PART SEVENTEEN
(Published in 1999)
It’s nice and warm inside the Caddy but Roy is a little bit antsy. The guy on the radio is finishing up the weather report: Big storm, he says, like we can’t already see that. Maximum late winter blizzard, payback for the exceptionally mild, El Nino winter.
“We better hope it’s melting by the lake,” Roy says softly, shutting off the radio. “This is bad. Almost need a four-wheel drive. At least reservation four-wheel drive.”
“What the hell is reservation four-wheel drive?”
“A big old rear-wheel drive American sled with about a few hundred pounds of junk in the trunk. Old wheels, rocks, sandbags… anything with weight. You get some decent snow tires— maybe posi-traction—you can go almost anywhere in one of those boats. We’re going to be plowing snow in some places with this beast. But we’ll make it.”
I’ll tell you right now, I’m nervous. This weather and all, out here in the middle of nowhere… it’s like nothing cares about nothing up here. And there’s no one or nothing around forever… I’m not used to it. Walking inside a nice clean bank in the morning, before it opens—that’s more my speed. Pushing a gun barrel against the pasty neck of some guy in a suit—I can handle that. But this shit… you could die out here.
We roll by the spot of the accident, plowing snow here and there like Roy said we would. You can feel the car bog down. I’m sweating over the decision to come up here in a stolen car. Proves why you shouldn’t drink and take drugs.
Another mile or so closer to the lake, and Roy says it looks like it’s going to be better up ahead.
I say, “How can you fucking tell that?” The snow is blowing directly in our faces and the windows are fogged up. In a Cadillac, you would expect better. I can barely see the road, let alone four miles ahead.
Then VAROOM, the derelict Charger comes roaring out of the dull gray nothingness behind us and starts to pass on the left. It’s throwing out a cloud of gray-white mist, only the mist has weight and you can hear it hitting the side of the Eldor like ice cubes. You can feel it pushing us toward the ditch.
My heart’s beating fast and I’m thinking about the gun. Then they’re by us, disappearing again into the blizzard, the raw growl of their exhaust fading quickly.
Roy says Fuck and I breath a sigh of relief.
“We almost got sucked right off the road,” he says. “You get caught in the wrong windrow, you’re gone—see you when it’s dry. The ditch devils drag you right in. Ah, but not to worry. We are home free now, Don my man, I tell you.”
Farther down the road, he says, “Why don’t you roll a joint, man. The shit’s in my pocket.” He lets off the gas a little and digs his hand into his tight black jeans. “Grab the wheel, will you?” he says, digging further into his pocket and lifting his ass off the seat.
I grab the wheel and look through the smeary windshield at the oncoming blur.
Then I see it.
“HIT THE FUCKING BRAKES GODDAMN IT MAN!!! I scream, hands frozen on the wheel.
Slow motion, coming right at us.
No—we’re coming at it.
It’s not moving. It’s stopped.
“BRAKES, MAN, BRAKES!”
Sliding, sliding, sliding, antilock brakes chattering, Roy trying to steer out of it.
No room.
Big collision.
Pain. Neck and back.
What the fuck? Where are those crazy cocksuckers? What the fuck they stop in the middle of the road for? Why didn’t the goddamn air bags work? Fucking General Motors!!
Roy has a strange, haunted look about him and his face is vibrating, turning feral. “It’s the name game, Donny,” he says, grinning oddly. “Get ready to play….”
“You all right, man? Did you hit your head or something? I—”
Roy jerks open the door and jumps outside. One of the Indian punks is coming out from behind the Charger, charging.
Roy throws a short right cross and the son of a bitch crumbles face first in the snow.
I’m reaching down for the Glock, when a .22 caliber, long-barrel pistol with a drunken Indian in a greasy blue parka on the other end pokes through the open driver’s door. I straighten back up and squint into the swollen red eyes. His breathing is heavy and fast.
“Just sit there, asshole,” he slurs, steadying the gun at my face. “Don’t move.”
In the middle of the road, the one in the blue soldier coat is holding a deer rifle on Roy. The guy Roy drilled is returning the favor by punching Roy in the back of the head and kicking him in the ass as they slog toward me in the shin-deep snow. Steam billows from the Caddy’s fractured radiator and the sick-sweet smell of anti-freeze hangs in my nose.
Out of the blue, fucking Roy starts singing: “Donny, Donny, bo Ponny, banana pana fo Fonny,” and so on. Then he starts up with Roy. “Roy, Roy, bo Poy, banana fana fo Foy,” etc.
This is pissing our rifleman off. He’s grinding his teeth, his gaze darting around to me, Roy, the two vehicles, and the great cloud of driving snow. The feathers in his hair shake in the wind and ice forms on his thick black eyebrows.
The other guy is slapping Roy from behind and rasping, “Cap him. Cap the fucker. Cap the asshole. That’ll shut him up.”
While this is going on, the one holding the gun on me reaches into the glove compartment and pushes the trunk button. Christ, does he stink.
Roy is still singing, doing Lana Lana bo Pana.
At the back of the Cad, the war-painted one lifts up the trunk lid and yells, “Take him out in the woods and shut the smart-ass city boy up.”
The asshole with the rifle motions for Roy to move, and the bizarre threesome head off towards the woods.
“What’s in a name, Donny?” Roy stops and says, looking at me, strangely calm. “It’s only a label. Just a surface to be lifted and thrown away when you choose, eh, paisano. Just play the name game, Donny my boy.”
He starts up the song again as they lead him to the woods, singing all kinds of crazy names like nothing I ever heard before.
Warpaint goes searching through the trunk. First thing he comes out with is Roy’s satchel, and he brings it around to the side of the car to show his buddy who’s holding the pistol on me. Their eyes light up when he unzips that motherfucker. Warpaint’s voice is thick with emotion: “Look at this, Lonnie. I told you they were drug dealers or something—car like this… heh… I told you.” He sets the satchel on the roof of the Cad and goes back to the trunk. He lets out a war whoop. Found my money sack. The guy with the pistol takes a look back to see what all the commotion is about and I reach under the seat and feel the cold plastic. Guy I bought the piece from said you couldn’t knock anybody out by hitting him over the head with a plastic gun. I showed him I didn’t need it for hitting—I broke his jaw with a straight right hand, because he was an asshole.
(To be continued)
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