Rumble Tumble

15

After we got Red’s story we sat around and thought about it awhile. As is usual with Leonard and me, we couldn’t think of anything clever. We either needed to do it or not do it.

Brett had just one thing on her mind, of course, and that was go for it, with or without us. That meant we could leave her to her fate, or we could go along. So there was really only one actual alternative. Head for Mexico and The Farm.

Brett gave Red an ultimatum. Either take us there or end up a maggot hotel. Red, being the practical sort, decided to be our guide once we got into Texas.

We hit some back roads, and finally broke out toward Amarillo, Red riding in the trunk. All the time we drove I hoped the little bastard wasn’t getting carbon monoxide fumes, and every so many miles I made Leonard stop so I could check on him. Each time I opened the trunk and asked Red how he was doing, he’d give me a little wave.

Finally Brett and Leonard wore out with that method and moved Red into the back seat next to me and replaced his position in the trunk with suitcases. Brett rode up front with Leonard, and for most of the trip to Texas the two of them talked about country music. Red even had some opinions. He seemed to favor the Roy Acuff era and thought the rock sound was fucking up country music and he didn’t like the way modern country and western singers danced around on stage. He thought they ought to just sing and go to the house.

One thing about Red, he was highly adaptable.

We arrived in Amarillo late that night. The town stank of slaughterhouses and stockyards. The air was absolutely thick with it. Sometimes breathing was like snorting a cow turd. It made me a little ill.

We stopped just outside of town and put Red in the trunk again, the suitcases in the back seat. Red was resigned by now and crawled inside without complaint, curled up next to the spare tire like a child crowding in close to his mother. He held his hat to his chest like a teddy bear.

We rented a cheap motel, because it had become part of our nature to do so, parked close to our rooms, and carried Red and his hat into Leonard’s room with the guns and the luggage.

Inside the place looked pretty much like every other cheap motel room we’d rented. I felt as if I was in an episode of The Twilight Zone. Like no matter where I went, I ended up in the same room.

Leonard went out then, came back about a half hour later with some groceries, a bottle of aspirin, and some children’s Band-Aids with Superman on them.

Red took about six aspirin and chased them with a Coke. I dabbed his bloody forehead with toilet tissue, slapped on a few Band-Aids. I stuck a wad of toilet paper to the head wound under his hair and left it there to dry.

“This is the sort of thing we have to deal with,” Red said.

“What?” Leonard asked.

“Little people. We deal with this all the time.”

“Getting pistol-whipped?” Brett asked.

“Abuse in general. And humiliation.” Red turned his focus to Leonard. “You thought of getting me Band-Aids, you immediately thought of children’s Band-Aids because of my size. You don’t take me seriously because I’m small.”

“They were on sale, asshole,” Leonard said.

“I take you seriously,” Brett said. “I pistol-whipped the shit out of you, didn’t I?”

Red shook his head. “You just don’t get it. None of you. Hap here, he might understand some, but ultimately, he goes with the flow. He’s not a man willing to follow his heart.”

“Were you following your heart when you strangled that woman who ran the whorehouse?” I said. “If you did do that.”

“Oh, I did it. But that had nothing to do with heart. That was business.”

“Consider this business,” Brett said.

“Are you getting paid?” Red asked.

“No,” Brett said.

“Then it’s not business,” Red said.

“I think it is,” Brett said. “In fact, I think it’s very serious business. And let me add this. I don’t find my daughter, you’re all out of business. Know what I mean?”

“Of course I do. Being small doesn’t mean I’m stupid. Nor does it mean I’m physically inadequate. Would you suspect I can bench-press two hundred pounds? I may not look it in these street clothes, but I’m well muscled. Perhaps this isn’t the thing to say in front of a lady—however, considering your actions of earlier, the idea of you being a lady might be questionable, so I think I can say it, and will. I have a big schlong.”

“How nice,” Brett said.

“Yeah,” Leonard said, “but you have to climb up on a chair to use it.”

Red was infuriated. “How much can you bench-press?”

“I don’t know,” Leonard said.

“I bet it isn’t much for your size. You consider my size and the fact I weigh far less than two hundred pounds, and you’re talking about me moving some real weight.”

“That’s good,” Leonard said.

Red began to snort and rattle on about this and that. After about fifteen minutes of nonstop bullshit we had had enough. Leonard decided to gag him, and I helped. We used a pair of Leonard’s underwear to do the job. We tied the drawers in place with a belt from one of Brett’s dresses. Then we tied Red to a chair with a lamp cord and one of my belts.

When we were finished Leonard gave Red a pat on the head, said, “Just be glad them ain’t Hap’s drawers.”

