The fish we caught were mostly small, but now and again we’d catch something a little bigger. We found that a way to prepare our catch for food was to gut them and cut them in strips and lay them on top of the bus for a day and a night, then turn them over and do it to the other side. We tied them up there with string, running cord from one window, across the top of the bus to the other window, tying the cords off on seats inside.
The sun didn’t exactly cook them, but it dried them some, and that was good enough. Trust me, when you’re really hungry, you get a whole lot less persnickety.
Slowly, we started making not only a home of that bus, but a pint-sized community.
The only thing that was really terrible was when we wanted to go to the bathroom, we had to climb out a window—which made the bus lean heavy to one side—and work our way to the roof and hang the old moon over the side.
This however, in the number two department, didn’t work so well, as there were dark streaks on the windows, as our loads didn’t go smooth into the water.
Finally, it was determined the best thing to do was to climb down on the hood of the bus, near the front, and let it fly. This way, you didn’t quite hit the water, stains on the front weren’t so noticeable, and the way the bus nodded itself forward into the waves, as it was wont to do, it washed off the old dookie, became a perpetual self-cleaning machine.
Compared to how things had been, it seemed downright hygienic.
When I could, I got out my little possessions, which were all in a backpack I’d found in one of the cars—you wouldn’t believe the stuff we found in cars—and inside I had paper and composition writing books I’d taken from different places, and in those I tried to keep a running diary of everything that had happened. I also had a Louis L’Amour book, Hellfire Trail, that I read from time to time, even if it was missing a few pages, and I had a copy of an old Ace Double science-fiction book. It had a cover on back and front and half of the book was a novel called Masters the Lamp, and the other half—you had to turn it over and open it from the other side—were short stories under the title A Harvest of Hoodwinks. The writer was some guy named Robert Lory, and it was pretty good, though a little less interesting when you had read it about twenty times. I liked the story “Rolling Robert” best, and I could tell it pretty good, and I did that for Reba quite a few times, and though she had read it from the book its ownself, she liked me telling it best, because I added what she liked to refer to as embellishments. I put fucking in it. She liked that. And if you’ve read “Rolling Robert,” dear nonexistent reader, you know what a goddamn accomplishment that is, putting in the fucking, I mean.
So our biggest battle was not food, or drinking water, though we did call a moratorium on pulling up water in our buckets any time close to when one of our esteemed crew did their number one or two.
So, all things considered, life was tolerable. But there was all that water.
Water. Water. Every goddamn where you looked.
Water.
And more water.
Did I mention the water?
Alas, our greatest opponent was ...
Boredom.
Boredom set in with a vengeance. We made up games. I Spy was out. That was easy. Uh, I spy ... Water.
Me and Reba, we spent more time together. I shared my two books with her. We talked about this, we talked about that, did some serious drilling and heaving anytime it was night, and sometimes when it was day, and it got so, after awhile, the other guys, the ones not getting any, started to eye Reba in a way that made me nervous.
I didn’t like the way they were looking at me either.
Of course, they looked at Grace that way too. But Grace, they’d have had to have come on to her fast and en masse, ‘cause she was one badass. All that karate, or tae kwon do, whatever it was. And Steve, he was her man, and he was a pretty tough nut too. So, it was me and Reba they eyeballed.
In time, Cory took to fucking James in the ass now and then. Then they’d reverse it. I don’t think it was a big homo thing, though I was hoping for that, so they could get their mind off what I was getting, and off who was giving it to me. But, you know, they were guys, and they had discovered there were holes they could use; did it out there right in front of everybody, just tapping the cork in the upturned jug. Course, out there and in front of everybody was pretty much how everything was, you know, being on the bus and all, but, man, they weren’t even trying to pretend they were hiding it.
