Blaze

Chapter 8

THE NEXT NIGHT, Blaze decided he ought to get cool plates for his hot Ford, so he stole a pair off a Volkswagen in the parking lot of Jolly Jim’s Jiant Groceries in Portland. He replaced the plates from the VW with the Ford’s plates. It could be weeks or months before the VW’s owner realized he had the wrong set of plates, because the number on the little sticker was 7, meaning the guy didn’t have to re-register until July. Always check the registration sticker. George had taught him that.

He drove to a discount store, feeling safe with his new plates, knowing he would feel safer still when the Ford was a different color. He bought four cans of Skylark Blue auto paint and a spray-gun. He went home broke but happy.

He ate supper sitting next to the stove, thumping his feet on the worn linoleum as Merle Haggard sang “Okie from Muskogee.” Old Merle had really known how to dish it up to those fucking hippies.

After the dishes were washed, he ran the adhesive-patched extension cord out to the shed and hung a bulb over a beam. Blaze loved to paint. And Skylark Blue was one of his favorite colors. You had to like that name. It meant blue like a bird. Like a skylark.

He went back to the house and got a pile of old newspapers. George read a newspaper every day, and not just the funnies. Sometimes he read the editorials to Blaze and raged about the Redneck Republicans. He said the Republicans hated poor people. He referred to the President as That Goddam Wet in the White House. George was a Democrat, and two years ago they had put stickers for Democratic candidates on three different stolen cars.

All the newspapers were way old, and ordinarily that would have made Blaze feel sad, but tonight he was too excited about painting the car. He papered the windows and wheels. He Scotch-taped more pieces to the chrome trim.

By nine o’clock, the fragrant banana-smell of spray-paint filled the shed, and by eleven, the job was done. Blaze took off the newspapers and touched up a few places, then admired his work. He thought it was good work.

He went to bed, a little high from the paint, and woke up the next morning with a headache. “George?” he said hopefully.

No answer.

“I’m broke, George. I’m busted to my heels.”

No answer.

Blaze moped around the house all day, wondering what to do.

The night man was reading a paperback epic called Butch Ballerinas when a Colt revolver was shoved in his face. Same Colt. Same voice saying gruffly, “Everything in the register.”

“Oh no,” Harry Nason said. “Oh Christ.”

He looked up. Standing before him was a flat-nosed, Chinese horror in a woman’s nylon stocking that trailed down his back like the tail of a ski-cap.

“Not you. Not again.”

“Everything in the register. Put it in a bag.”

No one came in this time, and because it was a week-night, there was less in the drawer.

The stick-up man paused on the way out and turned back. Now, Harry Nason thought, I will be shot. But instead of shooting him, the stick-up man said, “This time I remembered the stocking.”

Behind the nylon, he appeared to be grinning.

Then he was gone.