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“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Galen shouts.
Billy has a sudden confused wish that his mother would just drive away and leave them, that she would go and be safe. But she stops, puts the Buick in park, and gets out, holding down the hem of her dress with the heel of her palm.
“Easy-peasy-Japaneezy!” Galen cries. “Back on the road and good as new! Only we’ve still got a little problem. Don’t we, Pete?”
“Sure do,” Pete says. “Flat tire on our truck and no spare. Picked up a nail when we druv up there, I guess.” He puffs out his stubbled cheeks, now shiny with sweat, and makes a flat-tire sound: Pwsshhh! He put his bag down to push, but now he picks it up. And unzips it.
“Damn,” Frank says. “No spare, huh?”
“Don’t that suck?” Galen says.
“What were you doing up there?” Corinne asks. She’s left the Buick running, the door open. She looks at her husband, who’s smiling his big banker’s smile, then at her two children. Her girl looks okay, but Billy’s face is white as wax.
“Campin,” Pete says. His hand has disappeared into his bag that isn’t a bowling bag.
“Huh,” Frank says. “That’s…”
He doesn’t finish, maybe doesn’t know how, and no one seems to know how to start the conversation going again. Birds sing in the trees. Crickets rub their reedy legs in the high weeds, which is the universe they know. The seven people stand in a loose circle behind the idling Buick. Frank and Corinne exchange a look that asks what’s going on here?
Granpop knows. He saw men like these in Vietnam. Scavengers and skedaddlers. One got stood up against a board fence and was shot by one of his own men after the Tet Offensive wound down, a clusterfuck the grandchildren he’s too old to have will probably never read about in their history books.
Frank, meanwhile, jerks to life like a wind-up toy. His your-loan-is-approved smile reappears. He takes his wallet from his back pocket. “I wish we could take you to a garage or something, but I’ve got a full car, as you see—”
“Your missus could sit on my lap,” Pete says, and waggles his eyebrows.
Frank chooses to ignore this. “But tell you what, we’ll stop and send someone back first place we see. In the meantime, how does ten apiece sound? For helping us out.”
He opens the wallet. Very gently, Galen plucks it from his hand. Frank doesn’t try to stop him. He just stares at his hands, wide-eyed, as if the wallet is still there. As if he can still feel its weight but now it’s invisible.
“Why don’t I just take all of it?” Galen says.
“Give that back!” Corinne says. She feels Mary’s hand creep into hers and she folds her own fingers over it. “That’s not yours!”
“Is now.” His voice is as gentle as the hand that took the wallet. “Let’s see what we got here.”
He opens it. Frank takes a step forward. Pete takes his hand out of his not-a-bowling-bag. There’s a revolver in it. Looks like a .38 to Granpop.
“Stand back, Frankie-Wankie,” Pete says. “We’re doing business here.”
Galen removes a small sheaf of bills from the wallet. He folds them over, puts them in the pocket of his jeans, then tosses the wallet to Pete, who puts it in the bag. “Gramps, let’s have yours.”
“Outlaws,” Granpop says. “That’s what you are.”
“That’s right,” Galen agrees in his gentle voice, “and if you don’t want me to go upside this boy’s head, give me your wallet.”
That does it for Billy; his bladder lets go and his crotch gets warm. He starts to cry, partly out of shame and partly from fear.
Granpop digs his old scarred Lord Buxton from the front left pocket of his baggy pants and hands it over. It’s bulging, but mostly with cards, photos, and receipts going back five or more years. Galen pulls out a twenty and a few ones, stuffs them in his pocket, and tosses the Lord Buxton to Pete. Into the bag it goes.
“Ought to clean it out once in a while, Grampy,” Galen says. “That’s one slutty billfold.”
“Says the man who looks like he warshed his hair last Thanksgiving,” Granpop says, and quick as a snake striking out of a bush, Galen slaps him across the face. Mary bursts into tears and puts her face against her mother’s hip.
“Stop that!” Frank says, as if the thing is not already done and his father bleeding from lip and nostril. Then, in the same breath: “Shut up, Dad!”
“I don’t let folks sass me,” Galen says, “not even old men. Old men should especially know better. Now Corinne. Let’s get your purse out of the car. Your little girl can come with us.” He takes Mary by the arm, the pads of his fingers sinking into her scant flesh.
“Let her alone,” Corinne says.
