Foodchain by Jeff Jacobson Page A

around tonight, there’s gonna be some more gambling opportunities, case you’re interested.”
    “Depends. Mostly, I just stick to the horses. What’s the game?”
    Pine grinned and spit. “You’re gonna like it. Trust me. You a drinking man?”
    Frank looked out over the ring, watching as the dust hung in the still air. “Sometimes. I like to drink a six-pack before it gets warm.”
    Pine laughed. “Let’s roll.”
    * * * * *
    Frank met the rodeo clowns in the fairground parking lot at six.
    A late-model diesel pickup roared through the empty parking lot. Just as that pickup slowed to a stop, a second pickup appeared, immediately followed by a third. They hit the entrance fast, rear tires sliding, and raced each other to Frank’s car. He’d finished the rum earlier and flung it at the fence.
    The two pickups slid past the long black car in a storm of dust and flecks of asphalt. Frank walked over to first pickup and introduced himself.
    “You the one that took twenty off Pine?” The guy behind the wheel came across as a cowboy in an old cigarette ad. Sure enough, a fresh cigarette jutted from underneath a handlebar mustache, bobbing at the side of his mouth as he talked. He was the guy that introduced the bull riders, the guy in the rainbow Afro.
    “Yeah,” Frank said, almost apologetically.
    “Good. Dumbshit deserved it. Anybody that couldn’t see old Chopper was damn near dead was too goddamn dumb to look.” He stuck out his hand. “Jack Troutman. Pleased to meet ya.”
    Pine climbed out of the second pickup, yelling at the guy in the third. “Pay up motherfucker! That was all mine and you know it.” Without the clown getup, which made him looked sort of mischievous, now he looked like he was two steps short of a starting a cult. He still had the beard; most of the orange had been washed out, but instead of continuing up into his hair, it stopped dead in a thick tangle of sideburn at the top of the ear. The rest of Pine’s head was bald. The back part looked particularly shaved, as if the hair had gotten confused, and instead of growing on the back of the head, it was growing on his chin. Pine made the best of it, overcompensating, embracing it, as if growing a heavy beard was somehow superior to having a long tangle of hair, like Frank.
    “I got a better idea,” the other guy yelled back. “Come on over and lick my ball sweat instead.” He was the guy that had taken the money off Frank out front, and had worn the red cape at the rodeo. His pickup was at least twenty-five years old and looked as if it was being slowly eaten alive from the bottom by a fungus-like rust.
    “That dipshit over there is Chuck,” Jack said.
    They congregated near Jack’s tailgate as he broke out a twelve pack of Coors and a bottle of Seagram’s 7. Jack and Pine might have been brothers, all sharp angles of lean bone. Plenty of scars. Cowboy hats. Cowboy boots. Wranglers, tight around the hips, several inches too long, bunched around the ankles. Belt buckles the size of a baby’s head. Their knuckles were scabbed, swollen. Calluses and ragged fingernails. Tattoos. Bad breath.
    Chuck ignored Frank and glared at Pine. “You still owe me ten bucks.” Chuck was stockier than Jack and Pine, but his skin looked slack somehow, like it was several sizes too large. He had a flattop and acne scars dotted his flabby cheeks. Wore workboots instead.
    Everybody ignored him.
    Jack’s twelve pack was gone in about twenty minutes, but it wasn’t a problem. Chuck had a case of warm beer in his pickup. They took turns pissing in the gravel and telling stories. They boasted about women. Card games. Fights. After a while, the clowns got all nostalgic and proud and took Frank on a tour of their hometown.
    Jack drove, Frank rode shotgun as guest of honor, and Pine and Chuck rode in the back and chimed in once in a while through the open back window. They drove past the high school; Jack was the only one who graduated. The town had three