Carl fell in love with a digital beer display behind the bar that showed a bikini girl waterskiing. I was coming to understand the boy must have some empty rooms in his attic. He stood gawking at the thing like he was stoned on Jesus love. That left Squire and me alone at a table, sucking on our margaritas. Shaving his head probably hadn’t done for Squire what he hoped. It made his face resemble a cream pie somebody drew a man-in-the moon face on, but he tried to sell the look as being the front door into the world of a badass individual with secrets you would want to know. It was kinda pathetic. He threw a couple of insults my way and when that didn’t get a rise, he went on about how tight he was with Carl and Ava, how they’d been partying for two months solid, saying me and Leeli needed to get on board the party train, they’d sure show us a time.
—Two month vacation must get in the way of your bartending, I said and he said, Huh?, then got flustered and came back with, Oh, yeah…hell, I just work when we’re there, y’know.
The juke box played the Dixie Chicks. Leeli squealed, clapped her hands, and did this slow, snaky hula, dancing like she was on stage at a titty bar and using Ava for the pole.
—We ain’t hardly ever there, though. Squire said this like it was super important for me to understand. He started to spout more worthless bullshit, but I told him to hang onto the thought. I walked over to Ava and tapped her on the shoulder and said, ’Scuse me, buddy. Believe it’s my turn. She flashed a condescending smile and backed off. Leeli kept her eyes closed like she didn’t care what was going on, she was so lost in the music, but when I put my leg where Ava’s hip had been she said, That was rude!
—Yeah she was, I said.
She punched me in the chest, but didn’t leave off dry-humping my leg. Just ’cause we did the deed, don’t you go waving no papers at me.
—That wasn’t my intention.
She didn’t hear and I said it again louder.
This ticked her off. Just what is your intention? she asked.
—I got a friend in Lauderdale lets me use his beach house. I thought we could drive down next weekend and see how it goes. But hey, you wanna fuck the old skank, do it.
—Well, maybe I will! She looped her arms about my neck and smiled me up. Or maybe I’ll wait ’til after Lauderdale.
I thought the two of us were back on track, but when Ava decided to hit another bar, Leeli said in a cajoling voice, I’m having so much fun! Let’s not go home yet! Wasn’t until we wound up in a Daytona Beach motel on Saturday morning, sleeping in the room next to Ava’s, that I realized somewhere in the middle of all those tequila shots, we’d climbed aboard the party train. I remembered telling everybody about the beach house. From that I guess the idea had developed for Ava to drive me and Leeli to Lauderdale, making frequent stops for refreshment, with Ava paying the freight. They weren’t going to welcome me back at the food mart when I turned up a week late for my shift, but that world was spinning me nowhere and I thought I might take a shot at separating Ava from some of the money she’d been throwing around. I worried about her going after Leeli, though. We’d only had us the one night, but Leeli and I seemed to recognize each other’s zero score in life as only folks do who’re born in a neighborhood where the most you aspire to is a double-wide and sufficient loose change to afford a couple of cases on the weekend. We’d both worn out our craziness to the point where we saw we might have us a nice little run and maybe avoid killing each other at the end. Once she loosened up and that sick-of-it-all waitress hardness drained from her face, I saw a sweet seam in her no one had bothered to mine.
I left Leeli sleeping and smoked in the breezeway of the motel, watching two rat-skinny children splash and squeak in the pool, while their two hundred pound plus mama, milky breasts and thighs and belly squeezed into inner-tube shapes by a lemon-yellow bathing suit, lay on a lawn chair and simmered like a dumpling over a low flame. The drapes of Ava’s room hung open a crack and I had a peek. All I saw of her was legs waving in the air and hands gripping onto a headboard. The rest was hidden underneath Squire. His pimply butt was just pumping up and down. Sitting straight in a chair beside the bed, like a schoolboy being taught a lesson, Carl was looking on with interest. Well, come get me Jesus, I said to myself. With Carl and Squire both bagging Ava, she wouldn’t have much time for Leeli. I had to admire Squire’s stamina, but he looked to be doing push-ups on a trampoline and if I was the boy’s daddy I’d have advised him that women tend to enjoy some rhythmic variation. He finally fell off his stroke and rolled onto his back. Ava came up flushed and sweaty, hair sticking to her cheeks. She had a sip of water, spoke briefly to Carl, then straddled Squire and began more-or-less to treat him like he’d been treating her. I’d been feeling about ten cents on the dollar, but watching her work cleaned the crust off my brain. Being the gentleman I am, I decided to buy Leeli coffee and a Krispy Kreme before checking out the rest of my parts.
