"What about the pigs? Did you fuck them?"
"Get out of the car, Swiftie."
When I closed Leonard's car door, Leonard said, "Learn anything?"
"Yeah, you wouldn't believe the stuff the Chief knows about the political situation in Albania."
"Yeah, but I bet that fucker don't know their major imports and exports."
"That cracker isn't as stupid as we thought, Leonard. Mean. Dangerous. Ignorant. But stupid he isn't. And subtle he isn't. In fact, his very non-subtle statements about our temporary position in his community were so clearly stated, I'd like you to crank the car right now, and leave."
Leonard looked where I was looking. The firefighters were no longer fighting the fire. They were all turned in our direction, glaring. One of them was chewing a fresh Twinkie and the sticky white innards were covering his mouth like mad dog foam.
"I think maybe they ain't never seen anyone cute as us," Leonard said.
Chief Cantuck got out of his car and walked in our direction, stopped and waited. He had his gun in his hand, held by his side.
"He thinks we're cute too," Leonard said.
"Just start and go," I said.
"I hate being buffaloed," Leonard said. "And I hate a man thinks I don't appreciate Elvis."
"Yeah, but I hate more being dead."
Leonard fumed silently, fired up his junker and started to drive. Chief Cantuck leaned down and smiled tobacco at us through Leonard's rain-beaded car window as we went by.
When I looked back over my shoulder I saw him stooped by the remains of the house, working those wet, smoking Elvis cards toward him with a stick.
Chapter 9
We drove back into town beneath a churning black sky kicked open and brightened now and then by cruel bursts of lightning. By the time we wheeled into downtown Grovetown, Leonard had on a rockin' zydeco tape even I could appreciate. Those dudes were blowing accordion music hot as devil farts through Leonard's cheap speakers, melting down the wires, making me hungry for gumbo.
We stopped at the filling station and I got out and got hold of one of the serve-yourself nozzles. Before I was allowed to put in the gas, Leonard had to finish hearing out a song on the tape player, and since his cheap system didn't play unless the motor was running, I stood outside willing and waiting with my gas nozzle cocked and ready, tapping my boot to the jump of the music.
Acquaintance of mine, Gerald Matter, who used to own a gas station in downtown LaBorde, told me once, you never load in the gas with the car motor running, or you might get a little
spark, end up with your ass on the far side of the moon. "Safety first" was Gerald's motto.
'Course, Gerald lost the station for lack of payment back in nineteen seventy-eight, but he hadn't quite gotten the gas and oil business out of his blood. He did him a stretch in prison for trying to rob a filling station in Gilmer with a sharpened butter knife. Fat lady that ran the place came over the counter after him, got him by the throat, and beat the pure-dee dog shit out of him, took his knife away. She then proceeded to carve off part of his head before she could be subdued by a handful of shocked customers waiting on their free "crystal" dish with a fill-up.
Gerald has done his time and he's out now and he might even be a little smarter. But he's grown bashful, wears hats indoors and out to hide what's missing on top of his head, though except for a flap cap he wears now and then, it doesn't do a damn thing for his absent left ear. These days Gerald has abandoned gas and oil and has a little carpet-cleaning business and likes to go to bed early.
While I waited with the nozzle, the tall, pale-faced man we had seen earlier came out in his thick coat with his cap in his hand, picked up on Clifton Chenier calling out "Eh, Petite Fille," from Leonard's tape deck, smiled, sang a verse with Clifton, jiggled a little and flop-kneed on out to the car. His long body, pasty face, and gyrations made him look like an albino grasshopper on speed.
He reached the car dancing and grinning, stopped and laughed. "Damn," he said, "give an accordion to a redneck and all he can do is play 'Home on the Range' or some goddamn polka, give it to a coonass and he'll make the music crawl up your butt and play with your kidneys."
"That's right," Leonard said. He was standing outside the driver’s door, leaning on the rooftop, listening. When the song finished, Leonard cut off the motor, and I started pumping gas.
"How're y'all," said the pale-faced man. He had a grin as infectious as syphilis.
"Good," I said. "Cold and a little damp, but good."
"Well, accordin' to the weather report, we're all gonna get colder and damper. Air is blowing ass over tea kettle down from Canada, churning like pig feet a boilin', only the air ain't warm. There's penguins would faint they knew something like this was comin'."
"Damn," I said. "That bad?"
"Let's just say them suitcases you got in back of your car there better not be filled with Hawaiian shirts and sun hats . . . hey, speakin' of pig's feet boilin'—"
"Were we?" I said.
"Well, I was," said the man. "I got some pickled ones inside that're peppered just right. Fifty cents a pig stump. You might like to try 'em. Just got 'em in. Can't keep 'em, they go so fast. Fellow I know out in the country makes 'em. Them buddies are so spicy, you eat one, you'll be able to do a push-up with your dick."
"Maybe I could use some of that," I said. "I was younger, I woke up and did a push-up with my dick without pickled pig's feet. Now, got to get enough sleep to do it, and then when I try to do it, I need sleep."
"Ain't that the shits?" he said. "Just when you get older and figure out what it's all about, what it's all about you ain't able to do."
"Say, listen," I said. "We're gonna get a couple of cans of oil too, but we're looking for someone. Main reason we stopped in here."
Leonard said, "Lady named Florida Grange."
"Oh, yeah. Nice lady. A looker too. She was around here a few days." He looked at Leonard. "You kin?"
"Nope," Leonard said.
"Boyfriend? Either of you?" He gave me a good hard look. "Though in this town, you better not say you are if you are."
"Nope," I said. "We're not boyfriends."
"She owe you money?"
"Nope."
"Y'all some kinda law?"
"Nope."
"Well then, let me say I tried serious hard and major purposeful to put the make on that little gal, but she wasn't havin' any. I think she has a thing about white guys. And not a good thing."
"Trust me," I said. "She does."
"Ah, so you tried her too?" he said.
"It didn't work out," I said. "You might say I'm an ex-boyfriend. But what we're lookin' for is to help out her current boyfriend who's worried about her. And we want to do it because we're friends of hers too. Sort of. Used to be."
"I see," the man said. "I think."
It grew very dark suddenly, then there was a crack of thunder and a sizzling race of lightning, and right after that it seemed as if a great tidal wave washed over us. The rain came down so hard it nearly knocked us flat.
"Goddamn," said the pale-faced man, putting his cap on. "There it is. Y'all come on in and we'll talk."
Leonard followed the man inside. I topped off the tank, hung up the gas nozzle, and damn near swam to the door. Inside, the store was warm and the lights were on, and the cold rain and midday darkness outside made the place seem tight and cozy.
The joint was stocked with pretty basic goods. Breads, crackers, a lunch meat cooler housing pressed ham, bologna, olive and liver loaf. There were soft drinks, peanuts, chips, that kind of stuff. Cans of oil, transmission and brake fluids. A rack of John Deere caps. A few straw cowboy hats. A cardboard display of colored plastic combs, and on the wall a dusty calendar over ten years out of date with a gorgeous, big-breasted woman in shorts and a halter top holding a wrench and smiling; the logo above her read January, and above that Snap Tight Tools.