01 Cimarron Rose by James Lee Burke

Author:James Lee Burke [Burke, James Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

BY THE TIME they reached the country club, Lucas’s hair was mushy with his own sweat; his tongue felt too large for his mouth; his hands had the coordination of skillets.

He saw the columned front porch of the country club go by the back window of Bunny’s Chevy, then the swimming pool that was built in the shape of a shamrock. The voices around him were like cacophony in a cave. Up ahead, Darl Vanzandt’s Ford and two other cars with kids inside them were parked in the shadows, under live-oak trees, just outside the flood lamps that lighted the terrace where people in formal dress were dancing to orchestra music. Bunny slowed the Chevy and turned in the seat and looked at Lucas.

“You gonna be sick?” he said.

But Lucas couldn’t answer.

Bunny hit the steering wheel with the flat of his fist. “Oh man, how’d I get in this?” he said.

Then Darl was at the window, his friends behind him. Their cigarettes sparked like fireflies in the darkness. One of them carried a lidded bucket by the bail.

“How much acid you give him?” the boy with the bucket said.

“I didn’t give him nothing,” Bunny said.

“Pull him out,” Darl said.

“Let it slide, Darl. He’s really fried,” Bunny said.

“Smothers is a geek. So he gets what geeks got coming,” Darl said.

“Come on, think about it. Your old man’s gonna shit a bowling ball,” Bunny said.

“Here’s twenty dollars. Go down to San Antone and get a blow job. You’ll feel better,” Darl said. He was leaning on the window jamb now. He touched the stiffened edges of two ten-dollar bills against Bunny’s jawbone.

Bunny pushed his hand away.

“I ain’t gonna do this,” he said.

“Pretty fucking late, Bunny,” the boy with the bucket said. Then he dropped his voice into a deep range and said, “I ain’t gonna do this. I got my fucking standards.”

“You know what it’s like to pull a two-by-four out of your ass?” Bunny said.

“So you don’t have to help. Pop the trunk,” Darl said.

Two of Darl’s friends lifted Lucas by his arms out of the backseat and held him between them like a crucified man. Bunny breathed loudly through his nose, then pulled a latch under the dash. Darl reached into the trunk, took out Lucas’s twelve-string guitar and case by the handle, and slammed the lid.

“Thanks for hauling the freight. No hard feelings. You got no beef with him. I do,” Darl said.

Bunny started his car and began backing off the grass toward the drive. He had cut his headlights, but in silhouette he could see Darl and his friends pulling off Lucas’s clothes, like medieval grave robbers stripping a corpse. The girl in the front seat with Bunny clicked on the radio, increased the volume, and began putting on fresh makeup.

“He buys you blow jobs? That’s disgusting,” she said.

“Act like your brain stem ain’t a stump,” he said, then in his frustration clenched the steering wheel so tightly his palms burned.

“Let’s go back to the drive-in. I got to pee,” a girl in the backseat said.

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