Cruddy - Lynda Barry [30]
The father told Syd to come see us anytime. He peeled off the Copenhagen label, wrote a fake name and address on the back of it and said, “My www-wife’s real p-p-pretty and she’d g-get a kuh-kick out of you.” He told Syd he could look forward to a free haircut because the father had his own barbershop.
Syd gave me a wave from his window. He said, “Keep your old man out of trouble.” A piece of paper fluttered into the air behind him as he drove off.
“Look there,” said the father. “Stupid shit already lost my address.”
Chapter 16
N THE bus station the father handed me five dollars and pointed me to the lunch counter. “Get yourself something to eat.” He went into the men’s room and when he came out his hair was combed and aftershave clouds were drifting off of him. He shoved our bags into a metal locker and put the key in his pocket. At the ticket counter he asked for two tickets to Dentsville. The ticket lady was looking at him in an interested sort of way and he was looking back at her like a mirror. “Two?” she said.
“Yeah. One adult and one pain-in-the-ass nephew.”
She looked over at me and laughed. I lifted my upper lip a little and showed my teeth. Sometimes I did this. I picked it up from dogs.
There were some hours to kill before our bus left. I watched the ticket lady’s eyes follow the father as he walked out the glass door to find the liquor store she gave him directions to. She liked that he had turned to look at her. She put a sign out that said PURCHASE TICKETS AT NEWSSTAND AND SUNDRIES, grabbed her purse and told the waitress she was taking lunch.
The waitress shook her head and wiped the counter in front of me. She was old but not ancient and she had a hair net on. I saw her flick her eyes at the round-headed man sitting behind the sundries counter and I saw him flick his back. He was smoking a cigarette that had gotten very wet around the lips. He picked up a bent fly swatter and went back to staring out the window. I asked for pan
I asked for pancakes but it was too late for pancakes. The waitress seemed very insulted that I would even mention the word “pancakes.” She pointed to a big clock with a yellowed face and a wig of greasy dust. She pointed to the menu. She said, “Read? Tell time?”
I ordered french fries and a large milk. It was a down time between buses. There weren’t any other customers. The station was small but with very high ceilings that made sounds echo. The hanging lights had the longest pull strings I’d ever seen and there were flies hanging on them, swaying in the weak little breeze made by a dying fan.
The milk was ice-cold and I drank it so fast I got a stabbing headache. I was pushing on my forehead hard with both hands and the waitress’s face got a little bit softer. “Thirsty, huh?” I nodded. “Where you headed?” I shrugged.
“Your uncle said Dentsville. Did I hear him say he was your uncle? You have people out that way?”
I said, “Can I have another milk?”
She put it in front of me and I went for it. I couldn’t put it down. She started laughing when I asked for a third one. She said, “Good lord. I hope you don’t drink your liquor like that!”
I said, “No.”
The man at the sundries counter laughed and then started coughing.
The waitress put the third glass down. She said, “Dentsville. Dentsville. Your uncle military?”
“Navy,” I said.
“Fort Madley then, maybe.” She called over to the fly-swatter man. “Fort Madley, isn’t it? Outside of Dentsville?”
He said, “I believe so.”
The waitress said, “Is it Navy, Fort Madley?”
He said, “Army, I think.”
She looked at me. “You said your uncle’s Navy?”
I nodded. “Down to the last inch of his pecker.”
She covered her mouth and said “Lord!