Our Love Will Go the Way of the Salmon (16 page)

The man starts the truck with no problem. He starts driving away and it really seems like he’s going to make it when no, he’s not going to make it. The truck goes boom.

Direct hit.

The score at the end of the day is:

Rocket Launcher: 1

Catfish Farmer: 0

“I suppose we better claim our catfish,” Andrew says.

***

The three of them stand over a tank full of catfish. Myrtle’s got a wheelbarrow, Andrew and Jesse each a knife.

“Big Jer spoke highly of his pangasius,” Andrew says.

Andrew reaches into a tank, comes up with a fish, and stabs it through the skull, into the brain, killing it instantly.

He tosses the fish into the wheelbarrow and repeats twice.

Jesse, trying to follow suit, attempts to grab a fish but misses.

Andrew has basically filled the whole wheelbarrow himself while Jesse continues to struggle.

They walk back to the ice cream truck, Myrtle pushing the wheelbarrow mounded over with Vietnamese catfish.

“Guess we should feed the snakes now,” Andrew says.

“I’m hungry as a motherfucker,” Myrtle says.

“How do we want to do this?” Jesse asks.

“You two open the coffin and I’ll toss in a fish, I guess,” Andrew says.

They proceed to do what Andrew suggests. It is terrifying. Then they pile the remaining fish on the coffin and hit the road.

***

The ice cream truck speeds down the highway in the evening desert light as stars come out. All three of them are laughing, passing a bottle of whiskey. They stop at a fill station somewhere along the way and filling the truck drains half their funds. Andrew drives the whole way.

“Goddamn, I forgot what a crazy motherfucker you are, Jesse,” Andrew says.

Myrtle punches Andrew on the arm. “Your plan sucked, Andrew. S.U.K.T.”

“Yeah, I’m Andrew,” Jesse says. “I know what I’m doing. Stay in the car while I convince a fat bastard fish farmer to fuck your beautiful wife while you hide in the back of an ice cream truck, totally helpless.”

Jesse makes a farting noise.

“Sucked big time,” Myrtle says.

Andrew says, “Ahhh, you guys. There’s one thing nobody can say about the great snake smuggle. Nobody had a bad time. I mean, this is fun, right? Everybody’s having fun. You having fun, Myrtle?”

“I’m having fun I guess,” Myrtle says.

“You having fun, Jesse?”

“Sure, I mean, it’s okay, but I’m retired from this line of work. Myrtle and I are getting married. We need a stable foundation and in order to do that—to do—money—baby—foundation—”

Jesse sometimes stumbles over his words, makes no sense, spouts nonsense. He does this sometimes.

“What he means is we’re only doing it for the money,” Myrtle says.

A pained look crosses Andrew’s face. “Sure, I guess. But money don’t feed the soul.”

“It sure do put food on the table, though,” Myrtle says.

Jesse nods in agreement. “If money wasn’t money, we wouldn’t’ve had to kill all those guys over a little catfish.”

“All I’m sayin’ is you start to go crazy without a little fun in your life. Am I right?” When Andrew gets no response, he repeats, “Am I right?”

“Yeah, Andrew. We’re having fun.” Jesse says it like he’s admitting defeat, but Andrew’s spirits pick up anyway.

“Good. That’s what I like to hear. Havin’ fun frickin’ times with fun frickin’ friends. The best friends. The only friends.”

“Think I’m gonna crawl on into the back and sit with Myrtle a while,” Jesse says. “You mind?”

“Go right ahead, my friend.”

As Jesse crawls in the back, Myrtle starts complaining about the smell.

“These fish are really starting to reek,” she says.

“Don’t worry,” Andrew says. “Soon enough, we can stop and camp out for the night and cook ourselves one hell of a feast.”

Myrtle slaps Jesse’s knee. “It’ll be like that time we went to Red Lobster. Remember, Jesse? They served up all that fancy seafood buffet-style. All you can eat. Shoot, you puked right there on the popcorn shrimp going back for about your fiftieth plate.”

“That was you who puked, Myrtle.”

“Was it?”

“Sure was,” Jesse says.

“Oh well. I knew one of us puked at Red Lobster.”

“Got us banned for life.”

“Sure was a good meal, though.”

Jesse nods. “Always loved me some Red Lobster.”

“We can eat there every night when we’re rich,” Myrtle says.

“That’s if your photo ain’t hangin’ up in every Red Lobster in the country. ‘Don’t let this girl eat here. She’ll puke on the shrimp.’”

