Read The Complete Drive-In Online
Authors: Joe R. Lansdale
The Complete Drive-In (51 page)
Cory had been silent, trying to get over his hangover, but now he spoke. “Big question I got, is how do we get out of here? It’s cozy all right, but I’d rather not stay here.”
“That one,” Grace said, “we’re still working on.”
“And, if there’s a solution,” I said, “I suggest we find it. Not only because of Bjoe and his companions, or because of the Scuts, but because this morning I noted that some of the lights that had been just in front of the cars, they went out. My guess is, in time, all the lights will go out. And then we’re going to have to deal directly with the Scuts. We won’t last long inside of a fish where we can’t see how to move about.”
“Another thing,” Reba said. “Have you noted that it’s temperature controlled in here? A little warm, but there’s something keeping a fairly balanced temperature. The lights go, maybe it goes. For that matter, maybe whatever powers the fish will play out.”
“Can I say something?”
It was Homer. He went through spells so quiet, it was easy to forget he was there.
“Sure,” I said.
“One way out might be we wait until the fish is close to the surface, and then we exit like turds and float up, taking something to hang onto with us. There’s wood lying about, stuff the fish has swallowed. We might could do that.”
“Good as far as it goes,” Steve said. “But how would we know how deep down we are. We go out when we’re way down deep, we’d drown before we made it to the surface.”
Homer shook his head. “Catfish like to get along the bottom, that’s no lie. But don’t you feel it?”
“Feel it?” Grace said.
“Pressure in your ears?”
Now that he mentioned it, I had to admit I did. It came and went. The others agreed that they too felt it.
“When the pressure goes away,” Homer says, “I think Ed’s at the surface, or close to it. That would be the time to go. I mean, there was a door, that would be when to go out of it.”
Everyone was silent for a moment.
“It’s a thought,” Steve said.
“It isn’t much,” Grace said, “but it’s more than anyone else has offered. Homer, you just might be a genius.”
“You think?” Homer said.
“No,” Grace said. “Not really. But even a blind pig finds an acorn now and then. And I think you may have found an idea.”
“Well,” Homer said. “Wow. An idea. Me, of all people. Uh, what kind of idea did I have really?”
6“It was a thought,” Homer said. “But I didn’t take into consideration that there isn’t a door.”
“There are two ways inside this fish,” Grace said. “We got the mouth, and we got the asshole. We try to go through the mouth, well, water rushes through there all the time. We’ll drown. Maybe, if we go to the rear we can find an exit. This thing may eat and shit, but it doesn’t have real fish intestines. I think Bjoe is wrong about some things. I think this fish is, or was, a work in progress. The robots were supposed to finish it all up, give it fish insides, but, for some reason, they played out.”
“Leaving the fish not quite complete,” Steve said.
“Yep. I think that whatever built this world, the things in it, is losing its grip. Maybe mentally, maybe it, or they, or whatever, just got bored with the whole thing.”
“So it’s falling apart?” I said. “Our gods are going insane?”
“Yeah. Or it’s not being finished. It’s like a dream I used to have when I went to bed at night, elves would take up the rest of the world and fold it away. But they were quick, see, so if I got up to go pee, looked out the window, they were always therewith a backdrop. And they built things instantly, before I could get to them. But sometimes, in my dream, I’d look out of the corner of my eye, and there would be nothing.
“I remember the dream well. Gave me this feeling that the world was all a lie, and that I made it up as I lived and breathed. And sometimes, my daydream broke down.”
“So in the dream, you dreamed you were daydreaming?” Steve said.
“Yeah. And now I may be living in just the sort of world I dreamed about. But, a lot more unpleasant.”
“My head’s starting to hurt,” Homer said.
“About escaping?” Steve said.
“Yeah,” Grace said. “I was going to say, could be, in the back, there’s a way out.”
“Great,” Cory said. “We go out the asshole riding on a turd. And drown.”
“That’s where Homer’s idea comes in,” Grace said.
“What idea was that?” James said. “I still don’t think I understand all I understand about that idea.”
“It’s about listening to the inside of our heads,” Grace said, and she let that hang in the air like a fart.
“I get it,” I said. “We work our way to the rear, hang around until we feel the change in our heads, in our ears. Then, it’s the asshole escape. Homer’s idea, but without a conventional door.”
“That’s right,” Grace said. “But we have to prepare ahead of time. We have to be sure there’s a way out back there. It may be there’s real fish guts to the rear. We might need floating devices of some sort.”
“Maybe the Scuts got life jackets,” Steve said.
“Funny,” Grace said, “but it’s some kind of idea. Otherwise, we live our lives in the belly of a fish. Just hanging around until an overwhelming crowd of hungry folk descend on us ready for dinner.”
“It’s possible we could get along with them,” James said. “We’ve seen and done some pretty strange stuff ourselves. I mean, shit, I can’t believe I’ve been fucked in the butt. That’s not something I’d do on a Saturday night back home. I even ate a dead baby once. Maybe twice. All right. Probably three times. And I saw two of them killed. So what makes me better than them?”
“You have to make yourself better,” Grace said. “We all do. We’ve all missed a step. We’ve done what we had to do to survive. But, I know me and Steve and Jack, we’ve tried to keep it together. Tried hard. Now we can keep trying, and the rest of you can try with us. If you want to stay here, that’s your choice. All of you. Me, I’m looking for a way out of the exhaust pipe.”
James nodded. “Guess so.”
“Hell,” Homer said. “I’m for it. It’s my idea, and I didn’t even know I had one.”
“How about everyone else?” Grace asked.
