The Speed Queen

by Stewart O'Nan

  98

  We were halfway across the Texas panhandle when we heard it—Dumas, maybe even Dalhart. For miles there was nothing but fence, gates onto grazing land, cattle guards in the middle of the road. In the distance, the grain elevators rose like white hotels, announcing the towns. It was dinnertime and the sun was in my eyes. We’d gotten fifty dollars from these teenagers in a parking lot in Pampa for an eighth. We gassed up in Skellytown, I snorted a few lines and we headed north. The plan was for Lamont and Natalie to get some rest. They were just getting settled when it came over the radio—three suspects, a yellow older-model Plymouth. They read our license plate number and gave our names, all except Gainey.

  “Where the heck did they get all that?” Lamont said.

  “Heck,” Natalie said. “Heck.”

  “Do you want me to stop or something?” I said.

  “No,” Lamont said.

  “How far is it to Mexico?” Natalie asked, and Lamont handed her the map. He said he was fine now except he couldn’t feel his hand. Natalie rattled the map open.

  “Well?” I said.

  “It’s far.”

  99

  All night and all the next day. That’s how I got my nickname, the Speed Queen. Lucinda always makes fun of it; she says it’s a kind of washing machine. I don’t mind it. I was thinking you might use it for a title. The Speed Queen Confesses, how’s that sound?

  But yeah, driving all night up and down those two-lanes, cruising through the little four-corners towns. It was Saturday night and the kids were out low-riding in their chopped Hondas and frenched Chevy Luvs. It was slow going. Lamont and Natalie were sleeping, so was Gainey. All the drive-ins were jammed. They reminded me of Coit’s and the good times we had there. Every little cow town had one—the Dairy Princess, Custard’s Last Stand, the Dallas Dairyette—the kids in sweatshirts in the back of pickup trucks, couples dating in flame-jobbed fastbacks, sucking down fizzes and splits and dipsy-doodles. I thought about how easy their lives were, and how messed up they’d get, and then I’d hit the town limits and click on my high beams and make time.

  Further west in Texas, the towns were closed for the night, only roadside diners open—the Wide-A-Wake, the Miss Ware City—their signs trying to convince me I wanted KC steaks and broasted chicken and chiliburgers and spudnuts. Coldest beer in town! one place claimed, but it had a telephone number written in white shoe polish across the front windows. Livestock auction every Tuesday. We passed the shells of old drive-ins, hollow train stations, a gas station advertising used tires, and then for the next fifty miles nothing but stars and maybe an iguana caught in my lights.

  We hit the New Mexico border after midnight and I fixed the clock and it was Saturday again. You could smell the feed yards coming. I had gum and I turned the radio on low just to have someone to listen to. The night hypnotizes you, the lines holding the car on the road, the reflectors tricking your eyes. Cattle trucks passed the other way, deadheading, lit up like UFOs. On the sharper curves people had left shrines for loved ones, plastic flowers and yellow ribbons nailed on crosses. It was a stretch you’d fall asleep on during the day—nothing for miles, then a graying billboard, a mileage sign for old mining ghost towns and places you’d never heard of: Capulin and Wagon Mound, Ojo del Madre. Around three in the morning, in the middle of the desert, a railroad gate swung down in front of us and a Santa Fe engine blared past, hauling a long line of gondola cars. An hour later I had to wait for it again. It was like we were going nowhere.

  At Springer the road finally hit 1-25, and I pulled into a Loaf ‘n Jug and while I was filling up, squeegeed the bugs off the windshield and bought a cold six of diet Pepsi. Gainey woke up and I gave him a Nilla wafer. I got back on the road and chugged a can and felt better. When I turned around, he was out again, the cookie in his fist.

  The mountains slowed us down. They were scenic, like it said on the map, but the curves took hours and hurt my eyes. Dawn came up. Lamont’s bandage was dry, Natalie was wearing one of my shirts. The shadows of the trees fluttered over their faces, and I tried not to think of Kim Zwillich and Margo Styles. Outside of Taos we got stuck behind a Winnebago with black nylon skirts; on the spare they had a map of the country with all the states colored in, and I thought that would be a neat thing to do, just keep going till we hit all of them.

