SHOULD HAVE BEEN A NIGHT DRIVE like any other, but as soon as the beer and pills kicked in and the stars started jittering and pinwheeling, Lit set in on the same questions he had asked in the summertime when he came sniffing around for uppers. The difference was, now the trees were nearly bare and back then he hadn’t really cared about the answers.
Lit couldn’t possibly have a concrete clue to go on, Bud thought, only pool hall rumors and bullshit lawman instinct, thus far clouded by his need for pills. And the suspicions were the consequences of Bud’s own actions, primarily getting drunk and running his mouth to the wrong people. Nobody to blame but himself, except possibly Lily’s bitch sister, if she ignored his warning and set a fire under Lit’s skinny ass, either getting him all sentimental about his little baby girl from the way back years or the idiot grandchildren. Which gave Bud pause, since he’d never entirely clarified that last relationship to himself. Lit a granddaddy. Nevertheless, a deep disappointment for Bud that even his best friend had started acting strange.
Lit probed on and on into Bud’s past, but he didn’t mention Lily. Or Luce’s suspicions about the kids. But they were back there in the history Lit wondered about. However evasive Bud tried to be, however hard he squirmed to change the subject, Lit kept circling around. Every question had to do with Bud’s identity. What was Bud’s full name? Where all exactly had he lived in his life? Had he ever been married? In his previous life, had he ever encountered anybody who grew up here?
Bud felt a little glazed from trying to stay even with Lit on the uppers and beer, and he floated various lies and evasions that never rose above fair to middling. He could see where this was all heading. Lit penning him in. No way Bud could keep a string of lies consistent forever. In a few days, Lit would be right back at him, and Bud would have forgotten many details of his answers. His new lies would mismatch the old ones, which was exactly the way they trapped you. Then you went down.
Bud said, Come on, fuck this shit. What do you care about history? I thought we were friends.
—I guess we are, Lit said. You know a lot about me and my habits, but I don’t know much about you. Right now, I need you to be straight with me.
Sounded kind of self-serving to Bud. Lit mainly starting to get sad about the cutoff of Benzedrine if his questions ended up leading them both to a bad place.
—That’s what you’re needing? Bud said. Me being straight? And here I was having a good time. I thought what buddies did was ride around and tell each other lies, and drink some beers and take some pills.
—That too. But I’m getting some pressure about you, and I need the truth.
Bud said, Don’t pull that tired mess. I learned a long time ago, when somebody starts talking all sincere about truth, they’re usually getting ready to fuck you. Truth isn’t in your own self, and it sure isn’t in theirs. Whatever you tell me or I tell you, and call it truth, is nothing but convenient feelings and asswipe opinions. Real truth is way beyond people. Our brains weren’t tuned to get but a glimpse of it off in the distance.
—No. That’s not the way it is.
—Yeah, that is the way it is. People love the word, but all they use it for is like a club to beat you with. If we ever had truth in our heads, we couldn’t live with it. But because we’re friends, I’m happy to hear about your feelings and opinions, and maybe tell a few of my own, as long as we agree to call things by their right names.
Bud shut up and stared out the window at an impossibly big moon. He kept his head straight and the panic in his stomach damped down by wondering what it would cost to bring the white-haired lawyer up here. Eat these rubes alive in court. In two hours, that old boy would burn them all a new one.
Lit kept on driving deeper into the mountains. One beer later, he started again on places and dates and surnames. Said, What if I made a call down to the capital asking if they have a sheet on a man named John Gary Johnson? Put whatever they have in the mail. Particularly a photo. Be here in a few days. What would I find? I’m not out to get you, but don’t leave me hanging. People are talking.
—What people? Your crazy girl with her made-up stories?
—No.
And then, it hit Bud through the haze. What was he so scared of? He’d gone through one trial without getting put down. And last time on the phone, the lawyer had said the State boys had their tails tucked between their legs from the beating he had administered, and they probably wouldn’t retry without new evidence. So, Luce could hold whatever opinions about him she cared to, as long as the kids couldn’t witness against him. Bud had been feeling like the surface of a pot of water right before coming to a boil. Quivering. But now he went calm and collected his suavity back.
He said, Suppose you and the gossips around town are right about me. Your problem would be that a court of law let me go.
Lit drove awhile, and then glanced sideways, his face perfectly blank. Half illuminated by the greenish lights of the dash, and the other half shadowed.
He said, Not a problem for me. I’m not talking about law. No judges and juries. No lawyers. I’m talking about making somebody pay.
Possibly, running more lines of bullshit might have served Bud’s purposes much better, but he panicked at the expression on Lit’s face. He’d seen plenty of Lit’s work. And Bud knew from bitter experience that the hand-to-hand was seldom his best choice. He couldn’t stand up to Lit unless he got awfully lucky. And luck mostly ran against him.
So, be the first one to go bad. Claim the high ground. Ancient wisdom passed down from old Stonewall. Some situation where he was outnumbered and outgunned against a mess of Yankees, as usual. An underling asked what they were to do, and Stonewall said, Kill them all. According to the mythology, he seemed sort of sad about it.
Which is how Bud felt when, with no prelude, he put his knife into Lit all the way to the quillons as they cruised up the road toward the quarter-mile slashes. He probed deep into Lit’s side where essential organs lay greasy and dark against one another. Every thrust opened the wound wider and dug deeper.
Lit’s concentration on driving wavered. The car went tacking up the road.
Bud leaned and took the wheel one-handed. He threw a leg over the drivetrain hump and kicked Lit’s foot from the pedals. The car stalled and rolled to a stop. Then it rolled slowly backward, jerking and grinding against the transmission until Bud stomped around and found the emergency-brake pedal left-footed.
They sat nearly sideways in the middle of the steep black road with the headlights skewed toward the trees. Lit lived, but not in good shape. His hands gripped his cut middle, trying to hold himself in. His head not entirely under control.
—How could you do me this way? Bud said.
Lit bled out between his fingers. White in the face. He said, What?
—I thought we were friends.
Lit worked his mouth, but nothing got said.
—I better drive, Bud said.
He climbed out the passenger door and walked around the front of the car.
Lit’s last moment of consciousness, a full moon blazing above the treetops and then Bud crossing the windshield, bleached by the headlights.
Bud shoved Lit across the bench seat until his head leaned against the passenger armrest. Bud cranked up and drove on across the gap. Somewhere along the way, Lit passed.
Way around the back side of the lake, up a narrow dirt road, Bud pulled Lit out of the car and dragged him far off into the dark woods. Wilderness. Maybe some grizzled hunter in the distant future of flying cars would come upon chalky mystery bones gnawed by porcupines and woodrats.
Bud drove the patrol car back around to the end of the lake where the water backed up deep behind the dam. He found a steep slope of bank and rolled it into the lake. Windows down, hood and trunk lid up. Great silver moonlit bubbles broke the black water. Then the long walk home. Many miles, keeping an eye out for approaching headlights, but of course there were none in the middle of the night. In town, the three stoplights flashed yellow, streets empty. Bud, trying to prove to himself how fearlessness worked, walked right down the sidewalk.