Joe Lansdale - Freezer Burn

“And how’s the Princess?”

“She’s all right.”

“Yeah, well anyone’s all right, you can bet it’ll be her.”

Bill and Conrad went inside the motor home and Conrad got up in the passenger chair. Bill noted that Conrad was sniffing the air. He wondered if he could smell what he and Gidget had been doing. He’d had his face in it for so long he couldn’t smell anything but that, so he didn’t know how the trailer smelled.

Bill started up the motor home, pulled onto the highway. As he drove along he tried to think of some kind of small talk to hand out to Conrad, but nothing came. If Conrad figured he’d been throwing the meat to the Princess, as he called her, and Bill sat silent, this was sure to feed the suspicion, but still, nothing came to him to say.

He thought: What if she comes out of there stark naked?

No, she wouldn’t do that. She was bound to have looked out a window and seen what he was doing out there with Conrad, so she wouldn’t come out.

But what if she hadn’t seen, and she did come out? How was he going to explain that? He thought maybe he should talk loud to Conrad so she could hear, but he still couldn’t think of anything to say.

He looked at Conrad and Conrad was reaching Gidget’s smokes off the dash and shaking one out. He used her lighter to light up. He sucked in the smoke and let some of it come out his nose and he opened his mouth and rolled his tongue in a funny way and smoke came out of there in the shape of a funnel and wreathed over his head and spread about in the motor home cabin.

“I don’t hear nothing back there. You sure she’s all right?”

“Sure. I talked to her earlier. She was all right then. She’s maybe takin’ a nap.”

“A nap.”

“Sure.”

“You look a little ill, buddy.”

“I’m tired. This storm and shit. It rattles the nerves.”

“Yeah. Mine are rattled. I went off in that ditch so fast I didn’t even know it till I was there. Sometimes, things like that happen. You’re just going along, mindin’ your own business, not expecting anything, then suddenly you’re caught in a slide and you’re off in a ditch.”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“You get out of the ditch, you got to have enough sense not to get back in it.”

“Wasn’t your fault in the first place.”

“Maybe I wasn’t alert enough. Wasn’t like I didn’t have a little warning. Thunderheads. Rain.”

“It come pretty fast, that storm.”

“Yeah. But I had some warning. I could sense it. You can sense a thing like that. The atmosphere is different. It’s got a kind of electricity. A kind of smell. It’s got an after-smell too.”

“Yeah. But I didn’t know anything. Just one minute I’m driving along, next minute I hit a post.”

“Best thing to do in that case is back away from the post and drive off and keep on driving and stay away from posts in general.”

Bill turned and looked at Conrad. “Yeah. I reckon you’re right. That’s what I’m doing, drivin’ on.”

Conrad nodded and smoked Gidget’s cigarette. “That’s a good idea, man. Me and U.S. Grant, we’re tryin’ to do the same. Drive on, you know? Stay out of ditches. Away from posts.”

“And how are you doin’?”

“Well, it ain’t easy. I think about it. What was goin’ on and all with Phil, but we’re doin’ it. We got to do it. You got to look at the big picture. You look at it small, well, you’re off in that ditch again, and maybe this next time the ditch is deeper and you can’t climb out, not even with help. Savvy?”

“Sure.”

A few miles farther they came upon U.S. Grant parked along the road on the opposite side, the cab turned in the opposite direction, trailer disconnected and sitting beside the road facing toward its original destination.

U.S. Grant had brought out a lawn chair and was seated in it next to her truck and trailer. The pin- and pumpkin heads had been riding with her and they were outside now, playing, running about and splashing in ditch water. Passing traffic slowed to look at this and wonder.

Bill looped around and went back and parked and he and Conrad got out. As soon as U.S. Grant saw Conrad she started crying and came out of her chair in a leap and grabbed him as if to pick him up like a pet. Instead she bent down and dropped a big hairy knee out from under her shift and rested it in the mud and hugged him.

“We spun around and the trailer snapped loose,” she said. “I kept thinking I was gonna die and things weren’t like they ought to be between us.”

Conrad stroked her with his weird little hand. “It’s all right.”

“I didn’t want to die with us not reconciled.”

“We are. We’re fine.”

“What I done was wrong.”

“I’ve already forgiven you. It won’t happen again.”

“I don’t blame you for nothing.”

The pinheads and the pumpkin heads were throwing dirt clods at one another.

“Bill,” Conrad said, “I’m going to stay here with U.S. Grant. You go on to the next town and call in some wrecker service.”

Conrad popped a snap on a back pocket and took out his razor and then his wallet. He removed a card. “This here is our road service. You use most anyone, we get a little discount. We can always use a discount. You call and tell them where we are, and they’ll come. Tell them where my trailer is too. Any others you might see on the way in.”

Bill took the card and Conrad replaced his wallet and razor and sat back on his haunches and shook Bill’s hand. “You watch out for ditches now. There still might be some slick spots.”

Before Frost returned, wreckers did their work. Pinheads, pumpkin heads, a bearded lady, a dog-man, and the trailers were recovered. They were all brought to the designated place for the night. This place was near a hill overlooking a clutch of willows fastened precariously by thin roots to red mud. The rain had swollen the river and turned it brown as a turd. There was a light wind, and the air tasted damp and smelled of fish.

Frost was cranky when he returned. He came into camp driving fast. He slammed the Chevy to a stop, throwing up mud and bogging the station wagon about halfway to the hubcaps. That made him even madder. He got out and kicked a tire, stomped about camp bellowing orders. When he heard about all that had happened, about the bang in his motor home, he put one hand on his hip and looked at the ground for a long time. Bill was standing nearby, Frost looked at him and frowned. “Wasn’t anything you could do to keep this from happening?”

“It was the storm. I didn’t start it.”

“Don’t be a smart-ass.”

“What was I supposed to do?”

“You could have drove careful.”

“It wasn’t about driving. It was about a storm. It washed me off the road.”

“Me too, Boss.” It was Conrad. He suddenly appeared, waddling forward on all fours. He was wearing a pair of cuffed blue jeans and a red jersey, his odd shoes and hand protectors. “The Ice Man trailer was blown off the road, and me in it.”

“Oh my God.”

“It’s all right, Boss. It didn’t do nothing to it. U.S. Grant and some of the folks had a little adventure too. Everybody is okay. We’re gonna have a wrecker bill, but that’s all.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah. No one was hurt.”

“Of course. Good. But I mean the Ice Man.”

“He’s fine. His hairs are all in place. I don’t even think his dick swung to the other side.”

“He’s petrified. Nothing is going to swing.”

“No shit?” Bill said.

Frost didn’t answer. He went past Conrad, heading quickly for the Ice Man’s trailer.