“Don’t say anything, son. Like I said, you earned it. Use as best you see fit.” Sturm glanced back at Frank. “I know you got yourself some pressing personal problems, and I understand if you have to keep moving. But here’s the thing. Our vet took off last winter. If you want it, there’s a position available here, for as long as you want. I could use a man like you. Got some plans for them animals. We’re gonna have some fun. This, this here,” Sturm gestured at the tables, the stands, the carnival. “This is just the beginning.”
Frank sat back, feeling something close to warmth in his chest as he watched the women cleaning up all the food, the knots of men, smoking and drinking, the children running about in the dark with flashlights and glowsticks. He felt strangely affectionate toward all of them, as if they were all animals in his care and they needed his guidance, his skills, his love. He was surprised to find himself smiling.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’d like that.”
Sturm clapped him on the back and said, “First thing in the morning, we’re gonna have to get you some decent working clothes.” They both laughed, and sat for a while, sipping from their beers, watching the people, and enjoying the slight cool breeze that had come up.
* * * * *
Sturm saw Petunia first. “Hell’s that damn dog doing here?” he muttered, crumpling his tenth or eleventh beer. Frank glanced over, saw the dog nimbly hop up onto the top of one of the picnic tables and help herself to the leftovers. The three people still at the table suddenly found some urgent business somewhere else.
The Gloucks followed Petunia.
They came out of the darkness, a ragged, seething group of boys, ebbing and flowing around the two mothers in a surging amoeba of bodyguards. The two women, the two mothers, Edie and Alice, walking purposeful and unhurried, headed straight for Sturm, chins up, like the proud, sticklike birds with dagger beaks that strutted through the flooded rice fields. Folks got out of their way.
Two girls, holding hands, trailed the group. One was seven years old, the same little girl that had hollered at the two deputies from the dead tree several days earlier.
The other was nineteen. Her name was Annie.
Frank saw her immediately. She wasn’t plump exactly, just filled out; lots of curves in all the right places and she moved like a racehorse, smooth, graceful, strong.
The boys spread out in feral, scuttling movements, spilling around Frank and Sturm and fading back toward the tables. They wore long baggy shorts, oversize basketball tank tops, hats turned sideways. They’d been watching too much MTV off that gigantic satellite and were doing their damndest to look like wannabe hip hop thugs that carried nine millimeters of handgun next to their dicks. But instead of nine millimeters, these kids were packing air pistols and BB guns and slingshots.
Alice extended a flat dish that steamed in the cool air, a gift for the potluck. She stopped just short of giving it to Sturm as Edie shouted back at the boys, “Git that dog off that fucking table. We’re guests, goddamnit.” She gave them a meaningful look. “There will be no ruckus here tonight.”
The boys nodded. Annie smiled, gave her sister’s hand a squeeze.
The mothers turned back to Sturm, still pissed at their boys but at the same time, deferential and respectful to Sturm, ignoring Frank. The food was a thin, burnt husk of something. It smelled of BBQ sauce, onions and garlic, maybe some Tabasco, and something else, some kind of meat, something different underneath.
“Well, thank—” Sturm started.
“We’ll need that dish back,” Edie said. Her left eye seemed glaringly fake, a ping pong ball or something, some kind of cheap movie monster from the ‘50s, staring at the stars somewhere over Frank’s head. She fixed her good eye on Sturm, moving her head as if on a thousand ball bearings, utterly smooth, like a rattlesnake on opium.
Alice leaned in, smiling, and bumped Sturm’s chest with the potluck dish. Sturm tried to talk, to take the dish, anything, but couldn’t manage anything but licking the inside of his lips. “Uh, well…”
Frank stepped in, very smooth, very diplomatic, and took the dish.
Sturm finally managed, “Thank you,” and stiffly held up his hand, shook Alice’s hand. The mothers were very pleased. They all stood around grinning at each other as if they’d been friends for years. Finally, Sturm couldn’t take it anymore and gestured at the tables. “Please, please, make yourselves welcome. Eat.”
The boys hit the tables like crabs going after a dead whale. “Thank you very, very much.” Alice took Sturm’s hands with both of hers. She bowed her head and the mothers descended upon the tables, a couple of egrets joining the crabs.
Frank wasn’t sure if the dish in his hands was supposed to be meat, pasta, or vegetable. It smelled scarily of fish. He put the dish on the table in the center of the half circle of tables, between a carrot cake and cookie sheets heaped with blackened chicken. The mothers watched him.
Edie coughed.
“Hell, son,” Sturm said. “Don’t be shy. Go on ahead. Try some.” He tapped his skull and gave a sad smile. “I would, but…afraid the doc’s got me on a restricted diet. Smells delicious, though.”
Frank reluctantly tried to scoop out a little piece, but snapped the plastic fork instead. He took a nearby spatula and had a hell of a time cutting himself out a few bites. He dumped a few crumbs on a paper plate, got a new plastic fork, and scraped a little into his mouth and just as he realized it was the worst thing he’d ever tasted, he heard Annie’s voice from somewhere close. “You like it?”
The bite from the potluck dish tasted like a deep fried turd. Frank tried to swallow, turned, tears burning his eyes, his gag reflex threatening to explode.
Through the stinging tears, he got a closer look at Annie. She wore cutoffs; white, dangling threads accentuated her strong, tan legs. Her flip-flops were nothing more than flat strips of rubber that used to be neon orange, smudged with grime. Silver toe rings glittered. One of them bore a grinning skull. The bottom of her feet were black, darker than dirt. The white halter top had risen, revealing a sliver of a round brown belly. Heavy, full breasts strained the fabric; the raised buds of nipples were clearly visible in the night air. She had straight black hair that hung just past her earlobes and a round face made for smiling.
Frank swallowed the bite of potluck without tasting it anymore and nodded dumbly, head itching maddeningly under his long hair, suddenly hyper-aware of his surroundings, of everyone around him, as if a brilliant spotlight had focused on his lanky frame, and he was the center of attention, stared at by the mothers, Sturm, the clowns, even the quiet gentlemen somewhere deep in the shadows. “S’good,” he said, but couldn’t quite suppress the coughed gag that escaped from his mouth.
Annie’s smile just grew wider. The dimples grew deeper. “You want to go on a ride with me?”
The creek bed and scrub beyond exploded in light and for the briefest moment, Frank wondered if he had died. But it was just the massive klieg lights that had powered on with an impact that made everyone jump in mid-conversation. The smart ones were expecting it, and already had their shooting glasses on, tinted yellow, gold, or blue.
Shotguns appeared. Frank followed the curve of the tables that weren’t only meant for eating; now he could see that they were arranged around a shooting range. In the harsh glare of the field lights, there was a square concrete bunker that even now had started flinging clay pigeons out into the sky above the farmland. Shotgun blasts split the night with flat, booming thunder.
“If you don’t want to go on a ride, that’s okay. I understand if you don’t want to go with me.”
Frank suddenly remembered Annie. “Um, hell no. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Let’s go. Let’s go on a ride.” He found himself smiling back at her. He nodded at Sturm and the mothers as he slipped the plate onto the table, let Annie link her arm through his, and they slowly moved off towards the carnival. As they walked away, he heard one of the mothers say, “Now what’s all this we hear about all these new animals at that auction yard of yours?”