  “You want me to drive?” Lamont asked when he got up. His hand was better, he said, and showed me he could open and close it.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Want a pop?”

  In back, Natalie groaned and stretched her arms over her head. “Where the heck are we?”

  “Cuba,” I said. “The next town is fifty miles.”

  “I’m hungry,” she said.

  “I should eat something,” Lamont said, like it was final.

  “Something quick,” I warned him.

  We cruised through town, skipping the Tip Top Cafe and the Stagecoach Inn. There was nothing with a drive-thru, so I pulled in behind Anita’s Coffee Pot. Breakfast 99¢, it said in the window. It was a trucker’s cafe with desert scenes painted on the walls—knotty pine and gingham curtains and wagon-wheel chandeliers. The men sitting at the counter kept their baseball caps and jackets on. A twin Jetspray sent endless curtains of lemonade and fruit punch waterfalling down its sides. The waitress gave us a dangerous-looking high chair for Gainey. In the middle of the table there was a special holder for those jam packets with the foil lids. She gave us our menus and our water and said she’d be right back.

  The menu was huge. Silver dollar pancakes, flannel cakes, pork fritters. Country ham, dropped eggs, buttered toast. They had dinner for breakfast—Adobe Pie and Zuni stew, chalupas and tamales and flautas, chilaquiles and stuffed sopaipillas and Hopiburgers, and for dessert, Millionaire Ice Box Pie. I wasn’t hungry at all.

  “Then just get coffee,” Lamont said.

  “This is stupid,” I said.

  “Marjorie, we have to eat.”

  “No,” I said, “we have to not get caught. They’ll feed us all sorts of stuff in jail.”

  Natalie just sat there reading the menu like she didn’t have an opinion.

  “You’re just loving this,” I said.

  “Did I say anything?” she said.

  “Forget it.”

  “I think someone’s getting a little paranoid,” she said.

  “What do you mean someone?” I said. “I’m right here, Natalie. I’m not someone.”

  “Do you want people looking at us?” Lamont said. “Because that’s what they’re going to do if you don’t control yourself.”

  “Look who’s talking about control.”

  “Do you want to go sit in the car? Do you want me to treat you like a little kid? I’m not feeling too good if you haven’t noticed. I don’t need this stuff.”

  I said the F-word then and walked out. He could feed Gainey. They could be their own little family.

  In the car I cracked my last diet Pepsi. It was warm. I didn’t need them, I thought. They were my whole problem. And watching the cars passing behind me on the highway, I thought I could just take off and ditch the car somewhere and start over.

  But I couldn’t. They needed me to drive.

  100

  We were on 44 in the middle of nowhere. We’d come down out of the mountains into the high desert. There were red buttes everywhere, and adobe ruins, and sage. I was hoping to see a real roadrunner, kind of a good omen. We were in the Apache reservation because we passed a fry bread and jewelry stand set up by the tribe with a big sign. Lamont wanted to stop for some cheap cigarettes but I said forget it. I don’t know where I thought I was going, I just had to move.

  I’d never seen a real reservation, and all the trailers and junked cars surprised me. I thought they got money from the government.

  Out in the desert there were no fences, only a string of low telephone poles beside a railroad line. Gusty wind Likely, a sign said. I had the Roadrunner opened up in fourth and just humming. That big Hemi was w
orth every penny. The dips lifted us off the road, made your stomach jump. Off to our right, crows perched on the phone poles, waiting.

  “Not much out here,” Lamont said.

  And just then I looked up and saw the cop car in the mirror, gaining on us. It wasn’t a state trooper because they had Crown Vics, and this was an old Fury, probably one some other police force sold when they got their new ones. It was just luck—it was the only engine out there that had a chance against us. It was going to be two big Mopars going head to head. I’d take him, no question, even if I didn’t know the road.

  “Cop,” I said.

  Lamont didn’t turn to look. “You’re sure.”

  “No,” I said, “it’s Mr. Softee doing one-ten. Of course I’m sure.”

  “Does he have his lights on?”

  “He just put them on.”

