It had been different on the way down to see Clarke. Better. The Tribe had stopped just after sunup at a diner much like this, and while the mood had not been festive, there had been plenty of bullshit, and a certain amount of predictable yuks to go with the coffee and the doughnuts. Doc had sat in one booth doing the crossword puzzle, others seated around him, looking over his shoulder and ribbing each other about what an honor it was to sit with a man of such education. Doc had done time, like most of the rest of them, and had a gold tooth in his mouth in place of the one that had been whacked out by a cop’s nightstick a few years before. But he wore bifocals, and had lean, almost patrician features, and read the paper, and knew things, like the capital of Kenya and the players in the War of the Roses. Roy Klowes took a sidelong look at Doc’s puzzle and said, “What I need is a crossword with questions about fixing bikes or cruising pussy. Like what’s a four-letter word for what I do to your momma, Doc? I could answer that one.”
Doc frowned. “I’d say ‘repulse,’ but that’s seven letters. So I guess my answer would have to be ‘gall.’”
“Gall?” Roy asked, scratching his head.
“That’s right. You gall her. Means you show up and she wants to spit.”
“Yeah and that’s what pisses me off about her. ’Cause I been trying to train her to swaller while I gall her.”
And the men just about fell off their stools laughing. They had been laughing just as hard the next booth over, where Peaches was trying to tell them about why he got his nuts clipped: “What sold me on it was when I saw that I’d only ever have to pay for one vasectomy… which is not something you can say about abortion. There’s theoretically no limit there. None. Every jizzwad is a potential budget buster. You don’t recognize that until you’ve had to pay for a couple of scrapes and begin to think there might be a better use for your money. Also, relationships aren’t ever the same after you’ve had to flush Junior down the toilet. They just aren’t. Voice of experience right here.” Peaches didn’t need jokes, he was funny enough just saying what was on his mind.
Now Vince moved past the cored-out, red-eyed bunch, and took a stool at the counter beside Lemmy.
“What do you think we ought to do about this shit when we get to Vegas?” Vince asked.
“Run away,” Lemmy said. “Tell no one we’re going. Never look back.”
Vince laughed. Lemmy didn’t. He lifted his coffee halfway to his lips but didn’t drink, only looked at it for a few seconds and then put it down.
“Somethin’ wrong with that?” Vince asked.
“It ain’t the coffee that’s wrong.”
“You aren’t going to tell me you’re serious about taking off, are you?”
“We wouldn’t be the only ones, buddy,” Lemmy said. “What Roy did to that girl in the bathroom?”
“She almost shot him,” Vince said, voice low so no one else could hear.
“She wasn’t but seventeen.”
Vince did not reply and anyway no reply was expected.
“Most of these guys have never seen anything that heavy and I think a bunch—the smart ones—are going to scatter to the four corners of the earth as soon as they can. Find a new purpose for being.” Vince laughed again, but Lemmy only glanced at him sidelong. “Listen now, Cap. I killed my brother driving blind drunk when I was eighteen. And when I woke up I could smell his blood all over me. I tried to kill myself in the Corps to make up for it, but the boys in the black pajamas wouldn’t help me. And what I remember mostly about the war is the way my own feet smelled when they got jungle rot. Like carrying a toilet around in my boots. I been in jail, like you, and what was worst wasn’t the things I did or saw done. What was worst was the smell on everyone. Armpits and assholes. And that was all bad. But none of it has anything on the Charlie Manson shit we’re driving away from. Thing I can’t get away from is how it stank in the place. After it was over. Like being stuck in a closet where someone took a shit. Not enough air, and what there was wasn’t any good.” He paused, turned on his stool to look sidelong at Vince. “You know what I been thinking about ever since we drove away? Lon Refus moved out to Denver and opened a garage. He sent me a postcard of the Flatirons. I been wondering if he could use an old guy to twist a wrench for him. I been thinking I could get used to the smell of pines.”