— 5 —
Victor’s getting to be a real pain in the ass. For two days I’ve been hinting that it would not cause in me great grief if he decided to stay in one of the dumb towns we’ve been passing through. He says he doesn’t like the midwest.
He’s got one habit he could’ve picked up from Cora. He keeps asking if he can drive. I make up a story about how the Mustang has an odd feel to it (part true) and I don’t like to have other people drive it. He seems to understand but always asks again an hour or two later. I can’t say I just don’t want him behind the wheel.
There are more vehicles on the road now. Even some trucks clearly engaged in interstate commerce. The cities don’t seem so ugly and even seem to be functioning reasonably well. When we go into them or pass through them (some stretches of the turnpikes are impassable) the citizens don’t stare much, unless of course they realize that sweet Vicki ain’t so sweet. Some of the cities that slip by our car windows look deserted. The ones that seem deserted aren’t, Victor says, they got people in them, they just died, that’s all—the cities, not the people. Midwestern fuzz don’t want to bother with us. Some of them wave when we go by.
I am getting damn sick of Victor’s patterned dress, both for looks and odor. He’s got nothing else to wear, he’s lost all his clothes and possessions to the bikers. I almost offer him some clothes of mine, but I don’t like the idea of him in them. Finally I tell him I’ll rip off something in his size. He says he can do his own ripping off, thank you, and steals a couple tee-shirts and a pair of jeans at a smalltown store. I’m sorry about that. It’s a nickels and dimes place and even the proprietors look tarnished. I wish I could leave them a few cents afterwards.
I keep wanting to stop the car and ask him to get out, but I can’t. That would take the edge off having saved him.
It’s almost evening. I have driven most of the two days, with only a couple stops to rest. I need to get west as soon as possible. Victor says I'll never get this car through the Rockies, not even the foothills. I tell him he doesn’t nearly suspect the Mustang’s capabilities. His laugh is like a sneer printed in block letters.
Special markings ahead, beside the road. Rest stop, one used by our kind. I’ve seen so few cars on the road that I don’t expect to see people there, but I have got to stop for a while.
Think we’ll lay over at this place, I tell Victor just before we reach the access road.
Whatever you say, sweetheart. Maybe there’ll be a clothing exchange. I need some new duds. That dress has had it.
You’d buy a dress? Like that?
Like what?
Openly, I mean.
Sure, nobody cares.
I can’t tell him that I care. I can’t give him that kind of a lever. We drive up the road. It turns out that the place is more populated than I’d expected. Cars parked all over the lot, it’s hard to find a spot to leave the Mustang.
This is not my kind of place. There may be a lot of vehicles, just like in the good old days back east, but it’s not the same. These cars are not well kept up. They have the dust of the road on them, sure, but it looks like last year’s dust. Drivers back east took pains to keep their vehicles shiny and relatively undented. These cars are lusterless, and their bodies look like they’ve substituted for practice drums. The few people in the parking lot remind me of the cars. They are lethargic, battered. They just lean against surfaces, not doing anything, not even talking to each other. The Mustang, with three days’ driving debris scattered over its unglamorous surface, looks better than any other car in this whole goddamned lot. And that, Cora might tell me, is a switch.
I walk toward the building which had once been the rest stop restaurant. A Hot Shoppe, didn’t think that chain had extended this far inland. One Of its walls has partially collapsed and people are using it as an entrance. The gas pumps in the distance are working, that’s something. Although we picked up two cans of gas in one of the towns we passed through yesterday, it is always exciting to come upon a place with working pumps. Although the cost or barter is always high, it’s worth it to drive off with a newly filled tank, especially now that there are so few functioning gas stations left that will serve us.
I follow Victor. Rustling his still-stiff jeans, he walks with a cowpoke’s lope. I’ve never seen him walk this way before. People leaving the restaurant have the same kind of walk. Victor, I have seen, is ever adaptable. What I really can’t get over is that he’s even beautiful in men’s clothes.
