Robert Coover - The Brunist Day of Wrath

They nod knowingly and Littleface says he tried to get into the airbornes but he flunked the physical. Just as well because there was a sergeant there who kept calling him Porky because of his hairiness and he knew he’d end up wanting to shoot that sonuvabitch more than the enemy. Cubano says he might like to fight to get his own country back some day, but he’d have to do it alone because he can’t stand taking orders from anybody. Even his compañero, Houndawg — El Profesor — sometimes gets under his skin. Juice volunteers himself and the rest of the Warrior Apostles to help Cubano out if he decides to have a try, hoping some people there speak Christian English and not that weird spic noise that Cubano lets fly when he’s cussing his bike out.

“So, hey, good lookin’, whadja think?”

“It scared me a little. Especially those lines about back o’ the bus gropes, rhyming with showing young boys the ropes and chasing lost hopes.”

“Them was your lines, Patti Jo.”

“I know, but like something left behind was suddenly real again and me right in it. But it helped to be singing it. Made it seem like it mighta happened to somebody else. And in a way it did. That me’s not me anymore.”

“I’m workin’ on a coupla others. Hope y’don’t mind.”

“Like what?”

“Well, like ‘Trailer Camp Blues,’ fer one. What y’tole me bout bein’ a stake in a poker game. And losin’ your name.”

“Well, I’m never one to stand in the way of genius, Duke. But I like it when you sing them to me in bed first, like with this back-of-the-bus one. It softens them up a little.”

“Softenin’ you up is my A-number-one priority, little darlin’. Nigh time fer another set. We got us a handsome multitude here tonight. The beers’re flowin’ and everbody’s feelin’ juicy and singin’ to ’em is halfway like fun!”

“I suppose after the beers those two kids bought us we owe them that dead mommies thing, but honestly, if I have to sing it or hear it one more time, I’ll throw up.”

“No, I’ll do ‘Love Me Tender’ and lean right over ’em with it and send ’em runnin’ fer the nearest matteress holdin’ on to theirselves. But right now, I reckon it’s more like time t’rare back’n let fly some honky tonk’n a yodel or two. Unload a swot a whoopee. Sing ’em all, around the horn. Y’notice the fireplug over to the bar, by the way?”

“Fireplug?”

“Yeah, short and squat and hard t’pitch to parked on the far stool.”

“Oh, you mean that Apache fellow. The one who turned up this week at the camp. He knew Marcella. He was there.”

“Yeah. Wonder what he’s doin’ here, off from the camp, suckin’ up the hard likker like that. That’s some a them rough biker boys he’s with. Looks as how he’s one of ’em, don’t it?”

“Might be. But he was sure paying a lot of attention when you were singing ‘Take These Chains from My Heart.’ Could be he’s got romancing troubles. He’s wearing a pierced heart tattoo with Clara’s kid’s name on it, but she didn’t appear exactly over the moon to see him. Seems like little Elaine has turned a tad peculiar. They tell me she’s got a whupping fancy. He probably wasn’t ready for that and looks pretty cheesed out. In the next set, let’s do ‘Young Love’ and see what happens.”

“Give him a desprit case a the roarin’ hurtin’ wanta-git-laid long-gone lonesomes, y’mean.”

“Maybe. You never know what a song might set off, though. I knew a guy once, this was out in Tucson, as I recollect, or somewhere in the desert thereabouts. A guy who told me he used to ride his own thumb around the country until some rich dude gave him his pickup truck camper for free.”

“Ain’t nobody gives his truck away free.”

“I know. This guy was kinda scary and had very strong hands. He had the borrow of me for the night and we were having an oiling-up drink in this highway bar with old dollar bills nailed up on the walls, when somebody played ‘Long Black Veil’ on the jukebox. You know, ‘Ten years ago, on a cold dark night, someone was killed, ‘neath the town hall light…’? Well, he got up slowly and walked over there and pulled out a gun and shot that jukebox three times. Then he told everybody to get down on their knees and start praying for theirselves because they were all sinners with murder in their hearts who deserved to die and also to pray for that poor man in the song who was unjustly hung — just like Jesus Christ, he said — and he fired off another shot to make sure everybody was paying attention. So down they went and while they were all fallen on the floor like that, he grabbed me and dragged me out of there and back to his camp, hooting and whacking the steering wheel all the way, and he threw me down and done me every way he could think of. I was working too hard to be scared, but when it was over, he began bawling like a baby, and that’s when I really started to panic and realized I was more religious than I thought I was, and that I totally believed in God and Jesus and the Virgin Mary and all the rest of it and just hoped they all had their eye on this poor little sparrow.”

“Well, hah, somebody musta done cuz here you am.”

“Yup. But one of the poor cops bought it who came to arrest him.”

“That’s some story, Patti Jo. Ifn we do sing that ‘Young Love’ song, I sure hope that injun feller ain’t got a pistol, cuz I’d be his damn jukebox, wouldn’t I? Oh. There’s that guy Georgie, jist comin’ through the door. The one who said Marcella Bruno useta be his sweetheart.”

“Georgie…? Georgie Lucci maybe? It’s been decades, and that ape’s badly beat up. Looks like he’s wearing his elbow on backwards, but it could be him. First guy who ever felt me up. In the church on the back stairs down to the basement. Don’t know what I was doing there. Waiting for somebody to feel me up, maybe. I was just a kid then, eleven or something. I don’t think I’d even got my period yet. He was older, already in high school or near to it, but still, basically, just a bad case of acne in pants. If it’s him, he’s a dumbass loudmouth clown. A total jerk. Marcella would not have let him get within a mile of her. Who’s his pal?”

“I dunno. But he looks like one a them jugheads who was tanked up and givin’ everbody a hard time out to the hill a coupla weeks ago.”

“The one who kept standing up and falling down. Problem tonight is they look too sober. I doubt they got two dimes between them.”

Two dimes maybe, not much more. Stevie’s making good money, but he hasn’t learned to count yet and he’s got holes in both pockets. It has been Georgie’s task to follow him around and catch it as it dribbles out and help him spend it in a more useful manner. But there’s nothing more in there tonight. After the mayoral yuks, Georgie got compensatory hazardous duty pay for his visit to Lem’s Garage, but that’s also long gone. He winks hopefully at his scruffy potbellied ex-neighbor behind the bar, but the asshole doesn’t wink back. Just glares. Probably Georgie walked out of here one night forgetting to pay. An honest mistake, shouldn’t be held against him. There are some bikers perched there in black leather and ear studs, looking wired and vaguely dangerous, a dark-skinned greaseball among them, hair slicked back in a duck’s ass. Also a very hairy punk who looks like an overgrown dwarf. If you got the money, honey, I got the time, those two rubes up at the mike are singing as though rubbing it in. It’s party night at the Blue Moon Motel. First time Georgie has seen it as alive as this — they even have bouncers on the door now — and though he lacks the wherewithal to throw himself into it, it cheers him up, suggesting to him that, if they can bring this shabby wreck to life, the resurrection of the body is not an impossible crock after all.