The Bighead Read Free Page B

haven’t met the right guy yet,” she slipped in
instead.
    “ Shit.” Jerrica, for the
first time now, looked over at Charity, and cast a big, bright
smile. “Maybe there isn’t any such thing as the right man. But do
you think I give a shit?”
    They both laughed, then, as their hair
flurried over the car’s open top.
    If anything, it looked like a
beautiful day.
     
     
    (III)
     
    “ What a fucked up day,”
Balls said.
    “ Looks all right ta me,”
Dicky Caudill replied at the wheel. They was Dicky’s wheels,
and nice ones at
that: a a jet-black, 10-coat-lacquered ’69 El Camino, with a
tricked cam and a souped 427. Rock-crusher trans, a Hurst shifter,
Edelbrock manifold, oh, yeah, an’ open Thorley headers an’
chambered exhaust too. Took Dicky years to get it fixed back up nice,
an’ lookin’ at it now, you think it’d just been droved off the
showroom floor. Had a long bench seat with shiny ’polstery, not
buckets, which were fine ’cos—well, sometimes they had passengers.
And the Camino was fast, see, did a quarter mile in mid-elevens,
and those 450-plus-horses pumpin’ outa that big block gave ’er a
top end’a one-seventy easy. They’d out-runned plenty’a police cars
in their time, and once even a State Police Pursuit Car out on the
Route. Blowed his fuckin’ doors right off!
    “ Yeah, well. Hail.
Ever-day’s a fucked-up day ya ask me.”
    “ Whuh—why’s that
Balls?”
    “ I likes the nights.” Balls
took a sip’a shine, then, an’ gazed out the passenger winder, as if
reflectin’ peaceful things. It was late afternoon now, an’ they was
just on their ways back from run up’n the north ridge just over the
line past Big Stone Gap. “Ya knows, Dicky,” he stated, “the way
I’se see it, we ain’t got it too bad. Yessir, we gots ourselfs a
pretty dandy life.”
    Dicky down-shifted the Hurst ’round
the next bend’a Tick Neck Road, headin’ up fer Eads Hills. “I say,
you’re right ’bout that Balls, quite right,” surprised that his
best ruckin’ pal’d make a observation’a gratitude. “Coulds be a lot
worse, ya know, an’ we’se got a lot ta be grateful fer, what with
so many folks starvin’ in the world an’ dyin’ of genercide, an’ all
them poor folks livin’ in ghettos an all.”
    “ Aw, fuck them, Dicky,” Balls winced.
“Hail. That ain’t’s what I’m talkin’ about. I’se could give a
booger ’bout a bunch’a buck porch monkeys in welfare ghettos, er
folks starvin’ an’ dyin’ in wars an’ all that. Let ’em starve, let
’em die, I say. They ain’t no good fer the proper world noways.
What I’se talkin’ ’bout is our lives, and the ways things are fer us. ”
    Dicky didn’t quite foller now. Well,
maybe he sorta did, ’cos Lord knew Tritt Balls Conner had some
pretty fierce ideas ’bout things. “Oh, yeah, I’se guess you mean
that we’se gots a lot ta be grateful fer, ’bout this fine life God
has given us.”
    “ Aw, no, Dicky,” Balls
winced again. “That ain’t what I’se talkin’ ’bout neither. What God
ever do fer us anyways?”
    “ Well—” Dicky paused to
thumb a booger. “He’s gave us this fine life, didn’t
He?”
    “ Aw, He ain’t given us
nothin’ worth more’n’ two squirts’a piss out a dead dog’s dick,
Dicky! Shee-it, you don’t know nothin’. You don’t hear a word I’se
say.”
    Dicky’s brow ticked a bit, in
confusion, as he took a slight swig off his own jar.
“Then—then…what’cha mean, Balls?”
    “ What I’se mean, Dicky-Boy,
is we’se got ourselfs a fine an’ dandy life—not on account’a God
but on account’a us. Hail. Ever-thing we’se got, we’se made on our
owns.”
    “ Uh…oh. Yeah,” Dicky agreed
and clammed up. He didn’t wanna get Balls goin’ on one’a his rants,
’cos he’d heard ’em too many times. So’s Dicky just sat back an’
drove and kept quiet. Tritt “Balls” Conner and Dicky Caudill were
local boys, both growed up just