Dean Koontz - One Door Away From Heaven

"You keep sayin' no offense, boy, but I'm tellin' you right now, I'm bound to take some offense iffen your dog starts fartin' in my new Mercury."

This conversation is going so badly and they are tearing across the salt flats at such a scary speed that changing the subject seems to be a matter of life and death, so Curtis figures the time has come to compliment Gabby on his celebrity lineage. "Sir, I dearly loved Helldorado, Heart of the Golden West, and Roll on Texas Moon."

"What in tarnation's wrong with you, boy?" The dog whines and twitches in Curtis's lap. "Look ahead, sir!" the boy exclaims.

Gabby glances at the onrushing salt flats. "Just tumbleweed," he says dismissively as an enormous prickly ball bounces off the front fender, rolls across the hood, over the windshield, and spins front to back across the roof with a clitter-click like skeleton fingers clawing at the underside of a coffin lid.

Nervously but valiantly making another effort to establish better rapport with the caretaker, Curtis says, "Along the Navajo Trail was really a fine movie, and The Lights of Old Santa Fe. But maybe the best of them was Sons of the Pioneers."

"You say movies?"

"I say movies, sir."

Even as Gabby presses the Mountaineer still faster, faster, he disregards the land ahead, as though confident that he can perceive oncoming catastrophe through a sixth sense, and he focuses on Curtis with disconcerting intensity. "With gov'ment maniacs blowin' up the world behind us, what in the name of the beheaded baptist are you talkin' movies for"?"

" 'Cause they're your grandfather's movies, sir."

"My grandpa's movies? Criminy spit an' call it wine, an' give me two bottles! What are you babblin' about? My grandpa was a mercantile porch-squatter, sellin' Bibles an' useless 'cyclopedias if you was crazy enough to open your door to him."

"But if your grandpa was a porch-squatter, then what about Roy Rogers?" Curtis pleads.

Gabby's wiry beard, eyebrows, and ear hairs bristle with either exasperation or static electricity generated by a combination of high speed and dry desert air. "Roy Rogers?" He's shouting again. He holds the steering wheel with one hand and pounds it with the other. "What in the blue blazes does a fancy-boots, picture-show, singin', dead cowboy got to do with you or me, or the price of beans?"

Curtis doesn't know the price of beans or why the price is of sudden importance to the caretaker at this particular time, but he knows that they are going far too fast — and still gaining speed. The more perturbed that Gabby becomes, the heavier his foot grows on the accelerator, and everything that Curtis says perturbs him further. The floor of the valley is remarkably flat, but at this reckless velocity, even the smallest runnel or bump rattles the Mountaineer. If they encounter a deep rut or a rock, or one of those sun-bleached cow skulls that so often show up in Western movies, the best Detroit engineering won't save them, and the SUV will roll like, well, like Judas strapped to a log and tumbled down the mill chute to Hell.

Curtis is afraid to say anything, but Gabby appears to be ready to thump the steering wheel again if he doesn't say something. So without any desire to argue, intending only to express an alternative opinion, and by engaging in some pleasant conversation to reduce the caretaker's agitation and also the speed of the Mountaineer, he says, "No offense, sir, but Roy Rogers's boots didn't seem to me to be all that fancy."

Gabby glances at the road ahead, which is a relief to Curtis, but immediately he looks at Curtis once more, and yet again the SUV accelerates. "Boy, you 'member way to hell back there at the pump, when I asked was you stupid or somethin'?"

"Yes, sir, I 'member."

"An' you 'member what you said?"

"Yes, sir, I said I guessed I was somethin'."

"Ever any fool was to ask you that question again, boy, you'd be better advised to tell 'em stupid!" Pounding the steering wheel again, he's off on another rant. "Shove a bottle rocket in my butt an' call me Yankee Doodle! Here I put myself at war with the whole egg-suckin' gov'ment, with their bombs an' tanks an' tax collectors, all 'cause you claim they done killed your folks, an' now I see you're liable to say anythin' what makes no more sense than chicken gabble, and maybe the gov'ment never done killed your folks at all."

Appalled to discover this misunderstanding, fighting back tears, Curtis hastens to correct the caretaker: "Sir, I never done said the government done killed my folks."

Flabbergasted and outraged, Gabby roars, "Cut off my co-jones an' call me a princess, but don't you ever tell me that ain't what you claimed!"

"Sir, I claimed it was the worse scalawags what done killed my folks, not the government."

"Ain't no worse scalawags than the gov'ment!"

"Oh, big-time worse, sir."

Old Yeller fidgets in Curtis's lap. She whimpers nervously, and icy sweat drips rapidly from her black nose onto his hands, and he senses that she wants to relieve herself. Through their special boy-dog bond, he encourages her to keep control of her bladder, but now he's reminded that their relationship is dog-boy as well as boy-dog, that it can work both ways if he isn't careful, and her need to pee is rapidly becoming his need to pee. He can too easily imagine the catastrophe that would ensue if he and the dog both peed in Gabby's new Mercury, causing the caretaker to have a stroke and lose control of the vehicle at high speed.

For the first time since the truck-stop restaurant, the boy is losing confidence in his ability to be Curtis Hammond. Lacking adequate self-assurance, no fugitive can maintain a credible deception. Perfect poise is the key to survival. There you have Mother's wisdom as pure us it gets.

Gabby is ranting again, and the Mercury Mountaineer shudders and groans like a space shuttle blasting into orbit, and in spite of all the uproar, something that the caretaker said a moment ago makes a connection in Curtis's mind to another misunderstanding earlier in die evening. A small illumination follows, and Curtis desperately seizes upon his sudden insight to try to change the direction of the conversation and to reestablish the far-friendlier tone that existed between them such a short while ago.

According to the movies, most Americans strive always to better their lives and to improve themselves, and because movies provide reliable information, Curtis interrupts Gabby's blustering with the intention of offering a vocabulary lesson for which the caretaker will no doubt be grateful. "Sir, the reason I was confused is you weren't pronouncing it properly. You meant testicles!"

Every look of surprise that heretofore made such dramatic use of the caretaker's highly expressive face is as nothing to the brow-corrugating, eyebrow-steepling, eye-popping, wrinkle-stretching, beard-frizzling astonishment that now possesses his features.

Gabby's expression is such an obvious precursor to another rant that Curtis hurries on, frantic to explain himself: "Sir, you said 'co-jones,' when what you meant to say was 'kah-ho-nays.' Cojones. That's the English pronunciation, which is slightly different from the way you would say it in Spanish. If you—"

"Blast all the devils from Hell to Abilene!" Gabby bellows, and he looks away from Curtis with obvious disgust, which is good in one way and bad in another. Good because he's at last staring at the salt flats ahead of them. Bad because sooner or later, trembling from the offense that he's taken, he's going to look at Curtis again, and that look will peel the wet off water.

Like wet on water.

Another small enlightenment blossoms in Curtis, but he resists sharing it with the fuming caretaker. He has lost all confidence in his ability to socialize. Shaken, he is convinced that anything he says, even a wordless grunt delivered in the most inoffensive tone, will be misinterpreted and will trigger another furious oath from Gabby that will be loud enough to shatter all the windows in the Mountaineer.