The Front Porch Prophet

“Are you coming back?” he asked.

“Yes,” he said. “I’ll come back, but I won’t kill you.”

“Well, I’m batting.500 at least.” Eugene said. “Take the Jeep. I’m high all the time, now, and I can’t drive it. If I wasn’t dying, I’d be having one hell of a good time.”

“No, you keep the Jeep. You might run out of something to shoot. I’m going to borrow a bulldozer and clean up that road. Winter is coming, and it’s already a mess.” A.J. had decided on the spur of the moment that fixing the road was his best alternative to a series of long walks in the Georgia mountains.

“I assume you’ll be borrowing the dozer from Jesus Junior,” Eugene said, referring to Johnny Mack.

“He’s the only one I know who has one,” A.J. replied. Eugene seemed to consider this for a moment. Then a smile crossed his face.

“Good luck with that,” he said as he walked back onto the porch. A.J. headed on across the clearing and down the trail. As he neared the Lover, he heard six shots ring out, and he knew that Eugene’s faithful Jeep, like its owner, had entered its final days.

CHAPTER 3

I got the bus.

– Excerpt of posthumous letter from Eugene Purdue to Slim Neal

A.J. MADE QUICK WORK OF THE WALK DOWN THE mountain. He was unsettled. The afternoon had been like a trip into the Twilight Zone. So much so, in fact, he wouldn’t have been much surprised to find Rod Serling standing in the road, wearing a black sport coat with narrow lapels, chain smoking and eyeing him with intensity. He decided to stop at Billy’s Chevron for a Coke and some non-apocalyptic conversation. A dose of normalcy would do him good after the recent festivities up on the mountain. The establishment sat at the crossroads right outside of town.

“You’ll be needin’ some tires soon, Will,” Billy said, peering at the rubber on A.J.’s truck. Billy called his male patrons Will and his female customers Missus. He was ancient and grizzled. At the moment he was shaking his head, as if he found it hard to believe that a grown man would run around on such a pitiful set of tires.

“You sold me that set last month,” A.J. said, sipping his cold drink. Billy was an old country boy who had done extremely well for himself by adhering to the simple belief that every vehicle had some problem that should be repaired by Billy.

“Well, they’re wore some,” Billy said stubbornly. “Maybe we need to line her up and rotate these front tires while there’s a little life left in them.”

A.J. was now fully alert.

“We ‘lined her up’ when we put the tires on,” A.J. noted. “Maybe your alignment machine was out of whack.” Billy was squatted down, looking at the tires. He scratched his head and lit a slightly bent cigarette. Confusion was etched on his grainy features. As A.J. watched, he saw Billy nod his head twice and look up with certainty in his eye. A resolution had been reached.

“Here’s what we need to do, Will,” Billy said, standing and dusting his hands on his pants. “Bring her in next week and I’ll line her up and rotate those tires. You must’ve run over a pothole or something and knocked her out.”

Actually, it had been a curb. A.J. had vaulted it while avoiding one of Estelle Chastain’s more erratic driving maneuvers. But he wasn’t telling Billy that.

“Don’t you worry,” Billy continued. “I’ll fix her up good as new.”

Ironically, at that moment, A.J. saw Estelle’s aged Ford motoring up the highway, running astraddle the broken white line in the middle of the road. All that could be seen of Estelle were two white gloves clenched on the steering wheel and the top of her head, complete with pillbox hat. She peered with myopic eyes in A.J.’s general direction, and he knew it was time to go. He exited after pointing out the danger to Billy, who was no fool and took cover. When Miss Estelle came to town it was every man for himself, vehicular Darwinism based on survival of the quickest.

In his rearview mirror, A.J. saw Estelle swing into the Chevron in a long, slow arc that left her parked with her right front tire up on the pump island. Billy came out from hiding and squatted in front of Estelle’s car-elevated for convenience-and when the venerable mechanic began to slowly shake his head, A.J. knew the game was again afoot.