Victor, hey man, over here! some freak says when we enter the Hot Shoppe through the hole-in-wall entrance. And I do not use the word freak lightly, even generically. This guy is a freak. His head isn’t on straight, it looks like it’s been pushed over onto his left shoulder. His face is arranged casually. I feel uncomfortable looking at him, I want to take the features of that face and put them where they belong. He is wearing half a beard, on the right side of his face. He is quite muscular, barrel-chested, but his legs would look better on a ballerina. He is so freaky-looking, I should feel an instant kinship with him, but I don’t.
The freak is standing with a weary-looking group. We walk to him.
Link, Victor says. What’re you doing here?
Just drifted here from the last place, like usual. Who’s your friend?
Oh, right. Link, this’s Lee.
Pleased to meet you, Lee.
Hello, Link. Link, short for Lincoln?
No, missing. But don’t let it throw ya.
Link and Victor get to reminiscing. Turns out Link was in the town where Victor was kidnapped by the bikers. He had tried to intercede, but they had run him through a shop window. After picking shards out of his clothing, he had decided that the town, which was biker-controlled, was not for him, and he caught the next ride west. He must have been just ahead of us most of the time.
But our wheels died just south of here and we trekked to this place, been here a coupla hours. Three of us. You guys got room in your car for us?
Sure, Victor says.
Victor, I say.
What’s the matter, you can’t be hospitable to a bunch of guys in trouble?
Link’s two friends are bigger than he is. They all stare at me as if I am completely lacking in the milk of human kindness. I don’t want to have anything to do with any one of them.
Okay, I say. Sure. The more the merrier. But one thing, I do the driving and right now I need rest.
Can fix you up immediately, Link says. Cots set up in the back.
He starts to lead me to a back room. Victor lopes along beside us.
Anybody dealing threads around here? he asks Link.
Let’s see, yeah, I think you can be accommodated. Let’s get our friend here some shuteye, and we can take care of that.
Sure.
The sleep room’s not my idea of luxury accommodations, but there are several cots spread around the area in no logical pattern, and I am too tired to care. I select one that looks like it’s relatively new, with only a few layers of dirt and grime. I sit on it. None of the other cots is occupied. The room is dark and I know I can drop off to sleep right away.
This do? Link says.
It’ll do fine, I say.
Link smiles. The bland pleasantness of his smile becomes freaky on that peculiar face.
You’re okay, Lee, he says. The kind of easygoing dude who’s immediately likable, you know?
You say so.
Victor is irritated.
C’mon, Link, I want a look at those threads.
Okay. Sleep cool, you hear?
I don’t believe his phrasing but I am beginning to like Link. He takes Victor’s arm and leads him out of the room. Victor’s walk is now perkier, more rhythmic. Like Link’s.
I test the cot. Looks like it’ll hold me. I take off my shirt, but keep my trousers on, because that’s where I keep my car keys. There’s no real safety in protecting your car keys in a place like this. Anybody wants them bad enough, they can get them. Still, I feel safer w
ith them on me. I stretch out on the cot. It is hard on the back but more comfortable than grabbing a few winks in the bucket seat of the Mustang. I find myself thinking of the keys as I drift off to sleep.
— 6 —
I wake up suddenly, with a start. The room seems much darker. It is a minute before I realize that somebody is standing over me, another minute before I realize it’s Victor. He has apparently been successful in his search for threads. He has discovered a lovely peasant blouse with full sleeves, white with some red at the fringes. And a multicolored skirt in bright hues—orange, yellow, and green—running downwards in a rainbow pattern from the waist. I find myself compulsively turning over in my cot to check out his footwear. Only a tip of what might be a high-heeled plain black shoe peeks out from underneath the hem of the floor-length skirt. I look up again. He still stares at me. He has done something to the blond wig, wound up some of it in braids by the ears, while letting most of the hair fall onto and past his shoulders.
I try to see if there are any sleepers on the other cots yet. There are not. We are alone in the room. Something about Victor’s eyes frightens me.
