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“Come to think of it, he cut my hair once or twice, and I sort of avoided him after that. He tended to poke you with the scissors.”

  “I’ll tell you this,” I said. “If I had something that the guy owning that shoe printed wanted, I might be inclined to give it to him. Help him carry it out to the car, give him a blow job, wipe his ass, give his car a push uphill.”

  “That big, huh?”

  “No. I just made all this shit up for your amusement.”

  Leonard sighed. “Sorry. I’m beginning to think I was born under a bad sign. . . . Do you think Raul’s dead?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe that’s the news the cops got. Maybe to them it’s looking like you did him in too. I’m not saying he’s dead, I’m just saying if he is, it’ll compound things.”

  “Jesus, I hope he’s all right. And not just for my sake.”

  “We’re jumping a lot of ditches here for no reason, Leonard. We don’t know anything. Not really. Charlie gave me the impression something was up, though, but I think now it was just the fact they were going to search here and he figured you might be here. He’s trying to help. Guess it was good I called him when I did.”

  “Long as we’re speculating, though, I just thought of something. What if the bikers didn’t know Horse Dick was gay?”

  “Who says they care?” I said.

  “I’ll stand by it for the moment. Considering most people aren’t that liberal about homosexuality, and these guys are about as open-minded as a scorpion. It’s a fuckin’ Dixie No Nigger Bar, for Christ sakes. You think it’s No Niggers But Queers Okay?”

  “You never know.”

  “Yeah, well, let’s place bets. So if the bikers first heard about Horse Dick being gay from me when I knocked knots on his head and uttered my classic line about his fuckin’ around with my boyfriend, could be they got rid of him themselves. They figured I’d get the blame, and that way they could kill two birds—or two fags, if you will—with one shotgun blast.”

  “That’s a possibility, I guess, but that doesn’t explain your house being tossed. My guess is the incidents may not have anything to do with one another. They just unfortunately came together at the same time.”

  “Maybe,” Leonard said. “Now what?”

  “I think you ought to continue hiding out in the woods. I’ve got a pup tent, some camping gear, and I suggest we put it together and you use it. I’ll find you at the Robin Hood tree when I get some word, or I need you.”

  The Robin Hood tree was a massive oak. It reminded Leonard and me of the great oak in the Robin Hood tales, therefore its nickname. It was near my place, on property of Leonard’s, and it was out back of the house he still owned, but had boarded up until he finished repairing and selling the house he had inherited from his uncle. A chore that had turned into one of the labors of Hercules.

  “I’m going to be at the hospital tonight and tomorrow night,” I said. “I don’t know I can slip out during the day or not. I do, I’m going to wind up owing so much money I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to pay, and still won’t be able to.”

  We put the gear together, along with the two comic books I’d bought, and Leonard took the stuff and melted into the woods. I’d have to get him a suit of Lincoln green. For that matter, I had a green suit I had bought at J. C. Penney’s. I could loan it to him. Make him one of those little Robin Hood hats out of green construction paper, rob a tail feather from a chicken, stick it in the hat. I could call him Little Leonard.

  * * *

  When I had a few things packed, I took some cold medicine and drove into town on my way to the hospital. The sky was a gigantic charcoal smear backgrounded by a dying burst of red sunlight, bright and jagged as if God’s heart had exploded. Bats filtered about, radaring for bugs.

  I drove over to a burger joint and had a burger, thought about everything that had been going on, then thought about nothing. By the time I arrived at the hospital God’s heart had bled out, and all that was left was a dark stain, like blood drying on a brick.

  I was uncertain what I was supposed to do at the hospital, so I parked and went right up to my room. My name was still written on the paper in the slot outside the door.

  I peeked inside. It was dark in there. The bed next to where I had slept was still empty. My bed, where I had had such joyous moments watching pigeons, was also empty.

  I turned on the light, pulled back the closet door, and looked in there. My gown was dangling from a hanger. At least I assumed it was my gown. Same style. Same color. Plenty of room for my ass to hang out. I knew for a fact I’d had one just like it.

