So A.J. and Mayo had history prior to their encounter in Sand Valley. While A.J. was willing to let bygones be bygones, Mayo seemed to feel the need to linger over old times.
“Let him up,” Mayo said to his companions. He pointed to A.J. “That’s the one we want.”
A.J. stood his ground with the shotgun aimed at the crowd. He eased the weapon to his left so it pointed at Mayo.
“You won’t shoot,” Mayo sneered. “You’re afraid you’ll hit him.” He pointed at Eugene, who was clambering to his feet. Mayo was correct in his assertion, but A.J. hoped he didn’t know that he was for certain.
“You’ll get most of it,” A.J. replied, wishing he had stayed behind the depot. Eugene shoved his way past Mayo and asked him how his sex life was these days. Recognition flickered across Mayo’s features when Eugene arrived back at the Lover.
“Start the damn car,” A.J. said tensely. Eugene gave his recent companions a gesture before doing as he was told. A.J. backed up slowly and got in, still holding the shotgun on the group in the street.
“I’ll be seeing you,” Mayo said, eyeing A.J. with raw hate.
“Not if I see you first,” A.J. replied as they fishtailed off with tires squealing. The Sand Valley rowdies made an attempt at pursuit, but the Lover was more than a match for their old Ford Galaxie, and soon Eugene and A.J. were just bad memories in the night. A.J. had acquired a headache during the ordeal and wanted a quiet ride home. Eugene, however, wanted to talk.
“Man, that was something,” he said, shaking his head and smiling. “I’ve never seen anything like it. I didn’t know if you were going to shoot or not.”
“I wasn’t going to shoot,” A.J. said, rubbing his temples. “Shut up and drive.” He was disgusted. All he had wanted to do was take a pee. But, no, Eugene had to run his mouth.
“No, you wouldn’t have shot,” Eugene rattled on. “You didn’t really have the stomach for it.” A.J. turned to Eugene.
“I didn’t have the shells for it. The gun was empty.” He closed his eyes and pressed his eyelids with his fingertips. Eugene absorbed the new information. The Lover slowed to a halt in the middle of the highway.
“You backed those pieces of shit down with an empty gun? Man. A.J. the badass. Man.” There was awe and respect in his voice.
“Just shut up and drive,” was his hero’s reply.
As A.J. thought back to that night long past, a sense of the unreal descended upon him. It was as if he were considering the foolish exploits of a young man in a faraway land rather than walking down memory lane. What a dumb ass, he thought. He shook his head and looked about him. The scene on the porch was much the same as it had been the previous week. He noticed the current incarnation of the eternal cigarette was burning in the hubcap. He picked it up and flipped it out into the yard.
“You’re not going to start that shit again, are you?” Eugene asked.
“Absolutely,” A.J. replied. “How do you feel today?” Eugene laid the shotgun across his lap and rocked slowly, reminding A.J. of Judge Roy Bean, Law west of the Pecos.
“I feel like shooting Johnny Mack’s bulldozer with this shotgun,” Eugene said, the old rocker creaking. He looked over at A.J. “I guess you’d rather I didn’t.” A.J. doubted any damage would occur but saw no point to the exercise.
“Johnny Mack’s jacket is behind the seat,” A.J. said. “I’ll hang it up on the Jeep, and you can shoot it.” It seemed a reasonable alternative.
“No, that’s okay,” Eugene said sadly, holding up his hand. “It wouldn’t be the same.”
“Maybe later,” A.J. suggested, but Eugene had already moved to another topic.
“I bet you had hell getting the dozer from Johnny Mack,” he said with a little smile.
“You know Johnny Mack better than I do,” A.J. said, shrugging. “You already know about how it went.”
“Come on. You can’t deny a man in my condition. I want to hear about it. Did he throw some Scripture on you? Did he get huffy? Did you have to kick his ass?” Eugene was truly excited, so A.J. relented and told the tale.
He had encountered Johnny Mack down at the Jesus Loves Tater Tots Drive-In, the current week’s name for Sequoyah’s only eating establishment. In actual fact it had no real name and was not a drive-in at all, except for the time that Estelle Chastain misjudged the impact of momentum upon a moving Ford and ended up in the middle of the dining room. Luckily it had been a slow Thursday morning, and no fatalities were reported.
The restaurant appeared to change names weekly due to the haphazard placement of signs in the front window by the firm’s owner, cook, and advertising consultant, Wilson Crab. Wilson preferred to be called Hoghead for reasons unknown and was an extremely pious but nearly illiterate man who liked to letter slogans of a religious bent onto pieces of cardboard and tape them up in the front window of his diner. Unfortunately, he also advertised his weekly specials in the same small pane, and often the close proximity of the two distinctly different types of messages produced unintended results, particularly when overlap was involved.
Thus, at various times the beanery had been the God Will Save Ham-N-Eggs Drive-In, the Jesus Is Corndogs Drive-In, and the infamous The Road to Hell Is Paved with Country Fried Steak Drive-In, to name but a few. A.J.’s personal favorite had been the well-meaning Christ Died for the Best Fried Chicken in the County Drive-In, of which he was fortunate enough to get a snapshot before the signs were personally rearranged by the Reverend O’Neal Tanner. The pastor had stopped by for a cup of coffee and had almost gone on to his reward upon reading of the Savior’s previously unknown weakness for the local delicacy.
A.J. sat by Johnny Mack at the counter and ordered a cup of Hoghead’s foul brew, which he loaded down with as much cream and sugar as the mug would hold. He normally took it black, but Hoghead’s coffee was best when disguised. Hoghead had served twenty-three years in the Navy as a cook, and his wretched, scalding, painfully strong concoction had kept many a sailor alert during the midnight watch. But Sequoyah was not the icy North Atlantic, and it was only recently and with great effort that the coffee drinkers in town had prevailed upon Hoghead to discontinue his practice of tossing a handful of eggshells and a pinch of salt into each potful.
“A.J., how have you been?” Johnny Mack asked pleasantly, stirring the contents in his cup. “Is your family all right?” He placed his spoon on the counter and reached for a homemade doughnut, referred to as collision mats by Hoghead and kept handy on a plate.
“Everyone is fine, Johnny Mack,” A.J. replied. “I need to ask a favor. I need to borrow the Cat this weekend. I’ve got a little job I need to do.”
“You can use it anytime you need it,” Johnny Mack said. “It’s already loaded on the trailer and hitched to the dump truck. Just come on out and get it. Angel will be happy to see you.” He took a sip of his coffee. “You getting around to fixing that bank behind your house?” Johnny Mack was not being nosy, much. He just seemed to be interested, and A.J. was of the opinion that it was a bad time for the old man to be developing social skills.
“No,” A.J. replied. “I need to borrow the Cat to clean up the road on the mountain.” There was an uncomfortable silence. Finally, Johnny Mack spoke.
“Are you talking about his road?” he asked.
“That would be the one,” A.J. replied. Johnny Mack’s shoulders tensed. His hands formed fists that resembled small hams.
A.J. watched Johnny Mack strive with his demons. It was his theory that every person had a few snakes in the head, but it seemed to him that the Purdue variety was a more evolved breed of reptile. Finally, Johnny Mack’s fists unclenched, but his features were still grim. From the kitchen came the clatter of pans and a high-pitched noise that may have been Hoghead whistling a tune.