One of them would lift his pale, shit-holed whiteness to the other, say, “Okay, it’s your turn, and don’t look at me, ‘cause that beard you got is throwing me off,” and then James would say to Cory, “Like fucking you in the ass and looking at that cutup head you shave with your pocket knife is any kind of goddamn turn-on,” and Cory, he says, “Close your goddamn eyes, and just imagine it’s your mother.”
Then there’d be a fight, fists flying this way and that, then they’d make up, pat each other on the shoulder, say something nice, and it was Ass Fuck City all over again. And later on, just to show there wasn’t any hard feelings, they’d hold each other’s nuts while the other stroked off.
It was kind of sweet, really.
But the sweetness only went so far, and they kept eyeing Reba. And Homer. He eyed her too, ‘cause he wasn’t even getting his ass end worked. They all eyed her so much she didn’t go back there with them, not even to get her food rations. I had to bring her food out, and I’ll tell you, I was not feeling too good going back there myself. I think they wanted to beat me up and eat me and keep Reba.
And maybe they liked me for what they wanted to like each other for. I had good long hair and I kept shaved with my pocketknife, so there was just the now and again shaving rash to remind them of my masculine features.
And, hell, I’m gonna say it. I’ve always kind of prided myself on the shape of my ass, so I’m sure it was a factor, that good ass of mine in rags, which, though not a fashion statement, did show, in spots, the meat.
Nervous times, dear hearts. Nervous times.
2
One time when it got dark and I was nervous from the way James and Cory were acting, and Steve and Grace had moved to the front, trying to stay out of it all, and Homer, he was practically oblivious, just stretched out on a seat, not knowing that at any moment he could be lunch or ass-poked.
I started telling stories from the Lory collection aloud. You know, like I was just telling Reba, but really loud, and pretty soon, they were listening. Cory and James, and then Homer, who sat up and listened with his mouth hung open. Up front, even Steve and Grace quit groping each other, as that was available to them on a regular basis, and took to listening. Reba sat by me, worked her arm around mine, leaned against my shoulder, and listened to me tell the stories from the book.
I think I told three of the tales, and I told long versions, adding in stuff not in the stories, but stuff I thought ought to have been there, though I went light on the sex stuff, no use heating up the natives, and those stories, way I told them, it held them.
I felt the way I figured cave dwellers must have felt. Felt like the Grand Poobah of the cave, the storyteller, sitting there by the fire (minus the fire, of course) talking into the night and everyone listening carefully, and gradually scooting closer, more engrossed in the stories by the moment. And that was a good feeling. Having a kind of control. Even if it was with a story. Because for a long time now I had felt totally out of control, a random leaf blown by a savage wind.
And I thought in the back of my mind, as I was telling these tales, here we are in a tale ourselves, an incredible adventure we didn’t want to be living, but we wanted to hear stories anyway, tales about others in strife and joy, but not our own strife and joy.
It was kind of weird, really.
But it worked.
And when I finished that night, everyone seemed calmer. Happier. Not so much aware of the ghostly drive-in that pursued us and floated around us and tried to become one with us.
&
nbsp; I felt I had taken some of the pressure off the teapot. And Reba, she was sweeter that night, and slower, and I felt respected, and when I came, I opened my eyes and saw over Reba’s shoulder the ghostly shades from the drive-in drift by. An old acquaintance, Crier, was looking my direction, not really seeing, just standing there ghost-like, looking at the spot where I lay on my back, Reba astride, and I felt a strange fondness for him. But in that moment of pleasure, I was quite fond of everyone and everything.
And when daylight came, it was a little better in there.
No one was singing tunes from The Sound of Music or giving me the high five, but it was better. Calmer.
Nights came, I told more of the short stories. And as the nights passed, I told the Lory novel. Then the Louis L’Amour novel. Then I began to make up things. I felt like Sheherazade from the Arabian Nights, and like her, I feared if I ever slowed down or bored them, I was dead meat.
Then, when I felt I was maybe out of tales or losing my energy to tell them, was hoping my ass could take a lot of loving and not be too unhappy with it, and, in fact good at it, so I would have something to barter besides being turned into jerked meat, a strange thing happened.