I hated Daytona, and not just because I was born there, though every time I drove through Holly Hills, redneck purgatory, and saw those little bunkerlike concrete homes with cracked jalousie windows and chainlink fences and Big Wheels with faded colors buried in the front yard weeds, my wattles got all red and swollen. I also hated the beach, the kids who cruised it eight and nine to a convertible or rode around in ten-dollar-an-hour rent-a-buggies, the bikini girls with their inch-deep tans and MTV eyes, the boys in Hilfiger suits with an old man’s dream of financial security stuck like an ax into their brains at birth. I hated the fucking piped-in circus music that played along the boardwalk, sounding like it was made of sugar beets and red dye number seven. I hated the goddamn carnival rides and the heavy-metal curses shouting from the arcades. I liked the ocean all right, liked the blue-green water inside the sandbar, the creamy ridges of foam the tide left along the margin, and the power of the combers, but I wished they rolled in to no shore. I hated the burger joints with their fried-onion stink, their white plastic tables and chairs on a concrete deck, and walk-up windows manned by high school geeks with connect-the-dot acne puzzles on their foreheads, because it was at just such a joint I committed the error in judgment that earned me a nickel in Raiford, sauntering up to the service window so wired on crank, all I could smell was the inside of my nose, pulling a fifty-dollar pistol, and before I could speak the magic words, two plainclothes cops who were drinking milkshakes at the time snuck up behind me and said to turn around real quick, they’d like that, and later in jail, Sgt. John True, a man apparently fascinated with me, visited my cell, the first of our many nights together, and said, When I was a kid I’s just like you—meaning, I suppose, he no longer considered himself a dumbass hillbilly—prior to beating me unconscious. I carried a lot of anger relating to Daytona and that afternoon while we were sitting at a white plastic table on a concrete deck, staring at baskets of onion rings and fried shrimp so heavily breaded, eating one was like eating a hush puppy with a flavorless crunchy prize inside, I let angry out for exercise.
Squire got things off to a start by going on about how easy it would be to knock over the Joyland Arcade. You gotta have balls, he said, ’cause time to do it’s when it’s crowded. You walk on up and let ’em see your piece and grab them bags of money! He looked to Ava like he was expecting to have his belly rubbed. She smiled and dribbled salt from a packet onto her rings.
—You got a hard-on for quarters? I asked. They don’t bag nothing but the change.
—You have people with you. Three or four of ’em so you can carry more.
—You think four loads of quarters divided four ways is more’n one load divided one way? You ain’t been studying your arithmetic.
—You take the bills too, Squire said. Like, of course, he knew that.
—Where am I? I asked Leeli.
Her expression begged me to shut up.
—Seriously. Did we wake up somewhere’s else this morning? Some other planet where stupid rules?
Carl chuckled and I said, Fuck is your problem, man? All you do’s sit around and make
fun of shit. What put you so high in the roost? Far as I can tell, Squire’s your intellectual superior and he ain’t got the brains of a box of popcorn.
—You the one’s acting superior, Ava said, and forked up some slaw.
—Fuck, I am superior! Superior to this shit. Maybe it gets you wet listening to the criminal genius here, but it don’t even give me a tickle.
Squire told me to watch my mouth, I was talking to a lady, and I said, Come on, you fucking chihuahua! Step to me!
Leeli caught my arm and said, Maceo! I jerked free and swatted my shrimp basket, backhanding it across the deck. People bespotted with ketchup splatter from the basket stared at us from the adjoining tables. The assistant manager, who could have passed for fourteen, looked like he was about to cry. Leeli was yelling at me, Squire was avoiding my eyes, Ava was calmly wiping her sleeve with a napkin. Carl giggled and said, Fucking chihuahua!
