Br’er Robert
Sometimes it’s tears in a shopping mall. Sometimes it’s solemn watching while others play. Sometimes it’s calling for a runaway puppy.
This time it’s the skitter of gravel under bicycle wheels, long after dark.
This time.
US 30 unrolled under their wheels like a red carpet to Nebraska, bleached gray by the van’s headlamps. Heavy clouds like boulders in the sky knocked together and rolled apart in their eastbound avalanche. Each glimpse of the huge round moon transformed the highway into a twisted silver spine. Headhigh corn lined the road either side, swaying in the wind like breathing walls in a morphine nightmare.
Frankie slouched down in the passenger seat and slicked his tangled hair back with the sweat from his palms. His imagination was getting away with him again.
“Iowa,” he said, a little too loud. “Breadbasket to the world. God’s country. Buckle on the Bible Belt. Land of cornfed Republicans.”
“Shut up,” Decker said flatly. He squinted at the road through the greasy smoke of the Pall Mall that dangled from his lower lip. Decker didn’t have any imagination at all. Sometimes Frankie admired him for that. “We’re hittin Carroll in about five minutes. Get in back an sit on the littlefuckers.”
Decker always called them that. Littlefuckers, one word. Frankie figured it was the only word over three syllables Decker knew. Frankie climbed between the seats and crawled back on all fours, his long skinny limbs moving jerkily, gracelessly, like the legs of a half-crushed spider.
