Read Crusade (Eden Book 2) Online
Authors: Tony Monchinski
Crusade (Eden Book 2) (14 page)
“No doubt.” Maurice was pleased. Chances were good Lauren would be over at Sonya’s at this hour.
“I’m going to the council too,” said Steve. “Come on.”
“Nelson, go with Maurice. He’ll take you to Mommy.”
“Okay. Hey, Aunt Eva, today—thanks!”
“Tell your mommy I’ll be home in a little while.”
“Yo, Steve,” called Damar. “You and your roommates holla at a nigga, yo.”
“He’s a cute kid,” said Steve as they walked.
“Yeah, he is.”
“Listen, let’s stop over at the trailer for a second. I gotta talk to Mason.”
“Okay, but let’s make this fast.”
Steve nodded.
As they walked he and Eva waved and greeted the children and adults they encountered. It was funny, Eva thought, between the lines of vehicles at night you had no clue the world was inhabited by billions of zombies waiting to tear you limb from limb and devour you.
“Hey. Can I ask you a question?”
“Shoot.”
“Sonya talk to you much about me?”
“You mean things like,
Steve, that stallion, I wish he’d stop by more often and give me the high, hard one
—”
“Okay, fine, thanks. A simple
no
would have worked.”
“I’m just messin’ with you, Steve. Sure, sometime she mentions you.”
He smiled. “Yeah, what she say?”
“She asked me once what you looked like.”
“And you said?”
“I said despite what you thought about yourself you were most definitely not God’s gift to women.”
The wind went out of his sail, but only for a second.
“What else did she say?”
Eva laughed. “Well, when I told her that, she said,
consider it a mercy fuck
.”
“A
mercy fuck
?” He sounded flabbergasted. “
I’m
a mercy fuck?”
“I’m just fucking with you. She never said that.”
He smiled.
“No, actually, you know what she said to me?”
Steve fell for it, beaming, expecting a compliment. “What’s that?”
“She said Damar has a much bigger dick than you.”
“You’re real funny, Eva, you know that?”
“But seriously, Steve, can I ask you a question?”
“Shoot.”
“It’s nighttime. Why don’t you lose the sunglasses?”
He took off his mirrored shades, looked up at the sky. He squinted and licked the side of his lips. “Nah.” He put the shades back on.
“Hey, Eva, you listen to rap music?”
“No. Why?”
“Nothin’.”
When they reached the Coach bus with tinted windows they went right in. The interior was artificially lit. The windows were painted over inside with scenes from children’s books: a very hungry caterpillar, a pig named Olivia, a train named Thomas. When the convoy was on the road during the days, a hybrid school and day care was held on the bus. Most of the children had gone home for the evening but there were still half a dozen milling about with a couple of adults who were waiting for the kids to be picked up.
“Steve-O!” Mason called out to them. “Miss Eva.”
“What’s going on, Mason?”
“Oh, another day of edification and shaping young minds. Know what I’m saying?”
Three little white boys had spotted Steve and ran over to him, clinging to his legs and trying to climb up his body.
“Oh-oh-oh, easy now, easy now!”
“Steve! Steve! Steve!” they cried out in their enthusiasm.
“Take it easy you little peckerheads!”
The boys laughed and giggled. They liked it when Steve called them peckerheads.
“Buckwheat! Farina! Stymie!” Mason called to the boys and Eva laughed. When the kids responded to the names and climbed down off of Steve she laughed harder.
“Buckwheat?” she asked Mason. “Farina?”
“Funny, right?”
“What do their parents think of the names you’ve given them?”
“Ah, it’s just a joke. The boys know those aren’t their real names.”
“Yeah, I’m not a Stymie,” said the youngest, a tow-headed boy. “I’m a pecka-head.”
Eva laughed and patted the boy on the shoulder. “You guys are
bad
.” She indicated Mason and Steve.
“You got my Oscar winners?” Steve asked Mason.
“Yeah, right here.” Mason unlatched an overhead compartment, reached in, and handed him a brown paper bag. “Thanks.”
“No problem. Anything else you want to borrow?”
“You got anything, I don’t know, foreign maybe?”
“Foreign how?”
“I’m thinking Asian. Maybe a little Chinese or Japanese?”
“Chinese is hard to come by, but I think I can hook you up with the Japanese.”
“You all right. No matter what those roommates of yours say. Or what Sonya says.”
Eva laughed.
“Steve,” she reminded him. “
Council
.”
“Yeah. Gotta run. We still on for Friday night? Texas Hold-‘Em?”
“You bet your a—” Mason stopped himself, looking at the children. “We sure are.”
“Okay then.”
