Stress Test Ch. 28

Billey hobbled home well before daybreak, but he didn't go back to the camper. Instead, he hunched down between the tank and the hole and watched the sky turn red as a stinging ant.

Sunrise added one stroke at a time to its sketches of the shack, the camper and the dead catalpa. Those shapes looked almost pretty in the dim light, like they belonged to someone else. Billey imagined a warm fire, like in Tommy Lagocki's house, the crackle and smell of bacon, the catalpa swelling with buds and blossoms.

Those pictures came from a different world than his, a place where you could sleep without a gun waking you, where a dog might walk right up to the spool and beg for scraps of sirloin steak without getting himself kicked.

When the sun broke free of the landscape and washed out the sky, everything looked ugly again and Billey's thoughts came back home. The shovel's handle found its place in his hands. The hard wood, worn smooth by his own sweat and callouses, gave him comfort. It anchored Billey's life against the pain and uncertainty which buffeted him day after endless day.

He jabbed the shovel into the flinty earth and pressed its blade down hard with his foot. He rocked back to loosen a handful of dirt and tossed it high over his shoulder.

The familiar motions worked the stiffness out of his muscles and deadened the hurt that burned inside him like a swig of sour milk. As he loosened up, he moved more quickly, throwing each scoop of dirt and rocks farther than the last. The shovel and the hole belonged to him and there was no way Elwood or Otis or even Uly Bondarbon could take them away.

Billey lost himself in the heave and grunt of his work so he couldn't say exactly when the noise started. It may have been going a long time, off in the distance, before he noticed.

Billey froze in the middle of his swing so the dirt flew up from the blade, then fell back against it to make a little cloud of dust. He strained his ears until it felt like they would turn themselves inside out.

Then he heard it again more distinctly now a dog's excited bark, coming closer with each yelp.

Billey jammed his shovel in the loose dirt that collected at the side of the hole. He used the handle for balance as he stood on his tiptoes to peer over the edge.

"BLACK WOLF!" he cried in a voice he'd never heard before. He'd always been too afraid to use this raw voice that had been bottled up deep in his guts for so long. "Over here, Black Wolf!" With each wild stride, the dog's legs short and thick as cans of beans flew out, then caught his weight at the last possible instant before his belly scraped the barren earth. His long, pink and black tongue flopped in time to his steps, flinging gobs of saliva to either side.

Billey waved his arms and scrambled to get over the edge of the hole. Black Wolf ran faster than ever, his enormous feet drumming out a muted, staccato rhythm. Just as Billey's head poked over the rim, Black Wolf skidded in to lick his master.

Billey took dog, dirt and slobber gobs square in the face and keeled back into the hole. The impact didn't even hurt his bruises because seeing Black Wolf took away so much pain.

"I thought you was dead," Billey whispered, pulling him tight against his chest.

Black Wolf panted like a freight train going home. He slopped his tongue across Billey's face and neck, his hands and ear. Billey ran his fingers through the dog's thick, knotted hair and looked at the gratitude and understanding that shone out from deep within those brownrimmed eyes. Billey stroked Black Wolf's forehead and all along the squat body.

But Black Wolf yelped and stiffened when Billey's hand reached his butt. A short black stump, its end crusted with blood, stuck straight up where the plume of Black Wolf's tail used to be.

Billey lifted the dog over the rim of the hole and climbed out. He studied the rocky field, trying to remember where the tail had landed. If they found it, maybe they could get someone to sew it back on. It had gotten shot off so bad it might never grow back by itself. A dog needs his tail to wag when he's happy, else how's anyone going to know what he likes?

Black Wolf lapped at Billey's heel, never holding still. If you didn't know Black Wolf, you'd never know he'd had a tail. But Billey knew.

Billey shuffled his feet to draw a giant box in the dirt. He figured the tail had to be somewhere inside those lines, so he paced up and back, studying the area inch by inch.

Billey and Black Wolf lifted their heads and cocked their ears at the same noise. The pickup was bouncing and veering across the field in their direction. Billey looked down at Black Wolf and Black Wolf looked up at Billey.

"Go on," he said in a hoarse, urgent whisper although the truck was still a quartermile away. He waved his hands like he was treading water. "You'd better go away for awhile."

Black Wolf dashed twenty feet away, then turned and whined and began to slink back, dragging his belly on the ground.

"I mean it." Billey felt his voice rise out of control again. He kicked a cloud of dirt in the dog's direction. "Get outta here!"

Black Wolf darted and turned, darted and turned until he found cover in the bushes that ran along the creek.

Billey jumped out of the way as Elwood hit the brakes, locking up the up the wheels and missing his son by inches. Before Billey found his balance, Elwood and Otis were both tumbling out of the truck. Otis tried to slam his door but he slipped and spun around twice, waving his arms in giant circles to keep his nose out of the dirt.

"Thought we'd find you down here," Elwood said.

"You can't hide from Mr. Peter," Otis said, stroking his rusty zipper and trying to look composed.

"Get in the truck, Billey. We're gonna go for a little ride."

Otis prodded Billey onto the seat and the two men squeezed in on either side of him.

