Oklahoma City Looks Oh So Pretty

We’re heading back west with the sun leaning hot and bright on the dashboard and Chuck Berry chugging the rhythm, singing about his love for Nadine and his troubles with Mabeline and all about Marla Venus losing her arms in a wrestling match over her brown-eyed handsome man. Who can listen to this and not feel good, I don’t want to meet. The CD’s short, and we’re on our second trip through it. Maggot Arm Joe’s still a little pissed about Sergei spending our first ten grand, which we don’t even have yet and which he fronted himself, on the fallout shelter. I can’t say as I blame him, but I don’t see what we could do about it. Mr. Frank Carr, aka Timothy Shay, is supposed to give us the money in the next couple of days. After that, according to Sergei, we’re talking profit.

“This American music?” Sergei says.

“You got it,” Maggot Arm Joe says. “The American-est.”

Sergei nods and leans back listening. In between songs he says, “Let us go to spa. Let us mud-bath. Celebrate our new home. Get massage.”

“No can do,” Maggot Arm Joe says. He looks at his watch. “I need to get back. Parole meeting.” He lights a cigarette and cracks the window. I’m trying not to smoke, but I can only hold out for a few puffs before I hit him up for one. He gives it to me.

“Quick mud bath,” Sergei says. “Quick spa. Hot tub.”

“I’m telling you, man, I’ve got somewhere to be,” Maggot Arm Joe says. “I didn’t need to be coming out to the fucking desert in the first place. I need sleep. I need rest and you got us hopping all over creation meeting Commander Cactus and all this shit.”

“Colonel,” I say.

“Whatever,” Maggot Arm Joe says.

Sergei’s laughing. He takes Maggot Arm Joe’s anger about as seriously as people do when they’re playing with kittens. “You need relax—you need spa. You need massage.”

Maggot Arm Joe says, “You need to be rolfed, is what you need.”

“What rolf?”

Maggot Arm Joe tells him it’s this severe type of massage where you get shoved and crammed to the point where they move your organs from the outside. It sounds vicious—something Tara would probably dig if it led up to an orgasm.

Sergei makes a face. “This good for you?”

“People swear by it,” Maggot Arm Joe says.

“Crazy people,” Sergei says. “No rolf for Sergei. Organs where they belong.”

Maggot Arm Joe tells me to watch my speed—he can’t afford to get pulled over.

“None of us can afford to be pulled over,” I say.

“I can,” Sergei says. “Have several persons who are clean—always carry two clean IDs.” He takes a driver’s license out of his pocket and flashes it up to the rearview. He puts it back. “Maybe three clean IDs with this cowboy man.”

The plan is that when we get back, Maggot Arm Joe’s supposed to get that list from Mr. Fudge and check his list against ours and sell him any overlaps. I’m supposed to wait by the desk for a call from Mr. Frank Carr. Sergei’s going to call some people and see if he wants to add the mysterious cowboy to his list of identities.

Mr. Frank Carr better come through, though, because if the money starts coming in from Mr. Fudge, and not my deal, I’ll have a hard time arguing that we shouldn’t just sell to the fat cats straight out. But I want, I need, to avoid that. Seeing that cowboy was enough for me. I can’t be a part of that.