"We ain't doin' nothin' anyway," said Clinton. "Peckerwood we used to work for had a stroke. He can't do nothin' now but sit around and look wall-eyed, drip spit on his chin. His wife fired us and everyone else over at the aluminum chair plant. They say it may go out of business 'cause his family don't want nothing to do with runnin' it. They're gonna sell it and whoever buys it will bring in a whole new crew of niggers. That's if anyone wants it."
"It wasn't any kind of job anyway," said Scum Eye. "We worked there ten years or better and didn't never get a raise. That peckerwood was so tight when he blinked his asshole turned inside out. I hope all he gets to do rest of his life is sit around in one of them lawn chairs we made, crap his pants and nest in it. "
"They are not only without jobs," I said to Leonard, "but they have an ant problem at their house."
"Christmas ants, we call them," Clinton said. "I mean, they don't just come Christmas, but we call them that."
"Well, guys," Leonard said. "You're gonna like it here. No ant problem. Christmas or otherwise. Watch TV, hang out, whatever, but make sure those chumps lived next door don't drop by."
"You don't want us to kill 'em, do you?” This from Scum Eye.
"No, Leon," Leonard said, "but I want you to discourage them. You got to kill 'em, drag 'em in the house. Law likes it that way better. Looks like breaking and entering. More clear-cut as self-defense. Frankly, I don't think they'll come around. My house got burned down, they'd know I knew who did it. And they wouldn't want me to know."
"I hear that," said Clinton.
"You guys like Gilligan’s Island?” Leonard asked.
"Uh huh," said Leon, better known to me as Scum Eye. "That's a pretty funny show. I'd like to fuck that Ginger. I bet she don't fuck black guys, though."
"It's you she wouldn't fuck," Leonard said.
Leon and Clinton grinned. Leon said, "Yeah, uh huh. I get it."
"Anyway," Leonard said, "I got a stack of Gilligan’s Island tapes, you want to see them. They're on the kitchen table."
"Raul left a treasure like that?” I said.
"It was in the box I was supposed to mail to him. Couldn't find the toaster this morning, so I opened his goddamn box. He loved that fucking toaster 'cause it could do four slices of bread at once. He liked shit like that. If it could have done six slices of bread, he'd have peed on himself. Anyway, no toaster. He must have took that in the car. But he had most of my spoon drawer in the box, and those tapes."
"That guy gone?” Leon asked.
"Raul?” Leonard said.
"One Clinton bounced around at the store," Leon said. "The other queer. No offense."
"None taken. Yeah, he's gone. He comes back, don't give him a rough time, though. I ain't mad at him. Just tell him I'll be back, if he cares. I don't figure he'll be around though."
"Can we have girls over?” Leon asked, scratching at the scum around his eye.
"As long as it doesn't get out of hand," Leonard said. "I don't want to come home to broken furniture. And guys, use a rubber, okay? And I don't mean share one between you. AIDS is goin' around."
"Using a rubber's like taking a shower in a raincoat," Clinton said. "It ain't no fun."
"Hey, it's your dick," Leonard said. "You're too stupid to take care of it, that's your problem. I hope the women are smarter. I'll call you later."
"You might start my pickup now and then, let it run awhile," I said. "This cold weather, it doesn't get run a bit, it'll freeze up. I like to circulate the antifreeze. If you'd rather just drain the radiator, go ahead. Key is on the kitchen table. Merry Christmas, guys."
Leonard got his suitcase and we went out to his car.
As Leonard was backing out of the driveway, I said, "That was goddamn surreal."
"Yep," Leonard said. "Leon and Clinton, they're Andre Breton kind of guys. They're proof positive you ought not let people shoot a few baskets with your head. Let's you and me go to Burger King and have breakfast. I feel expansive."
"Who the fuck are those guys anyway?"
"They tried to beat me up. I whupped those motherfuckers like I was dustin' a rug."
"Both of them!"
"Not at the same time. On different days. They got word I was queer, so they jumped Raul at the Community Store. Didn't really hurt him, but roughed him up. Broke his Dr Pepper bottle. Scrambled a couple of his moon pies. Just took them in their hands and twisted them up inside the plastic wrappers. Really made them hard to eat. I went down to the store after it happened and found one of them—one with the left eye looks like it's got a disease, Leon, and kicked his ass so bad they had to carry him off. Kicked that muscle in the back of his leg so hard it paralyzed it for a while."
"Old Thai boxing trick," I said.
"Yep. Later that day, his brother came over to the house with a baseball bat, started beating on the door. I went out the back way and cracked him over the head with the barrel of my shotgun. Knocked him on his black ass."
"Of course, you didn't hurt him while he was down."
"That wouldn't be right. I just kicked him a little. Until both his eyes closed. They got so they like me now. They want I should teach them some self-defense."
"Jesus," I said.
Couple hours later we were out at my house in the country. I didn't light the heaters, but I made sure the water in the faucets was still dripping, then I threw some clothes together. Leonard had brought his pipe and tobacco with him, and while I packed he filled the pipe and lit it.
"Bring a gun," he said.
"I don't like guns," I said. "Bringing one causes trouble. Guns lead to guns."
"And if the other guy brings one and you don't, it causes you trouble. It leads to you being dead."
"It's all right with you, I'll pass. I thought we were just going to find Florida. I didn't think we were planning a shootout at the O.K. Corral."
"You're a little short on reality sometimes, Hap."
"I guess you're right. I suppose you brought a gun?"
"Shotgun. Broke it down, wrapped it in plastic. Got a couple revolvers and a couple of Winchester thirty-thirtys, not dismantled. Ammunition. It's all in the trunk."
"How about the gyro copter?"
"Trunk.”
Chapter 6
On the way to Grovetown, Leonard put a Hank Williams cassette in the player and we listened to that. I never got to play what I liked. I wanted to bring some cassettes of my own, but Leonard said it was his car, so we'd listen to his music. He didn't care much for what I liked. Sixties rock and roll.
Even Hank Williams couldn't spoil the beauty of the day, however, and the truth of the matter was, I was really starting to like his music, though I wasn't willing to let Leonard know.
It was cold as an Eskimo's ass in an igloo outhouse, but it was clear and bright and the East Texas woods were dark and soothing. The pines, cold or not, held their green, except for the occasional streaks of rust-colored needles, and the oaks, though leafless, were thick and intertwining, like the bones of some unknown species stacked into an elaborate art arrangement.
We passed a gap in the woods where the pulp wooders had been. It looked like a war zone. The trees were gone for a patch of twenty to thirty acres, and there were deep ruts in the red clay, made by truck tires. Mounds of stumps and limbs had been piled up and burned, leaving ash and lumps, and in some cases huge chunks of wood that had not burned up, but had only been kissed black by fire.
One huge oak tree stump, old enough to have dated to the beginning of the century, had taken on the shape of a knotty skull, as if it were all that was left of some prehistoric animal struck by lightning. Clear cutting, gasoline, and kitchen matches had laid the dinosaurs low. Driven by greed and the need for a satellite dish, pulp wooders had turned beauty to shit, wood to paper, which in turn served to make the bills of money that paid the pulpers who slew the gods in the first place. There was sad irony in all that. Somewhere. May saplings sprout from their graves.