Page 46 of Making His Bones

“Yaaargh!” he shouted.

Clawing and pulling, hand over fist I hauled the jethro toward me. He rattled his leg, but I think he was so surprised to be on the floor he didn’t protest much, and I got in a few good wallops to his groin, his gut. His eyes bulged and his lips pursed like Barney on The Simpsons, so I laid on a few more.

It was satisfying. I was at least bruising some of his innards.

The door exploded with a bang.

Assuming Sal had squeezed his trigger, everyone came to a standstill, as still as a photograph. DeFreeze busted in, larger than life as he loomed above us with his piece in his holster and his stupid fucking sheriff patch on his sleeve.

“Dave!” cried Upton hoarsely. “Thank God you’re here! This guy was assaulting me, on top of everything else.”

But Dave thought otherwise. Taking his hand off his piece, he looked me straight in the eyes. “Untamed and Unchained!” he yelled. “It’s you!”

“It’s me,” I admitted, not knowing whether that was a good or bad thing.

Upton sputtered, pointing at me. “First he trespasses in his fucking winged suit, then he assaults me!”

I rubbed my face with my hand. “He started it. I was just flying overhead. I would’ve continued on my merry way if he hadn’t of shot me.”

Upton moved his forefinger to point at Sal. “He shot him.”

Sal pointed at his own chest. “Yo?”

DeFreeze lifted a hand out but it was me he helped to stand. Nobody moved to help Upton.

“I see you’re injured,” DeFreeze said to me.

Every bone in my body cried out in agony as I stood. I felt like a skeleton dipped in acid. “Yes, sir. This guy here shot me while I was in my wingsuit, and the holes in the fabric caused me to lose lift, and I crashed way before I was supposed to land. Not to mention, the holes in my ribs and wrist. My wingsuit’s way back there.”

DeFreeze said, “I got to apologize for this, Gray. Sometimes my local yokel buddy here gets carried away. He just don’t like strangers on his land.”

“But I wasn’t on his land,” I said, brushing my khakis off arrogantly. “I could care less about his land. He only owns the usable air space above this trailer, which is like fifty feet. The rest is public property.”

I could tell DeFreeze had never come up against this question before. “I got to apologize. You was probably just practicing for your show, right?”

“Right,” I lied.

DeFreeze waved his hat toward the door behind him. “Well, then. Let’s just put this all in the rearview, as you bikers like to say.”

“He’s a biker?” Upton said from the floor.

“Yeah, sure!” DeFreeze said grandly, as though he were one of us, or at least a hanger on. “He probably don’t wear his cut because he had to wear that suit, right, Gray?”

“Exactly right. But I’d like to say, Sheriff DeFreeze, that this man has grossly inconvenienced me, kidnaped me, shot me, held me hostage, ruined my wingsuit, and I’d like to see some justice done.” I didn’t really. I wanted to just get the fuck out of there and have Maddy or Gudrun look at my gunshot wounds. Let the Bare Bones take care of justice.

“Well, now,” DeFreeze started to wally, so I bypassed him at the door and took the couple steps down.

Air. Sure it was ninety degrees, but it was real air. I took several deep lungsful of it. Each breath felt like my rib was stabbing my liver.

“What the fuck is going on?” came the voice of a crotchety old man.

God fucking dammit. Every single geezer from the Muppet balcony was going to be descending on me if I didn’t get the fuck out of there. But which way? Should I let DeFreeze drive me? Where would he drop me off? How would I get my wingsuit? I’d left my cellphone with Knoxie. Nowadays who the fuck knew anyone’s phone number? How would I call Knoxie?

An extremely mummified guy with the same amount of hair on his neck as on his head was cripping very spryly toward me. Aha. This was the preacher, the father of Upton, the creeper running Barnyard Productions. Using up the Mexican or Central American kids, sticking foreign objects in them, maybe even “acting” in the films to save money.

DeFreeze knew that I knew. But I didn’t want Bud Pitchfork to know that I knew. Not yet. I couldn’t go cowboy, off the grid, without reaching out to my club first. My pants were around my ankles at the moment. Now I had to deal with this old tardbilly who was doing to those kids what had been done to me, only not paying them, then killing them.

“Everything is under control,” I said tiredly, walking toward DeFreeze’s patrol truck.