‘Oh sure, have a nice day and — oh yeah, and don’t let me catch you pitching pop-bottles out of the car again, okay?’
In Gallonville the family went to work. First they parked the car next to a little patch of grass, then Old Jeb put three playing-cards in his shirt pocket and strolled away. Then the two young men left, jingling big bunches of car keys and talking about ‘recycling us some metal’. Finally Zeb, the young woman with earrings, took the children off to the bus station for ‘some street theatre’.
‘Street theatre,’ old Zip repeated, when only she and Roderick were left. That means they all gonna cry their eyes out until somebody gives them the money for a ticket to Omaha.’
‘Why are they going to Omaha?’
‘You don’t understand anything, do you?’ Zip set up a card table and two chairs, and stuck a sign to the side of the car:
‘Yeah, well if you let Jeep take and recycle me I never will understand anything.’
‘True. But so what?’ She tied a yellow-and-orange scarf over her head and sat down at the table. ‘Okay little puppet, I’ll make a deal with you. You keep your mouth shut and help us a little, and we won’t junk you.’
They shook on it. Zip kept hold of his mechanical claw for a few seconds, peering at it.
‘Interesting hand you got there, you know? I see you’ve had a real hard life so far.’
Roderick looked too. ‘You can see that?’
‘Sure. A real hard life, but it’s gonna get better soon. You’re gonna have lots of money — more than you ever dreamed of. You’ll get married, too, and have, let’s see, three children. First a boy, then two girls.’
‘Gosh, it just looks like a claw to me.’ He waggled the fingers. ‘Where do you see all this?’
‘And I see you have headaches — some head trouble, right?’
‘Yeah, right. Gosh!’
‘Now cross my palm with silver.’
‘I don’t have any silver, Zip.’
She sighed. ‘Then skedaddle. Make way for a real customer.’
He left. The first customer was a little deaf, and Roderick could hear Zip shouting: ‘…than you ever dreamed of. You’ll get married soon, and have three kids, first a girl then two boys… some trouble with your feet, right?’
‘Teeth? Say that’s dead right!’
Roderick headed across the grass, to where a group of children were playing on swings. But as soon as they caught sight of him, the kids stopped playing and shouted:
‘Aah, dirty gipsy! Goaway ya dirty gipsy!’
He changed direction and kept going.
Towards sunset he came back, while Zip was just finishing the palm of a frail old man. He rose and tottered away, leaning on his cane, grinning to himself about the three children he was going to have. Zip took off her scarf.
‘Well, little puppet, what kind of day did you have? Make any money?’
‘Almost. I mean I was standing on a street corner and somebody came up and tried to stick a quarter in my eye. Then I went to the bus station to watch Zeb and the kids and the street theatre only when Zeb started crying I said don’t cry it’s a very good act and she said she’d give me a dollar to go away only she never did. Then I saw Jeb on this park bench with his three cards and all this money in both hands saying Find the Lady, boys, Find the Lady, see they put down a dollar and he gives them five if they—’
‘I know how it goes.’
‘Yeah well I saw how terrible they all were at the game so I said maybe he should give them three dollars if they’re right and one dollar if they’re wrong, see it works out the same, and Jeb whispered he’d give me a dollar to go away — but heck, what do I want a dollar for? I guess if everybody in the world wants me to go away for a dollar I could get rich if I just disappeared.’
‘Ha ha! You’ll learn, little puppet, you’ll learn. We’ll make a gipsy out of you yet.’
What Roderick really wanted to do was help some grown-up do some grown-up job. And that night, he got his chance.
Everybody had returned in good spirits and carrying thick wads of money. The young men had spent all day finding an amazing number of abandoned cars on the streets, tearing them down and selling them to the local junk-yard. Zeb and Jeb and Zip had all cleaned up too, so now there was nothing left to do but junk their own car, find a new one, and leave town.
While they waited, Zip told Roderick all about the family.
‘You see, everybody has to have a name beginning with Z J or Ch, middling with i, e or ee, and ending with b, p or t. But no boy can have Z and no girl can have J.’
‘You mean there’s only 27 names in the whole—’
‘No, well we can add -er to a boy’s name if it’s the same as his older brother’s, and -erie to a girl’s if it’s the same as her older sister’s. And if a boy and girl look like they’re gonna get the same name, we just add -ette to the girl’s name. So you see we can have Jeet, Jeeter, Jeeterer and so on, just like we can have Chep, Cheperie, Chepette, Chepetterie…’
Boys took middle letters from their mothers and ending letters from their fathers, and girls did the opposite. Roderick was only just beginning to see why Jeep was not Zip’s son nor her sister’s son when Jeep and Chet drove up in a big red car. They started spraying it with green paint at once. Jeep looked scared.
The old man said, ‘What’s the big hurry?’
‘Aw shit, Chet went and ripped off this here car, just as we drove away I seen it was by the city hall, parked in the mayor’s parking spot. I think they seen us too — what’s that?’
That was the sound of a wow-wow siren, getting closer. Jeep threw down his sprayer. ‘We better take her as she is, let’s go.’
They piled in and started off. Old Jeb said, ‘Take her as she is, that’s rich that is. You ain’t done no more’n the back and the right side, how’s that gonna look? And nobody done the plates—’
‘Don’t worry about the plates,’ said Roderick quietly. ‘I—’
Chet said, ‘Ra’s ball, who’s supposed to be drivin’ here, anyway? I got enough on my mind, tryin’ to figure all them fancy one-way streets, half of ’em blocked off at the other end without — shit, they seen us!’
They were crossing an intersection; a few blocks to the East they could see the flashing red-and-blue lights of the police car crossing another. It went North, they went South. ‘Holy Horus they done seen the wrong side of us, too. Now they know we got the mayor’s red — well, now what?’
Roderick spoke up. ‘In a way it’s lucky they did see the red side. I mean, if we could use the one-way streets, sort of turning left all the time… hey, take a left.’
‘All I need, got enough human back-seat drivers, now the damn toys gotta start—’
‘Do like he says,’ Zip rumbled. ‘That’s one smart little cuss there.’
Chet took a left. ‘Going round in circles, real smart. But then what we got to lose?’
‘Everything,’ said old Jeb, turning his face to the window. The baby kicked at his bald spot.
‘They seen us again!’
And the police car saw them again and again, as both vehicles spiralled in through the one-way system, first seven blocks apart, then three, then two. When the police car was only one block away (and turning towards them) Roderick said: ‘Okay, now pull over on this next block — on the left. Turn out the lights and everybody duck down.’