Joe Lansdale - The Complete Drive-In

“Let’s look for trouble,” Randy said.

Willard laughed. “We are trouble.”

“Maybe you boys are getting a mite out of hand.” It was Bob’s voice. Calm and in control. “You’re not eating good, none of us are, and it’s changing us. We’re not thinking right. We’ve got to-”

“Mind your own business.” It was Willard’s voice, and it was a snarl. “You just take care of the basket case over there and leave us alone.”

“Have it your way,” Bob said.

I think I flew away in my lawn chair then. I don’t know how long I was gone, but when I came back to earth, my chair had been turned around so that I was facing the truck. I think Bob had done that, to keep me from watching the movies.

Randy and Willard were on the hood of the truck. Willard was stripped down to his underwear. Randy had a gallon-sized popcorn tub on his head for a hat. He had poked holes in either side of it and run a piece of leather (probably from his belt) through it so he could fasten it under his chin. He was leaning over Willard, who was lying on his stomach, and he had Willard’s knife, and he was using it to cut designs in his back. He’d cut, then use a popcorn bag to sop up the blood. He’d put the bag in his mouth and suck on it while he used the black asphalt from the lot (he had it collected in a large Coke cup) to rub into the wounds he was making. From where I sat I could make out animal designs, words, a bandolier of bullets even. All of the tattoos had the slick look of crude oil by moonlight.

Bob floated into view. “Ya’ll ought to quit that. End up getting an infection and ain’t a thing can be done about it here.”

“I’ve told you to mind your own business,” Willard snapped.

“Yeah,” Bob said, “and I said I’d mind it too. So carve away, Randy. It’s his skin. But don’t screw up the hood of my truck. Blood’ll rust it.”

Willard, who had raised up on his elbows, relaxed again. Randy looked at Bob for a moment, then looked at me, smiled like a cannibal watching the pot, then bent to his work.

And so it went.

Movies and tattoos.

I got so weak that Bob would have to help me to the concession for my meals. The Candy Girl had lost her smile and a lot of flesh, the sharp bones in her face were like tent poles pushing at old canvas, her hair was as listless as a dead horse’s tail. She didn’t put the candy in your hand now; she slapped it down on the counter and let you pick it up. She seldom stood anymore, preferred to roost in a chair behind the counter, just the top of her head showing. I quit saying hi. She didn’t miss it.

The manager and the counter boy argued with patrons and with each other. Bob still asked the manager about the National Guard, but now the manager would cry. Finally, even Bob felt sorry for him and didn’t mention it again.

When we got our food, Bob would help me back to the truck and feed me by hand. I couldn’t make my fingers work, couldn’t always keep the food down. It was too sweet. My teeth felt loose and my gums hurt.

And the drive-in changed. People were not so good now. Nobody said “please” and “thank you” anymore. Patience was as hard to find as steak. The fight I’d seen with the welding-cap fella and the others had been just a preview. It was going a step beyond that. There was lots of yelling and fighting now. We heard gunfire frequently over in Lot B and from the west screen in Lot A. When Crier came by he would talk about murder. He had developed a sense of humor about it and was able to mix it in with his telling. It had gotten so nothing was real to me.

I remember seeing the father of the little girl with the poodle come out of their car, butt naked, climb on the roof and hop around yelling, “I feel better now, I surely do, yes, sir.” Then he hopped down, ran across the lot, leaped onto the hood of a car, leaped off, repeated the process down the row until, in mid-leap from a Toyota, he was shot out of the air by a big fat guy brandishing a pump shotgun.

The little girl had come out of the car to watch her father’s run, and when he was shot, she yelled, “Two points,” at the top of her lungs. I thought it was more like four, and something inside me told me I should be concerned about that kind of attitude, but the voice was small and tired.

Later I saw the little girl wearing a ratty white cape held to her neck by a dog collar. The cape had a pink ribbon on it. The little girl was dragging the empty leash around the lot talking to it. Her mother, who looked like a death-camp survivor, was telling her, “Don’t tug on it.”

All this scared Bob enough to get his shotgun down, and he kept it close by him for a while. Eventually he returned it to the rack in the truck, chained and locked it.

I remember some of Crier’s visits. He came by often. He had found a hoe handle somewhere, and he used it for a walking stick. His hair was almost to his shoulders. He said there had been murders again.

“There were these two brothers over in Lot B,” he said, “and they got into it over a popcorn kernel that rolled under their truck. The fastest brother dove under after it, and the slower brother cut the quick one’s throat, pried his mouth open, got the bloody kernel and ate it. Afterward, he cut his own throat.”

“That ain’t good,” Bob said.

“I’ll say. And the brothers’ bodies disappeared, and a short time thereafter there were some well-fed folks over there stepping pretty lively, and I reckon what happened with the brothers was what got this couple fired up to eat their baby raw.”

Crier had emphasized ‘raw’ as if that were the crime. Smoked, barbecued or plain fried baby was probably all right with him, but raw ?

Personally, I couldn’t see a thing wrong with a raw baby. The idea of eating a baby had certainly not become acceptable to me, but I was beginning to think ahead to the time when it would, and I was quite certain I wouldn’t mind my baby raw. Oh, I’m like anyone else, I prefer my meat cooked, but if raw was the only way my baby would come, then raw it was.

“They were out there eating this kid on the hood of their car,” Crier continued. “Each one had a leg and was going at it, and the motorcycle gang over there, Banditos, I think they call themselves, seen this and they got some upset, brothers.”

“Cause the baby was raw?’” I asked.

“I don’t think so,” Crier said. “The cycle guys have taken over in B Lot. They run the concession and keep the movies showing. They’ve appointed themselves the police officers for over there, and I figure this side of the lot is next when they get around to it.

“Anyway, they got this wrecker from somebody over there, took that couple of babyeaters and hung them one at a time from the wrecker’s wench. When that was done, they tore the couple’s car apart looking for food. Found some popcorn kernels and a chocolate almond under the back seat. The corker is someone stole what was left of the kid when the bikers weren’t looking, and one of their own men got up there on the hood and started licking the spot where the baby had been. The bikers had to take him over to the wrecker and hang him too. Afterward, the bodies of the executed disappeared faster than a horny man’s conscience. Oh, they found the clothes, but not the stiffs that went in them. They watched for charcoal smoke around and about from those who brought barbecue grills, but no smoke was detected. You might say Lot B’s law enforcement was thwarted.”

“When you get some more cheerful news like that, Crier,” Bob said, “you be sure and come share it with us.”

“I will,” Crier said, winking, and he moved on.

“I think he’s a little too cheery about things,” Bob said. “Then again, maybe my sense of humor is on the blink.”