Percival Everett - Big Picture - Stories

Laney was a couple of yards ahead of him and she muttered, “Fuck you, you lame-ass rodeo has-been.”

“What was that?”

“I said, ‘fuck you.’” She stopped and turned to him, looking at his narrow face.

“And what else?”

“I think ‘fuck you’ about says it all.”

“You know, I didn’t have to come with you.”

She laughed and again with her back to him said, “I didn’t ask you to come. I told you to stay. I didn’t ask you to walk to town with me either. You can go back now if you want.” In her pocket she fumbled with the string she had used to measure the pump belt.

Mitch caught up with her, matched stride with her.

She looked over at him. He wasn’t a bad-looking idiot, but an idiot nonetheless and it was laughable that he considered himself to be tagging along as protection. She wasn’t sure why she had first gone out with him, much less why she had agreed to let him come along now while she bailed out her good-for-nothing brother.

“Laney, I’m sorry. Okay?”

“Sorry for what?”

Mitch looked down at his sneakers hitting the highway. “I don’t know, but I am. I don’t want to fight, that’s all. I’m really tired of the fighting.”

“Then take your stupid ass back to the truck and wait there.”

“Why do you talk like that?”

“I’m not talking like anything. Why do you hear like that?”

“Like a damn sailor.”

“Fuck you.”

“See,” Mitch said.

She glanced at him quickly, then looked back at the highway. He was too tall and too skinny and his hair was retreating, showing more of his face, a face not aging well. His mustache at least worked as cover. She took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said, “no more fighting.”

Mitch nodded. He looked behind them. “You’d think one car would go by.” He kicked his heels as he walked. “Your brother has a drinking problem.”

“He’s a low-life scum. Of course he has a drinking problem. But he’s my brother.” She sighed and rolled her head to loosen her neck. “Whatever the hell that means.”

“Can’t choose your family,” Mitch said.

“That’s true up to a point,” she said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Figure it out.”

The sun was on full and Laney was sweating. The dry air was stealing away the moisture and any possibility of coolness. She was thirsty. “I wish I’d brought a canteen.”

“Yeah, me too,” Mitch said, then, “I mean, I wish I’d brought one, too.”

“Christ, Mitch, calm down.” Laney couldn’t believe she had ever let this guy touch her. It wouldn’t happen again, she assured herself.

The service station was one of those no-name kind with a gravel yard. The pumps were old and dusty. It was still several miles to the town, so Laney hoped it would have the belt she needed.

No one came out as they approached the station and there was no one in the office. Laney parked her face over the water fountain and let the stream wash her forehead. The water was barely cool, but it felt good. She drank slowly, then stepped away to allow Mitch a turn. She called out, “Hello!”

Mitch stood, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Nobody home?”

Laney observed the belts on the far wall, narrow loops of black wrapped midlength with paper and hung on hooks. She pulled the circle of string from her pocket. “At least I can find out if they have what I need.”

Mitch stepped through the open door into the garage.

Laney pulled down a couple of belts and compared them to the loop of string. One was close enough that she believed it would work. She called to Mitch.

“What?” He stepped back into the office. “Find it?”

“I think so.”

“Good.”

“You didn’t find the attendant? Did you check the rest room?”

“No rest room,” Mitch said.

“There’s got to be one.” Laney looked at the belt in her hand. “This thing doesn’t have a price on it.”

“Can’t be more than ten bucks.”

Laney frowned at Mitch. “Well, I’m not leaving ten bucks if the damn thing only costs three ninety-five. Did you look around back?”

“Yeah, I checked during an out-of-body experience,” Mitch said.

“You don’t have to be a snot.”

Laney led the way out and around the broken-down building, pausing to look across the desert in the direction of town. Behind the station was a door marked “Wash.” Laney knocked and fell back a step.

“Go on inside,” she said to Mitch.

Mitch looked at her.

“In case he’s in the middle of something.”

“I don’t want to see him if he is,” Mitch said.

“Go on. Don’t be a baby.”

Mitch opened the door, leaned inside a bit, and came back. “Oh, fuck,” he said.

“What is it?” Laney moved forward to the doorway and saw the red-covered floor. “God. Is that blood?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure.” Mitch turned away and let the door close.

Laney looked all around, feeling dizzy, her heart racing. She studied two derelict cars some yards away in the sage. Mitch was looking around, too.

“It’s a gas station rest room,” he said. “The blood doesn’t mean a thing.”

Laney and Mitch went back to the front of the station and into the office. A lizard on the counter startled Laney. It was then that she noticed the blood on the floor behind the desk.

“Mitch, look here.”

Mitch did and shook his head. “This is bad. We’d better call the cops.”

Laney reached for the phone and listened for a tone. She looked at Mitch and shook her head. She watched Mitch run out across the yard, past the pumps to the phone booth. He held the receiver and severed cord in the air for Laney to see before throwing it to the ground.

Laney felt exposed. Mitch walked back to her.

“What do you think?” he asked.

Laney looked at the pump belt still clutched in her fist. “We can go back and get the truck, then drive to town for the police or we can just walk to town from here. Same amount of time. Probably take longer to go to the truck and put this thing on.”

Mitch looked at the road. “I’m not sure about walking out there either way, you know?”

“It’s one or the other, Mitch. We can’t just stay here.”

“Shit.”

Laney went to the fountain and drank more water. “I say we go back to the truck.”

“Why?”

She shrugged and thought for a while, looking at the road. “No cars passed us either way. So they must have gone in the direction of town.”

Mitch nodded. “Yeah, that sounds right. Okay, let’s get going then.”

Laney drank more water, drank until she was full. She licked her lips and said, “I suggest you drink some more, too.”

Mitch did.

They started walking back in the direction of Laney’s truck. Laney became aware again of the belt in her hand. She considered hiding it under her shirt. If there were a crook or killer and he drove by and saw it, he’d know she’d been to the station. She was also troubled by the fact that technically the belt was stolen. What if the police found them and decided they had something to do with whatever the hell had happened at the station? She carried the belt close to her side and away from the road. The rubber was slimy against her sweating palm.

A big brown Oldsmobile came toward them on its way to town. Laney waved for the car to stop, but the elderly couple tightened visibly, swerved to the other lane, and kept going at an increased clip. The idea of being blamed for some crime seemed less farfetched as she imagined the old couple finding the blood in the wash room. She walked faster.

“I don’t like this,” Mitch said, sounding close to tears.

Laney decided she hated Mitch and she hated herself for being with him, for allowing him to be with her. So, he had ridden a bull. Big deal. Besides, he had been thrown before the gate was fully open. Trying not to think about the present situation, though, she spoke to him, “Mitch, what do you want to do with your life?”