Desperation Road(68)

“My friend over there likes your boots,” said the big one with the shaved head. The one with the pigtails pointed at Larry’s feet as if to clarify.

Larry leaned around the men and looked at the little man. Eye shadow and mascara and his jeans were rolled to his knees and he wore sandals.

“Good for her,” Larry said.

“What size are they?”

“They’re my size.”

The man with the pigtails began to rub his hands together.

“Maybe you could let him try them on.”

Larry looked around the cell. Thought that some of the others might come over and even the odds but he was on his own.

“How about twenty bucks instead?” Larry said.

The big man with the pigtails sat down next to Larry and put his arm around him and said how about I give you a big juicy kiss right on that pretty mouth of yours. Then the other man sat down on his other side and Larry tried to hop up but they pulled him back down. He wondered if it’d matter if he yelled for someone. They squeezed him like he was their favorite doll.

“You want me to take them off for you or you want to do it?” said the shaved head.

“Let me go and I’ll take them off.”

“Take them off and we’ll let you go.”

“Let’s take him home,” said the pigtails and he blew into Larry’s ear. “I been thinking we need a cowboy around.”

Larry kicked off the boots.

“Socks, too.”

Larry pulled off his socks and tucked them into the boots.

“That’s some ugly ass feet,” said the shaved head.

“They ain’t that bad,” the other one said.

“Let me fucking go,” Larry said.

“You better be nice now,” said the pigtails. “We might end up spending the whole night together.”

The big one with the shaved head stood up and took the boots and told the other one to come on. They left Larry and went over to their friend and their friend gave a playful wave to Larry and then he sat still while they put the socks and boots on his feet.

Larry stood up and grabbed the jail bars. “Walt, you son of a bitch! You son of a bitch! Take me to the telephone! Hey! Somebody take me back to the goddamn telephone!”


Half an hour later the jailer opened the door and motioned for Larry and he followed him down the hallway and into an office where he signed some papers and was given back his keys and wallet. They took him out the door and down another hallway and then through another door and there stood Walt.

Walt looked down at Larry’s feet. “Where the hell are your boots?”

Larry walked past him and out the door. Walt followed and asked twice more about the boots but quit when they reached his truck and Larry still hadn’t answered.

They left the station and drove through Kentwood and to the interstate. When Walt turned north Larry said my truck is at the ballpark you dumb shit.

“Don’t call me a dumb shit,” Walt said. He didn’t wait for the next exit but cut across the median, the headlights bouncing across the night and Walt gunning it to beat an oncoming car. He turned onto the ramp and Larry said I’ll call you what I want. Neither made another sound until they stopped at the ballpark at Larry’s truck.

When Larry reached for the door Walt said hold on. You gotta know something and I don’t want you to go flying off the handle when I say this. You and me both know Russell has got to pay for what he did but I’m drawing the line at shotguns and pistols. I ain’t looking to die and you shouldn’t be neither. And if we push that hard then that’s what is gonna happen and I ain’t ready to be buried. That wouldn’t do me or you or Jason no good. I’ll do whatever else.

Larry opened the truck door and stepped out. Stared at Walt.

“What?” Walt said.

“So. You’re one of them,” Larry said.

“One of them what?”

He glared at Walt and felt his blood rising as if he were beginning to melt on the inside, his rage stoking the heat in his veins until he became nothing more than some torrid and molten puddle of flesh and bone. He glared and didn’t answer and then he slammed the door. Walt didn’t wait around for a convoy back to McComb and he stomped the gas and his back tires spun on the rough pavement. Larry walked around to the back of his truck and let down his tailgate and sat and stared at the empty ball fields. At the empty bleachers and walkways. He then walked barefoot along the walkway and he entered the gate at the first base dugout and he ran. He ran and slid headfirst into second base and then got up and went for third and slid headfirst again. Red dirt streaked down his shirt and jeans and arms and neck. Heart racing and breathing hard and he took off his shirt and ran and slid. Ran and slid. His chest and arms scraped and bleeding and the dirt in his nose and ears and under his fingernails and the raging eyes of hate.





46


THE NEXT MORNING RUSSELL AND MABEN STOOD BY THE POND AND talked it out. The last bus of the day would leave at ten o’clock that night. Nice and dark, he said. Kill the day out here and then I’ll take you to the station. Not much chance of running into anybody or of me and you being seen together. Even if Boyd comes this way we’ll see him coming along the highway and tuck you and her away. Bus heads north but Memphis is as far as you can go. Get off wherever looks good to you. Maben smoked and nodded, watched a cloud of gnats hovering above the surface of the pond.