Warren Ellis - Crooked Little Vein

Shoes off and feet up and drinks and smiling at each other, and life was pretty good.

“So,” Trix said. “Your friend Bob.”

“He’s gone completely nuts.”

“That was my educated opinion, yeah. What happened?”

“You know as much as I do. Haven’t spoken to the guy in ages. He could be a little odd when he was drinking, but nothing like this. Bob was a hardass. That whole thing in the car, I have no idea where that came from. He’s gotten into trouble down here, I guess.” I sighed, stretched. “I don’t think I want to know what kind of trouble.”

“You want to go out?”

“Dinner’s in four hours.”

“C’mon, Mike. We can’t see America from hotel rooms.”

“Sure you can. Window’s right over there.”

“You know what I mean. C’mon. There’s all those weirdo Texans out there to gawp at.”

“For someone who plays Champion to Perverts as much as you do, you’re awfully dismissive of the great state of Texas.”

“Oh, give me a break. This is Jesusland. Red State. Ma Ferguson country.”

“Who?”

“Mike, you are a cultural void.”

“Probably. Who?”

“Ma Ferguson. Governor of Texas back in the 1920s. When someone tried to get Spanish taught in schools, you know what she said? ‘If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, then it’s good enough for Texas!’ Mike, these are the people who want to put people like me in prison.”

I finished my drink. Smiled sweetly. “Miriam Amanda Ferguson, young lady. She ran as an anti-Klan candidate at a time when there were almost half a million Klan members in Texas. Pardoned two thousand prisoners.”

Trix frowned. “You’re kidding me.”

I jerked a thumb at the window. “1939, a civil rights leader gave a speech here in San Antonio, given legal coverage by the mayor. The Klan arranged a riot, and tried to kill the mayor. Not long after, the Klan were burned out of San Antonio and haven’t had a building here since. You know the mayor’s name?”

“You’re going to tell me. You’re enjoying this too much not to.”

“Mayor Maverick.”

I enjoyed the face she made.

“Couldn’t make this stuff up, could you?”

“What’s your point?”

“My point. Yes. My point is that people are the same all over. It’s not like you’re flying into a jungle when you go south. Texans, Minnesotans, Montanans, other ‘ans’ beginning with Ts and Ms—all the goddamn same, same mix of heroes and pricks, same old bunch of nice and nasty.”

“And this is your motivation for not wanting to go out for a walk? That it’s all the same out there?”

“Yep.”

“You’re a lazy bastard.”

“That, too. But your whole Us-and-Them Thing doesn’t work when it’s all Us.”

“But mostly you’re a lazy bastard.”

“Yep.”

“How the hell did you know that, anyway?”

“Way back when I was working at Pinkerton, I had to update an in-house dossier on the Klan. I used to be kind of thorough, and stuff sticks in my head. You know that in some places the Klan became general moral guardians and started flaying white men for getting divorces?”

“Is your head just filled with useless information?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe. Okay.” I struggled up out of my chair. “Let’s go see the Alamo. Apparently it’s never been the same since Ozzy Osbourne pissed on it.”

“Ozzy Osbourne’s funny. He never really did that, right? It’s like the story about the bat.”

“Nope. Ozzy Osbourne pissed on the Alamo. But he wasn’t wearing a dress. However, I happen to know that he got the soft treatment. Two-hundred-buck fine for public intoxication. But he actually committed a crime called desecration of a venerated object, because the Alamo is officially a shrine. Should’ve gotten a year in prison.”

“You’re trying to bore me into a coma so you don’t have to go out, aren’t you?”

“Yes. Let me tell you about the rogue Judas tribe of Native Americans, the Potowatomi, who sided with the French and the British before coming to Texas—”

“Fine, fine, I’ll watch some television—”

“But you know? If you look closely at the front of the Alamo, the top-right area, you can see where the numbers 666 have become visible on the brick since Ozzy pissed on the building. But you want to watch television. That’s fine. It’ll keep.”

Trix hit me with lots of things.

Andto make up for being an asshole, I had to buy her some clothes.

We were going out to dinner, and she was worried about Bob. More worried than I was, I realize now, or perhaps just more sensitive to his touch of crazy. I think I just wanted to keep thinking of him as Teflon Bob. So she didn’t want to wear anything that might stand out in what she felt was an essentially conservative town. Didn’t want to make Bob uncomfortable. And I, apparently, needed to be punished for trying to educate her.

Not that I was doing anything of the sort. I was just being an asshole. So we shopped for clothes.

Shopping for clothes is a Boyfriend Thing. You stand around and look blankly at a bunch of pieces of fabric and you look at the price tags and you wonder how something that’d barely cover your right nut can cost the price of a kidney and you watch the shop assistants check you out and wonder what you’re doing with her because she’s cute and you’re kind of funny-looking and she tries clothes on and you look at her ass in a dozen different items that all look exactly the same and let’s face it you’re just looking at her ass anyway and it all blurs together and then someone sticks a vacuum cleaner in your wallet and vacuums out all the cash and you leave the store with one bag that’s so small that mice couldn’t fuck in it. Repeat a dozen times or until the front of your brain dies.

Point being: it’s a Boyfriend Thing. And it’s not just you, the Boy, who thinks so. Every shop assistant on the way will assume you’re the Boyfriend.

Especially with the laughing and the teasing and the hugging and the kissing and the holding of hands. And the carrying of bags. Very Boyfriend Thing.

The United States government bought Trix quite a lot of clothes.

I hope it’s clear that I was really, really trying not to be weird about the way things were. All the time, I was telling myself, just enjoy it for what it is, don’t be weird, don’t get all screwed up over something it isn’t. The usual mantra when you’re with someone who you’re not really with and desperately want to be.

Have you noticed how telling yourself all that shit never actually helps?

Aobpicked us up outside our hotel, wearing his Same Old Bob face, not a hint of his earlier breakdown. I decided not to push it, and Trix read me. She was wearing tight black things: still very much her, but covering her tattoos, and had traded her boots for kitten heels. “You know he’s going to be looking to see what anyone thinks of him,” she’d said to me. “Why make it hard for him? It’s not like I’m swapping my brain for a Stepford Wife’s. You need his help, right? So let’s not give him anything to freak out over.”

For my part, I was just hoping for a quiet night.

The steakhouse was called Ma’s Place.

“Take it easy,” Trix whispered as I tensed up. “Just a coincidence.”

“It’s a sign from God that he’s going to shit on my dinner.”

“No such thing as God. You relax, too. I don’t want to have to manage two freaked-out men tonight.”

“I’ll have the Special.” Bob grinned at the waitress, spreading out in his chair.

“You sure?” said the waitress, eyeing him dubiously. With one eye, as the other was under an eyepatch. I saw Trix looking at the tattoo on the waitress’s forearm, which, in blotchy bluish letters, read SKEETER.