A man who looked like a heavy from an old Clint Eastwood western stood in the doorway of the town’s store while giving her an unabashed looking-over. She noted the big stone and redwood house across the street and kept walking. When she got to the two-story clapboard and brick whorehouse, she talked to one of the girls on the spacious and airy porch, then went in the direction the girl pointed. This was it. She had the body, the personality, and especially the attitude to make it big in this line of work. She took a deep breath and marched straight over to the office next-door and showed them her brand-new real estate license.
“I’m here for the job you advertised on the Internet.”
∨ Possum Surprise ∧
13
It’s a Predatory Universe
They were after her; she’d seen them. But, then, there always seemed to be something after her, no matter which world she found herself in. Every movement, every shadow could be a threat. She was just more aware of the dangers than other people were.
In the world where she couldn’t fly there were people after her. She didn’t think they wanted to eat her like the coyotes did; they were likely either dream phantoms or social-service workers. She’d had run-ins with both in the past and knew they were equally dangerous.
Janie had come to Possum Row guided by the book. The power spot was close; sometimes she could almost feel it – probably in those mountains to the east where the old man went.
She was pretty sure it was the right old man – the last of her people – but she could never get close enough to find out. This was very troubling to Janie. In her genes lived countless generations of hunters and stalkers, and Janie had learned from Grandmother how to move across the earth like a shadow.
But the old man always seemed to avoid her, even if she’d been hiding for hours waiting for him to pass by. Following him didn’t work either. She would quietly walk along in the darkness, concentrating totally on keeping up with the old man. But inevitably something would distract her and she would lose him. And every time this happened she would find herself only a few steps from her chicken-coop home.
Then she would spend hours trying to understand how she could follow the old man for miles in the dark and still end up in the same place every time.
But eventually she would just start thinking about corn tortillas, the kind she got from the man at the big house. But the man had been gone for days, which is why she was out along the road hunting and saw the small mean man and the big quiet man. She watched them and realized they were also hunting.
She tried to warn the oncoming truck, but the man came to the trap anyway. After she rocked the bad men, they started shooting, so she ran and hid in the funny trailer behind the truck. She had been in cars a few times, but being inside a car was very different from standing up in the funny trailer as it sped along in the dark with the wind whipping her hair. It was almost like flying.
∨ Possum Surprise ∧
14
Back at the Ranch
At the ranch house the next morning Taco Bob faced a roomful of bright-eyed expectation shining from weathered faces.
“Well, boys, I ain’t got much good news for you.”
Taco Bob tried not to look right at anyone as the first wave of disappointment swept across the room.
“Skunk and I didn’t win the fishing tournament. Actually, Buck Kracker, that big cattleman over on the other side of town, won the grand prize.”
This bit of news elicited a chorus of groans from the group.
“Skunk did get fifth place. They gave him a trophy and a gift certificate. He traded the certificate for a bottle of ‘shine.”
“Mhn mnn! Mhn mm mh nhn!”
“Actually, he did. Which is why I was hosing down the inside of my truck when I got back.”
“Mnm mh?”
“The last I saw of him, Skunk was snoring peacefully in the grass along the interstate.”
Several hung heads raised up with the beginnings of a smile.
“But we didn’t win any money for Doc’s party, not to mention I spent Hazel’s bail money on the entry fee and expenses. I reckon there ain’t going to be a party, boys.”
Even Hop, standing by the door, hung his head.
“Oh, and one other thing. The Dalton Gang busted out of prison and may be stopping by at any time to shoot me.”
♦
A gray gloom settled over the possum ranch after that. The men felt bad they couldn’t pull off a party for Doc, and having to do Hazel’s chores as well as their own didn’t help ranch moral much.
Taco Bob went into town a few days later when Doc got back, but first stopped by the jail to check on Hazel. Though usually a happy sort, Hazel took the news of the failed party hard.
♦
Doc came back in a black mood. Hollywood had wanted to make major changes to his latest screenplay.
“They want to make it just like all the other screenplays feeding the movie mill! Those people wouldn’t know an original idea if it bit ‘em on the ass!”
Taco Bob had stopped by to see how the trip out west had gone. He wasn’t in the best of moods himself. He started feeling even lower then, knowing a big party would have been just the ticket for taking his friend’s mind off the disappointment of dealing with shortsighted people.
After again thanking Doc for the now-completed crossword book, one of the last of the country’s possum ranchers slunk off with his tail between his legs.
♦
Doc wanted to take his mind off things, so he went down the road to find the lady realtor and see if she wanted to go into Armadillo later for anything but a movie. Maybe check out that new Star Trek museum in Armadillo he’d heard about. Sounded a little weird, but then Doc figured everybody needed a little ‘weird’ now and then.
When he got to the real estate office next-door to Hummer’s, he found most of the room filled with a puffed up Buck Kracker and a huge box of steaks.
“Well, it’s like this, Miss Dottie. While driving back from winning this big professional fishing tournament, I got to thinking you might like some of these. We got so many fine head of cattle now over at the ranch, and I just figured a hardworking and fine-looking lady like yourself might enjoy a nice hundred-pound box of filet mignon steaks.”
