The Complete Drive-In

EPILOGUE

We used some of the drier pieces of cardboard and paper we could find and built a mound and put Sue Ellen on it and covered her with some more pieces. Then Steve lit it with a match he’d found in one of the derelict cars, and after a while, most of Sue Ellen was cremated. What was left over we scooped up in Coke cups and took it off in the woods and tossed it around.

Popalong’s dead bodyguard was hauled off during all the commotion by one of the drive-in people, and I guess he got eaten.

Next morning, we went to look for Crier’s body. It was gone. Something had dug him out. Whatever it was got his dick too.

As for Popalong, in time he crawled back up that stack of TVs and found his place on the throne. He sat there with his tongue of blue and red wires hanging out and the inside of his face popping sparks and fizzling from time to time. But finally that quit.

He grew thin inside that cowboy suit, and when the flesh went away, there were no bones in him, just cable wire and rods of antenna held together with tightly wrapped film.

Steve brought his car into the drive-in, and he and Grace took up together and went to living out of it. I tell you, I never expected that to happen. Maybe all those bangs Grace got on the head had clouded her sense of judgment.

Bob and I built our place out of TV sets. Walls and ceiling. We used antenna pieces and part of an old car to make it work. In the mornings we wake up and watch Grace come out of the Plymouth and do her martial arts exercises. In the nude.

The bending over stuff is dynamite.

She’s got a big round tummy now. She says I didn’t pull out fast enough and the baby’s mine. She says it’s pretty far along, but isn’t showing much because she’s tall. Since I didn’t eat the King’s popcorn and neither did she, she thinks the baby has a good chance to be healthy. I don’t know how I feel about that.

The other women have had their babies and Yes, I’m talking about you guys. But hold up, I’m almost through here. Just be polite and let me get through this.

– they look like the Popcorn King. Two bodies welded together, one on the other’s shoulders, to make a single unit. Unlike the King, they are covered in eyes. The eyes look like the eyes that were on the corn the King puked up. Each eye blinks at a different time. I feel like I’m constantly receiving Morse code.

They’re all sexless. I mean there’s no equipment that I can see. Keeps from having to wipe a lot of asses. They came out of the cannon practically walking. They can put simple sentences together already. They’re almost as tall as me. They like to listen to me read, and though they understand a lot of the words, a lot of sentences, I don’t think they get the gist of it all Okay, Leroy. I take it back. You do understand. That’s all for today, guys, girls, whatever. Go find a car to tear up. I was kidding about there being a test at the end of this…

What test?

Forget it, Leroy. Bye now.

That was about all I had written. I’m back inside the hut now and I’m sitting here finishing this out as best I can, which is just as well. I’m running out of things to write with. I’ve looked everywhere, glove boxes, the concession stand over in B Lot, you name it. I’ve written this in pen and pencil, crayon and eyeliner.

But it doesn’t matter, I’m also running out of things to say. I guess I can mention that the mothers of those kids, or whatever they are, don’t love them. But I’m not sure that’s all their fault. How can they be mothers after all they’ve seen and done?

I see some of the drive-in people looking up at the corpse of Popalong, almost wistfully, I think. At night they wander about in the storms, nothing to do. They’ve forgotten how to talk to one another. It’s a good thing those weird kids were born practically grown.

Sometimes I take the kids hunting with me. They chase down the game on foot. Bob says he thinks he saw one throw a stick without touching it the other day. Kid just willed it up and there it went, hit a rabbit in the back of the head and killed it.

Bob admits he saw this out of the corner of his eye, and it may not be like that, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

Well, like I said we hunt a lot. Thought a better diet might help the people here, help them get a better frame of mind. But all it does is help them get around faster.

Sometimes I think I’ll start back down the highway, but I’d have to go on foot and I don’t like the idea of those storms or that film out there at night. Still, I think about it. Shit Town might be a better life than this. Hell, getting back to Jungle Home wouldn’t be too bad.

Let’s see… Oh yeah, Grace has a shadow now, and Steve is starting to have one. Bob and I still don’t. I’m not sure what this means, but it worries me a little, especially when I see Grace working out and popping the air with her punches, and right behind her, capering like a chimp, making fun of her moves, is her shadow. Maybe I’ll stop getting up in the morning to watch her. That shadow takes the joy out of it.