Stress Test Ch. 34

There was no way of telling how long Elwood had been working on his plan. Probably since before Billey was born. Probably since the first time Elwood's own daddy whupped him.

So many nights, as Billey tried to sleep, he heard his daddy mumbling over a bottle by the spool. He never could make out the words, but the volume rose and fell like the sound of rain on the camper on a gusty night. Most nights, when the voice grew loudest, Billey would hear things crashing around on the porch. Sometimes the gun started and Billey knew he wouldn't sleep before day break.

Elwood never bothered to tell Billey much of anything important and Billey gave up trying to find out a long time ago.

"Why do I have to dig this hole?" Billey asked once.

"'Cause I said," Elwood snapped.

Another time he asked, "Why's Otis so stupid?"

"'Cause I said."

And, "How did the side of that hill get all scooped away like that?"

"'Cause I said."

Since everything Billey did carried equal weight in Elwood's world, it was hard for him to figure out how the pieces fit together. Fetching Elwood a drink or digging a hole big enough to swallow the tank—one thing was just as important as another. And they all carried the same penalties for failure. What it all meant remained a mystery to Billey.

Still, Billey could figure out a few things. Elwood seemed positively sweet-natured some days, so that meant whatever he was planning would give him a laugh on the pigs.

Elwood loved to tell people what to do and he hated to ask for favors. In fact, he hated to ask for anything. So he probably had some way to make people ask him for favors.

And whatever Elwood planned to do, it would have to happen at night, since he spent most of the day time passed out next to the spool.

Otis came over just before sunset and the two men shot tin cans off a rock. After it got too dark to see the cans, they just kept shooting for the fun and the noise of it. Billey thought it was a good thing nobody but the pigs ever paid them a visit. It was too dangerous to walk around with all those bullets zinging everywhere.

Most of the junk around the place had been there since before Billey was born, so he didn't pay too much attention to it. But one afternoon, he sat on a tree stump and studied one of the old engine blocks in back of the shack.

It could have been as old as a rock the way the dirt had pushed up around it. It looked like the earth had gagged when it tried to swallow the stupid thing. Weeds grew out of its holes.

Billey didn't know much about machines, but he could tell that someone had followed a plan to make this thing. The holes were evenly spaced. The ridges and bumps on the surface stood out in patterns so Billey, without ever seeing it, could guess what the buried part of the engine block looked like.

This wasn't like his daddy's plans where one thing got tacked on to another until everything was poking out in a hundred different directions all at once. Fact is, the engine block would have looked out of place within a mile of Elwood's things, except for the rust and weeds and the big crack through the top of it. Somebody had tried to use it too hard and busted it. Once something was busted, it fit into Elwood's world just fine.

But maybe people used to have real plans, good plans, back before Billey was born. Maybe there was a time when everything kind of fit together right and you could figure one thing out from looking at another thing. Maybe somewhere somebody still made that kind of plans. It wasn't impossible. In fact, maybe that's the way it was everywhere in the whole world except this one little place around Elwood.

A sudden buzzing, like a bumblebee as big as the tank, startled Billey. He followed the sound to the porch where Elwood's arms were flopping around the spool top. Elwood opened his eyes just enough to see the clock that made the noise. He pounded it three times until it fell quiet, then he threw it at the road.

"What you lookin' at?" Elwood demanded.

"I dunno."

"Gotta get up," he said, more to himself than to Billey. He rubbed his hands down his chest. "Today is the day."

Otis didn't show until after dark. Billey drove Elwood in the pickup while Otis followed them in the bugmobile. Elwood made Billey stop at the crest of a long hill on a road that didn't have much traffic. Otis drove on down to the bottom and then they waited.

Billey sighed and looked out the window, but there was nothing to see. After an hour or so, he asked, "Why are we sittin' here?"

"'Cause I said. Quit your blabberin'. Gets on my nerves real bad."

It seemed like they were going to sit there until daylight. The only thing Billey could do without making his daddy mad was shift his butt every so often when it got sore. Billey, who didn't stay up every night like Elwood, dozed off.

He woke up with Elwood shaking him. "Flash the lights," Elwood whispered. "Flash the gah-dam headlights."

Billey flashed them a couple times just before a big tanker truck whizzed by them. The pickup rocked in the wind the big truck made.

"Now keep your lights off and drive on down there after that truck."

Billey looked at his daddy. Even in the dark he could tell this was not a time for asking questions.

He could see in the big truck's headlights that Otis had parked the bugmobile straight across the road at the bottom of the hill. The tanker braked hard and stopped just before it crushed the beat-up old car.

Elwood made Billey stop behind the truck. He slipped out of the pickup and walked around the far side of the truck. Billey could see Otis standing on the step of the truck's cab, waving his arms like a fool. After a minute, Otis trotted over and moved the bugmobile off the road. Then he climbed inside the big truck.

Elwood came around the other side of the tanker with a man who had his hands tied in front of him and a rag wrapped around his eyes. He jabbed his gun in the man's back and pushed him into the seat next to Billey. Elwood climbed in and slammed the door. "Let's go, Bobby," he said.