Someone says I love you and someone else says I love you and outside in the big world the sun bleeds purple on the red rocks and burning sand and in the shadow of a cactus, a small mammal sleeps.

“You guys want some music?” Andrew asks.

“Sure,” Myrtle says.

So Andrew turns on some ice cream truck music.

And in the shadow of a cactus, a rattlesnake strikes a small, sleeping mammal.

***

Sitting around a campfire, each of them gnaw a whole charred catfish held between dirty hands.

Except for the sound of teeth and tongue tearing flesh from bone, they eat in silence.

When the meal is finished, they celebrate it like all good meals are celebrated. With a bottle of whiskey.

“So how’d you hook up with Big Jer anyway?” Jesse asks.

“He was a good friend of my father’s.”

“I remember your pa. He still kickin’?”

“Naw.”

“That’s too bad.”

“It was sort of a funny accident.”

“Funny ha-ha or funny sad?” Myrtle asks.

“A little of both. Myrtle, you never had a chance to meet my father, but all you need to know to understand the story of his end is that he came to be a fisherman of no little renown throughout this region. He could catch a shitload of fish, every day, no matter the weather or water or time of day, but what he loved catching most were largemouth bass. The only thing my old man was greater at than fishing was shit-talkin’. He could shit-talk, let me tell you. In his later years, he was out on the water every morning, often straight through till sundown. Big Jer was one of his fishing buddies. In fact, Big Jer was present when death came for my father. You see, my father’s reputation as a great fisherman had grown to such proportions that people came to call him The Legend. The moment they caught sight of his hunched figure on the crest over Buena Vista Lake, all fishermen began to murmur. ‘Look, it’s The Legend,’ they’d say, or if they weren’t hip to his nickname they’d say, ‘The largemouth bass man,’ or ‘That asshole who catches all the fish.’ My father didn’t mind so much where he fished, but he didn’t much like being around people. If a lake was crowded, he’d walk miles to the farthest shoreline just to be alone. But he was friendly too. He shared his lures. He shared his baits. He even shared techniques he’d learned throughout the years. If he saw a family catching nothing, he would offer them his catch so they would not go hungry. There was not a greater or more generous fisherman than my father, but that made some people jealous, even angry. The Legend was a god to many fishermen, but to one man in particular, he was a devil. This man’s name was Al Horn. He was a bad man and a worse fisherman. He envied my father like shit envies coal. One unseasonably warm April afternoon, the bass bite was on fire, and everybody on the lake was catching fish, especially my father and Big Jer. That is, everybody except Al Horn. Remember I told you my father liked to shit-talk? This particular day he pushed Al Horn past his breaking point. I don’t know what was said exactly. All I know is that my father ended up dead in the lake, Al Horn’s hunting knife stuck in his chest. Not a pretty way to die, but what a goddamn good day to go, huh? Beautiful spring day on the lake, everyone catching fish. I bet it made my old man happy, knife be damned.”

“What happened to Al Horn?”

“Big Jer saw Al kill my dad. That’s a fact. Big Jer had been fishing upshore from my pa when he heard shouting. He tried to hurry back, but shit, you saw the size of the guy. He wasn’t getting anywhere in a hurry. So Big Jer returns, sees my father floating in the water, bleeding like a stuck pig, and Al Horn is standing there on the shore. Big Jer did what any decent man would do. He put a gun to Al Horn’s skull and shot the worthless fuck dead.”

Myrtle covers her mouth, gasps, “Oh my god,” more disturbed by this story-violence than the real life violence she’d witnessed only hours before.

Jesse puts the whiskey bottle in Andrew’s hands, encouraging him to take a drink. “I never knew Big Jer avenged your dad. Fuck, I never knew Big Jer. I’m sorry.”

“Naw, it’s nothin’. Big Jer was a good man, but he lived a miserable life.”

“We been apart a long time, haven’t we?” Jesse says.

Andrew swigs deeply, then wipes his mouth on the back of his hand and exhales fire breath. “Us and all the rest of them.”

“I can’t believe I never heard about your dad.”

Andrew shrugs. “The desert’s that kind of place.”

Myrtle shivers and leans over, rests her head on Jesse’s shoulder. “I’m glad we’re on our way out of here. It’ll be exciting to start fresh, live somewhere new.”

Jesse takes the whiskey bottle again and raises it in a toast. “To fresh starts. And to Big Jer.”

A night in the desert is lonesome without music, even among friends, and so Andrew pulls out his harmonica and he plays. Jesse hums along at first, and then he begins to sing, pulling words out of the darkness, searching for a thing he cannot find.

