Jello Gorse didn't know the skinny biker well. The rider was older, but he wasn't one of the original crowd. He smoked a lot of pot, and he lived nearby, and he actually knew the girl.
When the guy said he was clearing out and might never be back, Jello was relieved. He suspected that running into the guy more or less weekly might have caused twitchy nerves. If that had happened, Jello would have had to bury the man as deeply as they had the girl.
They closed up and went their ways. The skinny rider did not reappear at the club. He told other bikers that he was going to Florida and might drift west to Texas, where a man could ride as fast as he wished across endless miles of empty highway. Within weeks the drifter was forgotten.
The girl's name came up a few times. Someone suggested that she might have ridden off, too. That story was also accepted.
When he looked closely, Jello could see where the ground had sunken over the girl's grave. With junk all over it, no one else would notice. After a season new growth disguised the dip in the ground. Jello rarely thought of the incident anymore.
+++
Then the skinny guy came back. He met Jello in a bar, and he wasn't a biker anymore. He didn't look any different, but he drove an ordinary pickup and had a regular job.
When the guy began explaining a scheme he had worked out, Jello Gorse was glad he had not killed Spider Seeber and dumped him in with the girl.
Spider had one hell of an idea. It was colder and more calculating than anything Gorse could have imagined. It would work and the dangers to either Spider or Jello were small. Seeber was going to make Jello Gorse rich.
Even as he listened, Jello considered the possibilities of doing this time what he had almost done last time. With Spider's cut, Jello really would be well off.
Gorse knew how it would be. JELLO GORSE'S CYCLE SHOP, the sign would read. He would have a half dozen real mechanics and a showroom full of Harley-Davidsons and chrome accessories. He might have a shop building off to the side for working on foreign bikes, but he wouldn't have them up front with real motorcycles.
Yep, Jello Gorse just might need his own AND Spider Seeber's share to do all he was thinking about.
The long dead girl did not come up in their discussions.
+++
Chapter 7 - SPIDER
It seemed to Spider Seeber that Gene Perry had always been in his way, although he supposed that they hadn't met until grammar school. Living miles apart, it wasn't likely they would have collided before then.
Spider ate flies because of Perry. He knew that for sure. It had started on the playground when Perry showed a trick he had learned that made it look as though a stone disappeared from his hand. Without a way to compete, young Seeber had to invent something, so he ate a fly.
He wished he could recall the source of the inspiration. At any event, the effect was cosmic. Girls were stunned, before they shrieked and rushed to tell the teacher.
The tougher boys were enthralled. A few pretended to try their own fly, but none got one down.
That quickly, the Seeber boy became famous. Big guys, even sixth graders, came to see him do it. Most even brought their own flies.
Of course Seeber lied to the teachers. He said he just faked eating the flies, but he spoke in tones that allowed room for doubt.
Each fly eating incident that was reported was cause for health lectures. Flies, it was guaranteed, carried diseases. As he was not getting ill, Seeber began wondering if teachers really knew what they were talking about.
To Seeber's annoyance, he could not remember Gene Perry's reaction to the early fly eating. In older years, he remembered Perry laughing and maybe saying, "That's old Spider."
Seeber did not give Perry credit for his nickname.
That was because he liked being called Spider. The name sounded sinister and hinted at things to be feared.
The nickname came about when he had felt the need to brag. When asked, Seeber claimed to have eaten lots of bugs. He told how wooly bear caterpillars were best in late fall, when their wool thickness foretold the severity of coming winter. Spider had elaborated on avoiding black widows for obvious reasons and injected that spider web made your throat dry. Seeber said he had tried maggots, but didn't like them.
Appropriately impressed, his young listeners spread the imaginative tales, and persons unrecalled started calling him Spider. Spider Seeber—the name had a ring to it.
Because he liked the attention, Spider worked some at his game. Companions found him hanging in trees, like his namesake. He often had captured spiders for showing.
