Chocolate Lizards E-Book

Cole Thompson

• Herausgeber: No Exit Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

When a Harvard-educated aspiring actor loses all of his cash during a bus-ride poker game, he finds himself stranded in Abilene, Texas, broke and desperate. Enter Merle Luskey, a hard-drinkin', tough-talkin', oil-drillin', woman-lovin' wild-catter who just happens to have a job opening. About to lose his oil rigs and his ranch to the bank, Merle has a proposition for his new friend: he needs a 'rat killer,' someone smart enough to help him outwit the bank, the sheriff, and a rival drilling company in a frantic race to hit pay dirt before the foreclosure goes through. What ensues is a rip-roaring conflagration of unbelievably vibrant characters, including a drunken cattle rancher who owns the land that Merle wants to drill on and also owns every issue of Playboy ever published, speaking so fondly about the centrefolds you'd think they were kin. And meet Tex-Ann, a busty gum-snapping blonde imported from Dallas to-ahem-persuade the cattle rancher to sign on the dotted line.

Leseprobe

PRAISE FORCHOCOLATE LIZARDS

‘Thompson hooks you like a novice trout in a paddling pool… and he doesn’t let go’ –Times

‘A hymn to West Texas and its plain talkin’ redneck ways’ –Time Out

‘Chocolate Lizardsis an extravagant and very entertaining example of West Texas oil-field gothic. It’s as if the Castle of Otranto had been moved to Abilene, Texas, and peopled with refugees from Monty Python’ –Larry McMurtry

‘Driving through West Texas, you’d swear the pump-jacks grow right out of the ground. They are as much a part of the scenery as shinnery brush. Drillers and roughnecks live by their own set of rules – a breed apart. Cole Thompson has written a great book and I think he captured it all, even the insanity’ –Waylon Jennings

‘Definitely one for all the line dancers out there. Yeehaw!’ –The List

‘Affable and fun: Thompson’s portrayal of an innocent gone (very) far abroad proves irresistibly readable’ –Kirkus Reviews

‘If you want a fast and funny crash course in pickup trucks, cowboy boots and the search for oil, readChocolate Lizards’ –Deseret News

THE BEGINNING

1

Evenona budget tourbus, he’s an unusually gruesome passenger. Where his left eye should be is a big yellow rectum-like scar, and what few teeth he has are rotted to brown nubs. White beard stubble covers his cheeks and neck, greasy gray hair hangs from under his Dallas Cowboys cap, and his jacket, a navy blazer, is ridiculously long in the sleeves. He plops down beside me, looks at me with his bloodshot eye, and nods.

‘Hey. I’m Luther.’

As I nod and introduce myself, his BO hits.

Yow.

I sit up and look over the lady’s hair in front of me to find an empty seat. To my dismay, a horde of El Pasoans are filing up the aisle. There are no empty seats. Holy shit.

‘Where you headed?’ he asks.

‘Uh… Boston.’

He slides his hand out of his sleeve and points to himself.

‘I’m goin’ home, bo. Tuscaloosa, Alabama.’ He smiles a rotten-tooth smile.

Holy shit.

As we set out from El Paso, I put on my Walkman, crank the Femmes, and look out the window into the darkness. Damn, I wish it wasn’t dark. This was one of the few pluses of this whole trip, getting to see Texas. I think they shot Giant out here somewhere.

Luther nudges my shoulder. I turn from the window and he holds up a deck of cards in the overhead light. I click off my Walkman.

‘What?’

He jigs his eyebrows and smiles.

‘Game fer a hand or two?’

I shake my head.

‘No, but thanks.’

He frowns.

‘Aw, what else we gonna do, bo? Texas is a long ways across.’ (For some reason he calls me ‘bo’. I don’t know why. It’s not my name.)

I look at the cards and shake my head again.

‘Sorry, Luther, but I’m just going to hang out, if you don’t mind.’ I punch my Walkman back on and look out the window. In the corner of my eye I watch Luther produce a roll of cash from the inside breast pocket of his blazer. As he riffles through his roll, counting it, I see that Luther has quite a few ten- and twenty-dollar bills. I click off my Walkman. ‘Are you wanting to play for money, Luther?’

‘Heck yeah, bo. Pokuh ain’t pokuh if ya ain’t got money out they-uh.’ He shoves his money back in his jacket and shuffles the cards on his thigh.