  “Pull over,” Lamont said.

  “What?” I said, and we started to argue. Now that I look back on it, I realize I should have fought him harder. But it’s too late now.

  You want to hear a weird one? In Switzerland they used to put you in a box and saw you in half. I don’t know why.

  101

  I’d say he was around five-seven, a hundred and sixty. His wrists were thick like a drummer’s. He had black hair parted on the left, or the right; I can’t remember because most of the time I was watching him in the sideview mirror. His uniform was khaki, like the Marines. He must have had black shoes or boots, I can’t remember. He had a gun, but he hadn’t taken it out, he’d only unsnapped his holster like they teach you to do.

  Lamont slipped the .45 from the glove compartment and hid it beneath his right leg.

  I don’t know how to describe Lloyd Red Deer’s face. Round, kind of like a pumpkin. He had brown eyes and his cheeks had little pits in the skin. No mustache. Yellow teeth from smoking. He came up on my side and looked in, and I could tell he had no idea, that no one had told him about us. It was kind of funny but sad too. He said, “Afternoon,” to be polite.

  “Ma’am,” he said, “do you know how fast you were going?”

  “No, sir,” I said. Did I say he had gloves on? He did, white ones like a crossing guard. It was cute.

  “I’m going to have to ask you for your license and registration,” he said, and I turned to Lamont and said, “Honey?” like he’d get them for me.

  102

  Lamont shot him. He leaned forward and opened the glove compartment like he was looking for the papers, then he spun toward Lloyd Red Deer with the gun in his other hand. I shied back so it wouldn’t hit me. For a second he didn’t shoot and I thought he’d forgotten the safety. Then I realized it was his bad hand.

  Lloyd Red Deer went for his gun, I don’t know why. All he had to do was duck.

  Lamont switched hands and shot him, and at the same time Lloyd Red Deer shot Lamont. It knocked Lamont’s head against the window and the gun dropped on the floor.

  His eyes were closed. I grabbed him by the shoulders. The bullet had made a hole in his shirt pocket and Lamont was gasping. The blood pulsed out. Natalie had ahold of him too. She was screaming so I couldn’t think and I shoved her into the backseat. She must of sat on Gainey because he started wailing.

  I ripped the bandage off Lamont’s ribs and pressed it against his chest. Natalie wouldn’t stop.

  “Shut the heck up!” I said. I grabbed her by the hair and stuck her hand over the bandage. “Hold this!”

  I tore Lamont’s shirt off and leaned him forward. The bullet was still in there. I thumbed back his lids; his eyes were just whites. He made slurping sounds when he breathed. I didn’t want to believe he was going to die so I pretended he was just knocked out from hitting the window. Slurp, he was going, slurp. Gainey was crying and my mind couldn’t hold on to anything. “Okay,” I kept saying, like I had a thought. We’d get him somewhere and let him rest and he’d be fine. “Right,” I said. “Okay. Just keep holding that.”

  I checked on Lloyd Red Deer. He was lying on his side in the road, and I could see the outline of a wallet in his back pocket. I looked across the desert; there was no one coming, so I jumped out.

  “What are you doing?” Natalie said.

  “Just hold that against him,” I said.

  I got back in and got the car started.

  “Where are we going?” Natalie sobbed.

  “I don’t know!” I said. “Stop asking me questions!”

  103

  He was definitely dead when we left him. Lamont shot him straight in the face with his .45. He had a hat, one of those Smokey the Bear deals with the strap in back, and it ended up across the road in a creosote bush.

  I don’t know anything about the shots to his body. They say they were from his own gun. Even if that was true, they didn’t kill him. There wasn’t much left of his head.

  That’s another one I hate—getting your head chopped off. Nobody does that anymore, at least not in this country. I remember those old movies with the guillotine, or the big guy with the bare chest and the black hood and the ax. They always give the prisoner a chance to say his last words, and while he’s talking the king’s pardon comes through, or his friends shoot an arrow right in the big guy’s heart and a huge sword fight breaks out.

