Don Bruns - Stuff Dreams Are Made Of

“Take notes, amigo. Cashdollar is a smart cookie. He knows what he’s doing, and obviously he knows how to get loyalty.”

“Yeah. Buy it.” It took money to make money.

“Unusual group of guys.”

“You know the story on Mug? Three felonies. What do you think they were for?”

James thought for a moment. “Well, they weren’t for cheating at cards. I cleaned Mug out tonight.”

I heard the pops about halfway to our truck. Four of them. Pop, pop, pop, pop. It sounded to me like someone had set off some of those small firecrackers that you light on the Fourth of July.

“Skip, did you hear that? Like a banging?”

“Whatever. I heard it.”

Everything went quiet. We kept walking, finally making out the truck in the faint moonlight.

“Thank God we don’t work tomorrow.”

“Actually, James, this is more work than my day job.”

“Yeah, but if the weather holds tomorrow, think of the money we’ll make.”

He was right. If the sun shone, we would have lunch and dinner. Could be one heck of a day. And then I saw it, up ahead. My business partner was not going to be happy. “Oh, no. James, this is not good.”

“What’s the problem now, pardner?”

“You don’t even want to know.”

“It’s not…” He stood there with his mouth hanging open. I couldn’t even look back at the truck.

“Who the hell would do this?”

“Carneys?” I ventured.

“Who?”

“Never mind.”

“My God, Skip, do you know how much it’s going to cost to get someone to come out and replace all of these?”

“I can guess. About six hundred dollars.”

James just kept shaking his head, staring at the four flat tires on our traveling kitchen.

C rayer showed up two minutes later, as if he knew. “Boys, I am sorry to see this, but you can’t go callin’ the cops.”

“No?” James was wired. He unlocked the padlock on the back of the truck, slid the big door up, and climbed in. He fired up the stove and began heating some coffee, something he seldom drank. A couple cups of strong black coffee along with the beers we’d had was exactly what we needed. We’d probably go out and kill someone.

“No.” The voice was forceful. “You’ve got to remember where you are. This is a spiritual revival meeting. Any sign of crime or interest by law enforcement would send the wrong signal to followers.”

James shook his head. “I thought they were rubes. Isn’t that what they were last night?” He spit sarcasm with every word. “I believe you called them rubes. Now, all of a sudden they’re followers? All of a sudden you become pious? You need to get your terms down, Bruce.”

Crayer gave him a hard look. “Look, boy, you don’t want to fuck up a good thing.” He shoved his right-hand index finger into James’s chest. “I’ll get Stan to cover your tires. New tires, rookie. Got it? By tomorrow afternoon, you’ll be ready to roll, but don’t screw it up. No cops. Do you understand?”

James never backed down. He didn’t move an inch, which is surprising for James. And Crayer didn’t have a clue how much James distrusted cops. Four flat tires and the mention of cops is enough to send James over the edge.

“I’m not sure I do understand.” James was treading on thin ice. He usually backed off when the action got a little rough. But the truck was his dream, his way into the big time. And somebody had screwed around with his dream. “Shove me with that finger again, and I’ll break it. I’ll break your finger, understand?”

“I’m asking you, son. Leave it alone. Finish your shift here tomorrow and Sunday, then go back to your day jobs. No complaining about your truck here. I’m serious. Please. You’ll save yourself a lot of pain. Please. You don’t want to mess with what you don’t understand.” Crayer spun around and disappeared in the direction of Stan’s pizza wagon. We watched him, until he disappeared into the dark.

“Nice guy, that Bruce. Eh?”

“Skip?”

“Yeah, James.”

“Shut the fuck up.” He walked over and kicked one of the flattened tires as hard as he could. He let out a yelp and lifted his foot, massaging the toe of his shoe.

“So what do we do?”

“I want to flatten the tires on every single wagon on this path. That’s what I want to do. I want to run every one of these assholes out of here. Look at this, look what they’ve done. If I had a pop gun, I swear I’d shoot out every tire on this row of junk food peddlers.” He took the coffeepot and poured himself a cup in an old mug with a faded blue logo. Never even offered me one.

“James, Crayer said he’d get Stan to arrange for the tires. Look at it this way. You get new tires. For free. Free, James. Brand new tires. Not too bad, huh?” I poured myself some coffee in a chinked-up faded red cup that we’d found in the apartment when we moved in.

“Well then, why didn’t we tell him about the theft? Why didn’t we tell him about somebody breaking into our cash box and taking the change plus tonight’s profits? Maybe they would have given us new money. Maybe fucking Stan would have given us our one thousand dollars for free.”

“James. Settle down. You accused me of being too uptight. Just look at you.”

He sat down on the edge of the now-lower truck bed. It was surprising how low to the ground the truck was. I thought about it for a second. It would be a lot easier to serve our food from this elevation. Even with the step-up, I was stretching way down when the tires were inflated.

“Skip, somebody’s trying to run us out. Why?”

“You’ve seen too many Rear Windo w movies, James.”

“Screw you. All right, maybe you were on to something. Okay? I’m sorry about accusing you of being a little conspiracy crazy.”

“You’re not sorry.” He wasn’t.

“Hey, I’m telling the truth. Even when I’m lying, I’m telling the truth.”

I knew the line. Al Pacino in Scar Face. James was going to be okay.

We lay down in our clothes, using some old towels under us, and our arms as pillows. The floor of that truck bed was harder than rock.

“Could have called a cab.” James shifted and I could feel a slight sway in the truck.

“Probably fifty bucks easy.”

“For the chance to sleep in our own beds? I could make that up in five minutes tomorrow at the poker game.”

I wanted to tell him. The game was fixed. But I figured he’d had enough anger in his system for the evening. I shifted. Sleeping on the ground might be more comfortable. Wet, but comfortable.

“Cashdollar isn’t sleeping in the back of a truck.” I closed my eyes and pictured that limo — number one — sliding by our truck on its way to wherever he lived.

“No. I read he owns a twenty-thousand-square-foot mansion, somewhere south of here.”

I’d read the same thing. And People or some other rag reported that his bedroom had a walk-in closet that dwarfed our apartment. Of course the magazine didn’t mention our apartment. I just superimposed our modest dwelling into his bedroom. And supposedly he owns like one hundred suits. I didn’t own one. Neither did James.

“Skip, we’ll have a good night tomorrow, and I’ve figured out how to beat these guys in poker.”

I could feel a little breeze blowing into the truck, and the smell of a small campfire drifted into our cramped quarters. “James, I don’t think we’re doing the poker thing tomorrow.”

“Yeah?”

“You heard Crayer. Just finish the shifts and get out of Dodge.”

“Skip?”

“Yeah.”

“What was that he said about ‘don’t mess with what you don’t understand?’”

“Yeah. That’s what I consider a threat.”