Chapter 23
The field around the base of the wind tower had burned. The graffiti applied to the base of the wind tower seemed familiar. The brush technique about spot on to that on all the signs at the Patriot’s Kiosk, difference being blue rather than that blood-red paint. Among the death’s heads and the swastikas, the words familiar, reminding Sipe of something from school. Starting out ‘First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out-Because I was not a Socialist’, ran through these “They” thugs coming for Trade Unionists and Jews, ending up on ‘Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me’.
Driving towards Pendleton, and driving back, Sipe had noted the dirt road coming towards the highway from the east, a wind tower looming up behind it off on the flat. The road out of Little Creek running past the cemetery kept headed north, parallel to the highway. After driving through trees, and driving up and down some hills, the land flattened, and he had seen the wind tower just up ahead, the road making a sharp turn west, and what he could see of the highway it was the portion angled westward, up towards trees, and Orley.
The oddest thing, seeing flashing lights on a cop car before hearing the siren.
In the city he always heard the squawk before he saw the lights.
He hit the brakes, the car wobbled a little on the sea of gravel, but he didn’t skid into a ditch. Some panicky part of the brain thought the cop would have seen the trail of dust Sipe had been kicking up, and the cop would turn off the asphalt and come investigate before continuing on towards Little Creek. Sipe wouldn’t be able to wiggle out, questions on top of questions and the cop would have to take him in and he’d have to shoot the cop. He’d never shot a cop. It was one of those milestones some celebrated, the gunman equivalent to popping their cherry. Zeke one of the few in bed with Sipe on that particular front, cop-shooting, it was this taint, a stain, that once you got, didn’t come off, ever.
Thanks to Millie, there were going to be more cops coming down here. Depending on whether or not she’d killed the cop, it was going to be like a swarm of cops. The time window on getting out of sight was rapidly closing. Waiting for dark seemed dumb. So he drove.
The wind tower getting tiny in his rear view window, encircled by dust, he couldn’t predict how far it would be, the Zippy Mart, from where the dirt road met the highway. Driving a car that the cops were now looking for would only increase the distance.
Sipe took the sunglasses off. Realized it made no difference. The car was bruised. The driver’s face bruised. No way to mask the car bruise.
Already on the highway, southbound, and he had to fight to not give in to the voice wanting him to stop, and get out, and assess the damage. The same voice practically sobbing about the likelihood, right at that intersection with the Zippy Mart, the cops would have set up a roadblock.
For a moment he imagined Roxanne in the backseat. Her lips sucked up under her teeth. Moving the flesh over her chompers, producing a sound, lovey-dovey noises, noises like someone pretending they were going to eat you up. He’d forgotten how she came up with that, the lipless routine, just one of the hundreds of ways to torture a little brother. Quite the feat, once a week, an all-new weak point exposed, exploited. Sometimes she roped a friend into helping. Greta outgrew torturing Sipe. But Roxanne reveled in it. There had been another lipless god. Some other girl, pretending to take bites out of Sipe, holding him down, those lipless, toothless mouths snapping at him, gouging away, Roxanne losing it, laughing when her partner-in-crime started chomping Sipe’s crotch, through his pajamas, Sipe screaming, convinced the Colvin girl was going to chomp off his little boy weiner and he’d have to pee out of his butt from then on. Sara. Jenny. One of them, the older one, the Colvin that didn’t pick her nose and eat the gold on the bus.
Approaching the intersection, he signaled a right turn. He rolled the steering wheel, and drove past the Zippy Mart, past a sign posting the distance to Heppner, then slowed, signaled, and turned onto the drive, a narrow road going under a carved sign that read ‘Collar’.
A row of hedges on his left, the gas station just on the other side. On the right, some empty animal pens, metal scraps, stacks of 2 x 4s, rusted ancient trucks, a barn that looked one good windstorm away from collapse. The house had a peaked roof. A wood fence around the yard, plenty of flowerbeds, bright colors, clean, an oasis in the midst of rust and ruination.
Sipe parked at the house, pulled up right next to a small sized Toyota truck with a metal rack. Two giant cats dozed on the truck hood. One squinting at the intruder until Sipe killed the engine. The cat licked fur and then lowered its head back onto its paws.
Out of the car, Sipe assessed the driver side damage. If Millie’s aim had been a little better, if she’d been thinking, she could have totally snarled up the rear tire. Sipe would’ve been on foot from that point on. His imagination painted it with Millie chasing him through Little Creek, the cop’s scalp pinned to her waist wet and fresh and red slapping her thighs as she pursued the promise of scalp number two.
He didn’t yelp, the person touching his arm yelped, and then laughed, and asked him if he was ok, and apologized for touching him.
“You jumped,” said Tiffany. “Sorry. I thought you heard me.”
She started saying something else, and Sipe held up his hand, stilling her tongue. Another siren. This one didn’t sound like a cop. More like an ambulance. Live in the city long enough and the two sounds turned distinct.
“Shit. Is the town on fire or something?” asked Tiffany.
“I don’t know.”
“I’m glad you’re ok.”
“Connie?” asked Sipe.
“I talked to him earlier. Right now? I don’t know. I’ll call him again.”
The house’s screen door opened and shut. Another cat appeared, scampered off the porch and down the steps to the lawn. A girl followed the cat off the porch and down the steps. Barefoot. Pale legs sticking out of jeans shorts. The t-shirt white, the hem long. Her hair was cut short in back, long in front, into her eyes. The hair colored purple and blue. She brushed a foot against the cat and the cat scampered off. The girl told the cat to stop being such a weenie.
“That’s Hope,” said Tiffany. She raised her voice. Pointing at Sipe she said, “I’m telling him how skinny you used to be before your diet of nothing but hot dogs and chips.”
Hope flipped her off. The girls laughed. Sipe could still hear the siren.
The Lipless Gods Page 24