I have about a hundred bucks, which is more than enough to last three days to Boston. So when I ask Luther what sort of stakes he has in mind, and he says one dollar ante and one dollar bets, with a pot limit of ten dollars per hand, I think, What the hell. I could use the extra cash. I take off my Walkman and stuff it in my backpack.

‘Okay, Luther. Let’s play.’

He smiles.

‘Hey, bo. You all right.’

Beneath the dim overhead light, the other passengers dozing around us and the Texas night rolling by outside, Luther deals the cards.

***

After about thirty hands I want to scream and gouge out Luther’s other eye. The sonofabitch bluffs. Hand after hand he raises the bet past the point where I can reasonably stay, and after I fold, he smiles, buries his cards in the deck, and rakes the pot toward him. Given this is such a small-stakes game, several times after I fold and concede the pot, I show my cards and ask, ‘What did you have, really?’

‘The meek cain’t peek,’ Luther says, smiling his rotten three-teeth smile. ‘The meek cain’t peek.’

What an asshole.

About three hours into the game I get a whopper ‒ a full house, three aces, two sevens. It’s a cinch winner, but warming to the dramatics of the game, I hesitate as I bet a dollar. Luther calls my bet and takes up the deck.

‘How many, bo?’

With a show of head-scratching indecision, I indicate that I want no additional cards, but will stay with my original five.

‘Well lookee he-uh,’ Luther says, ‘bo gonna stay all the way.’ He picks up his hand and looks at it. ‘Not I. I’s head-high in the shit sty.’ He discards four of his cards and draws four new ones. Upon seeing his new cards his eye opens wide. He laughs and slaps his leg. ‘I be goddam.’ He takes a dollar from his pile and tosses it into the pot. ‘I betcha a dollar on this one, bo.’

I call Luther’s bet, then, chewing my lip and feigning reluctance, raise him a dollar. To my surprise he calls my raise and, in turn, raises me a dollar. I know exactly what he’s doing, but it won’t work this time, not when I hold such a doozy.

‘My condolences, Luther, but unfortunately you can’t bluff your way through this one.’

‘You sho, bo?’

‘Yes, I’m sure.’ Matching his raise, I put another dollar into the pot, taking it to its limit of ten dollars. I start to lay down my cards, but Luther reaches up and stops me.

‘Hang on, bo.’ He carefully lays his cards facedown on the seat between us. ‘Maybe we should ferget our pot limit and play this one big as we want.’

I look at my cards again to make sure I haven’t misread them ‒ no, it’s definitely a full house, aces over sevens.

‘I might agree to that,’ I say. ‘How much do you want to bet?’

‘The bet’s yo’s, bo. I made the last raise.’

‘So you’re saying on this particular hand, I can bet however much I want?’

‘Yes suh. We playin’ New Awlens rules on this one. No limit.’

I sit back and perform a quick calculation. With aces as the group of three in my full house, it’s impossible that Luther can beat me with a full house ‒ he must, at the very least, have four of a kind. And since he discarded all his cards except one from his original hand, in order to have four of a kind, he would’ve at least had to draw three matching cards to go along with the one he held. I’m not exactly sure what the odds of that are, but I know they’re ridiculous, like about one in a million.

‘Luther, I will bet you twenty dollars.’ I take the money from my wallet and lay it in the pot. I’m sure such a beefy bet will snuff Luther’s bluffing tactic, but instead he pulls his roll of money from his jacket.

‘I’ll see yo twenty, bo… and raise you… two hundred and fifty.’ He places his roll of cash on the pile of money between us.

My first instinct is to throw in my hand, accept the thirty-dollar loss, and quit the game altogether. But I’m sick of this moron, his ridiculous bluffing and haughty posturing. I remind myself this is a situation of numbers. Cold facts. I rethink the odds. There’s no fucking way. Luther, this stinking hick, is bluffing. Like a gunshot my resolve quickens. I take all my money from my wallet.

‘I don’t have two-fifty to call your bet, Luther. I only have seventy here, but I guarantee you, my credit is good.’

He throws back his head and laughs, his three-teeth mouth open wide.

‘Ain’t no credit rollin’ on a bus, bo. If you ain’t tall enough to call, then that’s all.’ He puts up his hand, indicating this is the end of the betting, then reaches toward the pot to gather up the money. I grab his hand.

‘You liar. I know you’re bluffing. You’ve been bluffing all night.’

He jerks his hand back and stares at me with his one eye.

‘You really wanna see my cards, bo?’

‘Yes, I do.’

He looks down at the stack of money in my hand.

‘How much you got they-uh?’

‘I told you. Seventy dollars.’