  I don’t think that’s going to happen. Most of the people outside the gate tonight have signs like Thank God It’s Fryday and Roast in Peace. They don’t know what’s going on, they don’t know me at all, they just want to cheer when the lights dim at 12:01. Buckle Up, Marjorie. It’s a tradition, the Deathwatch. A lot of frat boys come out and drink beer and make a nuisance of themselves—a lot of nuts. And they’re all here to see me. It, really. I read that at the last public execution in the U.S., twenty thousand people showed up.

  Even inside of here there’s a lot of commotion. When they did that Connie gal, they locked us down and showed us videos until three in the morning. Etta Mae said she hoped they’d show one with Brad Pitt in it. Lucinda said she was holding out for Wesley Snipes. I knew they were just trying to lighten things up for me. “Tom Cruise,” I said. “It’ll be my going-away present.”

  All the kidding is like the names they have for it, they’re supposed to make it easier. The gas chamber’s The Big Sleep or The Time Machine. Sitting in the chair is Riding the Lightning. Getting hanged is just The Drop. There’s nothing special for lethal injection, just what they call any execution—After Midnight, like the old Clapton tune. After midnight, we gonna let it all hang out. All week I’ve been listening to people whistle it, the way it echoes off the concrete, down the long halls. It’s hard to like a tune when it comes at you that way, but I do.

  104

  I stopped at the closest motel, which wasn’t until Farmington. The Dan-Dee Colonial Motel. The sign was an oversized coach light. It was almost dark when we pulled in; next to the office a blue bug zapper crackled. Natalie went in with some of the money from Lloyd Red Deer and came back with a key to room 8, the furthest one from the office. I don’t know if she used an alias. She walked over while I followed in the car.

  The room had a harpoon on the wall and paintings of whaling ships and men in rain slickers in dinghies. The lamps above the beds came out of miniature ship’s wheels. I took Gainey in first, then both of us helped carry Lamont. You couldn’t tell if he was breathing and the blood was still coming. We laid him on one of the beds and locked the door.

  I pulled the bandage off and watched the wound fill up and run over. I pressed it back down again.

  “Get some ice,” I said—I don’t know why—and Natalie found the bucket and unlocked the door again.

  I checked his wrist and couldn’t find anything and checked his neck. I leaned my ear down to his lips and then his chest. There was nothing, so I did it again, holding my breath to listen better. No.

  I got up and put the chain on the door and picked up Gainey and touched his hand to Lamont’s cheek. I put him back in the car seat and laid down next to Lamont like we were going to sleep, then I rolled
over and held him close. The blood was still hot. I thought if I held him long enough he’d open his eyes and say everything was fine.

  Natalie knocked on the door like it was a secret.

  “I love you,” I said, and kissed him and held him tight against me.

  Natalie knocked.

  I kissed him a last time and ran my fingers over his teeth, his pretty fangs.

  Natalie knocked again.

  “Hold on!” I said, and got up and opened the door.

  She looked at my front all covered with blood, and Gainey’s jumper, and she knew. She put the bucket on the night table and knelt down beside him.

  “Why did you lock the door?” she said. “Why did you lock the door?”

  So yes, that part of her book is true.

  It reminded me of my dad. This was on Kickingbird Circle. A bunch of friends were over. It was summer and we were in the backyard, running through the sprinklers. My mom was in her garden; she had her gloves on and her shears. My dad had these striped swim trunks with a string that tied in the front. He was chasing us through the spray, and when I looked back to see where he was, he was lying facedown on the ground. The water arced over him and came back my way.

  “Get up,” I said.

  “Come on, Dad.”

  “Hey,” I said. “Quit faking.”

  105

  No, Lamont didn’t have any last words.

  Actually, the last thing he said was “Just do what I tell you.” He said it to me, not her.

  For the book, you could make “Not much out here” the last thing he says. Lamont would like that.

  Wait a second.

  Who is it?

  Okay. Thanks, Janille.

  It’s Mr. Jefferies. This is probably it, since there’s only twenty minutes left. Wish me luck.

  It was him. They turned me down. Not enough new evidence for another trial.

  What can you do, you know?

  Yep.

  So I guess I should finish this. For Gainey, and for Mr. Jefferies.