Kings of Infinite Space

TWENTY-ONE

AFTER LUNCH, in the skin-loosening heat of the parking lot, the Colonel clapped J.J. on the shoulder and said, “You got shotgun on the way back, son.” He turned to Paul and raised his eyebrows over the lenses of his sunglasses. “You don’t mind sitting in the back on the way home, do you, Professor?”

Squinting against the glare off the pickups and SUVs all around, his gullet burning from the unsubtle spicing of Headlights’s dippin’ sauce, Paul shrugged. J.J. beamed victoriously and hoisted himself up into the front passenger seat of the SUV. At the rear of the vehicle, out of sight of the Colonel as he heaved himself up into the driver’s seat, Bob Wier touched Paul on the elbow.

“It’s not too late for you,” Bob whispered tremulously. His eyes were wide and beyond mournful.

“What?” said Paul.

Bob Wier glanced forward, through the dusky tinting of the SUV’s rear window. “You can still walk away,” he whispered.

This was different from Preston’s offer of sympathy and self-pity earlier that morning; Bob Wier looked desperate, as if he were pleading with Paul for something. But before Bob or Paul could speak again, the basso beep of the SUV’s horn made them both jump. “C’mon, girls,” shouted the Colonel out his window, “let’s shake a tail feather.”

By the time Paul climbed into the backseat next to Bob Wier, Bob was smiling. After forty minutes in the unshaded parking lot, the enormous vehicle was full of a baking heat, but as soon as the Colonel started the engine, frigid air began to pour from the AC vents.

“If you want to make your pitch, Reverend,” said the Colonel over his shoulder, “now’s the time. You got a captive audience for five minutes. The professor here is full of beer and chicken strips.”

“Tender chicken strips,” said J.J.

The SUV lumbered out of the parking lot and into the lunchtime traffic. Next to Paul in the backseat, Bob Wier adjusted himself sideways, pulling a knee up on the seat. He broadened his smile, but his eyes still pleaded silently with Paul. “Tell me, Paul,” Bob Wier said, “what do you know about distributed sales?”

Up front the Colonel and J.J were snorting with repressed mirth.

“Sorry?” Paul said. “What are ‘distributed sales’?”

“I’m glad you asked!” chorused the Colonel and J.J. and they burst out laughing.

“Guys, come on,” said Bob Wier, with manly cheerfulness. In the back he gave Paul a meaningful look. “Maybe Paul’s not as cynical as you two reprobates.” He licked his lips and said, “I’m glad you asked, Paul. Distributed sales are—”

“The opportunity of a lifetime!” cried the two men in the front.

“Come on, now!” protested Bob Wier. “I put up with y’all during lunch.”

The Colonel, still chortling, lifted a conciliatory hand from the wheel. “Let him talk.” J.J. continued to hiss with laughter.

“These fellas can joke all they want,” Bob Wier said, “but I’ll tell you, Paul, this really is the opportunity of a lifetime.” He glanced nervously up front, then slowly shook his head. “You’ve heard of Amway, right?”

What on earth are you getting at? Paul wanted to say, but he simply turned away and stared out the window. Bob Wier’s pitch was for something called TexGro, a world-class line of lawn care products developed by an internationally recognized team of agricultural research scientists at Texas A&M, right here in Texas! Paul tuned him out. They were rolling across the Travis Street Bridge already, and Paul gazed down from the SUV’s improbable height at the river below and wondered what it would be like to plunge from the bridge into the sluggish water. Would it be thrillingly cold, like the bracing midwestern streams of his youth? Or would it be tepid, like the tap water here in Texas? He felt a touch on the back of his hand, and he turned to Bob Wier.

“And here’s the great thing, Paul,” Bob Wier said, “this requires only a small initial investment on your part.” He shook his head even more vehemently.

“I don’t think the professor’s buying it, Bob,” said the Colonel. He was watching them in the rearview mirror. Bob Wier’s face folded shut, and he retreated to the corner of the seat.

Paul glanced past J.J. and out the windshield at the General Services Division Building at the far end of the bridge. His cube, nestled in the building like the cell of a worker bee, had never seemed so inviting. He was about to turn to his own window again when J.J. pointed across the dashboard towards the left side of the bridge. The Colonel turned to look, and Paul idly followed his gaze.

He caught his breath. Standing against the parapet of the bridge, each with his shoes together and his hands hanging straight at his sides, were three pale men. Boy G stood in the middle, the man from the library stood to his right, and a man Paul had never seen before stood to his left. All three wore white, short-sleeved shirts, thin neckties, and buzz cuts. They stood preternaturally still in the noonday heat and the reek off the river, and all three watched the Colonel’s SUV across five empty lanes, their heads swiveling to follow its progress. At the SUV’s closest approach, the Colonel gave the men by the parapet a quick thumbs-up. Paul twisted in his seat, and even from a distance, as the homeless men glided by, he thought he saw all three men smile jaggedly. Paul tried to twist around the other way to look out the rear window of the SUV, but Bob Wier grabbed his arm.

“Wouldn’t you like to be your own boss?” Bob Wier was nearly in tears. “No one to tell you what to do?” Bob shot a glance at the Colonel and smiled. “You sell these products at your own pace, out of your own home!”

Paul pulled his arm free. He leaned forward between the two front seats and said, “Can you stop the car?” But the Colonel was already guiding his vehicle into the TxDoGS parking lot, spinning the steering wheel one-handed. As soon as the SUV was berthed against the building, Paul jumped out, leaving Bob Wier smiling speechlessly in the backseat. Paul jogged quickly between the gleaming vehicles in the parking lot and up the embankment alongside the river. At the top, panting and sweaty in the heat, he shaded his eyes with his palm and peered through the glare off the river, trying to make out the silhouettes of the three homeless guys on the bridge. But all he saw were the boxy outlines of vehicles gliding above the parapet.

“Do you want to be a galley slave all your life, Paul,” asked the Colonel, behind him, “sweating in an airless hold, chained to your bench?”

Paul turned, breathing hard. “What?”

“You heard me, son.” The Colonel pushed heavily up the embankment and stopped a few feet from the top. He glanced along the river at the bridge, then pulled off his sunglasses and squinted at Paul. “Do you want to end up like poor ol’ Dennis, all alone in your cube, pulling on your oar until you keel over dead?”

Paul looked away at the General Services Division Building, then back at the bridge, then down the slope at the Colonel. “Who are those guys on the bridge?”

The Colonel stood with one foot higher than the other, and he rested his big-knuckled hand on his flexed knee and dangled his sunglasses. Beyond him, across the parking lot, J.J. had thrown his arm around Bob Wier’s shoulders and was leading him into the building.

The Colonel drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. He peered into the distance, then looked up at Paul again with a knowing glint in his eye. “What are you doing Saturday night?”

“Why don’t you answer my question?” Paul insisted. He hated the high pitch of his voice. “Who are those guys?”

“Do you like to sing, Paul?”

“Do I like to what?”

The Colonel stood up straight, swinging his sunglasses from his index finger. “Friday night, Professor. Karaoke night at Casa Pentoon.” He started down the embankment and called back, “And bring that lil’ Oklahoma gal, if you want.” He gestured over his shoulder. “We’ll talk then.”

“What’s Friday night?” Paul called after him from the top of the embankment. “What are we going to talk about?”

The Colonel paused and looked back up the slope. He gave Paul a smile that creased the corners of his eyes.

“The opportunity of a lifetime,” he said.