I woke up at 7:30 Tuesday morning to the sound of Gunner’s Buell doing tire-smoking burnouts on the drive at the end of my deck. I lit a smoke and poured my usual for breakfast. Gunner yelled “Come on, man. We have to road trip.”
“You’re awfully fucking chipper this morning” I growled. I’m not sure if it was having only a bit more than an hour and a half of sleep or if it was just a bit more than an hour and a half since I last drank. “Where the hell are we ‘road tripping’ to and why are we ‘road tripping?”
“Joplin, my friend” Gunner said far too cheerfully for me to appreciate. I went to reach in my duster to grab my Glock and shoot his cheery ass when I remembered Messa had my duster, my Glock, and someone had mentioned my Bentley was out of gas near Joplin.
I hauled my aching back out of the chair and grabbed the bottle of Seagram’s and the half empty carton of Marlboros. We walked over to the pole barn and I grabbed the keys to the ’68 Caddy off the wall. Gunner groaned and said “Please, Tree, I have some self-respect.”
I shrugged and grabbed the keys to the Pantera and tossed them to Gunner. In a few minutes we cruised through Pacific. I looked at the coffee shop as rolled past. I began to ask “Is Messa doing…”
“She’s fine. You want some breakfast? There’s McDonald’s.”
“I’ve got ‘McSeagram’s. Let’s get the car.”
A moment later we were heading west on I-44 at double the speed limit. I lit up a smoke and buckled my seatbelt. I ran my hand through my greasy hair and realized I had left my shades on the table on my deck. I told Gunner “Don’t let that sun rise high enough to come into the windshield. What the hell is the Bentley doing in Joplin?”
Tree told me to follow Messa so I did. She didn’t stop at the coffee shop. Instead she blew through Pacific and headed west on Interstate 44. She is a good driver. I was doing everything I could to keep up with her on the Buell while she was chain-smoking Madame Wu’s and steering the Bentley one-handed at 150 MPH. After I had to stop to gas the bike I doubted I ever catch up with her, but just east of Joplin I crested a hill and saw the big black car on the shoulder. I grabbed the front brake and stomped on the back on, stopping just feet from the back bumper. Messa was sitting on the trunk lid with her spiked heels digging holes in the bumper cover.
Smoke curled off the tires when I shut the bike down. Messa had gone for a drive. She was upset and hadn’t thought about not having cash or a credit card. She drove the car until it ran out of gas. She smiled at me and asked ‘Can you give a girl a lift?”
“Little Girl, do you have any idea what would have happened if the Missouri Highway Patrol would have pulled you over doing over a buck-forty in a car that ain’t yours, wearing a gun that ain’t yours and you don’t have a permit to carry, and you’re higher than a goddamn kite?”
“They’d crucify me?” she said with a laugh. I looked in the Bentley’s glove box and found the leather case with the sunglasses in them. I handed them to Messa and pulled Tree’s hat off her head and tossed it in the car. I spent the next two and a half hours with the young, beautiful girl perched on the half-seat behind me, her golden hair streaming behind her and Tree’s duster flapping like a flag as we headed to the coffee shop.
I awoke to being thrown forward against my seat belt. Gunner pulled off the highway and pulled into a Walmart parking lot. I twisted open the Seagram’s bottle and asked “What the fuck are you doing?’
“I gotta by a gas can.”
“I have at least ten in the garage.”
“And you have no trunk in this car.”
When he came back we rumbled over to the Qwik-Trip (it’s not one now) and topped off the Pantera and filled the plastic gas can with five gallons of premium unleaded. He opened my door and set the container between my knees. When he jumped into the driver’s seat he asked “how about some breakfast, Tree. There’s a White Castle a few blocks away. “
I figured the seventy miles or so to the Bentley would take only thirty minutes or so. “Yeah, get me a half dozen.”
Gunner handed me the sack. I reached in and pulled the first one out. When I finished it I lit a smoke. Gunner gave me a funny look. As I stuffed the second one in my mouth I asked “What?”
“You’ve got five gallons of gas beneath your balls and you’re smoking a cigarette!”
“I’ll watch the ash. What was Messa doing down here?”
“Driving around, I’d guess.”
“Did you fuck her?”
“Tree, gentleman don’t even ask that question…”
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