  I looked at my watch. I was a half hour early. I sat in the visitor’s chair beside the bed and wished I’d gone home first to get something to read. I looked out the window. It was dark, but I could make out the pigeon poop on the sill, the stuff I’d named Leonard.

  I turned on the TV and watched a news program.

  About eight-twenty Doc Sylvan came in. “Thanks for showing up. It’s nice of you. You know, I didn’t think you would. If you hadn’t, I’d have made sure the insurance didn’t cover shit.”

  I clicked the TV off. “I’m sorry, Doc. I wasn’t trying to give anyone a hard time. I really did have an emergency. I just can’t talk about it.”

  Doc Sylvan eyed me. “Yeah . . . Well, all right. Gown’s in the closet. Suit up.”

  He went out and shut the door. I put on the gown and stuffed my clothes in the closet. Sylvan came back after a while. I had crawled into bed and had the covers around my neck.

  “You stay here tonight and tomorrow night,” Sylvan said, “and we’ll be through with this insurance foolishness. You do that, I can make the insurance work. I think. You come to my office for the remaining shots.”

  “We could have done that in the first place.”

  “Insurance, Hap. Keep that in mind. Just keep telling yourself. Insurance. I’m tired of having to sound like a broken record.”

  “Yes, Yoda.”

  “You look like shit.”

  “I got a cold. I picked it up here.”

  “I don’t doubt that. I hate coming to the goddamn hospital to examine patients. They always give me something.”

  “You could let them die.”

  “Believe me, there’s some I wish would.”

  “My God, Doc, isn’t that against that Hippocratic oath?”

  “Hippocrates never had to deal with some of the assholes I deal with. He did, he’d have shoved that oath up their ass.”

  “Are you indicating any patient in particular?”

  “Could be,” Sylvan said. “Could be.”

  Sylvan got his stethoscope and checked me over. He used a tongue depressor on me. He clucked and clicked. “Upper respiratory. Bit of a sore throat. I’ll have them check you out. Give you something for the symptoms.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Hey, what else can I do for my favorite patient?”

  “Let me see . . .”

  “Hap, get out of this bed before day after tomorrow, I’ll kill you.”

  “Any news on the squirrel’s head?”

  “Other than the fact there are tire marks on it, not much. It’ll be a while before we hear. They got boxes of heads at the lab in Austin. We’ve had several rabid dogs and raccoons since you came into the office. Goddamn woods are full of them this year. It’s epidemic. I’m leavin’.”

  “Will you tuck me in before you go?”

  Sylvan grunted and left. I closed my eyes, was surprised to discover that so early into the night I was sleepy. I suppose it was the cold, or the medicine I had taken before I left the house. Don’t take cold medicine and drive. I wasn’t driving. I couldn’t quite figure out what it was I was doing. I drifted off.

  I came awake and checked my watch about eleven P.M. I was surprised. I felt as if I had been asleep for only moments. I used the bed-lift button, raised my back, turned the TV on again.

  The entire television industry hadn’t revamped itself during my nap. Every
thing that was on the standard channels sucked the big ole donkey dick. I tried for some of the specialty channels. No luck. Didn’t have any. You’d think if you had to eat the food in the hospital, least they could do was get cable.

  I turned off the television and sat in the dark. About fifteen minutes later Brett showed up pushing a metal table on wheels. She turned on the light beside my bed. She lifted a brown paper bag off the metal table. She smiled at me. God, I liked that smile.

  “Well,” she said. “I heard you ran off.”

  “Ssssshhhhhh,” I said. “Doc Sylvan and I like to think of it as a bit of a sabbatical.”

  “Since you’re back, I figured you’d be needing this.”

  She opened the brown paper bag, took out the copy of Boobs and Butts Charlie had given me, laid it on the nightstand beside my bed.

  “One thing I like to see in a man,” she said, “is attention to culture.”

  “That’s not really mine.”

