They were about thirty minutes down the freeway before Richards stopped looking over his shoulder or in the side mirror and visibly relaxed. Frank, on the other hand, was going up. His once droopy eyelids were opening wider and he had a fierce craving for a cigarette. Fortunately Richards didn’t smoke so there was no one to bum from, Frank’s recently purchased pack abandoned on the desk in last night’s motel room.
Driving with the windows down and the warm air blowing their hair, they took I-25 south and in three hours crossed into New Mexico.
Richards had worked on the Budweiser the whole way. Frank was a bit apprehensive about turning over the wheel to him, so figured the best thing to do was get his head in a similar place.
Wisdom not always one of his strong suits.
“How about you crack me one of those beers, Larry, got a lot of trail dust in my throat.”
“Drinking and driving is a recipe for disaster, Frank. Drover on a cattle drive only had one horse to control, you got three hundred under the hood of this thing.”
“Hanging with you is a recipe for disaster, Larry. Now give me a fuckin’ beer.”
Richards reached down to the floor at his feet and came back up with a can of Bud. “Your wish is my command, kind sir,” he said, popping the ring tab off the top and handing the can to Frank.
Frank took a pull and a shiver ran through him. “Shit is getting warm. Larry.”
“That’ll happen, Frank. You’ll just have to tough it out.”
“Thanks for the advice. Now tell me more about these associates of yours. The investors.”
“A bunch of young rich guys. Trust fund babies, principal heirs, number one sons of business tycoons… shit like that. Tons of cash and not a lot of business sense. Mall building suits them perfectly. And with someone like me along to guide their investments, it’s a safe trip along the yellow brick road.”
“You handling this like you did the old ski shop caper, man? Steal what you can and see what happens later?”
The thing about the combination of speed and alcohol is that it breaks down your inhibitions and frees you to say things that might be considered inappropriate by the receiver. Or at least a little blunt.
Richards frowned. “Somewhat different, Frank. But the same idea in general.”
“That’s what I figured. Y’know, Larry, for a member of the bar, you have a fast and loose relationship with the law and ethical behavior.”
“Listen man, these rich guys are, for the most part, a bunch of assholes. A lot of them are cheap, too. We go out on the town and they don’t bring any cash. Expect me to pay for drinks, tips, cab fares—all that shit. It’s like they think that not carrying cash makes them a regular guy or something. And when they do actually pay for something, it’s like they just ended world hunger or saved Bangladesh. You win a bet from one of them and it’s ‘Double or nothing, double or nothing,’ ad infinitum, until they finally win. And listen, they all make money on my deals. If I make a little more than they are aware of, so fuckin’ be it. It’s the only way to be these days, Frank. Only way to be.”
Frank was thinking this was a different Larry Richards than he remembered. But maybe it wasn’t. Maybe now Frank was just paying attention. They were just kids back in Zenith, after all, and people tend to adapt to their environment.
Outside the car windows, the sky was turning dark. Inside the smooth and silent running Ford wagon, it was yada yada yada, blah blah blah, yak yak yak all the way to Santa Fe.
They talked about old girlfriends and buddies from high school and reminisced about past adventures. Like the time Frank punched a hole in the drywall at Gene Halvorson’s purple passion cabin party because Frank’s girlfriend wouldn’t come across.
Which started them on a long and detailed critique of all the desirable girls from their high school. Followed by a brief lament over those with whom they never had a chance.
Around midnight they hit Albuquerque and caught I-40 going west, Frank imagining the wagon to be the Millennium Falcon, Han Solo’s scrap yard spaceship in that Star Wars movie everyone was talking about lately.
Another couple of hours and they were crossing into Arizona, Frank behind the wheel for eight hours now and feeling as out of it as when he was a kid and his father went missing. His hands and feet were cold and his stomach didn’t feel quite right. Like maybe it was eating itself. And besides that, he was seeing things on the road. Things he didn’t think were real but didn’t know for sure. Like cars coming toward him in the wrong lane or semi trucks jackknifed across the road in front of him.
After a large number of these sightings he determined they were hallucinations. But that didn’t make them go away. And could he really be certain the next one to appear wasn’t real?
Every time?
Speed was just a nasty, brain-burning drug, and he couldn’t wait for the shit to wear off.
A ball of apprehension was growing in his gut. Panic rising, he looked over at Richards, thinking it was time for Larry to give him some relief and take over behind the wheel.
One look at Richard’s eyes told him they were both seeing the same things.
Richards told him later that he was actually seeing black panthers—the animal, not the revolutionary group—crouching in the roadside ditches and up in the trees.
With the spirit of Dean Moriarty pushing him on—Frank was picturing Moriarty standing behind him with his hand on Frank’s shoulder in a pose reminiscent of a print of Jesus guiding a sailor through a stormy sea that Frank’s mother had placed above his bed in ninth grade—he smiled to himself and squeezed the steering wheel a little harder.
It was up to him to steer the spaceship to port.
And then the Hater popped into his head and began dragging him back through all the gory details of his recent past, Frank thinking that if he kept enveloping himself in every detail so goddamn minutely, big springs were going to explode out of his head like in the cartoons.
What he really needed was someone else to take over the reins. He was ready to follow for a while, find the freedom of being led. All the things that had happened back in Minnesota—all the shit he had to control and be in charge of—were taking a toll. He was burned out. In need of something he couldn’t grasp and couldn’t find.
But a cigarette would do nicely.
And then the light bulb in his head lit up. Shit, he was having a highway experience—a freeway flyin’ road trip, just like the folks in On the Road.
Larry Richards was leading him on a Kerouac-type adventure.
The Hater grew silent.
(End of Chapter 8)
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