Page 50 of Road Refugees

Chapter Seventeen

Heaven

“Here you go, boys.”

I set the scorpion bowl of rum, vodka, and gin before the two men. Crybaby was there at the cabin picking up more shrooms to sell, and Slappy was taking a break from gate-building with Town. Town didn’t want to partake of the sweet and boozy concoction, so he kept building.

“I learned to make this in Cornucopia,” I told them, taking a seat myself.

“Ooo,” said Slappy, his eyes shining as he grabbed one of the three straws. “It’s almost like you should set this appetizer on fire.”

Crybaby was already sucking on his straw. “That would burn the pineapple.”

Slappy popped a cherry into his mouth. “And the cherries.”

I sipped through my own straw. After a month of abstinence, I was methodically drinking a bit to see if I got carried away. So far, I hadn’t. I did not buy a new flask after tossing the old one in the recycle bin. But I knew what a tightrope I walked. As Dick Passwater had lectured, I had taken a few magical mushroom trips with the precise intent to stop drinking. At last I saw drinking as irrelevant to my larger life’s path, since many other things had become so much more important. I saw myself as a tiny golem critter, crouching and drinking, just filling myself with poison.

It was a dynamic and gross hallucination that I can still see to this day. Suddenly, I lost the comfort of careless drinking and began to really see it as a detriment. I could no longer just look to the next twenty-four hours, nor did I need a crutch to endure the agony. The agony was gone. It was back in Utah. Now I wanted to be fully aware for the fun, entertainment, hard work, and joy of living in the cabin with the men.

I asked, “When is this Santiago Slayer guy arriving?” He was a flamboyantly polite hitman who was currently acting in soaps. I’d seen a couple episodes on Town’s computer. Santiago played a suave hotel owner, always hitting on women.

Crybaby said, “Well, the last train roof he jumped on out of Mexico City wound up going to the Yucatán instead of Nogales.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Slappy. “I heard that. He only realized it when coconuts bonked him in the head and woke him up.”

“Oh!” I said, disappointed I wouldn’t meet him. “Then who is to take out Byron Riddlesberger?”

“Don’t worry,” said Crybaby, munching on a pineapple chunk. “We’re in control. I gave your intel to Ford and they’re going to make a big raid. Take out that assclown Riddlesberger.”

“And that scrotum Stomach,” I added. I knew we were talking about “burying” people, but damn. I couldn’t stop obsessing over what the Friends of Distinction did for a living. Being taken out by the Bare Bones seemed a small price to pay for the havoc they’d wrought. And that odd Darcy Bard fellow? I had a feeling he was telling the truth about a body in a septic tank. “I hope they don’t wait too long.”

“It’s pretty imminent,” said Crybaby. “They decided to go ahead without Bobo Segrist.”

I frowned. “Oh, is he still by the border harassing immigrants?”

“No. The sheriff arrested him so he could get a motorcycle club endorsement, and Bobo’s stuck partying with the guy at the Lion’s Club in Nogales.”

I harrumphed. “Well. I better go dry our washing.”

Mickey Finn followed me to the laundry room where I got a giant basket of clean, damp clothes from the washing machine. Nowadays she walked while peering from side to side as though waiting for someone to jump out at her. But she was straightening out, standing taller. She seemed to be expressing pure love when she rolled in the grass or ran in the yard with the others. Her fur was filling in the bare spots, becoming lusher, like a proper Leonberger.

I was standing a bit away from the house where I’d strung a clothesline between two pines, the clothes billowing and flapping, when Town approached. He knew better than to scare me, so he rustled some bushes and called out.

“Hey beautiful!”

As I was pinning a man’s T-shirt to the line, I craned my neck, grinning from ear to ear. How was it possible for one person to bring another such joy? Just the vision of his gorgeous thick, black hair shining in the sun, his lopsided grin, his built chest and “guns” as sweetbutts called men’s arms, Town always made me forget my chore. “Hey, handsome.” I quickly finished pinning the shirt so I could turn and embrace him, but he was quicker.

“Don’t move.”

I gasped as he approached me from behind. A month ago this predicament would’ve given me a heart attack, but I trusted Town. The warm slab of his body was plastered to my back as he unclipped two clothespins from the line. My willpower against this man just dragged around my feet like dropped undies. I leaned a little back into him, my hands falling to my sides.

“I’ve been thinking about this,” he murmured as he dragged the clips up my belly under my T-shirt, exposing the shelf of my tits. “You have massive orgasms. I’m thinking if I deny you the pleasure, your climaxes will be even stronger.”

“Oh, no!” I cried, smiling. “I don’t think I could bear them any stronger.”

“Should we find out?”

“Ah!” I yelped when he clipped a nipple through the thin fabric of my sports bra.