The Bones (40 page)

What if I get sick? It's not really an if proposition, more of a when. They have diseases down there no one's even heard of.
Flesh-eating, intestine-ingesting, brain-devouring microbes that will do unspeakable things to my organism while I'm still
alive! I'll die slowly, racked with pain, chills, fever, vomiting, shitting, befouling myself, guts turned inside out and
no one to help me, everyone I know thousands of miles away.

Still, that's better than prison.

Do I even want to go back? What's therefor me anyway? What was it Phil Sheldon said the last time I saw him? It's all a shiny
penny. I can't breathe. I feel my chest constricting.

Paxil!

I need to take my Paxil right now. I can't handle this level of anxiety. But I took the last one! Now I don't have any. How
can I get it in Mexico? Can I find a doctor to write me a scrip without telling him who lam? Do they even have it down there?

Look at Frank. Sleeping like he's on vacation. Guy's got a beach house, probably people to send him money. And Mercy, driving.
They're outlaws. I'm not an outlaw. I'll be the guy who pointlessly pissed it all away, one more self-important hack deluded
enough to think he was destined for something more, another putz who gazed at the moon and tumbled into the gutter.

Around seven-thirty that morning they're at the Quik Stop in Mingo somewhere in the wasteland northeast of Austin. The fugitives
have determined that for the time being Mercy is the least likely to be identified, so she has been selected to go into the
convenience store and cater the getaway. They've been driving all night, first Mercy, then Lloyd, Frank, the most recognizable
of the bunch, deciding on the off chance they're pulled over his face shouldn't be the first one the cop sees. A souped-up
blue Chrysler with a FOR SALE sign in the window is parked nearby. Lloyd's pumping gas when he sees the clerk, a kid, maybe
twenty, grease-stained jeans and a T-shirt that says DEATH BY METAL, following Mercy out of the store, and he asks him, "You
want to sell that car?"

Frank's walking back from the bathroom and the kid, noticing him before he can quote a price, says, "You're Frank Bones!"

"I get that all the time." Easy, not skipping a beat.

"Hey, I seen you on TV. I know it's you," the kid says, looking around, as if someone might be listening in the dry vastness.
"It's cool. I ain't telling no one." The kid eyes Frank appreciatively, unaccustomed to having celebrities, much less fugitive
ones, at his Quik Stop. "Dude, you're in some serious shit! Are you going to Mexico?"

Mercy and Lloyd are nervously watching this exchange. They've been traveling in darkness most of the ride, and now, after
less than an hour of daylight, someone has already identified Frank, Lloyd thinking,
We might as well be in Pasadena.

"Why do you say that?" Frank asks the kid, genuinely curious.

"You're on the run. Where else would you go?"

"Canada, babe."

"Well, you better head to the bathroom first."

"I just went."

"Dude, I mean to hide. There's a state trooper car a mile down the highway," the kid says, squinting in the distance. Lloyd
looks down the highway, wondering what to do.

Jail? Mexico? An accident?

Frank, Mercy, and Lloyd are huddled in the bathroom ten seconds later. The strong smell of disinfectant does not entirely
hide the piquant odor, providing a further disincentive to breathe. Frank and Mercy face one another, gallows smiles. Lloyd
stares at a wall where some highway R. Crumb has taken the time to draw a Magic Marker cartoon of a man whose eyes are visible
over a toilet bowl, the rest of him having been sucked in.

"Stay cool," Frank says, as if it were a mantra.

"Where's the gun?" Mercy asks.

Frank lifts his waistband, shows it to her, whispering, "I'm gonna die in a bathroom, just like Lenny. He had a needle in
his arm but the parallel is un-fuckin'-canny."

It was self-defense. It was self-defense. It was self-defense.

Lloyd says, "I'm going to surrender. You two can stay here." Reaching for the doorknob, he feels the chill of cold metal against
his neck.

Frank says, "Lloyd, don't." The disconcerting feeling of a gun barrel pressed against the area below his ear has the desired
effect and Lloyd lowers his hand. Then he feels something sharp in his back and sees Mercy is holding a knife against his
spleen.

"Stay with us," she whispers, and now Lloyd is getting angry.

In another minute the cruiser pulls into the station. The kid has moved the Camaro to the side of the lot. He's behind the
counter of the Quik Stop when the trooper enters, a short, muscular guy with a bristly crew cut.