One of the citizens I’d splattered, a thick-necked, Hawaiian-shirt-wearing, Chevy-Suburban-driving son of the suburbs, his belly sagging like a hundred-year-old hammock, gave his pregnant wife a comforting pat on the shoulder and heaved up from his cheeseburger, but Ava saved his ass by intercepting him on the way to our table and slipped him a twenty for his dry cleaning bill. Other folks put in their claim and once she had satisfied them, she sat back down and said to me, Temper like that, it’s a wonder you still on the street.
Calmer now, I felt no call to answer. I gave her a fuck-you smile and popped one of Leeli’s shrimp into my mouth. It was covered with grit that had blown up from the beach, which made it extra crunchy.
—You so smart, Ava said, whyn’t you tell us how you’d handle the Joyland?
—Wouldn’t nothing but a damn fool mess with it. Too many cops. Too many boyfriends might wanna play hero. You feel the need to rob something, head out on the freeway. You know the back roads along the exits, you can take down two gas stations easy and be sitting in a bar before the cops get motivated.
—I suppose it was your expertise landed you in prison.
—Oh I was a fool. No doubt about that. It don’t mean I’m still a fool.
Challenged, I delivered a lecture on proper criminal procedure, most of it learned in Raiford, but salted in with personal experiences that I embellished for dramatic effect. You gotta terrorize a place, I told them. People ain’t always scared, they see the gun. Sometimes they can’t believe you’re for real and they go to debating what to do. You don’t want that, you want ’em scared. So you say something lets ’em know how scared they oughta be.
—Yeah? Squire said churlishly. Like what?
I made my hand into a gun and pointed it at his chest. Hands up! Who wants to die? You say that, it gets their attention every time.
—I like that, Carl said, grinning. Hands up who wants to die?
—Takes the punch out of it, you say it with a smile, I said. Tell ’em like you mean it.
With that, Carl jumped up and snarled, Hands up! Who wants to die?
The pregnant lady yipped and the people at the table behind me grabbed up their belongings and scooted. Ava pulled Carl down into his chair and I said to him, That’ll get it done.
Leeli stood and said, Can we just go? Please!
We set off down the boardwalk toward the car and she fell into step with Ava and Carl. Irritated by this, not wanting to be stuck with Squire, I dropped off the pace, lollygagging along. That’s how Leeli wanted to play it, I told myself, to hell with her. I’d find myself a sweeter can of tuna. I started eye-fucking the bikini girls strolling past and when one made a smart-ass remark, getting her friends to laughing at me, I told her once she lost that babyfat she oughta try a real dick, but right now it’d likely be too much for her.
Ava drove south and then west on State Road 44 toward Orlando. She went to talking about the old days, the 60s, when there was so many UFOs in the sky—because of the rockets at the Cape, she guessed—you could see them from out on 44 every night. Boys useta take us down here to see ’em, she said, ’cause they thought we’d let ’em get fresh while we were stargazing. Leeli, who was riding shotgun next to Carl, said, I bet they were right, huh?
—’Course they were, Ava said, and they shared a laugh.
—You ever see any UFOs? Leeli asked.
—All the time! You look up in the sky, you couldn’t help seeing ’em. Pretty soon what you thought was a group of stars would get to darting around, making these really sharp turns, flying in formation.
She asked Leeli to fish around in her tote bag and find her cigarettes. Once she got a smoke going, she said, Couple times we saw one real close.
—A flying saucer?
—Uh huh. We saw this one shoot a green light from its belly. Straight down to the ground.
—Maybe it was Santa Claus you saw, I suggested. Waving his green flashlight.
Ava took a glance back toward me. You don’t believe in UFOs, Maceo?
—’Bout as much as I believe in liberty and justice for all.
—Don’t listen to him, Leeli said. He’s a contrary sort.
I told Leeli she didn’t know squat about me and then said to Ava, Whatever you saw, wasn’t no flying saucer. Ain’t no sense to any of that business.
—That might be, Ava said. Most things don’t make sense, especially you try and understand ’em too hard.
—I suppose that’s profound, but I’m just a dumb Florida Cracker. It goes right by me.
Ava flicked ash and sparks out the window. You might catch up to it one of these days, she said.