“I’m in,” I said.
“Me too,” Steve said. “I go where you go, honey.”
Cory raised a hand. “Count me in. But, maybe we could make some kind of deal with those guys up there. For some of that liquor. It tastes like boiled dogshit, but it makes you feel pretty good.”
“That’s one thing we don’t need,” Grace said. “Distractions.”
“So what’s the exact plan?” James asked.
“That’s a bit of a problem,” Grace said. “An exact plan hasn’t exactly come to me yet.”
“Then we all put our heads together,” I said, “come up with a more detailed plan.”
“It sounds iffy,” Cory said.
“Actually,” James said. “It sounds fishy.”
He looked a bit disappointed when no one laughed.
“It does,” I said. “But, I’m tired of being pushed around by this world. I want to push back. Let’s rustle up something to eat, then put our heads together and figure how to do what we want to do.”
7We scrounged up some food. A few fish Ed had swallowed. We cut them open and ate them raw. I wondered if they too were lined with little wires, a combination of flesh and electricity.
After eating, first order of business was to see if the bus would start.
It wouldn’t.
Steve and Homer opened the hood and checked around under there.
“I think it’s just damp,” Homer said. “We got to get something to dry the inside of the carburetor, and such. Some rags would do it.”
“We’re wearing them,” I said.
“Everybody shuck,” Grace said.
We took off our clothes and stood butt-naked while Homer and Steve took our rags or animal wrappings and used them to dry the inside of the engine.
Well, we weren’t all butt-naked. I had shoes. And so did all the others. Grace’s were made of dried animal hides, as were Reba’s. I’m sure I looked ridiculous standing there wearing only shoes, and shoes where the soles would have flapped like tongues, had they not been tied up with twine and vines I had scrounged during our stay in the drive-in.
This drying business went on for awhile, and in time, our clothes, now greasy, were returned to us. I put my rags on, as did the others. Grace, however, decided her top was too greasy and threw it away.
It was enough to make me want to believe in a good god.
Almost.
After a bit, we all tuckered out, and I was feeling queasy on top of everything else. Sea sickness. I guess Ed from time to time swam faster and deeper, and perhaps slightly off-center.
We decided enough was enough, closed up the hood, and tried it again. It fired up. We drove it up close to the pile of cars, decided to rest. I went right to sleep. As always, there were thoughts and worries and dreams. I dreamed about the ghost of the drive-in. Where was it? Did it only mist about on the sea above us?
I dreamed of aliens with devices that seemed to be cameras, and maybe special effects instruments. Were they filming us? If there were lights inside this fish, why not cameras? Were we some form of exploitation film? A documentary on strange life placed in odd circumstances; a kind of reality show for the quivering, tentacled, green-faced masses that slithered above our sea and above our sky?
And then, in an instant, it came to me, like the flash of an old-fashioned camera, one of those kind that made the eyes go bright, then see white, then turn one temporarily blind. In that instant, I knew for a fact that a truth was thrust upon me. Something inside me put it all together, worked it all out, took hold of it and held it and saw the insides of everything that was, and there was a revelation. I knew how the universe worked. To be more precise, I knew how my universe worked. I was astonished. I was elated.
And then I awoke, it was lost to me, fleeing fast from my memory like dark water down a drain. I felt as empty as a eunuch’s nut sack. I lay there on the hard bus seat and tried to call it all back to me, but it was like calling a deaf hound dog. That buddy had done run off and was gone.
I pulled my arm from over my eyes and sat up in my seat, and was startled.
The bus was surrounded by the fish cave folks. There were even a couple on the hood, their faces pressed up against the glass, looking in.
One of those on the hood was Bjoe. He was on his knees with both hands on the glass, sort of cupped, and his forehead was pressed up against them, and he was looking in.
I must have let out a startled sound, because Reba, who was lying on the seat across from me, sat up, saw them, and let out a loud noise herself. Pretty soon we all stirred.
Grace, who was in a seat near the front, rose up and looked around. Her naked breasts took my mind off of the fish cave folk for a pleasant moment. She didn’t look self-conscious at all. “What do you want?” she said loudly to the glass.
Bjoe put a hand to his ear.
Grace repeated herself.
Bjoe stuck the tip of a finger against the glass. It was pointing in her direction.
“Why?” Grace said.
Bjoe just smiled.
Grace shook her head. More of the fish cave fol k cl imbed onto the hood and pressed against the glass, thick as a grape cluster. All of us were out of our seats now.
Cory said, “Maybe they just want to talk?”
“They don’t look as friendly as before,” Steve said.
“They’ve had time to think about us,” Cory said. “Probably been comparing long pig recipes.”
“Ain’t no different than the rest of us,” James said. “I’ve eaten dead bodies. I’ve cannibalized.”
“Yes,” Reba said, “but those bodies were dead. We aren’t.”
“Yet,” Homer said.
“Is the door locked?” I said in a soft manner.
“Yeah,” Steve said. “It is.”
We watched them for awhile, then sat in our seats and watched them watch us, their faces and hands pressed against the window glass.
“I feel like one of those lobsters in a tank,” Steve said, “you know, the ones where you pick your own.”
“And I’m the prime lobster,” Grace said, without one hint of modesty.
“I think we’re going to need to start the bus up,” I said, “drive deeper into the darkness. This bit of shadow doesn’t worry them like I hoped it would.”
“I believe you are right, Brother Jack,” Steve said.
“I say we wait,” Cory said. “They’re just weird. We’re weird. They haven’t done anything else.”
“One of them has a large bone,” Reba said, “and he’s trying to work at the edges of my window.”
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