Abruptly he sits down on a cot across from me. He lifts up a hand. There is a tube of lipstick in it. He holds it in front of his face, examines it. He has already applied some rouge and is beginning to look like Vicki again. He applies a little of the lipstick, then works his lips to spread it. He can apparently do this sort of thing without a mirror.
I sit up, decide I should make conversation.
What’s doing, Vic?
My voice seems to echo around the room and come back to me, sounding more false than when it had started.
Victor doesn’t answer. He merely works the lipstick. It is orange, the lipstick’s color. It suits him.
Did I sleep long? I ask. I have absolutely no sense of time.
Long enough, Victor mumbles, between compressing his lips and running a finger along the edges of his mouth to remove excess. When he puckers, it is remarkable how evenly he has applied the lipstick. The orange goes beyond the border of one side of his upper lip, but the rest is put on as well as if he had a mirror.
I feel rested, I say. Where’s Link, and the rest?
Out somewhere.
They’ll be coming back, won’t they?
Sure. They’re just dealing for some food. Some cat up in the hills has a lot hoarded away, and he sells it at inflated prices.
Victor’s voice stays in a monotone. He seems to be done with the lipstick, though he still holds it in his hand. Rings on his fingers again, reflecting more light than seems logical for the room. Maybe they store up light. His other hand is toying with a strand of hair while he stares at me. I feel I should say something more, try to break the mood or something, but I have forgotten my native language. Victor runs a tongue along his upper lip, as if tasting the lipstick.
Lean forward, he says abruptly. In a louder voice.
Why?
Don’t get tensed up. I’m not trying to seduce you or anything. I just want to touch you.
But isn’t that—
No, it is not the same, if that’s what you’re trying to say.
That’s not what I was trying to say.
Well, fuck it anyway. Lean forward. C’mon. I’m dangerous, even you must’ve figured that out.
Dangerous.
I guess you haven’t. Well, maybe dangerous isn’t the right word. Maybe unpredictable. Lean forward.
I am out of responses. I lean forward. With the hand that had been twisting his golden locks, he touches my cheek. He doesn’t stroke or press or do anything with the hand, he just puts some fingers against the skin. His hand is cold, as if it’s abandoned circulation. We sit like this for quite a long time. It is hard for me to hold my head steady in this position, but somehow I do it. I am afraid to remove my cheek from his hand.
Sit still, he whispers finally. Like that. You’re doing fine. Just for a moment. Still.
I am staring at his forehead and so at first I am not sure what he’s doing. Then I sense his other hand coming at my face. It still holds the tube of lipstick in it. I start to spring back, but he moves fast and presses the stick against my upper lip. In another quick move, his other hand goes to the back of my neck and stops my retreat. His grip is surprisingly strong. As if reading my thoughts, he says:
I’m stronger than you are. I’ve taken some courses. Martial arts, shit like that. Just sit still.
He applies the lipstick to my lips with the same care he had used on his own. For a moment I let him, then I twist my head sideways. I feel the lipstick slide off the corner of my mouth onto the skin.
Shit, Victor says. I can’t do this if you squirm.
I don’t want you to do it.
I really don’t care about that, sweetheart.
He tries again, manages hardly to touch my lip as I twist my head away again. I feel like a dental patient moving out of the way of a drill.
Goddamn it, sit still or I’ll kill you.
Something strange in his voice makes me stop squirming. He releases my neck. Touches my hair.
You really should shampoo once in a while.
What’s it to you?
Nothing to me. Absolutely nothing.
He smiles and presses his free hand against my cheek again. It is a curiously nonsexual gesture. On the other hand, it may not be a completely sane gesture.
With his thumb, he tries to fix where the lipstick has smudged. He curses under his breath.
Do with your tongue like this, he says. He runs his own tongue along part of his upper lip. Without protesting I duplicate the move, then look at him quizzically.
Like the taste? he asks.
Not especially.
I do.
