NIGHT CRUISING Page 4

  There was the time they were lined up before their brutal father to recite the alphabet. They ranged in age from three years old to fourteen. Cruise had been six. When one of them failed to speak loudly enough or faltered in the singsong recitation of letters, his father struck out fiercely with a wide belt across their faces. Their faces!

  Then there was the time Cruise, growing ever more rebellious and volatile, tried to run away. He was twelve. His father brought him back and chained him to the metal kitchen table leg for a week. It was forbidden for the others to speak to him, and he was fed scraps like a dog, like a mongrel dog begging favor.

  When Cruise reached adulthood he wandered the county like a vagabond, working just long enough to provide funds to keep on the move. It was as if he stayed in one spot long enough, his past would catch up with him and swallow him whole, make him mad, destroy the only peace of mind he could ever find.

  When at first the idea came to him that he could kill rather than work or steal, that killing was a living, a way of life, he wasn't at all shocked by the thought. He had committed murder early on and the lesser crime of robbery without being caught, so the thought of punishment held no sway. His father knew how to punish. The law swatted, it stung, it didn't punish.

  He came to the conclusion, after long years thinking about it, that he could not lay the blame for his ways on his upbringing, on his father. As far as he knew none of his nine brothers or sisters displayed a violent streak. The same childhood that molded them, and allowed a sort of normalcy, also shaped him. No, he couldn't, like Henry Lee Lucas, go around currying forgiveness because of his horrid past. He couldn't ask the psychologists, who were so eager to find reason to blame murder on background.

  It wasn't Daddy's fault. It wasn't Mommy's fault. Though for some time he might have liked to claim that convenient excuse. He knew deep down it was a lie, a damned lie if he bought it.

  The truth, as far as he'd been able to deduce it, was that he hadn't the ambition or the patience to be "normal." It did not suit his taste. It made him want to cringe to think of living with a wife, begetting children, working a steady job, paying for a mortgage. An abnormal life-style suited him. Like his father before him, he could not live according to the edicts of others. Not that abnormality was a proven fact in his mind. Maybe the rest of the world had adopted rites and rituals they merely thought normal. They had all accepted a cultural image and agreed upon it. Majority rule. That did not mean he had to.

  As far as that goes, there were plenty who didn't fit the ordinary pattern. They might not kill, as he did, in order to live, but how normal was it to spend a life as a politician, for example? Conning people, making concessions, playing a strange power game. Or how normal was it to be an artist, to spend a life committed to paint or music or dance or words? And what about geniuses? Did the scientist who stared into the universe and expound on reaching the edge of space lead a normal existence? His thoughts had to be so far removed from the mundane world that he might even be considered another species of human. Or was the pious monk chanting in his solitary retreat on a mountain slope different from others? The monk, the artist, so many people who didn't fit the pattern, who couldn't get with the program, but no one called them insane or abnormal. He decided they were just as deformed as he. Or. They were just as normal.

  Cruise finally shook down the idea until he thought he belonged to an elite worldwide group of people who did not fit, who were oddities for one reason or another. There were no monsters or saints in the world he understood. There were no laws he recognized, being above and beyond all law and lawgivers. There were no morals in any book, religious or otherwise, that could make him place guilt upon his shoulders.

  Cruise Lavanic would not grovel in the mud and blame the past or any of the people who made it the hell it was.

  There was no blame.

  It was, all aspects taken under consideration, simply easier to kill than to rob, to kill than to settle in and work and let the world grind him down.

  Once he'd come to this conclusion, he went on his way satisfied he was not a madman, insane, or clinically verifiable. If anything, he was superior to the rest of mankind for he'd been able to throw off the shackles of a binding, suffocating, deadening culture that said his bread must come from labor, that he should live in a house and keep a woman, that he should own property and buy more obsolete merchandise than he could use. He would not watch television six hours a day, pay his heavy unfair burden of taxes, and shop at the discount stores on weekends.

