pathetic. And many were painfully so—some bit of chicken wire left to protrude from a twisted limb, the curled end of a sheet of fiber glass not completely covered with resin left to rise from beneath a formidable jaw. More than once, standing in the gloom of Sarge Hummer’s Desert Museum, surrounded by a handful of schoolmates come to inspect the latest installment of the Mystery of the Mojave, Rex Hummer had been embarrassed by his father’s reckless craftsmanship.
Rex thought about them now—the whole sorry line of homemade monsters—as he lay in the back of a twenty-five-foot Terry trailer and waited for the dawn. It was true that Sarge had honed his skills. What began as a scam had ended as an obsession. Sarge had given up on everything else, the gas station, the bar; toward the end there had only been his work—long hours in the shed back of the museum, discarding creatures almost as fast as he could turn them out, littering the desert with severed mannikin parts and fiber glass castings, turning that whole area, from the back of the building to the crest of the first hill, into a veritable junkyard of discarded Things. Sarge had known by that time that he was dying, and he had simply pared it down—Rex could see it now. The man had channeled his energies—everything else could go to hell, and had.
There were a lot of things about his father that Rex had never known—never would know, now. He had resigned himself to that, to dealing with what little he had. Once Sarge had been a Marine. He’d started out in the peacetime Corps. He had been in the Philippines in the beginning and he had been there again, at the end, when the Corps came back. He had seen some shit. He was not patriotic about it. Once to Rex’s mother’s great horror, Sarge had apparently started a fistfight at a Fourth of July day parade by refusing to stand for the national anthem. Rex had heard the story, more than once. Sarge had been a car salesman, a roofer, a carpet layer. He invested a small inheritance in a raceway. The venture failed. Then Sarge passed a few bad checks and wound up in the California Correctional Institution for Men at Chino. When he got out his wife was gone. She’d left with one of his partners from the raceway. Sarge’s drinking increased. He wrecked a car and nearly died, receiving for his efforts an odd heart-shaped scar across his forehead. It was not long after the wreck that Sarge moved himself and Rex to the desert. Rex was five.
When Rex was eight, Sarge met another woman, a fat, sloppy woman, in Rex’s opinion. The union produced a child—Delandra—a fat, dark-haired baby that looked almost Mexican. Sarge never married the woman and when she left, she left the kid, too, just as Rex’s mother had left hers, and Sarge was the father of two.
It was then that Sarge hit on the idea of the Desert Museum and the Mystery of the Mojave. He’d seen similar scams and he was, after all, in the right place for it. “People will believe in things out here,” he had said. “It’s the space and the emptiness. And no one gives a fuck.” Rex could still remember him driving into town and coming back with an armload of monster magazines and comic books, could still remember him hunched over a failing card table to produce the first childlike drawings of the Creature—they had seemed childlike to Rex even then and he was scarcely ten years old himself.
What Sarge might have lacked in talent, however, he made up for in drive. He was a thick, powerful man—a good deal shorter than his brother Floyd, but nearly as strong, with a full head of coal-black hair which he wore slicked back wet above a tanned head and the raised flesh of the curving scar, and soon enough he’d been at work on the museum, hammering and sawing, building mostly with scraps he picked up at other building sites, until at last, there at the edge of Route 15 where it wound through the Mojave Desert, on the California side of the state line,
Rex thought about them now—the whole sorry line of homemade monsters—as he lay in the back of a twenty-five-foot Terry trailer and waited for the dawn. It was true that Sarge had honed his skills. What began as a scam had ended as an obsession. Sarge had given up on everything else, the gas station, the bar; toward the end there had only been his work—long hours in the shed back of the museum, discarding creatures almost as fast as he could turn them out, littering the desert with severed mannikin parts and fiber glass castings, turning that whole area, from the back of the building to the crest of the first hill, into a veritable junkyard of discarded Things. Sarge had known by that time that he was dying, and he had simply pared it down—Rex could see it now. The man had channeled his energies—everything else could go to hell, and had.
There were a lot of things about his father that Rex had never known—never would know, now. He had resigned himself to that, to dealing with what little he had. Once Sarge had been a Marine. He’d started out in the peacetime Corps. He had been in the Philippines in the beginning and he had been there again, at the end, when the Corps came back. He had seen some shit. He was not patriotic about it. Once to Rex’s mother’s great horror, Sarge had apparently started a fistfight at a Fourth of July day parade by refusing to stand for the national anthem. Rex had heard the story, more than once. Sarge had been a car salesman, a roofer, a carpet layer. He invested a small inheritance in a raceway. The venture failed. Then Sarge passed a few bad checks and wound up in the California Correctional Institution for Men at Chino. When he got out his wife was gone. She’d left with one of his partners from the raceway. Sarge’s drinking increased. He wrecked a car and nearly died, receiving for his efforts an odd heart-shaped scar across his forehead. It was not long after the wreck that Sarge moved himself and Rex to the desert. Rex was five.
When Rex was eight, Sarge met another woman, a fat, sloppy woman, in Rex’s opinion. The union produced a child—Delandra—a fat, dark-haired baby that looked almost Mexican. Sarge never married the woman and when she left, she left the kid, too, just as Rex’s mother had left hers, and Sarge was the father of two.
It was then that Sarge hit on the idea of the Desert Museum and the Mystery of the Mojave. He’d seen similar scams and he was, after all, in the right place for it. “People will believe in things out here,” he had said. “It’s the space and the emptiness. And no one gives a fuck.” Rex could still remember him driving into town and coming back with an armload of monster magazines and comic books, could still remember him hunched over a failing card table to produce the first childlike drawings of the Creature—they had seemed childlike to Rex even then and he was scarcely ten years old himself.
What Sarge might have lacked in talent, however, he made up for in drive. He was a thick, powerful man—a good deal shorter than his brother Floyd, but nearly as strong, with a full head of coal-black hair which he wore slicked back wet above a tanned head and the raised flesh of the curving scar, and soon enough he’d been at work on the museum, hammering and sawing, building mostly with scraps he picked up at other building sites, until at last, there at the edge of Route 15 where it wound through the Mojave Desert, on the California side of the state line,
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