‘All right, bo. I’ll draw down my bet to seventy, and you put in yo seventy, and we’ll just turn ’em ovuh.’

‘Okay. It’s a bet.’

He takes 180 dollars from the pot and I lay down all of my remaining money.

‘Fo fo’s,’ he says. He turns over his hand and fans out his cards. There they are, four fours. Staring in stunned disbelief, my head swimming with panic and outrage, I slam my hand down on the pile of money between us and close my fist around my stack of bills. Instantly he grabs my wrist with one hand. With the other hand, from somewhere in the long baggy sleeve of his blazer, he brings out a switchblade knife.

Click.

He flicks it open and presses the blade to my throat.

‘You let go uh that money or I’ll cutcher fuckin’ throat.’

I stare at his eye and release my grip on my money. Holding the knife to my throat, he wads together the money and stuffs it inside his jacket. He takes away the knife, folds it up, and slips it back into his long sleeve.

‘No hard feelin’s, bo, but don’t evuh fuck with my money.’ He licks his lips, leans back in his seat, and looks away.

2

the wind howls through the street, swinging the traffic lights in a loopy yellow-blinking ballet. As the bus pulls away, a tumbleweed comes blowing down the sidewalk. Bounding and rolling in the wind, it bounces off my hip, then blows down the street beneath the swinging traffic lights, bounding and rolling.

Light glows in the windows of a restaurant across the street. Several pickup trucks are parked in front under a red neon sign: Wildcat Cafe. Suitcase in one hand, backpack in the other, I duck my face from the blowing dust and walk across the street.

It’s not even dawn yet, but already a half-dozen men sit at a big round table near the door, drinking coffee and talking in low mumbles. Some wear their cowboy hats, others have set theirs on the table before them, revealing short, neatly oiled and combed gray hair. Their faces are tan and creased with wrinkles. They stare as I walk past. As I sit at the counter I hear one say, ‘Got off the bus over ’ere while ago.’

A gum-chewing waitress stops behind the counter, sets a cup before me with a clatter, and fills it with steaming coffee. She lays a laminated menu on the counter, chews her gum, and winks.

‘Lemme know when yer ready, doll.’ She walks away, leaving me with my coffee and chaos.

On the bus, pissed off about losing all my money, not to mention having a switchblade shoved to my throat, I snatched down my suitcase and backpack and got off at the next stop: Abilene, Texas. I guess I could’ve just starved and rode it out penniless for three days to Boston. But hell, no way was I going to stay on the bus with that stinking one-eyed hick. But now what? Jesus. I don’t even have a buck to pay for this coffee. Fuck, what else can I do? I guess I’ll have to call home and ask Mom and Dad to wire some more money. God, Dad will go insane. All the stunts I’ve pulled lately, and now this. Just the fact that he had to send me four hundred dollars to get out of LA was enough ‒ I’ll hear about that for the rest of my life anyway ‒ and now I don’t even make it halfway home. Holy shit. Oh well, maybe I’ll say I was robbed.

As I mull my situation, a lean broad-shouldered guy in a cow-boy hat walks up to the counter beside me. About six feet tall and a lanky 175 pounds, he wears gigantic tan cowboy boots, brown slacks, a belt with a silver-and-gold buckle, a long-sleeved white shirt, and snugly atop his head, a big wide-brimmed straw cowboy hat. I do a double take on his boots. They’re huge, with massive tall heels and long sharp toes. They must be real Texas cowboy boots. I’m the only customer seated at the counter ‒ there are at least a dozen other empty stools ‒ but he sits right beside me. He turns to me. Under his big hat brim he has a handsome sun-weathered face of about forty-five years. His sky blue eyes are large and searching, his nose is thin and long, and he has a deep crevice in his chin. He nods in a curt earnest gesture.

‘Mornin’, son.’

‘Good morning.’

‘Mornin’, Merle,’ the waitress says.

‘Mornin’, Faye.’

‘Looks like another windy one.’

‘Yep, lil breezy.’

Faye puts a cup before Merle and fills it with coffee.

‘How’s thayngs?’ she says.

He pushes up the front brim of his hat with his index finger.

‘Aw hell, Faye, I’m goin’ broke hand over fist. And now on top uh that, I’m so damn worked up about it, my love-makin’ equipment’s goin’ bad on me.’

Faye frowns.

‘Well honey, you shouldn’ letchurself get all chewed up like ’at.’ A bell rings and a plate of steaming pancakes appears in the stainless-steel service window behind Faye. She turns, snatches up the plate, and carries it away.

