“Is they a difference?” he inquired sarcastically.
“No, sir,” said Bode.
“Then why don’t you call ’em what they is?”
Bode clenched the steering wheel. “I could call ’em coconuts and what’s the damn difference. One word’s no better than another.”
Chub chuckled. “Coconuts.”
“How about you make yourself useful. Find a radio station plays some white music, if that’s possible.”
“S’matter? You ain’t fond a these Negro rappers?”
“Eat me,” Bode Gazzer said.
He was ashamed to admit the truth, that he couldn’t speak the word “nigger.” He’d done so only once in his life, at age twelve, and his father had promptly hauled him outside and whipped his hairless bare ass with a razor strop. Then his mother had dragged him into the kitchen and washed his mouth out with Comet cleanser and vinegar. It was the worst (and only) corporal punishment of Bode Gazzer’s childhood, and he’d never forgiven his parents. He’d also never forgotten the ghastly caustic taste of Comet, the scorch of which still revisited his tender throat at the mere whisper of “nigger.” Uttering it aloud was out of the question.
Which was a major handicap for a self-proclaimed racist and militiaman. Bode Gazzer worked around it.
Changing the subject, he said to Chub: “You need some camos, buddy.”
“I don’t think so.”
“What size pants you wear?”
Chub slumped in the seat and pretended he was trying to sleep. He didn’t want to ride all the way to Grange. He didn’t want to break into a stranger’s house and steal a Lotto ticket.
And he sure as hell didn’t want to wear camouflage clothes. Bode Gazzer’s entire wardrobe was camo, which he’d ordered from the Cabela’s fall catalog on a stolen MasterCard number. Bode believed camo garb would be essential for survival when the NATO troops invaded from the Bahamas and the White Rebel Brotherhood took to the woods. Until Bode opened his closet, Chub had had no idea that camo came in so many shrub-and-twig styles. There was your basic Trebark (Bode’s parka); your Realtree (Bode’s rainsuit); your Mossy Oak, Timber Ghost and Treestand (Bode’s collection of jumpsuits, shirts and trousers), your Konifer (Bode’s snake-proof chaps) and your Tru-Leaf (Bode’s all-weather mountain boots).
Chub didn’t dispute Bode’s pronouncement that such a selection of camos, properly matched, would make a man invisible among the oaks and pines. Having grown up in the mountains of north Georgia, Chub didn’t want to be invisible in the woods. He wanted to be seen and heard. He especially wanted not to be mistaken for a tree by a rambunctious bear or a randy bobcat.
He said to Bode Gazzer: “You dress up your way, I’ll dress up mine.”
Bode peevishly scooped a fresh beer off the floorboard and popped the tab. “Remember what the Constitution says? ‘Well-regulated militia.’ Regulated means discipline, OK? And discipline starts with uniforms.”
Bode took a slug and wedged the beer can in the crotch of his Mossy Oak trousers, to free both hands for steering. Chub leaned against the door, his ponytail leaving an oily smear on the window. He said, “I ain’t wearin’ no camo.”
“Why not, goddammit!”
” ‘Cause it makes you look like a fuckin’ compost heap.”
Bode Gazzer jerked the truck onto the shoulder of the highway. Angrily he stomped the brake.
“You listen—” he began.
“No, you listen!” Chub said, and was upon him in a second.
Bode felt the barrel of the Colt poking the soft part of his throat, right about where his tongue was attached on the inside. He felt Chub’s hot beery breath on his forehead.
“Let’s not fight,” Bode pleaded, hoarsely.
“Won’t be a fight. Be a killin’.”
“Hey, brother, we’re partners.”
Chub said, “Then where’s our ticket, dickface?”
“The lottery ticket?”
“No, the fucking laundry ticket.” (‘hub cocked the pistol. “Where’s it at?”
“Don’t do this.”
“I’m countin’ to five.”
“In my wallet. Inside a rubber.”
Chub grinned crookedly. “Lemme see.”
“A Trojan. One a them ribbed jobbers, nonlubricated.” Bode removed it from his wallet and showed Chub what he’d done the night before—opening the plastic foil with a razor and folding the Lotto ticket inside the rolled-up condom.
Chub returned the gun to his pants and slid back to the passenger side. “That’s pretty slick, I gotta admit. Nobody steals another man’s rubbers. Steals every other damn thing, but not that.”