By the sixth grade, Spider had developed his personal mark. A lot of kids had secret signs or elaborate signatures. Some folded their notes in triangles or used unusual ink colors. None could hold a candle to Spider Seeber's symbol. It was simple and distinctive. Seeber's spider was many boys' envy. A variation by a real artist was Seeber's first tattoo.
When they both ended up out in Watts Township, Gene Perry became a real thorn.
Spider Seeber moved into his family's old farmhouse, and Perry spent summers at his people's cabin, over the ridge. They tried to get along sometimes, but it never lasted.
None of the Seebers liked anyone else very much. Few of them even liked each other. Financial inadequacies threw Seebers together so that expenses could be shared. Most couldn't even stand their own family's proximity and eventually hauled freight for distant places.
Seebers weren't letter writers, so most departees were rarely heard from, and some just disappeared altogether.
Out in Watts, Gene Perry was always bothering Spider Seeber. When they first got out there, Spider was building a secret fort up on the ridge. When he looked up, there was Perry staring at him. That ruined the secret, of course.
Another time Perry put together a hut, mostly of cardboard boxes, which was almost on Seeber land. Spider had torn the thing down. Another Seeber told, and Perry had punched Spider right in the face.
Just as bad as having Perry best him in a fight was the way Spider's own family made a lot of their neighbor.
Uncles and cousins who would hardly recognize Spider's existence yarned away with Perry as though he was grownup. Grampa Seeber was the worst of all. He sat on their porch, rocking in his old chair, feet propped on the railing with a million flies settling on his stocking feet telling Gene Perry makeup stories that were the biggest lies ever heard.
Sometimes Spider tried to listen, but the stories were as boring as school. Grampa lied about Indians and even about pirates capturing ships full of gold off Florida or somewhere. Hell, Grampa Seeber hadn't ever gotten past the Harrisburg Farm Show. The only thing he knew about Indians or pirates came from the million or so magazines he read—when he wasn't jawing with Gene Perry or anyone else that would listen.
Spider admired Grampa in some ways. As far as he could tell, the old man of the Seeber tribe never had worked. In her day, Grandma Seeber bore the kids, then got back to her job at the dress factory.
Somehow, Grampa got by on Grandma's earnings until the boys were old enough to contribute. Other Seebers helped out with cash money when they moved in and out of the old family place, which was how Spider's people got there.
Time turned, and Grampa just let it go, reading and yarning, watching flies settle on socks he never seemed to change. It often popped into Spider's mind that flies probably did carry some awful stuff at that.
Grampa Seeber never complained much either. When the stove went out in the winter, Grampa just pulled an old afghan around himself and went on reading, until someone brought wood and built the heat back up.
Grampa even read at the eating table. It made people wonder if he was escaping their clatter and rattle. He ate, eyes on his pages, but invariably thanked whoever had cooked, for whatever he had gotten down.
Spider doubted Grampa cared what he ate anyway. If someone had heaped fresh cow flop on his plate, Grampa would likely not have noticed and thanked the cook as usual. Not many, Spider figured, got throug
h life making or meeting fewer waves.
Gene Perry was disgusting, the way he would sit on the porch, leaned against a post, sucking in all that Grampa put out.
Perry even asked questions, and he and Grampa would figure out answers to what they didn't know. Gene was interested in mysterious places, so far away no one would ever see them. So was Grampa, and the two of them gabbled together like a pair of turkeys. Spider never hung around long.
After Perry went over the ridge, Grampa always said, "Now there's a likely boy."
Just because he listened to windy tales didn't make Gene Perry "likely" in Spider Seeber's eyes.
+++
When Spider got his first motorcycle, he cut a hole in the fence blocking their closed road from Route 22. The shortcut saved him six miles. Spider could whip off the highway and be home in a minute.
