Mountain Madness. Jimmy Dale Taylor
Glenn. “Please, put the beer down.”
He and Terrie were both looking guilty as they tucked their beer cans out of sight. Glenn just laughed and raised his in a salute as the patrolman approached. The two cars passed, and Jimmy tried to hide in his seat.
A mile or so more and Jimmy was squirming. He felt as though his bladder would burst. “Man, I gotta go,” he said. “I gotta go bad. Find a place and let’s stop.”
Glenn whooped it up. “There’s a tree,” he said. “That oughta make a good bathroom. You can go behind that tree.”
“Man, it’s not a good enough tree. It’s too little. Find us a place. I bet Terrie has to go, too.”
When they pulled into the Hooper Springs Wayside Park, Jimmy jumped out and made an awkward dash to the rest room, hoping he wouldn’t spot his britches. He barely made it inside without doing so. As he was going out, Glenn was coming in. “Can’t you hold your water?” Glenn asked.
“I can hold it as well as most. It’s been a long time between rest stops. Besides, you went when we last stopped and I didn’t. Man, what’s this crap about Slim and Virginia and a ranch and a singing group? First time I’ve heard anything about that.” “Just because you haven’t heard don’t mean they’re not there,” Glenn said as he went inside.
Terrie returned to the car soon after Jimmy and he let her in the back seat. “Are you afraid of me?” she asked.
“No. Why?”
“I don’t know. You just seem to wish I wasn’t here. Is that what you wish?”
“It’s nothing personal. I’m just wanting to go to Seattle.”
“What’s in Seattle? A girlfriend?”
Jimmy was saved having to answer when Glenn returned. His reasons for wanting to go to Seattle were becoming more and more difficult for him to define.
When they were all three back in the car, Glenn reached under the seat and pulled out a deck of cards. “Do you play poker?” he asked Terrie.
“Of course.” She plucked a cigarette from her pack and Jimmy flicked his lighter. She blew smoke and added, “I know how to play.”
“Count us out some matches, John. We don’t want to take Terrie’s money. We got us a couple of hundred apiece so we don’t need to do that. Of course it would be a lot more exciting to play strip poker.”
“We’ll play for matches,” she said.
“Yeah, okay. Dealer’s choice. Five card stud is my game. I’m giving you fair warning now though. There’s been many the time when I’ve made my living playing poker. Got my training in Las Vegas. I can beat those guys any day, no problem.”
Jimmy felt certain that Jay’s ramblings were only for Terrie’s benefit. Nobody beat Las Vegas consistently. If they could they wouldn’t have to drive stolen cars.
He counted out ten matches for each of them. As Jay was shuffling, Jimmy opened another can of beer. Damn, but he was getting hungry. It had been a long time since the candy bar and even longer since breakfast. And Jay hadn’t eaten a thing all day. Just drank beer and wine.
Why were they here instead of on the road heading north? he wondered. They would never get to Seattle and the reason was obvious. Because Jay was willing to chase anything female.
Glenn saw John as a challenge for Terrie’s attention. He was dealing and talking. “You like my car?” he asked Terrie. When she didn’t respond, he plowed ahead. Time to take his new friend down a notch or two.
“Old John here, me and him had us a new Riviera but he wrecked the damned thing. Said it was the other man’s fault. It’s always the other man’s fault, ain’t it? You ever hear of anybody having a wreck when they would admit it was their fault?”
Jimmy studied a pair of queens. He’d never owned a Riviera in his life. Didn’t even know what they looked like. Wasn’t even sure who made them.
“After John wrecked our Riviera, we had to have some wheels, didn’t we? You know, we didn’t have a dime’s worth of insurance. So it was left up to old Jay here to find us transportation. That’s easy. I ain’t never had to worry about something to drive. Sometimes I buy ‘em, sometimes I don’t. This one I helped myself to. You know what I mean?”
“Well, you know, I suppose you mean this is a stolen car.” She looked bothered by the news, but said nothing further. Soon she would be in Sacramento and then these two men could go wherever they wanted to go.
Glenn laughed. “You’re a quick learner. Ain’t she a quick learner, John? Old John here stole it.”
“Like hell I did,” Jimmy replied.
“How about that, aces and kings,” Glenn said. “You gotta give me a match apiece. My luck holds, we’ll be playing for more than matches.”
Glenn kept the deal. As he shuffled the cards, he said, “I like to give presents to my girls. Now I’ll have you know I ain’t no tightwad. All I ask is if we split up they give the present back. That ain’t asking too much, is it?”
“Probably not.” Terrie frowned.
“I was in Sacramento not long ago. Now I’m going back. For you I will. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go. You sure that’s what you want?”
Jay was getting drunk. The more he drank the more he talked, and the more he talked the less sense he made.
“That’s where I’m going,” she said.
“We oughta go down there to the airport, park the car, borrow us a plane, and fly down. Old John here is one hell of a pilot.”
Jimmy knew then that the man had lost what little sense he’d ever had. Given a choice, he would walk almost anywhere before he would fly. The only time he could remember being really scared was when he’d been in an airplane.
“Let’s all have a cigarette and another beer,” Glenn said. “I had me a girl in San Francisco and I gave her a pair of white go-go boots. You know the kind I mean. Pretty as a painting. The boots, not the girl. And expensive, too. The girl and the boots. Both were high dollar. We split and she wouldn’t give them back. Now I ask you, is that fair?”
When Terrie didn’t respond, Glenn said, “Reason old John’s so quiet is, his heart’s in Seattle. He’s got him a girlfriend there. Poor old John. He didn’t much more than get out of the Navy when this girl, the one he was so crazy about, was in a car wreck. About the time John was wrecking our Riviera in California, his girl was gettin’ herself killed up in Seattle. If that ain’t a coincidence I don’t know what is.
“That all happened a few weeks back,” Glenn went on. “Now you know the reason old John’s so sad. He’s kind of ignoring you because his heart is still with her.”
Terrie must have felt sorry for John. As she looked at her pair of jacks, she asked, “Were you in Vietnam?”
“Close by,” Jimmy said. “It was on a boat. We were right offshore.”
What was Jay talking about? He really was nuts.
Terrie won the hand with her pair of jacks. Beer cans and an empty wine bottle were tossed out of the car. The doors were open and the dome light was on. While Jay was shuffling, she studied both men. Although Jay had explained why John had not made a pass at her, the older man was doing just that. Well, Jimmy thought, she could take care of herself.
“Are you part Indian?” she asked Jimmy.
“I’m a full blood Cherokee,” he said. Now why had he told her that? He wasn’t full blood. Less than half.
Jay was old. Not as old as the pervert who’d propositioned Terrie earlier in the day, but he had to be past forty. His brown hair was thin and receding; he combed it straight back. His small