“Steve! Steve! Steve!” the boys chanted as they turned to leave. He spun and hit a faux-most muscular pose and the kids squealed in delight.
“Remember little pecker heads—”
“Train hard!” one of them shouted.
“Say your prayers!”
“Eat your vitamins!”
They had memorized the litany.
“What you gonna do—”Steve’s face turned bright red as he pumped out a series of most musculars and front double biceps shots, spittle frothing from his mouth “—when Hulk-a-mania runs wild on you?!”
The kids cracked up laughing and Steve and Eva left the bus.
“Those boys love you.”
“Yeah, little kids and dogs,” said Steve. “I would have made a good pedophile.”
“You’re a sick bastard.”
“Thanks. I try.”
Council was held out in the open with a few rows of folding chairs set up. Every vehicle sent one representative each night to discuss the day’s events and the plan for the morning. The Greeks had arrived before them and gave their report from the road. While he listened to Markos, one of the Greeks he knew better, Steve scanned the council for fuckable chicks.
Life on the road was tough, thought Steve, and it took a toll on broads. Some of these at council looked rough as shit. But he knew they weren’t here because they were beauty contestants. They were here, because,
number one
, they were tough enough to make it this far, and
two
, because they commanded enough respect in their own vehicles to be chosen to go to council.
He looked around and wondered who he’d bang if he had the chance. There was Stacey, the Greek chick. But she was always hanging around with Markos and the other Greeks. And Steve thought she had something going on with the one older Greek guy who spoke no English whatsoever and always wore the Kangol. Steve and his friends referred to the guy as
Saki
, as in Socrates. He didn’t think the guy took it the wrong way. Anyway, he’d figured out a long time ago that
malaka
meant asshole, and the Greeks seemed to enjoy calling Steve
malaka
every chance they got, usually with smiles on their faces, so he thought they meant no harm.
There was Eva. She was hot as shit. Steve had pleasured himself several times, thinking about her tits, about her with another woman. It turned him on all the more that she was really into women. The night Sonya had been drunk and banged him, he had fantasized about having her and her sister Eva in bed at the same time. He’d felt it was some sick perverted line he didn’t want to cross, and was worried about cumming too soon anyway, so he’d immediately banished the image from his head and thought about Chuck Norris in
Invasion USA
.
Nothing sexual about Chuck for him, but it kept his mind off the here and now and allowed him to give it to Sonya hard and good. Or so he believed.
Next to him, Eva listened as the council discussed the Greeks’ findings. She looked around at the women in attendance. Eva found herself thinking she was such a dog. She wasn’t particularly attracted to any of the women who attended council, but she could find one or two that would do in a pinch. Markos’ cousin, Stacey or whatever her name was, she would do just fine. There was that older lady from the end of the convoy—maintained a pretty classy look given the situation and all. Eva didn’t know much about her, didn’t even know her name, but she noticed the woman wore a wedding ring though there was no husband in the picture. She’d gotten a vibe off the woman once or twice but hadn’t pursued it. She filed her away as a future prospect as the council turned to her.
Steve listened as she laid out for those gathered where they had been that day and what they had seen. It all went in one ear and out the other. He had made up his mind that if the situation ever presented itself he would, indeed, join the non-English speaking Greek in a threesome with his leggy woman, but there’d be no gay stuff, no double penetration with his ball sack bouncing against the Greek’s shaft. None of that shit. Steve kidded around about
fags
all the time with Mo and Damar and his roommates, but he didn’t consider himself homophobic. That said, he wasn’t too keen on ever crossing swords with another man.
After her brief presentation there was some discussion and a vote to embark on the road Eva spoke of, as this seemed to harbor less obstructions and undead than the road the Greeks had investigated.
Steve and Eva walked back to their trailers, which were four vehicles apart. Steve shared a Dutchmen Travel Trailer with his roommates, Brent and Chris. When he arrived back home Brent was standing on the roof talking to Sam, the man who lived in the Eco-line van next to their RV with his wife and kid.
“Hey, Steve,” Brent said.
“Brent. Sam.”
“How’d it look out there today?”
“Good. Quiet.”
“Hey Steve,” Sam called down. “We’re pretty close to Pittsburgh, aren’t we?”
“Yeah. I heard them talking about that at council. But we ain’t going anywhere near the city.”
Sam nodded and stood where he was with an assault rifle resting across his shoulders and neck, his arms bent at the elbows, one hand on the barrel, one on the stock.
“Hey, Brent.” Steve had Sam pegged for a modern rock type of guy. “You remember that song
I’m not a playa I just fuck a lot
?”
“Yeah.”
“Who sung that?”
“Big Pun. R.I.P.”
“Shit.”
