Mickey says, “There’s nothing more pathetic than a queer getting old.”
Myra wants to hear about the business.
Mickey says he guesses things are going more or less according to plan. “A few little hitches here and there. But basically everything’s fine and dandy with that. Junior’s down in Florida right now, paying a call on a customer.”
“A call? He’s paying a call? What does that mean?”
“Look, we’ve got some ends to tie up. When that’s taken care of, I’ll tell you the whole deal.”
“Are you ever gonna leave Vickie? And be with me full time? Tell me the truth, now.”
“Jeeze, Myra. Don’t push me. We got some unfolding events here that…you know…might drag on a while.”
“How many times have you told me you hate her?”
“Millions of people live with people they hate. I hate her, I hate my son-in-law, my brother. I even hate my own daughter.”
In the closet, Vickie has made an inch-wide hole in the sheetrock, allowing her to start breaking off ever-larger chunks. She pushes through the sheetrock into the bathroom and peeks out the door. She can see part of the living room.
The phone rings twice. The machine answers with Junior’s voice. “Thank you for calling. All our associates are busy with other clients or on the phone. Please leave your name, the time you called, contact information and a brief message after the tone. We’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”
Vickie ventures into the living room, hears the caller’s message. “Hi. A friend of mine down in Florida gave me your number. He said you were…that you performed…unusual services for people. My name is David…X. I don’t like giving out personal information, so I’ll call back. Thanks.”
Once Vickie is satisfied that no one is around, she dashes to the front door, remembers something, returns to get Wendy’s cremains from a kitchen cabinet, then makes a run for it. Dogs bark at her as she hurries down the street. When she reaches the corner, she sticks out her thumb toward passing traffic.
In a police station, the officer on duty eats tamales at his desk. Vickie enters, breathless.
“Can I help you, lady?”
“I wanna report a murder…maybe two.”
“One or two murders? And you wanna report them?”
“Yes. Maybe more than two.”
“Okay, have a seat over there. I’ll be with you in a minute.”
Vickie waits nervously. In a small office at the end of a hall, an officer reads the Weekly World News. A radio on his desk is tuned to a talk show. Someone says, “Status symbols like cars, expensive clothes, luxurious homes, and swimming pools often confuse visitors to the United States. Most Arabs, Latins and Africans, for example, are accustomed to a two-class system in which privilege exists only when accompanied by wealth. Classes are polarized and there are just two: rich and poor. Because the United States economy operates on the basis of a mass market, blue-collar workers, miners, farmers, even people on welfare, own goods that represent great wealth elsewhere. In terms of hours of work, the cost for such luxuries here is low. Understandably, the man from Ecuador, for example, assumes that the owner of a car in the United States is rich, but…”
The officer switches to a C&W station. Johnny Cash sings, “I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die.”
Ray, he’s on probation. They make him wear one of those “house arrest” things, where they put a little ankle bracelet on you that tells them where you are all the time. And, of course, they cancelled his wife’s policy. So he’s flat broke again. He just cuts the lawn all the time now. It never stops, the sound of that mower. They told him they might give him a piss test at any time, and that he couldn’t drink at all, not even a beer. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Ray offed himself this winter when the grass dies. And my daddy, he works for the post office now. He got his old friend Wayne’s job after Wayne died. They said Wayne had eye cancer. I never knew you could get cancer in the eye. Is there anything in your whole body you can’t get cancer of? Can you get cancer of the heart?
Vickie moved out, of course, considering all the shit that happened. Her and Daddy are in the process of getting divorced. She’s working down at the Tamale House, which used to be the Squat ‘n’ Gobble. She’s been going with that moron, Walter, the meat cutter. Compared to him, Daddy was a real bright light.
Mickey marches up the street in summer postal gear, delivering mail to those houses that aren’t abandoned, burned out or boarded up. He too wears an electronic device around the ankle. Stray dogs growl at him as he passes. He has his pepper spray in hand. One dog leaps at him, but he squirts it in the eyes and the dog runs off whining.
The newly-remodeled Squat ‘n’ Gobble, now called the Casa de Tamal, features a busy drive-thru. Vickie works the window, bagging bundles of tamales and passing them into cars.
Walter drives up in his meat truck. On the radio, Ricky Nelson sings “Garden Party.”
“Hey, Baby. Gimme three bundles and a Big Gulp Coke. How you doing?”
“I feel good.”
“Wanna go out tonight? It’s Friday.”
“Where to?”
“Let’s rent a movie and go over to my place.”
“Okay.” Vickie hands him his order. “What about The Treasure of the Sierra Madre?”
The driver of the next car in line blows the horn.
“Ummm, yeah. Or maybe Night of the Living Dead. We’ll stay up late, till we fall asleep.”
Other horns blow.
In Myra’s trailer, at the dining table, she pecks furiously at her laptop. She fills her cup with strong coffee, adds lots of sugar. On a shelf behind her are multiple copies of her novel, Deathcraft. At least six cats sleep around or scratch the sofa.
One of the bedroom doors opens and out steps Lorraine, tucking in her Animal Control shirt, then combing back her short hair. She kisses Myra on the cheek. “What about lunch?”
“Perfect. I gotta be downtown for my book signing anyway.”
“We’re on, then. The tamale place?”
“Around twelve fifteen.”
In Lorna and Junior’s room, the sound of a ventilator in the background blends with the soft yak of the Shopping Channel. Lorna, fat and pregnant, sits trancelike in a chair, eating a cream-filled doughnut, drinking a diet Mr. Pibb, watching the Shopping Channel.
Me? I’m too pregnant to work or anything, so I just stay home and take care of poor Junior.
Junior lies in a vegetative state, hooked to a ventilator and a feeding tube.
Lorna finishes the last bit of doughnut, turns her attention to the Shopping Channel as its hucksters offer bargains on cheap jewelry.
The Wind Wagon
The body rounded in front, something in shape like a boat, to overcome the resistance of the air. The wheels are remarkably light, large and slender and the whole vehicle strongly built. Two masts, somewhat raked, carry large, square sails, rigged like ships’ sails with halyards, braces, etc., etc. In front is a large coach lamp to travel by night when the wind is favorable; and it is steered by a helm attached to the fore-wheels. A crank and hand-wheels allow it to be propelled by hand when wind and tide are against them.
A buffalo camp, Kansas prairie, 1873. Canvas tents and several mule-drawn wagons define the camp’s edges. One wagon’s bed is filled with bleached buffalo bones, another’s with pelts, yet another serves as a chuck wagon. Near an Indian tepee, a bit removed from the camp proper, buffalo tongues cure over a smoldering buffalo chip fire. One of the hunters rubs buffalo fat between his palms, then works the oil into his hair before combing it.