Rumble Tumble

“In Herman’s case, they were less understanding. After he refused to pay them, they began to send hit men after him. Only problem for the Bandito Supremes was Herman was better than they were. He killed them all. I heard all of this through the grapevine, you understand. It got so it was a pride thing with the Bandito Supremes. They kept sending out these men to do Herman in, and he kept killing them, leaving a mark on them that could be identified as his signature.”

“What kind of mark?” Leonard asked.

“It wasn’t the best choice, but it was memorable. He took to cutting off the heads of their penises and putting them in their front right pants pocket. The police thought they had some kind of weird serial killer case. I read about it in the papers having no idea it was Herman at work. I suspected a mad Jewish rabbi. Later, as the story drifted back to me through old connections, I realized what it had been about. It was Herman’s way of thumbing his nose at those who had been sent to kill him. A sort of manhood rite.”

“Mine’s bigger than yours?” I said.

“Exactly,” Red said. “After three years of this, evading the cops and the Bandito Supremes, Herman began to seek out the Supremes directly, killing them on their own turf.

“Well, this would not do, but the Supremes had no luck killing Herman off. He was like a shadow. A ghost. A blood truce was made. People cutting their hands with knives and pressing them together like adolescents. Herman paid back the money and made an apology, and all was forgotten. As long as he never had anything to do with the Bandito Supremes again. This mean he couldn’t even cross their territory without a threat of death hanging over his head. He agreed, got a job selling vacuums door-to-door, but never could move the super models, and that’s where you made your money, so he dropped out of that, and next thing I knew he was a preacher. I’ve visited him several times, and he’s tried to bring me into the fold. Though it’s tempting, and Herman certainly gives a good fiery sermon, I find money and sex with average-size women more appealing than future paradise.”

“You said average-size women,” Brett said. “That mean you won’t fuck a midget? That what you’re sayin’? That sounds prejudicial to me. Not wanting to fuck a midget, and you being one your ownself.”

Red refused to answer. He glared at her.

“This brother of yours?” I asked. “Where is he?”

“Southwest Texas. Near a little town called Seminole. But I advise you to make your presence known gradually. Preacher or not, I doubt Herman would welcome a surprise introduction.”

“We’ll keep that in mind,” Leonard said.

17

When we got to Seminole Leonard steered us through a drive-through, bought some hamburgers, then we cruised out of town to the west. It was a fair enough day, with cumulus clouds riding high and giving shade. Mesquite trees stubbed the ground all about, and behind barbed wire fences there were little patches of greenery mixed with prickly pear stands and dirt the color of dried peas. Sheep, goats, and windmills dotted the land, and the world seemed bleak and sad to me. All I could think of was getting back to East Texas. Back to greenery and creeks and rivers and the sky as seen through pine tree limbs.

After a while Red asked us to slow down, so that his memory might have time to work.

Finally, he said, “This is it. I remember now. This is it.”

Leonard slowed, turned right, drove a great distance, came out on another highway, was directed by Red to the left, went along that way for some distance before Red said, “On the right.”

On the right was a red windmill that had seen better days, but was still turning. There was a sign next to the road that read THE CHURCH OF THE BAPTISTS, and about an acre’s distance behind the windmill in a clearing spotted with scrubby weeds was a little church made of plyboard, green lumber, ill-fitting windows, and hope. The church was warped due to the cheap lumber, and seemed as if it were about to pucker up and explode. The windows had cracks in the glass or no panes at all, and behind the glass I could see plyboard, and in one case some kind of thick yellow paper. The north end of the church touched the ground, while the south stood on dissolving concrete blocks, as if rearing up for a peek across the vast expanse of West Texas. The cross on the roof peak was weathered gray and starting to strip; it leaned a bit to starboard.

Out to the left was a wet-looking green slush hole that had to be the end result of a broken sewage line. Not far from that, like the husk of a great insect, lay an aluminum camper shell.

“Seems to have gone downhill,” Red said.

We turned down a dirt drive. Dust rose around the car in white puffs thicker than the cumulus clouds above us. We parked out front of the church and got out.

Red was almost jovial. He coughed the dust away, started calling: “Herman! Herman Ames. It’s me, Red.”