When the whiskey runs dry, Jesse and Myrtle snuggle beneath an alpaca blanket and quietly make love. Andrew sits on the other side of the fire, awake, alone. He goes for a walk. It’s one of those walks where nothing much happens. Little thinking is done. It’s just a walk. Leave it alone.

By the time he returns, Jesse and Myrtle are fast asleep. He digs around in Jesse’s discarded pants and tosses their remaining cash into the fire. Then he adds a few more logs and pulls out Big Jer’s family fish bible. He begins to read.

***

In the morning light, on the road again. They’re a couple miles from a small town. Myrtle drives. Andrew sits in back with the coffin and the catfish.

“You got any whiskey left?” Andrew asks, digging through their luggage. “What we drank last night was my last bottle.”

“Naw, we’re all out,” Jesse says.

Myrtle, who appreciates the splendor of small towns, suggests stopping in the town ahead for more. “It’ll be a real bitch to sleep outside without it,” she says.

“Sounds good to me,” Jesse says. “What do you think?”

Andrew seems to weigh the question in his mind. “I’m afraid Myrtle’s right. Hell, this fish smell alone is tough to stomach without some hooch.”

Myrtle scowls, tightens her grip on the steering wheel. “Told you they was smelling something foul.”

Jesse reaches for his wallet, nodding, excited by the prospect of whiskey. “Let’s say we put twenty-five down on whiskey and the rest on gas.” When his wallet turns up empty, he shifts in his seat to face Andrew. “Did I give you the money?”

With a neutral expression on his face, Andrew says, “No, you had it. Remember the station clerk handing you change?”

“I remember that, but—”

“But what?” Myrtle says.

“The money’s not fucking there.”

“Not where?”

“Not in my wallet.”

“What do you mean it’s not in your wallet?”

Jesse slams a palm against the dashboard. “Stop parrotin’ me goddamnit and help me look.”

Myrtle shrugs helplessly. “I’m driving.”

“Then pull the wigwam over!”

The truck comes to a screeching halt on the side of the highway and the three of them begin a methodical search of everything they own.

“You didn’t somehow drop the money in the coffin, did you?” Andrew asks.

“How would I drop it in the coffin?”

Andrew shrugs. “Just covering the bases.”

“What now?” Myrtle says.

Jesse spits onto the pavement. His saliva sizzles and evaporates, it’s so hot out. He says, “We rob a liquor store and when we’re out of gas, we find a car to siphon.”

Andrew shakes his head, doubtful. “That plan may get us another hundred or even two-hundred miles, but it won’t get us to Oregon.”

“Then we’re fucked.” Jesse throws up his hands.

Myrtle has an idea. “We could sell those guns to a pawn shop. That’ll bring in enough for whiskey and gas, won’t it?”

Andrew and Jesse kind of look at each other, but the idea doesn’t float.

“What’s wrong with my idea?” Myrtle says.

“We don’t deal with pawn shops,” Andrew says.

“Why not?”

“Look, Myrtle. Andrew and I just have always had this thing,” Jesse says.

“A thing? Like a love affair?”

“It’s superstition is all,” Jesse says. “If your doings are unlawful, pawn shops are bad luck.”

“No pawn shops,” Andrew says.

Myrtle cannot believe this. “So you’ll kill a police offer and murder a bunch of guys over some stinking fish, but you won’t sell a gun to a pawn shop?”

Jesse nods. “That’s right.”

“No, it’s not right. It’s moronic. I’ll sell the guns myself if I have to.”

“I said no pawn shops,” Andrew says. He points a finger at Myrtle and iterates: “Never. Do business. With pawn shops. Understand?”

Myrtle pinches her lips tight, staring back at Andrew. Finally, she says, “I understand. No pawn shops.”

“Glad we’re clear on that,” Andrew says. “Now given our limitations, I think it’s in our best interest to rob a bank.”

“You flippin’ serious?” Jesse says.

“Why not?”

“Myrtle as our getaway driver in the Daytona 500 ice cream truck. You and me—two guys covered in human blood and sweat and fish guts—robbing a bank? We wouldn’t make it halfway across town before the pigs swarmed us.

“Myrtle, Jesse, hear me out.”

“No, I’m not stupid,” Jesse says. “We worked too hard and sacrificed too much already to piss away our riches over a stupid bank robbery. We’ve got too much coming to us.”

Myrtle agrees. “If we don’t do pawn shops, we don’t do banks either.”