Billey eyed the man who was sweating and trembling next to him. He leaned forward to look at Elwood, but Elwood was already leaning forward to stare at Billey. "I said, 'Let's go, Bobby,'" Elwood said impatiently.

"My name's not Bobby," Billey protested.

"I know it ain't! Do you think I woulda called you Bobby if it was?" Elwood shook his head. "If I called you by your real name, this guy would know what your name is." Elwood tapped the passenger's chest with the gun. "If he knows what your name is, then we gotta kill him. If he knows what my name is, we gotta kill him. If he knows what Otis's name is, we gotta kill him. Understand?"

Billey opened his mouth to say one thing, but he thought a second and said, "yeah" instead.

"So you're gonna be Bobby until we kill this guy or get rid of him. Got that?"

Elwood made him drive down all kinds of roads Billey had never seen until they were out of town. He heard the man crying and saw that tears had soaked the rag over his eyes.

"What's your name?" Elwood said suddenly.

"Bobby," Billey shot back.

"Not you. You, mister. What's your name?"

The man stopped sniffing. "Me?"

"I got ten names to call everyone else in here." Elwood sounded irritated. "Yes, you."

"McKinney," he said. "Hank McKinney."

"Your cryin' sure do make me edgy, Hank." Elwood rubbed the gun up and down the man's arm. "It's 'bout enough to make me want to cram a bullet up your nose."

"Please," Hank said. "You've got the truck. I swear I couldn't tell them who you are. I wouldn't even if I could. My wife had a baby two weeks ago."

"You left your wife alone to raise up your little baby?" Elwood clicked his tongue and shook his head. "Man oughta 'least get his nose blown off for that. That's what Bobby thinks, too."

Billey turned this way and that on his daddy's orders until he was good and lost. Finally Elwood sent them down a dirt trail that wound away from the main road into the woods. The trail petered out and Billey drove through the mud, trying to dodge the bigger holes.

"Stop here, Bobby," Elwood said. He reached in front of Hank and tapped something on the dash board. "Gah-dam. We's about outta gas. That ain't never gonna happen again now, is it, Hank?"

Billey turned the engine off to wait. Elwood climbed out and tapped the gun barrel against Hank's knee. "Climb on down here, you big old crybaby. We're goin' for a little walk."

Hank felt his way along the seat and slid out. Elwood prodded him with the gun, but he kept stumbling on the uneven ground. Elwood kicked Hank when he went down to his knees.

"Do I have to carry you?"

"I can't see," Hank said.

"Shit fire," Elwood said. "I'll take that blindfold off, but you gotta promise to keep your eyes closed until you can't see the truck no more. Understand?"

"Yes," Hank said. "Please. I'll do anything."

Elwood pulled the rag off the man's head and poked him in the back. Billey watched them disappear behind a stand of trees.

Billey craned his neck out the door and looked up at the stars. There were more than he'd ever seen, and they seemed brighter here, so far from the city. The sky looked blacker, too, like maybe the night was better here than it was back at the camper.

Billey jerked up so fast he bruised his head on the window frame when he heard the gun shot. He stiffened in the seat and strained to hear the night's deepest messages.

After a long time, Elwood came slogging through the mud. He brushed himself off and climbed into the pickup.

Billey looked at his hands and saw they'd locked themselves onto the steering wheel. He squeezed it tight to keep them from shaking. "That man—" Billey stared straight ahead and coughed. "Did you kill him?"

"Sure I killed him, Billey," Elwood said. "Didn't you hear what a whinin' little crybaby he was? That's the only thing to do for bastards like that. Tell you what, he won't be cryin' no more.

"This is a pow'ful, pow'ful gun, Billey. You ever see a watermelon fall off the back of a truck? That's what his head looked like. I bet it flew a hundred yards 'til it hit that tree. Just a little stump and some bloody jawbone left on that man's shoulders."

Billey felt his daddy staring at him, but he was afraid to turn his head.

"You got a problem with that, Billey?"

Billey felt the end of his daddy's gun press against the side of his neck. It was hot and it smelled like a box of matches that had been lit all at once. Billey tried to say "No," but the word turned out to be a wet booger stuck so low in his throat that he couldn't spit it out.

Elwood leaned forward to whisper in his ear, "You just nod your head if that's okay with you."

Billey closed his eyes and moved his head down about an inch and a half. He felt the gun leave his neck and he heard his daddy shift back in the seat.

"You gonna start that engine?"

Billey opened his eyes and felt the sweat bite into them. He moved his right hand along the steering wheel until it was as close to the key as he could get it. He caught his breath and shoved his hand out quickly to turn on the engine.

Elwood laughed and looked out the side window. He scratched his forehead with the gun barrel. "Naw, I didn't kill him, Billey. I just wanted to make him mess his britches so's he'd be too embarrassed to come lookin' for the highway soon as we get outta here.

"But you're right. I shoulda killed the muthah. You wait here while I go back and find that bastard."

Billey tromped on the gas and made the pickup fishtail through the mud back up to the road.

_________________________

Go back to Chapter 1 of Stress Test.

Read the next chapter.

_________________________

Complete novel is available on amazon.com.