  He wouldn't. He didn't. And when he dreamed of murders he had committed they came to him without a layer of guilt, stripped of moral object lessons, and nothing if not thrilling.

  He woke once, the towel having slipped from his eyes.

  Sun blinded him with shafts like fire and his eyes watered instanty. The girl Molly was nowhere around. So what? He didn't care. She'd be back.

  He turned onto his side in the lowered seat, draped the towel again, and drifted off.

  He had been dreaming of the Lot Lizard he did in Charlotte, North Carolina. She was his last kill, still fresh in his mind. He now reached for her and for the pleasantness of the dream. Entering the dreamscape, he saw himself walking toward a picnic table set on gravel behind a trailer. It was a truck stop just north of Charlotte. It was a weekend when the truck drivers generally were laid over with their loads until Monday deliveries. The lots were packed, trucks lined up side by side, row by row, deep, thick, growling machines that rumbled day and night.

  The trailer was a makeshift trucker's lounge with a color TV, ratty living-room furniture boasting scarred pine armrests, and a few video arcade games. The picnic table sat behind it, crooked, leaning in the gray gravel. To each side of the table the trucks purred like fat, hungry predator cats. Cruise had been parked at this truck stop listening on his CB to the truckers talk in their peculiar lingo.

  They called plaintively, as the sun set and their loneliness deepened, for "Baby Dolls," the polite euphemism for Lot Lizards. Cruise recognized the voice of one trucker who called himself Dirty Old Man. He, more than all the others, persistently made a plea for female companionship.

  "C'mon, Baby Dolls, where y'all at tonight? I'm looking for some commercial company. C'mon and talk to your Dirty Old Man."

  Every few minutes Dirty Old Man made his call. When it was full dark a feminine voice answered back.

  "Hello there, boys. This here Baby Doll is on the prowl. Are there any interested parties out there?"

  Dirty Old Man immediately piped up. His voice was low and grizzled as he said, "Oh, Baby Doll, I've been waiting just about forever to meet you, honey, Where you at, Sugar? What's your ten-twenty?"

  The sultry voice returned. Now all the truckers were listening, having abandoned their rambling complaints about layovers and long hours and not getting home when promised. "I'm over here near Jack's," she said. "Where you at, baby?"

  Cruise squirmed in his seat. He loved listening in on these assignations. It had a voyeuristic flavor that kept a smile glued to his lips. He turned up the volume control on the CB. She was right here near Jack's Truck Stop somewhere.

  He could get to her first if she would say where she'd meet her trick.

  "Darnit, Baby Doll," Dirty Old Man crooned. He chuckled, almost went into a coughing spree in his eagerness. "I'm over here at the 76 Truck Stop and you're over there under the sign with the big blue star. What you look like, Doll?"

  "I got the bluest eyes and I'm pretty as a picture. Why don't you come on over here to Jack's and see for yourself? I'll wait for you at the picnic table behind the lounge."

  A barrage of male voices all came on at once to vie for her attention.

  "Mind if I come too, Baby Doll?"

  "Hooo doggie, commercial company!"

  "You got any friends?"

  "You gonna be busy later, Baby Doll of the blue eyes?"

  Cruise heard her key the mike and laugh a sensual laugh that must have set the boys slobb
ering over their knees. "There's just me, sweeties, but we got all night. Y'all come on out, you hear? Let's do us some partying down."

  Cruise, having parked at a strategic point that gave him a wide view of Jack's, watched from his Chrysler as the girl walked out of nowhere toward the picnic table. She was about five feet three, short blond hair chopped in a boyish cut, wearing jeans and a prim light pink blouse with embroidery on the collar. She wasn't young. Middle thirties, he guessed.

  He got to her before Dirty Old Man or any of the others, just as he supposed he would.

  "Hi, Hon," she said, putting her arm familiarly around his waist as he walked up. "I'm Minde. M-i-n-d-e. Now I don't do this sort of thing for a living, you know. Trucker dumped me here in Charlotte with no way home. I never been in that predickerment before. I'm from St. Louis and I don't have no way back there unless I get a little help from a friend."