‘Yer right, Faye,’ Merle says, though Faye is gone. ‘Yer goddam right.’ He reaches down, slips his hand into his huge elaborately stitched boot, and brings out a flat silver flask (about six inches by four inches). He unscrews its cap and pours a splash into his coffee. He turns and offers me the flask. ‘Lil hair fer yer monkey?’

‘Uh… no, thank you.’

He raises his eyebrows, as though surprised that I have declined.

‘Ar-ight, well, reckon I better have yers.’ He dumps another splash into his cup, caps his flask, and slips it back into his boot. He sips his cup of coffee/liquor and nods toward my luggage. ‘Where ya headed?’

‘Boston.’

‘Boston ’At’s goddam Yankeeland, ain’t it?’

I smile.

‘That’s my home.’

‘Oh. Goddam. Where is Boston, anyway?’

‘It’s in Massachusetts.’

He stares at me blankly.

‘You know,’ I say, ‘New England?’

He keeps staring at me.

Bam.

He slaps the counter.

‘Goddammit, ’at’s it.’

‘What?’

‘I been sittin’ here tryin’ to figger out who ya remind me of, and by God, I just did. It’s ol’ what’s his face. ’At movie actor from back in the ol’ days. Ya look just like the sumbitch.’ He snaps his fingers again. ‘Aw hell, ya know who I’m talkin’ about.’

I do know who he’s talking about. Ever since I was about fifteen, people have told me I look like Montgomery Clift, the Hollywood star of the fifties. And I guess it’s true. My eyes are blue and I have big eyebrows like his. And my hair’s brown and pretty thick. I know in a way it’s a plus ‒ I do get a lot of compliments on my head shots ‒ but still, sometimes I get tired of hearing it. Anyway, rather than help Merle put a name to the face he has in his mind, I shrug and play dumb.

‘Goddammit,’ he says. He puts his hand on top of my head and turns my face so that I’m looking down to the end of the counter where Faye is stooped over, adding a check. ‘Hey Faye!’ He points to my face with his other hand. ‘Who’s this kid look like? Ya know, ’at ol’ movie actor.’

Faye looks up from her calculations, chews her gum, and ponders my face. She smiles.

‘Montgomery Clift. He looks like Montgomery Clift.’

Bam.

Merle slaps the counter.

‘By God, ’at’s it. Montgomery Clift. Ya look just like the sumbitch.’ He sips his coffee/liquor and stares at me again. ‘I’ll be damn.’

Faye refills our cups, then brings out her order tablet and grabs the pen behind her ear.

‘Wanchur usual, Merle?’

‘Ar-ight. Why not. Ain’t had it since yesterday.’

She writes down Merle’s usual, flips the sheet over, and looks at me.

‘How aboutchoo, handsome? What can I getcha?’

‘Uh, nothing to eat, thank you. Just coffee.’

She nods, tears off Merle’s order, and puts it in the window to the kitchen. As she hurries away with the coffee pot, Merle brings out his flask and dumps another splash in his coffee. I look back out the windows. The sky over the bus terminal across the street has lightened to a soft gray. The wind gusts and swirls clouds of dust past the window. Merle sips his coffee/liquor and sets down his cup.

‘How old are ya, son?’

‘Uh… twenty-one.’

‘Goduhmighty, twenty-one. What I wouldn’ give to be twenty-one again. Joo go to college?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Whereabouts?’

‘Harvard.’

‘Harvard. Goddam. You must be sharper’n a snake’s ass.’

I laugh.

‘No. Actually I got in because my father teaches there. They had to let me in.’

‘Yer daddy teaches at Harvard?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What’s he teach?’

‘Math.’

‘Math. Crap fire. I bet he’s a smart sumbitch.’

‘Well, he’s a sonofabitch, but other than that, I ‒’

‘Ha-ha.’ Merle laughs and slaps my back. ‘I like you, Harvard. I like to hear ya talk.’

Faye sets a large oval-shaped platter of greasy food in front of Merle: three fried eggs with bright yellow yolks, an enormous round sausage patty, fried potatoes, and two biscuits. My stomach growls. I haven’t eaten since yesterday in Albuquerque. Merle cuts into his sausage and takes a bite.

‘Yep, boys and daddies are funny. Ya never know how it’s gonna turn out. I got a boy aboutchur age. Be twenty in June.’

‘Oh? What does he do?’

‘Aw, he’s in the pen right now.’

