16
Next morning we were tooling down Highway 87 on our way into Lubbock, traveling some of the bleakest ugliest goddamn terrain this side of the moon. It’s the kind of landscape you think you’ll fall off of. Every time we passed a scrubby tree—more of a bush really—I wanted to jump out of the car, hold on to the tree for dear life, lest I be sucked away into some sort of Lovecraftian cosmic vacuum.
Red, who Leonard had just quizzed for directions, was sitting in the back seat next to me eating his Hostess Twinkie breakfast. He said, with white filling on his lips, “I never claimed I knew exactly where The Farm was. I worked other locations when I was with the Bandito Supremes.”
“This gets richer by the mile,” I said.
Leonard said, “I suggest we kill him and just ask randomly at houses along the way where The Farm is. I think we got just as good a chance finding the place doing that as fuckin’ around with this ding-a-ling.”
“I think the three of you feel I ought to help you if I did know,” said Red, “and I got to ask. Why should I?”
“Because we will kill you if you don’t,” Leonard said.
Red licked his fingers. “Well, that is some kind of incentive, I admit.”
“We’re gonna drive to the Mexican border,” Leonard said, “and then, if you can’t tell us where The Farm is, I’m going to shoot you. First in one foot, then the other. Then your hands and shoulders. I’m going to make it painful, squatty.”
“There you go with the short slurs,” Red said. “How would you like it if I called you a nigger, a jungle bunny, or a coon?”
“I wouldn’t like it you called me honey, or even to a four-course dinner,” Leonard said. “I just don’t care for your sorry little ass.”
“There’s that little stuff again,” Red said. He took off his hat and put it on the seat between us and shook his head sadly. The wad of bloody toilet paper was still stuck to the top of his head. He looked at me out of the corner of his eye, sadly, as if we were co-conspirators.
“Red,” I said. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. Really. But you got to cooperate. I’m not going to try and stop anyone from doing what they got to do to find this place. We want to find Tillie, and we mean to do just that, even if we have to try and read heavenly signs and directions in your steaming guts.”
“Well,” Red said, “I suppose if I don’t do something to help myself I’ll continue to spend my nights in chairs and eating Twinkies for breakfast.”
“Absolutely,” Brett said.
Red nodded. “Well, we need to see my brother.”
“Your brother?” I said.
“Yep,” Red said. “Herman. He knows where The Farm is.”
“You said you knew,” Leonard said.
“Sometimes I lie a little,” Red said.
“What’s with your brother?” I asked.
“He used to be a Bandito Supreme.”
“If he used to be a Bandito Supreme,” I said, “he may not cotton to telling us where they hole up. He might also con us a little, get us dead. You might con us a little yourself, Red. You just said you lied.”
“I might lie now and then,” Red said, “but I’m not lying right now. Herman is not only no longer with the Bandito Supremes, he’s a preacher.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask,” Leonard said, “lest this story turn out to be as laborious as the Book of Mormon without the good parts, but how did your brother Herman go from being a Bandito Supreme to being a preacher?”
“I’m not sure that’s such a big jump, from Nazi to preacher,” Brett said.
“Very funny, lady,” Red said. “You’re one of those who has no respect for anything. Not even religion.”
“Pardon me,” Brett said, “I didn’t know we were keeping you from prayer meetings.”
“I don’t claim to be a churchgoer, though I ought to be,” Red said. “But I believe in the church, and I respect my brother for what he’s doing. Witnessing to the lost souls of West Texas.”
“I got a feeling anyone lives out here is lost,” Brett said.
“It is ugly, isn’t it?” Red said.
“I don’t know why I’m persisting,” Leonard said. “But I want to know about this brother of yours, long as it doesn’t somehow lead back to that goddamn steak ranchero.”
“Herman, unlike myself, is normal-sized. Well, that isn’t entirely accurate. He’s large. Six four, weighs about two-forty, and can bench-press almost four hundred. Quite a bit of weight, I assure you, but as I explained last night, considering my size and weight and the fact I can bench-press two hundred pounds, he’s not as strong as me, least not in a relative sense.”
“Yeah,” Brett said, “but how long is his dong?”
“I happily admit I have no idea,” Red said. “We had very little boyhood together, and we spent none of it measuring each other’s equipment. Are you interested in hearing about Herman, or not?”
“I said I was curious,” Leonard said.
Red, feeling important, leaned back in his seat. “Any chance I might smoke my last cigar? I’ve been saving it, and since my incarceration by you three, I haven’t had the privilege. From previous inspection I find that it’s broken in two, so it’ll be a short smoke.”
“It’ll be shorter than that,” Brett said. “You aren’t going to smoke it in this car. It’ll make us all sick.”
Red assumed a hangdog demeanor, but he was feeling too self-important not to continue his story. “Very well. As I was saying, Herman was normal, and I was not, and our parents deferred to him entirely. He could do all manner of sports activities well, while I, on the other hand, had a good mind. I could read and quote great passages of Shakespeare at a tender age. I hoped to impress my parents, but, alas, they weren’t interested in a short Hamlet who they found embarrassing at public functions.
“At eleven years of age I ended up sold to a circus, apprenticed is the word they used, but undoubtedly, if you look at it clearly, it can only be determined that I was sold in the same manner you might sell a pup from a litter. It was purely a legality, this apprenticeship business. I was to be the circus owner’s ward. The owner was a Mr. Gonzolos. A nastier, fouler-mouthed, meaner-tempered man did not exist. He’s long dead now. I heard from old cronies that after I left the circus an elephant—undoubtedly brutalized and mistreated like myself—mauled, stomped, and rolled on him. I say with only the smallest bit of shame, because he did keep me clothed and fed, I feel absolutely no remorse over his death. What I remember most about Gonzolos was that he constantly complained of hemorrhoids and lack of money.”
“Unless the elephant is your brother Herman,” Brett said, “I believe you’ve veered yet again.”
“It’s important that you understand my position in life to understand about my brother. He and my parents, in spite of their indulgence of him, had a falling out. It was about me, sad to say. Herman disliked the idea they sold his only sibling to a traveling-circus-cum-carnival-cumsideshow, and they became estranged. Fact is, I have no idea what happened to either of my parents, and like with Mr. Gonzolos, I can’t say I’ve pined over them much, and I’m sure there’s no inheritance awaiting me. They never liked me, and they never had any money either.
“Herman fell in with some hooligans, spent time in jail, a bit of youth detention, and finally graduated to the big time. He got in with the Bandito Supremes, selling drugs. All of this he told me about, as I was not there to witness it. I was riding dogs and making a fool of myself in the circus at that time, but Herman went from being a football star in high school to selling heroin to twelve-year-olds. He did say that the bulk of his sales were to colored people, and at the time he felt that made everything all right. I can honestly say he doesn’t feel that way now. He figures a colored person has just as much right to live and prosper as anyone. Herman has become quite progressive, actually.”