Joe Lansdale - The Complete Drive-In

I tell you, I had lots of interesting things to think about.

That night we got some dried brush and stuff and used our flint and steel to build a little fire near the camper, and pretty soon it was a big fire because Bob couldn’t get warm enough and he kept piling brush on it.

“You’re gonna catch the truck on fire,” Crier said.

“No, I ain’t,” Bob said. “We’re right here in front of the fire.”

“I won’t burn up to save the truck,” Crier said.

“Count me out too,” Grace said.

“It’s all right,” Bob said. “I’m watching it.”

After that we sat there and thought and said a little now and then, but not too much because we had our minds on some things, like the fact the highway was starting to change. The nights were getting darker, as if the air was getting thicker, and there were posters and popcorn bags and soft drink cups and the like lying about, and I figured pretty soon we’d be getting into the stormy part. Already we were seeing things in the truck mirrors, and sometimes things reflected in the windows; things like the face of King Kong, the Frankenstein monster clinging to the side of the truck, Dracula and Daffy Duck with their arms around one another.

It was pretty disconcerting to see stuff like that, then look and not find anything there to reflect it. On second thought, I guess we were glad of that. Still, it was unnerving.

Anyway, we were sitting there, and Crier said, “Got to see a man about a horse.”

“Me too,” I said.

We walked out behind the truck and stood in the highway to do our business. It was very dark. I looked down the road the way we had come. There was a bend in the road and it went around behind some trees and there was some moonlight on the highway, but when I looked in the other direction it was dark as the inside of a goat.

I finished pissing and put my equipment up and wandered off the highway and started walking along the edge in the direction of the dark part. I didn’t go too far. It was really dark.

I turned and looked at Crier. He was still hosing the concrete. He looked at me and said, “You know, after all I’ve been through, bad as it’s been, I think things are about to get better. I feel it.”

I was going to say something to that, but around the corner came two headlights and the faintest glint of a grillwork smile.

Crier, dong in hand, swiveled in the direction of the car and then he was a hood ornament.

The car, a convertible, sailed by me with Crier bent over the hood and the driver hit down on the horn, stomped the brakes and yelled, “Motherfucker!”

Crier went under the car and bounced out from beneath it and lay in the highway with the moonlight for a shroud. He still had his dong in his hand, but it wasn’t connected to his body anymore. He had jerked it off, no pun intended. Lying on his back, his fist on his chest, his dong clenched there like a frankfurter, he looked as if he were studying the universe while preparing to eat a weenie.

The convertible fishtailed to a stop, disappearing into the darker part of the highway, and right before it did, I caught the ghostly reflection of something in one of its mirrors, some kind of monster that faded with the car’s movement. Then the driver was out of the car and running toward Crier. I knew the moment I saw his cowboy hat that it was Steve from back at Shit Town.

I got my feet out of the glue and started over to Crier. Steve was down on his knees feeling Crier’s chest and neck. He looked up at me and said, “Dead as a rock.”

I tried to kick Steve in the face, but he caught my foot and pulled me on my butt.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” he said.

I tried to get up and swarm him. He jabbed me in the chest with his palm and knocked me on my butt again.

“I didn’t see him. He shouldn’t have been standing in the highway.”

“You sonofabitch. You goddamn sonofabitch.”

Bob and Grace came over. As they neared us they slowed down, as if taking small steps would give the reality of the thing time to go away.

When they stood over us and looked down, Bob said, “Damn. One thing after another.”

“One of you get his feet,” Steve said, “and let’s get him out of the road before we get creamed by somebody.”

Grace got Crier’s feet and Steve got him under the arms and they started him off the highway. Crier’s hand fell off his chest and he dropped what he was holding.

“Put him down,” Steve said.

They lowered him to the highway and Steve picked up what Crier had dropped and put it in Crier’s shirt pocket. It poked out the top like a periscope.

They picked him up again and carried him over to the side of the road, and Steve went and got in his car and pulled it over to our side and walked back to us. I kept thinking I’d find something on the ground to pick up and hit Steve with, but the urge was going away. There didn’t seem to be any reason to hit anyone.

Grace didn’t feel that way. She kicked Steve flush in the balls. He dropped to his knees and had a facial workout. When that was over and he got his breath back, he said, “Damn, lady.”

“It didn’t make me feel as good as I hoped,” Grace said, “but it still does a little something for me.”

Then the camper blew up.

Hot, sticky morning with the convertible’s tape deck blasting Sleepy LaBeef who’s singing something about how he’s a boogie-woogie man, jetting along with the top down, doing about ninety plus, me in the front seat, Steve at the wheel, bugs on the windshield, Grace, Bob and Crier in the back. Crier strapped in with a seat belt, leaning to the left, head partly out the window, hair standing up like wire, eyelids blown back by the wind, eyes glassy as cheap beads, pecker in his pocket, the tip of it shriveling and turning brown.

“Oh no,” Grace says, “the fire’s all right. It isn’t too big. No sir. Just right. I’m in front of it. No problem. It’s not too close to the truck. Ol’ Bob’s got it under control. Ol’ Bob’s got it by the balls. Ol’ Bob-”

“Shut up, will you,” Bob says.

Steve sings along with Sleepy LaBeef. New bugs hit the windshield. Outside the scenery is changing. More popcorn bags and garish posters lying about, blowing up as we jet by. The trees are starting to fill with film. Broken TV sets and fragments of antennas clutter the side of the road. Crier’s pecker continues to wither.

Steve moves the convertible up to a hundred and it’s rocking a little. The sun is glinting off the hood and the tires are whining: I hope no one is standing in the road. All seats are taken.

High noon and we ran out of Sleepy LaBeef. Then we got Steve.

“Now the reason I’m here is my wife. Finding out your gal can work a dick better than Tom Mix could work a lariat is all right, but the bad news on a thing like that is finding out the dick she works best don’t belong to you. Wrong cow pony, you know. It can deflate a man’s ego.”

“What about you?” Grace said.

“Oh yeah,” Steve said, not catching her tone. “Especially when all I ever got was the old in-and-out and are-you-finished-yet.”

“Imagine that,” Grace said.

“Worse than that, her man was none other than Fred Trual, and that goddamn got me, I’ll tell you. He’s a real baboon’s ass, all the personality of a snot rag and as loyal as a paid-for date. He also stole my song ‘My Baby Done Done Me Wrong,’ and that was enough for me to swear I’d kill him.

“How in hell do you figure a woman. This Fred is not only ugly, but he’s been in the pen and rumor has it he poisoned his old maiden aunt for what she was gonna leave him, and he knew that wasn’t nothing but five hundred dollars. I mean we’re talking a greedy sonofabitch here. He even eats until he gets sick. I’ve known him since grade school. Wasn’t worth a damn then either. But the gals always went for him. Must have had some kind of smell that got to them. Had to be that. He wasn’t pretty and he wasn’t smart and he wasn’t nice. He and Tina Sue even stole my car.”