  Cruise had heard all the stories whores told and this one was terribly uncreative, but no matter, he didn't want her for her brain. She looked relatively clean, and at least she wasn't fat. She might have weighed slightly over a hundred, but not much. And from having rested his hand on her rump, he knew she had stashed some money. Not smart of her, but her profession wasn't known for having smarts.

  "Come on with me," he said, giving her the smile they loved. "I'll get you to St. Louis."

  As they started walking away, a dusty, bug-splattered Mack rolled across the gravel drive. The driver braked on seeing them. The roar of the engine drowned their ears with a rumble that shook the ground beneath them. Churned gravel dust hung in the air. The man climbed down from the cab to block their way. "I'm Dirty Old Man. Are you my Baby Doll?"

  Minde looked up at Cruise. She looked back at the bedraggled old fellow with his gut hanging out and his day-old unshaven gray chin. "Sorry, Dirty Old Man. I might see you later. Never can tell. You keep listening for me. you hear?"

  Cruise swept her past him without saying a word. There were going to be some horny drivers tonight when Minde didn't come back. But then it was early. There might be more Lot Lizards prowling the lots before the night was out. If there weren't, let all the poor suckers jack off.

  Minde didn't make it to St. Louis. She didn't make it out of the state of North Carolina, the redbird state. She died south of Charlotte in a patch of forest off a dirt road that would't see a bulldozer for years. Cruise made love to her first. That's the way he thought of it. Lovemaking.

  He crooned into her ear and made her happy to be alive before he slipped the knife from his hair in the moonlight. She gasped upon seeing its glint, then fought him with a fierceness bred of desperation. "You bastard!" she screamed. Fighting him. Wrestling. Kicking and gouging "You crazy motherfucking son of a bitch!"

  It was a fight worth remembering, but she succumbed in the end, her throat pumping blood against Cruise's arm where it rested beneath the crook of her neck.

  Cruise found three hundred dollars folded neatly in her back pocket. "You could have taken a plane," he whispered to her as he wrapped her in the blanket, leaves sticking to it in the wet places. He moved her body to the waiting hole he had dug earlier in the day in preparation for a victim.

  As the dream ended with the burial and the cold water cleansing afterward, Cruise smiled in his sleep. He felt again the cold slap of water, the shock and breathtaking thrill of it. He felt the roughness of towel-drying his body, the warmth of his clothes, the bracing scent of green forest dew-deep and washed with night breeze. The best of all, though, was the satisfaction he felt of having earned his way in the world without taking any chances, without giving up anything of himself for it.

  Dirty Old Man never got a good look at his face in the thick shadows of the truck stop. No one knew who he was. They'd be looking for a trucker who offed a whore. They wouldn't even look too long or too hard. Lot Lizards were officially barred from all the truck stops across America now. The ones who worked the trade took their chances. Minde happened to lose.

  The sun dipped west. Afternoon brought a damp chill with it. Shadows lengthened. Golfers came off the course. Parents corralled their children from the playground.

  Molly sat in a swing watching the car. She wound a length of hair around one finger and put it between her small white teeth to chew. It had the texture of tin foil.

  She waited for Cruise to wake and drive her across Texas. It had been a long, boring day, but now with the night coming on, they'd be on the move.

  Any minute now. Any minute she'd see his large chest rise up in the seat and he'd beckon to her.

  The seconds slipped by as the area continued to empty. A cooling breezy pressed at her shoulders. Molly could smell the water from the goldfish pond a few feet away from the swings. It smelled stagnant and unwholesome. Her stomach rolled from the two Mars bars she had eaten for lunch. She wanted to brush her teeth. She'd like a bath. She had washed in the ladies' room in a service station, but that wasn't a bath. She didn't feel any cleaner once she had done balling the brown hand towels and throwing them in the trash.