"Whose car is that out there?"

"You want to buy it?" the kid replies, unflappable.

"The other one," the trooper says.

"This guy and this chick were here like ten minutes ago. Asked if they could park it, then started hitchhiking east. Tomato
truck picked 'em up. You could catch 'em prob'ly," drawls the kid, feeling that he's in a movie and playing his role to perfection.

"You're sure?" The trooper narrows his eyes, dubious.

"Oh, yeah, Officer," the kid says, pulling a twenty out of his pocket. "They gave me this for looking after their car."

The trooper walks out, peering in the garage adjacent to the Quik Stop. He circumnavigates the building, then comes back inside.
"What about the bathrooms?"

"They're locked. I got the keys right here," the kid says, holding up a couple of random keys he spots on the desk.

Handing the kid a card, the trooper says, "Them people come back, you call me." The kid nods and watches the trooper approach
Mercy's car, open the driver's-side door, and look around. A moment later, he is gone, speeding east in pursuit of the phantom
tomato truck.

When the trooper's car disappears, the kid walks to the back of the building, calling, "Red rover, red rover . . .," and is
delighted to see Frank, Mercy, and Lloyd emerge from the bathroom.

"So I'm a hostage now?" Lloyd says, spilling into the sunlight.

"Until we get to Mexico," Frank replies, shocked beyond measure when Lloyd sucker punches him in the side of the head. Frank
staggers a few steps, then trips and falls. Lloyd swoops down and grabs the gun, which has roiled out of Frank's waistband,
and before Mercy can do anything with her knife, Lloyd trains the gun on the two of them, tired, nervous, and pissed off.

"I think the ride's over," Lloyd says.

"Excuse me, people. You mind telling me what's going on here?"

"Mind your own business," Lloyd growls—
where'd that come from?
—the kid slinking away, marveling at what the larger world has visited upon him this day. Frank gets up from the ground, rubbing
the side of his head, Lloyd really drilling him a moment ago. Turning to Frank and Mercy, Lloyd says, "I shot the guy.
I
shot him. Me. It's my responsibility and I want to . . ." Here he hesitates, as if reconsidering what he is about to say.
"If I examine the situation . . . I want to turn myself in."

Frank shakes his head. "Lloyd, you are dumber than a stump. They'll fry you for
shooting
a cop, even
if didn't
kill him. And . . . " Frank pauses, considers an even more disturbing thought. "Never mind
you.
They could pin it on me. I'm the one with the motive."

"But I could testify—"

"I'm the one they're trying to get!"

"You're makin' a mistake," Mercy weighs in. "Folks in Oklahoma, they don't like boys who shoot police officers."

"Babe, you're not gonna get a Bronx jury," Frank informs Lloyd, the obscure reference being to the presumed unwillingness
of majority-black juries to convict black defendants, Lloyd's skin color irrelevant to the larger point, i.e., that the jury
was not going to regard this Los Angeles malefactor in a friendly way. "Just a bunch of angry white people."

Lloyd is starting to waver, but before he comes to a decision, he hears the kid saying, "Drop the gun," and turns to see a
sawed-off shotgun pointing at him. "Just put it on the ground."

The feeling of having a presumably loaded weapon pointed at you with the strength to blow a cantaloupe-size hole anywhere
it's aimed is unsettling, and Lloyd immediately does as he's told. Frank picks up the gun. "Now calm down and let's get back
on the road. You're not surrendering." When this observation is met with silence, Frank says, "Lloyd? No surrendering, right?"

"Not today."

"Right. Not today. Now, no hard feelings, okay? Everyone's stressed-out. Chillin'?" Frank says, the blaccent again.

"Yeah" comes Lloyd's aggravated reply, although he has inwardly admitted there is no use acting precipitously.

"I'm sorry about pokin' you with the knife, Lloyd," Mercy says. "I didn't break the skin, did I?"

Lloyd's done with the moment. "Can we please just get out of here?"

The four of them are next to the Chrysler with the FOR SALE sign. "This speed machine yours?" Frank asks.

"You can have it if I can come with you," the kid says. "I'll be your roadie."

"Maybe another time," Frank tells him. The kid is so thrilled to have his car taken by a celebrity he offers them the entire
contents of the cash register, over four hundred dollars, which Frank is only too happy to accept.