Brett put Red’s hat on his head. Red shook the chair by rotating his hips and kicking his feet.

“You turn that over, I’m gonna leave you there,” Leonard said. “You’ll be damn uncomfortable lying on your side tied to a chair. You settle down there and after a while I’ll let you loose for a pee break, otherwise you’re gonna be miserable. And remember this, you ain’t got no extra clothes with you if you mess yourself. Though, I suppose tomorrow morning I could run over to the children’s department at a thrift store and pick you up some short sets.”

Red quit kicking. His little shoulders slumped.

Leonard turned on the television. There was a rerun of America’s Funniest Home Videos on. Leonard picked up Red’s chair and sat him right in front of the television set. He took the Western novel Taxi Man had given me and stretched out on the bed and began to read.

“Well, that television show is our cue to depart,” I said.

I glanced at Red: he had his head hung, defeated. On the television the audience was laughing as a toddler fell over the edge of a plastic swimming pool and banged his head against the ground.

Brett and I went to our room, carrying our little bit of luggage.

“I bought him some aspirin, didn’t I? Paid for it out of my own money.”

“Jesus, Brett. You hit him in the head with a gun barrel. A piece of steel. Aspirin doesn’t make it okay.”

“Well, aspirin’s for a headache ain’t it?”

“You gave him the headache. And besides, you gave Leonard a couple dollars and sent him for the aspirin.”

“It don’t matter how the little fucker gets it, does it?”

“I guess not,” I said.

“He’s lucky I didn’t give him a new shape to his head. And don’t be so self-righteous. You were in on it.”

I went quiet. We were lying in bed, the light out. We were both well on our sides of the bed, leaving quite a space between us.

Brett said, “I’m sorry, Hap. Really. I shouldn’t have said that. Wasn’t for me you wouldn’t be involved. But you got to understand. This is my daughter we’re talking about. Whatever it takes, that’s what I’ll do, and it’s not like we’re dealing with the Pope here.”

“I know, Brett, it’s just seeing the little guy take it. Fact is, I kind of admire him.”

“Admire him?”

“Not for who he is. Or what he’s done. But just the way he conducts himself.”

“That prattling?”

“No, that drives me shit-crazy. But he has a sense of honor. Strength. Dignity.”

“Next thing you’ll be asking him to bench-press two hundred pounds and show you his pecker.”

“I didn’t say I liked him. I said I kind of admire him.”

“I’ll have to think about that one, Hap. You’re pitying him, not picking up on a sense of honor. I’ve done the same, so I know. I’m an expert at recognizing the difference between admiring someone and pitying them. You have some of my old personality.”

“How’s that?”

“You see someone that’s down, maybe not even someone you like, someone who’s got a fucked-up life or who’s taken a wrong turn, and you want to set them straight. You think all you got to do is get them on their feet. It’s like the woman who takes up with the sorry man because she thinks she sees something in him, thinks she can change him.”

“I know Red’s worthless,” I said.

“I’m not saying you’re taking him under your wing and feeding him worms, but I’m saying what you feel for him is pity and it comes out of the same urge as the woman who wants to change the sorry man. You feel pity because he’s a midget, or a dwarf, or whatever he is, like being small alone makes him worth a damn. He’d be sorry if he was eight feet tall. He’d be sorry if he had a nub dick and couldn’t pick up five pounds. He’d be sorry if he had a dick long as a rock python and could bench-press a gorilla carrying a sackful of coconuts. He might be sorry in a different way, but he’d be sorry.”

“He was sold to a circus.”

“There’s people been sold to circuses that didn’t grow up to strangle people over money. He admitted to robbing that diner while his partner whipped up on that poor man who cooked the steak ranchero.”

“Boy, that must have been some steak ranchero,” I said. “Way he kept talking about it.”

“Yeah,” Brett said, “and I’ll be honest. I started to ask him where the place was.”

We both laughed.

Brett said, “So you got to accept this guy isn’t worth the powder it would take to blow his ass up. Lice on the end of a dog’s dick have more sense of community than he does. He’s out for himself.”

“I know that.”

“I know you know that, but you got to really know it. Between my husband and you I took up with this guy lived in a shed. I mean that literally. A shed. He conned someone to let him live in their shed. He wasn’t even a particularly interesting, smart, or attractive guy, but he had a way of making you feel sorry for him. Sort of like an ugly mongrel puppy that had caught on fire and wasn’t nothing but bald spots and red meat. You just naturally wanted to help him. He was a piece of shit, and I met him and got hung up with him, and I let him come over to the house cold nights and warm his pecker.”

“I don’t think I want to hear this.”