  “It was in the nightstand drawer here.”

  “Yes, but Charlie, a friend of mine, gave it to me.”

  “I see. Well, just so you’ll stay occupied, I brought you a little something.”

  She reached back into the bag. She brought out a Playboy magazine and a Penthouse. “I thought you might as well move up to the classics. Though I’m afraid both of these have words in them.”

  “Actually, Boobs and Butts is very precise. Very modern. They have words. It’s just minimalist. They choose what they have to say wisely and place the words under the photographs.”

  “Yes. I read a few of those words. Did you know they misspelled pussy? They used one s.”

  “No. I’ll have to drop them a line.”

  “Let’s check the vital signs.”

  She did the general routine, pronounced me a bit feverish.

  “Doctor’s notes say you have a bit of a cold,” she said.

  “I think I have more than a bit. In fact, when you’re in the room I think I gain a couple of degrees on the thermometer.”

  “Is that a compliment, Hap Collins?”

  “I hope so.”

  She took a water pitcher from the table, poured me a plastic cup of water, gave me a couple of pills. I swallowed them. She said. “Those have plenty of saltpeter in them.”

  “That’s a good idea,” I said. “In fact, maybe you could arrange for me to have an ongoing prescription.”

  “I might be back later,” Brett said. “You’re not asleep, perhaps I can sit by the bed and read you the captions from the Boobs and Butts.”

  “I wouldn’t sit too close.”

  “Sleep tight, Hap Collins.”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “Wait. What’s your last name? I never caught it.”

  “I never gave it. It’s Sawyer. Brett Sawyer. I’m in the phone book. I don’t have an answering machine. I don’t fuck on the first date, and some men find me forward.”

  “I can’t imagine that.”

  “That I don’t fuck on the first date?”

  “That some men find you forward. Hey, I’m gonna be busy some when I get out of here, but you think after that I could give you a call?”

  “I’ve done everything but stick my butt in your face,” she said, “so I’ll leave some of the work to you. I’m in the phone book.”

  She gave me that dazzling smile and went away. I lay for a while hoping the cold medicine she had given me would put me to sleep quickly and that it really did have saltpeter in it.

  It didn’t. I turned off the light and lay there in the dark and looked at my dick making a pup tent of the blanket. I experienced all sorts of unclean thoughts. I certainly hoped Jesus wasn’t in the room with me right then. In fact, I might even have shocked the devil.

  After a while the pup tent folded, and I fell asleep. If Brett came back, I never knew it. For the first time in a long time, the hospital let me sleep through the night.

  10

  After lunch the next day, Charlie came by. He was wearing a poorly cut brown suit with a light brown shirt and a dark brown tie. He had on tennis shoes, white socks, and his porkpie hat.

  “When do you get out of this pit?” he asked.

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  “Then maybe I ought not get you too excited before then.”

  “My God, are you fixing to strip?”

  “Be the best thing you’ve ever seen, but no. You got to tell Leonard to come in.”

  “We been over that,” I said.

  “No. You got to have him come in. Way it looks now, he’s in the clear.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Bikers at the bar. They all called Leonard a mean nigger and numerous names so foul that if I was to air them politically correct liberals would start to fall out the sky clutchin’ their hearts, and the fuckin’ super-conservatives would like it too much.”

  “Get on with the meat.”

  “They all agree he was too busy running from them, tryin’ to hide, to have killed McNee, who they call Horse.”

  “Yeah, I know that.”

  “That they call him Horse?”

  “That he’s called Horse and that his real name is McNee. But what about Leonard?”

  “Leonard wouldn’t have had time to whack anybody. It’s not like they’re tryin’ to give him an alibi, it’s just their stories give him one anyway.”

  “You wouldn’t pull me, would you? This isn’t some kind of trick?”

