Bad to the Bones(19)
“What I’m trying to say is, you can’t keep her away from her little culty thing. If you try to do that, you’ll have to handcuff her to the radiator, and then you’re just as bad as those Fruit Loops.”
Knoxie grunted, sifting around in his cup for a fluorescent green pencil. “I know. But I can’t in good conscience let her go back to ‘her people.’ Not when they’re the ones who dumped her on that plateau.”
Adrian stood tall, his mouth a thin line. His mouth was often a thin line, so it was difficult to tell what he disapproved of now. He resembled one of those paintings of children with the huge eyes—all pupils and eyelashes, with a dash for a mouth. He enhanced this alien ragamuffin look by adding at least six upper ear beads apiece, a septum hoop, and a couple of brow barbells. His face bristled like an extraterrestrial urchin, innocent and menacing at the same time. Adrian had a master’s degree in astronomy from Texas A&M, and Knoxie still wasn’t fully versed on how he’d wound up an ink slinger. He was also their resident body piercer.
“I understand. But what’s to stop her from sticking her thumb out on the road and showing a little leg to get a ride back up to Merry-go-round Circle?”
“Canyon. And I think people stopped showing leg for a ride in those thirties black and white movies.” Adrian wasn’t too up to speed on popular culture—other than video games and Lord of the Rings movies. “No, we can’t stop her, that’s for sure. But Maddy’s going to try.”
Adrian compressed his lips. “Oh, what’s she going to do? Bribe her with a new IPhone? Things she can’t get in her prison camp? Chocolate Yoo-hoo drinks, tube tops, and platform shoes?”
Knoxie chuckled. “Actually, yeah. We did discuss dazzling her with technology. I don’t know who she’ll call on her new phone, but after seven years on Devil’s Island, an old version of Pac Man will probably look exciting to her. You should’ve seen her glued to my TV hunting show.”
Adrian’s eyes became rounder. “Devil’s Island? You think they worship, you know, the Prince of Darkness?”
Knoxie sighed. “No. Devil’s Island was that desert island Papillon was stuck on for years. I think he escaped on a raft made of coconuts or something.”
“Well. Unless they suddenly grow palm trees up there in Merry-go-round land, I hardly think your hippie girl can build a raft.” Adrian sometimes took things too literally. “But she does sound like she has a lot in common with you. Harleys and all.”
Knoxie’s pencil tip broke with a loud snap. Embarrassed that Adrian saw him being tense—Adrian took note of everything—Knoxie nonchalantly stuck the pencil into the electric sharpener. “I suppose. I doubt she’ll be up for any sort of romancing for a long, long time. She’s been kind of twisted by her experiences. You wouldn’t believe how indifferent, callous, sort of unaware she is of her own self, her own feelings, and boundaries. Hey, sounds sort of like you.”
Adrian glared at Knoxie. He ripped some antiseptic wipes from a container and fussily rubbed his ink bed with it. “Nobody’s like me, we all know that. And speaking of romancing, you’re the one who should be staying away from the ladies. You’re a forty-year-old man, a well-respected father of two. You should be acting like it instead of whipping your Bilbo Baggins around on film for the whole world to see.”
Knoxie chuckled and plunged back into his frog sketch with renewed confidence. He loved Adrian’s euphemisms for sexual terms. The astronomer-piercer himself was a strange combination of eunuch and asexual moon man. After their first meeting years ago at Hell City, Knoxie had assumed Adrian was gay, with his thin skeleton and his caustic, hypercritical demeanor. He had a fussy little old lady’s way of housekeeping, too, which was why Knoxie hadn’t moved in with him after his divorce. Adrian had an almost Asperger’s level of anal retention when it came to how his flour tins were placed and what to eat on which days of the week. That lifestyle was completely incompatible with Knoxie’s freewheeling way of life.
While Adrian wasn’t gay—he didn’t seem to really have a grasp of what that was—he wasn’t straight, either. He was in some in-between amoebic zone, some asexual single-celled state of being. Knoxie had never known Adrian to even kiss anyone else, and he freaked at being touched.
Knoxie said now, “I know you’re mortified that I’m waving my Donkey Kong around in public. But remember. The only people buying the films are the ones who want to see my hanging chad.”
Adrian furiously rubbed down his chair. “Rex Havox, indeed. It’s not just film where you shouldn’t be displaying your internal spinal massager. It’s real life, too. What are Sage and Cameron going to think when they come to Pure and Easy to visit and you’re balls-deep in some sexploitation actress—and not even being paid for it? You’re setting a fine example.”
Knoxie chuckled. “Don’t panic. I’m getting out of the biz. It was always just a temporary thing, to earn extra benjamins to send to Nicole.”
Adrian paused in his dusting. “Well. Don’t you still need the extra green?”
“I do. But I’m going to start working for The Bare Bones.”
Knoxie tensed again, waiting for the inevitable explosion. The force of Adrian’s eruption was always in proportion to how long the pause. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi.