Sailor & Lula (12 page)

“Florida,” said Sailor. “Orlando, Florida.”

“Boy, my grandkids'd sure love to go to that Disney World. You been there plenty, I guess.”

“Lots of times.”

Lula sucked on the straw in her Coke and stared at Sailor. He turned and smiled at her, then went back to making conversation with Katy. Lula suddenly felt sick to her stomach.

“I'm gonna go back up to the room and lie down, Sailor,” she said. “This heat makes me tired.”

“Okay, honey, I'll see you later.”

“Bye,” Lula said to Katy.

“Have a nice
siesta,
dear,” said Katy.

Outside everything looked cooked, like the white of a fried egg, with brown edges. Lula walked very slowly the half block to the Iguana Hotel and barely made it up the stairs into the room before she threw up.

“You Red?”

Sailor was talking to the sweaty, grimy back of a stocky, shirtless man whose shoulders, arms and head were buried under the hood of a brown 1983 Buick Regal.

“No,” the man grunted, without extricating himself. “Inside.”

Sailor stood in what looked to be a junkyard. Greasy or rusting automobile parts, bottles, cans, torn-up couches, seatless or one-legged chairs, discarded screws, nails, springs, empty cartons, crushed cardboard boxes and other assorted garbage were strewn on the ground in front of Red's Garage. A fat red dog of indeterminate breed with only one ear slept by the entrance. A tall, skinny man in his early thirties with wild, uncombed hair the color of a pomegranate, wearing a grease-smeared white-and-red Hook-‘em-Horns tee shirt and dark grey work pants, walked out of the corrugated-metal Butler building.

“You lookin' for me?” he said.

“If you're Red.”

“Well, I ain't Blackie,” said Red, with a smile.

Sailor held out his right hand to shake.

“Name's Sailor Ripley. Katy over at the drugstore thought you might maybe have some work I could do.”

Red extended his own oil-blackened right hand and shook.

“Business ain't like the weather,” he said.

“Meanin'?”

“Ain't real hot right now. Rex there, though,” said Red, nodding toward the half-naked man burrowed into the Buick, “is about to relocate to San Angelo. I might could use a man when he does.”

“When'd that be?”

“Week, ten days. Hey, Rex, how long till you head for Angelo?”

Rex pulled his head out from beneath the hood. He wiped his face with a crusty black rag and spat tobacco juice on the ground next to the sleeping red dog. The dog didn't twitch. Rex had a blue, quarter-inch-width scar across his nose.

“Susie's ma says we can have the trailer middle of next week,” he said.

“You good with engines?” Red asked Sailor.

“I ain't no Enzo Ferrari, but they used to call me Wrench when I was a kid. Raced C Stock.”

“We'll see how she goes then when Rex takes off. Check back.”

Two men, both about forty, walked up to Red. One of them wore a grey baseball cap with a Confederate flag on it and the other had on an LBJ straw Stetson.

“How's it look?” said the man in the Stetson.

“Reckon the head's cracked, like I thought.”

“Shit, that's what I was afraid of. It'll take some time then.”

Red nodded. “It will,” he said.

The man wearing the Rebel cap knelt down next to the fat red dog and scratched behind the dog's remaining ear.

“How you doin', Elvis?” he said to the dog. “Don't look like Elvis ever missed a meal, Red.”

“He's always been regular,” said Red.

Elvis didn't move. A dozen flies rested on his face.

“Anybody need a beer?” asked Rex, taking a six-pack of Bud from a small Kelvinator set up on blocks just inside the garage. He handed one to each man, kept a can for himself, tore the plastic ring off and tossed it on the ground and put one beer back in the refrigerator.

“I'm Buddy,” said the man with the cap to Sailor, “and this here's Sparky.”

Sailor introduced himself to Sparky and Buddy and Rex. They all shook hands or nodded and moved out of the sun to drink their beers.

“You fellas live here?” Sailor asked Sparky and Buddy.

Buddy laughed. “Feels like it now, don't it, Spark?”

“Car broke down,” said Sparky. “The Buick over there. We been here a week while Red and Rex been troubleshootin' it.”

“Where you headed?”

