Two states away, in Henryville, Kentucky, Leroy Summers sat in his bedroom, staring at his laptop. The email he’d been waiting for had arrived at work, but he’d managed to resist the temptation to open it. Personal emails were forbidden at the call center, but more important was that he didn’t want any of his brain-dead colleagues leaning into his cubicle, gawking at his screen. Everybody at work thought he was just a dateless geek, in his Spiderman tee shirt and polyester pants. They had no idea what he was in reality.
“Okay, Kimmeegirl,” he whispered, a frisson of anticipation tightening his balls. “I’m finally gonna see what you look like.”
He’d learned early on that most of the cuties sent fake selfies—the girls who bit on his bait were too fat, too pimply-faced or just too butt ugly to risk revealing their real faces. But Kimmeegirl had seemed different from the start. She didn’t write in the usual adolescent slang and she never complained about stupid crap like geometry homework or what the mean girls had done to her in gym class. At first he’d worried that she’d been FBI or a rogue cop who’d gone vigilante. But as the months passed, he realized that as polished as Kimmeegirl’s writing was, it still betrayed the dreams of a teenager. Like all the others, she sought friends, yearned to break free of parental tyranny, and desperately wanted someone to love.
So he wrote to her as one of his old stand-bys, Bryan Thompson, who was everything he himself had not been in high school—athletic, zit-free, and popular. He’d gone with his usual Bryan bio—a lonely orphaned boy who lived with his bachelor uncles. At fifteen Bryan was a sophomore at Henry High, where he played JV football and enjoyed English class. In reality Leroy was 42, a paunchy telemarketer who lived with his brother Chet on a seventy-acre farm, most of which was leased out to an agri-business concern. Five days a week he successfully hawked everything from time-shares to automobile maintenance plans. But nights and weekends, from a mean little house that squatted on the edge of a soybean field, he sold love to homely teenaged girls who panted to meet boyfriends who didn’t exist.
Despite his gifts of persuasion, it had taken him months to crack Kimmeegirl. She was wary as a fawn, and only after he’d sent her hundreds of fake pictures and told her that he’d flunked algebra (true), smoked weed when he could get it (sometimes true) and had never had sex with a girl (false, though none of his conquests had survived the experience) did she reveal that she was home schooled, that she lived in a log cabin and referred to her father as the Warden. Sensing his opening, he’d pounced. Is he that bad?
Yes, she’d replied. He’s awful. He’d chain me up if he could.
He had Bryan respond sympathetically, hoping she’d reveal her location. That must suk. Where do you live?
In the middle of nowhere, she’d replied, cleverly avoiding his trap.
From then on, Kimmeegirl became a challenge. He’d pursued her relentlessly, sending her pictures of Bryan (really a photo of Troy, the muscle-bound kid he paid to mow his front yard), texting her funny little love notes with emojis. Finally, it had worked. She’d revealed that her name was Lily Walkingstick and she lived with her father at Paint Creek camp, near Murphy, North Carolina. Today the photo she’d long promised him had arrived. If she wasn’t too much of a dog, he might make good on his promise to meet her.
“Okay, Lily Walkingstick,” he whispered, cracking his knuckles for luck. “Let’s see what you got.”
He opened her email with half-closed eyes, preparing himself for the inevitable disappointment. But when he got a good look at the picture, he gasped. If this girl was for real, he’d hit the jackpot. Dark hair, caramel skin, deep dimples in both cheeks. Her face was beautiful, but beyond that, she’d lifted one arm over her head, allowing plump, young breasts to peek from a white blouse. Immediately, his penis stiffened, hot and hard, demanding his attention. He unzipped his pants, covered his lap with the dishtowel he kept by his computer. Moments later his bottle rocket fired with a gush that left him weak.
He sat in the chair, drained, feeling as if heart had just exploded. He stayed that way for a while, opening his eyes only when he heard the low rumble of a motor approaching the house. He turned, watching out the window as a monstrous truck cab came growling up the rutted driveway, yellow lights glowing in the early evening darkness.
“Chet,” he whispered as the cab rolled to the rear of their property. Back from taking some load of something to God knew where. If Chet was feeling familial, he would come in the house, nuke a burrito and drink beer until he passed out on the living room sofa. If he was still pissed about little Spitfire, he would hole up in his rig, smoking weed and feasting on fried pork rinds. By morning, the smell would be unimaginable.
Leroy waited, wondering if Chet would emerge from the cab. When he didn’t, he grabbed his laptop and zipped up his jacket. Pissed or not, Chet needed to see this new cutie. She was something special.
Turning his collar up against a blustery wind, he walked towards the truck. Yards away, he could hear Poor Twisted Me blasting from inside the cab. That meant that Chet must have driven north, to Indianapolis or even Chicago. Red Bull and heavy metal music were what got him through the dull, ruler-straight roads of Indiana and Illinois. Taking a deep breath, Leroy walked up and banged on the door of the cab.