Somebody tipped off the police, and a trooper came knocking on the Seeber's door. Spider swore he knew nothing about it, but the cop had followed Spider's tracks, off the highway, through the fence, and right up the unused road. They ended under Spider's Honda's rear wheel.
There was only a warning because there was no proof that Seeber had done the fence cutting, only that he had used the hole. The fence was replaced, and Spider left it alone for a long time.
He couldn't prove it, but Spider Seeber just knew that Gene Perry had found the hole and turned him in.
That was when Spider's anger got the best of him. He swung his fists at Perry and swore he would burn Gene's cabin down.
The fight hadn't lasted long. Luckily, a bystander pulled Perry off of Seeber before Spider was permanently damaged.
Spider remembered, and he added that licking to a lengthy list of other affronts and abuses he had suffered at Gene Perry's hands.
Someday, maybe it would be way down the road, but someday Spider Seeber would get square with Gene Perry.
+++
Gene Perry was gone when Spider joined the Bikers' Club. Spider got rid of his Honda and bought a good used Harley-Davidson. He rode, swore, drank, and caroused with riders he recognized as a pack of losers.
Yet, Seeber did not see himself as another, going nowhere biker. He just hadn't found the right thing yet. When the big chance came along, Spider figured he would grab it and leave the biking scene as easily as he had entered.
The night Jello Gorse killed the girl, Spider knew he had come close to either dying or ending up in Rockville Penitentiary.
Spider made a few necessary arrangements and got out. Within days he was cycling south, heading for greener pastures, as most of his family had before him.
Spider figured Jello had crushed or smothered the girl when he had laid on her trying to hold her still. The punching and slapping Spider had inflicted would hardly have marked her, and bikers' girls were used to that kind of knocking around. Gorse had done it all right, but they were in it together.
Until he got away from Jello, Spider kept the giant in front of him and stayed alert and ready to run. He didn't know Gorse well, but he knew no witnesses were a lot better than one witness, no matter who he was. Spider wondered if he could club the huge biker and bury him. He did not find an opportunity, but he had to be careful because Gorse might harbor similar thoughts.
As long as they both kept quiet, no one would ever know. Even if one did talk, it would be only his word against the other, of course. All anyone could find would be a dead body. Spider doubted there was any other physical evidence. You couldn't convict without a lot more than that and one thing was sure, the guy that did talk would be in it up to his ears.
When he left, Spider didn't even bother nailing up his door. There wasn't anything worth stealing. He got the electricity turned off, packed what his saddlebags could hold and started south.
Somewhere around the Maryland line, Spider wondered if maybe he should have burned out Gene Perry before leaving. The idea was appealing but the law would start looking around. Perry would accuse him, of course. Spider couldn't doubt that.
Gene Perry was the kind of guy who got even. After the police went away, Perry might even burn Spider's house to the ground. Right now, Seeber didn't care, but he might need a place sometime. The taxes didn't amount to peanuts, so he'd be wise to hang onto the old dump, in case Florida didn't turn out.
+++
Spider Seeber was slow in recognizing that one place in the United States offered about as much chance as another. If a man worked, he would make out. If he didn't, any place was tough.
Until his money ran out, Spider avoided working. When gas money got short or his belly rumbled emptily Seeber signed on any old job. There was plenty of work in booming Florida.
None of the jobs paid much, but Seeber needed very little. He put in his hours for a pair of weeks. When he got paid, he stole what he dared in loose change, tools, or materials, and gunned the Harley through the night.
On the road, Spider slept in rest stops. When he worked, Seeber usually found other, money-short laborers willing to share their rental room for help with payments.
Spider made a small score running a saddlebag of cocaine to Atlanta. Enthused by the easy money, he tried again.
Only fools transport dope up the heavily policed Florida interstates. Seeber stayed off I-75 and, keeping within speed limits, he rumbled up the less convenient US 19. In a small town near the Georgia line, a local policeman stepped off the curb and held up a hand to stop the motorcycle. Panicked, Spider twisted the throttle and gunned past the startled police officer.
