“No shit.”
“I shit you not, boy. Our town is big enough already. You want the chair?”
“Depends. When’s Tammy’s shift over?”
“One thirty.”
“Then no. Where does she go next?”
“Today is Friday, so she’ll get the girls from Hazel’s place, then stop by the big grocery store before she heads home.”
So I’m gonna need a car or else she’ll spot me on the bike. “Can I borrow your car?”
“For a day?”
I purse my lips. “A week?”
“Eight hundred.”
“What the fuck?”
“New truck. I don’t drive. Got it to write it off taxes for the business.” He pulls out a key and dangles it in my face.
I snatch the key.
“Hey,” he protests. “Eight hundred.”
“I’ll get rid of the Suit. How’s that?”
“That’s good.”
4
The “new truck” is a limited-edition Ford that came out a decade ago, but I’m guessing that’s new by the man’s standards and also because the total mileage is only ten thousand.
When I got the truck, I saw an antique Mustang in the garage at the back of the store, which I remember taking for a joyride when I was about twelve. I drove to Headings Peak out in the middle of nowhere in our great state of Wyoming and then drove it back.
Wish I’d known Tammy back then so I could have taken her for a ride with me and gotten a feel of her tits. Big tits. I’m gonna suck on them soon.
Thinking about sucking her tits puts me in a great mood while I duck inside the big grocery store in a bigger town and scurry through the aisles, finding her, then backing off so she won’t catch a whiff of a tail. She doesn’t. She’s a civilian, unlike me, who’s constantly looking at people, angles, exit points, shelters, and possible scenarios of a normal trip to the grocery store gone to hell.
She pushes the cart down the aisle and rounds the corner. I move from my spot, then stop to see what she was looking at. Barbies. Her girls come running around the corner and practically shove me out of the way so they can view the doll selection.
Same as their mom, they’ve got long brown hair that curls at the ends. One wears jeans and a white shirt, the other black tights with a red shirt. Their shoes are the same, though, sparkly and with flashing lights on the soles. I had no idea shoes could do that.
The one wearing jeans points at the red sticker on the Barbie box. “Clearance means it’s on sale,” she explains to her sister. “How much money do we have?”
“Not enough,” her sister says.
“Not even for one?” The girl wearing jeans glances at me, gaze lingering. She tilts her head. “Do we know you?”
“No.”
“Do you know our aunt?”
I did not see that coming. These aren’t her kids. “Yes.”
“Can I borrow two dollars, then?”
