The door of the trailer was open, the TV blaring. Bode cupped his hands to his mouth: “Get your ass out here, whoever you are! And keep your goddamn hands in the air!”
Shiner appeared, shirtless and stubbly-bald, in the doorway. He wore the grin of a carefree idiot. “I’m here!” he proclaimed.
At first Bode and Chub didn’t recognize him.
Hey,” Shiner said, “it’s me—your new white brother. Where’s the militia?”
Chub lowered the pistol. “The fuck you do to yourself, boy?”
“Shaved my hair off.”
“May I ast why?”
“So I can be a skinhead,” Shiner replied.
Bodean Gazzer whistled. “No offense, son, but it ain’t your best look.”
The problem was with Shiner’s scalp: an angry latitudinal scar, shining like a hideous stamp on the pale dome of his head.
Chub asked Shiner if he’d gotten branded by some wild Miami niggers or Cubans.
“Nope. I fell asleep on a crankcase.”
Bode crossed his arms. “And this crankcase,” he said, “was it still in the car?”
“Yessir, with the engine runnin’.” Shiner did his best to explain: The mishap had occurred almost two years earlier on a Saturday afternoon. He’d had a few beers, a couple joints, maybe half a roofie, when he decided to tune the Impala. He’d started the car, opened the hood and promptly passed out headfirst on the engine block.
“Fucker heated up big-time,” Shiner said.
Chub couldn’t stand it. He went in the trailer to take a shit, turn off the television and hunt down a cold Budweiser. When he came out he saw Bode Gazzer sitting next to Shiner on the front fender of the Chevy.
Bode waved him over. “Hey, our boy done exactly what we told him.”
“How’s that?”
“The Negro girl come to his house askin’ about the Lotto ticket.”
“She sure did,” Shiner said, “and I said it wasn’t her that won it. I said she must of got confused with another Saturday.”
Chub said, “Good man. What’d she do next?”
“Got all pissed and run off out the door. She’s beat up pretty bad, too. That was you guys, I figgered.”
Bode prodded Shiner to finish the story. “Tell about how you quit your job at the store.”
“Oh yeah, Mr. Singh, he said I couldn’t park with the handicaps even though I got the blue wheelchair dealie on the mirror. So what I done, I grabbed my back pay from the cash register and hauled ass.”
Bode added: “Took the security video, too. Just like we told him.”
“Yeah, I hid it in the glove box.” Shiner jerked his head toward the Impala.
“Slick move,” said Chub, winking his good eye. In truth, he wasn’t especially impressed with Shiner, and Gazzer, too, had doubts. The boy manifested the sort of submissive dimness that foretold a long sad future in minimum-security institutions.
“Look here,” Shiner said, flexing his doughy left arm. “Radical new tattoo: W.R.B. To make it official.”
Over the rim of his beer can, Chub shot Bode a look that said: You tell him.
“So how’s it look?” Shiner asked brightly. “Seventy-five bucks, ‘case you guys want one, too.”
Bode slid off the fender and brushed the rust marks off the butt of his camo trousers. “Thing is, we had to change the name.”
Shiner quit flexing. “It ain’t the White Rebel Brotherhood no more? How come?”
“You was right about the rock band,” Bode said.
“Yeah,” Chub interjected, “we didn’t want no confusion.”
“So what’s the new name?”
Bode told him. Shiner asked him to repeat it.
“White Clarion Aryans,” Bode said, slowly.
Shiner’s mouth drew tight. Morosely he stared at the initials burned into his biceps. “So the new ones are… W-C-A?”
“Right.”
“Shit,” said Shiner, under his breath. Looking up, he managed a smile. “Oh well.”
There was an uncomfortable silence, during which Shiner rearranged his arms to cover the tattoo. Even Chub felt sorry for him. “But you know what,” he said to Shiner, “that’s one hell of a eagle you got there.”
“Damn right,” Bode Gazzer agreed. “That’s one mean motherfucker of an eagle. What’s he got in them claws, an Mi6?”
The boy perked up. “Affirmative. Mi6 is what I told the tattoo man.”