The Minotaur Takes His Own Sweet Time (33 page)
The Minotaur, undone by Love’s, meets the game warden halfway.
“B-bless you,” the Minotaur says.
“What?” the man says.
“You are here,” the Minotaur says, amazed at the clarity of his claim.
“What?” the game warden says.
“Put him in the scuppers with a hose pipe on him!” Tookus roars from the toilet. And his clarity is magnificent as well.
“What the hell?” Holly says. She’s back with a bottle of water in each hand. Practically saintlike.
Then the gunshot rings out from the men’s room.
“Fuck!” Holly says, drops the water. One bottle ruptures.
No. It’s not a gunshot. It’s a firecracker. An M80. But people don’t know that. And though stunned and confused by the first explosion, at the second folks dive for cover under the food-court tables or run screaming into Love’s busy parking lot.
“N-no,” the Minotaur says. It’s just a firecracker. It’s just Tookus.
Holly heads into the bathroom, but she’s knocked to the ground by all the men rushing out. Bless her. Bless them and their ringing ears, their stinging eyes.
“No,” the Minotaur says, reaching for Holly.
“Move!” the game warden says, reaching for his weapon. Duty calls. “Move, now!”
“No,” the Minotaur says. Everything is okay.
“No,” Holly says, struggling to her feet. “It’s not . . . He’s not . . .”
“What wondrous love is this!” Tookus sings from inside the bathroom.
Comes out of the bathroom singing the next line. “O my soul! O my soul!”
Comes out of the bathroom singing and pointing his toy pistol. “What wondrous love is this! What . . .”
There is a little mouth in the middle of the game warden’s fat pink cheeks. It’s saying something. But the Minotaur can’t hear what. The game warden’s gun is pointed and cocked. Sometimes the game warden’s wife helps him polish the gun.
It’s okay
, the Minotaur says. No. Thinks.
You Are Here
. The Minotaur has been here before, right? He can’t remember. It’s called pussy. No. It’s more than that.
Tookus staggers, wide eyed and giddy, singing, into the fray. His fray. He sees the other man in uniform, the game warden. Raises his toy pistol.
“Bang bang,” Tookus says.
Holly lunges for her brother, puts her fine body between the boy and the rest of the world.
“Bang bang,” Tookus says, looking down the black wooden barrel.
The Minotaur looks at the game warden and sees it in his eyes. The reason. He knows it. The game warden and the Minotaur both know. It is the dying season.
“Bless you,” the Minotaur says, his heart pumping.
And what pumps through those human veins is, no doubt, monstrous blood. And in the monster’s bloody core there is no denying humanity. Much humanity. Most try to pretend they’re different. It’s a tiresome chore. On good days the Minotaur knows a few things. Want. Hope. Need. Fear. Hunger. Hunger comes. Hunger goes. The Minotaur has learned that beyond hunger is just more hunger. He is learning to eat the emptiness.
“What wondrous love is this!”
There is an eternity between the pulling of the trigger and what happens next.
You Are Here.
“O my soul! O my soul!”
You Are Here.
There is a perfect little red heart on the Love’s Travel Stop map.
Is that Tookus? Is he singing? Is the song perfectly sung?
You Are Here.
The little red heart says so.
The Minotaur believes it.
I WOULD LIKE TO THANK
the following for their help (direct or indirect) in bringing this novel to life: Lee Peterson, wife o’ mine; the Peterson-Littenburg-Rich contingent in NYC; Michael Griffith for his reliable genius; Nicola Mason and all the folks at
Cincinnati Review
(in which an excerpt of the book appears); Yseult Ogilvie; Anna Jean Moriarty and the folks at The
Pigeonhole.com
; Ian Staples, Jon Seagroatt, and Bobbie Seagroatt for the creation of
Deathless
; Ian Wilson for his operatic vision; and Penn State Altoona for its ongoing support of what happens in my noggin.