David Ohle - The Devil in Kansas

The door bursts open. Moe staggers in, visor down, voice muffled inside the helmet. “No sawing, okay? I’m fucking wasted from ridin’ all day. I gotta go puke, then I gotta crash.” Joe keeps playing, eyes shut, as Moe stumbles toward the door, then turns back. “Hey, Sherry girl. You stink. You been fuckin’ that postman?”

“Who pays the rent, asshole? I got a built-in money maker. Why not use it?”

“You fuckin’ stupid cunt!” He dropkicks Joe’s saw into the air, cutting Sherry’s arm. The handkerchief drops from Joe’s mouth. He looks at Moe and cowers. Moe staggers out and slams the door so hard the praying Jesus falls, bounces off the TV and hits Joe in the head, drawing blood. Sherry holds her hand over his mouth to stifle any outcry. “Please, please. Let that little prick go to sleep.” She picks up the saw and bow, returns them to the bag. “Honey, we gotta go. Right now.”

“Where?”

“Maybe Austin. I got a couple of friends down there.”

“What about all my stuff? My books?”

“Sorry, we gotta travel light. Fill up your backpack and take your saw. I’ll meet you on the porch in fifteen minutes. Okay?”

“Yeah, okay.” He begins packing.

Sherry searches inside the garage, finds a can of paint thinner, returns to the bungalow, enters her bedroom. Moe sleeps on the waterbed in riding gear and helmet. She sets the paint thinner on the dresser, packs a few necessities into a backpack, then backs out of the room sloshing thinner behind her. In the hallway she lights a match and holds it near the door’s threshold. The bedroom erupts in flame.

Moe awakens moments later under a dome of fire. He bounds through the conflagration and out the back door. Parts of his riding gear are aflame, his helmet is partially melted, but they’ve protected him from serious burns. He hits the ground rolling and snuffs the flames. By the time he gains his composure, the bungalow is ablaze. He runs to the front door. “Sherry! You in there? Sherry!” He runs around the side. When he passes the garage, he notices the door swung open. He stops, removes the helmet. Now he sees Sherry and Joe running in the distance. He puts his hands on his hips, looks at the fire, looks at Sherry and Joe running, kicks the dust. “You’re history, bitch.”

A casket factory at dusk. An eighteen-wheel rig backs up to the loading dock. Lettering on its door says ‘Overland Trucking — Denver, Colorado.’ Kenny, projecting a manly sort of sexual ambiguity with his silver earring, facial piercings, tight Wranglers and silver-tipped western boots, steps out of the cab and watches as a worker in a small fork-lift loads caskets into the rig’s trailer. The lettering on Kenny’s black bill cap says Bring it On. When a dozen caskets have been loaded, he signs a manifest and drives off.

A while later he pulls over on a stretch of desolate highway near a shabby school bus parked on the shoulder. A chubby man gets off the bus in a silk suit, Panama hat and white silk tie. He and Kenny shake hands and exchange small talk as twelve Mexican illegals file out of the bus. They carry various satchels and sacks, nylon bags full of fruit, bottles of water, toilet paper. Several of them carry empty five gallon plastic buckets. Kenny says, “Ten, twelve is all I can take this time. I’m haulin’ caskets back there.”

“Okay, man. Twelve. Leave ‘em off at the Breadbasket Café, Ulysses, Kansas. They know what to do.”

“Okay, the Breadbasket.”

The man places a stack of bills into Kenny’s open palm. “Three hundred a head. You okay with that?”

“Yeah, it’s a short trip.”

Moe wanders in shock. He removes the damaged helmet, showing his mullet haircut and angry, dumb, mean face for the first time. He has a pronounced horizontal scar on his chin. He watches the burning bungalow for a moment, then heads for his truck. He jumps in, but the engine won’t start. He cranks it over and over.

Kenny, back on the road, drives his rig along U.S. 160. A fire in the distance convinces him to drive out into a roadside picnic area whose only facilities are a battered picnic table and a half-dead tree. Pieces of toilet paper, fast food wrappers, and tumbleweed blow in the rig’s headlights. He hops out and watches the bungalow burn. Sherry and Joe materialize from the darkness, running and waving. Joe drools, the front of his shirt wet with saliva.

Sherry is breathless. “We need a ride. You going east?”

“Yeah.”

She gives Joe a fresh handkerchief from her fanny pack, which is well stocked with them. “Here, Joe. Soak that up.” She doesn’t want Kenny to get the wrong idea. “He over-salivates when he gets excited.” Joe tucks the end of the handkerchief into his mouth. The rest dangles.

Kenny asks, “That’s your house burning back there?”

Sherry nods, sheds a tear.

“I got a radio in the truck. You want me to call the fire department?”

“Too late for that.”

“Insurance company?”

“It was a rental, month-to-month.”

“Name’s Kenny.”

“Sherry. This here’s my son, Joe.”

“Nice to meet you, Sherry.”

They get into the cab. Kenny slides into first gear, the rig pulls onto the highway. Joe tucks the other, dry, end of his handkerchief into his mouth. Sherry tucks it further in. “Sweetie Pie, go play your instrument. Show Kenny how good you are.”

Joe climbs into the sleeper compartment and plays the saw.

“Where you two going?”

“South from Wichita. To Austin. You going through Wichita?”

“Yeah. Prob’ly.” Kenny is transfixed by Joe’s saw-playing mastery. “Jesus, I didn’t know a saw could do that.”

Sherry strokes Joe’s head. “He’s a genius. We’ll do okay in Austin. My confidence level is sky-high. I’m gonna be his manager….” She has a sip of schnapps. “Nice truck. What’re you hauling?”

“Coffins.”

“Coffins?”

Joe stops playing and looks anxiously toward the back of the rig.

Kenny says, “They’re empty, don’t worry.”

Sherry pops a stick of gum into her mouth.

Kenny turns on the radio, tries to dial in a station, but gets only static or stations too weak to hear.

Joe says, “Marconi.”

Kenny says, “Huh?”

“Guglielmo Marconi. Invented the wireless telegraph.”

“I thought that was Samuel Morse? The Morse code.”

“Morse’s telegraph needed wires. Marconi’s didn’t. It was known as radio. He died in nineteen thirty-seven, right after he discovered how to turn seawater into gold. Too bad he died with the secret.”

Sherry says, “I don’t know where he learns all this stuff. He got straight F’s at school. Till he quit going. He thinks he’s too smart for school.”

Joe waxes his bow. “I got abducted. That’s why I quit. They took me somewhere. It seemed like forever, but it all happened in about three seconds.”

Sherry reaches back and gently places her hand over Joe’s mouth. “Joey, don’t get into all that. You know it didn’t happen. Kenny’ll think you’re crazy.”

But Kenny wants to hear more. “You got abducted by aliens? What kind of aliens? Where were they from?”

“I don’t remember. It’s foggy in my mind.” He goes back to playing the saw.

Sherry pops another stick of gum. “He watches the Sci-Fi Channel twenty hours a day.” She holds out the pint of schnapps. “You want some, Kenny?”

“Nah. Never drink when I drive.”

She produces a joint. “Wanna smoke a doobie?”

“I don’t smoke either. But go ahead.”

Sherry lights up and has a drag. “Who owns the truck, you?”

“A bank in Denver. I’m up to my ass in hock.”

Sherry passes the joint to Joe. He spits out the handkerchief and takes a deep hit.