“California,” said Buddy. “We live in San Bruno, south of San Francisco. Sparky's a plumber and I drive a produce delivery truck.”

“Shoot, how'd y'all end up down here?”

“Deep in the Big Nowhere, you mean?” said Sparky. “Long story.” He took a swig from his can.

“Short version is that Spark's dad died in Tampa,” said Buddy, “left him his car. Spark and I flew down for the funeral and afterward packed up the stuff Spark wanted to keep, loaded it into the Buick. Made it far as Seguin, just the other side of San Antonio, before the car started actin' up. Tuned it there and thought we was okay, but around Kerrville the damn thing overheated somethin' fierce. Clicked off the AC and pushed it too far, I guess. Twenty-four miles west of Big Tuna it stuttered and boiled up. I was drivin' and pulled off on a dirt access road. There was nothin' around but dust and snakes and it was about a hundred and twenty with no hope of shade.”

Sparky laughed. “This pickup comes along and Buddy throws himself in front of it, wavin' his arms like a weighted-down vulture tryin' to take off.”

“No shit,” said Buddy. “We woulda died out there. So the guy in the pickup used his towrope to pull us back to the Big Tuna here, where we've placed our fate in the unhygienic but supposedly automotively capable hands of Inman ‘Don't Call Me Inman' Red Lynch. How about yourself?”

“My girl and I are lookin' for a place to settle,” said Sailor. “We're bunked down at the Iguana Hotel.”

“So are we,” said Sparky. “It's the only hotel in Big Tuna. Have you met Bobby ‘Just Like the Country' Peru yet?”

“No, we just got in a hour and a half ago.”

“You will,” Buddy said. “He's the Mr. Fix-it at the Iguana. His truck broke down here a couple of months ago.”

“Escaped con,” said Rex. “Man got some serious prison tattoos.”

“Ever'body got a past,” said Red.

“Just some got more future in 'em than others,” Buddy said.

“That ain't no lie,” said Rex.

Sailor finished his beer, stood it on the ground and stepped on it, crushing it flat.

“Been nice meetin' y'all,” he said. “ 'Preciate the beer. I'll be seein' y'all soon.”

“Very soon,” said Buddy.

“One thing about bein' in Big Tuna,” said Sparky, “you don't have much choice about who you see and who you don't.”

Sailor found Lula asleep on the bed. There was a terrible odor in the room and a big damp spot on the rug near the door.

“That you, Sail, honey?”

“The only one.”

Lula opened her eyes and looked at Sailor.

“You see Red?”

“Uh huh. Met him and a bunch of boys. What's that smell?”

“I barfed. Tried to clean it with Ivory and water but it didn't do much good.”

“You sick?”

“A little, I think. Darlin'?”

“Yeah?”

“Come sit by me.”

Sailor went over and sat on the bed.

“I don't know that this is the right place for us.”

Sailor stroked Lula's head.

“It ain't gonna be forever, peanut.”

Lula closed her eyes.

“I know, Sailor. Nothin' is.”

“Too late for the riot, Johnnie boy, as usual.”

Johnnie and Marietta were having dinner with Johnnie's friend Eddie Guidry in Joe R's Steak 'n' Shrimp in Nacogdoches, Texas.

“Kinda riot, Eddie?”

“Cops killed a black kid who'd stuck up a 7-Eleven, durin' the process of which he'd coldcocked a seventy-eight-year-old white woman with a pistol. She died. Kid got away but cops in Bossier City caught him, shipped him back to Nacogdoches, where some fool deputy beat him to death. Boy was fifteen. One of the local black attorneys, woman named Rosetta Coates, who's very powerful around here, graduated top of her class at Austin, made a speech about it got the whole town excited. Result was thirteen dead, eleven of 'em blacks. Stores burned, looted. Regular Mardi Gras, Texas-style.”

“Johnnie tells me you're a writer, Mr. Guidry,” said Marietta.

“Yes, ma'am.”

“May I inquire as to what type of writin' you do?”

“Adventure novels, action stuff. Doubt you'd be much interested in 'em.”

“Would I have heard of any?”

“Had a pretty near best-seller three, four years ago, called
Death Chopper
. Did damn good in convenience stores.”