“You know I wasn’t celibate before we met. I never claimed to be any goddamn nun.”

“Yeah, I know, but I like to think in a little fantasy compartaient of my brain that you’ve been saving it just for me.”

“You and a lot of others.”

“Boy, that makes me feel good.”

“I thought this pity I felt for him was love. I gave him money. I gave him chances. I took him out of the shed, and pretty soon he’s lodged in my house tighter than a stitch. He wouldn’t work. Not really. He’d piddle here and there to pick up a few bucks, but I never knew him to put in a full day’s work once. He liked a good three hours and then back to the TV set, or he’d set around and play his harmonica and lie about how he used to play with Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. Always had plans and opportunities just around the corner. He had a truck he borrowed that he was supposed to buy, and he drove it around for months, dodging the guy who owned it. And he never did buy it. He started talking about all that was wrong with it, dismissing the fact he’d been riding around in it for nearly half a year. I bought him a truck and he drove the other one over to the fella’s house who owned it, got out and left it and ran back to my car and we drove out of there like thieves. But still I’m not seeing who this guy really is. He kept on complaining about all the bad breaks he’d had. How he had to live like a nigger. No offense to Leonard. That’s how he put it. He complained about the shacks people let him live in, like maybe they should have fixed them up for him or moved him into their homes. These people weren’t slumlords. They were helping the guy out because they felt sorry for him, and he wasn’t paying a penny.

“He complained they wanted him to do work for his room and board. It was always somebody else’s fault and always someone else’s responsibility to get him out of his bullshit. The truck I got him wasn’t good as he deserved. It had problems. He wanted better. He admitted he owed money for past hospital bills and to the IRS and said he couldn’t work because they’d take what he made. I paid his bankruptcy off. And it wasn’t a little bit of money. He supposedly took the money to a lawyer, but the bankruptcy never happened. I asked him about it, he got mad. Like it wasn’t something I was party to at all. He came up with new excuses. All of them lame. I began to realize what I thought might be a spark of salvation down there inside of him, a sort of muted intelligence, was nothing more than stupidity and shallowness, self-centeredness and misplaced ego. He didn’t really have any feelings outside of those for himself. He was a big con game. The level of his intelligence, if measured in inches, would have been just enough to get him up to where he could play in the toilet bowl with a long-handled spoon.

“I like to never got rid of him, and finally it turned ugly. I was prepared to call the police and have him removed. I dreamed fondly of my husband with his head on fire and thought maybe this guy would look good with a fire cap too. I began to think of them negative thoughts, you know. But I determined to avoid arson on another human body, not because he didn’t deserve it, but because I thought I might not get off for it this time. I cut off his nookie. I cut off his food. I threatened the law. He finally got the hint. Besides, he knew it was all coming to an end. He’d been through it before. He had been working another sucker all along, some other person to feel sorry for him and to tell him how I mistreated him. So he went from my house to another shed. Last I heard was that person’s hospitality played out and he went to yet another shed. Always living in sheds or garages or shacking up in someone’s house on a cold night. Working all day long to keep from working.

“By now, if the sorry cocksucker had gotten a job at a filling station and put in all the effort working he put into not working, he’d be vice president of goddamn Exxon. Anyway, it taught me a lesson. There’s folks out there down-and-out because of fate, but there’s lots of folks out there down-and-out because they aren’t worth squat. There really are bums, Hap. Not just homeless. And there’s even little circus-sold fucks out there who are not down-and-out at all, but have plenty of money and work in whorehouses as pimps and strangle and kill and rob people, and yet they want you to feel sorry for them because they’re short. I say, shit, riding dogs in a circus is good honest work compared to what he’s become. Hell, fuckin’ wood rats under a circus tent for spare change is even more honest work. You with me on all this?”

“I think I’m tracking,” I said. “Except that part about the rats.”

“Pretend I said chickens, or some kind of small furry animal other than a rat.”

“Okay,” I said. “I can visualize that.”

We lay there for a while, looking at the ceiling. And finally Brett said, “Will you hold me, baby?”

I said, “Would you really kill Red he didn’t show us to your daughter?”

“I’d like to. The urge would be there. But I guess not. Not just for that. But he doesn’t need to know that.”

“I guess I did. Does that make you feel bad toward me?”

“Nah,” Brett said, rolling up close. “Sometimes I can be so mean I scare myself. And I got to tell you, he got me crooked enough, I could punch his ticket.”

I took her in my arms. She kissed my ear. I turned and kissed her lips, our tongues explored. A moment later we were making love, and for a while I wasn’t all that concerned about Red and his bloody head, his circus past, or even his torturous time in front of America’s Funniest Home Videos.