The Complete Drive-In

9

Bob sat me on the tailgate of the truck and went away. He came back with the shotgun, pushed me inside, pulled up the tailgate and locked it. He sat me over by one of the camper windows, then hunkered down by me. From there we could see the concession and the lightning that was sparking across the sky. The truck rocked against the wind, paper bags and cups fluttered across the lot. It was the strongest wind yet.

People were fleeing out of the concession, jamming in the door. There were fights out front of the place. Lots of biting and kicking.

Bob moved over to the trap that held the spare tire and pulled it up. There was a cardboard box next to the spare. He took it out, opened it. It was full of homemade jerky wrapped in cellophane. I had forgotten about that. Something tried to click together in the back of my mind. but it wouldn’t. All I could do was say “But-”

“Not right now,” Bob said. “Take this and eat it. You’re hypoglycemic, pal. Bad. You eat this. Chew it slowly and swallow the juice.”

I took it and began to chew. It hurt my gums at first, but it was like new blood was being pumped into me. I wanted to gobble it, but Bob kept warning me to suck it, to make it last.

“If Willard and Randy come back to the truck,” Bob said, “I’m not going to let them in. No matter what. Understand?”

“Randy’s our friend.”

“Not anymore. Eat.”

I looked at him holding the shotgun. He looked like a young Clint Eastwood, only shorter, ready to step out of a spaghetti Western.

“I’ve had the jerky all along,” Bob said. “I forgot about it at first-all that was happening and it out of sight. I brought it for you and Randy to split and take home, enough there so your folks could have some. I’ve been slipping in here and eating it from time to time.”

It was as if my head were clearing, cotton stuffing was being pulled out. “You should have told us,” I said,

“I can tell you’re feeling good already. You’re starting to get self-righteous again. First thing you’ve said in a while that makes any sense. You been out in Bozo Land, pal. All you needed was a rubber nose and some flappy shoes.”

“You could have told us,” I said again.

“Naw. Randy and Willard were out there in orbit, man. If I’d told them about the jerky, it would have been all she wrote. Willard would have taken it from us, and if we’d given him any trouble, he’d have killed us. No, wasn’t nothing friendly about it. And telling him about it and keeping him at shotgun point all the time didn’t appeal to me none neither.”

“It was needing protein that made them goofy,” I said. I closed my eyes and chewed the last of the jerky. I had never tasted anything better in my life.

“That may be, but I ain’t no hero, Jack. I was watching after me. What can I say? I knew we had us a ticklish situation here, and I wanted to have my strength for as long as I could. More meat I had, longer I could last. I took it easy on the soft drinks and the candy, tried to drink enough to keep liquid in my body, but to balance the sugar out with the meat. I figured if I could stay alive long enough, all this might go back to the way it was.”

“So how come you’re telling me?”

“I don’t know. Worse you got, worse I felt. Hell, we been partners a long time… Look at you. You look like crap. It was tough to look at.”

“But you managed.”

“For a time. My dad always said when it got right down to it, people weresonofabitches. If it was a difference between honor and no food, he said they’d take the food every time. Looks like he was right about that. We get home, I’ll tell him so.”

“Well, you don’t look so good neither,” I said. “And to hell with your old man.”

“I ain’t feeling up to snuff, Jack, but with this jerky in me I could kind of figure which was my left hand and my right, know my pecker from my leg, know what was going on in here wasn’t just something to look at… Man, this is humanity shredding.”

“Randy’s been a friend a long time,” I said.

“Yeah. I care about him. But you and I been friends a long damn time-since kindergarten. And Randy has gotten real weird, partner. Him and Willard are… well, they didn’t just get that way from lack of groceries. Those two and this drive-in and the things that have happened go together like bourbon and Coke… I think they’re happy with the way things are. Hell, I don’t know, maybe they’re queer and in love and it’s all this making them find it out. And maybe it isn’t that; maybe they’re just super fucked up and this is the straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak.”

“It still doesn’t strike me as the way you should have handled it,” I said.

“No? Here, take another piece.”

I took it without argument. In fact, I took it a little too fast. I almost ate it with the cellophane on it.

“You’re a nice guy, Jack. Kind of a bleeding heart, but a nice guy. I wanted to tell you about the meat, but I knew you’d tell Randy and Willard. A bite of jerky meat wasn’t gonna help them none, so I couldn’t have that. Finally, though, I figured, hell, I ain’t gonna make this nohow, no matter how much meat I hold back. So, I thought, me and Jack, we’ll split it, last as long as we can. I mean… well, guess I still got some kind of hope in me, just like that manager. Maybe down deep I think the National Guard is going to come through too… You see, I had to choose between Willard and Randy and you. And I took you.”

“Am I supposed to feel flattered?”

“Be nice if you were. You been fucked up so long, you ain’t really got a grip on your thinking. Look out there.”

He slapped his hand against the camper window and I looked. People were fighting. They were on their hands and knees going at it. They sounded like rabid dogs.

“It’s like I was saying, Jack, you’re kind of a bleeding heart. If I’d told you about that jerky a time back, when you were feeling good and full of all that social morality shit, you’d have wanted to share with Randy and Willard… maybe even invite Crier, some of the others over for lunch. Make a picnic out of it. Sing a few songs. We’d have been out of that stuff faster than a whore’s out of pride. And I’ll tell you again: Willard would have killed us.”

“He seemed all right to me.”

“He was. He was good to us because he needed friends. In spite of that toughguy stuff, he was lonely. I’ve thought on this some, had time to. But he’s a survivor, and Randy’s a needer. Them two are together now and they ain’t two people no more, they’re one.”

“So what if I want to share with them now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Would you shoot me?”

“I might. I could eat you then. That seems to be the trend around here. But I don’t think so. But I might. Just look at it this way, Jack. Randy and Willard are out there-way out there. Twilight Zone theme time. You can forget them two boys unless the manager is right and the National Guard comes in here and rescues us and we all get turkey sandwiches and some rest. Otherwise, you ain’t seen nothing yet. People ain’t nothing but animals, Jack. You and me too. Things get bad enough, like animals, folks are gonna eat what they can, do what they have to.”

I thought about those books I’d garbaged. All of them were junk, but the basic theme to most had been that man was better than the animals, had something inside him that blossomed like a rose and never died, even when the physical body decayed.

I looked out at the fighters in the lot. A guy in a werewolf costume with the mask missing was rolling around on the ground with a fraternity-type guy whose pants had lost their razor crease sometime back.

“And you’re saying we’ll end up like that too?”

“Could. We last as long as we can, though. Build up some hope. Gets too bad… there’s always the shotgun.”

I thought about Dad kidding Mom about the last two bullets back

… when? Christ, who could know? Yesterday? Today? A century ago? What exactly was it he told her…? “When the going gets rough, and it looks like we’re not going to make it, I’ll save the last two bullets for us.”

I looked out the window again. There were people lying on the ground, not moving. A naked man was taking a swift kick in the nuts from a near-naked girl with a punk haircut. There were other people on the ground, on their hands and knees, grabbing for spilled popcorn and candy. One woman was lapping a spilled soft drink like a dog. She had her rear end to me and her dress was hiked up and she didn’t have on any underpants. It was far from sexy. She looked like a desperate, dying animal. I felt sorry for her. For them. For us.

“Maybe you’re thinking about going out there and giving a speech on the unity of mankind?” Bob asked.

“No,” I said. “Guess not.”

“That’s wise. Now take one more piece of meat, chew it slowly, and be a happy animal.”