“I can pay.”
“How much can you pay?”
“Eighty-five, maybe ninety-five.”
He had the hundred and fifty for the exercise bike. Cross the state line into Georgia, head on south for the Florida line. He’d have Slade in the trunk, packed in ice. Ice you down, Slade, take you south.
“Come back in two hours. Bring cash,” Billy said.
“Why not now? Why wait?”
“Read the sign. I can’t let you in here right now.”
Another sign in one window—ex-alcoholic for fifty-three weeks. Last week it had read fifty-two weeks. Billy Hudmon was drinking a Budweiser. He hadn’t gotten around to taking the sign down yet.
“What kind of disaster are we talking about? Hurricane hit you? Tornado?”
“It’s Lou Ann. She’s the disaster.” Danny heard something crash inside. Billy Hudmon pulled out another Budweiser from a cooler without a top to it. He opened it and drank deep. “Lou Ann’s mightily pissed off at me.”
“Then why doesn’t she leave?”
“She thinks I’m the one who’s going to leave. And that I am, for two hours. Soon as I clean this shotgun, I’m going to put this mother in my truck and drive down to my watering hole.”
“You got another gun you could sell me?”
“I have a Colt .45 I can sell you.”
“How much?”
“How much you willing to pay?”
“How big a thirst you got, Billy?”
Case of Jim Beam worth, but Danny didn’t have the money for that. Ninety-nine fifty was the least Billy Hudmon would take.
“You can have it for ninety-nine fifty. You come back I’ll have it for you.”
Danny moved on up the road, toward the plastic pink flamingo in the front yard of their trailer. His brother Ben’s dirt bike was missing. Lorraine was in the bedroom with Slade. She must not have known he was around because he didn’t advertise it anymore, his comings and goings, not with Slade there. Danny’s guitar case was missing. His Penthouse Forums were missing. Where was little Ben, little Ben’s dirt bike? Danny picked up the Yamaha, cheapest guitar you can buy, man. The steel strings resisted his efforts to chord. He laid the guitar on the bunk bed, twanged the E string, out of tune. Through the dusty slats of the venetian blinds, he watched a squirrel make a leap for the bird feeder. Lorraine kept on trying to feed the birds, but the squirrels got most of the action. Danny was out in a flash with his BB pistol, in the heat sifting off the pines. He took aim for the left eye, pumped BB’s into the eyeball. One spattered, jellied squirrel eye for your dinner tonight, big Slade. Here let me put some on your plate.
Danny dropped the dead squirrel in the garbage can. Its good eye stayed in his mind for a little while. The sparrows were back on the feeder. Cardinals and jays would succeed the sparrows. The big boys, grackles and cow birds, would come later, take over for awhile.
Slade’s supersensitive radar had picked up on where the dead squirrel was. Slade paid him a little visit. First thing, Slade picked up the Yamaha and put a boot into the sound box.
“How many times have I told you, you take them squirrels out to the woods?” Slade cuffed him, rattled his jaw. “Your mama she don’t want to see dead squirrels. She don’t want to know about dead squirrels.”
Slade told you how much he hated a goddamned stinking garbage can—bits of slithering fat, spoiled meat, dead putrefying tomcats. The BB pistol was no longer yours. From now on Slade would take care of the squirrels. In two more hours, in two days tops, Slade would be ancient history.
Danny took the squirrel to the woods in a Kmart bag. He followed a path that led to the creek where his father would take him when he was five. They were living in a house then, on the other side of the woods. His father would sit down with him. His father would play the harmonica awhile. They’d sit on one of the rotting logs and look down at the creek awhile. There was a log bridge and they would sit on it, let their feet hang towards the water. His father would play the harmonica, one song, “The Streets of Laredo.” That was the song his father liked most. Danny wanted to learn the song on the guitar, but now he didn’t have a guitar. He had learned it on the harmonica.
The weight of the squirrel, a dead thing now, made him consider dropping it anywhere. But he thought if he dropped it in the creek it would foul the creek for others. That way they would be kept away. He wished his father had been put in the creek. He would have liked to have had his father cremated. He’d have taken the ashes to the creek, in the helmet his father wore on the line trucks. The bright yellow helmet would be in the garage, with his father’s power tools, shotguns, and fishing rods. You ever get hold of a hot line, Danny, you will be blown to kingdom come. Slade had gotten rid of the helmet.
Little Ben was already there. Dirt bikes lay on their sides like some sort of parody of languor. Little Ben sat on the log bridge. His pants were around his ankles. Little Ben’s little friends were jerking off. Penthouse Forums were still in the guitar case. Jerk-offs! Danny was swinging the squirrel. He heaved the squirrel after the dirt bikes. He groped for the C harmonica. It was buried under a crumbling log, lichened, almost a part of the soil. Light slanted through the tall pines; bright pennies peppered the creek. He had to open his knife and pry loose the dirt that had collected inside the mouth holes. He held it, the harmonica, put it slowly to his mouth. In and out, blow notes and draw notes, bending the draw notes, good sound. He imagined he was his father. His father was playing for him. He was playing “The Streets of Laredo,” a certain young cowboy I happened to see.
Uncle Walton hadn’t finished repairing the car, but Billy Hudmon had a gun for him. disaster area had been replaced with a sign that said a man’s home is his castle.
Colt .45 automatic—you can have it for ninety-nine fifty. The door to the trailer was open once he counted out the money. The welcome mat draped on the concrete block welcomed Danny, a paying guest. Inside, Lou Ann was sprawled on the couch. Billy opened a Budweiser before he showed him the gun.
“This piece weighs a ton when you fire it.”
There was another path from Billy’s trailer, through the woods to the creek. Danny wasn’t willing to go that far and Billy Hudmon wasn’t able to. Billy Hudmon handed Danny a clip and showed him how to load the clip. With the heel of his left hand, he shot the bolt, flicked the safety off with the flange of his thumb.
He put the beer bottle in the fork of a tree. Danny gripped the .45 with a two-handed grip. He put pressure on the trigger, but the trigger wouldn’t give. He had to use both forefingers to pull the trigger. The kick knocked his hands up, deafening.
“Let me show you how it’s done.”
Beer breath, Billy’s sweat in his face, Billy stepping around behind you, leaning around you to grip your left hand, goat beard scratching the back of your neck, but you could take that, his body, the smell of him, his hands cupping yours like a slimy toad. “You got to keep putting on pressure slow. Keep your elbows locked. Let the recoil bring the weapon back.”
Bark spattered off the fork of the tree.
Billy
