It bothered me a little that she was upset by the direction the novel was taking. I wanted to stick to my guns, though. The first stuff I really loved reading was the horror fiction of the late twentieth, early twenty-first century—Stephen King and Peter Straub and those guys. Though it started with Poe, which must often be the case—books your parents let you read because they were in somebody’s canon, even if they were more dire in their own way than horror movies or slasher comix.
When I was in grade school I read to the other kids on weekends and in the summer. There was a construction site at the end of my road; when the workers weren’t there we’d crouch in the shadows with a candle and stolen matches, and I would intone Poe in the spookiest voice my short unformed vocal cords could manage. For the love of God, Montressor! In a squeaky voice.
I hadn’t thought about that in years. How much different is what I do now? The stories aren’t spooky, I suppose, except when they are.
If I’d known then that I was going to be a soldier, killing people and getting shot myself, I would have been thrilled. And then you’re going to spend the rest of your life in a small room pecking away at a keyboard. No, Montressor! For the love of God, no!
One of the guys in our outfit—I don’t remember his real name; his radio handle was Hotshot—he was going into the private sector after he separated, hiring out as a mercenary soldier. They were getting about triple our pay, doing stuff that looked less dangerous.
Still, we all agreed that he was fucking crazy. He laughed and agreed, too. But you could tell he really loved the work. His eyes actually gleamed; he smiled when other people looked grim. Loved guns and grenades—and guys, you had to suppose. In a thoroughly manly way.
Though that must be cyclic. One thing Grand-dude despised about the army in his day was the aggressive locker-room masculinity of it. Brutal hazing for anybody who was quiet or intellectual. I guess we had some of that; I took some ribbing for always carrying a book everywhere in Basic and AIT. But in actual combat all of the men were more quiet. More serious and introspective. Repeated exposure to death and suffering plays hell with your sense of humor. Or tilts it in a gallows direction, anyhow. Like putting a lit cigarette in the ruined face of a napalm victim, between his bright teeth. We laughed so hard we almost shit. But I guess you had to be there. It’s not so funny in the recollection.
Cyclic, cultural. When I taught the short workshop in Iowa, none of the kids had heard of the Grand Guignol. But then when I was their age, the image of an audience laughing at nipples being cut off with lawn shears was pretty extreme. They probably do it on soaps now.
Before I finish the book I should spend a couple of days watching daytime television. Kit is shocked by the things that go through Hunter’s mind, and life. But she’s no more mainstream than I am. Maybe they’re eating babies on prime time now.
To thine own self be true. I’d read Hamlet on my own before we got to it in school, and I Magic Markered that line. Embarrassing to find out that Polonius is a fathead, and the profound observation was a laugh-line to the Elizabethan groundlings. And it must follow, as night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man. So if you’re a fathead, and are true to yourself, you say fatuous things. Quod erat demonstratum, we may have learned the same day.
“A penny for your thoughts.” Kit had pulled up alongside of me.
“Polonius,” I said.
“I’ve got to pee-lonius. Next billboard?”
No shops or gas stations for miles. “Sure.”
The next billboard was a weathered relic that some anti-abortion group had stopped paying for. A faded fetus claiming that it had a heartbeat at two weeks. Was that true?
The unpainted latticework that formed the base of the sign didn’t really offer more than symbolic privacy. She took the small roll of toilet paper and went behind it. I turned my back to her and watched the road.
A big black SUV slowed as it approached. The passenger window rolled down and a man pointed out a camera with a fat lens. They passed close enough for me to hear the shutter go chop-chop-chop three times, like a newsie covering a game or a speech. “Pervert,” I said.
He lowered the camera and smiled.
It wasn’t a leer. It was a smile of quiet satisfaction. Did I recognize the face? Fat white guy with a dark tan and a shock of white hair. White moustache.
The license plate number was partly hidden behind a crust of mud. But it hadn’t rained in weeks. They rolled to a stop about two hundred yards away.
“Shit,” I said, and unzipped the handlebar bag.
“What’s he doing?” Kit said.
“I don’t know. Get down flat.” I let the bike go, dropped to one knee, and tried to get a sight picture with the stubby revolver. I’d be lucky to hit the car, let alone something the size of a human. I pulled back on the hammer, unnecessarily, and it clicked like a quiet door latch, cocking.
The passenger door opened slightly. I held my breath and squeezed the trigger.
The flat bang was louder than I’d expected. If the bullet hit the car, it wasn’t obvious. The door opened more and then slammed shut, and the tires squealed as the car peeled away. I kept the sight picture but didn’t fire again.
“My god,” she said. “My god.”
I was busy keeping my asshole tight, and didn’t say anything. This was too much like reality. I willed my trigger finger to relax. But I kept the sight picture until the car went over a rise and disappeared.
“Jesus,” she said. “Did you have to do that?”
“I don’t know. If I did have to, it might have saved our lives.” I clicked the cylinder around so the firing pin rested on the empty shell. “If not, I guess we’ll be talking to the cops pretty soon.”
I could hear her pulling up her Lycra shorts. “That’s not something I ever looked forward to before.”
I picked up my bike and put the revolver back in the handlebar bag, but didn’t zip it shut. I studied the map carrier. “Nine or ten miles to the next town. Or should we head back to New Orleans?”
She had picked up her bike and was adjusting her helmet. “Nearest phone. You ought to call Underwood.”
“I guess.” Where had I seen that face behind the lens? Could it have been Springfield? “Did you see the guy?”
“With the camera? Kind of.”
“Look familiar to you?”
She paused. “Just from old movies. A bad guy.”
“Yeah, the enemy spy in James Bond. But somebody real, maybe in New Orleans?”
“I don’t know. I must’ve had ten thousand customers at Mario’s. Maybe a thousand had white hair and tans.”
My ears were still ringing from the gunshot. Hands shook and my chest was so tight I could hardly breathe. “I shouldn’t’ve stomped the phone.”
“As it turns out, no. But how do you think they found us? If it was them.”
“Who else would it be?”
“Ja-ack… I had my bare ass out there in the sunshine. You see it every day, but to some other man it might be worth a picture.”
“All right,” I said lamely, “but someone who had a fancy big-lens DSLR sitting there ready to go? ‘Maybe I’ll see a pretty ass to shoot’? I don’t think so.”
“Okay. But then why didn’t they shoot? I mean with a gun. If they were the bad guys?”
“I don’t think that’s part of the plan. They’ve had all kinds of chances, if they wanted me dead.” I clenched the handlebar to stop my hands from shaking. “Probably didn’t even have a gun in the car, if they were smart.”