‘Oh. Sorry.’

Merle saws off a flimsy strip of yolk-dripping egg and forks it into his mouth.

‘Naw, never could do nothin’ with him. Hardheadedest sumbitch ya ever saw. Ran off down ’ere to Houston to live with his mama and started snortin’ ’at cocaine. They finally caught him with a sack full of it.’

‘God. That’s terrible.’

‘Yep.’ He sets down his fork and sips his coffee/liquor. ‘So, yer on yer way home to Boston.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Where ya comin’ from?’

‘California.’

‘California? Good God, whatcha doin’ out ’ere? Ain’t nothin’ but prune pickers and prick lickers out ’ere.’

I laugh.

‘Well, actually, I was trying to find a job.’

‘What sort uh job?’

‘Acting. I’m an actor. Or at least I wanted to be. I’m still a stage actor. Sort of. Anyway, I was trying to get in the movies.’

‘I’ll be damn. Hey, Faye!’

Faye turns from the coffee machine. Merle points to me.

‘Harvard here’s a movie actor.’

‘No,’ I say, ‘I didn’t say that.’

Merle ignores me, and Faye, chomping her gum, walks along the counter to us. She smiles.

‘Really? What were you in? Maybe I seen ya.’

‘I wasn’t in anything. That’s sort of the whole point. I bombed out. I’m going home.’

‘Oh. Well, bless yer heart.’ Faye walks back to the coffee machine. Merle chews a bite of biscuit and looks at me.

‘Ya bombed out?’ he says.

‘Yeah.’

‘What the hell’s ’at mean?’

‘It means I couldn’t get a job. So I’m going back home.’

He stares at me and blinks his eyes like he doesn’t understand.

‘Hell, maybe ya just didn’ fight hard enough.’

‘No, I fought. Believe me. It’s just an extremely ‒’

‘What’s uh matter, boy? Ya hungry?’

‘Excuse me.’ Without realizing it, I’m ogling Merle’s food. I look away.

‘Ya look hungry, boy. What’s goin’ on? Ya out uh money?’

‘Uh… no. Actually I just… uh… hadn’t thought to order yet.’

‘Yer lyin’, aincha? Faye! Brayng Harvard here one uh my specials on me.’

‘No, really,’ I say. ‘I couldn’t accept that.’

‘The hell ya couldn’,’ he says.

He continues to eat, and in a few minutes Faye serves me a heaping sausage-and-egg breakfast just like his.

‘’ere ya go, son,’ he says. ‘Get after it.’

‘Thank you, Merle. Thank you very much.’

‘Yep.’ He shovels a forkful of potatoes into his mouth. I begin devouring my breakfast.

‘So,’ Merle says, ‘wha’d joo do, get on the bus without no money?’

I pause as I chew a bite of sausage. I decide this is a good chance to rehearse my robbery routine for my parents.

‘Actually… I was robbed.’

He looks at me.

‘Robbed? When?’

‘Last night. On the bus. Just west of here.’

‘Who the hell robbed ya?’

‘It was a gang.’

‘A gang?’

‘Yeah. There were about eight of them. Young Hispanic guys.’

‘Goddam. How much they get off ya?’

‘About a hundred dollars.’

He whistles.

‘I’ll be damn.’

I poke a piece of biscuit in my mouth and nod woefully.

‘Yeah, it was pretty bad.’

He plucks a paper napkin from the stainless-steel dispenser on the counter and wipes his mouth.

‘Harvard, I hate to do it, but I’m gonna call bullshit on ya.’

‘Pardon me?’

‘Yer lyin’. I been robbed a time or two, and you don’t act a damn thayng like a felluh ’at’s been robbed. What happened? Joo take off broke?’

I stare down at my food.

‘I lost my money playing poker on the bus. Then I got pissed off and got off the bus.’

Merle roars with laughter and slaps the counter.

‘Ha-ha. Goddam, I love it. Harvard, yer ar-ight.’ He sips his coffee/liquor. ‘So whadda ya gonna do now, boy? Ass-up stranded in Abilene, Texas.’

‘I don’t know. I guess I’ll call my parents and tell them I’ve lost my money. My dad’s going to kill me.’ Dread shoots through me as I imagine Dad’s wrath.

Merle takes a bite of sausage and sips his coffee/liquor.

‘Harvard, tell ya what I’ll do. I could use a hand right now. One uh my crew broke his arm in a bar fight and cain’t work. I’ll give ya a job and a place to stay fer a week or two, till ya getchur feet back under ya, then ya can shag ass on home with some money in yer pocket.’

