“Your cell phone, please.”
Sunderson opened his car door violently, catching Kowalski’s shins with the bottom of the door and dropping him like a tub of shit.
“You’re annoying me,” Sunderson said. He turned the compact around and on the way past shot out both of Kowalski’s front tires. Kowalski was sitting in the road with his eyes closed hugging his shins.
On the way to the freeway to Green Valley he stopped at the Safeway on Mariposa to buy a couple bottles of the cheapish champagne his mother favored on special occasions. He was surprised the store was open but then Melissa had said that Latinos didn’t grow up with pilgrims and they could scarcely celebrate the conquistadors who were butchers at best. He didn’t worry about her infiltrating the Leader’s compound. She was a tough cookie.
Bob’s glistening Escalade was parked out front and Sunderson wondered if he washed and polished it every morning, certainly a possibility. Expensive cars had always seemed loathsome. Those from the U.P., often called Yoopers, who had gone downstate and made good money would return in the summer and expect the locals to admire their new cars. They were largely out of luck.
Mom, Berenice, and Bob were sitting on the front porch and Hulda’s lap was covered by the hideous family album. She had been extraordinarily handsome as a young woman and a lifetime later she had become a cranky crone.
“My remaining son,” she announced. She had been calling him this for thirty years because the death of his brother was still current news to her.
“Surprise!” Sunderson said, holding up the two bottles of faux-champagne that had cost ten bucks apiece.
“Cool it off Mister Bigshot. And make the brown stuff.” She was referring to a roux that Diane used to make to give the turkey gravy an appealing color. Diane had taught him and he found the process tedious.
“The Detroit Lions are playing the Chicago Bears in eighteen minutes,” Bob said.
“I’m a Packers fan,” Sunderson said.
“That’s not patriotic. You should root for your home state.” Bob was in a huff. “I like my gravy dark brown. I always was a gravy man. Valerie will help you. She’s my niece.”
“I’m cooking a twenty-two pounder. I put it on at daylight. We’ll be eatin’ on that sucker for a week. Put some juice on ice for me, son,” Mom cackled.
Sunderson dutifully kissed Hulda and Berenice on the forehead and shook Bob’s clammy hand. He went inside and was pleased to see that a fairly chubby young woman had already started the roux and was setting the table. She looked good bending over the table in her short skirt. She introduced herself and said she was going to cooking school in Santa Monica.
“This fucking turkey’s going to be dead as a doornail. And what’s this?” She opened the refrigerator and pointed at a tomato aspic dotted with ripe olives and tiny marshmallows.
“That’s Hulda’s secret recipe from the Great North,” Sunderson laughed. He noted that the roux was a darker brown than he had ever achieved. “Nice roux,” he said wanting to pat her on her plump ass but thinking better of it.
“I’m here interviewing for jobs in Tucson restaurants but the economy is tits up. Uncle Bob said I could be an assistant manager at his trailer park in Benson. I drove over there and it’s a suckhole. He says you’re on the track of top-rung criminals.”
“He’s on the money. I’m daily imperiled.” This was sort of true. He opened his sport coat flap so she could see the shoulder holster hoping to improve her questionable dank mood which was everywhere present in America.
“Oh bullshit, everyone’s carrying in this state,” she said raising her eyebrows as he poured his mom a full glass of champagne on the rocks.
“It’s the message not the delivery,” he said.
They finally arranged themselves at the table. He had meant to tell Valerie not to carve until after grace as the food would lose its heat. He knew that his mother got her ornate prayer language via the King James version of the Bible plus her bug-eyed little minister back home.
“Let us bow our heads and close our eyes in prayer. Our heavenly father we thank thee for our ample foodstuffs on this gladsome day. Whilst thou art in heaven with my husband and son sitting on your right hand we thank thee that we are still alive and kicking. As thou knowest it was a tough year with my stroke putting me on the fritz for a while. We thank thee for curing Berenice’s sprained ankle which she got tripping over the hose Bob left on the front steps after he washed her car. We thank thee for Bob’s prosperity which keeps our hides and hair together in these troubled times. We thank thee for getting Simon back on his feet after he got beat up by a Mexican gang. Lord, protect the borders of our country. We pray that niece Valerie finds a job and keeps her body pure for the hubby in her future…”
Sunderson opened his eyes a squint and saw the startled look on Valerie’s face. Next to him Bob was text messaging on his cell in his lap. Berenice was staring up at a fly on the ceiling. The torpor was in full flood. Hulda paused to take a gulp of her iced champagne. He was bored enough to childishly drop his fork on the floor in order to catch a view up Valerie’s legs. He leaned over and the view was dizzying what with Valerie abruptly giving her legs an extra spread. There was the fabled little muffin contained in blue undies. When he popped back up he blushed when she gave him a silly grin. Why was he such a fool? “To thine own self be true,” said Polonius but then his Shakespeare professor at Michigan State forty-five years before had said that Polonius was a parodic character blathering the street wisdom of the day.
“And Lord, we are in thine hands for better or worse,” Hulda continued with a champagne burp, “and of late it’s been worse for my little retirement fund which as you know is handled by the Lutheran Brotherhood. It sure would be nice if you could see fit to let the market fly high like a balloon.”
And so on. Luckily Valerie reheated the turkey gravy in the microwave. Sunderson left as soon as it was vaguely polite to do so after Berenice’s medley of pies, which apparently came from a bakery as they were without her vaunted lard crust. He was barely in the car when he got a cell call from Melissa.
“It was unpleasant,” she began, then paused. “He was wearing a red robe and we were alone in a den.”
“Yes. Go ahead.”
“He was like, you know, a slick fraternity guy at U of A. He wanted to see my butt and I said no. That put a stop to things so for you I quickly showed him my butt which because of you is sore today. So then he got friendlier. The ticket for me to enter the group would be fifty grand which would get me complete spiritual satisfaction and a transcendent mind whatever that is. I asked him why he needed so much money and he said he and his people were moving to Nebraska in the spring.”
“Where in Nebraska?” Sunderson asked.
“How should I know? Nebraska is Nebraska. Anyway, he got real friendly when I let on that I was rich and the fifty grand wasn’t out of the question. He said that it appeared I was already on level twenty-three of the hundred levels of spirituality. Then he shocked me and suggested that I give him a blow job. He wouldn’t come in my mouth because he had to save his fluids for younger women who needed them more. He said that sperm is the most powerful fluid in the world. I thought fast because I can’t blow a man unless I actually like him so I told him I couldn’t because I had a tooth pulled yesterday. So that’s that.”
“Thanks. You did a fine job.”
“A little bad news. Xavier is coming home tonight and he’s real pissed that we met at the Wagon Wheel so be careful.”
Sunderson’s heart dropped in temperature and he pushed the off button. Jesus Christ. He called Mona and asked her to book him a flight home via Minneapolis or Chicago, whichever was soonest. She said that he sounded scared and that he had to pony up fourteen hundred bucks for her new Apple. Within a minute she had him on the dawn plane for Minneapolis with a two-hour wait for Marquette. He said fine and she said she’d call Marion and make them a nice dinner.