Charlie Huston - Six Bad Things

I feel pressure on top of the pad. Two hands on my stomach as the cop uses the bed to push himself up. All the remaining air is forced from my lungs.

– Thanks mumble.

And I open my mouth wide and suck and gasp.

Out! I need out!

– No mumble worries.

I shove the pad off. It flops silently to the floor as the door slides shut and bangs tight behind the exiting officer. Rolf glances back at me as he climbs in the front seat and we drive away from the roadblock. The highway patrol cops wave us on.

Up front, Rolf and Sid slap hands and laugh while I hyperventilate and ask myself just what the fuck I think I’m doing with these two. When you get right down to it, are these guys anything but a pile of dead bodies waiting to happen?

We go around a bend, and the guns Rolf stashed in the hole with me slide across the wood and bang against my knee.

BETWEEN JEAN and Sloan, about twenty miles outside Vegas, Sid has Rolf pull a couple dozen yards off the highway, takes the garbage bag full of our clothes and a fold-up camping shovel, and gets out of the bus. Rolf sits in the driver’s seat. I sit behind him on the bench seat. We watch Sid, illuminated by one of those multipurpose emergency lights, as he digs his hole. The Westphalia screens the light from the drivers on the highway. I climb into the front passenger seat, roll down a window, and stick my head out to look up at the stars. Nothing, clouds. Rolf has put in an Allman Brothers tape. I pull my head back in and light a smoke and listen to “Melissa.”

– Rolf?

– Yeah?

He’s focused on his lap, where he has several roaches and scraps of shake spread out on a back issue of Rolling Stone. This is the last of his stash, he’s rolling a couple joints to get him through until he can score some more in Vegas.

– What about Leo and Pedro?

– Dude?

– Do you think they knew who I was? Who I am?

– Who knows what they know, dude? Those guys, are like the. That thing they have in the desert?

– What?

– The thing that doesn’t talk? Napoleon’s soldiers shot the nose off of it?

– The Sphinx?

– Yeah, dude, Pedro and Leo are like the Sphinx, who knows what they know?

He has half the grass scooped onto the cardboard flap of a pack of Zig-Zags. He dumps it into a creased rolling paper he’s holding in his other hand. I check on Sid: still digging.

– Think they’ll get hassled much? Over me?

– Hard to say, dude. Figure those Federales were working on their own, but sooner or later some dude that’s been at The Bucket’s gonna see your pic on TV and remember you. Then who knows what goes down?

I finish my smoke, toss it out the window, and reach in the kangaroo pocket of my pullover for another. My hand slides across cold steel. I feel the cigarette box, take it out, and look inside: three left. I light one and keep the box in my hand.

Rolf is right. My photo is on cable news along with the sketch. That means it will be seen all over the world. A Mexican cop will remember me from Chichen Itza, or somebody from the beach will see it and call the police. Sooner or later they’ll find the connection between the sergeants and me.

– Will they hook Leo to the dead Federales?

The joint is rolled, he’s scraping the rest of the grass together to make a second.

– Nah, I don’t see why they would, dude. I mean, dude, you’re Henry Thompson. After they trace your movements around and talk to people and investigate you for that Russian guy’s death? They’ll finger you for the Federales, and the doctor, too. Why make it harder than it has to be?

Once again, other people’s dead bodies piling up in my account.

– Sorry ’bout that, by the way. Not the way I planned it, dude. But whatever.

– Yeah. Whatever.

He has the second scoop of grass resting in a paper, and holds it while he presses a fingertip onto little flakes still on the magazine cover and flicks them into the unrolled joint. I drag off my cigarette.

– Dude, you need to, like chill out now. Leo and Pedro are total survivors. Their shit might get messed with, but it’s not like they’ll do any time or anything.

He rolls the second joint, tucks it behind his right ear, pulls the first one from behind his left ear, puts it in his mouth, and lights it.

– Want to mellow out?

– I’ll pass.

He tokes the joint and reads Rolling Stone by the light of his Bic. Sid has tossed the bag in the hole and is filling it in. I take a last drag, flick my butt out the window. I slip the cigarette box back in my pocket, and fill my hand.

– So, Rolf, what am I doing with you guys?

He’s still looking at the magazine.

– Dude?

– I mean, why should I stay with you?

He turns his head to look at me and sees Danny’s pistol in my hand, pointed at him.

– I mean, what is it you’re threatening me with?

Rolf starts to straighten up.

– Just stay the fuck where you are.

– Dude, this is so uncool, we have a deal.

– Screw you. I am so sick of that line. I’ve had deals with people like you, and they always get fucked up, and I always end up getting fucked.

– This is such a bad call, dude.

– Why? Tell me why? You can’t go to the cops. You can’t threaten my parents, because you can’t go anywhere near that town. The only thing you can do is kill me or hurt me, so why shouldn’t I just get away from you?

– Oh, dude! Threaten your parents? Like I would do that. That’s ill.

– Is that supposed to make me feel better? Is that supposed to reassure me? Oh, don’t worry, dude, I would never, like, hurt your folks. That shit is, like, totally out of bounds, duuuuuuude.

– Dude, you need to chill.

– Get out of the bus, Rolf.

– Dude.

– GETOUTOFTHEFUCKINGBUS!!!

Something changes outside. My eyes flick to the right. Sid’s light is off. I can’t see him. I can’t see where Sid is.

Rolf moves. He yanks the door handle and pushes backward, falling out of the bus.

My finger jerks on the trigger as Rolf, still in the line of fire, is dropping to the sand. Nothing happens. There is a thump as Rolf lands on the ground, out of view.

I look at the pistol. The safety is on.

The front passenger door opens right behind me. Sid! I fling myself to the floor between the front seats, twisting to land on my back, thumb groping for the safety. I land hard and my head whaps the driver’s seat and my vision rolls a couple times like a TV with the vertical hold out. Sid climbs into the passenger seat I’ve vacated, the stubby camping shovel in his right hand.

– Dude!

My thumb clicks the safety. I’m waving the pistol up and down like a conductor’s baton, trying to track Sid as he flips up my eyeballs over and over.

– Chill.

I pull the trigger and a bullet whangs through the roof of the bus, followed immediately by three or four more. Danny, the incredible asshole, has set the trigger weight at an insanely high sensitivity, and the pistol jumps in my hand, the recoil of each round triggering the next. The blips in my vision roll around once more, and stop as Sid pushes back, tumbling out the door like Rolf did. Time to go.

I crane my head around and reach for the steering wheel to pull myself up, and am just in time to see Rolf’s arm stretched through the open driver’s door, his hand snatching the keys from the ignition.

– No!

I grab at the keys, snag the cuff of his yellow shirt, and press the barrel of the gun against his wrist.

– I’ll blow your fucking hand off, Rolf. Drop the fucking keys.

The bus rocks. Sid again. I turn, bringing the gun around. Rolf pulls free, Sid brings the flat of his shovel down on my right foot and ducks back out of sight before I can get off another shot. This is not working. My little plan of kicking Rolf out of the bus and driving off is not working. I stay low and edge back until I hit the bench seat. The throbbing in my head and left thigh has been joined by one in my right foot.