‘What kind of job?’

‘Roughneckin’ on one uh my rigs. I know ya ain’t got no experience, but I’ll go on and startcha at eight dollars an hour. Hell, ’at’s about sixty-five a day. In a week’s time ya arta hair up and heal over perty good, don’cha reckon?’

‘Uh… yes.’

‘Well? Ya interested?’

I’m stunned by the abruptness of his proposal, but even this unknown seems better than enduring Dad’s scorn. Besides, what an adventure. Roughnecking in Texas. Wow.

‘Yes, I’m interested.’

‘Good,’ Merle says. ‘Got us a deal then.’ He eats a bite of egg and sips his coffee/liquor.

‘Excuse me,’ I say, ‘but what is your name?’

He sets down his cup and holds out his hand.

‘Luskey. Merle Luskey.’

3

trudging into the wind, i follow Merle up the street to a huge red pickup truck with a four-door cab and ridiculously large tires, especially at the back, which has two tires on each side and big bulbous fenders to accommodate them. The truck also has shiny chrome wheels and bumpers, a chrome grille guard on its front, yellow running lights above its windshield and along its wide fenders, and sprouting from the roof, a long antenna wobbling in the wind.

Holding down his hat with one hand, Merle opens the backseat door, takes my suitcase and backpack, and tosses them into the truck. He slams the door and points over the truck to the passenger’s side.

‘Get in!’

I go around and wrestle with the door, wedging my body against it to hold it open against the wind. Finally I pull myself up into the cab. The door closes with the force of the wind, leaving Merle and me in quiet stillness.

‘Man, this wind is amazing.’

‘Aw, hell, this is just a breeze.’ He reaches behind his seat and brings up a big half-gallon bottle of Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 Tennessee whiskey. He raises his eyebrows, as though surprised. ‘I’ll be damn. Brand new bottle.’ He unscrews the cap, pushes back his hat, and takes a sip. Grimacing and pursing his lips, he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Aw yeah,’ he says. He holds the bottle out to me. ‘Here ya go, boy. Getcha a sip.’

I stare at the bottle. I’m not exactly opposed to catching a buzz (although I rarely drink the hard stuff), but the crack of dawn seems like a fucked-up time to do it.

‘C’mon now,’ he says. He wags the bottle. ‘Getcha a lil taste.’

‘Uh… gosh, Merle. I don’t know. It’s sort of early, isn’t it?’

‘Aw goddam, Harvard.’ He points to the digital clock on the dash. It reads 6:19. ‘Tell ya what. Yer drawin’ pay right now. As uh six o’clock I’m payin’ yer ass eight dollars an hour.’ He knits his eyebrows and scowls. ‘Now by God, I’m tired uh drankin’ alone. Have some whiskey, dammit.’ He shoves the bottle at me.

Although it seems an incredibly morbid thing to ask of someone, I guess I can’t very well refuse a direct order from my new employer. I take the huge bottle and drink. The warm whiskey burns my throat, but I clench my teeth and swallow. I offer to return Merle his bottle. He won’t take it.

‘Go on,’ he says, ‘getcha another. And goddammit, don’t play with it. Drank the sumbitch.’

I nod. With Merle carefully monitoring my performance, I gulp a generous swig. I cough and shudder. He smiles.

‘What’s uh matter, boy? Don’cha know good whiskey when ya see it?’ He grabs the bottle and tosses back another swig.

***

Merle drives through a wide street lined with crumbling red-brick and rusty tin-roofed industrial buildings. Their signs, painted on front windows or suspended from poles along the road, advertise tire repair, oil-field supplies, veterinarian supplies, agricultural seed and fertilizer, tractors, propane, and hardware. A mile or so beyond the last businesses, the pavement and chain-link fences give way to red-soil farm plots bordered by barbed-wire fences. I turn and look back at the town. The ground is so flat it’s hard to see much: a thin band of green treetops, scattered steeples of churches, and rising solitary from this prairie oasis, one tall modern golden-reflective glass business complex. Merle slaps my shoulder.

‘Hey, know what this is?’

I turn from the back window and he flips me the bird.

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘Do ya know what this is?’ He wags the bird in my face.

‘Well, usually it ‒’

‘The Abilene skyline.’ He smiles. ‘Get it?’

I do. The one bird finger is supposed to correspond to the one tall building in town.

‘Yeah. That’s a screamer, Merle.’

He slaps the dash and chuckles.