Too late, Seeber saw the massed school children waiting to cross the intersection. Spider cursed himself. The policeman hadn't been interested in him at all.
Over his shoulder, Spider saw the cop fumbling for a notebook. Jotting down his license plate number, Seeber supposed. Well, at least the local wasn't piling into a patrol car in hot pursuit.
Awareness of the dope in his saddlebag burned Spider's mind. What to do wracked his brain power. Would the cop call ahead? Hell, taking the license number might only be a hollow threat. The probability of anything coming from running a crossing guard was small.
Without the cocaine, Seeber would have gone for the Georgia line. The dope made it all different. A traffic violation was one thing; drug trafficking was quite another. A dirt road beckoned and Spider took it.
He could cache the white powder and come back later, but in Atlanta mean people waited and they tended to be impatient. Spider got out his map.
He had just come through Monticello. He could jog over to state road 149 and follow it to Quitman in Georgia. That route should be obscure enough to avoid police. The distance was only twenty miles or so.
In Georgia, Seeber felt safer but he took back roads all the way into Atlanta. He was late making his drop off, which made his contact nervous. That made Spider's blood run cold. Drug people were notoriously short fused and paranoidly unpredictable. When he got his money, Spider turned west on I-20. He would not be back.
Texas, maybe California, sounded safer and better. Running dope out of Florida was as senseless as dodging traffic on Main Street. Luck would run out and prison would be a sure thing.
Spider Seeber wanted a big payday—one big haul that would take the pressure off for years to come. Everybody dreamed of that kind of windfall but most imaginings lay within law and human decency. Spider went looking for his big score without any such reservations.
Of course success eluded him. Again down to his last few dollars, Spider was pulled over in Waco, Texas and thoroughly questioned. A hippy-looking, lean male had robbed a bank and escaped on a large, black motorcycle. Stopping Seeber was only a routine check, Seeber was clean, and he went on his way.
The incident intrigued Spider Seeber; hit a bank and escape clean and fast by motorcycle. Go up alleys and through yards, where police cars could not follow, it sounded daring, but with good probabilities. The idea would be to keep right on going, clean out of the state.
Spider's memory of the tensions eating him while trying to es
cape Florida with the cocaine dampened the bank robbing idea, but the miles were long and his wallet flat. Seeber kept rolling the possibilities around.
A week of short rations and a poor job in a car wash helped Spider firm a plan. His was a clever scheme. Only bad luck could foul it.
The great question in Seeber's mind was whether he could make himself go through with it. Those self-doubts helped push him ahead. Spider Seeber wasn't going to scare himself out of a good thing.
Spider traded his Harley for an old pickup truck and cash. He got taken, of course, but it wasn't the time to bicker over dimes.
In another town, Seeber bought a false mustache and a cheap woman's wig, which he hacked into a more male styling. He picked up nondescript clothes and work gloves in a used clothing store.
The pistol was purchased from an ad in a local paper. The gun was a Rossi .38 caliber revolver. Undoubtedly, the well-worn pistol had been through a dozen previous owners. It was unlikely many had exchanged names. Spider certainly hadn't offered his.
A partial box of cartridges came with the gun, but Seeber needed only one cylinder full. He darn sure wasn't going to fire fight a Texas posse. Like his nickname, Spider intended to be quiet and swift.
In yet another community, Seeber bought the key to his plan, a new moped capable of almost thirty miles per hour. Spider was not concerned with top speed. He chose his model for easy starting and smooth running.
Seeber drove to Temple, Texas with the moped hidden beneath a tarp in the truck bed. Temple was the city he had chosen for his bank robbery.
+++
Choosing a bank proved difficult because they were all so much alike. Every corner seemed to have one or two branch banks, banks which were obviously more vulnerable than a big, center of town main bank. Spider chose his because of street construction.
The Sweet Taste (Perry County) Page 7