And considering our lives have been a list of strange things, this was a very strange thing indeed.
3
The day had turned out hot, and the water was still, and it hardly seemed we were flowing with the current at all. We were mostly becalmed. There was, of course, nothing but water to see, and the great bridge, clouded at bottom and top, but visible. It seemed no closer than it had seemed many days before.
I climbed on top of the bus for a bit, took in the sun with my shirt off, lying face down. But there was so much of old Sol, and I didn’t have any way to protect my skin from the rays, and the idea of some terrific sunburn without so much as a bottle of calamine lotion didn’t appeal to me, so I decided to climb inside and take in some shade.
As I turned over to go back in the bus, I saw Grace climb out, stark naked and brown as a walnut. She didn’t fear the sun and spent much time in it. And though the sun’s rays might be rough on her in the near future, right then she looked like a brown jungle savage, a regular Sheena. I watched her dive from the hood of the bus and swim about for awhile, then I climbed back through the window with my shirt.
It was a good thing too, and it was a good thing that Grace became bored and came back inside, because Cory pointed out an open window, yelled out, “Look there.”
We looked out the window where he was pointing.
The great fin again.
“That is one big fucking fish,” Cory said.
“There’s enough meat there to dry and feed us till this big old waterhole goes dry,” Homer said.
“Well, I don’t know about that,” Steve said, slipping an arm around Grace’s nude body, “but there’s a lot of meat there.”
“I’m gonna get my line and such,” Cory said, “get up there, see if I can catch it.”
“You’re gonna need more than a few twists of twine and a bone hook to hold that one,” I said.
“You can catch a big fish on small line if you know what you’re doing,” Cory said, snatching up his fishing gear. “And I got some fish guts for bait. They’ve been hitting good on that one.”
He climbed out the window with his gear, boosted up by James.
We could hear him on top of the bus, and we saw his line flash out in the direction of the fin.
The fin surfaced and the water rippled. Then everything was still again.
James said, “Shit, he’s done gone to the bottom.”
About that time we saw the string go taut, and Cory yelled, “Goddamn. String cut my hand.”
James stuck his head out the window. “Hold him, Cory.”
“Get up here and help, James.”
James climbed out the window, worked his way to the roof of the bus. He clumped around up there for awhile, then we heard them both cussing.
“Maybe they need more help,” Homer said.
“Damn,” Steve said, letting go of Grace, grabbing a seat back for balance. “That little cord and that fish are causing the whole damn bus to rock.”
“They need to forget that fish,” Grace said. “The thing could swamp us.”
About that time the twine snapped. James and Cory cussed and began to jump up and down on the roof.
“Stop that, you idiots,” Grace said.
I felt a tug at my sleeve.
I turned. It was Reba. She had her mouth wide open. She was clutching my sleeve with one hand and pointing at the water with the other.
The fish had surfaced.
And, to put it simply and honestly, it was a big motherfucker.
“It’s a catfish,” Homer said. “It’s like a blue cat, only a whole hell of a lot bigger.”
“It’s big as a Great White,” Grace said.
“It’s coming right for the bus,” Homer said, as if this might not be obvious to the rest of us.
The great head split, and the mouth was wide, maybe six feet, no teeth, but there were whiskery growths sticking out from its broad face, and its eyes were black and bottomless.
It dove, showing only its fin, which split the water like a razor slicing paper.
Then the fish hit the side of the pontoon.
The bus shook and I heard Cory and James cuss again. I was knocked back into the seat behind me. I scrambled to my feet, made it across the bus, to the window, called out, “Get back inside. Now.”
But the catfish hit again, and I heard a splash on the opposite side of the bus.
I turned for a look just as Reba said, “It’s Cory. In the water.”
And it was.
He yelled out for help a couple of times, and I was about to work myself through the window to go for him, when Grace said, “Oh, my God.”
