The Thomas Berryman Number

Then he dipped down and hugged the old man, let him feel the strength and life in his arms. The judge’s shirt smelled punky, like babies’ clothes.

Young Tom rose and fiddled around with the paper. “So what do you think of Johnny Connally?” He avoided his father’s eyes.

“Boy’s doing al-right, Tom.” The judge grinned wider and wider, even pausing in the slow speech. “Al-right for himself, I’d say.”

Neglected for the moment, the old ranger had poured everyone iced-tea glasses of lemonade. “Hey Tom, watch this,” he said with a boy’s grin. And to prove that he was fit as ever (Berryman later guessed), the old man swooped up a garden toad and ate it.

After he and Sergeant Ames had spoon-fed his father an imprudent but satisfying dinner of frijoles and red peppers, and after the old man had won a bid for some B & B before bed, Berryman took the limousine out on Ranch Road 3.

Mesmerized behind the wheel, he just let the unmended fences, and the loose ponies and cows, work on his mind. He let the mesquite and prickly pear, and the pearl-white pools of alkaline water do their dirty work.

Inside the dust bowl of a little desert valley, Thomas Berryman eased down barefoot on the Lincoln’s accelerator. Warm air rushed in through all the windows. Texarkana roadmaps whipped around the back windowsill. The striped red line of the speedometer moved over 100 and a safety device buzzed. The radio blared. Merle Haggard, then Tammy Wynette, then Ferlin Husky, all three plaintive and usual. But the limousine, with its speedometer marked for 120, would run no faster than 101.

Driving that way, stuck at 101, Berryman remembered being stuck at 84 in a black Ford pickup. Running through irrigation ditches. Running over bushes head-on. Missing a cow, and soft, instant death. Killing a chicken.

He remembered Ben Toy drinking warm beer and singing corny Mexican love songs. And coyote balls hanging from the Ford’s rearview mirror. And snuggling up with girlfriends and watching bullbats swoop over sad shallow ponds.

Country living was a turned crock of shit, he thought.

Over a bumpy half-mile stretch, he pulled the big car off the dirt road. He got out and went around to the trunk for his rifle. He’d wrapped it in a horse blanket. It, too, smelled of dung.

He set the gun on the car roof, then sat on the fender fishing shells out of his pockets. These too he set on the roof. He slowly loaded the rifle as a peach-colored sun half-blinded him and made him think of sunstroke. The word, “sunstroke.”

Berryman put the rifle under his chin, and looked at the desert through its crystal-clear sight.

There were telephone poles that were connected to nothing. With functionless blue-green cups up and down their sides. There was an ancient highway BUMP sign. Its black lettering stretched high on rusted gold.

There was a puny rabbit peeking out of a hole in the ground. And a bird with a song like electricity. Berryman could see bacteria squirming in the hot air.

He squeezed the trigger. Lightly, like a piano player.

The slender rifle barked. Jerked to the right. The BUMP sign was left intact.

Berryman carefully squeezed again. Nothing.

He took more time. Barely touching the trigger. Knowing

he had

the crotch of the

M.

Missing everything.

Berryman fired and missed. Fired and missed. He began to perspire. His arms and eyes weren’t making sense together. He stopped everything.

He set the rifle against the car for a moment and collected his thoughts. It was his style. Automatic.

He calmly unscrewed the rifle’s sight with his penknife. He fired a single shot without the sight. Gold metal disappeared and the BUMP sign burst open through its back.

Berryman continued until he had shot the sign away. Made it nothing. Then he drove on.

He didn’t recognize the outskirts of Amarillo. There were hundreds of quick-food stops. Supermarkets with corny names. Drive-ins showing quadruple beaver movie features.

He stopped at one of the many taco places. He had a beer, and then he called an old girlfriend named Bobbie Sue Gary, now Bobbie Sue Pederson.

Sitting on the orange tile floor outside the phone booth, Thomas Berryman talked to the girl about old times. He gulped sweat-cold Pearl tallboys. Smoked a half a pack of Picayunes. Ate a taco that was tasty as a fist.

“My husband’s a night shift supervisor for Shell Oil,” Bobbie Sue said.

“There are airplanes and bats flying all over this desert.” Berryman reported on the scene out the Taco Palace window.

“Well, I have three children now. And one in the hopper,” Bobbie Sue reported.

“Well, I don’t give a flying fuck,” Berryman said. “I want you to get into a party dress. We’re going to party.”

“Tom,” she complained in a lighthearted, giggling voice. “You’re just trying to get into my panties all over again. I’m married now. No more hotsy-totsies for Bobbie. I have my responsibilities now.”

“Oh, come on Bobbie.” Thomas Berryman was laughing hard, “Don’t you want to get into my pants?”

That said, he told her he was on his way.