Chapter 9

I tried to grin and bear it after hearing that Sandy and the ignoramus were getting married. There were the standard congratulations and lies about how happy I was.

It was a bunch of crud, though. I knew it and could tell Sandy knew how I felt, which was really strange. It had been over twenty years and from just a little time together, it was like we were never apart. I wanted to spend time with her, do cool stuff and make up all these years we had lost. There was no way for that to happen in the real world, but in the fantasy, make-believe world we all live in from time to time, it seemed like a good idea to me.

Trevor had no desire for me to be there. I felt the same about him. I waited a few more minutes and bid my farewells.

Sandy offered to give me a ride, getting a dirty look from her beau in the process. I declined, lying again that I wanted to walk around town since I had not done that in years. Actually, I could care less about strolling around the streets of Langford in a little reminiscing journey. I would rather forget about this place instead of remember things I wish could be deleted from my memory banks.

I left Verna’s and started walking back toward downtown. The sidewalks were in bad shape and I tried to avoid the loose concrete and the holes and not break a leg. I jaywalked just for the fun of it since you are technically not supposed to do it in Tulsa and would probably get hit by a car if you did. But in Langford, rules like that are not upheld.

The cops here probably don’t know what jaywalking is, so I don’t worry about it too much. A Mexican driving a green and black truck had to stop and glares at me, wondering what this crazy gringo is doing.

He apparently has a pretty good stereo system as the bass is booming loud enough that it almost gives me a headache.

I cross over in front of the Bank of Langford. It is a nice building, one of the few nice ones left in our dying downtown. I look back toward the highway and admire the fine parking lot the bank built. At one time, there was a funeral home, a flower shop and several other businesses there.

That was before the bad fire a few years ago. The buildings were burned badly and eventually torn down. The businesses that didn’t take the insurance money and run, relocated to the highway. Now there is a parking lot. A nice one, but still a parking lot where there should be small businesses that are the heart of small towns.

That bothers me, even if it shouldn’t. I had no say in the matter and don’t even live here.

I also don’t bank with them, of course, since I live in Tulsa. I used to have an account with the Langford State Bank, the other bank in town. But a few years ago, my bank was bought out. Then the same holding company that purchased the Langford State Bank bought the other bank and decided to form a monopoly by being the only bank in town.

A bank from Poteau opened a branch so the monopoly deal didn’t work out as planned.

Across the street is where city hall used to be until they bought the old Langford State Bank building and moved the offices out of downtown. The building is huge, some three-stories high. Just south of the former city hall building is where the old theater was until it also burned. The front part of the theater was salvaged and the awning is still out front, but looks like it could crash to the ground at any moment.

I pass by the one clothing store in town and several empty buildings. On the opposite corner, there is a thriving Hispanic business. Several odd-colored cars and trucks are parked outside. A few Mexicans linger about, talking and admiring those same cars and trucks.

As I start to cross the street, a loud roar comes from the road. I cover my ears, wondering what is making that terrible noise. As soon as it dies down, I hear a shout.

“Hey Lenny!” he hollers.

I groan and hurry across the street. I know that voice and the only person who would call me “Lenny”. I really don’t want to acknowledge him. But he roars the engine again and pulls next to me. I still try to ignore him, but it’s no use. He parks in one of the many empty parking lots downtown in front of Flora’s Flowers and waits for me to approach.

He is sitting in a truck that some would consider a “monster truck”. I believe it is more along the lines of monster fecal material. It is jacked up beyond belief, so high that the step is almost to my waist. The truck has tires that look like they were stolen off a semi. At one time, the truck was purple, but now it is impossible to tell.

It looks like he keeps trying out different colors with a spray can and doesn’t bother to cover up the previous tries. There’s a bumper sticker is on his rear window. “The BOXCAR Bar - Poker in the front - Liquor in the back!” it proudly proclaims. That’s certainly a surprise, but I figure he’s only experienced half of the items. He has another sticker, one of the Dixie flag, like that really fits in. Apparently he wasn’t paying attention in history class when the teacher taught us that Oklahoma wasn’t even a state during the Civil War, certainly not a part of the south.

I walk around the truck and approach the driver’s door.

The window is tinted so dark it is impossible to see him. Not that I mind. The window slowly lowers and I see him for the first time in ten years.

“Hey Walter,” I say. He had been smiling until I said that.

“Don’t be callin' me ‘Walter’,” he says. “Ya gotta call me ‘Squiggy’.”

He is the kind of guy who parks in the handicapped spot at Wal-Mart even when the weather isn’t bad.

Ah, a part of my life I would rather forget. He was Squiggy, I was Lenny. We were bequeathed those names from the old Laverne and Shirley show. That is a nickname I have tried my best to forget. He did look a little like Squiggy since he was short, had greasy black hair and his voice was rather irritating. I was tall, thin and blonde haired, at least back then, but that was where the comparisons to Lenny ended.