‘Goddam, I know it.’

‘What is that building?’

‘Aw, ’at’s the fuckin’ bank.’

As I turn and look again at the Abilene skyline, Merle swerves off the road and pulls into a white crushed-rock parking lot. Before us is a bright red trailer house parked on a cement slab. Above the door, painted in white western rodeo-style lettering: Luskey Drilling, Inc. Behind the trailer house, a sprawling equipment yard packed with huge red-and-white machines. With a bank of engines and an operating house on one end, and a long arm of crisscross iron beams extending out along the ground, they look like the giant cranes in the shipyards along the north wharf in Boston. I count them ‒ one, two, three, four, five ‒ all in a row, easily occupying the space of two football fields, their engines and operating houses painted red and their long girded arms gleaming white. And across the top of the red operating house of each one, in the same white western style of lettering as on the trailer house: Luskey Drilling, Inc.

‘What are those?’

Merle skids to a halt alongside the trailer house and nods toward the machines.

‘Those?’

‘Yeah.’

He grabs the bottle of Jack Daniel’s on the seat between us, unscrews the cap, and guzzles a double-gurgling swallow.

‘Harvard, ya see ’em thayngs?’

‘Hell yes. How could I not?’

He stares out at the machines.

‘Ever’ damn one of ’em is a two-hunerd-ton anchor tied around my nuts.’ He swigs the bottle. ‘Harvard, ya know how hard it is to get around with a thousand tons hangin’ on yer balls?’

‘Well, I ‒’

‘It hurts, Harvard. It hurts.’

‘You say anchors, Merle, and I know you’re being metaphor-ical, but really, what are these, drilling derricks for digging oil wells?’

‘They’re drillin’ rigs, boy.’

‘Then why are the derricks lying down along the ground like that? Are they designed to drill horizontally? Didn’t I read something about that?’

‘Ha-ha, goddam.’ He swigs the bottle. ‘No, Harvard, they ain’t designed to drill horizontally. The mutherfuckers are layin’ down cuz they ain’t drillin’.’

‘Oh. So were they actually drilling, the derricks would be vertical.’

‘Yer goddam right. Now c’mon, let’s getcha some overalls and a hard hat.’

We step from the truck into the gusting wind.

‘Hang on,’ he says. He goes into the red trailer-house office, then reappears carrying a one-piece red overall uniform fluttering from a hanger in the wind. Under his arm, like a football, he carries a dull red construction hat.

‘Try it on.’ He hands me the wind-fluttering uniform. I look around.

‘Right here?’

‘Yeah.’

I look around again. He scowls.

‘What’s uh matter? Hell, I ain’t no frog watcher.’

‘Okay. Okay.’

I strip down to my underwear and loafers. As I step into the uniform I notice the patch on the left breast. It’s white with a puckered red border and red cursive letters of machine-stitched thread that spell Luskey Drilling. I zip it closed up to my throat. The sleeves and body fit well, but the legs are a bit long.

‘’At’ll be ar-ight,’ Merle says. From his back pocket he brings out a pair of soft cotton work gloves and stuffs them in my hand. ‘And most important of all ‒ ’ He sets the dull red construction hat on my head. ‘When yer on location, I don’t care whatchur doin’, ya wear yer fuckin’ hard hat, got it?’

I nod.

‘Thanks, Merle.’ I hold out my hand to shake and show my appreciation, but before Merle can take my hand, from the direction of Abilene three white cop cars come creeping along the side of the road. They have Taylor County Sheriff’s Department written on their sides and red-and-blue emergency lights mounted across their roofs, and each is occupied by the dark silhouettes of men.

‘Goddam!’ Merle yells. ‘Get in!’ He dashes for the truck, and I follow him. The sheriff’s department cars break their formation and speed toward us. By the time we get in the truck, the three cars have nosed themselves in a fan in front of us.

‘What’s going on here? What do they want?’

‘Hang on!’ Merle pushes in the clutch, shifts the stick to reverse, lets off the clutch, and slams the accelerator. We grind backward in a cloud of white dust and rock bits. He slings the front of the truck around toward the road and shifts the stick to first gear, but the sheriff cars scramble and surround us, two skidding to a halt before us and one sideways behind us.

‘Ya dirty cocksuckers!’ Merle says. He turns the wheel, lets off the clutch, and stomps the accelerator. We jerk to the right.

WHAM.