We are a curious tableau for I don’t know how long. When Victor speaks again, it is in a soft and friendly voice:
There’s something I’d like to tell you.
Although I know I don’t want to hear anything he has to tell me, the situation dictates that I say:
What?
He sits across from me again, seems to be thinking about something. His hands fidget deliberately, almost with a plan. The rings flash. Where the hell do they find all that light?
Well, he says once, but does not go on. There is something oddly appealing about the way he slumps, the contemplation in it. Suddenly he stands up, saying:
What was that?
What?
That.
What?
That, you asshole.
Then I realize what. It is a rumble slowly growing louder. The noise of an engine, but not an automobile engine. It is a sound Victor apparently recognizes right away. He springs away from me, goes to the door of the sleep room. I touch my lips, wonder if I can even dare go out the door right now, but Victor hollers:
Jesus Christ!
The tension in his voice makes me forget the way I look. I run out the door after him.
Even though the front window is crusted with dirt, you can see out just enough. Weaving in and around the parked vehicles is a gang of motorcyclists. Bikers. For the moment they seem to be treating the parking area as a big fun maze. The people who’d been lounging against cars are checking out in all directions, most of them making for the wooded area behind the rest stop.
Victor stands to the side of the window, watching, his eyes wide.
Is that them? I ask.
Of course it’s them, he says. I don’t cower in a corner for every bike gang that comes along. They must’ve been following us all the way. I knew it.
Well, they coulda caught us easy if that was true.
They’re goddamn catching us, aren’t they?
I mean before this.
Maybe, maybe not. We kept a pretty good pace, not stopping and all. They’re patient. They could’ve—what the fuck am I doing here analyzing? We got to find a way out of this.
We got to?
Victor glares at me. For a moment he looks more frightening than the biker ga
ng.
Of course we, I say quickly. I didn’t mean any—I mean, we can—if we can just make it to the Mustang.
And how the fuck are we going to do that? They’re all, the entire gang between us and the goddamned car. What good is the car, anyway? They’d catch up in two miles.
I don’t know. It’s something. Better than here.
You may be right.
When he turns away from the window, his wide eyes dominate his face, and not just because of the eyeliner he used on them. He reminds me of the kind of frightened lady you see on the cover of some paperback novels. He rushes past me, to the middle of the room. Only a few people remain here, most of them pressed against a wall.
Those bastards out there, Victor shouts, are after me. They’re going to kill me probably. Going to try. Anybody here willing to—ah, shit, forget it.
He turns back toward the window. His skirt takes a wide swirl, revealing his stockinged !egs, his shiny black high-heeled shoes. Of course they’re basic black, Victor has taste. People are edging their way to the door of the sleep room. Except for Victor and me, this room’ll be empty in a minute.
If only Link’d get back, Victor says. And his friends. He’d know what to do.
He wasn’t much help the time they abducted you, was he?
What difference does that make?
No difference.
The bikers have finished their fun with the maze now. They are pulling up their bikes in front of the building. I recognize the leader now, he’s already got his gun out. He’ll remember me, I realize suddenly. This time I’m not the anonymous intruder, the innocent bystander. I made a fool out of him, he won’t be pleased. Suddenly I want to retreat to the sleep room, too. Why do I want to help Victor? What’s he ever done for me? No time to decide that issue. The bikers are spreading out into two flanks, one group on each side of the leader. Sort of an unbalanced line. The leader shouts something. I can’t quite make out each word, but mainly he’s hollering for Victor to come quietly. He says Vicki derisively. Even I get pissed off at that kind of smugness.
We need some kind of weapon, I say. I run to the lunch counter, hoping there’ll be a sharp-edged knife there. I’m stopped for a moment when I catch my reflection in the mirror behind the counter. Victor has put more lipstick on and around my mouth than I’d suspected. A long thin orange line streaks out from the corner of my mouth. The shape of my mouth is indistinct. I rub the back of my hand across it but the orange is only smeared more.
A Set Of Wheels Page 12
