Prodigal Blues

"Take it easy," said Arnold.  "Don't wake up Rebecca."

Christopher glanced over the seat and saw that she was still asleep.  "I was just like that when he found me."  He looked back at me and Arnold.  "Sorry.  It just… pisses me off so much, you know?"  He voice cracked on the last few words.  "All those years just… gone.  Gone.  And I'll never get them back."

"You'll be home soon," I said.

He wiped his eyes.  "Yeah, I suppose so.  You'll put on a good show for my folks too, won't you?"

"Of course."

"Man," said Arnold, "I had no idea, y'know?  Dude, I'm sorry.  Really."

"Wasn't your fault."

"Wasn't yours, either.  How come you never told any of us?  We wouldn't have made fun of you or nothing."

Christopher shrugged.  "Hell, I don't know."  He looked at Arnold.  "Still buds?"

"I don't answer dumb questions."

They smiled at each other.

"That was pretty slick, by the way, Mark," Christopher said.  "That makes—what?— twice or three times now you've gotten us off the subject of dear old grandma."

"I almost forget," said Arnold.  "Yeah, you're right—that was slick."

I parted my hands in front of me, all i

Arnold laughed.  "Listen to him—Mr. Humble."

"It's 'fess-up time," said Christopher.  "I'm bored with my stories and I've heard all of Arnold's, so now it's your turn.  No changing the subject, nothing can get you out of—"

And that's when we blew a back tire.

I burst out laughing; I couldn't help it.  "Someone doesn't want you to hear about this."

"Shut up!"  Christopher did an expert job of getting us over into the emergency lane, despite the wobbling and jerking caused by the flat.  He put the bus in park, killed the engine, turned on the blinkers, then reached under his seat to produce a set of road flares.  "Can you tell I was once a Boy Scout?  Come on, Mark—you don't get to sit this one out."

"Got that right," said Arnold.  "I about busted a finger helping him last time.  Need all my fingers."  He wiggled all ten of them.  "I'm go

I looked at him.  "Seriously?"

"Serious as a heart attack.  I'd been taking lessons for three years before Grendel came along.  I was getting pretty good, too."

"I'll bet."

Christopher opened his door and sighed loudly.  "Are you two finished with this little bonding moment?  In case you forget, Arnold, we've got a schedule to keep."

"How could I forget about 'the schedule'?  That's all you talk about half the time, gotta stick to 'the schedule,' 'the schedule's' gotta be stuck to, God forbid we should fall behind 'the schedule,' world might come to an end if we screw up 'the schedule'—damn, Sam, write a new verse, will you?"

Christopher blinked.  "Got it all out of your system?"

"Not yet—oh, my gosh, look at the time!  According to 'the schedule,' it's time for me to talk about 'the schedule', just in case you've forgotten about 'the schedule.'  There.  Now I'm done."

"You're sure?"

"Give me a couple of seconds and I might come up with another one."

Christopher looked at me.  "See what I have to put up with?"

"Poor widdle baby," said Arnold.

I laughed, then climbed out.  Christopher ignited one of the flares and set it near the back of the trailer; the second one went near the front of the bus.  They seemed incredibly bright.  It had to be close to four-thirty in the morning; the highway was practically deserted, save for the occasional semi that passed by, its driver giving us not so much as a glance.

"Here," said Christopher, tossing something toward me.  "You hold this, I'll do the deed."

I turned on the flashlight and followed him around; the flat was on the driver's-side rear tire, so we were going to be sticking our butts half into the road; the sooner we got this fixed, the better.  Christopher threw open the hatch in back of the bus and pulled out the jack and tire iron.  It was only as we headed to the back of the trailer—where the spare tires were attached—that I noticed for the first time that the all the windows of the trailer had been sealed around the edges with wax.

"What gives with the wax?" I asked.

Christopher glanced at where I was pointing the flashlight beam.  "Huh?  Oh—that's to try and keep the stink sealed in.  Bodies tend to swell up and burst a lot faster in this weather."

I nodded my head.  "Right.  Did you say 'bodies,' as in plural?"

"Told you—he's got five distributors.  You think that guy back there was the first one?"

"Actually, yes."

"Could we not talk about this right now?"

"Fine by me."

Good God; I was standing by the side of the road at four-thirty in the morning casually discussing the best way to seal in the stench of dead bodies piled up inside a trailer:  was my life working out, or what?

"A little help here?"

I looked up.  "Huh?—oh, yeah, sorry."

Christopher was having trouble getting the brace mechanism loosened; between the two of us and the tire iron, we got it opened, but then the tire decided it didn't want to come down just yet.  Christopher told me to stand on the bumper and press down-and-out on the top of the tire.  It took some graceful balancing on my part—at one point I almost did a spill to make Buster Keaton proud—but I managed.  It was as the two of us worked the tire that I happened to glance down at the back window of the trailer.

The cardboard that had been duct-taped over the inside of the window had come loose on one side; nothing you could see from a passing car, but at this angle I got a fairly good look at what set directly beneath the window.

An aluminum barrel strapped to a dolly; around the barrel were buckets of ice—both the wet and dry variety (though the wet ice had mostly long since melted); the outer rim of the barrel was covered in something that looked like foam; interspersed at even intervals around the foam were a series of plastic-looking plugs (or maybe fuses, it was hard to tell); out of each plug snaked what I first thought was thin copper tubing (they had a still?  Grendel did a little bootlegging on the side?) but on closer examination I saw was actually electrical wire; these wires merged above the center of the barrel where they co

I continued working the tire as Christopher pulled on it, not once looking up at me.

A half-emptied bag of fertilizer lay crumpled near the ice buckets, along with dozens of empty fireworks boxes.

"Ammonium-nitrate," I said aloud before realizing I'd done so.

Christopher stopped pulling at the tire and stood up straight.  "What was that?"

Lying to him would have been futile.  I nodded in the direction of the window.  "The fertilizer.  Ammonium-nitrate?"

"What if it is?"

"I'm assuming the barrel is filled with fuel oil?"

"I'll ask again, what if it is?"

"Gelatin and gasoline makes a handy napalm recipe."

He stared.  Even in this darkness, I could see the anger surfacing behind his gaze.  "I might've read that somewhere, maybe."