Tigger’s neck, giving him knuckle raps on his hairless skull, Tigger going, “Ow, ow, ow …”
“What was that all about?” Dean asked.
“Our Tigger has trouble relating to people,” Pork said over his shoulder. “Can’t say three words in a row without somebody wanting to jump up and down on his ugly little face.”
Dean’s breathing slowed. Sweety had released Tigger and caught up with Dean and Pork. Tigger’s face was flushed, and he was wearing a big gray grin.
Dean said, “Wipe your nose, would you?”
Tigger laughed and wiped the blood on his sleeve. “Man, those fuckers never fuckin’ knew what hit ’em!” he said, kicking the air. “Fuckin’ Sweety, man, pow! Like a fuckin’ tank, man. Damn!”
“You’re gonna get us killed one of these days,” Pork said. “Go mouthing off to some guy, and it turns out he’s got six friends.”
“That would be okay,” said Sweety.
Pork made a sour face. “I don’t know about you guys, but I could use a blast.”
With over a hundred thousand people milling about the fairgrounds, it was tough finding a private place where four guys could sit down and do a little crank. Tigger thought he knew a spot over near the grandstand where they could squeeze in between an egg roll joint and the back wall of a mechanical horse race game, but when they got there it was full of high school kids passing a joint. Tigger wanted to kick them out, but Pork said what do you want to do, fight or get high? “I mean, let’s get our priorities straight here. We already had one fight, right?”
Sweety finally said, after they had wandered around for twenty minutes or so, “We just sit down someplace and fuckin’ do it.”