The Lost Get-Back Boogie

“Get me a can out of the icebox.”

“Man, I can hear those hyenas beating on their cages in your head.”

“Just get the goddamn beer, Buddy.”

“My car ain’t in the pound, is it?”

I hadn’t thought yet about the car or what condition it might be in. My last memory of the Plymouth was winding it up out of Lolo after some drunk discussion in a bar about steelhead fishing over in Idaho. Then I remembered the tackhammer rattle out of the crankcase that meant a burnt bearing and maybe a flattened crankshaft.

I heard Buddy click off the cap from a bottle of beer and the foam drip flatly on the floor. He pushed the bottle inside my hand.

“What did you get into last night?” he said. He struck a match on the stove. Then I smelled the flame touch the reefer.

“It’s a real bag of shit, man.”

He pulled a chair out from the table and sat down, his eyes focused and serious over the joint in his mouth.

“Like what?”

“I really went over the edge and hung one out.”

“What did you do?”

“I took your Springfield and shot the hell out of the parking lot in that pulp mill.”

“Oh man.”

I couldn’t look at him. I felt miserable, and the absurdity of what I had done ached inside my hangover like an unacceptable dream.

“How bad?”

“I left about three trucks burning and probably blew the engine blocks out of a half-dozen others.”

“Wow. You don’t fool around, do you?”

It was silent for a moment, and I heard him take a long inhale on the reefer and let it out of his lungs slowly.

“Iry, what’s in your head? They’re going to pour your ass in Deer Lodge.”

“I got out of it. There was a dick at the log bridge, but he must have thought the damage was done inside the lot.”

“Forget that. You were in the sheriff’s office yesterday, and maybe these cowboys ain’t too bright, but they’re going to put the dice together and waltz you right into the bag. And believe me, buddy, they hand out time here to outsiders like there’s no calendar.”

He set the reefer on the edge of the table and walked back to the bedroom.

“What are you doing?” I said.

He unlocked the bolt of the Springfield, and an unfired cartridge sprang from the magazine.

“Really cool, man. What do you think I’m going to do?”

He walked out the screen door, and then I heard a shovel crunching in the earth behind the cabin. I wanted to argue with him about his rifle, but I knew he was right. I wet a towel under the pump and held it to my face and neck. I couldn’t stop sweating. Buddy dropped the shovel on the porch and came back through the door with grains of dirt in the perspiration on his arms. He was grinning again, with that crazy light in his eyes that used to get him into isolation at Angola.

“You’re sure a dumb son of a bitch,” he said.

“That’s the smartest thing you’ve said since I got out here.”

“But we’re in a real hardball game now, partner.”