In the few months Dottie had been selling real estate, she’d become very successful. She’d joined the local gym and spent a lot of money on clothes. The vision of womanhood across the room from Doc was staring into the box and didn’t notice him standing in the doorway. Kracker had his back to Doc and was holding his ten-gallon cowboy hat in his hand. He smiled at Dottie like he’s just won another trophy.
“I thought maybe we could cook up a few of these then take a ride over to the city in my new pickup truck. There’s a new Batman movie playing we could go see.” Doc quietly slipped back out the door and headed for Hummer’s.
♦
“Closed Cuz Everyone Has Got The Damn Flu!”
The sign on the front door was enough for Doc to keep going, muttering the whole way to Pedro’s.
“Pedro, put these two quarts of beer on my tab.” Doc started to leave so he could do some light drinking and heavy muttering. He took a better look at the merchant who for once didn’t bother to hoist a smile. “What’s eating you? You look like you lost your best friend.”
“Ay, that rumor, you know the really bad one? I heard it again this morning.”
“About Wal-Mart building a store around here?” Pedro flinched at the mention of the mega-store chain. “Sorry to hear it, Pedro.” Doc left the man to his misery and went home to work on his own case of the black ass.
∨ Possum Surprise ∧
15
Roadside Blues
The soulful eyes and ripe body of Heather the Wood Nymph was having an effect on him. Whenever she was around there was a tingling in his loins, but this time the tingling was turning into a much-too-familiar burning. The burning became so bad he woke up. He opened his eyes.
>
“Shit! It was only a dream!”
Skunk rolled over so his crotch wasn’t in a fire ant hill anymore. His mouth tasted like he’d been eating dusty gravel. He sat up on his bony ass and brushed off the ants that were stinging him for all they were worth. Not having any pants, along with a Category 5 hangover, reminded him of how he’d come to be lying in the tall grass along a major highway.
“Uh, oh. I reckon I screwed up again.”
Skunk spat out some gravel and looked around through the road haze. The sky looked like scorched hash browns, and the sun like an egg fried hard. He found his little plastic trophy in the grass and used it to cover his ant-bit privates while he stood alongside the road trying to thumb a ride.
Thirty minutes and a few hundred cars stuffed full of eyes later, the sky had just about finished adding some clouds that looked like an order of toast burned black when an eighteen-wheeler screeched to a stop. Skunk took off running and climbed in.
“Thanks! How far ya going?”
The truck lurched forward and the driver started working though the gears.
“Just up yonder a ways. How come you ain’t got no britches? You standing there with your bare butt in the breeze?”
“Somebody stole my pants, and I ain’t got no underwear on cuz underwear gives you cancer.”
The driver of the road-weary old semi rig turned and gave Skunk a good look – like having just remembered why you’re not supposed to pick up hitchhikers. Skunk was grinning though, happy to get a ride.
“My grandpa always said folks started getting cancer about the same time they invented underwear.” Skunk smiled big at what he thought might be a female driving the big truck. “Say, I’m about to hungry to death. I don’t suppose we could stop somewheres and get some breakfast?”
“Ain’t got time to stop. I gotta get this load of pork bellies to Houston by noon. Name’s Big Mary by the way.”
Skunk shook the offered massive paw and tried to look as pitiful and hungry as he was.
“Skunk Johnson here. I don’t suppose you got anything to eat? I really am powerful hungry.”
“Here, take you a couple of these. I got a whole case from my brother-in-law. Keeps you alert, an’ you don’t get hungry no more, neither.”
Skunk looked at the rolls of fat hanging off Big Mary and then looked in the little pill bottle. He couldn’t remember when he’d been so hungry.
Twenty minutes later the road up ahead sizzled like long strips of bacon.
“You okay Skunk? You ain’t said nothing for a while. You didn’t take more than two of them little pills, did ya?”
Skunk had a white-knuckle death grip on the dashboard and his eyes were bugging out.
“I’m fine! Just fine and dandy! In fact, I don’t know when I’ve felt so good! Did I tell you I’m in the Solenopsis business? That’s the right an’ proper name for ant farmer and I been doing it for five years now. I just go out in the pastures and dig up fire ant mounds and get the queen and sell the whole colony to scientists and universities and such so they can study a way to get rid of fire ants but they ain’t come up with a way yet and I get bit a lot but it’s good honest work and better than possum or cow ranching an’ I get to be my own boss except I got to put the ants in these special boxes an’ give them to this Mexican what runs the store in town an’ he pays me an’ that car just passed us reminds me of a fella what owes me ten dollars except his car is a different color and is actually a truck an – ”
“Skunk! You feel that? I think I just blew a tire. I’m gonna pull over here and you run around back and check that right rear tire for me real quick, okay?”
Which is how Skunk once again found himself alone alongside a major highway without any pants.
∨ Possum Surprise ∧
16
Dust
In spite of recent advances in meteorological terminology, when it comes right down to it, Possum Row’s weather is best described in one of two ways – dust or mud.
