Jane's Baby by Chris Bauer

Author:Chris Bauer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Intrigue Publishing
Published: 2018-10-10T16:00:00+00:00

NINETEEN

“You’re making me regret this, Owen.”

His attitude, his tantrums, his two-fisted assault of the van’s glove box. And the beer. Lone Star. Right up there with Schlitz, Pabst and Piels. Texas goat piss. And Owen with an open bottle of it while they coasted out of Little Rock in the van, him raising it for a gulp whenever he wasn’t pounding the dash.

“How…can they be losing…to the fucking Titans!”

Beer gulp, fist-pound.

It was Sunday, two-thirty p.m., with the Dallas Cowboys visiting the Tennessee Titans in Nashville, the game in the middle of the second quarter. They were now headed east, about to leave Arkansas and enter Tennessee. They’d make Blacksburg, Virginia by midnight. Owen had his phone plugged into the van’s dash, live-streaming the game from a Dallas affiliate.

Like most Philly guys, Judge’s two favorite pro football teams were the Eagles and any other team playing Dallas. Owen’s team was down by two touchdowns. For Judge, this was hilarious. For Owen, he was about to swallow his tongue. They were in Shearerville, Arkansas, just off I-40 on State Hwy 70, twenty minutes outside Memphis and the Tennessee border.

Gulp, fist pound. “Fucking fuckers…” A general comment directed at the Cowboys and the Titans both. Frustrated, Owen looked over his shoulder at the van’s cargo area again.

“You really need all this shit back here, Judge? I mean, Christ, chains, leashes, vests, flashlights, it makes you look like you’re into some really kinky shit. How about we get rid of some of it to reduce the weight? Maybe let this van clock in at something like, oh, I don’t know, over forty miles an hour?”

They were cruising a state highway in the south with a black man riding shotgun, and said black man was a midget in Rastafarian dreads drinking beer from an open container. The speed limit plus five mph was the most Judge was going to chance, considering where they were. “You know, you’re right, Owen. How about we do this?”

He steered onto the road’s shoulder, held a sleeping Maeby in place by her collar and jammed the brakes. The tires screeched and Owen’s seat belt nearly choked him. “A coupla things I don’t need in here are you and your fucking overnight bag.” He pressed the button for the locks and they clicked open. Judge nodded in the direction of the passenger door. “Get the fuck out.”

“Okay, okay. Fine, Judge, never mind, you made your point. I’ll shut up. Sorry.”

“And stop pounding my dashboard. You’re pissing off my dogs.”

The Cowboys were mounting a comeback. “Damn, Judge, now that’s what’s for dinner, Slick!” So again Judge asked himself, why let this loose popgun tag along on what was now a case with a larger profile? In Texas, Owen had some juice, but now that they were in another state, his stock had dropped.

An admission on Judge’s part: Owen was there for more than one reason. Judge saw him as an unedited version of himself; some of his inner demons personified. Plus maybe his behavior and small stature deflected some of the public focus from Judge’s Tourette’s.

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