“Okay,” Gus said.
“Why don’t you come into my office and wash off that blood while I type up the registration papers.”
Gus gave the salesman his driver’s license, then went into the tiny washroom and cleaned up. When he came out he gave the salesman four twenties and a ten. The salesman gave him five in change along with his license and registration papers. The salesman taped a temporary permit inside the rear window of the Pontiac that proved it had been paid for and registered.
He gave Gus a handful of candy mints. “ ’Preciate your business, son. You take it easy now, all right? My advice? Lay off the rough stuff. That gets you nowheres. Get yourself a good job. Finish growing up, then find yourself a good woman who will tolerate you. Raise a nice little family. The world don’t need another hell-bent roustabout.”
“I’ll do my best,” Gus said.
“Lay low. Show the people that count that you’re dependable. Keep a clear head and a ready hand, things will come your way sooner or later. Take it from one who knows, bad luck don’t last forever.”
“Does that guarantee come with the car?” Gus said.
The salesman laughed. “You got my word on it.”
The salesman looked at the sky. “I wouldn’t try to drive the highway today,” he said. “Whiteout like this, you’ll be lucky to see past the hood.”
Gus got in the car and started the engine. He turned the heater on and took off his bloodstained parka and threw it into the backseat. The vacuum powered wipers were strong enough to clear the windshield of snow.
He drove the car off the lot. The snow, coming down in horizontal sheets, had turned the world white. The glare was painful. He reached up to pull down the sun visor and discovered the driver’s-side visor had been removed. In another minute he couldn’t make out street signs or identify intersections. His eyes felt scorched by sub-zero light. He stared into hard blue halos. He was sure that if he exposed his eyes to them much longer he’d become snow blind. He kept driving.
Ray Springer’s “It” was out there—under the snow, past the snow, and was the snow itself. He saw this and it made sense for a split second. Then it broke apart like an overturned jigsaw puzzle and made no sense at all. And yet a powerful current of unsought joy had flashed through him in that split second. Gus tried to recall it but failed.
He turned the radio on. “My Baby Loves Western Movies” was playing. He turned the volume up and eased down Tenth Avenue until he came to a junction of highways on the north end of the city. Highway 87 would take him back to Milk River. Highway 200, the old Lewis and Clark Trail, would take him west to Missoula and beyond. Canada was an option. Or he could turn around and drive south to Boise, Salt Lake, or Denver. All options looked the same in the white landscape. There was a maze of options. All of them right, all of them wrong.
RICK DEMARINIS is the author of eight novels, including The Year of the Zinc Penny, a New York Times Notable Book, and six short story collections, including Apocalypse Then and Borrowed Hearts. In 1990, he received an Academy Award for Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Each year, Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts awards a short story prize in his name.
SEVEN STORIES PRESS is an independent book publisher based in New York City, with distribution throughout the United States, Canada, England, and Australia. We publish works of the imagination by such writers as Nelson Algren, Russell Banks, Octavia E. Butler, Ani DiFranco, Assia Djebar, Ariel Dorfman, Coco Fusco, Barry Gifford, Hwang Sok-yong, Peter Plate, Lee Stringer, and Kurt Vonnegut, to name a few, together with political titles by voices of conscience, including the Boston Women’s Health Collective, Noam Chomsky, Angela Y. Davis, Human Rights Watch, Derrick Jensen, Ralph Nader, Loretta Napoleoni, Gary Null, Project Censored, Ted Rall, Barbara Seaman, Alice Walker, Gary Webb, and Howard Zinn, among many others. Seven Stories Press believes publishers have a special responsibility to defend free speech and human rights, and to celebrate the gifts of the human imagination, wherever we can. For additional information, visit www.sevenstories.com.
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