The gas needle was on E, and Jethro aimed the Malibu for the turn lane and the old gas station with a tin awning.
On the gas station’s porch was a whiskered man with a large carving knife, whittling a table leg into a tree branch. “Ain’t no way that Hurricane Rolando-berto is gonna hit Florida! I can feel these things. I got the shine.”
“All the weather reports indicate otherwise,” said Jethro.
“They also said we landed on the moon, but that was TV tricks.” The old man leaned and spit. “You’ve been brainwashed by whitey!”
“But you’re white,” said Art.
“Bah!” the man said in a crotchety voice, dismissing Art with a careless flick of the knife. He got up and went inside.
Jethro and Art stepped over a lactating Labrador in front of a rusty Yoo-Hoo machine and followed the man into the station.
Jethro pulled out a Visa card and asked for fifteen bucks of regular unleaded.
“We don’t accept charge cards,” said the old man, displaying undependable teeth.
Jethro pointed out the window at the Visa sign on the gas pumps.
“The distributor put that up,” said the old man. “It’s only good at participating dealers. I’m not a participating dealer.”
“What determines whether you are a participating dealer?”
“Whether I feel like it.” He lit a filterless cigarette and pulled a piece of tobacco off his tongue. With an insulting slowness, he picked up an open gold can of Miller High Life next to the register.
“Okay,” Jethro said in resignation. “Can I get the key to the restroom?”
“Are you buying any gas?”
“No, I am going to a participating dealer.”
“Then you’re not a customer. Can’t you read the sign? Restrooms for customers only.”
Jethro took a deep breath and looked at the ceiling. “A man must sometimes summon patience when there is no reward for doing so.”
“And no Hemingway in here either!” said the old man.
As the clerk talked, Art noticed he had clumps of hair sprouting like pods of lichen from unexpected anatomy, and he knew it would be an image he would have trouble shaking.
“You wanna take a crap? Buy something! Whatever you want-doesn’t matter to me-Ding Dongs, pickled eggs…” The old man patted the big green glass jar next to the lottery machine.
The sound of the old man’s voice became softer and softer inside Art’s head until there was no sound at all-just his lips moving. Art’s stare tightened to tunnel vision around the man’s head. Then he heard a deep, unfamiliar voice inside his skulclass="underline" He should die! You should kill him!
“Hey! What’s wrong with your friend?” the clerk asked Jethro. “He’s actin’ kinda weird. I don’t think I like how he’s lookin’ at me… Both of you, outta here!”
They backed out of the store like gunslingers retreating from a hostile saloon.
Jethro turned to Art in the car. “There are many roads to dignity, and one is called character-”
“Just drive,” said Art.
Jethro pulled back onto U.S. 19 and Art turned on the radio.
“Hey, boys and girls, this is Boris the Hateful Piece of Sh-AHH-OOOO-GAH! reminding those of you who are old enough to hit the ballot box to make sure you vote yes on Proposition 213…”
“What’s this about?” asked Art.
“Foreign immigrants are taking away your jobs and sponging off your tax dollars! It’s time we stood up for America and put a stop to it!”
“Intolerant bastard!” said Jethro. “When I was in Spain for the civil war-”
“Shhhh!”
As Art listened to Boris, his eyes locked on the radio, and his gaze went to tunnel vision. Boris’s voice slowly faded out and was replaced by a new, deeper voice inside Art’s head. Art was listening.
C ity and Country could feel they were getting close.
They were eastbound, driving through the backroads of Florida without streetlights. The night wind was too cold and they had the convertible top up. They hadn’t seen another car in miles; Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska tape was in the stereo on low. State Road 16 was narrow and empty, and they rode high beams as they crossed girders over the St. Johns River at five A.M. Twelve miles later, they saw something bright and green in the distance that said they were out of the woods. The on-ramp sign for Interstate 95. They caught the highway below Jacksonville and headed south.
They soon passed the last St. Augustine exit. The stars were gone and the black sky was replaced with dark blue. By Palm Coast, daybreak was definitely on the way, and they crossed over to the seaside A1A highway. At a stoplight, the pair threw the latches; Country turned around and stood in her seat as she pushed the convertible top back. They were in twilight, and they couldn’t distinguish where ocean left off and sky began. They kept glancing left, and a thin red line soon defined the horizon.
When they hit Daytona, they drove right out on the sand. The early-bird beer-funnelers whistled and catcalled, and City and Country waved back. After the novelty of driving on sand wore off, City drove up Main Street. They parked across from the cemetery at Boot Hill Saloon. A hard-core biker hangout. They walked in and all heads turned. But the girls knew the score-places like this were harmless as long as nobody smelled fear, and the two strolled with reckless attitude to a pair of barstools. They ordered whiskey. It was seven A.M.
“Shit,” muttered an impressed biker three stools down, and turned back to a conversation with a hit man. City studied a photograph over the bar. Three smiling bikers with their arms over each other’s shoulders. Underneath was a plaque: “In memoriam. Stinky, Cheese-Dick and Ringworm. Killed by yuppies.”
The door opened and a flabby insurance type with an untucked polo shirt stood frozen in the doorway with a Tipper Gore wife. Both looked like deer in headlights-one of the moments where someone knows they’re in the wrong place, but they don’t know which is worse, running or sticking it out. They took hesitant steps forward, their feet crunching the peanut shells covering the floor, the only sound in the room. They stopped under the unlaundered bras and panties hanging from the ceiling. Fear stunk up the joint. Several bikers got off their stools. The couple changed their minds and ran.
But there was a difference between fearless and dumb…take the Georgia Tech theology student in a Hog’s Breath T-shirt and the English major from the University of Tennessee, who finished off an all-night drink fest by falling from their hotel balcony. However, their room was on the first floor, and they simply rolled on the lawn, got up, and walked to Boot Hill Saloon. The Georgia sophomore was Sammy Pedantic. The English major in the Volunteers letterman jacket was Joe Varsity, and he was telling Sammy about his thesis comparing the Styron-Mailer literary schism to the East-West rap feud.
“Mailer might do a drive-by?”
“He’s got the temperament.”
“But he can’t do this,” said Sammy, and he stuck a full longneck beer in his mouth and raised it in the air without hands and drained it. Then he opened his mouth, and the empty bottle fell and bounced off the bar.
Three Latin men in sharp suits came in the door, and the bikers picked up their beers and cleared out of the way. The three sat down next to Joe and Sammy, who were trying to balance small stacks of quarters on their noses.
City and Country were getting a little blitzed. They ordered more whiskey and smoked cigarettes like amateurs.
Soon the Latin men left the bar, and Joe and Sammy looked around the place and spotted the two women.
“Oh, no!” said City. “They’re coming over here!”
“Hi, girls! Mind if we join you?”
“Yes.”