Squiggy was not a great friend, but I was nice to him and he wound up clinging to me like a tick on a blind guy’s privates.

He wears an old hat on that is so dirty it is impossible to tell what product was once advertised. Now, it’s the color of dirt and oil. It is tilted to the side so I can see Squiggy, aka Walter Lewis, is racing me to see who can go bald first.

His hair is long on the sides and the back, where it is tied up in a ponytail. Squiggy’s eyebrows are still connected in the middle, making it look like there is only one that stretches across his face. He has on a designer pair of sunglasses that are smeared so badly I don’t see how he can see anything. A razor had not touched that face in a long time, neither had soap, I realized as I got closer than I should.

Squiggy’s wearing a red American Idol tee-shirt without the sleeves. The irritating English chap is pictured. The shirt was not made to be sleeveless originally and it was obvious he had removed the sleeves with a pocket knife. The shirt ran out of fabric and falls short, approximately halfway through his belly button, exposing the lower half of a belly marked by stretch marks and what appear to be old zit scars.

His jeans are old and have holes in both knees. The pants are tucked into a pair of rattlesnake cowboy boots that look out of place since they appear to be new.

He has a chaw of tobacco so big it looks like somebody shoved a softball in his mouth. Squiggy holds a Pabst Blue Ribbon beer bottle in one hand with beer in it. He has another bottle nestled between his legs, half full of spit.

“Good to see you,” I lie.

I hear some strange noise and look down at his wheels. Although his truck has parked, part of the wheels appears to still be moving.

“Hey, that’s cool,” I lie again.

“Yep,” Squiggy agrees. “Them things are spinners. S-P-E-E-N-E-R-S.”

Spelling was also not one of Squiggy’s strengths in school.

A dog sits next to him, a big and brown, mean-looking pit bull. The dog leans forward and glares at me, eyeing me like I would make a good TV dinner. It growls and a large quantity of slobber is slung throughout the truck’s cab.

“That’s Psycho,” Squiggy says proudly.

“You call your dog ‘Psycho’?” I ask. “Does the name fit?”

That question was a little more than Squiggy could handle. He leaned out the window and spit on the road, expertly avoiding my leg. An elderly woman was exiting Flora’s Flower Shop with a bouquet of flowers. She was one of the older women who don’t leave their house unless they are dressed perfectly and have their hair just right.

Apparently, she didn’t approve of Squiggy’s actions. She opened her mouth and looked like a yack was forming. It must have passed as she closed the mouth, glared at him and shook her head.

“What’s yer problem, ya old biddy!” Squiggy shouted, making me wish I could disappear. This was probably one of my dad’s Baptist buddies and would soon be on the phone to Mom, snitching on me.

The old woman probably had not moved that fast in years. She set a new land speed record while practically sprinting to her car, her eyes never leaving Squiggy. Psycho growled loud enough for her to hear and she almost dove the final yards.

“Hee, hee! At’s a good girl,” Squiggy said, leaning close and letting Psycho lick him. I couldn’t decide what disgusted me more, Psycho licking him or Squiggy getting so much enjoyment out of it.

“Psycho’s a girl?” I asked.

“Yep, I’m a gonna breed her.”

Hopefully with another dog, I thought. I had already had enough of Squiggy for the next ten years.

“I’m going to have to…” I started to say, then got stuck. Where could I tell Squiggy I was going and have him believe it?

Squiggy and Psycho looked at me, waiting for my answer. He drained about half a beer in one drink, then let out a burp that could probably be heard in Arkansas. The old lady was backing out and burned rubber as she escaped.

“…home,” I finally added.

Squiggy nodded for way too long.

“Git in,” he said, two words I hoped to never heard. “I’ll give you a ride.”

There were a lot of things I would like to be doing. Riding in a truck with Squiggy and Psycho wasn’t one of them.

“I’ll just walk,” I said. “Need the exercise.”

“You can get yer exercise later,” he argued. “Git yer butt in and I’ll take ya home.”

Squiggy might not register as drunk, yet, but was getting close. I knew he would argue with me until one of us passed out and it was no use.

“Okay,” I finally said, faked a smile that I definitely did not feel and walked around the back of the truck. He revved the engine about the time I passed the pipes, causing me to jump higher than Doctor J ever did. I heard Squiggy laugh and thought Psycho joined in.

I doubt a man heading to his lethal injection walked any slower than I did. Finally, I approached the door and wondered just how I was supposed to get in. I stood on my tiptoes and could barely reach the door handle. The door popped open and Psycho lunged at me, throwing spit and slobber all over me. Apparently she didn’t share the enthusiasm her owner did about my riding in the truck.

“Chill,” Squiggy hollered, took off his hat and popped her over the head with it. She sat back down next to him, panting heavily, her squinty, vicious eyes never leaving me.

