Barry Hannah - Geronimo Rex

“Yes. Go ahead.”

“Well, the police were hidden around Harley’s house. They saw Lock in the driveway with the bomb in a shoebox and yelled for him to stop. He ran back to his car and got a submachine gun and let go at them. When he got in the car the police riddled it and he drove into a ditch a block away. Lock ran in back of a house and two of them got him with shotguns. Catherine was dead in the car. You hear me?”

No use faking it. I don’t know what I said. ‘They are dead. Dead . They can’t be, but they are. I can’t stand to have known so much about them. But, listen, we know about them. I threw up when I read it”

“What do you mean? Are you going to the funeral?” I asked him.

“The funeral was yesterday. Of course I didn’t go. The leading mourner of the funeral is here. This is why I’m calling. He parked his car across the street late yesterday afternoon. Maybe he came right from the funeral. He stayed there all night. He got out of the car this morning and walked over to our sidewalk. His face is torn like he’d been gouging his face all night. He has his big hat kneaded to a pulp. He just stood out there and breathed at the house. Then he went back to his car, and when he opened the door I saw a shotgun lying on the seat. He sat down on the seat with his feet in the road, hanging his head, but he also has a pistol with him now.”

“Call the cops,” I urged him.

“I can’t I would have to stand for too much. This neighborhood is deserted. Two houses don’t even have anybody living in them any more. The woman across the street has gone to Florida. Titpea is a ghost town. Delph and the other boarder have gone. Mother Rooney and I are the only two around. I’m scared, Monroe. I’ve got the pistol loaded but I don’t want to use it But I’m afraid if he comes in here with a pistol I’ll kill him. Mother Rooney, I’ve got her practically a prisoner. I can’t let her out of the house, can’t let her call the police.”

“ Use the phone, damn it. Call Silas.”

“He isn’t in town. He and Bet are separated and I’ve had a date with Bet”

“Call your daddy.”

“I’m calling you . Thirty minutes ago he came over and stood right in front of the porch here with that pistol in his hand calling for you , Harry. You never told him you were leaving town, did you?”

“Would you have?”

“I want you to get on a plane and fly down here. I need you. Please.”

“I’m broke.”

“You lousy goddam liar! You aren’t either broke. You told me you had a wad enough to live on for a year at that lousy goddam wedding / had to drive down for, and bought a new suit! You better be here….” I didn’t reply. “All right. I’m sick of hanging around watching him out the window. He’s out there to stay, I know that. I’m going out the front door with my damn never-miss pistol…”

“I’ll try toflydown.” Then he hung up.

I drove over to Lariat’s house. I knew he was packing up to travel to Yucatan. He was in. I asked him if I could have the snooker money he owed me, or at least the price of a plane ticket to Jackson. I didn’t know exactly what that would be. The last plane I’d been on was that one to New York back in high school. And what I needed was a jet.

“Are you in trouble? Has somebody died?”

“Yes. Catherine. That girl I … Whitfield Peter’s niece. The police shot her trying to—” and I told him the essentials.

“You’re simply pressing me for money, aren’t you?” Then the crisp smile fell down. He scoured me. How was I supposed to look so as to convince him? We got in Lariat’s Mercury after I called the airport. They had a plane leaving in an hour for Fort Smith. At Fort Smith I could catch a Braniff jet that went to Jackson with one stop at Little Rock. Lariat cashed a large check at the Palace drugstore, and we rushed back to his house; I had forty-five minutes. Lariat gave me a hundred. But as I was getting in my car, my eyes lit on Dr. Lariat’s back — the collar above his brown suit, especially, and the combed and parted gray hair. He had, I don’t know, the appearance of what? My only possible companion in trouble at the time.

“Gregory,” I said. “I would like very much for you to come with me. I need a wise man to go with me.”

“Oh Lord. Do I look that old? I guess I do. Go with you, on the plane ? And get shot?”

“No, no. I’ll get the cab to let us off at the fairgrounds. We’ll go up the back way. Then we’ll simply use the telephone.”

“What the hell would I do?”

“Just be there. You would lend dignity.”

“Christ Jesus. Am I that old? Wait a minute.” He went back to his bedroom. I heard the coat hangers raking around. He was gone five minutes.

“Let’s go,” he said.

“What’s that?” I was stunned. Lariat was wearing a snap-brim cap, a green sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off, and Big Mac blue jeans — the baggy, manual-labor sort. I’d never even seen him with his tie off, not even at snooker.

“We’re going to Mississippi, aren’t we?”

“Yeah. But we’re not going to a dog-kicking contest, damn it” His arms were so pale. He was completely ruined by this outfit. “Listen. You have to put the suit back on. I liked the suit.” He slung the cap off and cursed going back to his room. But he returned in the suit and tie, looking impatient; locked the front door; sat in the T-bird.

“Thank you,” I said.

He stood just inside the door of my house with his eyes fastened to Prissy, his smile rising and falling as I explained to her that my friend Fleece had a mental problem which I must see to. I gave her thirty dollars, Lariat coming up to make change for the twenty-dollar bill.

On the plane down to Fort Smith we sat silently. The Braniff jet was already docked at Fort Smith, and we had to hurry aboard. It had been such a race to this jet, my mind had been doing little at all. But when I sat down in it, my mind caught up with my eyes, and I was sure I was sealed up in a cartoon farce which was bound to explode with me inside it. The inside of the plane seemed to have been arranged by an interior-decorator wild about pastels and the Astro-Mod motif and I had an idea that the same man had designed the plane itself. There was a row of two seats across on one side and a row of three seats across on the other side. A fool would know that this arrangement, though novel and Mod, would make the plane dip sorely to one side, especially with a lot of people sitting in the three-seat side. Another concern was that there was almost nobody in the plane except Lariat and me. The two stewardesses were two just-too-beautiful blondes, in high leather boots figured like the crazy pastel seats. The wings of the plane were black and stubby; the body was gold; the tail was even another color. That we were in the air at all seemed a paradox of high cartoon fun. I had grown sick thinking of this veering craft when the pilot opened the address speaker and gave us his one message: “Ladies and Gentleman, we are twenty thousand feet in the air and we are making six hundred and twenty land miles per hour.” He had the voice of a Texas disc jockey, a real hot-rodding yokel.

“What’s wrong with you?” asked Lariat.

I made my way to the restroom. It was a nicer place, duller, steadier. If I could stay in here, I could trust that I would not fly apart in a wreck of hot pinks, greens, and oranges, holding the boots of those blondes. I would not hail out with this thing like a roman candle. I saw myself in the mirror. You ! I thought, shocked. Always you ! You tick. The plane sat down in the air after making a rise. It sounded like every gear on board had fouled up. What did it matter?