Venus Sings the Blues by Buck Storm

Author:Buck Storm
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kregel Publications
Published: 2022-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

BONES WAS WIND. SKY. A shooting star. He put his arms out, convinced he would fly if Jimmy went any faster. A NASA rocket straight up to the sun. Go out in a blaze.

And Jimmy did go faster. The boom of the Harley Davidson’s pipes rattled the air, shook Bones’s spine. Tears streaked back along his cheeks. It was the greatest sensation of his life. They pulled in miles and highway lines. Blew past a pickup with a bunch of Native kids in the back. Dodged a big rattlesnake stretched out in the road. Raced a jackrabbit and left it in the dust.

Yeah, man. Bones was born for this. He was alive.

When Jimmy offered him a ride into town, he’d figured they’d take a direct route to the auto parts store, but they’d been riding a couple of hours now. They’d hit Paradise, looped around the town square—where they’d made an old lady cover her ears—then ridden around the mission and north out through the ranches and farms to open desert. That’s when Jimmy really opened her up.

Yeah, man. Rocket ships and shooting stars.

The wind was hot, the engine hotter against the inside of Bones’s legs. Jimmy didn’t mess around with lanes but rode the center line like he owned all the highways in the world. Up ahead, a gas station rose up out of the desert. Couple of pumps and a roll-up garage door with a little store next to it. Jimmy let off the gas with a great braaaap of the pipes and let the bike coast into the shade of an adobe lean-to overflowing with used tires. Bones climbed off and pulled the helmet from his sweat-dampened head.

“Man, that was awesome.”

“I could use something cold to drink. How about you?” Jimmy said.

“Cool. I thought we were just going into town.”

Jimmy strode toward the little store inside the station. “Did you? You wanna go back?”

“No way. I wanna ride.”

“I figured.”

The gas station building itself had been baked at 450 degrees for about eighty years. Peeling white paint with a faded Rex’s Garage painted above the roll-up door. Beneath that somebody had added Rexaco with a spray can. No asphalt or concrete on the ground, but decades of oil stains on the dirt around the pumps most likely kept the dust down. Jimmy went inside and came out a minute or two later with a couple of Dr Peppers. He handed one to Bones and stuck his own in the crook of his arm while he lit a cig. “Nice place.”

Bones stared at the man. “You serious?”

“Yeah, I’m serious. Why?”

“Beauty’s in the eye of the beholder, I guess.”

“To this beholder, it’s a nice place.”

Bones looked out at the million miles of empty desert spreading in all directions. “Whatever you say, man.”

Jimmy took a seat on a bench against the wall, stretched his legs out in front of him, and crossed his ankles. “So what’s with you and the boss?”

Bones stayed standing. “What do you mean?”

“You two don’t get along?”

“I don’t know.

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