“That's interestin', Mr. Guidry. I wasn't aware books were sold in those places.”

“Hell, yes. Ain't no bookstores left, practically. Buy you a toothbrush, quart of low-fat, double A batteries, pack of Trojan-enz,
TV Guide
and a paperback best-seller all in the same run.”

“Eddie and I met in the service, Marietta,” said Johnnie. “We were together at Fort Jackson, then again in Nam.”

“Do you write much about your experiences in Vietnam, Mr. Guidry?”

“No, ma'am, not really. In order for 'em to sell they gotta be like comic books. I ain't what you'd classify as a
serious
writer, unless you're
talkin' money only, and
that's
sure as shit serious! No, Johnnie's the literary one. You ever read any of his stories?”

“Why, Johnnie,” said Marietta, “why ain't you ever showed your writin' to me?”

Johnnie just shook his head and cut into his steak.

“He's got the ideas, this old boy,” said Eddie. “Wish I had 'em.”

From her room at the Ramada Inn after dinner, Marietta called Dalceda Delahoussaye.

“Dal? How you, honey?”

“Marietta? Where are you?”

“Nacogdoches, Texas, of all places. Johnnie wanted to stop by and see a old friend of his named Eddie Guidry. You ever heard of him? Says he writes war novels.”

“Louis read one of 'em.
Chopped to Death,
I think it was. Man's a multimillionaire, Marietta. He single?”

“Divorced with four children. Lives with a Mexican girl, Johnnie told me. Daughter of the fam'ly maid. Prob'ly all of fourteen years old.”

Dal laughed. “Nothin' we can do about them young ones, Marietta. They just keep on comin'.”

“Mr. Guidry ain't my type. Man's got hair, Dal, I swear! Hairline's down on the bridge of his nose and hair's stickin' out on him from ever'where, 'specially his ears. Pretty disgustin'.”

“What about Lula?”

“Johnnie's got a guy in San Antonio checkin' around. We know they're runnin' low on money, so they'll have to stop someplace and work. Johnnie's ninety percent positive they're headed west. His associate in San Antone's makin' calls. Cover more ground with a telephone than you can in a car, Johnnie says.”

“Sounds smart. You sleepin' with him, Marietta?”

“Oh, Dal, hush. We got separate rooms at the Ramada.”

“Last night I come in the bedroom and Louis is sleepin', but he's got this big ol' hard-on. Well, big for Louis, anyway. So I climb over him real careful and take it out of his pajama bottoms and stick it in me.”

“Dal!” Marietta squealed. “You're lyin'!”

“How else am I gonna get him to do it? Anyway, he woke up quick and come quicker, so it was nothin' to write home about. I tell you,
Marietta, we oughta go down to Old Mexico and get us a couple maracaplayin' beach boys like Ava Gardner had in that movie? We ain't dead or dried up yet but it won't be long. I'm
serious,
Marietta.”

“I'm tired, Dal. I'll let you know soon's I find out somethin'.”

“Think about what I'm sayin' now, okay? Love you, Marietta. You take care.”

“I will, Dal. Bye.”

“You ever see that Errol Flynn movie,
Objective, Burma!
?” Sailor asked.

Lula was sitting in a chair, painting her toenails.

“Not that I recall,” she said.

“Flynn and a group of soldiers is about to jump from an airplane into the jungle near Mandalay or somewhere during World War Two,” said Sailor, “and one of the guys asks Flynn, ‘What if my chute doesn't open?' And Flynn says, ‘Well, you'll be the first on the ground.' ”

Lula laughed. “He was awful handsome,” she said, “even if he did have a mustache? I never have cared for facial hair on a guy unless he was so ugly it covered him up.”

Sailor got up from the bed and began putting on his clothes.

“Let's go have some dinner, peanut,” he said. “I'm ready.”

“My toenails gotta dry first, Sailor. Tell me a story while we're waitin'.”

“What kinda story, darlin'?”

“Anythin' you got to say interests me,” said Lula. “You know that.”

“You really are dangerously cute, honey,” Sailor said. “I gotta admit it.”

Lula giggled and stretched out on the bed, dangling her feet over the edge.