  She blinked with surprise when Cruise sat upright in the Chrysler. Her mind had been on hot showers and white, fragrantly scented, fluffy towels. She stood, her bottom numb from the wooden swing seat. She saw there was little light left. Shadows marched across the ground and obscured the path.

  Cruise started the car. Switched on the headlights. Molly ran to the parking area and grabbed the door handle.

  "Hi," she said breathlessly. She hoped he hadn't forgotten her, that he still wanted her along. "Here I am."

  "Yes," he said. "There you are. It's time to travel."

  The automatic street lamps came on just as Cruise put the car into reverse.

  Molly thought she'd never be happier to see the last of a place. It seemed she had spent weeks waiting for him to get enough sleep to drive through the night.

  "Buckle up," he said. "Have a Coke. We'll eat later."

  Molly grinned and did as she was told. She could get used to funny old Cruise with his long hair and strange sleeping habits. She could. What an adventure running away from home was turning out to be!

  Wouldn't her daddy just die.

  CHAPTER 2

  THE SECOND NIGHT

  Molly was wired, all her senses jouncing to an internal beat. She hadn't slept much the night before, and during the day she had wandered around the park waiting for Cruise to wake. Now fatigue had taken over, but it left her mind strung out like an addict looking for a fix. This happened when she went too long without sleep. She chattered like a monkey until her mind closed shop and faded to black.

  "Sure was boring hanging around all day while you were sleeping." She bit the inside of her cheek. Real smart. Cruise was taking her to California, and so far it was a free ride. She must try not to complain.

  "I'm sorry about that." He sounded genuinely upset. "I just can't drive in the day. The light hurts my eyes."

  She peered at him in the gloom of the car. Dusk was thick and the sky was devoid of stars. "You have a problem seeing?"

  "Only in sunlight. It's been that way since I was a kid. I'm a night person. You heard of the lark and the owl? I'm the owl. The night is cooler, cleaner in some ways. I like the shadows of trees and hills, the houses and closed shops sleeping in the towns. I like neon. Ever notice how neon lights sizzle? You walk beneath them on a sidewalk and you can hear them. It's like bacon frying."

  "How'd you go to school if you stayed up all night?"

  "I missed it as much as I could." He smiled, remembering. She saw that. She understood that. Wasn't she missing school? Wasn't school for idiots anyway? All that regimentation. All those dumb authority games. Principals and teachers playing like they were army sergeants. Students kissing ass or acting up, one or the other. Just about everyone on drugs. There was more LSD and pot in the schools than there had ever been at the Woodstock concert. Straight kids were on the make or trying to outdo everyone else. A dumb exercise in futility for goobheads.

  "I even
like truck stops," Cruise was saying.

  "Truck stops? Really?"

  "It's the meeting place for the underworld."

  "Truckers, you mean?"

  "Yeah, truckers. Their girls. Travelers. Night workers. They live like I do. On the road driving, living in a machine with wheels on it, meeting strangers . . ." He looked at her. She smiled, his stranger.

  "I never knew anyone who liked truck stops." She had never heard anyone even mention truck stops.

  "Most people don't know about them. It's where everything's happening while the rest of the world sleeps. Men are in there showering, doing their laundry, shopping, eating breakfast at three in the morning. People are awake in truck stops even in the middle of the darkest hours."

  "I see you have a CB. You talk to truckers too?"

  He glanced at the mike hanging from its slot below the radio. "I talk to them sometimes."

  "They're all cowboys, right? Jeans and boots and big bellies?"

  Cruise shook his bead. "Not all of 'em. That's what people think. Maybe that's the way it was years ago. Today these guys are the independents. They're the men who won't work regular jobs, who don't fit in. And they're not ignorant. You don't drive forty tons of steel at seventy miles an hour and live to tell about it if you're stupid."

  Molly brought her right thumb to her lips and chewed softly on the fleshy part. "That's cool beans." Though she wasn't sure she believed it.