impossibly flatter. Having shed the last of the meager belongings from
his old life, he feels liberated. Soaked by the cold rain, he shivers
uncontrollably, but he is also trembling with anticipation and
excitement.
His destiny lies somewhere to the west.
He peels the plastic wrapper off a Slim Jim and eats while he drives.
A subtle flavor, threaded through the primary taste of the cured meat,
reminds him of the metallic odor of blood in the house in Kansas City,
where he left the nameless dead couple in their enormous Georgian bed.
The killer pushes the Honda as fast as he dares on the rain-slick
highway, prepared to kill any cop who pulls him over. Reaching
Amarillo, Texas, just after dusk on Sunday evening, he discovers that
the Honda is virtually running on empty. He pulls into a truckstop only
long enough to tank up, use the bathroom, and buy more food to take with
him.
After Amarillo, rocketing westward into the night, he passes Wildorado,
with the New Mexico border ahead, and suddenly he realizes that he is
crossing the badlands, in the heart of the Old West, where so many
wonderful movies have been set. John Wayne and Montgomery Clift in Red
Riler, Walter Brennan stealing scenes left and right. Rio Bravo. And
Shane was set back there in Kansas-wasn’t it. –Jack Palance blowing
away Elisha Cook, Jr. decades before Dorothy took the tornado to Oz.
Stagecoach, The Gunfighter, True Grit, Destry Rides Again, The
Unforgi2en, High Plains Drifter, Yellow Sky, so many great movies, not
all of them set in Texas but at least in the spirit of Texas, with John
Wayne and Gregory Peck and Jimmy Stewart and Clint Eastwood, legends,
mythical places now made real and waiting out there beyond the highway,
obscured by rain and mist and darkness. It was almost possible to
believe that those stories were being played out right now, in the
frontier towns he was passing, and that he was Butch Cassidy or the
Sundance Kid or some other gunman of an earlier century, a killer but
not really a bad guy, misunderstood by society, forced to kill because
of what had been done to him, a posse on his trail . . .
Memories from theater screens and late-night movies on TV-which
constitute by far the largest portion of the memories he
possesses–flood lost so completely in those fantasies that he pays too
little attention to his driving. Gradually he becomes aware that his
speed has fallen to forty miles an hour. Trucks and cars explode past
him, the wind of their passage buffeting the Honda, splashing dirty
water across his windshield, their red taillights swiftly receding into
the gloom.
Assuring himself that his mysterious destiny will prove to be as great
as any that John Wayne pursued in films, he accelerates.
Empty and half-empty packages of food, crumpled and smeary and full of
crumbs, are heaped on the passenger seat. They cascade onto the floor,
under the dashboard, completely filling the leg space on that side of
the car.
From the litter, he extracts a new box of doughnuts. To wash them down
he opens a warmish Pepsi.
Westward. Steadily westward.
An identity awaits him. He is going to be someone.
Later Sunday, at home, after huge bowls of popcorn and two videos, Paige
tucked the girls into bed, kissed them goodnight, and retreated to the
open doorway to watch Marty as he settled down for that moment of the
day he most cherished. Story time.
He continued with the poem about Santa’s evil twin, and the girls were
instantly enraptured.
“Reindeer sweep down out of the night.
See how each is brimming with fright?
Tossing their heads, rolling their eyes, these gentle animals are so
very wise they know this Santa isn’t their friend, but an imposter and
far ’round the bend.
They would stampede for all they’re worth, dump this nut off the edge of
the earth.
But Santa’s bad brother carries a whip, a club, a harpoon, a gun at his
hip, a blackjack, an Uzi–you better run!-and a terrible, horrible,
wicked raygun.
“Raygun?” Charlotte said. “Then he’s an alien!”
“Don’t be silly,” Emily admonished her. “He’s Santa’s twin, so if he’s
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