Hick - Andrea Portes [65]
“I dunno.”
“I just fucking knew it. I just fucking knew he’d be here. All over again. Well, fuck him.”
Maybe that’s what happens when somebody gets inside you. Maybe a part of them never goes out again. A part of them stays there, embedding itself inside you till you can read their thoughts, memorize each and every one of their fears and what drives them where and when, even over the red rocks of Utah into the piney woods.
“Look, kid, he’s just got a few screws loose, see. He fucked my head and I ran off and now he thinks it’s your turn.”
She puts her hands on her forehead and breathes out a sigh, something like guilt and being worn out, something like wanting to take back time.
“He’s got plans for you. He’s gonna try to turn you into jelly. But not on my watch. Not on my fucking watch.”
Something crunches the gravel outside and we both freeze, staring into each other’s eyes, trying to hatch a makeshift plan in the silence. Clinging to the wall, Glenda creeps towards the threat, staring sideways out the window, like a gangster in a black-and-white movie. She turns to me, motioning for me to get down.
I mouth to her across the room, confessing, “I got a .45.”
She makes a face, not getting it.
“I got a .45. Smith and Wesson.” I exaggerate the last part, making a gun with my hand, pointing my finger and cocking my thumb.
She gets it.
She gestures, palms out, eyes wide. “Well, where the fuck is it?”
And for a moment, just a little moment in time, I got this feeling like we’re back at Custer’s Last Stand, pulling a heist, partners in crime, she and I, like two lone stars on the run, and that we’re gonna make it. That, together, she and I can grab hands and fly off up above the treetops.
Glenda peeps out the window, cautious, checking this side and that.
“Kay.” Still in a whisper. “No sign of the truck. it’s okay.”
“Why you whispering, then?”
“Huh?” Still in a whisper. Then she pipes up, pointed, “Cute, kid, real cute.”
She starts making a tornado in the room again, rifling through and around and up and under the mattress, the dresser, the pillows, throwing the green plaid chair on its side, tearing the upholstery and peering in.
“How the fuck you got a gun and not tell me?”
“it’s not a gun. it’s a .45 and I thought you’d dump me.”
“Well, where is it?”
“I dunno. In my bag, I guess.”
“What bag?”
“That nice bag I had.”
She rummages around the floor, finds the bag, turns it inside out.
Nothing.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
I look back at the Paris painting and strike gold in my head. That was not there when I woke up yesterday. I would’ve clocked that, first thing. What would a Libertarian who kills his own no-name chickens be doing with a tiny housewife painting of that arch in Paris with wet fashion plates taking a Sunday stroll?
Glenda sees my look and follows my train of thought, two steps behind me but catching up. She hurtles herself towards the painting, tears it off the wall, breaks it in two pieces on the side of the bed and there it is.
The money.
It comes down like a Thanksgiving parade with floats and Glenda starts to jump up and down, up and down, grabbing the money, stuffing it into her bag, grabbing, stuffing, grabbing, stuffing, laughing and saying, “Luli, you’re a smart little fuck. You really are. You really are. Truly, truly.”
She and I are the heroes of this moment. This is the moment when everybody can breathe a sigh of relief because she and I are partners in crime and we did it together and nobody better stand in our way because we are invincible like Bonnie and no Clyde. And this is the part of the day that you can clip on the wall and march to the state fair and ride on the carousel and grab the brass ring with. This is the part of the day that your grandkids save up for and gather round, jumping up and down like little rabbits, saying, Tell it again, tell it again.
Except that the door slams open and there stands Eddie with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and my .45 in the other.
THIRTY–FOUR
Aren’t you forgetting something?”
He scratches the back of this