Hey, he hadn’t been out to the West Coast in almost seven years, and he reckoned the change would do him good. Recharge those old Duracells.
It had taken him a little longer than he had expected to settle his Albany shit, get the truck, load the truck, and get rolling. There had been several phone calls from Deke, the last one sort of testy, and when Steve had mentioned this, Deke had said, well, that was what three weeks of sleeping bags and making do with the same half a dozen tee-shirts did to a person-was he coming or not? I’m coming, I’m coming, Steve had replied. Cool it, big guy. And he had. Left three days ago, in fact. Everything groovy at first. Then, this afternoon, he had blown a hose or something, he had taken the Wentworth exit in search of the Great American Service Station, and then-whoa, dude-there had come a big bang from under the hood and all the dials on the dashboard started showing bad news. He hoped it was just a blown seal, but it had actually sounded more like a piston. In any case, the Ryder truck, which had been a beauty ever since he had left New York, had suddenly turned into a beast. Still,
NO PROBLEM;
just find Mr Goodwrench and let him do his thing.
Steve had taken a wrong turn, though, away from the turnpike business area and into a much more suburban neighborhood, not the sort of place where Mr Goodwrench was apt to hang out during working hours. He had really been babying the truck by then, steam coming out through the grille, oil-pressure dropping, temperature rising, an unpleasant fried smell coming in through the air vents… but really
Well… maybe a very small problem for the Ryder people, that was true, but Steve had an idea they’d be able to bear up under the burden. Then-hey, beautiful, baby-a little neighborhood store with a blue pay-phone sign hung over the door… and the number to call if you had engine trouble was right up there on the driver’s side sun-visor.
story of his life.
Only now there was a problem. One that made learning the sound-board at Club Smile look like a minor annoyance in comparison.
He was in a little house that smelled of pipe tobacco, he was in a living room with framed photos of animals-pretty special ones, according to the captions-on the walls, a living room where only the huge, shapeless chair in front of the TV looked really used, and he had just tied his bandanna around his leg where he had sustained a bullet-wound, shallow but a bona fide bullet-wound just the same, and people were yelling, scared and yelling, and the skinny woman in the sleeveless blouse was also wounded (nothing shallow about hers, either) and outside people were dead, and if all this wasn’t a problem, then Steve guessed that “problem” was a concept without meaning.
His arm was grabbed above the wrist, and painfully. He wasn’t just being grabbed, actually; he was being pinched. He looked down and saw the girl in the blue store duster, the one with the crazed hair. “Don’t you freak on me,” she said in a ragged voice. “That lady needs help or she’s going to die, so do not freak on me.”
“No problem, cookie,” he said, and just hearing the words-any words-coming out of his mouth made him feel a little stronger.
“Don’t call me cookie and I won’t call you cake,” she said in a prim little no-nonsense voice.
He burst out laughing. It sounded extremely weird in this room, but he didn’t care. She didn’t seem to, either. She was looking back at him with just the faintest touch of a smile at the corners of her mouth. “Okay,” he said. “I won’t call you cookie, you don’t call me cake, and neither of us’ll freak, fair enough?”
“Yeah. What about your leg?”
“It’s okay. Looks more like a floor-burn than a bullet-wound.”
“Lucky you.”
“Yeah. I might dump a little disinfectant on it if I get a chance, but compared to her-”
“Gary!” the object of comparison bawled. The arm, Steve saw, was now hardly attached to the rest of her body at all; it seemed to be hanging by a thin strap of flesh. Her husband, also skinny (but with a blooming suburban potbelly just beginning to take shape), did a kind of helpless, panicky dance around her. He reminded Steve of a native in an old jungle flick doing the Cool Jerk around a brooding stone idol.
“Gary!” she screamed again. Blood was running out of her mangled shoulder in a steady stream, turning the left side of her pink top to a muddy maroon. Her paper-white face was drenched with sweat; her hair clung to the curve of her skull in clumps. “Gary, quit acting like a dog looking for a place to piss and help me-”
She collapsed back against the wall between the living room and the kitchenette, panting for breath. Steve expected her knees to buckle, but they didn’t. Instead, she grasped her left wrist with her right hand and lifted her wounded arm carefully toward Steve and Cynthia. The blood-glistening twist of gristle that was still connecting it to the rest of her made a squelchy sound, like a wet dishrag when you wring it out, and Steve wanted to tell her not to do that, to stop fooling with herself before she tore the goddam thing off like a wing off a baked chicken.
Then Gary was doing the Cool Jerk in front of Steve, going up and down like a man on a pogo stick, patches of hectic red standing out on his pale face. Gimme a little bass with those eighty-eights, Steve thought.
“Help her!” Gary cried. “Help my wife! Bleeding to death!”
“I can’t-” Steve began.
Gary reached out and seized the front of Steve’s tee-shirt. When there’s no more room in hell, this artifact said, the dead will walk the earth. He thrust his thin and feverish face up toward Steve’s. His eyes glittered with gin and panic. “Are you with them? Are you one of them?”
“I don’t-”
“Are you with the shooters? Tell me the truth!”
Angrier than he would have believed possible (anger was not, ordinarily, his thing at all), Steve knocked the man’s hands away from his old and much-loved tee-shirt, then pushed him. Gary took a stagger-step backward, his eyes first widening, then narrowing again.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay, yeah. You asked for it. You asked for it and now you’re gonna get it.” He started forward again.
Cynthia got between them, glancing at Steve for a moment-probably to assure herself that he wasn’t in attack-mode yet-and then glaring at Gary. “What the fuc k’s wrong with you?” she asked him.
Gary smiled tightly. “He’s not from around here, is he?”
“Christ, neither am I! I’m from Bakersfield, California-does that make me one of them?”
“Gary!” It sounded like the yap of a dog that has run a long way on a dusty road and pretty much barked itself out. “Stop fucking around and help me! My arm…” She continued to hold it out, and what Steve thought of now-he didn’t want to but couldn’t help it-was Mucci’s Fine Meats in Newton. Guy in a white shirt, white cap, and bloodstained apron, holding out a peeled joint of meat to his mother. Serve it medium-rare with a little mint jelly on the side, Mrs Antes, and your family will never ask for roast chicken again. I guarantee it.
“Gary!”
The skinny guy with the gin on his breath took a step toward her, then looked back at Steve and Cynthia. The tight, knowing smile was gone. Now he only looked sick. “I don’t know what to do for her,” he said.