“Hey, Chet,” he yelled above the din inside. “It’s Leroy.”
The music blared on. He knocked again. “Chet, open up!”
Metallica continued to yowl. Growing angry at having to trudge through the cold to talk to his little brother, Leroy picked up a rock from the driveway and heaved it at the side of the cab. It made a terrible thud. Abruptly, the music stopped, leaving his ears ringing in the sudden silence.
The door burst open, revealing a six-foot, blue eyed, near-clone of himself. Only hair and body fat differentiated them—Chet kept his head shaved, his muscles toned while Leroy had fuzzy brown hair and a gut that already hung over his belt.
“What the fuck do you want?” Chet shrieked, his eyes looking like two fried eggs. He was wired on something way beyond Metallica.
“You want some supper? I made a meat loaf,” Leroy lied. His notion of a home-cooked meal meant shoving a TV dinner in the microwave.
“I already ate.”
“You want to come to the house and watch TV? Indiana’s playing Kentucky.”
“No.”
Leroy realized his friendly overtures were falling flat, so he cut to the chase. “You up for the cutie run of your life?”
“And get killed for real this time? No thanks.”
“That wasn’t my fault, Chet.” Their most recent cutie run had nearly ended in disaster when they’d been surprised by deer hunters. They’d managed to escape capture despite the screaming, kicking girl, but just barely.
“But you told me it was okay. You told me you’d checked it out.” Chet wore only jeans and a wife-beater tee shirt, but he seemed to radiate heat like nuclear waste.
“I did check it out. Those fuckers were poachers.”
“Yeah. Poachers who could have called the law on us. I’m still scared to drive through Pennsyl-fucking-vania.”
Leroy clutched the laptop and spoke softly. “I’ve told you before, Chet. Anybody poaching game isn’t going to call the cops over anything. Get over it.”
“Screw you, Leroy,” Chet muttered, turning to climb back inside the cab.
“You really need to see this one, Chet. She’s special.”
“So’s fresh air and freedom, Leroy. And not spending twenty years getting cornholed in prison. That’s pretty damn special, too.”
“She looks a little like Darlene.”
Leroy watched as Chet stopped halfway up the ladder. Darlene was Chet’s ex-wife. Black-haired and black-hearted, the thought of her still stopped him cold. Leroy never could tell if it was from hatred or desire. Chet paused a moment, then turned and said, “Let me have a look.”
Leroy gave a small, secret smile as he followed Chet into the cab. The trick to anything was figuring out which button worked on which people. Once you pushed it, you could get them to do anything you wanted.
Inside, the cab both looked and smelled like a garbage dump. Fast food detritus—McDonald’s bags, Hunt Brothers Pizza boxes littered the floor, while Chet’s ashtray sprouted a forest of stubbed-out Marlboro butts. Chet scooted over to the driver’s seat, still eying Leroy with suspicion.
“Okay. Let’s see this magnificent piece of poontang.”
Though Leroy hated to cede his nice laptop to his ham-fisted brother, he handed it over. As soon as Chet opened it, the picture of Kimmeegirl filled the screen.
Chet stared at the image, clicking the top of his favorite Zippo lighter as he gazed at the girl. Finally, he admitted Leroy was right. “Damn–she does look a little like Darlene. Same dimples. Darlene’s tits were bigger, though.”
“Ever see a cutie that juicy?” asked Leroy.
Nervous, Chet clicked the lighter open and shut. “Makes me wonder if it’s too good.”
“A trap?”
“Yeah. People are still looking for Spitfire. We might be on the cops’ radar now.”
“Not possible,” said Leroy. “I had the camper painted, got a new Ducks Unlimited license plate. Besides, I’ve talked to this girl for months. She’s for real.”
“Where is she?”
“North Carolina. I’m going there tomorrow.”
“You?” Chet laughed. “By yourself?”
“I’ve got plenty of rope, dope and ammo. She’s expecting me Monday.”
Chet looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “Who’s she expecting? Leroy the love-salesman?”
“Bryan. He works well with this type. I’ll play good old Uncle Jake.”
Chet glanced at Kimmeegirl once again, and handed the laptop back to Leroy. “Good luck, man. I hope it works out for you.”
“You seriously don’t want in on this?” asked Leroy.
He used the lighter on a cigarette, blew out a long stream of smoke. “Ain’t worth it. I’m not playing this game anymore.”
“Well, Mom always said you were the timid one.” Leroy sighed as he climbed out of the passenger seat. “I guess that was one thing she got right.” He put the laptop under his jacket as he stepped away from the cab. “See you.”
Lifting a hand in farewell, he started walking back to the duplex. If he knew his brother, the word timid would stick in his throat like a chicken bone. He would fret all night about it, and unless Metallica had caused Chet to grow a set of balls big enough to stand up to him, by morning he would be banging on his backdoor, begging to come along.