I turned.
The catfish that had rammed the bus rose up out of the water. Its tail flashed, and it seemed to heave like it was being pumped with a bellows. It sat there on the surface, looking at us, giving us the evil eye.
But he wasn’t nothing.
He wasn’t nothing at all.
Not anymore.
There was something new.
Something that made our concern about the ramming catfish seem like a silly notion.
In fact, the idea of leaping into the water and wrestling with it seemed less scary than what was about to happen.
4
The water, as far as the eye could see, foamed. Then it lifted in a sheet of sun-shimmering silver, and beneath the splashes and lapping of the water was a darkness. At first it was a line, like a black storm on the horizon, stretching way wide.
The line widened, became a maw, and the maw became a great black cave. Slowly, the cave condensed, and there was just the fine line again. Then the line dropped below the water, and there was a dark hump rising, making a brief waterfall to either side. This was followed by a faraway flick of a finny tail. I don’t know how far away that tail was, as it was impossible to tell distances, but if I were a betting man, I’d say, and no shit on this, it was a half a mile away, and even that far away it was considerably bigger in appearance than any fishtail I had ever seen, no matter how close to my eye and how large the fish.
The body rose up higher in the water, and there was a massive head, about the size of six city blocks, and there was a glimpse of one eye the size of a spotlight, and a whisker, big as bridge cable. The whisker flexed.
I looked and saw, down a distance and to my left, the other eye (way down there it was, dear hearts) and another whisker (also way down there), and it was then that our finny friend opened its mouth and showed us the cave again.
In that moment, of course, I knew what it was. A catfish. And not the sort you’d catch and toss in the back of your truck to be weighed at Wal-Mart for a fishing contest.
This watery denizen would have made Moby Dick look like a fucking anemic minnow on a runway model diet.
The mouth stayed o
pen, and the fish dropped slightly in the water. A whisker whipped the wind like a black snake whip, and the other catfish, the one we had thought was big, turned and swam slowly toward the greater one, a willing sacrifice.
It swam right into that cavernous mouth, splashed on in and out of sight. The maw continued to widen and expand and the water rolled and foamed as the monster swam toward us.
We just sat there, our thumbs up our asses.
Wasn’t any place we could go.
Nothing we could do.
No one said a word. Not even a Holy Shit, look at that size of that motherfucker.
Nothing.
We didn’t even notice that Cory had worked his way back up on a pontoon and had climbed dripping wet through a window. Well, that’s not entirely true. I had noticed, but it hadn’t registered deeply. How could it. Not with that Leviathan out there.
Water ran into the fish’s mouth like being poured into a funnel, and way to the left, and way to the right, I saw a shiny spurt of spray, and knew water was rushing through the great fish’s gills, shooting out against the clear blue sky like geysers.
The bus began to move. Rapidly. Flowing behind the formerly large, now less impressive catfish, into the darkness of the maw that must have swallowed Old Jonah.
Finally, someone spoke.
It was Grace. She said, “This sucks.”
Steve said, “I just want to say goodbye to my dick. It’s been good to me.”
The water moved fast and went into the fish and we went with it; there was a rush into the great mouth as the bus straightened itself, fled down the throat of the beast, and behind us the light faded.
I turned to look.
The dark line was lowering, and the bright blue of the outside was going away as if a blind were being slowly pulled closed. Water lapped in and with it came a total blackness like the end of all things.
There was a thud and a jerk as the water the behemoth gulped slammed up against the back of our craft. The bus began to flee along at breakneck speed, like a roller-coaster ride, on down, dropping our stomachs out. Water spurted in through the bus’s cracks, and someone, James I think, yelled, “We’re gonna drown like rats,” and from the back window came a confirmation, a blast of black wetness (should have closed that fucking window up), and away we went, water gushing to our knees, causing us to climb into the seats, only to instantly feel the water rise up to touch us.