It was another dusty day as Taco Bob drove carefully into town. He parked his pickup by the store and looked around for any signs of Daltons before heading into Pedro’s. A small crowd milled around the front door looking at something on the ground and offering opinions.
“I seen a piece of a truck recap on the highway once looked like that.”
“Might be. Looks like it’s been run over some.”
“I seen a scary movie once had something in it called a dust slug looked like that.”
“Could be just some old buffalo afterbirth somebody throwed here as a joke on Pedro.”
Taco Bob stepped closer so he could see between the cowboys pondering the thing on the ground. It was pretty disgusting all right, but he knew what it was.
“That there’s Skunk Johnson. Y’all step back and give him some air.”
Taco Bob went inside for a can of beer and poured it over the thicker, dirtier end of the thing on the ground. Two red-rimmed eyes popped open and the cowboys jumped back.
“Damn if you ain’t right, Taco Bob!”
Skunk sat up and went into a prolonged coughing jag. The cowboys went about their business. The price of beef had jumped lately and the cattle ranchers were flush with spending money. Possum prices, holding steady for months at an all-time low, had recently begun to move lower.
“You all right, Skunk?”
“I reckon. Where am I?”
“Pedro’s store. Been a few days since I left you along I-10. You have a good time after yakking all over the inside of my truck?”
“Damn, Taco! You got to kick a man when he’s down? I’m sorry if I urped a li’l in your truck.”
“It wasn’t a little. In fact, it was so bad – ”
“It was probably the way you drive got my stomach upset. You know I have a delicate constitution.” Skunk said this while still sitting in the dirt, sticking his tongue up in the beer can and trying to lick out the last drops.
“Yeah, delicate. I seen you eat a whole squirrel once – raw.”
“I was probably a lot younger then and mighty hungry.”
“It was last week out at the ranch. You were drunk and did it on a dollar bet.”
“You got my pants?”
“In back of the truck. Hold on.”
By the time Taco Bob came back with the greasy jeans, Skunk was already in the store, taking hits off a quart bottle of beer in a paper sack and telling his tale to the cowboys. Without missing a beat, he pulled his pants on over the layers of road crud, dried mud, and dust on his scrawny legs.
“What did I do then? Why, I just stuck my thumb out and this FINE-looking gal, I think her name was Heather, comes out of the woods and gives me a ride in her li’l rice-burner four-wheel-drive truck, and she had a cooler full of beer and a big sack of hot barbeque ribs! After we finished off the ribs and beer heading down the road, we stopped at this motel and had every kind of sex you can think of for about sixteen hours straight; then she drove down right through Texas and dropped me off here!”
Most of the cowboys were standing there slack-jawed taking it all in, but not Taco Bob.
“Skunk, I don’t believe a word of that.”
“Well, I did get me a ride, partway.”
“How did you get so dirty and beat up?”
Skunk looked at himself, amazed. He was so dirty Taco Bob couldn’t tell if the man had a shirt on or not.
“I don’t know how I got like this. I must have fallen down somewhere before taking a nap out front. I think I been doing a lot of walking.”
Pedro stopped ringing up some bottles of champagne, gourmet cheese, and imported grapes for one of the cowboys.
“Yeah, he sleeping in way so I can’t open the door this morning. I drag him out for the buzzards, but the buzzards drag him back by the door.”
Skunk just shrugged and scratched his ass while taking a long pull on the oversized bottle of beer. The talk turned to the big fire the night before. Seems some cowboys drunk on Johnny Walker Blue were se
tting off fireworks out behind the town livestock pavilion and had set it on fire.
Taco Bob was paying Pedro for his ranch supplies for the week – a ten-pound bag of rice, a can of Vienna sausages, and one bar of lye soap – and listened in.
“One of Kracker’s men had a fancy new truck parked in the main entrance driveway and was so drunk he couldn’t figure out how to disarm the anti-theft lock and move it out the way. By the time the fire trucks got in, the place had burned to the ground.”
Pedro handed Taco Bob his change.
“Bag?”
“If you don’t mind.”
“Plastic?”
“That’s fine.”
One of the cowboys snickered and whispered loud to his buddy.
“He don’t need no bag, probably growed a pouch by now!”
Taco Bob recognized the man as the one with Kracker in Georgia. He gave the cowboys a tired look and took the bag from Pedro. He’d heard plenty of possum jokes, and some were getting a little mean-spirited at times.
Taco Bob could have brought up how domestic cattle are basically slow, stupid, clumsy, shit-smeared, fly-covered brutes. Or he could have mentioned that cattle are responsible for the overgrazing of millions of acres of land, which not only destroys native grasses, but also contributes to the polluting of lakes and steams.
But he decided to let it go, since the last thing he needed was to spark up a range war with the cow grunts.
♦
One of the tires on his truck was almost flat, so Taco Bob dug out the jack and spare. On the way into town he’d been behind a school bus that threw a piece of gravel just right to put a tiny crack in his windshield. He noticed jacking up the truck made the crack bigger. A county sheriff double-parked next to his pick-up.
“Morning, deputy.”
Deputy Raddick got out and stuck a parking ticket under the windshield wiper.
Possum Surprise Page 5
