Edward Lee: The Minotauress

Dicky faltered. "Oh, uh, no reason. Just somethin' he said once," he quickly excused.

Now Balls chuckled a bit. "So that's yer job, huh? Warshin' cum-rags from a jack shack?"

"Well, uh... yeah... "

Balls slapped Dicky on the back again. "Great job, Dicky-Boy!"

"Shee-it." Embarrassment drew tight lines in Dicky's corpulent face. "I knows it's a dumb-ass job, Balls, but, see, it's only temporary. You remember Randy Turcot?"

Balls sat down on a bench and struck a Thinker pose. "I know I'se heard the name—oh, yeah! That lowdown scumbag used to drive that shiny black El Camino ‘round'n was always pickin' up the few decent-lookin' chicks in town. Anytime I'd git somethin' goin' with a splittail, he'd come along in that hot rod of his and next thing I knowed, the girl's ass was in the seat next to him. Always hated that cracker. He'n his brother used ta jack deer on my Daddy's land, and I'se swear one time he sugared one'a our tractors. I hadda mind ta kill him, I did... "

Dicky snickered. "Well, some player beat'cha to it 'cos about a year ago he went ta Pulaski to buy dope'n the dealer pig-stuck him in some alley and took his green. Bled out right then'n there."

Balls' eyes beamed, and he hooted. "Well ain't that just grand! Dicky, that's the best news I heard in years! "

Dicky nodded, continuing, "And that shiny black El Camino of his? I bought it off his daddy 'bout six months ago, and been fixin' it up somethin' fierce."

Balls looked astonished. "Shee-it, Dicky, that was the fastest car in the county's what I always heard."

"You heard right, but, see, it throwed a rod ‘fore Turcot got shivved and that fucked the engine'n trannie all up. I done rebuilt the engine with what I make at the jack shack, but the trannie's blowed. Gotta get a new one and, see, I cain't just use any ole trannie, it gots ta be a M-22 Rock Crusher, and that's twelve hunnert bucks. But once I got the bread, I'll be droppin' that trannie in myself'n then I'll be drivin' the fastest car in the county, and that's when I kin git me a real job."

"What the fuck's a fast car got to do with a real job?"

Dicky sat down on the bench, whispering giddily. "Runnin' ‘shine, man. Runnin' ‘shine. Snot McKully'n Clyde Nale got more stills in these parts than anyone, and they'se always hirin' fellas with fast cars to run the hooch ‘cross the state line to all them dry counties in Kentucky. They won't hire ya if ya ain't got the wheels, though, 'cos, see, you gotta have a rod that'll outrun the ATF boys and the state pursuit cars. But with my 427 ‘Mino and a Rock Crusher? I'll blow the doors off anything on the road."

Balls nodded, eating a few more chicken nuggets. "I don't doubt it would, Dicky."

"And McKully's runners make a hunnert cash a day and that's only drivin' one run."

Balls was thinking again... "And with a partner helpin' ya out you could make two runs a day, and split it with yer partner... "

Dicky's expression soured. He could smell shit just as well as anyone. "Just 'cos we growed up together'n all that don't mean nothin'. You want me to cut you into my deal? You gots ta bring something to the table, brother."

Balls put his arm around Dicky. "Way I see it, Dicky-Boy, is you need somethin'—a $1200 transmission—and I need somethin'—a job fer a month—"

"Why just a month?"

"I tolt ya," Balls reasserted. "In about a month, I got this score—a big score—but I don't wanna eat garbage till then."

Dicky hemmed and hawed. "Well, dang, Balls, I don't want to see ya starve but I ain't gonna be able to run no moonshine fer six, eight months at least. Workin' this job?" Dicky pointed to the bloated plastic bags. "That's how long it'll take me to git up them twelve hunnert bucks."

Balls had a very characteristic grin: like a weasel's face morphed into the face of guy who sells "Rolexes" from the inside of a raincoat. "Just you listen, friend. I'se walkin' back to my Daddy's place now but you be sure ta meet me at the Crossroads at midnight tonight, ya hear?"

Dicky looked confused. Had Balls given up working him for a cut of his future moonshine-running job? "The Crossroads? What fer?"

"Fer a coupla beers"—Balls winked—"and fer you ta pick up the twelve hunnert bucks I'm gonna give you ta git that new trannie," and then Balls' boot heels snapped down the pavement as he headed for the side road out of town. He was tossing chicken nuggets from the Wendy's bag into the air and catching them in his mouth as he proceeded.

Well ain't that some shit? Dicky thought. Then he sighed and dragged the big plastic bags into the laundry...

(II)

Now I know how Roquentin felt in Sartre's NAUSEA, the Writer thought. The Greyhound rattled as it soared scarily around the backwoods bends. He'd gotten the seat in the very back—it was his karma—which even the bums didn't want. Used condoms had been stuffed in the window crack, while on the floor lay several used hypodermics.

The Writer had vast experiences on Greyhounds; he needed to travel, to follow the call of his Muse, and this was the cheapest way. Besides, he needed to see. He fancied himself as a seer, and, hence, a seeker.

And what was he seeking?

The verities of the human condition.

It was a very real world—and often a beautiful one—on the other side of those panoramic windows complete with the plaque that read PULL RED HANDLE UP TO ESCAPE.

The bus stank. That was the only part he could never get used to. It was the smell of life, yes, and in a sense the smell of truth— indeed, of verity!— which was what the Writer craved beyond all else. Most people had personal mottos, like: Another Day, Another Dollar, or Today is the First Day of the Rest of My Life, or Every Day I'm Getting Better and Better in Every Way. But the Writer's motto was this:

How Powerful is the Power of Truth?

Not a motto as much as a universal query. It was the fuel for his existence... or the excuse.

The truth of what I write can only exist in its stark, denuded words, he recited to himself. Black ink on white paper... and the million subjectivities in between...

It was all he lived for as an artist, and most would credit him with having a noble goal.

Nevertheless, the bus stank. They all did, of course, but this was the worst. It was a smell he'd tried many times to delineate with words, and the best he could come up with was this: unwashed hair-oil mixed with unwashed armpit mixed with unwashed prostitute's vagina mixed with something vaguely sweet.

It was that sweetness he could never isolate and identify. Candied papaya chunks? Figs? Crystalized ginger?

It was something like that but like wasn't good enough. Not being able to define the smell was one of the Writer's innumerable failures, and though he viewed failure as something more important in his field than success, it was a particular failure that would always infuriate him.

He joggled in the seat as the bus rocked on. A woman of indeterminate race sat next to him, and she must've weighed three hundred pounds. The side of her arm pressing against his possessed the same girth as the Writer's leg. Every seat on the bus was full—naturally. Off and on, he tried to read, either Visual Thinking by Rudolf Arnheim, or The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H. by George Steiner, but whenever he opened either book, the woman—as if prodded by a Pavlovian trigger—pulled out her one-pound bag of pistachios and started eating, quite noisily. Between the eating sounds, the overall not-quite-definable stink, and an encroaching claustrophobia that made him feel like a Girondin Royalist stuffed behind an oubliette during Robespierre's Reign of Terror, the Writer was at his wits' end. He looked at his watch, a Timex Indiglo, and saw that it was 6 p.m.