PIGGS - A Novel with Bonus Screenplay by Neal Barrett Jr

noticed that.   You all right, Mr. Dupree?   You coming up or what?"

Chapter Twelve
     
    "...I can tell you there's people who'll say it right out, I mean, even if they're tryin' to be polite, you know what I mean?   Someone wouldn't incite your feelings for anything at all like Maggie Thatch whom I'm very close to?   Well you'd think, until it all comes out.   We are in the middle of a TV show, that Discovery thing about gnus?   She hits that MUTE and says, Gloria Jean, you're a absolute nut, you are crazy as shit, girlfriend.   Isn't anyone mentally right living in a German warplane. Isn't any fucking Germans doin' that.   They're living in houses like everybody else.
    "Well I am taken aback.   I tell her, look, it is not for everyone, it is just fine for me.   I don't tell you not to live in the Lamprey Motel, which I wouldn't drive by, hon, for fear of a social disease.   Well she didn't take well to that, things haven't been right between us since.
    "See I grew up in this thing, okay?   Lord, I know that spiel by heart.   Every time I hear Daddy talk I like to bust out crying but I haven't got the heart to take him off.
    "The place went busted when I was thirteen, just after mama died, and that flat finished Daddy off.   He took to drink soon after and I went to live with Aunt Brill.   I don't guess I'd of ever come back if he hadn't passed on.   I needed a place real bad, or you wouldn't see this girl in Mexican Wells, I'd be somewhere they got a street light.   I hope you're not looking for sugar or cream, I don't serve either one."
    "Black's the way I like it," Cecil said, "that's fine."
    It wasn't, it was bad.   Instant, not even hot, not even stirred, little black crystals floating on top.   He'd watched her make it, knew what he'd get.   Watched her in the very tight kitchen up between the wings.   Hot plate, counter and a sink, little tiny fridge.   Not a whole lot, but there was hardly room for that.
    Jesus Christ, hardly room for anything, as far as he could tell.   He wondered how people got about.   Wondered if Germans were smaller than anyone else.   It was kind of like the tunnels you used to crawl in, write dirty stuff on the walls.   Only these walls were corrugated tin.   The walls, the floors, inside the plane and out.   The whole thing astonished Cecil.   And, at the same time, made him feel at home.   This was the very same stuff he'd used to build Piggs.   Why, he could build a bomber himself if he ever wanted to.
    There were little canvas seats, folded up right against the wall.   You wanted to sit, you folded one down.   Gloria had put little cushions down, souvenirs from several Western states.   Good idea, Cecil thought.   A lot of Germans had sat in those seats, and they weren't exactly clean.
     
    C ecil sat and watched.   Watched that tight little ass when she bent for something low.   Watched how the T-shirt bared her belly button when she reached for something high.   Knew he was right, knew the climb was worth the trip.   Man, he loved to see her dressed.   He wanted her just like this.   Maybe she had some other clothes, women always did.   Maybe he could see her in a lot of different stuff.
    "–I used to take cream and sugar both, I mean spoonfuls, I don't mean a little bit, you know what that does to the body tissue, well I quit that.   You want to keep dancin' you can't even look at something's got sugar or fat–"
    Gloria stopped, felt her face flush.   Saw him looking at her, tried to look at something else.
    "I am babbling like a brook, you know what?   I don't ever do that.   I'm a little hot, that fan's not working just right."
    "Fan's just fine," Cecil said.   "What you're doing, hon, you're running kinda scared."
    Gloria nearly dropped her cup.   "Just what do you mean by that?   What have I got to be scared about, Mr. Dupree?"
    "I guess you'd know as well as me."
    "I don't guess I would."
    Cecil had to grin.   He knew scared when