All the Earth, Thrown to the Sky

42

“Now,” Junior said, handing me the keys. “That ole pickup ain’t much, but it’ll run. I just don’t know for how long. You can take it and go find your man, and when you get through, you can bring the truck back if it’s still running.”

I got in behind the wheel, and Jane and Tony went around to the other door and slid onto the seat, Jane in the middle. Junior was holding my door open. Nasty was sitting on the ground wagging his tail.

“What’s that dog’s name?” I said. “I been calling him Nasty.”

“Name?” Junior said, glancing back at the dog. “He ain’t got no name. I just call him Dog. But Nasty will do. It fits. He stinks.”

“Thanks, Junior,” I said. “You’ll watch Gasper?”

“He’ll be fine,” Junior said. “His fever is broke, and he’ll wake up hungry and thirsty, you can count on that.”

“He don’t have a home or no people, besides us,” I said.

“He can stay here long as he likes,” Junior said. “I could use the company. Here. You going to need a few dollars.”

He gave me five dollars in coins.

“You can’t do that, Junior,” I said.

“Yes I can,” Junior said.

I took the money and gave it to Jane.

“Not many people would help strangers like this,” I said.

“I’m not many people, son,” he said, “and the way I figure it, you ain’t either. I mean, didn’t the girl say you folks was on a mission? That makes you special, don’t it? Besides, I kept the good truck. This one goes to pieces, it’s no big loss. I was going to sell it, but I figure I wouldn’t get much for it anyway. So I’m not being as nice as you think.”

“If you say so,” I said.

“Watch your hands,” Junior said, and closed the door.

A moment later, I was driving the truck up the little road that led out to where Junior told me I should go.

As we rode along, Jane said, “We’re like Odysseus.”

“Who?”

“Odysseus. The Romans called him Ulysses.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“He was an ancient traveler who went to war, and then, after ten years of it, he decided to go home. On his way he ran into all kinds of problems, and it didn’t look like he was going to make it, but he got through them and finally did go home. Of course, he had to put a giant’s eye out with a sharp stick and kill a bunch of people, but he made it.”

“We aren’t going home. We left home.”

“So we did. Well, maybe it’s more like we’re Jason and the Argonauts. I’ll be Jason and you be somebody on the boat.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.

“She reads a lot,” Tony said.

“Jason took a boat with heroes on it and went in search of the Golden Fleece.”

“Did he find it?”

“He did,” she said. “Point is, he left home, did a great deed, got the fleece, went back home.”

“Are we going back home?” I asked.

“I’m not,” she said.

“Me neither,” I said. “So how’s that like Jason and the whatevers?”

“Argonauts. You’re missing the point. We are having a great adventure. I’m speaking symbolically again.”

“As you noted, I quit school before that lesson.”

“Oh yeah,” she said, grinning. “I did say that, didn’t I. Well. It’s true. But still, we’re having an adventure.”

“Even if we are, we may not be in time to help this Strangler. He could have been dead for days now.”

“Could be,” she said, “but sometimes it’s just about the quest.”

“Strangler might think it’s about us telling him two gangsters who don’t like that he took their stolen money are going to kill him. So for Strangler, it’s not just the quest.”

“That’s an excellent point,” Jane said.

We rode on through the late afternoon until we came to the edge of Tyler. We stopped and got a dollar’s worth of gas at a station; then we stopped at a barbecue joint and got some sandwiches. We took them outside by the building, sat on the steps, and ate them.

While we were eating, Tony got up and went over to look at a poster on a telephone pole near the street.

“Ain’t Strangler spelled like this?” Tony said.

We got up and went over to look at the poster. It was for a carnival. It said, COME DEFEAT OUR MAN AND MAKE SOME MONEY! COME BATTLE THE UNDEFEATED STRANGLER NUGOWSKI! Then there was a painted picture of him that made him look a little like a redheaded movie star.

Underneath, it said there was a carnival that night, and it wasn’t actually in Tyler, but in Lindale. That was where Pretty Boy said the train would go if we didn’t get off. It was where Big Bill took his peas to be canned. I went inside the barbecue joint and asked for directions to Lindale. It wasn’t all that far. We got in the truck and I drove us out of there.

“What luck,” I said.

“No luck to it,” Jane said. “We’re looking for him. We know he’s in the area. His name is Strangler and he beats people up in carnivals.”

“It’s still lucky,” I said. “We might never have seen that poster. Good job, Tony.”

“I liked it. It was bright colored,” Tony said.

As we drove along, we saw a lot of the posters on telephone and lamp poles, and even two big billboards talking about the carnival. Plastered across the billboards in big letters was Strangler’s name, and how he would take on all comers.

“It’s like Bad Tiger and Timmy got a map straight to him,” I said.

“Yeah,” Jane said, “he might as well paint a bull’s-eye on his forehead and send them telegrams. What I want to know is why a thief that’s supposed to be hiding from gangsters is working in a carnival, just like nothing ever happened. What is he thinking?”

“Maybe the answer is simple,” I said.

“And what would that be?” Jane said.

“He’s an idiot.”