They were going to cross the border at Laredo, less than five hours away, but heading down 1-35 they get caught in morning
traffic. Frank takes care to slouch in the backseat so no eagle eyes will spot him. Lloyd has thought little about what happened
to Clay, preoccupied as he is with the logistics of his own future, but as the traffic eases and they sprint for the border,
past Pearsall, Dilley, Cotulla, and Artesia Wells, he tells himself he will deal with the incipient guilt he is feeling in
a less hectic moment; and he fully expects to be overwhelmed. It is early afternoon when they reach the muddy Rio Grande.

Two international bridges link Laredo, Texas, with Nuevo Laredo, the Mexican border town right over the river. Twenty miles
to the northwest is the Puente Solidaridad for those wanting to bypass the town altogether, and it is there that they go.

If you're an American citizen, all you need to get into Mexico is a valid driver's license, which Mercy has. Cars going north
to south are rarely searched since most of the criminal activity (illegal immigration, truckloads of pot, whatever happens
to be the felony du jour) is headed in the opposite direction. For this reason, it is decided Frank and Lloyd should ride
in the trunk while their Oklahoma Charon ferries them across.

On a Laredo side street in a Mexican neighborhood, Mercy pulls the car over in front of an empty lot. There's a beauty shop
across the street and a bodega about fifty yards away. No one's paying any attention to the gringos with the Chrysler. All
three of them get out of the car. Mercy opens the trunk as Frank and Lloyd look at each other.

"After you, Mr. Melnick," Frank says, as if they were stepping into the lobby of the Plaza Hotel instead of a car trunk.

The trunk is remarkably dark and smells of gas vapors. Old rags are scattered around, with some tools and empty beer cans.
Both men struggle to get comfortable, pushing hard things out of the way and curling up, trying not to touch each other. It's
hot. No one has showered or washed in over twenty-four hours. Lloyd feels a tightening in his back as Mercy puts the car in
gear and they start moving.

A back spasm now? That's perfect. They'll bust us at the border and I'll do the perp walk on national television bent at a
forty-five-degree angle.

Concentrate.

Release tension. Yeah, release tension in the trunk of a car lying next to a guy with felony priors while being driven over
the border by someone who was holding a knife to my back a few hours ago. Very relaxing. What is that rank smell? Is that
Frank? What does prison smell like? I don't like being this close to another man; especially this one. A stinking fugitive.
A dysfunctional, self-destructive, narcissistic . . . I loathe the man. What he represents, what he represents about me .
. . And I killed to protect him, which is something I'll endlessly pay for. Am I going to be a target in the showers or am
I too old? Why did I want to write that book? What am I trying to prove? That I exist? As if words on a page no one will read
in a hundred years will somehow deliver me from this emptiness. If I shift my leg, maybe the pain in my back will go away.
There, that's better. Those are gas fumes, aren't they? And they're toxic. Maybe I can fall asleep. Maybe I can die in my
sleep. That would solve everything. It's so hot in here, so incredibly hot. Why am I blaming Frank? It's not his fault; it's
mine. If I die in the trunk (am I dying?), I don't want my last thoughts to be angry ones (could I be dying?). Just get through
this. Frank has a beach house. Think of beaches. White sand, blue sky, cold beer, white sand, blue sky, cold beer . . . I
killed someone . . . I'll never fall asleep and not have that be my last thought . . .

They feel the car turning a corner and Lloyd has to brace himself to keep from roiling onto Frank. The car lurches and rattles.
A pothole. Neither man says a word during the entire ride, fatigue catching up with them in the fetid darkness of the fume-stinking
trunk. The car slows, then stops. They hear an American voice asking, "What's the purpose of your trip?" The remaining oxygen
in their tiny pod continues to dissipate. Their lives are coming to an end now, the lives they know. They will either be fished
out of the trunk by a lucky border guard, JACKPOT! CELEBRITY FUGITIVE CAUGHT FLEEING INTO MEXICO, or they will pass through
this border place and cross the stygian line separating them from the Underworld, where they will be reborn into some strange
new life neither man can conceive of at this moment.

A hard hand suddenly slaps the trunk, causing them to tense. Neither man dares to breathe, the wait interminable. One, two,
ten seconds. Nothing. Then, voices. And once again, silence. Although the darkness is complete, Lloyd closes his eyes. Frank
quietly roils onto his back. If the trunk opens, he doesn't want to be caught looking fetal, always conscious of how to make
an entrance.