road; she watched him striding along in the dust through the scalding glare of the sun: black hat, white shirt, shadowed face, dark lean legs moving steadily like a pair of calipers out for a walk. He looks better on a horse, she thought, letting the bandoleer rest on the sill; her fingers caressed the cool brass shells of .32 caliber cartridges.
The boy watched her, saying nothing, the secret in his eyes.
When Burns was gone from sight she went to the cupboard and put the bandoleer deep in the back of the top shelf. Then she went to the shelf above the stove to see how much the bread had risen.
Joplin, Mo. 3
A RT H INTON, TRUCKDRIVER, PULLED HIS TRACTOR -trailer off 66 and onto the gravel lot of the Benson steakhouse. He was not hungry; he needed some coffee to keep his eyelids propped open. This was late in the afternoon, with the sun a vague butter-colored disc floating down through a vapory sky over the green damp hills of Missouri. He had come from St. Louis that day and had a long way to go.
When he stepped down from the cab he heard a chorale of crickets, treefrogs, bullfrogs, katydids and harvest flies singing, shrilling, screaming at the world with the elemental and impregnable monotony of surf. He heard them, flipped a cigarette butt toward the field beyond the parkinglot and stepped inside the chrome-plated neonized redbrick restaurant. What he wanted was peace, order, and the reassurance of human voices. Behind him his truck waited, engine idling, one among six similar diesel monsters parked at the far edge of the lot. Hinton’s trailer, like most of the others, was brightly painted and lettered. His bore the following superscription in huge red letters against a background of gleaming aluminum:
ANOTHER LOAD OF
ACME
BATHROOM
FIXTURES!
AMERICA BUILDS FOR TOMORROW!
Inside the cafe things were not so bad. The air wascool, conditioned for human consumption and reconsumption by tireless electrical engines pumping ammonia through coils of copper tubing. The light was soft and indirect, and even the somewhat rambunctious music from the jukebox was muted to a comfortable degree by the cork-sheathed walls, the heavy cumulus of cigarette smoke, the fragrant gases from the kitchen, the drone of conversation, the general gloom. Hinton sat down on a red simulated-leather stool at the counter, leaned on his elbows and studied the menu. Near him sat other drivers, some of them talking, some of them eating; behind him at the tables and in the booths sat the insurance salesmen in their impressive suits, lower class tourists with their families, and pleasant young men probably working for the CSI or FBI or SSC or AEC or CIA or CCI.
When the waitress came, a girl pretty and clean in her starched uniform, he ordered black coffee, coconut cream pie, and a glass of milk. A habit of his, coffee and milk together: the latter seemed to him to complement the destructive erosion of the other. The pie was placed before him in a few moments; he ate it slowly, drinking the milk with it, saving the coffee for last. He listened without genuine interest to the conversations around him:
Twenty cents a mile is ridikalus, I tole him, abslootly ridikalus. What did they have on him? The usual stuff. Well hell it all depends; if you’re haulin from St. Louie to L.A. it’s too much, sure, but from St. Louie to say Tulsa—it might pay. Just might. Not very much: a lot seems to have been well covered up. Robbie, don’t spill your food on the floor. Please Robbie. Let him alone Martha. People like him really intrigue me, you know, really intrigue me. Let him alone, Martha, what the devil does it matter now? How do they dream of getting away with talk like that? Well I don’t care; I still say it’s ridikalus. You might be right.
He sighed, finished his pie and began sipping at the coffee. A good coffee, hot, black, rich with the authentic flavor of the bean, but his enjoyment was modest, almost perfunctory: his palate scalded and corroded
The boy watched her, saying nothing, the secret in his eyes.
When Burns was gone from sight she went to the cupboard and put the bandoleer deep in the back of the top shelf. Then she went to the shelf above the stove to see how much the bread had risen.
Joplin, Mo. 3
A RT H INTON, TRUCKDRIVER, PULLED HIS TRACTOR -trailer off 66 and onto the gravel lot of the Benson steakhouse. He was not hungry; he needed some coffee to keep his eyelids propped open. This was late in the afternoon, with the sun a vague butter-colored disc floating down through a vapory sky over the green damp hills of Missouri. He had come from St. Louis that day and had a long way to go.
When he stepped down from the cab he heard a chorale of crickets, treefrogs, bullfrogs, katydids and harvest flies singing, shrilling, screaming at the world with the elemental and impregnable monotony of surf. He heard them, flipped a cigarette butt toward the field beyond the parkinglot and stepped inside the chrome-plated neonized redbrick restaurant. What he wanted was peace, order, and the reassurance of human voices. Behind him his truck waited, engine idling, one among six similar diesel monsters parked at the far edge of the lot. Hinton’s trailer, like most of the others, was brightly painted and lettered. His bore the following superscription in huge red letters against a background of gleaming aluminum:
ANOTHER LOAD OF
ACME
BATHROOM
FIXTURES!
AMERICA BUILDS FOR TOMORROW!
Inside the cafe things were not so bad. The air wascool, conditioned for human consumption and reconsumption by tireless electrical engines pumping ammonia through coils of copper tubing. The light was soft and indirect, and even the somewhat rambunctious music from the jukebox was muted to a comfortable degree by the cork-sheathed walls, the heavy cumulus of cigarette smoke, the fragrant gases from the kitchen, the drone of conversation, the general gloom. Hinton sat down on a red simulated-leather stool at the counter, leaned on his elbows and studied the menu. Near him sat other drivers, some of them talking, some of them eating; behind him at the tables and in the booths sat the insurance salesmen in their impressive suits, lower class tourists with their families, and pleasant young men probably working for the CSI or FBI or SSC or AEC or CIA or CCI.
When the waitress came, a girl pretty and clean in her starched uniform, he ordered black coffee, coconut cream pie, and a glass of milk. A habit of his, coffee and milk together: the latter seemed to him to complement the destructive erosion of the other. The pie was placed before him in a few moments; he ate it slowly, drinking the milk with it, saving the coffee for last. He listened without genuine interest to the conversations around him:
Twenty cents a mile is ridikalus, I tole him, abslootly ridikalus. What did they have on him? The usual stuff. Well hell it all depends; if you’re haulin from St. Louie to L.A. it’s too much, sure, but from St. Louie to say Tulsa—it might pay. Just might. Not very much: a lot seems to have been well covered up. Robbie, don’t spill your food on the floor. Please Robbie. Let him alone Martha. People like him really intrigue me, you know, really intrigue me. Let him alone, Martha, what the devil does it matter now? How do they dream of getting away with talk like that? Well I don’t care; I still say it’s ridikalus. You might be right.
He sighed, finished his pie and began sipping at the coffee. A good coffee, hot, black, rich with the authentic flavor of the bean, but his enjoyment was modest, almost perfunctory: his palate scalded and corroded
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