Sherry stares hard at the photo and then flings the magazine across the room.
Someone is playing a saw.
In another bedroom, a bamboo-framed print of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane hangs above a thirty-six inch TV. Books and magazines are scattered here and there, mostly about the occult, alien invasions, science fiction and space exploration.
The Sci-Fi Channel airs the ‘Nick of Time’ episode of The Twilight Zone. In it, William Shatner slides coin after coin into a Devil-headed future-forecasting machine in a small town café. He and his wife become increasingly anxious as the machine forecasts ominous future events.
Sherry’s seventeen-year-old son, Joe, sits on the edge of the bed playing a saw and watching the show. There’s something odd about his expression and demeanor. He’s distant, in his own world. Perhaps he’s autistic, perhaps just weird.
He hears something and looks out the window. A black four-wheel drive pickup with two dirt bikes in its bed passes the postal van going in the opposite direction. Overcome with anxiety at the sight, Joe’s salivary glands cut loose and he drools. To soak it up, he sticks the knotted end of a handkerchief into his mouth and sits anxiously on the edge of the bed.
Sherry enters, smoking a joint and sipping from a bottle of peppermint schnapps. She reclines on an elbow beside Joe and looks out the window. “He’s heeeere.”
“He scares me, Mom.”
“Me, too, Joey. Me too…. Play something nice.”
Joe plays a mournful tune with mastery. He has a faraway, detached look as he becomes one with the saw. This is a prodigy at work.
A small tear leaks from one eye and rolls down Sherry’s cheek.
The black pickup slides into the driveway in a cloud of dust. When the engine is turned off, Procul Harum comes on the truck’s radio doing “The Devil Came from Kansas” at full volume.
Decked out in flaming red motocross regalia, complete with advertising logos, a drunk Moe Cross stumbles out of the pickup with a shotgun, his face unseen behind the tinted visor of his helmet. Short and wiry, he walks with a slight limp. When he spots the buzzards, he fires both barrels at them, missing. They fly off. He opens the garage door, backs his bikes down from the truck and rolls one in. To make room for the second bike, he kicks a few lawn chairs and a small Weber grill out of the way, then closes the door and sticks a wooden clothespin through the hasp to keep it closed. Before turning toward the house, he smashes the mating grasshoppers against the door with his hand.
Joe continues playing his saw, though his drooling is copious and the handkerchief is soaked. Sherry has a slug from a bottle of schnapps. “If he hurts either you or me, I’m gonna kill him. He’s evil.”
The door bursts open. Moe staggers in, visor down, voice muffled inside the helmet. “No sawing, okay? I’m fucking wasted from ridin’ all day. I gotta go puke, then I gotta crash.” Joe keeps playing, eyes shut, as Moe stumbles toward the door, then turns back. “Hey, Sherry girl. You stink. You been fuckin’ that postman?”
“Who pays the rent, asshole? I got a built-in money maker. Why not use it?”
“You fuckin’ stupid cunt!” He dropkicks Joe’s saw into the air, cutting Sherry’s arm. The handkerchief drops from Joe’s mouth. He looks at Moe and cowers. Moe staggers out and slams the door so hard the praying Jesus falls, bounces off the TV and hits Joe in the head, drawing blood. Sherry holds her hand over his mouth to stifle any outcry. “Please, please. Let that little prick go to sleep.” She picks up the saw and bow, returns them to the bag. “Honey, we gotta go. Right now.”
“Where?”
“Maybe Austin. I got a couple of friends down there.”
“What about all my stuff? My books?”
“Sorry, we gotta travel light. Fill up your backpack and take your saw. I’ll meet you on the porch in fifteen minutes. Okay?”
“Yeah, okay.” He begins packing.
Sherry searches inside the garage, finds a can of paint thinner, returns to the bungalow, enters her bedroom. Moe sleeps on the waterbed in riding gear and helmet. She sets the paint thinner on the dresser, packs a few necessities into a backpack, then backs out of the room sloshing thinner behind her. In the hallway she lights a match and holds it near the door’s threshold. The bedroom erupts in flame.
Moe awakens moments later under a dome of fire. He bounds through the conflagration and out the back door. Parts of his riding gear are aflame, his helmet is partially melted, but they’ve protected him from serious burns. He hits the ground rolling and snuffs the flames. By the time he gains his composure, the bungalow is ablaze. He runs to the front door. “Sherry! You in there? Sherry!” He runs around the side. When he passes the garage, he notices the door swung open. He stops, removes the helmet. Now he sees Sherry and Joe running in the distance. He puts his hands on his hips, looks at the fire, looks at Sherry and Joe running, kicks the dust. “You’re history, bitch.”
A casket factory at dusk. An eighteen-wheel rig backs up to the loading dock. Lettering on its door says ‘Overland Trucking — Denver, Colorado.’ Kenny, projecting a manly sort of sexual ambiguity with his silver earring, facial piercings, tight Wranglers and silver-tipped western boots, steps out of the cab and watches as a worker in a small fork-lift loads caskets into the rig’s trailer. The lettering on Kenny’s black bill cap says Bring it On. When a dozen caskets have been loaded, he signs a manifest and drives off.
A while later he pulls over on a stretch of desolate highway near a shabby school bus parked on the shoulder. A chubby man gets off the bus in a silk suit, Panama hat and white silk tie. He and Kenny shake hands and exchange small talk as twelve Mexican illegals file out of the bus. They carry various satchels and sacks, nylon bags full of fruit, bottles of water, toilet paper. Several of them carry empty five gallon plastic buckets. Kenny says, “Ten, twelve is all I can take this time. I’m haulin’ caskets back there.”
“Okay, man. Twelve. Leave ‘em off at the Breadbasket Café, Ulysses, Kansas. They know what to do.”
“Okay, the Breadbasket.”
The man places a stack of bills into Kenny’s open palm. “Three hundred a head. You okay with that?”
“Yeah, it’s a short trip.”
Moe wanders in shock. He removes the damaged helmet, showing his mullet haircut and angry, dumb, mean face for the first time. He has a pronounced horizontal scar on his chin. He watches the burning bungalow for a moment, then heads for his truck. He jumps in, but the engine won’t start. He cranks it over and over.
Kenny, back on the road, drives his rig along U.S. 160. A fire in the distance convinces him to drive out into a roadside picnic area whose only facilities are a battered picnic table and a half-dead tree. Pieces of toilet paper, fast food wrappers, and tumbleweed blow in the rig’s headlights. He hops out and watches the bungalow burn. Sherry and Joe materialize from the darkness, running and waving. Joe drools, the front of his shirt wet with saliva.
Sherry is breathless. “We need a ride. You going east?”
“Yeah.”
She gives Joe a fresh handkerchief from her fanny pack, which is well stocked with them. “Here, Joe. Soak that up.” She doesn’t want Kenny to get the wrong idea. “He over-salivates when he gets excited.” Joe tucks the end of the handkerchief into his mouth. The rest dangles.
Kenny asks, “That’s your house burning back there?”
Sherry nods, sheds a tear.
“I got a radio in the truck. You want me to call the fire department?”
“Too late for that.”
“Insurance company?”
“It was a rental, month-to-month.”