“Shit &” slanted up over the “D” in DYNAMITE. (“Shit & Dynamite Refuse”—the truck read!) Eric breathed — and, because Mike wasn’t looking, let himself grin.
The pickup rolled forward, but not toward the highway feed: it pulled to another exit in the diamond-wire fence and was gone on some local road.
“Hey! Eric — the car’s over here!”
“Oh, yeah…” Mike hadn’t noticed anything. Eric started walking again. But, then, often Mike didn’t.
[3] GETTING INTO THE car was like climbing into hot oiled cotton. Mike turned the ignition. As they started forward, he switched on the Chevy’s air conditioning. From under the dashboard cold air hit Eric’s pants, flattening the faintly dirtied denim to Eric’s shins.
“Hey…” Mike said. “That guy back there wasn’t…botherin’ you, was he?”
More sharply than he’d intended, Eric turned to his dad. “What?” He’d been wondering whether to brush at the cloth on his knees or to leave them so as not to attract Mike’s attention.
“I mean in the restroom or anything. Lookin’ at you funny, maybe.”
Eric made himself relax. “What guy?”
By stubby white posts with white cable strung between, they rolled onto the highway’s service road.
“The guy in the store. He had a birthmark or somethin’ on his neck…”
It wasn’t like falling into that well. “The guy behind the counter? He wasn’t even in the restroom.” But it was like leaning over its glittering edge.
“Not him. The other one — I saw him go into the place just ahead of you, the same time you went in. The one who stopped to talk to us at the counter when we were comin’ out — ?”
“Him?” Eric asked. “He could have been. I was in the stall…with the door closed. So I didn’t see. Which probably means he didn’t see me…unless he was lookin’ funny at my…sneakers.”
“Oh,” Mike said. “Yeah. Okay.”
Eric put his new cap on the dashboard, then lifted his butt to dig in his pocket. (A memory of when the KY cap had once come loose, lubricant messing his pants…) His middle fingers passed something splodgy: Al’s knotted rubber. Glancing to make sure Mike was looking at the road, Eric pulled his hand free to touch his fingertips to his lips. They were dry: it hadn’t ruptured. With the same hand, again Eric reached in his pocket to push the KY down. Again, it had almost slipped free —
Beside his wallet, he felt Bottom’s paper.
Working it loose, he tugged the paper out and — with a deep breath — unfolded it. His rectum was vaguely sore, but with what, long ago, he’d learned to think of as a good soreness. And damp.
“What’s that?” Mike asked.
“Something Bill said I should read when I got to Diamond Harbor.”
“What’s it say?”
Eric opened it again, to see Gothic letters — like the ones on the sign: A Georgia Institution…“He must have printed it out on his computer. This mornin’.” Haltingly, Eric read it out loud:
“‘He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man — Dr. Samuel Johnson.’”
Mike said, “I heard that one before.”
In ordinary type, Bill’s message went on (and Eric read):
“‘But note the good doctor said “beast,” not “animal.” For he who forgets the animal he is, has taken the first step toward becoming a beast.’” Eric looked up, frowning. The afternoon’s image that briefly returned was Jay MacAmon’s uncle, slamming his fist into the teeth of a tall twelve-year-old with wet jeans…
“That’s some funny stuff.” Mike moved the wheel. “But Bottom’s a funny guy.” Mike was thinking about Kelly-Ann, who, yeah, could be an animal…“He’s okay, but he’s…strange. You know, you should stay away from guys like that, Eric — Bill; or the one who was talkin’ to us in the store, hear me? I met a couple of ’em in the pokey. Most guys don’t even bother bein’ polite to ’em. It just encourages ’em. And they’re never gonna do you no good.”
Eric nodded, turning the paper over. On the back, in big letters Dynamite had written:
SHIT & DYNAMITE
Show Up Gilead Boat Dock,
GARBAGE
4:45A.M. Sun. — Thurs.
So that’s all it was.
Well, that’s all Dynamite had said.
Refolding it, Eric pushed it back in his pocket past Al’s pliant clam. “I think I’m gonna…try and get a job while I’m here. So I can give Barb a hand.” Had he actually said Yes to Dynamite? Or had he only stood there grinning? He’d said Hey — Thank you! enthusiastically a few times. But either way he was going to find the Gilead boat dock.
“Now that’s an idea,” Mike said. “I’m glad to hear you talkin’ that way.”
At a turn, the orange Turpens cap slid forward off the dashboard’s surface. Eric grabbed for it, missed —
But caught it with his forearm against his right knee. He smiled at Mike.
“You’re probably gonna miss your football buddies.” Looking out the windshield, driving, his father had not seen Eric’s save. “Weren’t there any guys on the team you really liked?”
“Maybe. I dunno.” Taking the cap in his hands, Eric shrugged. “I wasn’t really friends with none of ’em too much.” (Maybe, besides running his boat with Mex, the bearded Jay worked at Turpens…?) “One guy, Hoagy — I wanted to get to know a little better.” He glanced at his dad. “He was a black kid.”
“Oh,” Mike said. “I don’t think I met him. Didn’t some Spanish kid on the team — Scotty? — phone you a few times last term?”
Eric shrugged again. “That was for homework or somethin’. We wasn’t really that close.”
“Oh. Well, after you get to Barb’s, see if you can hunt up some regular fellas to hang out with — guys who drink beer, shoot hoops, and talk about women. Know what I mean?”
“Jesus…” Eric looked back out the window. “That sounds like fun! Can I maybe hang out with some who do a little more than talk?”
Mike said nothing. But he smiled. In the car the cool air stabilized.
When they passed the green-and-white sign, “DIAMOND HARBOR, EXIT 3 MILES,” the Turpens cap — orange visor pointed left — was on Eric’s head.
Eric asked, “Dad, you remember that movie we saw a couple of years ago, when we were comin’ back from Texas — in the mall we stopped at — just outside Atlanta?”
“Huh?”
“You know — where the gorilla and the dinosaurs were all fightin’ over that girl — ?”
“Yeah. That was a good one.”
“I think it would be easier to fall in love with all the dinosaurs and things than…than with the gorilla. They were cool — even those giant bugs and stuff.” Eric blinked at his father. “I liked them the best.” He pushed back in the seat to sit up. “Anyway, that’s what I think.”
As he drove by the ocean, Mike’s look grew puzzled. He frowned at his stepson.
[4] OFF THE HIGHWAY, Mike got turned around twice.
“You got your cell. You could call Barb — ”
Mike took one hand off the wheel to touch the sagging pocket of his T-shirt where his cell phone hung. “I don’t wanna give her the satisfaction of thinkin’ the dumb-ass nigger she was stupid enough to marry once is a bigger fool than I actually am. Come on — we’ll find it.”