  “You tell Leonard to come in. He’ll end up owin’ a fine for shootin’ up the place, assault charges, maybe. Might have to buy the Blazing Wheel a new sign. He’ll have to answer a lot of questions, but in the end he won’t have to hide out. We can say he was hiding from the bikers for fear of his life. Say he’s been in the woods all the time . . . Has he?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “All right, have it your way,” Charlie said. “But, way it looks, his head is off the chopping block.”

  “I’ll be goddamn.”

  “Yeah, me too. You have him at the station no later than tomorrow morning after you get out of here.”

  “It’ll be more like after lunch. Hospital has to process me out.”

  “So you knew where he was all along?”

  “Let’s just say I think I can get in touch with him.”

  “Yeah. Right. After lunch tomorrow. No later. Hear?”

  * * *

  It went pretty smooth, all things considered. Leonard didn’t get off scot-free. A court date was set, and it was certain he’d be paying a fine, and he wasn’t entirely out of the woods on being a suspect in the death of Horse Dick, but no one was really trying to push him hard in that direction. Not with the bikers actually giving him an alibi. He got processed and out of the cop shop almost quicker than I got out of the hospital, and he didn’t have to ride in a wheelchair out to the curb like I did.

  I’ve never really figured that. You go to the hospital, they check you out, no matter if you’re skipping rope and climbing the walls, they got to take you out in a wheelchair. It’s one of life’s little mysteries, like UFOs and the Loch Ness monster.

  The morning after Leonard was set free it was hot and bright, but there was a cool wind with it. We met at his house to clean up the mess there, but finally said to hell with it.

  I drove out to my house and he followed in the rented Chevy he was driving. We got cane poles and some fishing goods, walked through the woods to where the creek widened, sat there fishing for perch.

  “I just couldn’t face that mess today,” Leonard said. “Besides, it makes me think about Raul.”

  “The mess?”

  “No. The house, stupid.”

  “Any idea about the mess?” I asked.

  “I figure it was the bikers. They found out where I lived, went looking for me, didn’t find me, trashed the place. That fits in with you finding the motorcycle tire prints.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t know,” I said. “The bikers have been pretty candid about stuff. They didn’t admit to
that.”

  “They’ve only been candid when they could say what an asshole I was. And you know what, they’re right.”

  “I never doubted that. Thing is, that mess bothers me. I think you ought to seriously watch your ass for a while. Those footprints out there don’t belong to the tooth fairy.”

  “Yeah, all right,” Leonard said, but he didn’t sound too sincere. “You think Raul’s alive?”

  “I don’t know. Haven’t a clue. I got to say this. Seems to me he’d have shown up by now. I’m sure you’re aware with you in the clear he’s considered the prime suspect in the murder of Horse.”

  “I figured as much. They’re just replacing me with him. You know I can’t let that stand. Raul couldn’t murder anyone. . . . Shit, Hap. I love that kid. He’s a dip, but I love him.”

  We caught a couple of perch, put them in a can of water, sat and talked. Leonard told me about Raul, and how things had gone sour, and how the kid was wilder than he’d realized. It was a pretty standard story. I’d heard it before, but it had been men talking about their women. Love was love, however, and the problems didn’t seem to change much, even if the lover was of the same sex, except there was a lot more fucking. Gay or not, men are men, and men seriously love to fuck, and you can write that down in your little black book, tear out the page, crumple it up, and smoke it.

  When Leonard finished telling me his woes, I told him about Brett. Then we talked about Hanson, and how we had to go see him and watch him do his coma.

  Next Leonard told me how he had gotten a tick on his balls while staying in the woods. He said he still had it. He couldn’t get it off.

  “It’s in a hard-for-me-to-reach place,” he said. “Maybe you could pull it off for me.”

  “Not on your life. I’m a pretty good shot, though. I could shoot it off.”

  “I’m serious here. This is a problem.”

  “Use a match. You light it, blow it out, then stick the hot end against the tick’s butt, and he’ll back out.”

  “You’ve done this?”

  “No, but I’ve heard about it.”

  “You’ve had ticks on your nuts?”

  “Yep.”

  “But you didn’t try this method?”

  “Nope.”