Elwood let the truck find its own jolting way across the field while he fished for a smoke and a light. He took such a deep drag that his head lolled back to get it all in. With one hand playing on the outside mirror and the other resting on Billey's knee, he let the great cloud of smoke roll over his son.

"You look like shit, boy," he said, rubbernecking between Billey and the narrow spot they would have to go through to get out on the road. "Anybody ever tell you that?"

"Nobody I remember," Billey said, looking straight ahead.

Otis clapped his hand down on Billey's other knee. "Didn't I tell you that once, Billey?"

"Maybe you did, Otis." Billey looked at the big man with an expression as empty as Otis' eyes, "I bet that's why I couldn't recall."

Otis spit out the window, but the glob blew back in and landed on the glass just behind his shoulder.

When Elwood pulled onto the road that ran along the highway, he steered by draping his wrist over the wheel. Most of the traffic was on the big road, so he didn't have to worry much about smashing into anyone else.

"It's about time you learned to drive, Billey." Elwood patted his son's knee. "Boy's old enough to grow whiskers, he's old enough to drive, ain't that so, Otis?"

"'Sright." Otis grinned at Billey. "I been drivin' since first time Mr. Peter needed a haircut. You don't want people to think you're backwards, do you Billey?"

They stopped and Billey changed seats with Elwood. "You're a real smart kid, so you just do all the things I done, Billey."

Billey reached out stiffly and searched for first gear. The pickup bucked twice and died.

"What the hell you doin', tryin' to bust my clutch?" Elwood squeezed Billey's shoulder with both hands and shook him. "Give it some gas, boy."

Billey revved the engine to a high whine and left a short arc of rubber on the pavement. Otis braced himself against the dash board. "You're gonna be a drivin' fool, Billey, just like your daddy."

"You learn to drive and you can start earning your keep," Elwood said. "You don't think I can afford to feed you if all you can do is dig holes, do you?"

Billey shook his head, but kept his eyes locked on the center line of the road. His knuckles turned white on the steering wheel.

"Man's gotta take charge of his life," Elwood went on, rubbing his fingers to signal Otis that he needed another cigarette. "Man that don't do nothin's no better than that ugly little dog of yours, Billey. Just make a lot of noise and stink the place up."

Elwood ran Billey up and down the gears a hundred times. He drilled him on hard turns and sudden stops. He showed him how to kill the engine and glide to a standstill.

"Keep your goddam foot off the brake," he shouted. "They can hear them brakes halfway 'cross the county. You gotta learn to do your business without ever'one starin' at you."

Except for being jammed up against the door, Billey was starting to like driving. At least he didn't have to sit next to Otis. With no more effort than it took to squash a bug, he could make the big old pickup lurch, bellow and skid. In the back of Billey's mind a picture began to take shape of slipping into the truck with Black Wolf sometime and putting a million miles on his daddy and Otis and the spool and the hole.

"Slow down, goddamit." Elwood slapped the dash. "There's more pigs on this road than the backyard of the wiener plant."

Otis broke off his snore and blinked. "Where you want me to plant my wiener?"

"Goddamit, Billey, don't you know where the goddam brake pedal is yet?" Elwood scootched forward and scanned for pigs.

For the first time, Billey felt like he was in control. He saw a tanker coming at them in the distance so he pressed down hard on the gas as if the floorboard could yield more speed. The wind whipped around his head so he couldn't make out what Elwood was yelling. It peppered them with bits of glass that had fallen inside the pickup when Elwood shot the window out. The speedometer's needle lost its place and flew all over the dial.

The tanker rushed toward them and Billey strained against the gas pedal. He let the pickup drift over the center line. He could drive smack dab into that tanker. Elwood and Otis would wind up looking like bean juice that dribbled out of the can and got all fried up on the Coleman. They could all just go to hell together. That would show them.

Billey steered into the tanker's path. Through the wind and Elwood's shouting, he could hear the blast of its air horn as it began to swerve for the shoulder.

Elwood grabbed the wheel and tried to pry Billey's hands off. Billey stole a glance to his right and saw the same wideeyed, dropjawed look on his daddy's face as the time the tornado ripped past the shack when Billey was a kid.

The tanker couldn't fit on the shoulder and the momentum of its cargo sent it whipping back and forth across the road. Billey could count the bugs splayed across the truck's radiator. Then he pictured Elwood surviving the crash, dusting himself off and cussing his dead, shitbrained son.

He slammed on the brakes and let Elwood tug the wheel. The pickup spun a full circle and began to tilt on two wheels before it wound up with its engine stalled, pointing at a tree. Billey watched a hubcap roll down the road and crash into a mail box. Otis cracked his door and puked.

"You're right, daddy," Billey said without looking at Elwood. "You can hear those brakes halfway 'cross the county."

Elwood was so mad he couldn't even cuss. He shook and made fists in his lap. Then he saw the trucker, a huge, redfaced man in a sweaty tee shirt, jogging after them.

"This bastard's gonna do you in time for Christmas, Billey," Elwood said.

Billey started the engine and drove hard until the man disappeared in the mirror. He leaned forward to look around his daddy. "Hey, Otis!" he laughed. "You ever drive like that?"

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Go back to Chapter 1 of Stress Test.

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