After the dozer dude had been working for a couple of days in the woods, Cortez called the Co-op in town, wanting to talk to Toby Tubby, an old fellow who worked there and who Cortez had known since first grade in Potlockney. They’d done some things they probably shouldn’t have. Buried a boy alive one time, for about an hour, when they were kids. Just for the fun of it. Just to scare the shit out of him. Went and ate lunch and then came back. When they dug him back up he was almost dead. Cortez had done some other things after he got grown. A long time ago. Back during the early sixties. Things that involved wearing long white robes. And carrying guns. And keeping your head covered up with a hood. And listening to speeches at rallies where crosses were burning. And throwing bricks at U.S. marshals on the campus of the University of Mississippi in 1962 when they admitted Meredith. He had quit all that shit when he saw that it was useless and might get him in jail. After Robert Kennedy stuck his nose into it. Little squirrel-headed bastard.
But whoever answered the phone, some kid, sounded like, said that Toby wasn’t there, that he was off since it was Wednesday afternoon. And Cortez knew that. He knew Toby was off on Wednesdays. He knew that as well as he knew Lucinda was screwing a damn retard in Atlanta. An artist. Artist, my ass. How could he be an artist if he wasn’t smart enough to get through the third grade? It was probably on Lucinda to pay most of the bills. Buy their groceries. Pay the light bill. Phone bill, garbage bill, water bill. But she seemed to make pretty good money modeling that large ladies’ underwear. He didn’t know why he hadn’t just called Toby at home. He’d know just as much about the fish at home as he would at work. And Cortez didn’t really want to talk to anybody else about the fish. He wanted to talk to somebody he knew who wouldn’t go blab it to everybody he knew. He wondered if Gunsmoke was there.
“Is Gunsmoke there?” he said.
“No sir, he ain’t here,” the person who sounded like a kid said.
“Is this Gunsmoke’s boy?” Cortez said.
“Is Gunsmoke’s boy’s name not Jeff?” Cortez said.
“No sir, that’s Jim, people gets us confused, happens all the time, it ain’t just you, God knows I wished it was. Maybe I could be happier.”
“Is Jim there?” Cortez said, ignoring whatever bullshit the kid was talking about about being happier.
“No sir, he ain’t here neither. And not likely to be here no time soon since he’s in St. Louis, Missouri, watching a ballgame. I believe it’s a doubleheader, but he said it wasn’t on TV. Now is they something I could help you with? Hi, I’m Jeff.”
Cortez thought about it over the phone. He didn’t want to talk to just anybody about these fish. He didn’t want the whole world to know he was building a pond and was going to stock it with catfish. He didn’t want to talk to somebody who might go blab it. He might as well go put it in the newspaper if he was going to do that. Hell, take out an ad. Shit, rent a billboard. But he wanted to find out something about it as soon as he could just because he was so excited about it. Like how big they were now, how much they cost at what size, when you fed them, how often you fed them, how much weight they’d gain, how long it would take, all that stuff. Did you have to get some stuff to pour in your pond? He knew some people poured stuff in their ponds. But one guy he knew of, he poured some stuff in his pond and it turned the water kind of a sickly-looking green. Like a Jell-O fruit pond. He didn’t guess you just had to pour stuff in your pond. Maybe he needed some brochures. They probably had some from the big red fish truck. He’d seen it down there in the parking lot before, people lined up, getting fish. They always put an ad in the paper before they came. He needed to look for that ad because he’d be standing in that line one day before long. He’d get there early. Before the crowd rushed in and bought up all the fish. He wondered if they delivered. That might be something else he needed to ask Toby about.
“I’ll just call back when Toby’s there,” he said, and hung up abruptly, as he always did, with anybody. […]