We hit the front bumper of one of the cars, knocking it back, and charge toward the road. Accelerating up the small slope between the parking lot and road, we launch airborne and crash down ‒ front wheels, then back ‒ onto the road. My hard hat flies off, and pieces of pipe bounce from the bed of the truck and scatter in our wake.

Within seconds the sheriff cars catch our lumbering diesel truck. All three cars follow immediately behind us, sirens wailing, lights flashing.

WEE-OH-WEE-OH-WEE-OH…

‘What the hell is going on, Merle? What do they want?’

‘Goddam bank’s tryin’ to close on me.’ Both hands on the wheel, eyes focused on the road ahead, he mashes the accelerator against the floor. Our diesel engine roars as we gain speed. A sheriff car zooms up alongside us on the left and tries to pass. Merle sees it in his side-view mirror.

‘Jack! Don’t make me fuck you up!’

URRRR.

He swerves to the left, forcing the car across the oncoming lane and onto the dry dirt on the other side of the road. A cloud of red dust rolls up in the sheriff car’s wake as it fishtails and swerves back onto the road.

As soon as we swerve to the left, another car tries to get around us on the right.

URRRR.

Merle jerks the wheel to the right and we screech back across the road, sending this second pursuer off the road into a red-dust spinout.

Although I’m scared shitless, once I get my seat belt on tight I sort of get fired up. I think how completely bizarre life is. One minute I’m bored off my ass in a bus and the next I’m in a fucking king-sized pickup truck in Texas with a hat-and-boot-wearing whiskey-swilling maniac being chased by the sheriff. It’s like a western film déjà vu or something. I decide to just play the sidekick and go with it. I grab the bottle of Jack Daniel’s from the floorboard and take a swig.

‘Yeehai! Give ’em hell, Merle!’

For several minutes, as we race along at one hundred miles an hour, like darty scissortails harassing a gliding hawk, the three siren-wailing sheriff cars attempt to get around us, but Merle thwarts each attempt, veering his truck at them, forcing them to red-dust spinouts off the road. Then, amid the howling sirens and our roaring diesel engine, a low, powerful sound:

POP-POP-POP-POP-POP…

Out of nowhere a helicopter zooms overhead, its white belly, long ski-like skids, and buzzing tail rotor only a few feet above us. Tilted forward, it sails down the road ahead of us.

‘What the hell is that?’

‘’At’s a fuckin’ helicopter.’

‘I know that. But who’s in it? More cops?’

‘Beats the hell out uh me.’ Merle slows for an upcoming bend in the road. We make the curve and head down into a small red-walled canyon, a steep-sided trench about three hundred feet wide and fifty feet deep etched into the landscape’s hard skin. A narrow two-lane bridge stretches across the gap, and there, parked sideways across the bridge, blocking both lanes, sits the helicopter, white with a big gold stripe along its side, its rotors slowly winding to a stop. The sheriff’s gambit is obvious, but by the time Merle sees it, it’s too late. Our momentum carries us out onto the bridge, where a small sign reads Brazos River. A uniformed man in a straw cowboy hat hops from the door of the helicopter, and the three cars trailing us pull in behind us, blocking any escape. Merle rolls to a stop and turns off the engine.

‘Goddam.’

Two men get out of the car behind us and approach our truck. One wears a law-enforcement uniform: dark brown pants, broad black belt with a pistol in a holster, khaki short-sleeved shirt with a star-shaped badge on his breast, and a straw cowboy hat. He’s surprisingly short and fat for a law-enforcement official. The other man is tall and bald and wears a black business suit. He carries a black leather briefcase.

The fat uniformed officer appears at Merle’s window. He has a pink flabby face, beady brown eyes, and a frazzled greenish brown cigar stub in the corner of his mouth. He holds his hat down on his head in the wind. Merle rolls down his window.

‘Mornin’, Merle,’ he says. His cigar stub wobbles as he talks.

‘Mornin’, Jack.’

‘How ya doin’ this mornin’?’

‘Aw, busy. And you?’

‘Aw, just here and there. You know how it is. Hey, Merle, I thank Don’s got some papers fer ya to sign. If ya don’t mind.’ He nods toward the backseat. ‘Ar-ight if we get in?’

Merle sighs, lifts up the front brim of his hat, and rubs his forehead.

‘Yeah, go on.’

The law-enforcement man pushes my suitcase and backpack across the seat and crawls in the truck. He is followed by his well-dressed companion, who sits by the door behind Merle. He has a bullet-shaped head and clear gray eyes. He closes the door and arranges his briefcase on his lap.

‘Good morning, Merle,’ he says.