It struck me that Ava must be a lot older than I’d estimated, she was dating back in the 60s, but I didn’t stay with the thought. I was a six pack along into a decent buzz and still feeling sour about Leeli, fully occupied with self-pity and scorn. When we stopped for gas I pulled Leeli aside, fed her all the I’m-sorry she could swallow and persuaded her to switch seats with Squire. I discovered a sensitive spot under her ear and before long I had her squirming pretty good, though each time my fingers traipsed near the old plantation home, she’d give them a spank. Squire began telling a lie about a beauty queen he’d gone with in high school and Ava shut him up quick, saying she needed to concentrate on the road. That clued me in she was upset about Leeli, and I felt satisfied in mind.
Scattered around the edges of Disneyworld were a number of shooting ranges where for a few dollars you could fire assault rifles. Given the encouragement this surely offered the freaks who flocked to the ranges, you had to wonder if the city fathers of Orlando didn’t unconsciously long to see TV coverage of a giant blood-spattered mouse. While Carl and Squire were busy playing soldier at Buck’s Guns and Sporting Gallery, me and Ava and Leeli walked to a nearby 7-11 and bought some forty-ouncers, one of which I chugged walking back to the parking lot. The girls sat talking on the hood of Ava’s truck. I wasn’t drunk enough to feel mean, but I felt separate from things. The cars racing along the six-lane were shiny toys with glaring headlights and dabs of meat inside. The strip malls lining the road were grimy slot-car accessories. The heat came from a neon tube inside my head and the starless orange-lit sky was a gasoline-soaked rag someone had throwed over the whole mess so’s to hide it from company. What I’m saying, it wouldn’t have taken much to upgrade me to mean. Ava was pitching hard at Leeli, touching her thigh, the back of her hair. I just kept working on my second forty. If I could drink fast enough, I wouldn’t care what they did and I’d be able to ignore some deeper thoughts that were trying to gnaw out my brains like a squirrel with a nut meat.
When Squire and Carl returned, all hotted up from proving their marksmanship, Ava announced a surprise. She had reserved us rooms at the mouse’s hotel. We’d have a few cocktails, go on some rides, and see what developed. This made Carl happy, but Squire and Leeli didn’t seem to care. I sucked down a third forty on the ride over and after Ava checked us in, I told her I felt poorly and was going to my room.
—Me, too, said Leeli. I’m awful tired.
This surprised Ava a
s much as it did me. You sure? she said to Leeli. Space Mountain’ll juice you right up.
—Naw, we’ll catch y’all later. Leeli started walking so fast, she beat me to the elevator.
I had a shower while Leeli ordered room-service cheeseburgers and Cokes. The food left me placid and sleepy. I laid out on the bed in my skivvies and Leeli stood at the window, her arms folded, stern of face, like she was taking stock of a brightly lit country she’d just done conquering.
—You don’t have to worry ’bout me making a move, that’s what’s keeping you vertical, I said. I’m through for today.
She made a noise that didn’t tell me much.
I grabbed the remote from the bedside table and found a wrestling show on TV. Wrestling hasn’t been the same since the prime of Hulk Hogan and the Giant and Macho Man Savage, you ask me. Back in the day your superhero had a gut just like the asshole sitting next to you in the bar and so when you smacked him with a beer bottle, you had a greater sense of accomplishment. Now there was too many pretty boys and it was more tumbling and role-playing than the honest-to-God fake it once was.
Leeli wriggled out of her jeans. Ava gave me money to buy clothes, she said. Reckon we better do it soon.
—We can get some fine clothes here. Get us some mouse shirts and mouse hats with the ears. Maybe you can get some panties with the mouse on the crotch and wear ’em inside out.
She pulled off her tank top and threw it at me in a ball. You always have to be a shit?
—It was a fucking joke! Jesus!
She stared at me as if she didn’t believe it.
—I swear, I said.
She held the stare a second longer. Damn! she said. Why do I like you?
—You want a honest answer?
—Naw, I know why. She sat down on the bed, glum as old gravy, picked up the remote and went surfing, changing channels so fast, there was only little blurts of sound. Know what Ava told me? She says she works for the government. The FBI.
—No shit! I said. Is she a friend of Spiderman?
The Best of Lucius Shepard Page 59