I grabbed the handle next to the door, stepped up in the ridiculously high step and entered the cab. Psycho was growling and still eyeing me during the process, but hopefully had decided her next meal would have to come from somewhere else.

A police car drove by with its window down. A young officer with a bad case of acne stared at Squiggy. He almost came to a stop and lowered his shades.

“What’re you lookin at, you homo!” Squiggy hollered, then held up his beer bottle. I have never really envisioned how nice it would be to invisible, until now. Here I was in a truck with some lunatic man and his crazed dog. Squiggy questions the police officer’s sexual preference then holds up a beer bottle for everybody to see. I knew Squiggy would get us thrown in the pokey for open container and and a list of outstanding warrants that were longer than a romance novel.
The cop slowly raised his hand and waved, not wanting to deal with Squiggy.

“How come he let you do that?” I asked.

Squiggy giggled, snorted really loud and spit out the window again.

“I caught him with his sister,” Squiggy said, information I did not want or need to hear.

I expected Squiggy to tell the whole story, but luckily his short attention span had already changed.

I hit my head on something and turned around to see what it was. It appeared to be a sniper rifle in the gun rack on his rear window.

“Uh, nice gun,” I said. “It’s not loaded, is it?”

He looked at me again like I had lost too many brain cells over the years.

“A gun ain’t no good if it ain’t loaded,” Squiggy informed me. I tried to keep track of the grammar errors in his response but gave up.

I nodded, not in agreement but because that seemed to be the proper action.

“What do you shoot?” I regretted the question even while asking it.

“Been shootin some crow,” Squiggy mentioned, then nodded toward the back of the truck. I knew better than to look, but did so anyway. There appeared to be at least a hundred dead crows in the back of his truck, mixed with beer bottles, tools, clothes, chicken bones and other trash.

“I didn’t know it was crow season.”

He snickered, Psycho growled.

“There ain’t no such thing as ‘crow season’, ya idiot.”

“What do you do with them?” I asked, hoping he wouldn’t let them stay in the back until they were bones, or eat them.

“I find me somebody who keeps their lawn a lookin real good then dump em in their yard.”

Oh, a logical explanation.

“Want a brew?” he asked, pointing at the sack in the floor. “Only had em since yesterday mornin.”

“No thanks, I don’t drink,” I said.

Squiggy stared at me for way too long.

“You don’t drink?” it was almost too hard for Squiggy to believe.

“Not anymore,” I replied. I had never been much of a drinker but there was a time when I could hold my own.

Squiggy muttered some word I could not decipher.

“Guess I’ll have to finish em myself,” he added. “Still gotta couple of hours till work.”

“How are you going to sober up by then?” I foolishly asked.

The Squigster glared at me again. So did Psycho.

“I ain’t.”

“You’re going to work drunk?”

“Heck yeah, don’t you?”

“I try not to,” I answered. “What do you do?”

“Drive one of them big old equipment thingamajigees.”

“Even if you’re drunk?”

A stupid question if I had ever asked one.

“Course,” he answered.

“Aren’t you worried about hitting somebody?”

“Naw, they ain’t smart nuff to get outta my way, they deserves to get a splattered.”

“What about your bosses?”

“They’s pretty good bout gittin outta the way.”

“No, don’t they get upset if you’re drunk?”

“They’s always on that internet thing looking up pictures of naked womens,” he answered.

I hoped my pension plan had not invested any of my retirement savings in that corporation.

“Watch this,” Squiggy ordered. “Pyscho! Beer!”

Psycho reached his monstrous head into the sack and came out with a beer bottle. She handed it to Squiggy and got a kiss in return. That seemed to make her day.

“That’s good,” I said. “Does she wipe for you too?”

“Naw, I do that myself,” he answered, way too serious. “Here ya go, girl.”

Squiggy dug under his seat through the mounds of fast food wrappers and other junk until he found a plastic bowl. He opened the beer and poured some in it. Squiggy set it next to Psycho and she went to town.

“She likes the beer,” Squiggy mentioned.

I could see that. Yep, just what we needed, a drunken pit bull that obviously did not care for me.
We cruised around town for a little while. Luckily the tinted windows obscured my identity. He kept up a running commentary on practically every white person we saw. So-and-so is cheating on their wife while some other guy got fired for stealing. It was more than I really wanted to know.

“How do you know so much?” I asked.

“That’s what I do,” he answered. I watched him for a few seconds, wondering how he decides how to swallow beer without the tobacco juice and spit without losing the beer. A person would have to be far more intelligent than I am to figure that out.

I decided to test his knowledge of the local populace.

“You know about some guy named Trevor Adams?” I asked.

He smiled, revealing teeth that were in drastic need of dental care, then told me more than I could imagine.

Chapter 10